Bob's Tropical Fish

Hmm

2005-07-20T16:51:00.000-04:00

JFK Speaks

2005-06-28T10:27:00.000-04:00

On the New York Times editorial page: The Speech the President Should Give

Iraq

2005-06-26T13:56:00.000-04:00

MoveOn PAC poll:

Current Results: What should we do about Iraq?

Should we work together to begin bringing the troops home, by supporting the Jones-Abercrombie resolution? (The resolution would require the president to put together a plan by the end of the year for bringing home all U.S. forces from Iraq with troop withdrawal beginning no later than October 1, 2006.)
83.9% I would support a campaign like that.
16.1% MoveOn should work on other priorities, or another approach to what's going on in Iraq.

Based on 99,725 votes.

Red Sox Do Renditions

2005-06-26T13:38:00.000-04:00

Common Dreams: Jet Owned by Part Owner of Red Sox Tied to US Secret Flights. Nice.

Public Agenda

2005-06-26T13:15:00.000-04:00

Public Agenda Online = Survey Master.

Downhill

2005-06-17T10:28:00.000-04:00

NYT: Chief of 'Millennium' Aid Fund Is Quitting

Back down

2005-06-13T21:31:00.000-04:00

Republicans call for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, a prominent one being the same guy who dubbed "freedom fries" as such.

The minds of Tibetan monks

2005-06-07T20:54:00.000-04:00

Tibetan monks yield clues to brain regulation | Science Blog. After 10,000 hours of meditation, compassion centers go way up, etc.

Brain=Computer

2005-06-05T21:50:00.000-04:00

TorrentSpy.com: Back Up Those Neurons.

Abstinence

2005-06-05T18:16:00.000-04:00

TAPPEDreports on Admin. funding to AIDS control programs in Africa.
Is A.R.C. limited by this sort of thing?

"Too liberal"

2005-06-04T19:52:00.000-04:00

Valley Advocate: Our Obama?

String theory hits the lab

2005-05-15T14:34:00.000-04:00

A recipe for making strings in the lab (May 2005) - News - PhysicsWeb

Offensive Spending

2005-05-12T20:01:00.000-04:00

Arms Makers Find Being Cash-Heavy Is Mixed Blessing - New York Times

Geneva Conventions Out the Window

2005-05-03T17:00:00.000-04:00

The ITT List has a nice thing on a nice article: NYT Magazine's comparision of Iraq now to Salvador.

Caterpillars stop giant rave

2005-04-30T11:59:00.000-04:00

CNN

Palestinian fields poisoned

2005-04-25T19:42:00.000-04:00

Al-Jazeera: Amnesty demands Israel to end settlers violence.

Progressives + Military = Okay?

2005-04-20T18:46:00.000-04:00

democracyarsenal.org
Regardless, it's still a military-industrial complex, and however hard progressives may try to streamline and organize defense spending, we will still be giving far too much to Lockheed-Martin and, relatively, far too little to impoverished Americans.

Final Cut Studio

2005-04-17T19:44:00.000-04:00

Apple | Final Cut Pro 5

Iran

2005-04-13T20:23:00.000-04:00

Al-Jazeera: Israel hands Bush documents of Iran nuclear sites.

LexisNexis

2005-04-13T17:58:00.000-04:00

NYT: Data Breach.

Tiger

2005-04-13T17:35:00.000-04:00

Apple | Mac OS X.
Roar.
Just think, the next OS is XI, right? Too bad about the future of the box cover.

Marketing

2005-04-13T17:31:00.000-04:00

Slashdot: Xbox 2 To Be Unveiled on MTV May 12. Smart.

Hunter S. Thompson

2005-04-10T17:26:00.000-04:00

Rocky Mountain News has post-interview.

"Hitchhiker" review

2005-04-10T17:19:00.000-04:00

Slashdot. We would not recommend reading it.

"Dog whistle politics"

2005-04-09T18:51:00.000-04:00

This Modern World by Tom Tomorrow: April 03, 2005 - April 09, 2005 Archives

Google Gulp

2005-04-09T18:48:00.000-04:00

Google Gulp

Pie

2005-04-09T18:27:00.000-04:00

Horowitz hit by pie at Butler lecture. Excellent.

Quotable

2005-03-31T16:58:00.000-05:00

In These Times gives us the origins of old favorite quotes:

This is important because it raises the question of whether restoring sanity and prudence to American foreign policy is still possible. During the Watergate scandal of the early ’70s, the president’s chief of staff, H. R. Haldeman, once reproved White House counsel John Dean for speaking too frankly to Congress about the felonies President Nixon had ordered. “John,” he said, “once the toothpaste is out of the tube, it’s very hard to get it back in.” This homely warning by a former advertising executive who was to spend 18 months in prison for his own role in Watergate fairly accurately describes the situation of the United States after the reelection of George W. Bush.

Capitalism

2005-03-30T20:34:00.000-05:00

In These Times:

Born Losers, Scott A. Sandage’s splendid history of the “misfits of capitalism” explores how 19th century America dealt with its own culture of irrational exuberance by locating the reasons for failure “in the man,” as Ralph Waldo Emerson asserted, rather than in the wild careening of a winner-take-all, laissez-faire economy.

...

In “Life Without Principle,” Henry David Thoreau’s sardonically-titled essay, Emerson’s refractory friend described how contemporary mores pushed people into deluded pursuit of profit: “If a man walk in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer; but if he spends his whole day as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.”

Infoshop

2005-03-30T19:14:00.000-05:00

Slashdot: Infoshop server logs (through flag.blackened.net) have been demanded by the FBI. Ouch.

Creative Commons Search

2005-03-27T17:39:00.000-05:00

Yahoo! Creative Commons Search with options for different licenses (albeit without their specific names.) Nice.

Kyrgyzstan

2005-03-21T20:37:00.000-05:00

Guardian:
Vote-rigging leads to revolution.

Flickr bought out by Yahoo

2005-03-21T20:11:00.000-05:00

FlickrBlog, YahooBlog. How disappointing. Flickr used to be cool.

"Removed at the request of Apple Legal"

2005-03-21T20:07:00.000-05:00

macosXrumors reports, then pulls it. Fortunately, Google has the cache.

Blogs + Free FOIA

2005-03-21T19:23:00.000-05:00

FishBowlDC has something about a possible law. We dislike FishBowlDC for getting into the WH press room despite the lack of any wit or charm. It's like a schoolchild who studies and makes a point or two higher than the smart, slack chillins.

Amazing

2005-03-16T20:21:00.000-05:00

A new Gallup Poll released today shows that while Americans have very negative opinions of Syria, North Korea, and Iran, by very wide margins they do not want to go to war with them. Still, about 4 in 10 Republicans would support "military action" against each of the countries.

In the total sample, two in three oppose military action against Iran (66%), Syria (65%), or North Korea (62%).

from Editor and Publisher.

Yemen

2005-03-16T20:20:00.000-05:00

Yemen, strategically located at the southwestern tip of the Arabian Peninsula and a "partner" of the United States since the September 11, 2001 attacks, believes it has practically won its war on Al-Qaeda terror.

"Everything is under control. Not 100 percent, but I can say we are around 90 percent in control," Prime Minister Abdel Kader Bajammal said.
Middle East Online

Old news

2005-03-16T20:19:00.000-05:00

Hmm.

Bin Laden

2005-03-16T20:17:00.000-05:00

Pakistani forces hunting Osama bin Laden lost track of the Al-Qaeda leader after coming close to discovering his whereabouts several months ago, President Pervez Musharraf said in an interview.
from Middle East News

Brilliant

2005-03-14T19:44:00.000-05:00

In These Times:

The war on terrorism declared by the United States on radical Islamists is little more than a proxy battle in a war between two cults.

That is the provocative theory emerging from two award-winning investigative journalists from both sides of the Atlantic: Seymour Hersh, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New Yorker, and Adam Curtis, a well-known British documentary filmmaker and producer for the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC).

They are making the case that current animosities between the West and the Islamic world are being fueled by the narrow agendas of two cults: American neoconservatives and al Qaeda.

Checkpoints: Italian Agent

2005-03-09T20:11:00.000-05:00

American Prospect:

If there is a place that most exemplifies the problems plaguing the American-led occupation, it is the traffic-control checkpoints. Often little more than a group of Humvees in the middle of a road, checkpoints are used to secure an area or conduct spot searches of cars .
[Ivan] Medina, [a] former assistant Army chaplain in Iraq... whose twin brother was killed in Iraq last November, said soldiers sometimes were ordered to open fire on any vehicle that didn’t stop. 'In one case there was a father, mother and three children,' said Medina, whose unit arrived shortly after the shooting. 'They were shot many times. The car was full of blood. There was one kid alive. He was alive for a few hours before being pronounced dead … .'

Nickel music

2005-03-09T20:06:00.000-05:00

The Globe and Mail:
An academic at McGill University has a simple plan to stop the plague of unauthorized music downloads on the Internet. But it entails changing the entire music industry as we know it, and Apple Computers, which may have the power to make the change, is listening.
Nice idea, not happening. We might actually stop downloading for this, though.

The pro-Syrian Lebanese

2005-03-08T21:06:00.000-05:00

Guardian:

Around half a million pro-Syria demonstrators took to the streets of the Lebanese capital Beirut today to protest at foreign meddling in the country's politics and to counter weeks of anti-Syrian rallies.

Scores of vehicles converged on the city for the demonstration organised by Hizbullah, the Shia group backed by Iran and Syria. Loudspeakers blared rousing songs of resistance, organisers handed out Lebanese flags and black-clad Hizbullah guards lined the perimeter of the central square and took position on rooftops. Speakers on a platform led chants of 'Beirut is free! America get out!'

Hezbollah wins.

Freeway Signs

2005-03-03T18:08:00.000-05:00

FreewayBlogger puts up 150 signs for 1500 KIA.

UN Troops Fire Weapons

2005-03-02T20:57:00.000-05:00

The New York Times:

United Nations troops killed at least 50 militiamen in a stepped-up campaign to clear northeastern Congo of rogue gunmen who have preyed on residents and are suspected in the recent slaying of nine peacekeepers, United Nations officials said Wednesday.

Responding to gunfire, the peacekeepers, backed by an attack helicopter, killed more people than in any other operation during their six-year mission in Congo.

The gun battle took place on Tuesday between 242 Pakistani peacekeepers and militia fighters. It broke out at a heavily fortified militia camp near the village of Loga, 20 miles north of Bunia, the capital of the lawless Ituri region, said Col. Dominique Demange, spokesman for the United Nations forces in Congo.

Bogus Sesame

2005-03-02T20:51:00.000-05:00

Takeover has hit the Times.

Syria

2005-03-01T16:07:00.000-05:00

TAPPED:
"Roll Call reports that Rep. Sam Johnson (R-TX) recently told a church group that 'Syria is the problem. Syria is where those weapons of mass destruction are, in my view. You know, I can fly an F-15, put two nukes on ’em and I’ll make one pass. We won’t have to worry about Syria anymore.'"

Ohio

2005-02-27T13:04:00.000-05:00

t r u t h o u t:

Kerry-Edwards 2004 has just made two filings in the Ohio recount case currently pending before Federal Judge Edmund Sargus in Columbus, Ohio.

Kerry-Edwards 2004 has been relatively quiet in this case for the past several weeks and its filings today indicate its continued interest and involvement in this litigation.

In December 2004, presidential candidates David Cobb and Michael Badnarik filed extensive documentation with the court demonstrating that the recount they had requested in Ohio of the 2004 presidential vote had been conducted with inconsistent standards throughout the state, in violation of the equal protection and due process guarantees under the US Constitution (see Bush v. Gore).

Cobb and Badnarik filed amended counterclaims seeking a new recount to be conducted with uniform standards, in accordance with the US Constitution. (As an example, 97% of the ballots have yet to be counted by hand in Ohio and, more than often, the 3% of the vote that each county counted by hand was not randomly selected, as required by Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell's own guidelines) To access the amended counterclaims, see this document (Adobe required).

In addition, in December, Cobb and Badnarik filed a motion to preserve all ballots and machinery connected to the 2004 presidential election and to take limited expedited discovery to investigate the Triad voting machine company's tampering with the recount. To access the memorandum in support of this motion, see this document (Adobe required).

The amended counterclaims and these motions are pending before Judge Sargus.

On February 11, 2005, Cobb and Badnarik filed a motion for a hearing before Judge Sargus on these pending matters.

On February 14, Judge Sargus issued an order granting the motion to dismiss the Delaware County Board of Elections' complaint (which had sought to prevent the recount in that county) and asking for briefing in 15 days on the question of whether the case should be transferred to Judge Carr in Toledo (for the Northern District of Ohio) where a prior case seeking to expedite the recount had been filed in November 2004.

Yesterday, Cobb and Badnarik filed a statement on the transfer question.

Today, Kerry-Edwards filed a document in support of that statement. Most significant, Kerry-Edwards also filed today a separate document in support of the motion for hearing with two critical attachments: 1) a declaration from Kerry-Edwards attorney Don McTigue regarding a survey he conducted of Kerry-Edwards county recount coordinators; 2) a summary chart of the results of that survey (which highlight the inconsistent standards applied during the recount).

Freedom is a Choice

2005-02-26T21:08:00.000-05:00

In These Times:

With the global American ideological offensive, the fundamental insight of Graham Greene’s The Quiet American is more relevant than ever: We witness the resurgence of the figure of the “quiet American,” a naive, benevolent agent who sincerely wants to bring democracy and Western freedom. It is just that his intentions totally misfire, or, as Greene put it: “I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused.”

The underlying presupposition is that under our skin, if we scratch the surface, we are all Americans. That is our true desire—all that is needed is just to give people a chance, liberate them from their imposed constraints and they will join us in our ideological dream.

Nice essay by Slavoj Zizek. This is exactly why the neoconservative dream of worldwide democracy will not function- because people do not want it to.

Hunter S. Thompson

2005-02-24T18:23:00.000-05:00

from the ITT List.

Guckert involved in Rathergate?

2005-02-24T16:51:00.000-05:00

This Modern World might be on to a hot lead here.

Iran

2005-02-24T16:50:00.000-05:00

CNN:
"This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous. Having said that, all options are on the table," Bush said.
Brilliant.

Syria Comment blog gets censored

2005-02-21T19:28:00.000-05:00

Self-censored, that is. Syria Comment.

Bush did pot

2005-02-20T11:46:00.000-05:00

CNN reports.
All the more reason not to do drugs.

the Gates

2005-02-18T17:35:00.000-05:00

Fine, have your blog attention. National Geographic.

antiquity robots oblivious banquets

2005-02-17T21:08:00.000-05:00

...are rankings 13,835 through 13,838. Cool. Wordcount / Tracking the Way We Use Language

The Day After Tomorrow redux

2005-02-15T19:57:00.000-05:00

CNN.com - Twin cyclones menace Sth Pacific
Heh. Without the wolves, please.

Election, still

2005-02-15T19:56:00.000-05:00

In These Times:

The reliability of exit polls is so generally accepted that the Bush administration helped pay for them during recent elections in Georgia, Belarus and Ukraine. Testifying before the House Committee on International Relations Dec. 7, John Tefft, deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, explained that the Bush administration funded exit polls because they were one of the 'ways that would help to expose large-scale fraud.' Tefft pointed to the discrepancy between exit polls and the official vote count to argue that the Nov. 22 Ukraine election was stolen.

Uninformative, provocative article. Go read it.

Doonesbury

2005-02-15T18:30:00.000-05:00

NYT:

Skiing Accident Takes Out 'Doonesbury'

Don't look for new installments of 'Doonesbury' next week. Garry Trudeau, the creative force behind the comic strip, broke his right collarbone in a skiing accident on Thursday, The Associated Press reported. Mr. Trudeau hit the slopes in Aspen, Colo., the day before he was to accept an award at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival. But he did not allow the injury to his drawing arm to deter him. He attended the ceremony, strapped to a gurney and arm in a sling, and accepted the freedom of speech award. He will need six to eight weeks for recuperation. A spokeswoman at Universal Press Syndicate, which distributes 'Doonesbury,' said at least a week of reprints was planned.

Get well soon, Garry.

UN: Cloning

2005-02-15T17:44:00.000-05:00

Wired:

UNITED NATIONS -- U.N. diplomats, deadlocked for years over the drafting of treaty to ban the cloning of human beings worldwide, open negotiations on Monday on an alternative that would instead urge each government to adopt its own laws on human cloning.

At the heart of the debate are stem cell studies and other research that rely on so-called therapeutic cloning, in which human embryos are cloned to obtain the cells used in the studies and are later discarded. Many governments, particularly those with large Catholic populations, have argued they view this type of research, for whatever purpose, as the taking of human life.

Poor backwards chillins...

Boondocks 9 Jan

2005-02-14T20:15:00.000-05:00

Boondocks 9 Jan
Originally uploaded by myth.

Always pertinent.

Greenpeace

2005-02-14T19:42:00.000-05:00

Grist Magazine | Greenpeace shifts tactics as it looks ahead to four more years of Bush:
At a time when environmental groups are facing questions about their own mortality and rethinking strategies for surviving Dubyah's second term, Greenpeace USA -- the environmental group best known for in-your-face, laws-be-damned direct action -- is getting in touch with its inner Gandhi.
Could also be due to the law cracking down- recently, the Smokestack Six.
Actually, everybody's less militant these days.

Lebanon

2005-02-14T19:34:00.000-05:00

Big bomb kills Lebanese ex-PM, a proponent of reforms according to the US. Responsibility claimed by unknown Arabic militant group; Iran says Shin Bet.
CNN:

Iran, which along with Syria backs Hezbollah, a militant group designated a terrorist organization by the United States that operates out of Lebanon, also condemned the attack.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi called it a 'savage act' and accused Israel.

'A well-organized terrorist organization such as the Zionist regime has the capability of such an operation,' he said. 'The aim or the objective of this terrorist act was to damage the unity of Lebanon.'"

Anti-Syrian billionaire; motorcade was blown up, even through armor plating.

Good call

2005-02-14T19:29:00.000-05:00

The Brad Blog: CNN's Nuke Plant Photos Identical for Both Iran and N. Korea!
We always thought that nuclear plants came pre-made in a large cardboard box.

Wolcott gives us hope in humor

2005-02-13T20:58:00.000-05:00

Sort of.
James Wolcott: From Some Lemons No Lemonade Can Be Made

More Bad News

2005-02-13T20:41:00.000-05:00

In These Times:

One-third of the American electorate, if a recent Gallup Poll is accurate, believes the Bible is literally true. This past November, several million good and decent citizens went to the polls believing in what is known as the 'rapture index.'

These true believers subscribe to a fantastical theology concocted in the 19th century by a couple of immigrant preachers who took disparate passages from the Bible and wove them into a narrative that has captivated the imagination of millions of Americans. Its outline is rather simple, if bizarre: Once Israel has occupied the rest of its 'bibli-cal lands,' legions of the Antichrist will attack it, triggering a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon. As the Jews who have not been converted are burned, the messiah will return for the rapture. True believers will be lifted out of their clothes and transported to heaven, where, seated next to the right hand of God, they will watch their political and religious opponents suffer plagues of boils, sores, locusts and frogs during the several years of tribulation that follow.

Bill Moyers has a rather disturbing thing on ignorant people.
Interesting point fron NPR: Lincoln won election with 38% the first time.

Obama

2005-02-13T20:34:00.000-05:00

In These Times, newly discovered by us, has a nice thing on Obama's "spiritual adviser."

Venezuela

2005-02-13T12:27:00.000-05:00

Aljazeera:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has branded the United States a terrorist state while rejecting Washington's criticism of Caracas for its arms purchase from Russia.

Chavez, a fierce critic of US President George Bush and the US-led war in Iraq, on Saturday brushed aside US opposition to the agreement to buy 100,000 automatic rifles and about 40 military helicopters from Moscow.

'One has to ask whether there was transparency in the invasion of Iraq. The world knows President Bush lied openly about Iraq having chemical weapons,' Chavez said.

'They keep on bombing cities, killing children, they have become a terrorist state,' he said.

Good call, Hugo. Remember the whole elction thing there a while back? We didn't really follow it, but sounds typical of US ties with the rest of the Americas.

Ward Churchill

2005-02-13T12:24:00.000-05:00

Aljazeera:

A University of Colorado professor under fire for comparing World Trade Centre victims to a Nazi war criminal has refused to apologise for his remarks.

'I am not backing off an inch,' said Ward Churchill on Tuesday, drawing an ovation from a standing-room-only crowd of about 1200 students and backers gathered in a ballroom.

'I owe no one an apology.'

Churchill, who filed a lawsuit earlier in the day after officials at the state-funded university had threatened to cancel his speech, said his central message was that the 11 September 2001 attacks had been provoked by US foreign policy.

'Naturally and inevitably, what you put out will blow back on you and that's what happened,' Churchill said.

In his essay, Some People Push Back, written shortly after 9/11, Churchill said the hijackers had mounted 'counter attacks' in the face of hostile US policy in the Middle East and a campaign of 'genocide' against Iraq through the trade sanctions imposed after the first Gulf war."

Interesting.
It seems to be Al-Jazeera day, folks. Don't worry about the thing that tries to download when you go to their site- heh.

Budget

2005-02-13T12:21:00.000-05:00

International Action Center gives one of those really depressing rundowns of the budget:

The War on Working People Continues

On Monday, George W. Bush launched an unprecedented attack
on poor and working people in the U.S. His proposed a
$2.57-trillion budget will cut domestic programs to
seniors, veterans, children, and the poor by $20 billion
dollars next year.
...
The Pentagon budget will be increased to $419 billion,
plus an additional $80 billion for the occupation of Iraq
and Afghanistan--nearly half a trillion dollars. The U.S.
will spend about as much money on its military as the rest
of the world combined. The Pentagon budget will be larger
than the rest of the planet's combined.

Bush also wants to make his tax cuts for the wealthy
permanent, which carry a price tag of $1.1 trillion
through 2014.
...
These cuts include:

Food stamps will be cut by over $1 billion over the next
five years.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs budget will be cut by $100
million.

About one-third of the programs being targeted for
elimination are in the Education Department, including
federal grant programs for local schools in such areas as
vocational education, supporting drug-free schools and
Even Start, a $225 million literacy program.

The proposed budget eliminates 7 programs providing $16
billion in grants for low-income urban areas and replaces
them with one program funded at $3.7 Billion. The new
program, which replaces programs in HUD, Education and
other areas is to be run by the Commerce Department. Why
Commerce? The stated purpose is to direct these grants
away from public organizations and toward faith-based
(religious) organizations and private businesses.

Medicaid - medical care for the poor, the disabled, the
elderly and children - will be cut by $45 billion.
...
Bush's budget demands that the poorest and most oppressed
pay for the costs of his tax breaks to the wealthy and for
his program of endless war.

The American people might never even know.

Aljazeera interviews Chomsky

2005-02-13T12:01:00.000-05:00

Aljazeera:

If you were poor, a Native American, a small farmer or an ecologist, you probably did not vote for George Bush.

It is therefore not so surprising to find that all these sectors of society have come under attack, from the Republican administration's new fiscal budget.

However, if you were an army veteran you may have expected to escape spending cuts. But even this slice of American society, one that largely voted for Bush, finds itself the subject of financial 'rollback'.

Versatile American scholar Noam Chomsky, speaking exclusively to Aljazeera, put it like this.

'There is a very simple principle that goes a long way towards explaining decisions of the Bush administration. If some policy is beneficial to wealth, privilege and power, it should be promoted.

'If some policy is beneficial to the large majority of the population but of no particular concern (or even marginally costly) to wealth, privilege and power, it should be undermined.'

Actually, I'm fairly certain that a good number of small farmers and impoverished white people voted for Bush. Democracy isn't always the answer.

Freedom

2005-02-13T11:52:00.000-05:00

Aljazeera:

Al-Qaida's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has condemned the American concept of freedom in a taped speech broadcast by Aljazeera.

Aired on Thursday, the audiotape message said the freedom sought by millions in the Islamic world was 'not the freedom to destroy others ... it is not the freedom that allows [America] to support oppressive regimes'.

Al-Zawahiri said he could not accept Washington's continued promotion of 'Israel's freedom to annihilate Muslims'.

The comments were first issued on 2 February on the internet, but were aired for the first time on Thursday.

Al-Zawahiri also slammed what he called 'fraudulent elections held under occupation', in a reference to last month's polls in Iraq.

Linking Rules of Deportment

2005-02-10T17:53:00.000-05:00

Using links politely on MetaFilter seems a bit overly difficult. I think I like tagging better.

"Nuclear Proliferation is the Greatest Threat We Face"

2005-02-10T15:52:00.000-05:00

Pat Oliphant says it quite well.

Bogus Sesame

2005-02-08T19:50:00.000-05:00

CNN: "Senior military official" says 13,000-17,000 insurgents in Iraq.
Not counting the ones who just hate us.

WIlco

2005-02-08T19:47:00.000-05:00

Wired: Wilco speaks on how the fans make the music.
I steal music off of the internets.

Tagging

2005-02-08T19:46:00.000-05:00

Guardian reports on more interconnectedness. We are coming back together.

Halo Movie

2005-02-07T19:08:00.000-05:00

Writer hired for adaptation of game. I will put money on this not making it.

RAID

2005-02-07T18:15:00.000-05:00

from the Cult of Mac Blog: the world's slowest RAID.

Vietnam Headline: 1967

2005-02-01T19:43:00.000-05:00

Liberal uberlink of the day.

High schoolers

2005-02-01T16:50:00.000-05:00

CNN has the latest depressing poll of high school knowledge. What else is new?

PNAC Letter to Congress

2005-01-31T18:14:00.000-05:00

Project for the New American Century has called for an increase of 25,000 per year in Army and Marine Corps size the "the next several years."

Yglesias says he agrees with the theme, albeit with major reservations regarding the people signing the letter.

Sounds like a draft, people...

Brand Rankings

2005-01-31T17:58:00.000-05:00

brandchannel.com has a great report on the top brands in the world and by region. Go see. Apple is on top, Google second, and al-Jazeera at the global five spot. Fact regarding Starbucks, who was four:

Starbucks opened 1,344 new spaces in the first three quarters of 2004, to bring its global total to 8,569 in more than 30 countries. The hyper-caffeinated brand intends to expand to 15,000 US stores and 15,000 international stores. Although the expansion’s timeframe is unclear, consider that the retailer opened roughly 3.5 stores every day in 2004.

Believe It When You See It Dept.

2005-01-31T17:40:00.000-05:00

Guardian| Judge: Guantánamo inmates can challenge through US courts

Sunni Shutout

2005-01-30T15:23:00.000-05:00

The New York Times, in the midst of an overwhelmingly positive article that sounds exactly like it was filed from a hotel, says:

In Ramadi, only six people had voted after seven hours at a polling station on the south side of the Euphrates River across from the town. Many people were apparently intimidated at crossing the bridge over the river, because potential voters would make themselves highly visible.

Lieut. Col. Joseph Southcott, of the 1/9 Battalion of the Second Infantry Division, which has been brought in from South Korea, said he and his men would judge their success not by the turnount, which appeared to be less than 1 percent, but whether they had created safe conditions to vote.

Note that the Sunnis, a major demographic group, are the ones fighting in the insurgency- and the ones who aren't voting.

Senate Minority Plans

2005-01-27T11:59:00.000-05:00

The Left Coaster has the Senate Opposition Agenda.
More military?

OPEC

2005-01-24T19:52:00.000-05:00

OPEC reduced production today, which caused the price of crude oil to rise to an eight-week high. The production cuts were due to an agreement made last month to cut about 1 million barrels a day starting Jan. 1 to bring up prices. Oil demand in the United States also rose due to the blizzard that hit the Northeast this past week. The official target price per barrel for OPEC is $22-28; however, in reality the 2005 target price is an average of $40.

OPEC once again reminds the world of the noose they hold around its daily life. Almost more powerful than nuclear weapons, Middle Eastern nations- and Venezuela- have oil. Of course the United States and other Western countries should do their best to end reliance on oil and think up alternate energy plans (besides the long-term-toxicity of nuclear power plants.) However, with the extraordinary ratio of cars to people here, a bicycling utopia is not going to happen any time soon. Since introducing “democracy” with guns has been royally disproven in the quagmire known as Iraq, what alternatives remain? Good diplomatic relations- involving a certain amount of trust from both sides- seem to be crucial. The only way to bring OPEC to their knees would be to make friends- and then the need to bring them to their knees would be moot. And that, of course, would be almost as good as sidewalk improvement money.

VW Polo Fake Ad

2005-01-23T12:49:00.000-05:00

Brutally Honest has a functioning copy of it. Regardless of the offensive message, the look of it is very nice- some money was actually put into a web video.

More Iran

2005-01-23T12:35:00.000-05:00

NYT:

Just hours before being sworn in for a second term, Vice President Dick Cheney publicly raised the possibility on Thursday that Israel 'might well decide to act first' to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

In an interview on the MSNBC program 'Imus in the Morning,' a highly unusual forum for Mr. Cheney, he appeared to use the danger of Israeli military action as one more reason that the Iranians should reach a diplomatic agreement to disarm, noting dryly that any such strike would leave 'a diplomatic mess afterwards' and should be avoided.

Iran

2005-01-20T18:07:00.000-05:00

Sy Hersh says that the Administration- without the CIA, this time- will do there best to slow nuclear ambitions/spread democracy/generally antagonize Arabs in Iran next. Seriously. Makes about as much sense as Iraq, which means that the chances are high.

In other news, a MoveOn email laid a plan to "make 2006 our 1994." We don't particularly like the analogy, but the grassroots stuff sounds nice.

Thanks to all for the die-in.

Terrorists (Real Ones)

2005-01-16T16:30:00.000-05:00

TAPPED::

Dana Priest reports on a new National Intelligence Council report warning that Iraq is becoming the training ground for a new generation of terrorists who will, at some point, start leaving Iraq and attacking other targets around the world. It's a concern I know people in the European security community have voiced as well, and it's a concern I share. It's worth being clear on the causal mechanism here. One of the main roles al-Qaeda's Afghan sanctuary played before the fall of 2001 was simply that people who were interested in joining the jihad knew where to go. Contrary to a lot of loose talk in the press, al-Qaeda never really did much recruiting per se -- instead they would put out broad propaganda, and a certain number of people would wind up heading to Pakistani border towns and trying to get training.

Didn't we all sort of mention this as a rationale for not invading Iraq way back when?

Finland loses weight

2005-01-15T11:52:00.000-05:00

Guardian:
"Thirty years ago, Finland was one of the world's unhealthiest nations. Diet was poor, people were inactive and heart disease was at record levels. Now it's one of the fittest countries on earth."

Bogus Sesame

2005-01-14T22:01:00.000-05:00

NYT:

President Bush called on Wednesday for a rigorous high school testing program in math and reading that would be the major education initiative of his second term.

The effort would expand the No Child Left Behind Act by $1.5 billion as it tries to rescue lagging students in the upper grades.

Nearly four years after his first successful campaign to impose federal standards on elementary and intermediate schools, Mr. Bush called on Congress to extend similar tests to high schools. He described poor performance among high school students as a 'warning and a call to action' and prescribed testing for freshmen, sophomores and juniors as a solution.

Also...
"On another topic, in an interview on Wednesday in The Washington Times, [Bush] discussed the role of faith in his presidency, saying he could not 'see how you can be president without a relationship with the Lord.'"
Ever heard of the good deist Thomas Jefferson?

"Salvatore option" cont.

2005-01-13T19:43:00.000-05:00

SEC. RUMSFELD: The -- on the subject of Iraq, I also have been reading and hearing about this so-called Salvatore -- Salvador option, I think it's called. And I looked all through Newsweek, which apparently was the place it supposedly had appeared. I couldn't find it. But everyone's talking about it, and it's nonsense.
The reality is that the responsibility of the commanders there in the coalition and the Iraqi government is to see that the Iraqis are trained up to provide security for that country. And somebody has been reading too many spy novels and went off in flights of fancy, which I hope have been put to rest.

Q     No hit squads?
            (Pause for interpretation.)
(Laughter.)

SEC. RUMSFELD: It sounds a lot like 'nonsense.' (Laughter.)
INTERPRETER (?): It is. (Interpretation continues.)

Q     What's the nonsense part? I mean, you mentioned just very broadly this story was nonsense, but what particularly is wrong about that?
Q     Plus, you didn't read the story, it sounds like?

SEC. RUMSFELD: I couldn't find the story. All I've seen is the reporting on the story. And I said it clearly -- there's nothing like that taking place.

Q     Like what?

SEC. RUMSFELD: Like what's in the story.

Q     But you didn't read the story! (Laughter.)

SEC. RUMSFELD: No, what's the story supposedly that so many of you are hyperventilating about.

Q     Just to be clear, Mr. Secretary, are you ruling out that U.S. Special Forces would ever go into Syria in pursuit of insurgents? Which is one thing that the story did say. Are you ruling that out?

SEC. RUMSFELD: Where did you see the story? I couldn't find it --

Q     We'll provide you a copy, sir, right after the briefing. We'll make sure you get a copy.

SEC. RUMSFELD: Where did you see it?

Q     It's on the Web.
Q     It's on the Web. It was e-mailed to me.

SEC. RUMSFELD: Oh, they didn't even put it in the magazine?

Q     No. (Laughter.)

SEC. RUMSFELD: I buy the magazine!

Q     (?): Maybe it's a virtual story.
Q     Well, sir -- (inaudible) --

SEC. RUMSFELD: I'll answer a question.

from a Pentagon transcript

Veeeerrry interesting.

"Apple's Tipping Point"

2005-01-13T18:53:00.000-05:00

Nice graphic for very optimistic Apple users.

Bush's Bulge: Update

2005-01-12T20:41:00.000-05:00

Houston Indymedia says that W. is wearing a defibrillator and has been since choking on a pretzel in January 2002.

By the way, the editors of this blog take zero to negative responsibility for verification of or second glances at items contained herein. Truth is fallible and some stuff is just too funny or cool to pass up. It's a blog- what do you expect? Journalism?

Simon Rosenberg

2005-01-12T20:33:00.000-05:00

Endorsed by Joe Trippi for DNC chair. And yes, Howard Dean just announced his candidacy for the position as well.

Indie rock hits Libya

2005-01-12T20:31:00.000-05:00

The Guardian:
"He has joined the War on Terror. He has shown Tony Blair around his tent. And now Muammar Gadafy has found a new way to ingratiate himself with the west - supporting its indie bands."

Beautiful

2005-01-11T20:54:00.000-05:00

Apple.com, especially the new little cover art for iLife and iWork. How adorable.

Democratic principles in action

2005-01-11T20:40:00.000-05:00

WorkingForChange discusses a BBC documentary

Is it conceivable that Al Qaeda, as defined by President Bush as the center of a vast and well-organized international terrorist conspiracy, does not exist?