Feingold Comes Swinginig on FISA Telco Immunity

In hindsight, I'm actually glad that the Russinator didn't run for Prez. He still drops the law without pandering to "The Center"

The Senator from the great State of Wisconsin brings the 2x4 to the fistfight on FISA Telco Immunity.

Feingold says: Hell, no! No immunity for lawbreakers.

Thank you very much, Senator.

No. Retroactive. Immunity. for Lawbreakers, Period!

The Senator proves once again why he is "The Only Senator That Matters", dammit!

Legend of a Cowgirl

Imani Coppola...Awesomeness from the past.......

I actually have this as a cassingle, never saw the video until tonight.

Local ties for spending bill veto

Whoa what's this? Disgustedem (yes, that lapsed blogger Disgustedem) is making a post? You betcha.

On Tuesday 11/13 Preznit Bush vetoed a $606 billion spending bill due to what he calls "pork" earmarks. Well as TP notes most of these are from Republican requesters:

However, much of the “pork” Boehner complained about was requested by Republicans. Aside from the “National Programs and Activities,” the single biggest earmark in the Labor-HHS-Education section of the bill belongs to Sen. Richard C. Shelby, R-Ala., who won $9.3 million for the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. The second-largest was requested by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. — $8.4 million for the University of Louisville Research Foundation.

Read it here: http://thinkprogress.org/2007/11/14/bush-mcconnell-shelby-earmarks/

Also today there is this well timed Times article which goes into detail of the local repercussions the veto has: http://thinkprogress.org/2007/11/14/bush-mcconnell-shelby-earmarks/

While it appears this money is still possible when did Chimpy start becoming so fiscally conservative? Oh ya - this money isn't for Iraq.

Outsourcing Bargain, Doh!

The other day my friend, (and lapsed contributor to this blog) disgutedem, picked up a bunch of stocks in one of the big Indian outsourcing firms. From our uninformed perspective, it was a reasonable hedge against the possibility of having our jobs outsourced to them.

Also, on the day he was buying it, there was still Street cred for the argument that "techs aren't as exposed to subprime."

Today, Kedrosky points out that the big Indian outsourcers are rather heavily exposed to the "It's-cheap-for-a-reason" financial sector.

The race to the bottom continues apace!!!!!!!

Radiohead covers Smiths via BigPicture

Huh! I normally go to The Big Picture for witty economic commentary, not music, but it's becoming increasingly clear that Barry R. and I share some similar tastes.

From BP, Radiohead doing a pretty album-faithful cover of The Smiths "The Headmaster Ritual". I don't even want to start a Johnny-vs.-Johnny guitar conversation.

Basic summary: One of my favorite post-college bands covers one of my favorite "college/high school bands". Effin'-Ay right!

Update (2007-11-16): Ha! I just watched this vid again and apparently, Johnny has decided he ain't allowing any more frontal shots unless they're from the guitar-up and neck-down on a crappy webcam. As someone who tends to look crappy in photos, I applaud this move. As a band geek who wants to watch him play, I'm disappointed by the quick cut edits. Yay/boo!

Pakistan becomes a dictatorship

So on Fri/Sat, Pakistan's President declared a state of National Emergency, and suspeded the constitution, based largely on the threats of:

an Islamic militant movement that has spread from border regions to the capital and an increasingly defiant Supreme Court, which was expected to rule soon on the validity of his recent presidential election win. Hearings scheduled for next week were postponed, with no new date set.

A general consensus suggested that this was a move towards dictatorship, and less concerned with national threats.


Not surprisingly, today, the military and police rounded up political activists. The Pakistani-friendly U.S. Government was understandably rendered egg-faced on the subject.

UFS pimpin' out snoopy to the interns

Okay, I just got this Metlife ad on the sidebar of my yahoo financial pages. Now, I am admittedly a purist, but this Snoopy artwork appears to have been done by a moderately promising intern in MS Paint.

WTF? Are there no standards anymore? Can't the United Features Syndicate afford Photoshop for their licensed images? Line weight, anyone?

Free Jammie Thomas

In case anyone doesn't know, Jammie Thomas is the person who was sued by the RIAA for uploading 24 songs on Kazaa. Ultimately, this story is about the RIAA turning their business model into a "Sue people for screwing up our failed money-making scheme" versus a "Figuring out how to adapt our business model to give people what they want"

The RIAA was awarded (depending on the article, the exact dollar amount is not clear) approximately $220,000. I'll save you the trouble of doing the math...that's over $9,000 per song.

I haven't followed the story closely, but it sounds like this case was won under questionable circumstances. It's also not clear to me, the casual observer, whether she actually admitted to sharing the songs or not.

She's fighting the ruling on the grounds that the damage amount is unconstitutional. I don't know if she's got a legal leg to stand on, but my sense is that -whether or not she was actually guilty of the crime- the punishment is completely out of line with the magnitude of the offense.

Here's the page for freejammie.com, the proceeds of which are allegedly going to her legal fees for the motion to overturn.

wikipedia entry (not terribly informative)
wired blog post

Secret History of LOLCats

Courtesy of Attack of the Show, we learn that - contrary to popular opinion - LOLCats predate the Internet by quite some time. I'm peeing myself laughing...and ceiling cat is watching me do so.

The History of LOLCats - Watch more free videos

Siouxie Sue - Kiss them for me

The reason we saw the first Lollapalooza twice was because Siouxsie had a throat thing the first time.

Cherub Rock - Smashing Pumpkins

For real, this time........


I recall these guys getting booed off the stage, at Rec Hall at PSU, because people wanted to see the opening band and headliners...Pearl Jam and the Chili Peppers, respectively..........

Jane's - Ocean Size

Much in the same way that Bush realized that man and fish could co-exist, this was the song that made me realize that Freak/Weirdo music and Metal could co-exist, dammit!



Update 2007-11-12: Video fixed. They can keep pulling the videos, we will keep linking to the new ones......

The Ditty Bops

Just because they're awesome...



Update 2007-11-12: I get really tired of YouTube videos that are eventually removed. Free advertising, people. Grrrr...........

White Man's Burden

Time was when a man was a man and something..something...something. Thank the good lord that people like voting chief John Tanner are looking out for downtrodden masses like me.

Nowadays, being a middle-class white man ain't the sure ticket to success that it used to be. I spend my days slaving away at the I/T Mills, while younger, completely marriage-able ladies are wasting valuable child-bearing years pursuing careers as Internet news pundits.

It makes me want to spit, I tell ya.

(completely serious)
No, seriously....it makes me want to spit. Let me tell you, please! If I was only born ten years later, I could'a been an Intertube contender, fer shure!!!
(/completely serious)

In these web-two-dot-aught days, with sites like The Webb Alert and Black20News, and their streaming talkies, any attractive female with a talent for news commentary can be a star.

But what about us thirty-somethings? We never had this shot at the big time. I could wear a low-cut shirt and smile all purty, but nobody'll watch my vidcast. Heck, all I get are a bunch of hits from Koreans looking for "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", following their links from Naver.com. Whatever they're looking for, they don't find it here...they just move on.

Bah, some day...there will be justice for the middle-class 30-something American white man...we will have a voice.

Siamese Dream - Rocket

Smashing Pumpkins, just because.



....memories of listening to this album when it was new, sitting in the woods with my cats, LOLcats!

Update 2007-10-30 22:34: Updated the title of the post. For whatever reason, I had it in my head the name of the album was "Cherub Rock". Personally, I blame the Clinton Administration. That or the booze.

eff it, modest mouse

Dashboard follows.....



Johnny Marr, y'all........

I'll Take Mine in "Go Mango" Green, Please

(Your author drools...)

The AutoBlog article isn't sure if this is an official (the automaker formerly known as Plymouth) car, or some custom one-off, but dear lord, I want one. Even with the godawfully ugly interior.

Update 2007-10-30-02:03 EST: From the update on AutoBlog, it is apparently a one-off. Curses!

Paulson and the Administration's Message

Back in late July, our Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson hit my radar by reportedly making the following comments on the economy:

Speaking on CNBC television, Paulson said the economy was moving to a sustainable pace of growth and the risks in the subprime mortgages market were largely contained.
(This was from a yahoo news article which has since expired.)

Now, bear in mind that when he said it, it was becoming clear that the subprime problems were not terribly well contained. I believe it was earlier that week that Mozillo explicitly said that the delinquencies were showing up in Alt-A and even Prime loans. Furthermore, the "subprime is contained" talking points had started to become something of a joke.

So to hear the Secretary of the Treasury tossing out talking points past their expiration date was a bit troubling. Either he was doing a really poor job of trying to bamboozle, or he was woefully uninformed.

Consequently, I've been trying to keep an eye on what Hank has to say about the economy since then.

Today, Bonddad informs me of his latest masterpiece. Now that the dollar is at all time lows against the Euro, and down substantially against just about every major currency which isn't on a dollar peg, Hank tells us:

"I believe that a strong dollar is in our nation's interest and also that currency values should be set in a competitive marketplace based upon underlying economic fundamentals,"

Bonddad comments:

Look -- if the US wants a "strong dollar policy" they have to act like a strong dollar economy. That means things like exporting more than they import and not issuing mammoth amounts of new debt every year. You just can't say it; you have to act in a way that leads to that result.

Indeed.

At this point, it's really hard to shake the belief that everyone in the Administration genuinely believes that if you just say something enough times, it will magically become true.

Victory!

When I was first waking up this morning, I thought I heard the news announcer say that the Red Sox had finally delivered victory over the insurgent Iraqis, but then I realized I was half asleep and misunderstood.

Congrats to Boston, anyway, I guess.

The "Comcast Blocking BitTorrent" Story Continues

Since I wasn't blogging while this was happening, I missed discussing this story initially. However, like all good juicy stories, this one keeps on giving.

Earlier this summer, there were reports that Comcast was blocking BitTorrent traffic. Comcast offered a denial that basically said they didn't monitor what types of traffic it's customers were using, but that they did reserve the right to shut down people who hogged bandwidth. More recently, the AP investigated and found some fairly conclusive proof that, contrary to what Comcast said, it sure looked like they were sending spoofed messages that appeared to be from the downloader to the seed host to stop sending. (Summary here)

Consumerist subsequently received some internal emails from Comcast that indicates that their official line is now that they are not "blocking access" to BitTorrent users. Which, in classic hair-splitting language, is arguably true. They're not technically blocking anyone's access, they're simply telling the seed file hosts to stop sending. The reps are being told, very sternly, not to deviate from their scripts, so I can't imagine there's some extremely precise legal arguments being utilized here.

And then, from an update in that same consumerist post, it is discovered that the software Comcast denies using to interfere with BitTorrent traffic is available as a choice on their internal troubleshooting system.

We'll be watching this one closely...