Which poster is your favorite?

Books are weapons in the war of ideas

What to Do in an Air Raid

Americans! Share the Meat! Use it up--wear it out--make it do! Idle hands work for Hitler! Who wants to know? Silence means security. Defense Needs Rubber! (Save yours) Men Working Together! Give 'em both barrels. Do it right: make it bite.

This war will be over some day : don't get caught with your pants down. A half-filled stamp album is like a half-equipped soldier.

Your government warns: prepare for winter now! Grow your own! Be Sure!

Ouch! The Japs don't like mosquitoes. Warning, aliens. Hon. spy say: thanks for the can you throw away!

If you talk too much, this man may die. I need your skill in a war job! What did you do today -- for freedom?

Jenny on the job: gets her beauty sleep.
Jenny on the job: wears styles designed for victory.
Jenny on the job: steps ahead with low heels.
Jenny on the job: has her fun after work.
Jenny on the job says -- let's keep our rest room clean!
Jenny on the job: keeps fresh as a daisy.

American Propaganda Posters from World War II

Newsmap is an application that visually reflects the constantly changing landscape of the Google News news aggregator.

This is old but I guess I didn't pay enough attention to it before, or I confused it with another tool that I thought was lame. Its interesting. I like they way it looks but not how it works. Things get too small and they shouldn't
ha
ve
tr
ie
d to organize text vertically. If the site was horizontal it would actually be useful.

newsmap

] There's a rumor circulating at the Crypto conference,
] which is being held this week in Santa Barbara, that
] somebody is about to announce a partial break of the
] SHA-1 cryptographic hashfunction. If true, this will have
] a big impact, as I'll describe below. And if it's not
] true, it will have helped me trick you into learning a
] little bit about cryptography. So read on....

Freedom to Tinker: SHA-1 Break Rumored

] Citing problems with truancy and youth violence, the Los
] Angeles City Council on Wednesday approved an ordinance
] restricting the hours during which minors can visit
] Internet cafes and requiring the shops to install video
] cameras for security.

I wonder how much of this is real and how much of this is the typical pattern of mindless news media sensationalism feeding back into a government which clamps down on youth activities because it has nothing better to do and no political reason to think twice.

Of the cyber cafes in LA, what percentage of them actual have a real problem with violence. Is this any different from the number of problems at video arcades, non internet coffee shops, or other youth hang outs?

"86 percent of the people arrested at cybercafes were juveniles and 93 percent were for truancy or curfew."

So in other words there is almost no problem here? All that this statistic tells me is that young people like to play video games. Curfew isn't illegal for adults. Personally, I don't believe it ought to exist at all. In any event, if you already have a curfew, which you are enforcing, then why do you need a new curfew law for internet cafes? What percentage of these cases were truancy?

In either case this is simply people hanging out at the cafe when ditching school or "when they ought to have been in bed." Oh please, please, nanny state, save us from this horror.

How many people hanging out at bars in Los Angeles have been arrested in the past year? How many for violence? Why don't you require bars to have closed circuit television?

Los Angeles clamps down on cybercafes | CNET News.com

] Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, said the law would simply
] cut off a revenue stream for companies that are knowingly
] providing the tools to commit crimes.

Why is everyone screaming at Hatch? Hatch is a known IP industry tool. We should be screaming at Leahy. I'm so disappointed to see him backing something like this. He is usually computer literate. I used to think he was one of the few people in Congress whose positions I could trust. Unfortunately I'll have to view him with suspicion from now on. He has consorted with the devil.

Bill to Curb Online Piracy Is Challenged as Too Broad

] Rocket plane SpaceShipOne reached an altitude above 62.5
] miles (100 km) during its brief flight Monday morning,
] making it the first privately built craft to fly in
] space, controllers said.

] Shortly after, the space vehicle landed safely at the
] same place from which it took off.

Welcome to the era of corporate space. Lets hope science fiction has properly prepared us.

CNN.com - Private craft flies into space - Jun 21, 2004

] Jerusalem used to be the direction in which the prophet
] Muhammad and the first Muslims turned to pray. In time,
] Muhammad changed the direction, or qibla, and Muslims
] began to pray facing Mecca, as they do today. All the
] Bush White House did was change the qibla of American
] Middle East policy from Jerusalem to Baghdad. While the
] present clique of White House ideologues assumed that a
] safe, stable, and democratic Iraq would reshape the
] region, Zinni, Brzezinski, and company still maintain
] that the peace process is the key. They don't know more
] about the Middle East than the Bush White House; they're
] just angry that someone replaced their absurd reductive
] paradigm with another, equally absurd reductive paradigm.

Good article.

Palestine Policy Paralysis - Face it: There is no -key- to Middle East peace.

Elonka wrote:
] ] But there remain armed guards and checkpoints all the
] ] same--still a restriction on the right to travel, still an
] ] instrument to impose upon ordinary men and women
] ] the will of a totalitarian state.

Of course, Israel is now building one of these.

Israel is not a totalitarian state. The constant, loud, mindless bashing that they have received from the left for last few years has all but eliminated any possibility for thoughtful discussion of their policies. One expects, reflexively, that any critical comment about Israel will immediately be followed with spewage of blind hate. You turn it off. Maybe you've already stopped reading. If so I can't say I blame you.

Reagan was the cultural icon of America in the 80's. I grew up in Canada, and yet I recall Reagan far more clearly then any Prime Minister. As I grew up, he was the person who defined my understanding of what a national leader is. When rule passed to Bush, it seemed strange to me. Unnatural to see another face on that podium. No later President has matched, in my mind, the cultural presence that Reagan had. I may have preferred Clinton's policies, but I did not see him as a symbol of America in the way that Reagan was. There was something special about that man. He fit his time and his place perfectly.

As we reflect on his passing its important that we take the time to reinforce the lessons that his life, and this period of time, taught us. It is unfortunate that it is so hard to do that today without feeling like you're taking a political shot. The Berlin wall was constructed for security reasons, and clearly it did more harm then good. We cannot view the construction of another wall as progress. We ought to recognize a scar when we see one. We've had them before. If we ignore it... allow it to become an institution, it will be with us for decades. It will be a dark reminder, as the Berlin wall was, of everything screwed up about the planet our children will inherit.

RE: Ronald Reagan's 'Tear Down This Wall' Speech

] Yet two years of dismal job prospects, during a recession
] that cut about 2.7 million jobs from peak to trough, have
] imbued the current crop of seniors with an awareness of
] the economy's inherent instability and prompted them to
] be much more deliberate about their careers. A survey of
] college students conducted by the association earlier
] this year found that only slightly more than 10 percent
] of respondents ticked "don't know what I want to do" as
] their biggest obstacle to finding a job, compared with 22
] percent in 2000.

A generational shift in new graduates.

'04 Graduates Learned Lesson in Practicality

] by Kurt Vonnegut
]
] Many years ago, I was so innocent I still considered it
] possible that we could become the humane and reasonable
] America so many members of my generation used to dream
] of. We dreamed of such an America during the Great
] Depression, when there were no jobs. And then we fought
] and often died for that dream during the Second World
] War, when there was no peace.
]
] But I know now that there is not a chance in hell of
] America's becoming humane and reasonable. Because
] power corrupts us, and absolute power corrupts
] absolutely. Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy
] drunk on power. By saying that our leaders are
] power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the
] morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle
] East? Their morale, like so many bodies, is already shot
] to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like
] toys a rich kid got for Christmas

(No, I don't "agree" with this essay. But it is Kurt Vonnegut. And it is entertaining.)

Cold Turkey