Have you listened to the Avalanches? Below is a YouTube video of Since I Left You, which for some reason I have watched over 7 times now and I think I can watch another 10 times or so without getting bored:
Not sure why I find it captivating!
Read the full post and comments »
Guardian: UK public too (like Spain and Italy) unhappy with ruling party’s Iraq action.
AP: Armitage is Woodward’s source on Plame?
Robert Parry wonders why the chief warmongering chickenhawk at the NYT gets to peddle his illogic to the masses he despises so much.
(tags: dangerous-idiots people)
SPI: After being ejected from the Democratic party, Joementum starts adopting their positions!
(tags: )
Robert Reich gives his take on where American companies are investing for research.
(tags: )
FMNN: RIAA objects to background music use in user videos posted to YouTube.
Drawing on a wide range of studies to cross-match faith – measured by belief in God and acceptance of evolution – with homicide and sexual behavior, Paul found that secular societies have lower rates of violence and teenage pregnancy than societies where many people profess belief in God.
WSJ article that looks at the failure of political polls and the science/biology underlying human behaviour in these surveys.
AP: Nevada, SC added closer to Iowa and NH.
(tags: )
Daily Mail: Blair finally breaking with Bush?
(tags: BushTracker news)
[via Digg]
Metro Bits has some great pictures of subway art and architecture. Interesting to see Montreal among those listed — it was the one place I could remember from my meagre travel experiences which had interesting stations.
Mark, if you are still reading this blog, this may be of interest to you (if you haven't seen it already) and Jorge.
Picture credit (from Metro Bits): Hollywood/Vine station of 1999 by artist Gilbert Lujan and architect Adolfo Miralles.
[link]
Read the full post and comments »
The experts don’t like the technicalities of the decision against the NSA illegal snooping programme:
NYT: Experts Fault Reasoning in Surveillance Decision Even legal experts who agreed with a federal judge’s conclusion on Thursday that a National Security Agency surveillance program is unlawful were distancing themselves from the decision’s reasoning and rhetoric yesterday. They said the opinion overlooked important precedents, failed to engage the government’s major arguments, used circular reasoning, substituted passion for analysis and did not even offer the best reasons for its own conclusions. Discomfort with the quality of the decision is almost universal, said Howard J. Bashman, a Pennsylvania lawyer whose Web log provides comprehensive and nonpartisan reports on legal developments. “It does appear,†Mr. Bashman said, “that folks on all sides of the spectrum, both those who support it and those who oppose it, say the decision is not strongly grounded in legal authority.†The main problems, scholars sympathetic to the decision’s bottom line said, is that the judge, Anna Diggs Taylor, relied on novel and questionable constitutional arguments when more straightforward statutory ones were available. […]
I am not sure I buy into this entirely. Jonathan Turley seemed to think well of the trial/judgement in his appearance on Keith Olberman’s Countdown.
Update: Laurence Tribe doesn’t agree with the criticism of Judge Taylor’s judgement, either.
Read the full post and comments »
BostonChannel.com: Israel violates ceasefire again, enters Lebanon.
NY Times: A federal judge in Detroit ruled today that the Bush administration’s eavesdropping program is illegal and unconstitutional, and she ordered that it cease at once.
(tags: totalitarianism news BushTracker)
The big names at LinuxWorld seem to be getting a bit defensive about their baby, as they hold forth on why Linux “succeeded” where BSD “failed”. This “success” is attributed to everything from the sex appeal of Linus Torvalds to the purported development model. BSD’s “failure” is, naturally, a failure on these fronts (and perhaps unrelated to the AT&T lawsuits and ensuing qaugmire?).
Any rhetorical adventure that includes Eric Raymond at the forefront is (to me) to be taken with a good dose of salt, and that is surely true of this discussion. The premature news of BSD’s demise is ill-substantiated by the points offered nor is it empirically evident. Perhaps anticipating the MacOS X (built around BSD and Mach) issue, one of the speakers notes:
“If Mac and Windows didn’t suck, people would’ve used them,” DiBona said.
Eh, wot? This while predicting that Linux desktops “will” be in the 15% range in 5 years. Any guesses on what the Windows and MacOS X shares of the desktop market is, today?
At least one of them had enough decency to address what Richard Stallman has correctly insisted on for years:
For Hohndel three key factors that fostered the rise of Linux: […] the GNU toolchain, without which none of Linux would have happened.
I think it was last week that InformationWeek gave us their take on the greatest software ever written:
So there you have it: The single Greatest Piece of Software Ever, with the broadest impact on the world, was BSD 4.3. Other Unixes were bigger commercial successes. But as the cumulative accomplishment of the BSD systems, 4.3 represented an unmatched peak of innovation. BSD 4.3 represents the single biggest theoretical undergirder of the Internet. Moreover, the passion that surrounds Linux and open source code is a direct offshoot of the ideas that created BSD: a love for the power of computing and a belief that it should be a freely available extension of man’s intellectual powers–a force that changes his place in the universe.
Raymond is a smart guy, but I think the above (last sentence) is much more inspiring and (in the long run) sustaining than Raymond’s “whatever compromise is necessary”. The latter is nothing more than a “corporate lite” approach while Stallman (with all his faults) offers a higher vision.
Just my 2 cents.
[Link]
Read the full post and comments »
Couldn’t they get Karl Rove to once over these episodes before they play them out?
Craig Murray – The UK Terror plot: what’s really going on?
[…]
So this, I believe, is the true story.
None of the alleged terrorists had made a bomb. None had bought a plane ticket. Many did not even have passports, which given the efficiency of the UK Passport Agency would mean they couldn’t be a plane bomber for quite some time.
In the absence of bombs and airline tickets, and in many cases passports, it could be pretty difficult to convince a jury beyond reasonable doubt that individuals intended to go through with suicide bombings, whatever rash stuff they may have bragged in internet chat rooms.
What is more, many of those arrested had been under surveillance for over a year – like thousands of other British Muslims. And not just Muslims. Like me. Nothing from that surveillance had indicated the need for early arrests.
Then an interrogation in Pakistan revealed the details of this amazing plot to blow up multiple planes – which, rather extraordinarily, had not turned up in a year of surveillance. Of course, the interrogators of the Pakistani dictator have their ways of making people sing like canaries. As I witnessed in Uzbekistan, you can get the most extraordinary information this way. Trouble is it always tends to give the interrogators all they might want, and more, in a desperate effort to stop or avert torture. What it doesn’t give is the truth.
The gentleman being “interrogated” had fled the UK after being wanted for questioning over the murder of his uncle some years ago. That might be felt to cast some doubt on his reliability. It might also be felt that factors other than political ones might be at play within these relationships. Much is also being made of large transfers of money outside the formal economy. Not in fact too unusual in the British Muslim community, but if this activity is criminal, there are many possibilities that have nothing to do with terrorism.
We then have the extraordinary question of Bush and Blair discussing the possible arrests over the weekend. Why? I think the answer to that is plain. Both in desperate domestic political trouble, they longed for “Another 9/11”. The intelligence from Pakistan, however dodgy, gave them a new 9/11 they could sell to the media. The media has bought, wholesale, all the rubbish they have been shovelled.
[Link]
Read the full post and comments »
ABC News: [A]s Hezbollah cleans up the rubble, it’s also hanging signs amid the destruction that say "Made in USA." It is clear America’s support for Israel during the 34 days of bombing will not be forgotten.
Google Analytics is now open for sign-up. No invitation needed.
NY Times article on the claimed proof of the Poincare conjecture by Perelman.
NY Times article describing the dominance of Hezbollah in rebuilding Lebanon and helping those devastated by Israeli bombing.
Great Flash based interactive US map with Senate, House and Governor race info. Playout different scenarios interactively and even save them.
(tags: elections)
Startup will offer books for download for free upon viewing (included?) ads.
Recent Posts
Archives
Categories
Tags
Activism
Bookmarks
Economics
Logic
News
Opinion & Analysis
Orgs
Philosophy