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Defector Said WMD gone in '95, Sez Newsweek
What do you do when your star witness tells you Iraq has destroyed its WMD? Lie!
A Kernel for the Planet
Sorry about all the MeFi crossover posts... they're on fire today! Adamgreenfield has written an interesting piece on Open Source Social contracts. Worth a look.
Be Excellent to Each Other.
Indeed, Beloved-of-the-Gods is deeply pained by the killing, dying and deportation that take place when an unconquered country is conquered. But Beloved-of-the-Gods is pained even more by this -- that Brahmans, ascetics, and householders of different religions who live in those countries, and who are respectful to superiors, to mother and father, to elders, and who behave properly and have strong loyalty towards friends, acquaintances, companions, relatives, servants and employees -- that they are injured, killed or separated from their loved ones. Even those who are not affected (by all this) suffer when they see friends, acquaintances, companions and relatives affected. These misfortunes befall all (as a result of war), and this pains Beloved-of-the-Gods.
The Edicts of King Asoka, born 304 BC. In the aftermath of the conquest of Kalinga, horrified by the atrocities of war, Asoka turned inward and practiced the principles of Buddhism with a new zeal.
You can catch the whole story, with added musical numbers and a love in interest, in the 2001 Bollywood Epic Asoka.
Santa Fe Police Detain Library Patron
Whatever you do, don't criticize the president on a public terminal.
regexing for fun and education
Take this:#!/usr/bin/perl
while (<>){
s/Imperial Senate/Security Council/;
s/Emperor/White House/;
s/this battle station/the pentagon/;
s/regional governors/the generals/;
s/Old Republic/United Nations/;
s/local systems/regional competitors/;
s/TARKIN/WOLFOWITZ;
s/TAGGE/POWELL;
print;
}
And run it on this:
TARKIN: The Imperial Senate will no longer be of any concern to us. I've just received word that the Emperor has dissolved the council permanently. The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away.
TAGGE: That's impossible! How will the Emperor maintain control without the bureaucracy?
TARKIN: The regional governors now have direct control over territories. Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this battle station.
More bloggy fun
Textism linked to this Guardian article, which in turn lists 6 high-quality blogs. Good times.
Thought of the day
Who is a bigger douchebag, Ari Fleicher or John Ashcroft? And how come douchebag companies haven't sued the administration for defamation?
The Sound of Speed
Thank you, Scrubbles, for linking to this wonderful piece of 1960 concept album cheese.
Bushies clamp down on bongs
So to speak. Your government, folks. Oh, by the way, Osama is still at large.
Grammy gag rule?
Artists not allowed to make political speeches at Grammy night. The RIAA is now officially NVTS.
Better ways to spend 60B than war:
- Geiger counters and Chemical weapons sniffers in every cop car.
- Revamp American healthcare system.
- Scan all incoming shipping containers for radioactive material, and chemical / biological weapons.
- Subsidies to bring fuel cell cars to consumer prices -- investment in hydrogen economy
- Increase investment in Afghanistan, at Marshall plan levels
- Increase priority of hunt for al qaeda operatives
- Solve AIDS. Don't just put a pittance in, 15 billion over 5 years. Solve it. Buy drug patents, engage in serious education initiatives in Africa and S. Asia. Invest in moonshot-style program for vaccine / cure.
- Technical Peace-corps. Use 802.11, handheld technologies to wire small communities. Foster micro-loan systems. Intermediate technologies.
More anti-war fun.
Killing Goliath, a new collaborative blog involving Jennifer Sharpe. Good stuff.
Stickers and Poppycock
Etymology of "cockamamie" -- and in the mix, the etymology of "decal."
build a time machine
As in the original Rod Taylor and Yvette Mimieux movie. This guy built one. nice!
Virtual March on Washington
Win Without War is sponsoring a virtual march on Washington. The way it works is, you sign up and reserve several minutes in which you telephone your representatives in congress, and the white house. The idea is to jam all phone lines in washington on that day with voices of dissent against the oncoming war in Iraq. The dates of the calls are February 25th and 26th.
random thought -- no link
I wonder if the wide availability of Tivo-style commercial skipping will lower the value of scripted programming, and raise the value of advertising on breaking news programming. Apparently CNN is booked one year in advance. The longer they can maintain a constant level of anxiety, the higher the value of their ad spots will go -- and unlike regular programming, its value is directly tied to its immediacy.
Plus "total"
Plus the circle, which, among other meanings, signifies the word "total", thus making the sign "read" TOTAL NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT.
could find no differences
I checked both CNN's text and the official text and could find no differences (deffinitely no substantial bits missing). Are all texts doctored or is someone playing games?
If deadly radiation knocks on your door...
A send up of the new government Civil Defense page.
D.A.R.E.
Has nothing to do with the anti-drug program. This is a hilarious comic on something awful about a robot... with FEELINGS.
Protest Pics
More pics. (thanks Gagi!) Worth checking out this design outfit, too. Pretty nifty stuff.
How to dump capital:
Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Military Keynesianism.
The Laurie Garrett letter
A Newsday writer's observations from the WEF conference in Davos, Switzerland. Now confirmed via email, copied into this Metafilter thread.
A must-read.
The Ancient Game of Despot / Sexpot
Guess which mustaches are porn mustaches, and which are totalitarian mustaches. The Carmina Burana with new lyrics makes it work.
You furnish the pictures, I'll furnish the war
Kuro5hin and Metafilter are both reporting that the CNN transcript of the Feb 14 Blix report omits significant portions of the speech. Here's the official transcript.
French media coverage
This article on the French website tf1.fr discusses the blog reporting of the demonstrations. Wacky Neighbor is mentioned, and our photo is used!
Normal people chant in freezing cold too.
A nice little piece on the demographic makeup of the NYC march. (thanks, Mefite riviera!)
And now for some levity:
Gay boyfriend. Funniest video I've since that Fire in the Disco thing.
more about the rally / march
From the moment we got out of the Lincoln tunnel, there were clumps of protesters along the sidewalks. The first clear sign of a police presence was a motorcade (possibly unrelated) a few blocks down 42nd street. By Bryant park, the atmosphere was dominated by protest. We parked down on 36th and walked up to the NYPL, which already looked like a giant event. The lions were one of the primary feeder locations, and different groups had their banners out. A group of kids played a boom box on the corner of 42nd and 5th. Cops lined the street in front of the Library.
By around 11:30, groups started marching out, beginning with a veterans group. I recognized the WWII vet who had been at my first Montclair demonstration.
The crowd picked up energy as we moved uptown. At first it was a trickle of people, maybe two or three abreast. By the time we got to 51st, the crowd was more like 4 or 5 abreast. It forked around city blocks, around St. Patricks, and off in the distance, at each cross section, you could see a smattering of signs. The momentum kept building. By the time we were on Third Ave, we were completely surrounded and the streets were full.
Cops kept barricades up to route the march uptown, and have it fill in behind the designated rally area. This effectively created three separate areas of protest: the main rally, second ave, and third ave.
By around 60th one of the cross streets was breeched (the cops allowed it, basically) and a huge energetic crowd moved to second, only to find another block. Eventually, through people running back through the crowds, and on cell phones, we figured out that we had to go all the way to 69th. We finally got through there.
By that point we could see the whole protest stretching down 1st as far as the eye could see. Eventually we could make out the jumbotron. Speakers were set up every block or so, to allow people to hear the speeches. Around this point I ran into my cousin, and a little later I saw actor Wallace "inconceivable!" Shawn. Amazing to see people you recognize in a crowd of half a million!
The decor of the parade was impressive -- hilarious, creative, beautiful. Among other things we saw:
Bushit. Great slogan.
Giant dove puppets
The Brazilian flag
The Israeli flag
The Palestinian Flag
Protesters of every race, creed, color, and age imaginable.
One sign likened Bush to the Ferengi.
Another used the Star Wars logo to spell out "No wars", or something to that effect.
Lots of flags of the Apollo earth shot, on a field of blue. I liked this one. The recent Nasa composites are far more detailed, but nothing beats a classic.
Signs handed out at Grand Central station were available in English, Spanish and Arabic. Probably other languages too.
No blood for oil was a common one
Bush as Hitler. Ho hum.
Peace symbols everywhere! Yeah baby.
lots of drums
Signs supporting Germany and France. Often in French.
By around 4:30 we were exhausted and headed off on 60th. Demonstrators dominated a good section of midtown extending away from the protest. A few bush supporters had lame Times New Roman 8 1/2 by 11 printouts that said "we stand by our president." A woman walking next to me said, "well they're gonna be awfully lonely today."
PEACE!
It was incredible. Media's saying (when they say anything) that there were about 400,000 people. Hell if it didn't feel like a lot more. I put pictures up in a new gallery section, here. A few of the images are 1600 x 1200 for the socially conscious wallpaper lover.
I'll post more in the comments section.
CNN: WAKE UP!!!
Despite a hawkish media, a majority of Americans want to give inspectors more time. Whoda thunk it!
Takin' it to the streets.
Remember to do your civic and patriotic duty, and march against this war. 51st and 1st, Noon.
More Heures Creuses
Also check out the photo gallery therein. Il est un photographe amateur. Beautiful (albeit small) shots of Lisbon and Morocco.
Send a video valentine
Sometimes sick and twisted, but often wonderful video art valentines. In quicktime. Eat your heart out, Knox Harrington. (merci, Heures Creuses!)
Vonnegut vs. the !&#*!@
Q. What targets would you consider fair game for a satirist today?
A. Assholes.
More narcissistic referrer mining
I like this idea, found here:
It's time to give the Homeland Security Alert System the respect it deserves. To that end, from this point on I believe that whenever the Security level is raised we should call a party! We can all gather somewhere, dressed in the appropriate alert color and get rollicking drunk. Then we can all wear T-shirts that say "I got bombed at a {color} alert. Thanks Tom!"
We can even code the parties appropriately:
??? Low = Green = Wine/Beer, soft music, respectful conversation
??? Guarded = Blue = Beer & mixed drinks, rock 'n roll, light innuendo
??? Elevated = Yellow = Straight shots, hard rock, heavy innuendo
??? High = Orange = Full bottles, heavy metal, lying for sex
??? Severe = Red = Try everything once, punk rock, orgy in the streets 'cuz the END IS NIGH!
Ideology of the rear bumper.
Dr. Lessl says such marriages of science and religion have been a familiar refrain since the days of the Enlightenment, one continuous intellectual movement that has led through the writings of Francis Bacon in the 17th century on up to plastic fish.
A cute Times piece on the evolution of the car fish.
Eat your heart out Joseph Heller
We can't protest being at war because we are at war. This particular Catch-22 was issued by the City of New York, which will not allow a march protest due to the Code Orange status. (thanks fusion Anomalog)
Lysistrata
In related news, here's "the first-ever worldwide theater event for Peace!". The Lysistrata Project.
Peace
I went to my first demonstration today! NJ Peace Action holds a vigil every Friday from 3:30 to 5, in Montclair.
There were people there of every age, from a World War II veteran to high school students. Maybe a total of 30 people showed up, and it's been building. My feet are freezing.
On Feb 15, this group will be participating in a mass action in New York. Location is TBA, pending a march permit, but people will show up whether they get a permit or not. Maybe it's time I started reading Smart Mobs.
Free Content! Yum
A recent Slashdot thread brought up the issue of content that can be distributed free of legal hassles. Some interesting stuff therein:
ArsDigita offers a full CS course for free. They allow the distribution of all their materials.
ElectronicScene has mp3s.
So does Open Music Registry.
E-tree offers lossless live recordings of jam bands. A lot of this content is available on the furthurnet, a p2p system devoted to legal recordings.
Finally, tho i didn't see it mentioned in the /. piece, the swarming technology of the open-content network is worth looking into as well.
