I Steal Music

It turns out according to the RIAA I steal music a lot:
The Howell case was not the first time the industry has argued that making a personal copy from a legally purchased CD is illegal. At the Thomas trial in Minnesota, Sony BMG’s chief of litigation, Jennifer Pariser, testified that “when an individual makes a [...]

Happy New Year’s

I’ve decided to celebrate every New Year’s Day this year. And there are a lot, including two Muslim New Year’s (which I propose to call a blue year).
Ok, maybe not. Happy New Year (about two hours early).

Bhutan Goes For Democracy

It seems that Bhutan, in the Himalayas, is switching to a democracy (the king decided on the switch). Their first vote was today.  There isn’t complete suffrage, only college graduates can vote, and there have been glitches, but they’re on their way. The voters have a dress code for voting. but since the country only [...]

More Kenya and Pakistan

The situation in Kenya is getting worse and the assasination of Bhutto is getting more confusing:

Over 100 are confirmed dead in Kenya from rioting and the death toll is expected to go much higher. Kenya has been one of the most stable countries in Africa, but now there is the possibility of tribal war:

The election has [...]

Ron Paul and Bloomberg

It now seems Mayor Bloomberg is actively thinking about running for President as an independent and his advisors have said he might invest as much as $1 billion of his own money if he runs. Ross Perot redux? He says he will only run if he thinks he could win and:
Despite public denials, the mayor [...]

Kenya and Pakistan

There are big questions and violence because of it in Kenya and Pakistan:

In Kenya, increased rioting followed the claim of victory by the current President, Kibaki. There seems to have been wide spread fraud:

The European Union’s team of election observers in Kenya said the electoral commission had failed to ensure the credibility of the presidential [...]

Christmas Symbols

Via Sadly No!, Emmet Tyrrell has an article reviewing Christmas:
Other traditional Christmas decorations are on the way out, too, though their religious content is often nil. We all can understand why angels might be controversial. But increasingly, Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer has been the subject of disputes, and Santa Claus, too. I was in Chicago [...]

Scrabble, Generation X

Hmm, it seems that 500,000 people play Scrabulous each day. I don’t know how I missed it–I played in a few Scrabble tournaments a while ago (I didn’t do that well, but I did memorize all the acceptable two letter words–I don’t remember them all now). I found out about it in this piece by Brainiac which looks [...]

Stupid Legal Arguments

Via Steve Benen, Dahlia Lithwick has the Bush administration’s 10 dumbest legal arguments. What’s interesting about the list is that some in the list are groupings (as in Alberto Gonzalez)–I assume it was difficult to cut the list to ten, so there was a bit of fudging. My assumption is that the Bush administration had [...]

You See With Your Brain

Via Steven Levitt, it seems that our brain can ’see’ through information it gets via skin or the tongue:
They found that after receiving training, blind people using these systems could recognize shapes and track motion. Some subjects could perceive the motion of a ball rolling down an inclined plane and bat it as it rolled [...]

China and Kenya

It seems that Hong Kong’s road to democracy is going to be very slow:
The Chinese government’s timetable for democratic reform in Hong Kong follows a decision by the Standing Committee of China’s Parliament, the National People’s Congress, to reject universal suffrage there in 2012, a timetable that opinion polls suggested is favored by a majority [...]

Fred Thompson

Hmm, I seem to be getting some Fred Thompson supporters stopping by. I might as well note why I don’t like him much (besides being much too conservative), he was a mole during the Watergate hearings:
On July 13, 1973, Armstrong, the Democratic staffer, asked Butterfield a series of questions during a private session that led up [...]

Make That Ex-co chair

Wow:
Asked if he stood by his comments in the earlier Guardian interview, Deady said:
“I most assuredly do. I’ve been very concerned about this Muslim thing for quite awhile. The average American does not know beans about what the Muslims are about. I am talking about the Muslims in general. I don’t subscribe to the principle [...]

Music and Poetry

Well, let’s start off with my random 10:
Cumberland Gap Woody Guthrie (here’s America First and This Land is Your Land)
Amen Jewel
Atlantic City Bruce Springsteen
Italian Leather Sofa Cake
The Wheel the Mudhens (here’s Whole Lot Better live)
When You Smile Concrete Blonde
Ridiculous Thoughts The Cranberries
Rondo (The Midget’s Revenge) The Dickies (here’s Silent Night)
Knock Knock The Hives (ignore the video, just listen to the music)
Down In The Flood Bob Dylan
Need To [...]

Fred Thompson Is Confused

Fred Thompson seems to be a bit confused, here’s his response to the slaying of Benazir Bhutto:
“They’re driven to distraction by the notion that a secular woman would be head of government,” the Republican presidential hopeful said of the woman who was slain yesterday as she campaigned for her country’s presidency after years in exile.
then [...]

Crazy Conservatives

Here are a few posts via Sadly, No! As usual, they do a better job but I have a bit to add:

Grant Swank (via here) believes that evolution is a religion and is all about faith. He latches onto the word ‘theory’ (showing how little he knows about science):

But when it comes to evolution, the adherents [...]

More About Women in Iraq

Here’s another sign that the US doesn’t necessarily care that much about women in Iraq:
Hardline Muslim extremists who believe it is sinful for women to appear beautiful in public have forced many beauticians to move their trade underground.
Sunni and Shiite militants began blowing up salons roughly two years ago. They killed several stylists and bullied [...]

Japan vs. China

It seems there is a technology competetion going on between Japan and China. Japan’s lunar probe is now in full operation, while China’s probe is also orbiting the moon (this is part of a bigger compettion that also includes India, the EU, England, and perhaps others).
Japan is now entering the maglev train competition. China has [...]

Contractors in Iraq

In some ways, everything you need to know about the military contractors in Iraq is encapsulated in this:
In the spring of 2005, while on a one-year tour in Baghdad, Army Maj. Robert Bateman watched a Blackwater convoy barrel through a congested traffic circle, indiscriminately firing warning shots. Bateman, who frequently writes and blogs on military [...]

Uzbek Leader Gives Himself a Present

This is a convenient way to run an election:
Karimov faced three other candidates in the Sunday vote, but all of them publicly supported Karimov. The election-monitoring arm of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said the election failed to meet an array of democratic standards.
Did we really need that second part? Can you guess [...]