Musharraf "Takes Note"

Bump from Bloomberg Asia:

"March 16 (Bloomberg) -- Pakistani police ransacked the Islamabad offices of GEO Television in a failed bid to stop the private broadcaster airing Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry's disciplinary hearing.

Police fired tear gas into the newsroom, broke furniture and shattered glass in the building, 500 meters from the Supreme Court where Chaudhry's second hearing is being held. "They tried to get us out of the building and tear gassed us," Hamid Mir, GEO TV's Islamabad bureau chief said. "We received repeated messages from the police to stop our live coverage."

The Supreme Court is determining whether President Pervez Musharraf's action removing Chaudhry from the post last week is lawful. GEO TV has telecast live coverage of the protests and police action in Islamabad today. "This is unjustified and we will hold an inquiry," junior Information Minister Tariq Azeem told reporters outside GEO's office in Islamabad.

Newscast Stopped

The government ordered GEO TV yesterday to stop airing its main daily news program, "AAJ Kamran Khan Key Saath," or "Today With Kamran Khan," according to the News newspaper.

"I never knew that that the government would get so desperate and would lose patience so soon with this free flow of information," Khan said, according to the News. "We never had an agenda, other than providing people the most accurate news and an objective analysis on this most important turning point of our history."

President Pervez Musharraf has "taken serious note" of the incident and assured journalists that action would be taken against those responsible, GEO TV reported, citing Information Minister Mohammed Ali Durrani, who said he spoke to the President on the telephone.

I stand stunned as I watch this live and read about it. My only question is why? Is that how all tyrants are; they beat you up, hurt you, abuse you and then tell you not to cry and how sorry they are, and to "walk it off".

"Sorry" is the coolest word in the english language.

Democracy Inaction

...thought what I'd do is pretend...

Today is a sad day for democracy in Pakstan, sadder than most. The Dictatorial General Pervaiz Musharaf tried to remove Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry from office. Many in the legal community believe that Justice Chaudhary was dismissed because he took up cases that were unpopolar with the government. Chief among these was a petition to recover missing persons, allegedly abducted by intelligence agencies. He also overturned the recent sale of Pakistan's state-run steel mills. In fact the judge is a very controversial figure noted for his firm line on government misdeeds and human rights abuses.
Freedom just doesn't intail choosing the best cellphone plan for yourself. It is a burden. It is the wounded and dying stranger that must be carried on ones back, through all the hardships ahead, just for the fun of it. That is the only way for it to survive.
Personally I am skeptical about all things organized; organized religion, organized thought, organized government. In my opinion they serve the purpose of getting a human up on his feet. But once a person stands up, it is that persons duty and responsibilty to move away, to start carrying freedom around like a log. It is easier to ignore this responsibility. Infact, most people do. but every now and then an idea comes around that makes you think. We have to think, even if we are powerless to act, because that is how ones gets to know oneself, ones beliefs. Is this infinite universe all our insignificant existence amounts to is our beliefs.
So as I see three celeberties dancing sensually on TV trying to cram down Joe's throat something they want him to think he needs, I try to focus on my thoughts; Two things come to mind.
Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. and,
In a republic who is the country?
This is how I see it; In a republic, people choose there leaders. They take another ordinary person and vest them with power. Power to make decisions for them, Power to deiced what is Best for others. But if power corrupts then, this approach becomes flawed. What do those with power want? Simple answer, more power. So to control those who we corrupt by giving them power, we set up a system where we give another person power to watch the first person. and yada, yada, yada, we end up with institutions that are there to maintain a balance of power.
So where does that leave us when one power hungary despot tries to consolidate it all. My answer. and I say mine because I hope yours is different, it leaves us with a flawed system falling apart. We see this in the world everyday in one form or another. Who knows how it all ends.
We have to remember that its was our power that got them where they are. We deaf-mutes.

FreeNAS

Wow, its been a long time since I posted. Work apparently takes up a lot of time. In the free time that I have, I've been messing around with FreeNAS. I had an old Celeron lying around which I scavenged to get this set up. FreeNAS is actually a very easy and inexpensive wave to get a RAID 5 network storage solution up and running on this. With this I can finally stop worrying about the day a hard drive fails and I lose all the data on it. Now all I need is a good gigabit Ethernet card so that I can get better throughput on my network once I move all my media files to this server. I think i am really doing this product a dis-service by not talking more about it, but I would urge anyone interested in a cheap backup or central storage to wiki more information here. It is really a very impressive piece of software. That works simply and as advertised.