Politics & Controversy

We all knew the sordid details of Palin’s candidacy would emerge, but who figured they pour out so soon or on Fox News? Via Borkweb.com

GPL and CC are incompatible? FSF says so, and the Debian Free Software Guidelines agree. I’m as opposed to ruinous compromises as the next guy, and I feel the GPL fever, but I just want to use Mark James‘ excellent Silk Icons in my GPL’d WordPress plugin.

John McCain thinks fuel efficiency is for sissies. I guess he figures our oil supply is infinite, or that fossile fuel consumption has no effect on climate change. He probably also thinks the Holocaust was a hoax — somebody should ask him.

For now let’s call him a “drill and burn Republican.”

No, I’m not likely to vote for any republican candidates, but this is funny. From the producers:

I’m Voting Republican is a satirical look at the likely outcome of another four years of Republican government. The not-so-subtle message behind the film is the importance of a united bloc of citizens willing to take the time and effort to vote Democrat in order to improve America’s domestic and foreign policy.

Written and directed by Charlie Steak, who previously appeared in Synthetic Human’s award-winning film Drain, I’m Voting Republican features 28 actors and would not have been possible without their efforts and the support of many others. In the research during the development of the film, we came across the quote “Democracy is not a spectator sport.” We hope you agree. Check it out, pass it on, and please, register to vote. Democrat.

Have you ever argued with a member of the Flat Earth Society? It’s futile, because fundamentally they don’t car if something is true or false. To them, the measure of truth is how important it makes them feel. If telling the truth makes them feel important, then it’s true. If telling the truth makes them feel ashamed and small, then it’s false.

–from Louis Theroux‘s The Call of the Weird

The actual reasons may never be discovered, but Boing Boing, the perennially top ten ranked blog, has “unpublished (NSFW)” stories by, about, or mentioning author and sex columnist Violet Blue (NSFW).

Much has already been said about the Orwellianism of “unpublishing” and how it conflicts with the ethics of the web, as well as the incongruence between these actions and Boing Boing’s position on web censorship, media manipulation, and revisionism. And on July 1 Boing Boing itself joined the discussion. Thad didn’t go so well.

One theory suggests that Blue’s April 2007 column slamming Amanda Congdon may have touched this off. Another theory suggests that Boing Boing was pressured by (or simply wanted to please) closely embedded Federated Media. And if you think you know how this will play out, then play the news game (above), where they suggest this all started with a lovers’ spat.

My interest in this, however, is in how new media like Boing Boing are struggling with growth from small personal sites to multi-million dollar businesses ($one million in 2006). The question now is if the site will survive the transition without alienating the community that makes such sites successful in the first place.

“Gun control is like trying to reduce drunk driving by making it tougher for sober people to own cars.” via

Anglia Ruskin University is in Cambridge, but it’s not Cambridge University. It’s likely that none of us would even know of Anglia Ruskin‘s existence if it wasn’t for Naomi Sugai, but she’s not interested in promoting the school.

She’s got complaints, she’s fed up, and she’s taking her case to YouTube.

Well, she took her case to YouTube, and then she got suspended. The video that’s up now doesn’t seem suspension-worthy, but the Telegraph story suggests there’s a different version that may slander an ARU administrator, and that’s the reason ARU gives for suspending her.

Who knew FedEx and UPS planes crashed so often? (Blame the intronetz for making this too easy to discover.)

• UPS plane catches on fire, lands in Philadelphia (2006). Apparently the source of the fire remains a mystery, as with a few other UPS fires.
• FedEx planes have crashed and burned in Tallahassee (2002) and Memphis (2006). In 1994 a fired FedEx pilot attempted to murder flight crew with hammer and hijack the plane. Amazingly, they landed safely.
• A DHL plane struck a passenger plane in mid-air. Both planes were lost in the tragedy, though some think the passenger liner was shot down. Investigators blamed the air traffic controller, a Russian man killed the controller and is now in prison for the act.
• Small planes are problematic too. Contract flyers have crashed into the sea, and onto houses. Some even carry vials of herpes and influenza virii for research, and some apparently get struck in mid air by UFOs.

Can the Feds take your laptop? Yep. Be prepared to give up your civil rights and your laptop at the border, says a recent article in the Washington Post. This came to the attention of music fans earlier, when MTV news reported that a hard drive seized at the border contained studio recordings for Chris Walla’s (guitarist for Death Cab For Cutie) latest album. There was some suggestion that it was all a publicity stunt, but the Post story suggests that it’s a real and not uncommon problem.