This week's Onion must-read.

Rumsfeld then declared the tournament open by symbolically shattering a block of obsidian with his prosthetic dragon's claw—the powerful weapon grafted onto his right wrist after 2003 champion Li severed his hand with manji butterfly swords.
..
"Man, they ain't seen unorthodox-but-effective until they seen me," said the languid Jack "Chocolate Lightning" Garrison, the two-time East Coast Freestyle Kung-Fu champion once described by SuckaPunch magazine as "six feet of stone-cold brotha and 10 inches of afro barely contained in a fly lemon-yellow jumpsuit."

Onion:Rumsfeld Hosts No-Holds-Barred Martial Arts Tournament

There were, no doubt, other mishaps that did not come to light because of the stunning lack of transparency around voting in the state. When a Times editorial writer dropped in on one Palm Beach precinct where there were reports of malfunctioning machines, county officials called the police to remove him.

Florida as the Next Florida

] The Republican National Committee is warning television
] stations across the country not to run ads from the
] MoveOn.org Voter Fund that criticize President Bush,
] charging that the left-leaning political group is paying
] for them with money raised in violation of the new
] campaign-finance law.

As if the FCC hasn't screwed up enough this administration.

RNC tells TV stations not to run anti-Bush ads

] Thanks to the GOP takeover of Washington, and the harsh
] realities of the Big Sort, economically lagging parts of
] the country now wield ultimate political power, while the
] creative centers--source of most of America's economic
] growth--have virtually none.

This is a very good article that gets off to a slow start. It resonates with a lot of the things we've been discussing here. The author is arguing that the migration of creative people from the midwest into the country's urban centers during the .com boom created the political situation which led to the Bush win in 2000. (The Democrats' political base is now concentrated into smaller geographic areas, cutting their electoral edge on the GOP.) Now the creative class is politically disenfranchised.

You can see this directly in the election. Bush is offering tax cuts to people who are handling multi-million dollar inheritances and who make most of their money from capital gains. Dean and the other Democrats are offering to help families who make less then $50,000 a year. They talk about manufacturing jobs and steel workers. This country's economic future is not going to be built by steel workers. It is also not going to be built by the bored and dull sons of sons of sons who have more money then you can count and no real ambition as a result.

This country's economic future has always been built by people who are both capable of building it and motivated to do so. This author is arguing that we might not see it at all. He is seeing brain drain out of the US to Canada, Europe, and Australia. We wouldn't feel that right now if we had it, as the US isn't using the people they have. What's cutting a little muscle when you aren't running at top speed? The authors suggest a serious risk that the next runner to the front of the pack is likely to be a country that creates opportunities for the creative class, and right now thats not us.

'Creative Class War' by Richard Florida

] To date, the 22 suicides represent about 14 percent of
] 153 nonhostile deaths in Iraq since the war began in
] March. An additional 343 service members have been killed
] in combat, bringing the total number of dead to 496, the
] Pentagon reported Wednesday.

22 GIs commit suicide in Iraq, raising worries

] Pentagon auditors found that Vice President Dick
] Cheney%u2019s former company may have overcharged the
] Army by as much as $61 million for gasoline in Iraq,
] senior defense officials said Thursday.

SURPRISE!!!

Halliburton may have overcharged

] A universal garage door opener is not in violation of the Digital
] Millennium Copyright Act, even if used on a system made by
] another company, a U.S. District Court ruled Thursday.

Finally, some good news!

Opening Doors With the DMCA

] As for new digital cables, the FCC ruling does not
] mandate any one copy-control technology, leaving it up to
] companies to choose from competing options. But this
] competition probably won't happen. Most of the
] electronics industry has anointed one system, called "5C"
] after the five corporations that developed it (Hitachi,
] Intel, Matsushita, Sony and Toshiba) and already approved
] for the digital outputs on future cable boxes and
] cable-compatible TV sets. The FCC can approve other
] copy-control schemes, but 5C-compliant hardware may not
] be upgradeable to support these competing mechanisms,
] placing them at a disadvantage.

...

] You won't be able to make a lower-resolution copy of a
] digital broadcast to watch on your DVD player or move a
] recording to the laptop or handheld computer you own
] today. And by forbidding all Internet transfers, even of
] brief excerpts, the scheme steals fair-use rights.

FCC Deserves a Digital Thanks for Nothing

] Capt. Hornbuckle's name has never appeared in a newspaper
] or on television. He has received no book deals, no movie
] offers, no trips to Disneyland. In September, when he
] went to see his parents in Tifton, Ga., his mother called
] the local Holiday Inn and asked the manager to put her
] son's name -- he goes by Zan -- on the hotel marquee.
] That has been his most public recognition so far.

I thought I was going to be sick when the ads for the TV movie of Jessica Lynch were airing last week. But this makes me more sick.

Why you've heard of Jessica Lynch, not Zan Hornbuckle

As some of you know, I have been heavily involved in fighting the state based DMCA laws (or commonly known as SDMCA or SuperDMCA), specifically in TN. We formed a group called the Tennessee Digital Freedom Network in response to these laws in the TN legislature last year.

One of the things that has come about through my involvement in this process is the idea that there needs to be an active government lobby associated with people who want to preserve and protect digital rights. Everyone knows about the RIAA and the MPAA and the AARP and the NRA. There is not really a group devoted to researching, articulating, or lobbying for issues centralized on technology and digital freedoms.

You could claim that the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) holds this role. Certainly they accomplish some of these goals, but it could be said that they are lacking in the political might and/or activism necessary to truly work an issue at a local level.

Assume that this group would be geared towards three key competencies:

o researching and providing comment and/or solutions to legislators on key issues involving technology or digital themes.
o organizing and applying legislative effort to ensure that key issues remain open, free, and accessable.
o sponsoring legislators who actively serve to protect technology and digital freedoms.

So I have questions to ask of the Memestreams population:

1) Do you feel as though your rights and freedoms are being infringed in the digital realm?
2) Do you feel as though you have adequate power to protect these rights and freedoms?
3) Do you feel as though the EFF is an adequate tool to protect these rights and freedoms for you (or en masse)?
4) Do you feel that another group (or groups) might be necessary to ensure that these rights and freedoms are protected?
5) Would you be willing to contribute financially to such a group? What is the level that you feel you would contribute? $10/year? $10/month? Would you encourage your colleagues to contribute?
6) Would you be willing to contribute your time as a volunteer to such a group? What is the level you feel you would contribute? 1 hour/month? 1 hour/week? Would you encourage your colleagues to contribute?

any response by you is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for your time and energy.

Cheers,
Scott