Obfuscated Thoughtlessness Inversed

Ok, I've been blogging for about a month now (the first post was November 8, 2006). It is time to look inward and discuss the blog itself.

In point form then:
-37 Posts in 30 days... topics range from a correct prediction that Stephane Dion would win before a single ballot was counted through to a list of free software to give to those you love and that's just this week.

-Created using the beta.blogger.com interface

-Hosted on my own server running FreeBSD and Apache. The site uses a default template from blogger-beta with my own PHP improvements.

-The advertisements are supplied by Google Adsense and have so far generated $8.44 with just 25 clicks (that works out to about: 34.7 cents per click). I am restricted by Google Adsense in a general way from encouraging you to click on the adds. However, if you like a product I'm sure the advertisers wouldn't mind if you took advantage of their advertising. Just don't do it repeatedly or you will get me in trouble, not make me rich. Yes the links to getting Firefox and the Google pack are paid ads. Doesn't mean I don't think you should get Firefox. It is way better than Internet Explorer (although version 7.0 is a vast improvement). I digress....

-morganisageek.org / morgan.is-a-geek.org has had 533 unique visitors since November 1, 2006. Also hosted on this server you will find: Ben Isitt | Our Paper | BC Info | MorganStewart.org | CUPE 374 | Pre-Register for the Canadian Do Not Call List | Hannah's Homes | Love Union Party | Get your firefox browser here and several other sites that are all logged separately. The average unique visitors to morgan.is-a-geek.org prior to this blog's existence was around 110 a month. The top pre-blog month was 226 unique visitors in January 2006. Robotic visits (ie. googlebot) have of course been exempted from this list.

-Visits have predominantly come from North America and Australia, however, there has been at least one visit from each of: United Kingdom, Argentina, Turkey, Netherlands, Mexico, Hungary, France, Croatia, Greece, India, Colombia, Brazil, Poland, Belarus, Singapore, Italy, Belgium, South Africa, Portugal, Hong Kong, Germany, Sweden and Japan.

-The photos on this blog have all come from scenes that either myself or my partner Andrea have been at in the last few years. However, many different people have contributed them including many family and friends. Some of the best photos come from Andrea's 5 year-old niece. They are generally recognizable by the angle. Don't copy the photos without permission.

-Photos are randomly selected each time you visit using a php script. Additionally, they are not available by search engine so don't go looking for the random photo you liked from a previous visit. You get what you got while your here.

-Posts appear to be mostly semi-political-mostly-obscure rants. I didn't know what I would put on here when I started it.. so you may find the content continues to change.

-The top referring sites include infoBC.info, the NDP Blog role, Brine Bubble, Paranoid Left-Wing Ranting and of course Google and Google's Blogsearch. Myspace and Friendster have also contributed a couple of hits. I'm not sure why Progressive Bloggers haven't added this blog to their blog roll yet, but I look forward to any traffic that arrives once they do. BC Bloggers did it today, but it hasn't generated any hits.

-Reflectively, I can say my writing hasn't improved. I seem to be writing in first draft mode and publishing without a second read. Coming back 2 hours to 2 days later and correcting a half dozen mistakes, giving up and then wondering why I posted the crap in the first place.

-I certainly haven't managed to draw any rave reviews or critiques. A total of only 4 comments have been posted.

A final cautionary note, I am here for the good times and probably not for a long-time. If I get busy, say if a federal election is called or meaningful employment comes along, I will probably stop the posting. I am also here at Shaw's whim. If they change their home service policy you may find I disappear quickly. I certainly can't afford to professionally host this blog and relocating it to a free server such as blogger.com would take the fun out of running all sorts of test projects on the visitors.

That being said, I should at this time include a brief privacy notice. Visits to this blog will be recorded. The log files are standard Apache log files - plus a little geo script. Logged information is:
a. the web browser and operating system you are using: CCBot/1.0 (+http://www.commoncrawl.org/bot.html)
b. the site that sent you here:
c. when you came and your fully qualified domain name
d. where you were when you visited
e. this information will not be disclosed to anyone, short of it being hacked into, unless the law says I have to. In which case I will do my damnedest to fight that disclosure and to warn everyone that it is being disclosed.
f. I may delete these files completely if I believe they are risk of disclosure and it is lawful for me to do so.
g. None of this information should be enough to allow anyone to identify you personally on its own. However, your employer likely keeps logs that combined with the information at my end could easily cost you your job. I'm not that vicious (although, I am tempted given the number of supposedly non-partisan Federal Government departments that keep looking referred through from other partisan sites). Keep this in mind while browsing at work.

Labels: internal

We briefly interrupt the regularly programmed obfuscated thoughtlessness inversed to rebroadcast a reminder that many of us live on stolen land and Leonard Peltier is still in jail.

FREEDOM VIDEO ~ RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE

Directed by Peter Christopherson. The video combines live performance footage with scenes from documentary Incident At Oglala: The Leonard Peltier Story and text from Peter Matthiessen's In The Spirit Of Crazy Horse.

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Labels: copwatch, historical, online campaign

Today's developing story about Spc. Elliott Sommer, of both the US Army Rangers and house arrest at his mom's place in Peachland, BC, is going to be very interesting.

Spc. Elliott Sommer is accused of leading a Bank Robbery in which four gang members took $50,000 in less than 3 minutes. This tactic is reminiscent of the Weathermen. This kind of praxis hasn't been commonplace for political ends during my life time.

Meanwhile, the CIA, Task Force 626 and the US Government are accused of war crimes. Sommer has publicly stated he intends to avoid extradition by putting the US Government's activities in Iraq on trial. "We are looking to be able to prosecute 30 to 40 members of Task Force 626 for war crimes, including rape, murder, et cetera," states Sommer in an interview with the Seattle PI.

He specifically refers to 16 illegal deaths and makes explicit references to torture and killing a candidate standing for democratic election by elite US forces and CIA operatives. Vancouver area lawyer Michael Bolton seems to believe there is some capacity for these arguments to be successful with the right Justice Minister's intervention.

The recent election of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua heralds the return to power of a man who used bank robbery as a political tactic when he was leading the Urban Guerilla campaign of the Sandinistas in the late 1960s. Chavez in Venezuela also tried taking a gun to his government well before he tried the tactics of electoral success. Given the likely connections between the Hells Angels and those Sommer accuses, it may not be so far-fetched, that he was looking to challenge for control of his own BC community.

Political crimes are not unheard of in British Columbia. It has just been a long time since anyone stood up and openly stated that the US Government was going to have to prove their legitimacy in order to support an extradition. Let's hope Sommer has the documents or the witnesses to prove his claims. I don't doubt that the kind of activity he suggests took place and is on-going in Iraq. What I doubt is his ability to prove his allegations against the US Military, as usual, here's hoping I'm wrong.

I never approve of carrying guns around, but luckily in the end no one was hurt by the bank robbery. Sommer probably has more to answer for in participating in US military operations in Iraq than he does for taking a bit of green, but as a 20-year-old, this young man has a lot of potential to do his time, then go straight and do things right.

Let's watch this one unfold.

Labels: unfolding

Dear Commissioner Zaccardelli

Please excuse me if my letter to you today is not 100% accurate. You see I have been reading more than 1200 websites in the last few days and I am in a rush to clear my name before I am deported to be tortured in another nation within Canada.

I am concerned that there may have been some transfer of knowledge from what I have read to what I now know. I want to say upfront that I may not be clear on when, I learned what or how. Like you, this lack of clarity in my knowledge concerns me and I am writing to you at this, the first possible opportunity, to clarify what happened when and why.

The thing is, I'm not the commissioner of the RCMP. I am at this time a private citizen and it is ok for me to not know what I knew when. But commissioner your admission today that you did not know what, about who (and particularly Mr. Arar), when, makes me very concerned that: you are the commissioner of the RCMP. What you or your force may know about me or may incorrectly think they know about me, could result in me being asked questions in another nation's prison, within Canada.

You see, I was born in Victoria, British Columbia. I have also recently visited Victoria, Australia. I am concerned that the complexity of my travel history and birthplace may result in me being deported against my will to Victoriaville, a town within a recently recognized nation within Canada, where I may find myself tortured by the agents of a recognized nation within Canada or said newly recognized nation of Canada.

Now, this fear may seem bordering on paranoia, but our country has been gripped by paranoia before. So, please keep in mind that my testimony may change in the future, particularly after consultation with the Minister of Public Safety, who unlike yourself before your last public testimony in September, I have not had the opportunity to consult.

Let's review the transfer of knowledge at this point:

a. You didn't know what you were talking about when you testified at the end of September. You are the top cop. The folks in serge below you look to you for leadership and direction.
b. You guys have the guns.
c. You guys have the connections with the guys with the guns south of the 49th.
d. You tell the guys with the guns south of the 49th what you know.
e. The guys with the guns south the 49th don't necessarily follow international law.
f. You don't know what you know.
g. Your organization surveilled the former leader of my political party, David Lewis, for 53 years including during the entire time he was an Member of Parliament.
h. I have been detained for my political activities and held against my will.
i. Your force doesn't understand legitimate public dissent (heard of APEC?).
j. You don't know what your force is doing, when they are doing it or why.
k. Your organization has publicly bragged that it kept extensive files on dissidents within Canada leading and up to the APEC meetings in 1997 in Vancouver and the 2001 FTAA meetings in Quebec City.
l. Your organization or members of it have on a number of occasions made it known to me that you were concerned with my legitimate political activities. An example of this is when on a date in 1997 an officer identifying himself simply as an undercover RCMP officer approached me, showed me his gun and badge and asked me, by name (believe me, I hadn't had the opportunity to introduce myself), what I had planned for a protest at a Liberal Party rally at the Stratchcona Hotel in Victoria, BC.
m. I know a guy, who talked to a guy who was convicted of blowing something up (albeit 30 years ago). I'm not saying that guy did it and in case you don't know who I'm talking about I'm not going to tell you who I know who knows this guy. But, at the time your guys said he did and this resulted in him being convicted, he's served his time though. Now, I'm not related to this guy (nor was I born when the thing blew up), but he has the same last name as me and I know that sometimes the RCMP has trouble telling names apart. I think you do a lot of keyword searching in order to facilitate transfer of knowledge. Today, this appears to be more than Mr. Arar was suspected of. He just knew a guy, who talked to a guy, who you guys thought might might blow something up in the future. To sum up, I know a guy who talked to a guy who was convicted of blowing something up.

This letter is a formal request for a complete copy of all information held by the RCMP about my person. Because of the danger of me being detained elsewhere in the world because of this information this request extends to all information held in any format by the RCMP (you might not even know you are giving this information to a third party, given the way transfer of knowledge seems to work, see patriot act). It also extends to any information the RCMP may have held in the past and knowingly transfered with to any other police force or security force elsewhere in the world.

I have a legitimate concern this information may be incorrect or may be found in the future to have included "transfer of knowledge" that would lead to determinations based on this information that could be incorrect. I deserve the opportunity to correct any information held by your force and in order to do that I need a copy of that information.

In particular, I would like a copy of any threat assessments that name my person or relate to a position I have held. Let me give you an example: During my tenure as Chairperson of the University of Victoria Students' Society, an organization of more than 15,000 students, your force recommended to the current Minister of Public Safety's political party that both myself and the entire membership (all 15,000 of us) of this organization be prevented from entering a rally at the Victoria Conference Centre. This decision having been made is not at question, your officers briefly detained a member of this organization on the grounds of his membership within the UVic Students' Society and his intent to purchase a ticket to this rally.

What I would like is a copy of all documents relating to me, whether they name me directly or refer to me using a name relevant to a position I held or a position your force assumed I was holding. (ie: if your force decided I was in a class of people determined to be pacifist terrorists or whatever it is you call NDP members and then made a decision to arrest all pacifist terrorists and I was arrested, I want a copy of all documents relating to pacifist terrorists that directed your force to arrest them). I am seeking to know What motivated your force's course of action. I want a copy of any and all notes taken, any and all background files prepared and any and all documents be they electronic or paper. As I have stated, this is because of current knowledge transfer and is to protect myself in case this information is shared with a foreign government's agents.

This is a formal request. Please provide me with a copy of these documents within the timelines prescribed by law. Any failure to do so may be referred to the Public Complaints Commission.

With true patriot love, may some other son command the RCMP soon,

Morgan Stewart
Address withheld pending further transfer of knowledge

By e-mail: giuliano.zaccardelli@rcmp-grc.gc.ca

Labels: copwatch, leftist content creation, opinion, rcmp

Today's QP was hilarious.

It started with Harper dodging a hard question from Dion by congratulating him, progressed to Ignatieff looking like a muppet and talking like he was made of cardboard, wound up with Duceppe going after Harper hard, and let loose with Layton's laughter-inspiring big ass not big gas question.

When will the government stop subsidizing big oil and big ass?

Harper rose to the occasion (once he stopped laughing) by retorting that he would get to the bottom of it.

One miscue and the new leader of the Liberal party was completely forgotten about.

I might have to watch Question Period again tomorrow...

Labels: ndp, new media critique