19 May 2003
Surprise! Politicans Lie

Talk about a useless study.... this came from Wired News - Furthermore.

It's official -- after intensive research, scientists have concluded that politicians lie. In a study published by a U.K. government-funded Economic and Social Research Council, Glen Newey, a political scientist at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland, concluded that lying is an important part of politics in modern democracy, and may even be justified at times, such as when national security is at risk. "Politics should be regarded as less like an exercise in producing truthful statements and more like a poker game," he said. If voters asked fewer questions, politicians would tell fewer lies. Bill Clinton famously lied about his affair with Monica Lewinsky, while earlier philandering U.S. presidents never had to lie about their affairs, because nobody ever asked.

00:00 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

Libertarians and Copyright

A fine article from Samizdata on Libertarians and intellectual property issues called, appropiately enough, The Death of Copyright

00:00 /Copywrongs | 0 comments | permanent link

Cut Out Cadavers

Med Schools Cut Out Cadavers. As institutions cancel anatomy classes and shy away from offering students hands-on experience with actual dead bodies, critics worry that doctors in training will miss out on a valuable rite of passage. By Randy Dotinga. [Wired News]

The denial of death continue, but this time it's going to a dangerous level. We need, as a culture, to use death, not shun it. Use the reminders of our own mortality to reinforce correct behavior - it's a bit more effective than a guilt trip.

Cattle die, kinsmen die,
one day you die yourself;
I know one thing that never dies-
the dead man's reputation.
Havamal:76

00:00 /Asatru | 0 comments | permanent link

Get the Fizz Out

Basically, these guys IRC nets were being bombarded by the Fizzer worm, so they took matters into their own hands and are trying to automate an uninstller for infected PC's. Now: note that under the DMCA the legality of doing this may be questionable ...

Crazy.

IRC group decrypts Fizzer commands. Using what is essentially a password that changes daily, members of the chat-security group IRC/Unity have started telling Fizzer-compromised PCs to uninstall the virus. [CNET News.com]

00:00 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link

Blogging, Bloggers and Google

A bunch of discussion on the 'Net this past weekend about bloggers, blogging and why articles from mainstream publications (such as the New York Times) frequently don't show up on Google. Well, Prof. Felton over at Freedom to Tinker has the answer.

00:00 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link

Wal-Mart Culture

A rather disturbing article - capitalism meets culture. Capitalism wins. I find it more than a bit amusing that the conservative ideologues that trumpet this as a "triumph of the marketplace", because they see it as nothing more than the stores catering to customer demand, are the same folks who preach the "supply side" as economic policy, where the manufacturers and distributors are seen as driving demand, rather than vice-versa. It seems that they want to have their cake and eat it, too.

Shaping Cultural Tastes at Big Retail Chains. Wal-Mart and the other big discount chains have bent American popular culture toward the tastes of their traditionalist customers. By David D. Kirkpatrick. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

00:00 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link