Thursday, June 29, 2006

Supreme Court Blocks Trials at Guantanamo - New York Times

Darn it, Mr. President, you are NOT always the decider.
Supreme Court Blocks Trials at Guantanamo - New York Times

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

White House Hotties: The Winners - Wonkette

AHHHHHHHHHHH- David Copley is the male winner of Wonkette's "White House Hotties" Contest.

Not only is Copley a slimeball, he's definitely not attractive. Hmmm... he happened to surge past an actually really hot guy in the last hours? Seems rather, well, what you would expect from him, in a Blackwellian Ohio sort of way...

So random...

White House Hotties: The Winners - Wonkette

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Flag Amendment Narrowly Fails in Senate Vote - New York Times

Only by one vote it failed! argh, that is a sad statement on misplaced priorities and politicization. This issue is idiotic and i would be ashamed if it was in my constitution.

Flag Amendment Narrowly Fails in Senate Vote - New York Times

One reason to wish I had graduated:

The freshman class will be Upenn '10. This is a really inane thing to find bothersome, but it just sounds bizarre (rhyming aside) - Being oh-six, suddenly seems really old.

Angelina Jolie got gyped

15 People Who Make America Great - The Giving Back Awards - MSNBC.com
Brad Pitt is one of those 15 for bringing attention to Africa. It should at least have been them as a couple, not him by himself, if at all.

I hate articles like this - pointlessly cheesy - instead of patting Soledad O'Brien on the back for reporting from Katrina, why doesn't Newsweek do its own journalistic public service and write an insightful piece about post-Katrina recovery?

Another reason this "15 people..." cover is stupid: it actually honors 33 people, 2 non-profits, and Target. Like they realized they had to find some way to put Oprah in there, or else their list would somehow be incomplete...

Clearly I am procrastinating today.
A Comcast Technician Sleeping on my Couch

NY Times article about this article

Pretty humorous - note that the technician fell asleep b/c comcast kept him on hold for an hour.
And this is Philly's new cable monopolist! yay!

'Breathtaking' Waste and Fraud in Hurricane Aid - New York Times

'Breathtaking' Waste and Fraud in Hurricane Aid - New York Times
Again, sickening. Like I implied below, people who abuse positions of power are 10x more dispicable than your corner crack addict - and who gets screwed by society? i want to know what happens to these people - they should never again be able to receive gov't contract/salary money and have to do some sort of service for society like picking up garbage to pay back the govt money they stole (on top of giving the sum back of course). i want to say lock them up in jail but that is pointless, immaturely retributive, and counter to society's fundamental rational self-interest.

Monday, June 26, 2006

Fun Research Quotation of the Day

"While economists delude themselves with diagrams depicting circular flows of income and expenditure in which, in defiance of the most basic laws of the biophysical universe, nothing enters or leaves, the economic process really consists of a linear throughput of finite energy and matter to be converted into goods and services. Some of the energy and matter is degraded in the process of production; the products themselves eventually get discarded. Hence, to the somewhat jaundiced eye, what GNP ultimately measures is how fast human beings are able to convert nature into garbage--hardly the kind of thing that a sensible society would make the central measure of its success."

-RT Naylor, economist @ McGill, 2005, "The Rise and Fall of the Underground Economy"

Rolling Stone : Was the 2004 Election Stolen?

Wow, I missed this when it came out June 1st. This is why you need to become a journalist Dubilet. I want to throw up when I read this - its sickening that slimy corrupt politicians not only escape jail, but prosper further in the GOP (while successfully lobbying to send poor petty criminals to jail for decades at a time on hypocritical and rascist grounds). I am almost as disgusted at the mainstream media.

Rolling Stone : Was the 2004 Election Stolen?

PS - Have you heard of In These Times? Seems up your alley...censored media stuff.

And oh by the way - another reason to get an ipod - Democracy Now! is a free 60 minute video podcast daily. There was an interesting interview with an Italian journalist whose Italian rescuer was shot down by American troops under disputed circumstances in 2004 - of course the US convienently erased the military logs and cleaned up the crime scene before anyone else could get to it. hmmm...

Slate Got Ugly

Slate got a redesign. Its hideous. Yuck.