Dakryn's Batshit Theory of the Week

[Prismatic Sphere]

And now another prominent literary author has been proven right.


[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGCd0KPJcMs&feature=player_embedded[/ame]



In the name of safety we have ceded our right not to be searched at airports… almost without a whimper. First we accepted removing our shoes and opening our bags. Then we gave up our lotions, sanitizers and water bottles. Then we accepted being frisked and poked and prodded. Then we accepted having our bodies irradiated and naked pictures being taken and ogled at and saved in the system — in effect allowing government to assume we are all criminals with plans to blow up an airplane — all in the interest of “safety.”
But here’s what really killed the 4th Amendment. Technology and government have taken the next logical step beyond airport scanners. American Science and Engineering, Inc., one of the manufacturers of the backscatter radiation machines now being employed at airports, has made the backscatter radiation system portable.
The Z Backscatter Van™ allows law enforcement to look inside vehicles, buildings and homes just like the airport backscatter scanners allow agents from the Transportation and Security Administration to peer beneath your clothes.
AS&E’s website says the van:

“…is a low-cost, extremely maneuverable screening system built into a commercially available delivery van. The ZBV allows for immediate deployment in response to security threats, and its high throughput capability facilitates rapid inspections. The system’s unique “drive-by” capability allows one or two operators to conduct X-ray imaging of suspect vehicles and objects while the ZBV drives past.
“The ZBV can also be operated in stationary mode by parking the system and producing X-ray images of vehicles as they pass by. Screening can also be accomplished remotely while the system is parked. Remote operation allows scanning to be done safely, even in dangerous environments, while maintaining low-profile operation. The system is unobtrusive, as it maintains the outward appearance of an ordinary van.”




http://island-adv.com/2010/08/the-4th-amendment-may-it-rest-in-peace/

​

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

Yeah that shit is fucked up, I read it the other day.

 

[Valerie]

The Supreme Court has to say something about the (un)constitutionality of this.

From what I've looked up about the 4th amendment, the plain view doctrine, the legal definition of "search", and airport searches, authorities looking through stuff with an x-ray definitely qualifies as a search under the law.

And since these cops are just driving around in a van not specifically looking for any one thing, they have no probable cause to use x-rays to look inside people's cars, homes, and businesses, where people expect privacy and society deems that expectation reasonable.

You might think "well duh" but it's not quite that obvious. There's probably still some loophole that allows this junk to be done.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

Well, the company who makes this shit said some really goddamn stupid stuff, I can't really be bothered to find the link, but essentially they said "yeah but it's not detailed so who cares if it sees in someone's car, you can't use it to see anything really..."...yeah...okay.

 

[Dak]

Besides the privacy issue, there is also a health issue with backscatter Xrays.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

Indeed, indeed.

 

[Valerie]

Best fight all season

 

[Badbird]

Haha baseball fights are funny. However I think Hockey fights are better

 

[Prismatic Sphere]

Best fight all season

Funny shit. This is still my favorite fight though because a much older man(and a legend) pummels a much younger one.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=aa1_1280296883

The Supreme Court has to say something about the (un)constitutionality of this.

You might think "well duh" but it's not quite that obvious. There's probably still some loophole that allows this junk to be done.

The problem with the Supreme Court is that there are barely anymore Originalists(or as I prefer to call them Textualists) who interpret the Constitution only by its plain meaning of the words on the page.

What we have instead are the "living document" people to who the Constitution is little more than a collection of Rorshach inkblots to be interpreted(translation: twisted) for whatever their political agendas may be that day. The problem with that is that there is no objective base and the overriding dogma becomes privy to populism. There is no more rule of law, only the rule of opinion. And IMO, this makes the Supreme Court no different than just another legislative body who wear robes under the guise of Judges(except that we didn't appoint them).

All that aside, anytime there is room for mischief in any government practice, the more you dig and unearth, the more you fill find that it exists. It's the same thing with electronic voting and not actually having your votes count. Anywhere where this has been tried(even in its early stages), there has been corruption.

Similarly with the immigration law. Many people don't realize that racial profiling is only the tiny picture here. The real problem is the further erosion of the already dead and decaying 4th Amendment. Myriad government surveillance is already doing a damn good job of making everybody a potential suspect(guilty until proven innocent). What this law does is provide the police with yet even another form of encroachment into our lives and another reason to hassle people, mexicans or not. What we definitely don't need is more motives for cops to stop people on a whim.

And it simply lays the ground for more mischief. Anytime, you ever hear language like, "The police will be responsible enforcing this new legislation", it is extremely dangerous and downright scary. Period.

As Michael Cloud has said, "The problem isn't the abuse of power, it is the power to abuse."
What we don't need is to give them anymore power.

My wild idea would be to trade all of the illegals who would be loyal to the Constitution for all of the natural born American citizens who despise it. Far too many people have sheepishly let this government run amok and the politicans have wantonly turned their backs upon the American people and have become outright treasonous.

So in short Valerie, we're fucked.

So have a drink and toast to the revolutionary heroes who fought against the Writs Of Assistance and made the 4th Amendment possible. It was good while it lasted.

 

[Prismatic Sphere]

I posted this in another thread but I feel it is also quite apt here.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvPuNU_meEc&feature=related[/ame]

 

[False Joe]

If you don't have illegal shit on, why are you that fussed?

 

[Prismatic Sphere]

If you don't have illegal shit on, why are you that fussed?

Oh, let me count the ways---

1. More things are becoming "illegal" every day. Congress creates a new "crime" on average of once every week. If you don't know all the laws, why are you fussed? Oh right, they can still arrest you anyway.

2. There no longer is a presumption of innocence. Everyone is a potential suspect. Last I checked Stalin wasn't in power; oh right, they still have to destroy the prevailing system first.

3. In a free and open society, there doesn't have to be a reason to make things legal. There must be a reason to make them illegal. See how that works? Don't worry. You're not alone. Most people(sheeple) don't. Also, it's the government who should be the ones worrying about doing something wrong, not us.

4. It's INVASIVE. You thought the Patriot Act's warrantless sneak-and-peak searches were bad(well maybe not you specifically). What's sad is that the current citizenry will probably put up with it. Do you think the founder's of this country would?

5. It's unhealthy, no matter what they tell you.

6. Think this kind of absolute power won't corrupt absolutely?

7. We are the only property owners of our own bodies. We have the right to do whatever we want as long as we aren't hurting anyone else. The War On Drugs is an INSANE DISASTER.

8. Prohibition doesn't work.

9. Oh yeah, it's unconstitutional. Did I mention that?

10. Want me to go on?

 

[Saparmurat_Niyazov]

If you don't have illegal shit on, why are you that fussed?

Fuck you.

 

[Cythraul]

If you don't have illegal shit on, why are you that fussed?

What the hell is wrong with you?

 

[Prismatic Sphere]

False Joe = Officer Joe ???


Now at least I know who not to PM for my narcotics.

 

[False Joe]

Well maybe not growing up in America hasn't given me some overbearing need to not be disturbed by anyone at any point because CONSTITUTION AND SHIT.

But if you're stupid enough to bring illegal shit near an airport, or anywhere like that, you deserve to be caught.

 

[Cythraul]

Well maybe not growing up in America hasn't given me some overbearing need to not be disturbed by anyone at any point because CONSTITUTION AND SHIT.

That's clearly a straw man argument (You really seem to like making those.) The question is not whether anybody should ever be disturbed. The question is what disturbances are justified.

But if you're stupid enough to bring illegal shit near an airport, or anywhere like that, you deserve to be caught.

Not necessarily. If the illegal shit ought not be illegal, then nobody deserves to be thrown in a concrete box for having it, no matter how stupid the person is. Do you not make a distinction between just and unjust laws or are you as mindlessly authoritarian as you appear to be?

 

[False Joe]

Whether a law is just or unjust, it's still a law and me going "Baaaaw" about it isn't going to change the fact it'll get me arrested.

So either I can be some pseudo revolutionary and complain about the illegalisation of drugs on the internet all the time, or I can deal with it, keep getting high, and just make sure I'm not stupid enough to get involved with the police when I'm doing it.

 

[Cythraul]

Whether a law is just or unjust, it's still a law and me going "Baaaaw" about it isn't going to change the fact it'll get me arrested.

So either I can be some pseudo revolutionary and complain about the illegalisation of drugs on the internet all the time, or I can deal with it, keep getting high, and just make sure I'm not stupid enough to get involved with the police when I'm doing it.

So what? What is the relevance of any of this? Nobody besides you is arguing over whether it is prudent or not to have illegal things on your person at certain places. You said that people "stupid enough to bring illegal shit near an airport, or anywhere like that" deserves to get caught. But the fact is that that little principle of yours is morally implausible, which I already pointed out. But you did not even address that. You clearly have no insight to add here.

 

[Badbird]

http://music.msn.com/miles-davis/story/review/?icid=MUSIC2&GT1=28102

Miles Davis' double album "Bitches Brew," released 40 years ago, was and is one of the most important records in jazz history. Initially greeted by older critics and fans as heresy, the set combined confident, forceful improvisation, rock rhythms and state-of-the-art studio technology alien to jazz loyalists. The iconic trumpeter's willingness to step right over any stylistic lines that listeners or critics might have drawn proved both shocking and prescient.

Davis and his collaborators were inventing an entirely new form of music—jazz-rock fusion—but nothing his band members did on their own, before or since, sounded anything like it. And its mysterious pull lingers. As writer Greg Tate put it in a 2007 essay, "'Bitches Brew' remains the undiscovered country today because you can still hear it anew every time."

A newly released 40th anniversary edition of the project reminds us just how powerful - and divisive - a "Brew" this was.

SELLING OUT

Miles' move toward electric music was as much about commerce as art—a fact even the trumpeter admitted. In partnership with Clive Davis, the head of Columbia Records at the time, he set out to win over young listeners, and in the process break into larger concert venues. And while an album featuring 26-minute instrumentals influenced by free jazz and avant-garde electronic music could hardly be considered a "concession" to anyone or anything, jazz critics scorned the electric instruments and the lack of swing, while rock fans flocked to see Miles' amped-up quintet at the Fillmores East and West. And upon its release, "Bitches Brew" (the sessions for which began the day after the Woodstock festival ended) went gold, and remains one of Davis' most popular albums to this day.

JAZZ FOR DEADHEADS

"Bitches Brew" is a swirling, psychedelic storm of sound. Davis' trumpet is definitely the lead instrument, but he's fighting for space alongside electric guitar, two bassists (one acoustic and one electric), multiple drummers and percussionists, several electric keyboardists, saxophone and bass clarinet. Songs arise gradually, building out of what sometimes sounds like unfocused jamming, and they end the same way. But when the band builds up a head of steam, as on "John McLaughlin," they muster all the power of the Grateful Dead, who were also peaking in 1969. Indeed, "Bitches Brew" is almost a jazz counterpart to the San Francisco band's pivotal "Live/Dead," with the title track serving as Miles' own equivalent to the Dead's shape-shifting "Dark Star." Jazz fans weren't ready for it, but neither were rock fans.

THE STUDIO AS INSTRUMENT

Traditionally, jazz albums featured complete takes of songs, recorded live in the studio. Miles and producer Teo Macero broke new ground on "Bitches Brew," having band members jam on minimalist motifs and harmonic sketches rather than full compositions, generating raw material that was chopped up and reshaped after the fact, creating rhythm loops and bringing instruments up and down in the mix. Nobody knew what they had until they were finished putting all the pieces together. This is especially true of "Pharaoh's Dance" and "Bitches Brew," the side-long tracks that make up the original first disc of the two-LP set issued in 1970. Another track, "John McLaughlin," is an excerpt from a take of "Bitches Brew" that earned its own spot on the final album. Davis biographer John Szwed would subsequently call the album Miles' "Sgt. Pepper."

THE FATHER OF FUSION

Though it was never truly imitated (and certainly never duplicated), "Bitches Brew" was the catalyst for a massive upheaval of the jazz landscape. In the years that followed its release, various players from the sessions (not all of whom were part of Miles' touring band) spun off into their own groups, taking some of his ideas about collective improvisation and the value of electronic— especially amplification—with them. Saxophonist Wayne Shorter and keyboardist Josef Zawinul formed Weather Report; guitarist John McLaughlin led the Mahavishnu Orchestra; and keyboardist Chick Corea put together Return to Forever. All these bands had hit albums and sold out concerts worldwide in the '70s, frequently outselling Davis himself.

FOR THOSE WHO THINK YOUNG

Miles' exploration of rock rhythms was part of a larger fascination with youth culture and style, inspired by his one-year marriage to Betty Mabry (Betty Davis), a singer-songwriter 20 years his junior. She dressed him in ultra-hip fashions and introduced him to Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone; he tried to set up collaborations with both men, but Stone was too fried on drugs to make it happen, and Hendrix died before he and Davis could get into the studio together. Still, the influence of Hendrix, Stone and James Brown began to take root on the trumpeter's 1968 album "Filles de Kilimanjaro" on 1969's "In a Silent Way," and can be heard all over Miles' music between 1970 and his first retirement in 1975.

TURN IT UP TO 11

Onstage, Miles was still playing with a basic quintet in 1969 and 1970, occasionally adding percussionist Airto Moreira or guitarist John McLaughlin. In the studio, though, a track might have two drummers and as many as three keyboardists, creating an ocean of sound or a thunderous roar, as needed. And as he moved from jazz clubs like Chicago's Plugged Nickel to rock venues like the Fillmores in New York and San Francisco, he started employing major amplification, even playing his trumpet through a wah-wah pedal. If he was going to be opening for Neil Young and Crazy Horse, as he did in March 1970, he had no choice.

THE SUPERGROUP THAT NEVER WAS

When Jimi Hendrix's Band of Gypsys played their first show on New Year's Eve 1969/70, Miles was in the audience. But the trumpeter's eagerness to collaborate with rock stars never quite bore fruit. The planned session with Hendrix fell apart at the last minute, reportedly over money; a similar live collaboration with Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce never happened, either; and though Davis visited Sly Stone at home, nothing came of that, either. It wasn't until the end of 1987 that Davis' rock dreams came true, as he jammed onstage with Prince at a New Year's Eve concert at Paisley Park.

To celebrate the album's 40th Anniversary, Sony has repackaged it in several ways: There's a three-disc version that appends a 1970 concert from Tanglewood, Mass., as well as a deluxe box that includes that three-disc set, the original album on double vinyl, and a DVD of a November 1969 Copenhagen concert. The four-disc "Complete Bitches Brew Sessions," originally released in 1998, included many tracks from other 1969-70 studio dates; that's now also part of the "Genius of Miles Davis" box, which compiles eight such "complete sessions" boxes (43 discs of material in all) in a trumpet case, with a replica mouthpiece, a lithograph and a T-shirt, all for only $1,200.