"I don't think the report is true, but these crises work for those who want to make fights between people." Kulam Dastagir, 28, a bird seller in Afghanistan
PolitiFact | The Obameter: Tracking Barack Obama's Campaign Promises
Topic: Miscellaneous
9:03 am EST, Jan 28, 2009
PolitiFact has compiled about 500 promises that Barack Obama made during the campaign and is tracking their progress on our Obameter. We rate their status as No Action, In the Works or Stalled. Once we find action is completed, we rate them Promise Kept, Compromise or Promise Broken.
Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-01-24/Flagged Revisions - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Topic: Miscellaneous
1:01 pm EST, Jan 27, 2009
On Wednesday Jimbo Wales asked the Wikimedia Foundation to turn on Flagged Revisions on the English Wikipedia on his "personal recommendation". Wales also cited the poll on the proposed implementation of Flagged revisions. The move has inspired much controversy and discussion, including a rejected request for arbitration that has called Wales' unique role as "founder" on Wikipedia into question.
Much of the opposition to the request stems from the fact that the poll closed at a 60/40 split, not the consensus that is usually required for such decisions. Erik Möller, the Deputy Director of the Wikimedia Foundation, previously stated that "a very large majority, at least two thirds, is generally necessary".
Having emerged from Seattle's influential Sub Pop music scene of the late 1980s and early 1990s, Lanegan was also a close friend of the late Kurt Cobain of Nirvana. Here's a duet of those two singing a searing rendition of Leadbelly's "Where Did You Sleep Last Night," available on Lanegan's 1990 solo album The Winding Sheet.
Another good musical thread on BoingBoing, this one involving a Nirvana cover of In the pines that I hadn't heard. The thread links a few more interesting renditions of the song, and makes reference to three other LeadBelly covers that appear on a box set that I don't have. I looked those three up on YouTube and included links to them below:
This message might meet you in utmost surprise however,it's just my urgentneed for a foreign partner that made me contact you for this transaction.I am a banker by profession from DAKAR REPUBLIC OF SENEGAL in west Africa and currently holding the post of auditing general, I discover this deposit in our auditing course.
Yeah! Spam hit Memestreams. We're on the map now. We're a target! :)
Thanks for the report.
The volume of spam on MemeStreams is really intolerable. There are a wide variety of websites that include us on lists of good places to post spam. Spam posted here doesn't get indexed, but its not like the people running these lists care about their accuracy. Fortunately, we've made enough architectural changes over the years that for the most part, this spam doesn't negatively impact the day to day use of the site.
The spammers that start directing messages to people's memeboxes are the exception, of course, and if you get spam like that please report it because I need to delete users like that. There are further architectural changes that I could make that would make memebox spam less annoying, but really, I think something different is needed.
I think we need an invite only token system for new users. I don't see a viable alternative at this point.
Although some of you did join this community without being previously connected to one of the users here, I don't think that could happen today. The vast majority of people who join this site are spammers and there are so many of them that if a legitimate user joins its most likely that no one would notice them in the fray. They likely remain in the "New Users with posts" ghetto, wadding in the spam, and almost certainly giving up before getting noticed and promoted into the normal user base.
I think that at this point a token system would be far more likely to enable new users to make positive contributions to the site.
When I'll have time to develop one, however, remains to be seen. I wrote a bunch of changes to the code in March that remain unfinished and unshipped.
It’s hard to imagine what, at this point, needs to be kept secret, other than the ways in which the administration behaved irresponsibly, and quite possibly illegally, in the Masri case.
A post on Boingboing drew my attention to this case, in which a German man was rendered to Afghanistan and tortured because his name sounded like someone the CIA was after. Rattle noticed the case last year but otherwise I'm not sure it was discussed on MemeStreams. This case seems to couple totally incompetent intelligence work (they apparently rendered this guy based entirely on the fact that his name is similar to someone they were looking for without any further confirmation) with the almost limitless scope of the state secrets privilege as a consequence free environment for administration actions.
One would like to see the new Administration investigate cases like this, not as a way to seek political retribution but out of a basic sense of justice. Some sort of reparation is absolutely appropriate here if the facts are as they seem. But even if the Administration addresses this, the structural problem remains.
The government seems to have concluded, broadly, that the law does not apply to its actions. Therefore our freedom appears to be entirely the consequence of the benevolence of the kings we're electing. I have a very hard time reconciling that observation with the complaints that have been raised about warfare being over-lawyered. The lawyers appear to have added institutional overhead without actually adding justice. Its the worst of both worlds.
Roosevelt took over a country where the economic machinery had completely broken down.
The New York Stock Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade had closed.
Illinois and much of the South had stopped paying teachers. Schools closed for months.
An army of 25,000 famished war veterans squatting in view of Congress had been charged by troopers of the 3rd US cavalry with naked sabres – led by a Major George Patton.
Armed farmers threatening revolution had laid siege to a string of Prairie cities. A mob had stormed the Nebraska Capitol. Minnesota's governor was recruiting Communists only for the state militia.
Lawyers attempting to enforce foreclosures were shot.
More than 100,000 New Yorkers applied to go to the Soviet Union when Moscow advertised for 6,000 skilled workers.
Great garage mod punk from The Easybeats (1966). According to Frank at Save vs. Death, "George Young, the rhythm guitar player, is the older brother of Angus and Malcom Young and produced the first six AC/DC records. How's that for an awesome pedigree?" There's a family resemblance for sure!
This thread contains an collection of YouTube videos of Aussie rock that seems to collectively cover the gap between the beatles and early 90's grunge bands. A few interesting tracks in here.
Although not Aussie, this video from the Monks in particular is amazing for it's time.
High and Low Finance - Wall Street May Be Looking at Withering Wages - NYTimes.com
Topic: Business
4:01 pm EST, Jan 23, 2009
It is one thing when the best-paid people seem to be the smartest and the most accomplished. Those who make much less may not like it, but the differential seems understandable. It is another thing when those people are shown to have committed huge blunders that would have driven their companies out of business, and them into the unemployment line, but for government bailouts.
