Some cover art, huh?
Good article by Steven Thrasher to go with it, too.
Hat tip: Roy Edroso, whose post you might want to read as an introduction. Or afterward. Up to you.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Garrison Keillor Wants Your Money!
To go to Tarryl Clark, that is.
Excerpt:
It's embarrassing to me and a great many Minnesotans that Michele Bachmann, a politician who is so busy grandstanding and giving interviews on Fox News that she doesn't have time to serve the people who elected her, represents the 6th District in Washington.
Minnesota's 6th District has some of the highest foreclosure and unemployment rates in the state, but in an interview with the St. Cloud Times, Congresswoman Bachmann was unable to name any "substantive" legislation she had passed.
[...]
P.S. Instead of working to solve problems, Bachmann talks about us as a "nation of slaves" and about the need for smaller government even though she knows better - the biggest part of big government is military spending, Social Security, and Medicare. Which would she do away with? Bachmann's so-called policies are just the old Bush economics that Alan Greenspan characterized as "disastrous." Help Tarryl defeat her by donating today.
A message from Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD)
Email beginning:
In the face of fierce opposition from the special interests, the House of Representatives passed the DISCLOSE Act earlier this year. This act will shine a light on political expenditures and ensure that shadowy special interests, sham organizations, and dummy corporations cannot mislead voters. I was proud to be the lead sponsor of this important legislation.
We need more people in Congress who are willing to stand up to the special interests rather than with them, and that's why I'm also proud to support Tarryl Clark.
I hope I can count on you to do whatever you can to help her win in November.
Tarryl's opponent took big money from Wall Street then voted against financial reform that will hold the industry accountable; she took hundreds of thousands from big insurance companies and then voted to let them continue to discriminate against those with pre-existing conditions.
And when it came to the DISCLOSE Act, Tarryl's opponent once again sided with the special interests who seek to influence our elections.
And ending:
P.S. - As you know, Tarryl has raised more money than virtually any other Congressional challenger in the country, but her opponent continues to rake in the cash from her special interest allies and ultra right-wing national base. Help Tarryl grow her grassroots support with a donation today!
Tarryl Clark's opponent, as you may or may not already know, pictured to the right:
We almost got her out last time. Let's do it this time.
Stuxnet Finger-Wagging
"Stuxnet worm + Iran + mainstream media = Global nuclear meltdown," says Woody Leonhard of InfoWorld Tech Watch. His subhead reads, "What's wrong with the wild-eyed speculation in mainstream coverage of the Stuxnet worm? Let me count the ways."
Your headline writer forgot about the Israel aspect, Woody, but we get your point. And thanks. This is a sensible reminder of the known unknowns, to put it mildly.
As an aside, see also a related piece, via the above, which is kind of comical at first glance, but does speak to something everyone should find nearly as troubling as the sad reality that Windows-based computers continue to be deployed in highly critical applications: "Siemens warns users: Don't change passwords after worm attack/The worm uses a default password that, if changed, could crash Siemens' large-scale industrial automation systems."
I don't know how many of you have read Cliff Stohl's great book The Cuckoo's Egg, but if you have, you'll recall that one of the takeaways was this: the guy he caught breaking into all of those military computers was doing so, in large part, by trying default system passwords.
This was more than twenty years ago.
__________
Which is not at all to say that The Cuckoo's Egg is not still well worth your time. Besides the strong suggestion from above that some of the same problems persist, it is a hugely entertaining read if you like any sort of detective story.
(h/t: KK and LK, via email)
What aren't They telling us?
I trust you can connect THESE two dots:
NYT headline and lede:
New Planet May Be Able to Nurture Organisms
It might be a place that only a lichen or pond scum could love, but astronomers said Wednesday that they had found a very distant planet capable of harboring water on its surface, thus potentially making it a home for plant or animal life.
Big Think headline:
U.N. to Establish Protocols for When We Make Contact With Aliens
Date-stamps on these article? Two. Days. Apart.
WAKE UP SHEEPLE. [Added: And see the comments for MORE.]
(The NYT piece is actually pretty interesting.)
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
"Tea & Crackers: How corporate interests and Republican insiders built the Tea Party monster"
It's Matt Taibbi's latest piece, and if I start blockquoting, I'll end up with all four pages over here, so just head on over there. It's really, really good.
(h/t: uncle eb/Go12)
[Added] Bonus: After deadline, he added some new Rand Paul details to Taibblog.
Sure, it's a LITTLE dorky-looking
But when you get to the office, this is what you'll be carrying in:
Yep. The whole thing collapses down into that. Pretty cool! It's called "Bikoff" and it was designed by Marcos Madia. Details on designboom.
Marcos is from Argentina, so for the US market, he may have to go back to the drawing board to get the wheels to spin in the other direction, but I am confident he will figure that part out.
(h/t: Maria Popova)
Line of the Day: 2010-09-29
I think that people should carry notebooks with them at all times just for those moments because there’s nothing worse than having that moment and finding that you’re unable to set it down except with a knife on your leg or something. You actually don’t want to do that.
The whole interview of Margaret Atwood at Big Think is not that gruesome. Or mortifying. Yes, let's say mortifying.
Big shoutout, once again, to Big Think for transcribing the interview and not just posting the video.
Oh wait I forgot a part
I meant to add something else to that last monstrosity, but just as well: this is important enough to have its own space.
Also among my travels last night, I happened across some discussion of a guy known only as why the lucky stiff. The name was vaguely familiar, but I couldn't place it. Turns out he has been a highly respected person on these Internets for quite some time: a true code guru, an artist, and by all accounts a weird and wonderful personality. And then one day, he just pulled the plug -- shut down all of his sites, canceled his Twitter account, wiped various other sites of his contributions, etc.
Here are two appreciations of _why, a short one from John Resig and a longer, really good one, from Diogo Terror. And because you know that even a genius can't really erase things from the Internet anymore, all sorts of people have been looking through caches and repositories and whatnot, and resurrecting a bunch of his stuff. There looks to be a pretty comprehensive collection assembled by yjerem at _why's estate.
Perhaps one way to start to get a sense of him, even if you do not read computer books, is to read the first (zeroth?) page of Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby.
(h/t: Why Uses This)
Reconstruction 2010-09-29
Can insomniac be an adjective?
I guess, when you think of counting sheep, you could be said to be … no, let's not go there. There be double-entendres.
Let's start ... in the middle somewhere.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Oh, Snap
Good Roger Ailes:
New York Republican gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino has a love child.
Or as he calls her, My Little Pony.
A Picture of Linda Celeste Sims. Because Obviously.
The above is a piece of promotional artwork for the Alvin Ailey dancers, who would like you to know that they will be appearing at the New York City Center at the end of this year. The first link has more photos of gorgeous people.
I was informed of all this by an ad on Balloon Juice. This proves that the death of Pajamas Media has improved our culture immensely.
Will Bunch's last book: critical of Reagan. His new book: critical of teabaggers. Now in ICU. COINCIDENCE???
And what's more, blogging from the ICU.
This proves once again that liberals are lazy and just sit around, waiting for handouts from ObamaStalin.
Amazon links:
- Tear Down This Myth: The Right-Wing Distortion of the Reagan Legacy
- The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, High-Def Hucksters, and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama
You must buy these books or the death panels will turn off his oxygen.
G.W.B. (Get Well, Bunch.) ← another coincidence???
Tom Toles, FTW
Swiped from Anne Laurie, whose post is equally hilarious.
Reminder: Tom Toles has a blog, and it's a good one.
Bloglines: New Shutdown Date: 1 Nov 2010
A couple of weeks ago, I passed along news from Bloglines that said they were planning to shut down on the first of October. However, they appear to have postponed this. From the Bloglines home page:
The Bloglines service will officially close November 1, 2010.
If you haven't done so yet, you might want to export your list of feeds from your Bloglines account to a file on your own computer, and perhaps import this file into another service, such as Google Reader. Both of these things are easy to do. Details in my earlier post, if you want them.
Unfortunately, there does not seem to be an export mechanism for anything else, such as links to your saved posts, your clippings, and so on. I have sent three emails to the support address Bloglines gives -- bloglines-help@ask.com -- asking about this, and each time, I have received the same automated reply containing promises that are, so far, 100% empty.
So, boo hiss to Ask.com, the owner of Bloglines. In the meantime, you might want to get started on saving what you want by hand. (Apart from your list of feeds, I mean.) I interpret this extension on the shutdown date as all the help we're going to get.
Frist!!!
It has been too long since I subjected you to a happy finding from my endless I MEAN OCCASIONAL ego-surfing, hasn't it? Oh, just play along.
I wouldn't presume to think this has (these have) anywhere near the staying power of certain other four-word lines, but if it got a little legs, leading into the midterms, that'd be pretty darned good.
More words for @JaneHamsher
Preliminaries: What appears below is a response I promised Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake a few hours ago, when I no longer felt able to say what I wanted in 140-character bursts.
For background: a blog post by Jane, a reaction by John Cole (h/t: uncle eb, via email), and then on the Twitter: my original tweet after reading those, her response, my four-part response (you already see where this is going), her response, and my two-part response.
More context, and a couple of other side exchanges, may be noted by looking at the timelines for @janehamsher and @bjkeefe, starting in the evening (EDT) of 27 Sep 2010.
__________
Dear Jane,
"Peretz-Harvard Finale"
James Fallows has a bunch of things for you to read and watch, concerning that bigot's recent appearance at that school.
Kudos to Fallows for staying on top of this, even as he was reluctant ever to get involved. Sometimes, there is nothing more important than making your voice heard.
That Great Writer Ta-Nehisi Coates ...
... beautifully asks you, in "How to Write About Black People (and Other Humans), to read another piece of great writing, by Jelani Cobb: "Long Odds."
Cobb's piece is about Eddie Long, one of those megachurch pastors, who has recently gotten some attention due to accusations made by four young men that he made advances on them. And, not at all surprisingly, there have since followed some eyebrow-twitching pictures of Long (cellphone self-portraits), now available everywhere.
I do not much care about this specific case, except that I am always ready to laugh (while, admittedly, feeling a tinge of pity) at any story involving fundies in their undies. But those two posts are mighty fine.
Hat tip to blackink12, via @GeeDee215. And right about now, I have so many tabs open with good things to read that my computer has about seized and I need to reboot. Or my brain. One of those two.
Marvelous thing, this Internet.
__________
(FITU, of course, due to Teh Sadlys. Whose commenter r€nato has forever made me unable to keep a straight face about the word vanilla.)
Weird Weather
It is about midnight here, and since it got dark out, it's been about 20° warmer than it was eight hours ago. You know, when the sun was shining.
This proves what, class?
Correct.
Al Gore is fat. And he has a big house, also.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Hoosier Daddy!
Late last week, I saw the news on America's Premier Warblog that Mike Pence was going to be our next Preznit.
Mike Pence? That Republican Congressman from Indiana? That guy whose dumbness Matt Yglesias is always blogging about?
Yes, him.
But what about the previously anointed Savior of America, Mitch Daniels, also from Indiana?
So of course I had to ask our man in Indianapolis for his take on what I can only will hope will soon be seen as the Next Thrilla in Manila. And, good news: Mr. Riley has obliged!
(He is actually not quite as excited about this as I am.)
Wingnuts' Abstinence-from-Evidence Pledge Still Holding
Roy Edroso reports in his latest roundup that rightbloggers simply did not care for that Stephen Colbert testifying before Congress, and let them tell you, neither did anyone else.
And what about your (So Called) Liberal Media? Equally furious. Especially the usual suspects from The rePubOLITICO and, as Zandar brilliantly labeled him, Chuck Toddler.
So, this week, Roy finds the funny in unfunny people saying a funny person is not funny. Time for a MacArthur Grant, I say.
Sean Hannity and Wife Gave $5000 Each To Michele Bachmann
noting for the record trumpeting to all of those out there who, unfortunately, do not pay enough attention to the close ties between FoxNews and the Republican Party.
Hart Van Denburg, of the Blotter blog on Minneapolis-based Citypages.com, has details and links, if you want them.
Hat tip to Lauren Beecham of the Tarryl Clark campaign, who invites you, if you would like, to offset the Hannitys' money here.
"Who are you, and why are you so afraid to disclose where your money came from?"
Do you know who's behind "Concerned Taxpayers of America?" No. And neither does Congressman Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon). Even though they are paying for TV ads that attack him. So he tried to find out by going, in person, to their listed headquarters in Washington, D.C.
You will be shocked, shocked to find out that the guy there, Michael Omegna, first wouldn't answer the door, and then lied about being connected with this shadowy group. Or, in Republican terms, "misspoke."
Amanda Terkel has the story, plus video.
(h/t: @siouxeeq)
__________
[Added] In looking for more info about "Concerned Taxpayers of America," which I didn't find, I came across a closely related story about another group with the same modi operandi: a bland name ("Americans for Job Security"), a mail drop somewhere, a "sole employee," and a whole lot of money sloshing to Republicans and their causes, from who knows where.
(h/t: Joan McCarter)
__________
Line of the Day: 2010-09-27
With that in mind, here is Felix Salmon on Lewis D'Vorkin's latest antics:
If you put advertisers on the same distribution platform as your editors and writers, and if you say that there are no lines separating what’s editorial content and what’s advertising, then at that point you don’t need Dinesh D’Souza to destroy your editorial integrity: you’ve managed to do it all by yourself.
The whole post, "Forbes blogs for sale," is well worth reading.
(h/t: a D'Vorkin watcher, via email)
__________
And in the Coulda Seen It Coming From A Mile Away department, there's also this, from Kafka (really), from last week:
D’Vorkin won’t talk about traffic directly, or about specifics of other internal overhauls he is planning. But broadly speaking, he’s talking up the idea of journalists as “product managers”–tellingly, D’Vorkin has given himself the title of “chief product officer”–who would be responsible for generating their own traffic, recruiting contributors, keeping tabs on their own analytics via Chartbeat accounts, etc.
Balloon Juicers, you were saying?
Ross Douthat Knows What "Everybody Knows"
Apparently, our Mr. Douthat's reference reading has expanded in range. All the way from the Heritage to Cato and AEI, I suspect.
And as everybody knows, the only way to really bring the budget into balance is to reform (i.e., cut) Medicare and Social Security …
Ooo, ooo! Pick me, Ross! I know another way! Posted it just the other day, matter of fact: End the Bush tax cuts for rich people.
(Granted, that's not the whole ballgame, but if you follow the link, you'll see it's the first eight innings, at least.)
BTW: If you bother to go over to see if I was unfair to Ross in how I pulled that quote, I bet you'll thank me for the ellipsis. The rest of that sentence is spent polishing Paul Ryan's halo.
Golf claps to Ross for being in touch with reality enough to start by admitting that the GOP's shiny new Pledge to Ruin America is an utter crock -- e.g., "But their fiscal vision practices the same kind of free-lunchism that the Tea Party supposedly abhors: it promotes low taxes without coming close to identifying the spending cuts required to pay for them." -- but man, if he's ever made it all the way to the end of one of his weekly columns without saying something irredeemably stupid, I sure as hell haven't seen it.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
"Cute Couple" Doesn't Even Come Close
The current background image for @EvaLongoria is worth a look.
Shut up. I only looked because about nine variations on "Desperate Housewives" are top trending topics right now, and one of the reasons why is everyone is retweeting her tweeted exhortation to watch.
Anyway, if these two (she and husband Tony Parker) make babies, the universe might explode from the cuteness.
#celebritystalkerintraining
#goodthingsfromtexas ← a rare hashtag indeed
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