] Republic is a strategy simulation game that puts you in
] the role of a budding revolutionary, out to overthrow a
] despotic and corrupt regime.
]
] Much of the artificial intelligence in the game is based
] on the book, Crowds and Power, by the 1981 Nobel Laureate
] in Literature.

Simulation based on the book, Crowds and Power, by the 1981 Nobel Laureate in Literature, Elias Canetti.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Game plays politics with your PC

] The vast majority of the 2.7 million job losses since the
] 2001 recession began were the result of permanent changes
] in the U.S. economy and are not coming back, which means
] the labor market will not regain strength until new
] positions are created in novel and dynamic economic
] sectors, a Federal Reserve Bank of New York study has
] concluded.

Like I was saying...

Jobs cut since 2001 are gone for good, study says

] The LIBRARIAN
]
] ACTION FIGURE
]
] COMING THIS FALL, 2003!

Complete with "Shush-ing" action.

LibrarianActionFigure.com

The first time I went to the dekalb county webpage it was to determine why it was illegal to practice golf in a public park. I live next to a public park. People play frisbee, they play volleyball, they play basketball, they play baseball. Why the fuck can't I go down there with a bunch of whiffle balls? Its not safety. Baseballs are bigger, faster, and they go further then my little whiffle balls. Its revenue. They want the golfers to pay to access state golf ranges where they charge you $10 to hit a bucket of balls.

Tonight I learned that you cannot buy beer in Dekalb on any day after midnight. I ended up having to drive to Fulton, through the stalled morass of blingers at buckhead, all the way down to a gass station near Peidmont hospital. My quick trip to get beer took an hour.

I realise that these things are minor. I have lovely county run golf courses to play on. I can buy beer during the day. The thing is, that when and where I buy beer, and when and where I practice golf, are none of your damn business. This is not a nessecary and useful purpose for government. The minor details of your personal life are, in fact, minor. Not a big deal. But if the government feels compelled to stick its nose into issues that are so trivial, then there really are few limits to what they may feel the right to stick their nose into. This is not freedom.

Fuck Dekalb County

] With Willie Brown finally leaving his gold (plated),
] diamond-encrusted throne, there has been no shortage of
] hats thrown into the mayoral ring. San Francisco politics
] are now a microcosm of California's own, greater
] gubernatorial "challenges." Rather than confuse
] you with endorsements, position papers and other outmoded
] means of political influence, we've decided to get
] to the bottom of the only question that matters: Is a
] particular candidate human or an insidious replicant,
] possessed of physical strength and computational
] abilities far exceeding our own, but lacking empathy and
] possibly even bent on our destruction as a species?
]
] The only reliable method that we know of for sniffing out
] replicants is the Voight-Kampff Test, created by Phillip
] K. Dick in his book, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
] and later used by Harrison Ford's character,
] Deckard, in the film Blade Runner.

Issuing the Voight-Kampff Test to San Francisco Mayoral Candidates

I know this is lame, but after years of using unix machines this find exec syntax has never stuck in my brain. Recommending it to Memestreams will make it easy to find again.

Unix find - grep command

] Fifteen sites are thought to be in breach of the US
] Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and are said by
] Sharman Networks to be running unauthorised copies of its
] Kazaa P2P software.

This story is a little jumbled... The RIAA is mentioned repeatedly, but I don't see any relationship that they have to this. Google got DMCAed by Kazaa for linking to sites that distribute their software without their permission.

vnunet.com: Google DMCAed by Kazaa

] A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit Thursday by three
] residents seeking to return a 5,300-pound Ten
] Commandments monument to the lobby of the Alabama
] Judicial building.
]
] U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson said removal of the
] monument did not unconstitutionally establish a religion
] of non-theistic beliefs, as the residents claimed.

I can't beleive they actually tried that...

CNN.com - New Ten Commandments suit dismissed - Sep. 5, 2003

] The recording industry has a message for those who
] download music: Come clean, and we won't come after you.
]
] Sources say the industry is expected to announce an
] amnesty program for those who have collected or shared
] music files across the Internet.

(Read with a mooninite voice:)

If we haven't IDed you, you can ID yourself, and we promise not to sue you for PAST infringement (which we're not going to do anyway because we haven't IDed you), but we'll check up on you now and then in the future to make sure you're still clean.

If we HAVE IDed you, you're still screwed.

The great thing about this is that we get to look merciful without making any changes in our litigation plans.

Remember, The RIAA is watching you.

It is more then you could possibly comprehend with 100% of your brain.

BEEP.

TheKansasCityChannel.com - Record Labels Plan Amnesty For Downloaders

] A wealthy businessman helping the Ohio Republican Party
] try to win the state in 2004 for President Bush also is
] the head of a company competing for a state contract to
] sell voting machines.
]
] Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc., told
] Republicans in an Aug. 14 fund-raising letter that he is
] ``committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes
] to the president next year.''

Watch the bouncing ball here. The mainstream press has widely discredited the security analysis of the Diebold's machines because the person that performed it is on the board at a competing company. On the other hand, there is hardly a peep about this. There are 9 links on google news from 6 outlets, 4 small local news stations, and two leftist journals.

Want undeniable proof of press culpability, compare a google news search for "Walden O'Dell" with "Avi Rubin votehere" Not all of the Avi Rubin stories are critical, but we're talking about 63 to 9 here. Furthermore, consider the impact that the blaster worm stories have had on the American mindset. We may not say "this kid created the blaster worm" but we build that association in your head anyway.

The AJC: "Furor over the report was partly defused when the lead researcher acknowledged this week that he failed to disclose that he had stock options in VoteHere, a company that competes with Diebold in the voting-software market, and was a member of VoteHere's technical advisory board."

From ABC: Diebold officials said they were "shocked and disappointed" by Rubin's admissions.

"Diebold Election Systems has consistently questioned the conclusions drawn by the Johns Hopkins-issued report," the company said in a statement. "It is now clear, by Mr. Rubin's own admission, that questions of bias must be considered."

Diebold appears to have conflict