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Saturday, June 11, 2005
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Via Boing Boing!, a link to these Beethoven Symphonies in MP3 from the BBC. This is what the Internet is for. I remember back in the day of CD-ROM, when it was a "big" think the Voyager Company put out several companion CDs to Beethoven Symphonies and other works, which helped guide you through then. Alas, they're not around anymore, which is a big loss; it's too bad nothing ever developed out of that, or this.
5:32:01 PM 
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Sleezy Sherm's Peanut Butter Porter. Despite my lifelong love of peanut butter and longstanding love of beer, don't think I have the guts. But who knows what just a bit of encouragement might do.
4:31:47 PM
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 While President Bush and the Lying Republicans have been pushing to make it illegal to burn the U.S. flag, they evidently don't have a problem with the President of the United States desecrating the banner.
In 2003, at a political event in Livonia, Michigan, President Bush signed not one, but dozens of flags brought by supporters. Call me old fashioned but desecrating a flag in public seems to be more un-American than having an extramaritial affair in the White House. Maybe Bush can leave his John Hancock on the Constitution before he leaves? Or, why not just fix the Declaration by signing that too? Why not change the name of the White House to the Bush Memorial Presidential Residence?US Code, Title 4, Chapter 1, Sec. 8 (g):
"The flag should never have placed upon it, nor on any part of it, nor attached to it any mark, insignia, letter, word, figure, design, picture, or drawing of any nature."
(Via A la Gauche: Proud to be a Liberal.)
9:41:03 AM
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User-interface experts at one of the world's top design houses say Mac OS X Tiger is the beginning of the end for the Macintosh Finder -- the era of organizing files in nested folders is over. Experts at Silicon Valley's frog design say new features like the systemwide Spotlight search are far more useful for locating information than the hierarchy of files and folders that underpins most computing interfaces, whether on Macs or Windows-based PCs.
(Via OSNews.)
Nice Abby Christopher piece. I haven't seen her byline in a long time, I remember her well from a long time ago at MacWEEK.
9:34:39 AM
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Though they like to talk about how much they are doing for democracy around the world, the truth is that the Republicans are waging a widespread war on democracy. Michael Berube does a good job of documenting and exposing it here. Must reading.
The official Bush Administration line in foreign policy is the promotion of democracy. Yet the Republicans have launched a full-scale assault upon democracy at home. Setting aside (for the moment) the simple fact that this assault is about grabbing and using power, it also reflects an impoverished view of democracy, basically one that limits democracy to free elections. In this view, the people ratify a set of leaders—a government—in an election, and, in so doing, gives those leaders a blank check. If the government uses the power given to it unwisely, the people can vote it out next time around. Power rests solely in the hands of the people and in its delegated agent, the government.
This understanding of democracy tends toward the plebiscite—and toward the establishment of a strong leader, usually one who promises to sweep aside the complexities, compromises, frustrations, and inefficiencies introduced by parliamentary janglings and an independent judiciary. From Napoleon III and Bismarck in the 19th century to the Governator in the late 20th century, the plebiscite has almost always favored right wing leaders impatient with legal and institutional impediments to forceful action. In other words, the plebiscite is perfect for establishing the tyranny of the majority that Tocqueville and Mill feared. By emphasizing a direct (even cult-like) relationship between “the leader” and the people, democracy by popular ballot bypasses intermediary associations (either voluntary or constitutional), precisely the kinds of associations that Tocqueville counted on to temper democracy’s possible tyranny. The Progressives who established the plebiscite provisions in various states in the early 20th century aimed, of course, to circumvent corrupt legislatures, but their efforts were almost certainly fated to aid, rather than hamper, right-wing interests.
9:13:54 AM
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Here are the current numbers. Today 12/3/04
United Kingdom 8,761 12,000
South Korea 3,600 2,800
Italy 3,600 3,169 (pullout begins 9/05)
Poland 1,700 2,400 (zero by end of '05)
Ukraine 1,450 1,400 (zero by 10/05)
Georgia 898 0
Romania 730 700
Japan 550 750
Denmark 496 496
Bulgaria 450 485
Australia 400 920
El Salvador 380 380
Mongolia 180 180
Azerbajian 151 151
Latvia 122 122
Czech 110 110
Lithuania 120 105
Slovakia 105 105
Albania 71 71
Estonia 55 55
Armenia 46 0
Macedonia 33 28
Kazakhstan 29 29
Norway 10 10
Netherlands 0 1,345
Hungary 0 300
Portugal 0 128
Tonga 0 45
Moldova 0 12 The overrall number of troops is somewhat steady, though three out of our top five allies are planning to pull out by the end of the year. That's nearly 7,000 less troops for the war effort at a time when our forces in Iraq are already stretched to the breaking level. The following countries have pulled their contingents: Dominican Republic, Honduras, Hungary, Moldova, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Philippines, Portugal, Spain, Thailand, and Tonga.
(Via Daily Kos.)
8:41:46 AM
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© Copyright 2005 Steve Michel.
Last update: 7/2/2005; 2:39:33 PM.
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