SS Citizen Corps

I apologize for bringing old news, I have been without internet access at home have stopped watching TV, and do not get the paper. Even so I would have thought news of a proposed (passed) group of citizen spies equaling nearly 1 in every 24 U.S. citizens would have made it to me somehow. Why wasn't there larger coverage of this in the news media or among bloggers?

The focus of the recruitment efforts for this, STAZI-like new citizen "watchdog group" will be people with regular access to people's homes, businesses, and transport systems -people like mail carriers, utility employees, house cleaners, and truck drivers.

If you have problems with the link above please use this one.

This is all part of the administration's development of the Citizen Corps and I just do not like it. Look at that site, full of propaganda and "patriotic images." The breadth of potential involvement opportunities is unnerving. I can imagine neighbors reporting neighbors, or old women reporting "those suspicious people with darker skin" and I fear that not much is going to come from this that will be beneficial- just more fear, suspicion, and less community among neighbors.


I was quite surprised to hear it when an otherwise rational, mostly intelligent (except of r that whole Republican thing) friend of mine told me that the closest thing he has to religion is what he sees on the John Edward show. He was actually planning to fly to the show to be on it - to surmise if it was real or not.

Now, this friend of mine claimed Mr. Edward doesn't do the whole "pshycic"-asking-vague-quesstion thing. But my research into him tells me otherwise. This article covers an appearance on Larry King Live in which Mr. Edward uses the tried and true "I am getting an 'S' or maybe a 'T' type thing. I just cannot respect his "powers", sorry Jeff.


A family was kicked off a plane for asking if the pilots were sober. [from MetaFilter]


It seems the folks working on MIT's Blogdex project are remaining busy. I don't know how long they have been working on the Social Network Explorer, but it seems that it is still a work in progress. It is somewhat interesting though with the whole concepts of "friends" of sites and then recommendations for surfers based on those friends most likely.