Some Linux kernel hacks-in-progress

I've been doing a bit of playing with Linux kernel cpu-frequency control. Two patches so far; both still need work. http://sites.google.com/site/cashmundy/linux-kernel-stuff

How to get RC33 on your G1 without the wait

How to get RC33 on your G1 without the wait

I didn't even need to use my USB cable. Downloaded it with the phone browser (went into /sdcard/downloads), then used Linda File Manager to rename it to update.zip and move it (via cut and paste) to /sdcard. I've already made it to the first reboot without any problems.

1) Go to https://android.clients.google.com/updates/signed-PLAT-RC33-from-RC30.f06aa9b3.zip with phone browser (just search for 'android 1.1 update) if you don't want to type in the link above.

2) Do rename and cut-and-paste as above.

3) Power phone down.

4) Reboot to recovery console by holding Home and Back and (meaning the white "house" key and the red "hangup" key) until you get past the initial G1 logo and the recovery icon comes up.

5) Type Alt (the Alt key), then l (letter "L", lowercase).

6) Type Alt, then s (letter "S", lowercase).

That's it. I'm now running Android 1.1. Now, in Settings/About-Phone, there is a System-Updates option, so I will probably never have to do this again. Cool.

Best thing is, I did this with no Sim card. I'm back to using my Nokia 6133 (which I hacked into a 6131 so I could use Gmail and the Opera browser (the software the 6133 comes with is Absolute Shit, and Nokia is Dead Meat if they keep their shitty software (I'm going to buy puts on them next time they run up at all) because my 6131 is better at being a phone than the G1, and I have no 3G anywhere near me at present. I use the G1 as a very small netbook. Don't need no stinkin' Sim card for that.

Brad Setser: Follow the Money � Blog Archive � More to worry about … the US downturn looks to be getting worse when it should be getting better

Brad Setser: Follow the Money � Blog Archive � More to worry about … the US downturn looks to be getting worse when it should be getting better: "Unfortunately, the fall in US industrial production is approaching the worst falls in the post-World War 2 data set. Some recessions in the past produced a sharper initial fall. But in an average post-World War 2 recession, the economy would be recovering by now — not getting worse. If things don’t improve, the current fall may match the biggest fall in the post war data. And remember, industrial production wasn’t exactly booming during the boom years of this cycle; it took an awful long time for industrial production to top its 2000 levels …"

Synchronised depression

FT Alphaville � Blog Archive � Synchronised depression: "Synchronised depression"

The OECD has published its latest set of leading indicators. They’re not great. But you don’t need us to tell you that. Here’s Albert Edwards:

The OECD have just released their latest leading indicators. Amid mounting optimism of investors that the global economy is bottoming, these data suggest no such thing is occurring. Indeed they are catastrophically weak. Of particular interest in this context is the leading indicator for China (chart included, but also see website). It is suffering one of the biggest collapses of all the lead indictors that the OECD monitor. This suggests no imminent recovery is at hand there . Indeed as per my recent note, and despite the hopes of many in the markets the data confirms the prospects of continued recession.

Unanimous Consent

The American Conservative -- Unanimous Consent

When Israel acts, Congress applauds. No debate required.

By Glenn Greenwald

....

AIPAC’s enthusiasm was unsurprising since the text of the resolution could easily have been written by the Israeli government. Every sentence was framed exclusively from the Israeli perspective, each clause grounded on the premise that Israel was 100 percent just. Not a word of criticism or even reservation. On the contrary, Berman’s resolution praised Israel for its humanitarian conduct of the war—even as the UN accused Israel of possible war crimes and the Red Cross vehemently complained about the IDF’s impeding of medical and other humanitarian services. Most notably, the resolution expressed unyielding American dedication to the “welfare” of Israel, both in general terms and with regard to this war.

....

Though the resolution was nonbinding, it was not inconsequential. At a time when worldwide disgust was at its peak, the U.S. made Israel’s war our war, its enemies our enemies, its intractable disputes ours, and the hostility generated by Israeli actions our own. And we emboldened Israel to continue.

Nazraelis killed civilians including children waving white flags

McClatchy Washington Bureau | 01/27/2009 | Israeli troops killed Gaza children carrying white flag, witnesses say

"The evidence we've gathered in two of the cases so far is exceedingly
strong," said Fred Abrahams, a senior researcher with Human Rights
Watch working in the Gaza Strip. "All the research so far suggests they
shot civilians that were leaving their homes with white flags."

 
The Nazis are back, but now they are Nazraelis pretending to be Jews! Would a real Jew do this? Would my Jewish grandfather? Would the Jewish guy I eat raw fish with all the time do this? Not so much... I don't know what these Nazraelis are, but I won't call them Jews, out of respect for my grandfather and all my Jewish friends. To think that we fought the Nazis, and now they're back and we're backing them! For shame!

The universe may be a giant hologram

Our world may be a giant hologram - space - 15 January 2009 - New Scientist

So what would it mean it if holographic noise has been found? Cramer likens it to the discovery
of unexpected noise by an antenna at Bell Labs in New Jersey in 1964.
That noise turned out to be the cosmic microwave background, the
afterglow of the big bang fireball. "Not only did it earn Arno Penzias
and Robert Wilson a Nobel prize, but it confirmed the big bang and opened up a whole field of cosmology," says Cramer.

Hogan is more specific. "Forget Quantum of Solace,
we would have directly observed the quantum of time," says Hogan. "It's
the smallest possible interval of time - the Planck length divided by
the speed of light."

More
importantly, confirming the holographic principle would be a big help
to researchers trying to unite quantum mechanics and Einstein's theory
of gravity. Today the most popular approach to quantum gravity is
string theory, which researchers hope could describe happenings in the
universe at the most fundamental level. But it is not the only show in town.
"Holographic space-time is used in certain approaches to quantising
gravity that have a strong connection to string theory," says Cramer.
"Consequently, some quantum gravity theories might be falsified and
others reinforced."

  


It also would seem to support the idea that the universe is not fundamental but is manifested and determined by something along the lines of Platonic Ideals or the causal plane, a dream in the mind of Lord Brahma, a mental process or spiritual plane perhaps connected with Jung's Collective Unconscious, God and so forth. "God" not by any means to be confused with the Judeo-Christian-Islamic notion of God, which when stripped of all the nice rhetoric is in practice nothing but a tarted-up tribal fire-demon or somesuch cosmic joke, but the Real Thing, the Tao, which cannot be named, cannot be told, which we could comprehend perhaps nearly as well as a virus could speak French.

Reuters: Great Depression jobs parallel may not be far flung

Great Depression jobs parallel may not be far flung | U.S. | Reuters

....

As many as 25 percent of Americans were unemployed during the days of bread lines that symbolized the Depression, but that figure is more than three times the current 6.7 percent unemployment rate, the economists say. Even the most pessimistic estimates only foresee the rate rising barely above 10 percent.

"We are in a very, very different place than the U.S. economy was in the 1930s," James Poterba, president of the National Bureau of Economic Research told a recent Reuters Summit.

Or are we? Figures collected for Reuters by John Williams, from the electronic newsletter Shadowstats.com, suggest that, while we are not there yet, the comparison is not as outlandish as it might initially seem.

By his count, if unemployment were still tallied the way it was in the 1930s, today's jobless rate would be closer to 16.5 percent -- more than double the stated rate.

"I expect that unemployment in the current downturn, which will be particularly deep and protracted, eventually will rival, if not top, the 25 percent seen in the Great Depression," Williams said.

Norwegian doctor: Israel intentionally targeting civilians

The Raw Story | Norwegian doctor: Israel intentionally targeting civilians

"Just a little bit more than an hour ago, the Israelis bombed the central food market in Gaza City and we had a mass influx of about 50 injured and between 10 and 15 killed," said Gilbert, on the phone with Sky News.

  An important part of the Zionist/Neocon whispering campaign has been about how we have "shared values" with Israel and the Zionists, unlike those nasty A-Rabs who target civilians and so forth. Of course, we were to understand that after 9-1-1, the "new Pearl Harbor" they were so eager for, "everything was different" and our "shared values" with Israel now included torture, waging aggressive war, targeting civilians (while vigorously denying doing so, of course for an important part of our new "shared values" is "waging war by deception") and other things we hung Nazis for at Nuremberg before "everything was different.

  I have no "shared values" with those people, neither the Zionist/Neocons (pretty much the same people) or their Chistian "useful idiots". I hope they rot and burn in Hell.

Madoff Front-man even ripped off his Bulgarian cleaning lady

Avellino 123108

A Nantucket summer resident with ties to disgraced Wall Street financier Bernard Madoff has been accused of defrauding his island house cleaner of her life savings.

Frank Avellino, who owns a $10 million Nantucket estate on Cliff Road, was sued Monday in Nantucket District Court by his house cleaner, Nevena Ivanova, who alleges that she handed over $124,000 to Avellino in 2006 which he now claims has been entirely lost.

CNN: US weapons 'killing innocent civilians' in Gaza

The Raw Story | CNN: US weapons 'killing innocent civilians' in Gaza

"Precision guided bombs are only precision in that they hit the target they are aimed at," Starr explained. "We're getting these civilian casualties. These weapons are supposed to be used for a country's self-defense. Israel, obviously, believes this is its self-defense against Hamas, but you see these civilian casualties. That's not why the US sells weapons abroad -- for the killing of innocent civilians."

  One good reason for not selling or (in reality) giving weapons to kill civilians is that according to the principle of retributive justice, every man, woman, child, cat and dog in the USA becomes a legitimate target for reprisal attacks. Thanks a lot, Zionists.

Michael Scheuer (formerly known as "Anonymous") new work on the Islamists on Asia Times

Asia Times Online :: Middle East News, Iraq, Iran current affairs

  His books were good, his articles are good. He's always worth reading. He discusses how the Iraq Attack allowed ultra-extremist Saudi-supported Salafist al-Queda-associated jihadis to spread thru Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and on into Palestine and Israel. Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.

McClatchy: Was 2008 the beginning of another Great Depression?

McClatchy Washington Bureau | 12/28/2008 | Was 2008 the beginning of another Great Depression?

  Good article. Good question.

Obama should give David Duke a Cabinet Position

The Raw Story | Frank get 'post-partisan depression' over Warren inauguration invite

Rep. Barney Frank, the only openly gay member of Congress, feels that president-elect Barack Obama has made a "serious mistake" in asking pastor Rick Warren to deliver the inaugural invocation.....

Rev. Rick Warren leads a southern California mega-church, and is author of the multi-million selling self-help book, "The Purpose Driven Life." Warren and his congregation were instrumental in supporting Proposition 8, a ballot measure passed in Nov. which banned gay marriage in the state.

Obama has maintained that his inclusion of Rev. Warren is part of his efforts to bring separate groups together around common causes.

"That dialogue is part of what my campaign is all about," said the President-elect.

  Obama's right. We should all embrace his new spirit of inclusiveness and diversity (except of course where gays and lesbians are concerned). And in order to show that he's not just the stereotypical gay-bashing black male and only appears to be a black male, he should invite David Duke to his inauguration, or maybe make him ambassador to Austria or something. I heard him interviewed by Michel Martin, who I really like, and I had to give them both high marks for the interview: they baited each other in a genteel sort of way but they kept it civil and interesting. Obama appears so determined to let the Neocons and Bible-Beaters and Wall Street Ponzi-schemers financiers we thought we defeated in the last election snatch victory from the jaws of defeat that he should probably give Duke a Cabinet position dealing with race relations or equal opportunity or something.

FW Engdahl: Federal Reserve sets Stage for Weimar-style Hyperinflation

Hyperinflation

In the period from August 1929 until he left office President Herbert Hoover oversaw a 43-month long contraction of the US economy of 33%. Barack Obama looks set to break that record, to preside over what historians could likely call the Very Great Depression of 2008-2014, unless he finds a new cast of financial advisers before Inauguration Day, January 20. Required are not recycled New York Fed presidents, Paul Volckers or Larry Summers types. Needed is a radically new strategy to put virtually the entire United States economy into some form of an emergency 'Chapter 11' bankruptcy reorganization where banks take write-offs of up to 90% on their toxic assets, that, in order to save the real economy for the American population and the rest of the world. Paper money can be shredded easily. Not human lives. In the process it might be time for Congress to consider retaking the Federal Reserve into the Federal Government as the Constitution originally specified, and make the entire process easier for all. If this sounds extreme, perhaps revisit this article in six months again. [emphasis added]

  Hr. Engdahl tends to be right. Just check his writing over the last year and compare it with the consensus view at the time of writing.

Karl Rove Rap-Sheet: Add Murder to Treason and Sedition

The Raw Story | GOP consultant killed in plane crash was warned of sabotage: report

Arnebeck said that he received confidential information that Republican operative Karl Rove threatened Connell and his wife if Connell told all that he knew.

  Since the plane crash is being investigated by the FAA, and Bush is still in the White House, any evidence will be destroyed, but maybe once Obama is in the coverup can be exposed. Not that I really expect Obama to do anything about any of this, so probably not. The Banana Republicans have already gotten away with massive treason and sedition; what does another murder or two matter? As for Rove, he'd already hang ten times over if he was ever brought to justice, so he has nothing to lose. Offing anyone who might testify against him is just good business.

Let the hangings begin

The Raw Story | Prominent neoconservative: 4,000 Americans 'had to die'

"My position is that it's regrettable that any Americans died. And it is regrettable that they had to die, but I believe they did have to die," said Gaffney. "The threat we did know about is the chemical capability Saddam Hussein used against his own people.... The danger was that inaction could have resulted in the death of many more Americans than 4,000."

   Since Gaffney does not appear to have had a government position, perhaps he is just more of an Israeli spy or unregistered foreign agent and should be shot or deported. Cheney is without a doubt guilty of high treason. Bush is too retarded to hang, but his administration was rife with high treason, the penalty for which at least used to be hanging. If was good enough for the Nazis at Nuremburg, it's good enough for the Neocon traitors.

Feds to Old People and U$D to Reality: Get Lost!

Bloomberg.com: Worldwide

Dollar Falls Most Against Euro Since 1999 Debut on Fed’s Rate

By Jamie McGee and Michael J. Moore

Dec. 17 (Bloomberg) -- The dollar declined the most against the euro since the 15-nation currency’s 1999 debut and sank to a 13-year low versus the yen as near-zero interest rates and rising budget deficits led traders to abandon the greenback.

The greenback extended its drop against a gauge of currencies of six U.S. trading partners, falling 11 percent from a 2 1/2-year high reached Nov. 21. Investors including hedge funds reversed bets that the dollar will appreciate to minimize losses as the end of the year approached, traders said.

“This move is historic,” said Russell LaScala, New York- based head of North American foreign exchange at Deutsche Bank AG, the world’s biggest currency trader. “It’s just going to keep going until the last bit of pain stops. I would not be shocked to see $1.50.

  Surprise, surprise! Dollar already going down the tubes. Who knew?

The Feds have decided to destroy the value of the dollar to protect the market capitalisation of their friends at GS, CITI, BAC etcetc Save the World! Old people on fixed incomes will just have to eat cheaper pet-food. Lucky for them, soon Chinese pet-food will be unaffordable, so they might not get poisoned. And all those low-wage workers for whom deflation would be their first real pay-raise in decades can get lost too. Old people, poor people, U$D debt-holders: Get Lost!

  Wonder what will happen to the value of the dollar when the rest of the world figures out that not only are we deliberately hyper-inflating our currency as an alternative to default, but we also consume more than anyone else, have more debt than anyone else, and produce less per capita of anything of value (meaning forget financial services, Hollywood crap, etc.) than anyone else except maybe places like Somalia?

Clusterstock: Time For A Gas Tax

Time For A Gas Tax

   I've been saying this for months. Henry Blodget wants a price target of $4 and not to start it until 2011. I would set a nearer-term target of $3 and start drifting the price up to that target immediately, then start raising the target to $4 and beyond. Gas below $2/gallon is just plain stupid. Let's get it back up to at least $2.50 by the summer before people start thinking of anything over $2 as being high.

  The target should work as a price-band, using tax cuts and even short-term subsidies to smooth out price-swings. Economic actors can't be expected to act rationally and efficiently when the price of oil can be anywhere between $25 and $250/barrel.

  Measures, up to and including public flogging, would have to be taken to ensure oil companies didn't simply push their profit-margin up to reach the target price.

  The money raised by this tax could be used for things like bailing out the automakers while turning them more into mass-transit makers, upgrading rail roadbed and building more, including urban light rail, and so forth. This could fit nicely into Obama's infrastructure plan while actually adding a funding source other than the Chinese and other creditor-nations.

F William Engdahl: NATO scuttles US plan to encircle Russia

 As any student of WWII history knows, the war against Germany mostly took place in Russia, Western Europe being a sideshow and US participation a laudable afterthought. If not for General Winter and the T-34, Germany and Japan would have divided Eurasia and Africa and here in the US only the ocean might have saved us. Whether one likes Russia or not and whatever their government happens to be, they are right up there with Vietnamese as people one should absolutely not start trouble with. Anyone who tells you otherwise is just plain stupid, like for example George W. Bush and the horse he rode in on. The French, Chinese and US can tell you what happens if you mess with Vietnam, and the French and Germans can tell you all you need to know about messing with Russia. Much better to have them as friends than enemies.

  Me, I'm hoping the pirates in Somalia and the Strait of Malacca mess with the Russians. They won't fuck around with hand-wringing and whine about human rights and so forth. They'll zorch them, their familes, their friends, their homes and their whole fucking countries until it stops, and despite all the clucking and tut-tutting, the world will be a better, happier place. We have enough problems without stinking pirates from non-nations. Historically, human rights have never applied to pirates. String 'em up from the yard-arm; it's just that simple. Or mine their ports and cluster-bomb their cities. Whatever does the job.

  Same goes for the Pakis that hit Mumbai. Give Pakistan a reasonable chance to deal with it, then toss a little nuke into their 'tribal area' if they need some motivation,something small but very dirty, render a valley uninhabitable forever. Enough already of these Stone-Age savages in this 'tribal area'. It might make a suitable worldwide nuclear waste repository and toxic-waste dump. Fuck'em.

Asia Times Online :: Central Asian News and current affairs, Russia, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan

..... Translated into real political language, Washington has undergone a stunning setback in its agenda of encircling Russia with NATO. Despite the fact that president-elect Obama retained Bush Administration Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and named a person to be Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, who has strongly supported bringing Georgia and Ukraine into NATO, key European NATO members, led by Germany and France, blocked what must be a unanimous membership decision. .....