The FBI is collecting data on antiwar demonstrations, analyzing tactics and training.

If you've been following the Diebold voting machine scandal, you know how they've released production code so bad that it allows people to vote multiple times. Diebold has been trying to squash people who have been posting leaked internal memos exposing their inept software by serving them with DMCA letters. To the rescue comes Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio), who has posted the memos on the House of Representatives website . Let's see Diebold try to tear them down now...

Kudos to Congressman Kucinich for blowing the covers off of Diebold's shady schemes, and for going the extra step of working for measures that will prevent this type of behaviour in the future.

Congressman Kucinich is working to address these problems by providing some of Diebold’s internal memos on this site to increase public access, drafting legislation to address software security problems, and working to investigate Diebold’s legal abuses.

New Legislation
Congressman Kucinich is working with his Congressional colleagues to draft legislation that would create an open-source design process for voting machine software. This process would ensure public oversight and transparency, as well as establish the most secure voting software for citizens to cast their votes.

Its no surprise that the corrupt Diebold Corporation is a Republican controlled company, and that Republicans are making no noise about this issue, but rather trying to cover for Diebold.

The Pew Report on the effect of spam on the internet has been released, and the findings are pretty grim. I personally delete upwards of 200 a day. Admit it- have you, or has anyone you've known actually bought anything advertised via spam? Who are the market for these people?

Stats:
25% of email users say the ever-increasing volume of spam has reduced their overall use of email; 60% of that group says spam has reduced their email use in a big way.
52% of email users say spam has made them less trusting of email in general.
70% of email users say spam has made being online unpleasant or annoying.
30% of email users are concerned that their filtering devices may block incoming email.
23% of email users are concerned that their emails to others may be blocked by filtering devices.
75% of email users are bothered that they can’t stop the flow of spam.
80% of email users are bothered by deceptive or dishonest content of spam.
76% of email users are bothered by offensive or obscene content of spam.

Even Richard Perle says the war is illegal.

Sweet. Family Guy, the funniest show on TV might get re-aired.

New species of whale found.

Bush's physical and ideological "bubble" (NYTimes)
The bubble in London is just an extension of the bubble the Bush team lives in at home. It superimposes its reality on the evidence for war, the ease of the occupation, the strength of the insurgency and the continuing threat from Saddam and Osama.

[If you do one thing today, make it this!]
H.R. 6, the so-called "energy bill," is an almost indescribably evil piece of legislation. The 1700 page bill has evolved over a couple of years, but the details were worked out recently in relative secrecy. Here are a few points about the bill from saveourenvironment.org:

* It tramples on states' abilities to protect their coasts from harmful oil and gas exploration by weakening their voice about federal projects that affect their coasts.
* The bill repeals the main law that protects consumers from energy market manipulation and fraud: the Public Utility Holding Company Act.
* It encourages nuclear proliferation, by reversing a long-standing U.S. policy against reprocessing waste from commercial nuclear reactors and against using plutonium to generate energy from commercial use.
* It dramatically increases air pollution and global warming with huge new incentives for burning coal, oil and gas. [Over $23 billion in tax breaks.]
* It would increase dependence on foreign oil by adding loopholes that weaken fuel economy laws.
* It threatens drinking water sources by exempting from the Safe Drinking Water Act the underground injection of diesel fuel and other chemicals during oil and gas development.

Contact your state senators and ask them to join in a filibuster of this vile Bush Administration assault on our air, soil, and water.

(Note: Thanks to Green Delaware for spreading the word on this. These guys are a model of state-level environmental activism. I don't even live in Delaware, but I read their stuff regularly.)

Finally (fed up with the .Net fiasco?), someone asks straight, hard questions about what HP thinks its doing with its vacuous Adaptive Enterprise (ugh.) "platform".

Spoiler: HP's marketing jabberhead gives all of the usual useless squawk, and it doesn't really mean anything.
Q: Is outsourcing part of AE?
A: It can be, but it is not the only play we're running. First we sit down and ask about the business strategy to set some boundaries for us.

"play we're running"? Who says that? Who talks like that? Does HP send these guys to idiot camp? Here's another reeking burst of cliche'-infested veepspeak:

Adaptive Enterprise defines an entity where a company will be able to dynamically readjust to changes that affect its business.

Finalists for the design of the 911 Memorial in NYC have been unveiled [NYTimes article] [Slideshow of the finalists]

This is what American business does: In a thoroughly idiotic move, both from economic and PR standpoints, railroad giant CSX simultaneously cut 1000 jobs and bought $1,000,000 worth of superbowl tickets.
"I can understand those that might have difficult time reconciling these two different decisions," he said. "However we have to make decisions based on the long-term future of the company and make decisions fairly and thoughtfully."

[They blinded me with pseudoscience!] The Bush administration is jettisoning real scientists in favor of yes-men

epaints has an interesting alternative to buying posters of paintings by your favorite artists. For around a hundred bucks, get an artist to copy it in hand-painted oil. I couldn't find any reference on the site to who was knocking these off, or where they were being done.

Gore Vidal on the Bush administration, including more comparisons to Adolf Hitler.

But mostly we find the sort of corruption Franklin predicted. Ours is a totally corrupt society. The presidency is for sale. Whoever raises the most money to buy TV time will probably be the next president. This is corruption on a major scale.

Enron was an eye-opener to naive lovers of modern capitalism. Our accounting brotherhood, in its entirety, turned out to be corrupt, on the take. With the government absolutely colluding with them and not giving a damn.

Bush’s friend, old Kenny Lay, is still at large and could just as well start some new company tomorrow. If he hasn’t already. No one is punished for squandering the people’s money and their pension funds and for wrecking the economy.

So the corruption predicted by Franklin bears its terrible fruit. No one wants to do anything about it. It’s not even a campaign issue. Once you have a business community that is so corrupt in a society whose business is business, then what you have is, indeed, despotism. It is the sort of authoritarian rule that the Bush people have given us. The USA PATRIOT Act is as despotic as anything Hitler came up with — even using much of the same language. In one of my earlier books, Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, I show how the language used by the Clinton people to frighten Americans into going after terrorists like Timothy McVeigh — how their rights were going to be suspended only for a brief time — was precisely the language used by Hitler after the Reichstag fire.

Margaret Thatcher fans and scholars take note: Her papers have been released online at margaretthatcher.org.
Demand is huge.
Lady Thatcher's archive is now the most accessible of any modern politician, it is claimed. People have been logging on to view handwritten documents such as the notes she made for St Francis' prayer "Where there is discord....", delivered at the steps of 10 Downing Street on her electoral victory in 1979. There are also declassified Falklands War documents and memoirs, as well as letters between her and former US president Ronald Reagan, and handwritten notes on how to deal with Sir Edward Heath.

Your viroscope for today: Beware email from paypal
When a person opens the e-mail attachment, a window appears bearing the PayPal logo and asking for credit card information. The virus stores any information provided by the victim in a file called “ppinfo.sys” and the file is sent to four e-mail addresses stored in the program

Old-computers.com is a well-designed site that has very detailed information on vintage hardware, like this Heathkit H89.

The Carbon Dust Beetle Illustration gallery @ Cornell U.
(courtesy of Coudal, who also pointed me to this killer gallery of bobo watches)

It looks like the old bastion of DIY music web distribution, MP3.com, has had a fire sale and CNET is picking up "some" of the assets (whatever the hell that means). The upshot is that the millions of artist-published works (good, bad, and ugly) are going to get deleted from mp3.com's servers. MP3.com story here.
Another take on the bizarre pairing from theregister.

CNET will follow Wal-Mart, Real Inc. and Apple Computer into the DRM business, infecting as many computers as they can with restrictive software controls that close what for a brief period has been an open computer platform. They all hope that this tentative business model, the terms of which are set by the entertainment "industry", will somehow turn them a profit. Or at least give the illusion of doing so, until a better idea comes along.

Bruce Herschenson's poster site has a great image archive of vintage movie poster scans.

The FCC is planning a huge givaway to huge networks while ignoring public interest
Now they oppose the FCC requiring new public interest obligations as part of the digital give-away.2 As for broadcasters being in financial harm, the four companies controlling the major broadcast networks generated more than $23 billion in 2002, with TV industry revenues almost $34 billion.3 With this impending FCC decision, the broadcast networks and station groups would also receive a new form of “digital retransmission consent” that would bring them billions of dollars worth of additional cable channels as well.

Meet me at Joey Ramone Place

Fighting the new face of fascism: George Soros puts up 15.5 million to get rid of Bush
"America, under Bush, is a danger to the world," Soros said. Then he smiled: "And I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is."
Soros believes that a "supremacist ideology" guides this White House. He hears echoes in its rhetoric of his childhood in occupied Hungary. "When I hear Bush say, 'You're either with us or against us,' it reminds me of the Germans." It conjures up memories, he said, of Nazi slogans on the walls, Der Feind Hort mit ("The enemy is listening"). "My experiences under Nazi and Soviet rule have sensitized me," he said in a soft Hungarian accent.

[Walmart Spies on its customers] The Chicago Sun-Times uncovered a secret study undertaken by Walmart on its customers without their consent. Walmart embedded smart chips in lipstick products which were tracable when the customers left the stores.
Walmart lied and said that it would not be testing the technology on consumers.

The Sun-Times learned of the trial from a disgruntled Procter & Gamble executive and also from the firm that designed the "smart shelf" system. Researchers concealed "readers" in contact paper placed under the shelves and embedded RFID antenna chips in Lipfinity packaging.

The transcription of Al Gore's speech on Freedom and Security that aired on CSPAN Sunday 2pm that nicely captures the essence of Bush's all-out assault on individual freedoms and common sense.

I want to challenge the Bush Administration’s implicit assumption that we have to give up many of our traditional freedoms in order to be safe from terrorists.
Because it is simply not true.
In fact, in my opinion, it makes no more sense to launch an assault on our civil liberties as the best way to get at terrorists than it did to launch an invasion of Iraq as the best way to get at Osama Bin Laden.
In both cases, the Administration has attacked the wrong target.
In both cases they have recklessly put our country in grave and unnecessary danger, while avoiding and neglecting obvious and much more important challenges that would actually help to protect the country.
In both cases, the administration has fostered false impressions and misled the nation with superficial, emotional and manipulative presentations that are not worthy of American Democracy.
In both cases they have exploited public fears for partisan political gain and postured themselves as bold defenders of our country while actually weakening not strengthening America.
In both cases, they have used unprecedented secrecy and deception in order to avoid accountability to the Congress, the Courts, the press and the people.
Indeed, this Administration has turned the fundamental presumption of our democracy on its head. A government of and for the people is supposed to be generally open to public scrutiny by the people -- while the private information of the people themselves should be routinely protected from government intrusion.
But instead, this Administration is seeking to conduct its work in secret even as it demands broad unfettered access to personal information about American citizens. Under the rubric of protecting national security, they have obtained new powers to gather information from citizens and to keep it secret. Yet at the same time they themselves refuse to disclose information that is highly relevant to the war against terrorism.

According to the SF Chronicle, your personal financial data is headed overseas as credit agencies begin international outsourcing efforts.
Privacy advocates say the outsourcing of files that include Social Security numbers and complete credit histories could lead to a surge in identity theft because U.S. laws cannot be enforced overseas.

Toxic Immunity [Mother Jones]
Faced with a hazardous-waste crisis, the Pentagon is pushing hard to exempt itself from the nation's environmental laws.

Beach Boys fan has created his own production of the band's legendary "Smile" album using scraps and outtakes he gathered from the sessions. The whole album is available for download in mp3 format.

In May of 1966, the world was presented with a Beach Boys that had seemingly abandoned its old image of surf and cars. Like Rubber Soul was for the Beatles, this was the Beach Boys' first "heavy" album. And it probably jarred the group (barring Brian) more than anyone else. Such a question may have been rolling through the collective consciousness of the others: How does one bare their soul (i.e. sing those lyrics) for an audience who had up to this point took you for a stalwart individual with the looks of a clean-cut astronaut?

But Brian Wilson didn't concern himself with such a question, this much we know for sure. Undeterred by accusations of writing "ego music", Brian willingly stepped through The Looking-Glass in May of 1966 and returned sometime in the late-spring of 1967.

More commentary on George W. Bush's dismal failure at economic policy and how his ignorance and poor judgement will likely harm generations to come. (The Economist)

So it finally turns out that the Iraqis tried to avert a war as troops amassed on their borders, but so intent was the illegitimate Bush administration on murdering innocent civilians to profit their oil cronies that the Iraqi pleas were ignored. (NYTimes)

"Iraqi officials, including the chief of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, had told the businessman that they wanted Washington to know that Iraq no longer had weapons of mass destruction, and they offered to allow American troops and experts to conduct a search. The businessman said in an interview that the Iraqis also offered to hand over a man accused of being involved in the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 who was being held in Baghdad. At one point, he said, the Iraqis pledged to hold elections."

A really nice Onion WDYT today.

Great page full of Wire images and photos.

If you're heading out for dinner in NYC, you can go even further than checking with the critics - you can see what the State Board of Health has to say.
Just click the map, see if they've been cited for any really nasty violations, and venture onward if you still have an appetite after reading.

How's that for a liberal media? Under pressure from Republicans and conservative groups, CBS cancels Reagan miniseries.
Since when did networks become such right-wing appologists that they have to cover for Reagan's lying, corrupt, Ketchup-as-a-vegatable, Republican administration?

Old article, but interesting. Richard Forman studies remoteness, and its affect on transportation and habitat.
The Clinton administration placed a ban on new logging roads in some national forests, and the Forest Service wants to close some roads on federal land. There are good economic reasons for closing some of these roads. "More important," Forman insists, "are ecological reasons. Human access must be limited if these key places and their inhabitants are to survive."

Philly Catholic Schoolgirls:1 - Flasher: 0
"The girls came and started kicking him and punching him, so I wasn't going to stop them," neighbor Robert Lemons told The Philadelphia Inquirer.

The jailed Russian head of a Russian oil corporation has resigned this weekend due to the tax and fraud crimes of which he has been accused.
You've got to respect the justice system in Russia that gets guys like this off the street, while over here criminal Bush administration political cronies like Ken Lay are still free, and still very wealthy.

If you didn't already think that spammers were the lowest form of life in the universe, this should do it. They launched a huge virus this weekend to attack anti-spam organizations. Their primary target is spamhaus.org , and the site isn't responding, so apparently the spammers' DDOS attack is working.

The Farber Gravestone Collection is an unusual resource containing over 13,500 images documenting the sculpture on more than 9,000 gravestones, most of which were made prior to 1800, in the Northeastern part of the United States.

[Those wacky Republicans IV] Some absolutely astounding Richard Nixon transcripts loaded with paranoid right wing ranting.

"And let's look at the strong societies. The Russians. God damn it, they root them out, they don't let them around at all. You know what I mean? I don't know what they do with them. Now, we are allowing this in this country when we show [unintelligible]. Dope? Do you think the Russians allow dope? Hell no. Not if they can allow, not if they can catch it, they send them up. You see, homosexuality, dope, immorality in general: These are the enemies of strong societies. That's why the Communists and the left-wingers are pushing the stuff, they're trying to destroy us."

The "Matrix": TIA Reloaded
MATRIX is the latest data mining program to emerge from the government. This surveillance system combines information about individuals from government databases and private-sector data companies. It then makes those dossiers available for search by government officials and combs through the millions of files in a search for “anomalies” that may be indicative of terrorist or other criminal activity.

Evote software leaked online. Turns out its an easily hacked P.O.S.

Large gallery of Soviet Propaganda Posters.

Join the NRA Blacklist

Liar, fraud, buffoon, and current unelected occupant of the White House, George Bush is apparently now claiming that the soldiers put the 'Mission Accomplished' banner on the ship that he photo-opped on to, and that the enormous blathering head Karl Rove had nothing to do with it. This lie-telling liar is of course lying.

The hated, vile, fascist, so-right-wing-they-make-Darth-Vader-look-like-Ralph-Nader, Fox Channel is threatening to sue the Simpsons because they can't take a joke.

The row centred on a parody of Fox News' rolling news ticker, which included headlines such as "Do Democrats cause cancer?"

Mr Groening said the news channel backed down because it would have caused Fox to bring a lawsuit against itself.

CA 7-Eleven owners get 250K for selling winning ticket, then 50M when they find out they sold it to themselves.

I used to have a '77 Datsun 280Z (all white, black interior), so I lit up when I saw GMT+9's link to the Datsun Minicar Collection.

Nissan is insane... INSANE for not bringing this fantastic car back. They screwed it all up when they came out with the hideously long and clumsy looking 280ZX, and it kept getting worse from there as they released the shapeless 300 which still lives on in some buffoonish Fast-and-Furious looking monstrosity today, but the 70's 240, 260, and 280 were brilliant sportscars.

George W. Bush: A willful ignorance (NYTimes)

Mr. Bush's ignorance may reflect his lack of curiosity: "The best way to get the news," he says, "is from objective sources. And the most objective sources I have are people on my staff." Two words: emperor, clothes.
...
Last year the Bush administration, in return for a military base in Uzbekistan, gave $500 million to a government that, according to the State Department, uses torture "as a routine investigation technique," and whose president has killed opponents with boiling water. The moral clarity police were notably quiet.

Sen. Orinn Hatch (R-Utah) is sponsoring exemptions that will allow even more foreign-born technology to enter the U.S. to compete with the severely limited number of available jobs in this crippled labor sector. Write Senator Hatch today to let him know that the U.S. technology sector doesn't need any more difficulty than its currently experiencing.

Spurred by worries among American multinationals and high-tech firms
that the current H-1B visa cap of 65,000 will prevent thousands of skilled
foreign professionals from entering the country in 2004, Senate Judiciary
Committee Chairman Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) is pushing for expanded
exemptions, which would clear the way for congressional consideration of
proposed visa amendments.

(from the WSJ)

Fantastic NASA picture of California wildfires from space. Very scary.

The Golden Ratio , kites and darts, and the Golden Rectangle

See how a 17th century French writing table was made at Getty.

Take Action! Send a Message! Stop the MPAA's broadcast flag [EFF form automails to FCC honchos].
Big media is trying to control the design and implementation of digital technology to meet only its own profit-motivated needs.

The march toward a total surveillance state continues: Smart Stamps next in "War" on Terrorism.
Capitol Hill staffers dismissed the potential for abuse by politicians who might use the system to track anonymous critics. "A petty staff member, maybe, but I doubt a member of Congress would do that," said one Senate aide.

Check out SouthJerseyGhostResearch to put you in the Halloween mood. They post the findings (pics, video, sound) of their ghosthunting expeditions. It's also a cool way to see how people in South Jersey decorate their homes. The muave lampshades are infinitely more scary than the floating "orbs" that pass for ghosts on these types of websites. Maybe the ghosts don't go to the other side because they're angry that their chosen haunts have pink and yellow drapes. Unless the ghosts are so Jersified that they can't bear to go to a hereafter that doesnt have pink and yellow drapes. Nah, I'm just kidding. I love Jersey. I do. Of course, those orbs couldn't possibly be dust, moisture, or photographic artifacts. They're ghosts, see? Ghosts.

There's gold in them there hills and people are still trying to find it. GoldLedge.com will help any modern panner.

Hot Dang I was sooprized to find out that the Petro truckstop in Bordendown, NJ had its own web site. Be sure to check to check the "Fuel Island" link to see pictures of their certified scales and hot meatloaf sandwiches.

Prince goes door to door for the Jehovah's Witnesses.

An interview with Greg Graffin, the lead singer of the punk band Bad Religion, on his PhD, religion, and evolutionary biology.

"Verisign's Doomsday Machine" (MP3 Audio)
People are pretty upset about this Site Finder thing. While annoying, and a definite corrupt misuse of its power for flagrant financial gain, it's nowhere near as damaging to the internet as spam.

The concerns of patient privacy vs. the financial benefits of "offshoring"
A woman in Pakistan doing cut-rate clerical work for UCSF Medical Center threatened to post patients' confidential files on the Internet unless she was paid more money.To show she was serious, the woman sent UCSF an e-mail earlier this month with actual patients' records attached.

Getting screwed: American Style: Like prescription drugs, college textbooks are much cheaper overseas than they are in the U.S. (NYTimes)
The publishing industry defends its pricing policies, saying that foreign sales would be impossible if book prices were not pegged to local market conditions.

Another flag-waving, patriotic American industry scams its own country's citizens in the name of profitability.

"We couldn't understand why what costs $120 here should cost $50-something there," said Mr. Sarkis, who, with Mr. Kinsley and another classmate, has spent three years building a Web-based company, BookCentral.com, selling textbooks from abroad to students in the United States. "It seemed so sleazy of the publishers. We were sure that college students would be shocked and outraged if they knew about the foreign prices. But it's been this big secret."

Conversations with Homeless Vets 2: Joseph

"A Miserable Failure" (Atlantic)
You can start an unnecessary war that kills hundreds of Americans and as many as 7,000 Iraqi civilians—adjusted for the difference in population, the equivalent of 80,000 Americans. Can occupy Iraq without a plan to restore traffic lights, much less order. Can make American soldiers targets in a war of attrition conducted by snipers, assassins, and planters of remote-control bombs—and taunt the murderers of our young men to "bring it on." Can spend hundreds of billions of dollars on nation building—and pass the bill to America's children. (Asked to consider rescinding your tax cut for the top one percent of taxpayers for one year in order to fund the $87 billion you requested from Congress to pay for the occupation of Iraq, your Vice President said no; that would slow growth.) You can lose more jobs than any other President since Hoover.

"We like the moon." Disturbing small animal flash.

Arial is little more than a shameless impostor.
See also "How to Spot Arial" from Mr. Simonson's website.

Napster is getting in on the pay-download thing finally. Most disturbingly, they're calling themselves a "brand".

Water generates electricity when pumped through tiny channels. Register.uk article on same

Where is the King of Spam now? Running a nightclub. (courtesy of /.)

By his own account, Wallace, who owns the hopping night spot Plum Crazy on Route 11, was, at one time, responsible for about 80 percent of direct Internet mailings sent to in-boxes around the globe.

The Army's Three Star Zealot
Another right-wing nutcase is seeing pictures of Satan's face in smudged photographs. This one is an active 3-star U.S. general who believes he's on a holy mission.

An lengthy, fascinating article from NYTimes Magazine on the character of North Korea's "Dear Leader" Kim Jong Il.

The subject of war was raised, delicately. Why, Choe inquired, was North Korea's government spending its scarce resources on ballistic missiles instead of education or other social programs that would directly benefit its starving citizens? The Dear Leader did not hesitate to reply. ''The missiles cannot reach the United States,'' he said, ''and if I launch them, the U.S. would fire back thousands of missiles and we would not survive. I know that very well. But I have to let them know I have missiles. I am making them because only then will the United States talk to me.''

He may be an international threat, but he's also a leisure/partytime triple threat of boozy womanizer, poetic horse freak, and movie addict. Check out the Dear Leader's 5 star Amazon books!

You know that comedian that acts like a 12 year old kid to annoy people? No, not Adam Sandler, its Angry Naked Pat and he's got a web site.

The Indie Rock Photo Gallery

The Museum of Black Superheros

The art of Todd Schorr

Sweet! Crumb mini-statues

Conversations with Homeless Vets: Part 1

It's all about natural resources -- getting control of natural resources?

(Grizzled guy) Of course it is. Money. They wouldn't be there if it weren't for narcotics.

(Andy) Our government is not what you think it is, believe me.

(There is a long pause.)

Any 'Nam vet will tell you that.

Lobsterman to face drug charges.

[Nothing rhymes with "petulant, entitled Daddy's-boy"] GW Bush: Horrible president, even worse poet. (open rejection letter here)

Our sense that the placement of the comma may in fact be merely editorial carelessness is reinforced by the subsequent unveiling of the speaker's attitude toward his lover. While we realize that the phrase "lump in the bed" has a personal meaning that is meant to be endearing (please give the First Lady our regards), we fear that it portrays a, shall we say say, less than progressive attitude toward women. Or is the description of the lover as merely a "lump in the bed" a reflection of her unresponsiveness as a lover?

Selected Discography of Les Baxter including an interview with Les

Art or a vague, postmodern, random waste of materials?
Unamused Swedes find 70 pair of shoes filled with butter as art installation piece.

Its not even original (artist Yu Xiuzhen did the same thing back in 96)

At least when Yoko Ono screamed and broke teacups with a hammer she cleaned up after herself.

A few months ago it was a black magic marker. Now its just holding down a shift key.
Under normal circumstances, the antipiracy software is automatically loaded onto a Windows machine whenever the Hamilton album is run in a computer's CD drive, making traditional copying or MP3 ripping impossible. However, simply holding down the Shift key prevents Windows' AutoRun feature from loading the copy-protection software, leaving the music free to copy, Halderman said.

FBI bugs Philadelphia mayor Street's office.
"Do we believe that the Republican Party, both at the federal level and state level, is pulling out every stop to get Pennsylvania in 2004? Absolutely," Keel said. "Is the Republican Party capable of dirty tricks? I think that is well-documented."

U.S. Postsecondary education gap rises.
Could it be the cost?

Walter Cronkite: The New Inquisition
What makes this administration's legal bloodthirstiness particularly alarming is the almost religious zeal that seems to drive it. So, what we are seeing now is a confluence of two streams of American thought. One of those streams represents those who believe security must have priority over civil rights.

Online Museum of Weird, Strange, and Just Bad Art

Putin checks in on Bush's WMD-less oil war, warning that Iraq could "become a new center, a new magnet for all destructive elements." (NYTimes)

Alligator and Tiger found in NYC apartment.

Emitt Rhodes is not dead.

Ok, really - What does it take to get fired in the Bush Administration? Is there no limit to how bad you can fuck up? I can't believe they dont just all run around robbing liquor stores for the hell of it.

Think the Segway is cool but can't justify spending more than the cost of a motorcycle on something that does 15 mph top speed? Then build your own.

Scientists study Hope Diamond's mysterious glow.

John Ashcroft is in bed with the villians he's supposed to be investigating.

Bookmark the brilliant Online Picasso Project, featuring almost 7000 works. Courtesy of Metafilter.

Blaming India for the "jobless recovery" - an oxymoron if I ever heard one.
Please tell me that nobody is actually going around speaking the phrase "best-shoring", and that the journalist just made up this little nugget of trite offensiveness.

NYTimes offers a different perspective of effects of globalized labor today, by examining the life of a girl assembling false eyelashes in a Chinese sweatshop.

Two months later, bitter that the pay turned out to be much lower, exhausted by eye-straining and wrist-wrenching work, and too poor to pay the exit fee the boss demanded of anyone who wanted out, they decided to escape. But that was not easy. The metal doors of their third-floor factory were kept locked and its windows — all but one — were enclosed in iron cages.

McSweeneys article on the 'Dear Mr. President' letter project by author Gabe Hudson.
Explanation here. The author's site.

I mean, we have a website for the book, and the government's been tracking it. There's a device on the website that tells us who's been coming to it. We even had a FBI agent lurking around at my recent readings. Also, other little things have been happening. Like the website keeps crashing for no good reason. And each time, my friend, who does everything with the site and who's really good at this stuff, has had to work many, many hours before he could get the site back up. He says whoever is causing this has pretty major skills.

Click here to speak your peace to the radical-right wing court-appointed office occupant yourself.

This is my favorite letter:

Dear Mr. President,

A lot of American citizens are scared to write you a letter.

Make of that what you will.

Sincerely,
Jessica Rabinowitz

"I would have...I would have eaten his shit."
Well. That surely is um... saying something, Mrs. Dr. J. Yeah... Well... Ahem.

Damn.

Hollywood's strategies on digital media always remind me of the picture of the snake eating its own tail. In a story that perfectly illustrates this, MPAA President Jack Valenti has decided that Oscar screeners are likely sources of DVD piracy, and will not be sending screening copies of DVDs this year. This means that independent and small-run films won't get seen, and the field will effectively be narrowed to only the biggest budget films. In doing this, not only is Valenti calling his own industry a bunch of thieves, but he's even further homogenizing an already watered down media by excluding new and different voices. Meanwhile, they'll keep blaming everybody but themselves...

Rancid's new album is available in its entirety via streaming player on the band's website. So get streaming, punk!