] A new report from DFC Intelligence forecasts that the
] worldwide market for online games will reach $9.8 billion
] in 2009. This represents a 410% increase over 2003
] revenue of $1.9 billion. In 2009, the largest market for
] online games is expected to be the Asia-Pacific region
] with $4.2 billion in revenue. Korea and Taiwan are
] already well established markets and China and Japan are
] expected to be the two fastest growing countries for
] online games.

DFC Intelligence Forecasts 410 percent Increase in Online Games Revenues

] Grand Cayman was submerged in a 15- to 20-foot tidal
] surge as the storm passed yesterday. The island was for a
] time split into two, as the ocean swept across the west
] coast at Seven Mile Beach
 . . .
] . . . power and telephone service remains out, and
] more than half the island's buildings lost their roofs as
] the hurricane swept through.
 . . .
] The winds of the Category 5 hurricane ripped homes apart
] like ``matchsticks,''
  . . .
] Cars and trucks floated away like toys during the storm
] surge

I've been to the Caymans. It's a tiny tiny country, like a Gilligan's Island with less jungle -- just tiny towns of shops and banks. It had no mountains that I recall -- nearly everything is beach, or damn close to a beach. The entire country is smaller in area than New York City. It's easy to see how a massive hurricane would just charge through and flood *everything*. A big wave washing over the entire island.

Ouch.

Cayman Islands Devastated by Hurricane Ivan

] PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A Pennsylvania law allowing the
] state to force Internet service providers to block access
] to child pornography sites is unconstitutional, a federal
] judge ruled on Friday.
]
] Judge Jan Dubois, of the U.S. court for the Eastern
] District of Pennsylvania, found that the law was
] unconstitutional because technology used to block the
] sites would also prevent users from accessing sites that
] had nothing to do with child pornography.
]
] "With the current state of technology, the act cannot be
] implemented without excessive blocking of innocent speech
] in violation of the First Amendment," the judge wrote.
 . . .
] Federal courts including the U.S. Supreme Court have
] several times rejected efforts to curb online
] pornography, as violations of constitutional free-speech
] protections.

I am encouraged to see that as the lawsuits involving the internet are moving through the U.S. legal system, that we're seeing more and more courts and judges who "get it" when it comes to the internet. Not so many years ago, much of mainstream society was completely baffled by cyber-culture. But they're catching up and better understanding how things work.

Not that I'm glad that ISPs are allowed to link to child porn -- I just think that the better solution is that once such porn sites have been identified, that legal action should be taken directly against those sites, and not at the ISPs that provide access!

U.S. Judge Rejects Law to Block Child Porn on the Web

] 2004 Electoral Vote Animation
] May 24 - Present

This is an extremely interesting animation showing a map of the United States over time, with states changing color day by day, from dark red (Bush supporters) to blue (Kerry supporters) and in between. There's also a bar graph showing how the guesstimated electoral vote count has been changing day by day.

It's possible to see the entire animation run through in under a minute, and it's worth a look!

2004 Electoral Vote Animation

] The commission's first debate is set for Sept. 30 at the
] University of Miami, with the PBS anchor Jim Lehrer as
] moderator; it is to focus primarily on domestic policy.
] Two more presidential debates are to follow soon after: a
] town-hall-style meeting in St. Louis with the ABC News
] anchor Charles Gibson as moderator and a traditional
] debate in Arizona focusing primarily on foreign policy,
] with the CBS News anchor Bob Schieffer as moderator. A
] vice-presidential debate is scheduled for October in
] Cleveland, with Gwen Ifill of PBS as host.

I've been getting more and more disappointed with Kerry's campaign lately, but I'm still unhappy with some of the elements of Bush's platform as well. I'm looking forward to the debates, to help me make up my mind.

I'm also sorry that Kerry is the only choice on the Democrats side. I could easily see myself voting for Gore, and I'm sorry that he didn't run. I can't yet see myself voting for Kerry.

And damn, but I wish McCain was an option. I'd vote for McCain, easy. Or Powell, he'd be an easy "Yes" too.

Campaigns Enlist Big Names to Set Debates' Details

] Public opinion has turned slightly more supportive of
] U.S. involvement in Iraq.
]
] Fifty-one percent of Americans now say that the situation
] in Iraq was worth going to war over. In early May, that
] number was 44%.
]

Or in other words, at least 10% really have no idea what they think? ;) I've lost track of the number of people who have a strong opinion one way or the other on Iraq, but when I question them further, they've done no research, read no articles, talked to no experts, and are basically just spouting whatever they heard from the last person they had a beer with.

(sigh)

] Similarly, the two most recent Gallup Polls have shown
] that about 50% of Americans believe that the U.S.
] involvement in Iraq was not a mistake. That is up from
] three polls in late June and early July when only about
] 45% thought that sending troops to Iraq was not a
] mistake, and the "mistake" number was up to 54%.

Personally, I tend to regard everything as still pretty evenly split. 45-55 or 52-48 still feels "dead even" to me. But of course as soon as any number tips to 50.00001%, one of the parties is going to crow "a majority of Americans believe (blah blah blah)".

Gawd, I hate election years.

Gallup: Eleven Public Opinion Insights on the Election

] MOSCOW (Reuters) - A heavily armed gang has seized up to
] 400 hostages at a Russian school near Chechnya and
] threatened to shoot dead 50 children for any one of their
] comrades killed, a senior local official says.

My heart goes out to the hostages and their families. What a nightmare.

I try to imagine what the reaction would be in this country to something like this. If Al Qaeda or some other group decided to storm a school and hold hundreds of kids hostage, while demanding some sort of political change. The rage would be incomprehensible.

Barbarians.

Schoolchildren Held Hostage in Russia

Decius wrote:
] ] "What they saw were clear pictures of these young kids
] ] rioting. Chaos in their city." Next thing he knew,
] ] Richard Nixon had swept to presidential victory on the
] ] wings of a commercial proclaiming - above those
] ] selfsame pictures - that "the first civil right of
] ] every American is to be free from domestic violence."
]
] An interesting historical perspective

I heartily agree, and also enjoyed this quote:

] History never truly repeats itself. Prognostication is inherently
] unreliable. But what history can provide is a set of guidelines
] to wisdom -- guidelines many protesters refuse even to consider.
] Not all protesters. But enough protesters. All it takes is a few
] people to begin a chain reaction that could lead to disaster.

- Elonka

RE: The Village Voice: Features: Get Mad. Act Out. Re-Elect George Bush. by Rick Perlstein

One of my cousins lives in Orlando, and she and her family (husband and 2 small boys) were directly in the path of the hurricane. I asked her to write up an email of what it was like, and she sent it to me today. I found it fascinating, and am sharing it here:

I finally have a few moments to collect my thoughts about the storm. You asked great questions, so here are a few long winded answers.

We spent the storm at our house, fully expecting the storm was not on a path directly toward us, or even if it was going to get close...that the storm would diminish greatly prior to Orlando and we would not have any problems except perhaps a short power outage or loss of cable tv type of thing.

One of the outer bands of the storm hit at about 4-4:30 - very strong rain - no wind though, then afterwards the air was completetly still and quiet - no birds etc. At 8 PM as we gathered to watch the opening ceremony of the Olympics, while the boys peppered us with questions like What are the Olympics and What is Athens and why is it greasy? and is that wind I hear? the storm hit. Huge winds heavy rain and by 8:15 we lost power. The noise of the wind for the next 2 hours was incredibly intense and howly I guess. We heard a few thumps which we guessed the next day were actually shingles hitting our house, saw lots of lightning and weird incredibly bright green flashes (still don't know what those were, some people say green lightning, others say transformers blowing??) We couldn't see much except when there were flashes. Truthfully, we thought no real damage was being done. All of our trees are relatively short, mabye not taller than 30 feet and they were all standing before we went to bed. Our pool area looked intact, so we went to bed at 10:30 with strong winds still blowing and figured we'd made it.

The next morning was perfectly clear and sunny, after we all woke up we "shoed" up and ventured outside to face the mess. Shingles all over our yard, holes in the screen enclosure over the pool, shingles in the pool. Several large limbs off our orange tree....all of which was negligible. Neighbors all around us lost most of their trees, had severe damage to their pool areas, some homes lost shingles and tar paper and were down to plywood. The street that runs past our neighborhood had EVERY power pole down, so we knew then we would be doing without for a while. But things looked up quickly, while we sat outside for an icecream breakfast (which attracted lots of neighbors) the man who lives next door said he had a generator and would we like to plug in our fridge.

The kids and a friend and I started picking up shingles and handing them to Mike and other neighbors who used the loose shingles and plastic sheeting to repair about 6 roofs. The generator neighbor made pancakes and coffee which we distributed to the many passers by. EVERYONE was out walking that morning.

Our phone... [ Read More (0.3k in body) ]

] KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Nepal's embattled government has
] offered to meet a demand by Maoist rebels to end their
] blockade of the capital after the guerrillas set off two
] bombs in and around Kathmandu.

During my travels, I spent a great deal of time in Kathmandu. It was a peaceful city when I was there. Not the cleanest place in the world, but full of beautiful architecture and living history, with Buddhist monks everywhere, and a population so gentle and committed to peace that they wouldn't even force a cow out of the road if it happened to be blocking traffic. They'd just let it stand there, chewing its cud, while cars weaved around it in the heart of the city.

It saddens me to hear of violence there.

Explosions in Kathmandu