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The Beast is Red, Chapter 8: Twice Presented Him a Kingly Crown
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George W. Bush, when you get right down to it, is a fucker. That’s why I don’t like him. He’s a fucker who does fucked-up things. He’s a privileged little shit who doesn’t give a damp hell for the opinions of the people he was elected to govern. He buys into the toxic economic theories of unreconstructed capitalism, despite never having had to earn an honest living in his life, and he supports a worldview that cuts out anyone who hasn’t had his good fortune — the worldview of a murderous plutocracy stained with swaths of luck and cruelty where first is first and second is nobody. He’s stupid in the truest sense of the word: willfully ignorant and determined to surround himself with people who keep him that way, not only resistant to different ideas but actively hostile towards them. He is neurologically incapable of thinking ahead and he consigns the consequences of his actions to the status of dreams. And he forced his country into a pointless, unnecessary, unconscionably wasteful war that will poison every aspect of American life for generations.
[..]
He won’t last as long as his old man once he’s out of office: with no one to stand in the way of, with no one to infuriate, with no press hanging over his shoulder for him to mutter “fuck off” at, he’ll wither away and disappear, just another burnout boomer with prostate cancer and no hobbies. The chant begins before he even hits the walkway: “FOUR MORE YEARS! FOUR MORE YEARS! FOUR MORE YEARS!” I look around for a copy of the Constitution, but no one seems to have brought one.
Cartoons
Where’s a cancel button when you need one…
World Press Photo 2007
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The international jury of the 51st annual World Press Photo Contest selected a color image of the UK photographer Tim Hetherington as World Press Photo of the Year 2007. The picture was taken 16 September 2007 and shows a US soldier resting at “Restrepo” bunker, named after a soldier from his platoon who was recently killed by insurgents.
Gallery of all the winners here
Let me through, I’m a nosy person
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Curious why the power is out at your office or the fire engines are rushing past your home? If you live in Seattle, public911 might be able to tell you.
Last breath
Sen John McCain (D-AZ)
Briton jailed for four years in Dubai after customs find cannabis weighing less than a grain of sugar under his shoe
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A father-of-three who was found with a microscopic speck of cannabis stuck to the bottom of one of his shoes has been sentenced to four years in a Dubai prison.
Keith Brown, a council youth development officer, was travelling through the United Arab Emirates on his way back to England when he was stopped as he walked through Dubai’s main airport.
A search by customs officials uncovered a speck of cannabis weighing just 0.003g – so small it would be invisible to the naked eye and weighing less than a grain of sugar – on the tread of one of his shoes.
[..]
Chief Executive Catherine Wolthuizen said: “We have seen a steep increase in such cases over the last 18 months.
“Customs authorities are using highly sensitive new equipment to conduct extremely thorough searches on travellers and if they find any amount – no matter how minute – it will be enough to attract a mandatory four-year prison sentence.”
Mrs Wolthuizen added: “We even have reports of the imprisonment of a Swiss man for ‘possession’ of three poppy seeds on his clothing after he ate a bread roll at Heathrow.
Apple unpacking porn
Wafa Sultan speaks up
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RIAA boss: Move copyright filtering from ISPs to users’ PCs
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At a Washington, DC, tech conference last week, RIAA boss Cary Sherman suggested that Internet filtering was a super idea but that he saw no reason to mandate it. Turns out that was only part of the story, though; Sherman’s a sharp guy, and he’s fully aware that filtering will prompt an encryption arms race that is going to be impossible to win… unless users somehow install the filtering software on their home PCs or equipment.
Last night, Public Knowledge posted a video clip from the conference that drew attention to Sherman’s other remarks on the topic of filtering, and what he has to say is downright amazing: due to the encryption problem, filters may need to be put on end users’ PCs.
The issue of encryption “would have to be faced,” Sherman admitted after talking about the wonders of filtering. “One could have a filter on the end user’s computer that would actually eliminate any benefit from encryption because if you want to hear [the music], you would need to decrypt it, and at that point the filter would work.”
There’s only one person with the authority to install software on my computers, and last time I checked he’s not working for the RIAA.
This is clearly not going to happen, so Sherman has another idea. He appears to suggest installing the filter in a customer’s cable or DSL modem, which wouldn’t act as anything more than a network filter (the encryption and decryption happens on the PC). There’s also some talk of putting the filtering tech into “applications” such as P2P apps, but again, this seems unlikely, especially for the open-source ones. Maybe he hopes to get OS vendors on board?
The entire scheme has about as much chance of success as my 2008 bid for the White House (write-in Anderson for President in November!).
And suddenly everybody will buy an aftermarket dsl router and toss the one the ISP gave them into the trash.
The only thing that is sad, that maybe he will not have any power, but he won’t have any problems either. What will he have to do after leaving the white house? He is rich, probably will get some comfy chair on a board with a decent payment, and plays golf for the rest of his life.
Poor bastard I almost pity him.