refugee

avenue of transmission:

This is an unpublished image from my Karen refugee photo story I did a while back. I photographed a series of encounters on expired film....

Karen Human Rights Group

stray bullets

Anthrax Evidence Called Mostly Circumstantial The evidence amassed by F.B.I. investigators against Dr. Bruce E. Ivins, the Army scientist who killed himself last week after learning that he was likely to be charged in the anthrax letter attacks of 2001, was largely circumstantial, and a grand jury in Washington was planning to hear several more weeks of testimony before issuing an indictment, a person who has been briefed on the investigation said on Sunday. (also) (also) all (via)

Falcon 1 suffers another setback Lost aboard the Falcon was the U.S. military's Trailblazer satellite, two small NASA payloads and a cache of cremated human remains, including the ashes of astronaut Gordon Cooper and Star Trek actor James Doohan. (via)

For Wealthy Brazilian, Money From Ore and Might From the Cosmos “I AM connected to the divine, to these forces here,” João Carlos Cavalcanti, the Brazilian mining magnate, said as he swept an arm out across the lily pad-covered lake behind his $15 million mansion. (via)

Lunch with Heather Perry (self-trepanner) It didn't take that long at all, probably about 20 minutes. Eventually I could feel a lot of fluid moving around. Apparently, there was a bit too much fluid shifting around, because they'd gone a little bit too far and I was leaking some through the hole, but this wasn't especially dangerous as there are three layer of meninges before you get to the brain. (via)

also:
Franz Kafka’s porn brought out of the closet (via)
Moscow's House of Fairy-tales (ht)
Blogging Merit Badge (out of stock) (via)
Make bookends from old vinyl records (via)
KLF - The Manual (How to have a Number One the easy way) (via)

viddy:
Balls Deep--Sewers of Bogota: Part 1 of 5 (don't miss it) (via)
How Buildings Learn - Uploaded by Stewart Brand Himself
Ask an Astronomer - What Will Happen to the Earth When the Sun Dies?
Iain Banks interview (audio)
20 Ways to Die Trying to Dunk a Basketball (via)

The unfortunate 'rat people' of Pakistan

Nazia, a 30-year-old with microcephaly. She guards the shoes at the Shua Dulah shrine

'Rat people' forced to beg on Pakistan's streets:

Outside a Muslim shrine in this dusty Pakistani city, a "rat woman" with a tiny head sits on a filthy mattress and takes money from worshippers who cling to an ancient fertility rite.

Nadia, 25, is one of hundreds of young microcephalics -- people born with small skulls and protruding noses and ears because of a genetic mutation -- who can be found on the streets of Gujrat, in central Punjab province.

Officials say many of them have been sold off by their families to begging mafias, who exploit a tradition that the "rat children" are sacred offerings to Shah Daula, the shrine's 17th century Sufi saint.

What makes us human?:

The word "microcephaly" comes from the Greek, "small head". But in Pakistan, such children are known as chuas or "rat people". The name is uncharitable but apt, for their sloping foreheads and narrow faces do, indeed, have a rodent quality. When I visited the shrine earlier this year, I found only one chua, a 30-year-old woman called Nazia. Mentally disabled - I would judge her intelligence to be about that of a one- or two-year-old child - her nominal function is to guard the shoes that worshippers leave at its entrance, but that work seems to be mostly done by her companion, a charming hypopituitary dwarf called Nazir.

via Sepia Mutiny

Cola Life Campaign

photo: Nick Gripton

In 1988, Simon Berry, Chief Executive of ruralnet|uk was working as a development worker in remote north east of Zambia, conscious that while he could buy a bottle of Coke anywhere, 1 in every 5 children under the age of five die in these areas through simple causes such as dehydration through diarrhea. Twenty years later, through the power of social media technology, Berry has launched a simple campaign asking Coca Cola to use a small part of its incredible distribution capacity to get medicines, such as rehydration salts, to dying children.

Read more and see how you can help.

stray bullets

How medical marijuana is transforming the pot industry Most researchers agree that the value of the U.S. marijuana crop has increased sharply since the mid-nineties, as California and twelve other states have passed medical-marijuana laws. A drug-policy analyst named Jon Gettman recently estimated that in 2006 Californians grew more than twenty million pot plants. He reckoned that between 1981 and 2006 domestic marijuana production increased tenfold, making pot the leading cash crop in America, displacing corn. A 2005 State Department report put the country’s marijuana crop at twenty-two million pounds. The street value of California’s crop alone may be as high as fourteen billion dollars. (via)

For Some Products, Prices Have Been Falling A fair bit in the last ten years, too. (via)

Unidentified Flying Threats A healthy skepticism about extraterrestrial space travelers leads people to disregard U.F.O. sightings without a moment’s thought. But in the United States, this translates into overdependence on radar data and indifference to all kinds of unidentified aircraft — a weakness that could be exploited by terrorists or anyone seeking to engage in espionage against the United States. (via)

Extradition appeal for British hacker dismissed A British hacker who admitted breaking into U.S. military computers hoping to uncover evidence of UFOs looks set to be extradited to the U.S. after the highest British court dismissed his appeal against the extradition on Wednesday. This guy is facing 60 years in prison for "hacking" wide open, non-password-protected military computers using a 56k modem. It was found afterward that entire suites of computers were unprotected by the most basic login passwords. They should give this guy a medal and throw their sysadmins in prison. Our government is an embarrassment. (more)

Hacking Without Exploits Black Hat researchers will demonstrate how the bad guys are quietly raking in big bucks without ninja hacking skills, tools, or exploit code (via)

Man deposits millions, one tattered bill at a time For years, authorities say, he and his family have popped in and out of U.S. banks, looking to change about $20 million in decaying $100 bills for clean cash, offering ever-changing stories... (via)

Building 'The Matrix' Now physicists have created a rudimentary prototype of a machine that simulates quantum phenomena using quantum physics, rather than using data kept in a classical computer. While the new device can't make people fly like the Matrix does, it demonstrates a technique that could enable physicists to create, in the virtual world, materials that don't yet exist in nature and perhaps figure out how to build, in the real world, superconductors that work at room temperature, for example. (via)

One teabag, one spoonful of neurotoxins The PBOI says of aspartame: “The chemical caused an unacceptable level of brain tumors in animal testing. Based on this fact, the PBOI ruled that aspartame should not be added to the food supply.” Add to that all the microwaves pumped into your brain by cellphones and you have quite a toxic brew. (via)

also:
Widespread Flaws in Online Banking Systems
Bush Administration Scandal Map (via)
Six Vacation Photos That Can Kill You (via)
Fly 1950s style From the end of July until the end of the year, Finnair’s retro plane, Silver Bird, will fly to several destinations. The cabin crew will wear 1950s-style uniforms and the beat of music from the 50s will spur the takeoff. (via)
10 Most Bizarre Restaurants
The Bureau of Atomic Tourism (via)
Billy Bob Thornton on his music and movies Big Zappa and Beefheart fan. (via)
Laurie Anderson Interview (via)
Glitter And Doom: Tom Waits In Concert Hear A Stunning Performance, Recorded At Atlanta's Fox Theater (via)
Steve Reich Interview (podcast) (via)
Voodoo Funk Record Digging in West Africa (via)

viddy:
Julie Driscoll - Season Of The Witch (groovy)
More Traffic in Tehran (even better)
I Love Sarah Jane Excellent zombie short. NSFW
Tank Man A documentary about the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.

Christopher Hitchens: Believe Me, It’s Torture

Vanity Fair:

What more can be added to the debate over U.S. interrogation methods, and whether waterboarding is torture? Try firsthand experience. The author undergoes the controversial drowning technique, at the hands of men who once trained American soldiers to resist—not inflict—it.

Hitchens:

You may have read by now the official lie about this treatment, which is that it “simulates” the feeling of drowning. This is not the case. You feel that you are drowning because you are drowning—or, rather, being drowned, albeit slowly and under controlled conditions and at the mercy (or otherwise) of those who are applying the pressure. The “board” is the instrument, not the method. You are not being boarded. You are being watered.

Check out the video

Pain Without Borders

To put an end to endless pain. Make a donation.
www.douleurs-sans-frontiers.org

from Ads of the World
via FFFFOUND!

stray bullets

A great article by Michael Lewis on baseball in Cuba and a sports agent jailed for smuggling athletes (via); Friends turn mental mountains into molehills; Save your own life (via); and how we read online (via).

Lagniappe: Daniel Schorr on Ressurection City, 40 years later; Prison Weapon Improvisation; Take the time to watch this video and read this weblog. In our era of cynicism, irony, rejection, marginalization and isolation, we all need to stop, now and again, and ask, "Who are we and what the hell are we doing?"

stray bullets

Potheads rejoice! Drugs that encourage the growth of new neurons in the brain are now headed for clinical trials; There are six places where it's really bad to be a woman; Sir Charles Shults found obvious changes in the Phoenix images; and the UAV Sniper Drone is an unmanned flying gun. (via)

stray bullets

Long Views posted a link to the Analogy typographic clock, a unique fusion of analog and digital timekeeping, with a screensaver and widget due soon; There should never be a bad place to be a girl, but these five places suck pretty bad; (via) A home-made mixing deck, created by the world's first disc jockey is due to be auctioned in Boston; (via) and, you know the urban legends about the tarantula in the grapes and the scorpion in the bananas? Well, sometimes they are based in reality.

Burma's dangerous hip-hop scene

One rapper was taken away by the not-so-secret secret police for displaying a tattoo of a pair of hands in prayer while onstage. Now many of Burma's rappers languish in cells with only their welts, prayers and rhymes for company.

from Salon.com
via Neatorama

Child Soldiers: You’ll Have to Learn Not to Cry

From Air & Space Power Journal:

I had a friend, Juanita, who got in trouble for sleeping around. We were friends since we were civilians, and we shared a tent together. The commander said that it didn’t matter that she was my friend. She had done something wrong and had to be killed. I closed my eyes and fired the gun, but I didn’t hit her. So I fired again. The grave was right nearby. I had to bury her and cover her with dirt. The commander told me: “You did very well, even though you started to cry. You’ll have to do this again many times, and you’ll have to learn not to cry.”
—Human Rights Watch interview with “Angela” Bogotá, 2 June 2002

Small Wars Journal posted links to English translations of the Air & Space Power Journal (Spanish edition) issue on child soldiers.

There are somewhere around 300,000 child soldiers serving in war zones around the globe with close to half a million serving in countries not at war. During the last decade, approximately 2,000,000 child soldiers died during armed conflicts.

If you're relatively new to this subject, these articles will be a good primer. If you're already familiar with the child soldier problem, this will provide more valuable insight for you from a likely different, i.e. more military, perspective. Considering that this is a military as well as a social issue, important insights can be gained from this point of view.

This is one of those issues that further affirms that the human race has a long way to go before we can call ourselves "civilized" or "evolved."

UT Web Favorites: Cryptome

Cryptome has been quietly leaking, disclosing and revealing for close to a dozen years.

In their own words:

Cryptome welcomes documents for publication that are prohibited by governments worldwide, in particular material on freedom of expression, privacy, cryptology, dual-use technologies, national security, intelligence, and secret governance -- open, secret and classified documents -- but not limited to those. Documents are removed from this site only by order served directly by a US court having jurisdiction. No court order has ever been served; any order served will be published here -- or elsewhere if gagged by order. Bluffs will be published if comical but otherwise ignored.

They have frequently updated news and links, as well. They also have an RSS feed but I prefer to scan the site.

With a sparse old-timey plain-text look, Cryptome delivers the nugs with a high signal to noise ratio.

For a $25 dollar donation you can get the Cryptome DVD with over 43,000 files covering their 11.5 year history. (But wait, there's more: they'll also throw in 18,000 pages of declassified counter-intel docs dating from 1945-85 from our friends at INSCOM.)

Though it may lean a bit too far toward the activist/conspiracy theory reality tunnel for some, don't be deceived, Cryptome is a great resource for researchers, aficionados, informed citizens and paranoids alike.