Sunday, December 24, 2006

AxisofLogic/ Featured

"'Individuals, under the 21st century socialism, enjoy an absolute right of private property in their consumer goods, especially in their toothbrushes and underwear.'"

The Christmas Truce'- When Men Said No To War

"On Christmas Day, 1914, in the first year of World War I, German, British, and French soldiers disobeyed their superiors and fraternized with 'the enemy' along two-thirds of the Western Front. German troops held Christmas trees up out of the trenches with signs, 'Merry Christmas.' 'You no shoot, we no shoot.' Thousands of troops streamed across a no-man's land strewn with rotting corpses. They sang Chrismas carols, exchanged photographs of loved ones back home, shared rations, played football, even roasted some pigs. Soldiers embraced men they had been trying to kill a few short hours before. They agreed to warn each other if the top brass forced them to fire their weapons, and to aim high.

A shudder ran through the high command on either side.
Here was disaster in the making: soldiers declaring their brotherhood with
each other and refusing to fight. Generals on both sides declared this
spontaneous peacemaking to be treasonous and subject to court martial.
By March, 1915 the fraternization movement had been eradicated and the
killing machine put back in full operation. By the time of the armistice
in 1918, fifteen million would be slaughtered."

Merry Christmas everyone! And remember to give middle finger bird of peace to every general in every army in the world, in rememberance of the 75 million people killed by their decisions during two world wars.

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

The NarcoSphere || Authentic Journalism of the Masses

"'You shall treat the alien who resides with you no differently than the natives born among you; have the same love for him as for yourself; for you too were once aliens in the land of Egypt. I, the LORD, am your God. (Leviticus 19:34)"

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Thomas Paine's Corner: Expanding Markets and Dying Oceans:

"It's time to wake up and smell the mythology. God has no will. God has no more of a plan than a tree has a financial portfolio. God does not say God bless you: Your life is not an eternal sneeze in need of a perpetual gesundheit. And there never was a character who rose from this sin-sullied earth and took up residence in the starry filament named Jesus Christ --who will love you no matter how big of an asshole you are: That's the job of your dog. "

Friday, December 15, 2006

The Blog | Gerald Bracey: Things Fall Apart: No Child Left Behind Self-Destructs | The Huffington Post

"These standardized tests do not and could never measure the creative and innovative brain of the american student, our secret weapon.
But others around the world recognize it, including Sim Wong Hoo, founder and CEO of Singapore-based Creative Technology (Singapore has those top test scores that NCLB chomps at the bit to achieve, check out TIMSS) when asked by Newsweek about the advantages to having his business located in Singapore, he answered, 'the advantage is we come from a very conscientious culture. You tell our people what to do, they'll follow the rules, they'll do it. The downside is they are not as creative. We fixed that by having a U.S.-based R&D team that's doing more advanced research.'

The United States is responsible for most of the creative technological advances we have seen last week, last year and the past 40 years (like the core innovations that spurred on the global digital revolution). Foreign brains in the US you say?? according to the US Department of Labor in 2004 only 9% of the professions related to science and technology were foreign-born. It shouldn't come as a surprise to learn that China is working toward a school system with more choices and flexibilty for its students, just like we have had since the 60's, please stop talking about the broken education system here."

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Letting Citizens Make Legislation | NewAssignment.Net

"Citizens using the Internet to monitor their representatives and the legislation that they draft is nothing novel. But a new Sunlight Foundation project aimed at allowing citizen legislatures to collaboratively script their own legislation, challenging what representative democracy means, certainly is.
Past elections have proven that a candidate's willingness and ability to engage online communities can mean the difference between winning and losing an election. But with this project, The Sunlight Foundation, a funder of NewAssignment.Net, suggests that governance, not just election outcomes, can be changed as well.
Using the model of moreperfect.org, organizers have set up a wiki and divided the research project into four categories: identifying relevant, already-proposed legislation, gathering information and vetting news article about the legislation, suggesting legislative language or rules and suggesting amendments to existing bills.

"If this is a success, and we draft proposable legislation in this area, we can use this experiment to show lawmakers how they might do the same in the future share principles with their constituents, and work with them, instead of in secret, to turn those principals into laws" writes Zephyr Teachout, the Sunlight Foundation's national director."

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Craigslist Meets the Capitalists

"Wendy Davis of MediaPost describes the presentation as a " culture clash of near-epic proportions." She recounts how UBS analyst Ben Schachter wanted to know how Craigslist plans to maximize revenue. "It doesn't," Mr. Buckmaster replied (perhaps wondering how Mr. Schachter could possibly not already know this). "That definitely is not part of the equation," he said, according to MediaPost. "It's not part of the goal."
"I think a lot of people are catching their breath right now," Mr. Schachter said in response.


Larry Dignan, writing on Between the Lines blog at ZDNet, called Mr. Buckmaster “delightfully communist,”
and described the audience as“confused capitalists wondering how a company can exist without the urge to maximize profits.”



I must have been a good boy this year 'cause I got an early christmas present!

Workers of the World Unite!

Friday, December 08, 2006

Henry Rollins Can Still Scream!!!

Henry Rollins


Since SheaNC has joined the video posting world I decided to join him. I call my first foray in to the brave new world...

" Yeah!... What He Said!" or... "I Wish I Had Said That!"

WARNING! Expletives abound so if you are in a room with small children or your Mom you might want to use headphones