Tuesday, August 31, 2004

Diebold Voting Hack uncovered - What did you expect from the e-voting maching company headed by the man who's committed to delivering the election to Bush?
By entering a 2-digit code in a hidden location, a second set of votes is created. This set of votes can be changed, so that it no longer matches the correct votes. The voting system will then read the totals from the bogus vote set. It takes only seconds to change the votes, and to date not a single location in the U.S. has implemented security measures to fully mitigate the risks.
Unusual Road Signs [2(UK)]
Apple unveiled their new iMac today. It looks decidedly minimalist with the processor, cards, ports, and even speakers stashed behind the flatscreen.
Behind Enemy Lines: Advice From a Partisan
If during your stay in New York you would like to join the great free-thinking herd of the diverse, simply acknowledge aloud that the war in Iraq has permanently set back the Middle East peace process and accept the blame for the following outrages: outsourcing, the French's loss of esteem for America, Mr. Ashcroft's attempt to erect a gallows in Columbus Circle, and Mr. Bush's failure instantly to stop reading "My Pet Goat" aloud to the Sarasota second graders on Sept. 11 after being informed that planes were suddenly flying into buildings.

Monday, August 30, 2004

The death of the album has been greatly exaggerated. (Popmatters)
The GOP plans to recall 9/11 over and over again during the convention. With the protracted failure in Iraq, the still-failing economy, the billions wasted, the sweetheart crony defense deals, and without having caught the guy who was actually responsible, is this wise?
For the person who has everything: 8 strange consumer products (Failuremag). None of them, however, are as absurd as this.
Signs of the times: Photography, ironically is verboten at the Philadelphia Constitution Center.
Here's what happened to the bikesagainstbush guy.
When Kinberg showed the police sergeant how the bicycle used a non-permanent spray chalk, the sergeant seemed to agree that it wasn't defacement, at which point Kinberg asked, "am I free to go?" After conferring about it, officers decided to call superiors, then came back moments later to place Kinberg under arrest and confiscate the bicycle.

Wednesday, August 25, 2004

A wireless, bike-mounted, spray paint spraying dot matrix street printer. Message the rider during the RNC, and you may get your text printed on NYC asphault.
Does economic climate predict election outcomes? Not really (Forbes)

Tuesday, August 24, 2004

Singing Science Records (complete mp3s and cover art for all 6 science themed folk LPs!)
The 356 Days Project which featured oddball and novelty songs @ one mp3 a day for the year (2003) was taken offline at the end of its run. It's now back online and has a permanent home at ubu.
"Civil Disobedience" by Henry David Thoreau
For those heading to New York, the Civil Disobedience Index (ActUp)
The (Syntactic) History of Protest (Fresh Air Commentary, 2002)
But you'd hope that "protest" would retain some of the sense of resistance that it acquired at the beginning of the last century. Up to now, after all, protest has been the only political action that power can't engage in.
The Folk Music Archives
Digital interviews of American folk artists, groups & venues of the 50's and 60's with "Voice Clips", Pictures and Archival Information.
Sedna, the most distant object in our solar system, may have a pitch black moon.

Monday, August 23, 2004

A Chill in Florida (NYTimes)
Florida Republicans are using state troopers to intimidate black voters.
A Chill in Florida (NYTimes)
Florida Republicans are using state troopers to indimidate black voters.
Intelligence vice chairman calls war unjustified
This is huge - even moreso than Pat Buchanan's latest departure from the party huddle. How this nugget slipped off the radar of our 'liberal media' is a news story unto itself.

A top Republican lawmaker has broken from his party in the final days of his House career, saying he believes that the U.S. military assault on Iraq was unjustified and that the situation there has deteriorated into “a dangerous, costly mess.”
...
“From the beginning of the conflict, it was doubtful that we for long would be seen as liberators, but instead increasingly as an occupying force,” he said. “Now we are immersed in a dangerous, costly mess, and there is no easy and quick way to end our responsibilities in Iraq without creating bigger future problems in the region and, in general, in the Muslim world.”
Bereuter said that as a result of the war, “our country’s reputation around the world has never been lower and our alliances are weakened.”



Friday, August 20, 2004

[Still no metallic silver jumpsuit/uniforms] Yet another "futurist" chimes in on what life will be like in 2014.

Wednesday, August 18, 2004

[what do we want!? LUNCH! When do we want it!? 30 Minutes or less or our next visit to Applebees is half-price!]
Peaceful RNC protesters to get a coupon for Applebees in NYC? And you get a button?! I can't figure this out. What protester would eat that crap, not to mention that you get your name on some right-wing Gestapo's mall-food eating, easily-cowed, may-be-a-liberal list. Who thought this up? Why? "Democracy, civil liberties, and global stability are under assault from a corrupt, cronyist, illegitimate administration... let's go get some Mug-A-Ritas and Atkins-approved Chick'n FunFingers!". Somebody please tell me who is signing up for this trainwreck of a PR campaign!

"It's no fun to protest on an empty stomach," Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said yesterday, when he announced the program at NYC & Company, the city's tourism office, which will distribute the buttons to all comers to its Midtown office.

Tuesday, August 17, 2004

[All hail White Cranberry Peach Juice] McSweeney's reviews new foods
Think you've got a hot little datacenter with your transparent case and neon liquid cooling system? You're nothing without a retroencabulator. (WMV ~3mb, more technobabble than a break-in scene in an 80's hacker movie)
PriceWaterhouseCoopers developed a predictive model for who's going to take what in the Olympics
Ed Charon, 69 - World champion phone-book ripper
Charon, who wears a size 16 ring, went through the first book like it was only a few pages rather than 1,004. He tossed the two pieces into a box at his feet and grabbed the next book off of a table.
A site for people who have learned nothing from the 3 little pigs, and build straw-bale houses to live in. (another, 2, 3)

Sunday, August 15, 2004

The Origins of American Animation (1900-1921), including some Krazy Kat stuff, all viewable online (from the American Memory Collection)
Homeland Security declares war on .... science fiction novel cover art.

Thursday, August 12, 2004

Wilco's fantastic performance of Hummingbird on Letterman last night (rerun from 6/14) (AVI 12 MB) found on borkencode.com

Wednesday, August 11, 2004

[Honey, did you see that 1.8 Billion dollar wad I left lying around here anywhere?]
Twitchy warmonger Dick Cheney's favorite bad-boy corporation can't account for almost $US2B of their sweetheart deal money.
Holy crap. this is the best Soul Caliber II dance coreography I've ever witnessed: Dance, Voldo, Dance.
If you have any doubt that the government will use mental health reporting to categorize and discriminate against citizens - even children, consider this PA case where what a man told his doctor in private was reported to the government and led to his driver's license being revoked.

Tuesday, August 10, 2004

Whenever Bush croaks the word "Freedom", you can be sure your rights are about to get trounced like Ashcroft in a popular election against a corpse. In his latest round of radical Republican hijinx, his administration has cooked up the "President's Freedom Commission on Mental Health" which ostensibly proposes that all American "consumers" be screened and scored for mental illness. Look for child consumers to be screened in schools. What this has to do with freedom isn't clear, other than the typical partisan linguistic hijacking that the administration has applied to the word since 9/11.

What's Bush policy without a little industry cronyism thrown in? Read InterventionMag's assessment of the program.
"The New Freedom Initiative proposes to screen every American, including you, for mental illness. To this end, the president established a New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, to study the nation’s mental health delivery service and make a report. It’s interesting to note that many on the staff appointed to the Commission have served on the advisory boards of some of the nation’s largest drug companies."
You are entering a world of Lebowski (NYTimes)

Monday, August 09, 2004

The ACLU released a report today entitled the Surveillance Industrial Complex that outlines the ways that the federal government is using private companies to wage war on individual privacy and civil liberties.
"Never, in my view, had America been led by such a dangerous head of state."
-- Senator Robert Byrd (D, WV), in his book "Losing America" Reviewed in the NYTimes, and on commondreams.org.

Mr. Byrd adds: "This doctrine of pre-emption claimed by Bush should have incited a major debate in the Congress and across the country. Radical, having no basis in existing law, this new foreign policy was dangerous in the extreme. ... This green and arrogant president had made a U-turn on our tradition of working with allies and exhausting diplomatic efforts. ... Our metamorphosis on the world stage from powerful, peaceful giant to swaggering Wild West bully, with little regard for cooperative agreements, sensitivities or diplomacy in general, means a different kind of world in years to come."
A nice java-based Spirograph simulator
Get injured in style (1880's style): Hiwheel is making new boneshaker bicyles (the ones where you sit 5 ft. high astride an enormous front wheel).
Build a leaf-blower hovercraft that can supposedly lift 10 adults.
Build a thermal ball-bearing motor

Friday, August 06, 2004

Bruce Springsteen on why he's getting political in this election (NYTimes)

I supported the decision to enter Afghanistan and I hoped that the seriousness of the times would bring forth strength, humility and wisdom in our leaders. Instead, we dived headlong into an unnecessary war in Iraq, offering up the lives of our young men and women under circumstances that are now discredited. We ran record deficits, while simultaneously cutting and squeezing services like afterschool programs. We granted tax cuts to the richest 1 percent (corporate bigwigs, well-to-do guitar players), increasing the division of wealth that threatens to destroy our social contract with one another and render mute the promise of "one nation indivisible."
The Jive is back after a short break. Hi.

Monday, August 02, 2004

Some Democrats who signed up to hear Vice President DickCheney speak Saturday were refused tickets unless they signed a pledge to endorse President Bush.

The measure was a security step designed to avoid a disruption, which Bush campaign spokesman Dan Foley alleged Democrats were planning. Democratic Party officials denied it.