Boztopia.com

This, as my friend Greg said, is going to leave a mark:

Here’s hoping the campaign listens to Joe and runs more videos like this. Good stuff.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said in an interview Wednesday that he was uncertain how many houses he and his wife, Cindy, own.  “I think — I’ll have my staff get to you,” McCain told Politico in Las Cruces, N.M. “It’s condominiums where — I’ll have them get to you.”  The correct answer is at least four, located in Arizona, California and Virginia, according to his staff. Newsweek estimated this summer that the couple owns at least seven properties.

Here’s a hint: Read the rest of this entry →

• Successfully imported music files from my MP3 player into my Linux music player. Rhythmbox and Amarok for the win. #
• Reed Hundt clowns McCain tech policy using Meg Whitman: http://tinyurl.com/5og35y #
• BusinessWeek on the troubles for Twitter: http://tinyurl.com/5v2yvg #
• Writing Monica out of Season 3, but keeping Maya and Nikki? FAIL. http://tinyurl.com/56p3xf #
• Lieberman to speak at GOP convention. What a disgrace this guy is: http://tinyurl.com/5wlbzv #
• Underwire on Fox’s attempt to stymie Watchmen: It’s about the money. http://tinyurl.com/6q52fx #
• Steve Benen on polls showing McCain taking the lead: “Don’t Panic!” http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/16618.html #
• Sister Machine Gun on Pandora. This, as they say, is a Good Thing(tm). Yet another reason to keep this service alive at all costs. #
• I’m with Kos on the big freakout as well. It ain’t over yet: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/20/12179/3917/478/571094 #
• Who should I run into at the Metro stop that now lives in Kalorama? Big Mike Pelligrino, that’s who! #
• @ Free Press party for Marvin Ammori & Comcast order. Lots of celebs in tech circles, including Kevin Martin(!!!), showed up. Good times. #

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This awe-inspiring XKCD strip sums up the ambivalence a lot of people have about Linux as an end-user day-to-day operating system. It’s not wholly unjustifiable, either–there’s a lot of basic stuff you don’t find in Linux that you’re used to looking for on a Windows or Mac platform. Things don’t just immediately boot up and go beyond the actual boot-up itself…depending on the configuration, you can do some searching to find files or applications that are much more easily available on more common OSes.

But still, I’m amazed at how smooth and without incident my transition to a Windows-free life has been. Read the rest of this entry →

No, really:

The Canadian faux-punkette has become the latest Western pop star to face trouble in the Asian country as she was uninvited from performing a planned Kuala Lumpur gig. The Muslim-majority country’s Arts, Culture and Heritage Ministry canceled the show today amid growing protests and claims the singer was, quite simply, “too sexy.”

Seriously? Miss “Complicated” is suddenly on the same sex plateau with Nicole Scherzinger and Gwen Stefani? Dayumn, girlfriend must be growing up.

Of course, the stated reason is that the concert would tarnish Malaysia’s upcoming independence celebration by exposing the youth to prurience. It’s a reminder that what we in the West consider harmless bubblegum confectionery is akin to the Scarlet Letter in countries controlled by strict interpretations of Islam.

Of course, it could also be a sign of a larger crackdown on dissenting views of all stripes in the country, from Catholics to feminists to bloggers:

“Taken together there is a growing climate of fear and intolerance,” said Yap Swee Seng, executive director of Suaram, a leading human rights organization. “Tolerance for dissent and freedom of media is narrowing. What little media freedom existed is now under severe threat,” he said. Lawyers and civil rights activists say that this string of events points to an official assault on media freedom, freedom of expression, and religious freedoms. They fear the recent oppression signals the beginning of the end of a more liberal atmosphere ushered in after the 2004 general election, which saw Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi win a huge mandate on a pro-reform ticket.

Given that the incumbent government is resorting to passing a mass DNA-testing law in order to intimidate opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim on charges of sodomy, I’d say the honeymoon is long since over. Or to quote Avril herself:

You’re so full of shit
I can’t stand the way you act
I just can’t comprehend
I don’t think that you can handle it
I’m way over, over it

Indeed.

• Just finished the “Witchblade” DVD collection. Very good show for its time, and it’s a shame it ended so abruptly. Poor Yancy Butler. #
• Phil Collins and McCartney need to take a lesson from Kanyeezy and holla “WE WANT PRE-NUP!!!” http://music.yahoo.com/read/news/61646204 #
• Brubaker, Fraction, and Aaron are all on Twitter. All I need is Gage and that’s the FOURSQUARE OF RAW AWESOME. #
• I currently have 80 follows and 37 followees. Three more and I can at least balance the scales evenly. Help a brother out. #
• Kos sums up my Biden feelings pretty succinctly. Talk about the least worst choice: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/8/19/1202/76728 #
• Om Malik: FiOS is eating U-Verse’s lunch and drinking their milkshake: http://tinyurl.com/5fwg2g #
• Why does John McCain hate Dungeons & Dragons?: http://tinyurl.com/5lpzzv #
• Savage Dragon endorses Obama: http://tinyurl.com/5ry8xd #
• @mizd: Thanks! I appreciate that. It’s gonna be a tough slog, but I think we can do it…there’s too much at stake to believe otherwise. #
• @fireflysays: Awww, thanks! #
• @ttagaris: The SEIU mail ended up in my spam folder, but I retrieved it. Not bad for a first go-round. #
• WTF is up with the spam Twitters today? Three in the last hour or so. #
• @j_ro: Not that I know of. The company is working on a “Report Spam” feature to one-click notify of spam tweets, but it’s not live yet. #
• http://tinyurl.com/6cnuk5 #
• Mashable on Twitter spam: http://tinyurl.com/5vc4tf #
• People keep mentioning Chris Dodd on my Twitter feed, but I’ve not seen or heard any news about him of late. What’s he up to? #

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It took numerous drubbings from the blogosphere, but Obama is finally getting the message…the time has come to hit McCain hard and not wait for the next punch.

America has always been an aspirational country that votes its hopes and dreams (even in the post-9/11 era of hysteria and fear). John Edwards failed to connect with the narrative of anger that is plaguing so many Americans who are losing their homes, their jobs, the chance to educate their kids, and their way of life. By marrying the rage and frustration everyday people feel with the belief that things can get better, Obama is finally taking the road he should have taken all along. Read the rest of this entry →

• What’s eating Generation X in the workplace?: http://tinyurl.com/5gedv7 #
• Just added ScribeFire for my blogging efforts. Soon Firefox will be my entire OS, and then I shall rule the world. #
• @noboa: I #
• @noboa: I meant to say that’d it be awesome to see the looks of anguish on the faces of Kaine, Bayh, etc. when they get passed over. #
• @noboa: “I’d like to thank all the little people for making this possible–you know, the ones who pay taxes.” #
• We have to believe we can make the world a better place. Otherwise what’s the point of existence? Simply subsisting from day to day? Never. #

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For those who hadn’t heard, popular Web radio station Pandora sounded a doomsday call over the weekend, with founder Tim Westergren threatening to close the service down due to the crippling royalty structure imposed on it and other Web radio stations by the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) last year. ReadWriteWeb has a concise summary of the issues at hand, and I also recommend this article I wrote last year when the Pandora-CRB-SoundExchange battle was heating up.

My thoughts on the issue after the jump. Read the rest of this entry →

• Phelps may be the star of the show, but it’s people like Dara Torres who remind me that there’s no age limit on achieving your dreams. #
• 6 months left till the DTV transition, and we’re not even close to ready: http://boztopia.com/?p=122 #
• More proof that John McCain and Saul Tigh are one and the same: http://tinyurl.com/5bj6qj #
• @csilberman70: Unsurprising, that is. It looks like a replay of extreme right-wing lunacy versus careful, orchestrated centrism once again. #

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