Projo Subterranean Homepage News

SPIEGEL Interview with Jimmy Carter: Former President plain-speaking to the German Press. Excerpts:

...Under all of its predecessors there was a commitment to peace instead of preemptive war. Our country always had a policy of not going to war unless our own security was directly threatened and now we have a new policy of going to war on a preemptive basis. Another very serious departure from past policies is the separation of church and state, which I describe in the book. This has been a policy since the time of Thomas Jefferson and my own religious beliefs are compatible with this. The other principle that I described in the book is basic justice. We've never had an administration before that so overtly and clearly and consistently passed tax reform bills that were uniquely targeted to benefit the richest people in our country at the expense or the detriment of the working families of America.

...The fundamentalists believe they have a unique relationship with God, and that they and their ideas are God's ideas and God's premises on the particular issue. Therefore, by definition since they are speaking for God anyone who disagrees with them is inherently wrong. And the next step is: Those who disagree with them are inherently inferior, and in extreme cases -- as is the case with some fundamentalists around the world -- it makes your opponents sub-humans, so that their lives are not significant.

...Unfortunately, after Sept. 11, there was an outburst in America of intense suffering and patriotism, and the Bush administration was very shrewd and effective in painting anyone who disagreed with the policies as unpatriotic or even traitorous. For three years, I'd say, the major news media in our country were complicit in this subservience to the Bush administration out of fear that they would be accused of being disloyal. I think in the last six months or so some of the media have now begun to be critical. But it's a long time coming.

via Robot Wisdom.

The History of the Fugs 1964-65. via wood s lot.

Puny, aren't we?

Classic mp3: Dale Hawkins, Susie-Q. Backstory at Lil Mike's Last Known Thoughts & Random Revelations.

Giving new meaning to bread and circuses: Candidate draws crowd with cheap gas - Yahoo! News

RADCLIFF, Ky. - A congressional candidate's offer of cheap gas drew a bipartisan crowd.

More than 100 people waited more than an hour Wednesday at a gas station to fuel up at $1.20 a gallon, thanks to Democrat Mike Weaver, who is running for the congressional seat held by Republican Rep. Ron Lewis (news, bio, voting record).

Weaver picked $1.20 because that was the price of regular unleaded when Lewis went to Congress in 1994. Weaver, who supports developing alternative energy, called Lewis a supporter of big oil....

At Wired: Wireless Works Wonders in Tibet. Small is possible.

DHARAMSALA, India -- Across the border from Chinese-occupied Tibet, the tech infrastructure in this high mountain village is a mess.

But a former Silicon Valley dot-commer and members of the underground security group Cult of the Dead Cow are working with local Tibetan exiles to change that using recycled hardware, solar power, open-source software and nerd ingenuity.

The volunteers are building a low-cost wireless mesh network to provide cheap, reliable data and telephony to community organizations.

The Dharamsala Wireless Mesh is an example of "light infrastructure," a concept gaining popularity among tech developers: decentralized, ad hoc networks that can deliver essential services faster than conventional means.

Attempts to deploy similar community wireless networks in America have been blocked repeatedly by national phone carriers. It takes a big company like Google to build citywide Wi-Fi networks (the company launched its first in Mountain View, California, this week).

So sustainable network builders are going where they're welcome -- in this case, a rural village 7,000 feet up in the Himalayas.

There are photos.