And Then There Is Brazil And Turkey

And being that that Google page rank update has long sent me in search of a fifth full time job, I find myself blaghing about headline news, news and more news. And it seems as if when one reads the headline news that one would sometimes think that the world is going to hell in a hand basket. Not only is there Occupy Turkey and Occupy Gezi, there is now Occupy Brazil, where the biggest protests in 20 years sweep Brazil. And even Occupy Bulgaria. A nation of unrest, so much that I am starting to wonder if that 2012 a time for change Mayan calendar thing is a year off track. And those photos that find themselves posted above, one of them with The Standing Man in Turkey, well they speak for themselves. Keep on standing at Taksim Square. And what else is there that I can say about these protests and world revolutions that has not already been said in headline news and current events time. And what do Bosnia, Bulgaria, and Brazil have in common? And it is a Global Revolution LIVE. Occupy Wall Street Worldwide. And what does this have to do with a No Police State.

An NSA Surveillance State

And on this day finds itself as Occupy Wall Street Day 600 and something, and Occupy Wall Street and those global revolutions of a movements Occupy Together are still moving fast. And now there is Occupy Gezi and Occupy Istanbul, a Turkey Revolution, as in that Turkey protests with those anonymous masks in Taksim square above. And there is an awakening. And with a bunch of headlines in the news these days that read something like Occupy the NSA, Inside the NSA's secret Utah data center, NSA Reportedly Mines Servers Of Internet Firms For Data, Leaked secret court order forces Verizon to hand over call records to NSA, Anonymous Just Leaked A Trove Of NSA Documents that has something to do with a George Orwell 1984 Prism Project, and a host of other scary sounding articles with titles about the National Security Agency spying on every one and everything, I thought to blagh this The Internet is a surveillance state CNN article and copy and paste it in all it's entirety because hey, it's less writing sometimes, I think. 2011, 2012, 2013=1984. And what does this have to do with a No Police State.

The Internet is a surveillance state

By Bruce Schneier, Special to CNN

updated 2:04 PM EDT, Sat March 16, 2013

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Bruce Schneier: Whether we like it or not, we're being tracked all the time on the Internet
• Schneier: Our surveillance state is efficient beyond the wildest dreams of George Orwell
• He says governments and corporations are working together to keep things that way
• Schneier: Slap-on-the-wrist fines notwithstanding, no one is agitating for better privacy laws

Editor's note: Bruce Schneier is a security technologist and author of "Liars and Outliers: Enabling the Trust Society Needs to Survive."

(CNN) -- I'm going to start with three data points.

One: Some of the Chinese military hackers who were implicated in a broad set of attacks against the U.S. government and corporations were identified because they accessed Facebook from the same network infrastructure they used to carry out their attacks.

Two: Hector Monsegur, one of the leaders of the LulzSac hacker movement, was identified and arrested last year by the FBI. Although he practiced good computer security and used an anonymous relay service to protect his identity, he slipped up.

Bruce Schneier

And three: Paula Broadwell,who had an affair with CIA director David Petraeus, similarly took extensive precautions to hide her identity. She never logged in to her anonymous e-mail service from her home network. Instead, she used hotel and other public networks when she e-mailed him. The FBI correlated hotel registration data from several different hotels -- and hers was the common name.

The Internet is a surveillance state. Whether we admit it to ourselves or not, and whether we like it or not, we're being tracked all the time. Google tracks us, both on its pages and on other pages it has access to. Facebook does the same; it even tracks non-Facebook users. Apple tracks us on our iPhones and iPads. One reporter used a tool called Collusion to track who was tracking him; 105 companies tracked his Internet use during one 36-hour period.

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Increasingly, what we do on the Internet is being combined with other data about us. Unmasking Broadwell's identity involved correlating her Internet activity with her hotel stays. Everything we do now involves computers, and computers produce data as a natural by-product. Everything is now being saved and correlated, and many big-data companies make money by building up intimate profiles of our lives from a variety of sources.

News: Cyberthreats getting worse, House intelligence officials warn

Facebook, for example, correlates your online behavior with your purchasing habits offline. And there's more. There's location data from your cell phone, there's a record of your movements from closed-circuit TVs.

This is ubiquitous surveillance: All of us being watched, all the time, and that data being stored forever. This is what a surveillance state looks like, and it's efficient beyond the wildest dreams of George Orwell.

Sure, we can take measures to prevent this. We can limit what we search on Google from our iPhones, and instead use computer web browsers that allow us to delete cookies. We can use an alias on Facebook. We can turn our cell phones off and spend cash. But increasingly, none of it matters.

There are simply too many ways to be tracked. The Internet, e-mail, cell phones, web browsers, social networking sites, search engines: these have become necessities, and it's fanciful to expect people to simply refuse to use them just because they don't like the spying, especially since the full extent of such spying is deliberately hidden from us and there are few alternatives being marketed by companies that don't spy.

This isn't something the free market can fix. We consumers have no choice in the matter. All the major companies that provide us with Internet services are interested in tracking us. Visit a website and it will almost certainly know who you are; there are lots of ways to be tracked without cookies. Cellphone companies routinely undo the web's privacy protection. One experiment at Carnegie Mellon took real-time videos of students on campus and was able to identify one-third of them by comparing their photos with publicly available tagged Facebook photos.

Maintaining privacy on the Internet is nearly impossible. If you forget even once to enable your protections, or click on the wrong link, or type the wrong thing, and you've permanently attached your name to whatever anonymous service you're using. Monsegur slipped up once, and the FBI got him. If the director of the CIA can't maintain his privacy on the Internet, we've got no hope.

In today's world, governments and corporations are working together to keep things that way. Governments are happy to use the data corporations collect -- occasionally demanding that they collect more and save it longer -- to spy on us. And corporations are happy to buy data from governments. Together the powerful spy on the powerless, and they're not going to give up their positions of power, despite what the people want.

Fixing this requires strong government will, but they're just as punch-drunk on data as the corporations. Slap-on-the-wrist fines notwithstanding, no one is agitating for better privacy laws.

So, we're done. Welcome to a world where Google knows exactly what sort of porn you all like, and more about your interests than your spouse does. Welcome to a world where your cell phone company knows exactly where you are all the time. Welcome to the end of private conversations, because increasingly your conversations are conducted by e-mail, text, or social networking sites.

And welcome to a world where all of this, and everything else that you do or is done on a computer, is saved, correlated, studied, passed around from company to company without your knowledge or consent; and where the government accesses it at will without a warrant.

Welcome to an Internet without privacy, and we've ended up here with hardly a fight.

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Bruce Schneier.

Kali Yuga Again

Yeah I know that end of the world date 12.21.2012 has come and gone and we're still here. It's just that I like that photo of Kali Yuga that finds itself posted above from one of those blog posts that was posted on this blog some time a while ago. And with those current event headline news of the day that read something like Thousands take to streets in Turkey, clash with police, Tornado touches down near Oklahoma City, Mayhem in the city: 25 people shot in 48 hours, Thousands evacuated as deadly floods swamp Europe, and each headline seemingly more horrific than the next in the ten second attention span information overload generation to where one would think that planet earth is going to hell in a hand basket, I somehow find myself posting that Kali Yuga age of sin and device post again.

Kali Yuga

And I am not exactly sure what this blog posting is all about, but I think it has something to do with the beginning of the end of the world and my religious fanaticism. And I somehow came across a copy of this DVD titled "2012 The Odyssey". And an odyssey indeed it is to watch this tape for me. And the cover jacket of this tapes describes it as "The Mayan Calendar is ending December 21st 2012. What will happen to us between now and then? Are there other prophecies that also predict the closing of this world age and the start of a new beginning.
Join author Sharron Rose on an adventure into the future. In this exciting and thought provoking feature documentary she travels across the entire United Stated speaking to many experts on this fast approaching prophecy.
Featured noted experts Jose Arguelles, Gregg Braden, John Major Jenkins, Rick Levine, Geoff Stray, Moira Timms, Alberto Villoldo, Jay Weidner, the Incan Elders and more, this film shows us that the coming world is ours to reshape and to remake in any way that we deem possible.
Sharron Rose also travels to the Georgia Guidestones, Washington D.C., the Denver Airport and many other places to discover that there are numerous groups and people who understand that this present age is ending and a new world is now just beginning.
Discover the secrets of the Mayans, the Incans, the Alchemists, the Christians, the Masons and others of our ancient ancestors concerning the end of time and the promise of our destiny as human beings. Written and Directed by Sharron Rose". And this tape gets me to thinking in my religious fanaticism. And I would like to watch this tape again and attempt to blah blog about it again. And from what I remember, it said something about 26,000 years and 4 ages are complete for something in time and life. And is not 26 the number of God. And there was, was it the 16th, 17th,and 18th card that of the tarot deck that depicts judgement day of the sun, moon and stars or something like that. And humanity is living in the age where the father and son will meet in the sky and Jesus may return or something like that where the galactic alignment of the sun will meet the middle of the milky way on December 21, 2012, and this only occurs once every 26,000 years. And then there is that iron age, golden age and Kali Yuga thing, something about that Kali Yuga, a Hindu Krishna prophecy, the age of Kali, the age of vice, and it is the apocalypse demon, the age and time of the devil, the age humanity is now living in and is the present Vedic knowledge, the Dark Age and is one of the four ages, and that this age is an age of spiritual darkness, ignorance, violence, hypocrisy, sin, materialism, strife, discord, quarrel, contention, short lifespans and humanity deteriorates, human morality deteriorates and people are gone the furthest astray from God. And Kali Yuga is 1200 years of something. And for what reason does Vedic sound like that Ayurvedic yoga center here in New York and ayurvedic medicine. And for what reason does all of these stone, iron, golden and other ages remind me of that Daniel the Prophet guy and Nebuchadnezzar's dream and vision in the bible that marked the beginning of the end of something. And this wisdom is all too much for me to understand or comprehend as it seems as if it can all be the secret knowledge of the unknown. And 12.21.2012, it is yoga and cycles. Lo, and behold. Here is one of many secrets that the yoga guy, "Spiritual God" says in the text below him in the drawing above, he depicts the progression of humanity. A-L=12, halfway through the alphabet, O-Z=12, halfway through the alphabet. ALOZ, ALLAH. 12.21.2012, 0102. OLOZ, AL-OZ, ALOZ, ALLAH. M and N the middle of the alphabet = the Millennium, the head of Christ, Grist, the Holy Grail, The Holy Ghost, a thousand years shall Satan be let loose? And there is much more to be written in the text below the yoga guy above (Yahweh,Jehovah,JHVH,YHVH,YHWH, YOGA), part of the trinity. Have a great spiritual day.

No, I Am Not Going To Honor War Today

And so here goes yet another one of those recycle this blog posts again in an attempt to maintain content for this blog and my other blog whenever Memorial Day blaghers block possible.

Honoring The Fallen?

And Memorial Day is almost near in a couple of days or so according to that Gregorian calendar on the wall and all of those street festivals that are to be found everywhere in the streets today. And so I thought to blah blog about this patriotic flag waving holiday. And this also leads me to realize that I have been blaghing on this blog for over a year now and that these holidays seem to be a recurring event and same day, different year when that same ole Gregorian calendar date roles around. And then I thought, hey, I can just post the same blog entry from a year ago that I posted on this blog a year ago because it almost seems like it's the same day, different year. And besides, it's less writing sometimes. So the following is a passage that I posted on this blog a year ago:

And today is Memorial Day in America. A celebration of the war day. Another one of those patriotic holidays. The flag wavers are out in force and yellow ribbons, badges of honor, medals, parades, marches, prayers, patriotic songs, tributes and ceremonies are being broadcast everywhere. The headlines read "Honor the dead soldiers, honor the fallen soldiers and comrades". Today is the ultimate patriotic fanatic holiday. My question of the day; for what reason is it an honor to volunteer to be fodder for the canon. For what reason is it an honor to die for nothing, to fight for reasons that do not exist, to fight against the flesh for powers that be that one cannot even see. For what reason is it an honor to be so poor that one will volunteer their life in exchange for money after one leaves the service, if one leaves the service. For what reason is it an honor for persons to be brainwashed with propaganda, theirs or mine. For what reason is it an honor to become a violent person and pick up a gun and kill another person for no reason at all. For what reason is it an honor to be a veteran who now make up the majority of the homeless population these days, and a majority of them are disabled now as a result. For what reason is it an honor to attend one of those military sponsored funerals and cry over the image of a flag that propagates violence, the same flag that caused ones death. For what reason is it an honor to fall and die for nothing. For what reason is it an honor to promote this ideology. What is heroic about all of this? And why does the word "Patriot" have the word "Riot" in it? And why does the word "Military" militant militia have the word "Mal" in it? "Parens Patriarch, Father of our country", that phrase seems to be the basis of endless deaths of the world. I saw Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 documentary. It is nineteen eighty four and Orwellianism is everywhere at its best today. The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous.  Is it written somewhere that this must all come to pass? Happy beach bar b queing Memorial day. Peace on earth and goodwill to all mankind. And what does this have to do with a No Police State?

A 13th Street Squat Event

And the memory of you is forgotten. Hey again bloggers or whoever could be reading this blagh. And on this day finds itself as Occupy Wall Street Day actually I'm not sure what Occupy Wall Street Day it finds itself as because Adbusters seems to have changed their homepage design, though I think it's around Occupy Wall Street Day 600 something. And Occupy Wall Street and those global revolutions of a movements Occupy Together are still moving fast, or something like that. And MORUS, the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space is having a 2013 • 18 since 13: Marking the Eighteenth Anniversary of the Thirteenth Street Eviction event at C Squat, or is it See Squat?, Friday, May 31, 2013 7:00pm until 9:00pm in that neighborhood of the Lower East Side in New York City now called the East Village for real estate marketing purposes maybe. And I know that MORUS is having a remember 13th Street Squats event because that Facebook event invite that Times Up invited me to says so. And if I must blogger say, I remember that 13th street squat eviction clearly, very clearly, as that photo that finds itself posted above says so. And that Facebook event invite reads something like as follows. Occupy Wall Street Worldwide. Squat the world.

On May 30, 1995, the NYPD rolled an armored tank down East 13th Street, employing militaristic force to evict squatters from two buildings. Almost 18 years later to the day, authors, artists, and activists will unite to remember the resistance and celebrate what remains.

Join us for Lower East Side squat stories, slideshows, and readings by Cari Luna, Frank Morales, Fly, and Peter Spagnuolo followed by a short acoustic set by Banji (bandless).

The event will be held at the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space (MoRUS), 155 Avenue C between 9th and 10th Streets on Friday, May 31, beginning at 7:00 PM.

There is a $5.00 - $10.00 sliding scale suggested donation. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.

***

Cari Luna received an MFA in fiction from Brooklyn College. Her debut novel, The Revolution of Every Day, will be published by Tin House Books in October 2013. Her short fiction has appeared in failbetter, Avery Anthology, PANK, and Novembre Magazine. New York-born, she now lives in Portland, OR.

Frank Morales, born and raised in the Jacob Riis Projects on the Lower East Side, is a squatter priest and housing rights activist. Author of Police State America (Arm the Spirit, 2002), he is currently adjunct professor at Parsons/The New School in New York City.

Fly has been a squatter on the Lower East Side since the 1980s. She has self-published numerous comics and zines since the mid-1980s and her collection entitled CHRON!IC!RIOTS!PA!SM! was published in 1998 by Autonomedia (Brooklyn). PEOPs, a collection of 196 portraits and stories, was published in June of 2003 by Soft Skull Press. Fly continues to work on the ever-expanding PEOPs Project and is working on a book – Unreal Estate; A Late Twentieth Century History of Squatting in the Lower East Side. Her band Zero Content (est.1994) is currently recording a new album. She has just released PEOPs #8 magaZine. To learn more about Fly visit www.peops.org

Peter Spagnuolo is a poet and ex-squatter, living in Brooklyn. He is a past recipient of poetry fellowships from the states of California and Pennsylvania and is the author of The Squatter’s Midden (2001), Ten by Fourteen (2005), Egg and Dart (2010) and the forthcoming Time’s Wiggy Chariot (2013). He co-founded the micro-power FM station Steal This Radio; the Lower East Side Squatter-Homesteader Archive Project at the NYU Bobst Library-Tamiment Collection; and the artist-book letterpress collective, BOOKLYN. He works as an exculpatory narratologist in NYC’s criminal defense industry. 

Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space

155 Avenue C, New York, New York 10009

One Hundred Years Ago Again

And so this is yet another one of those posts that found itself posted on this blog some time a while ago in an attempt to maintain recycle this blog content for this blog and my other blog whenever blaghers block possible.

And this is yet another one of those emails I received from one of those friends group email lists. And those emails that that friend sends are kind of funny and entertaining sometimes. And so I thought to post that email on this blog because hey, it's less writing sometimes:

One hundred years ago.

Just imagine what the next 100 years will be like. Any guesses???

1909 Ford Model R

Show this to your friends, children and/or grandchildren

THE YEAR 1909


This will boggle your mind, I know it did mine!
The year is 1909.
One hundred years ago.
What a difference a century makes!
Here are some statistics for the Year 1909 :

*********

The average life expectancy was 47 years.

fuel for this car was sold in drug stores only


Only 14 percent of the homes had a bathtub.


Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.


There were only 8,000 cars and only 144 miles

Of paved roads.

The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.

The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower

The average wage in 1909 was 22 cents per hour.

The average worker made between $200 and $400 per year ..

A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year,
A dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.

More than 95 percent of all births took place at HOME .

Ninety percent of all doctors had NO COLLEGE EDUCATION!

Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which

Were condemned in the press AND the government as 'substandard.

Sugar cost four cents a pound.

Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.

Coffee was fifteen cents a pound.

Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used

Borax or egg yolks for shampoo.

Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from

Entering their country for any reason.

Five leading causes of death were:

1. Pneumonia and influenza
2. Tuberculosis
3. Diarrhea
4. Heart disease
5. Stroke

The American flag had 45 stars..

The population of Las Vegas, Nevada, was only 30!!!!

Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea Hadn't been invented yet.

There was no Mother's Day or Father's Day.

Two out of every 10 adults couldn't read or write and

Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school..

Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at the local corner drugstores. Back then pharmacists said, 'Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind,regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health'

( Shocking? DUH! )

Eighteen percent of households had at least one full-time servant or domestic help..

There were about 230 reported murders in the ENTIRE U.S.A.!

Plus one more sad thought; 95 percent of the taxes we have now did not exist in 1909

Try to imagine what it may be like in another 100 years.

IT STAGGERS THE MIND!


Have a great history day

Yet Another Ode To Blogging

And as Google has sent me in search of a fifth full time job in that do not get rich internet quick thing, I find myself posting this post that found itself posted on this blog some time a while ago in an attempt to maintain content for this blog and my other blog whenever blaghers block possible.

Dear Bloggers, is there anyone out there in bloggerland who is wondering where have all the paid blogging opportunities gone? In my quest to get rich Internet quick and blah blog to billions, I have recently found myself wondering where have all the paid blogging sites gone. Lately I sometimes find myself staring at the computer for days waiting for a paid blogging opportunity to appear, so much that it reminds me of that Ode to Blogging Ode that I posted a while back that I am reposting again at the end of this post. And the reality of blogging keeps reminding me that I cannot quit my day job just yet. I have signed up with a few different pay per post, pay you to blog companies and some have paid blogging opportunities every so often, some every once in a blue moon and some every day. And if a paid blogging opportunity arises, unless your website has a Google page ranking of a 100, it's a run, run, run, situation to get the post immediately, hurry, hurry before it's gone! And then when there are not many or any paid posts available for the millions and billions of bloggers in the blogosphere like me with a page ranking such as this blog is, then my mind starts wandering and wondering as I am waiting for days for a paid blogging opportunity to arise. And I have read enough of those other bloggers quest for zillions blogs and enough of those how to blog to millions online tutorials and manuals and I am still wondering how can I get that Google page rank of a hundred overnight to blog to billions?

An Ode To Blogging(sung to the tune of "Mercedes Benz" by Janis Joplin)

Oh Google, won't you give me a PageRank quickly?
My friends all have Adsense, but you banned me.
Blogged hard all my lifetime, trying to make money,
So Google, won't you give me a PageRank quickly?

Oh Shoemoney , won't give my blog a big plug?
I post every day, but never get Dugg.
I like how you're bald, but don't wear a rug,
So oh Shoemoney, won't you give my blog a big plug?

Oh AGLOCO , won't you give up your little green scam?
Your members flood my inbox with lots of spam.
You know that I'm not your biggest fan,
Oh AGLOCO, won't you give up your little green scam?

Bloggers!
Oh Google, won't you give me a PageRank quickly?
My friends all have Adsense, but you banned me.
Blogged hard all my lifetime, trying to make money,
So Google, won't you give me a PageRank quickly?