Creative partisanship

Several readers have mentioned this story:

[Ohio] State Sen. Robert Hagan sent out e-mails to fellow lawmakers late Wednesday night, stating that he intends to ``introduce legislation in the near future that would ban households with one or more Republican voters from adopting children or acting as foster parents.''

I'm a big fan of media hooks like this - I don't know how much coverage of the proposed gay-adoption ban there would be without people like Hagan standing up to oppose it in so creative a fashion.

Geek break

I'll be watching Macrumors for live coverage of today's Apple event.

Being right sucks

Depressing news in this morning's Post - 1300 iraqis killed, most executed, since Wednesday's bombing of the Askariya shrine. I don't think I can put it any better than Jake Young:



What the hell did we think was going to happen?

... What strikes me on some reflection is that my frustration stems from having some idea, before the war, that its costs in human life would be intolerably high. Yet initially people within the administration didn't argue that substantial losses should be tolerated in exchange for democracy, they argued that the loss would not be substantial, that there would be easy victory followed by peace. Now that things have gone bad, the pro-war camp argues that we ought stay until victory is achieved; but couldn't we have avoided the whole mess if we'd all agreed to talk in realistic terms in the first place?

Blogging out ouf the beltway

Kos quotes GW prof Carol Darr:

If you think of these blogs as little online tribes of like-minded people . . . they can feed off each other. So I think the blog activity is going to drive each party more toward its ideological extreme.

For a moment, let's treat the beltway as not so much a physical locality as a state of mind. People living within this metaphorical 495 constitute a tribe of like-minded people as well, and they're bound to see any smattering of dissenters to that viewpoint as a coherent threat to their reality, and thus as extreme. That bloggers are read by beltway folk is a certainty - the Post Express even has a daily section in which blogs are quoted in print. This makes blog dissent visible in ways that ordinary people talking in their dining rooms far away are not. Blogs, which I think are often far more reflective of the conversations most of us are having in private than are the cable talking-point shows, thus appear anomalous and dangerous. Their world-views threatened, people like Darr will lash out, attempting to isolate the blogs from the mainstream press. I expect the joke will be on them eventually, though; as more people read blogs and find that their views are shared by at least somebody out there, the cable shows and op-ed pages will loose their weight and authority, and efforts to marginalize the opinions of bloggers will only serve to marginalize those who make such efforts.

What doing no evil should look like

Boing Boing react to a censorware company's extortionary request that they make their naughty content easier to block, or face banning in several countries and many corporations:

We considered their offer, and decided not to do it. What happens when the next censorware company comes along with another editorial process they want us to engage in to help them censor the site?

More importantly: why should we let a company that helps corrupt dictatorships oppress their citizen dictate morality to us?

So instead we've decided to help put Secure Computing out of business.

This is what responsible internet denizens ought to do in the face of censorship, if they value free speech.

Back from SGAC

Still recovering from a fantastic SGAC national conference, which has kept me insanely busy for the last week. No big crises, though we had our share of minor inconveniences (it really is disturbing when a 24-hour Kinkos closes for 4 hours just when you need it). Everyone seemed to have enjoyed their weekend, and I think we accomplished all we set out to do - Sunday's march energized people to the point that they wanted to go organize actions back at their own schools, and some attendees have already emailed us looking to get more involved with national activities. I'm pumped.

I've posted pictures from the conference; a video of the march is still forthcoming.

Google adds another feature

This is interesting - Google has just added an ajax-based web page authoring program called Google Page Creator. It's pretty limited, as you have to select from a set of templates, and can only edit HTML within certain page elements, not the page overall. Still it allows for image hosting, which could be useful:

POTUS doth protest too much

Let me preface this by saying that I feel that the hoopla surrounding this UAE port security deal is largely unfounded, and comes with a wee whiff of nationalist racism.

But the veto?! I mean, come on! President Bush, you couldn't find a single other thing, not some huge spending measure, not even some environmental regulations, nothing to veto during the majority of your presidency, yet you threaten this tactic over some non-american company being allowed to buy the rights to secure our ports? The opposition may smack of many unseemly things, but it is stranger by far that the President, who has been criticized for his close ties to middle eastern oil money, would be comfortable making so clear an impression that he is beholden to arab governments. My only conclusion is that this administration has given up all pretense of fooling us, and has embraced unpopular cronyism as a way of life.

Winter surprise

I left for work in a typical Washington winter rain, but by the time I ascended the escalator at Bethesda, we had snow. It's coming down warm and fast; I actually think some minor flooding isn't out of the question, which I find a strange combination with snow. Everyone seems their usual incapable selves out there, with at least one accident (involving a school bus, no less) along my walk. Times like these make me glad I don't drive.

SGAC Tx kickoff makes the news

Months of hard work are starting to pay off - a bunch of Chicago SGACers hit up Abbott Laboratories' offices in North Chicago, IL. As the first action of this semester's Treatment Access (which we'll call Tx for short) campaign, it was tremendously successful, getting a picture on the Tribune's index page:


Expect a lot more this weekend and in the coming months.

Can this be right?

Check out Dreamhost - can they really offer 20GB of storage and a TB of bandwidth for less than $8/month? Also, I don't know what I'd do with 675 email accounts.

Fundraising

Just started an ActBlue account. Just a couple Ohio races for now, but I'll expand.

Just wondering

Am I the only one who finds all the outcry about UAE-based company Dubai Ports World being given a contract to provide US port security just a wee bit xenophobic?

British comedy break

The IT Crowd, via Boing Boing, is hilarious.

China's net problems

This Post story provides some evidence for the argument that the internet is good for freedom of expression, even under regimes that have tried to lessen its impact. I think there is a path here to defending an open and free internet, which is under attack by those who provide the bandwidth, by subverting their congressional allies, who seem likely to be swayed by an open internet's ability to democratize china, or at least frustrate that state's efforts to control its people. Congress needs to be shown that technological restrictions on the internet here, enacted at the behest of big media companies, may in the end hurt the prospects of dissidents in China. I think, campaign contributions aside, these folks probably can find a reason to support a more democratic China, whether it be cynical real politic or idealistic democratic zeal.

Geek break

Honestly, this could probably be considered a mac blog with occasional political digressions lately. This is too good to pass up, though; read this list of Windows Vista features, billed as reasons to buy. Remind you of any other operating system?

Whatever he wants

Putting aside Atrios's claim that hunting and drinking are often mixed, this statement by Tucker Carlson (via Daily Kos)is pretty interesting:

I think Cheney gets to do pretty much whatever he wants, which is why he got to have a beer at lunch on a hunt. I’ve been on dozens of hunts, there’s no beer served as lunch. You can’t drink a beer if you shoot, period. Doesn’t matter if you’re shooting five hours after, you’re not allowed to do it. This is the only time I’ve ever heard of it, and I think he gets to do it because he’s the Vice President. So no, I don’t think his doctor’s going to tell him to not have a beer.

I look forward to more challenges to the Bush-Cheney personality cult from conservatives. If we're ever going to fix this mess, it would be immensely helpful of them to detach their misplaced loyalties.

Snow

Second time in a week - what gives? Doesn't look like it'll stick, unfortunately.

The intellectual blogosphere

Some fun quotes recently make clear that many bloggers have, in fact, been to college.

Atrios:

More generally the problem is not with curriculum requirements but with the emphasis on credentialling as a signalling device.

Feministing:

I love that feminist activists work to raise awareness of violence against women on Valentine's Day (duh), I mean considering I myself called it "hetero-normative, love-marriage construct hegemony day (I have been told this makes me a geek)."

Hegemony, signaling? Yeah, this is advanced blogging for the edufied wonk.

then again...

Metablogging

Don't know if it's on my end, but I've been having the darnedest time with blogger recently - slow, unpredictable and post-eating. Someone should fix that.

Geek break

Anybody know how long iTunes has been able to catalogue pdfs? I downloaded this as podcast, it seems; check out the little book logo:

READ ME, MAC USER

There is an OS X trojan in the wild. More discussion at MacRumors, where it was apparently launched. Long story short, don't open anything called "latestpics.tgz," or any other unknown jpeg files, and don't trust anyone who claims to have pictures of 10.5.

... the Post has a story

Treatment Access News

BMS has apparently licensed a second-line AIDS drug to be generically produced in South Africa for regional sale:

*Bristol-Myers Squibb* Co. reached a deal to license its AIDS drug, Reyataz, to two generic drug manufacturers in the developing world free of charge, one of the first such agreements involving a second-line AIDS treatment, according to people familiar with the situation.

Under the deal, to be announced today, Bristol-Myers will grant a royalty-free license to South Africa's Aspen PharmaCare Holdings Ltd. and India's Emcure Pharmaceuticals Ltd. to make and sell atazanavir, the molecule Reyataz is based on, in sub-Saharan Africa.

This is terrific news. Now on to the other pharmaceutical companies.

Geek break

More speculation on Apple's patents:

The system shown uses a technique called Frustrated Total Internal Reflection (FTIR) to accomplish the tasks shown. It involves the use of a transparent screen with the images rear-projected onto it. For touch-sensing, a camera is placed behind the screen to detect the user interaction. A diagram of the setup is shown here.

The use of both a projector and rear-camera, of course, is not feasible in any potential laptop or tablet device from Apple... but conveniently enough, Apple has recently applied for a patent on an Integrated Sensing Display (diagram) providing a screen that can be used both as a display and as a camera

I think the implications of a multi-touch system are pretty staggering, and it seems Apple may actually be able to pull it off. Think about it - the mouse is an incredibly limited way to interact with information; it's very linear, as the cursor can manipulate only one point on screen. Humans are capable of much more, though - many creative or manipulative tasks in real space require the use of both hands for proper control, and this allows more nuanced interaction. A computer that could handle such input would free the user from the limitations of linear input, and could even stimulate different types of interaction with and understanding of data.

Fingerhut's out

Just got an email from the campaign -- Eric Fingerhut, whose 2004 Senate campaign died an obscure death at the hands of the Voinovich machine, is dropping out of the Ohio gubernatorial primary contest, leaving southern Ohio Democrat Ted Strickland as the sole contender in that race. In my mind, this couldn't come soon enough -- we've got a tough fight against a corrupt but monied Republican juggernaut, and the sooner we consolidate resources behind a single candidate the better. Even better that it's the more charismatic Strickland who will carry our banner, a man who connects mostly progressive values with a moral drive that I find more palatable than Fingerhut's pseudo-intellectual slipperiness. And I go to college.

Catchy

I simply cannot get this out of my head. Especially this:

then Gandalf the Grey and Gandalf the White and
"Monty Python and the Holy Grail"'s Black Knight and
Benito Mussolini and The Blue Meanie and
Cowboy Curtis and Jambi the Genie
Robocop, the Terminator, Captain Kirk, and Darth Vader
Lo Pan, Superman, every single Power Ranger
Bill S. Preston and Theodore Logan,
Spock, The Rock, Doc Ock, and Hulk Hogan
all came out of no where lightning fast
and they kicked Chuck Norris in his cowboy ass
it was the bloodiest battle the world ever saw
with civilians looking on total awe

I think the power lies not only in the tune, which is contagious enough, but that the stream of characters referenced throughout the song in some way seems to validate my childhood. The images, meanwhile, tie in so many very recent fads (snakes on a motherfuckin plane!) that the end result is a flash video that perfectly encapsulates my generation, such that watching it feels like one of the most socially appropriate things I can do. Anyways, I'm transfixed.

Fear the Cheninator

Gun control is for sissies - Dick Cheney is no sissy, therefore he has no control.

SCCS photos

Conference is still underway, but I thought I'd share some of what's happened so far:

Geek Break

There's not much I wouldn't do for a computer that worked like this one (via Mac Rumors). If Apple makes it, I will buy it.

Pardon the interruption

I probably won't be blogging much this weekend - big SCCS conference started tonight. I'll report back soon.

One Republican I like

Bob Barr is awesome:

"Are we losing our lodestar, which is the Bill of Rights?" Barr beseeched the several hundred conservatives at the Omni Shoreham in Woodley Park. "Are we in danger of putting allegiance to party ahead of allegiance to principle?"

What the hell is the rest of the Republican party doing? Republicans I knew as a kid were people of mostly sound minds, with whom I differed on some aspects of government spending. They certainly were not out to assassinate all my civil liberties.

If they ever want to get my vote, Republicans ought to listen to Barr.

Of course, I don't expect that any time soon:

But nobody said anything in the deathly quiet audience. Barr merited only polite applause when he finished, and one man, Richard Sorcinelli, booed him loudly.

CPAC fun

There is no Anne Coulter of the Left. No such paid pundit or famous personality spews this much hate:

I think our motto should be post-9-11, 'raghead talks tough, raghead faces consequences.

... There was one time I had a shot at Clinton. I thought 'Ann, that's not going to help your career.

... If we find out someone [referring to a terrorist] is going to attack the Supreme Court next week, can't we tell Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Scalito?

And that was just Friday!

By having Coulter as a speaker at CPAC (and applauding her), conservatives are pretty much endorsing her viewpoint. Why can't we find a way to challenge that association with such bile?

Why scapegoating isn't a safe bet

Well, a lot of us bloggers did a pretty good job making Michael Brown look like the worst person ever after the Hurricaine Katrina debacle. We largely missed the real targets in the white house, though, as Bush and friends just let us all blame Brownie instead.

Today, though, Brown made it clear that he's one former arabian horse association commissioner who's not going to take the administration's guff:

Michael Brown, the embattled former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, testified before a Senate committee today that he told a top White House official on the day Hurricane Katrina struck that "our worst nightmares" had come true in New Orleans.

...

Asked if he told the White House staffer specifically that the New Orleans levees had been breached, Brown said he couldn't recall, but said he informed him that "everything we had planned about, worried about, was coming true." He said that talking to Hagin was like "speaking to the president."

CNN, champions of journalism

We're at war. Our nation's attackers are at large. President Bush has engaged in illegal wiretapping of domestic phone lines. Corruption runs rampant on Capitol Hill. So what's the biggest news today?

Dead white women!



Also, a cat that nurses puppies! Think of the puppies!

Is our children learning...at college?

Rarely is the question asked, yet apparently someone must! Let's try to act surprised that the Bush administration would do the asking:

A higher education commission named by the Bush administration is examining whether standardized testing should be expanded into universities and colleges to prove that students are learning and to allow easier comparisons on quality.

Is this a problem that needs fixing, or just the administration's No Child Left Behind pseudo-solution out prowling for problems on a campus near you? (Maybe young, coed problems?) Last I checked, our system of higher education was doing pretty well, and, until overzealous immigration enforcement after 9/11, was drawing people from the rest of the world with its promise. But that is no matter if we can't ensure that monolithic, mediocre standards are applied across the country, of course. That, after all, is what makes our primary and secondary schools so great.

One lefty pinko academic had this to say:

The notion of a single exam implies there are national standards, and that implies a national curriculum. Then we are on the way to a centralized Prussian education system.

Maybe that's the plan - don't want to forget Poland, after all.

Ohioblogging

Just got another email from the Fingerhut campaign. I still think the guy was remarkably ineffectual as a Senate candidate in '04, but damn is his internet team sharp (for Ohio). Techno-fad adornments like a video podcast abound.

Strickland's campaign, meanwhile, also appears to have some internet skillz, with Jesse of Pandagon on board for blogger outreach.

Boehned

Who thought anything would be different? From the Post:

Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), who was elected House majority leader last week, is renting his Capitol Hill apartment from a veteran lobbyist whose clients have direct stakes in legislation Boehner has co-written and that he has overseen as chairman of the Education and the Workforce Committee.

If you aren't ready for a change in party control, I hope for the sake of rational self-interest theory that you're a millionaire lobbyist.

Lagity lag

Blogger is slowww today. And have a ridiculous connection here.

What's worse, it's just one more part of a trend. Metro had two trains down on the Red line, in addition to the already bad situation of shared tracks around Bethesda. Some graphic design work was held up this morning by the client not being in the office. I woke up to an incomplete iPod hard drive copy, reportedly with 14 hours to go. And I even had to wait for the shower.

Inconceivably dumb

Via Atrios, this brilliant bit from our Attorney General:

Alberto: President Washington, President Lincoln, President Wilson, President Roosevelt have all authorized electronic surveillance on a far broader scale. (emphasis mine)

Crooks and Liars has a video clip.

GW CRs are the best

Well, the best CRs, anyways. I guess volunteering for a losing NJ gubernatorial candidate and wearing flip-flops goes a long way with the CRNC. Of course, the local College Dems aren't even that active.

Article II

From the Post on the domestic spying hearing:

Gonzales said the president approved the program under his authority in Article 2 of the U.S. Constitution, as well as under the authority of the 2001 force resolution, which he said was "very broadly worded" in authorizing Bush to use "all necessary and appropriate force" against the al Qaeda terrorist network.

First, Article 2 is clearly subject to restrictions in the Bill of Rights, as those rights are amendments to the prior sections of the Constitution. There is no logical way to understand the President's authority as extending beyond those bounds. To claim otherwise is to say that the Bill of Rights is meaningless.

Second, since when is wiretapping "force," necessary, appropriate or otherwise?

Nickeled, dimed

President Bush's new, $2.8 trillion budget proposal for 2007 reportedly cuts both taxes and social programs.

Here are the numbers.

Some changes of note:

2.3 percent cut in the Health and Human Services budget from 2006
3.8 percent cut in the Education budget from 2006
4.0 percent cut in the EPA budget from 2006
7.3 percent cut in the Justice Department budget from 2006
11.2 percent cut in the Corps of Engineers budget from 2006

Yet overall a 3.2 percent increase in discretionary spending.

Handy rule

Atrios responds to the ongoing cartoon debacle:

On the other hand, "don't be an asshole" about peoples' religious beliefs when they aren't trying to impose them on you seems to be reasonably good etiquette.

Seems about right.

Blogger returns!

Couldn't get on yesterday - nice to be back.

Reading outside the lines

Much fuss is being made of this Toles Cartoon:



Not being a quadruple amputee, I suppose I don't have much authority to suppose that I wouldn't be offended if I were in such a position. But I think the statement in the cartoon is fairly clear, especially in context of Rumsfeld's recent remarks that the Army is not near its breaking point. I think you'd have to be looking for a fight to read it as a criticism of anyone but this administration or its defense secretary.

For those who challenge the cartoon's callousness, consider also that of the policies which it challenges, please, and ask if the depiction's offensiveness might be meant to mirror the way many of us feel about this war.

New low

In his State of the Union address Tuesday, President Bush outlined a list of pretty serious changes he'd make to our nation and the world. Wednesday, the House of Representatives passed a series of budget cutbacks that will critically reduce Medicaid and student loans, among other key government spending measures. What's the lead story on CNN?

Drug-smuggling puppies.

Yes, that's right. Drug smugglers torture and kill people all the time, intimidating some enough to ingest drugs in bags that, when improperly sealed, sometimes lead to toxic and even deadly overdoses. Daily human suffering - that's not news. But puppies? Oh, won't someone please think of the puppies! According to CNN, this is "a new low."

What I find most offensive is the implication explicit statement that the puppies are somehow more innocent than your average human coke mule. "The puppies, however, had little say in the matter," CNN says, as if your average poor bastard coerced into doing it does have a choice. I mean, no kid says "I want to eat baggies of heroin for a living when I grow up."

And in case you think this wasn't the lead story, I give unto you this screenshot:



If you follow the link to the full-size image, take a look at the other headlines - notice anything missing?

When manimals attack!

Apparently the President's dire warnings about "human-animal hybrids" aren't as fanciful as most might have thought - scientists are busy making all sorts of chimeras as you read this. But that doesn't mean we should be worried:

...a team of researchers has inserted a complete human chromosome 21 into mouse embryonic stem cells, and from those generated a line of aneuploid mice that have many of the symptoms of Down syndrome, including the heart defects. They also have problems in spatial learning and memory that have been traced back to defects in long-term potentiation in the central nervous system.

These mice are a tool to help us understand a debilitating human problem.

Sounds like science gone awry to me!

Privacy

A friend sent me a ling to a pretty scary web ad for the ACLU. I checked with my inside source there, though, and it seemed like they didn't actually commission it. I'm down with webroots activists making more stuff like this, though.

The big O

Think Progress has a video clip of the best moment of last night's address.

Cognitive dissonance

So I've had some time now to think over what the President said last night. Some ironic stuff in there.

Law:

Raising up a democracy requires the rule of law.

I have authorized a terrorist surveillance program to aggressively pursue the international communications of suspected Al Qaida operatives and affiliates to and from America.

Religion:

... Iran, a nation now held hostage by a small clerical elite that is isolating and repressing its people.

Human life is a gift from our creator, and that gift should never be discarded, devalued or put up for sale.

Foreign policy:

America rejects the false comfort of isolationism.

... another great goal: to replace more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025.

SotU

Spent the evening at the Center for American Progress, where I got to thank my blogger-inspiration Atrios for getting me into this wacky world. I've posted some pictures:

February reflections

President Bush made mention of Coretta Scott King's passing away at the beginning of his address, and recounts of her life were all over NPR Tuesday, at least here in DC. I was thinking it's a bit unfortunate that the first lady of civil rights died the day before Black History Month.

But you know what's really unfortunate? The fact that we still need a Black History Month. I mean, I feel I had a reasonably full and progressive education, but the only things that really come to mind when I think historical black figures are soap made from peanuts, civil rights and the traffic light. There will be a time when history lessons fully capture the diverse set of people who have left their mark on this country, but if my feeble recollections serve as any indication, that time is not yet here.