Well, folks … meet the new boss, same as the old boss. I was going to say that when Kerry got elected, to cleverly point up the irony of choosing between two war presidents. Now, well … it’s just literally true.

Let these five words you never wanted to hear roll over your tongue:

“George Bush. Two term President.”

What happened? Well, democracy happened. Carefully controlled, media-massaged, corporate-guided democracy. Issues carefully weeded, candidates carefully groomed. As America... [More] (Something Awful)

We are approaching launch for the three-month quadrennial extravaganza known as the US elections. If you’re a concerned citizen, you’re letting yourself get whipsawed by Electoral Vote as it updates itself daily with more and more data from the “meaningless” polls, grinding your psyche as your favorite teeters on the brink of ruin, only to come storming back and take a commanding 50-point lead.

It’s like pro wrestling, in a way.

Since both parties have already sworn to challenge the results... [More]

The entire web-site, though it may look exactly the same, is chugging along on a new engine (earthli WebCore 2.6). It’ll be in a beta stage for a bit, but most of the wrinkles should be smoothed out soon enough.

There are more upgrades and changes planned for the near future — that will change the look of the site a bit, but first, we’ve got to nail down the foundation.

If you see any warnings or errors, please send them to me and I’ll take care of them right away.

Thanks,
Team earthli

’Team’ Spirit not for Everyone (SF Gate) is an interview with Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park and the movie “Team America: World Police”. I haven’t seen the movie (yet), and I’ve heard it’s pretty funny. I’m a little confused by the interview here because they usually interview well. In this case, they did not. Let’s get a few things straight. They’re satirists and comedians, not political analysts. You can’t hold them to a standard of proof or thought that you would Noam Chomsky.... [More]

This is the last installment of “stuff I learned during the debates”. Unattributed quotes below are straight from the transcripts, found at Debate #2 (“Rage in the Cage”) and Debate #3 (“Bloodmatch — back for more Blood”).

Head to Head

Patriot Act

• Kerry says he supports the Patriot Act. He also says it needs to be pretty much massively rewritten, but he doesn’t have the gonads to say it’s a piece of crap, because that offends too many of the wrong people.
• Bush doesn’t think the Patriot... [More]

We’ve all heard about how hard it can be to vote in America.

1. If, God forbid, you want someone other than Kerry or Bush, their respective parties may have done a lot of legwork to keep your preferred candidate entirely off the ballot
2. If you’re in a state that dumps all of its electoral votes to whichever candidate gets the most votes, you’re out of luck for having your voice heard
3. If you’re in Florida and you’re black, there’s a good chance you’ll be turned away from the polls
4. If you’re in... [More]

Dear Limey assholes (Guardian Unlimited) documents the replies sent by Americans when over 11,000 Brits sent “voting recommendations” for people living in Ohio. The title of the article reflects the sentiments of at least half of the letters; they evoked personal stereotypes about the British, brought up “saving their asses” in the second world war or threatened all-out attack. About a third of the letters were just effusive thanks for support, falling all over themselves in joy at having found kindred spirits across... [More]

“Americans think 100 years is a long time; Europeans think 100 miles is a long way”

Bush is clearly not living in the world we live in. He doesn’t lie; it’s just that, when he talks, he’s not describing the world we live in. In fact, he welcomes us all to join him in his fervent worship of a simplistic black-and-white world where saying something makes it true. A few examples:

Al Qaeda

Apparently, the war on terror is going unbelievably well: it’s a catastrophic success. Bush noted in the second debate that “we’re bringing Al Qaida to justice. Seventy five percent of them... [More]”

Bush often derides Kerry’s plan for taxing the rich; claims it’s not possible to do so. Why? Well, according to him, the rich won’t pay them, so why bother? Might as well tax chumps that actually pay taxes, otherwise the government ends up with no cash with which to run important programs, like the military. Here’s how Bush sees it:

“[Kerry] says he’s going to tax the rich. The rich hire lawyers and accountants for a reason − to stick you with the bill.”

Fascinating logic. So, since the rich... [More]

Kerry still won’t shut up about his “faith” and about finding and killing terrorists. Simplistic pablum that he seems to believe. As Our War on Terrorism by Howard Zinn (Common Dreams) point out:

“[What] Bush’s war on terrorism, and … Sharon’s, and … Putin’s … have in common is that they are based on an enormous deception: persuading the people of their countries that you can deal with terrorism by war. These rulers say you can end our fear of terrorism—of sudden, deadly, vicious attacks, a fear new to Americans—by... [More]”

As if we needed more proof that Jon Stewart is one of the only guys fighting the good fight for us, here’s a transcript of his appearance on Crossfire (CNN). I downloaded the full video via BitTorrent (download BitTorrent software). You can find a link to a video download by searching “Jon Stewart Crossfire” in Google. I found one at this blog pretty easily.

The two idiots who run the show were prepared for a standup routine; Stewart came to discuss a serious issue: the way mainstream media is “hurting... [More]”

Doesn’t John Kerry know who are real friends are? What kind of an American is he?

Answer: not the kind of American we want running the White House, that’s for sure.

As anyone who caught the debates the other night surely knows by now, John Kerry is the kind of namby pamby who puts passing some sort of “global test” before the safety of the nation, whereas George Bush does whatever he likes, as long as he has the support of the globe’s moral compass: “Poland”.

The Race so Far

My gut reaction?... [More]

American liquor manufacturers have accepted the FDA’s suggestion that they display one or more of the following label warnings:

WARNING

The consumption of alcohol may leave you wondering what the hell happened to your bra and panties.

WARNING

The consumption of alcohol may make you think you are whispering when you are not.

WARNING

The consumption of alcohol is a major factor in dancing like a retard.

WARNING

The consumption of alcohol may cause you to tell your friends over and over again... [More]

Here’s another edition of “fun videos to watch that make fun of George Bush and you will laugh because he’s a fool and you will cry because, somehow, he will be President for the next four years”. This time there are even a couple not from the Daily Show.

Please note. All videos are in Windows Media Player format. The Daily Show ones need version 9 to play.

”Unprotected” (GeorgeWBush.Org)

See the two candidates’ respective military careers from a different angle. An angle that may not have occurred to you,... [More]

Here are a few tips for uploading pictures to the earthli server.

Now that everybody’s got a great digital camera that takes super hi-res pictures in super high quality, we’ve got pictures that are too big to display and take too long to upload and download.

The problem

Your camera will typically take a picture at 1600 × 1200 with a JPEG compression of 90-95% (if you’ve set high quality).

That results in pictures that are anywhere from 500KB to 700KB. My camera takes them even bigger and... [More]

A man was leaving a cafe with his morning coffee when he noticed a most
unusual funeral procession approaching the nearby cemetery. A funeral
coffin was followed by a second one about 50 feet behind the first.
Behind the second coffin was a solitary man walking with a black dog.
Behind him was a queue of 200 men walking in single file. The man
couldn’t stand his curiosity ..

He respectfully approached the man walking the dog, “I am so sorry for
your loss, and I know now... [More]

It sounds like a venereal disease when you say it like that.

Whereas your health is not endangered by Windows XP (yet!), the latest numbers from security services around the world are out and they agree that:

“[20 minutes is] how long your average unprotected PC running Windows XP will last once it’s connected to the Internet … before it’s compromised and effectively 0\/\/n3d.”

Infected in 20 minutes (The Register) takes you through the by-now familiar drill of security problems with Microsoft’s flagship... [More]

Let’s break tradition and start off with good news first.

Non-US coverage is quite good

Whereas many of you in the States might be suffering from the same wonderful NBC (prime-time … I’ll get to that) coverage, those in other parts of the world are faring a bit better. Has NBC Turned The Olympics Into Will And Greece? is a discussion that runs the gamut of complaints about NBC coverage. There are the stories of crass commercialism:

• Athletes not allowed to carry or display any brands that... [More]

Question

“Why did Australia get all the convicts and America get all the religious nuts?”

Answer

“Australia got first choice.”

There’s this crossword puzzle online. It’s from the Ludington Daily News, a newspaper in Michigan. There are a lot of crossword puzzles online — the New York Newsday is a pretty good one, with a Saturday Stumper from hell.

The “Lud” is different. It breaks every crossword puzzle rule in the book. It never has a theme. And it mixes hard and easy clues in a way like no other crossword I’ve ever seen. Some of the somewhat easier ones include gems like:

1. Set again
2. Woody plant
3. Leg joint
4. Foot... [More]

I know I’ve seen this one before, but I got this via email and was kind of struck by some of these numbers (highlighted below).

If we could shrink the earth’s population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following*:

In My Plea to John Kerry by Michael Moore, Moore’s take on Nader, for whom he worked in the 2000 campaign is this:

“And what I and others try to explain to Ralph before he decided to run is that you already did your job. The Democratic Party of 2004 is not the Democratic Party of 2000. the threat, the threat that you posed in 2000, they got the message. And it was carried on by Howard dean and Dennis Kucinich and others in this year. And they helped push the Democrats toward where the majority of Americans that... [More]”

Rules for Being Republican (Democracy Means You)

It’s a cheap shot, but what the hell.

Since the author’s unknown, I figure the site just copy/pasted from an email. So I reprinted it in its entirety.

1. You must believe that being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you are millionaire conservative radio jock, which makes it an “illness” and requires our prayers for your “recovery”.
2. You have to truly believe that people, who are privileged from birth, achieve success all on their own.
3. You have to... [More]

Here’s a collection of my favorite Daily Show clips from the last couple of weeks. Each one has a link to the clip (Real Player) and list of my favorite quotes from it underneath.

Conventional Wisdom

Conventional Wisdom, Talking Points, Acquired Opinions: it’s how you learn stuff in today’s magical media age. Why think? Regurgitating thoughts other people had is easier.

“Conventional wisdom is the agreed-upon interpretation by the media: it’s not important that it’s true, just that it’s... [More]”

PC Magazine Reviews Firefox, Opera (Slashdot) is a discussion about Firefox, for the most part. Several times during the discussion, people praise the Extension Manager in Firefox.

It’s not enough.

To really take off, this Extension Manager is an excellent base. However, if you visit the site and see the jungle of plugins that await you, you’re a fool if you think “most” people are willing to wade through it to configure their browser. Programmers and geeks love it. “Most” people will not.

Here’s the... [More]

Star Trek Flat affords you a look into a world few know: geek interior design.

What do you do if you’ve got a lot of time on your hands, considerable do-it-yourself skills, a bunch of cash and no friends in sight?

When you’re done, you try to sell it (EBay) for a million bucks and see if you can find a rich, lazy geek who wants to live in England.

I was going to name the article, “How not to get laid in... [More]

Benchmarks

The official benchmarks have been released by id. id Software’s Official DOOM3 Benchmarks (HardOCP) covers it in detail, showing you that if your card was purchased in the last year, you can probably play the game at high quality. Let’s get the recommendation out of the way:

“There is no way for a $500 [ATI] X800XT-PE to compete with a $400 [NVidia] 6800GT when the GT is simply going to outperform the more expensive card by a good margin. … for those of you that are in the high end video... [More]”

This Land is Your Land is good Flash; Flash put to a better purpose than burning out your retinas with advertising. It’s a parody of the Woody Guthrie song that rips Bush, Kerry, the US Media, US consumerism (the part with the Native American and the Walmarts popping up like mushrooms was funny). Check it out for a good laugh.

If you have trouble downloading it, try it here at The Land is Your Land (local copy). They, of course, have a little copyright infringement thing with the owners of... [More]

In Praise of Unruly Women by Arianna Huffington (AlterNet) talks about Theresa Heinz Kerry, who sounds far more interesting than her husband. In it, she hammers the patriarchal attitude of American media, most starkly pointed up in Newsweek’s cover: “Is John Kerry’s Heiress Wife a Loose Cannon or Crazy Like a Fox?”

The pre-approved talking points about her are either about her hair or about how she pretty much forgets a woman’s place.

Right now you’re probably relatively familiary with her response to a journalist of “Shove it!”.... [More]