Even more so than yesterday, it’s looking like the Immigrant Rights march in L.A. tomorrow will be massive, with hundreds of thousands coming, just like what happened in Chicago on March 10.

Hey, all you netroots folks who think you need a laptop and a net feed to get things done. Both of these marches were organized with little web presence and primarily by word-of-mouth, meetings, and flyering. That they’ve gone supernova shows that Immigrant Rights is an idea whose time has come - and they didn’t rely on the Net to do it.

The primary demand is NO on the Sensenbrenner bill. You bet they’re listening in D.C. Why? Because people in the streets are forcing them to.

Yesterday [March 16], some advocates calling the Judiciary Committee were told that the phones were ‘ringing off the hook.’ Today, Senator Specter opened the Committee’s meeting telling his colleagues that the Committee was going to take more time to consider this complicated bill–despite Senate Majority leader Frist’s demands–and that he was committed to having a vote on how the legislation will treat the undocumented population in the U.S.

This should be instructive for the netroots, who generally believe that if they can just somehow make Democratic leadership understand the errors of their ways, then those leaders will suddenly reverse direction and move towards meaningful change. Immigrant rights organizers use a more effective tactic. Hundreds of thousands in the streets in a growing tsunami of protest is what will make the changes happen. Netroots can learn much from the Immigrant Rights movement.

NO on the Sensenbrenner bill. Amnesty now.

Assemble at Olympic and Broadway downtown at 10 am (earlier is better.)

Immigrant Solidarity Network has more. There will be protests and rallies nationwide this weekend.

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The Encyclopedia Britannica shreds the Nature article claiming Wikipedia is as accurate they are.

Fatally Flawed

Refuting the recent study on encyclopedic accuracy by the journal Nature.

Some highlights

Almost everything about the journal’s investigation, from the criteria for identifying inaccuracies to the discrepancy between the article text and its headline, was wrong and misleading.

Britannica was far more accurate than Wikipedia according to the figures; the journal simply misrepresented its own results.

Contrary to the usual practice of making all data freely available in order to facilitate a study’s replication by others, Nature declined our repeated requests to make the full reports available.

One of the reviewer’s comments referred to text that does not appear in any Britannica publication.

The “article” on “aldol reaction” that the journal sent its reviewer consisted of passages taken selectively from two different Encyclopædia Britannica articles and joined together with text evidently written by Nature’s editors.

Britannica then documents in great detail what they said.

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Via email -

In case you’ve been having trouble recently in deciphering speeches and news reports:

* alternative energy sources /n./ New locations to drill for gas and oil.

* bankruptcy /n./ A means of escaping debt available to corporations but not to poor people.

* “burning bush” /n./ A biblical allusion to the response of the President of the United States, when asked a question by a journalist who has not been paid to inquire about non-issues.

* Cheney, Dick /n./ The greater of two evils.

* class warfare /n./ Any attempt to raise the minimum wage.

* climate change /n./ Progress toward the blessed day when the blue states are swallowed by the oceans.

* compassionate conservatism /n./ Poignant concern for the very wealthy.

* creation science /n./ Pseudo-science that claims George W. Bush’s resemblance to a chimpanzee is totally coincidental.

* DeLay, Tom /n./ Past tense of De Lie.

* extraordinary rendition /n./ Outsourcing torture.

* faith /n./ The belief that the Beatitudes (statements made by JC) include “Blessed are the rich” and “Blessed are the warmakers.”

* free markets /n./ Halliburton no-bid contracts at taxpayer expense.

* girly-men /n./ Males who neglect opportunities to grope unwilling women.

* God /n./ Senior presidential adviser.

* growth /n./ 1. The justification for tax cuts for the rich. 2. What happens to the national debt when policy is made according to Definition 1.

* healthy forest /n./ No tree left behind.

* honesty /n./ Lies told in simple declarative sentences (e.g., “Freedom is on the march.”).

* House of Representatives /n./ Exclusive club; entry fee: $1 million to $5 million (See: Senate).

* insanity /n./ See: staying the course.

* laziness /n./ When the poor are not working.

* leisure time /n./ When the wealthy are not working.

* liberal(s) /n./ Followers of the Antichrist.

* No Child Left Behind /riff./ 1. There are always jobs in the military. 2. The rapture.

* ownership society /n./ 1. A civilization where 1 percent of the population controls 90 percent of the wealth. 2. A political system in which all power is in the hands of the owners.

* Patriot Act /n./ 1. Pre-emptive strike on American freedoms to prevent the terrorists from destroying them first. 2. The elimination of one of the reasons why they hate us.

* pro-life /adj./ Valuing human life up until birth.

* Senate /n./ Exclusive club; entry fee: $10 million to $30 million.

* simplify /v./ To cut the taxes of Republican donors.

* staying the course /interj./slang./ Continuing to perform the same actions and expecting different results (See: insanity ).

* stuff happens /interj./slang./ I don’t have to live in Baghdad.

* voter fraud /n./ A significant minority turnout.

* woman /n./ 1. Person who can be trusted to raise a child but can’t be trusted to decide whether or not she wishes to have a child. 2. Person who must have all decisions regarding her reproductive functions made by men with whom she wouldn’t want to have sex in the first place.

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