Rickrolling is a prank and Internet meme involving the music video for the 1987 Rick Astley song "Never Gonna Give You Up". The meme is a bait and switch: a person provides a Web link they claim is relevant to the topic at hand, but the link actually takes the user to the Astley video.
Balkinization: What the Dems DID save in the FISA capitulation
Topic: Miscellaneous
2:24 pm EDT, Jun 20, 2008
Interesting point from the thread:
Nancy Pelosi did remove one joker from the deck, quite pointedly: the PAA's Orwellian definition of "electronic surveillance" to exclude the electronic surveillance it authorized. (No, this is not a typo.)
This created a hole so vast that it appeared that even the PAA's lame procedures were not mandatory for the new surveillance but only an option that could be bypassed.
Back in March, in rebuffing the attempted ram-through of the Senate bill, Pelosi denounced the subterfuge in the strongest terms, calling it "very important" to notice and to keep out of the next FISA amendment. She even put the point on parity with exclusivity. (It is her third and final point at 6:10:
.
The current bill is free of this piece of hucksterism. I was pleased to see the House get on top of the issue, call it out explicitly, and stay focused on its expungement.
Looking at the new bill, I come away with two lessons. It is never a waste of time to call out a travesty; and if it's not one thing, it's another.
President Bush Urges Quick Passage of Wiretapping Bill - washingtonpost.com
Topic: Miscellaneous
11:53 am EDT, Jun 20, 2008
In a brief statement in the White House Rose Garden, Bush also hailed House passage yesterday of a bipartisan bill that funds the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan into 2009 and would allow veterans of those wars to received increased education benefits. He had previously opposed the veterans' education provision and new domestic spending included in the war-funding package, threatening a presidential veto.
Telco immunity was horse traded for veteran's education benefits.
The Last HOPE - July 18-20, 2008 - Hotel Pennsylvania - New York City
Topic: Miscellaneous
9:03 am EDT, Jun 20, 2008
Warrantless Laptop Searches at U.S. Borders
Decius
U.S. customs agents have begun randomly searching the contents of laptops carried by individuals across U.S. border checkpoints. Personal laptops contain increasingly vast and intimate collections of information about their owners, and cannot be easily sanitized for government inspection prior to travel. The privacy implications of this policy are obviously tremendous. There is presently a debate in the U.S. court system about the constitutionality of these searches. This talk will cover the developments so far, explaining (and criticizing) the basic legal framework in which this debate is occurring as well as the reasoning employed by the courts that have heard this issue. Related topics will also be discussed, such as recent controversy over the Fifth Amendment right to refuse to reveal an encryption password to the police and the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. Attendees will be armed with a deeper understanding of these present threats to our fundamental rights.
I'm speaking at Hope next month in NYC. A number of other people connected with MemeStreams are also speaking. It should be a good time.
Not just searching current headlines, but now being able to search Google News archives going back years. Yum. :)
The link is sometimes a bit hard to spot. It's on the main Google News page as a link off to the right, or if you're in search display screen already, then click on "All dates" on the left, or "Advanced news search" at the top, to get to a link to the new feature on the search screen. Some of the entries it pulls up list prices that press organizations will charge for a reprint. However, I find that all it really takes to get free access is a library card number, and I can use my local library's website to get at Newsbank or Gale or EBSCOhost and can usually find most of the articles for free that way. Having a quick Google search telling me where to look though, makes searching much easier.
Searching books and periodicals and databases still has a way to go, even with this feature. As I'm doing research, I often find that I need to check multiple databases via library websites to find what I'm looking for, and there is not yet one central "Type your search term here" entry box that will search all the databases for me. But if anybody can do it, Google can. I'm already using Google Books and Google Scholar on a routine basis. Google Books is especially handy. I search for a book, click on "Find this book in a library", to access WorldCat, enter my zip code, and it not only tells me which are the closest libraries that have the book, it'll even tell me if the book is checked out or not. Nice stuff!
"The message was clear, Tim Russert was too fat for too long and this promoted his premature heart disease," said Dr. Peter McCullough, consultant cardiologist and chief of the division of nutrition and preventive medicine at William Beaumont Hospital in Michigan. "Patients are getting the message that weight loss is fundamental to reducing [overall] risk."
Russert death shows massive heart attack isn't easy to predict - USATODAY.com
Topic: Miscellaneous
12:31 pm EDT, Jun 16, 2008
Both men had ample warning they were prime candidates for heart attacks. Russert had been diagnosed with coronary artery disease, his doctor told MSNBC. Fixx had a terrifying family history, including a father who had a fatal heart attack in his early 40s.
And both took steps to reduce their odds of the same fate. Russert's doctor, Michael Newman, prescribed medication and exercise. He told MSNBC that Russert performed well on a stress test in April. Fixx, who reached the height of his fame before cholesterol-lowering drugs were widely available, changed his diet, laced up his running shoes and ate up the miles.
A ROMAN GLASS GAMING DIE Circa 2nd Century A.D. Deep blue-green in color, the large twenty-sided die incised with a distinct symbol on each of its faces
China denies hacking into US computers - Yahoo! News
Topic: Miscellaneous
10:11 pm EDT, Jun 12, 2008
China denied accusations by two U.S. lawmakers that it hacked into congressional computers, saying Thursday that as a developing country it wasn't capable of sophisticated cybercrime.
