| AMERICAN DREAMS: I am puzzled, and in some cases mildly amused, by people who blatantly disregard some rule or break the law and then expect some high level of civility and/or concern for their bodily well-being when the "authorities" apprehend them. I'm not talking about criminals who clearly understand the consequences of their actions, like bank robbers or serial killers. I'm talking about the small minority (thankfully) in almost every society who suffer under the misconception that "public places" are magical zones where you can "do as you wish, go where you wish" and that arguments to the "authorities" that, "I am a private citizen in a public place" should hold great sway. NO DOGS ALLOWED, CELL PHONE USE PROHIBITED, TICKET HOLDER ONLY IN PAVILION AREA, ALL VEHICLES MUST STOP AT RANGER'S BOOTH BEFORE ENTERING THE PARK, AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY - these "orders" seem to be the proverbial "gauntlet of challenge" for these folks... ED CANTARELLA "Natural Law" More
DAY ONE: ...Over coffee and more corporate blather (you can always spot it, there are never any concrete nouns) I finally brought myself to ask our charming hosts what it was they thought their organisation had to offer us and whether they thought there was anything we had to offer them. It was clear from our treatment and the language used that the transaction was, intellectually, all one-way; that we knew nothing whereas this global corporation possessed vast knowledge and resources we lacked.... KEVIN CAREY "NAPSTER" More G21 NEWS: Back at the UNHCR offices, the radio came to life again and announced the safe arrival of another car. The heads of mission of the few aid organisations present in Nazran had gathered here to discuss the situation for relief work in Chechnya.
"This is the context we are operating in: The conflict is continuing, albeit low level, but unpredictable and with real risks to involve civilians as well as the few aid workers that actually enter the territory. There are ambushes of army columns, attacks of military positions and armed stand-offs occurring just about every day. Five incidents were reported yesterday alone, supposedly with dozens of casualties. Artillery and air attacks target suspected rebel concentrations but inevitably involve collateral damage. The Interfax news agency quoted the military as saying that Russian fixed-wing assault planes took to the air 16 times in the last 24 hours to blast rebel targets while army helicopters carried out 30 missions...." RENDT GORTER "Letters from Chechnya" More
DeFrancesco currently has two albums in stores, both securely stuck in the jazz racks. Each CD deserves the widest possible availability, for this 29-year-old from Philadelphia has the chops to become a major, major star. With nimble fingers spinning like a buzz saw, DeFrancesco delivers thrills and chills with the release, "Incredible!" (Concord Records) ... - BOB POWERS "Categorizing Music - UGH!" More
SUBJECT: Wrong, Hart-on! Editor: Tabby may be right to have a hart-on for Hills, but he coulda had the courtesy to get the alleged quote right. Hillary's vituperative ejaculation was, allegedly, "fucking Jew bastard" -- not just the garden variety slur, "Jew bastard." May a twister blow your palatial doublewide into the next unreconstructed state, Hart.
Bob P., AIM
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 IRISH EYES:
Who is Observing Whom?RICHARD O'MEARABrigadier General (Ret.) U.S. Army Reserve Judge Advocate General's Corps
Others suggest the amount spent on refurbishing and expanding surveillance towers and military/police bunkers, especially in the South Armagh area, is much higher. The security system rivals that of the former Soviet Union and Franco's Spain.
In South Armagh, a region of rolling green hills devoted to cattle farming and euphemistically referred to by British security forces as "bandit country" the British army and police sit perched in heavily armed tower barracks resembling the fire support bases utilized by American forces in Vietnam. There are no "warring tribes" to keep apart in this area since it is solidly nationalist and without any history of sectarianism. Despite the "peace", the British Government has undertaken significant construction in this area, securing each facility against a republican community that has been on cease-fire for over five years. Military patrols continue to sneak out of the towers into the fields and backyards of the citizens. To the most uneducated militarily, it is clear that the British believe they are at war.
We've Got GameMembers of the MOIA Discussion ListI decided to poll the members of the MOIA discussion list because of two topics that intrigued me: the passionate involvement of people interested in computer/Internet gaming and the promise of an increasing sophisticated VRML environment here on the Web. The response I received confirmed anecdotal observations. For example, list member Len Bullard wrote in: "....Notice that in games or worlds where the scene is outdoors (no occluding shapes) things slow down. Note how many games are played in levels or inside. In a typical model, right angles are everywhere and that enables rapid generation of regular shapes.
"Levels of Detail (LODs) are created to group geometry into shapes with less or more detail depending on the distance from which they are viewed. This speeds things up but costs memory as more objects have to be in RAM to be handled quickly. Other issues such as the amount of memory available for texuring is important. A texture can be prelit (drawn as if in the right light) thus saving comput[ing] power because dynamic lighting is an expensive operation. So, given the constaints of the scene (inside, outside, right angle walls), the language and the hardware, the rendering engine and content can be tuned for speed.....
Cobwebs & MistRADIO RAHEEM
Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolfman --- the classics of the horror genre --- I think I be one of them who has seen every damned version. I even checked out George Hamilton's "Love at First Bite" and I was all over "Interview with The Vampire," even if I didn't think they should of cast Tom Cruise as LeStadt. And let's not even go to Freddie Krueger from the "Nightmare on Elm Street" series, or "Halloween"-XXX or Jason or "Scream" (I and II). Phantasm? I seen all of that! Puppetmaster. Uh-uh! I can quote you chapter and verse on every Mummy movie ever been made. 
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Generating energy for the 21st Century. GENERATOR 21 A.K.A. G21
FEED THE HUNGRY. You can help someone else in this world and IT WON'T COST YOU A DIME. If you simply remember to drop by The Hunger Site every day that you surf and click a simple button ONE LESS PERSON WILL GO HUNGRY. The food is distributed by the United Nations World Food Programme and paid for through the sponsorship of companies that care. Do your part.
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(ROD AMIS asks why we even have political conventions in the United States anymore, except as corporate sponsored "Pork," in RDR; RENDT GORTER returns with another special dispatch from Chechnya in G21 NEWS --- and more, yes! more!)
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The north of Ireland remains a police state. Utilizing an extensive computer system, cameras perched on omnipresent helicopters and watchtowers, and a vast array of technological hardware designed to gather information about the most minute details of the private lives of its citizens in Northern Ireland, the British government spends, according to some accounts, at least $67,000,000 annually in maintenance and upgrade of its physical security plant.
You ever notice how we can't get us enough of some Dracula? I know I have, Homeboys and -girls. We just like scaring ourselves damned silly, don't we?