Someone really did put my pictures in bus shelters around San Francisco. Holy holy holy shit.

I like this because its quintessential San Francisco. Its billboard manipulation, and its geek slang, and it has to do with sex. If they had somehow worked in a turntable it would be perfect.

tiny nibbles - violet blue

This website will let you create your own South Park characters.

Decius and Rattle SP characters are in the thread. I'd like to see more from other MemeStreamers... This is almost better than pictures...

Create your own South Park Characters

Even if the US were to take the far less radical step of simply stopping its efforts to forcibly eradicate poppy fields in the parts of Afghanistan controlled by US and allied forces (as I advocated in my previous post on the subject linked above), the resulting competition would diminish the Taliban's profits.

A radical idea.

The Volokh Conspiracy - The War on Terror vs. The War on Drugs II:

Small-time criminals impersonate honest people in order to steal their money. Targets are ordinary folks whose ID numbers fell into the wrong hands.

Honest people impersonate big-time criminals in order to publicly humiliate them. Targets are leaders and big corporations who put profits ahead of everything else.

I hate these guy's politics, but I admire their technique. They manage to get themselves on TV impersonating important corporate or government spokes people and provide subtly sarcastic commentary.

The Yes Men

Richard Posner (blog), a federal appeals judge in the 7th circuit, is on the warpath against civil liberties. His new book is destined to be the sort of thing that would make my blood boil. This New Republic article from January is a bit shorter. He repeats the falacy that the purpose of the 4th Amendment is merely to protect people from embarassment when the Government looks at their underwear, and so there is no privacy implication when robots pick your house apart for contraban.

Once a phone number in the United States was discovered to have been called by a terrorist suspect abroad, the NSA would probably want to conduct a computer search of all international calls to and from that local number for suspicious patterns or content. A computer search does not invade privacy or violate fisa, because a computer program is not a sentient being. But, if the program picked out a conversation that seemed likely to have intelligence value and an intelligence officer wanted to scrutinize it, he would come up against fisa's limitations. One can imagine an even broader surveillance program, in which all electronic communications were scanned by computers for suspicious messages

He does, however, make one suggestion that I have made before:

Permit surveillance intended to detect and prevent terrorist activity but flatly forbid the use of information gleaned by such surveillance for any purpose other than to protect national security.

Its hard to know how well this would work in practice, both because the program will identify serious crimes that don't rise to national security threats and cause a lot of moral teeth grinding on the part of the people involved, and because the definition of "national security threats" has risen to include "the radical fringe of the opposition political party" consistently in history. But, those caveats don't completely eliminate the possibility that there is something workable in this idea.

Unfortunately, this link may only work if you come in through google or you are a registered TNR member.

What if wiretapping works?

Tabjab is a powerful way to keep track of the interpersonal debts that often arise between friends, roommates, and coworkers. You can use Tabjab to send out bills for dinner debts, bar tabs, rent, utilities, entertainment, or any other expense that people share. These bills are delivered via email, and they are easy to consolidate when it comes time to pay.

My roommate and I have been working on this website since late last year. We've been keeping it under wraps but we decided this weekend to formally make it available. When your friends or roommates owe you money you can input it into Tabjab. Tabjab will keep track of it, send emails out, and calculate reciprical debts. Check it out and let us know what you think!

My new project: TabJab

Justin is now running a blog at ONLAMP; Justin is one of the most promising characters to float through the se2600 scene. He has a very precise understanding of his subject matter. We expect great things from him.

Justin Troutman on ONLAMP

The focus is now on what went wrong. Why was Israel unable to defeat Hezbollah outright?What are the ramifications for peace? What was achieved by a war that claimed more than 1,000 dead and left tens of thousands homeless?

Far from being destroyed, Hezbollah has arguably emerged from the war stronger and more influential in a weakened and destabilized Lebanon, which can now be more easily manipulated by the real architects of the conflict, Syria and Iran.

The fighting in Lebanon may be far from over, the UN-imposed ceasefire more a pause than a peace."This morning, when the ceasefire goes into effect, we begin the countdown to the next war in Lebanon," declared an editorial in the Israeli newspaper Maariv yesterday.

Hezbollah won't disarm. Of course, that is a term of the cease fire, and if/when they violate it and fuck with the UN, they may bring the entire world down on lebanon.

Why Israel failed to achieve its goals

pics from Washington Post
Punks in China
global culture
they would feel at home in my local pub and certainly not look out of place

China's Punk's Look to Rock - Washington Post

This webpage is a news digest of all the latest blog entries and news stories regarding the Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA), which would force schools and libraries that receive federal Internet subsidies to block all interactive websites in the name of online safety.

Online aggregator for monitoring the inevitable passage of the intollerable act of 2006.

DOPA Watch