the great myths of ronaldus magnus »

soupsoup:

azspot:

Can you imagine how the right-wing noise machine would react if President Obama:

Increased federal spending as a percentage of the economy to levels previously seen only during World War II.

Tripled the national debt.

Dramatically increased Social Security payroll taxes on employees and employers.

Increased the capital gains tax to 28%.

Raised gas taxes.

Increased federal government employment.

Created a massive new cabinet department.

Sold arms to Iran.

Withdrew entirely from a Middle Eastern war zone in response to a single deadly terrorist attack against US troops.

Funded terrorist groups in our own hemisphere.

Signed a treaty committing to make deep cuts in our strategic nuclear weapons.

Proposed the total elimination of nuclear weapons.

I’m sure there would not be enough tea in India to express the wingnut outrage.

And what if the most expensive federal office building in history was subsequently named after him? I’m sure it would be mocked as a fitting legacy to this “big government” president.

The president I’m describing is, of course, Ronald Reagan.

ACLU Says Extracting DNA From Suspects Unconstitutional »

and i agree with them.

as it stands now, in certain states the police can, or are required to, take a saliva or blood sample of everyone they arrest for a felony.  the problem lies in the fact that not every person the police arrest is guilty of the crime with which they are charged.

basically, the argument is summed in this quote:

Our position is before you take somebody’s genetic information, you need either a warrant or that person needs to be convicted of a felony with all the procedural protections anybody gets when you are charged and tried with a felony.

393. Never eat lunch at your desk.

(via rulesformyunbornson)

As read while I am eating lunch at my desk.

Building Green Doesn't Always Cost More »

A recent study of 107 construction projects in New York shows green construction does not always cost significantly more than traditional construction. The Urban Green Council study found that the average construction cost for a high-rise residential building without LEED certification was $436 per square foot compared with an average cost with certification of $440 per square foot. The study also found that some LEED projects with a Platinum or Gold rating were completed for a lower cost than projects that achieved the lower Silver rating

FBI Investigated Coder for Liberating Paywalled Court Records »

The Great Court Records Caper began last year when the judiciary and the Government Printing Office experimented with giving away free access to PACER at 17 select libraries around the country. Swartz decided to use the trial to grab as many of the public court records as he could and, perversely, release them to the public.

He visited one of the libraries — the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals library in Chicago — and installed a small PERL script he’d written. The code cycled sequentially through case numbers, requesting a new document from PACER every three seconds. In this manner, Swartz got nearly 20 million pages of court documents, which his script uploaded to Amazon’s EC2 cloud computing service.

Or, as the FBI report put it, the public records were “exfiltrated.”

A String Walks Into A Bar…

A string walks into a bar with a few friends and orders a beer. The bartender says, “I’m sorry, but we don’t serve strings here.”

The string goes back to his table. He ties himself in a loop and messes up the top of his hair. He walks back up to the bar and orders a beer.

The bartender squints at him and says, “Hey, aren’t you a string?”

The string says, “Nope, I’m a frayed knot.”

Updating iPhone OS to 3.1 changed my calendar colors. I’m not amused.

facebook lite is alive! http://bit.ly/zCn1x

though i hardly ever write on it, just updated my wordpress blog to avoid the recent security scare http://bit.ly/wBLNv