Monthly Archives: August 2006

Categorizing people 1

This entry was posted in culture middle east politics on by

There have been some interesting comments on my previous post on Arab Jews. I am by no means a scholar on Middle Eastern history and never meant to imply that. Having said that I think that my knowledge of the region, it’s people and culture surpasses that of most Americans. My post was not meant to be a definitive answer on the subject in any way. In fact it was a fairly simplistic response to a very complex question. I think it was generally accurate as far as it went, but it was definitely not comprehensive. Rather than continuing to pursue the original question, I want to attack it from a different direction.

Why do humans insist on categorizing and dividing everyone? When humans had to catch their food in order to survive and they were under constant threat of either starving or being eaten, it may have made sense to to divide the world in to things that were good to eat and things that you want to avoid. But in the 21st century, it is no longer necessary. We need to stop putting labels on everyone and dividing people into “US” and “THEM”. We are all humans. We all need to learn to live together and stop finding ways to divide ourselves. The reason the original question was so difficult to answer was because with 6.5 billion people on the planet, and endless variations of religions and cultures, you could divide the population into as many categories as there are people. But all this does is drive us all apart instead of pulling us together. In order for our species to survive beyond the next few decades, we need to work together to find solutions to our problems.

Instead of trying to define everyone with labels, we need to move beyond labels. We need to stop being black, white, muslim, jew, christian, hindu and countless other labels. We need to become just humans. We need to stop killing each other because we have different beliefs. Rather the day to day survival of each person as an individual, we face the threat of making this planet uninhabitable to all of us as a species. We potentially face our extinction. In light of some of the things that humans have done in the past, it might be debatable whether we even should survive. But if we are going to survive we need to refocus, and start thinking of ourselves as part of the human family. We are all individuals and we all have our unique personalities. This is a good thing. However, we also all have a lot in common. Let’s forget the labels. It doesn’t matter any more.

If the facts do not conform to the theory they must be disposed of…

This entry was posted in politics on by (updated 6457 days ago)

So according to Mlive.com the three Palestinian born men who were arrested in Caro, MI last week for buying too many cell phones don’t seem to have done anything wrong. Federal officials are not filing any charges because the three broke no laws and had no connection to any terrorist groups. Tuscola county prosecutor Mark Reene is so far refusing to comment and is pressing ahead with the case. I’m guessing that this is a case of a rural prosecutor pursueing a high profile case with an eye on some higher elective or appointed office in future. The actual facts of the case are clearly irrelevant. Guess what Reene’s party affiliation is? I’ll give you a hint, he’s not a democrat. This guy is trying to railroad these guys for political reasons.

Wed Aug 16 Update: The County Prosecutor Mark Reene has agreed to drop the terror related charges now that the US Attorney has trumped up some federal charges for these guys. The charges are not however in any way terrorism related. They are now being charged with conspiracy to defraud consumers with counterfeit goods and intent to promote the carrying on of a specific unlawful activity, and in this case the activity is conducting financial transactions involving the proceeds from counterfeit goods. I’m not sure how they paln to prove this one. The guys are buying and selling cell phones. They paid cash for the phones, reprogrammed them and re-sold them. The only thing you can really accuse them of is bypassing a flawed business model on the part of cellular service providers. The phone companies may not like that but I don’t see any wrong or illegal about it. I suspect that they will hold these guys in custody for a few weeks until this all blows over, and then they will quietly drop the charges and let these guys go. Sounds to me like the Detroit US Attorney is just providing a face saving out for this over-zealous prosecutor.

Adios Wonderland

This entry was posted in this and that on by (updated 6450 days ago)

Here is what is left of Wonderland Mall in Livonia. wonderland mall demolition Except for the Target store that remains open the last store in the mall itself closed 3 years ago and the place has sat empty ever since.

Blowing up a bridge with 1000 cell phones? 8

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So how do you blow up a bridge with 1000 cell phones? You don’t. Police in Caro, MI arrested three Palestinian born men last week after they bought a whole bunch of Tracfone prepaid cell phones last week. When they were stopped they had about 1000 cell phones in the minivan they were riding in. Someone at the Wal-mart where they bought some of the phones called the police (Yet another reason never to shop at Wal-mart) after they bought several phones. The police and local prosecutor decided they were “soliciting and providing material support for terrorism” which is idiotic. These guys were buying the phones to make a quick buck. Prepaid cell phone providers are notorious for the way they gouge customers. They sell phones at dirt cheap prices with an initial allotment of minutes. The initial price is way below the price that a new phone costs buy itself. Tracfone sells phones for as little as $20. If you tried to buy the same $20 phone without a service contract it would cost you $100-$150. They also make the minutes expire after 30-60 days depending on how many you buy and Tracfone in particular sells air-time minutes at quite high prices.

The same situation applies for if you have a regular monthly contract rather than prepaid service. If you phone gets lost, stolen or broken before your contract is up you have to pay the full unsubsidized price for another one. That’s why when we upgrade phones in our family, I always keep one of our old phones around just in case. If one gets lost of broken out of warranty, I can just activate an old one. To try to prevent people from buying the cheap phones and then activating it on another service the providers lock the phone to their service in the phone software. In order to make it economically viable to provide phones to different providers and make them compatible with networks the manufacturers make the locks in the phone software not the hardware. One thing to remember is that any hardware that you can get physical access to can be hacked. So enterprising people have figured out how to unlock the phones so that they can be activated on any service provider. You can buy these $20 phones unlock them and sell them to people for $40-50. If you have 1000 phones thats $20,000 or very easy profit. The only evidence they apparently have against these guys is that they are of Middle Eastern descent, and they shopped at Wal-mart. These guys will probably be held without bail for months, and then convinced to plead guilty to some lesser charges even though they have probably done nothing illegal.

This is the security that the bush administration is providing. As I have said in previous posts I think that this is getting blown up for political purposes, and we will be seeing many more of these in the coming weeks and months leading up to the fifth anniversary of 9/11 and the mid-term elections in November. Karl Rove and his crew will be playing this up as much as they can. Don’t listen to them. As before this is all bullshit.

Just because your paranoid, it doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you 2

This entry was posted in constitution politics war on by (updated 6460 days ago)

If your read my previous Bullshit post, or other posts you might get the impression that I’m paranoid or a conspiracy theorist. Nothing could be further from the truth. I just look around me at what is happening and what people say and come to my own opinions. Based on the “truthiness” record of anyone associated with Bush administration and real story that ultimately comes out after their highly touted terrorism “victories” I think anyone paying attention would be foolish not to be highly skeptical of anything that they say. Remember the Miami terror cell a few months ago?, the Tonawanda 6?, Jose Padilla?, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi? All of these were huge stories when they broke. But every one them also turned out to be much ado about nothing. The guys in Miami were a bunch of losers trying to hatch some plot, and they weren’t even Muslims. Padilla never actually did anything. Same with the guys from Tonawanda. And the violence in Iraq has only gotten worse since Zarqawi’s death. After each one of these instances, the media followed the Bush line and made a huge deal about important the bust was. However, once it became clear that there was nothing of importance in each case, the story was forgotten by the major media.

Now this morning, I saw on AmericaBlog that NBC is reporting that a senior British official is now acknowledging that no attack was imminent. This runs contrary to the words of Bush, Cheney, Lieberman et al, a few days ago. Evidently the suspects had not yet even purchased airline tickets, and most of them didn’t have passports. The White House obviously denies this:

“There was unprecedented cooperation and coordination between the U.S., the U.K. and Pakistani officials throughout the case,” said Frances Townsend, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, “and we worked together to protect our citizens from harm while ensuring that we gathered as much info as possible to bring the plotters to justice. There was no disagreement between U.S. and U.K. officials.”

I believe that in this case “unprecedented cooperation” means that we need to scare the people in the wake of Lieberman’s loss, and the British went along with it. The only hope the Republicans have of maintaining there majority in congress is to convince enough ignorant people this year that only they can protect them from the terrorists. But if people actually look at what has been claimed versus reality, they will see that not only can the Republicans not protect America, but they have utterly mis-managed everything they have touched in the past six years. Assuming that there even was a real plot (and I’m skeptical of that) I think that is more likely something along the lines of this cartoon Liquid bomb plot I saw yesterday on BoingBoing. We have a government that seems to be so set on keeping the nation in a constant state of fear and war (see 1984 for the rationale), that Al-Qaeda doesn’t have to actually do anything. They just have to plant some “plots” so they are found, and wait for the government to destroy democracy and freedom from within. I believe the ones out to get us and destroy are civilization are not the Islamo-Fascists, but the Christian-Fascists sitting amongst us.

It is time to ignore the warnings from the White House, and start working to bring into office people who actually believe in our Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Bullshit 5

This entry was posted in constitution politics war on by (updated 6462 days ago)

I think this whole “foiled bombing plot” in London is bullshit. I think that it is not coincidental that this happened just days after Joe Lieberman’s primary defeat and Tony Blair’s visit to shrub last week. The I think that this going to turn out to be like all the other losers that they have busted in the last few years, the guys in Miami a few months ago, the Tonawanda Six and Jose Padilla. Every few months they bust some losers who have no real chance of being able to defend themselves against the power of the federal government. The bush crew want to keep everyone scared. They do do this so that they can ram through their demolition of freedom. Now they want people to afraid of everyone carrying a bottle of water and an ipod or cell phone. Dave Winer points to an excellent summary of what this is all about from Ze Frank. The video is less than 2 minutes long.

I say if you’re going to be afraid forget about Al Queda and be afraid of George Bush and his crew. This is only going to get a lot worse between now and the November elections. The Republicans are terrified that they are going to lose big in the house and senate this year because they have done nothing good in power. The only way that they think they can win again is to keep the American people afraid of their own shadows. Don’t believe anything that this government says. They have proved conclusively in the past 5 years that they cannot be trusted.

update: Doc Searls has a partial transcription of the Ze Frank video

The strategy of terrorism is to use isolated acts of violence to instill fear and confusion into the population at large. A small number of people can incapacitate a society by leveraging our inability to understand risk.
London’s police deputy commissioner Paul Stevenson said that the plot was “intended to be mass murder on an unimaginable scale.” No, it is imaginable: between three and ten flights out of thousands would have resulted in the terrible loss of human life.
Bush today said this country is safer today than it was prior to 9/11. Personally, I don’t think he knows. Whether we like it or not, terrorist attacks on Americans are now part of the global reality. They will continue to happen. Many places around the globe have had to deal with a similar reality for years. India, Ireland, England, Spain, Russia, to name a few. In many cases, these societies have pulled together and not allowed isolated acts of violence to tear at their fiber. Like disease and the forces of nature, it’s a risk that we have to rationally come to terms with. The government’s responsibility is to make sure that fear and terror are not disproportionate to the reality of the situation.
Today the President said, “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.” Generalized statements like this which instill nebulous fear without specific information are exactly in line with the goals of terrorism.

I’m just glad I don’t have to travel anywhere right now. I don’t want to fly because of fear, because I am not afraid of terrorists. The TSA and airlines have just made flying such a miserable experience that it is more hassle than it is worth.

Baseball stats are not intellectual property

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For the past couple of years Major League baseball has been fighting a legal battle with a company called CBC Distribution over baseball statistics. MLB has been claiming that the statistics of the players in baseball games has been their intellectual property. This idea is ludicrous on the face of it. MLB did not create anything new with these statistics. Any observer of a ball game can record what they see. They are recording their observations of a public event. For an organization like MLB to lay claim to these observations is like the owner of a beach front hotel claiming copyright on a guests description of a sunset on that beach.

CBC distribution is a company that has been compiling and selling baseball statistics to to people running fantasy baseball leagues. While I have no interest in either baseball or fantasy sports leagues, I think that this whole case has been another case of a big business abusing the intellectual property system. As I have explained before the whole premise of the copyright system is to allow the creators of new or derivative works to have a monopoly on profiting from those works for a limited period of time. This is perfectly reasonable. When someone writes a book or or creates a piece of music, they should have an opportunity to profit from it. When a baseball game is played, and someone records who got hits or made errors, MLB should not have a copyright on that information.

This week U.S. District Court Judge Mary Ann Medler in St. Louis issued a 49-page summary judgment that dealt a blow against abuse of the copyright system. She ruled that “Baseball and its players have no right to prevent the use of names and playing records”. Hopefully other abusers will see this ruling and realize that they cannot control everything. It is good to see that a judge has exhibited some common sense in an important case like this, and ruled accordingly.

Ypsi Mayor 8

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The 2006 Ypsilanti Mayoral election is now effectively over. Since there is no Republican candidate, the winner of the Democratic primary is effectively the new mayor. I have a few suggestions for the candidates.

To Mr. Schrieber:

Please don’t wait until November to get you 2020 committee going. Do it now! Ypsilanti can’t wait. Even though you think it is pointless don’t ignore the idea of regional cooperation. The city and the township need each other, now more than ever. Pursue the idea please. Bring in Mrs. Richardson and Mr. Pierce and ask them to work with you to help solve the problems. Encourage them to be involved in solving the city’s problems. Maybe even include them in your 2020 committee. They are both committed to helping the city. Take advantage of the opportunity to create unity in the city. Also it is time for you to disavow the actions of some your supporters during the preceding campaign. Finally, cutting into food lines at fund raisers is rude. Don’t do it anymore.

To Mr. Pierce:

Please continue your work to make Ypsilanti a better place. Please stay involved, particularly in the Google effort. I know you are committed to the city, and if Mr. Schrieber does ask you to participate in the revival I hope you will take up the opportunity.

To Mrs Richardson:

I hope you will also stay involved in the city revival efforts. I hope you will continue to push for some good retail in Water Street particularly a grocery store. If Mr. Schrieber asks you participate in his efforts please step up to the plate. And don’t forget the chickens.

The campaign was hard fought and now it is time for all the people of the area to work together to solve the problems.

Arab Jews? 7

This entry was posted in middle east politics on by

Last night Jules asked me a very interesting question. She had gone out to breakfast yesterday with a friend and the question came up of “Is there such a thing as Arab Jews?” There is not a clear cut answer to this question. I am not by any stretch an authority but based on my heritage and readings I will attempt to provide some insight to the question. Keep in mind that my answers are not to be considered definitive and if you’re interested I would suggest reading more about the history of the region. The answer depends on the direction you approach the question from. From the racial perspective, all the people of the middle east region are considered semitic peoples. Within that however, in various there are various sub-groups. In the geographic region that comprises Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Israel/Palestine (and to some degree northern Egypt) most of the people are actually descendants of the semitic people who have lived in the region for several millenia, and also the Greeks and Romans who conquered and occupied the region in the centuries after Alexander the Great. Further to the south in the Arabian Peninsula most of the people are more “purely” native. Over the centuries many of the people migrated to Europe and became what are considered European Jews but they are still largely descended from those people. Strictly speaking from a racial viewpoint there is no real distinction between “Arabs” and “Jews”.

The people that today are known as Arabs and Jews are historically the same people. The differences such as they are today more cultural and ethnic, than genetic. The idea of an Arab-Jew is somewhat analogous to a French-German or a Greek-Italian. They are people who live adjacent to each other but are separated by cultural, linguistic and religious differences. The people who are considered Arabs live in countries that speak Arabic. Beyond that there are many groups in the Arab world that have as many differences as commonalities. There are “Arab” countries stretching from Iraq and Lebanon in the east and north to Morocco and Algeria in the west. Within these countries probably the majority would count themselves as Muslims. To varying degrees in the different countries a large proportion of those would be considered secular in that they may not go to the mosque all the time and pray 5 times a day. There are also branches of Islam, most notably Sunni and Shiite and to lesser degrees other groups. In certain areas, particularly to the east in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Iraq there are substantial numbers of Christians as well. And of course there are also groups of Jews in each of these countries. Clearly the populations of Arabic speaking nations are not a homogeneous group either in terms of religion, or culture.

Those who are typically thought of as Jews typically speak Hebrew, and believe in Judaism in some form. However, as with the Arabs, the Jews are a very diverse group. Because many of the Jews left Palestine in the first couple of centuries CE following the Roman suppression of the rebellions, there was a fairly large Jewish diaspora. As a result, when many of their descendants returned to Israel in the latter half of the twentieth century, they brought many cultures, languages and sects of Judaism with them. There are Jews from Russia, Europe, America, and Africa who all have differences. In Israel today there is a very diverse population including Israeli Arabs. Israeli Arabs are people who lived in Palestine and there descendants who stayed after 1948. They were granted Israeli citizenship but culturally they are Arabs.

Israel is a Jewish state but not all it’s citizens are Jews. Similarly, there are Jews in Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and other countries. Israeli-Arabs often speak Hebrew (as well as Arabic) as a necessity of life in the society. Jews in the Arab countries also typically would speak Arabic as well as Hebrew and would citizens of Jordan, Syria, etc. So what you would have is Jordanian-Jews, Lebanese-Jews etc. So I guess the answer to the question is that there aren’t Arab-Jews but there are Jews living in Arab countries, just as there are Arabs living the Jewish country. Altogether a long-winded and possibly not entirely satisfying answer to a complex question. Hopefully though, it can provide a little bit insight into the people and culture of the region.