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Tuesday, January 10, 2006
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Flint. Flint is a new Tinderbox Assistant. It makes weblogs (and similar frequently-updated sites) in a variety of flavors, with lots of nice integration with Web services like flickr, Google, and del.icio.us.
Flint makes weblogs in a variety of flavors. The thumbnail to the right is the Green Theme.
The point of Flint is that it's a big box of cool tools, interchangeable parts ready to plug into your weblog. Take the green theme. Want something like it, but red? Just change the colors! Want a different layout? That's easy, too. Lots of pluggable parts.
It's not as easy as the free services -- we can't compete with free! But Flint is flexible and Flint is yours. Want to add a new kind of service to Flint? You can do it yourself. Want a new theme? Just do it.
(We're here, too, to help integrate the best ideas and newest technologies back into the Flint core. Yesterday, Alwin noted that Flint doesn't generate Atom feeds. Today, it does. Thanks!)
[Mark Bernstein]
A nice improvement over the previous weblog-creation tools for Tinderbox. I'd still like it if Tinderbox could automatically upload changed files to a web server, the way tools like Radio Userland and Citydesk can.
1:54:22 PM 
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News on the Cory Maye Case: Bob Evans Fired as Prentiss Public Defender. The Cory Maye case grows curiouser and curiouser. As I've mentioned before, Cory Maye's lawyer on appeal is Bob Evans,... [The Agitator]
It seems pretty clear to me that Evans was fired from his job as Prentiss public defender in direct retaliation for representing the man who shot the town police chief's son in his death row appeal.
The fact that the town took such petty retaliatory measures against a public defender for doing exactly what he's supposed to do -- represent an indigent defendant -- certainly doesn't inspire confidence in the way justice is meted out in Prentiss.
1:50:46 PM
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President Has Legal Power to Torture Children Claims Bush Advisor. John Yoo, deputy assistant to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft claimed in a debate with Notre Dame professor Doug Cassell that the President has the legal power to torture the child of a suspect in custody, including by crushing the child's testicles. John Yoo wrote legal memos arguing for unlimited presidential powers to order torture of captive suspects, and to declare war anytime, anywhere, on anyone the President declared a threat to national security.
Yoo also provided legal reasoning for the President to conduct unauthorized wiretaps of U.S. citizens. Georgetown Law Professor David Cole wrote, "Few lawyers have had more influence on President Bush's legal policies in the 'war on terror' than John Yoo." As Cole puts it, "Yoo reasoned that because the Constitution makes the President the 'Commander-in-Chief,' no law can restrict the actions he may take in pursuit of war. On this reasoning, the President would be entitled by the Constitution to resort to genocide if he wished."
The powers Yoo is talking about sound like absolute monarchy, dictatorship, or fascism, not a constiutional republic. Of course, the USA hasn't been a constitutional republic since the days of FDR, at least. America has gone from the "shining city upon a hill" to a regime which claims crushing a child's testicles may be necessary for national security. Does such a nation deserve security?--Prison Planet
By noemail@noemail.org (Michael Paladin). [Police State USA]
For anyone who might become a "suspect," there is really only one rational response. Peacefully surrendering to the forces of the Evil Empire will only result in you and your children being tortured. Rather than suffering that, do your level best to kill as many Stormtroopers or Gestapo agents as you can before they get you. If you can't get your children to safety, arm them as well. I regard suicide bombing as a foolish and wasteful tactic in general, but it does seem like a rational response to the threat of capture by Americans.
How we burned in the prison camps later thinking: What would things have been like if every security operative, when he went out to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive?
Alexander Solzhenitzyn
12:01:02 PM
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An honest politician. "There is a sort of an unwritten code in Washington, among the underworld and the hustlers and these other guys, that I am their friend," former DC mayor Marion Barry on why he felt betrayed when he was mugged. Don't... By Norman Singleton. [LewRockwell.com Blog]
No wonder the crime rate there is so high.
11:28:33 AM
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Turn down your iPod. or you might develop hearing problems, according to the leader of the world's greatest rock-and-roll band, Pete Townshend, who blames years of listening to loud music on earphones for his own hearing problems.... By Norman Singleton. [LewRockwell.com Blog]
Good earphones that fit into the ear canal are a big help; they block outside noises so that you can use a much lower volume. I use Etymotic 6i earphones, and can hear my iPod just fine even at less than half volume on a noisy bus.
10:58:23 AM
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The Bureaucrat in Your Shower.  As with all regulations, writes Jeffrey Tucker, the restriction on how much water can pour over your person while standing in a shower is ultimately enforced at the point of a gun. Manufacturers must adhere to these regulations under penalty of law, and, to be on the safe side, they typically undershoot. But: some companies have found a way around it. Also: you can hack your shower, but do not do this lest you endanger your status as a law-abiding citizen who takes wimpy showers. By contact@mises.org (Jeffrey Tucker). [Mises Daily Article RSS 2.0 Feed]
Clearly there is nothing, no matter how trivial, that the government will not intrude into.
10:30:43 AM
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Meanwhile in Canada. David Pollard frets about how the upcoming elections will result in the disembowelment of the Canadian national government in favor of Provincial rule. The map continues to melt folks...... [John Robb's Weblog]
While that would be nice, I'm not convinced by the author's arguement. He's basically just a socialist whining because he doesn't think his particular faction of socialists are powerful enough. On points that I have knowledge of it's obvious that he's somewhat divorced from reality (calling the Cato Institute "right-wing" for example), which casts doubt on the rest of his claims.
It would be nice if Canada actually did end up with a weak Federal government, though. Then Americans would have a convenient example of what America is supposed to be.
10:24:49 AM
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Burned CDs Last 5 years Max -- Use Tape?. Lam1969 writes "Computerworld has interviewed Kurt Gerecke, an IBM storage expert and physicist who claims burned CDs only have a two to five-year lifespan, depending on the quality of the CD. From the article: "The problem is material degradation. Optical discs commonly used for burning, such as CD-R and CD-RW, have a recording surface consisting of a layer of dye that can be modified by heat to store data. The degradation process can result in the data 'shifting' on the surface and thus becoming unreadable to the laser beam." Gerecke recommends magnetic tapes to store pictures, videos and songs." [Slashdot]
No mention of the lifespan of DVD-Rs, but I doubt it's much better. This is a big part of the reason why I use film, instead of a digital camera. With film, I can be sure that five years later my photos will still be there.
9:59:28 AM
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© Copyright
2006
Ken Hagler.
Last update:
2/1/2006; 1:30:21 PM.
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