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UP!The UPGRADEmag (or just the "UP") is a global edutainment round-up, ‘broadcast’ weekly to =[10,507]= Alternative// Activist// Zippy// Trance// New Age folks who’ve been recommended to the Parallel YOUniversity//Megatripolis Dance Dept as "showing signs of life". Since many recipients choose to forward it to their own lists, we estimate 29,000+ recipients. Further, because of its less 'specialist' content, it's increasingly being posted on a variety of sites worldwide, making a total weekly ‘readership’ of 275,000+ U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U UP P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P * * * * * * * * * * * * ASTRO ENERGY ANALYSIS july 10 - 17 * * * * * * * * * * WHERE DO YOU FIND SECURITY? New Moon in Cancer occurs today, propelling us into a month of feathering our nests, securing our foundations, tending the home front. It’s time now to express and let go of our negativity and of fears concerning our security. The weekend is great for taking care of loose ends and cleaning up problems. See Maya’s Daily Success Guide at www.daykeeperjournal.come * * * * * * * * * * * ** * * * * * * * * * * ** * * * * * * * * * * ** * * * * * * * HUMAN BE-IN UPDATE: IN THE TEACH-INN Youth (Dragonfly Records, the famous Goa & Progressive Trance label) and his Society For The Reformation of Ancient Enchantment has agreed to handle the lesser of the 2 Teach Inns, with speakers on all things alternative, from reincazrnation to ancient standing stones to shamanism. Details of speakers to be announced. UP! SEVEN mag AUGUST (from London's MixMag stable): “The only thing that amazed me about 9/11, apart from its sheer panache, was the fact it had been so long in coming. We were predicting something like this in the Nineties when we did the Zippy Tour. We were saying “Wake up, America, you’re fucked and you’re fucking the planet: here’s a chance for a renaissance through Rave Culture.” UP! GANGSTA RAP AND RECORD LABELS SLAMMED “The routine violence that comes with ignorance and poverty is promoted, marketed and cashed in on by record companies who will dump these kids as soon as the fine line between celebrity notoriety and criminal liability is crossed.” The Observer. Operation Black Vote director slams labels behind gangsta rap and some garage acts. UP! THE “MOVEMENT” OF THE ‘60S WASN’T JUST ABOUT ‘THE MOMENT,’ AND IT DID NOT JUST FADE AWAY The 'Movement' of the 60's was not solely interested (as some imagine) in the emotional experience of the moment. There was a major growth of interest in why things had become as they were. Several disciplines were dramatically advanced, from cultural anthropology, to futures studies, to technology assessment, to public policy and administration, to linguistics and general semantics (who can forget Chomsky?). And, even more amazingly, several new disciplines were created, from Organizational Transformation, to public participation in social design, to environmentalism, and the management or guidance of human evolution. Nor did the 'Movement' (as some imagine) fade away. It evolved, as all living and viable things do. Some focused on the long-overdue issue of women's rights and equality. Others focused on the still-to-emerge issue of Children's Rights. And yet others moved into NGO/PVO activities around the world. Others infiltrated into government policy, and are now attaining senior and influential ranks there. Others set up think tanks, where they developed the language, ideas, and proposals that are influencing for the better the evolution of our society as a whole. Others went into technology, with the hope, so well pioneered by Bucky Fuller, that the intrinsic logic of their inventions would change the world for the better. Others, of course, went into self-development, where people are learning that they can take care of themselves, continue to learn and grow, and can be an immediate part of the shaping of a vibrant society. THOUGH THESE ALL SEEM DISTINCT FIELDS, WE RECOGNIZE EACH OTHER ACROSS THEM The people of the 'Movement' know each other, and appreciate the diverse natures of the many efforts that had their emotional, cultural, political, linguistic origins in the 60's. (On an utterly personal note, the 'movement' led me along a personal journey that brought me into contact with wonderful teachers and sources of inspiration, a journey which has led me to probe the nature of human evolution and the possibilities - now realities - of our guiding, and even managing this evolution. This is one of those big possibilities that will come to redefine who we are as a species, and how we live on and off this planet ) THE ‘MOVEMENT’ CATALYSED THE IMAGINATION Yes, the forces of ignorance and bigotry are still out there. I would suggest simply that they will never go away. There will always be some who are so hurt, so afraid, so angry that they cannot embrace others, friends and strangers alike. We do not need to dwell or fear this: indeed, the horrifying excesses of those folks the lynchings, thoughtless wars, cold and ignorant rationalisation of evil acts and policies - such excesses were the very things that woke the rest of us up to the beauty that humankind was capable of, and it was their cruelty which galvanised us into action, and made us willing to sacrifice to create a better world. Nor is this ignorance and cruelty a phenomenon of our contemporary society, nor has its presence stopped other societies from great leaps forward - the northern Italians in the Renaissance; or the Muslims, Christians and Jews together in Spain in the 8th through 12th centuries. Or, here, today - ourselves. The 60's ‘Movement’ catalysed the imaginations, dedication and energies of an extraordinary people, and an extraordinary moment in our species’ evolution. One Heart - One Love - One Spirit - One Family Lawrence DeBivort UP! LIQUID LIGHT "Liquid light" created by concentrating a laser beam into a tight column in nonlinear materials, might be an ideal medium for an optical computer. New Scientist, July 7, 2002 http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992497 HERE’S A CURRENT EXAMPLE OF ONE DIRECTION IN WHICH THE 60S MOVEMENT HAS CONTINUED DEEP GREEN PAGAN ACTIVISM. IT'S A FANTASTIC STORY - WE WANT STARHAWK AT THE HUMAN BE-IN!!! THE SOLSTICE PAGAN CLUSTER IN CALGARY Starhawk reports from the front line of the G8 Protests We arrived from multiple different directions, at different times, from Seattle, California, Texas, Vermont, Ottawa, Colorado, Kansas, British Columbia, Alberta, and other parts of Canada. Our first challenge was crossing the threshold, the border. All of us were challenged, questioned, searched. Some of us had to try twice or even three times. But all of us got in. We brought with us a variety of practical and magical skills:from the knowledge of how to design an ecological garden to the skills of organizing a street action, from knowing how to convert a diesel engine to run on veggie oil to knowing how to facilitate a meeting. We were welcomed, supported and taken in by the wonderful Witches of Calgary, the organizers of the action, and by Kelly and Marie, the practicing permaculturists who opened their home to hordes of us staying and making magic. We manifested in a city drenched in fear and hostility, with everyone from the media to the school board portraying the protestors as dangerous, malevolent, and violent. Teachers and students were ordered not to talk to us. An “expert” lectured the judges and magistrates of the city, telling them we were coming to kill cops, among other warped fantasies. People who might have rented spaces to us were warned we would bomb them or burn down their homes. SHIFTING THE GROUND BENEATH THE FORTRESS OF POWER The organizers of the action were working non-stop, trying to combat the propaganda and arrange for spaces and infrastructure in an extremely hostile environment. They welcomed us and we tried to see what we could do to support them. And as the cluster gathered, we wove our magic, trancing together, reading tarot cards asking for guidance and information. We clarified our intention: "to consciously use the energy and actions of this week to shift the ground beneath the fortress of power-over and undermine its foundations so that it crumbles, opening space to seed loving cultures of beauty, balance and delight." We were told to go on the Summer solstice to the statues of the Famous Five in Olympic Plaza - 5 women who brought a court case that established that women in Canada were legally ”persons”. They stand around an inscribed circle which was just big enough for the group that gathered. We created a magical drain, a vortex to suck away the fear that clouded the city, and a positive pole, a tree of life to draw in positive forces. Over the next two nights, we tranced to build our magical group mind, and decided to use the proximity of the G8 summit as an opportunity to enter the Fortress itself. We could enter the Fortress, we found, through the Fortress within, because each of us has a Fortress inside of us. The path we took started as a passage through the clanhouse. Many of our friends around the world joined us in this working, as did a number of the action organizers and legal team. We found the Fortress full of prisoners needing to be released before we could bring it down. A green haze, green twining vines, tunneling rabbits and prairie dogs were some of our allies in bringing it down, but mostly we understood that it will fall when the ground beneath it shifts and the spell of compliance that knits its stones and concrete together is broken. Throughout all the following, various members among us were offering Permaculture workshops, direct action trainings, trainings for the unions, making art and props, attending spokes council meetings, doing uncountable interviews with the media, and generally carrying out all the usual organizing activities associated with an action. “WHAT WAS THAT!!!!?” The next day, the actions began with a permitted, family march sponsored by the Unions. The Cluster participated, but we felt somewhat scattered. Some of us were part of the Bread and Puppets pageant, others were simply walking and marching. On the Full Moon, the Witches of Edmonton led us in a ritual, with support from the Calgary Witches who found a beautiful, safe space with a full Chartres labyrinth. Many, many people from the action attended. Out of the labyrinth, a chant emerged: We are the rising of the moon, We are the shifting of the ground. We are the seed that takes root, When we bring the fortress down. We released our fears and grief, charged moonstones and seedballs made in permaculture workshops, and danced the spiral under the Full Moon. The following day, we were part of the action at the GAP, and marched off and had an impromptu spiral dance back at the Famous Five when it was over. By the evening, during the Showdown at the Hoedown (the un-permitted march to protest the huge party the city of Calgary was throwing for press and delegates to the G8) we had better cluster banners and were able to march together and start a spontaneous and very powerful spiral dance outside the stadium grounds at the end. After the circle was opened, a young man was heard to exclaim, "What was that?" ANARCHIST SOCCER AND DIE-INS We rose very early the next morning to participate in the snake march, the most confrontational action of the day, which moved through the rush hour streets of downtown Calgary with the goal of creating economic disruption. As people gathered, the cluster led a spiral dance. The march was peaceful: the police simply stood back, blocked traffic ahead of us, and let us take the space. People on the march made an effort to apologize to drivers, to leaflet and open discussion with passers-by. The Unions supported the march, and came out with their flags and banners. The cluster planted the seed balls and led another spiral at City Hall. At 10 AM, after hours of marching, we all stopped and at that point the march split into “green” and ”red” groups ‹green to do leafleting or go on to the planned Die-In, ”red” to continue with confrontational actions). We were asked by the Anti-Capitalist Convergence if we would come on the “red” march as support for their plan to block intersections with anarchist soccer. Those of us who still had some energy had short careers as players, rooters, or Anarchist Soccer Moms, but we were eventually all exhausted after hours of marching in the hot sun and went on to the Carlos Giuliani memorial performed by Bread and Puppets, and the Die-In. Then we went to the picnic organized by the Labour Council and Council of Canadians, where the Calgary Witches had created a beautiful healing space, with massage (definitely needed by then!) and Reiki and food and water. Afterwards, a contingent of the cluster joined a caravan of over 100 cars that drove out to Kananaskis where, after tense negotiations and lengthy meeting process (an empowering impromptu blockade or a dis-empoweringly long meeting, depending on your take,) we had yet another spiral dance, third one of the day. ALL LIFE SHALL BE FREE! On Thursday, we’d organized our own ritual action, Earth People, which began with a circle near our favourite Famous Five. After casting a circle and calling directions, about 60 people covered themselves with mud, losing their powers of speech and normal locomotion. The following prophecy was read: When eight kings in a fortress meet Trading greed and lies Out of asphalt and concrete Beings of earth arise Grunting, dancing through the street Ancient powers awake In everyone they touch or meet Hidden chains now break The kings trade lies and costly gifts Protected by their walls But when the ground beneath them shifts The mighty fortress falls Fertile compost out of blight Living seeds take root Of beauty, balance and delight Trees bear living fruit No army can keep back a thought No fence can chain the sea The earth cannot be sold or bought All life shall be free! The army of Earth People stalked, danced and slithered through downtown Calgary, followed by winged Beings of Liberation and beautiful banners proclaiming "RESIST!" and "INSURRECTION!" Alarming and delighting the public, they stopped at the GAP and at major oil companies to perform a dance ritual of awakening, uprooting the anchors of corporate power, and planting seeds. Drumming and chanting built the energy to a peak again and again, and the Earth People succeeded in completely taking the streets. Mesmerized members of the public followed and the action became an impromptu snake march, with amazing energy. It ended at Eau Claire market with a spiral dance, and then a procession down to the river and a ritual bathing. At the moment the circle was opened, raindrops fell and thunder and lightning filled the sky. After returning to what passes for our normal state of consciousness, eating and showering, we went back to the convergence centre for the debrief and led a closing circle and spiral dance. SMAMANIC INVASION OF THE FORTRESS The following night, after a last permaculture workshop for 20 or so people and a last set of media interviews, we went back to the Fortress in trance with much of the cluster and many of the organizers. The trance was long and complex but the essence was that the Fortress is huge, with many chambers and aspects, but that we have begun shifting some of its energies. A yearling bear had been killed up at Kananaskis by the military, and the bear¹s spirit came with us as an ally. We tried to go up the stairs into the higher levels of the Fortress, but found ourselves drifting in confusion and decided the time was not yet right. We found a crack in the walls that let us enter the structure of the fortress itself. We entered a tunnel that was very old, that existed in multiple times, especially the Roman Empire. In one chamber, we were stirring a cauldron of black stuff, like oil, until the vortex became a spindle revolving. The Ancestors from the Burning Times were with us. And then many of us took hands, jumped into the cauldron, and fell through into another world in which we were birds circling around the towers of the fortress, weaving a cocoon of binding and transformation. The actions were small this time, never more than 5000 people, but everyone says they were big for Calgary!! And in fact a conscious call had been put out for people to focus on their home communities instead of using huge resources to converge on Calgary. Some very positive things came out of the actions. Ties and connections with the labour movement (at least in Canada) were strengthened, and the unions gained valuable experience in direct action they may put to use in their own struggles. The global justice movement in Calgary was strengthened and organizers here will have a stronger base to build on. The actions were extremely peaceful - actually some of us would have liked more of an edge of confrontation (which is not at all the same thing as violence!) However, the utter politeness and calm of the protests may have done more than anything else could have to de-legitimise the G8 and point out the obscenity of their militarisation and the $300 million dollars they spent on security. And for the Pagan Cluster, we were able to deepen our magic, our ability to create a magical group mind, to openly share our work with the whole action in a transparent way, and to create an action of our own that turned out to be one of the most exciting moments of the week. Many thanks to all who gave us magical, practical, financial and moral support! UP! ROBOTS WITH DEPTH PERCEPTION Silicon Valley start-up Tyzx believes it can give stereo vision to video cameras by encoding a processing scheme, based on the way humans see, into a custom chip. It could ready the way for robots with depth perception. Its custom "DeepSea" chip runs an algorithm called "census correspondence" that finds similarities in real time across two streams of video images broken up into a square grid of 512 pixels. ZDNet UK, July 3, 2002 http://www.kurzweilai.net/news/frame.html?main=/news/news_single.html?id%3D1088 UP! santa barbara, usa SUN JULY 14 De La Guerra Plaza, Downtown Santa Barbara. Noon to 8pm. FREE. http://www.santabarbarahemp.com UP! _________________________________________ RAVE CRACKDOWN LE FIGHTBACK CONTINUES SAN FRANCISCO LATE NIGHT COALITION VICTORY! The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has passed Supervisor Mark Leno's proposal to create a San Francisco Entertainment Commission which would assume responsibility for processing the various permits necessary to provide entertainment in San Francisco. The 8 to 3 vote is the culmination of three years of hard work by the San Francisco Late Night Coalition in conjunction with Leno's office and a host of entertainment and neighborhood activists. While the commission will not be funded until 2003, San Francisco can now begin the long-overdue process of developing a fair, centralized permit process designed to encourage appropriate entertainment policy. The current process, which is controlled by the police department, has proven itself cumbersome, extremely difficult to navigate and inherently biased against the issuance of new entertainment permits. (check Doug Rushkoff’s The Ecstasy Club for fine examples of this ;) Placing control of these permits in civilian hands should help to encourage a resurgence in this (or any!) city’s arts and music communities who depend on clubs, nightlife and entertainment venues as a place to perform and be compensated for their creative energies. UP! EVERYONE IS OUTRAGED Arthur Levitt, Bill Clinton's choice to head the Securities and Exchange Commission, crusaded for better policing of corporate accounting. George W. Bush replaced him with Harvey Pitt, who promised a "kinder and gentler" S.E.C. And even after Enron, the Bush administration steadfastly opposed any significant accounting reforms. For example, it rejected calls from the likes of Warren Buffett to require deduction of the cost of executive stock options from reported profits. But Mr. Bush and Mr. Pitt say they’re outraged about WorldCom. Representative Michael Oxley, the Republican chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, played a key role in passing a 1995 law (over Mr. Clinton's veto) which, by blocking investor lawsuits, may have opened the door for a wave of corporate crime. More recently, when Merrill Lynch admitted having pushed stocks that its analysts privately considered worthless, Mr. Oxley was furious, not because the company had misled investors, but because it had agreed to pay a fine, possibly setting a precedent. But he also says he is outraged about WorldCom. Might this sudden outbreak of moral clarity have something to do with polls showing mounting public dismay over crooked corporations? THE FOXES ASSURING US THAT THEY’RE HOT ON THE TRAIL OF THOSE MISSING CHICKENS The president's supposed anger was particularly hard to take seriously. As Chuck Lewis of the non-partisan Centre for Public Integrity delicately put it, Mr. Bush "has more familiarity with troubled energy companies and accounting irregularities than any previous chief executive." Mr. Lewis was referring to the saga of Harken Energy, which now truly deserves a public airing. For, one of the techniques of corporate fraud, also favoured by Enron, is the fictitious asset sale. What you do is sell your old delivery van to XYZ Corporation for an outlandish price, and claim the capital gain as a profit. But the transaction’s a sham because XYZ Corporation is actually you under another name. Before investors figure this out, however, you can sell a lot of stock at artificially high prices. Now to the story of Harken Energy, as reported in The Wall Street Journal on March 4. In 1989 Mr. Bush was on the board of directors and audit committee of Harken, a position he’d acquired, along with a lot of company stock, when Harken paid $2 million for Spectrum 7, a tiny, money-losing energy company with large debts of which Mr. Bush was C.E.O. Explaining what it was buying, Harken's founder said, "His name was George Bush." Unfortunately, Harken was also losing money hand over fist. But in 1989 the company managed to hide most of those losses with the profits it reported from selling a subsidiary, Aloha Petroleum, at a high price. Who bought Aloha? Why, a group of Harken insiders, who also got most of the money for the purchase by borrowing from Harken itself! Eventually the Securities and Exchange Commission ruled that this was a phoney transaction, and forced the company to restate its 1989 earnings. But long before that ruling (though only a few weeks before bad news that could not be concealed caused Harken's shares to tumble) Mr. Bush sold off two-thirds of his stake, for $848,000. Just for the record, that's about four times bigger than the sale that has Martha Stewart in hot water. Oddly, though the law requires prompt disclosure of insider sales, he neglected to inform the S.E.C. about this transaction until 34 weeks had passed. An internal S.E.C. memorandum concluded he’d broken the law, but no charges were filed. Everyone insists it had nothing to do with the fact that his father was president. Given this history, plus an equally interesting history involving Dick Cheney's tenure as C.E.O. of Halliburton, you could say that this administration is uniquely well qualified to chase after corporate evil-doers. Both the American president and vice president have firsthand experience of the subject. And should some cynic suggest that Mr. Bush's new anger over corporate fraud is less than sincere, I know how his spokesmen will react. They'll be outraged. PAUL KRUGMAN / New York Times UP! SCENTING THE DINOSAUR IN HIS LAIRS New AI software might help journalists sort through reams of government documents in minutes to detect government corruption. Online Journalism Review, July 2, 2002 http://www.kurzweilai.net/news/frame.html?main=/news/news_single.html?id%3D1089 UP! london SAT JULY 13 Royal Festival Hall Beach. Spectrum performing live again by popular demand. Sounds by Nasca and some. Visuals to make your eyes water. Bring : things to drink, eat, roast on the fire; friends, sound and lights to shine. 8pm (lowtide is at 11pm) www.swarming.org.uk UP! “The Art of War, then, like that of business, has been to make itself as smooth and efficient as possible, as silently and secretly sustained an affair as the explosive, unpredictable nature of the work itself will allow. The ultimate war-machine, mili-medical-industrial complex (established in '47 and consolidated in '63), is designed to "serve" man in precisely the manner which MacDonald’s has been "serving" cows! All the unpleasantness is under the counter. War itself - as commodity - must be rendered as appealing as any other "product," not only to be propagated and disseminated to the populace, but to be advertised and glorified until it is coveted and consumed willingly, hungrily, as if it were manna from heaven itself, and not poisoned rain from polluted sky. Above all, it must be made to seem an intrinsic - however undesirable and inexplicable - feature of existence: an indispensable element of human nature. Thus war becomes not a single condition but the primary nature of life, and of mankind, be it ever a state of fear and loathing, empty of growth but full of decay, all of savagery and none of noblesse. " Jason Wynd UP! kentucky, usa SMALL TOWN AMERICA TARGETS GLOW STICKS Despite the ruling banning DEA officials, on civil rights grounds, from regarding glow sticks as evidence of drug use, Kentucky cops are treating glow sticks, bottled water and rave toys as “sure signs of ecstasy use” according to a report in this week’s Kentucky New Era. “This ecstasy is more of a party-style drug, it gives a lot of energy,” said Cheyenne Albro, director of the Pennyrile Narcotics Task Force, who also told the paper that the presence of glow sticks could indicate the site of “so-called rave parties”, where he claimed “promoters could also be providing bottled water so patrons can fight off dehydration… “This drug could actually fry your brain.” http://www.kentuckynewera.com [from skrufff.com] UP! Please remove me from the HipList I don't get time to read this weekly Monthly I could try but they’s pilin' up and I need a break! stuart wilson / paris UP! los angeles SAT JULY20 MOBIUS + FREAKY CHAKRA LIVE Presented by Whump Sound. PLUS Daniel, Trichome, Loki, Jester Wyse. Lounge & SuperChill room Full WHUMP Surround Sound. $15, $1 waters, full bar. 209 S. Garey Street. downtown LA. UP! israel SPREADING THE SECRET DID U KNOW that most Israelis are fed up with the occupation, and just want to get out?! Wonder why not!
(Mina Zemach, Israel's foremost pollster, in June) The Peace Index of Tel-Aviv University's Tami Steinmitz Centre found that 65% of Israelis "are prepared to evacuate the settlements under a unilateral separation program". A poll commissioned by Peace Now a month ago revealed that 59% of Israelis support immediate evacuation of most settlements, followed by a unilateral withdrawal of the army from the occupied territories. And here's another "secret" revealed by Mina Zemach: 60% of Israelis believe that Israel should agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state as part of a peace agreement. NOT ALL GOOD NEWS But here are a few more findings by Mina Zemach:
"Similar trends appear on the Palestinian side in surveys conducted by my Palestinian colleagues. Both sides want their leaders to be very aggressive, but most are willing to have a peaceful, two-state solution." MIS-PERCEPTIONS AND MANIPULATIONS 1. Most Israelis are unaware that the majority want the occupation to go away. When a Tel-Aviv University class was asked what opinion was most common among Israelis, they guessed “DISMANTLE MOST" or "DISMANTLE ONLY A FEW" of the settlements.The truth is that "DISMANTLE ALL THE SETTLEMENTS" was most commonly chosen! These students guessed that the Israeli public was much more pro-settlement than it actually is. Most people feel this way. 2. The government gets away with ignoring this information. "This has been and still is one of the great mysteries: How is it there’s no political statement of the fact that most of the Israeli public is in favour of evacuating the settlements?" Hannah Kim in yesterday's Ha'aretz WHY AND HOW? A - It's not unusual for policymakers to ignore majority views, and it's our job to get them to sit up and notice. B - "Our main source of information about what people think, feel or believe is the mass media, which portray the Israeli people as much more pro-settlements than they really are." Ron HaCohen. C - The power of the settlements is a combination of their integration into the Israeli economy and the effectiveness of their Knesset lobby. This fits into what is generally known about the power of small, but determined lobbies on many issues and in many countries. D - The determination of the Sharon government to play deaf to this view. When asked about abandoning even remote, isolated settlements, Sharon sidesteps the question. When pressed, he recently responded that Netzarim - the Gaza settlement that everyone loves to hate - is as dear to his heart as Tel Aviv. In other words, not a single settlement is negotiable. Gila Svirsky / Jerusalem UP! israel SIXTY MILLION DOLLARS FOR ISRAELI-ORIENTED BIOTECH FUND WOT FOR?! 05/12/2002 The Compagnie Financiere Edmond de Rothschild, of the Rothschild banking group, and the Pasteur Institute are wrapping up a $60 million financing round for biotechnology investments. The fund, BioDiscovery 2, will target both European and Israeli biotechnology endeavours. The first BioDiscovery fund had also invested in three Israeli firms. Institute in Paris together with Dr Christian Policard. http://www.thestreet.com/tech/themarker/10021983.html UP! FREEDOM TO ETHNICALLY CLEANSE
After fewer than 18 months in office, there can't be many things left that the Bush Administration could do to provoke incredulousness among the rest of the world's 190+ countries. But every time their allies and detractors alike think our Simpleton-in-Chief, and the zealots he has surrounded himself with, cannot possibly sink any lower, they go and outdo themselves. And they've just gone and done it again.BEACON OF FREEDOM SWAGGERS ACROSS WORLD STAGE Geov Parrish, WorkingForChange UP! CULT OF THE DEAD COW HACKTIVISTS TO RELEASE SOFTWARE PROTECTION AGAINST SPOOKS An international group of "hacktivists" says it’s about to release a computer program designed to let political dissidents communicate via the internet without fear of government snooping. Hacktivismo, an international group of programmers and activists sponsored by US computer hacker group Cult of the Dead Cow, says the program, named Camera/Shy, will make it simple to bury encrypted information in innocuous-looking images that can then be shared over the internet. Those with the same program will then be able to automatically detect and extract concealed information. Anyone monitoring the internet for subversive activity will only see apparently ordinary images. Hacktivismo says Camera/Shy will also use encryption, suggesting keys will be needed to reveal secret information in full. Founder Hacktivismo member, Oxblood Ruffin says: "Although not all of us are Americans, we share the fundamental ideals of the Constitution of the United States, especially freedom of speech. Camera/Shy is a small first step in sharing that privilege." KEEPING QUIET A technology called steganography allows data to be embedded in the digital information comprising an image file. This is accomplished by altering relatively unimportant bits so that the changed image remains identical to the naked eye. The information is concealed using a key. While it may be possible to detect that an image has been modified to contain information, without the key it is impossible to extract that information. Hacktivismo says Camera/Shy has been designed for "non-technical users" and will be similar to any normal internet browser. But it will automatically scan web pages for images containing steganographic data. The program has been designed to work with any Microsoft operating system running Internet Explorer 5 or later. It should also leave no trace of browsing activity on a user's computer. Peter Honeyman, an expert in image steganography at the University of Michigan, says steganography offers an alternative to encryption. The latter also keeps the contents of a message private, but does not try to hide its existence. "If you want the contents of a message to be private, you just use cryptography," he says. "If you want the container of a message to also be unknown you use steganography." He also points out that existing steganography cannot be completely undetectable and adds that the key used to hide messages in images can be revealed with brute force computing power. But he adds that communications could be made more secure by creating images that appear to contain steganographic data, but which in fact contain no information. Camera/Shy will be released at the computer security convention H2K2 in New York City, on July 13. Cult of the Dead Cow has already previewed another program designed to beat government surveillance, called Peek-a-booty. Will Knight / NewScientist.com's news service U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U UP P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P the UP! //:-) la - la - la - lap-toppling da system! TEXT JOCKEY // TJ PHRASER (fraser clark) cyberslut // TJ PHRASER & THE MEDIA EVOLUTION MIXING THE TRACTS LIVE ON THE KEYBOARD @ A MEDIA-MEME RATE OF 160 IPP * * Ideas Per Paragraph U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U UP P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P FEATURING exclusive rewrites re-takes & re-productions of da freshest deepest hacks ancient and modern, SAMPLES from media & mentalities all over, & bubbling up from da public DNA herself! U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U UP P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U UP P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P (\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)
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