Self-parody net-neutrality FUD from the cable industry

A commercial so ridiculous it even looks like something out of Reefer Madness.

Link

Ars Technica shows how to steal an election

This is not some nutbag ranting on a street corner, this is a highly-technical, well-researched study on how one would go about stealing an election. Turns out it's not that hard.

Over the course of almost eight years of reporting for Ars Technica, I've followed the merging of the areas of election security and information security, a merging that was accelerated much too rapidly in the wake of the 2000 presidential election. In all this time, I've yet to find a good way to convey to the non-technical public how well and truly screwed up we presently are, six years after the Florida recount. So now it's time to hit the panic button: In this article, I'm going to show you how to steal an election.

Link

Chris Matthews calls a spade racist a racist

Link

Yay New Jersey!

Atrios hunts down their supreme court ruling on same-sex marriage.

Link

Kevin Tillman speaks out

Heartbreaking.

Worst. Congress. Ever.

With the blizzard of scandals, it's easy to get caught up in the minutiae of the latest outrage. Matt Taibbi provides a catalog of corruption to remind us of the scope of incompetence and greed that the GOP have ruled with for the last 12 years.

The GOP's "take that, bitch" approach to governing has been taken to the greatest heights by the House Judiciary Committee. The committee is chaired by the legendary Republican monster James Sensenbrenner Jr., an ever-sweating, fat-fingered beast who wields his gavel in a way that makes you think he might have used one before in some other arena, perhaps to beat prostitutes to death. Last year, Sensenbrenner became apoplectic when Democrats who wanted to hold a hearing on the Patriot Act invoked a little-known rule that required him to let them have one.

"Naturally, he scheduled it for something like 9 a.m. on a Friday when Congress wasn't in session, hoping that no one would show," recalls a Democratic staffer who attended the hearing. "But we got a pretty good turnout anyway."

Sensenbrenner kept trying to gavel the hearing to a close, but Democrats again pointed to the rules, which said they had a certain amount of time to examine their witnesses. When they refused to stop the proceedings, the chairman did something unprecedented: He simply picked up his gavel and walked out.

"He was like a kid at the playground," the staffer says. And just in case anyone missed the point, Sensenbrenner shut off the lights and cut the microphones on his way out of the room.

Link

Befouling the well

Link

Yay America.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- A man who couldn't find steady work came up with a plan to make it through the next few years until he could collect Social Security: He robbed a bank, then handed the money to a guard and waited for police.

On Wednesday, Timothy J. Bowers told a judge a three-year prison sentence would suit him, and the judge obliged.

"At my age, the jobs available to me are minimum-wage jobs. There is age discrimination out there," Bowers, who turns 63 in a few weeks, told Judge Angela White.

The judge told him: "It's unfortunate you feel this is the only way to deal with the situation."

Link

Papa Bear on Nintendo circa 1988

Link

There's a new "Best Thing of Everything"

Link

Fuck Dinesh D'Souza

How did this A-hole ever get a job at Stanford? Anyone who actually thinks that "The Left" is what caused 9/11 is either retarded or lying.

"I realize that this is a strong charge," D'Souza writes, "one that no one has made before."

The reason it hasn't been made before is that it's a sleazy, shameless, ignorant, ahistorical, tendentious, meretricious lie, one that was waiting for the right brazen liar to come along to promote it, and here he is, and his name is Dinesh D'Souza, who's fatuous and fuddy-duddyish enough to think that it's Britney Spears, the rap lyrics of 2 Live Crew, and the buggering photographs of the late Robert Mapplethorpe that have Islam in a tiz. This is someone so out of touch with pop culture that he thinks liberals look down on risque sitcoms like Will & Grace because "their moral depravity is not highbrow enough for their taste." Does that description fit anyone you know?

Link

Consider my mind blown

"So we understand piracy now as a business model," said Sweeney [president of Disney-ABC Television Group and one of the "50 Most Powerful Women in Business," according to Fortune] in a recent analyst call. "It exists to serve a need in the marketplace specifically for consumers who want TV content on demand and it competes for consumers the same way we do, through high-quality, price and availability and we don't like the model. But we realize it's effective enough to make piracy a key competitor going forward. And we've created a strategy to address this threat with attractive, easy to use ways to for viewers to get the content they want from us legally; in other words, keeping honest people honest."

Link:

Another ridiculous discussion about copyrighting food

This is all so stupid. There are so many technical issues with this - what level of granularity would be copyrighted (if I took your recipe and added a 1/4 teaspoon of salt, would I not be "infringing?")? How would you possibly enforce this? Would restaurants have to include "licensing fees?" And most of all, do we really want to tell people what they are allowed to make themselves to EAT? For chrissakes... As if it wasn't hard enough already for restaurants...

Link

Don't want to lose your job to a Chinese slave laborer?

Well... Work harder, then!

America doesn't need to try harder. China needs to stop using slave labor. If you see things any other way, you've probably got a factory in the Suzhou industrial park. Or you're taking money from someone who does.

This story, plus the book I've been reading, plus a recent viewing of Syriana have put me in a pretty helpless mood lately.

Link

Turns out those IMs were perfectly explainable

See, the Foley side was real, but we didn't get the context...

Maf54 (7:46:01 PM): well I better let you go do oyur thing
Editorz (7:46:11 PM): yes I have to go do some hand modeling
Editorz (7:46:18 PM): because I am trying to break into the hand modeklling game
Editorz (7:46:22 PM): but it’s hard
Editorz (7:46:27 PM): I have to go audition for the girls who give out the hand model jobs
Maf54 (7:46:33 PM): did any girl give you a haand job this weekend
Editorz (7:46:42 PM): Noo because I was bitten by a radioactive reindeer the other day
Editorz (7:46:55 PM): and so im turning into a deer
Maf54 (7:47:11 PM): are you
Editorz (7:47:11 PM): yes its awkward
Editorz (7:47:11 PM): and my hands are starting to look like hoofs
Editorz (7:47:11 PM): and that’s a disadvantage in the hand modeling biz
Maf54 (7:47:11 PM): good so your getting horny
Editorz (7:47:23 PM): no antlers
Editorz (7:47:24 PM): people think antlers are the same as horns
Editorz (7:47:24 PM): but their totally different
Editorz (7:47:28 PM): antlers are made of bone
Editorz (7:47:32 PM): while horns are actually like fingernails
Editorz (7:47:40 PM): brb the pony is chewing up the couch again
Editorz (7:47:43 PM): what a bad pony! it is always so obedient!

Link

Society of Rockets at New and Improved

We're in the studio for two weekends, working on a new album. I took a bunch of pictures using a mini-tripod, which is the best thing ever for crappy point-and-shoot cameras. Just remember to turn off the flash.


Link

DVD Jon to license DRM-cracking code

The guy's got balls...

Link