Saturday, August 1, 2009

Wired mag editor ignorant of ad-blocks and hosts files



IWired/I editor in chief Chris Anderson sat down with Salon to talk about the future of journalism and news, including the future of its profitability and online ads. Amazingly, though, a href="http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/07/28/wired/index.html"in the entire interview/a, Anderson comes off as ignorant of ad-block features on browsers like Firefox, or the even more extensive ad blocking that a hosts file allows.br /br /I read the whole thing without one look at an ad.div class="blogger-post-footer"There is no god and I am his prophet.img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7532871-6498102763084468245?l=socraticgadfly.blogspot.com'//div

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More On Birther Nation - Some Polling Data



Talking Points Memo posted a href="http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/poll-28-of-republican-base-are-birthers.php?ref=fpblg"this/a yesterday:blockquoteA new Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll finds that 77% of Americans believe President Obama was Indeed Born in the United States, with only 11% saying he was not -- but there's no clear verdict among Republicans.br /br /Among Republicans, it's a much weaker plurality of only 42% who say Obama was born in the U.S., with 28% saying he was not, with a very high undecided number of 30%. Among Democrats, the number is 93%-4%, and among independents it's 83%-8%.br /br /This means that for Republicans to openly admit that Obama is indeed a natural-born American citizen, they risk alienating a significant chunk of their loyal base. And on the other hand, they could scare away independents by humoring the tin-foil hat crowd. /blockquotea href="http://www.dailykos.com/statepoll/2009/7/30/US/320"Here/a are the numbers for the poll.br /br /And then things get curiouser. An update at TPM:blockquoteAnother thing to point out is that Birtherism is heavily concentrated in the South. Only 47% of Southerners say Obama was born in the United States, 23% say he was not, and 30% aren't sure./blockquote Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly has some a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_07/019306.php"more/a on this:blockquoteA new Research 2000 poll conducted for Daily Kos asked respondents a rather straightforward question: "Do you believe that Barack Obama was born in the United States of America or not?" Since the president was born in the U.S., ideally, the results would be around 100%. div style="float: right; margin-left: 15px; margin-bottom: 10px;"br //div pThey weren't. There was, not surprisingly, a significant partisan gap. Only 4% of Democrats are confused about the president's place of birth. The number is slightly higher among independents, 8% of whom got it wrong. Among Republicans, though, 28% -- more than one in four -- believe President Obama was not born in the United States./p pFor a crazy, demonstrably false, racist idea, these are discouraging numbers./p pBut I was especially surprised by the regional breakdowns. In the Northeast, West, and Midwest, the overwhelming majorities realize the president is a native-born American. But notice the South -- only 47% got it right and 30% are unsure./p pOutside the South, this madness is gaining very little traction, and remains a fringe conspiracy theory. Within the South, it's practically mainstream./p/blockquote And some art:br /a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWWnAhE7hsi5lB0HO1s2-USL9LK1Z32AVqWZgkJkT7b7xFBEAD1OyZoajqsD5Rx0msQHjz0KvgHtov9pnz-5YgJi-Z7m0Ww3SwgRd6gXcjnPAVmFeTm0ekaesjCV6QQS7npLd3iyNG_sI/s1600-h/birthers.png"img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 383px; height: 272px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWWnAhE7hsi5lB0HO1s2-USL9LK1Z32AVqWZgkJkT7b7xFBEAD1OyZoajqsD5Rx0msQHjz0KvgHtov9pnz-5YgJi-Z7m0Ww3SwgRd6gXcjnPAVmFeTm0ekaesjCV6QQS7npLd3iyNG_sI/s400/birthers.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5364981192405656690" border="0" //aHmmm...Southern conservatives skew the GOP's numbers regarding the authenticity of an African-American's claim to be an American citizen. br /br /Who would've guessed span style="font-style: italic;"that/span would be the case?div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8213262-8275746795907331849?l=2politicaljunkies.blogspot.com'//div

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Faith-based Obama breaks more campaign promises



In a great article on President Barack Obama’s White House's Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, Sarah Posner notes a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090727/ap_on_go_co/us_health_care_overhaul"an alarming amount of warmed-over Bushism/a on faith-based issues. One example:br /blockquoteObama has reneged on his pledge, made in a July 2008 speech in Zanesville, Ohio, to undo Bush-era rules permitting direct taxpayer funding of religious institutions and allowing institutions that receive federal grants to engage in hiring discrimination based on religion./blockquotebr /That, in turn, has this response from Rev. Barry Lynn:br /blockquote"I am very disappointed that President Obama's faith-based program is being rolled out without barring evangelism and religious discrimination in taxpayer-funded programs," says Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. "It should be obvious that taxpayer-funded religious bias offends our civil rights laws, our Constitution and our shared sense of values."/blockquotebr /I could have told you this was likely a year ago.br /br /Meanwhile, allegedly progressive evangelicals like Jim Wallis have been giving Obama political cover even as he definitely tacks to the right on abortion and what religious activists he plays to.br /br /Anyway, read a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090727/ap_on_go_co/us_health_care_overhaul"the full four pages/a for details of yet another Obama selloutdiv class="blogger-post-footer"There is no god and I am his prophet.img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7532871-8470340386900856537?l=socraticgadfly.blogspot.com'//div

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A pro-Afghan war piece doesn’t even mention Pakistan?



How can you even write a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2009/0907.bergen.html"a piece like this/a, while working at a Beltway think tank, and claim to have any integrity on the issue? More "liberal" war-hawkism from the Washington Monthly.div class="blogger-post-footer"There is no god and I am his prophet.img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7532871-1892564446446826969?l=socraticgadfly.blogspot.com'//div

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Noel Symington and Roderick Spode



a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiotQg-U_bquIkg3_9vXrVR9RKbiF5c9qubM3n1rszRZ-iNGFE4_D8ZfxRhp6ZXhu2BfTTMro9cVOLwnya_GvpamUSt20jfxovqyJiQnyQ1OP2WBu2aZYx34mUXhc6fcs5u8OiGknRai8ZD/s1600-h/codewoosters.jpg"img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 139px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 200px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5364762863275143554" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiotQg-U_bquIkg3_9vXrVR9RKbiF5c9qubM3n1rszRZ-iNGFE4_D8ZfxRhp6ZXhu2BfTTMro9cVOLwnya_GvpamUSt20jfxovqyJiQnyQ1OP2WBu2aZYx34mUXhc6fcs5u8OiGknRai8ZD/s200/codewoosters.jpg" //aAs we have seen, Market Harborough's very own Mosleyite, a href="http://liberalengland.blogspot.com/2009/07/noel-symington-and-night-climbers-of.html"Noel Symington/a was a scion of the soup branch of the family. It is, for literary reasons, a great shame he did not hale from the corsetry side of the Symingtons.br /br /Any reader of P.G. Wodehouse will be familiar with Roderick Spode, Earl of Sidcup and leader of the Black Shorts. And that reader will know that Spode once made a living as the founder and proprietor of Eulalie Soeurs", a famed designer of ladies' lingerie.br /br /a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roderick_Spode"Wikipedia/a takes up the story:br /divblockquotepSpode had long attempted to keep his ownership of the business a secret, though Jeeves discovered the fact in the Junior Ganymede Club's official Book, where one of Spode's former valets had inscribed it./ppIn The Code of the Woosters, this discovery allowed Bertie to threaten Spode with public embarrassment and prevent being coshed: as Bertie says, "You can't be a successful Dictator and design women's underclothing. One or the other. Not both."/ppIndeed, whenever Bertie mentions the name "Eulalie" throughout the book, Spode instantly becomes meek and acquiescing./p/blockquoteSomehow, mentioning soup and a href="http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/ocado-compare-prices/Desserts/Symingtons_Table_Cream_Strawberry_99g.html"table creams/a would not have had the same effect./divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6606798-2474718171924079497?l=liberalengland.blogspot.com'//div

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Nick Clegg on Gary McKinnon



The Lib Dem leader has an article in this morning's a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1203572/NICK-CLEGG-If-drag-McKinnon-America-come-back.html"Daily Mail/a on the failure of the British government to prevent the extradition of Gary McKinnon to America.br /br /After a little purple prose - "doomed to pass out the rest of his days in shackles on a foreign shore" - and a good nationalistic point:br /blockquotepYou can be sure that if the situation was reversed, American politicians would be moving hell and high water to protect one of their citizens from such a gross injustice./ppIt is an affront to British justice that no one in the Labour Party has the courage to do the same./p/blockquotehe puts the boot in on Gordon Brown's government very nicely:br /blockquotepYet this case is about more than legal technicalities and political treaties. It is about compassion, knowing the difference between right and wrong - and the sorry truth is that the Labour Party lost its moral compass long ago./ppIt tried to stop Gurkhas who were prepared to die for Britain from having the right to live here. It is embroiled in allegations of complicity in torture of British citizens abroad./ppAnd now it shows no sympathy for a man with an autistic spectrum disorder who committed his crimes on British soil, confessed to British police, and simply wants the chance to face up to British justice./p/blockquoteAnd well done, incidentally, to Nick for getting into the Daily Mail. Its the paper that many of our voters read.br /br /Too often these days attacking the Mail serves as a substitute for political thought on the left.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6606798-4312488958529029275?l=liberalengland.blogspot.com'//div

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Vancouver’s Early Adoption of Open Government is Good for Civil Society



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