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This week the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey issued a stunning document to explain why Ground Zero has remained nothing but a hole for some seven years.

It is arguably the greatest political and bureaucratic fiasco in the history of the world. Remember the line about how if we don’t rebuild the towers “the terrorists will win”? The terrorists will be dead of old age before this project is finished.

Port Authority Executive Director Chris Ward, who did the remarkably frank report at the request of a frustrated Gov. David Paterson of New York, wrote that original estimates of time and cost (now at $15 billion) “did not reflect the unprecedented challenges associated with a project . . . involving so many different public and private stakeholders.” (Arguably the system began its decline when the vocabulary changed deadly “factions” into benevolent “stakeholders.”)

Ground Zero is a perfect storm of contemporary American politics. The report cites “19 different governmental entities from every level of government each laying claim to some component of the overall project.” And, “Each entity makes daily decisions about their individual projects, but no streamlined process or authority is in place to . . . ensure that each decision is in the best interest of the overall project.” This sounds eerily like the 9/11 Commission’s assessment of our dis-coordinated national security agencies.

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Officials unveiled the prototype of the first U.S. coin with readable Braille characters on Wednesday — a silver dollar commemorating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Louis Braille, the creator of the alphabet for the blind.

The coin’s display opened the National Federation of the Blind’s annual convention in Dallas.

“This is going to put Braille in front of people in a very dramatic way,” said Chris Danielson, a federation spokesman.

Because everybody is always carrying a few silver dollars, right?

Oh, by the way, if you guessed “11 dollar” as the price for this dollar, please step forward to claim your prize.

Click here to view full image (271 kb)

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Can you guess what is shown in this photo? What is the plume extending upward from the ground? Why is the top of the plume brighter than its bottom? What is the bright object in the lower righthand corner of the picture, and what is the dark, cone-shaped feature that seems to be leaving the plume and converging on the bright object? Examine the picture carefully, look at the high-resolution version if you want to, and see if you can figure out the answers to these questions. Then, read the caption to test yourself.

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De vrijheid op Internet is de religieus geïnspireerde medemens eveneens een doorn in het oog. Respect voor brandende braambossen, gezalfden, verlossers, onnozele kinderen, onheilsprofeten, heilige boeken dan wel opperwezens spreken op Internet niet vanzelf. Erg pijnlijk allemaal voor de liefhebber van waarden & normen.

Nu de PvdA met partijen als het CDA en de ChristenUnie in één Kabinet is gaan zitten, is een giftige politieke cocktail ontstaan van linkse frustraties en religieuze dwingelandij.

Voorlopig resultaat: een door de belastingbetaler gefinancierd ‘beschavingsoffensief’ op Internet. Nuttige idioten bij het ruimhartig gesubsidieerde ultralinkse Meldpunt Discriminatie Internet (MDI), leveren de klachten die het Openbaar Ministerie - onder verantwoordelijkheid van de devote katholiek Ernst Hirsch Ballin (CDA) - meent te kunnen gebruiken om lastpakken als ondergetekende in de cel te werpen.

Een onheilspellende ontwikkeling. De vraag luidt dan ook: who is next? De Vrijheid van Meningsuiting is door Balkenende IV ondergeschikt gemaakt aan de Vrijheid van Godsdienst - zoveel is zeker. Godsdienstwaanzinnigen als jongerenimam Abdul Jabbar van de Ven hebben zodoende vrij spel gekregen. Hij hoeft maar zijn nood te klagen bij het MDI, of ook u wordt door tien (10) ijverige overheidsdienaren van uw bed gelicht.

Gregorius Nekschot
Cartoonist

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Maar gisteren namen de fracties genoegen met een A4-tje waarin het kabinet een aantal oude cijfers nog eens op een rijtje zette. De boodschap: de Nederlander gaat er gemíddeld niet op achteruit. De verwachting is namelijk dat veel automobilisten door de kilometerheffing minder gaan rijden. Zij zouden dan zelfs goedkoper uit zijn doordat de motorrijtuigenbelasting en bpm (aanschafbelasting op nieuwe auto’s) verdwijnt.

Als je niet aan de verwachting voldoet, en bijvoorbeeld gewoon dagelijks naar kantoor heen en weer blijft rijden, want tja, je moet toch inkomsten blijven hebben, dan ga je er dus op achteruit.

Oftewel, precies zoals verwacht, een ordinaire lastenverzwaring.

Garfield isn’t what it used to be. As a result, people have been re-making garfields without the text, without garfield, randomizing it, etc, with sometimes hilarious results.

Today’s garfield immediately triggered something with me. Here’s the strip, let’s see if you get the same.

And? Did you immediately think of the following as well?

By the way, did you know it makes an awesome halloween costume?

Running a marathon is hard enough for most people. Some people, nonetheless, like to mix in some extra sweating and chaffing via elaborate “marathon costumes”. And there’s a Flickr photo pool about it…

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Once oil passed $140 a barrel, even the most rabidly rightwing media hosts had to prove their populist credibility by devoting a portion of every show to bashing Big Oil. Some have gone so far as to invite me on for a friendly chat about an insidious new phenomenon: “disaster capitalism.” It usually goes well - until it doesn’t.

For instance, “independent conservative” radio host Jerry Doyle and I were having a perfectly amiable conversation about sleazy insurance companies and inept politicians when this happened: “I think I have a quick way to bring the prices down,” Doyle announced. “We’ve invested $650bn to liberate a nation of 25 million people, shouldn’t we just demand that they give us oil? There should be tankers after tankers backed up like a traffic jam getting into the Lincoln Tunnel, the stinkin’ Lincoln, at rush-hour with thank-you notes from the Iraqi government … Why don’t we just take the oil? We’ve invested it liberating a country. I can have the problem solved of gas prices coming down in 10 days, not 10 years.”

There were a couple of problems with Doyle’s plan, of course. The first was that he was describing the biggest stick-up in world history. The second that he was too late. “We” are already heisting Iraq’s oil, or at least are on the brink of doing so.

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Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian.

The damning unpublished assessment is based on the most detailed analysis of the crisis so far, carried out by an internationally-respected economist at global financial body.

The figure emphatically contradicts the US government’s claims that plant-derived fuels contribute less than 3% to food-price rises. It will add to pressure on governments in Washington and across Europe, which have turned to plant-derived fuels to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and reduce their dependence on imported oil.

Senior development sources believe the report, completed in April, has not been published to avoid embarrassing President George Bush.

“It would put the World Bank in a political hot-spot with the White House,” said one yesterday.

[October 14, 2001:]

”If bin Laden takes over and becomes king of Saudi Arabia, he’d turn off the tap,” said Roger Diwan, a managing director of the Petroleum Finance Company, a consulting firm in Washington. ”He said at one point that he wants oil to be $144 a barrel” — about six times what it sells for now.

On Windows, Acrobat reader has been a piece of utter crap for quite a while now. And now it sucks on Mac OS just as much. (Where, I have to admit, I’ve been keeping it off my machines, since Mac OS understands pdf very well by itself, thank you very much)

To be fair, trickle down is a staple of theporn industry.

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• Mike Huckabee: “When Katrina, a Cat-5 hurricane, hit the Gulf Coast, not one drop of oil was spilled off of those rigs out in the Gulf of Mexico.”

• Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal: You know, that’s one of the great unwritten success stories, after Katrina and Rita, these awful storms, no major spills.

• John McCain: As for offshore drilling, it’s safe enough these days that not even Hurricanes Katrina and Rita could cause significant spillage from the battered rigs off the coasts of New Orleans and Houston.

• George Will: “Hurricanes Katrina and Rita destroyed or damaged hundreds of drilling rigs without causing a large spill.”

• Wall Street Journal editorial: “Hurricanes Katrina and Rita flattened terminals across the Gulf of Mexico but didn’t cause a single oil spill.”

• Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne: “When Katrina and Rita hit the Gulf Coast where we have about 4,000 oil and gas platforms, 3,000 were in the direct line of the storms - the most significant storms we’ve seen ever - and 3,000 of those had to be shut down. We had no significant oil spill. The system worked.”

• Fox News’ Dick Morris: “And by the way, the safety concerns, Hurricane Katrina didn’t cause any leakage or any spill in the Gulf of Mexico oil wells.”

VERSUS

A report prepared for the federal government by an international consulting firm, state that damages related to Hurricane Katrina resulted in 70 spills from outer continental shelf structures with a total volume of approximately 11,104 barrels of oil and petroleum products. http://mediamatters.org/items/200806270005?f=h_top

Satellite image with detail insets showing oil slicks in Gulf of Mexico following passage of Hurricane Katrina. Image taken on September 2, 2005. http://skytruth.mediatools.org/node/19981

“This morning, in a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court overturned Washington, DC’s ban on handguns! Wooo! Finally, the residents of Washington, DC have the right to defend themselves. From each other, one assumes.

Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia said, ‘It is not the role of this court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct.’

He is right. Killing the Constitution is the president’s job. The court’s job is to overturn elections.”

–Stephen Colbert

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President Bush still clings to his claim that the economy is doing well. “It’s a good time to buy a house.” Yeah, and an airline. And Circuit City.

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Boffins have slammed examiners in England for setting school children seriously dumb questions.

The Royal Chemistry Society said that the science exams for 14 year olds includes questions such as, “What powers a solar-powered snail?”

[..]

And this one, inspired by Father Ted, perhaps:

Some stars are bigger than the Sun but they look smaller. Why do they look smaller than the Sun?

* They are brighter than the Sun
* They are further away than the Sun
* They are the same colour as the Sun
* They are nearer than the Sun

That foxes me every time.

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An appeal from three European NGOs - La Quadrature du Net, netzpolitik.org and EDRi-member Open Rights Group - reveal some disturbing MEPs amendments to the draft directives to reform the EU framework on electronic communications (telecom package).

The review of the telecom package was merely focusing on telecom-related issues (except for discussions on the ePrivacy directive, which is the subject of another EDRi-gram article in the current issue), but some of the 800 amendments on the 5 directives that form the current package might go further than just establishing the rules for a functioning electronic communications market and could endanger the principle of the neutrality of the Internet.

Some amendments will transform the ISPs from technical intermediaries that have no obligation to prior surveillance of contents into law enforcers. Therefore they might be asked to block their users from lawful activities in the interests of their security or to work with content producers and rights-holders’ organizations, including sending intimidating messages, with no judicial approval. The amendment meant to support Intellectual Property Rights owners could open the door to censorship and might mean in practice the loss on privacy on the Internet.