And They Call It Democracy

Update Sept. 9/08:
Go here if you are interested in signing and sending a petition to the powers that be protesting against the unwarranted arrests of journalists during the Republican National Convention.

Fun and Games at the Republican National Convention
(Violent flower protester pepper-sprayed...twice...once in the face, once in the back...)



This is just one small example of the police/authoritarian lunacy that's been going on in Minneapolis. Meanwhile, the members of the Fifth Estate are doing one of two things: either sleeping at the wheel or being arrested. Check out here and here.

CIAFBICIAFBICIAFBI

A little bird told me that Mental Blog has had a visitor located in Arlington, VA. Just a hop and a skip from Langley, no? HQ of CIA, right?

Now, I know there's been some noise recently about how guvment and security agencies are going to be spending hard-earned tax dollars monitoring blogs.

So is this a coincidence, now that I prominently featured the initials CIA and FBI in my CSIS post?

Let me make it perfectly clear, Mr. Mole. CIA means Culinary Institute of America. FBI is quite obviously the French Baking Institute. (See my previous post about Fortuneless Cookies...)

OK?

Google: Everything That's Safe to Print?

I offer this little tidbit of content from Slashdot: Politics for Nerds (which probably describes me to a Tea)(shall we have Tea?)(lemon or milk?)(one sugar or two?)(oh, do have a crumpet my dear while we watch the whirring satellites and wonder will the sky fall up on us)

Google Blurring Sensitive Map Information

Posted by kdawson on Sunday January 28, @04:27PM
from the blurring-the-nukes dept.

Cyphoid writes "While viewing my school (the University of Massachusetts Lowell) with Google Maps, I noticed that a select portion of the campus was pixelated: the operational nuclear research facility on campus. Curious, I attempted to view the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant in Plymouth, Massachusetts. It too was pixelated. What or who is compelling Google to smudge out these images selectively? Will all satellite images of facilities that the government deems 'sensitive' soon be subject to censoring?" Not surprisingly, the same areas are blurred in Google Earth. But how about images from satellites operated by other nations, such as SPOT or Sovinformsputnik?

Just so you know, I browsed thru some of the comments on this piece, and most seem to say that Google is not responsible for this blurring. So there.