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Republican Congressman Pete Sessions from Texas introduced a bill that would make all free, public, municipal WiFi illegal. Sessions, as it turns out, is a big fat recipient of SBC funds. Why stop there? Should we privatize highways as well? How about subways? Glad the liberal media is all over this one. Here are a couple of links: Original post on DailyKos, An informative editorial from the Fort Wayne paper
comment posted at 7:05 PM on Jun-9-05
comment posted at 7:58 PM on Jun-9-05

O'Reilly's Cruise Cancelled Due to Lack of Interest
Fox News star Bill O'Reilly's week-long Caribbean cruise with a theme of "The Battle for American Values" has been cancelled because reservations fell "well short" of the anticipated 800 passengers. The cruise would have included a symposion on "How to Combat the ACLU."
It seems that Al Franken was one of the few who'd booked a reservation. That would have been fun to watch.
comment posted at 1:44 PM on Jun-8-05

LossofPrivacyFilter: 1) Patriot Act Expansion Bill Approved in Secret , which now provides a new ‘administrative subpoena’ authority (that) would let the FBI write and approve its own search orders for intelligence investigations, without prior judicial approval. ...Flying in the face of the Fourth Amendment, this power would let agents seize personal records from medical facilities, libraries, hotels, gun dealers, banks and any other businesses without any specific facts connecting those records to any criminal activity or a foreign agent. ..., and from the Justice Department: 2) Most health care employees can't be prosecuted for stealing personal data, and finally, 3) Citibank admits losing 4 million customer files.
These 3 examples all within the past few days--any others i missed?
comment posted at 9:10 AM on Jun-8-05
comment posted at 7:20 PM on Jun-8-05

Homegrown terrorists or animal rights activists? Our anti-terrorism laws are getting a bit out of hand.
comment posted at 12:49 PM on Jun-7-05

Donald Rumsfeld recently aimed critisicm at China's military spending. “Since no nation threatens China, one must wonder: Why this growing investment? Why these continuing large and expanding arms purchases?” A question he may well ask of himself. According to a report recently released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (in our fair city) Global Military Spending topped $1Trillion in 2004. The United States accounted for 47 percent of all military expenditures, while Britain and France each made up 5 percent of the total. In all, 15 countries accounted for 82 percent of the world's total military spending. The BBC reported last month that Chinese military spending increased by 12% in 2004 to $25Bn - or one twentieth of what the US spends.
comment posted at 1:25 PM on Jun-7-05
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comment posted at 8:17 PM on Jun-7-05
comment posted at 1:47 PM on Jun-8-05

Supreme Court outlaws medical marijuana.
comment posted at 10:29 AM on Jun-6-05
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comment posted at 12:12 PM on Jun-6-05
comment posted at 2:10 PM on Jun-6-05

Join the Army for just fifteen months! Visit exciting foriegn lands! Now with "ultra-lite" benefits!
(Warning: Requires an additional two years of service in the Army Reserve / National Guard, may contain additional deployments overseas, stop-loss, 4 1/2 years in the inactive reserve, and possible devil's bargains.)
comment posted at 7:00 AM on May-13-05

Understanding elections beyond the red and blue axis. Since 1987, the Pew Research center has been conducting a political survey that divides voters into various typologies based on core beliefs-- upbeats and disaffected, enterprisers and bystanders -- and tracking political opinions and votes. The biggest trends have been the rise of disadvantaged pro-government conservatives and the shift of the middle to the right. Fortunately, there is a survey that will determine your type. Where does the typical MeFi visitor fit? (Hint from the typology: "Liberals- Affluent and highly secular...ideologically consistent on social issues, foreign policy and the role of government..nearly four-in-10 cite the Internet as their main source of news.")
comment posted at 7:19 AM on May-13-05

john bolton and group sex
do these revelations make him more or less qualified to serve as the united states ambassador to the UN?
comment posted at 5:08 PM on May-11-05

It's a blog, it's a news wire, it's...The Huffington Post. Launched today, the site lives up to low expectations with thin commentary by celebrities and underwhelming design. Dying to hear what Brad Hall (Julia Louis-Dreyfus' husband) has to say about gay marriage? How about David Mamet's take on this computer thing? Or just looking for fresh news bites like the "real, inside" story on Jeff Gannon or the fact that models are often re-touched?
comment posted at 8:19 PM on May-9-05

What's the matter with Liberals? An article by Thomas Frank, author of What's the Matter With Kansas, and previously linked here. Well researched, and worth arguing over. via MoFi
comment posted at 6:26 PM on May-5-05

When this passes for dissent, perhaps we see valid reasons for screening people at public lectures who want to attend for no other reason than to disrupt. People typically attend lectures to hear out and consider the ideas of the designated speaker, not to see attempted assault or to have a riot incited.
comment posted at 9:58 AM on May-5-05
comment posted at 10:01 AM on May-5-05

Most people want to have group sex, but more or less conscious mental barriers stop them. Help them. (no images or anything, but may not be safe for work if your boss doesn't want you organizing an orgy. your co-workers, on the other hand...)
comment posted at 7:11 PM on May-1-05
comment posted at 10:44 PM on May-1-05

So far the Return to Flight has been a bumpy ride for NASA. Apparently things over there are run like a bureaucracy and agency officials are worried about ice or foam insulation coming off the space shuttle again.

Will private companies eventually dominate space exploration and make NASA a thing of the past?
comment posted at 4:49 PM on May-1-05

Damning leak for Blair / Bush! A leaked transcript of a senior British government meeting indicates that the Bush administration viewed war with Iraq as "inevitable" as of July 2002, even though the rationale for war was "thin" and that "Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran." It further states that the desire to bring about regime change was "not a legal base for military action", and that the only legitimate reason to declare war was with UNSCOM approval. Most disturbingly, it indicates that there were "strategies for dealing with Libya and Iran. If the political context were right, people would support regime change."
comment posted at 4:47 PM on May-1-05

Naughty, Naughty I read these Wonkette excerpts of Laura Bush's speech at the WH correspondence dinner last night and I thought it was satire. But I just saw the tape and it's for real: "I am married to the President of the United States and here is our typical evening. Nine o'clock, Mr. Excitement here is sound asleep, and I am watching Desperate Housewives. With Lynne Cheney. Ladies and gentleman, I am a desperate housewife. I mean if those women on that show think they're desperate, they ought to be with George. One night after George went to bed, Lynne Cheney, Condi Rice, Karen Hughes and I went to Chippendales....I won't tell you what happened, but Lynne's Secret Service code name is now Dollar Bill."
comment posted at 12:45 PM on May-1-05
comment posted at 12:46 PM on May-1-05
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comment posted at 7:13 PM on May-1-05

Interesting followup on this story previously posted here concerning the killing of an italian senior intelligence agent by U.S. Forces during an hostage rescue mission (a.k.a. the Sgregna Case). Yesterday the italian public received this PDF file containing an extremely detailed U.S. military report on the alleged accident. Many lines in the report were "blacked out" as the author probably considered them unclassified, yet sensible information (like the name who the guy who shot the car). It turns out the author don't know jack about pdf and here is the unblackened report[DOC Format] in all its details, most probably exposed by some computer savy guy in italian media.
comment posted at 10:50 AM on May-1-05

Today's the day for Mac OS X Tiger (10.4). Operating systems have come a long way, baby (what about the future?), and Tiger presents a couple of features that are worthy of mention because of their design approach. The approach is to let "tiny-scale developers," developers that might not be able to write an entire application, even a small one, develop plug-ins and extensions for core system functionality. Dashboard has a budding user community (check dashboard exposed, apple's official gallery) as does Spotlight (and not just a way to add filetypes, check this out!) and Automator. It's interesting to note that the most hyped features of the new operating system will all have end-user-submitted extensions and additions making them even more essential.
comment posted at 8:55 AM on Apr-30-05

Princeton Students and Polticians Stage Filibuster -- Princeton students started a filibuster at the Frist Campus Center at Princeton University to protest the impending unloading of the "nuclear option" in the United States Senate. Bill Frist is a Princeton alum and his family donated the building the filibuster is in front of. It's been going on for a whopping 78 hours already and looks to at least go through the weekend. Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ) spoke earlier today, and NJ Assemblyman Reed Gusciora was there yesterday. They've even got physicists (one and two) and a Nobel Prize winner.
comment posted at 4:30 PM on Apr-29-05

Jesus had a beard, so when people come to my church with a beard or mustache, I don’t condemn them. Apparently the Canadian Navy is not so accepting, going back on a previous decision quoting safety regulations. Don't they realize that a beard is a man's token of superior nature?
comment posted at 3:50 PM on Apr-29-05

Al Gore calls it like he sees it - It is no accident that this assault on the integrity of our constitutional design has been fueled by a small group claiming special knowledge of God's will in American politics. They even claim that those of us who disagree with their point of view are waging war against "people of faith." How dare they?
comment posted at 12:06 PM on Apr-28-05
comment posted at 12:07 PM on Apr-28-05

Al Franken, senate contender for Minnesota in 2006? He's got name recognition out the wazoo, a national radio program, and is returning to his blue state home to try and take Norm Coleman's republican seat in the US Senate. Is there any way he can lose? Are Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh next for making senate bids?
comment posted at 9:14 AM on Apr-28-05
comment posted at 9:29 AM on Apr-28-05
comment posted at 10:47 AM on Apr-28-05
comment posted at 2:15 PM on Apr-28-05
comment posted at 8:16 PM on Apr-28-05

Blair government attacks the BBC, while attempting to "fix" the news. In the aftermath of the Hutton Report fallout, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott reopened the war of words between Labour and the BBC by accusing the BBC of slanting their news coverage of the war in Iraq. Apparently, an Iraqi friend of Prescott's, Shanaz Ibrahim, was refused a (unscheduled) interview. What Prescott fails to mention, however, is that Ms. Ibrahim has lived in London for over 30 years, and is married to Abdul-Latif Rashid, the brother-in-law of Iraq's president. So... where have all the *real* Iraqis gone, anyway?
comment posted at 3:10 PM on Apr-27-05
comment posted at 7:43 AM on Apr-28-05

"And the University of Chicago cried unto the Lord, saying, Heal her now, O God, I beseech thee." The Templeton Foundation recently gave U of C researchers a $1.8 million grant to study connections between religious beliefs and health. Those researchers have already done studies that suggest that religious faith helps reduce depression. It's not exactly faith healing, but some people aren't quite ready to shout "Amen!".
comment posted at 3:41 PM on Apr-27-05

L I V E W R O N G : is right. The purveyors, or perpetrators, of LIVEWRONG suggest you represent what you want, when you want, how you want. Buy a bracelet. It is what it is. The creators of the LIVEWRONG armband do not oppose any person, pet, or living thing that have cancer, nor do we oppose any charity that supports a cure for cancer.
comment posted at 9:24 PM on Apr-26-05
comment posted at 9:33 PM on Apr-26-05
comment posted at 9:56 AM on Apr-27-05
comment posted at 11:32 AM on Apr-27-05

Rules For the Library - Satirical relief for those who suffer or have suffered under an oppressive, Orwellian library atmosphere:

1) There will be absolutely no reading of any kind in the library.
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2) No breathing in the library.
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3) No walking or moving in the library.
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comment posted at 9:15 PM on Apr-26-05