Passed: On Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass, as Amended: H R 5319 Deleting Online Predators Act

This is a much nicer resource on who not to vote for then the earlier list I passed. The blue areas on this map are the areas where Congress is completely fucking stupid.

GovTrack: H.R. 5319: Deleting Online Predators Act of 2006(Vote On Passage)

As a kid there was nothing like dragging your finger across the dirty back window of your mom's minivan. Imagine lifting your finger to find you've created a Mona Lisa on the rear glass. Scott Wade of San Marcos, TX is perhaps the only person who could say he's done this.

'Wash Me' taken to a new level - the Dust Art of Scott Wade

A bit of the old Ultraviolence.

Korova Milk Bar | East Village, NYC

Police said the group were allegedly carrying bags with wires sticking out, making it look like a bomb, while meandering and dancing to music as part of a "zombie dance party" Saturday night.

One group member said the "weapons" were actually backpacks modified to carry a homemade stereos...

Inspector Janee Harteau: "It's not a case of (police) overreacting."

Um, yes it is.

'Zombies' arrested in downtown Minneapolis

Savi is not among the companies competing to supply the RFID technology for U.S. passports.

Jello Biafra alleged in his talk at Hope that Tom Ridge's relationship with Savi might be the reason the State Department was trying so hard to hammer the round peg of RFID into the square hole of electronic passports. This does not appear to be the case, however. We're back to the previous theory that the State Department's offices simply haven't been renovated since the era of lead paint.

Passport to pry - Salon

The complaint, available here as a PDF, charges Rombom with obstruction of justice and with witness tampering, alleging that in April 2006 Rombom impersonated a federal investigator at the request of a client who had hired him to locate a government informant who was central to the client's money-laundering indictment in 2003.

The charges have nothing to do with HOPE, and sound rather serious, in fact.

FBI Charges HOPE Speaker with Witness Tampering, Obstructing Justice - Security Fix

Poking around Google Earth at a moment of geopolitical drama, I took a look at North Korea. Turns out that military installations are not only indicated by the Google Earth community, they’re described in some detail.

Open Source » Blog Archive » Google-Earthing the North Korean Military

An animated map of Americans getting fatter over the past 15 years. The heart of the fat seems to be right here in the South East. I guess pulled pork and fried everything isn't as healthy as I thought.

Obesity in America - MSN Health & Fitness

The Gulf Stream indeed contributes to Europe's warmth, but it is wrong to conflate the climate difference across the North Atlantic with the northward flow of warm water in the Gulf Stream. This erroneous logic leads to such statements as (from The Times of London): "The British Isles lie on the same latitude as Labrador on the East Coast of Canada, and are protected from a similarly icy climate by the Atlantic conveyor belt." Such claims are absolutely wrong.

This certainly changed my understanding and also Al Gore's.

American Scientist Online - The Source of Europe's Mild Climate

The Memory Medallion is a small disc, about the size of a half dollar, which is embedded in a monument, memorial or grave marker. Inside the Medallion is a digital memory device that holds a photograph and life story of your loved one.

I walked in the beautiful Mountain View Cemetery in Altadena, Ca this morning. It is lovely, 5 generations family owned and old - some headstones date to the late 1800's which is about as old as you get in SoCal.

They don't even have a website, and yet they have this very cool information imbedding system. You borrow a little handheld device and are able to learn more about people than "Beloved Father" by reading data from a small, coin shaped medallion on specific headstones.

The information is disappointingly skimpy at this point - just a black and white photo and a generic obituary but imagine when people will use these to present their Lifelogs - images, blogs, transcripts and full geneological data. People will be telling their stories after death with information captured digitally throughout a lifetime.

Imagine something like this at the Vietnam War Memorial.

Hopefully they are using a technology that will allow continued access in the more distant future.

Death Tech