Staring into the Singularity 1.2.5

Staring into the Singularity 1.2.5: "If computing speeds double every two years,
what happens when computer-based AIs are doing the research?

Computing speed doubles every two years.
Computing speed doubles every two years of work.
Computing speed doubles every two subjective years of work.

Two years after Artificial Intelligences reach human equivalence, their speed doubles. One year later, their speed doubles again.

Six months - three months - 1.5 months ... Singularity.

Plug in the numbers for current computing speeds, the current doubling time, and an estimate for the raw processing power of the human brain, and the numbers match in: 2021."

BOMB Magazine: Regina José Galindo by Francisco Goldman

BOMB Magazine: Regina José Galindo by Francisco Goldman: "A slight young woman in a black dress walks barefoot through the streets of Guatemala City, carrying a white basin filled with human blood. She sets the basin down, steps into it and then out, leaving a trail of bloody footprints from the Constitutional Court building to the old National Palace. The corrupt Constitutional Court had recently allowed the former military dictator, General Ríos Montt, to run for president despite the Constitution's barring of past presidents who gained power by military coup. A Guatemalan who didn't know that it was a performance titled Who can erase the traces?–or even who had never heard of performance art–would have had no trouble understanding the symbolism: the ghostly footprints representing the hundreds of thousands of civilians murdered, overwhelmingly by the Army, during the long years of war and after; the persistence of memory in the face of official policies of enforced forgetting and impunity. I've read (and have contributed) plenty of words, a surfeit of words, about violence and injustice in Guatemala. That trail of bloody footprints was the most powerful statement I'd encountered in ages. "

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave: Chapter VI

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave: Chapter VI: "I now understood what had been to me a most perplexing difficulty--to wit, the white man's power to enslave the black man. It was a grand achievement, and I prized it highly. From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom. It was just what I wanted, and I got it at a time when I the least expected it. Whilst I was saddened by the thought of losing the aid of my kind mistress, I was gladdened by the invaluable instruction which, by the merest accident, I had gained from my master. Though conscious of the difficulty of learning without a teacher, I set out with high hope, and a fixed purpose, at whatever cost of trouble, to learn how to read. The very decided manner with which he spoke, and strove to impress his wife with the evil consequences of giving me instruction, served to convince me that he was deeply sensible of the truths he was uttering. It gave me the best assurance that I might rely with the utmost confidence on the results which, he said, would flow from teaching me to read. What he most dreaded, that I most desired. What he most loved, that I most hated. That which to him was a great evil, to be carefully shunned, was to me a great good, to be diligently sought; and the argument which he so warmly urged, against my learning to read, only served to inspire me with a desire and determination to learn. "

Martin Luther King Jr. 01/15/29 -04/04/1968

• "Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."
• "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. "
• "I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law."
• "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."
• "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

The strange case of the man who took 40,000 ecstasy pills in nine years

Cannabis user

Mr A was also a heavy cannabis user, and when he was encouraged to decrease his use, his paranoia and hallucinations disappeared and his anxiety abated. But his memory and concentration problems remained, leading the doctors to suspect that these may be permanent disabilities.

Last Rites for Indian Dead by Suzan Shown Harjo

What if museums, universities, and government agencies could put your dead relatives on display or keep them in boxes to be cut up and otherwise studied? What if you believed that the spirits of the dead could not rest until their human remains were placed in a sacred area? The ordinary American would say there ought to be a law—and there is, for ordinary Americans. The problem for American Indians is that there are too many laws of the kind that make us the archeological property of the United States and too few of the kind that protect us from such insults. Some of my own Cheyenne relatives’ skulls are in the Smithsonian Institution today, along with those of at least 4,500 other Indian people who were violated in the 1800s by the U.S. Army for an “Indian Crania Study.” It wasn’t enough that these unarmed Cheyenne people were mowed down by the cavalry at the infamous Sand Creek massacre; many were decapitated and their heads shipped to Washington as freight. (The Army Medical Museum’s collection is now in the Smithsonian.) Some had been exhumed° only hours after being buried. Imagine their grieving families’ reaction on finding their loved ones disinterred° and headless. Some targets of the Army’s study were killed in noncombat situations and beheaded immediately. The officer’s account of the decapitation of the Apache chief Mangas Coloradas in 1863 shows the pseudoscientific nature of the exercise. “I weighed the brain and measured the skull,” the good doctor wrote, “and found that while the skull was smaller, the brain was larger than that of Daniel Webster.” These journal accounts exist in excruciating detail, yet missing are any records of overall comparisons, conclusions, or final reports of the Army study. Since it is unlike the Army not to leave a paper trail, one must wonder about the motive for its collection. The total Indian body count in the Smithsonian collection is more than 19,000, and it is not the largest in the country. It is not inconceivable that the 1.5 million of us living today are outnumbered by our dead stored in museums, educational institutions, federal agencies, state historical societies, and private collections. The Indian people are further dehumanized by being exhibited alongside the mastodons and dinosaurs and other extinct creatures. Where we have buried our dead in peace, more often than not the sites have been desecrated. For more than two hundred years, relic-hunting has been a popular pursuit. Lately, the market in Indian artifacts has brought this abhorrent activity to a fever pitch in some areas. And when scavengers come upon Indian burial sites, everything found becomes fair game, including sacred burial offerings, teeth, and skeletal remains.One unusually well-publicized example of Indian grave desecration occurred two years ago in a western Kentucky field known as Slack Farm, the site of an Indian village five centuries ago. Ten men—one with a business card stating “Have Shovel, Will Travel”—paid the landowner $10,000 to lease digging rights between planting seasons. They dug extensively on the forty-acre farm, rummaging through an estimated 650 graves, collecting burial goods, tools, and ceremonial items. Skeletons were strewn about like litter. What motivates people to do something like this? Financial gain is the first answer. Indian relic-collecting has become a multimillion-dollar industry. The price tag on a bead necklace can easily top $1,000; rare pieces fetch tens of thousands. And it is not just collectors of the macabre° who pay for skeletal remains. Scientists say that these deceased Indians are needed for research that someday could benefit the health and welfare of living Indians. But just how many dead Indians must they examine? Nineteen thousand? There is doubt as to whether permanent curation of our dead really benefits Indians. Dr. Emery A. Johnson, former assistant Surgeon General, recently observed, “I am not aware of any current medical diagnostic or treatment procedure that has been derived from research on such skeletal remains. Nor am I aware of any during the thirty-four years that I have been involved in American Indian . . . health care.” Indian remains are still being collected for racial biological studies. While the intentions may be honorable, the ethics of using human remains this way without the full consent of relatives must be questioned. Some relief for Indian people has come on the state level. Almost half of the states, including California, have passed laws protecting Indian burial sites and restricting the sale of Indian bones, burial offerings, and other sacred items. Rep. Charles E. Bennett (D-Fla.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) have introduced bills that are a good start in invoking the federal government’s protection. However, no legislation has attacked the problem headon by imposing stiff penalties at the marketplace, or by changing laws that make dead Indians the nation’s property. Some universities—notably Stanford, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Seattle—have returned, or agreed to return, Indian human remains; it is fitting that institutions of higher education should lead the way.Congress is now deciding what to do with the government’s extensive collection of Indian human remains and associated funerary objects. The secretary of the Smithsonian, Robert McC. Adams, has been valiantly° attempting to apply modern ethics to yesterday’s excesses. This week, he announced that the Smithsonian would conduct an inventory and return all Indian skeletal remains that could be identified with specific tribes or living kin. But there remains a reluctance generally among collectors of Indian remains to take action of a scope that would have a quantitative impact and a healing quality. If they will not act on their own—and it is highly unlikely that they will—then Congress must act. The country must recognize that the bodies of dead American Indian people are not artifacts to be bought and sold as collector’s items. It is not appropriate to store tens of thousands of our ancestors for possible future research. They are our family. They deserve to be returned to their sacred burial grounds and given a chance to rest. The plunder of our people’s graves has gone on too long. Let us rebury our dead and remove this shameful past from America’s future.

The Chinese zombie ships of West Africa

"'Is this ship ready for fishing?' we ask. 'Yes, of course', he looks around, gestures at the deck. He seems surprised that we would ask. We're amazed it's even floating."

Bush blames Iraq's instability on Hussein - Mar 29, 2006

"President Bush said Wednesday that Saddam Hussein, not continued U.S. involvement in Iraq, is responsible for ongoing sectarian violence that is threatening the formation of a democratic government." If a dictator in prison has more power than the president of the invading country, we have light years to go!

GovTrack: H.R. 4437: Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005

"H.R. 4437: Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005" The straight facts.

12/6/2005--Introduced.

Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005 - Directs the Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS) to: (1) take all appropriate actions, including development of a national border strategy, to maintain operational control over the U.S. international land and maritime borders; (2) report on cross-border security agreements with Mexico and Canada; (3) provide for biometric data enhancements; (4) report on the One Face at the Border Initiative; (5) increase port of entry inspection personnel and canine detection teams; (6) report on the airspace security mission's impact on the National Capital Region; (7) reimburse private owners along the border for certain property damage; (8) establish at least one Border Patrol unit for the Virgin Islands; (9) report on Central American gang travel across the U.S.-Mexico border; and (10) deploy radiation portal monitors at US ports of entry to screen inbound cargo for nuclear and radiological material.

Amends the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) with respect to alien smuggling and illegal entry and presence to: (1) revise the definition of aggravated felony; (2) provide mandatory minimum sentences on smuggling convictions, and expand seizure and forfeiture authority; (3) make illegal US presence a crime; (4) increases penalties for improper US entry and for marriage and immigration-related entrepreneurship fraud; (5) provide mandatory minimum sentences for aliens convicted of reentry after removal; (6) impose on smugglers the same sentences that the aliens they have smuggled would receive; (7) include among smuggling crimes the carrying or use of a firearm during such activity; and (8) revise voluntary departure provisions.

Directs the Secretary: (1) and the Secretary of Defense to develop a plan to increase the availability of Department of Defense (DOD) surveillance equipment along the US international land and maritime borders; (2) to assess border security vulnerabilities on Department of Interior land directly adjacent to the US border; (3) conduct a training exercise on border security information sharing; (4) establish a Border Security Advisory Committee; and (5) establish a university-based Center of Excellence for Border Security.

Authorizes the Secretary to permit the use of DHS grants for border security activities.

Expresses the sense of Congress with respect to border security cooperation with sovereign Indian Nations.

Requires the mandatory detention of illegal aliens apprehended at a US port of entry or along the US land or maritime borders. Permits release with notice to appear only if the alien: (1) is not a security risk; and (2) provides a specified bond. Denies admission to the nationals of a country that refuses or delays acceptance of its nationals ordered removed from the United States.

Requires that the Secretary place an alien (other than from Mexico or Canada) who has not been admitted or paroled into expedited removal if apprehended within 100 miles of the border and within 14 days of unauthorized entry.

Directs the Secretary to take specified actions to ensure coordination of DHS border security efforts.

Amends the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to establish in DHS an Office of Air and Marine Operations whose primary mission shall be to prevent the entry of terrorists, other unlawful aliens, instruments of terrorism, narcotics, and other contraband into the United States.

Directs the Secretary to transfer to United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement all functions of the Customs Patrol Officers unit operating on the Tohono O'odham Indian reservation (the "Shadow Wolves" unit). Authorizes the Secretary to establish within United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement additional Customs Patrol units to operate on Indian lands.

Bars an alien: (1) deportable on terrorist grounds from receiving withholding of removal; (2) convicted of an aggravated felony, unlawful procurement of citizenship, or domestic violence, stalking, or child abuse from admissibility; (3) convicted of an aggravated felony from refugee or asylee status adjustment; (4) removable on terrorist grounds from becoming naturalized; and (5) from being naturalized while in removal proceedings.

Revises and enhances detention provisions for certain dangerous aliens subject to removal, including establishment of a detention review process for cooperating aliens.

Increases penalties and sets mandatory minimum sentences for aliens who fail to comply with removal provisions.

Makes an alien deportable for: (1) three or more drunk driving convictions; and (2) social security number and identification fraud.

Authorizes (and reimburses) local sheriffs or sheriff coalitions in specified counties along the southern border to enforce the immigration laws and to transfer illegal aliens to federal custody. Establishes in the Treasury the Designated County Law Enforcement Account.

Makes an alien inadmissible for US entry if: (1) such alien has been deported for criminal street gang participation; or (2) the consular officer or the Secretary knows or has reasonable grounds to believe that such alien is a member of a criminal street gang seeking US entry in furtherance of gang-related crimes or activities, or is a member of a designated criminal street gang. Makes an alien deportable who: (1) is a street gang member convicted of committing or attempting to commit a gang crime; or (2) is determined by the Secretary to be a member of a designated criminal street gang. Authorizes the Attorney General to designate a group or association as a criminal street gang. Requires mandatory detention of alien gang members subject to removal. Makes such aliens ineligible for asylum and protection from removal to certain countries.

Authorizes expedited removal for aliens inadmissible for security or criminal grounds.

Makes sexual abuse of a minor an aggravated felony for immigration purposes.

Directs the Secretary to establish, and sets forth the provisions for, an employment eligibility verification system. Expands the employment eligibility verification system to include: (1) previously hired individuals; and (2) recruitment and referral. Sets forth civil and criminal penalty provisions for noncompliance.

Provides for: (1) voluntary employer verification utilizing such system two years after enactment of this Act for previously hired individuals; (2) mandatory employer verification three years after enactment of this Act by federal, state, and local governments, and the military for employees not verified under such system working at federal, state or local government buildings, military bases, nuclear energy sites, weapons sites, airports, or critical infrastructure sites; and (3) mandatory employer verification six years after enactment of this Act for all employees not previously verified under such system.

Makes employer participation in the basic pilot program mandatory two years after enactment of this Act.

Authorizes the Board of Immigration Appeals to reverse an immigration judge's removal decision without remand.

Eliminates judicial review of visa revocation.

Authorizes reinstatement of a prior removal order against an alien illegally reentering the United States.

Requires an alien applying for withholding of removal to establish that his or her life or freedom would be threatened in the country of return, and that race, religion, nationality, or political or social group would be a central factor in such threat.

Subjects removal appeals to an initial certification of reviewability process by a single court of appeals judge.

Requires all nonimmigrant applicants to waive any right to: (1) review or appeal a determination of inadmissibility at port of entry; or (2) contest, other than through asylum, any action for removal.

Words from a founding member of Delta Force - Counter terrorism unit.

"For the first thing, our credibility is utterly zero. So we destroyed whatever credibility we had. ... And I say 'we,' because the American public went along with this. They voted for a second Bush administration out of fear, so fear is what they're going to have from now on."

Immigration bills send protesters to city streets - Mar 24, 2006

Immigration bills send protesters to city streets - Mar 24, 2006: "Congress is considering bills that would make it a felony to be in the United States illegally, impose new penalties on employers who hire illegal immigrants and erect fences along one-third of the U.S.-Mexican border. The proposals have angered many Hispanics." Land of the free if you were here first? Right, oh yeah that's right, wrong! Though there is a need for cheap labor to stop, to protect both the employee and the economy, this is not the way. This country that most would like to posess as theirs was built by migrants of all races of through slave labor. Imposing a felony on any undocumented human will no doubt clog up the justice system and the prison system wasting millions of tax dollars on sustaining the influx of people sent to trial and convicted.

Missouri teen survives ride in tornado

"“The way it tore the walls and roof out of the trailer, I’m sure it sucked me up into the wind,”"

Bush Pre-senile Dementia Video

Bush Pre-senile Dementia Video: "Bush Pre-senile Dementia Video

The big story - 'a striking decline in his sentence-by-sentence speaking skills.' The reason? One doctor says 'pre-senile dementia' a catch-all term for earlier-than-normal cognitive declines (probably 'dry-drunk syndrome'). This video intercuts footage from 10 years ago with recent footage - the difference is dramatic and disturbing. And obvious." Just hilarious

Happy 150th birthday: a new era looms for old age - Yahoo! News

"Modern medicine is redefining old age and may soon allow people to live regularly beyond the current upper limit of 120 years, experts said on Wednesday."- Excuse me sir, can you please not drag you skin on the floor, look at me when I'm talking to you, all the skin from his forhead is just hanging in his eyes. All thanks to Rx's, but what is the quality of life after 50, change my perception thanks.

Hunter S. Thompson, George W. Bush and the Free Republic - Maureen Farrell at BuzzFlash.com

"‘Fear & Loathing in America,’ Sept.12, 2001

* 'The towers are gone now, reduced to bloody rubble, along with all hopes for Peace in Our Time, in the United States or any other country. Make no mistake about it: We are At War now -- with somebody -- and we will stay At War with that mysterious Enemy for the rest of our lives.'
* 'It will be guerilla warfare on a global scale, with no front lines and no identifiable enemy. . . We are going to punish somebody for this attack, but just who or what will be blown to smithereens for it is hard to say. Maybe Afghanistan, maybe Pakistan or Iraq, or possibly all three at once. Who knows'?
* 'This is going to be a very expensive war, and Victory is not guaranteed -- for anyone, and certainly not for anyone as baffled as George W. Bush. All he knows is that his father started the war a long time ago, and that he, the goofy child-President, has been chosen by Fate and the global Oil industry to finish it Now.'

‘When War Drums Roll,’ Sept. 17, 2001

* 'The last half of the 20th century will seem like a wild party for rich kids, compared to what's coming now. The party's over, folks. . . [Censorship of the news] is a given in wartime, along with massive campaigns of deliberately-planted ‘Dis-information.’ That is routine behavior in Wartime -- for all countries and all combatants -- and it makes life difficult for people who value real news.'

‘Domestic terrorism at the Super Bowl,’ Feb. 11, 2002

* '[T]his blizzard of mind-warping war propaganda out of Washington is building up steam. Monday is Anthrax, Tuesday is Bankruptcy, Friday is Child-Rape, Thursday is Bomb-scares, etc., etc., etc.... If we believed all the brutal, frat-boy threats coming out of the White House, we would be dead before Sunday. It is pure and savage terrorism reminiscent of Nazi Germany.'

'Extreme behavior in Aspen,' Feb. 3, 20"

Guardian Unlimited Books | News | Harper Lee tops librarians' must-read list

Guardian Unlimited Books | News | Harper Lee tops librarians' must-read list: "To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Bible
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by JRR Tolkien
1984 by George Orwell
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
All Quite on the Western Front by E M Remarque
His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
Tess of the D'urbevilles by Thomas Hardy
Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
The Prophet by Khalil Gibran
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Middlemarch by George Eliot
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzenhitsyn"

Ten things that may change the way we live according to Forbes