All those topics that i wish i had time to pursue more earnestly.

2:15 sl time. reuters sim in second life is occupied by…. hank voodoo and buridan simon… otherwise… it is a wasteland on a sunday afternoon. This brings into question many thing…. temporality and immediacy of media… to start with, but markets and identity on a second level. It just makes me wonder.

ArchiveGrid — Open the door to history:
ArchiveGrid is an important destination for searching through historical documents, personal papers, and family histories held inarchives around the world.

Thousands of libraries, museums, and archives have contributed nearly a million collection descriptions to ArchiveGrid.

Researchers searching ArchiveGrid can learn about the many items in each of these collections, contact archives to arrange a visit to examine materials, and order copies.

prototype | DLCMS:
What is a DLCMS?

This site is a prototype DLCMS (digital library content management system) built using Drupal, some standrard Drupal modules, and a couple of custom-written modules to add some extra functionality. See the “about” section for more detail.

Papers, Please! » Blog Archive » “Mother, may I?”:
Should you have to ask for permission from the government before you are allowed to get on a plane or cruise ship?
The Department of Homeland Security has proposed that airlines and cruise ships be required to get individual permission (”clearance”) from the DHS for each individual passenger on all flights to, from, or via the U.S. Unless the answer is “Yes” — if the answer is “no” or “maybe”, or if the DHS doesn’t answer at all — the airline wouldn’t be allowed to give you a boarding pass, or let you or your luggage on the plane or ship.

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Gahhhh! another overzealous program of fictional protections. People do not, should not, need permission to leave the country. This goes beyond the sillyness problem of security theater in airports and elsewhere and drives right down into our fundamental capacity to be citizens.

Politicizing the IRS is a Political Cancer Symptom:
The NYT reports that the admonistration is manipulating the IRS for political gain: I.R.S. Going Slow Before Election,

The commissioner of internal revenue has ordered his agency to delay collecting back taxes from Hurricane Katrina victims until after the Nov. 7 elections and the holiday season, saying he did so in part to avoid negative publicity.

The commissioner, Mark W. Everson, who has close ties to the White House, said in an interview that postponing collections until after the midterm elections, along with postponing notices to people who failed to file tax returns, was a routine effort to avoid casting the Internal Revenue Service in a bad light.

Except that it isn’t routine at all: “four former I.R.S. commissioners, who served under presidents of both parties, said that doing so because of an election was improper and indefensible.”

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I agree, this is indefensible. It is wrong to use tax collection or lack of for political purposes. Tax collection is about supporting the critical infrastructure of the nation, and it should never be made to appear to benefit one party or another, it benefits everyone.

:
Your rating regarding science/non-science: 7
Your rating regarding values & humankind: 8

Your position on the worldview spectrum: (8,7)

<a href=”http://www.commongood.org/worldview_quiz.htm”>worldview quiz</a>

it’s my birthday, not your birthday, mine. yep… and picasso’s… and well.. bobby knights…

United Nations Day:
The anniversary of the entry into force of the United Nations Charter on 24 October 1945 has been celebrated as United Nations Day since 1948. It has traditionally been marked throughout the world by meetings, discussions and exhibits on the achievements and goals of the Organization. In 1971, the General Assembly recommended that Member States observe it as a public holiday

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Happy United Nations Day!

:
s time slides past, doling out its irreversible quanta, perpetual infantility offers us… the perfect wristwatch: shockproof, waterproof, antimagnetic, a perpetual movement which says everything about us except the single intolerable truth: that we have had it and are headed for oblivion, tick by tick.

We have had to make it up as we go along, we Big Babies. And we have not done a terribly good job. We want (don’t we?) to grow up. How? Here’s the simple answer: watch carefully, ask why, and mind our manners. It’s really that simple. How would the world be if everyone did it?
It would be grown up.
How to be an adult

Don’t be affronted Being affronted (or offended, or complaining about ‘inappropriateness’) is no response for a grown-up. Only children believe the world should conform to their own view of it: a sort of magical thinking that can only lead to warfare, terrorism, unmanageable short-term debt and the Blair/Bush alliance

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how to be an adult, this is a nice essay.

Los Angeles Times: McCarthyism Without Habeas Corpus:
My mother always said that in the U.S. you had the right to One Phone Call, and that if the men who rang the doorbell came for her, if something were to happen to her, she would let me know. What if there were no One Phone Call?

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Indeed, what if there is no habeas corpus for political dissidents? to be an enemy… of your own state. we’ve seen those movies as fictions in the recent history and now they might be more true than false… how can one have the right to their own opinion, the freedom of their own conscience… if they are not free in their own body?