Cory Doctorow:
Frank sez, “Curious as to how much $350 million in promised US aid for tsunami victims equals in expenditures on the war in Iraq? I did the math so you don’t have to. $350 million equals 42.27 hours of the cost of the war in Iraq. (And yes, the decimal point is in the […]
PeopleSoft agrees to Oracle’s US$10 billion takeover bid
The long and drawn-out soap opera between Oracle and PeopleSoft is finally over. Instead of heading to court today for a hearing on PeopleSoft’s anti-takeover defense, it was announced that PeopleSoft’s board of directors have agreed to a US$10.3 billion deal with Oracle. The deal is expected to […]
Textbook disclaimer stickers
For example:
(Note: Taken verbatim from the sticker designed by the Cobb County School District in Georgia.) This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.
…and…
This book was […]
Juan Cole: Informed Comment
Excerpt:
The Bush administration is full of revolutionaries. They are shaking up the world by military force. They are playing a role familiar in modern history, pioneered by Napoleon Bonaparte, of using overwhelming military superiority to establish new forms of hegemony by appealing to desires for change among neighboring publics. Bonaparte promised the […]
Yesterday I found myself listening, on my car radio, to someone from Nader’s campaign. This person was attempting to refute the various criticisms we’ve all heard so many times. It made me feel as though someone was trying to work their well-chewed gum ever deeper into my ears, and reminded me all too thoroughly of […]
Rocky Mountain News: Columnists
In one truly bizarre finding, the research found that 57 percent of Bush supporters assume that the majority of the world favors his re-election. According to recent international research in 10 countries, reported in the British newspaper The Guardian on Oct. 15, the world has “made up its mind, backing (Kerry) by […]
Yahoo! News - Marijuana measures on 3 states’ ballots
Alaska will become the first state to make marijuana legal if voters approve a measure on Tuesday’s ballot that has drawn criticism from the Bush administration.
Not a huge surprise given how the last three games have gone; but, it was surprising the Sox pulled off a 10-3 win. I guess the Yankees were tired after all. Fine by me; they’ve certainly had more than their share of winning, especially against Boston. Hope the Sox win the Series, […]
“Make no mistake. These aren’t just a few errant, later-regretted remarks, the kind that people tend to blurt out in the heat of campaigns. As this article shows (free reg req), it’s a calculated and scurrilous effort to suggest that anyone who questions the Iraq debacle is unpatriotic.”
Link: Dan Gillmor’s article in San Jose Mercury […]
If you haven’t heard, Red Hat’s Michael Tiemann has responded to Sun exec Jonathan Schwartz’s blog entries that more or less talk trash toward Red Hat in a big way. It’s all pretty amusing, particularly because a response such as Tiemann’s likely plays right into Schwartz’s hands, and makes Red Hat look pretty […]
Link: slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/06/1722203
Chris Acheson writes, “John Taylor Gatto is a former New York City school teacher. During his 30-year career, he has taught at 5 different public schools, has had his teaching license suspended twice for insubordination, and was once covertly terminated while on medical leave. He has also won the New York City Teacher of […]
I was flying from Denver to Oakland, CA last June. In the post-takeoff announcement, we were told by the flight attendant:
“For security reasons, passengers must use the lavatories in their section of the aircraft. First class has two lavatories at the front of the cabin; coach has two lavatories in the rear of the plane. […]
Scare quotes, oh my!
Link: www.suck.com/daily/2000/03/20/
Scare quotes are the quotation marks found around phrases like “gangsta rap,” “shame spiral,” or “security zone”: coinages that may be lingo, that may be jargon, that may even be slang but are more likely excuses where a little distance is in order. The subject of the story may say it’s […]