Friday, July 28, 2006

A series of tubes

Ted Stevens.

I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?
Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially...

They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck.

It's a series of tubes.

And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.


Yeah, I realize it's growing a bit stale, but still worth remembering.

Also, is this not the best argument for term limits? Or even upper age limits?

Repeated mistakes

I've been meaning to blog this facinating series over at the Post. Not much time now but for sleep, so I'll just link to it.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Media memory is all short-term

Lou Dobbs seems to think we're forgetting something:

As our airwaves fill with images and sounds of exploding Hezbollah rockets and Israeli bombs, this seven-day conflict has completely displaced from our view another war in which 10 Americans and more than 300 Iraqis have died during the same week. And it is a conflict now of more than three years duration that has claimed almost 15,000 lives so far this year alone.

Sinister designs on my wallet

is everyone on teh internets gunning for my pocketbook? Seems Woot, already among the frontrunners, has launched a new effort whilst I wasn't looking.

Monday, July 17, 2006

G8 humor

Seems like the meeting of the most powerful nations in the world didn't produce much of any substance, but did make for a few good laughs:

Putin makes a funny

Bush gets p***ed

Thursday, July 13, 2006

TimesSelect is stupid.

That is all.

Geek break

This is about the best set of decisions to ever come out of Redmond: Virtual PC will be offered as a free download, and certain versions of Vista will be licensed for installation on up to 4 virtual machines; also,

... nothing in the license requires that Microsoft Virtualization technologies be used - if you want to use a competing product as your Virtualization solution, you still get the four extra licenses for use with VMs.

Now if only the damn thing were coming out before 2007; for now I'll be left with the difficult decision of whether to install my copy of XP in Boot Camp or Parallels.

Why I'll stop wearing my NARAL shirt

Ever since the March for Women's Lives a few years back, I've had a bunch of pro-choice schwag to wear around town. After NARAL's decision to endorse Lieberman, I'm not so sure I want to. Matt Stoller has a good analysis of the deep strategic implications of this misstep:

In allowing Senator Lieberman to not filibuster Alito and still backing him for his reelection campaign against a reliably progressive candidate, the leaders of NARAL and Planned Parenthood have decided to throw away their political capital. Jane Hamsher is correct to point out what a horrifically bad decision this is. I can only add that the move to endorse Lieberman comes from a very top-down DC mindset, where a conservative status quo is preferable to admitting error or engaging in institutional change.

... at the end of the day, every Senator will know that the guns on the progressive side are not loaded and they can vote against women's rights and pay no price. That's the message that NARAL and Planned Parenthood just sent. And the Republicans, if they are disciplined and on message, and if no third party force asserts itself, will win easily.

This isn't a problem isolated to the Choice movement, either. All over the progressive advocacy world, I see the decisions coming out of DC favoring, as Stoller says, access over power. Maybe it's just that these organizations are staffed by those tools from your poli-sci classes, the ones who cared more about prestigious internships and name-dropping than actually getting anything done.

This, I guess, is why I'm so enthused about grassroots activism. It's damn hard to be ensorceled by all the power of establishment Washington if you're hundreds of miles away and feeling frustrated. There may be no inherent virtue in fighting to get heard, but I think the strength of will it requires is a sort of indirect guarantee of less muddled motives.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

About time

The system may work, but damn does it work slowly.

Pure genius

Woke up to the smell of fresh bread this morning. That's pretty much the second best thing ever. Thank you, Breadman Ultimate.

Monday, July 10, 2006

Crazies

Had an interesting discussion with friends last night, and a lack of religious zeal on the left was mentioned. Well, if zeal is another word for disingenuity, I'm not sure we want any:

The [Alliance Defense Fund] took up the cause of Stephen Williams, a fifth-grade teacher in Cupertino, [California]. School authorities, wary of proselytizing, said he was overemphasizing religious excerpts from the Declaration of Independence and other documents.

When Williams sued in November 2004, asserting religious discrimination as a Christian, the alliance attracted enormous attention -- particularly from the religious right and conservative media outlets -- when it announced, "Declaration of Independence Banned From Classroom."

Authorities at Stevens Creek Elementary School said the Declaration continued to be taught. They pointed out textbook references and said it hung on school walls. Williams, they said, chose materials so narrow that they were forced to act. Williams agreed to withdraw his suit in August 2005.

Hmm. Yes, I'm sure the ADF just made a simple mistake there, and definitely didn't mean to mischaracterize the district's actions as anti-american. Right.