Earlier this week, the  Pulitzer Prize folks at  Columbia University announced that Slate's David Horsey won this year's award for editorial cartooning. This is a second Pulitzer for Horsey, who also won in 1998. According to Horsey, "The times inspire good cartoons," Horsey said. "1998 was what I call the Year of Monica. It was the height of the Clinton scandals, target rich.  "The current times are also target rich -- a time of war, time of terrorism. But we're also seeing an administration that is more radical than any we've seen in a long time." And eventful times, he said, "inspire better cartoons." Cartoonists submit a portfolio of twenty cartoons to this yearly competition, and we have posted the portfolio of twenty cartoons that won the big one for David. Horsey's cartoons skewer both the left and the right (or, more topically, the reds and the blues) with wit and an eye for the essential truth. Click HERE to take a look.
4:13:38 PM    

I saw  Al Gore speak at the Commonwealth Club last September. He attacked the President's Iraq policy and came across as both intelligent and warm.  This guy must have a problem with cameras because he was very personable in person.  Anyways, this email arrived today.  As one editorial cartoonist recently had his characters say, while watching the news of war, recession, terroism, Enron, etc, "I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but god do I miss Clinton and Gore!!"

Dear Friends,

Some of you are longtime members of Draft Gore (draftgore.com), and some of you may not even know of us. But you are loyal, longtime supporters of Al Gore and know as well as anyone how desperately this country needs Mr. Gore right now. Therefore we would like to ask a very special favor of you. This request is followed by an update about recent Draft Gore developments.

As you know, when Al Gore announced he would not run in 2004 he also said almost in the same breath that he still has "the energy, the desire, and the ambition to make another campaign." We believe a Gore candidacy is still possible -- but only if we can demonstrate our support, and do so with more than empty words. Here's your chance to do that.

Will you join us in making a pledge that in the event Al Gore decides to run for president you will make a generous contribution to his campaign? We are not asking now that you donate anything to Draft Gore. All we ask is that should Al Gore at some point decide to run for president in 2004, you will send HIS campaign as much money as you can afford so he can jump start a late reentry into the race. If he does not, you will have pledged nothing. Also, you are not legally bound by this pledge.

We will add your pledge to those of other Gore supporters, and when we reach our target we will let Mr. Gore know that his friends are there for him. 

Please note that we are not making this appeal on behalf of Vice President Gore, nor are we affiliated with him. 

To pledge, see http://www.draftgore.com/pledge.htm

Desperate times call for desperate action. America and the world are at a critical historical juncture, and we may not have the luxury of waiting until 2008. We need Al Gore now. By taking a few seconds to make this simple pledge, you could make a huge difference -- and maybe help make history. Thank you.

***********************
DRAFT GORE UPDATE
***********************

* NEW HAMPSHIRE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION

The New Hampshire Democratic Party held its annual convention last weekend, and Draft Gore was very well represented -- better than some of the declared candidates. Five of our members were present, and one of them (Susan Clarke of Massachusetts) made a powerful presentation to the convention. Manchester's Channel 9 television interviewed one of our people and aired a full segment on Draft Gore.

* GORE LEADS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE POLL

The convention was held two days after the release of a Franklin Pierce College poll that showed Gore comfortably in the lead over all declared Democratic presidential candidates in New Hampshire. Gore drew 29% of likely primary voters, compared to 21% each for Kerry and Dean. See more at www.draftgore.com/poll.htm.

* GORE STRONGEST CANDIDATE AGAINST BUSH -- ZOGBY/DRAFT GORE POLL

Last month Draft Gore commissioned Zogby International to add Gore's name to its regular list of contenders for its national match-ups against Bush. And the results confirmed what we have said all along: Gore is the only candidate with a realistic chance to beat Bush. Even on the eve of the war with Iraq, Gore was within easy striking distance (42% to 51%). All other Democrats lagged behind Bush by margins in the double digits. See more at http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=31717

* GORE ALSO WINS DEMOCRATS.COM'S FANTASY POLL

On a lighter note, Democrats.com returned Al Gore's name to its weekly "fantasy poll," in which visitors pick from a variety of real, potential, and "fantasy" candidates. This is not a scientific poll. Yet once again ... Gore came out ahead: 837 votes to 684 for Dean, 203 for Kucinich, and 166 for Hillary Clinton.

* GORE SPEAKS OUT ON WAR COVERAGE, FREE SPEECH

In recent speeches and lectures, Gore has bravely criticized the media coverage of the war on Iraq and suggested there is an "unhealthy relationship" between the administration and the press. "I admire these journalists who are covering this war," he said, "but I don't want the owners of the companies they work for to be in bed with the government."  See more at: http://www.mtsusidelines.com/news/401121.html?mkey=451963

In a separate address, Gore said that freedom of speech is threatened as corporations stamp out opposing views. See: http://www.tennessean.com/nation-world/archives/03/03/30705360.shtml?Element_ID=30705360.


* DRAFT GORE MAKES NEWS

Oakland Tribune
http://www.oaklandtribune.com/Stories/0,1413,82~1865~1284794,00.html

World Net Daily
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=31717
 
Hendersonville Times
http://hendersonvillenews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Site=HT&;Date=200 30319&Category=NEWS&ArtNo=303190326&Ref=AR&Profile=1048&SectionCat=ARCHIVES14

The Washington Times
http://washingtontimes.com/national/20030325-49594800.htm

Christian Science Monitor (reference to Draft Gore)
See: http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0304/p04s01-uspo.html


PLEASE CONSIDER JOINING DRAFT GORE

We are making progress and are working round the clock to develop new strategies and organize a national grassroots campaign to draft Al Gore for president in 2004. But we can't do it without everyone's help. Please visit our site and become actively involved (see action page on the website).

Thank you.

The Draft Gore 2004 Committee
DraftGore.com

3:11:13 PM    

I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with this Brit, but he's both incisive and funny in that way Brits have of using wit and sarcasm to great effect.  Here's a sample e-letter for your preusal:

                                                                                                                           

 _   _ _____ _  __ <*the* weekly high-tech sarcastic update for the uk>
| | |_   _| |/ / _ __   __2003-04-11_ o join! mail an empty message to
|  | | | | | ' / | '_ / _ \ / / / o ntknow-subscribe@lists.ntk.net
| |  | | | | . | | | | (_) v  v /  o website (+ archive) lives at:
|_| _| |_| |_|_\|_| |_|___/ _/_/   o     http://www.ntk.net/


        "After sentencing, Mr Tarrant issued a statement saying the
         plot to cheat the show was a 'very cynical plan, motivated
         by sheer greed'..."
                            http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2910119.stm
             - all other "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" contestants
                motivated by altruism, philanthropy, the sheer joy of
                                                    general knowledge


                                >> HARD NEWS <<
                                invisible coups

         Good to see ANDREW ORLOWSKI of The Register get hold of
         whatever pills Thomas Greene was on before they shipped him
         back to Nam. Andrew - who, these days, can *see* the
         googlebots walking among us - says that the search engine
         corps is one step away from creating an Orwellian superstate
         where the proletariat's expressions of discontent are
         written out of history by a cabal of elite bloggers and
         their corporate overlords. Google does this in two stages.
         First by giving bloggers' stupid invented words a higher
         ranking than Andrew's ingenious made-up terminology. And
         it's certainly true that the Register stories do seem to be
         remarkably low down in googly pagerankings. Is this because
         - as Andrew claims - "someone at Google doesn't like the
         word 'Googlewashed'"? Or is it that that "someone" penalises
         long text pages with non-descriptive headings and a <TITLE>
         tag that says "The Register" on every page? Only Google's
         sinister robot army know for sure.
         http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/30087.html
                - Google fails to index New York Times (subscription)
                              article that doesn't mention key phrase
         http://www.google.com/search?q=googlewash
                - on the other hand, does seem to be a bit blog-crazy...
         http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/30195.html
                                       - EQUALS PROOF OF A CONSPIRACY

         But what about Orlowski's other accusation - that Google
         News indexes press releases? Thanks to Orlowski's still-keen
         investigative skills, this turns out to be true: but where
         could the Google Bots have learnt that technique from? Well,
         certainly not from the fine human journos at the Register,
         whose recent article on Habeas was in no way cut and pasted
         from Habeas' own press release. As you can see for yourself,
         many of the sentences are in a different order. Oh, and to
         show journalists will never be replaced by feelingless
         machines, they've also reworded a literal quote.
         http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/30112.html
                 - Google has redefined news as press releases, while
         http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/30109.html
                                - the Register fears no PR flack's...
         http://www.habeas.com/about/prs.htm#fivesuits
                                      - ... accusations of plagiarism

         Perhaps, instead, they learnt it from the BBC, who this week
         ran another piece on the importance of fighting piracy with
         strong laws, quoting statistics and attitudes from the BSA
         without reasonable balance - from, say, the Malaysian pirates
         who sold a guy a copy of FrontPage and gave him the
         Chernobyl virus. Quite how a Word macro virus got mixed up
         with an executable wasn't explained. Neither was the obvious
         counterpoint to these "dangers of pirated software pieces".
         Why don't these people rip software off from a reputable ftp
         site, instead of paying for it? Remember kids, that md5 hash
         is your warez Certificate of Authenticity!
         http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2924531.stm
             - at least Google's press releases cut out the middleman
         http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/30148.html
             - in the interests of balance: The Reg on FAST does good


                                >> ANTI-NEWS <<
                             berating the obvious

         war spam forces coders to resort to using "Boolean logic":
         http://www.ntk.net/2003/04/11/dooboo.gif ... if you don't want
         us to run more GOOGLE GOOFS, please send something else in:
         http://www.google.com/search?q=%22dead+or+alice%22 + "per
         anum" vs www.google.com/search?q=anum+%22through+the+nose%22
         ... BBC offer baffling introduction to game of GO, a game
         apparently played with an infinite number of stones, on a
         chequered board, until both players are so bored they give up:
       http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/world/newsid_2164000/2164580.stm
         ... GUARDIAN gets into the "inappropriate advertising" game:
      http://media.guardian.co.uk/advertising/story/0,7492,932861,00.html
      THE INQUIRER, comedy captions: www.theinquirer.net/?article=8796 -
         we'll take 'em all on: www.ntk.net/2003/04/11/dohhome.gif ,
         http://www.ntk.net/2003/04/11/dohqa.gif ....


                               >> EVENT QUEUE <<
                         goto's considered non-harmful

         Annoyingly, next week's scheduled LINUX USER EXPO 2003 has now
         been postponed to the end of June, otherwise we could have
         juxtaposed it with this weekend's FORTEAN TIMES UNCOVENTION
         (from 10am, Sat & Sun 2003-04-12/13, Commonwealth Centre,
         Kensington, London W8, from UKP10 per day) in order to make
         our now-traditional gags about "Linux wildmen" and their
         sacred ritual of the "comparing of the distros". Still, if you
         prefer to witness your weirdness in its natural habitat, so to
         speak, you can always join the marching sub-contingent KAZOOS
         AGAINST THE WAR (meeting 11.30am to march at 12noon, tomorrow
         Sat 2003-04-12, Royal Festival Hall bar, London, free, but
         bring a kazoo and, if you can, wear red). And if you've
         somehow managed to lose that friend of yours running the
         London Marathon, then why not drop by and catch NTK's own
         "Dave Green" at CYBERSALON's second DIGITAL ART AND NET
         ACTIVISM CYBERSUNDAY (from 6pm, Sun 2003-04-13, Freedom bar
         below, 60-66 Wardour Street, London W1, UKP2), ostensibly
         speaking about this new-fangled "Open Source" but almost
         certainly touching on the good old days of warez and serialz
         along the way.
         http://www.cybersalon.org/
               - plus Digital Activism evening at the ICA this Monday
         http://www.stopwar.org.uk/
            - if that statue stunt was staged, why'd it take so long?
http://www.unconvention2003.com/html%20pages/visitors/v-speakers.htm
               - featuring Ghostwatch, Buffy & Forteana, Ken Campbell
         http://www.linuxuser.co.uk/expo/
                       - gotta love those lossy jpegs on the nav menu


                                >> TRACKING <<
               sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering

         Continuing our ongoing theme of reviewing half-finished
         Python IDE components in the hope that someone will stitch
         them together into something usable, BICYCLE REPAIR MAN is
         everything you need for a neat refactoring editor. All, that
         is, except for the editor bit: which BRM sensibly leaves to
         Emacs, Idle or Vim. Little wires lead from your chosen
         editor to Python routines for smartly renaming classes and
         methods, extract methods and find definitions and
         references. Stuff like inlining and extracting variables are
         in CVS with more to come. If the idea of some huge monolith
         of an IDE like Eclipse scares the bejesus out of you, but
         you find bolting chunks on to your existing environment
         positively calming, BRM is worth looking at. If only to
         fiddle with endlessly: the true goal of all IDEs.
         http://bicyclerepair.sourceforge.net/
        - as if there wasn't enough Monty Python quoting in the world
         http://isbn.nu/0201485672
                - you always have to buy one book for these XP things

http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/stories/2002/12/11/librarylookup.html
                                      - or support your local library


                                >> MEMEPOOL <<
                ceci n'est pas une http://www.gagpipe.com/

         ultraniche slash: http://www.michaelkelly.fsnet.co.uk/karl.htm
         ... puppet regime: http://makeashorterlink.com/?N15812D24
         ... groovy young person's guide to buying your first home:
         http://www.portlandmercury.com/current/feature.html ... TITLE
         tag announces "WEBSITE GOOD", huge downloads beg to differ:
         http://www.matthew-arnold.surrey.sch.uk/ ... that "Schott's
         Original Miscellany" book clearly has a lot to answer for:
         http://www.vitaminq.blogspot.com/ ... this week's unfortunate
         product name: http://www.biovea.net/item.jhtml?PRID=1185607
         ... ROCHESTER INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE unveils limited robotics
         programme: http://www.cis.rit.edu/~jerry/Image/lego/ed209.html
         ... digital projector chain to use Windows Media Player 9:
         http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/030403/sfth027_1.html - premier
         performance likely to be: http://www.imdb.com/Title?0106438
         ... naked Ebay guy at last manages to locate his dressing gown:
         http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&;item=3411877471 ...


                                >> GEEK MEDIA <<
                  what, *another* http://www.tvgohome.com/ ?

         TV>> as the sports section of The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer
         astutely observes, ALI G IN DA USAIII (10pm, Fri, C4) "has
         several alter egos - a British wannabe rapper, a clueless
         reporter from Khazakstan and [flamboyant TV reporter] Bruno":
     http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/sports/5515487.htm
         ... will C4 screen THE DAM BUSTERS (4.10pm, Sat, C4) uncut?:
       http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,504037,00.html
         - showing in conjunction with simulator-recreation DAMBUSTERS
         (9pm, Mon, C4), itself up against Presidential aerial actioner
         AIR FORCE ONE (9pm, Mon, C5)... and 25 YEARS OF SMASH HITS
         (9pm, Sat, C4) examines "how the magazine has influenced the
         music industry" - and not in a good way?... Peter Biskind's
         '70s-movie-biz hagiography is adapted into talking-heads docu
         EASY RIDERS, RAGING BULLS (9pm, Sat, BBC4)... the incomparable
         Bill Murray is on fine form in gross-out Amish 10-pin-bowling
         odyssey KINGPIN (10pm, Sun, C4)... and there's more nudity
         from Radha "Pitch Black" Mitchell than from Ally Sheedy in
         lesbian "Trainspotting" HIGH ART (1.55am, Sun, C4)... the
         contestants try to keep up with the helicopter's inexorable
         progress on the all-new gloebtrotting TREASURE HUNT (6pm, Mon-
         Fri, BBC2)... C5 targets a slightly older demographic with its
         followup to "99 Things To Do Before You're 30", 99 THINGS TO
         DO BEFORE YOU DIE (11.25pm, Mon, C5)... and Adam and Joe add
         their voiceover expertise to SHOCK VIDEO (11.55pm, Mon, C5), a
         reversioning of the HBO clip show which used to be shown on E4:
         http://www.fortunecity.com/lavender/scarface/753/latest2.html
         ... THE REAL BLAIR WITCH (10pm, Tue, C4) doesn't appear to be
         a belated mockumentary promo for the DVD release of the movie,
         but maybe that's just what "they" want you to think... despite
         a lot of press saying that's when they've scheduled Donal
         MacIntyre's investigation of credit card fraud, most of the
         listings have C5 showing BROKEN ARROW (9pm, Wed, C5)...
         HORIZON: GOD ON THE BRAIN (9pm, Thu, BBC2) attempts the
         theoretically impossible - inducing an electromagnetic
         religious experience in the mind of arch-atheist Richard
         Dawkins... while the "Danny Wallace" protagonist of kung-fu
         buddy actioner THE CORRUPTOR (10pm, Thu, C4) isn't the Dave
         Gorman sidekick who now appears to specialise in the appalling
         genre of concocting pointless challenges then writing books
         about them: http://www.dannywallace.com/joinme.html ...
        
         FILM>> early publicity had Henry Naylor reprising his original
         "Bough" from the Barclaycard ads, a role in which he now seems
         to have been replaced by fellow Cambridge Footlights 1990
         alumnus Ben Miller in lame Mr Bean spy spoof JOHNNY ENGLISH
         ( http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ : contains mild language and comic
         violence)... Easter brings the voices of Haley Joel Osment,
         John Goodman and Phil Collins - together at last! - in wildly
         unnecessary "Bear Necessities" retread THE JUNGLE BOOK 2
         ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/junglebook2.htm : lies,
         repeatedly; strong implication of a character's death by
         another character; defiance of mother's call)... as S-Club n-1
         play mindless automatons - which shouldn't be too much of a
         stretch, on the evidence of their TV show - in their thought-
         provoking musical comedy on the ethics of cloning, SEEING
         DOUBLE ( http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ : contains mild sex references
         and one use of mild language)...
        
         BONERS: CORRECTIONS, CLARIFICATIONS, AND "INCORRECTLY REGARDED
         AS GOOFS">> well spotted to BEN MOOR for noting that, despite
         the ominous predictions of NTK 2003-03-21, "the British prime
         minister is the UK's head of government rather than head of
         state"; to reader MIKE, for remembering that the traditional
         construction should be "Someone set *up us* the...", rather
         than the "Someone set us up" we chose to dabble with in the
         same issue; and to super-pedants LLOYD WOOD and PAUL BLEZARD,
         who both crowed over the accidental substitution of "tying"
         for "trying" in NTK 2003-03-28, Blezard going on to query a
         previous usage of "publically" instead of "publicly" plus a
         subsequent mention of "Henry VII" (should have been "VIII").
         Yet our greatest sympathy was reserved for GUY DAVIDSON, who
         was sufficiently misled by NTK's 2003-01-31 confusion of
         "Smiths" vocalist Morrissey with Homebase spokesman Neil
         Morrissey to excitedly email his wife, only to get "a forlorn
         message" back from her, presumably correcting the error and
         leading him to forgo any hopes of "pie and mash" that evening
         ... entering yet more complex territory, reader CHESS
         theorised that NTK 2003-03-07's news link entitled "Georgia
         senators ANGRY about musical! Georgia senators SMASH!" had
         probably been submitted to us because the actual events
         ("South Pacific" being slammed for "justifying intermarriage
         of different races") apparently "happened fifty years ago",
         though the site "forgot the '50 Years Ago' banner on the web
         page": http://talkingpointsmemo.com/feb0304.html#022803142pm
         (hey, we take our jokes any way we can find them). And, on a
         point of house style, ADAM NEALIS incorrectly regarded NTK
         2003-02-21's use of "PIN number" as a goof because, he
         expands: "PIN = Personal Identification Number, therefore PIN
         number = Personal Identification Number number, which sounds
         ludicrous". To be honest, Adam, we - and the alt.usage.english
         FAQ http://www.english-usage.com/faq.html#fxrepeat (caution,
         large file) - don't have a problem with this, or HIV virus, or
         MIDI interface, or whatever (though admittedly "interface" is
         being used there in two slightly different ways)... and
         finally, in the wake of NTK's 2003-03-28 sighting of the
         "Spazz" wheelchair http://www.sportaid.com/page16.htm , ALF
         EATON "thought we might like" the Guardian's recent correction
      http://www.guardian.co.uk/corrections/story/0,3604,908199,00.html
         wherein a mole was described as having "weird, spazzy, claws"
         - a use of "spazzy" described as "totally contrary to the
         Guardian's approach to disability". Too right it's
         inappropriate - surely they're more "flid-like", or "fliddy"?:
         http://www.playgroundlaw.com/perl/browse.pl?sid=286 ...


                               >> SMALL PRINT <<

       Need to Know is a useful and interesting UK digest of things that
         happened last week or might happen next week. You can read it
       on Friday afternoon or print it out then take it home if you have
     nothing better to do. It is compiled by NTK from stuff they get sent.
                       Registered at the Post Office as
                            "fun loving, criminal"
                   http://www.ntk.net/2003/04/11/dohdg.gif     

                                 NEED TO KNOW
            THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK.
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                          (K) 2003 Special Projects.
             Copying is fine, but include URL: http://www.ntk.net/
         Full license at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/1.0

                    Tips, news and gossip to tips@spesh.com
             All communication is for publication, unless you beg.
              Press releases from naive PR people to pr@spesh.com
     Remember: Your work email may be monitored if sending sensitive material.
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              Your country may be at risk if you fail to comply.

3:02:22 PM