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Thursday, July 31 2003

Mr. Brain's Faggots

A friend forwarded a link to an apparently legitimate food item in England: Mr. Brain's Faggots. Essentially, meatballs in a special sauce.

"Faggot Family CHOSEN
Christine Hamilton star of 'I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here' headed the panel of judges who selected the Doody family from Coseley near Wolverhampton, the faces of Mr Brain’s Faggots! Frederick, Janet, Lewis and Grace demonstrated absolute fanaticism for faggots as they took part in creating Mr Brain’s Faggots commercials, role-play and quizzes."

Friday, July 25 2003

Dean is McGovern?

Good analysis of the Dean campaign, comparisons to McGovern (fiery, but underfunded, Democrat who got crushed in 1972), and the Democratic centrists who want Dean to go away.

Thursday, July 24 2003

Stanford Documentary Film and Video Program

Fawning, but fascinating, look at the Stanford Documentary Film and Video Program - an intense 2-year program in which students learn all aspects of the film trade and produce several documentary movies geared toward personal issues.

Monday, July 14 2003

Computerized election machines: more bad news?

Bev Harris, "author of the soon to be published book 'Black Box Voting: Ballot Tampering In The 21st Century'", has written two articles alleging that (1) Diebold voting systems, in use in Georgia and elsewhere, are unreliable and insecure; (2) Diebold executives have lied about the reliability and security of their machines; and (3) it is fairly easy for someone with access to the vote-tabulating systems to change voting results and not get caught. Article 1: Inside A U.S. Election Vote Counting Program Article 2: Bald-Faced Lies About Black Box Voting Machines.

I've never heard of Bev Harris, or the newspaper where her articles appeared, so am not sure whether to trust the articles. She interviews two people who say they worked on Diebold machines in Georgia: Rob Behler and James Rellinger. Behler indicates that he doesn't trust the Diebold machines to accurately tally votes; Rellinger indicates that voting software was passed over Internet-connected machines (a no-no if you're super-serious about security).

WorkingForChange.com has a petition that states, in part:

"We also demand a halt to further computerization of balloting until such methods are made unsusceptible to political manipulation, fraud, and racial bias."

Sunday, July 13 2003

The Lonely Astronaut

"If NASA left you on the moon 30 years ago, wouldn't you be pissed?"

Tuesday, July 8 2003

Water filters, bottled water

From Blue Magazine: the best water filters that money can buy (they remove stuff like cryptosporidium, lead, MTBEs, etc.), and why bottled water can be worse for your health and the environment than plain old tap water.

Monday, July 7 2003

Baby Names

Rude comments on message board discussions people have had about naming their babies.

Sample 1:

"What does everyone think of Atticus Charles? Girl's name, Aubriana Kai. Older sister is Cassandra Jane, deceased older brother was David Thomas.

I think he'd grow up to shoot a mad dog in the street in a moment revealing the barbarity of even the most civilized in society.

Aubriana would grow up to shoot lasers from her fingers and join the X-Men.

Either way, they're set for life what with their late brother's popular fast food chain."

Sample 2:

"This is for my niece, Dawn. She is expecting a baby girl in September. I suggested that they name her Dusk. What does everyone think?

I think her grand-daughter Nighttime would not approve. Or her grand-neices Afterhours and Graveyardshift."

Friday, July 4 2003

Open Government Information Awareness

Wired's got an article on the Open Government Information Awareness Project at MIT's Media Lab; a way for citizens to keep tabs on all members of government, that supports anonymous submission of information regarding government officials.

Sound like a great idea, but the site's real slow; not sure if it's due to popularity, or complex/convoluted code and database interaction.

Happy July 4th!

The Declaration of Independence:

"WHEN in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.

"WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness -- That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The History of the present King of Great- Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World...."

Did you know that the Declaration of Independence and much of the Bill of Rights were based on Virginia's Declaration of Rights?

Tuesday, July 1 2003

Movie censorship

Case 1: many months ago, watching an episode of the NBC mini-series "The Sixties" (an ensemble cast winding their way through the social and political upheaval of the times) there was a scene where a group of students took over a college campus, and used the catch-phrase "Up against the wall, mother!" Which I thought was a pretty clever revolutionary declaration/threat.

Only after reading Salon.com's article on the recently-released documentary The Weather Underground did I realize that back in the 60s in real life, they were saying "Up against the wall, motherfucker!" More conventional, and not quite as clever, I think.

Case 2: flying cross-country recently, I saw The Hours on one of the longer flights. Only after renting the DVD recently did I realize that in the in-flight version, two woman-to-woman kisses were cut from the film, which put quite a different spin on the relationships among the characters.

(Both movies are very worth watching, though you might have to look hard for The Weather Underground.)

About this site

This is the personal web site for Edward (Ed) Piou. Consisting mainly of a blog (operational since 1999) and various photos.

Some online projects I'm working on

Politics

Charity, Non-profits...

A while ago, I decided to put my money where my mind is on a (roughly) monthly basis and give to:

Photos

Public events documented through pictures...