Slashdot Mirror

Think long and hard about that vote, because in the end it's just added to a number that is only used for reference. Are voting system has taken away all the power of the people and put it in the state. If e-voting becomes more widespread for elections even if we fall back on the people to break a tie, the numbers can still be manipulated.

A senior law enforcement official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said there had been some intelligence that raised concerns about a previously scheduled flight of Columbia, which was to have carried the same crew. The intelligence, related to Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon, was termed not credible, but the flight was postponed for other reasons.

-- By Ron Fournier
Associated Press White House Correspondent


A previous flight with the same crew was recently delayed by a "not credible" terror threat. This is the first israeli astronaut. It would be a credible target for just that reason, but to blow up a supposedly top security target and over texas and with hazardous material, that would be a very meaningful terrorist target. Especially as it would again use all of our own resources for the attack.

Is It Time to Move to Canada?

What a real mate would tell Bush

Beating the drums for justice: Calls for Bush's impeachment for 9-11

USA Oui! Bush Non!

Between Bush, Bin Laden & Hitler

German leader links Bush's 'style' to Hitler's

Judging war crimes, then and now

No explanation is needed for the Thief-In-Chief

Cheers,
W00t

Are these the people who are behind this? - http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=231 141&group=webcast

Here is the correct link to the story - http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=231 141&group=webcast

This is perfect for public access television stations. They often have 5-10 people, all needing to encode their videotapes at the same time. A multichannel encoder would be heaven!

I've been working with MNN, the public access station in New York, NY in building a cheap, open source video server out of an old TiVo. The equipment necessary to program and run television broadcast/cablecast centers is often expensive and proprietary. And unless you do web playback like indymedia or freespeechtv, you have to buy the equipment to play the game.

An open, Linux-based multi-encoder like this (accompanied by an open video server) would do wonders for the community media world!

Yes, Boycott corporate media!

Like you hint, we also need to create our own media outside and beyond, building an alternative to dull, uniform, lifeless world of the multinationals. Projects like IndyMedia and Consume.net are already doing it. It's empowering to build the solution, as well as refusing to participate in the problem!

Fanx for a brilliant post...

by honking your vehicle horn today precisely at
5:00 p.m. EST (Time may vary depending on your zone)

Cheers,
W00t

Get Your Impeachment On

Yeah, GNN does good stuff. That's almost a year old though. Check out my latest favorite guerilla film called "The Fellowship of the Ring of Free Trade":

You can watch it here.
Synopsis:
"Now, for the first time ever, the hidden prophecies of J.R.R. Tolkien's classic epic, The Lord of the Rings, are decoded in this accurate re-edit of Peter Jackson's blockbuster motion picture. Unknownst to many readers, The Lord of the Rings - once thought to be merely a story of archetypal struggle between good and evil - has been found to contain astute prophetic messages about the impending crisis of capitalist modernity. Numerous scholars and linguists have already deciphered the main theme of The Lord of the Rings as being the freedom of ordinary people to be left alone from the ruling elites. However, Tolkien's hidden messages about the disasters of capitalism and the insightful predictions about the current political climate have not been made public until now. The Fellowship of the Ring of Free Trade includes subtitles of the decoded dialogues in painstaking detail and the true identities that the story's characters represent within the prophecy. Hado i philinn!" "Mordor is in our midst." - J.R.R. Tolkien

Watch this 6 minute re-edit of the first LotR movie called The Fellowship of the Ring of Free Trade[.

"Now, for the first time ever, the hidden prophecies of J.R.R. Tolkien's classic epic, The Lord of the Rings, are decoded in this accurate re-edit of Peter Jackson's blockbuster motion picture. Unknownst to many readers, The Lord of the Rings - once thought to be merely a story of archetypal struggle between good and evil - has been found to contain astute prophetic messages about the impending crisis of capitalist modernity.

Numerous scholars and linguists have already deciphered the main theme of The Lord of the Rings as being the freedom of ordinary people to be left alone from the ruling elites. However, Tolkien's hidden messages about the disasters of capitalism and the insightful predictions about the current political climate have not been made public until now. The Fellowship of the Ring of Free Trade includes subtitles of the decoded dialogues in painstaking detail and the true identities that the story's characters represent within the prophecy. Hado i philinn!"

"Mordor is in our midst." - J.R.R. Tolkien

or argentina

By protesting January 18, 2003 against Mini-Me (Dr. Evil's Son)

Remember, Peace Is Patriotic

Cheers,

W00t

The US never clamed to be a complete democracy. It was always was intended to be a democratic republic.

Right. So let's stop calling it a democracy. If you listen to any of the speeches made by US politicians over the last few decades they always refer to Democracy specifically. No reference is ever made to the fact that the Electoral College and Representative Democracy itself is a carefully crafted mask behind which rich people control society.

Hopefully they can choose someone smarter then them to figure the complicated things out.

Hmm. How can someone that's too dumb to have their own opinions on monetary policy be smart enough to choose the person with the correct opinions? Either the majority of people are reasonably intelligent and should control their own lives or else there's no point in Brin pretending that we've made any advances beyond feudalism.

And the US is free, relative to most of the world. You can stand on the street and say "George W Bush? More like George W Shrub!" all day long, and the CIA will not come for you.

Perhaps not the CIA, they seem to specialize in foreign assassinations (illegally under international law of course), but the FBI will certainly photograph you, have you detained on a pretext by the police, fingerprint you and enter you into their records. This will be accomplished after the police have arrested 649 of you in violation of the 1st Amendment to the Constitution (in the Bill of Rights) which states that Congress shall pass no law which inhibits the right to free speech and to assemble to petition the government.

Later when they restart the COINTELPRO and other FBI operations which have in the past and recently involved assassination of domestic political figures, then you'll be able to say "at least we're not Stalinist USSR". After all we never had internment camps did we?

The Nazis were socialists because they siezed control of pretty much the entire industrial output of Germany

You're going to have to be a little more precise in your definition here because while one can definitely say that the output of German industry during WW2 was geared to the needs of the State exactly the same applied to the USA, Britain etc. Furthermore the major German firms remained privately owned, just as one example Krupps was owned by Alfred Krupp von Bohnen und Halbach who was prosecuted during Nuremburg for his use of slave labor. Most industrialists managed to escape. Most business were held privately and were not nationalized. Thus, NAZI Germany was a primarily Capitalist venture. They didn't need to shoot the people running things because the people running things (who were not your average dumb schmoe who's always watching TV) were Capitalists that bankrolled Hitler and the NAZIs as a way to keep control of the country.

The US never clamed to be a complete democracy. It was always was intended to be a democratic republic.

Right. So let's stop calling it a democracy. If you listen to any of the speeches made by US politicians over the last few decades they always refer to Democracy specifically. No reference is ever made to the fact that the Electoral College and Representative Democracy itself is a carefully crafted mask behind which rich people control society.

Hopefully they can choose someone smarter then them to figure the complicated things out.

Hmm. How can someone that's too dumb to have their own opinions on monetary policy be smart enough to choose the person with the correct opinions? Either the majority of people are reasonably intelligent and should control their own lives or else there's no point in Brin pretending that we've made any advances beyond feudalism.

And the US is free, relative to most of the world. You can stand on the street and say "George W Bush? More like George W Shrub!" all day long, and the CIA will not come for you.

Perhaps not the CIA, they seem to specialize in foreign assassinations (illegally under international law of course), but the FBI will certainly photograph you, have you detained on a pretext by the police, fingerprint you and enter you into their records. This will be accomplished after the police have arrested 649 of you in violation of the 1st Amendment to the Constitution (in the Bill of Rights) which states that Congress shall pass no law which inhibits the right to free speech and to assemble to petition the government.

Later when they restart the COINTELPRO and other FBI operations which have in the past and recently involved assassination of domestic political figures, then you'll be able to say "at least we're not Stalinist USSR". After all we never had internment camps did we?

The Nazis were socialists because they siezed control of pretty much the entire industrial output of Germany

You're going to have to be a little more precise in your definition here because while one can definitely say that the output of German industry during WW2 was geared to the needs of the State exactly the same applied to the USA, Britain etc. Furthermore the major German firms remained privately owned, just as one example Krupps was owned by Alfred Krupp von Bohnen und Halbach who was prosecuted during Nuremburg for his use of slave labor. Most industrialists managed to escape. Most business were held privately and were not nationalized. Thus, NAZI Germany was a primarily Capitalist venture. They didn't need to shoot the people running things because the people running things (who were not your average dumb schmoe who's always watching TV) were Capitalists that bankrolled Hitler and the NAZIs as a way to keep control of the country.

The US never clamed to be a complete democracy. It was always was intended to be a democratic republic.

Right. So let's stop calling it a democracy. If you listen to any of the speeches made by US politicians over the last few decades they always refer to Democracy specifically. No reference is ever made to the fact that the Electoral College and Representative Democracy itself is a carefully crafted mask behind which rich people control society.

Hopefully they can choose someone smarter then them to figure the complicated things out.

Hmm. How can someone that's too dumb to have their own opinions on monetary policy be smart enough to choose the person with the correct opinions? Either the majority of people are reasonably intelligent and should control their own lives or else there's no point in Brin pretending that we've made any advances beyond feudalism.

And the US is free, relative to most of the world. You can stand on the street and say "George W Bush? More like George W Shrub!" all day long, and the CIA will not come for you.

Perhaps not the CIA, they seem to specialize in foreign assassinations (illegally under international law of course), but the FBI will certainly photograph you, have you detained on a pretext by the police, fingerprint you and enter you into their records. This will be accomplished after the police have arrested 649 of you in violation of the 1st Amendment to the Constitution (in the Bill of Rights) which states that Congress shall pass no law which inhibits the right to free speech and to assemble to petition the government.

Later when they restart the COINTELPRO and other FBI operations which have in the past and recently involved assassination of domestic political figures, then you'll be able to say "at least we're not Stalinist USSR". After all we never had internment camps did we?

The Nazis were socialists because they siezed control of pretty much the entire industrial output of Germany

You're going to have to be a little more precise in your definition here because while one can definitely say that the output of German industry during WW2 was geared to the needs of the State exactly the same applied to the USA, Britain etc. Furthermore the major German firms remained privately owned, just as one example Krupps was owned by Alfred Krupp von Bohnen und Halbach who was prosecuted during Nuremburg for his use of slave labor. Most industrialists managed to escape. Most business were held privately and were not nationalized. Thus, NAZI Germany was a primarily Capitalist venture. They didn't need to shoot the people running things because the people running things (who were not your average dumb schmoe who's always watching TV) were Capitalists that bankrolled Hitler and the NAZIs as a way to keep control of the country.

You forgot links to SF IMC and Global Network site.

You forgot links to SF IMC and Global Network site.

Are you a patriot, or are you a terrorist?

Because if you're not with us, you're against us.

And if you're not a patriot, you're a terrorist.

A patriot has nothing to hide from his [sic] Country. A patriot is glad, glad with all his heart to hear that his country is taking the initiative, a patriot supports the party -- if the party wants to know whom Sam or Sally is speaking with, let the party know. If the party wants to know where every Citizen is, what every Citizen does, what every Citizen knows, then let the party know.

A patriot believes. A patriot is the opposite of the dissident.

A patriot does not support laws that allow terrorists, those who do not believe in the strength and ideals of our country, to hide behind anonymity. A patriot does not support anarchy, the total chaos that results when you allow dissidents to mess with public awareness, to spread their lies about our country.

And a patriot does not call for public hearings, checks and balances, handcuffs to hold the hand of Justice, to keep our men [sic] in uniforms -- who believe -- from doing what they believe in, what Americans -- real Americans, not bleeding-heart-liberals need for their protection.

A patriot does not question.

You're either with us, or against us.

If you're not a patriot, you're a terrorist.

I guess I'm a terrorist.

Hope Hollywood manages to maintain the critique of the military mindset that was so central to the story.

Sorry, this is a little off topic, but I just have to say this. An author on the sf.indymedia.org website wrote an article about why he killed a man.

That is so fucking fucked up, I don't have the words to describe it.

Lessig started a project called Creative Commons to assist media producers that want to share their works under open licenses.

Myself, I volunteer technical support and media production to my local Independent Media Center. In addition to running an open publishing website where the community can publish stories and multimedia, we host talks, film screenings, work with the local radio station station, and do media trainings.

Have a read on Vancouver Indymedia...

A non-fascist democracy becoming a police state is something I haven't yet seen in my limited reading of the history books, we're in uncharted territory here. If the FBI can be convinced that uncapping a modem is terrorist cybersabotage, where does it end? In my mind, those police might as well have "Disney stormtroopers" tattooed on their foreheads. Regrettably Star Wars Episode III where Emperor Palpatine seizes control of the Senate and imposes stormtrooper rule, might be mirrored in reality in the United States.

How about -

Indymedia

BBC

or for some partial journalism / general questioning and sometimes odd, but certainaly not bland corp media

Michael Moore

DisInfo

then there are specialist sites for different topics -

Cryptome

Statewatch

I wrote:
"...just a smidge to the left of Salon."

Peter writes:
"This strikes me as funny. Like "Just a smidge to the right of The 700 Club." :-) No flames, please. I like Salon, too."

Well, they are fairly leftist, but still not quite as leftist as, say, Indymedia.org. =)

Speaking of which, here is an interesting blurb from an article on Alternet regarding the relationship of America to off-center politics:

"I remember in Antwerp one night, there was a debate set-up by the major Dutch language paper in Belgium... it was me, the former Prime Minister of Belgium -- who is a center-right politician -- and the former head of NATO, who is another Belgian. Of course we all talked in English and I couldn't help noticing that this center-right politician was farther to the left than any of the mainstream Democrats in this country. That just shows you how utterly anomalous the American political system is. We think here that we've got two parties and one's conservative and one's liberal. In the European context, the Republicans would be a right- wing party and the Democrats would be maybe a center-right party. I also think back to a guy I interviewed in Holland who said, "Look, I vote for the most conservative party in Holland and they're way to the left of your Democrats."

Thanks for your reply. I mean what I say in my sig. Too much moderating, not enough discussion.

No, the towers were brought down because the CIA and Mossad planted explosives at the behest of the Bush regime in the weeks before the "attack".

What?

You don't believe me?

You must not listen to the leftist media that puts out this important information!

Waitasec... no one listens to the leftist media that puts out that kind of "information".

Never mind, move along. Let the America-hating anti-Semites have their fun...

As far as I could find out, the websites Australia's Justice Minister Chris Ellison wants to block are IndyMedia and unnamed anti-WTO websites. These websites are maintained and used by the "people of seattle", as they are called since the 1999 WTO summit in Seattle, where they demonstrated to draw public attention to the undemocatic ways of the Word Trade Organization and other problems with neo-liberalism.

The so-called anti-globalization movement got a bad reputation with some good citizens when riots broke out in Genoa. Today it is acknowledged fact that Italia's state police infiltrated hooligans or nazi skins into Genoa and equipped them with weapons such as baseball bats.

Meanwhile this movement has met in Florence, Italy, for no other reason that to hold a conference, the first European Social Forum, that was attended by 60,000 people. At the end of it, they were joined by trade unionists and ordinary Italian people for a demonstration of 500,000 people (according to police figures). During the conference and the mass demonstration no one was hurt, and not a single windows was smashed. (More in The Guardian.)

Berlusconi, Italia's leader, had previously predicted that there would surely be violence in Florence. He even tried to move the Social Forum to the coutryside. He has made a fool of himself.

Now Australia's Justice Minister is determined to do the same thing. Not only because blocking websites does not work. He's trying to use a false myth (anti-globalists are rioters) in order to censor political opposition. Also note how the dumb notion of cybercrime is extended into a nonsense notion by trying to create a cybercrime law that bans defamation, calls to protest, and independent analysis all at once from the web.

The ABC reports that anti-World Trade Organisation activists say they have been vindicated by an official investigation into two protest web sites.

The Australian Broadcasting Authority has given the Melbourne Indymedia and S11 sites the all-clear after complaints they were inciting violence against police.

I did not format my comments properly because the stab at murder rates and coffee had a "mindless jab" tag that got hidden - I should preview first.

Nonetheless, looking at this you see that the US has a homicide rate about 5 times that of other countries (5.7 compared to around 1 for many other countries) and a gun homicide rate of about 10 times other countries. Some of the countries that outrank it include South Africa and Columbia which are not really in the first world yet

As far as the website. This onemay be relevant:

It includes the advice to bring aluminium baseball bats rather than wooden ones because they are lighter...

Firstly, the NSW police minister asked the federal government to censor the site (and two others; noWTO and s11 , neither of which host any violent content) under the existing Australian internet censorship legislation. However, the Australian Broadcast Authority did not find anything illegal with the sites, and did not censor them. So the government has decided this is not good enough and wants tougher legislation to block dissent.

As for melbourne indymedia, the main post in question was one which does suggest to people different ways of dealing with police at protests. Being open publishing, the comment is the persons own view. Whether or not one agrees with the comment, it is important to have a discussion about it, and that is exactly what happened; a heated discussion follows the original post.

People always flail their arms about `protest being OK as long as it is within the law.' But what if the law is unjust? Are people not entitled to defend themselves against a fascist police force?

What I find particularly ironic is that the Australian Labor Party, founded on the ideals of civil disobedience (unions et al) are now the ones who are trying to quell any dissent whatsoever.

Firstly, the NSW police minister asked the federal government to censor the site (and two others; noWTO and s11 , neither of which host any violent content) under the existing Australian internet censorship legislation. However, the Australian Broadcast Authority did not find anything illegal with the sites, and did not censor them. So the government has decided this is not good enough and wants tougher legislation to block dissent.

As for melbourne indymedia, the main post in question was one which does suggest to people different ways of dealing with police at protests. Being open publishing, the comment is the persons own view. Whether or not one agrees with the comment, it is important to have a discussion about it, and that is exactly what happened; a heated discussion follows the original post.

People always flail their arms about `protest being OK as long as it is within the law.' But what if the law is unjust? Are people not entitled to defend themselves against a fascist police force?

What I find particularly ironic is that the Australian Labor Party, founded on the ideals of civil disobedience (unions et al) are now the ones who are trying to quell any dissent whatsoever.

The (corporate owned) goverment is afraid of revolution. They already tried to ban this and this and this at the state level, which failed, now they are trying at federal level.

The (corporate owned) goverment is afraid of revolution. They already tried to ban this and this and this at the state level, which failed, now they are trying at federal level.

Well, if you listen to such folks as Scott Ritter, UN Weapons inspector in Iraq for 8 years, it was not that clear-cut.

The heart of the issue is that the US has been pushing for 'regime change' since Papa Bush got beat in '91. The objective of disarmament and rehabilitation of Iraq and that of offing Saddam are fundamentally incompatible.

99% of weapons of mass destruction were found and destroyed by UN weapons inspectors. Was it easy? No. Did the Iraquis tell the truth? No. But through following leads of foreign equipment purchases, grilling any and all staff they pleased and inspecting any facility they wanted, the inspectors did their job.

This 1% (which, let's face it, is well within a rounding error) is the excuse that the US has been using to spread the message that the Iraquis haven't disarmed. It's an excuse.

I don't expect you to take everything I say at face value. But at least consider that (gasp) the Pentagon may not be telling the whole truth.

CD's of info from where? From local resources or from the Internet? If from the Internet, someone is paying for that pipe. You can hide that cost under the rug for a while by getting government money, user donations, subscription fees, corporate donations. It still costs money.

Well, I volunteer with the Independent Media Center, we're a network of grassroots media activist groups and produce a lot of video, we'd have a lot of full res video to make available on copyleft terms. I would also make a mirror of a few of the free unix distributions.

But on the more general point, of course someone will have to have an Internet connection. As I said, just about anyone at this point who will be able financially and technically to play around with wifi has a broadband connection already. Odds are they are already downloading stuff from p2p networks. That part is taken care of already.

But that's just the short term for a few hobbyists, its not, as you point out, a sustainable model for connecting a large number of people to broadband. The model that these Bristol folks is useful, they are sharing a fast connection amongst a number of users. Since its more efficient to buy bandwidth in bulk they could adopt a co-op model. It would likely not take long for the investment in hardware to be payed off by the savings.

REAL anarchists run free software.

Why don't you report the many anti-war protests in the U.S. and the idiocy of the Grifter-In-Chief

Thank you and have a nice day.

Why do you think that it is "rather unlikely" that freedom of speech will be seriously impaired in western nations? In Nordrhein-Westfalen, a state in germany, several sites such as Stormfront.org and also rotten.com are blocked at the DNS and router level. Sites like Indymedia will be next, because they have open posting and therefore occasionally post illegal material.

There is most definitely a need for an anonymous and decentralized information exchange system even in western "democracies".

They want the new Federal law, which would only forbid sending mail with forged headers but not other noxious practices like opt-out only lists- to superceed strong state laws.

State laws could remain stronger. Federal law would only trump state law if for some reason the state law was more lenient than the federal. The CA medical marijuana case is a prime example of a state attempting to create a law that effectively legalizes activities federal law prohibits. Likewise states often enact laws that are more "severe", for lack of a better word, than their federal counterparts. Again drugs are a good example. Someone accused of, say, cocaine possession or distribution would likely do better in federal court than in many state jurisdictions. See Clinton, Roger, who served less than two years for a crime often netting 20 plus years in the crusader Arkansas state courts of the 1980s.

But I'm not a lawyer so your mileage may vary...

I have put "effectively" above in bold, because that's really the crux of the issue. The law legalising medical marijuana in California is not an effective one, because the federal government still cracks down on the medical marijuana industry. People believe that they now have the right to grow quantities of marijuana to sell to the authorised sellers, and they regularly get raided and arrested on federal charges, and have property seized. Thus, I'd argue that the law is hardly "effective" at this time, since the federal government needs to alter its regulations as well to allow state governments to make the choice about what drugs are acceptable.

I completely agree with your points for the most part... But I'd like to offer you some hope on this one:

I question The Journalist, too. Freedom of the press extends to those that own a press, and if you want to work as a journalist, you almost have to work for some fat cat with a press. Said fat cat isn't going to let you print stories that criticize fat cats in any meaningful way.

Thankfully, there are alternative voices out there if you are willing to look. But do stay away from the American "name brands" of media; they are likely only to lead you into the pen with the other sheep.

The Chump-In-Charge A nice site that reveals the ideiot

The Low Down on 911 Very informative

The Protesters' Website Helpful in planning your trips to DC

Cheers!

The Chump-In-Charge.

Please read this Guide To Arraignments
in case you are arrested protesting the Police States of Amerika in D.C.

Thank you and have a nice day.

It's all about the children

More astonishing precedent is set by the confiscation of web servers at raisethefist.com .

If I am to accept what I beleive to be your criteria, then it's pretty clear in the light of recent developments, that the U.S. is not a liberal democracy, and is quickly moving away from any reasonable description of a Republic.

Siva Vaidhyanathan, whom I interviewed for Slashdot (uncut text of the interview is available over here), debated Fritz Attaway of the MPAA (not the RIAA) for NPR's Justice Talking. That debate is ...hearable?... over here .

Enjoy.

I've laughed a bit as I've read some of the trolls on here, and shaken my head at the more serious comments that suggest decent people that have a very misconstrued concept of what IMC is about.

The people that I know in my local Indymedia are all very much in favor of democritizing things. This includes government, media, and trade. (Lately I've been thinking that democracy is a more radical concept than most realize...)

Indymedia was founded around the time of the 1999 WTO protests, which were pro-democratic as much as ore more than they were anti-capitalist. (FTAA and NAFTA are rather the opposite, anti-democratic, pro-capitalist.)

Just so you get a feel of what's actually on an IMC, here's some of what was on madison.indymedia.org today:

- Madison City Council Considering Section 8 Housing Ordinance Tonight
- Digital Rights Management Begins Creeping Into Windows Software, Audio CDs (my article; summary of Slashdot, the Register, eWeek, other sources)
- UW Madison Students Defeat Attempt To Oust Progressive Campus Leaders
- My Summer Vacation as a Delegate at the AFL-CIO Convention

The stories such as these that get featured in the center column are usually of relatively high quality, of local interest, and linked to a longer article. Since joining the Madison IMC I've become one of the center column editors, although I never edit any articles that people have submitted. That goes against our ethics.

We strive for accuracy, passion, and truth. Not ratings or advertising dollars.

Do a bit of homework, get in your car, and drive on up!

Just make sure you have a place to live, though...

Indymedia is only moderately left wing.

It's imprecise to pin Indymedia down to a single viewpoint. Many of the volunteers are either anarchists; some are Marxists, a few are libertarian in the American sense, some are trade unionists, single-issue activists, et al. The viewpoints expressed generally range from moderately left-wing, to way off the political fringe (like myself). Occasionally, abuse of the open publishing system crops up when racists and Jew-haters try to recruit. Most readers see right through it.

Indymedia's pretty varied. It may seem like a bunch of whiny college kiddies in North America at first glance, but many IMCs such as the ones in Argentina, SF, NYC, and Israel are doing some spectacular coverage of events and issues you'd never hear about via mainstream media.

Indymedia is only moderately left wing.

It's imprecise to pin Indymedia down to a single viewpoint. Many of the volunteers are either anarchists; some are Marxists, a few are libertarian in the American sense, some are trade unionists, single-issue activists, et al. The viewpoints expressed generally range from moderately left-wing, to way off the political fringe (like myself). Occasionally, abuse of the open publishing system crops up when racists and Jew-haters try to recruit. Most readers see right through it.

Indymedia's pretty varied. It may seem like a bunch of whiny college kiddies in North America at first glance, but many IMCs such as the ones in Argentina, SF, NYC, and Israel are doing some spectacular coverage of events and issues you'd never hear about via mainstream media.

Regarding the boxes. They are all donated either to ACCRC in Oakland or FreeGeek in Portland. We spent the last several weeks going through all the old lower end boxes they had and trying to make workable boxes out of them. Because we were getting together 235 computers we lowered our standards from what ACCRC or FreeGeek normally will send out. The boxes range from 100 mhz to 333mhz P I's and II's. Our goal at accrc was to get 64 megs of ram but freegeek doesn't have quite the resources that accrc gets from the bay area so they used 8meg edo simm's which means the box only gets 32megs total. All of the boxes have NIC cards, 1 gig or better hard drives, and a video card. There were sound cards in a bunch of them but we didn't have the time to go through and configure them. The same goes for modems, we actually tried to add modems but if kudzu didn't find it we just left it in there unconfigured and moved on to the next box.

The final setup we used was based on a netinstall / net boot system that the freegeek folks have put together called lessdisks. After a little pain recompiling the kernels to make sure we had support for all the random ethernet cards we got the install process really streamlined. We'd make sure the box had a hard drive, ram, video, and ethernet. Then we'd pop in the netinstall disk. It boot up using grub and our kernel would just nfs mount from a local server. Everything else was pulled over the network. We had scripts for formatting the hard drives which just set everything up with boot, swap, and one big main partition. On the server we had a clone of a server which was used as the base for each install. After everything was copied over we ran a bunch of scripts which tried to detect all the hardware. We then had like 4 questions which we need to answer on each box to detect the sound card, video for x, and mouse. This process made doing a couple hundred installs MUCH easier. Because we were finishing up the software configuration at the same time as we were rolling out boxes we have another option in the lessdisks install to do an rsync update. This let us fiddle with the spanish configuration and setup until two days before we packed everything up on palettes.

We used ICE for the window manager, Rox as a desktop, and KOffice for the basic apps. KDE, Gnome, StarOffice, and Mozilla were all way to bloated for this class of machine.

If you're in the Bay Area or Portland and are interested we will be working on sending more shipments of computers to south america in a few months. Please send me an email, evan at indymedia.org if you want to be notified when we start.