Global warming is leading to the shrinkage of polar ice caps, so you may as well give Bush and Cheney some credit for this one!

Bush Unveils New Economic Booster

Steve Albini writes an essay for the Negativland site about how screwed the music industry really is, particularly if you're a young indie band looking for a "Big Break."

Never mind any "artists rights" noise you might hear - examine the hypothetical numbers he includes toward the end of the article and you'll see exactly why the music industry hates MP3s.

The Problem With Music

] Take a quick look at the pair of toads 4-year-old Casey
] Dicken found in her grandparents' pool yesterday, and
] they look relatively normal.
] They may even look like they're doing something a
] 4-year-old shouldn't see and probably wouldn't
] understand.
] But look closer, and there's something different about
] the two toads.
] They are one. They're connected. The two amphibians are
] conjoined, un-identical twins.

Girl finds two-headed toad in Hopkinton

The Skycar is a new type of aircraft, which the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) calls a "powered lift" aircraft. It is designed to carry four average-size passengers and take off and land vertically (VTOL), while being small enough to be driven on the street. It is designed to fly at a top speed of 380 MPH with a range of 900 miles

The prototype Skycar will be placed on eBay at the end of January. Ah, if only those dot bomb stock options had ever paid off like the recruiters said they would...

Skycar for Sale

Heh, you gotta love satire.

Some people think it's important to reduce our dependence on foreign oil... but clearly, they just don't get it! If we have to adjust our standard of living in any way whatsoever... well... haven't Saddam and his terrorist buddies already won?

For all you gas guzzlers out there.

Dolemite

This Modern World

Another short story by Cory Doctorow. Enjoy.

Liberation spectrum

] Brilliantly, seditiously remixed State of the Union
] address video.

This is really well done...

Deconstructing Bush...

While I'm not in a position to have chosen who I'm voting for next election, here's an interview that keeps me from lumping John Edwards into the pile of "no votes". Salon offers free 24 hour memberships for sitting through about 2 minutes of advertisements in case you don't have a membership.

You do have complaints about the role the judicial system plays in the war on terrorism, especially when it erodes civil liberties. Can you point to excesses from this administration in its pursuit of national security?

Yes, absolutely. One of the things I have proposed is taking domestic intelligence away from the FBI and setting up a more effective intelligence agency. And if that were done I'd also set up an individual civil rights and civil liberties watchdog to monitor what's happening with that agency. It would require record-keeping of data, whether what they're doing on the Internet or if they're monitoring religious entities like mosques or churches. It would make sure there are no constitutional and no civil liberties violations by this agency.

One of the things going on right now that I think is unacceptable is the way the Bush administration is dealing with those they call enemy combatants. I know my position on this is not popular, but it's my belief that designating someone, an American citizen, an enemy combatant, and putting them in jail, where they do not have access to a lawyer, where they cannot get a hearing, or go before a judge, where they are not given a chance to prove that they did nothing wrong -- it violates everything we believe in America. I think it's just wrong.

The Salon Interview: John Edwards

Case said he would resign because "some shareholders continue to focus their disappointment with the company's post-merger performance on me personally."

Personally, I think that both Time/Warner and AOL were making too much of their money off of each other, thinking that once they were all in one big happy family there would be another mega corporation to sell services and advertising to.

Steve Case to resign from AOL Time Warner

Regular male drinkers cut their risk of heart attack by about one third compared to nondrinkers, and one beer every other day may do the trick, according to the results of a large, long-term study released on Wednesday.

Alcohol Cuts Heart Attack Risk in Men -Study