politics

politics

Thank you Harry Taylor

Yesterday Harry Taylor rose at one of those "Bush town hall" forums in North Carolina to tell President Bush that he's never felt more ashamed of the leadership of his country. He said Bush has asserted his right to tap phone calls without a warrant, to arrest people and hold them without charges and to revoke a woman's right to an abortion, among other things.

Against Software and Process Patents

I have watched in great sadness as well as some very real fear for my profession as I've seen software - and worse: process - patents gain hold in this country driven by forces of great wealth and power aimed at maintaining their wealth and power at the cost of innovation. I was in the software labs of the late '70s when things like object oriented programming, bitmapped displays, email, and modern operating system theory were being developed and nothing was even copyrighted.

PATRIOT Search

The U.S. Government is suing Google for non-compliance after the DOJ requested Google users' search records. AOL, MSN and Yahoo all complied with the DOJ requests, which were couched in terms of the fight against child porn. This is being reported by ZDnet, Bloomberg and other sources.

we are becoming our worst enemy

I regularly read SlashDot, which is a geek news site that gives paragraph intros to a linked full story and then people can comment on it. One section of their site, called Your Rights Online recently published this article reporting about a Dartmouth student being visited by the SS after requesting a book that contains information contrary to the state.

Right Livlihood

I work with CivicActions, and one of the best things about this gig is the lifestyle that it allows me to enjoy. CivicActions is a small but growing band of technology revolutionaries writing free and open source code for progressive organizations and political campaigns.

Knocked down? Time to get back up!

I'm still reeling from the un-reality of it all.

I think my sister summed it up well when she said:

i think they'll get a few surprises pretty fast : the economy will tank, the taxes will go up, their jobs will go to calcutta and their kids will be drafted to iraq. but of course, hetero marriage has been protected so maybe they'll figure it's a fair trade

Not to dwell to long on what's happened, but part of me wonders if her absentee ballot even got counted, given that it was mailed from France and was for Kerry...

Kerry, please

I'm trying to get work done (ok, I am getting work done) but I'm also nervous as all get out regarding the results of the election. Who are these people who can vote for Bush when it's been proven that he's lied to the American public about WMDs, the link between Iraq and al Quaeda not to mention his domestic promises for better health care, schools and jobs?

If Bush wins again, I think that any slack that the rest of the world has given U.S.

Indymedia petition

From: http://solidarity.indymedia.org.uk/ :

Indymedia is a global media network that provides open space to publish challenging, independent reporting, with emphasis on political and social justice issues.

From Baghdad

This has been traveling around the net the last few days. Farnaz Fassihi, a Wall Street Journal reporter sent this frank and bleak look at "the situation" in Iraq in an e-mail to friends:

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0930-15.htm

Farnaz' story has been backed by a WSJ editor and others (see
Pulling Back the Curtain: What a Top Reporter in Baghdad Really Thinks About the War
).

Humor: Florida Voting System

Here's an opportunity to try the Florida electronic voting system.


http://www.wearabledissent.com/101/floridavote.html

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