I Kill Spies

Shortly after three eight-year-old boys were found mutilated and murdered in West Memphis, Arkansas, local newspapers stated the killers had been caught. The police assured the public that the three teenagers in custody were definitely responsible for these horrible crimes. Evidence?

The same police officers coerced an error-filled “confession” from Jessie Misskelley Jr., who is mentally handicapped. They subjected him to 12 hours of questioning without counsel or parental consent, audio-taping only two fragments totaling 46 minutes. Jessie recanted it that evening, but it was too late— Misskelley, Jason Baldwin and Damien Echols were all arrested on June 3, 1993, and convicted of murder in early 1994.

Although there was no physical evidence, murder weapon, motive, or connection to the victims, the prosecution pathetically resorted to presenting black hair and clothing, heavy metal t-shirts, and Stephen King novels as proof that the boys were sacrificed in a satanic cult ritual. Unfathomably, Echols was sentenced to death, Baldwin received life without parole, and Misskelley got life plus 40.

For over 11 years, The West Memphis Three have been imprisoned for crimes they didn’t commit. Echols waits in solitary confinement for the lethal injection our tax dollars will pay for. They were all condemned by their poverty, incompetent defense, satanic panic and a rush to judgment.

But there’s still hope for them, and you can help.

Web link of note: Free the West Memphis Three
(At http://wm3.org/)

I found these guys at the San Diego Comic-Book Convention-

A Star Wars fan-run group of stormtroopers, all with custom-made stormtrooper armor. Watching them in large units is really impressive- check out their pages of photos.

There are garrisons all over the world- these guys could totally have their OWN convention.
Web link of note: 501st Stormtrooper Legion
(At http://www.501st.com/)

My friend Primrose is in the PEace Corps in Togo, yet still somehow manages to have a blog!

Send her mail at:

PCV Primrose Boynton
Corps de la Paix
BP 168
Dapaong, Togo
West Africa

Web link of note: Primrose
(At http://www.livejournal.com/users/tlaad/)

Good summary of the religious beliefs of the framers of the Constitution,
and of the gradual erosion of the early separation of the Church and State.

I have noticed in rival sites’ efforts to make the framers of the Constitution into Fundamentalist Christians, they (intentionally?) confuse the notion of “Deist.” The argument usually goes:

1. People say the founding fathers were Deists


2. This dictionary here has “Deist” and “Agnostic” as synonyms (maybe this is evidence that the site authors don’t want to admit they don’t know what Deism is).
3. Look, most of these guys went to church! That doesn’t sound like an Agnostic to me!
4. The founding fathers must not have been Deists
5. The founding fathers went to church, so they must have been Christians

My response to the fundie revisionists: maybe you guys should read a book that is not the Bible once in a while. A Deist is someone who believes in the role of God in creation, but not the interference- they believe in crazy notions like “personal responsibility” and that you can’t write of the cause of everything as “God’s Will.” What a bunch of lunatics!

I personally think it’s possible to be both a Deist and a Christian (someone who believes in the divinity of Jesus Christ) at the same time.

Contrast this with the opposing view to Deism, which the fundamentalists advocate: The idea that the Supreme Being, the creator of the world, etc etc, is still actively involved with the affairs of the material world we live in. This philosophy is called Theism. Although you generally won’t hear the fundamentalists use that phrase, because it implies there is another valid philosophy besides theirs!

• Wikipedia entry on Deism
• Wikipedia entry on Theism

A bonus feature of this site: my friend Sam hates Andrew Jackson with a passion. Now he has yet another reason!
Web link of note: The Christian Democracy Myth
(At http://monotheism.us/)

This rules- ever noticed how formulaic Nickelback’s songs are? This guy mixed Nickelback on the left channel against Nickelback on the right channel- they match identically.

In fact, instead of buying the next Nickelback album, why don’t you spend the money on a garage-sale guitar, and write your own Nickelback song? You’ll be famous!
Web link of note: Nickelback vs Nickelback
(At http://www.thewebshite.co.uk/nickelback.htm)

I started playing City of Heroes this week… it’s a fun game,
but just like in real life you really need friends to play with. Communication skills are essential for a well-honed team machine.

In other news, when you sign up, you are City of Heroes’ bitch. You sign a lengthy Agreement every time you log in, and if anything goes wrong, like the server shutting down, too bad. I see “mapserver failures” all the time, and you have to log in again.

Buyer Beware

When you buy the game, you get one month of usage, starting from the beginning of your account…. NOT from the beginning of your usage. If something goes wrong with that first time, too bad… the clock is ticking. And Support is only open 1pm-5pm Central. I recommend starting your account the early afternoon of the day you intend to play, so if anything goes wrong you can still reach support. If having to do that seems ridiculous to you, I agree completely.

I had a really ugly experience where my account was activated but it thought my time was out before I ever played… and the days were rolling by. My appeals for a refund or a changed billing date were brushed off as not “being part of their policy.” Short of a lawsuit, there is nothing I can do.

The saga:

1. I bought my copy of the game at the mall- $49.99 at GameStop


2. I went to PlayNC.com to create my account, and added my “20 digit serial code”
   to bind my copy of the game to my account. This was on July 13th in the evening, the binding was at 10:21 pm EST ( 7:21 pm pacific)
3. I installed the client. I tried to log in – it told me my time had run out! My bill date on the web site was 3 months at a time, starting on August 13th
4. So much for my gaming night. My next available night was… maybe the next week. Bye bye money! bye bye!
5. I called Support at 11 am PST the next day and got “Chris”
6. even Support can’t add time to an account – like not only is it not “their policy” but that particular department doesn’t have “the tools” do do it.
7. the player can change the billing date but Support cannot-
   the player can change the date… to after when time runs out…
   but then there is a “gap” between when the account is shut down and when the billing starts again.
8. the game code “20- digit serial code” is tied to a particular account:
   once a code is used to start an account, cannot be changed or used again. And Support doesn’t have new codes, and won’t help you get a new one, or invalidate an old one.
9. During the exchange, Chris admitted- there was a server down or a delay or something, until 12:21 am CST July 14th- which would have been 9:21 pm PST. So if I had sat there in front of the computer trying to log in over and over for two hours, I would have gotten on. I guess I must me lazy or something.
10. what would have been nice is if they could have:
    • had an error message that was appropriate to the problem on the client
    
    
    • had some way of getting off-hours support, since nighttime is when most people use the service
    • been willing to credit my account with the lost time (one day in this case)- either by changing the start time of the account binding, or shutting off the account and making a new one with a new start time
11. Basically, they were unwilling to help me at all. Note that if this was the cable company or an ISP, they would credit for downtime, since the outage was their fault.

I like the Japanese castles the best
Web link of note: Asian Historical Architecture
(At http://www.orientalarchitecture.com/)

I went to Nak’s today and got a whisk (“chasen” = 茶筅) to make my powdered tea.

The whisks are cut from a single piece of bamboo, with one end thinly split many times over for the brush end, and come in different grades- how many bristles the bamboo is cut into will determine the coarseness of the tea.

I bought the 120 bristle one, but they had two coarser ones, down to 80 bristles.

It turns out that if you break your chasen, it’s bad luck to just throw it in the trash- once a year in May you have a ceremony, “chasen koyō,” in which you burn your brush. I have to be careful with this one because I have no idea where the nearest Shinto shrine is, even in San Francisco.

You need about 1 teaspoon of powder for every quarter cup of hot water.

• Wikipedia: Japanese Tea Ceremony

We’ve secretly replaced the little honey bear in the breakroom with a 55-gallon drum of eucalpytus honey with a gas nozzle on it. Let’s see if anyone notices!

Cute !

We make stuffed animals that look like tiny microbes—only a million times actual size! Now available: The Common Cold, The Flu, Sore Throat, Stomach Ache, Cough, Ear Ache, Bad Breath, Kissing Disease, Athlete’s Foot, Ulcer, Martian Life, Beer & Bread, Black Death, Ebola, Flesh Eating, Sleeping Sickness, Dust Mite, Bed Bug, and Bookworm (and in our Professional line: H.I.V. and Hepatitis).

Each 5-to-7 inch doll is accompanied by an image of the real microbe it represents, as well as information about the microbe.

Web link of note: Giant Microbes
(At http://giantmicrobes.com/)