52 Finance and Insurance
521 Monetary Authorities – Central Bank
5211 Monetary Authorities – Central Bank
52111 Monetary Authorities – Central Bank
521110 Monetary Authorities – Central Bank
522 Credit Intermediation and Related Activities
5221 Depository Credit Intermediation
52211 Commercial Banking
522110 Commercial Banking
52212 Savings Institutions
522120 Savings Institutions
52213 Credit Unions
522130 Credit Unions
52219 Other Depository Credit Intermediation
522190 Other Depository Credit Intermediation
5222 Nondepository Credit Intermediation
52221 Credit Card Issuing
522210 Credit Card Issuing
52222 Sales Financing
522220 Sales Financing
52229 Other Nondepository Credit Intermediation
522291 Consumer Lending
522292 Real Estate Credit
522293 International Trade Financing
522294 Secondary Market Financing
522298 All Other Nondepository Credit Intermediation
5223 Activities Related to Credit Intermediation
52231 Mortgage and Nonmortgage Loan Brokers
522310 Mortgage and Nonmortgage Loan Brokers
52232 Financial Transactions Processing, Reserve, and Clearinghouse Activities
522320 Financial Transactions Processing, Reserve, and Clearinghouse Activities
52239 Other Activities Related to Credit Intermediation
522390 Other Activities Related to Credit Intermediation
523 Securities, Commodity Contracts, and Other Financial Investments and Related Activities
5231 Securities and Commodity Contracts Intermediation and Brokerage
52311 Investment Banking and Securities Dealing
523110 Investment Banking and Securities Dealing
52312 Securities Brokerage
523120 Securities Brokerage
52313 Commodity Contracts Dealing
523130 Commodity Contracts Dealing
52314 Commodity Contracts Brokerage
523140 Commodity Contracts Brokerage
5232 Securities and Commodity Exchanges
52321 Securities and Commodity Exchanges
523210 Securities and Commodity Exchanges
5239 Other Financial Investment Activities
52391 Miscellaneous Intermediation
523910 Miscellaneous Intermediation
52392 Portfolio Management
523920 Portfolio Management
52393 Investment Advice
523930 Investment Advice
52399 All Other Financial Investment Activities
523991 Trust, Fiduciary, and Custody Activities
523999 Miscellaneous Financial Investment Activities
524 Insurance Carriers and Related Activities
5241 Insurance Carriers
52411 Direct Life, Health, and Medical Insurance Carriers
524113 Direct Life Insurance Carriers
524114 Direct Health and Medical Insurance Carriers
52412 Direct Insurance (except Life, Health, and Medical) Carriers
524126 Direct Property and Casualty Insurance Carriers
524127 Direct Title Insurance Carriers
524128 Other Direct Insurance (except Life, Health, and Medical) Carriers
52413 Reinsurance Carriers
524130 Reinsurance Carriers
5242 Agencies, Brokerages, and Other Insurance Related Activities
52421 Insurance Agencies and Brokerages
524210 Insurance Agencies and Brokerages
52429 Other Insurance Related Activities
524291 Claims Adjusting
524292 Third Party Administration of Insurance and Pension Funds
524298 All Other Insurance Related Activities
525 Funds, Trusts, and Other Financial Vehicles
5251 Insurance and Employee Benefit Funds
52511 Pension Funds
525110 Pension Funds
52512 Health and Welfare Funds
525120 Health and Welfare Funds
52519 Other Insurance Funds
525190 Other Insurance Funds
5259 Other Investment Pools and Funds
52591 Open-End Investment Funds
525910 Open-End Investment Funds
52592 Trusts, Estates, and Agency Accounts
525920 Trusts, Estates, and Agency Accounts
52593 Real Estate Investment Trusts
525930 Real Estate Investment Trusts
52599 Other Financial Vehicles
525990 Other Financial Vehicles

NAICS code

We conclude that economic liberalization and other policies that promote gross national product growth are not substitutes for environmental policy. On the contrary, it may well be desirable that they are accompanied by stricter policy reforms. Of particular importance is the need for reforms that would improve the signals that are received by resource users. Environmental damages, including loss of ecological resilience, often occur abruptly. They are frequently not reversible. But abrupt changes can seldom be anticipated from systems of signals that are typically received by decision-makers in the world today. Moreover, the signals that do exist are often not observed, or are wrongly interpreted, or are not part of the incentive structure of societies. This is due to ignorance about the dynamic effects of changes in ecosystem variables (for example, thresholds, buffering capacity, and loss of resilience) and to the presence of institutional impediments, such as lack of well-defined property rights. — Kenneth Arrow, et al. here

Ref’d unclassified documents U40976A & U40977A to the Doc Room; they are the IBM Base Study for TAC.

Worked on Berman’s Principles of Astronautics.

Clear! cool

Rode in with HS.

Took off the two front Jeep wheels and removed the brake adj. cams so I can go over them with a tap & die; Also put the left front window in.

It is getting cooler.

Gromyko — UN Russian rep. — talks with JFK today — Maybe a solution on Berlin can be worked out.

THE DEVIL: And is Man any the less destroying himself for all this boasted brain of his? Have you walked up and down upon the earth lately? I have; and I have examined Man’s wonderful inventions. And I tell you that in the arts of life man invents nothing; but in the arts of death he outdoes Nature herself, and produces by chemistry and machinery all the slaughter of plague, pestilence and famine. The peasant I tempt to-day eats and drinks what was eaten and drunk by the peasants of ten thousand years ago; and the house he lives in has not altered as much in a thousand centuries as the fashion of a lady’s bonnet in a score of weeks. But when he goes out to slay, he carries a marvel of mechanism that lets loose at the touch of his finger all the hidden molecular energies, and leaves the javelin, the arrow, the blowpipe of his fathers far behind. In the arts of peace Man is a bungler. I have seen his cotton factories and the like, with machinery that a greedy dog could have invented if it had wanted money instead of food. I know his clumsy typewriters and bungling locomotives and tedious bicycles: they are toys compared to the Maxim gun, the submarine torpedo boat. There is nothing in Man’s industrial machinery but his greed and sloth: his heart is in his weapons. This marvelous force of Life of which you boast is a force of Death: Man measures his strength by his destructiveness. What is his religion? An excuse for hating ME. What is his law? An excuse for hanging YOU. What is his morality? Gentility! an excuse for consuming without producing. What is his art? An excuse for gloating over pictures of slaughter. What are his politics? Either the worship of a despot because a despot can kill, or parliamentary cockfighting. I spent an evening lately in a certain celebrated legislature, and heard the pot lecturing the kettle for its blackness, and ministers answering questions. When I left I chalked up on the door the old nursery saying –”Ask no questions and you will be told no lies.” — George Bernard Shaw, The Devil speaking in “Don Juan in Hell,” Act III of “Man and Superman,” 1902

Hitler’s worldview included copious referencing of Nordic creation mythologies (thus his love of Wagner!), and as a consequence of this there developed strong pro-Nazi movements leading up to, through, and most disturbingly, after WWII in all the Nordic/Scandic countries (Scandinavian countries as a group are all the Nordic countries, Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, plus Finland). Iceland was no exception to these Nazi sympathies — documented by black-and-white images of uniformed goose-stepping rubes on parade in downtown Reykjavík before the 1940 British occupation, and the refusal of Icelandic authorities to allow African-American soldiers into the country during the later US occupation. These warped sympathies have persisted right up to the present time: a fact that was brought to my attention by a sequence of articles published in Iceland’s main national newspaper, Morgunbladið, back in the early 1990′s when I had recently immigrated to Reykjavík to take up residence with my future ex-wife, an Icelandic psychologist who I had met in Germany a few years previous. The current events in Norway bring all this back to mind, again… (more …)

In discussing with VAN the work of LL on the Penetration Aids Project, he gave me a rough history, and then said they need people with an operational background; Simplex is fully manned, and a reallocation of resources is needed. Borrowed DOR 508 to read, as he had to go to a 0900 meeting. He also said that the Lab has been authorized a 15/20% staff increase to handle this work which comes from ARPA, and DOD/Air Force; it has been brewing for some time. I suppose a great deal of it is highly classified, so the entries herein will be small indeed.

Went in to Park Street to hear the 11 A Panel on Communism. Back to the Lab on the 1 PM shuttle.

Tapas notes about the Wisconsin pro/anti-union conflict and the Egyptian shift,

Simply unbelievable. I never even suspected that Tahrir Square could echo in the USA.

I reply, sotto voce:

When approaching the edge of a protocol-driven projection of power, the first thing noted is that the edge is in flux, constantly. Depending on the metric flow of the power, and the metric flow of the countervailing chaos, the edge can shift at any temporal and spatial scale. The juxtaposition of controlled and un-controlled situations represents a more-or-less steep gradient from directed to random (or directed to countervailing directed) flows. A good example to consider is the two polarized and hegemonic forces of the Cold War compared to highly ordered (Imperial) military systems being projected into poorly organized social systems.

The edges of hegemonic Cold War projections of power were often located in social spaces of great chaos. But these points-of-contact generally did not impinge on the monumental and rigid structures (enabling ideological rigidity) at the core of Empire. Empire shielded itself with layers of decreasingly ordered spaces. The borders as projected closest to the two primary centers of power were defined by rigidly controlled edges across which there were few incursions or expressions of chaos. Natural borders represent a special case of intervening ‘natural’ chaotic systems which provide a temporary or long-term barrier to impingement. However, a power nexus has to deal with that chaotic border itself to maintain reasonable order there for its own population.

The space containing a vacuum of power is quickly filled whenever there is a localized energy source of a great enough magnitude to fill that space. It is more slowly filled when there is no localized concentrations of power. Again, the maintenance of an ‘edge’ is really about the maintenance of a gradient of order with a certain steepness.

An Imperial power will be more strongly be drawn into vacuums merely by the steep gradient between its highly organized (military) system and that vacuum.

The protocols of nation-statehood define geographic boundaries of power projections. However, it is clear that these boundaries are constantly in flux and themselves are finally defined by balances of power-projection on both sides. (Consider a con-federation versus a republic.) The border on chaos is a border that is under the greatest threat of alteration (because of that steep gradient mentioned previously).

Freedom in the Cloud: Software Freedom, Privacy and Security for Web 2.0 and Cloud Computing

Absolutely brilliant talk by Eben Moglen — Professor of Law and Legal History at Columbia University, and founder, Director-Counsel and Chairman of the Software Freedom Law Center — at an Internet Society – New York Chapter event back in February of this year.

In these two videos he presents an image of what exactly happened in terms of the internet infrastructure, completely outside the purview of political or wide social awareness which presents extreme danger to the fundamentals of our civil society. Explicit, clear, concise insights into the situation presented by corporate ‘log aggregators’ like Google and Facebook as well as the issues underlying how they threaten YOUR freedom.

The vis insita, or innate force of matter, is a power of resisting by which every body, as much as in it lies, endeavors to preserve its present state, whether it be of rest or of moving uniformly forward in a straight line. — Isaac Newton, Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica

Momentum. It’s easier to (continue to) follow a prepared pathway, or a pathway that has allowed, formerly, the development of a certain velocity and quality of transit. Shifting pathways requires adjustments in … everything, not just velocity. And change … is … difficult. But why? Is it a force of instinct that keeps track of optimized behavior, deterring one from engaging in potentially non-optimized or energy-intensive experimentation, or is it merely the threat of social dissonance, or dis-position?

Looking for a path to follow. Which one. Well trodden, worn, abandoned, crowded, one-way, two-way, or simply not there.

Make one.

And it ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, then to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them. Thus it happens that whenever those who are hostile have the opportunity to attack they do it like partisans, whilst the others defend lukewarmly, in such wise that the prince is endangered along with them. — Niccolò Machiavelli, “The Prince”

Make change because all is change anyway. The Prince will guarantee his incremental redundancy by not embracing all the evidences and actualities of change that he may possibly apprehend.

In the Book of Changes a distinction is made between three kinds of change: nonchange, cyclic change (recurrence), and sequent change (non-recurrence). Nonchange is the background, as it were, against which change is possible. For in regard to any change there must be some fixed point to which the change can be referred; otherwise there can be no definite order and everything is dissolved in chaotic movement. The point of reference must be established, and this always requires a choice and decision. It makes possible a system of coordinates into which everything else is fitted. Consequently at the beginning of the world, as at the beginning of thought, there is the decision, the fixing of the point of reference. … The ultimate frame of reference for all that changes is the unchanging.

The question of change is an incremental valuation. All cannot change all the time. Where change can occur and where it may occur and how change will occur is constantly in flux. Social systems seek to attenuate flows of change which are too powerful, and to amplify those which are insufficient, as judged by the momentary contingencies and needs of the system. It is the task of judging the temporal scaling of response to the evolving conditions which will provide auspicious outcomes.

Men’s opinions, accordingly, on what is laudable or blamable, are affected by all the multifarious causes which influence their wishes in regard to the conduct of others, and which are as numerous as those which determine their wishes on any other subject. Sometimes their reason — at other times their prejudices or superstitions: often their social affections, not seldom their antisocial ones, their envy or jealousy, their arrogance or contemptuousness: but most commonly, their desires or fears for themselves — their legitimate or illegitimate self-interest. Wherever there is an ascendant class, a large portion of the morality of the country emanates from its class interests, and its feelings of class superiority. . . . Where, on the other hand, a class, formerly ascendant, has lost its ascendancy, or where its ascendancy is unpopular, the prevailing moral sentiments frequently bear the impress of an impatient dislike of superiority. Another grand determining principle of the rules of conduct, both in act and forbearance which have been enforced by law or opinion, has been the servility of mankind towards the supposed preferences or aversions of their temporal masters, or of their gods. This servility though essentially selfish, is not hypocrisy; it gives rise to perfectly genuine sentiments of abhorrence; it made men burn magicians and heretics. — John Stuart Mill, “On Liberty”

Yes, definitely, opinion is affected by the directions of the wind. And add to the multifarious causes the role that contemporary media plays in opinion-forming. Counter-pointed by the influence that the controlling figures in those social media structures have — all as a result of the face-time, the attention spent by individuals on those channels of ‘information.’ It is precisely this passivity, or servility, as Mill calls it that forms the kernel of power in every regime or social organization.

A quick response on Alda’s Icelandic Weather Report posting concerning the veto by the Icelandic President of the IceSave agreement.

And on the power of the (Icelandic) Presidency:

On Durkheim’s exploration of Rousseau and Montesquieu: the immediate impression is that Rousseau, when stripped of the colloquialisms of the time, has a greater precision in circumscribing the social order than Montesquieu. More on that later. But given the situation that Obama is currently mulling over, Afghanistan, a bit of Rousseau would probably have eliminated the entire issue in the years earlier, had the enormous hubris not entirely blinded those in power at the time:

If film can do this:

Film serves to train human beings in the practice of those apperceptions and reactions required by the frequentation of an apparatus whose role in their daily life ever increases. To make this whole enormous technological apparatus of our time into the object of human interiorization and appropriation [innervation] — that is the historic task in whose service film has its true meaning. — Walter Benjamin

Then is there any reason to doubt a connection between the declining power and influence of the (technocratic mediocracy of the) United States and the implementation of the Internet as-it-is today? Is there any connection between the tendencies of its population to spend their (limited) life-time in tele-communication (and tele-consumption!) and the demise of civil society? People seemingly now avoid confronting the (unknown) Other and rather cluster as mirrored-Selves, with a cumulative effect of breakdown of a (diverse) cultural fabric into a checker-board of self-interest groupings which spend time defending the borders of their squares from the surrounding Evil unknown.

this conclusion proposed in the sense that if film can have that profundity of affectation on human nervous systems (the primary interface with the world-as-mediated-by-body; or the primary EM antenna-structures), then what of all the wide press of technological development seeping into all parts and orifices of perception and reaction?

make it to the all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast at the Congregational church for once. have a chat with a native Arizonan originally from Winslow now living in Chino. we talked about water. then there is a chance meeting with John McCain before the parade starts. he’s there every year, it’s a tradition, especially this year, a re-election year in the Senate coming up. he looked old and tired. he was with a squad of Young Republicans. they did not appear to know what they were doing, but were doing that enthusiastically. or so. very glad that he is not president now. otherwise, this largely conservative town shows its patriotic and political fervor on a hot and sunny desert highland day.

I stick around for Chris’ 50th as his folks, John and Barbara, also come into town on their way between Iowa and Tucson. nice to catch up with them. Barbara reminds me about her chocolate-chip cookies when she mentions she doesn’t have any with her. this references the care packages she would send to Chris when he and I were room-mates back at 148 Washington in Golden — she would usually include a tin of her fabulous cookies which Chris would share generously. got to snag the recipe someday. or, film her making them.

all this visiting. catching up. exploring territories. hearing stories. mapping out lives. recitations, prognostications on weather and politics and social systems. sampling lives. and seeing time pass forwards inexorably.

keeping up appearances (the cost of social participation), requires energy. energy paid into the system. (was this the lament of the Man?) versus what? appearing as The Self is and allowing for personal idiosyncrasy, proceed with no particular thought as to impact, just to channel what comes in life.

Only on condition of a radical widening of definitions will it be possible for art and activities related to art [to] provide evidence that art is now the only evolutionary-revolutionary power. Only art is capable of dismantling the repressive effects of a senile social system that continues to totter along the deathline: to dismantle in order to build A SOCIAL ORGANISM AS A WORK OF ART … EVERY HUMAN BEING IS AN ARTIST who — from his state of freedom — the position of freedom that he experiences at first-hand — learns to determine the other positions of the TOTAL ART WORK OF THE FUTURE SOCIAL ORDER. — Joseph Beuys

I have to chuckle at Frieder’s sober and deeply pragmatic reflections on the recent installation of the new regime:

Dear friends over there in God’s own country:

Today the Messiah is arriving. Conquering the temple. Who will he chase away? The bankers?

Will they, after some miracles that he will try to perform, call for his crucifixion?

It will be great to observe how he deals with Israel. It will be great to observe how he, as the others, will spend the taxpayers money in order to help big finance capital that is behaving as if they had not gone through shameless times of making outrageous profits. Where do they hide all that?

Marx’s analysis of the defeat of the Paris Commune in 1871 starts with the observation that the communards had forgotten to seize capital and prevent its disappearance to Versailles.

I wish you, and us in old Europe good luck. A bit will change. But nothing essential. That’s what I expect. But I would be excited if I was a US citizen.

So let us not deny that hope is a good feeling.

which clearly segues to reflections from a former President of the Republic:

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs. — Thomas Jefferson

Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing.

Such are the differences among human beings in their sources of pleasure, their susceptibilities of pain, and the operation on them of different physical and moral agencies, that unless there is a corresponding diversity in their modes of life, they neither obtain their fair share of happiness, nor grow up to the mental, moral, and aesthetic stature of which their nature is capable. — John Stuart Mill

Viva idiosyncrasy!

Wow, the lid is blowing off the formerly staid and sheep-like Icelandic society. Following the collapse of their entire economy from top to bottom, side to side, Icelanders are finally making a vocal and physically critical look at the excesses of the political and business leaders who they have supported without question over the last couple decades.

News from Iceland usually centers around glaciers, volcanoes, whaling, tourism, or in more recent years, music. But all that has been displaced by the spectacular fall from fifth highest on the world’s standard of living index to International Monetary Fund-ed pauper-hood, all in a couple months.

And of those same government officials, politicians, and business people, not one has paid any public price for their despotic (nepotistic!) greed (aside from some of their Empires collapsing, surely, though, after they have secreted away the cream). The Chairman of the Central Bank and former Prime Minister David Oddsson — nicknamed in the 1990s Little Hitler by the few who saw his rule as one based on enormous reserves of ego rather than economic expertise — has refused to resign or even admit any errors in judgment while the entire national economy has collapsed.

Not prone to display dirty national laundry in the international arena, Iceland has been ridiculed with an unprecedented vehemence in British and other international press outlets, often at the hands of expat Icelanders who are so fed up with the whole scandal that they are breaking the public self-critical taboo. Several leading international economists, familiar with the Icelandic situation are reminding the public of the warnings that were proffered months ago of the possibility of impending crisis, all which were ignored by a government who, in the run-up to the crisis, repeatedly claimed the economy was sound.

In private conversations, I frequently pointed out the deep nepotism in the architecture of power that suffused Icelandic society as well as the reciprocal sheep-like obedience of the general populace; especially among the government politicos but really everywhere in a system that sustains perhaps only three of the possible six degrees of separation. Everybody knows everybody.

At any rate, I had wanted to post some links to pertinent resources in this fast-developing situation if only that it might be an object lesson on the excesses of a system that Iceland was very talented in upholding — that of consumer capitalism in all its vain-glory.

There’s the Iceland Weather Report by native, Alda Sigmundsdóttir. She has taken some major strides over the history of her blog, most recently doing interviews with voices critical of the current regime including one with the Icelandic economist Thorvaldur Gylfason.

Another voice which I concur with strongly based on my long experience with Icelandic culture is voiced by New Zealand economist Robert Wade. Small dribbles of news in the more traditional style of Icelandic media (passive echoing of officials) may be found in English at the Morgunbladid (the main national newspaper). They have been absolute supporters of the Oddsson regime and the reactionary Independence Party that he represents.

I could relate many stories from Iceland, and, indeed, have done that here over the last 14 years, but these days, my attitude is that they deserve what has happened. The broader population accepted uncritically the fiscal direction of the Independence Party and the incredibly greedy business elite (very very large fish in a very very small pond). Some Icelandic voices have recently pointed out this very sheep-like behavior on behalf of the public — as something that hopefully is in the process of being purged through increasingly violent protest actions that are both long overdue and at the same time completely not disturbing the equilibrium of the ruling elite.

Don’t let the screen door hit you on the way out!

thank gawd he’s gone…

oh, and this from John as well…

sheesh. waiting life away whilst attacking the TM09 issues — networks, people, and subjects.

John passes this one along, charting yet another step in the march of the Military-Industrial machine that began during WWII. and with the Christian Right quite comfortable with the prognostications of their arm-chair prophets about the impending Armageddon in the Middle East, no problem, Amurika will get the job DONE! along with lots of warm and fuzzies…

Martin MGM-1 Matador :: General Dynamics (Convair) RIM-2 Terrier :: Western Electric MIM-3 Nike Ajax :: Hughes AIM-4 Falcon :: JPL/Firestone MGM-5 Corporal :: Vought RGM-6 Regulus :: Raytheon AIM/RIM-7 Sparrow :: Bendix RIM-8 Talos :: Raytheon (Philco/G.E.) AIM-9 Sidewinder :: Boeing CIM-10 Bomarc :: Chrysler PGM-11 Redstone :: Martin AGM-12 Bullpup :: Martin MGM/CGM-13 Mace :: Western Electric MIM-14 Nike Hercules :: Vought RGM-15 Regulus II :: General Dynamics (Convair) CGM/HGM-16 Atlas :: Douglas PGM-17 Thor :: Martin MGM-18 Lacrosse :: Chrysler PGM-19 Jupiter :: McDonnell ADM-20 Quail :: Nord MGM-21 :: Aérospatiale (Nord) AGM-22 :: Raytheon MIM-23 Hawk :: General Dynamics (Convair) RIM-24 Tartar :: Martin HGM/LGM-25 Titan :: Hughes AIM-26 Falcon :: Lockheed UGM-27 Polaris :: North American AGM-28 Hound Dog :: JPL/Sperry MGM-29 Sergeant :: Boeing LGM-30 Minuteman :: Martin Marietta MGM-31 Pershing :: Aérospatiale (Nord) MGM-32 Entac :: Northrop (Radioplane) MQM-33 :: Teledyne Ryan AQM/BQM/MQM/BGM-34 Firebee :: Northrop (Radioplane) AQM-35 :: Northrop (Radioplane) MQM-36 Shelduck :: Beech AQM-37 :: Northrop (Radioplane) AQM-38 :: Beech MQM-39 :: Globe MQM-40 Firefly :: Fairchild AQM-41 Petrel :: North American MQM-42 Redhead/Roadrunner :: General Dynamics FIM-43 Redeye :: Goodyear UUM-44 Subroc :: Texas Instruments AGM-45 Shrike :: General Dynamics MIM-46 Mauler :: Hughes AIM-47 Falcon :: Douglas AGM-48 Skybolt :: Western Electric/McDonnell Douglas LIM-49 Nike Zeus/Spartan :: Bendix RIM-50 Typhon LR :: Ford MGM-51 Shillelagh :: LTV MGM-52 Lance :: Rockwell AGM-53 Condor :: Raytheon (Hughes) AIM-54 Phoenix :: Bendix RIM-55 Typhon MR :: Nord/Bell PQM-56 :: Northrop (Radioplane) MQM-57 Falconer :: Aerojet General MQM-58 Overseer :: APL RGM-59 Taurus :: Lockheed AQM-60 Kingfisher :: Beech MQM-61 Cardinal :: Martin Marietta AGM-62 Walleye :: AGM-63 :: Rockwell (North American) AGM-64 Hornet :: Raytheon (Hughes) AGM-65 Maverick :: Raytheon (General Dynamics) RIM-66 Standard MR :: Raytheon (General Dynamics) RIM-67 Standard ER :: Air Force Weapons Lab AIM-68 Big Q :: Boeing AGM-69 SRAM :: Boeing LEM-70 Minuteman ERCS :: Raytheon (Hughes) BGM-71 TOW :: Ford MIM-72 Chaparral :: Lockheed UGM-73 Poseidon :: Northrop MQM/BQM-74 Chukar :: BGM-75 AICBM :: Hughes AGM-76 Falcon :: McDonnell Douglas FGM-77 Dragon :: General Dynamics AGM-78 Standard ARM :: Martin Marietta AGM-79 Blue Eye :: Chrysler AGM-80 Viper :: Teledyne Ryan AQM-81 Firebolt :: AIM-82 :: Texas Instruments AGM-83 Bulldog :: Boeing (McDonnell Douglas) AGM/RGM/UGM-84 Harpoon :: RIM-85 :: Boeing AGM-86 ALCM :: General Electric AGM-87 Focus :: Raytheon (Texas Instruments) AGM-88 HARM :: UGM-89 Perseus / STAM :: BQM-90 :: Teledyne Ryan AQM-91 Firefly :: Raytheon (General Dynamics) FIM-92 Stinger :: E-Systems GQM-93 :: Boeing GQM-94 B-Gull :: Hughes AIM-95 Agile :: Lockheed UGM-96 Trident I :: General Dynamics AIM-97 Seekbat :: Teledyne Ryan GQM-98 R-Tern :: LIM-99 :: LIM-100 :: RIM-101 :: General Dynamics/Sperry PQM-102 Delta Dagger :: Teledyne Ryan AQM-103 :: Raytheon MIM-104 Patriot :: Lockheed MQM-105 Aquila :: USAF FDL BQM-106 Teleplane :: Raytheon (Beech) MQM-107 Streaker :: NWC BQM-108 :: Raytheon (General Dynamics) BGM/RGM/UGM-109 Tomahawk :: LTV BGM-110 :: Teledyne Ryan BQM-111 Firebrand :: Rockwell AGM-112 :: RIM-113 :: Boeing/Lockheed Martin (Rockwell/Martin Marietta) AGM-114 Hellfire :: Euromissile/Hughes/Boeing MIM-115 Roland :: Raytheon (General Dynamics) RIM-116 RAM :: RS Systems FQM-117 RCMAT :: Martin Marietta LGM-118 Peacekeeper :: Kongsberg AGM-119 Penguin :: Raytheon (Hughes) AIM-120 AMRAAM :: Boeing CQM/CGM-121 Pave Tiger/Seek Spinner :: Motorola AGM-122 Sidearm :: Emerson Electric AGM-123 Skipper II :: Hughes AGM-124 Wasp :: Boeing RUM/UUM-125 Sea Lance :: Beech BQM-126 :: Martin Marietta AQM-127 SLAT :: AQM-128 :: Raytheon (General Dynamics) AGM-129 ACM :: Boeing (Rockwell) AGM-130 :: Boeing AGM-131 SRAM II :: MBDA (BAe Dynamics/Matra) AIM-132 ASRAAM :: Lockheed Martin UGM-133 Trident II :: Martin Marietta MGM-134 Midgetman :: Vought ASM-135 ASAT :: Northrop AGM/BGM-136 Tacit Rainbow :: Northrop AGM/MGM-137 TSSAM :: Boeing CEM-138 Pave Cricket :: Lockheed Martin (Loral) RUM-139 VL-Asroc :: Lockheed Martin (LTV) MGM-140 ATACMS :: IMI (Brunswick) ADM-141 TALD :: Rafael/Lockheed Martin AGM-142 Have Nap :: Continental RPVs MQM-143 RPVT :: ADM-144 :: Teledyne Ryan BQM-145 Peregrine :: Oerlikon/Lockheed Martin MIM-146 ADATS :: BAI Aerosystems BQM-147 Exdrone :: Raytheon/Lockheed Martin FGM-148 Javelin :: PQM-149 UAV-SR / McDonnell Douglas Sky Owl :: PQM-150 UAV-SR :: AeroVironment FQM-151 Pointer :: AIM-152 AAAM :: AGM-153 :: Raytheon (Texas Instruments) AGM-154 JSOW :: Northrop Grumman (TRW/IAI) BQM-155 Hunter :: Raytheon RIM-156 Standard SM-2ER Block IV :: Raytheon MGM-157 EFOGM :: Lockheed Martin AGM-158 JASSM :: Boeing (McDonnell Douglas) AGM-159 JASSM :: Northrop Grumman (Teledyne Ryan) ADM-160 MALD :: Raytheon RIM-161 Standard SM-3 :: Raytheon RIM-162 ESSM :: Orbital Sciences GQM-163 Coyote :: Lockheed Martin MGM-164 ATACMS II :: Raytheon RGM-165 LASM :: Lockheed Martin MGM-166 LOSAT/KEM :: Composite Engineering BQM-167 Skeeter :: Lockheed Martin MGM-168 ATACMS Block IVA :: Lockheed Martin AGM-169 JCM :: Griffon Aerospace MQM-170 Outlaw :: Griffon Aerospace MQM-171 Broadsword :: Lockheed Martin FGM-172 SRAW :: Alliant Techsystems GQM-173 MSST :: Raytheon RIM-174 ERAM (SM-6) :: :: Douglas MGR-1 Honest John :: Douglas AIR-2 Genie :: Emerson Electric MGR-3 Little John :: NOTS RUR-4 Weapon Alpha :: Honeywell RUR-5 Asroc :: Ford MER-6 Blue Scout ERCS :: Raytheon ADR-7 :: Revere (Tracor) ADR-8 :: Tracor ADR-9 :: Raytheon ADR-10 :: ADR-11 :: ADR-12 :: USAMICOM MQR-13 BMTS :: Martin Marietta AGR-14 ZAP :: USAMICOM MTR-15 BATS :: Atlantic Research MQR-16 Gunrunner :: General Dynamics FGR-17 Viper :: NWC GTR-18 Smokey Sam :: :: JPL PWN-1 Loki-Dart :: Aerojet General PWN-2 Aerobee-Hi :: University of Michigan/NACA PWN-3 Nike-Cajun :: University of Michigan PWN-4 Exos :: Cooper Development PWN-5 Rocksonde 200 :: Atlantic Research PWN-6 Kitty :: Atlantic Research PWN-7 Rooster :: Space Data PWN-8 Loki Datasonde :: Aerojet/UTC PWN-9 Kangaroo :: Space Data PWN-10 Super Loki Datasonde :: Space Data PWN-11 Super Loki Datasonde :: Space Data PWN-12 Super Loki ROBIN

Technology and the internet have allowed citizens to connect and mobilize like never before. The rise of a new model of internet-driven, people-powered politics is changing countries from Australia to the Philippines to the United States. Avaaz takes this model global, connecting people across borders to bring people powered politics to international decision-making.

that from the site avaaz.org sent to me by a friend on account of the petition for stopping yet another wave of Palestinian-Israeli violence.

but I say oh, really?? to the first line: it would seem that technology and the internet has plunked many fat asses down on chairs and completely de-mobilized potential good citizens in an effective reign of (p)assivity where only the fingers move, and the perspectival point-of-view is locked within a few centimeters of the face.

YES! WE CAN!

well, being lulled to sleep after midnight (well, I was tired and had a migraine) on Monday night by the sounds of John McCain’s last ever presidential campaign rally drifting over the chilly night air from a couple miles away in Courthouse Square. Hank Williams Jr. and the roaring sounds of either people cheering or cars driving by, I couldn’t tell in my sleepy haze. nor could I manage to get out of bed to mosey down there and document. another one of those missed opportunities.

this area of Arizona is one of the most right-wing of any places in the US, for whatever reasons (historical and economic), and there is rife anger and fear bordering on paranoia among those elements (it’s a Marxist Muslim foreign takeover!). it’s a pity, it’s an illness. and it is not going away.

and don’t forget 62,450,831 to 55,393,194 (with about 98% counted…), this represents a difference of 2.4% of the total population.

ever the pragmatist with significant experience in radical education:

The anarchists have this beautiful principal line: If elections were capable of changing anything, they would long have been forbidden. — Frieder Nake, email

no fond member/consumer of any blogospheres, I have to link to this Huffington Post Stefan Sirucek article on the election…

Now, in a highly touted “change” election, one party is running a former D student who himself admits to being hot-headed and impulsive, whose low-road campaigning has tarnished both the electoral process and his own reputation and whose political ideas become less credible with every emerging reality. As his running mate this man has, either recklessly or cynically, chosen a woman who believes instead of thinking, who knows little of the world and whose every tortured sentence is an affront to the logic of language itself.

Forget the White House. The only public building these people should be heading for is the library.

yes, it’s true, few Amurikans have even a modest command of the language of the land — but I want, after eight years of a distinct lack of intelligent and thoughtful speaking (not to mention actions!), a political leader who can speak at least a handful of coherent words in a row, better yet, a number of sentences, or even several paragraphs. without teleprompters, handlers, and the assorted spin-meisters that ride herd on these … puppets … like so many … sheep. not to mention a media who only serves the interests of, you guessed it, THE MEDIA. sheesh, enough of this!

robocalling anyone?

my swimming pal, Buddy van Kirk passed away recently — I shared a pool, a lane, with him more times than I can count here in Prescott. either at the “Y” or at the college pool. he was there practically everyday to do a leisurely but long swim. he had knee problems and some heavy arthritis, but always kept moving. you will be missed Bud!

the migrating realities book is about to go to the press in Vilnius after a long haul on editing. I like the design although I’m not thrilled about the font face that the designer chose. more on this when the book comes out in hard copy.

stopped by the county elections office to keep on track as an elections volunteer, and now they want me to be a polling trouble-shooter which is a bit daunting (given the contemporary predilection for very third-world election standards here in the US and the dearth of International observers, not sure I want to get caught up in that). not to mention that the county uses a combination of paper and electronic balloting methods. we’ll see. the ladies in the office were quite nice and joked about locking the doors after I had said I was there to volunteer — apparently they never have enough people to help out. technically it’s not a volunteer position either, as one receives for the 0500 — 2100 day around USD 90 for helping out.

driving around, I pass the migrant worker hang-out, the corner Lincoln and Grove Streets, the site around which numerous letters-to-the-editor have addressed both sides of the illegal immigrant issue. apparently some Minutemen have set up a post across the street, although I didn’t see them today. there were plenty of Latino fellows hanging out under the scraggly trees that lead down the dip in the road off Grove to the flood wash. I can imagine the tanking economy makes marginality even more precarious.

Marie-Hélène gets into town from Toulouse and Montreal so we decide to meet at tmp.deluxe for the soupe populaire. I cycled down, a good 45 minute ride, and was waiting outside on Potsdamer Strasse to meet her, she called asking for directions from the U-bahn and my phone died. Then it started snowing. I cycled down to the station but didn’t see her, dang. So, went back to tmp.deluxe and waited, talked to Sencer a bit, then went back out front to wait. What about life before the mobile? Okay, she arrives, mmmm, cool. Good soup to warm up by! We hang out there for awhile, then wander down the canal to see Mathieu‘s exhibition Kompetenz im Laborbereich over at Alte Stadtklause. Far-reaching conversation stitches time into a long chain, we shut the place down gradually into lateness. And a cold ride downwind across town back home.

And thoughts of politic enter into the day at some point: random collision with thought.

JC sends this to da40 — become republican

I respond,

counterpointing Bateson’s eclectic digressions with Ronald Burt’s social systemics seems to point to a schizophrenic day of reading. Bateson clearly saw the dangers of the flows that power social systems, where Burt sees opportunity for command-and-control through semi-distributed systems. His view on ‘social capital’ is a mapping of positions for maximizing influence that this form of capital offers. Bordieu suggested the trinity of economic capital, cultural capital, and social capital, it is the latter that seemed to popularly circumscribe the most influential aspects of human relations. And as a way of mapping power, it floats to the surface of social consciousness.

The myth of power, is of course, a very powerful myth; and probably most people in this world more or less believe in it… But it is still epistemological lunacy and leads inevitably to all sorts of disaster… If we continue to operate in terms of a Cartesian dualism of mind versus matter, we shall probably also come to see the world in terms of God versus man; élite versus people; chosen race versus others; nation versus nation and man versus environment. It is doubtful whether a species having both an advanced technology and this strange way of looking at the world can endure…

The whole of our thinking about what we are and what other people are has got to be restructured. This is not funny, and I do not know how long we have to do it in. If we continue to operate on the premises that were fashionable during the Pre-Cybernetic era, and which were especially underlined during the Industrial Revolution, which seemed to validate the Darwinian unit of survival, we may have twenty or thirty years before the logical reductio ad absurdum of our old positions destroys us. Nobody knows how long we have, under the present system, before some disaster strikes us, more serious than the destruction of any group of nations. The most important task today is, perhaps, to learn to think in the new way. — Gregory Bateson

another oracle, or madman?

I don’t normally post long passages of other writers, but Alan (Sondheim) posted this to nettime today: it penetrated the fog of hypo-texts that floods a typical day in front of screen-life.

The power grid provides 60 Hz here at approximately 115-117 volts; this is maintained by dynamos driven by steam or coal or oil or hydro held together in a malleable grid. The grid enters the city, where electricity is parceled out through substations to cables continuously maintained and repaired. Here, the cables are below ground. They drive my Japanese Zaurus PDA which utilizes an entire linux operating system on it. The Zaurus connects to the Internet through a wireless card that most often connects to my Linksys router, which is connected both to the power grid and the DSL modem by a cat cable. The DSL is operated by Verizon with its own grid at least nation-wide and continuously-maintained. The DSL of course connects more or less directly to the Internet, which is dependent upon an enormous number of protocol suites for its operation, the most prominent probably TCP/IP. The addresses of the Internet, through which I reach my goal of NOAA weather radar, are maintained by ICANN and other organizations. These organization are run by any number of people, who employ the Net, fax, telephone, and standard mail, to communicate world-wide. (more …)

John Douglas and I met virtually back in 1995 or so, as a result of the PORT MIT exhibition. his creative feeds to my inbox are a hard-hitting deLight to bring solid soul back into life when psychic drift and political psyop-subduction are rife.

not something to expect on a public bench placed on a traffic island at the intersection of Ruth and Whipple in Prescott, Arizona. in case it’s not clear, the quotation is

History always repeats itself; the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. — Karl Marx

now, who could have put that there? not something expected in this ultra-conservative region. and it’s been around for at least a year, if I recall correctly. possibly longer. maybe nobody knows who Karl Marx was, or maybe they think it only just that he be consigned to a now-peeling bench that is placed where no one would possibly sit.

something to check out:

Sonic Supper is a friendly venue for curious music. We use the telephone to share sound with a large and broad audience. Yes it is that simple: call the number to listen to a few minutes of music. Leave a message to tell us what you think. New music is featured weekly.

surfing around, finding activity online to fill star-skyed nights. it is precisely these micro-scaled actions that have meaning far beyond the macro-scaled political maneuvering.

check out this 10-minute farewell speech by an outgoing US president. and you might understand better the position that we are in today with the US internal (and consequently, external) politics dominated by the military-industrial complex. pretty surprising, considering who it is coming from. General Dwight Eisenhower. but the mapping out of the consequences of allowing a society to be under the shadow of this conglomeration is chillingly prophetic. the situation is grave. and I DID cast a vote in this election, after some years of not doing so, based on my experiences in the 1980 presidential campaign which was a farcical face-off between Carter and Ray-Gun, with John Anderson making the most credible and successful campaign as an independent candidate to date. I worked as campus rep for Anderson, met him a couple times, and saw clearly that the electoral college system was stifling democratic expression in the country. it’s good to see that the whole structure is under deep scrutiny these days, now in Colorado and California (Maine and Nebraska already award proportional electoral college votes based on popular votes). scrapping it would at least bring a superficial element of democracy back into a system that is hardly democratic in the sense of one-man-one-vote. instead, direct or indirect cash reserves are the true test of a candidates viability (not intelligence or fitness for the job), and campaigns burning up billions of dollars in media propaganda confirm that only those with access to extreme wealth have any possibility of acceding to power. that base fact along with the rapid evolution of the realities of life in the US to a psychical space of absolute fantasy through the power of wholesale mediation of what once was direct human connection.

the national teacher’s union has gone on strike, closing all elementary and middle schools in the entire country. clearly recall, in the months preceding my ‘official’ departure from this country in 1995, there was a 6-week long strike of all teachers across the country including we who were working at what is now the National Academy. the only thing that the Prime Minister had to say was that he was happy that the government was saving so much money in with-held pay for the teachers. millions a day. yippee! in some quarters he’s called “little Hitler” for his stature and his contemptuous and power-mongering behavior. I’m not really following the politic so much while I am here, too many other things to deal with. but it seems this is a another surfacing of what I considered a very backward attitude about education in Iceland generally. already the system is weighed down by the Scandic/Lutheran socialist mentality that everyone should be the same, so that students with a special talents, skills, and interests are in no way encouraged to develop those areas, rather they are discouraged into conforming with the average. successful and talented people more often than not leave the country — this in contrast to the general US situation of regimented hyper-competition which is equally warping.

still pondering the text about Robert Irwin, whose guest-lecture I missed, out of busy-ness, when I was teaching at CU in 2003. had I been more familiar with his work I would have definitely been there. happened on a copy of Lawrence Weschler’s book on Irwin, “Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees” sitting on a shelf at the residency flat.

equinox, but no balance here.

the regional Geheime Staatspolitzei Headquarters is just down the street. it is now a local police station. we stop to look at a sculpture commemorating the local Gestapo victims out front. it’s done by one of the Muthesius art students. the stamp has the Gestapo text, while the platten beneath has a list of victims. there was a regional concentration camp where around 600 people were liquidated. then grocery shopping, errands. I was able to find a new clip for the waist strap on my daypack which I broke by slamming it in the door of Sanna’s car. critical item, it allows me to shift the weight of the pack off my shoulders and onto my hips. when doing the air travel, I have to carefully carry all fragile/valuable items in that pack, making it a load for the aging back.

dinner with Rieka, Anselm, Theresa, Jakob, Malou, Sophia, Barbara, Kersten, Sabena, Alf, and Chris.

waking up is slow. able to get up to help get Loki on to school, but when that activity is over, I succumb to total drowse and go back to warm bed to await sunrise around 1000. it’s been this way since I returned to the north, jet-lag a good excuse for the first several days, but the sluggishness remains too long now, combined with deep rich dreams in small bits and wakefulness for much of the nights. unusual for me. some melatonin only seems to deepen the complexity of the dreaming, while echinacea seems to make the general neural activity wilder. can it be?

a stroll to the embassy to pick up my passport which was in want of extra pages for stamps. should have gotten a 48-pager when I had it issues back in 1997, but I didn’t realize that I would be getting quite so many stamps. it’s a ten-year pass, so the extra 24 pages might run out, if so, I’ll have to get a totally new one issued. the photos of Bill and Hillary were gone, the guards said they went Monday morning. on the way over, I happened to pass through the city hall and there was a large exhibition detailing the sufferings of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Nazi concentration camps.

there is movement. but frustration at being an outsider. why do I put myself in the position of outsider? quoting myself “when I come into a school as a guest teacher I can say what I want and do what I want, and nobody really bothers with me.” maybe I have been in Tornio too long, too much. slowly getting drawn into the bullshit of local politics. I will take other routes next year most likely. cutting back on the teaching — not completely, but certainly some. why is it we cannot perceive the whole? that the actuality of momentary presence is a pulsating field of fragmentary knowings discontinuously arrayed in the field of language and in a matrix of images, extractions, extractions. put it back. tell stories that do not end, immortality written in languages yet to be deciphered. mythologies that are happening in the same moment of telling.

no bombs yet — EuroNews waits expectantly for something to happen. something to happen on teevee. why I am totally distracted by media, I just don’t know. but now, they say the bombing has begun — Amurikan bombs falling on European soil. sick and tired of the whole sham — European inaction, criticism of US bullying, Amurikan stupidity to get involved as the international moral Police, and the general stupidity of humans. nobody learns anything. where is transcendence? how is it possible to be optimistic when nuclear warheads are seen being wheeled out in the Ukraine, B1 bombers taking off, tanks firing on farmhouses, police actions everywhere, senseless brutality, and on and on in the the night. I suck down a Guinness. earlier in the evening I walk down the quay to the north, immediately across from the half-destroyed submarine bunkers from the war.

vaguely aware that it is St. Valentines Day somewhere else in the world. not here. I am teaching again today, quite exhausted from the travel to and from Helsinki. sitting in the first class cabin yesterday on the flight north, the Prime Minister is sitting a row away, but I am trying to sleep, and don’t notice when he gets off with his aide. he does leave a pile of trash on the floor where he was sitting, I do notice that … turns out that his assistant, who looks vaguely familiar when I see him walk in with the Minister, is Visa’s brother. didn’t realize it at the moment, but Visa tells me that later. should have taken him (The Prime Minister) aside for a chiding on the mess!

My time here is drawing to a close. Another period of hectic travel begins. And still I am unemployed. I do not know how this is happening. Obviously I am not in control. I even listened to a “How to make money at home with a Computer” self-help tape while driving back from Phoenix. I do have the computer, although it is getting old and a bit cranky, but as I have no home, I cannot grab a hold of these concepts. Instead I float on the very skin of being. Ignoring the future, forgetting the past. Floating. Waiting for weather. A storm. Waiting for the next movement with a bit more apprehension than previous travel, after the TWA incident. So it goes. Head down to the outdoor YMCA pool, thankfully, I have gotten myself up to 1200 yards a day (when the pool is open — the afternoon thunderstorms do tend to close the place frequently). There was a good storm late this afternoon, thankfully after I had finished a good workout. Lightning was exploding all around while Bob Dolt was making his acceptance speech for the Republicans. I am really sick of these media events, yet another one, following the Olympics, and next week, the Demagogues, I mean Democrats put on their show. They are sterile, hysterical, and so heavily controlled that it is foolish to use the word democracy in the same paragraph — on anywhere in distant juxtaposition with these spectacles. Buffoonery and frightening nationalism.

Another day lost in a haze. I was having computer problems, but I seem to have solved them. Actually, it was just a stupid oversight that cost me $18.00 to set right. I forgot that my scanner needed a SCSI terminator on it, and so I left that back east with all my other junk. I had to go out and buy another one. I am consuming media here, helplessly. I am unable to avoid turning on the teevee to watch the shameless hucksterism of the Olympics and the breathless and paranoid 24-HOUR BOMBING SPECIAL BRIEFING UPDATE COVERAGE, not to mention the absolutely disgusting back-patting tunnel-vision attitude about the TWA 800 incident. I know that Dan would be sick with the sensationalism. And the advertising. The actual amount of time spent on the Olympic competition. Maybe 20% of the time. The complex way of mixing the visuals down — distorting of time and space … The heavy nationalistic slant on the coverage is shocking. Snide comments by the announcers — for example, during the opening ceremonies, the announcers began to discuss the political situation in China when that countries athletes came marching out. And so on. Actually I hardly want to discuss this, rather leave it as simply another example of The Spectacle.

In other parts of the world there are people who are born, live, and die in a perpetual crowd. To be always visible — to live in a swarm of eyes — a special expression must develop. Face coated with clay. The murmuring rises and falls While they divide up among themselves the sky, the shadows, the sand grains. — Tomas Tranströmer

07 1996′, ’30 3357

Tomorrow the next president of Iceland will be elected.