Rock:Paper:Scissors

Tuesday, August 24, 2004

''Libertarianism is the hottest philosophy on the internet!''
"Many famous people are libertarians, including John Stossel and Dave Barry. It seems like everyone is becoming a libertarian, and now you can, too! The answer lies in several simple steps, which anyone can learn.

''Libertarians believe the answer to America's political problems is the same commitment to freedom that earned America its greatness: a free-market economy and the abundance and prosperity it brings; a dedication to civil liberties and personal freedom that marks this country above all others; and a foreign policy of non-intervention, peace, and free trade as prescribed by America's founders.''
The Libertarian Party: The Party of Principle

Read on, and you, too, can become a libertarian!"

Original post from [MetaFilter]

What Is The Libertarian Party?

The following description of the party's beliefs was taken from their site:

"The Libertarian Party is your representative in American politics. It is the only political organization which respects you as a unique and competent individual.

America's Heritage
Libertarians believe in the American heritage of liberty, enterprise, and personal responsibility. Libertarians recognize the responsibility we all share to preserve this precious heritage for our children and grandchildren.

Free and Independent
Libertarians believe that being free and independent is a great way to live. We want a system which encourages all people to choose what they want from life; that lets them live, love, work, play, and dream their own way.

Caring For People
The Libertarian way is a caring, people-centered approach to politics. We believe each individual is unique. We want a system which respects the individual and encourages us to discover the best within ourselves and develop our full potential.

Principled; Consistent
The Libertarian way is a logically consistent approach to politics based on the moral principle of self-ownership. Each individual has the right to control his or her own body, action, speech, and property. Government's only role is to help individuals defend themselves from force and fraud.

Tolerant
The Libertarian Party is for all who don't want to push other people around and don't want to be pushed around themselves. Live and let live is the Libertarian way."

12:47:03 PM.

boom chicka wow wow . . .

Now, this is just plain funny!! You gotta give this a try . . . .

D.Film Moviemaker --a cute little toy (just pretend it's Friday, ok? flash, i think.) [MetaFilter]

12:41:08 PM.

Monetizing the blogosphere.

Meanwhile back in California, they're paving paradise and putting up a parking lot. With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swinging hot spot. (With thanks to Joni Mitchell.)

Everywhere you look the blogosphere is being hitched to business models, none of them very creative, nothing more than rehashes of what was tried in the 90s, and in some cases worked, but in no cases yielded anything that behaved like a weblog.

The only reason to publish a weblog, imho, is if you have a passion for something and want to make sure people hear what you have to say about it. You have to be pro-flow, anything that restricts flow is un-blog-like, and will yield a newspaper, a magazine, a professional publication, something very different from a blog. (Sure there are also the personal diaries, which are mostly ways of saying Hey I'm Here, and I'm not sure my model for a blog is much different, so nothing is very simple, or hard and fast.)

I suppose it was inevitable, and I guess it's okay. I just find that I'm repelled by the idea of raising multiple millions of dollars for a business where the tools can be had so cheaply. What are you going to charge for? Hmmm. I think I shouldn't have to pay for that.

Anyway, I keep getting requests to link to some silly things, like sites taking their content out of their RSS feed. When this happens it sends a chill deep into my body, a sense that this is what was wrong with Silicon Valley in the 80s and 90s, but it wasn't so easy to see as it is now.

Weblogs started out, I thought, as a fun project to push neat ideas into the world, but maybe they were always supposed to be a news magazine that made money. No matter, I don't think very many who read blogs in RSS will change and start reading them on the Web so we can see the ads. As usual, that's a benefit for the publisher, not for me. I understand why they want me to do it, but have they given me any reason to want it?

Maybe I'm reading this wrong. Hope so.

I have a mind, I also have eyeballs, but I'd prefer if you think of me as a mind.

[Scripting News]

12:37:46 PM.

Optimism as a revolutionary act.

Change This - We're betting that a significant portion of the population wants to hear thoughtful, rational, constructive arguments about important issues. We're certain that the best of these manifestos will spread, hand to hand, person to person, until these manifestos have reached a critical mass and actually changed the tone and substance of our debate. [MetaFilter]

12:36:45 PM.

Cliff's notes.

Reggae master Jimmy Cliff discusses his new album, his eternal optimism, and the challenges of making music during wartime. [Salon.com]

12:36:06 PM.

The Inner Workings of Robots, Spiders, and Web Crawlers.

Robots, a.k.a. spiders or Web crawlers are used to feed data to a user, such as Google. Most robots are useful, but some, such as EmailSiphon and Cherry Picker are spambots. Here, you'll learn what robots do and how to gain control over them. By Lee Underwood. 0824 [WebReference News]

12:35:48 PM.