Derek Balling writes about what he'll do if Howard Dean doesn't get the nomination and what he likes about him.#

As people who know me know, I've been a big fan of Howard Dean for a while ... not because he was the first candidate to really embrace the net, but because it was encouraging to hear a Democrat say that gun-control should be left to the states... that as he pointed out once, "what works for Vermont [no gun control whatsoever] may not work for other states".

It was, frankly, refreshing common-sense. I still disagree with gun-control completely, but at least he was open-minded enough to realize that the "no control whatsoever" was working pretty OK by Vermont folks (with the second-lowest crime rate in the nation), so obviously "guns" aren't the problem, it's "bad people with guns".

Halley Suitt thinks that most citizens want more than candy-coating.#

Remember When Kerry Was Shit On Toast? Like LAST WEEK?!?!

Honestly, people sure have a short memory. I still love Dean. I still think Dean can win. I think Dean's message was co-opted by Kerry and Edwards -- and prettied up. So yes, you can put lipstick on a pig (the pig being the blatant anti-Bush message) -- at least in Iowa. Read some of the rhetoric of the other campaigns. Kerry and Edwards won by taking "Take Back The Country" and making it a little more candy-coated.

Dave Winer on Howard Dean's roar.#

Several times during the meeting a loud crazy-sounding scream came from the room, everyone was doing it, and it was really frightening. The stuff of nightmares. This was before Howard Dean's rant. I asked Jim Moore what that was about, he said it's an Indian war yell or something like that, they used to do it in United Farm Workers rallies, and they adopted it at Dean For America. A few minutes later Dean let out the famous scream, it was the same scream I heard in the conference room.

They're probably not saying this publicly because it wouldn't seem contrite to do it, and they probably know they'd get roasted for saying the scream and ranting you heard was part of the motivational culture at DFA.

Dean Esmay writes in defense of the Patriot Act.#

The Wall Street Journal on the Patriot Act and Democratic candidates:

Today Senators Kerry and Edwards and another erstwhile fan, Joe Lieberman, sing a different tune, seizing every opportunity to take shots at the law they and all but two of their fellow Senators voted for. (The House vote was 357-66.)

The Senators stand by their votes, saying parts of the law are still OK. But given the hostility to Mr. Bush and John Ashcroft among Democrats who vote in the primaries, they seem to have concluded that there's more to be gained in denouncing the law, albeit only in general terms. As Dennis Kucinich is fond of pointing out, he's the only Democratic Presidential candidate who voted against the Patriot Act.

Slate (in September) wrote about the Patriot Act as well:

On the other hand, there's the John Ashcroft "Patriot Rocks" concert tour, launched last month, which has him visiting 18 cities and talking up the act to local law enforcement officials. The DOJ also unloosed a new Web site last month, designed to shore up support for the act. Ashcroft contends that had the Patriot Act been in place earlier, 9/11 wouldn't have happened and that absent a Patriot Act, the country may have seen more 9/11s over the past two years—a double-double negative that's unprovable, but enough to scare you witless. There have also been a raft of op-eds and articles—some evidently written by Ashcroft's U.S. attorneys at knifepoint—simultaneously making the point that the act has staved off unspeakable acts of terror while maintaining that it made only tiny infinitesimal changes to the existing laws.

Dean Esmay:

So I urge Patriot Act critics to follow certain standing rules before speaking: tell people what things were like before the Patriot Act, and how they are different now. Then tell us what we could change about the Patriot Act that would make you less worried about it.

If you can't do all three, then aren't you really just complaining about a bugbear?

Ethan Zuckerman classifies Iraq as a Black Hole.#

As a result, I'm starting to think of the war in Iraq as a black hole. Perhaps the concentration of media in Iraq became so intense that the very fabric of media was warped by attention density. We reached a media singularity - media focus so overconcentrated that networks literally might have gone out of business had the war been averted - that no other stories could escape.

Once Iraq came up in our session today, the rest of the conversation disappeared, like the spaceship inexorably passing the event horizon. And while I'm sorry we didn't engage more on why Africa, Central Asia, Eastern Europe and others don't get well covered, I'm pleased by the irony that this failure itself helped prove my point.

Jay Rosen writes about the press' involvement in politics.#

"Political stories don't just 'happen' the way hailstorms do. They are artifacts of a political universe that journalism itself has helped to construct." -- Paul Taylor, former political reporter, Washington Post.

Here are seven interlocking parts in a kind of contraption political journalists operate for us every four years—campaign coverage, as we have come to dread it. Recognize any of the following?

The Gaffe: when a candidate on the campaign trail takes a pounding in the press for something that just isn't said to the press on the campaign trail.

The Expectations Game: when a candidate "wins" by losing but doing better than the press expected, or "loses" by winning but doing worse.

Sean Bonner on the Freeway Blogger and the patriotic duties of America For Sale and Move On.#

"This is the only sign you will read today not paid for by a corporation"

That's the tag-line used by someone known as The Freeway Blogger who's been posting signs on the freeways of Souther California for a while now. He/She has a message and is trying to get it out there. These days, "getting it out there" isn't as it sounds. Look around. There's messages everywhere, and almost all of them are trying to sell you something. A product, a person, an ideal. Someone also paid a lot of money to put that message in front of your eyes. Graffiti campaigns such as Obey Giant are founded on just that. So if you have something you want to say to a large number of people, what are your options? Buy some ad space.

Kieran Healy points to Tina Fetner on the Iowa Caucus.#

The opportunity for corruption in this process is enormous. Nobody could hear what was going on, the campaign leaders are striking deals with each other, but no one knows what the deals are. The campaign leaders are in charge of counting their own constituents. The rest of the people are sitting or standing around like sheep while all of this goes on around them. If they move, perhaps to talk with someone over from another campaign, they might not get counted. It was nowhere near the robust, townhall meeting exchange of views that I was hoping for. And it took forever - over 4 hours (not counting the platform stuff that makes up the 2nd half of the caucus). I was exhausted by the end of it.

Alex Halavais is against us! Burn him at the steak!#

For a long time, I've wondered what a West Coast Revolution would look like: you know, secession by California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii, and—for continuity's sake if nothing else, British Columbia and Baja. If the latter two seem especially strange, remember that BC was a relative latecomer to Canada (joining in the 1870s) and often shares a cultural identity with the Pacific Northwest of the US, and that Baja is increasingly becoming a suburb of San Diego, and has a history of potential annexation. It's been a while since I read Ecotopia, and ecological concerns might very well be a part of this, but I think the difference is cultural. The West Coast thinks differently, it is a different culture, and a different nation.

François-René Rideau writes about the Mars mission and gives a great quote:#

I am irresistibly reminded of this quote from one of my favorite books, Teaching as a Subversive Activity, by Neil Postman (RIP) and Charles Weingartner:

Consider this: The first hole ever dug on the moon by a man-made machine is now done. It is the most expensive hole in the history of the human race. Now what does that mean? How do we know whether this is one of man's noblest achievements or if it is a game being played by a small group of lunatics for their own amusement -- at our expense?

Postman hits the nerve, he knows what questions to ask, what assumptions to question. But being a depraved leftist, he can provide no justifiable criterion to answer.

An article at Game Girl Advance doesn't really have an interesting content to me, but the headline is great: "Local man dances, awaits revolution." (Click if you're unhip for an explanation.)#

François-René Rideau on the Lord of the Rings and the meaning of the One Ring.#

Most importantly, the corrupting nature of the Ring's power wasn't explained, whereas in the book it is most important: the episode of Sam wearing it is most funny, whereas Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel and Faramir refusing it are most serious, and Boromir or Denethor desiring it is most sad.

What is the nature of the Ring, according to me, will you ask? Well, don't read this summary, it's bogus. You could also find similarities between Frodo's quest and most any quests, including getting a PhD. But really, the meaning of the Ring, is really a libertarian message: in the words of Lord Acton, Power corrupts, and absolute Power corrupts absolutely. There is no way to achieve Good by using Power, because your very using it slowly turns you into the same Evil you wanted to fight. You can withhold Power, and prevent other people from using it; but ultimately, the only solution to the problems it raises is to destroy it.

The Binary Circumstance on what it means to be "homeless" in today's political climate.#

Both political parties exist to provide a home for well-financed special interests who wish to gain control of government so they can use government as a tool to control our lives and regulate the market to their advantage.

What kind of person would want to feel comfortable in that home?

Being homeless in the current political climate is a testament to self-esteem, respect for individual rights, and the quality of one's character.

Paul Hein writes about "Democracy at Its Best."#

Moreover, the rules of the caucuses state that any candidate who does not have a sufficient number of supporters in a "preference group" cannot be considered; he must lend his support to another, more viable, candidate. It wouldn't do, I guess, to have too many choices available to the voters. You can carry this democracy thing too far!

And it was delegates to the convention that the voters were choosing, not Presidential candidates. What's more, the Iowa voters were not choosing delegates to the national convention, but to Iowa county conventions. These latter delegates, in turn, choose delegates to the national convention, but these delegates are not bound by anything but their own consciences; they are not committed to any particular candidate. Our triumph of democracy is an edifice of Jell-o, rooted in quicksand.

[...]

An innocent person — say a child — might assume that the way to elect a president would be to give each person a piece of paper, and ask him to write down the name of the person he favored for the job. The person with the largest number of votes moves into the White House. Obviously, this is NOT the way it's done. The actual process is convoluted and confusing, and what the people think they're doing at the polls may not be what they're doing at all.

Deejee replies to JD about Full Post RSS Syndication.#

I respectfully disagree. Email is failing, not because individual emails are getting longer, but because you and I have no control over who sends us emails. With the syndication model, you are in complete control over the sources of content that come to you. Don't like the length of their entries? Unsubscribe. Don't like the way they explore advertising? Unsubscribe. Your concern for bandwidth usage is valid, so let's solve that problem instead of avoiding it.

[...]

BTW, your "summary" form of RSS forced me to switch to a browser in order to read your complete thought. I want a full post syndication feed from you. Will you reject my request on some philosophical basis? Isn't it ultimately about delivering what your customers/readers want?

Nova Spivack has amazing feature ideas.#

I post articles about things all over the Net. But many of those pages that I link to probably won't be there in 5 or 10 years so the links will be dead. I would like my Weblog provider to automatically cache a copy of any page I link to, and provide the cached copy if the original page is moved or taken offline.

I am reminded of part of FreeNet: Objects stay in the space as long as they are utilized, and how much they are utilized is reflected in how many synchronized copies are kept around. If you defined "utilized" as "linked to" rather than "browsed to" the above would be done.

Nova Spivack asks about blogging.#

I like blogging. Everyone I know likes blogging. But let's face it, we are all a bunch of geeks. The question is, will blogging ever go "mainstream"? Will consumers want to post their thoughts and ideas on the Web for all to see, or is blogging really just for exhibitionists, intellectual impressarios, and voyeurs? Are Weblogs the "new homepages" or are they just a fad for the technorati? Does anyone have compelling stats for blogging being something that mainstream consumers will want to embrace?

My opinion: Who cares. There are lots of blogs and I really like to read them. I'm always finding new ones. Even if only 1% of the population blogs, that's a lot of people and I can't possibly read them all. So from a selfish angle, it doesn't matter to me.

From a socio-politcal angle, I hope that everyone blogs because it encourages participation, thought, and first person reporting. The emergent effect of this will be directly noticeable by me, so it serves my selfishness--by changing the world.

From a business perspective, If everyone blogs, then the blog tool/service providers will make money and the tools will get better. I would like this.

But will it?

I don't think you can predict what people will do, so don't even bother trying. Just rest on the fact that YOU like blogging. So you do it. If it's really a good idea it will spread naturally. If it's not a good idea, it won't--but then since it's not a good thing, we don't really care that it doesn't spread.

Joi Ito talks about the blogging panel at Davos.#

What was interesting was the number of people from the mass media in the audience who still seemed to think that blogs were either just poor quality news or that bloggers were just wannabe journalists. One person from a newspaper said that she thought blogs would just become incubators for journalists. I (emotionally) asserted that the mass media and blogs were not the same. Many bloggers (such as myself) are blogging, not for the money, but for a passion which embodies what I believe is part of the heart and soul of journalism. We are not encumbered by the pressures of advertising, marketing and the burden of having to sell print media. It's insulting to think that all bloggers just want to be journalists for print media. I pointed out that big media had a role and that their ability to protect their journalists from litigation and to fund particularly expensive investigations and stories was something we can't do, but the notion that we're just little versions of them was absurd.

Richard the Gwailo writes about the "tail end" of the power curve and "via" links.#

He is under no obligation to do so—if he quotes me, there is an expectation that he will link back to me, so that his readers can check that he's quoting and interpreting me correctly—but his policy seems to be to credit the original linker. It's an effective way—and it may be the most effective way—of connecting his readers with the weblogs he reads.

But unless you feel like connecting your readers with the weblogs you read, I see no obligation for bloggers to give a "via" link when they come across something interesting. My policy on crediting links is to not have a policy: sometimes I'll credit a link and sometimes I won't. I'd like to think that I give credit more often to weblogs that deserve more attention rather than the ones that everybody links to and reads anyway, but it's possible that most of my "via" links in the past have been to already-popular sites.

It is my opinion that doing "via" links is not about giving someone Google juice or endorsing them in anyway. For me, it is simply a way of leaving bread crumbs. If I go somewhere, any where, I say how I got there. That's why I don't do stuff like say "Richard got a link from Al3x to Site X" because I did not find Site X through Al3x, Richard did.

Richard then talks about how Technorati and Feedster are nice to track discussions. It is my opinion that the author in question should be providing links to the discussion elsewhere. In my mind, Technorati is a tool for weblog authors to find who's talking about them and for users to find out what people are talking about arbitrary URLs (that are not run by responsible bloggers.) And then Feedster is way of finding anyone talking about a particular thing--not a post.

But you, my friends, do what you want.

Jessica took notes on my demo of how I blog at the Berkman Thursday Meeting last night.#

The Black Saint is the best pop culture commentator evah. Kid.#

Whenever you see a legal situation depicted on TV, it's obvious that the writer's sole research involved watching an episode of Ally McBeal while drinking cheap scotch. I'm willing to let many things pass as I seek to fill the emptiness of my life with bad TV, but when the show's whole plot, as in last night's Smallville, depends on the sort of goofiness that would make Sam Waterston cringe, it's almost impossible to ignore.

Tony Pierce writes about Ben and J. Lo.#

and as we were breaking for a late lunch my buddy back at the home base patched me into my favorite channel E! who was doing a live breaking news thing telling the world that Ben and Jen have officially called it quits.

excuse me, fuck ben and jen

hes no actor hes a pretty boy east coast welch wanna-be masshole sally who is only getting some of the sweetest ass in film because of his girlfriend matt damon.

and she got dirty with puffy and eminem and that dancer dude and now this guy?

The Binary Circumstance links Ben and Jenny to the Iraq Civil War that's brewing.#

File this under things that were not meant to be.

The media love to play on the romantic and the heroic. Movie stars and wars of liberation are advertised and sold, like ideals, something that we all should be striving toward.

Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, sometimes referred to jointly as Bennifer have broken off their engagement.

[...]

Maybe there is an important political lesson to be learned from Ben and J-Lo. Trying to join together two incompatible parties might not be worth the bloodshed. Give the Shiites and the Kurds each their own sovereign country with a split of the oil revenues. Give another portion of the country and some of the oil revenues to the secular rationals who want to live in peace. Sit back and see which of the three new countries thrives.

The Black Saint brings us the O.C. Moment of the Week. (I love these.)#

This brings us to The O.C. Moment of the Week, better known as the only moment during this show that I felt good about watching it: At the Cohen house, Danny and Seth are playing video games. Sandy walks in on them. Seth introduces Danny as a friend, Sandy says, "Hello, I'm Sandy." To which, poor Danny delivers the line, "So take a shower." Sandy and Seth both look puzzled. Get it? Take a shower because he's sandy. Sandy pulls Seth away and confides that Danny is not funny, that Danny is so unfunny that he makes Ryan look funny. Now that's funny.

Scott Rosenberg comments on the State of the Union address.#

What did they do? They cheered his next line: "The terrorist threat will not expire on that schedule."

Unfortunately, every single senator, congressmen and dignitary who clapped at that moment was applauding the continued existence of the terrorist threat. "Hurray! The terrorists are here to stay!" Not too bright.

Then again, since so many of our leaders, right up to the president, found their political lives salvaged by 9/11, maybe they understood exactly what they were doing.

Kevin Drum on the evolution of Iraq's WMD program as reported by Jorge Arbusto.#

I missed this when I was listening to the SOTU last night, so it's a good thing it's become a widespread target of mockery in the blogosphere today. Here, apparently, is the evolution of Iraq's WMD program:

• March 2003: Weapons of mass destruction.
• June 2003: Weapons of mass destruction programs.
• October 2003: Weapons of mass destruction-related programs.
• January 2004: Weapons of mass destruction-related program activities.

Isn't that great? "Weapons of mass destruction-related program activities."

Industrie Toulouse replies to the State of the Union.#

Will this amendment stop bullshit weddings like the recent Britney Spears one? There's nothing sanctimonious about that marriage. Will it suddenly stop the mammoth divorce rate? Will it protect those wonderful wholesome straight families where parents beat their children? Where spouses cheat - many times over?

I'm straight, and am personally of the opinion of Hamlet - "I say there shall be no more marriages!" - but I can't believe that same sex marriages will destroy all that is holy about marriage as spelt out in the above paragraph.

Dylan Greene writes about President Bush's new marriage amendment.#

Bush's State of the Union address just ended. No mention of a Moon Base. No mention of a Mission to Mars. No mention of missing Weapons of Mass Destruction. No mention of not finding Osama Bin Laden. No mention of fixing the worst deficit in American history.

So... what did Bush talk about for an hour?

[...]

So, check this out: under Bush's proposed amendments, you can be an illegal immigrant, suspected of terrorism, and on death row - and still get married. But you if you happen to be gay you're screwed.

Erin Judge writes about evil Gay people who want to get married. Shame on them.#

Screw this guy, man. The gay rights movement is a civil rights movement. In another 30 years, documentaries will be made with clips of that speech in them. It'll be like watching "Eyes on the Prize," with Bull Connor calling Dr. King "Martin Luther Coon" or hearing George Wallace chant "Segregation Forever!" in his campaign speeches all over the coutry. George W. Bush slides nicely in line with those old-school bigots.

History will shudder.

Strange Women Lying In Ponds writes about this peculiar use of the amendment process.#

The side of me that I can call "conservative" is definitely fiscally so more than socially so. It is therefore axiomatic that I not only oppose Bush's wreckless spending, but that I also oppose the occasional bones he likes to throw to the Religious Right, such as floating his possible support for a federal marriage amendment.

The Constitutional Amendment process has historically been used to expand the circle of privileges and immunities to persons who were previously deprived of the benefits of equal participation in American life. Amending the Constitution to now exclude a class of people from the pursuit of happiness would be a catastrophe indeed; one whose fruition I could not possibly countenance. I thus find Bush's allusions to the possibility of such an amendment to be deeply troubling.

The Left Coaster writes about how the sky is falling.#

Remember those various reports we have been seeing over the last several months that indicate Bush is not too popular with the troops? Many of us have speculated that such dissatisfaction with the commander in chief may lead many soldiers and their families to vote for the Democrats in November. Well, what is one sure way for Bush and the GOP to capture a large number of the votes of soldiers overseas next November without anyone knowing for sure whether or not the troops actually voted for Skippy?

Contract out with a large offshore tax-dodging GOP campaign contributor for a computerized voting system for overseas troops, [...]

Ryan Overbey posts on a transcript of Bush.#

THE PRESIDENT: Okay, good. What would you like?

Q Ribs.

THE PRESIDENT: Ribs? Good. Let's order up some ribs.

Q What do you think of the democratic field, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: See, his job is to ask questions, he thinks my job is to answer every question he asks. I'm here to help this restaurant by buying some food. Terry, would you like something?

Ryan says, "This is the President of the United States. This is not a joke."

Richard of the House of Gwailo comments,

Fine, I'll blog this too. Apparently bloggers, especially those who oppose President Bush's policies, and falling over themselves in horror that the President, instead of answering pool reporters' questions, insisted on having a meal. (Strikes me as consistent if nothing else: Bush thinks lowly of the press, and so, bloggers seem to be forgetting, do bloggers. And just because someone asks a question, that doesn't mean you have to answer it. Especially if you have disdain for the people asking the questions.)

Ryan Overbey responds and incites a holy war.

There are three reasons why I love the release. Number one, it shows why lots of people love this president. He can fuck up on policy all he wants, but when he's in his element he can turn on the Texan charm. And he, really, really likes ribs. Number two: someone at the White House had to draw up this press release. They had to type a transcript of this event, and put it on the whitehouse.gov website. I think that's pretty funny. Number three: everyone I know who has read this thing has expressed a desire to eat ribs. I mean, at the end of this release all I could think was "I really need to go to Redbones in Davis Square and get some pulled pork and some ribs." It's uncanny how hungry I get after reading this.

Richard "Hip Means Me" Gwailo responds and writes about what things we think are funny:

I watched the episode of The Simpsons where they are stranded on an island (it's sometimes referred to by fans as "The Lord of the Flies Episode" even though it's properly titled "Das Bus"). It's an episode during the height of the series, so its comedic value is high. Very unscientifically, I tried to determine whether, when I laughed, it was because of something plain silly or because human suffering was involved. Human suffering in terms of making fun of a certain nation (the extended bit where the class is pretending they're ambassadors of nations in the Model U.N., especially where Martin is doing the Norwegian dance and Principal Skinner asks for "more pelvis") or the scene where Milhouse is being tried for eating the rations and—the funniest part—Nelson punches him repeatedly, and over the objections of Milhouse's attorney (Lisa), Bart (the judge) declares that he will "allow this". The only parts that weren't mocking human suffering were historical and literary allusions—and perhaps Bart's fantasy of monkey-butlers.

If we sleep together, will it make it any better?
If we sleep together, will you be my friend forever? #

Brian Weatherson writes about Colin McGinn at Crooked Timber.#

Elsewhere he claims to be a vegetarian who happens to eat meat, which opens up whole new ethical possibilities. Could one be a charitable man who just happens to have not made any donations for a decade or so?

François-René Rideau writes about empiricism and how Science "works."#

La méthode experimentale peut donner des faits experimentaux. Mais elle ne peut jamais établir de loi ou d'explication rationnelle. Pire, valider une expérimentation en tant que telle dépend soi-même d'un bagage théorique qui fait appel à des théorisations qui n'ont rien d'expérimental. Pour dire les choses sans jargon, les faits seuls sont muets; pour les faire parler, il faut une explication qui n'est pas de l'ordre des faits, mais des lois qui relient les faits. (Sans parler que tout cela suppose qu'il y ait déjà un accord sur l'établissement des faits eux-mêmes.) Bref, affirmer que la science s'appuie sur la seule méthode expérimentale, c'est une imposture épistémologique. Certaines sciences utilisent voire requièrent la méthode expérimentale pour étudier leur sujet; mais cette methode expérimentale ne saurait résumer à elle seule l'approche épistémique d'aucune science, pas plus qu'elle ne saurait caractériser aucunement la science en général.

Experimentation can give "experimental facts." But it can never establish law or rational explanation. Worse, to validate an experimentation for oneself depends on a great deal of theory based on theories that have nothing to do with experimentation. When you say them without jargon, they sound meaningless; to have explanatory power, one needs an explanation that is not based on facts, but on laws that connect the facts. (Without the assumption that the facts have really been established.) In short, to believe that science is based only on experimentation, is an epistemological imposture. Certain sciences may require experimentation to study their subject; but this experimental method could not summarize the epistemic approach of one science or all of science in general.

Chuqui on the lessons that can be learned from MikeRoweSoft.com.#

First, and most important -- this is yet another indication that trademark law needs reform. Most companies have better things to do than annoy random strangers, but the way trademark law is written, in many cases, they have to. So let's fix trademark law so that the enforcement rules are relaxed so that companies don't feel the need to do this stuff.

Every morning, somewhere in corporateland, a lawyer walks into their office, sits down, and thinks "do I do something that risks a PR disaster that will piss off our customers and make us look like idiots, or do I do nothing and risk the trademark that's at the core of our company's branding" -- and out of that decision comes things like mikerowesoft, where looking like an idiot in the press to your customers is the lesser evil.

That, folks, is bad law, not evil lawyers. Fix the law.

John Conners writes about being out of work and being himself again.#

And I definitely can't sit on the sofa drinking myself away to oblivion. I need something more than that. I need a reason.

It's only now I realise that to be a halfway decent software engineer you have to be highly motivated and self-driven and love problem solving. You need to be able to work on your own as well as part of a team. You need to be constantly trying to learn and improve. And you have to be determined, have phenomenal attention to detail and be able to hold lots of things in your head at the same time. Or at least I do. In essence, you have to really be the person you describe on your CV (that's resume for you North Americans). It's not bullshit after all, it's only now that I've been taken away from my job that I can really appreciate what drives me and why I enjoy it.

Gabe Anderson picks up the "SUVs are Actually Bad, Mmmkay?" meme.#

A Google search for buying an SUV has long yielded as the first result my rant from around this time last year about the fuel inefficiency of and misperception about the greater cabin space in SUVs (Think Twice Before Buying an SUV). That piece has yielded a number of comments and much debate on the topic. Americans are as deeply divided on SUVs as we are on politics.

[...]

"It's what happens when a larger number of drivers conclude, conclusively or otherwise," writes Gladwell, "that the extra thirty feet that the TrailBlazer takes to come to a stop don't really matter, that the tractor-trailer will hit them anyway, and that they are better off treating accidents as inevitable rather than avoidable."

Dean Esmay writes about wait.#

Long and short of it: 200 years ago, if you were fat, you were prosperous and powerful, or at least better able to survive harsh winters. Whereas today, being fat is a sign that you are simply slovenly or poor, and not particularly desirable. Lots of Twinkies and Big Macs and Coca Cola and so on. In fact, it's a little ironic that such sumptuous fests are now the everyday meal of poor people.

The curse of modern poverty: more calories than you know what to do with.

Evhead points to an article about the Atkins Diet.#

It found that although Atkins dieters were allowed to eat as much as they liked, they ate as few calories as those on the low-calorie diets and significantly fewer than they would eat normally.

The findings, the programme suggests, solve the mystery of how the Atkins diet works. "It might have nothing to do with calories being lost and apparently nothing to do with burning more calories. Neither does it seem to be due to gorging on fats," it says. Instead, "protein makes you feel full".

Derek Balling blogs about African Americans.#

The controversy stems from the fact that Richards is of caucasoid descent. He hails from South Africa. He is an American of African descent.

I'm kinda chuckling at how the usual "Politically Correct bullshit" bit people in the ass this time around... I won't claim to be a big fan of the now-outdated terms for people with increased levels of melanin, but whoever came up with "African-American" obviously forgot that there *are* people in Africa who aren't as dark of skin as others. That the further north you go in the African continent, the more you tend to end up with genetic characteristics commonly associated with folks of Middle Eastern, or even European, descent.

Jane writes about cooking.#

Jeff always wanted to help out with the cooking, but I never could let him. Except to let him grate the cheese. I was too stressed out while preparing food to enjoy another pair of hands at the stove, and the friction between us tainted the experience. I wasn't raised to collaborate on meals. When my mom cooked, she cooked alone; and our dad also wouldn't dream of enlisting the aid of his children. So when I cooked, I cooked like an absolute queen bitch of the kitchen.

Lawrence Lessig writes about whether or not the GPL is constitutional, and if the question makes an sense.#

But this argument makes a category mistake. The US Constitution is a restriction on governments, not individuals (except perhaps the 13th Amendment which seems to apply directly to individuals.) If McBride, for example, were to lock RMS up and forbid him from talking, he wouldn't be violating RMS's "free speech" rights. Only a government (or someone acting under government authority) can violate "free speech" rights. Likewise, if McBride were to take RMS's computer, that wouldn't be a "taking" in violation of the 5th Amendment. It would be theft, but every theft is not a constitutional violation.

Likewise with the GNU GPL. The GNU GPL is a copyright license. It is the creation not of a government, but an individual. There is no way that an individual can violate the constitution merely by writing a contract. And the argument that he can reveals that the author has no understanding of the way constitutional law functions.