5. December, 2002 - political day
- Eyeballing Total Information Awareness suggests that humans give John Poindexter a taste of what TIA might be like. Matt Smith at the SF Weekly has said that he'll make public whatever folks can dig up. There's already satellite images of Poindexter's neighborhood and the names and numbers of neighbors. What can you add to the mix? [boing boing]
- The Information Awareness Office is gathering Too Much Information. But their website might lead you to believe it's all an elaborate joke inspired by Philip K. Dick. Too bad he's dead.
Maybe the Administration needs to catch up on its sci-fi reading. Philip K. meant his dark visions as warnings, not as bureaucratic charters for George W.
[some guy]
- FatWallet fights back against silly DMCA claim. One of the few good provisions in the DMCA is that if someone frivolously accuses you of infringing copyright, you can recover the costs you incurred in dealing with them. Or so goes the theory. [boing boing]
- How To Win DMCA Exemptions And Influence Policy. Comments on the adverse effects of the DMCA are due by December 18th, and they could convince the Library of Congress to exempt certain classes of documents. [boing boing]
- Spank the Donkey is an article from the City Pages on why folks should give up on the Deomcratic party. It comes about seven years after I'd already decided the democrats didn't represent me anymore.
- Poll Axed talks about why the pollsters called so many elections wrong this year, and what it means for politics.
- Mossad agents sent in to kill. It seems Al Qaeda was probably behind the attacks in Kenya. And it also seems that they've pissed off the wrong people.
- Saudi commercials could be feel-good hoax. I haven't seen the commercials, but this editorial makes the point that while the Saudis say they're helping fight terrorists, the deeds don't seem to match the words.
- Michigan appeal case possible threat to Roe vs. Wade. A woman was convicted of manslaughter for killing a guy who punched her in the stomach. She claimed self-defense, fearing for the life of her fetus. Her conviction, which was later overturned by a state court of appeals, and is now bound for the Michigan supreme court. Why is this important to abortion rights? Because if it was self-defense, then the fetus was legally a human and the guy was attempting murder. But that would mean that if she'd decided on an abortion, that would have been murder, too.
- Finally, on a lighter note (if you've hung in there this long), Shell gave us Things you can only say at Thanksgiving. Only took me a week to notice it, but it's worth pointing to, even if I'm slow.
- Oh, and for those who were wondering, Yahoo! Messenger - Macintosh Version works just fine on Mac OS 9, too. The instability of earlier versions seems to be gone now.
Copyright 2008, Dave Polaschek.
Last updated on Thu, 05 Dec 2002 10:42:13.