Jon Stewart was on 60 minutes tonight... Hopefully this will hit the web. CBS will sell a tape for $30, but not until November... He also appeared recently on cspan... This seems to be a clearing house for information:

http://www.jonstewart.net/news.html

CBS News | Jon Stewart Roasts Real News

For all the excitement on opening day, it didn't take New Yorkers long to revert to their jaded selves.

This brief article on the history of subway technology brings David Macaulay to mind. Be sure to check out the illustrations.

Looking Back As The New York Subway Turns 100

The essential element of a democratic society -- trust -- has been weakened, as secrecy, mendacity and intimidation have become the hallmarks of this administration.

Rhetoric matters.

Freedom Is Not Just a Slogan

Colin Powell kept a set of rules on his desk. Here are a few:

Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.

Get mad, then get over it.

Have a vision. Be demanding.

Check small things.

You can't make someone else's choices. You shouldn't let someone else make yours.

Be careful what you choose. You may get it.

I've posted these before, but it's worth reviewing them periodically.

Powell's Rules

Swater wrote:
] This is a long transcript of Al Gore's speech on the Bush
] presidency delivered at Georgetown on Monday. It's long and I
] couldn't find the text anywhere except on a forum site, so I
] include it here.

Here is the video version...

(I had a lot of trouble getting this to work. Part of it was Apple decided to intercept realaudio files in 10.3 and send them to quicktime, which promptly bitches that it can't play the file. Part of it was also the link, I think. If you go to CSPAN'S webpage its on the main page today.)

Real Video: RE: Al Gore: Bush Policy Driven By Ideology Not Reality

biochik007 wrote:
] w1ld wrote:
] ] mp3 of Kerry support both sides of many issues.
]
] That rox! sad but true, sad but funny...

Actually, its not true. Its standard issue political dishonesty, and the people who buy into it are the problem with this country. I mean it.

Political issues are complex. The way that politicians manipulate you is by pretending that they are not. This works as follows:

1. Say you are going to do A. (Example: Save the children.)
2. Demonstrate that A is good. (The children are at risk!)
3. Ask people if they support A. (Don't you want to save the children?!)
4. Once people have expressed support for A, propose legislation that includes both A and B (Section A says we want to save the children. Section B proposes doing do by disposing of toxic waste by turning into candy and distributing it on Halloween.)
5. When people vote against your legislation because of section B, accuse them of opposing section A. (How dare you suggest that we shouldn't save the children! Don't you want to save the children!?)
6. If all else fails, accuse your opponent of being inconsistent. (First, you said you wanted to save the children. Now you say you don't.)
7. Never actually discuss part B.

Everyone will go along with it, because they are too fucking stupid to bother to actually read the legislation in question. It works every time.

In this case:
1. Say that you are going to disarm Saddam Hussein.
2. Publish intelligence information of questionable value (in one case ripped verbatim from a college student's class report) supporting the idea that Saddam is an imminent threat. No one can question this information because you control the intelligence services and they sign off on the intel.
3. Ask Congress to pass a resolution supporting your effort to disarm Saddam Hussein.
4. Once the resolution has passed, blow off the international allies who typically provide the financing for such military adventures and launch a pre-emptive war that significantly undermines established international law concerning military conflicts (only as a last resort, only in self defense).
5. When people oppose you because of part 4, accuse them of opposing the idea of disarming Saddam Hussein. Make sure you completely confuse the concepts of what was done and how it was done.
6. If all else fails, accuse your opponent of flip-flopping (First, you said you wanted the war, now you say you oppose it.)
7. Don't talk about how we're going to pay for this. When it turns out that there is no WMD, claim we are there to support democracy, while simultaneously stating that you are fine with an Islamic Fundamentalist state in Iraq if thats what the people there want.

This is how politicians fuck you. Bend over. You are being fucked.

RE: Audio mp3 of Kerry doing the Flip Flop

] The use of robots around the home to mow lawns, vacuum
] floors and manage other chores is set to surge sevenfold
] by 2007 as more consumers snap up smart machines, the
] United Nations said.

CBS News | U.N. Predicts Boom In Robot Labor | October 20, 2004

] Why should hackers care especially about civil liberties? Why
] programmers, more than dentists or salesmen or
] landscapers?
]
] Let me put the case in terms a government official would
] appreciate. Civil liberties are not just an ornament, or
] a quaint American tradition. Civil liberties make
] countries rich. If you made a graph of GNP per capita vs.
] civil liberties, you'd notice a definite trend. Could
] civil liberties really be a cause, rather than just an
] effect? I think so. I think a society in which people can
] do and say what they want will also tend to be one in
] which the most efficient solutions win, rather than those
] sponsored by the most influential people. Authoritarian
] countries become corrupt; corrupt countries become poor;
] and poor countries are weak. It seems to me there is a
] Laffer curve for government power, just as for tax
] revenues. At least, it seems likely enough that it would
] be stupid to try the experiment and find out. Unlike high
] tax rates, you can't repeal totalitarianism if it turns
] out to be a mistake.
]
] This is why hackers worry. The government spying on
] people doesn't literally make programmers write worse
] code. It just leads eventually to a world in which bad
] ideas will win. And because this is so important to
] hackers, they're especially sensitive to it. They can
] sense totalitarianism approaching from a distance, as
] animals can sense an approaching thunderstorm.

Good Bad Attitude

Earlier this month I had the opportunity to have a chat with an Army Sergeant who had returned to the States from a one year tour of duty in Iraq. It was my first opportunity to really sit down and talk face to face with someone from one of the combat zones, and I had a thousand questions for him. I did my best to just listen to what he had to say without comment, so often it wasn't so much a discussion as a debriefing. I did check with him several times as to whether or not he was comfortable talking about things, but he said it was fine, and actually somewhat therapeutic.

I'd like to share some of the things that he said. I agreed with some of it, and disagreed with some, but I'm going to do my best to present the information here, as he said it...

I offer this here in my memestream not to make any particular kind of point (as I said, I agree with some stuff he said, and disagree with other stuff), but just to share my notes from the chat. Overall, it was a fascinating conversation, and I was very grateful for the opportunity to see Iraq through this soldier's eyes.

- Elonka

Conversation with a Soldier Back from Iraq

] US President George W Bush has said he would accept an
] Islamic government in Iraq as the result of free
] elections.

BBC NEWS | Americas | Bush: I would accept Islamic Iraq