Pacific Views

Weekend Pile-Up

If you wanted to know more about the XPrize competition that link to Xeni Jardin's BoingBoing posting should have plenty for you to chew on. Space travel, here we come. (Knock on wood.) This CSMonitor article talks about NASA's shoestring equipment testing program, and points out that "space research has created more than 30,000 spin-off technologies - from practical inventions like smoke detectors, bar codes, and cordless drills..."

BuzzFlash bumper sticker - John Kerry for President: These Colors Don't Run. The good people at BuzzFlash brought many of these fine links to my attention, and it's a pretty spiffy sticker.

Shaula Evans muses at length on Antonin Scalia's distressing stance on orgies, managing to invoke both Caligula and George Orwell. Not distressing at a purely moralistic level, mind. Just that if I were ever to want to discuss the subject, that isn't a name I'd want entering the conversation. Boing Boing has the quote correction, which isn't much better, getting-the-creepswise.

Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting writes about another gaping Diebold security hole in their paperless voting machines.

A Diebold representative now works as a California elections manager. When the Onion is no longer satire, and the news headlines sound like something straight out of 1984, it just all gets a little hard to believe sometimes. But I've pinched myself, and I'm absolutely certain that I'm awake and read that correctly.

An interesting story about the history and circumstances of Craigslist, which is experiencing the same kind of general scalability issues seen at the DailyKos community of late.

Porter Goss hires former oil executive to join him at the CIA, and the rest of his first picks are Republican Hill staffers.

Daily Kos: Putin signs Kyoto, Bush administration continues to live in a world of fantasy spin. Get educated about poll results, and why the media may be underestimating Kerry.

The New York Times talks about the fabricated FOX News story about Kerry. Where are the calls to fire Carl Cameron?

In what's probably an effort to win support in the third world, China comes out strongly supporting debt relief for poor countries. If they make any successes, that effort will probably work. I tell you again, teach the kids Mandarin.

From TalkLeft, a quadriplegic dies in jail because he was sentenced (more harshly than most people in similar circumstances, as well) to a facility that didn't have the medical facilities to keep him alive. Also, Abu Ghraib-style abuse happens in prisons here, but no one seems to care.

Wampum: What Native Americans have to put up with when dealing with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Dept. of Interior. Aaron Brown hosts Aaron MacGruder of the Boondocks on CNN, lively exchange ensues.

Thanks to Bartcop, a scathing essay about the tactics of the religious right.

War and Piece: Bob Novak leaking again. A Wall Street Journal reporter's letter from Baghdad. Republican Majority Leader Tom DeLay seems to be transforming into a pariah, and as noted, it "couldn't happen to a more deserving guy." Is a banned Pentagon propaganda program still alive and kicking under another budget code?

Posted by natasha at October 3, 2004 11:12 PM | Recommended Reading | Technorati links |