30 Aug 2004
Redactions Run Wild

Follow the link to see the evidence: it's pretty convincing, as well as pretty scary.

Anybody who has read many official documents—including those making headlines in the last year or more—has seen plenty of redactions (those portions that are blacked out or otherwise made unreadable). This, we're told, is for legitimate reasons, such as "national security" or "protecting intelligence sources and methods." But now we have absolute, incontrovertible proof that the government also censors completely innocuous material simply because they don't like it.

(link) [The Memory Hole]

via Antipixel|Blog

00:00 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

Office of Tomorrow Has an Address in India (Los Angeles Times)

How depressing ... what's going to be left here? We've shipped manufacturing overseas in the 70's, 80's and 90's, and now it looks like the the information economy will be best informed from India.

What pisses me off the most about this whole situation (other than being something of a victim myself) is that there's essentially no way US workers can compete - not only does the standard of living here demand higher wages, but the taxes (including social security) and regulations (overtime, workman's comp, enviromental, etc.) drive the cost as well. Over the long haul the net effect of these changes will be to turn the US into a "Third World" country - high unemployment, no jobs and no hope. It will leave us ripe for political exploitation by demagogues who'll have the capability to start a class war the likes of which we've never seen.

But the saddest thing of all is that we're doing it to ourselves: we are a society seemingly driven by nothing more than bargain basement shopping. We always go for the lowest price, and those of us who do appreciate value find ourselves squeezed out of the market by forces way beyond our control. America is well on it's way to becoming a giant "McWal-Mart" - lowest prices (and quality) guaranteed.

Los Angeles Times - MADRAS, India — Task by task, function by function, the American office is being hollowed out and reconstituted in places like this, a makeshift facility on the sixth floor of a shopping arcade.

(link) [Yahoo! News - Top Stories]

00:00 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

Crafty sheep conquer cattle grids

Not only do sheep pine for lost companions, they may also be useful to train as "special forces" ...

Hungry sheep on the Yorkshire moors have taught themselves to roll 8ft (3m) across hoof-proof metal cattle grids - and raid villagers' valley gardens.

(link) [BBC]

00:00 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link