Author Archives: Lisa

I’m Back!

So obviously, I’m back to blogging again. I’m actually not done completely with all of my school projects, but I feel good enough about completing them shortly that I’ve decided to treat myself to blogging again.
I can’t tell you how good it feels to be back on the case. I really missed blogging and being part of our little community. Thanks for being patient and hanging around ’till I came back. I can tell you’ve been hanging around because my numbers didn’t go down any the whole time I was gone. (Go figure:)
The first thing I’m going to do is catch up on some old stuff. I’m kinda hanging around with relatives doing the holiday thing, so I should have plenty of time to catch up. I didn’t think I’d have any connectivity over the holidays, but I was wrong!
So anyway, there’s my long winded way of saying that I’m glad to be back, and I love you guys!
Peace!

John Perry Barlow Has A Blog!

John Perry Barlow has started a blog.
‘Bout time! Thanks John Perry!

I’ve been wary of blogs. Starting a blog looks a little like signing up for treadmill duty. Unless you like to write better than I do – and, personally, I’d rather pump septic tanks – consigning yourself to writing something every day looks like voluntary servitude. Furthermore, when I read some of the discussions on blogs, it looked a little like what you’d get if you invited all of your most socially dysfunctional friends into your living room and gave them plenty of beer.
But then – duh – it dawned on me that I’m under no obligation to post every day. I can continue to write BarlowSpams with my usual infrequency and post them to the blog in addition to sending them directly to you. And there we can discuss them together.
As to the civility of those discussions, there is no reason to think you are as inclined to flame at one another as other blog-posters appear to be. You’re a sweet and relatively civilized lot. I’ve never had to break up a fight at a BarlowFrenzy. Why should I worry about it here? (Actually, there was that party in New York years ago where the anarchists from the Lower East Side went to war with the Italian soccer contingent and they all started throwing hummus at one another, but that seemed unusual….)
Having settled these concerns in my mind, I still didn’t start blogging. There remained the simple matter of inertia and technological surface tension. I knew it couldn’t be that hard to put up a blog. Over a million others have already done it. But I had a hard time getting myself to believe it when I’d tell myself, “This afternoon you should get your blog going, Barlow.”
This is one of the things friends are for. Then, a few days ago, I fell into the too-rare company of my dear pal, Joi Ito, who is like the Blogdom equivalent of Zeus. (Check him out at http://joi.ito.com/.) He sat me down in the lobby of San Francisco’s snotty W Hotel – where there is at least free WiFi coverage – and within a few minutes I had a blog.

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Wired On Howard Dean’s Internet Strategy

A nice little piece that tells us a lot of what we already know about Howard Dean’s Internet-savvy campaign. I’ll never get tired of reading about it 🙂

How the Internet Invented Howard Dean

Forget fundraising (though his opponents sure can’t). The real reason the Doctor is in: He listens to the technology – and the people who use it.
By Gary Wolf for Wired.

Neither policy nor pragmatism alone drove MoveOn to Dean; his key advantage was that his bloggers were already deeply interlinked with bloggers friendly to MoveOn. Dean’s network made it easy for his supporters to vote in the MoveOn poll, while offering MoveOn members an opportunity to influence the Democratic race, even if their own state’s primary was irrelevant. Participation, not policy, was key.
Joi Ito, founder of Neoteny, a venture firm, and former chair of Infoseek Japan, has joined a group of technologists advising Dean (others include Ross Mayfield, Clay Shirky, and Lawrence Lessig, also a regular contributor to Wired). After looking at a paper Ito and some of his colleagues have been working on called “Emergent Democracy,” I contact him to ask if he thinks there’s a difference between an emergent leader and an old-fashioned political opportunist. What does it take to lead a smart mob? Ito emails back an odd metaphor: “You’re not a leader, you’re a place. You’re like a park or a garden. If it’s comfortable and cool, people are attracted. Deanspace is not really about Dean. It’s about us.”

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More On Real Details Of Saddam Capture

I’m in a hurry so I’ll just have to give you the links:

Saddam was captured by Kurds, not US


We got him: Kurds say they caught Saddam


US Saddam claims being challenged

They’ve got a good reason for not telling the truth (right on schedule!) — they feared an Arab-Kurd conflict…
There are also more details about his ex-wife turning him in, and how he was captured (his cook spiked his food).
Enjoy!
Happy Holidays everyone!

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Home Movies From Creative Commons Party – Craig Newmark, Willem Dakota Lessig and Friends

This is footage of Craig Newmark playing with Lawrence Lessig’s son, Willem, while in the arms of Justin Hall. (As filmed by me.)
Hey these aren’t prepared to stream over the Internet – you’ll have to download them to your hard drive!
The “complete” version also has some shots of the party.
This footage was pretty dark so I had to lighten it in Premiere to make it watchable.
Highlights include Craig flapping his arms like a chicken (part 1)!!

Craig and Willem 1 of 2
(Small – 9 MB)

Craig and Willem 2 of 2
(Small – 9 MB)

Craig and Willem and Party – Complete Clip
(Small – 32 MB)

Slightly higher res version of same clip
(Small – 44 MB)

Lovely Comprehensive Page On The Saddam Capture Cover-up Links

Knitwitology has just posted a great page with all the information on it I was just about to take the time to create links for:

Of Spiderholes and Spiderwebs

Thanks, Morgan for letting me off the hook!
Remember to not let any of this stuff get you down people! Things just keep getting stranger and stranger. But we’re all in this together, and we’re gonna get out of it together!
Happy Holidays and Remember to Be Careful About Driving Tired, Wasted or in Bad Weather. When in doubt – chill out and wait till later.
Peace and Love Ya’ll!
(I’m probably out for the next few days…connectivity uncertain.)

More On The Real Story Behind Saddam’s Capture


Saddam ‘captured weeks ago’

An intelligence website has reported that former Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein, might have been a prisoner at the time of his arrest.
According to Debkafiles there is a possibility that Saddam was held for up to three weeks in the underground pit by a Kurdish splinter group while they negotiated a handover to the Americans in return for the US$25m reward.
The website, edited by former Israeli intelligence agents reports that this is the only answer to questions on why Saddam looked dishevelled and disorientated when captured.
The website reported that it was clear Saddam had not shaved for weeks nor had he washed his hair. He was also starved and looked neglected.
The opening of the underground pit was camouflaged with rocks and mud and it was accessible for above ground only. As a result it was impossible for Saddam to leave his underground cell.
No information has been released on the two men captured at the site except for the fact that they tried to escape during the American operation.
The other question asked is where did the US$750 000 found at the scene come from. It is possible that the new notes were a down payment of a ransom.
The possibility that Saddam was drugged has also emerged. This could have been why he appeared so disorientated, read the report. This would also explain why Saddam did not use the firearm found in the pit.


Kurds claim Saddam capture

SADDAM Hussein was found by US troops only after he had been taken prisoner by Kurdish forces, drugged and abandoned ready for American soldiers to recover him, a British newspaper reported yesterday.
Saddam came into the hands of the Kurdish Patriotic Front after being betrayed to the group by a member of the al-Jabour tribe, whose daughter had been raped by Saddam’s son Uday, leading to a blood feud, reported the Sunday Express, which quoted an unnamed senior British military intelligence officer.
The newspaper said the full story of events leading up to the ousted Iraqi president’s capture on December 13 near his hometown of Tikrit in northern Iraq, “exposes the version peddled by American spin doctors as incomplete”.
A former Iraqi intelligence officer, whom the Express did not name, told the paper that Saddam was held prisoner by a leader of the Kurdish Patriotic Front, which fought alongside US forces during the Iraq war, until the leader negotiated a deal.
The deal apparently involved the group gaining political advantage in the region.
An unnamed Western intelligence source in the Middle East told the Express: “Saddam was not captured as a result of any American or British intelligence”.

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Saddam Actually Captured By The Kurds

Can’t the Shrub Administration tell the truth about anything?
Would it have really been so bad to just tell the truth on this one? We still have him in custody and all. The Kurds could have gotten their proper credit — we could have bonded with a persecuted people, and then we all could have held hands and hated Saddam together. (These are the Kurds, remember? The ones that were gassed ten years ago that the Administration likes to bring up all the time as justification for the Shrub War’s unfound WMD!)
But no.
Instead we have to find out a week later that we were lied to yet again.
I hope this is getting as old for you as it is for me. I want a President that can tell the truth at least part of the time. How about once. I’d like to go a day or two, or maybe a week even, without hearing a lie from my President. I don’t think it’s too much to ask.
Well, at least now we know what the new terror alert level is all about. It’s all about diversion: “Pay no attention to the information coming in from the rest of the world. Just be afraid and keep watching the box for further instructions.”

Saddam was held by Kurdish forces, drugged and left for US troops

Saddam Hussein (news – web sites) was captured by US troops only after he had been taken prisoner by Kurdish forces, drugged and abandoned ready for American soldiers to recover him, a British Sunday newspaper said.
Saddam came into the hands of the Kurdish Patriotic Front after being betrayed to the group by a member of the al-Jabour tribe, whose daughter had been raped by Saddam’s son Uday, leading to a blood feud, reported the Sunday Express, which quoted an unnamed senior British military intelligence officer.
The newspaper said the full story of events leading up to the ousted Iraqi president’s capture on December 13 near his hometown of Tikrit in northern Iraq (news – web sites), “exposes the version peddled by American spin doctors as incomplete”.
A former Iraqi intelligence officer, whom the Express did not name, told the paper that Saddam was held prisoner by a leader of the Kurdish Patriotic Front, which fought alongside US forces during the Iraq war, until he negotiated a deal.
The deal apparently involved the group gaining political advantage in the region.
An unnamed Western intelligence source in the Middle East told the Express: “Saddam was not captured as a result of any American or British intelligence. We knew that someone would eventually take their revenge, it was just a matter of time.”

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Terror Alert Level High: Happy Holidays Everyone

So they won’t say exactly why, and they won’t say exactly what they’re doing as a result of it, but the terror alert level has been raised to “high.”
Tom Ridge, chief Dept of Homeland Security dude, was on the tube saying absolutely nothing, over and over again.
It was all very surreal. Like a chapter in a book… (called 1984).’
Peace everybody!