Google Reader, Google Mail, Orkut, Google Notes, Google Earth, Google Homepage. It's like my boss said "How soon before we turn into Google Zombies?"

SEEEEEEAAAAARRRRRCCCCCHHHHH

The shear volume of data that google can mine about an individual is truly scary. I still like google reader though.

Sadly, this is not filed under 'perversion', 'roleplay', and 'cop an robber scenes', but instead is filed under 'politics'. The Chief of Police in Calgary has obtained a civil court order to confiscate a computer running a website that is critical of the Calgary Police Service. What was on the site? According to the CBC:

Messages on the site said it spoke for officers who had suffered under Beaton's "corrupt" administration.

It stated: "We are the police, the communications officers, the administration staff and other police service members and employees that either have been the victims of tyranny, politics, harassment, bullying, racism, constructive termination, etc., or we know someone who has."

Wow, thats pretty damning, hey? So the response to this is to get the chief of police to get a gag order, and confiscate the website? Say what now? And what do our aldermen have to say about this?

However, Ald. Craig Burrows, who sits on the police commission, says Beaton acted properly.

"I think any time you go after the morale of a service or the morale of a city that takes pride in its service, the chief has a right to act," Burrows said.

Fuck You! It is called freedom of speech. If you don't like what someone has to say, you don't fix the problem by strong arming people with the law. that is what totalitarian regimes do. You fix the problem by A) removing the source of the criticism, and/or B) by proving that the criticism is unfounded through word and deed. This of course, does neither. In fact, it is a public relations disaster really. What it says to me is that police chief Beaton is quite likely corrupt, and so is Craig Burrows, and they cannot handle the criticism, so they do everything in their power to remove it. Now this is not necessarily the case. However that is the first thing that comes to my mind when I read stuff like this.

Another thing. Fuck the "you are either with us, or against us" rhetoric that is going on these days. Seriously.

U.S producers are buying up cheap Canadian cattle, while lobbying to keep the border closed. Just how the fuck does that work? And we're supposed to be Trade partners? Maybe conspiracy theroys about the Mad Cow's owner being American arn't too far off...?

Journalists are Terrorists?

I was locked in a cell behind a thick glass wall and a heavy door. No bed, no chair, only two steel benches about a foot wide. There was a toilet in full view of anyone passing by, and of the video camera watching my every move. No pillow or blanket. A permanent fluorescent light and television in one corner of the ceiling. It stayed on all night, tuned into a shopping channel.

Is that any way to treat someone for a minor violation of a 52 yearold Immigration law?

Half of the worlds larget economic entities are corporations. "I for one, cannot wait till we submit to our new corporate masters, General Motors." Says an unidentified Dane.

I have seen the Beheading video. It was particularly grizzly. Shell said it seemed fake, and I thought that she might have a point, but I felt it was probably real. I mean, have wee seen anyone beheaded before?

The interesting thing is, that I just took it at face value, and thought to myself "oh, now that Al Quida is involved in the Iraqi (already been won) war, things are only going to get messier." I just assumed that the video was real, and that the masked men were Arabs, and that the victim was alive, and then dead.

Maybe Not. Yes that link is a little Get-my-tin-foil-hat-on, but there are questions that are raised. Interesting questions. This is not the only article that is questioning the validity of the video either, there are more. The thing is, lots of people are discussing it, but a lot of the discussion seems rather stilted. In fact, a lot of the discussion on the War on Terra is fucked.

There is a tendency to Dichotomize (is that a word?) the issue. "If you are not with us, you are against us." someone once said. This is very scary. Certainly the Pro-War fanatics are like this. But even the other wide can get like this. What is wrong with saying "Hey, you know, this beheading doesn't quite add up? what is going on here?" or "hey, maybe, just maybe the reams and reams of video, and photos taken at Abu Ghraib are a little much, and maybe there is something to Copper Green?" without having an agenda? Why is it that using Occams razor makes you an appologist? Why is it that even questioning these things instantly lands you in the "conspiracy theorist" jail?

It's not like the United States government is beyond such things. There were the CIA experiments with LSD. There are instances of government conspiracies. It isn't that far off the mark. But the second you use the dirty "c" word, bam! Crackpottery!

Between GMail (which I won't talk about) and the RSSness(which I will), Google is starting to make some interesting waves

Certainly, what I have to say is stuff that has been covered before...

And in One corner its Dave Winer, where he tests all kind of new stuff and in the other corner it's Evan Williams, Evhead is Blogging this.

My opinion? I dunno if it really matters, after all, I am just some guy in Calgary, who only recently started blogging. I don't work at MIT or Google.

I don't think it's as tinfoil hattish as some bloggers make it out to be, but If I were an advocate of a format (like RSS ferinstance) and saw that Google was ignoring my perfectly good format, I'd be left pissed and wondering. Lets face it, Google does have something of a monopoly on geek minds. Its probably well deserved, they built a hellava search engine. (Alta-who?)

On the other hand, no one at Google (who knows anything) has told me why they made this choice, So I can't instantly assume that everything is OK, its just Google thrashing about with their bot on a few hundred thousand blogs. Nothing to worry about. (I mean it's Google, right? they wouldn't do anything evil!)

But then, I am not in a hurry to put on the tin foil hat. (Which might just be a first.)

OK, ok, ok. Everyone who knows me, knows that sometimes I can start to put on the tinfoil hat, and rant like the rest of them.

But Jesus H. Fucking Christ... (or is that George Fucking W. Bush). Why does the National Reconnaissance Office need a Childrens Website?

I'll put Harmony in front of Boohbah the stragely Pill Shaped Ecstacy monsters over "Earth Watch" any freakin day of the week. Yikes.