Yummy

Looks like Warren Buffet has a heart after all. Or, like Henry Ford a century ago, is desperately fearful of a rebellion amongst the masses. Anyway, $30 billion is no small chunk of change.

The significance of the gift is not in its size alone, though. Reportedly, Buffet intends for his entire annual contribution to be spent within the year, rather than invested as is done by most philanthropies. Thus the immediate good will be much greater, as the principal, rather than only the interest, will go towards immediate needs. A good friend of mine has referred to this difference as solving problems today instead of in 200 years.

Only question now is: how do I get me some of that?

What do you call a group of pirates?

A political pARRRRRRRty, apparently.

These guys seem pretty awesome, especially with their MSF shout-out and focus on access to medicines as an issue affected by intellectual property problems. I just wish we had a seriously multi-party system here.

Geek Break

If this is the future of the graphical user interface, I think my virtual clutter will finally match my real-worl messiness.

Kos == Hitler

I love me some good satire.

Like crack, but more likely to bankrupt me

This is like a wonderful playground just for me- one designed to shake all my hard-earned dollars from my pockets with ruthless efficiency.

10 years of WaPo online

The Post is celebrating a decade of online journalism, and I'm inclined to celebrate with them. I've been rather impressed with the Post's web presence, with their savvy use of trackbacks and blogs showing respect at least for the engines that drive internet traffic, and perhaps even the users out here who make them the success they are. Personally, I give preference to linking Post stories not only because they're local, but because I know they have the decency to link back to me.

So kudos, WaPo, on a job continuing to be well done.

My complicity in the Washington establishment deepens

I have an intern. Oh, how the tables have turned! Now I too have an underpaid lacky to do my bidding (or at least my mail merges).

A watched pot webcomic...

HOLY SHIT! INDIETITS!

I guess it makes sense that the one day I hadn't checked it was the day it got updated.

Testing...

So, I'm very boring today, but aparently Google has a Blogger widget for OS X, which I'm using right now.

Assault on online organizing

The organizing internets are all afuss this morning over potential changes at the House of Representatives Write Your Representative feature which will treat grassroots organizations like spammers. The Chief Administrative Officer has proposed that reps use so-called logic puzzles to weed out the dastardly MoveOn.orgs of the world, which will also succeed in preventing the disabled from using the web forms.

If you've got a little time, I suggest contacting your representative to ask that she not implement this system. Given the circumstances, I don't suggest you use email to do so. Maybe a fax or two hundred, or a very long telephone call.

Teh funny

From Married to the Sea:

Slashdot wisdom

I got a kick out of this:

Lately, with all of this censorship by the FCC, reporters being arrested because they won't reveal thier sources, and now this talk of congress censoring video games, I propose a constitutional ammendment that will protect my freedom to say what I want to. The text of this fictional amendment (which doesn't exist because this stuff wouldn't even be considered if it did) would read something like:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Once this one is up, we'll work out one with regards to them arresting people indefinately without a trial....

Got AIDS? Probably your fault.

Well, so says George F. Will:

The 14th-century Black Death killed one-third of Europe's population, but it was in the air, food and water, so breathing, eating and drinking were risky behaviors. AIDS is much more difficult to acquire. Like other large components of America's health-care costs (e.g., violence, vehicular accidents, coronary artery disease, lung cancer), AIDS is mostly the result of behavior that is by now widely known to be risky.

Yeah, having sex with your husband, currently the largest source of transmission in the world, is known to be pretty risky. Sounds like we should get rid of traditional marriage. Or, you know, empower women. Neither of those is what Will is talking about, though. No, he's probably getting at how dangerous gay sex is.

The U.S. epidemic, which through 2004 had killed 530,000, could have been greatly contained by intense campaigns to modify sexual and drug-use behavior in 25 to 30 neighborhoods from New York and Miami to San Francisco. But early in the American epidemic, political values impeded public health requirements. Unhelpful messages were sent by slogans designed to democratize the disease -- "AIDS does not discriminate" and "AIDS is an equal opportunity disease."

The slogans were meant to mobilize political support for spending public dollars on prevention efforts that arch-conservatives like George F. Will rallied against. It wasn't liberals' uber-PC ways that caused so many AIDS deaths, but moralistic freak-outs over guys 'doing it' that prevented an early, adequate response.

By 1987, when President Ronald Reagan gave his first speech on the subject, 20,798 Americans had died, and his speech, not surprisingly, did not mention any connection to the gay community. No president considers it part of his job description to tell the country that the human rectum, with its delicate and absorptive lining, makes anal-receptive sexual intercourse dangerous when HIV is prevalent.

The problem was not that Reagan didn't blame the gays. The problem was that he waited five fucking years to even recognize there was a problem. You know what made the 80s (and therefore the following decades) more dangerous? Conservatives' queasiness with sex, hate of homosexuals, and their resultant disinterest in solving the AIDS crisis early on.

Idiocy supreme

CNN has an article up asking whether today's date, 6/6/06, means we're all doomed. Seriously.

Net fun

A couple crazy links from who knows where.

Too much time + diet coke + mentos = Bellagio fountain replica

Too much time + legos + japan = a mind-boggeling array of wonderment

You can't teach a lame duck new tricks

Hmm. Poll numbers are low, the war is going horribly, and corruption scandals threaten to topple the GOP's grip on congress. What's a president to do? Why, attack The Gay, of course:

President Bush renewed his call yesterday for Congress to approve a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union between a man and a woman, saying such a step is necessary to keep courts from undermining traditional marriage.

And I thought they'd won on that last time.

The commencement address I wish I'd had

Colbert is a genius of wordsmithy. Check this out.

UNGASS blog coverage

If you're hungry for some UNGASS info from the youth perspective, check out my friend Mark's blog.

SGAC in the News

Some of my friends were arrested Tuesday morning while protesting the Bush administration's insufficient response to the AIDS pandemic. CBS has some decent coverage.