Officer, am I free to leave? Flex Your Rights has
guidelines for
how to deal with a police officer after being stopped.
I should've known this, but I didn't realize that cops don't have the
right to search your vehicle without your permission (unless they can see
something illegal). Many people waive their 4th Amendment rights when they
allow police to search their cars after asking.
Posted at 11:26
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Almanacs Readers Are Potential Terrorists What's next, books?
FBI urges police to watch for people carrying almanacs
TED BRIDIS, Associated Press Writer
Monday, December 29, 2003 (12-29) 11:26 PST WASHINGTON (AP) --
The FBI is warning police nationwide to be alert for people carrying almanacs, cautioning that the popular reference books covering everything from abbreviations to weather trends could be used for terrorist planning.
In a bulletin sent Christmas Eve to about 18,000 police organizations, the FBI said terrorists may use almanacs "to assist with target selection and pre-operational planning."
It urged officers to watch during searches, traffic stops and other investigations for anyone carrying almanacs, especially if the books are annotated in suspicious ways.
"The practice of researching potential targets is consistent with known methods of al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations that seek to maximize the likelihood of operational success through careful planning," the FBI wrote.
The Associated Press obtained a copy of the bulletin this week and verified its authenticity.
The FBI noted that use of almanacs or maps may be innocent, "the product of legitimate recreational or commercial activities." But it warned that when combined with suspicious behavior -- such as apparent surveillance -- a person with an almanac "may point to possible terrorist planning."
The FBI said information typically found in almanacs that could be useful for terrorists includes profiles of cities and states and information about waterways, bridges, dams, reservoirs, tunnels, buildings and landmarks. It said this information is often accompanied by photographs and maps.
The FBI urged police to report such discoveries to the local U.S. Joint Terrorism Task Force.
The FBI warned citizens today to be on the look out for suspicous people carrying books. Reputed to contain valuable information of various types in textual form, books could pose a grave threat if they fell into the wrong hands. While the FBI acknowledged that books may have some legitimate uses, it warned citizens to be especially warry of individuals carrying well-worn copies. Intense reading is considered grounds for suspicion of terrorist activities. The FBI then urged citizens to return to their regularly scheduled TV programs.
Posted at 13:51
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Back from Vieques
I'm back from vacation in Vieques, Puerto Rico. By coincidence, the Nation
has a new article about the
aftermath of the
Navy's bombing there. The island is a small place, so I'm now familiar
with some of the events and people mentioned in the article. I also
visited nearby Culebra, which was a Navy testing ground until 1975 and is
still awaiting cleanup.
Posted at 22:14
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On Vacation
I will be on vacation from Dec. 11 to December 22nd.
Posted at 00:23
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Gear for Dean
This is cool, a bike ride to the DNC convention in Boston from New York.
Gear for Dean. No, he hasn't won the nomination
yet, but they say, "We're not stupid. We know that there are nine
candidates still in the race and the convention is eight months away. But,
we're optimistic enough to start planning now. Our first step is to find
out who is interested."
Posted at 12:28
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Don't judge this spam...
Just got a spam: "Don't judge this e-mail by its subject". More like
"Don't judge this spam by its spam". At least it was in the King's English
(though I'm not sure he'd approve of Paris Hilton).
Posted at 13:59
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Where is Google's Weblog Search?
When Google bought Blogger, I thought for sure they would develop a weblog
search engine. Where is it?
Posted at 13:50
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Group Blogs, Blog Communities I think he's onto something, but I think the terminology is wrong (Dave's
comment about using RSS to dynamically assemble group blogs by category is
also interesting).
There's a difference between a blog aggregation, which I would call a
"blog community", such as JavaBlogs or the
Daily Kos diaries and a "group
blog". A blog community brings together content from people with related
interests. They tend to be insular and mostly read by the other members of
the blog community. It a slightly more distributed discussion forum. A
group blog is when a couple of people come together on one blog to write
about the same topic, for example En Banc
(legal), or Not Geniuses (politics). The
distinction may seem pedantic, but I think it is important. A group blog
is not insular; it is a part of the larger blogosphere. Group bloggers are
often experts or well-reknowned in their own right before the join
together. A group blog allows people who might not have enough time to run
their own site a chance to create something that's bigger than the sum of
its parts.
(P.S.: I am writing for a group blog which I
started. Currently, there is one other author, but as the traffic to the
site heats up and the 2004 campaign gets more underway, I am going to need
more help, because I won't be able to keep up with the time demands of
indexing every campaign ad.)
Dave Winer links
to a piece by
Robert Scoble about why he doesn't like group blogs.
Posted at 01:30
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Quick Links Salon:
The real fellowship of the ring. Cool story about C.S. Lewis and J.R.R.
Tolkien.
Molly Ivins:
Picking a winner: "I know, he's even less of a liberal than Bill Clinton
was, but I don't think Dean is a moderate centrist. I think he's a
fighting centrist. And folks, I think we have got ourselves a winner
here."
Devilstower's Daily Kos post on
China, and America,
and the Moon is interesting. Devilstower draws an analogy between the
15th century Chinese missions of exploration, and the 20th century
American exploration of space. But even more interesting is the
response by
sagesource who calls it all a bunch of crap. Check it out!
The Crisis Papers:
The Democrats: When Will They Ever Learn?
Joel Spolsky likes
SpamBayes. I've been saving my spam
for months, waiting for the right Bayesian filter. Maybe this is it. I
was going to use ifile, but I thought it was too hard to set up.
Posted at 14:11
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Research Notes: PACs, 527s, and 501(c)(4) Issue Groups US Code TITLE 26, Subtitle
A, CHAPTER 1, Subchapter F, PART VI, Sec. 527.
Political Action Committee
Study by the Leadership Institute.
Election Year Activities for 501(c)(4) Social Welfare Organizations by
Alliance for Justice.
Under the Radar:
Stealth PACs by Common Cause.
Shadowy 527 Groups Continue Soft Money Grab As 2002 Election Approaches
by Public Citizen.
I'm doing some research about the differences between PACs, 527 groups,
and 501(c)(4) groups and how they will affect the 2004 election. Here's
some notes.
Posted at 13:52
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Quick Links The Dean campaign has talked about their strategy to retake Congress (more
realistically, I would say, to stem the losses) by pushing Dean supporters
to volunteer for local races and give money. Today, the idea will be
tested. Campaign manager Joe Trippi
sent an email to all
Dean supporters asking them to give money to Iowa Rep.
Leonard Boswell. The Boston Globe has
a story on it:
Dean pushing Democratic Congress. Boswell hasn't endorsed anyone in the
race yet.
2071.org has a translation of a French piece about a reporter who
was 'embedded' with the Iraqi
guerilla group that hit the DHL plane. There's some
photos of the
damage at What Really Happened (looks like the plane made an emergency
landing, but was OK). Reading stuff like this gives me the chills. I am
really worried about the situation in Iraq.
Things you have to
believe to be a Republican today (via
Counterspin).
Fortune:
Can Google Grow Up? I wonder if Google will succumb to the IPO disease
and start sucking big time after it goes public.
Are corporations "they" or "it"?
Salon: MoveOn
moves up. Good article about MoveOn.
Washington Post:
Election Is Now for Bush Campaign. More on the Bush/GOP Get-Out-The-Vote
efforts planned for next year. Yikes!
Paul Ford: A New Website
for Harper's Magazine. The first real application of RDF and the semantic
web? Who cares about that crap -- I just want to read Harper's archives
online. Which I still can't do.
(Somewhat related to the above) Peter Van Dijck:
Themes and metaphors in the
semantic web discussion. This is a cartoon-style narative of the frequent
"the Semantic web will never work" conversation. Boiled down like this, I
can actually make sense of the arguments.
Wow, Movable Type can be used to
send spam!
Oops. Six Apart
released a patch to reduce the problems.
George Soros has an
excerpt of his new book The Bubble of American Supremacy in this
month's Atlantic (see, sometimes it's worth reading...like twice a f$@#ing
year!). Soros is pumping big bucks into anti-Bush organizations.
Philip Greenspun made his class do a usability analysis on Friendster for
their midterm. The results are pretty interesting:
6.171
Friendster Usability Analysis.
Posted at 17:35
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GLBT versus LGBT Which is more common? Let's turn to Google.
GLBT:
~425,000
LGBT: ~333,000
Why the difference? Is it regional, or were lesbians just pissed that they
were second? Maybe they should use a regexp-style matching: [GLBT] (yes, I
know that's not right).
Apparently, I'm not the only one wondering. Check out this spoof article
about the dispute: Gay
Rights Organization Torn Over GLBT/LGBT Debate
Leading a rather sheltered adolescence, I was first introduced to the term
"GLBT" at the University of Minnesota. I quickly learned it stood for "Gay
Lesbian Bisexual and Transgender", but I always thought it sounds like a
kind of sandwich (I'll have a GLBT on rye, please). Now that I've gotten
more involved in politics, I've found there's another term that's
sometimes used, LGBT, which stands for "Lesbian Gay Bisexual and
Transgender" and sounds less like something you might order at a deli.
Posted at 20:58
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Quick Links Kucinich isn't making much headway in the polls, but at least fictional
characters are
backing his run. Do you need proof that Kucinich isn't for real? Imagine
seeing this picture on any other candidate's website:
Whoa, I've been out to lunch. I missed this story from last week that
MP3.com's assets are
being destroyed! Holy crap, that sucks. (via
K5).
BBC: Fasting
fakir flummoxes physicians:
Damn! Well, I don't believe that he hasn't eaten anything in decades, but
the ability to go without water for 10 days is still amazing. And check
this out: "A statement from Ahmedabad's Association of Physicians says
that despite no water entering his body, urine nonetheless appeared to
form in his bladder - only to be re-absorbed by the bladder walls."
Wired News:
Congress Expands FBI Spying Power. Great. Just great.
Air
Rage Granny Scrambles Fighters:
In other news
I'm launching a new website to review the 2004 campaign ads and brainstorm
for new ones. It's called BushOut.tv.
I'll be out of town for Thanksgiving. I hope you have a happy holiday.
Doctors and experts are baffled by an Indian hermit who claims not to have eaten or drunk anything for several decades - but is still in perfect health.
Prahlad Jani, a holy man, or fakir, who is over 70 years old, has just spent 10 days under constant observation in Sterling Hospital, in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad.
During that time, he did not consume anything and "neither did he pass urine or stool", according to the hospital's deputy superintendent, Dr Dinesh Desai.
MIAMI (Reuters) - Fighter jets were scrambled at Miami airport on Tuesday after an elderly woman threw a fit on an American Airlines plane and flight attendants thought she would attack them, police said.
Reports said the woman was aged between 69 and 79.
"They said old," a police spokeswoman said, adding she could not confirm her precise age.
The pilot of flight AA-2133 with 126 passengers on board announced an emergency as a precaution shortly after taking off for Caracas, and fighter jets were scrambled to escort the plane back to Miami international airport.
The plane landed safely.
Posted at 13:41
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Quick Links iPod's Dirty Secret documents the
Neisat brother's guerilla marketing campaign to inform the world about
their iPod's battery problems. A few days ago, I linked to a
photo of their handywork that
Rachelle Bowden snapped.
Howard Dean in 1984 ninja
movie?!? From
Fear Itself, it seems that Howard Dean may have had a bit part in the
1984 ninja movie Ninja III: The
Domination. There's no word from the campaign, but IMDB seems to think it
is legit. You really have to
head over to Fear Itself to check out this post. File under "hilarious if
true"!
Posted at 21:46
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Quick Links Dan Conley reviews the
candidates' websites. I'm working on a review of the new Clark site
(short version: it's good).
Go give some money
to MoveOn Voter Fund.
Give some
money to the striking grocery store workers in California so they can
have a decent Thanksgiving. (via
CalPundit).
CalPundit also points to a page about a law I'd heard existed, but had
never read about: the
banning of "secondary strike". This (among other things) takes one of the
most awesome weapons out of the workers' arsenal: the
general strike. General
strikes are illegal, but colluding between employeers isn't. Not fair.
Slacktivist has a
good roundup of commentary about the new RNC ads I mention below.
Over on Daily Kos, EphemeralNotion
finds that protests
are a good way to meet hotties. Those chicks in the first picture are
looking pretty fine.
Posted at 17:30
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GOP to Run Ads on Terror Issue; Dean and MoveOn respond The RNC is spending $100,000 for the initial broadcast of the ad.
Watch the ad.
The Dean campaign is
responding with a $360,000 bat
to air a new Dean
ad:
Commenters on the Dean blog are encouraging the campaign to punch
up the ad. (Author's note: Damn, that was fast!)
The MoveOn Voter Fund is responding with a
$500,000
fundraising campaign TODAY (as part of the $10 million they're raising
for swing state advertising in January). As of about 3:30 my time, they're
already 80% of the way there.
This post is a little preview of a new site I'll be lauching soo to cover
the 2004 campaign advertising and brainstorm new ads.
New York Times:
G.O.P. to Run an Ad for Bush on Terror Issue:
After months of sustained attacks against President Bush in Democratic primary debates and commercials, the Republican Party is responding this week with its first advertisement of the presidential race, portraying Mr. Bush as fighting terrorism while his potential challengers try to undermine him with their sniping.
The new commercial gives the first hint of the themes Mr. Bush's campaign is likely to press in its early days. It shows Mr. Bush, during the last State of the Union address, warning of continued threats to the nation: "Our war against terror is a contest of will, in which perseverance is power," he says after the screen flashes the words, "Some are now attacking the president for attacking the terrorists."
Misled
TV script -- 30 seconds
Narrator: The president misled us about weapons of mass destruction.
And we went to war when we shouldn't have.
Howard Dean is committed to fighting terrorism and protecting our national security.
But Howard Dean has been opposed to the war in Iraq from the beginning.
He believes it's time to have a foreign policy consistent with American values.
And it's time to restore the dignity and respect our country deserves around the world.
Howard Dean: I'm Howard Dean and I approve this message because our party and our country need new leadership.
Posted at 16:11
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Weapons of Mass...Donkey?
They're attacking us with FUCKING DONKEYS?!?!
Posted at 14:55
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Quick Links
The penguin is mightier than the sword. No, it's not about Linux, it's a
rare interview with Berkeley Breathed about his new comic strip "Opus".
Like Bill Watterson, he's forcing editors to run his strip half-page only.
Good for him.
Salon
turns 8 today. Read what it was like in the old days, plus a link to the
first issue of Salon!
Dan Savage:
I
don't. Dan Savage responds to the gay marriage ruling.
Tom the
Dancing Bug is awesome this week.
Green China? Katharine Mieszkowski talks to two scientists about the
motivation behind China's new fuel efficiency standards I talked about
yesterday.
Matthew Yglesias does
some math and finds that countries with socialist universal health care
are paying less per capita for it than the US. That's not surprising to
me. What's surprising is that their governments -- while paying a higher
percentage of the cost than the US -- also pay less than the US government
per capita with our mixed (and crappy) system. For example, Sweden's
government pays $1,759 per capita while the US government pays $1,895 per
capita. Interesting!
Slacktivist:
Uncivil union. Fred Clark explores the strange ways civil and religious
marriage intertwine. I think this essay gives more weight to the idea that
churches should decide who can get married and the state should hand out
"civil unions" to any people who want one. Fred explores gay marriage in
Uncivil unions (part 2).
Bruce Sterling:
How free software is fueling a new kind of patriotism
Lots of good stuff today in Salon. Watch the day
pass, or better yet, throw them a bone and subscribe.
Posted at 22:02
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Quick Links Here's some libertarian stuff.
W. James Antle III, The American Conservative:
Conservative Crack-Up. "Will
libertarians leave the Cold War coalition?"
Julian Sanchez, Reason: Attack
of the Dean-Leaners: The Libertarian Case for the Democrats: "In short
Dean (or another Democratic nominee) has vices which are unlikely to
translate into real policy. His virtues -- opposition to an imperial
foreign policy, greater support for gay rights, and even a qualified
federalism, evidenced by his stance on gun rights -- are more likely to be
points on which bipartisan coalition building is possible."
...and (for balance):
If Housepets Were Libertarians.
Rich Lowry and Al Franken are
going to
fight...each other's books.
Bush announces
new Iraq policy.
Who knew that John Kerry was a Pac Man master?
Frank Rose, Wired:
The Second
Coming of Philip K. Dick (via wmf).
Joshua Davis, Wired:
The New Diamond
Age. I forgot to link to this when I read it. It's a way-cool article
on synthetic diamonds.
Dan Savage wants us
all to improve the ranking of
santorum, that
frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the
byproduct of anal sex, to the detriment of
Senator Santorum,
the homophobic senator from Pennsylvania.
How embarrassing. The Chinese are going to impose
tougher fuel efficiency
standards than the US. Anyone else feel we're going the way of Snow
Crash, where the US leads in only entertainment and pizza delivery?
Posted at 21:41
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Who will lead in Massachusetts? Nathan Newman thinks it's a setback for gay rights because of historical trends of backlash against judicial activism in gay rights, abortion, and civil rights. The danger of a backlash against gay rights is clear, but I think the experience of Vermont shows that this can be overcome.
Immediately following the Vermont Supreme Court's decision, then-Governor Howard Dean announced he'd support a domestic partnership solution. The Vermont Legislature passed the civil unions bill, and while Dean signed it in a private ceremony, he defended the bill on the campaign trail and won re-election. Today, civil unions in Vermont are a fact of life, and supported by a majority of Vermonters.
However, in Mass. Republican Governor Mitt Romney is ardently opposed to gay marriage or any civil union-like compromise and says he'll work against them: "Marriage is a relationship between a man and a women. The exact equivalent to marriage is also reserved to a man and a woman. Over the next several months, I will work with legislative leadership and other legislators and community leaders to decide what kind of statute we can fashion, which is consistent with the law. We obviously have to follow the law as provided by the SJC. Even if we don't agree with it, we are going to follow it in terms of preparing legislation. We will initiate a constitution amendment process that will be consistent with what I think the feelings are of the people of the commonwealth."
There are other differences from the Vermont case. The Massachusetts SJC was closely divided in it's ruling, while in Vermont the decision was 4-1 -- with the dissenter arguing for full marriage rights. And no one is really sure how much latitude the Massachusetts Legislature has to implement a solution, whereas the Vermont Supreme Court left everything up to the Legislature.
I can see this ending badly. Because of the difficulty of amending the Massachusetts constitution, there is no way gay marriage opponents will be able to amend the constitution until at least 2006. Meanwhile, thousands of marriage licenses will be issued to gay and lesbian couples. So, what is Gov. Romney going to do? Romney and his allies may decide to sabotage legislative efforts to create civil unions or amend current law to comply with the ruling. Then, after the 180 days are up, they can blame the Supreme Judicial Court for forcing divisive "gay marriage" on the people of the state. Romney and his allies could attempt to create an anti-gay backlash and run against the ruling for the next two years (including during the 2004 presidential election). Indeed, the Republicans plan to make opposition to gay marriage a cornerstone of their national strategy. (Whether this will ensure Republican victory or turn off gay-friendly swing voters is another matter.)
I disagree with Nathan Newman that the courts shouldn't overturn unjust laws. But I agree that this decision could set back gay rights. Massachusetts needs a leader who will fight for civil unions or gay marriage legislation, and then, just as importantly, lead the healing that will be necessary to sooth the wounds of what will surely be an explosive 180 days. This will ensure that gay rights move forward and help to neutralize anti-gay rhetoric in the upcoming election. In Vermont, Howard Dean filled that role admirably. But Mitt Romney is not that leader. Who will step up?
Today, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled 4-3 that the state's ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional and gave the legislature 180 days to comply with the ruling. Will the ruling lead to an anti-gay backlash and national election disaster for the Democrats, or will it ultimately advance the cause of civil rights in a way everyone can accept? I argue that it all comes down to leadership.
Posted at 23:30
Permanent Link
More fun with tinyurl.com
Via BoingBoing, a new way to have fun with
TinyURL, by spelling out stuff like your initials
and seeing where it goes. I
had some fun poking
around TinyURL last month.
Posted at 16:18
Permanent Link
Quick Links The Wingnut
Debate Dictionary is pretty funny if you're into that sort of thing.
Fundrace has some interesting stuff about the
2004 candidate's fundraising statistics (it's a little misleading because
the campaigns don't report donations less than $200, which is where Clark,
Dean, and Kucinich get a lot of their money). The
maps are totally cool, though.
The blogger behind Notes on the Atrocities has a cool idea for a
collaborative documentrary project using decentralized filming and
digital editing. I love collaborative media!
Jay Rosen:
A Politics that is Dumber Than Spam. "Well, I did some back of the
envelope math: There are 17 states where the winner in 2000 won by 6
points or less. That is a very generous definition of a battleground
state. (Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri,
New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee,
Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin are the states.) The population of
those states in 2000 was about 98.2 million total, or 34 percent of the
U.S. Total votes in those states amounted to 38.4 million, or 36 percent
of all votes cast. If we take a generous estimate of 14 percent
'undecided', (the highest I could find in any national poll in fall
2000) then at most five percent of Americans actually mattered to the
operatives who ran the campaign and 95 percent did not matter. And what do
the lucky five percent get? Ads!"
Rachelle Bowden has a cool photoblog and her
Street Writing project is really
nice. I go back every day for shots of New York City. Here are some of my
favorites: Bitter Former Customer
(iPod graffiti), Photo Friday:
Night, and Brooklyn Textures.
Chasing Bush has the best domain name ever:
interwebnet.org
Watch Gen. Clark go balistic on a Faux News interviewer.
If you have Real Player, Flash, and all that jazz, you can watch the new
Star Wars:
Clone Wars cartoon on the web. Episodes come online one day after they're
broadcast. The sad party is, the cartoon is probably better than Episode I
or II.
CodeCon 2004 is on for February 20-22 in San
Francisco. I'm always the last to know.
Posted at 19:34
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Psalm 2003 Psalm 2003
I found this in a weblog comment.
Bush is my shepherd, I shall be in want.
He leadeth me beside the still factories,
He maketh me to lie down on park benches,
He restoreth my doubts about the Republican party.
He guideth me onto the paths of unemployment for the party's sake.
I do fear the evildoers, for thou talkest about them constantly.
Thy tax cuts for the rich and thy deficit spending,
They do discomfort me.
Thou anointeth me with never-ending debt,
And my savings and assets shall soon be gone.
Surely poverty and hard living shall follow me,
And my jobless children shall dwell in my basement forever
Posted at 19:31
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Audio for America The Problem with the Mainstream Media
Eric Alterman's work on the "so-called liberal media" ably demonstrates
the problem our nominee is going to have breaking through the pundit
filter and right-wing spin machine. Even so-called liberal pundits will be
critical of the nominee (just look at how they're covering the
primaries!). They are not on our side. As Bob
Somerby puts it, they have "millionaire pundit values", not progressive
values.
On top of that, the nominee will have to fight back against George Bush's
$200 million attack ad bonanza and grassroots GOTV effort.
We need a way to take our case directly to the voter, bypassing the
mainstream media.
Getting Around the Mainstream Media
I call my solution "Audio for America". The plan is to create audio CDs
about the candidate and distribute them to 5-10 million voters. It is the
AOLization of presidential advertising.
Why CDs?
This is not a unique idea, but most people have focused on using DVDs
instead of CDs. I think this is a mistake. There is no question that video
is the more interesting and engaging medium, so why should CDs be used
instead of DVDs, VHS, or internet distribution?
CDs are ubiquitous, but not everyone has a DVD player. VHS is impractical
because VHS duplication is too expensive and VHS tapes are too heavy and
bulky to distribute easily. Internet access is still too limited to rely
on for distribution, and on the internet the voter has to come to you. CDs
are also easy for consumers to copy and share with their friends and
family.
However, using primarily using CD does not preclude doing DVDs and
internet distribution on a more limited basis. Campaign multimedia will be
posted on the campaign website and file sharing networks for download and
distribution.
Suggested Format
As I imagine it, the "Audio for America" CD would be an authoritative
audio overview of the campaign. It would not be a mishmash of speeches
slammed onto a CD. Instead, it would be carefully crafted to introduce
voters to the candidate, flesh out his ideas, and then tell them how to
get involved.
The CD would feature a narrator to introduce each track (for example, what
the event is, where and when it occurred, and what will be discussed). The
first track would introduce the candidate's overall theme and movement (a
sort of commercial). It would be followed by major speeches, radio
commercials, and town-hall format question and answer sessions where the
candidate fleshes out his policy positions. It would conclude with a
message from the candidate about how to get involved with the campaign.
The Package
The "Audio for America" package to be distributed to voters will contain
the following: 1 audio CD (~72 minutes of audio), gray scale printed
cardboard mini-jacket (front: CD title, campaign artwork, and contact
info; back: track listing and mini-literature), and half-page folded
literature insert. This package is designed with cost and bulk as the
primary concerns. It will be cheap to print and easy to carry.
Costs
According to CD manufacturing quotes I looked up on the web, the cost for
10,000 is approximately $.75 per CD ($7500).
This breaks down as follows (these figures are from
ACME CD Manufacturing):
Audio CDs: $.49/each
Mini-jacket (2 color): $.10/each
Insertion: $.10/each
Since the campaign will be manufacturing 5 to 10 million CDs, I believe
these costs can be reduced to about $.50/each for a total cost of $2.5 to
5 million. If the cost stays at $.75 each, the total cost will be to $3.75
to $7.5 million..
CD manufacturing companies will also list your CD on Amazon.com for free.
I do not know if it is legal for a campaign to sell items of this nature,
but if so, it would be another distribution channel for the CD.
Distribution
Distribution would be handled primarily by voter-to-voter contact. Tablers
would give away the CDs to interested voters. Door knockers would carry
the CD with them with their pile of lit. It would be passed out at
Meetups, rallies, and fund raisers, always with the mantra: "Copy this and
give it to a friend." Duplication of the CD would be heavily encouraged,
perhaps by using a Creative Commons license
for the CD.
MP3s of the audio would be available for download from the candidate's
website, along with PDFs of the printed material for the package. The
audio should also be shared on file sharing networks like Kazaa.
The CD could also be mailed AOL-style to potential supporters.
If legal, the campaign could also sell the CD online at their own store
and Amazon.com.
By sharing the audio on the internet and encouraging widespread
duplication, voter contact with the Audio for America CD can be doubled or
quadrupled with no cost to the campaign. Therefore, the total number of
voters exposed to the CD could reach 10-40 million. That's a significant
fraction of the voting population getting the campaign's message directly
from the campaign instead of through the filter of the so-called liberal
media.
Postscript: Variations
There are several variations on this idea that could be very successful.
What follows is my plan to reach up to 40 million voters without the
filter of the mainstream media at a low cost of $7.5 million or less by
directly distributing an audio CD package to millions of voters and
encouraging them to copy it. This plan was originally developed with
Howard Dean in mind, but I think whoever the Democratic nominee is, his
campaign should utilize this idea.
Posted at 12:00
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Bushkakis
The landing on the carrier will be remembered as the day the Bush
administration jumped the shark.
Posted at 20:22
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Mom Finds Out About Blog This actually happened to me, but I think my site was too nerdy and boring
for my mom to keep reading it. I don't talk much about personal stuff
here...and there's a damn good reason.
The Onion, as usual, rules.
Posted at 19:46
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BREAKING NEWS: Kerry quits Kerry campaign
Kerry's campaign has hit a rough spot lately and his campaign staff are
dropping like flies. On that note, check out my story about Kerry quiting
his own campaign, over
at my Daily Kos diary: "John Kerry's campaign for president is in turmoil
following news that Kerry would quit the campaign."
Posted at 16:42
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Aqua Teen Hunger Force DVD
Ohhh...pretty.
Posted at 14:28
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Paris Hilton Sex Tape Aparently, she's some kind of model
or something.
I'm a nerd. When I heard about this "Paris Hilton sex tape" that is all
the rage, I figured it must be someone famous having sex at the
Hilton in Paris.
Posted at 11:50
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Nazi Spam
Damn, I just got spam from "Nazi Online". Ugh.
Posted at 09:45
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Quick Links Wow, free Movable Type hosting.
Finally! I found out the Emacs equivalent to Pico's Control-J justify
command. It's Meta-q ( California (well, one town anyway) just elected a new reason to be
nationally mocked. The small town of Bolinas passed a resolution
which states (in its entirety): "Vote for Bolinas to be a socially
acknowledged nature-loving town because to like to drink the water out
of the lakes to like to eat the blueberries to like the bears is not
hatred to hotels and motor boats. Dakar. Temporary and way to save
life, skunks and foxes (airplanes to go over the ocean) and to make it
beautiful." (via
Michael D's Daily Kos diary).
AP:
Personal Web Surfing Can Benefit Workers. Whew!
fill-paragraph). See
Explicit Fill
Commands for more info.
Posted at 17:49
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Flag Flap But Dean did not articulate that point well, and in the process, managed
to offend blacks and Southerners at the same time! This is doubly
disappointing for me because Dean is consistently not doing as well as he
should be in the debates. He should've been ready for this, and he wasn't.
If he doesn't get better in the debate format, how is he going to defeat
Bush one-on-one?
Below is a summary of commentary on the flag issue.
Jack Balkin:
Dean and the Guys with the Confederate Flag on their Pickup Trucks. "I
would rather that the Democratic party be more populist than it currently
is. Let me be clear: I don't particularly like Dean's way of exemplifying
the working class Americans he wants to appeal to: the Confederate Flag,
after all, reemerged into popular consciousness as a symbol of massive
resistance to Brown in the 1950's and 1960's. But I do think that it is
important to show people who have a gun rack on their pickup trucks-- to
change the metaphor-- that the Democratic Party is working in their
interests."
Dan Conley: Rock the Vote.
"But no one's claiming Dean's a bigot, we're claiming he's an arrogant ...
I don't want to say it but it rhymes with trick."
Hesiod:
Block the Vote. "It's time for the Democrats to stop Howard Dean."
jgkojak, Daily Kos: Debate
comments/flag flap. "Howard Dean has had his sister souljah moment- and
then some."
LiberalOasis: Dean
Can Stop Dean (after yesterday's
Can Anyone Stop
Dean?) "Oops. Less than 24 hours after LiberalOasis said Howard Dean was
'barely scraped' by the confederate flag flap, he got pummeled by it."
Nathan Newman:
Dean and
Confederate Flag. "This is not an argument for pandering to racism; it's
an argument that if poor white voters aren't given a real economic
alternative, they'll retreat to frustrated scapegoating."
John Nichols, Capital Times:
Rebel
flag flap shows media failure. "What isn't being reported is this
reality: Every single presidential candidate who is now expressing concern
about Dean's remark has sat in meetings where political operatives,
pollsters and consultants have discussed strategies for winning the votes
of white working-class males. These voters, whose economic interests would
be at least somewhat better served by Democratic policies but who tend to
vote Republican for social and cultural reasons, have fueled the rise of
the GOP in recent years. And Democrats are obsessed with figuring out how
to reach them."
William Satelan, Slate: Confederate
Flog. "The headline coming out of this debate is the pounding Howard Dean
took for saying he wants the votes of guys whose trucks sport Confederate
flags. It's a bum rap."
Emory Walker, Daily Kos:
The High Road To
Dixie. "I lived in Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, and Tennessee for
more than 20 years, including all of my childhood prior to high school.
The notion that confederate flag-bearing, gun-toting truck drivers make up
the better part of that population is nonsense--the kind only a
carpetbagging yankee could conjure. That is why that phraseology will
ultimately come back to haunt Dr. Dean. There is a New South, and it
looks nothing like cotton plantations and tent revivals."
Joan Walsh, Salon:
Confederacy of dunces. "Howard Dean's Democratic rivals are willfully
misrepresenting the candidate's reference to the Stars and Bars -- and
writing off the pickup-truck vote."
At last night's
Rock
the Vote debate, Howard Dean got his ass kicked trying to respond to
criticism of his statements that he wants the votes of people with
Confederate flags on their pickup trucks. As a Dean supporter, it was
really disappointing to see his performance, because I believe the point
he's trying to make -- when not distorted by the PC police -- is right on.
A lot of poor white people in the South (not to mention the rest of the
country) are voting against their interests, divided by emphasis on
symbols, "gays, guns, God, and the Flag". To win, Democrats need to reach
these people and get them to vote for them.
Posted at 16:01
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Draft Boards Being Formed, part 2 Now the blogosphere is roiling with speculation that a draft is imminent
because of a
recent Salon article about the
administration's
recent plan to staff the draft boards. Salon quotes some experts who feel
the draft is a real option because we don't have enough troops to replace
those currently in Iraq nor really control the country:
I really don't think anything will come of this because the draft is
political poison and everyone knows it. It'd be much easier to "declare
victory" and get the hell out of Iraq after setting up a puppet
government.
Nevertheless, this article has spawned some good commentary about the
draft and Iraq.
Nick
Confessore at TAPPED explores our options and suggests a national service
program for all college students.
Melanie over at Daily Kos
thinks that the draft is the only option, but will be withheld until after
the election since it's politically radioactive.
Steve Gilliard explains why he thinks the draft won't work and
Atrios points out that all you have to do to get out of it is say you're
gay.
Back in November
2002, I linked to a story that said draft boards were being formed. The
reality was probably a little more mundane. The Defense Department likes
to make sure Selective Service boards are fully staffed at all times in
the event a draft becomes necessary.
"The closest parallel to the Iraq situation is the British in Northern Ireland, where you also had some people supporting the occupying army and some opposing them, and where the opponents were willing to resort to terror tactics," says Charles Peña, director of defense studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. "There the British needed a ratio of 10 soldiers per 1,000 population to restore order, and at their height, it was 20 soldiers per 1,000 population. If you transfer that to Iraq, it would mean you'd need at least 240,000 troops and maybe as many as 480,000.
"The only reason you aren't hearing these kinds of numbers discussed by the White House and the Defense Department right now," Peña adds, "is that you couldn't come up with them without a return to the draft, and they don't want to talk about that."
Posted at 20:46
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Luskin and Atrios resolve dispute "We both regret a series of misunderstandings that have resulted in
something that neither of us intended. We have discussed our differences,
and both of us are confident that such misunderstandings will not occur
again in the future. As a result, Mr. Luskin is retracting his demand
letter of October 29, 2003. We congratulate each other on having quickly
achieved an amicable resolution. We are both glad to have put this behind
us."
Common sense prevails!
Posted at 16:31
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Matrix Revulsions I'm one of the few who liked Reloaded and so I am disappointed that
Revolutions is tending towards suckiness and a pat ending. I'm not going
to see it opening night because of some time conflicts but I'll probably
catch it this weekend. Maybe at the matinee.
The Matrix Revolutions is coming out tomorrow. The Star Tribune has a
review savaging it
and a piece where they
ask local sci-fi book store staffers to explain the story. It doesn't
surprise me that the employees at comic book stores liked the Matrix
Reloaded and plan to see Revolutions immediately, whereas the employee at
Uncle Hugo's thought Reloaded sucked and plans on catching Revolutions
at the dollar theater.
Posted at 15:29
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Quick Links John Kerry is running a
nice ad on
Escanton and
Talking Points Memo. I like to see
all the Democrats get clued in about the web and blogs, but it does
raise some ethical questions.
Josh Marshall and
Atrios discuss this.
theoria:
Dinner with the Enemy
and Breakfast with the
Enemy, plus Bear Balls.
Andy Rooney rips Bush a new one
(
video).
Slashdot interview with Neil Gaiman. I recently read his book American
Gods which won the Hugo and the Nebula. I thought it was good, but I
didn't really "get it". I didn't know he wrote the script for Princess
Mononoke. Gaiman recommends M. John Harrison's
Light as the best SF book he's read in the last 5 years. Unfortunately,
it's not in print in the US and the Minneapolis library doesn't have a
copy. Harrison is the author of
The Centauri Device which I've also heard is good.
Technology Review:
Everyone's
a programmer. Hasn't this been tried before? It does seem to me that if
you could create a system where users could edit their own domain logic
assuptions it would solve a lot of problems that now require going back to
the programming team and getting a recompile and redeployment. Maybe all
Intentional Software's system does is put a friendly, standard face on
that type of thing.
Collection
of 26 Beanie Babies from Ex-Wife (via Jenny!) "Final Notice and
Disclaimer: I know nothing about these stuffed Beanie Babies. I offer no
proof of anything. It is a stuffed animal, get over it! I don't think my
ex-wife was in the Black Market Beanie Trade..but then again, I didn't
know she was having an affair either! Thus no gauruntees! All have theior
little Heart Shaped tags on their ears." Heh heh. He's got another auction
where you can
buy him a beer and a website.
KOMPRESSOR has
destroyed X10!
Burlington Free
Press: How did
Dean surge to the front?.
Posted at 18:57
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Quick Links Calpundit on Lakoff and
framing.
NYT: Microsoft and
Google: Partners or Rivals? My biggest fear with the Google IPO is that
Microsoft or some other unsavory player will try to take control of
Google. My second biggest fear is that as a publicly traded company,
Google will lose its laser-like focus on user experience, engineering
excellence, and non-evilness. The Economist also has an article on this:
How good is
Google?
Of the First is a
student at the U of M who is recording his experiences with the AFSCME
strike on his Daily Kos diary.
David Weinberger:
Trademarked
registered copyright. It's public domain, so here it is:
Interview with the hosts of Outrage Radio,
a new liberal talk show with a bad name. The left still needs better
branding...:) (via Joho).
The Swing State Project moves to its new,
permanent home: http://www.swingstateproject.com/
The Earth Is Not Moving. I can't tell if this
is a joke or not (via
The Early Days of a Better Nation).
New Get your war on!
Over at
Atrios's comment board, they've come up with a new slogan for the Bush
administration: "OMISSION ACCOMPLISHED!"
I didn't know Mena Trott supports Howard Dean
(are you required to support the first presidential candidate who uses
your weblog software?). Looks like she even made her own button:
Prospect Magazine (UK):
Interview with Karl Marx from beyond the grave. My philosophy teacher in
high school used to say that "FDR saved capitalism". "Marx" takes a
similar track in this "interview".
Posted at 19:45
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Dean Blog calls it quits Obviously, I disagree with Dan Conley about that, but I will miss his
unique take on the Dean phenomenon. Fortunately, he'll still be providing
commentary about a wider range of issues at his new site.
[I cross-posted this
to my Daily Kos diary where it has spawned a decent discussion.]
Dan Conley (a former speechwriter for former Virgina Gov. L. Douglas
Wilder) has closed down his critical
Dean Blog (motto: "Some positive, some negative,
some completely off-the-wall comments that have nothing to do with Howard
Dean"), because he feels Dean's nomination is "both inevitable and
depressing" because Dean will lose to Bush. Over at his new site
Dan Conley's Journal, Dan provides
more a detailed analysis
(link broken at the moment) of why he feels that way. This is even more
critical of Dean -- Dan doesn't even think Dean would make a good
president. He closes with "Dean needs to be defeated, for the good of the
party and the country".
Posted at 19:24
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Debugging CSS I'm working on a new project that is 100% CSS and I've finally got enough
CSS knowledge to make it work for me.
Today I learned a new trick for debugging CSS that will probably be old
hat to all web designers, but that I wish I'd learned earlier.
When designing using tables, it's common to set border="1" to see how the
page is laid out. You can accomplish much the same with CSS by defining
these rules:
div { border: 1px solid black; }
span { border: 1px solid black; }
This will show you where your DIVs and SPANs are ending up.
CSS is all the rage these days and it lets you do some amazing things. But
it's got a steep learning curve and it has taken me a long time to get a
hang of it for 100% CSS layouts.
Posted at 12:51
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Quick Links Ryan Lizza, TNR: At His Service.
Dean is close to getting the endorsement of SEIU, the nation's largest and
most progressive union. Lizza takes a close look at what that means.
Interesting union politics.
A long, lonely
road between ambition and the Oval Office. Excerpts from One-Car
Caravan, Walter Shapiro's look at the trials of earliest stages of
running for president (via PoliticalWire).
Salon.com:
Psst? Wanna get a look at some vote-counting software? Sequoia
touch-screen's vote-counting software WinEDS left on a public FTP
site for two years. The code is compiled but includes the SQL statements
which could allow an attacker to re-create a Sequoia database.
Salon.com:
"There are leftists, but there is no left" interview with retired
In These Times publisher James Weinstein
about his new book The Long Detour about the Left in America and how it
all fell apart after WWI and the rise of communism. I think I might pick
this up because I've been interested in the history of American socialism.
In a clever visual pun, the Dean campaign has brought back the "bat":
The first 10,000 people to give $31+ dollars get a special Halloween
button:
This is kind of cool. They put this up and rake in a cool $300,000 over
the weekend.
Philip Gold:
The Conscience of an (ex-)Conservative. Gold laments the lack of a
conservative intellectualism. I read this a while ago, but
Dean Nation recently linked to it again.
I've since read Blinded by the Right which has much the same story as
this article.
Sodipodi
International Flag and Civic Heraldry Collection is a collection of
public domain flags in SVG format (via Lessig).
DNC:
President Bush's Halloween Fun Guide Costume Ideas.
Voting
Patterns by County. Shows history of party loyalty, flip flop voting, and
voting for the winner.
I think I am going to start doing these more often because I often find
articles which I think are interesting but don't have a lot to say about.
Posted at 20:12
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Luskin is a tool Even though Luskin calls himself a stalker in the
National
Review!
This is simple, baseless intimidation on Luskin's part. His SLAPP
lawsuit is designed to threaten Atrios with losing his anonymity.
I don't know if Luskin is a literal stalker. But I do know that he's a
thin-skinned loser.
Don Luskin is a tool. He didn't like it when Atrios called poor little him
a "stalker". So now he's
threatening to sue Atrios.
Posted at 16:53
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Quick Links The Game
Canon and
The 300 Games Every Game Developer (and Gamer) Should Know.
Andrew Leonard, Salon:
Musical
snares. Leonard gets screwed by proprietary DRM music formats (AAC versus
WMA).
Me: Swing states at a glance. After
yesterday's post on
swing states I whipped up this table to show an overview of swing states
as defined by the Swing State
Project.
Edwards campaign:
Interactive electoral vote map.
Pam Pelluck, New York Times:
Libertarians
Pursue New Goal: State of Their Own. Some of the
Free Staters are already moving to New
Hampshire. I was just reading some of their
escapist freedom porn
when this article came out.
Bush lies about the
"Mission Accomplished" sign. Ooh, you are
so busted!
Filmmaker Greg Allen looks at the White House's carefully produced
photo-shoots. White
House Stagecraft: Will this be on the DVD?
Johnny Cash's cover of Hurt
(via
Slactivist). Wow, Mark Romanek has some cool
music videos available online.
Jesus, was the censored version of
Closer that fucked up? I don't
remember the crucified monkey.
New York Times graphic
on presidential fundraising (fair-used).
Space.com:
Major Flare Today: Sun Kicks Up Biggest Storm in Years. It's coming right
at us! Cool pictures.
Posted at 23:41
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Bush in 30 Seconds To enter, you actually have to make a video so I guess that leaves me out
of it. I don't know jack about that. However, they've got an
idea swap where you can suggest ads. This is
something I've wanted to create for a while: a collaborative political ad
creation forum, where people could suggest scripts, then create them
together. The main site would showcase the final product, along with
high-quality scripts and links to other organizations' creations.
This is cool. Bush in 30 Seconds is a
political advertising contest by the
MoveOn Voter Fund to create a 30 second anti-Bush ad (...except for
telling people not to vote for him, which would be illegal!). The contest
will be judged by a number of liberal artists and activists and the winner
will be shown on TV during Bush's State of the Union address.
Posted at 16:25
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BOHICA
One of the great things about the internet is all the interesting new
things you learn. I recently learned a wonderful new acronym, BOHICA:
Bend Over Here It Comes Again.
Posted at 19:26
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Targeting the Swing States With razor-thin margins like this, the election comes down to turnout:
increasing your voters' and decreasing the other guy's. Hence Get Out The
Vote (GOTV) campaigns and negative campaign advertisements.
Despite the way the President Bush has governed and his war-boosted
popularity ratings, America is still a 50/50 nation. The 2004 election,
like the 2000 election, will probably be very close and be decided based
on turnout in a few key states. So it's nice to know there are at least
three organizations out there gearing up to take on the Bush machine,
which is aiming to raise a record-breaking $200 million.
These are the only swing state efforts I know of now, but there will be
others -- not to mention the conservative counter-efforts.
For in-depth analysis of the political situation in the swing states,
check out the Swing State Project.
They include the following states based on the formula (Gore + Nader) -
(Bush + Buchanan) = +/- 10 points. That's a broader group that ACT is
targeting. It includes: Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Iowa
Louisiana, Maine (2nd CD), Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New
Mexico, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia,
Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.
Because of the unique nature of the American electoral system, votes in
certain evenly matched states have extra power. No where was this more
clear than Florida in 2000 (25 electoral votes), which was ultimately
declared for Bush by 537 votes, giving him the election even though he
lost the popular vote by over half a million votes. However, the race was
also extremely close in
New Mexico (5 electoral votes, won by Gore by 366 votes),
Wisconsin (11 electoral votes, won by Gore by 5708 votes),
Iowa (7 electoral votes, won by Gore by 4144 votes), and New Hampshire
(4 electoral votes, won by Bush by 7211). For more data and analysis,
check Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S.
Presidential Elections and the new
Swing State
Project blog.
Posted at 17:33
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TinyURL In my introduction, I wrote, "it's even more than that, should they choose
to have URLs with unique identifiers of between 1 and 6 characters".
Reading this made me wonder: does TinyURL do this? And if so, what's the
first TinyURL? http://tinyurl.com/0 doesn't exist (so subtract 1 from my answer ;-) but http://tinyurl.com/1 does. It is kind of fun to check out all these other
people's URLs. http://tinyurl.com/z is pretty amusing.
I also realized that TinyURL's identifier is basically just counting in
base 36. Ah, the ease of constructing unique IDs if they don't have to be
hard to guess. 1...2...3...4...5...6...
I was just telling someone about TinyURL and it
reminded me of some math I did to
calculate the number
of unique identifiers they can create with the 36 alphanumeric characters
they use for various lengths of IDs
( check out the
context of that comment).
Posted at 23:55
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Social Sharing Clay Shirky has a recent piece called
File-sharing Goes
Social. He writes, "[t]he RIAA has slowly altered the environment so that
relatively efficient systems like Napster were killed, opening up a niche
for more decentralized systems like Gnutella and Kazaa. With their current
campaign against Kazaa in full swing, we are about to see another shift in
network design, one that will have file sharers adopting tools originally
designed for secure collaboration in a corporate setting."
Meanwhile, Philip Greenspun
proposes that
portable MP3 jukeboxes are home audio recording devices, and sharing
music between them with your friends is legal:
This idea makes me want to get a 40 gig iPod
and synch it up with all my friends' music collections to see how much
music I could get, and whether or not I would want any of it. That would
be an interesting experiment. Maybe someone will pay me to write an
article about it. Then I could afford the 40 gig iPod. :)
Back in August, I wrote about
semi-private networks. I suggested that they would not take off unless
the RIAA succeeds in limiting the value of open networks like Kazaa. I
also suggested some empirical research into whether or not this was
actually happening.
Consider this scenario. You are sitting at Starbucks and see a friend. He is not inside your Starbucks but across the street in the other Starbucks. You walk across the street. Both of you happen to have your MP3 jukeboxes your pockets. He says "Have you heard the latest Britney Spears song? It reminds me so much of the late Beethoven Quartets with some of Stravinsky's innovative tonality." You haven't? Just click your MP3 jukeboxes together and sync them up. Any tracks that he had and you didn't you now have. You're using a digital audio recorder; the device won't do anything except record music. You're not paying each other so it is noncommercial. Under Section 1008 what you're doing is perfectly legal in the United States.
Imagine having a party at your house in which 30 people show up. By the end of the evening every person has the union of 30 personal music collections.
Posted at 14:44
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Space Ladder Yes.
Josh Marshall reacts to one of the suggestions in
Rumsfield's memo
about the progress of the "war on terror":
Couldn't we just build a super-strong ladder up into space instead of using those rockets?
Posted at 11:02
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How you can support the union Here are some things you can do to help.
AFSCME 3800 is conducting the
first strike at the University of Minnesota in 50 years. I wrote many
people and on my weblog to ask for support for the strike.
Posted at 22:46
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The future of blogs
David Weinberger has an interesting set of predictions about what will
happen when blogs
get really popular.
Posted at 19:02
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RIP, Elliot Smith That's sad. I have many fond memories of listening to his music.
Musician
Elliot
Smith has died at 34 of an apparent suicide.
Posted at 11:39
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Defending "The Left" As far as I can tell, he has four:
Let's take these one-by-one.
Overreaction to the DMCA
This is really more of a civil libertarian issue, not a Left issue.
Furthermore, it's isolated mostly among cyberliberties activists.
MY TAKE: I'm punting on this issue for next year's election. I don't care
enough at this point to support a single issue candidacy on the DMCA.
Overreaction to the PATRIOT Act
You could argue for this. The PATRIOT Act is widely demonized by
Democratic candidates (even those who voted for it) and is much-hated by
The Left. However, most issues don't see
Americans for Tax
Reform standing shoulder to shoulder with People for the American Way.
MY TAKE: Everyone hates the PATRIOT Act. There a few things in it that may
be necessary and constitutional, but it needs to be throughly reviewed
if not outright repealed.
Overreaction to proposed FCC regulations
I assume Aaron means the proposed relaxation of ownership rules. Again,
opposition to these regulations was unusual for its bipartisan nature.
Senators Byron Dorgan and Trent Lott held a
joint press
conference surrounded by stacks of MoveOn petitions opposing the
measure. The regulations were opposed by groups as diverse as MoveOn, EFF,
and the NRA. It was supported by big corporations. Congress rebuked
Powell's attempt to deregulate local media by a huge margin.
MY TAKE: This is the way it's supposed to work!
Overreaction to the Valerie Plame scandal
This is the only one you can solidly pin on The Left. Conservatives are
definitely not overreacting to this! Check out the
DNC's ad to see The
Left's "overreaction".
MY TAKE: It's not overreacting to point out that at least two
senior members of the Bush administration committed a felony. Using that
fact to go on a $70 million dollar fishing expedition and then impeaching
Bush for lying would be overreacting...oh wait, that would be karmic
justice.
Seriously, I do not think The Left is overreacting. The FBI under Ascroft
cannot impartially investigate the Bush Whitehouse. Democrats will wait
until the FBI finds "no wrongdoing" in a few months, then scream bloody
murder.
In my opinion, this issue is not particularly important in itself. But it
represents a good example of the kind of dirty tricks the Bush
administration is willing to play, and helps show the pattern of
deception surrounding Iraq and pretty much everything the Bush Whitehouse
does.
I don't really claim to be a representative of "The Left". But I will take
a crack at Aaron Swartz's complaints
about "The Left's" overreaction.
Posted at 21:30
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Gay Bishops are Just Like the Rise of Hitler In the comments,
"Dr. Nick" snarks:
Heh heh.
Atrios has a post called
Gay Bishops are Just Like the Rise of Hitler about a
Salon
article about a married (at least as far as that goes) lesbian couple in
a small California town. The whole article is really interesting, but
Atrios quotes part of it where the womens' Episcopalian church parish has
a meeting to talk about the national church confirming an openly
homosexual bishop and allowing local dioceses to bless same-sex unions at
their discretion. One woman is upset with the new rules:
"There's no comparison [to female priests]," she says, "between the ordaining of a moral woman and a twice-divorced man who's been living with another man. We've got to protest. I remember Germany in the '30s and nobody protested and you know what we got from that."
Oh great, the dawn of the Gay Reich! Run for the hills! The Axis of Fabulous is upon us!
First they came for the poorly dressed, and I said nothing. Then they came for the soccer moms, and I did nothing....
Posted at 20:26
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The Common Sense Party Class warfare! (Actually, this is quite close to the conservative
position, with a little fudging about who gets the cuts.)
Socialism! Communism!
Weak on defense! Unpatriotic! War on Terror!
Big Government regulations interfering with ordinary Americans' right to
do what they want with their property! Anti-business! Free market!
Immorality! Anti-family agenda! God! Christian nation!
Weak on defense! Unpatriotic!
I recommend reading
Moral Politics by George Lakoff for more insight on the conservative and
liberal psyche. Here's a short
synopsis.
The Common Sense Party wouldn't be able to win over the hard core
conservatives, because it violates their strict family morality (it's not
tough on crime, abortion, censorship, and personal responsibility). With
their huge money advantage, the GOP would paint the CSP as dope-smoking
hippies intent on destroying everything good about America.
Sort of like what they do to the Democrats.
If you support a third party, I encourage you to join the Democratic Party
(motto: "We're not really that bad!") and advocate for instant runoff
voting. Only when we get election reform will third parties matter in
America.
Aaron Swartz proposes a Common Sense
Party (which, incidentally, sounds a lot like the Democratic Party). He
thinks it'd be a real winner. Ignoring the fact that third parties are a
dead end in the American political system, here's what the right wing
would do to his party.
We're for severely cutting, if not eliminating, taxes on you, the average American. (We'll pay for this by raising taxes on the rich and cutting wasteful government programs like the military, but we don't have to tell you this.)
We're for giving you increased benefits. You're an American! You should get free health care, free education, free food, free room and board -- whatever you need. This will save you money.
We're for a strong economy. We're going to lower the deficit and stop going to war with weird countries so that you get a good job and make more money.
We're for strong environmental regulations, so that you have clean air to breathe and clean water to drink. We're for strong corporate regulations, so that you don't get your money stolen from swindlers like Enron again. We're for safety regulations so you don't die in a car crash or from some poisonous product.
We're for personal freedom. Does it make sense to spend your money on preventing people from having an abortion? To go after pornographers and copyright infringers? To pay food and board for thousands of drug addicts? Rehab is much cheaper! Imprisonment is a waste of your money!
We're for common-sense security. Does it make sense to attack Iraq and then spend $87 billion of your money rebuilding it? Does it make sense to slow you down at the airport when the terrorists had valid IDs and box cutters? Does it make sense to go on a war against terror when you're far more likely to be killed in a car accident than in a terrorist attack?
Posted at 20:26
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Support University Workers Please consider a donation to the
U Clerical Hardship Fund for striking workers who need help meeting their
expenses.
We are fortunate that we won't need to draw from this fund...but a lot of
other AFSME workers are not. A lot of them support their families on
$12/hour jobs at the University. They can't afford to strike, but they
can't afford their health care costs to go up, either.
It is true that University funding has been slashed by the state
government, and the U has to make ends meet somehow. But why should the
least among them bear the brunt of the pain? Like the grocery store
strike/lockout in California, this is a
fight to keep working people in the middle class.
I hope you will support this strike however you can. Check out the
union's website and
UWorkers.org for more information about how you can help.
AFSCME Local 3800 clerical union is
on strike for fair wages and health care (read what
they're fighting for).
This is Jenny's union and she will be out on strike fighting for a fair
contract. We could use your help (and if you work for the University of
Minnesota, you'll be helping yourself: any health care concessions the
union wins will be available for all University employees).
Posted at 23:04
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Vermont is Hell LOL.
An actual Vermonter rips
Jonah Goldberg on Common Dreams.
Posted at 16:18
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Presidential Candidate Humor Wish I would've seen it!
Sounds like Dean and Kerry had some
pretty funny
back-and-forth at the latest presidential candidate forum:
The bickering gave way on occasion to better-natured bantering, particularly between Kerry and Dean. When an audience member asked about a middle-aged workers' crisis, Kerry quipped: "I am 59, and I am looking for work folks." "Actually, Sen. Kerry already has a job and I think he's very good at it and should keep it," Dean shot back.
Kerry raised his successful battle against prostate cancer and used it to take a shot at Bush, saying, "Some have asked how a man without a prostate can be president and I want to make it clear that we've had Republican presidents without a heart." Dean, a doctor, chimed in:
"John was very nervous when he had his prostate exam that I would be doing the test," he said.
"No, I was worried you were going to do the anesthesia," Kerry replied.
Posted at 09:52
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Reactions to China's Manned Launch China
launched a manned spacecraft today
(
photo of launch). China joins the USSR/Russia and the USA as the only
nations able to launch their own manned spacecraft. However, the US's
shuttle fleet is grounded.
I think congradulations are in order for the Chinese space program.
This is a pretty impressive feat.
What does the launch mean?
Brian Berger:
China
Launch Won't Ignite New Space Race, Analysts Say
BBC readers: How
important is the China space mission?
The Chinese have ambitious plans for their space program. I hope the
international community can work together to futher space exploration and
exploitation.
Posted at 11:45
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Lost Books Here's some I've read:
This looks like a really cool site. The author metions another Robert C.
O'Brien book I've read, Report from Group 17, which I also loved in junior
high school. I can't remember much about it now, but it was about mind
control experiments. Man, this brings back memories. I had no idea these
books were so rare...
While searching for information about Earth Abides, I found
Lost Books, a catalog of higly rated but little
known speculative fiction. There's some good stuff there.
Posted at 22:49
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Nigeria Starts Space Program
Developing Nigeria Embarks on Space Program:
What's it going to be powered by, 419 spams?
I recently read in the Slashdot comments that Nigeria started a space
program. It's true.
Nigeria, one of the world's poorest countries, is to launch its own space program in the form of an agency that will develop rocket and satellite technology...
Posted at 11:09
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Coming Out Day and Marriage Protection Week If that's not a coded message, I don't know what is.
National Coming Out Day was October 11th and was celebrated by GLBT people
and their friends and family across the nation. But not at the White
House, which declared the week of October 12-18th
Marriage
Protection Week.
Posted at 10:12
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No Shit, Sherlock Will tomorrow's WSJ report that the sun rises in the East?
From the "no duh" files, The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the
wealthy are less worried about the economy than the rich.
The Note
has the story:
The Wall Street Journal's Jon Hilsenrath reports that "while many average Americans remain wary about the economy, wealthy Americans feel more confident. The University of Michigan's monthly surveys of consumer sentiment show that confidence among the top-third of income earners in the U.S. is up 24% since February. Confidence in middle-income households is up 10% and in the poorest households is down 2%."
Posted at 13:50
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Breaching the Fuck Barrier According to Steve Gilliard,
the FCC has OKed "fuck" -- as long as it doesn't refer to "sexual or
excretory activities". The ruling was in response to U2's Bono saying it
at the Golden Globe Awards in January. The FCC said that while the word
was crude, he was using it for emphasis, not to describe a sexual
activity.
So I guess you can say something is "fucking awesome", but not "fuck you".
One of my idle speculation involves saying the naughtiest of naughty words
on television. When will "fuck" be said on non-live prime time television?
"Shit" was said on NYPD Blue sometime around 1999, though many local
stations bleeped it. Back then, I guessed that "fuck" would be said in
2005. Maybe that was too early, but an important milestone for saying
"fuck" on TV has been reached.
Posted at 10:53
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What happens after the oil peak? Now, I'm a card-carrying member of the Belief in Scientific Progress
Society, also known as the Technology Will Save Us Movement. This school
of thought (very popular with libertarians and conservatives) believes
that when oil is no longer economical to produce, less viable sources will
be tapped or alternative energy sources will be developed. For liberals,
the idea is typically that wind or solar power will be used for
electricity generation and some sort of hydrocarbon will be used for
energy storage. (I once lost a junior varsity debate in high school
because I let my ideology get the better of my sophistry after my opponent
claimed my case would lead to ecologic catastrophe. "Of course not," I
claimed. "Economics dictates that we would find new energy sources after
we ran out of oil. And besides, there's always the other planets to go to
for resources." He turned it around on me, painting a story of a solar
system of wrecked planets discarded like so much refuse. I was so angry.
Moral of the story: during debates, leave your personal beliefs behind.)
Neither liberals nor conservatives typically envision the need for any
sort of energy cut backs after switching to a post-oil economy. But common
sense indicates that this is wrong.
Let's say a barrel of "conventional" oil, to use C.J. Campbell's term for
oil that is economically viable to extract today, costs $30 a barrel, and
obtaining the equivalent amount of energy from wind/hydrogen,
turkey offal, oil shale, or
whatever costs $50 (actual cost of US light crude oil on Oct. 10:
$31.97/barrel).
The economics of this are pretty simple. When the cost of oil exceeds $50
a barrel, it becomes cheaper to get energy from the alternative sources.
But the price does not go down. When you've got an economy built around
the availability of $30/barrel oil, paying 67% more for energy is not going
to be sustainable. Something will have to give. I had not considered this
problem before.
Someone who has is James Howard Kunstler,
suburban sprawl curmudgeon. In an
interview
with Global Public Media on the oil peak, Kunstler lays out what he
thinks will happen in post-oil peak America. When I listened to this a few
months ago, I thought he was being overly alarmist. Technology will save
us. Now, I'm not so sure.
Many Americans require a car to live their daily lives. We live in a one
car per adult society. How many people are going to be able to afford to
drive when the price of gasoline goes up 67%? As Campbell points out in
his lecture, hitting the oil peak is not the end of the world. Prices may
stay at the same level for quite some time, then only being rising slowly.
Unfortunately, America may end up like the frog that got slowly stewed and
didn't notice until it was too late.
We need real leadership to get ahead of this problem now. We need to
research energy conservation and alternative energy sources. We need to
raise CAFE standards and promote hybrid vehicles. But there will be no
escaping the fact that alternative energy is going to cost more than
pre-peak oil. Our cheap energy lifestyle is going to have to change.
We're going to need more urban density, more local food production (to
offset transportation costs), less petro-chemical based fertilizers, more
public transportation, more biking, and more walking.
All the things I've written are no surprise, and are quite popular with
environmentalists. But they touch one of the many third rails of American
politics, the cheap energy lifestyle. Even equalizing CAFE standards for
cars and SUVs is tantamount to socialism here. But the oil peak is coming,
soon. The only questions are: when; and will we be ready? Howard Dean
frames energy independence as a defense and national security issue, and I
think that's the right way to get started.
I am beginning to think that this is the most important issue of our time.
Over at Daily Kos, guest blogger Meteor Blades has a great post about
the consequences of
not having an energy policy. MB talks about the Hubbert Peak, when oil
production peaks, and starts to decline. The peak represents the turning
point for our modern industrial civilization: after the peak, oil will get
only more expensive. Many geologists believe we have hit or are about to
hit peak production. A fascinating lecture by petroleum geologist C.J.
Campbell on the
oil peak was linked to in the comments. You can also watch it in
Real Player
format (The video of the lecture could provide the text for a whole
nother topic: how to nearly ruin a presentation by using Power Point).
Posted at 00:50
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Bush Blog RSS
George W. Bush has a blog. But that's
not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about his
RSS feed. Apparently, in the
Winer-verse, a
100% valid RSS 1.0 feed is a
"total
mess". Whatever.
Posted at 19:22
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GOP/Libertarian Split One interesting fact in this article that I didn't know is that
the Libertarian Party is getting the most votes of any third
party since the 1948 Progressive Party in congressional
elections. Does that make the Libertarian Party, not the Green Party, the
real party of "grassroots democracy"?
Noah Shachtman has an article on the alienation of libertarians from the
GOP:
Liberty Island. While it might better be titled "A couple bloggers and
this guy from Cato don't like Bush", it does present some interesting
questions: will libertarians bolt from the GOP in 2004? And will it
matter?
Posted at 17:11
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Cover Songs Database
Cover Songs Database. This site
is pretty cool if you're looking for who covered what by whom. I like the
UI too.
Posted at 16:36
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I love San Francisco
This is why I love San Francisco:
Posted at 13:47
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Howard Dean's NAN Things like this are why continue to support Dean, even when he does
idiotic things like attack Wesley Clark.
The Dean campaign just announced an interesting program: the
Net Advisory
Net (stupid name) which will work with the campaign to develop opinions
on internet policy, starting from a set of
principles. The first topic the NAN will address is bridging the digital
divide. Interestingly, not every member of the group has endorsed or
supports Dean. Members of the group include Joi Ito, Hal Abelson, Lawrence
Lessig, David Reed, and David Weinberger.
Posted at 18:06
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Revisionist History This is an alternative narative construction of the Iraq war and its
aftermath constructed entirely of quotes from the Bush administration
(tenses have been changed for clarity).
What would be really cool is a web-annotated version of this article with
links to the sources as footnotes.
The Revision Thing: A
history of the Iraq war, told entirely in lies (via
Atrios).
Posted at 13:26
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Tech Interview
Nothing like reading Tech Interview to
make you feel stupid.
Posted at 23:00
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New Portfolio
I updated my portfolio.
Posted at 21:32
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Luke Spam _lukefictitious.__
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My friend Bridget sent me this awesome Luke spam. It is not every day you
get spam about how awesome you are. Here it is:
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