tina wrote:

] But not as hot as you, of course.

I'm too sexy for your party...

] Now, if you could just get
] that neo-liberal streak under control... ;)

Am I a neo-liberal? What does that mean? I've been considering declaring myself a political agnostic. I'm opposed to organized politics, for the same reason that I'm opposed to organized religion. Both produce people who are more interested in being right then understanding whats real, which inevitably leads to strife.

As long as you beleive that you are a particular thing... I AM a Republican... I AM a Catholic... Then you cannot think critically about that thing, because if its wrong, then you are wrong, and this undermines your self esteem.

By calling myself a political agnostic I get to oppose the entire spectrum of political thought without having difficulty explaining where I stand. I give my stance a name. A meme.

Unfortunately political agnostic seems to already be taken:

"A political Agnostic is someone that claims to not have enough knowledge about politics to make a decision about what party to vote for, what candidate to choose, or how to vote on an amendment."

While its fair that a religious agnostic might claim to not have enough knowledge about reality to select a view of how it works, this explanation is somewhat misleading. There is a difference between not knowing enough because you don't care to learn, and not knowing enough because you don't beleive its possible to know enough. In either case, neither definition describes what I'm talking about. Its not that I don't know enough to vote. I support and oppose laws and candidates all the time. Its that I don't agree with the idea of associating with a group versus making my own personal choices on an issue by issue basis.

Maybe I need a new word? Anocrat? Damnit. Already taken:

"The anocratic state is an intermediate state where elites maintain themselves in power despite the existence of democratic procedures."

Kind of what we have, isn't it?

Is it possible that the english language does not have a word for someone who is opposed to organized politics? Anyone got any suggestions?

Help, I need to invent a new word.

] Also, as always, the pretty girls and cops
] are on my side, most of them barely able to conceal their
] eye-rolling

Wow... I'm hardly suprised the USA Today yanked this one. Yeah, I know lots of pretty democrats. I also seriously doubt the Boston Police are staunch republicans. Site is kind of slashdotted right now.

Ann Coulter's USA Today Column

tina wrote:

] Carter was one of the angrier speakers of the night, blasting
] the Bush admin. for ruining our name and our human rights
] record which he worked so hard to improve.

Don't miss Tina's blow by blow coverage of the DNC in her MemeStream.

I'm avoiding anything and everything having to do with the DNC because I see it as a big commercial, but having someone here providing quick executive summaries is nice. I get straight facts without having to listen to some idiot journalist yarn on about Hillary's outfit.

RE: The DNC: send me!

] It's the economy, John Kerry.
]
] That's what delegates to the Democratic National
] Convention say their presumed presidential nominee or --
] they shudder to think -- President Bush should
] concentrate on first in 2005, an Associated Press survey
] of Democratic delegates found.
]
] Health care was the No. 2 issue, followed by the war in
] Iraq, according to the survey of some three-quarters of
] the 4,300-plus delegates.

I think this is a very serious mistake. This election is a referendum on Bush, and how his administration has handled security and foreign policy in the wake of 9/11. As long as Kerry can maintain the perception that Bush has loused things up and that he can fix it he can will the election. This is not very difficult to do in the wake of the failure to discover WMD and the difficult security situation in Iraq.

Putting out a numbered list of priorities, and putting national security in the middle of list, communicates only one thing, and that is that national security is not our top priority. This creates a fundamental weakness that will be easy for the Republicans to exploit. They can send the message that they care more about national security then the Democrats do, and if people believe that message the Republicans will win the election. A terrorist attack in this season would play right into that fissure.

Healthcare is a very serious problem in this country, but no one understands it better then the people who operate businesses. In other words, as most voters don't operate businesses they are unlikely to understand how serious the problem is. They understand 9/11. And frankly, they understand that healthcare won't help much if they are victim of an attack no matter how affordable it is.

AP Survey: Top priority of Democratic delegates? It's the economy

I don't have time to read this now, but I thought I'd share it in case you're up late and looking for an interesting read. The last time you ignored Scott Ritter we went to war and it turned out he was right.

IHT: Saddam's people are winning the war - Scott Ritter

Somewhere, someone failed because they needed yesterday what you only finished today.

Don't wait. Go.

Mantra #1

] This site is designed to empower you, the individual
] activist, to help stop the genocide in Sudan. You do
] have the power.

A reasonable starting point for those who want to better understand the Sudan.

http://passionofthepresent.com

] The company is strongly urging e-mail providers and
] Internet service providers (ISPs) to publish Sender
] Policy Framework (SPF) records that identify their e-mail
] servers in the domain name system (DNS) by mid-September.
] Microsoft will begin matching the source of inbound
] e-mail to the Internet Protocol (IP) addresses of e-mail
] servers listed in that sending domain's SPF record by
] Oct. 1. Messages that fail the check will not be
] rejected, but will be further scrutinized and filtered,
] said Craig Spiezle, director of Microsoft's Safety
] Technology and Strategy Group.

Microsoft is planning on enforcing SPF. Fortunately they aren't going to outright drop non-SPF emails, but it remains to be seen if MemeStreams email will go through to hotmail accounts after this change. SPF breaks systems like MemeStreams that send out emails on someone else's behalf. There is a workaround, but it is hacky to the point of being considered harmful, and I can't easily employ it because outbound email from MemeStreams comes from the webserver and not the mail server. In any event, if you notice that your memestreams messages aren't getting through as this moves forward please let me know. Its going to be a hell of a lot of work to address this and I don't want to do it until it becomes a real concern and not just theoretical.

InfoWorld: Microsoft to break MemeStreams

Likely, the identity of the Arabs on Annie Jacobson's flight...

Clinton W. Taylor on Nour Mehana & Terror in the Skies

] Russell Simmons owns a loft facing ground zero. Since 9/11
] there's been extremely limited access to the building,
] but this morning our good friend, photographer Glen E.
] Friedman get in for a few minutes to make a statement
] which will be up through the RNC. Here's a bunch of
] pictures from inside and out.

The who of this is as interesting as the what. Kick ass loft. Got to be a few million.

seanbonner: Facing the WTC