"Last year," I told him, "I picked up a woman in labor who had three contractions in 12 minutes in my cab. We made it to the emergency room just in time. Her husband told me they'd been calling for over an hour. You had to wait only 40 minutes."

Why Is It So Hard to Get a Cab in San Francisco?

Darwin recently recommended what is probably my favorite historical quote. A more complete version of which is provided here, along with some other interesting thoughts on the matter.

"That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation."

Thomas Jefferson on 'Intellectual Property'

"But last Thursday's raid was anything but routine, because the unnamed suspect, who has not yet been formally charged, isn't accused of cracking computers, launching a denial of service attack or distributing a virus. Instead, the joint Scotland Yard/FBI investigation is focused on his alleged authorship of the "T0rnkit," a collection of custom programs that help an intruder hide their presence on a hacked Linux machine."

UK prosecutes someone for writing a hacking tool. Sklyarov analogies made.

[ Bad, bad, bad. --Rek ]

SecurityFocus HOME News: 'T0rn' Arrest Alarms White Hats, Advocates

Rock Star Parking...

Nick and I watched a documentary about those fish just a few months after 911.

Barracuda: The Scotty Zaccharine Story: Part 3

Rad. It's almost by birthday. Anyone???

Star Wars: Collecting | LEGO Ultimate Collector Star Destroyer

-=[DON'T WORRY, BE HAPPY!]=-

Ted Rall is an editorial cartoonist for Universal Press Syndicate. His latest book "To Afghanistan And Back" chronicles his time in Afghanistan while the bombs were dropping. Quite frankly, that book is a must read. www.rall.com for the detail...

Ted has graciously allowed Comic Book Galaxy to host his "PIPELINE" essay:

...

Ted's willingness to literally put his life at risk in the name of the truth is awe-inspiring. He has a passion for the politics of the region that makes him a true expert on what the U.S. government is doing in Afghanistan and other countries, and I'm honored that Ted's allowing us to show this essay to The Galaxy's readers. You might not be interested in this subject, but you should be -- the "War on Terror" has the potential to change the lives of every citizen of the United States of America, and threatens innocents abroad as well.

...

"American soldiers, oilmen, and diplomats are rapidly getting to know this remote corner of the world, the old underbelly of the Soviet Union and a region that's been almost untouched by Western armies since the time of Alexander the Great. The game the Americans are playing has some of the highest stakes going. What they are attempting is nothing less than the biggest carve-out of a new U.S. sphere of influence since the U.S. became engaged in the Mideast 50 years ago."

--"The Next Oil Frontier," Business Week, May 27, 2002

...

I grok nearly all of the geo-political happenings that have gone down within the last 12 years. I started to push my roots further into the soil of history until I realized I was depriving myself of other nutrients. I made a decision to regain my true spirit a few weeks ago. That decision was this:

IT DOESN'T MATTER.

Nothing matters. There is nothing that I can do to change the course of the American empire. It is a juggernaut. The thrall that the American populace seems to held in is a side effect of poorly executed capitalism. To wit:

ignorance: The condition of being uneducated, unaware, or uninformed.

is: A prefix or combining form, indicating identity, or equality.

bliss: Extreme happiness; ecstasy.

IGNORANCE == BLISS

The IGNORANCE variable need not be global though :) You can choose what to be ignorant of. Geopolitics ceased to be interesting to me as soon as the latest sabre rattling started to look more serious. We are now on track to see a quite real end of life as we all know it. We probably all know this somewhere deep down inside.

One thing is sure about carnal life, and that is the end of said life. Everything in between the start of the cellular division (1,2,4,8...) to the last exchange of oxygen molecules from the air (last breath) is fraught with chaos. Fuck it, may as well enjoy the ride. I know I am.

[ Originally from Hijexx. I am getting cynical as well, but not this cynical yet. I have to keep believing that I can make a difference and keep pushing forward. In the meantime, a good read.

Ah, one last item: ignorance might == "mis-information." I think we have just entered an age where decades of PR, spin, thought control, and various other mechanisms for manipulation of the public mind have culminated in what is essentially almost an art-form: Mind control in a democratic society. Or, how the elites in the society manage to hold sway and even completely cement their actual power. I'm not sure that elites have ever enjoyed such incredible control in history. Ever. --Rek ]

My Government Went To Afghanistan And All I Got Was This Stupid Pipeline

"In interviews yesterday, U.N. officials and other experts in foreign affairs suggested that by heeding the global cry against a unilateral U.S. invasion, Bush had skillfully maneuvered the world governing body into a position where it had little choice but to sharply increase pressure on the Iraqi dictator. If the U.N. did not act, the experts said, it would appear incapable of enforcing the Gulf War resolutions it passed to control Saddam -- and which Saddam has flouted in recent years. "

Salon.com News | Suddenly, the U.N. backs Bush

Under the American Driver's License Identification Information Act (ADLIIA - enacted on July 9, 2000), every state in the union is required to make available to the public a digitized copy of each and every valid driver's license, in their respective state. The National Driver's License Records Bureau has been established to create the country's only centralized database of driver's licenses, on the more than 220 million licensed drivers, in the United States.

...

This is an (ahem) EXTREMELY FRIGHTENING DEVELOPMENT-TM

Welcome to the National Drivers License Database

"God doesn't think we're as important as we do."

An interesting daily quote site. Watch history roll over people one line at a time.

D I T H E R A T I

"Do you want an original and dynamic logo, designed at a reasonable price? "

I want to plug these folks too. They cleaned up the MemeFactory image used in the cafe press store (which will be open soon...). Whats more, they did it on a Saturday with no notice at a very good price. This is definitely a good place to turn for your business graphics needs.

LogoFusion: Creating your Perfect Logo !