The server ate my posting?
This weekend at Chris' place, I wanted to pull up my mind-music lists. I only
found one of them. I'm certain I'd posted three lists, and the first posting
was the one that would have made a little more sense out of the entry titled
"More music of my mind" from the other day.
So, here's the deal: I've been compiling lists of the tunes that flow through
my head. The first entry was titled "Radio-head." I doubt that there's
any particular meaning to the occurence or frequency of the tunes, although
sometimes the tunes seem to be like theme songs for something I'm looking at
or reading. I just think it's kind of fun to track what tunes pop up. Luckily
for me, I don't hear any tunes by bad 70's hair bands!
HeadRadio FM 98.6- the music that plays inside my head
Andrea has played a particular Lil' Kim tune for me several times, and that's
running through my head as I type. Here are some others that have come up on
a couple of different days:
• Watching the wheels - John Lennon
• Kodachrome - Paul Simon
• You're so vain - Carly Simon
• John McKee - Jack De Johnette
• Hideous Mutant Freekz - Axiom Funk [the real Funkadelic]
• Bang a gong - T. Rex
• (smile a little smile for me) Rose Marie - The Flying Machine
• Chocolate City - Parliament
• Third stone from the sun - Hendrix
• Oye Como Va - Santana
-::-
• It's too late - Carly Simon
• Hotel California - Eagles
• Standin' by the highway - Graham Central Station
• None of the above - Duran Duran
• Brown Sugar - D'Angelo
:::
I spent a good part of this weekend studying principles of design and layout.
I learned about "Golden Section" [1:1.618] and "Root 2"
[1:1.41] Rectangle proportions. Thee are very powerful tools in organizing layouts
on a screen or a page. Suddenly, a number of the designs I've been seeing make
structural sense. It's not the first time I've read about unity, balance, rhythm,
and proportion. This time, though, the consice approach made sense out of it
all. I think the courses at Sessions.edu
keep getting better.
:::
Uggh! Denise just sent me a link about the Patriot II law
that Bush&Co are trying to worm through into legislation. Basically, it
boils down to heightened secrecy for the government, complete invasion of privacy
for citizens, and no right to sue if you're wrongly investigated.
Some excerpts from "Patriot
II: The Sequel--Why It's Even Scarier than the First Patriot Act ":
...under Patriot II, federal agents would not need a subpoena or obtain a
court order to access our consumer credit reports. ...
To see the information, the feds would only have to certify that they will
use the information "in connection with their duties to enforce federal
law." Note that they would not have to certify that the person whose
information was accessed was suspected of terrorism, or indeed, any other
crime . And no one would be notified that their records had been accessed.
...
...one could envision a disruptive war protester who resisted arrest being
tagged as a "suspected domestic terrorist," and forced to provide
DNA. Would the government need to get a court order to procure the DNA? Not
under Patriot II.
And what if the protester wouldn't comply? That would be a Class A misdemeanor,
punishable by up to one year in prison and a $100,000 fine. ...
...Patriot II would, if enacted, makes it even easier for the government
to engage in surveillance of U.S. citizens, without having to establish traditional
probable cause under the Fourth Amendment. ...
...Patriot II would provide immunity from liability to law enforcement engaging
in spying operations against the American people. The proposed act provides
a defense for federal agents who engage unauthorized searches and surveillances
relating to foreign intelligence when they are acting "pursuant to a
lawful authorization from the President or the Attorney General."
...don't even think about trying to protect your email. ...
... as currently drafted, [Patriot II] would make it a new, separate crime
to use encryption in the commission of another crime.
Notably, the federal felony relating to the "incriminating communication"
need not be an act of terrorism . It could be any federal crime, from the
most major to the most minor, the most violent to the most excruciatingly
technical. And that's frightening.
For instance, if a peer-to-peer website's users swap files, thus violating
the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, and encrypt the files they are swapping,
they may automatically face five years in prison, and could serve ten, for
the encryption alone.
While the government, according to Patriot II, has the right to know virtually
everything about you, you have little right to know anything about the government.
...
It's a clever strategy: Collect private information. And then when citizens
try to find out what you've collected, cite their own privacy right back at
them as a reason not to divulge it.
Suppose you, as a citizen, attended a legal protest for which one of the
hosts, unbeknownst to you, is an organization the government has listed as
terrorist. Under Patriot II, you may be deported and deemed no longer an American
citizen.
The original USA Patriot Act has sunset provisions, under which the Act will
expire if not renewed in five years. Patriot II, however, does not have such
provisions. Indeed, it would go so far as to remove this important check from
the original Patriot Act.
