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By Sheila Lennon
'Bottom-up' journalism from the pros
Jan 17, 2003 - (Last
week's weblog)
After
the copyright smackdown: What next? Don't despair at the Supreme
Court's gift to Disney, says one expert. The fight has really only just
begun: At Salon,
When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that Congress was within
its constitutional bounds to extend the duration of all copyrights by
20 years -- up to 70 years beyond the life of the author and potentially
infinitely -- many saw the ruling as a knockout blow to the movement
to reform copyright.
Some on the public interest side are tempted to lament what could be
called the "Dred Scott case for culture," unjustifiably locking
up content that deserves to be free. After all, six of the nine justices
concurred with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg when she issued a stark opinion
that cavalierly dismissed the historical "bargain" that justified
American copyright in the first place: We the People agree to grant
a limited, temporary monopoly to a creator or publisher in exchange
for access to creativity and the eventual return of the work to a state
of freedom.
...As is so often the case, the best rallying cry came from a dissenter
in the case. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote: "It is easy to understand
how the statute might benefit the private financial interests of corporations
or heirs who won existing copyrights. But I cannot find any constitutionally
legitimate, copyright-related way in which the statute will benefit
the public." This is the key to any public interest movement: Show
that narrow special interests are getting away with everything and the
public interest is suffering.
Amy Harmon strikes a similar note in the N.Y. Times (reg. req.)
: A
Corporate Victory, but One That Raises Public Consciousness
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PlanetReplay
shuts down part of its site: J.D. Lasica reports,
PlanetReplay.com, a website
popular with digital video recorder (DVR) fans, shut down part of its
operations today, fearing a lawsuit by Hollywood and violation of users'
privacy rights.
After intense questioning by entertainment company lawyers on Tuesday,
Planet Replay site operator Chad Little removed a part of the site that
helped ReplayTV owners share shows. The lawyers asked about site content
and user data, so Little feared for users' privacy and worried that
the entertainment companies could sue him claiming the website helps
copyright infringement.
This is an informative site for owners of DVRs of all vintages. When
my daughter's Christmas present -- an older but still new ReplayTV from
eBay that doesn't require a paid subscription -- wouldn't connect to get
the listings, it was a Planet Replay forum that told us the problem lay
with the default modem-speed setting, and how to change it. Sure enough,
it connected after the tweak.
J.D. points to an Electronic Frontier Foundation release on the actions
here.
Link
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Senators
vow to halt `data mining' project: From the San Jose Mercury News,
WASHINGTON - Reflecting increased alarm about a Pentagon plan to find
terrorists by trolling the electronic records of all Americans, several
senators took steps Thursday to rein in the project and halt other ``data
mining'' efforts until Congress can review the implications on civil
liberties.
Sens. Dianne Feinstein, Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, and Ron Wyden, D-Ore.,
drafted an amendment Thursday night to the $390 billion federal spending
bill now being considered by Congress to temporary stop the Pentagon's
Total Information Awareness project.
Link
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University
Of Michigan Response To White
House Announcement On Affirmative Action.
Link
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Syndirella
is a new, free, rss
aggregator for Windows. It will gather headlines and links from sites
that make available a feed and bring them to you -- no waiting for pages
to load to see if anything interests you. This one requires that you download
.Net from Microsoft (21 megs), but it doesn't run in your browser, so
you aren't locked into Microsoft's browser.
Details on the site. It's still in beta, so don't expect much documentation.
Power users only, for now.
Link
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Giant
squid attacks boat: Either
life imitates art, or it's a big fish tale. BBC reports,,
French sailors taking part in the round-the-world Jules Verne Trophy
say they have come across one of the most elusive monsters of the sea:
the giant squid.
Veteran yachtsman Olivier De Kersauson, who sailed from Brittany on
Saturday, said that several hours into his voyage he found that a giant
squid had clamped on to the hull of his boat.
The creature, scientifically known as Architeutis dux, is the largest
of all invertebrates. Scientists believe it can be as long as 18 metres
(60 feet).
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Paul
Krugman's perfect answer: At Google
Answers, a site where anyone may pose a question and set a price they'll
pay for an expert answer, a customer calling himself "drstrangelove-ga"
wanted the dirt on N.Y. Times writer Paul
Krugman:
"I would like to acquire as much information as possible about
the personal and professional life of Paul Krugman, the Princeton economics
professor who writes a column for the New York Times. ... I will pay
$100 for this as a starting point, and if satisfied, will tip generously
and may ask follow-up questions for which I will pay also (but don't
play Scheherezade on me, now)."
He got his answer -- from Paul Krugman, who also posted the address at
which to send him $100.
Link
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"Web
logs about China by foreigners in China, Chinese people, or other
people with a strong interest in China."
Link
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The
Infant of Prague blog. There is nothing that can't be blogged.
This one's devoted to the devotional statue.
Link
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Jan 16, 2003
The 'Lennon incident': Who knew? What a hoot!
Brendan O'Neill,
who describes himself on his own blog as
"a London-based journalist and assistant editor of Spiked.
He teaches online journalism at universities in and around London,"
published an essay in Spiked titled Gone
to the blogs. In it, he calls my publication of the transcript
of my September interview with the New York Times "The 'Lennon incident'
(as some now refer to it…) "
Now my boss wants an incident named after him, and both he and my brother
wonder if Lennon will become a verb.
O'Neill refers to me as "a well-known American blogger," which
we all know makes no sense. I think the only well-known American blogger
is Wil Wheaton
(Wesley
Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation) but most people
don't know he's a blogger, so it probably doesn't count.
O'Neill says American
Journalism Review columnist Barb Palser considers what I did a 'really
revolutionary scenario.'
But what Palser actually wrote was, "The really revolutionary scenario,
though, is the source who publishes his or her interview. Almost anyone
can set up a virtual press in order to contribute to the reporting process,
talk back to a journalist or set the record straight."
My interview with David Gallagher of the Times was more collegial than
controversial, since his story sought only to shine a spotlight on a few
journalist-bloggers.
But anyone in the news who thinks that their statements were taken out
of context or edited to show them in a bad light does now have recourse:
Email interviews leave both parties with "hard copy," and any
number of bloggers would be happy to post and publicize the whole interview
if a source were to seek an outlet. The world would know.
It's this that draws the attention of the journalism publications, not
my benign "rest of the story" transcript.
Now, on to the real stuff: News, sites and blogs you might not hear about
elsewhere:
Link
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More fallout from the Supremes'
copyright ruling:
- From Dan Gillmor, the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News's primo technology
writer and blogger, Copyright
ruling is a ripoff of consumers:
Who got robbed? You did. I did.
Who won? Endlessly greedy media barons will now collect billions
from works that should have long since entered the public domain.
Like public lands and the oceans, the public domain is controlled
by no one -- a situation that infuriates people who believe that
nothing can have value unless some person or corporation owns it.
The public domain is the pool of knowledge from which new art and
scholarship have arisen over the centuries.
The Constitution talks about granting rights to creators of ``science
and useful arts'' but only for limited periods. After that, the
works can be used freely by anyone.
Walt Disney understood the value of the public domain, and used
it precisely as other great artists had done. He updated an out-of-copyright
character to create Mickey Mouse, for example, and launched an empire.
The company he founded later used writer Victor Hugo's work, which
was also no longer owned by anyone, to create a cartoon based on the
Hunchback of Notre Dame saga. The Disney animators had every right
to build new works on old ones -- and the public also got the benefit.
Try the same thing with Mickey Mouse and you'll be hauled into court
faster than you can say ``Goofy.''
- Lawrence Lessig, the lawyer who argued the case against extending
copyrights before the court: The
silent five
Link
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Unusual protestors:
- Raging
Grannies: The original group of performers/peace activists
started in Victoria, B.C.; there are some 60 groups now, with branches
throughout Canada and in Boston,
Detroit,
Seattle
and Pittsburgh,
Minnesota, New York and California. They sing for peace in Pittsburgh
using their
own songbook, and here's
one the Seatlle grannies use.
- A group of Republicans who oppose war in Iraq took out a full-page
ad in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal. Here's
the ad.(pdf) The group is Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities
(P.O. Box 1976 Old Chelsea Station, New York, NY 10113) and, while they
don't seem to have a web site, posted a description in a
help-wanted ad for an executive assistant:
Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities is a national not-for-profit
organization of 400+ corporate executives, directors and business
owners. Our goal is to redirect $40 billion from America's annual
military budget into public investments that benefit our people
and our communities.
To achieve this goal, we are waging a multi-faceted 4-year, multi-million
dollar national marketing and political action campaign that is
integrated, comprehensive, creative, informative, entertaining and
of a sufficient scale to be effective.
The research and analysis on this issue have already been done
by respected military experts including retired generals, admirals
and civilian defense planners. Our mission is to market the issue
through creative messages to target audiences, using our novel Business
Leaders membership and sophisticated marketing techniques.
Link
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ACLU
Spooked by Domestic Spying: Wired reports,
A black man visits an affluent white suburb to attend a co-worker's
barbecue. That same night, a crime takes place in the neighborhood.
Police review footage taken from a security camera installed in the
area, use face-recognition software to identify the man and visit his
home to ask him what he was doing in a neighborhood where he "didn't
belong."
That's one of the futuristic scenarios offered by the American Civil
Liberties Union in its new report titled: "Bigger
Monster, Weaker Chains: The Growth of an American Surveillance Society."
Related: ACLU
gains support since terror attacks. The Billings (Montana) Gazette
reports,
The nation's best-known civil liberties group links the passage in
2001 of the USA Patriot Act, which greatly expanded government surveillance
powers, and other governmental actions to a 20 percent increase in
its membership since August 2001. There now are about 330,000 members
of the ACLU, compared with 275,000 before Sept. 11.
Related: Philanthropist
Gives A.C.L.U. $8 Million
Link
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Racial
Politics Emerging as Major Issue for Bush: President's Actions Don't
Match Words When It Comes to Inclusion Efforts
Washington Post columnist Terry Neal, who is black, writes compellingly
about a range of issues related to the headline,including the Supreme
Court battle over the University of Michigan's affirmative action program,
and Bush's decision to renominate Mississippian Charles Pickering to the
federal appellate court.
But one paragraph jumped out at me:
But then again, some political observers say the Bush campaign strategy,
and his strategy in office, has been less about attracting black voters
than it has about sending a message to moderate, white suburban voters
-- especially women -- in the north that he is a different kind of southern
Republican, one who doesn't use racial code words and divide by race.
It jumped out because i had just read something very similar in a Salon
interview with John McWhorter, a senior fellow at the conservative
Manhattan Institute,, and author of Losing
the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America and a new book, Authentically
Black: Essays for the Black Silent Majority.
Here's McWhorter's response to this question: "So why did the Republicans,
and Bush, ask Lott to step down? It seemed to be a fairly strong consensus.
Is it all cynical -- was morality not involved here at all? Was it just
fear?"
"Of course. They don't want to be seen as racist because that
detracts votes from them, especially those of female, middle-class votes
apparently...."
Back to Terry Neal:
Amid this backdrop, a group of Republicans, called together by black
conservative columnist Armstrong Williams, met Monday to discuss the
party's image problem with minority voters and begin hashing out ways
to address it. Williams said the meeting, which was attended by new
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (Tenn.), Republican National Committee
Chairman Marc Racicot and several prominent black conservatives, focused
on how to get more African Americans into visible roles within the party.
"We've got to change the apparatus," Williams said. "We've
got to get some black staffers in the Senate and in the House. We've
got to get some black delegates. And we've got to start educating people
so they stop making these stupid racist comments. Over the last 30 years,
we've squandered the moral high ground on race. We've got to regain
it."
... But Williams said neither the Pickering nomination nor the University
of Michigan case came up. Asked why such an important topic was not
discussed, Williams replied: "You think that's important?"
Voters need to pay less attention to what politicians say, and more to
what they have done as a predictor of how they can be expected to govern
if elected to higher offices.
Link
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New
black cable channel:
Plans to create a new cable channel aimed at African Americans, announced
yesterday by Lanham-based Radio One Inc. and Philadelphia-based Comcast
Corp., came after a year of intense negotiations involving several key
African American business owners interested in launching a network targeting
the black community, sources said yesterday.
In addition to Alfred Liggins III, chief executive of Radio One, the
largest African American-owned media company, others trying to put together
deals included hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons and television actor and
producer Tim Reid.
Link
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Portable
player unlocks net radio: BBC reports,
An innovative radio that lets you listen to internet stations anywhere
in the home has been showcased at the world's largest consumer technology
event in Las Vegas.
The GlobalTuner InTune200 is a small portable radio that connects to
a computer wirelessly, providing access to any music on the PC or to
thousands of internet radio stations.
The radio is likely to be bundled by BT (British Telecom) with its
broadband service as part of a promotional drive in the UK.
The player is small and light, so that you can carry it around the
house and listen to internet radio even if you are in the garden or
the bathroom.
It comes with a base unit that plugs into the USB socket on a computer.
This unit uses a two-way wireless data link to send music and information
from the computer to the radio.
If the PC is connected to the internet, you can listen to one of the
thousands of internet radio stations.
Or you could simply play back any songs on the computer's hard drive.
The InTune can also just be used as a FM radio set and has been deliberately
designed to look and feel like a normal radio.
The number of radio stations on the net is shrinking, thanks to CARP
(coverage at RAIN), but it's
a nice idea, anyway.
Link
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Madelyn
Murray O’Hair In Hell is funny short fiction (we hope
it's fiction) by Kevin Guilfoil at The Morning News.
The plot: The narrator (who seems to be Irving Wallace, co-author with
his son David Wallechinsky of 1977's The Book of Lists) welcomes the atheist
to hell.
‘If there’s no devil, then who runs things down here?’
‘We’re on our own,’ I said. ‘We elect representatives
every two years. Parliament meets here in Dis City. Each Circle has
something like a town council. Lots of us are employed in civil service
of one kind or another.’
Madelyn tried to lean forward but surrendered with a lurch and a wheeze
to the hollows of the couch cushions. ‘Wait – Are you saying
Hell is a democracy and Heaven is a goddamn dictatorship?’
‘Papa Doc’s always making a big deal about that,’
I said. ‘He writes letters to the newspaper.’
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Twenty
things you must eat before you die: There's an old joke that Heaven
is an English policeman, a French chef, a German administrator, and an
Italian lover. Hell is an English chef, a French policeman, a German lover,
and an Italian administrator.
This may explain some of the choices the English food stars made for
this Guardian (U.K.) story: Deep-fried shredded pig's ear, hot sausages
and raw oysters, veal marrow stars in ossobuco, beef marrow in steak bordelaise,
wild boar prosciutto, raw milk buffalo cheese, scrambled eggs finished
with butter, sea urchins and sliced white truffle...
Link
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Library
cats map: Apparently, there has been only one library cat in Rhode
Island, at the Island Free Library on Block Island. B.C.
(Barcode) was feline in residence from 1993-1998. Aren't there any
others in the whole state?
Link
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The
Truth About Trading Spaces: Better Homes
and Gardens republishes a livingroom magazine story about
the TV show in which folks trade houses and redesign each other's houses.
The story strings over several pages, but that's not readily apparent,
so scroll down to "Next Page..."
Link
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Jan 15, 2003
John
Dean: The Nixon Shadow that Hovers Over the Bush White House. Your
father's oldsmobile deconstructed by Richard Nixon's White House Counsel
at History News Network.
Link
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Supreme
Court Upholds Longer Copyrights: Here's The Washington Post take
on the decision upholdng the Sonny Bono Coyright Extension law, which
extends copyright protection 70 years after the death of the creator.
Works owned by corporations are now protected for 95 years.
The public domain is toast.
Creative Commons founder and Stanford law professor Larry
Lessig, who argued the case in October, blogs
his sadness. Eric Eldred, who brought the case -- Eldritch
vs. Ashcroft -- had contended that the law unfairly limits what he
can make available on a public web library he runs,
Eldritch Press.
Lessig's links to the opinions: "There were three opinions. The
majority
was written by Justice Ginsburg. Justice
Stevens
wrote a dissent, as did Justice
Breyer."
Donna
Wentworth at Copyfight is collecting more links.
Link
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Pete
Townshend's January 2002 treatise on the easy availability of child pornography
on the Internet: It's titled "A Different Bomb"; the
six pages are reproduced at The Smoking Gun.
Link
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Rhode Island poet Henry Gould has a
blog called HGPoetics. Here's an interview
with Gould. via Noosphere
Blues.
Link
to this item | Commen
 Interesting
posters from The Art. Lebedev Russian design studio.
Link
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t
The
United States of America has gone mad by John
Le Carre (The Spy who Came in from the Cold, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier,
Spy, The Honorable Schoolboy, Smiley's People and The Little Drummer Girl.)
in the Times Online (U.K.) Thanks to Dan Johnsen for the link.
Link
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t
Writings
from Bellevue: At New Scientist,
The Bellevue Literary Review, published by the New York University
department of medicine at Bellevue Hospital, is drawing on a long literary
heritage. Bellevue has nursed William Burroughs, Eugene O'Neill and
many other close-to-the-edge writers and artists. Danielle Ofri, the
review's editor-in-chief and a doctor at Bellevue, believes scientists
and doctors too often dismiss the power of language. Words, she tells
Michael Bond, are a vital part of the healing process.
Link
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Jumpstart
Broadband Act: Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and George Allan
(R-Va.) team up to sponsor a bill that calls for the Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) to allocate not less than 255 megahertz of contiguous
spectrum in the 5 gigahertz band for unlicensed use by wireless broadband
devices.
Washington -- California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer teamed up Tuesday
with Virginia Republican Sen. George Allen on a proposal the two say
will offer a quick and cheap way to spur high-speed broadband communications,
which nearly everyone in Washington agrees is vital to rescuing the
moribund high-tech industry.
At a Commerce Committee hearing Tuesday, Boxer and Allen introduced
their Jumpstart Broadband Act, which would make more unlicensed radio
spectrum available for wildly popular new Wi-Fi -- or wireless fidelity
-- devices. These allow computer users to obtain wireless Internet connections
if they are within a short distance of a hard-line broadband connection,
much the way cordless telephones, garage door openers and baby monitors
work in the home.
Senators
Introduce Wireless Broadband Bill: A more technical take on this story
at internet.com.
Link
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Wireless
networking roundup 2: (Where Bluetooth's at, and 802.11 alphabet
soup). Daniel Rutter, who reviews hardware on his Dan's
Data site, sorts out the current wireless options this time.
Since the last time I checked out wireless networking gear, it's become
cheaper, and commoner, and easier to use. This isn't surprising. Information
technology that doesn't follow this path is the weird stuff.
Thanks to lower prices and higher gain antennas, both commercial and
home-made, wireless links are now lacing the suburbs and the hinterland;
normal human beings, meanwhile, are just enjoying not having to run
cables everywhere to set up a LAN. And new wireless standards are popping
up.
The puzzle, as always, is what to choose, and why.
Link
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The
World’s First Photograph: On exhibit at the University of
Texas.
Link
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ArtBots
(The Robot Talent Show) calls for entries: More art show than
battlebots, Artbots is accepting applications for its next exhibit.
The second annual international ArtBots: The Robot Talent Show will
take place at EYEBEAM Gallery in New York City in mid-July, 2003. Creators
of talented robots are invited to submit their work for possible inclusion
in the show.
The deadline for entries is March 1st, 2003.
Here's a short
video from the first exhibit, last May.
Link
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Techniques
for foiling Big Brother: "Eleven behavioral techniques of
neutralization intended to subvert the collection of personal information"
by MIT Professor Emeritus Gary T. Marx, titled A Tack in the Shoe:
Neutralizing and Resisting the New Surveillance.
Link
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Jan 14, 2003
Off yesterday, playing catch-up today...
The "joy of CD collecting"???: From
Music
Industry Braces for a Shift in the NY Times,
Hilary Rosen, chief executive of the Recording
Industry Association of America, which represents the interests
of recording companies, cautioned that lowering the price of CD's would
not solve the industry's problems and that it would serve only to reduce
revenue even further. The problems need to be tackled in other ways,
she said, by communicating better with music buyers.
... For example, she said, the industry needs to promote the joy of
CD collection and to revive the value of owning a physical object. ...
I own 45s, LPs, cassettes, CDs -- some of the same tunes in each format.
(I've paid for these songs several times now.) I call them all clutter.
All we want is the big jukebox in the sky, serving the music where, when
and how we want it.
We'll find it, peer-review it, do our own filtering, spread the word
about good new bands and musicians ourselves. (As we do about good Web
sites.)
We'll pay musicians to play, toss coins in their guitar cases, pay a
cover at the clubs. Rosen can have the CD coasters.
What will the record companies do?
Related: Dan
Gillmor: Cartel's copyright control loosening
Link
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FCC's
Powell Calls TiVo 'God's Machine': AP reports,
LAS VEGAS –– The chairman of the Federal Communications
Commission is a new convert – to the personal digital video recorder
faithful.
"My favorite product that I got for Christmas is TiVo," FCC
chairman Michael Powell said during a question and answer session at
the International
Consumer Electronics Show. "TiVo is God's machine."
If Powell's enthusiasm for digital recordings of TV broadcasts are
reflected in FCC rulings, the entertainment industry could find it difficult
to push in Washington its agenda for technical restrictions on making
and sharing such recordings.
Powell said he intended to use the TiVo machine to record TV shows
to play on other television sets in his home, and even suggested that
he might share recordings with his sister if she were to miss a favorite
show.
"I'd like to move it to other TVs," he said of his digitally
recorded programming. A number of products already allow that.
A TiVo competitor, SONICblue, has been sued by top motion picture studios
and some television networks over a ReplayTV device that enables users
to share digitally recorded shows over the Internet with a limited group
of fellow ReplayTV owners.
Powell made the statements during a brief exchange with Gary Shapiro,
who heads the Consumer Electronics Association, a lobbying group opposed
to government-imposed restrictions on TiVo-like digital recording technology.
Very related: TV
biz worries as Powell touts TiVo
Cable king Brian Roberts of Comcast says a "TiVo in the house
is the Napster (news - web sites)" of the future.
TiVo also stirs piracy concerns, because the TV industry is worried
that hackers will be able to copy and distribute programs stored on
the machines. SonicBlue's latest Replay PVRs are an even bigger concern
(and the target of industry lawsuits), because they are connected to
the Internet and allow a user to send up to 15 copies of a favored program
to other Replay users, exactly what Powell told conference attendees
he'd like to do with his TiVo.
"Is there a way to share a program with my sister? She loves TV
as much as I do," Powell said.
Shapiro shot back, to the merriment of the audience, "It's up
to you, actually."
That's what has broadcasters and cablers worried.
Link
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Wireless
ingenuity in Egypt: Fascinating account by Hassan Adly, owner
of an Internet cafe in Hurghada, Egypt: "...For a total cost of about
US$360.- I built a 1 km wireless link, running for the past 2 months at
2Mbps. Yay!"
I have an Internet cafe in Hurghada, Red Sea, Egypt, with an expensive
broadband satellite connection, located 1 km from my house. The roofs
of both buildings have a clear line of sight between them. At home I
was previously limited to a V.90 modem connection, and remote administration
of the cyber cafe network was impossible.
A fast connection between my house and the cafe was becoming more and
more necessary, mostly in order to provide remote administration at
acceptable speeds, but also of course to finally get fast Internet at
home! Me-wann' download quicky-quicky now!
How he did it -- the tech equivalent of bubble gum and paper clips --
is very cool.
Link
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Deep thought: Two interesting links,
Future
of operating systems: simplicity by David Gelernter at Computerworld.
Would
You Really Follow a Manager into Battle? by Britt Blaser on his
blog, Escapable Logic:
Design Study for a New MicroEconomy
Link
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'I
Hate You': Vancouver family finds surprising message in baby's toy:
Blanche Skelton was feeding her baby when she heard something besides
the soothing sound of ocean waves coming from a toy attached to the
crib.
It was saying, "I hate you."
After asking her husband, her parents-in-law, and everyone else in
the home east of Hazel Dell, they were convinced. The toy was definitely,
albeit quietly, saying "I hate you."
Blanche's 6-month-old son, Alex, got the toy as a Christmas present.
It makes soothing sounds and music for baby to fall asleep to, with
an illuminated picture of a cartoon-style aquarium on the front.
But in between the white noise of ocean waves, a tiny babyish voice
pipes up with childhood angst.
Made in China, the toy was sold by Wal-Mart and carries the Kid Connection
brand, which is a store brand.
Blanche and her husband, Steve, said they went to the Wal-Mart store
Thursday and listened to two other aquarium toys like theirs. Sure enough,
there was that creepy voice.
Link
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The
"Mondrian Machine": Make your own painting. via
Infomaniac.
Link
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GOP
senators on the warpath: Robert Novak, writing in the Chicago
Sun-Times,
Republican senators gathering last Wednesday for their session-opening
''retreat'' should have been happy, blessed with a regained majority
and a popular president. They were not. Instead, they complained bitterly
of arrogance by the Bush administration, especially the Pentagon, in
treatment of Congress along the road to war.
Two years of growing discontent boiled over during the closed-door
meeting at the Library of Congress. White House chief of staff Andrew
Card was there to hear grievances from President Bush's Senate base
that it is ignored and insulted by the administration, particularly
by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, in preparing for war against Iraq.
Recital of complaints began with Sen. John Warner, a pillar of the Senate
GOP establishment.
No senator more solidly supports Bush's national security policy than
Warner, the 75-year-old chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee
who was re-elected last year to a fifth Senate term from Virginia. A
veteran of the Navy (World War II) and Marine Corps (Korean War) and
a former secretary of the Navy, he has devoted long public service to
American's national defense.
Consequently, Warner had his colleagues' attention when he addressed
Card. ''I will not tolerate,'' he boomed, ''a continuation of what's
been going on the last two years.'' He cited cavalier treatment that
denies information even to the venerable top Senate Republican on Armed
Services. To specify whom he was talking about, Warner said he had breakfast
scheduled the next morning with Rumsfeld and would tell the secretary
of defense the same thing.
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 Giant
lava lamp for Soap Lake, Wash.? There's a booster site that brims
with confidence,
Soap Lake, a once bustling spa town due to its unique mineral lake
with water that rivals Baden Baden, Germany, is located in Eastern Washington
State, USA and is no longer bustling, but in fact needs re-development.
... Two enterprising citizens of the town, who both possess design
backgrounds, have hit upon an idea that they believe will guarantee
the revitalization effort.
The giant Lava Lamp, proposed for the very center of the town is a
wonderfully whimsical and appropriate theme structure for Soap Lake.
“After 14,000,000 years Lava has returned to Soap Lake.”
The region is one of the last areas of the earth to have had a massive
flow of lava. The development of The Lava Lamp theme structure returns
‘Lava” to the region in a rather unusual and incredibly
interesting way.
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Subterranean Homepage News
by Sheila Lennon
features & interactive producer of projo.com
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