On my playlist

It appears I am in a louder-harder-faster mood.

Old Skars & Upstarts 2002
Excellent and noisy punk compilation from the fine folks at Disaster records.

The Pushers - Turning Blue
Thunderous aggro punk and roll. Upbeat subject matter (see image r.)

Public Enemy - Revolverlution
Don’t miss “Son of a Bush”.

Mother Superior - Sin
AKA The Rollins Band.

Wayne Kramer - Adult World
Of whom I’ve written about here before.

No Comments »

All sniper news, all the time

CNN, Fox, MSNBC et al are running sniper news non-stop. Much of it is endless re-hashes of previous news, speculations by “experts” about the mindset of the sniper(s), and lots of frenzied dashes down dead-end trails - as witness the latest excited announcements this morning of two men in a van being detained. As it turns out, they were undocumented workers in the wrong place at the wrong time. So why not wait until the full news is known before the ponderous on-air interviews with analysts explaining what it all could mean?

The psychological commentators uniformly imply we are dealing with a lone psycho gloating at his success and at how smart he is. Well, he (they?) is smart and has pulled off successful shootings and escapes in the midst of huge police surveillance.

It may well be a lone psycho, however if TV news is going to speculate about the sniper, then why not discuss 1) if there is more than one person involved and 2) if they aren’t crazy at all. That is - could this be a deliberate attempt for reasons unknown at creating disruption.

Yeah yeah, I know, I never met a conspiracy I didn’t like. But the continued success  of the sniper indicates serious planning with more than one person involved. The sniper, a spotter, and a driver is a not inconceivable scenario. If there’s more than one person then the “lone psycho looking for glory secretly wanting to be caught” theory just doesn’t play.

Comments?

No Comments »

NoMoreAOLCDs.com

“We represent all who are sick of receiving unwanted AOL cds. By sending us your unwanted AOL, Netscape, or CompuServe cds, you can help us make a statement. 

Once we have 1,000,000 collected, we will make our quest across America to give them all back to their rightful owner, AOL and say “stop doing this“. Don’t throw them away or get mad, send’em to us and we’ll all end this wasteful practice while sharing a laugh or two.”

No Comments »

Novak: California Gubernatorial Race Tightening?

Robert Novak says the California gubernatorial race may be in play: “The nightly tracking poll taken for the California Teachers Association, made available to Republicans last Friday morning, was startling. Thursday night’s telephone interviews about the race for governor showed beleaguered Republican candidate Bill Simon leading Democratic Gov. Gray Davis 34.2 percent to 33.7 percent. The three-day tracking roll gave Davis a mere 2.7 percentage point lead.”… [Taegan Goddard's Political Wire]

No Comments »

Northern Ireland

For “notes on Northern Ireland politics and culture”, go to Slugger O’Toole, ably edited by Mick Fealty. No more shall I fumblingly try to explain what’s happening in Northern Ireland - instead, I suggest you go to the Slugger.

No Comments »

Peace links

PoliZeros now has a new page, Peace Links, listing some of the major organizations mobilizing and organizing for peace and no Iraq War. It will be expanding.

Feedback encouraged. Send in links and I’ll add them! What’s happening in your area?

No Comments »

Hot! Open source Personal Information Manager

An idea whose time has come. An open source email / calender / contacts program that allows for collaboration and easy sharing of data, and runs on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Open source is free software written in collaboration. The code is posted freely for anyone to use and modify. You need a certain add-on - go ahead and write it!

The project is headed by Mitch Kapor, founder of Lotus Corp, who is putting 5 million of his own money into the nonprofit Open Source Applications Foundation, who will write the program. The first beta will be out be the end of the year, and I for one, will certainly use it. Begone Outlook!

From Kapor’s weblog

We are trying to make a PIM which is substantive enough and enticing enough to make people want to move to it from whatever they are currently using, which statistically is probably Microsoft Outlook. I’m not going to bash Outlook here. Suffice it to say that while feature-rich, it is highly very complex, which renders most of its functionality moot. Its information sharing features require use of Microsoft Exchange, a server-based product, which is both expensive and complex to administer. Exchange is overkill for small-to-medium organizations, which we think creates on opportunity we intend to pursue (as well of course as serving individual users)

Have I mentioned it’s going to run on Macintosh, Linux, and Windows and will not require a server? This is an ambitious goal, but we are convinced is possible to achieve using a cross-platform tool kit.

No Comments »

Iraq war ‘unjustifiable’, says Bush’s church head

President George Bush’s own Methodist church has launched a scathing attack on his preparations for war against Iraq, saying they are ‘without any justification according to the teachings of Christ’.

No Comments »

Sean Penn pays $56,000 for ad attacking Bush war

Sean Penn has weighed in on the international debate over a possible war with Iraq, paying for a $56,000 advertisement Friday in The Washington Post accusing President Bush of stifling debate and threatening civil liberties, reports ABC News.

In an open letter to Bush taking up most of a page in the main section of the daily newspaper, the Oscar-nominated star of I Am Sam and Dead Man Walking urged the president to stop a cycle where “bombing is answered by bombing, mutilation by mutilation, killing by killing.”

”I beg you, help save America before yours is a legacy of shame and horror,” Penn wrote, echoing voices of caution from around the world that have called for a measured response to allegations Iraq is developing weapons of mass destruction.

Quoting Bush’s declaration that the world was either ”with us or against us” in the war on terrorism launched after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Penn, 42, said Bush was marginalizing critics, manipulating the media and promoting fear.

No Comments »

Greenpeace shuts down LA and NYC ExxonMobil gas stations

Greenpeace activists shut down a Mobil gas station today in the heart of Beverly Hills just minutes after shutting down an Exxon station in Manhattan. Protestors peacefully chained themselves to gas pumps at both locations and dropped a banner that read, “Stop Global Warming, Don’t Buy ExxonMobil.” The protests mark the start of a national day of action against ExxonMobil by environmental, human rights and pro-democracy groups

“Greenpeace has launched an international campaign against ExxonMobil that will continue until the company stops sabotaging government action on global warming, and agrees to support mandatory reductions in global warming pollution,” said Gary Cook, Greenpeace Climate Campaign Coordinator. “In Europe and elsewhere, ExxonMobil is already feeling the heat from Greenpeace and consumers - now the campaign is being ramped up in the United States.”

Greenpeace has documented ExxonMobil’s efforts to prevent action on global warming in a report entitled, “Denial and Deception: A Chronicle of ExxonMobil’s Corruption of the Global Warming Debate.” Despite multiple appeals from Greenpeace and others, ExxonMobil has refused to change its policy. The company is using its sizable resources to support top politicians, like President Bush, in an effort to stifle U.S. action on global warming.

No Comments »