Month: August 2004

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Paul Armentano at LewRockwell.com –

Unlocking a Cure for Cancer — With Pot – cannabanoids are a
potential cure for brain and other cancers. This has been known since
1974, and was verified in 1996, but the U.S. government and media have
blocked the stories. After all, everybody knows that pot is bad for
you. [lew] [End the War on Freedom]

When you combine with this the already known medical benfits of marijuana, such as glaucoma treatment and anti-nausea, it’s looking like marijuana may be just as useful as asprin.

Carter and Gaviria endorse CNE results. Carter and Gaviria speaking. Carter says that a quick check his Center performed at the totalization center and at selected voting locations, coincides with the CNE announcement. Gaviria was more careful at the beginning, but later supported the quick count mentioned by Carter. Gaviria said that the opposition should present the cases of fraud it has found and that the OAS with the evidence presented can not say there was fraud, but may later find something else. Carter said that Sumate had an exit poll with No ahead 55% to 45%, but then Gaviria seemed to contradict him saying that it was 52% for the Si and 48% for the NO. Carter more emphatic than Gaviria but both backing the results unless evidence of fraud is presented.
My friends, unles something earth shaking can be proven, we have now to accept the results. [Satan’s Poop Inc. Paila Master: Venezuela]

It’s a sad day for Venezuela. I can’t say this outcome is completely surprising–as a Californian, I’m used to votes going to a communist by even larger margins than that. Unfortunately now Venezuelans are out of luck–the best option remaining seems to be moving to some less unfree country.

More Hash Functions Broken. Following up on this
rumor from earlier today.

There is still no confirmation out there of the break in SHA-1, but this preprint, which
went up today, reports collisions in MD4, MD5, HAVAL-128 and RIPEMD,
all achieved with very little CPU time. That pretty much covers all
the cryptographic hash functions in use.

It feels as though once someone found the right thread to pull on, the
whole sweater started to unravel. [Diminished Capacity]

If these breaks turn out to be real, it would render all existing digital signatures useless. That’s a pretty big deal, as digital signatures are used in a things like downloadable software updates and web pages.

CNE says NO won handily.  
The CNE says the No won 58% to 41% with 94% of the results in. If OAS and Carter says this is true, then that’s it we lost. But I think this will drag on. Supposedly nither Smartmatic, nor carter nor OAS back the results so far. This is the worst possible scenario in terms of peace for Venezuela.. [Satan’s Poop Inc. Paila Master: Venezuela]

It looks like Chavez may indeed have followed Mugabe’s example. We’ll see what the observers have to say.

Happy Voter here!. It took me ten hours and twenty minutes to vote but I am happy camper. Now I have to go work until polls close. The numbers I am hearing from the exit polls are outstanding, I will get more before I post what I am hearing. But I understand in only three states is teh Si losing. ThePresident of the CNE came on TV to reveal a sinister plot by the opposition to announce at 8 PM that the Si had won, blaming the opposition. The tape turned out to be one made by a comedian a couple of weeks ago and broadcast repeatedly on TV during teh last week. The coemdian just appeared on TV laughing at teh whole thing. Daniel reports the voting machines running out of battery in an Felipe and voting stopped for one hour and a half until recharged. [Satan’s Poop Inc. Paila Master: Venezuela]

Hopefully Chavez doesn’t decide to follow Robert Mugabe’s example and falsify the outcome.

Laws should not force zero tolerance for common sense. In January, Adam Liston made a serious mistake. Liston, 18, a senior at Davis (Calif.) High School, dropped off a few friends at school on his way to the gun range with a new shotgun in his gun rack. Someone reported seeing the gun, and the next day, the vice principal asked to search Liston’s Ford F-250 truck. Liston readily agreed.

Six police cars arrived and officers swarmed the truck. As they searched, his heart sank. He realized he had forgotten to remove the shotgun, unloaded and still in its original box, from his truck after target shooting. Liston broke down in tears as officers confiscated the gun and arrested him. He was handcuffed and taken to the Yolo County Jail.

Police charged Liston with two felony violations of California Penal Code 626.9, possessing a firearm within 1,000 feet of a school – one for when he dropped off his friends, the other for when he returned the next day. He was released on $25,000 bail. In February, the school board voted 3-1 to expel him from Davis High. [FirearmNews.com]

It looks like the only mistake Liston made was thinking he lived in America.

From the newtontalk mailing list:

bq. A couple of weeks ago, I happened to run into a former schoolmate who used
to work with Apple India Ltd. – here’s what she had to say “…contrary to
what most people believe (that Steven Jobs killed the Newton as it was John
Sculley’s brainchild), the real issue was that it caused the PowerBook sales
to plummet! In the MP 2100, potential powerbook buyers saw a workhorse that
could do just about everything that most users would require, at a third of
the cost and a fraction of the weight…”

It was a member of al-Ca’eta. Racial profiling may be too controversial too touch but just wait until somebody suggests species profiling: An escaped pet cat created a scare on a Belgian airliner, forcing the crew to turn back to Brussels 20 minutes into its journey. “We 100% support the decision made by the captain,” Geert Sciot, the airline’s communication vice-president, told the BBC. Nobody, he said, could tell what an agitated cat what might do in the circumstances, scrabbling around… [Samizdata.net]

No doubt the Terrorist Safety Administration will now ban cats from the passenger compartment, lest some future would-be terrorist be foiled by an assault kitty. (I’ve never yet met a cat that wasn’t more courageous than the average American.)