August 2006 Archives

The US military plans to spend more taxpayer money in an effort to influence media coverage on Iraq. The Washington Post reports that the military command in Baghdad has issued a request for bid on a two-year, $20 million public relations contract.

Apparently the incumbent PR firm, the Rendon Group, isn't doing a good enough job.

There is a concern that existing media coverage does not adequately present the official perspective on events in the Middle East. And apparently Defense Secretary Rumsfeld is none too happy about that. As the statement of work asserts,

Therefore, it is essential to the success of the new Iraqi government and the Coalition mission that both communicate effectively with our strategic audiences (i.e., Iraqi, pan-Arabic, international, and U.S. audiences) to gain widespread acceptance of their core themes and messages.

The successful contractor will be tasked with providing

the full range of strategic communication, media relations, communication research, and public relations services required to meet Coalition mission, monitoring and reporting Arabic and Western print and electronic media, including gathering raw data, analyzing and reporting effectiveness of communication programs, developing and staffing communication plans, developing and providing public relations products, and identifying methods for applying products to improve MNF-I’s mission performance.

The services provided by the contractor(s) have a core objective…engage and inspire targeted audiences.

The project is expected to require a team of 12-18 PR professionals, who will monitor US and international news sources and develop "product placement" that supports the Bush administration's "core themes and messages" on Iraq. Product placement will include preparing press releases, developing talking points and FAQs, writing op eds for publication, providing media training to officers, etc.

The worse things get on the ground, the more the administration spends ramping up the propaganda machine. And with with that machine in full force, the specter of media intimidation and censorship cannot be far behind.

As the Washington Post reports,

The monitors are to analyze stories to determine the "dissemination of key themes and messages" along with whether the "tone" is positive, neutral or negative. The media outlets would be monitored for how they present coalition or anti-Iraqi force operations.

What will happen to those outlets who are perceived to be too negative in tone or not sufficiently appreciative of the administration's "core themes and messages"?

Weekends are fun!

Let's get the mail... 

Time to play...

And in news related to my prior post, Homeland Security's Chertoff defends the government's plans to snoop ever more closely on the personal communications of its citizens. He says that increased intelligence gathering and sharing doesn't equal less privacy.

As we have broadened information sharing, we have made sure that there are strict rules in effect...that prevent people from misusing that information or putting it out improperly [...] That's built into the DNA of this and all of our intelligence-sharing capabilities.

That's right... unrestrained and highly secret intelligence gathering programs by their very nature are respectful of citizen privacy. The same government that has accidental data breaches every other day is totally capable of respecting sensitive personal information.

And while we're at it let's throw in a few other nuggets from the Ministry of Truth: War is peace. Freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength.

A few weeks ago an AOL researcher mistakenly posted three months of search results for 658,000 users to the internet. While the data was not linked directly to user account, the 36 million search records contained very revealing details about AOL members' search habits and private obsessions.

The search queries themselves did, however, contain personally identifying information such as names and addresses and even, in some cases, social security and credit card numbers. Copies of that data are all over the internet and there is even a searchable database.

The Washington Post reports that the researcher, his supervisor and a higher ranking executive have now been terminated over the affair. The whole issue highlights just how much information is being accumulated about us without our realizing it, and how increasingly transparent our lives have become. What a brave new world we live in. Somewhere in cyberspace is a record not only of who we are, what we earn, our credit history and purchasing habits, but also now our innermost private thoughts, fears and desires.

Consider, for instance, the life of a couple in Baytown, Texas as intimately revealed in their AOL search history for March through May:

She has missed her period and realizes she is pregnant. She is 37 and concerned about the risk of multiple births.

He apparently is diabetic and has bipolar disorder. He likes to keep violent dogs in the house. He is cruel to her and the dogs, probably because of alcohol, methamphetamine and cocaine abuse.

As a born-again Christian she believes fasting and intercessory prayer may help her to obtain healing for her spouse. But is fasting safe with an unborn child? She already worries that her partner's history of drug abuse has harmed the fetus.

She has ideas about becoming an actress. She is looking into opening her own business, perhaps a grocery store and gas station franchise. They are planning to buy a new set of living room furniture, preferably beige.

She needs to start thinking about maternity clothing. He's more interested in finding naked pictures of Beyonce and other 'fine black girls'...

This is somebody's life laid bare... Does she know he searches the internet for girls while she's praying for his healing? Will she get an abortion? Will she leave him or stay? Does she know her life is exposed, even if anonymously, for all to read on the internet?

The data leakage by AOL is not really the problem, only a symptom of a far more complex issue. It's hard to comprehend where this connected world of information is taking us. According to Technology Evangelist,

The privacy violation was extraordinary, but I think the leak may have a positive side effect by helping web searchers understand just how much information search engines know about them. This may also help people understand why it's a big deal when the government asks search engines to hand over search records.

As a security professional I'm aware of the increasing value of 'open source' intelligence gathering. I'm also aware of the incredible potential today's data universe provides for creating a totalitarian society where 'total information awareness' is not just a bureacratic buzzword, but a reality. Whether we care or not, we are being watched.

Confounded by wall-of-separation rulings prohibiting sectarian religious displays in the public square, religious conservatives in Texas have turned to kitsch.

Is the object pictured on the right:

1. A toursit map?
2. A trashcan?
3. An ATM?
4. An outdoor grill?
5. A stone monument featuring a Bible lit up with a red neon sign?

You would be correct if you chose 5.

As noted by Street Prophets,

On August 15, 2006, a federal appeals court ruled that an open-faced Bible must be removed from the monument because a district judge changed the 50-year old monument from a secular monument into a religious one when he restored it (and uglified it by the addition of a neon light) around 10 years ago.

The "reasonable observer would conclude," the majority opinion stated, "that the monument, with the Bible outlined in red neon lighting, had evolved into a predominantly religious symbol."

This history would also force an objective observer to gag. No longer is neon just for flashy come-ons to a cheap motel, pool hall, dive bar, or Krispy Kreme "Fresh Hot Donuts" sign. This is how conservative Christian nationalism practiced today, Texas-style. It apparently includes idolatry and the glorification of kitsch in the name of Christ.

The Bible has indeed become an idol in the hands of Christian 'conservatives', especially those of a reconstructionist bent. They are those who believe that the ancient prescriptions of the Hebrew Torah should form the basis of civil law and government in this country. While hard core reconstructionists are few in number, their influence is widespread within the US religious right, and their idea of Christian 'dominion' has replaced the Rapture as the number one dangerous idea being promoted in evangelical circles these days.

Idolatry involves replacing the worship of God with the worship of objects, the elevation of religious (or commercial or political) artefacts to the realm of the sacred. It is the worship of an image, idea or object, as opposed to worshipping their Source. When one values the Bible more highly than the command of its presumed author to love one's neighbor as oneself, one is an idolator.

As noted by Jonathon Hutson in Talk to Action, it is hard not to view a monument such as the Texas neon bible without recalling the words of Leviticus 26:1: "Do not make idols or set up an image or a sacred stone for yourselves, and do not place a carved stone in your land to bow down before it. I am the LORD your God."

Perhaps the Levitical authors or redactors forgot to add the corrollary commandment: "Avoid ye especially those graven images flanked by neon, for these are reserved for harlots and gamblers." But then they had never been to Vegas.

Is George W. Bush an idiot?

It's easy to lampoon the man. But is he stupid?

You be the judge.

Interesting to see some conservatives are coming to their senses about Bush however, as with MSNBC's Joe Scarborough:

For the past six years George W. Bush has been the target of ridicule from liberal circles. But now, instead of laughing at Democrats’ ill-directed arrogance, Republicans are quietly joining the left in questioning the President’s intellectual prowess.

The biggest knock on Bush’s brain is his lack of intellectual curiosity. Former administration officials still close to the White House will tell you Mr. Bush detests dissent, embraces a narrow world view and is intellectually incurious.

Worse for this White House is the fact that George W. Bush has daily smackdowns with the English language and the English language usually wins.

I agree with some of the anlysts though. In my mind, being arrogant, obtuse and inarticulate does not make a person an idiot. Otherwise half the country (and 90% of our political leaders) would all be idiots, and the word would have no meaning.

Liar? Yes. He lied to the American people on God knows how many issues.

War criminal? Quite possibly. He authorized detention and torture of so-called 'terror' suspects without a shred of evidence and in contravention of the Geneva Convention.

Idiot? Highly unlikely in my humble opinion. An idiot (even with help from smart friends) could not have so successfully carried out the transformation of America from a freedom-loving democracy into an incipient totalitarian state. Yes, he had good help, but I don't believe the story that Bush is a fool.

I'm chuffed — I guess I've now had my five seconds of fame on the real Internet, i.e. somewhere other than this blog.

In the workaday world I'm a security director for an education company that, among other things, delivers IT certification exams. I was recently quoted in InfoWorld's Notes From The Field column on the issue of cheating in certification exams:

A few days after my blurb on the bogus certification site appeared, it was shut down by testing service Pearson VUE. Hotexam and its ilk are related to a Taiwan-based "braindumping" gang, four of whose members were arrested back in 2004, says Mark Poole, VUE security wonk.

Poole says anybody who signs up with one of these "no-study" cert services should have their skulls probed for signs of intelligent life. "Why would you give your personal information and credit card info to a scammer in China?" he asks. "Some people are so stupid it must hurt."

;-p 

In my American idols post I observed how busy the present Congress is going about its task of protecting America's constitutional freedom from the clear and present dangers posed by free speech, civil partnerships, progressive taxation, reproductive choice, living wages and an independent media. I noted that capturing Bin Laden and ending the 'war on terror' didn't seem to be too high on the priority list for a governing body so sated with this jihad against liberal values.

Ben, a commenter, said he's never thought of the war on terror in that way before. He went on to suggest:

If Bin Laden were to be captured, it is quite likely that 'war on terror' would no longer be politically feasible.

Such begs the question: If Bin Laden were to be captured, would it be a greater defeat for terrosim, or for those who use terrorism as an excuse to seek dominion over us all?

Indeed. Although I suspect things may transition as they do in Orwell's 1984. Yesterday's ally once again becomes tomorrow's enemy. If we are not at war with the Soviets or 'Islamic fascists' it will be some other bogeyman. For all eternity.

Is this perhaps what is really meant by the end of history?

I did not subscribe to Rick Santorum's campaign newsletter from Townhall.com. But they keep sending it to my work e-mail address anyway.

This issue: The Liberals Have Landed ... Can We Stop Them? Apparently the Democrat party has been taken over by, of all people... liberals! And little Ricky is just a poor persecuted minority battling valiantly to hold the barbarians at bay:

Believe me, it's not easy. Pennsylvania is a tough state where Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than half a million voters. This year, in my state, the liberals have set up camp and devoted an unprecedented amount of time and money to defeating me.

Those evil liberals. I just love the part at the bottom of each mail that says:

* This newsletter is never sent unsolicited. It was sent to you because you signed up to receive this newsletter on a Salem Web Network site.

I so did not sign up for it. It reminds me of the time I received a personally "signed" photograph of President Bush thanking me for my dedication as a grassroots Republican leader.

However, I don't think I'll unsubscribe just yet. Like another wingnut newsletter I receive regularly, it's providing me with hours of joyful reading and entertainment.

Just read the comment string on this tired old piece on the evils of marriage equality. Or how Mike Wallace and CBS television are now supposedly the official mouthpieces for the Islamic Republic of Iran. It's like reading the funny pages in the paper, only funnier. At least it would be funnier if humor was the actual intent rather than the unintended effect of hysterical paranoia.

I have to admit that I have fallen behind on my Bible reading. I think the two week experience of seminary in June was so much that it overcharged my sensors. I need to get back to it.

I've often heard the Bible referred to as the record of humanity's search for and experience of the Divine. I don't remember who it was that said they take the Bible way too seriously to take it literally, but that resonates for me as well.

I came across a blog today where a Presbyterian pastor describes an outline of a "metaphor for the Bible that progressive Christians can find credible." Here is an extract:

What approach, lens, angle of vision, or metaphor might we take toward the Bible [...] I consider the Bible to be the family history of our spiritual ancestors. It is a collection of the record of human experiences canonized by various family historians. Our family history gives us rooted-ness. We have a story. We have a past. Our ancestors do have wisdom. I believe that they caught a glimpse of the fire. If we are wise, humble, and courageous, we can see that fire as well. It is out of respect for our ancestors, our need for rooted-ness, and our need to listen to the wisdom of the ancients that we “open and read.”

As we discover the great diversity of our Christian past, we who are charged with adding to the family history for our descendants, will now be obligated to include these voices as well.

This reminds me of Jesus statement in John 14 that in his Father's house are many rooms (or mansions). 

Straight to Jesus: Sexual and Christian Conversions in the Ex-Gay Movement

by Tanya Erzen

I recently finished reading a remarkable book, Straight to Jesus: Sexual and Christian Conversions in the Ex-Gay Movement. Ethnographer Tanya Erzen spent a year with the men at New Hope, a residential ex-gay ministry program, researching the material for her doctoral dissertation (which eventually became the subject of this book).

Erzen describes how New Hope and other ex-gay ministries attempt to integrate spiritual and sexual identity through a process that resembles an ongoing (and often never completed) conversion experience — what she tantalizingly refers to as the ‘queer conversion experience’. The ex-gay movement is queer, according to Erzen, because it commonly accepts the queerness of its followers in the sense of knowing that many or most of them, while following Jesus, will not necessarily ‘become’ heterosexual. While a convert may ‘backslide’ or go into relapse, what matters most is public repentance and reaffirmation of commitment to Jesus.

The book is written with balance, compassion and a fair amount of humor, but also with a critical eye to the conversion claims made by ex-gay movement leaders and participants. She also traces the history of the movement anbd the various controversies that have surrounded it. This material is highly relevant in light of recent attempts by Exodus and NARTH to force the APA to reconsider its position on so-called 'reparative' or reorientation therapies.

I found this book very thought provoking. Tim Kincaid over at Ex-Gay Watch has also written a review. Highly recommended if you would like a non-polemical take on the ex-gay movement, or if you're interested in GLBT religious experience in general.

Not the Boy George I remember. Bending over, and not in a good way.

Terror Suspects Not Guilty, Wife Says

In the second such incident in three days, three young men of Arab descent have been arrested in Michigan on terrorist charges. They were stopped after purchasing 80 pre-paid cell-phones from a Wal-Mart, and found to have 1,000 of them in their minivan. The men were charged with collecting or providing materials for terrorist acts and surveillance of a vulnerable target for terrorist purposes.

In both cases the defendants claimed they had purchased the phones at various stores in order to resell them elsewhere for a profit.

"All we did is buy the phones to sell and make money," Louai Abdelhamied Othman told the magistrate. He said authorities had previously stopped the group in North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

"We've been checked by the FBI before," he said. "They even gave us their card and everything."

Authorities won't say exactly what the men were planning to do with the phones, or why possession of too many cell-phones is sufficient grounds to make an arrest. But county officials claim that cell-phones can be used as detonators for explosives and that the men arrested Saturday were perhaps planning to blow up a local bridge. Yet the news stories don't report any discovery of explosives, bomb making materials or other terrorist paraphernalia.

OK... so if these guys are terrorists, why are they planning to blow up a bridge nobody heard of? Why does Wal-Mart sell untraceable prepaid phones in large volumes in the first place? How many phones can you legally purchase before being accused of terrorist plotting? How many detonators would you need to blow up a bridge? Why would you keep them in your minivan? Where are all the explosives?

What disturbs me is that people can be arrested and detained in this country nowadays without committing a crime and without there being any shred of evidence that a crime has been committed or planned. All you need to do is be or look Arab and do something the authorities consider suspicious.

Is it just possible that the only common sense reason someone would purchase 1,000 phones is to resell them for a profit, just as the defendants claim? Perhaps these men are terrorists after all. Perhaps it's just a coincidence that so many dire terrorist plots by unconnected terror cells have been foiled on both sides of the Atlantic in the past week. Or perhaps we are simply descending to a new level of madness in this country. After all, there are elections in November.

Fred Clarkson at Talk to Action links to a provocative article posted at Media Transparency by Rev. Dr. Andrew Weaver on the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD). If you care about religious freedom or the state of democracy in this country I encourage you to read this real eye-opener. If there ever was a conspiracy in this country to undermine the American way of freedom, then the IRD and its cohorts are surely at the center of it.

Dr. Weaver, a United Methodist minister, reveals the influence of powerful neoconservative Catholics, led by Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, who drive the IRD agenda "to neutralize and overturn the social justice tradition of mainline Protestant churches". These aims are carried out through public attacks against mainline Christian and Jewish leaders, and through funding and support for so-called "renewal" groups within Protestant denominations whose fundamental purpose is to take over the leadership and assets of those denominations and eliminate their involvement in liberal and progressive causes.

As I noted in a prior post, the Star Tribune's resident neoconservative social commentator Katherine Kersten was (until very recently) a member of the IRD's Board of Advisors. Her views on every social and politcal issue — from environmentalism and immigration to same sex marriage and welfare — mirror exactly those of the IRD and its wealthy sponsors.

I don't normally subscribe to conspiracy theories, but today's news concerning the UK government thwarting a major terrorist plot follows uncannily on some interesting domestic political developments here in the US.

On Tuesday night, Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman lost the Democratic Senate primary to political newcomer Ned Lamont, a staunch opponent of the war in Iraq. The Washington Post referred to the campaign as "a referendum on the incumbent's support for the Iraq war and what opponents charged was his failure to challenge President Bush's war policies."

Then a CNN poll released yesterday reported that 60% of Americans now oppose the war in Iraq. 48% believe that the US will not win the war in Iraq, and 61% believe some or all US troops should be withdrawn from Iraq.

Yesterday I received an e-mail from the Christian Alliance for Progress, referring to both as signs of "an altered political landscape." Developments such as these mean that "both political parties are on notice that the country has had enough of the violence." The e-mail goes on to warn:

After last night you can count on there being a renewed attempt to bamboozle the American people by talking to us about anything but what we want to hear, which is namely  when the troops will be coming home.  We need your help to keep the nation's attention on what really matters.

What would such a "renewed attempt to bamboozle" look like? How would you detract the nation's attention? Raise the terror alert?

Interestingly (and by total coincidence) I sat down to watch the movie V for Vendetta last night. It's a futuristic political thriller in which a desperate UK government controlled by the religious right stages various security threats in order to bamboozle the populace into acquiescing to its increasingly militaristic and theocratic aspirations. The staged threats include a supposed terrorist attack on the London subway system.

So after yesterday's prediction it was quite shocking to wake up this morning to the latest news of newly thwarted terror attacks. Not many details yet, only the assurance that 24 unnamed suspects have been detained "only days away" from executing an alleged plot to blow up several airliners over the Atlantic. The suspects are apparently all British citizens, most of Pakistani descent.

President Bush refered to the arrests as "a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation."

Is the timing of these announcements to follow the latest domestic political developments merely coincidental? Expect to hear much carping from the political and religious right about how now is not the time to talk of withdrawing from Iraq. Expect even more aggressive conflation of the war against Al Qaida with the war in Iraq.

A friend forwarded an interesting piece from Friday's New York Times concerning the recent appointment of Rev. Alvin O'Neal Jackson as senior pastor of the Park Avenue Christian Church in Manhattan.