Even the most razor-sharp of hewers to the party line must be having a tremendous amount of psychic agony in trying to follow the script. If cognitive dissonance can cause actual, physical pain, then now is surely the time for it to do so. John McCain is praising the bailouts and buy-outs of major American financial institutions to high heaven, while at the same time calling for even less regulation—ostensibly because there are still a few banks that haven’t managed to glut themselves into... [More]

There is no way that the average American (or world citizen, for that matter) can stay on top of the firehose of mis-information aimed at them in an election season. Any conversation about policy, society or the philosophical underpinnings of living on this planet together, without killing each other, inevitably—and incredibly quickly—devolves into a bilateral effort to disprove facts held by the other party. For example, imagine a devout Republican discussing “equal pay for equal work”... [More]

On September 3rd, Jon Stewart was much more vicious than usual, tearing into Laura & George Bush, Fred Thompson (“Foghorn Leghorn”) and Senator Lieberman (“Deputy Dawg”).

John McCain: The Person He Is by Jon Stewart (The Daily Show)

Next up was a juxtaposition of videos that let Karl Rove contradict himself (wherein he gushes over Sarah Palin’s experience running a town of 9000 people after disparaging a Democratic VP hopeful as inexperienced because his city has only about 100,000 people). Bill O’Reilly also hit the chopping block for, on the one... [More]

The Nader version appears to be a paraphrase of “[t]he people can have anything they want, the only problem is they do not want anything”, which, though possibly more accurate, doesn’t read nearly as well.

Much has been said of Heath Ledger’s portrayal of the Joker in The Dark Knight. Many have drawn parallels between elements in the movie and the recent history of the United States, from the attacks of 9–11 to the ensuing war on terror and its effects, both foreign and domestic. The Joker is chosen as the terrorist and the only way to stop him is to be just as lawless, to forsake all that you are defending—if only for just a little while, until order is restored—before everything you hold... [More]

Palin/McCain '08Reports that the Democratic convention has given Obama a “bump” are greatly exaggerated: he was ahead by six points a month ago, McCain caught up and passed him just before the Democratic convention[1] and, now, after five days of nearly exclusively Democratic coverage in the media, Obama has clawed back his six-point lead.

Bravo, Democrats.

This is clearly still the party that knows how to speak to the American people and holds a tremendous amount of appeal. Obama didn’t have the guts to choose... [More]

This article is written in response to a couple of incredulous emails I received about my recent publication of a handbook for the Book Library, which seemed like a lot of work documenting an application in use by two people, with no hopes of ever being used by more.

The Book Library as it is today is a Windows-only application built with Atlas, a Borland Delphi-based framework available from Opus Software AG.

I used to work at Opus, and the Book Library is the application I wrote to get a... [More]

This article is part (9) of a multi-part earthli Albums tutorial.

Before you start adding pictures, you should read the article Uploading pictures in earthli Albums (earthli News) to learn how to prepare pictures for publication online.

If you have a lot of pictures to add to an album and you don’t feel like adding them individually, you can upload them all at once and then edit them later.

Let’s start, as always, by going to the Galapagos home page, as described in the navigation tutorial, as shown... [More]

This article is part (8) of a multi-part earthli Albums tutorial.

If you’ve got a lot of pictures in one album and want to group them or categorize them better, you can make sub-albums within the main album. Picking up from where we left off in the navigation tutorial at the Galapagos home page, we see that there are hundreds of photos in one album.

Before you can move pictures, you have to create the album to which you’re going to move them.

To move pictures, you have to switch to the... [More]

This article is part (7) of a multi-part earthli Albums tutorial.

In addition to adding and editing pictures, you’re invariably going to need to delete some as well. There are a couple of ways to do this, but let’s start off—as always—where we left off in the navigation tutorial with the Galapagos home page, as shown below:

Delete Picture from Album Page (click to enlarge)

To select a single picture for deletion, hover over the small “command” triangle (1) next to it, then select “Delete” (2) from the menu. You’ll be taken to a... [More]

This article is part (6) of a multi-part earthli Albums tutorial.

Changing the cover for an album is the same as editing one, but you need to actually add pictures or move pictures from another album first. To change the cover picture for an album, go to the album’s home page. If you follow the instructions in the browsing tutorial, you should see the Galapagos as shown below:

Galapagos Home Page (click to enlarge)

Near the top of the home page, you should see the “Edit” button (1); press it to show the page below (if you... [More]

This article is part (5) of a multi-part earthli Albums tutorial.

Editing an album is just as easy as creating a new one. To edit an album, go to the album’s home page. If you follow the instructions in the browsing tutorial, you should see the Galapagos as shown below:

Galapagos Home Page (click to enlarge)

Near the top of the home page, you should see the “Edit” button (1); press it to show the page below (if you can’t see the button, follow the instructions for logging in before continuing):

Edit Album (click to enlarge)

There are a lot of settings... [More]

This article is part (4) of a multi-part earthli Albums tutorial.

Editing an existing picture is a snap; if you don’t have any pictures yet, check out how to add a picture first. Let’s continue from where we left off in the browsing tutorial with the Galapagos home page, as shown below:

Galapagos Home Page (click to enlarge)

There are two ways to edit a picture: from its home page or from a drop-down menu that pops up when you hover the mouse over the triangle next to a picture (2). If you’re editing a lot of pictures, it’s... [More]

This article is part (3) of a multi-part earthli Albums tutorial.

Before you start adding pictures, you should read the article Uploading pictures in earthli Albums (earthli News) to learn how to prepare pictures for publication online.

Adding a picture is just as easy as editing one. Picking up from where we left off in the navigation tutorial at the Galapagos home page, we see the page below:

Create New Picture for Galapagos (click to enlarge)

Press the “New Picture” button (1) to go to a page where you can upload pictures:

Add Picture Page (click to enlarge)

Above the form, you can... [More]

This article is part (2) of a multi-part earthli Albums tutorial.

Making a new album is very easy; you only need to know two things:

1. Where you want to put the album.
2. What you want to name the album.

Let’s make a sub-album in the Galapagos album from the browsing tutorial. If you don’t know how to get there, check out that tutorial to show the page below:

Create New Album (click to enlarge)

Near the top, you can see the “New album” button (1); press it to show the page below (if you can’t see the button, follow the... [More]

This article is part (1) of a multi-part earthli Albums tutorial.

earthli Albums is an online photo manager that lets you upload pictures to albums and send updates to subscribers. Before you can add your own pictures, you should learn how to navigate the application. To get started, browse to the earthli Albums home page. You should see the following screen:

Albums home page (click to enlarge)

Near the top of the page, you can see your login status (1). If you’re not logged in, you’ll see a link to “Log in…”. Select it... [More]

earthli Albums is an online photo manager that lets you upload pictures to albums and send updates to subscribers. Pictures are organized into nested albums and users can have as many albums as they like. It’s pretty easy to use the earthli Albums, but you should still familiarize yourself using the tutorial outlined below.

1. How to browse earthli Albums
2. How to make a new album
3. How to add a picture to an album
4. How to edit a picture
5. How to edit an album
6. How to change an album’s cover picture
7. How... [More]

This article is part (6) of a multi-part Book Library tutorial.

To edit a book, you first have to find the book that you want to edit. Once you’ve found it, you should be looking at a window full of details for the book, as shown below.

Browse Stephen King Books (click to enlarge)

In this case, we’ve selected the book “Black House” from the list on the left and can see all of the details for it on the right side, like the “Title” (1), the “Main Author” and so on. Whereas the title is just text, the author, publisher, section and... [More]

This article is part (5) of a multi-part Book Library tutorial.

When you’re adding books, you might find that you’re always filling out certain fields—like “Location” or “Owner”—with the same information. The Book Library can fill out these values automatically when you create a new book if you set up a default template.

When you start the Book Library, you’re taken to the main menu, as shown below:

Choose Add from the Main Menu (click to enlarge)

Just as when adding a book, select “Add Books” (1) from the menu. You’ll be shown the... [More]

This article is part (4) of a multi-part Book Library tutorial.

When you start the Book Library, you’re taken to the main menu, as shown below:

Choose Add from the Main Menu (click to enlarge)

From here, choose “Add books” to show the window below:

Adding a Book (click to enlarge)

This window is opened to a new book where you can start filling in the information for it (1). Fields in pink are required; those in grey are optional.

Setting the Author (click to enlarge)

Once you’ve filled in the title, it’s copied to the list on the left side (1). Fill in the name of the author (2) and press tab or enter... [More]

This article is part (3) of a multi-part Book Library tutorial.

When you start the Book Library, you’re taken to the main menu, as shown below:

Choose Print from the Main Menu (click to enlarge)

In the toolbar, there’s a “Print” button (1); press that (or type Ctrl+P) to show the print window below:

Main Book List Settings (click to enlarge)

The list on the left shows the available reports; the one you’ll use most is the “Main Book List” (1); select that to show the options for that report. You can elect to restrict by “Location” and/or “Owner” (2) or just leave one or both... [More]

This article is part (2) of a multi-part Book Library tutorial.

Browsing your books will always start with a search, as demonstrated in the searching for books tutorial. So, let’s start from there:

Stephen King's Books (click to enlarge)

An explorer window shows the contents of a list of books (1); selecting a book on the left shows the details for that book on the right, where you can change them, if you like.

However, if you select the “Books” itself, you’ll see another list on the right, showing more information:

Browse a List of Books (click to enlarge)

As you... [More]

This article is part (1) of a multi-part Book Library tutorial.

When you start the Book Library, you’re taken to the main menu, shown below:

Choose Search from the Main Menu (click to enlarge)

Select “Search for Book” (1) from the list to bring up the book search window, shown below:

The Search Window (click to enlarge)

On the left side of the window are fields by which you can search; fill in the values you’re looking for, then press “Search” or hit enter to continue. For this tutorial, type “king” in the “Main Author” field (1), then press the “Search” button (2) (or... [More]