Since 1993, The Deoxyribonucleic Hyperdimension has been bringing you esoteric and visionary knowledge (and a lot of other crap, too). That tradition continues with their recent posting of a six-part interview with Peter Lamborn Wilson, better known in some circles as Hakim Bey.

Keep your eye on South America, folks, particularly Venezuela and Colombia. Colombia is ruled by the rightist government of Álvaro Uribe, and is engaged in a long-standing battle against leftist rebels known as the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia). In addition to being a center of cocaine production and trafficking, Colombia has one of the worst human rights records in the hemisphere. Not coincidentally, Colombia is also by far the largest recipient of US military aid in the Western Hemisphere.

This week, the New York Times ran an article by Andrean bureau chief Simon Romero that opened with this lede:

Despite repeated denials by President Hugo Chávez, Venezuelan officials have continued to assist commanders of Colombia’s largest rebel group, helping them arrange weapons deals in Venezuela and even obtain identity cards to move with ease on Venezuelan soil, according to computer material captured from the rebels in recent months and under review by Western intelligence agencies.

Once again, we see America’s leading “newspaper of record” simply recycling the anonymous propaganda being disseminated by “Western intelligence agencies.” All of the information in the article is based upon materials which the Times’s anonymous intelligence source claims were found on computers seized by Colombian troops during a raid on a FARC compound in Ecuador in 2008. The article states, “The New York Times obtained a copy of the computer material from an intelligence agency that is analyzing it.”

Simon Romero has a well-documented history of running anti-Chávez/anti-Leftist stories that range from the merely misleading to the outright false. As a mouthpiece for the oligarchies of Latin America, Romero is indispensable.

Romero’s employer, by the way, is the same New York Times which published an editorial on April 18, 2002 supporting the previous day’s coup d’etat against the Venezuelan president:

With yesterday’s resignation of President Hugo Chávez, Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator. Mr. Chávez, a ruinous demagogue, stepped down after the military intervened and handed power to a respected business leader, Pedro Carmona.

[…]

Washington has a strong stake in Venezuela’s recovery. Caracas now provides 15 percent of American oil imports, and with sounder policies could provide more. A stable, democratic Venezuela could help anchor a troubled region where Colombia faces expanded guerrilla warfare, Peru is seeing a rebirth of terrorism and Argentina struggles with a devastating economic crisis.

Yes, the military ousted the elected leader of Venezuela, and the Times’s editorial board welcomed the “resignation” of President Chávez. Nice. I’m sure they’ve improved since then, though!

Just yesterday, AFP reported on concerns being raised by officials in Brazil, Ecuador, Chile, and Venezuela about Colombian plans to allow US access to seven of its nation’s military facilities:

US President Barack Obama’s national security advisor said Tuesday Washington will give a “good explanation” for plans to deploy US military units to bases in Colombia, after unease expressed in Latin America.

When you see the US government pouring billions of dollars in military aid into a country, you can be sure nothing good will come of it.

Keep an eye on the Venezuela-Colombia border – that’s where Obama will get a war he can truly call his own.

It might have come down from Amazon’s headquarters reading something like this:

kindle 7.17.09 allowing orwell downloads doupleplusungood refs unbooks revert fullwise

OK, when it comes to writing in doublespeak, I’m obviously no Winston Smith. What I’m trying to say is this: on July 17th, Amazon reached into Kindle devices across the globe and deleted all traces of the book Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell.

Claiming they’d mistakenly allowed the book to be sold by a publisher who didn’t own the rights, Amazon remotely erased both Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm from hundreds of devices, and credited the accounts of the affected Kindle owners.

Amazon promised, though, that they’ll never do it again.

I’m not sure I can explain what it is, but Magical Nihilism makes for some fascinating reading.

Graphic novel creator Warren Ellis never fails to amuse, enlighten, or dismay, depending on your tastes.

Tellart Labs in Providence, RI makes physical interfaces for computing devices… they take mashups to the physical plane!

The Center for Spatially Integrated Social Science has an amazing library of works on line, including this article on urban design innovator Kevin Lynch.

I meant to post about this when it was first published back in April: Steve Crocker’s Op-Ed in the New York Times marking the 40th anniversary of the RFC, the process by which Internet protocols are standardized. It makes for some great reading. Also interesting is Crocker’s RFC 1, the initial Request For Comments that described the HOST software requirements for machines connected to the brand-new ARPA Network… which laid the foundations for this vast series of tubes we know today as teh Internetz.

The Massachusetts Executive Office of Transportation has published some animated 3D renderings of the proposed stations on the Green Line extension, which is scheduled to begin service in 2015. Pictured above is the Union Square station, which the Commonwealth is proposing be located along the existing Fitchburg Line railroad right-of-way… that means you’d have to walk up the hill by the Dunkin’ Donuts to get to the station, something Union Square transit advocates object to (it’s harder for elderly and disabled folks to reach it). The advocates’ alternative, though, is to run the Green Line as a streetcar directly into Union Square from about where the Target store is located at the end of Somerville Ave. That’s not likely to fly.

There’s a bunch more information on the web from the Commonwealth, from the City of Somerville, as well as from Union Square Main Streets, a great neighborhood advocacy organization.

More excellent news from the Pentagon: their new robot helicopter sniper is working and almost ready for field deployment!

ARSS is literally point-and-shoot for the operator on the ground, using a videogame-type controller. The software makes all the necessary corrections, and the system should ensure first-round kills at several hundred yards. The secret is in the control system and stabilized turret (on the right in the picture above), which is currently fitted with a powerful RND Manufacturing Edge 2000 rifle specifically designed for sniping work, using the heavyweight .338 Lapua Magnum cartridge.

I find it indescribably awesome that our government is building and deploying robot snipers so that teenagers playing video games can kill poor people in cities anywhere in the world!

HOORAY AMERICA!!!!

Unusual personal post: I’m going to my first marching band rehearsal next Monday night, and I’ll be playing the big bass drum!

That will seriously tick the box on one of my lifelong ambitions.

Up next: pulling the big lever on The Joker’s Wild!

For what it’s worth – links to a couple of interesting Bay Area Astrologers who publish on the web:

Barry Perlman, a.k.a. AstroBarry, based in San Francisco; and Rob Brezsny, who publishes Free Will Astrology from Santa Cruz.

A friend’s Facebook status update pointed me to The Victory Garden of Tomorrow, a series of agit-prop posters exhorting viewers to plant gardens, compost, ride bikes, and generally Do The Right Thing. It helps that the hand-screened posters are gorgeous!

That’s the Michigan Central Railway Station, outside of Detroit – abandoned in 1988. From the amazing Artifical Owl photo blog, which highlights abandoned man-made creations.