2003: Another Year of Living Dangerously is involked as Mel Gibson, starring in the original film - a fantasic story about a war reporter in Indonesia during the revolution that overthrew the Sukarno regime - a torturous and despotic government who at then time held the backing of the US.... as Gibson has agreed to team up to make a documentary with Oscar winner Michael Moore. That is, their two film companies are merchanting a deal to finance the adventure, and have promised to bring it to theater's before the 2004 election.

TODAY I created a *new* bl0g on blog*spot. I called it "buzzmatters" -- and said it's mission was "to challenge all the buzz that matters". Why? ...because 1. this blog is for documenting something else 2. there is a lot of unnatural BUZZ suddenly about blogs which are turning up in such mainstream biz as foxnews.

Most people know that creating buzz IS a biz all of it's own. Most recently the DoD has been criticized and they have responded, to the notion a NEW office was created for the simple and sublime purpose of creating "disinformation" to disseminate to "the Press". DEFSEC Rumsfeld denies this. That is he denies the defense department wants to intentionally spread hard But the office is up and running regardless. Hence, even the Pentagon openly admits BUZZ MATTERS.

Even perhaps more importantly, is a another subtle mission with less constraints and more to do with foxxy news and it's ilk. As an example, when Salon or Slate - the two last standing "zines" with corporate underwriting (of sorts) - one more than the other - opts to do a "blog" it's writers are most often stating their personal opinion and it is not confused with news. In the same way, Howie Kurtz "media notes" on Washingtonpost.com is his commentary on the most recent news - and naturally given the interoperability to do so, he links directly to the source. Of course he does. That IS what hyperlinks are all about. As most MAC users will know.

BUT when foxnews adds "weblogs" of some unconventional -- in this case "war bloggers" -- one needs to pay more attention to exactly whatis underneath the agenda of those few "choosen" to submit a weekly entry. For the moemnt these seem to be happenng in some form of rotation, Fair enough. At the heart of the so-called experiemnt in "public" writing is a guy -- a law professor at University of Tennessee, named Instapundit or in real life Glenn Reynolds. Reynolds suggested the idea to a few editors at foxnews.

For those who haven't followed closely the daily updates of Reynolds and his coterie, you might not know what they do. What they do n fact is link to each other inside almost all of their posts -- keeping a running interior commentary going where they compliment one another proclaiming an common agenda.
VIRGINIA POSTREL a well known speaker and author of several not well known books is the main anchor for Reynolds game plan. Ms. Postrel like Mr. Reynolds gives speeches at venues like CATO institute in NYC on the values of new age thnking and in particular Libertarianism. Anyway that's my take on him and her. Reynolds has an impressive resume. He has sat on White House Panels for Space, reseacrh, funding, and initiaives among many many other government affiliated projects. He is a law graduate from Yale. He has great "buzz".

In my opinion Glenn Reynolds buzz has a very particular stain. The fellow followers of his daily blog are a loose group of comrades - most of them riding - his buzz. All are war supporters. A great chorus of yeas who rise up like a tide of red ants to rail against and demean anyone from the other camps; such as Christopher HItchens, Ted Rall, Robert Firth who not only are war correspondents (who are actually somewhere near a war zone)

The Dallas Morning News: Business The future in many ways looks like the past, with consumers
benefiting from more choices but paying for them as well. In the
process, more people could find themselves without insurance.
That issue is of great concern in Texas, home of the largest
number of uninsured workers.

Even the most optimistic in the managed care industry say HMOs
as we know them will go away.

"You can see more responsibility placed with patients to manage
their routine health care needs. One of the results of co-pay is
that consumers have not been too concerned about the cost of
things done to them," said Jim McCoy, a senior manager at
consulting firm Andersen. "That insulation will begin to disappear."

* * * BTW "ev" this blogger account "pop-up" works but on other earler accounts gets the following Error::

Microsoft VBScript runtime error '800a000d'

Type mismatch: 'session(...)'

/blog_form_pop-upE.pyra, line 21

kenlayne and
blowback always got some buzz...

MediaGuardian.co.uk | Media diary

monkey diary from london and environs >> funny stuff!

-Consumer Affairs Broward County writes:

On March 13, 2001 our inspector went to the 709 N. Dixie Highway address listed for Pacific Van Lines.  They were informed by other companies in the vicinity that Pacific Van Lines has closed their business at that location.  However, on the company's corporation Doron Karayoff has a mailing address of 5201 SW 31 Avenue, #106, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida 33312.  We will open an investigation to determine the company's whereabouts and if their failure to notify us of their present status violates the Broward County Moving Ordinance.

Since the company was located in Hallandale, you may contact the Hallandale Police Department at 400 S. Federal Highway, Hallandale, Florida 33009.  Their phone number is 954-457-1400.

If you have any further question, do not hesitate to contact us.
Sincerely
L. Roberts

Lelia Roberts

-[a]response from my local Representative

( after 6 months )

I apologize for the delay in responding to you, but as nearly as I can 
determine the problem is a federal one and will need to be addressed by the 
U.S. Congress.  I know that route has not been very successful for you 
either, but I do not have another suggestion.  I am sorry I cannot do more.

Ken Plum

-my response to what's below (went unanswered)

----snip----
Dear Mr. Hawthorne,

I appreciate your taking time to respond.  I sympathize entirely 
with your position.

When you say "very busy" - just how busy is this: Is it the "caseload"? - 
or the "time" involved in each investigation? And when you say "the worst 
of the worst": is this measured in terms of Size of company? amount of 
complaints? some Dollar threshold??  IOW -- what allows you to make the 
determination to Investigate and ultimately WHO is the person who does this 
determination?

-received from (one fed agency)

At 04:11 PM 2/22/01 -0500, you wrote:
>In response to your latest email, Those of us who transferred from the 
>Interstate Commerce Commission would love to investigate each and every 
>complaint, but when congress eliminated that agency which oversaw the 
>moving industry, 95-98% of the investigators knowledgeable on these types 
>of investigations were "put out the door" the remainder that transferred 
>to the U.S. DOT (3 east coast and 3 west coast) remain "very" busy and in 
>order to get something done, must resort to going after the worst of the 
>worst.  If PVL is one of the worst, When the opportunity presents itself, 
>we will get to them.

My Private Domain

And it is about "control". I know when I don't have control. Make no mistake about it I stay up all night and sleep all day. Do I have a "textbook" case of depression, can't say. I don't have the textbook.

What I can say is living in this topsy turvy style is not criminal, or even dysfunctional - but it may be a state of mind where avoidance seeks to make it's case.

If I am depressed, and I am no doubt - it's because for one year and some months I have been arguing with the federal government to prosecute criminals who stole something valuable from me.

In fact they stole an entire shipment of very costly antiques. These same folks want to ransom it back to me for an ever-growing amount. My insurance company can't seem to figure out what "kind" of a claim this is, or under what statute[s] it falls or even in which state I am covered.

The crux of the matter IS the federal agencies whose job it is to prosecute {at best a highly selective judgement) the matter have declined to do on the grounds it isn't BIG ENOUGH. In their words, "not egregious enough." Does this mean not enough was harm done? No.

Simply put this translates into I am not important enough. How important do you need to be? If memory serves me - not long ago when a couple of Russian computer coders inadvertently got their hands on "code" which was the property of Michael Bloomberg (BLOOMBERG NEWS) he promptly went to the FBI. Who promptly flew investigators to London (where the presumed staged drop would take place) to arrest the perps. The activity was considered "high" priority even though the Russians had worked for the company hired by Bloomberg to do [a] job. What really happened was apparently these coders had found some security "holes" and promised to disclose it to Bloomberg for a price. Fair? Well, they were pretty poor and they didn't have to tell Bloomberg. They just as well could have sold the "hole" to a hacker group to exploit. From their view - it was not a big deal to ask for some remuneration for their knowledge. I cannot say for certain they didn't actually program the "hole" but from the reports I read they had discovered it. Anyway you look at this -- we are not talking about huge sums, but that is less the point I am trying to make. It is significant enough that adding "Bloomberg News" to the case file -- it would get air-play. A Media Event. Didn't elicit much attention but for days on-end they drummed up all kinds of (reader) speculation. "The Hackers" [and it was probably good for a few video rentals]

It was a MEDIA judgement -in my view - more than a "high crime" case. At stake was less than $20,000. (or maybe 200,000 - but to Bloomberg it's the same thing)....what WAS at issue was the "name" value which it attached. "Bloomberg News" is "big" business so here the FBI was fighting crime!

I have zero "name" value. (no bronco, no knife, no sex)

Even if I immoliated myself on the Capital steps *I* would still have not have any significant value. I am neither poor enough, dark enough, crazy enough or dangerous ENOUGH.

I'm almost totally invisible. And that is a depressing...fact.

Ending on a down note. No new car smell no new car. Found
messages from the following:
Secretary of Transportation
Committee on Appropriations | U.S. House of Representatives
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
U.S. Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General
Commissioner T. Smith Broward County
bla bla licensing & insurance division

(my) United States government "in-action"

All this and still no stuff. Where's my "stuff"?

It's all about my stuff being held hostage for over a year now.
Amazing criminals petty crooks steal my stuff but the government
keeps telling me I just don't matter enough -- and neither do you.

When it's all out in the open (and it's getting there slowly) will
anybody even notice? Will this be another road sign in heehaw missouri -
roadkill worse than a sinking dot.com...

It is true all those folks above wrote to me. Sent mail in very
important envelopes paid for with government postage. A formidable bunch. A
hundred emails maybe more. Faxes. Headquarters. Special Agent-in-Charge.

sumzero.