Category: Links

Some additional reading September 29th from 15:27 to 18:08:

• Jackson Votes "No" on Flawed Bailout Bill – "We have gone from Roosevelt's New Deal, to Reagan's Raw Deal, to Bush's Quick Deal. The American People are demanding a Fair Deal and on November 4th will elect Fair Dealers."
• Orcinus – What Goes Around – "By their own standards and rules of evidence, Sarah Palin's association with New Apostolic churches and her admitted personal associations are serious issues that cast a long shadow on her intentions for this country. If the GOP ticket wins, there's a one-third chance that the world's most powerful country — including the biggest army the world has ever seen — will end up in the hands of a woman who believes that God put her where she is; and subscribes to a religion that is overtly and unapologetically raising its children to destroy American democracy."

Some additional reading September 29th from 07:27 to 10:27:

• Daily Kos: More egg on the wingnutosphere's face – "Tracy Jopek of Merrill told The Associated Press on Sunday she was honored that Obama remembered Sgt. Ryan David Jopek, who was killed in 2006 by a roadside bomb.
  Jopek criticized Internet reports suggesting Obama, D-Ill., exploited her son for political purposes.

  "I don't understand how people can take that and turn it into some garbage on the Internet," she said.

  Jopek acknowledged e-mailing the Obama campaign in February asking that the presidential candidate not mention her son in speeches or debates. But she said Obama's mention on Friday was appropriate because he was responding after Sen. John McCain, the Republican nominee, said a soldier's mother gave him a bracelet."

• Guess who's not coming to dinner :: rogerebert.com :: News & comment – Roger Ebert disinvites John McCain from any future dinner parties:
  "I do not like you, John McCain. My feeling has nothing to do with issues. It has to do with common courtesy. During the debate, you refused to look Barack Obama in the eye. Indeed, you refused to look at him at all. Even when the two of you shook hands at the start, you used your eyes only to locate his hand, and then gazed past him as you shook it.

  Obama is my guy. If you are rude to him, you are rude to me. If you came to dinner at my house and refused to look at or speak with one of my guests, that would be bad manners and I would be offended. Same thing if I went to your house. During the debate, you were America's guest."

• Notable figures remember Paul Newman – some good anecdotes here

Some additional reading September 28th from 00:15 to 10:37:

• The Next Up-and-Coming Neighborhoods – BusinessWeek – My photo got republished by BusinessWeek, with a half-assed photo credit. Is it really so hard to use my real name? I guess if they don't, they don't have to pay, right? oh well. Still cool.
• James Fallows-on Strategy and Tactics – But Obama either figured out, or instinctively understood, that the real battle was to make himself seem comfortable, reasonable, responsible, well-versed, and in all ways "safe" and non-outsiderish to the audience just making up its mind about him. (And yes, of course, his being a young black man challenging an older white man complicated everything he did and said, which is why his most wittily aggressive debate performance was against another black man, Alan Keyes, in his 2004 Senate race.) The evidence of the polls suggests that he achieved exactly this strategic goal. He was the more "likeable," the more knowledgeable, the more temperate, etc.
• How McCain Stirred a Simmering Pot – Maybe why McCain was so pissed at Obama
  " Obama then jumped in to turn the question on his rival: "What do you think of the [insurance] plan, John?" he asked repeatedly. McCain did not answer.

  One Republican in the room said it was clear that the Democrats came into the meeting with a "game plan" aimed at forcing McCain to choose between the administration and House Republicans. "They had taken McCain's request for a meeting and trumped it," said this source."
  Ha ha, McLame's plan turned into a trap

Some additional reading September 25th from 20:35 to 22:40:

• Poor Sarah – Judith Warner Blog – NYTimes.com – "Frankly, I’ve come to think, post-Kissinger, post-Katie-Couric, that Palin’s nomination isn’t just an insult to the women (and men) of America. It’s an act of cruelty toward her as well."
• Technorati State of the Blogosphere Parts 3 and 4: How, and How Much? – "High revenue bloggers skew the mean revenue. The median revenue for U.S. bloggers is $200 annually (and the median annual investment is only $50).
  The top 10 percent of blogger respondents earned an average of $19,000 annually."
  For the record, I'm slightly above the median average, for both revenue, and investment, but only slightly.

A few interesting links for September 24th through September 25th:

• John McCain Snubs the Snopeses – " two live-TV statements from the candidates regarding postponing the debate tomorrow night in order to stave off a rerun of The Great Depression, this time in HD. Of the two, no question Obama came across as more presidential: composed, expansive, willing to take questions afterwards, balanced and modulated in his manner. By contrast, McCain beat Obama to the punch on the cable news channels at the expense of preparation and deportment; his announcement looked like it was thrown together by a short-order cook and its desperate haste revealed its insincerity as an opportunistic play posing as congressional statesmanship. It looked like a gadget play meant to flummox the defense, only to result in a fumble."
• Talking Points Memo | Lying McCain Watch – "Lemme see, two of McCain's press spokespeople on TV attacking Obama; McCain attack ads up on TV across the country. This is the suspension? What did I miss?

  The guy is literally out of control. At what point do his friends need to start discussing an intervention?"

• The Arena – Mickey Edwards – Republican former Congressman – "It ranks somewhere on the stupidity scale between plain silly and numbingly desperate. McCain and Obama are both members of the senate and they're both able to help craft a solution if they wish to do so without putting the presidential campaign on hold; after all, I’m sure congressional leaders would be willing to accept their calls if they have some important insights to impart. And while one of them will eventually become president, neither one is president yet, nor is either one a member of the congressional leadership; I’m confident that somehow the administration and the other 533 members of congress will be able to muddle through without tapping into the superior wisdom and intellect of their nominees. Sorry, john; it really sounds like you're afraid to debate. This sounds like the sort of ploy we used to use in junior high school elections."
• Quote of the Day – "Why $700 billion?

  “It’s not based on any particular data point,” a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. “We just wanted to choose a really large number.”

  nice.

Some additional reading September 23rd from 10:25 to 15:36:

• W I L C O – "an audio postcard of sorts from a summer's night in Oregon with our friends the Fleet Foxes & a lovely Bob Dylan tune. All we ask is you check the "I pledge to vote in the 2008 Election" button below. If you can spare it, we also encourage you to consider a donation to Feeding America "
• Daily Kos: Things Become More Serious – billmon – Ru-oh.
  "The price tag, we're now told (by the very same people who a year ago assured us the problem was limited to a few low-income deadbeats) is in the neighborhood of $700 billion, although I would suggest doubling that figure — and then doubling it again — if you want a more realistic estimate of what this fiasco ultimately will cost the taxpayers. And that doesn't include the indirect costs, such as higher interest rates on the rest of the national debt, higher cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security and other inflation-protected benefits, and the higher federal spending and lost revenues caused by the steep recession the US economy now appears to be heading into.

  All this would be bad enough, but the crisis could easily get much, much worse."

• 250 Million Pounds of Drugs Flushed Down the Toilet by Hospitals : TreeHugger – "Creative Commons: Swanksalot

  You can't win. The entire environmental movement is down on bottled water (and making progress) when the word comes out that hospitals and nursing homes are flushing about 250 million pounds of pharmaceuticals down the toilet every year"

A few interesting links for September 21st through September 23rd:

• New poll: Zero percent of Americans think national economy is improving. – Pretty rare to see a poll with zero percent agreeing with some statement. In fact, I can never remember seeing one before. And yet, the zero percent are the ones pushing for the Bush Paulson bailout
• WIRED NEXTFEST – "WIRED NextFest is the premier showcase of the global innovations transforming our world. Now in its fifth year, WIRED's gallery of the future includes unique and bold exhibits of sustainable design, next generation healthcare, interactive art and games, humanoid robotics and more."

Some additional reading September 21st from 16:35 to 17:25:

• The Field: Al Giordano Reports the US Presidential Elections – Ron Fournier of the AP is probably going to lose his job, deservedly, for being a partisan hack.
  "In a subsequent post we will document exactly how Ron Fournier has violated the AP Managing Editors Association's Statement of Ethical Principles ("ethics code"), and abused his post to inflame racial tensions in the United States based on knowing falsehoods.
  We will also provide clear talking points for email, telephone and person-to-person contact with the 15 new governing board members, and twelve veteran board members leftover from the last three years, whom are ultimately responsible for Fournier's work."
• Chicago a birding hotspot :: Prairie State Outdoors – "Chicago has the Magnificent Mile of Michigan Avenue shopping. It has some of the world’s most notable architecture. Then there’s the Art Institute of Chicago, the Adler Planetarium and Shedd Aquarium — all good reasons to visit the lakefront.

  That’s why it seems so unfair that Chicago also boasts some of the state’s best bird watching."

• Minimalist Workouts Get You In Shape Without the Gym Membership [Exercise] – My cousin Leo's workout, based on my grandfather's jungle-brush clearing workout, featured in LifeHacker

A few interesting links for September 20th through September 21st:

• merry go round – Socialism for the Financial sector, no mattter where or why…
  "Well, we didn't actually bail out the Mexican currency. The Fed paid investors back who lost their shirts on foolish speculations. Why? Because of socialism for the rich. And that was on Clinton's watch–and at the same time that Clinton and Gingrich were screaming at welfare moms to go back to work or else."
• ● Remembering David Foster Wallace – I had read all of his Harper's articles, but never any novels or other writing, that I'm aware of at least. So have some reading for myself this fall…

Some additional reading September 19th from 10:52 to 16:26:

• Daily Kos: Bloggers nail McCain on Spain- Round-up – Hey a little blog triumphalism never hurts.
  "Time to give yourselves a round of applause. Kudos to everyone here, and across the blogosphere who forced the TM to cover a story that only 48 hours ago was being completely ignored here in the States. The power of a massive effort, starting at TPM, spilling over to here at Dkos, onto Digg, then to HuffPo and other left blogs put the TM on notice.

  The first crack was TIME magazine, but it was soon to become a flood, and the McCain campaign, reeling under its inability to staunch their economic platform bleeding was forced to do "damage control" which created even more damage."

• Economy proves costly for McCain's poll lead – Americas, World – The Independent – Sort of a bogus premise for an article, and any article that leads with the citing of daily poll numbers is already suspect – daily polls are too volatile to be useful for anything other than a talking point.

  But I liked this:
  "The McCain camp's attempt to distance itself from the economic legacy of President George Bush, a fellow Republican, is having limited effect so far. The latest polls reveal that despite his efforts, voters believe he is far less likely to make changes than his adversary. The Arizona senator is still seen as a "typical Republican" who would entrench current unpopular policies, rather than get the country back on track."

A few interesting links for September 17th through September 19th:

• AmSpec Blog – AIG Thoughts – "Reuters, estimates that when you combine all of the bailouts and other rescue deals orchestrated in the past year, taxpayers could be on the hook for up to $900 billion. Now, all of those people who are always clamoring for more regulation of the free market can argue that if taxpayers are going to come to the rescue anyway, why don't we place more restrictions on private enterprise to protect taxpayers from huge market failures? On this, McCain and Obama both agree — regulation needs to be overhauled — there's no stopping it now. The only question is how intrusive.

  –Beyond that, liberals now can point to this huge rescue of Wall Street, and ask, what will we do for "Main Street"? They'll argue that if we have hundreds of billions of dollars to dole out to Wall Street finance companies that mess up, how come hard working Americans can't get government health care? They can fill in the blank for any government program that choose."

• Blogs Note Yankee Stadium Report, Taxpayer Rip-Off – Runnin' Scared – Village Voice – I'm nearly ashamed that my semi-coherent anti-stadium rant got republished in the Village Voice. I've written better sentences; but the intent was there at least.

A few interesting links for September 16th through September 17th:

• City uses DNA to fight dog poop – Yahoo! News – "Tel Aviv, is asking dog owners to take their animal to a municipal veterinarian, who then swabs its mouth and collects DNA.

  The city will use the DNA database it is building to match faeces to a registered dog and identify its owner"

  what a fun job that will be. "So what do you do for a living?" – "I match dog shit DNA to a database, and issue fines to the owner if they don't clean up after their dogs…"

• Metallica – Death Magnetic – Clipping Distortion – Mastering Media Blog – Another reason why Metallica sucks – audio compression taken to ear-bleeding extreme.

Some additional reading September 15th from 22:12 to 23:52:

• Nosferatu (1922) – Free Movie Download – PublicDomainFlicks.com – Here is your chance to see Nosferatu, for free. 4 hours to download the highest resolution version, but then computers are happy to work when you are asleep…
  Or you could watch lower resolution versions.

  "An unauthorized production of Bram Stoker's work (The legal heirs didn't give their permission), so the names had to be changed. But this wasn't enough: The widow of Bram Stoker won two lawsuits (1924 and 1929) in which she demanded the destruction of all copies of the movie, however happily copies of it were already too widespread to destroy them all. Later, the Universal studios could break her resistance against this movie. Count Orlok's move to Wisburg (Obviously the real "Wismar") brings the plague traceable to his dealings with the Realtor Thomas Hutter, and the Count's obsession with Hutter's wife, Ellen the only one with the power to end the evil.'

• Charlie Brooker on scarves and pubic hair trimming | – " Just as in London you're famously never more than 4ft from a rat, so in 21st-century factual entertainment shows the presenter is never more than four minutes from a pointless TV stunt. Like trying on some frilly pants. Or getting a bikini wax."
• Daily Howler: Joe Klein is mad at Saint McCain–now! Back then, he invented the myth – KURTZ (9/15/08): No national candidate in modern history, not even Hillary Clinton, has ever been lambasted and lionized in quite the way Palin is [sic]. Why, for instance, do so many journalists feel compelled to mention her looks? Why are her family choices at the center of a noisy, cable-driven debate? …

  In a word, that highlighted statement is simply deranged—unless we’re hiding behind the word “candidate.” As we’ve long noted, by the summer of 1999, two cable “news” networks were staging long programs about the vast number of murders the deeply vile Hillary Clinton had staged along with her deeply vile husband. (Yes, that’s right—her murders!) In real time, Kurtz mentioned one of those programs, in passing—but he didn’t say a word about the program’s astonishing content. His statement today is simply deranged. Having married a Republican hit-woman consultant, Kurtz has at last lost his mind."