Our landlady changed her mind; we're going to be at 155 until July '05. Does anyone else go through this "I'm going to kick you out; no wait, I won't" crisis every year?
A note to folks who attended yesterday's beautiful nuptial event for Andrea and Jay: a Canon Digital Elph camera belonging to my sister was lost in the hubbub at the end of the night. Catherine thinks she left it on one of the tables under the tent as the BSfEC staff started cleaning up. Can anyone help us? Many thanks.
Not content with patenting an Apple (the fruit, not the computer), Microsoft has now patented human skin -- or at least the use of skin to transmit data. Given how virus-prone Microsoft's software seems to be, should we worry that this latest application could give you a rash?
| Patents | Malware |
I foolishly got into a debate with someone at one of the right-wing blogs I've been frequenting in hopes of getting the skinny on the present wars. Foolishly because, after making a bunch of statements about how Kerry is not going to hurt the military, I realized that I actually don't know the first thing about his voting record or his intentions. The main Kerry website doesn't help, for it only talks about Homeland Defense and completely skirts Iraq and the military. Can anyone point me to good sources on this? Does anyone have any opinions at all on the matter? The right-wingers appear to have more "facts" at their finger tips that I, because of my ignorance, can neither evaluate nor counter.
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I received this email today, alleging that I'd borrowed a design from a site I'd never heard from. Let me know what you think.
| Fonts |
Anyone know a nice-sized apartment in Park Slope for rent?
Here's how it works in Vegas:
(1) The state has access to all gambling software (2) The software on gambling machines is constantly being spot-checked (3) There are meticulous, constantly updated standards for gambling machines (4) Manufacturers are intensively scrutinized before they are licensed to sell gambling software or hardware (5) The lab that certifies gambling equipment has an arms-length relationship with the manufacturers (6) When there is a dispute about a machine, a gambler has a right to an immediate investigation [All info exerpted from the linked NYT op-ed piece]
| Diebold |
NINJAS KILLED JON BENET RAMSEY!
Just thought you'd like to know. Via Kalisah.
| Crime |
http://www.johnkerryisadouchebagbutimvotingforhimanyway.com
(I know this makes more sense as a "Recently Clicked" item, but the URL is so long it's screwing up the page layout!)
Kerry t-shirt. Guess what's first! Wahoo! DOTWHO!
| Google |
Juneteenth is an Emancipation Day celebration. It marks the the freeing of the slaves in Texas, the last state in the Confederacy where slaves were liberated by the Union, 2+ years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued. From its roots as a Black-Texan holiday, the celebration of Juneteenth is spreading across America. 14 states have Juneteenth as an official state holiday (cheap enough to do since it always falls on the third Saturday of June and therefore there is no cost in terms of added vacation time for public employees), and some white folks are starting to celebrate it as well. Here are some news articles about different celebrations around the country. What kid doesn't like to drink "red soda water" on a hot summer day? There are even ecards for Juneteenth up on Amazon, although they aren't very good. Juneteenth. It's not just the name of Ralph Ellison's unfinished novel.
Multiple excerpts from a fascinating article on the use of RPGs in combat. Because the extended entry feature makes it easy to skip posts you don't want to read, I'm abusing the number of quotes I'm providing.
Continue reading "You down with RPGs, yeah you know me ..." » | Iraq | Weapons |
Given the popularity of Eats, Shoots, and Leaves, I figure the time is right for a new form of punctuation. (Hopefully, this one will have more success than the ill-fated interrobang.) Here's the problem: you're writing in some form of internet-enabled texting program (say, an email.) You write a URI or an email address, in the course of a normal sentence, like this:
Can you please email me at info@designsonthewhitehouse.com?Now if your email program is "smart" it will recognize those as links, and attempt to hypertext them. However, it won't be smart enough to strip out the punctuation at the end of the sentence, and if you click on them, they won't resolve properly.
You must check out the finalists at http://www.designsonthewhitehouse.com!
My blog is located at www.ishbadiddle.net.
So the solution is to add a space in between the hypertext and the punctuation mark:
Can you please email me at info@designsonthewhitehouse.com ?This space, of course, should be called a hyperspace.
You must check out the finalists at http://www.designsonthewhitehouse.com !
My blog is located at www.ishbadiddle.net .
Hyperspace. Use it. And spread the word.
| Punctuation | Hyperspace |
You can listen to the Bloomsday event at Symphony Space over at WBAI.
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It turns out that there is a dialogue between dead European philosophers and rappers on the issues of crime and punishment. Whoodathunkit?
Butler has combined his interests in an article published in the April issue of the Stanford Law Review, "Much Respect: Toward a Hip-Hop Theory of Punishment." A professor at George Washington University Law School, Butler argues that rappers and philosophers have more in common than we might think. "I'm constantly aware of the conversation between these two groups," he said. "Erykah Badu is talking to Kant, Snoop Dog is talking to Foucault. Sometimes they vigorously disagree but they keep hitting on the same things."Butler says most rappers support the idea that criminals should be punished, despite hip-hop's apparent fascination with outlaw behavior. Like Kant, many rappers argue in favor of retribution-style justice: If you take something from society, something should be taken from you. As supporting evidence, Butler quotes Jay-Z:
"Now if you shoot my dog, I'ma kill yo' cat/
Just the unwritten laws in rap -- know dat/
For every action, there's a reaction."
Read the whole article here.
| Philosophy | Law | Jay-Z |
Via robotfilter
| War | History |
Here's a Book Meme taken from Emily's blog. Take the following list, strip out my comments, and:
+ bold the ones you've read
+ italicize those you started but never finished
+ add three at the end
And because I believe that memes should mutate, I've added:
+ put an * next to those you've seen on stage or screen.
I agree with Emily, the hardest part is choosing three to add on. (That, and fixing the numbering, which was off by 30. Nit nit nit, pick pick pick.)
Continue reading "Emily's List" » | Memes | Tolkien | Jane Austen | Philip Pullman | Douglas Adams | Harry Potter | George Orwell | Charlotte Brontė | Dickens | Tolstoy | Lewis Carroll | Robert Louis Stevenson | Stephen King | Dostoyevsky | Neil Gaiman | James Joyce | Mervyn Peake | Hemingway | Bram Stoker | Victor Hugo | Oscar Wilde | Arthur Conan Doyle | H.G. Wells | H.P. Lovecraft | Kafka | Ibsen | Ursula K. LeGuin | Shakespeare | Dante | Arthur C. Clarke | Kurt Vonnegut | Pynchon |
Text messaged Clash lyrics set off anti-terror investigation
| Cell Phones | The Clash | Txt msg |
Really.
| Cows | WiFi |
Last chance to vote on the semi-finalists in Designs on the White House! The top 4 entries (in each category) will move on to the Finalist Round and be judged by our VIP panel. The voting is verrry tight in some of the races, so your vote will make a difference. Vote before 11:59 p.m. EST!
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| Language |
Kewl. Via the real janelle.
| Maps | History |
In an valuable scoop, the Wall Street Journal reports today that the lawyers at the Pentagon wrote in a classified memo that the president has virtually unlimited power to wage war as he sees fit. Relying on legal logic that one might call "tortured," neither Congress, the courts, nor international law have any authority to stop him from ordering torture.
I'm pretty sure that I genuinely dropped my jaw while sitting at my desk. Jerry of Infoshop wrote: "The United States has AIDS. We have begun the descent into dictatorship and the political system can't seem to generate any antibodies against it." Now ordinarily that sort of metaphor seems to me to be pure anger rather than thought. But one line from the 100-page classified memo has creeped me out all day long: the executive branch of the government has "sweeping" powers to act as it sees fit because "national security decisions require the unity in purpose and energy in action that characterize the presidency rather than Congress." Imagine yourself standing in a phalanx on the field of a stadium, saying: Unity in purpose! Energy in Action! Unity in purpose! Energy." Uggggh.
This feels like a turning point to me, even more than Abu Ghraib. One doesn't want soldiers in combat to get ragingly punchy while guarding the prisoners, but it was not that hard to imagine. I'm surprised we haven't heard about the wanton strafing of a village yet. But when they're sitting around a conference table in D.C. explaining to each other why WE CAN TORTURE people--isn't that civilization just plain cracking?
Consider that ghastliness next to another front-page story, (or, with a subscription) from a few days ago, in the Times. This was the one about the colonel who went too far and fired a gun next to an Iraqi policeman he suspected knew of a plot to ambush his men. Reflecting a civilized stance, he was booted out of the forces, even though he didn't actually harm the Iraqi.
Thousands of miles away, the Pentagon types were stretching for every possible legal workaround so they could declare that forcing a prisoner to stay awake for 96 hours straight did not count as torture.
All of a sudden, the people running the war seem depraved. I didn't need 829 dead to convince me that combat in Iraq was an ugly disaster, a tragedy produced by venal and errant leadership. Now this military invasion feels toxic right where I live.
In searching for this actual Lord of the Rings game I stumbled across this LoTR game which looks equally fun, if not as complicated. My favorite part are the "Plot Complication Cards," such as:
66 Pipe-weed. Roll the die immediately and interpret the result thusly:
1: You're out of pipe-weed. No effect.
2-3: You have a very refreshing smoke. Take an extra turn.
4-5: Coughing fit. Lose a turn.
6: Severe coughing fit. Merry gives up smoking. Gandalf continues to smoke nearby. Merry gets short-tempered, goes berserk and tries to kill him. Lose two turns.
Also not available from Melkor Bradley:
Jane Eyre's Chutes and Ladders ("a game that will teach youngsters all about loneliness, depression and the dangers of religious hypocrisy!")
Anna Kareninanopoly ("Mortgage your principles and build emotional investments! Shape your future happiness or tear down the happiness of others!")
Shakespeare's Othello ("Replacement Desdemonas sold seperately.")
Order yours today!
| Tolkien | Shakespeare | Tolstoy | Charlotte Brontė |
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Asked by Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan whether the U.S. was "duped by a con man" into going to war, Air Force General Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, responded, "I think that remains to be seen. Probably. But I just don't know." [TIME magazine]
If there really was systematic liberal bias in our foreign policy coverage, I would have figured the above quote would have gotten a huge amount of play. Why do I think such a wishy-washy statement should be newsworthy?
Just the fact that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is willing to publically consider the possibility that the entire war in Iraq was the result of manipulation by a member of the the axis of evil is very significant. That he would go even further and say that it is likely that the administration was deceived into invading is shocking to me. (Plus, a truly partisan media would have quotes Myers completely out of context so his statement would have seemed less equivocal).
How much airtime has the above quote gotten in the mainstream newsmedia? According to Google News, that quote only shows up in one other American news source, the LA Times.
[I'm actually willing to concede a liberal bias, but I think it's on social issues, not foreign policy ones. On foreign policy, the news rarely examines statements of an incumbent administration thoroughly enough]
UPDATE: Given Jay's comment (see below), I gladly concede this point. If "Probably" was an interjection, or the sentence was otherwise punctuated, then Myers didn't say what I thought he did.
| Media | Biased Reporting |
It's the last day of voting over at Designs on the White House. Head over and vote! If you haven't registered already, you still can! Vote!
| 2004 Election | John Kerry | Designsonthewhitehouse |
| Google | email |
