From the Associated Press ( Miami ) ”
Small toys showing an airplane flying into the World Trade Center were packed inside some of more than 14,000 bags of candy sent to small groceries around the country before being recalled.”

448 of the toys managed to get distributed and the others were held before distribution.

The invoice read that the toys were plastic swing sets but obviously appear to be a rendition of WTC towers. Even more interesting that the product number on the bottom of these toys was 9011.

Britains consume so much Prozac that traces of Prozac can now be found in the country’s water supply.The article states that Prozac has made it’s way into the water supply from treated sewage water. 24 million prescriptions for Prozac are written a year there.

Brings a whole new meaning to Universal Healthcare.

Hurricane Charley is on his way to Tampa. This is the first time that a hurricane has ever hit Tampa since I’ve lived here. I’ve been getting hammered with phone calls all morning from people trying to find out what’s going on and where we’re going to evacuate to. I have two ferrets and two computers, so I’ll be right here. However, I’m pretty bummed for not getting a UPS. The last thing I’ll be doing is evacuating to some crazy hurricane concentration camp. I still don’t know what the big deal is, I mean, it’s only a category one. The only thing I’m a bit concerned about is the possibility of tornadoes popping up. Shudder to think. In the picture you can see the Tropical Storm Bonnie by the panhandle, why didn’t they name Hurricane Charley Hurricane Clyde instead?

Just a brief update, been busy this past week, sprained ankle and digital crack has taken up my free time.

The headline for this news story sounds vaguely familiar. Then I remembered the heading of the Presidential memo from August that was titled: Bin-Laden Determined to Strike in the US. If you remember, the administration all agreed that even that wasn’t ample proof that an attack was going to happen. Why start worrying now?

Ahoy! Uncle John Ashcroft wants the Depratment of Justice to setup a program to bust file sharers. Woo Yay for frivelous ways to spend tax dollars. Taxpayers are to foot the bill for civil suits to protect business.

From the EFF:

“The PIRATE Act (S.2237) is yet another attempt to make taxpayers fund the misguided war on file sharing, and it’s moving fast. The bill would allow the government to file civil copyright lawsuits in addition to criminal prosecutions, dramatically lowering the burden of proof and adding to the thousands of suits already filed by record companies. It would also force the American public to pay the legal bills of foreign record companies like Bertelsmann, Vivendi Universal, EMI, and Sony. Meanwhile, not a penny from the lawsuits goes to the artists.”

Send a quick letter to your senators and tell them what you think about the Pirate Act.

It won’t be long before file sharing becomes a felony, I’m sure. I mean, afterall, P2P and file sharing is a gateway application to terrorism, child abuse, and pedophilia. (That Sen. Hatch is completely whacked out)

A welcome sign across the street from the Ice Palace, greets visitors coming to watch hockey.

The more I think about this, the more I realize that this isn’t something new. It’s not a secret that the government monitors web pages. I remember I had written about this subject before. Which was in reference to RaiseTheFist.com, which I believe is completely defunct now.

Amanda e-mailed me this nice article from Yahoo! (included was a lovely message, “Don’t worry, I’ll come visit you in Cuba!”). - Blog-Tracking May Gain Ground Among U.S. Intelligence Officials

Did you know that China actively tracks weblogs? Did you know they are in the process of completely blocking access to them?

This is so ridiculous. I leave you with a quote from the article:

“When you’re conducting surveillance where you have no expectation of illegal activity, there has to be some threshold to justify such surveillance,” - James Love

It feels good to listen to talk radio/news radio and not get angry over the bias perspective and one sided opinions.

Say hello to Air America Radio!

I listen to Unfiltered every morning and no longer go about the rest of my day ticked off.

Unfiltered is hosted by Chuck D, Lizz Winstead, and Rachel Maddow. The reason I love this show so much is that it throws in satire, humor, intelligent commentary, and in your face news.

I listen via the live webstream, I hope they land a station out here in Tampa, as I don’t intend to get XM radio, but the internet stream is sufficient enough for me anyway, as I’m always working on the computer.

If you haven’t checked it out yet, give it a listen, it’s worth it, tastes great with coffee.

I had a conversation with a friend of mine and she was telling me about this half-cocked plan of an anonymous gambling system based on betting on future terrorist attacks that this guy named Poindexter tried to create. I was beyond fascinated with this that I had to research just what exactly this scheme entailed and who Poindexter is.

Who is John M. Poindexter?
Truth be told, he has quite a record. He was an Admiral in the United States Navy and the National Security Advisor during the Ronald Reagan presidency. He was convicted of multiple felony counts: conspiracy, obstruction of justice, lying to Congress, defrauding the government, and the alteration and destruction of evidence pertaining to the Iran-Contra Affair. However, his conviction was overturned on the grounds that he had been granted immunity from prosecution as a result of his testimony before Congress.

In 2002 he had been appointed as the Director of the Pentagon’s Information Awareness Office. His duty was to gather as much information as possible about everyone into a central database run by the government. The information was to include details about travel, credit card purchases, medical history and so on and so forth. Thus, he is the brain behind the Total Information Awareness (TIA) program.

In protest against the unveiling of TIA, Matt Smith, a columnist of the San Francisco Weekly, published John Poindexter’s home address and phone number, along with the names and addresses of his next door neighbors. His actions quickly transposed into an internet meme and this information was popping up all over the internet. Shortly after his phone was disconnected.

What was Policy Analysis Market?
The Policy Analysis Market (PAM) was a proposed futures exchange developed by the United States’ Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and based on an idea first proposed by Net Exchange, a research firm specializing in the development of online markets, and the Economist Intelligence Unit was also involved.

DARPA, of course, is headed by John M. Poindexter himself.

The Policy Analysis Market was a trading plan in which investors would be able to bet on political and economic events in the Middle East, such as the chance of assassinations and terrorist acts.

On PAM’s web page it had images and examples of how the trading system would be carried out. Unfortunately, that webpage has been withdrawn, BUT, thanks to Cryptome you can view the cached original version of PolicyAnalysisMarket.com.

In defense of PAM the Pentagon (who was overseeing the program) stated that it was part of a research effort “to investigate the broadest possible set of new ways to prevent terrorist attacks.”

The U.S. government was encouraging people to bet on and make money from atrocities and terrorist attacks.

When this project was revealed at a press conference, a political uproar ensued and the Pentagon immediately cancelled PAM and a week later John M. Poindexter submitted his resignation. (A copy of Poindexter’s resignation letter [PDF format])

For a brief time the PAM website revealed that it might be back in 2004 without government ties. This brings us to….

Prediction/Idea Futures Markets
I found a few prediction markets online:
Foresight Exchange
TradeSports

There are plenty of others, some real and some not. You just have to look for them. Interesting, to say the least, but not nearly as interesting as a government funded terrorist prediction market.

Who doesn’t love a good souvenir these days? Especially if you don’t have to pay for it. Evidence schmevidence. It’s just a piece of a plane that plunged into the Pentagon, that’s all. No big deal. Old Rumsy just wanted a token to remember the largest tragedy in American history. I mean, it is very easy to forget what happened, why it happened, how it happened, how it could have not happened, who did it, why they did it and all of those other petty questions. You can’t exactly expect the secretary of the US Department of Defense to really keep track of things like this, can you? That’s exactly why he needed a piece of the plane to remember, well that and I’m sure it makes for a superior paper weight. His desk is probably made entirely out of all the black boxes from 9-11 too.

It brings to mind the unfortunate tragedy of the Space Shuttle Columbia. How some people that were pocketing the space shuttle debris. They too wanted a reminder of some sort. I guess that was different though. It was different because those who managed to get a hold of and keep pieces of the shuttle were considered criminals for stealing government property. Even if you worked for NASA, you just can’t do things like that. Consider Michael Pankiewicz, a NASA employee, or former employee I should say, he was charged with three felonies and faced 25 years in prison. Luckily, he copped a plea and had the charges lessened. Why? Because he wanted to keep a piece of the shuttle. Maybe he too liked paper weights.

But remember what the spokesman from NASA said in reference to keeping pieces of the shuttle, “We live in an evil world, and there are people that will do those types of things.”

The whole situation is completely different, I know. Had Michael Pankiewicz worked for the government, the stolen government property would have just been considered a souvenir. I guess the whole situation is completely different when you look at it. They had no idea what caused Columbia’s fate. They needed all the evidence they could find to come to a conclusion. That’s how things work. Something happens, nobody knows why, you gather a team of investigators, and immediately go to work gathering evidence to put all of the pieces of the puzzle together to make sure what went wrong never happens again.

That’s just what they did. On that very day of the Columbia disaster, two official investigations were announced and an independent panel was formed and immediately went to work.

That wasn’t necessary with the events of September 11th. We all know how it happened: Planes were hijacked and flown into buildings. We know why it happened: because there are evil doers out there that hate us because of our freedom, and we also know who did it: because amongst all the ruins and burning debris, passports were found! Amazing! Passports can outlive the black boxes of planes!

That’s all you need to know.

Therefore, knowing all this, what normally would be considered evidence becomes a souvenir and is free for the taking. Unless you aren’t a government official.