A couple of years ago, a Canadian magazine published an article arguing that the rise of Islam threatened Western values. The article s tone was mocking and biting, but it said nothing that conservative magazines and blogs in the United States did not say every day without fear of legal reprisal.

Things are different here. The magazine is on trial.

I am embarrassed by whats going in Canada. The U.S. tolerates the expression of a lot of despicable views, and it is particularly frustrating to see the large cross section of conservatives who are vocally opposed to hate speech codes but completely silent or on the other side of other important first amendment issues, as it reveals their sympathy for ideas they claim that they reject. However, government regulation of this speech is a slippery slope that leads to all sorts of silly results such as the German ban on the Wolfenstein games and this trial in Canada, which clearly intends to squelch a political view. You can't stop people from being assholes. Censoring this sort of material doesn't make these opinions go away, and it removes the opportunity to confront them directly in open dialog. If these muslims wanted to make a counterpoint to this article they ought to do it through sound advocacy in the pages of Macleans rather than coersion in a court. Reliance on the later leads one to suspect that you can't win at the former.

Hate speech or free speech? What much of West bans is protected in U.S. - International Herald Tribune

The Transportation Security Administration recently started using body scans on randomly chosen airline passengers in Los Angeles, Baltimore, Denver, Albuquerque and New York's Kennedy airport.

Airports in Dallas, Detroit, Las Vegas and Miami will be added this month. Reagan National Airport near Washington starts using a body scanner Friday.

"It's the wave of the future," said James Schear, the TSA security director at Baltimore-Washington International Airport...

The TSA says it protects privacy by blurring passengers' faces and deleting images right after viewing. Yet the images are detailed, clearly showing a person's gender. "You can actually see the sweat on someone's back," Schear said.

"Some of this stuff seems a little crazy," Reardon said, "but in this day and age, you have to go along with it."

EXTREMELY low resolution images of what the screener sees are on the TSA's website, which doesn't even render properly in Firefox. One suspects that bigger images aren't offered because the public would be shocked by them. I've seen TSA checkpoint people intentionally selecting attractive women for "additional screening" before. I suspect that this will be problematic.

10 airports install body scanners - USATODAY.com

Acidus wrote:
Google's new Favicon pisses me off. I'm not sure why. I know this is irrational, but that doesn't make me dislike that lowercase "g" any less.

I strongly second this. For some reason I cannot associate a lower case purple cursive "g" with Google. The result is that I can't find my Google tabs easily anymore. I have to stop and pay attention to the tab bar to find the window I want. I'm sure this will pass as I associate the two concepts in my head, but generally speaking, Boo.

RE: Google's new Favicon

Two of the world's biggest glassware makers, Libbey and Cardinal International, say orders of smaller beer glasses have risen over the past year. Restaurateurs "want more of a perceived value," says Mike Schuster, Libbey's marketing manager for glassware in the U.S. Glasses with a thicker bottom or a thicker shaft help create the perception. "You can increase the thickness of the bottom part but still retain the overall profile," he says.

Clearest proof yet we're in an economic contraction. The U.S. needs a pint law! Ah, the benefits of monarchy...

Beer sizes shinking - WSJ.com

janelane wrote:

Four states — Arizona, California, Florida and Nevada — accounted for about 89 percent of the foreclosures, a disproportionately high amount of the newly reported figures. Those regions have suffered the sharpest price drops.

That makes more sense. Before, the article says that 1 in 10 homeowners is foreclosing or delinquent on their payments, and I couldn't believe that about Georgia.

-janelane

Hrm... Article says 39% but you quote as 89%. Lots of foreclosures in Atlanta.

Real Estate is local but lending is global. There are lots of people in this town who have purchased homes that they can't afford on the presumption that appreciation will generate enough equity to cover their interest rate resets. Now people like that can't get those loans anymore, and so there are fewer buyers, which caused prices to drop, which screwed the assumptions built into other loans, which reset and went into foreclosure, which is causing further price decreases, which is what is going on everywhere.

There hasn't been the kind of speculation that other markets saw... There were people flipping houses but not as many of them and not as aggressively. (And home prices in California were already GaGa before the real speculation started.) So Atlanta hasn't seen the kind of price increases that other areas have seen. Furthermore, Atlanta is growing (and due to oil price increases likely to become more dense) and that has some real updraft on real estate prices other than in the exurbs. But things are certainly out of whack in general in this town and prices are correcting down right now.

There has also been a lot of investment by builders, particularly in luxury condos and all those "from the low 800's" townhome developments. That stuff bothers me. It remains to be seen whether there is going to be enough demand from baby boomer empty nesters looking to downsize to actually fill up all of this inventory. Certainly, a lot of developments are on hold or are having trouble obtaining financing.

The bottom line is that there are problems and risks in Atlanta. Of course, I just bought. I have a complex set of considerations for that, but chief among them is that I needed a place to live, and I bought way less house than the real estate industry says I can afford (closer to 2x income rather than 3-4x), and so I should be able to continue saving money in spite of having a mortgage. I would certainly recommend that people exercise extreme caution in regard to buying in this market. I am concerned that devaluation will eat away at my principal and create a financial liability that is difficult to recover. At best I think I've set up a liability that I can manage. If I make money, then thats a bonus. I do not consider it an expectation. This is another case where the normal financial opportunities for people our age have been squandered by the irresponsible behavior of our next elders. This won't be the last...

RE: Nearly 1 in 10 Homeowners Face Loan Problems - NYTimes.com

A recent survey (German) by the well-known German Forsa institute now showed the social effects of this data retention law: Communication habits are indeed changing.

1.002 individuals have been questioned on May 27th and 28th. These are the results:

* 73% know about the data retention
* 11% said that they had already abstained from using phone, cell phone or e-mail in certain occasions
* 6% believe to receive less communication since the beginning of the data retention
* 52% said they probably would not use telecommunication for contacts like drug counselors, psychotherapists or marriage counselors because of data retention

And the sad fact: 48% still think that data retention is a necessary step for crime prevention.

Data Retention Effectively Changes the Behavior of Citizens in Germany « Creation Noise

The Unhealthiest Drink in America
Baskin Robbin’s Large Heath Bar Shake (32 oz)
2,310 calories
266 g sugar
108 g fat (64 g saturated)

11: The number of Heath Bars you would have to eat to equal the number of calories found in one Baskin Robbins Large Heath Bar Shake.

DAMN!

America's Unhealthiest Drinks Exposed on Yahoo! Health

I noticed this news article and was amazed by the attached photograph, row after row after row of trailers. Apparently that many brand new trailers in one place is toxic and they are tearing these down. I could not find a higher resolution photo... Once again I suspect neither political party wants wide spread discussion of the implications of Katrina or how they are being managed.

Nearly three years after the Hurricane Katrina made thousands of victims, leaving thousands others without houses, the Federal Emergency Management Agency succeeded to meet its deadline and close all six trailer parks by Sunday, but said it would still take a few more days to move everyone into apartments or motels.

The decision to close the parks came after an investigation of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention between Dec. 21 and Jan. 23 found that formaldehyde fumes from hundreds of trailers and mobile homes were on average about five times what people are exposed to in most modern homes.

Formaldehyde AKA "new car smell."

FEMA Trailer Towns

The crystal skulls are a number of human skull models fashioned from blocks of clear or milky quartz crystal rock, claimed to be pre-Columbian Mesoamerican artifacts by their alleged finders. However, none of the specimens made available for scientific study were authenticated as pre-Columbian in origin, and in the opinion of the contemporary mainstream scientific community they were manufactured in the mid-19th century or later, almost certainly in Europe.

Worthersee got me trapped in this wikihole this morning. A few links later I was reading about aboriginal activism in Canada. Have fun...

Crystal skull - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

We're in the final week before Summercon 2008! Come out Friday night @ 7PM and meet at the Wyndham Hotel bar, a.k.a. "The Mojito Lounge". Don't be shy, just look for someone wearing a Summercon t-shirt and introduce yourself. They won't bite or fight... probably. We'll plan on hanging out at the hotel for a bit and then herd everyone to another fine drinking establishment. Friday night is an ice-breaker, so come out and get to know your friendly neighborhood hacker. Don't sleep in much past noon on Saturday, presentations start at 12:30PM.

Operation Summercon 2k8 in Da House