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Seen, Heard, Said

Things I’ve seen, heard, or was told by someone. Item in this category usually originate from the Internet.

Bush Unlimited?

This is an update to the BoingBoing article The Dynamic of a Bush Scandal: How the Spying Story Will Unfold (and Fade):

Maybe it won’t go down as described above. The Washington Times, an ultraconservative paper that usually sides with the President, ran a sharply critical commentary by Bruce Fein, a former Associate Deputy Attorney General under President Reagan.

President Bush presents a clear and present danger to the rule of law. He cannot be trusted to conduct the war against global terrorism with a decent respect for civil liberties and checks against executive abuses. Congress should swiftly enact a code that would require Mr. Bush to obtain legislative consent for every counterterrorism measure that would materially impair individual freedoms.

In all honesty, I am worried about the next ten years of life in America. At the end of X-Men, Magneto (aka Eric Lensherr) says, “The war is still coming, Charles, and I intend to fight it… by any means necessary.” I believe this is the case within America (and it is something I will fight). We are slowly giving away our rights. We’re giving them to the government, were giving them to the media (i.e. RIAA/MPAA), we’re giving them to anyone with enough money to buy them (although we don’t actually get any of the money). It’s sickening, not because it’s happening (although that is also sickening), but more because people think that it’s okay and the right thing to do! What Bush has done (and will continue to do, if unchecked) is unacceptable. Some might even consider it treasonous. Why anyone would so openly defend someone who has so openly violated US law is beyond me.

Note: The entirety of The Washington Times commentary is published after the break in case the link goes down.

[tags]george bush, NSA, washington times, Bruce Fein, domestic spying[/tags]
Read More »Bush Unlimited?

Notes on Skiing

More Inboxen™ cleaning time. This comes courtesy of Audrey’s Blog:

Reasons skiing is better than sex:
10. Choice of day or night
9. You pay once to go up and down all day
8. Skis are always hard
7. You have your choice of expert or beginner
6. You always get picked up when in line
5. Lubricant lasts for days
4. Vertical is better than horizontal
3. You can ride more than 2 mounds at a time
2. Lessons are available
1. Abundance of virgin territory

Bones:There are 206 in the human body. No need for dismay, however: two bones of the middle ear have never been broken in a skiing accident.

Skier – One who pays an arm and a leg for the opportunity to break them.

Traverse – To ski across a slope at an angle; one of two quick and simple methods of reducing speed.Tree – The other method.

Top 30 “Facts” About Mr. T

From 4q.cc/t:

  1. The last man who made eye contact with Mr. T was Ray Charles.
  2. Every time a church bell rings, Mr. T pities a fool.
  3. Mr T’s chains are not made of gold, they are actually made of curium, one of the heaviest elements in existence. They were put there by the CIA to slow him down, and you’re lucky they do, fool.
  4. 5 out of 5 doctors recommend not pissing off Mr. T.
  5. Children are afraid of the dark. Dark is afraid of Mr. T.
  6. Mr. T doesn’t pity anyone who likes the Black Eyed Peas. He just kills them.
  7. Mr. T speaks only when necessary. His main form of communication is folding his arms and slowly shaking his head. And regardless of the situation, he is always understood.
  8. Mr. T hates playing ‘Rock Paper Scissors’ because he doesn’t believe anything could beat rock. He always chooses rock, and when someone throws paper, he says,”I win.” If someone is foolish enough to dispute this, he takes his clenched fist and punches them in the face, then says, “I thought your paper would protect you.”
  9. When Mr. T folds his arms, the U.S. Terror Alert Level is raised to gold.
  10. Mr T. and Chuck Norris decided to spar, they travelled to the only safe place in the Universe, the beginning of time. They bowed to each other and Chuck launched in with a roundhouse kick. Mr. T blocked it, and the resulting pressure wave is commonly called the Big Bang.
  11. Mr.T once punched Chuck Norris at the exact moment he roundhouse kicked Mr.T in the chest. the result was the 80’s.
  12. Mr. T doesn’t breathe, air just hides in his lungs for protection.
  13. Mr. T’s Mohawk is not held up by hair gel, his hair is just scared of him and is trying to get as far away as possible.
  14. Mr. T once captured Bigfoot, but released him after he shaved the beast and realized that it was just Chuck Norris walking around naked in the woods.
  15. Mr. T does not actually pity fools. He is just being sarcastic. No one has noticed because it is difficult to pick up such subtleties while being bludgeoned.
  16. 23. That’s the number of people Mr. T has pitied in the time it has taken you to read this sentence.
  17. Mr. T invented fools. Realizing the magnitude of his folly, he then created Pity.
  18. Ever have a sharp pain in your chest that you can’t explain? That was Mr. T, and it was a warning.
  19. Mr. T always drives on the right side of the road, no matter where he is in the world.
  20. Human females have two X chromosomes. Males have an X and a Y. Mr. T has three Ys and a T. He’s more man than you’ll ever be.
  21. Mr. T coined the phrase, “I see dead people,” after the waiting staff at Denny’s forgot his birthday.
  22. On the A-team, Face , Haniabal, and Murdoch were all masters of disguise. Mr T didn’t have to wear a disguise. The bad guys didn’t recognize him out of fear.
  23. When Mr. T was circumsized his foreskin was not disposed of. Instead it was raised as a normal child, and it grew to love the game of basketball. Today we know Mr. T’s foreskin as Shaquille O’Neal.
  24. Mr. T was once involved in a head-on car crash, and he was the only survivor. Mr. T was walking at the time.
  25. Mr. T is not black. It’s just that the sun is to afraid to shine on him.
  26. Mr. T is the reason the sky is blue. Don’t ask stupid questions.
  27. When Mr. T received his star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, he made his hand prints after the cement was dry.
  28. Mr. T. does not break wind. He destroys it.
  29. Mr. T once ate four 72 oz. steaks in 12 minutes. He spent the first 5 minutes laughing at the fact it takes Chuck Norris fifteen minutes to eat three.
  30. Mr. T puts the laughter in manslaughter.

Two Funny Posts From Maryam

Dang. Maryam is on a roll tonight. These are some funny jokes:

Who’s on First?

George: Condi! Nice to see you. What’s happening?

Condi: Sir, I have the report here about the new leader of China.

George: Great. Lay it on me.

Condi: Hu is the new leader of China.

George: That’s what I want to know.

Condi: That’s what I’m telling you.

George: That’s what I’m asking you. Who is the new leader of China?

Condi: Yes.

George: I mean the fellow’s name.

Condi: Hu.

George: The guy in China.

Condi: Hu.

George: The new leader of China.

Condi: Hu.

George: The main man in China!

Condi: Hu is leading China.

George: Now whaddya’ asking me for?

Condi: I’m telling you, Hu is leading China.

George: Well, I’m asking you. Who is leading China?

Condi: That’s the man’s name.

George: That’s who’s name?

Condi: Yes.

George: Will you, or will you not, tell me the name of the new leader of China?

Condi: Yes, sir.

George: Yassir? Yassir Arafat is in China? I thought he’s dead in the Middle East.

Condi: That’s correct.

George: Then who is in China?

Condi: Yes, sir.

George: Yassir is in China?

Condi: No, sir.

George: Then who is?

Condi: Yes, sir.

George: Yassir?

Condi: No, sir.

George: Look Condi. I need to know the name of the new leader of China. Get me the Secretary General of the U.N. on the phone

Condi: Kofi?

George: No, thanks.

Condi: You want Kofi?

George: No.

Condi: You don’t want Kofi.

George: No. But now that you mention it, I could use a glass of milk. And then get me the U.N.

Condi: Yes, sir.

George: Not Yassir! The guy at the U.N.

Condi: Kofi?

George: Milk! Will you please make the call?

Condi: And call who?

George: Who is the guy at the U.N?

Condi: Hu is the guy in China

George: Will you stay out of China?!

Condi: Yes, sir.

George: And stay out of the Middle East! Just get me the guy at the U.N.

Condi: Kofi.

George: All right! With cream and two sugars.

Four Women:

Four women were driving across the country. Each one was from a different state: Idaho, Nebraska, Washington and California.
Shortly after the trip began, the woman from Idaho started pulling potatoes from her bag and throwing them out of the window.
“What the heck are you doing?” demanded the Nebraskan.
“We have so many of these darn things in Idaho, I am just sick of looking at them!”
A moment later, the gal from Nebraska began pulling ears of corn from her bag and tossing them from the window.
“What are you doing that for?” asked the gal from Washington.
“We have so many of these things in Nebraska, I am sick of looking at them!”
Inspired, the gal from Washington opened the car door and pushed the Californian out.

Study: How Internet copyright law is abused

More Inboxen™ cleaning time before Christmas Break:

From BoingBoing:

In 1996, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO, the UN body that makes copyright, patent and trademark treaties) got suckered into making the “WIPO Copyright Treaty,” which was the basis for the US’s Digital Millennium Copyright Act and Europe’s EUCD.

The laws under this treaty let people who claim that their copyrights have been infringed upon have the offending material quickly removed from the Internet, without forcing them to show any evidence that infringement has occurred. This is how the Church of Scientology and others censor their critics — just trump up a bogus copyright claim and knock the site offline.

The Chilling Effects Project tracks these abuses, and now Jennifer Urban and Laura Quilter have published a roundup of the conclusions to be drawn from the project’s hundreds of collected notices.

Just as you’d expect: when you take away legal oversight of a process for suppressing speech, it is widely and ferociously abused.

Nice one, WIPO. Nice one, US Congress. Nice one, EU. You’ve managed to convert the Internet from a venue for unfettered free speech into a lawless zone where anyone who can write a takedown notice can make speech disappear.

* Thirty percent of notices demanded takedown for claims that presented an obvious question for a court (a clear fair use argument, complaints about uncopyrightable material, and the like);
* Notices to traditional ISP’s included a substantial number of demands to remove files from peer-to-peer networks (which are not actually covered under the takedown statute, and which an OSP can only honor by terminating the target’s Internet access entirely); and

* One out of 11 included significant statutory flaws that render the notice unusable (for example, failing to adequately identify infringing material).

In addition, we found some interesting patterns that do not, by themselves, indicate concern, but which are of concern when combined with the fact that one third of the notices depended on questionable claims:

* Over half–57%–of notices sent to Google to demand removal of links in the index were sent by businesses targeting apparent competitors;

* Over a third–37%–of the notices sent to Google targeted sites apparently outside the United States

WIPO is now considering an even more sweeping version of the treaty that gave us this regime: the new proposals floating around on ISP liability could force ISPs to not only delete material, but to shut off the Internet access of those who are baselessly accused of infringement. Link (Thanks, Jen and Joe!)

Shots Fired on American Airlines Plane in Miami

My watched beeped. That’s about all I know.

Update: CNN is reporting:

A weapon was fired on an American Airlines plane as it was on the runway at Miami International Airport on Wednesday, authorities confirmed.

The weapon was apparently fired by a federal air marshal on board the plane, which was on a stopover during a flight from Medellin, Colombia, to Orlando, Florida, police said.

Blogers Rights

More Inboxen™ cleanout time. However, this is something that everyone who blogs, or is thinking about blogging, should read. As a blogger you have many rights and you probably should know about them. From BoingBoing’s EFF’s blogger’s rights guide for students:

Do Public School Students Have Free Speech Rights under the First Amendment?
Absolutely. Both minors and adults have First Amendment rights, and according to the Supreme Court, public school students don’t “shed their constitutional right to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” See Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969). In the Tinker case, the Court said that public high school students had a First Amendment right to wear black armbands to class in symbolic protest of the Vietnam War. “Students in school as well as out of school are ‘persons’ under our Constitution,” the Court said, and “they are possessed of fundamental rights which the State must respect…”
But I’m a Private School Student–What About Me?
You also have First Amendment rights, but those rights only protect you from government censorship, not private censorship. As a general matter, you will receive no protection from censorship or punishment by a private school or college. See e.g. Ubriaco v. Albertus Magnus High School, No. 99 Civ. 11135 (JSM) (S.D.N.Y. July 21, 2000) (dismissing claim contesting private school expulsion for content on personal web site). However, as discussed below, some states provide private high school and college students with additional speech protections that go above and beyond the First Amendment. Furthermore, if your private school has an applicable written policy, the school must follow that policy.

Also keep in mind that even though your private school may have the right to enforce a stupid rule, that doesn’t make it any less stupid. So, if your private school is going overboard in trying to squelch online speech, contact EFF. Depending on the facts, we may be able to help you publicize the problem and hopefully convince your school to be more reasonable.

Link: The rest of the student blogger FAQ

Link: More Rights for Bloggers

Wi-Fi Doesn’t Stand for Anything.

Inboxen™ cleanout time! From BoingBoing:

Wi-Fi doesn’t stand for anything.
It is not an acronym. There is no meaning.

Wi-Fi and the ying yang style logo were invented by Interbrand. We (the founding members of the Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance, now called the Wi-Fi Alliance) hired Interbrand to come up with the name and logo that we could use for our interoperability seal and marketing efforts. We needed something that was a little catchier than “IEEE 802.11b Direct Sequence”. Interbrand created “Prozac”, “Compaq” “oneworld”, “Imation” and many other brand names that you have heard of. They even created the company name “Vivato”.

The only reason that you hear anything about “Wireless Fidelity” is some of my colleagues in the group were afraid. They didn’t understand branding or marketing. They could not imagine using the name “Wi-Fi” without having some sort of literal explanation. So we compromised and agreed to include the tag line “The Standard for Wireless Fidelity” along with the name. This was a mistake and only served to confuse people and dilute the brand. For the first year or so( circa 2000) , this would appear in all of our communications. I still have a hat and a couple of golf shirts with the tag line. Later, when Wi-Fi was becoming more successful and we got some marketing and business people from larger companies on the board, the alliance dropped the tag-line.

This tag line was invented after the fact. After we chose the name Wi-Fi from a list of 10 names that Interbrand proposed. The tag line was invented by the initial six member board and it does not mean anything either. If you decompose the tag line, it falls apart very quickly. “The Standard”? The Wi-Fi Alliance has always been very careful to stay out of inventing standards. The standard of interest is IEEE 802.11. The Wi-Fi Alliance focuses on interoperability certification and branding. It does not invent standards. It does not compete with IEEE. It complements their efforts. So Wi-Fi could never be a standard. And “Wireless Fidelity” – what does that mean? Nothing. It was a clumsy attempt to come up with two words that matched Wi and Fi. That’s it.

So we were smart to hire Interbrand to come up with the name and logo. We were dumb to confuse and water down their efforts by adding the meaningless tag line. Please help reinforce the good work that we did and forget the tag line.

[tags]Inboxen, BoingBoing, WiFi[/tags]