Saturday, June 19, 2004

Juneteenth. June 19th is Juneteenth, the anniversary of the end of slavery in the United States. Head on over to Prometheus 6 to learn more: Juneteenth A little more context [Al-Muhajabah's Islamic Blogs] An interesting example of a good story taking precedence over reality. In fact, chattel slavery was officially ended on December 6th, 1865, with the ratification of the 13th Amendment. Slavery continued for over a hundred years afterwards, in the service of the Federal government, as those enslaved (excuse me, "drafted") men who were among the nearly two million killed or wounded in subsequent wars would probably like us to remember. 9:44:21 PM    comment () Pentagon Seeks U.S. Spy Powers. The Department of Defense is asking for an exemption from the Privacy Act, which outlaws secret databases on Americans. Civil-rights activists are asking why the military wants to get into the domestic spying business. By Ryan Singel. [Wired News] The reason seems pretty obvious to me: the Neocons have a much stronger grip on the Pentagon then they do on the FBI. This would allow them to set up a secret police organization under their direct control, without the sort of oversight that the FBI gets. 2:22:40 PM    comment () Best Browser For Mac OS 9 Today? [MacSlash] I use Mozilla 1.2, which isn't significantly different from the much newer Firefox 0.9 on Windows. 12:25:19 PM    comment () Raed has an Iraqi civilian war casualty site up based on a survey he directed. It covers a four-month period last year (the initial conquest), so the numbers are certainly higher now. 12:17:44 PM    comment ()

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