Max: Small Town Valuhs

John Dvorak gives me new reasons weep for this country.

Max: teen plotted to kill mom for breast implants

@ Cnn.com

Kinda puts my failures into perspective, Ma.

Just kidding. Love you.

Max: Sarah Palin Actually Less Intelligent Than Bush

COURIC: Why isn’t it better, Governor Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families who are struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries? Allow them to spend more, and put more money into the economy, instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?

PALIN: That’s why I say I, like every American I’m speaking with, we're ill about this position that we have been put in. Where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Um, helping, oh, it’s got to be about job creation, too. Shoring up our economy, and putting it back on the right track. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief for Americans, and trade — we have got to see trade as opportunity, not as, uh, competitive, um, scary thing, but one in five jobs created in the trade sector today. We’ve got to look at that as more opportunity. All of those things under the umbrella of job creation.

Max: A Much Needed Bit of Fun, Shaft on Ukuleles

Max: Ill Doctrine on Why We Need Geeks

Max: I Miss Critical Mass

Max: Baikonur Cosmodrome

High Def pics at Boston.com

Max: Clearly I Need To Use Bigger Words

Movie Reviews

Max: Hank Paulson Is A Fucking Liar

From his testimony before the Senate Banking Committee:

We have proposed a program to remove troubled assets from the system. This troubled asset relief program has to be properly designed for immediate implementation and be sufficiently large to have maximum impact and restore market confidence. It must also protect the taxpayer to the maximum extent possible, and include provisions that ensure transparency and oversight while also ensuring the program can be implemented quickly and run effectively.(emphasis added)

From the bull, er, bill he wants passed:

Sec. 8. Review.

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

Boiled down, Secretary Paulson wants the American people to give him 1 trillion dollars to do with as he pleases.

No wonder he seems in such a hurry to ram his proposal through:

However, the development of a comprehensive proposal for reform would require careful and extensive analysis that would be difficult to compress into a short legislative timeframe now available.

In other words, hurry the fuck up and give me some money so I can make sure my friends don't lose their mansions.

Max: I Want This, For I Am A Google Android

T-Mobile G1

Max: One of Those 419 Letters

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transactin is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully Minister of Treasury Paulson

Max: Email I Just Sent To Russ Carnahan (D-MO)

I work hard. I pay my bills. I pay my taxes. And I would like it noted for the record that I have not trashed our economy. The idea that we are even considering forcing average people like me to spend $700,000,000,000 to bail out billionaires is almost enough to make me physically ill. Every time in the past a Carnahan has been on the ballot, they got my vote. But if you actually vote to take money out of my pocket to give to some Wall Street robber baron, the deal is off.

Max: Does No One Understand What Happened This Week

After years of decrying the very idea of socialism and "transfer of wealth", our country has nationalized vast areas of the economy and will soon be transferring trillions of dollars of wealth from average Americans to the already wealthy robber barons who just trashed the economy.

The very idea of guaranteeing health care to every American was decried as too expensive. Assuming the government did not negotiate lower prices and continued to pay the $5000 a year the average US citizen spends per year, it would cost about $1,515,000,000,000 per year to guarantee health care. Next week, at the very least we will be spending $700,000,000,000 to bail out Wall Street. For those of you dumbfounded by all those zeros, 700,000,000,000 is slightly less than half of 1,515,000,000,000. We can't afford to guarantee health care for you and me, but we have plenty of money to guarantee wealth care to the nation's elite.

Meanwhile, there are people seriously considering continuing this insanity by voting for McCain because they aren't so sure they can handle the idea of a black President.

And to think, I have doubts about my mental health.

Max:Dangerously Misguided Policies > Than Blacks

Deep-seated racial misgivings could cost Barack Obama the White House if the election is close, according to an AP-Yahoo News poll that found one-third of white Democrats harbor negative views toward blacks — many calling them "lazy," "violent," responsible for their own troubles.

The poll, conducted with Stanford University, suggests that the percentage of voters who may turn away from Obama because of his race could easily be larger than the final difference between the candidates in 2004 — about two and one-half percentage points.

More at Yahoo News.

Yup. This country is well and truly fucked and deserves everything that McCain and Palin are going to do to it.

Max: Palin (Michael) for President

I am disappointed it took this long for someone to put this together.

Max: Qunicy ME Theme Song Improved

Max: Do The Pills Stop Me From Being Me?

Or am I just damn lucky to live in an era when I can choose, at least to an extent, the sort of me I am?

Some thoughts on the subject at PsychologyToday.com.

Max: UN, NSA, China Working To "Limit" Internet Anonymity

A United Nations agency is quietly drafting technical standards, proposed by the Chinese government, to define methods of tracing the original source of Internet communications and potentially curbing the ability of users to remain anonymous.
The U.S. National Security Agency is also participating in the "IP Traceback" drafting group, named Q6/17, which is meeting next week in Geneva to work on the traceback proposal. Members of Q6/17 have declined to release key documents, and meetings are closed to the public.

More at Cnet.com.

So it would seem freedom will not die with a bang or a whimper, but rather in committee.

BTW, if you think anonymity is just something "bad people" use when they do "bad things", do a search on a "dark, shadowy" group who operated under the name Publius.

Max: New Antec Case Gives Me An Erection

Cleek for more datagrams

Max: Plastic Logic eBook Reader

This looks pretty cool. Which is why nothing will come of it.

Max: In Defense of the English "Lanaguage"

Make with the clicky to see more fun at Wordsplosion

Max: Scenes From The Straight Talk Express

Max: New Obama Ad

It seems Obama has finally realized that he has to kick McCain in the throat or go the way of John Kerry.

Max: John Scazli on Lies

As usual, John Scazli is annoyingly articulate about something that leaves me foaming at the mouth.

It’s entirely possible that McCain campaign will benefit from a critical mass of people — and not just dyed-in-the-wool, will-vote-Satan-into-office-if-he-wears-a-flag-pin Republicans — who have been primed by years of intentional and structural undermining of the legitimacy of fact, to accept bald-faced lying as just another tactic; people, in other words, who know that they are being lied to, know the lies are being repeated in the face of factual evidence, and know the campaign knows it is lying and plans to continue to do so all the way to the White House… and see that sort of stance as admirable. Can you blame McCain for taking advantage of this dynamic? Well, quite obviously, you can, and should. It’s one thing to imagine one’s self a “maverick” for speaking truth to power; it’s quite another thing to be a “maverick” by deciding to lie one’s way into power. However, it’s also amply clear that many who should blame him, or would be outraged by Obama lying in such a transparent and recurrent fashion, won’t.

Max: Tina Fey As Sarah Palin

Max: Kermit The Hipster Frog

Max: Mom? Why Didn't You Pay The Psychic

Because some of it leaked out onto your second. Clicky clicky.

Max: Factcheck.org

Because my degree is in Poli Sci, I am an inveterate news nerd and generally have a good bullshit detector, people often ask me if I can direct them to any news sources that impartially present facts rather than spin. The best I was ever able to offer was that all news is either biased or incompetent at least part of the time. Today, that changes.

I gladly recommend FactCheck.org to anyone who values truth above spin. As video above shows, they are ready, willing and able to call bullshit on Republicans, Democrats and anyone else.

Max: Sophie Can Walk

Max: Lose Your House? GOP Wants To Block Your Vote.

The chairman of the Republican Party in Macomb County, Michigan, a key swing county in a key swing state, is planning to use a list of foreclosed homes to block people from voting in the upcoming election as part of the state GOP’s effort to challenge some voters on Election Day.

"We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren’t voting from those addresses," party chairman James Carabelli told Michigan Messenger in a telephone interview earlier this week. He said the local party wanted to make sure that proper electoral procedures were followed.

More @ MichiganMessenger.com

Max: Turning Off Fire Hydrants For Your Safety

A North Texas homeowner wants you to learn from his family's tragedy. The fire hydrants in his neighborhood are turned off. But he didn't know that until June 24th, the night his house caught fire.

...

Clay Hodges is the general manager of Cash Special Utility District. He explains all the district's hydrants, including those in Alexander Ranch, have had their water turned off since just after 9/11 - something a trade association spokesman tells us is common practice for rural systems.

"These hydrants need to be cut off in a way to prevent vandalism or any kind of terrorist activity, including something in the water lines," Hodges said.

More @ WFAA.com

Max: Palin on ABC - Painful to Watch

Max: 9/11 May Lead To New 'Super' Steel

Scientists say an understanding of how the Twin Towers collapsed will help them develop the materials needed to build fusion reactors. New research shows how steel will fail at high temperatures because of the magnetic properties of the metal. The New York buildings fell when their steel backbones lost strength in the fires that followed the plane impacts. Dr Sergei Dudarev told the British Association Science Festival that improved steels were now being sought.

The principal scientist at the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) said one of the first applications for these better performing metals would be in the wall linings of fusion reactors where temperatures would be in a similar range to those experienced in the Twin Towers' fires.

More at the Beeb.

Max: Government's War On Fun Continues As Salvia Becomes Latest Threat To Civilization

Pharmacologists who believe salvia could open new frontiers for the treatment of addiction, depression and pain fear that its criminalization would make it burdensome to obtain and store the plant, and difficult to gain government permission for tests on human subjects. In state after state, however, including here in Texas, the YouTube videos have become Exhibit A in legislative efforts to regulate salvia. This year, Florida made possession or sale a felony punishable by 15 years in prison. California took a gentler approach by making it a misdemeanor to sell or distribute to minors.

“When you see it, well, it sure makes a believer out of you,” said Representative Charles Anderson of Waco, a Republican state lawmaker who is sponsoring one of several bills to ban salvia in Texas.

How much longer are we going to tolerate people enjoying themselves and harming no one?

More at the NYT.

Max: Will Your Vote Be Counted?

It says something -- an unflattering something -- about this country that this is not the lead story in every news source. Where are the torches and pitchforks, folks?

Max: Site Tracks Whether Or Not LHC Has Destroyed The World

Keep track here.

Max: Bob Woodward on 60 Minutes

Max: For Everything Else

Getting a 30 minute call 10 minutes before I am about to leave: 20 minutes

Having to stop and explain what is taking so long: 15 minutes

Listening to them bitch about how I am keeping them from going home and not killing them: my soul

Max: Jon Stewart vs Brian Willams

I would love to see them go head to head for a full show. They are probably the best comedy duo since ballistic scientists accidentally discovered the formula for Abbott with Costello.

Max: The Horrible, Horrible Secret

One literary device that consistently gets on my nerves is the POV character who thinks, worries or otherwise obsesses over their horrible, horrible secret™ without actually thinking, worrying or otherwise obsessing over a single detail of that secret. How often do people worry about their horrible, horrible secrets™ without thinking of at least some of the details?

One example of this can be found in Charles Stross's otherwise brilliant Halting State. One of the main characters has a Scarlet Letter™ in his criminal record that he worries about for several chapters before having to spill the beans. That he manages to worry about this on several occasion without actually thinking of any of the details would normally be considered a sign of mental illness or Zen mastery. It is made that much worse that his Scarlet Letter™ was the fault of a surveillance society and poor lawmaking, not really anything wrong that the character did. The character to whom he spills the beans readily recognizes that. But then, a particularly slow blade of grass would also readily recognize that -- assuming it's not a Republican. I still don't understand why this reasonably intelligent character was worried that anyone worth his time would condemn him. If the desire was to create suspense, all that was created for me was annoyance.

That is not to say POV characters should be any less able than the rest of us to keep secrets from themselves. The same character from the same book spends a quite a few brain cycles trying not to think about a truly devastating memory. There are even some places where conflict arises between the facts of this event versus the small(?) lie he lives with in order to function. But even then, his detail-free thoughts -- thoughts that reflect the lie he tells himself to keep his sanity -- make sense given the trauma he went through.

I am all for taking some literary license, and I am the last person who should be telling real writers what to do. But may I suggest that before taking this license writers ask themselves two questions. First, do human beings really think like that? And if not, is this device essential to the story?

Max: MSNBC Spanks Olberman, Matthews

More here.

This may be good journalism, but I don't know that it is a good move. MSNBC has been gaining a lot of traction as the FOX of the left.

Max: I Am Jon Arbuckle -- Without Garfield

Max: Police Decide It's Okay To Invade Your Home and Kill Your Pets

The Prince George's County Sheriff's Office has concluded in an internal review that its deputies were justified when they shot and killed two dogs belonging to the mayor of Berwyn Heights during a July drug raid, Sheriff Michael Jackson said yesterday.

If they feel okay doing this to the Mayor, do you think they give a fuck about your rights?

Laura, don't read the next paragraph.

Jackson released the results of the review in response to a scientific examination of the dogs' carcasses by a veterinarian with the Maryland Department of Agriculture at the request of Mayor Cheye Calvo. The necropsy concluded one dog was shot four times and the other twice, including once in the dog's back legs.

That is one tricky dog, attacking in such a way that the bullets hit it in the back legs rather than anything that would normally, actually be in the way of a bullet if it were attacking.

Oh, and by the way, the Police are perfectly okay with their actions that night despite:

1. No one in the house had actually committed any crimes

Police cleared Calvo and Tomsic of wrongdoing, saying they were victims of a drug smuggling scheme in which drug-filled packages addressed to unsuspecting recipients were intercepted by a FedEx deliveryman.

2. They used a fucking SWAT to go after a package of FUCKING POT!!!!

A sheriff's department SWAT team and county police narcotics officers burst into the mayor's home July 29 after police intercepted a 32-pound package of marijuana addressed to Trinity Tomsic, Calvo's wife.

3. Had they executed the warrant properly, they would not have knocked down the door and started shooting. Despite what you see on TV, a warrant does not give cops the right to batter down your door and start shooting, for that they need a "no knock" warrant

Calvo said he hopes an FBI investigation into the raid will examine other issues, including why officers did not know they were raiding the home of a mayor and why Prince George's police said at first that they had been given a "no knock" warrant to enter the home without announcing their presence but then said they had not.

But these criminals will get off scott-fucking-free because they committed their crimes wearing police uniforms while fighting the "drug war". And we all know, when it comes to the drug war, it's better to brutalize innocents than to risk making it too easy for Crunchy P. Granola to get high.

I am so FUCKING PISSED OFF right now.

More at Washingtonpost.com

Max: Jerry Sienfeld and Bill Gates - Together Again

This was the most oddest cut of all.

Max: Rep. Lynn Westmoreland Sez Obama Is "Uppity"

Really. He did.

Max: Exoskeleton Action - The Wearable Motorcyle

Read

Watch

Max: Kowloon Walled City - A Pirate Paradise

This place.

Max: Derf Asks If We Are That Dumb

And indeed we are.

Max: Why I Hate John Scalzi Yet Wish To Be Him

This is why

Max: Google Chrome Reviewed

I would like to take this opportunity to give a brief rundown of my experience with Google's new Chrome web browser.

Pro: Google goes open source to make your browsing experience less evil.

Con: I can't use it because I don't want to infect my computer with Windblows Virusa.

Max: Intel Proposes Programmable Matter

Mobile phones in future could be thumb-sized in pockets, and in practically an instant, be effortlessly transformed into PDA-sized devices to send e-mail.

In the final keynote of the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) Thursday, Justin Rattner, Intel's chief technology officer, shed some light on work around programmable matter, as he teased the audience with what Intel believes would apply as technology in the next four decades.

The idea of programmable matter, he explained, revolves around tiny glass spheres with processing power and photovoltaic for generating electricity to run the tiny circuitry. These particles called catoms would move relative to one another via electrostatic.

So not only do we have the primitive beginnings of holodecks, we now have what could lead to replicators. Now we just need someone to get working on warp drive.

More at zdnet.com

Max: Sinking

Max: Ultrasound Haptics

The field of haptics - integrating computing and the sense of touch - has been around for some time but has required gloves or mechanical devices to impart a sense of feeling.

Now, a team of Japanese researchers has developed a system that uses focused ultrasound to do the job.

More at the Beeb.

The illusion of touch. Add some holograms and you have true virtual reality, a holodeck if you will. Just try not to be using it when the power blinks on and off. As we know all too well, that causes the holograms to come to life and want to kill you.

Max: Lisa Nova Imagines McCain's Call To Palin

Max: Rev. Billy C. Wirtz Sings About Female Problems

Max: To Be VP

The Republican Party Vice-Presidential questionnaire:

1. Are you a reliable conservative?

Please note that "conservative" is defined as someone who believes that government control should be minimized in all aspects of life except religion, books, TV, radio, music, personal recreation, personal thoughts, boys who like to kiss boys and other vital national security matters.

2. Do you have a vagina?

More here.

Max: Peaceful Protester Assaulted by St. Paul Police

Jericho: Sarah Palin's Love Letter to the AIP

That's the Alaska Independence Party - pretty much what it sounds like: conservative nut-jobs that want to secede Alaska from the union or join Canada or just drill, drill, drill because it makes them money and who cares about the environment?

This was THE MOST capable, qualified person McCain could find? Way to go, John!

Max: Your Daily J-Pop - Monday with Sun

Max: Don LaFontaine Dead @ 68

In a world without movie-trailer voice-overs...

Max: St. Paul Police Arresting Reporters for "Conspiricy to Riot"

More than 280 people were arrested here in St. Paul Monday, the opening day of the Republican National Convention. Among them were several journalists covering the protests in the streets—including three of us at Democracy Now. Amy was detained trying to question police officers about the arrests of Democracy Now producers Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar.

More at Democracy Now.

The light of Democracy:



Glenn Greenwald has more at Salon.com.