Category Archives: Rants, Raves, Reflections
The Election is Over, Watch Your Gas prices Go Up
GasBuddy.com let’s you pop in your ZIP code and find the cheapest gass within a few miles of your home. And you are going to need it, as since the election is over gas prices are on the rise. They went up 4 cents today, alone, and 7 cents since Tuesday. Its interactive databases like …
Fox in the Henhouse
I was reading Sacha Baron Cohen Gleefully Pushes All the Wrong Buttons in ‘Borat’ in the New York Times and came across this this tidbit, “‘Borat’ was to some extent made outside the Hollywood system. Fox kept the film off its production list and created a separate company, One America, to be the nominal producer.” …
The Software is Only Good if the Message Gets Through
Can you just hear James Earl Jones saying that title? I can.
All jests aside, we are in the midst of a very touchy and serious debate over our rights to petition Congress via email. There are two key issues at stake here, as has been pointed out by Jeffrey Birnbaum of the Washington Post.
First, and most importantly, constituent email to Congress is being obstructed by Congress in two ways. Technologically, Congress has been implementing webforms and validation processes (for example, CAPCHA codes and Logic Puzzles) that are obstructing the ability of citizens to exercise their First Amendment rights to petition the government in the name of protecting Congress from SPAM. Behaviorally, Congressional staffers are apparently ignoring and sometimes deleting constituent email because they don’t believe it comes from real constituents.
Second, as a result of the technological barriers erected by Congress, there is growing evidence that the ability to deliver email to Congress via grassroots advocacy email software is being hampered. Worse, the ability grassroots advocacy software to deliver the email to Congress is uneven in a way that seems to suggest that vendors who have the resources and the will to get the messages through are succeeding, while others who lack the resources, the will, or both are failing.
“Nothing to Do With Presidential Politics”??
John Kerry just told Wolf Blitzer that in addition to heading up to New Hampshire this weekend to campaign for candidates there, he is also going to many states that, “have nothing to do with presidential politics.” I thought every state had something to do with presidential politics. It is this attitude that lost Kerry …
US Troops Find Less Than a Warm Welcome on the 9th Planet
Alas, no sooner did I report that the Vice President predicted that our troops would be welcomed as liberators on Pluto, the planet explodes in civil war. Astronomers in Prague (a lovely city, but not if you are Pluto) have taken away Pluto’s planetary status and, with it, any hopes that the US will be …
Universal Possibilities
Astronomers meeting in Prague are poised to add three new planets to our solar system. In a related announcement, Vice President Cheney indicated that US troops would be greeted on these new planets with open arms, as liberators.
Global Warming PSA’s from Ad Council and Environmental Defense
These make the point nicely. Train Tick
He’s Got His Tubes Crossed
Thank god someone in Congress gets the Internet. I remember the days when Congress ran on two IBM 3090 mainframes, one of which was kept offline as a backup in case the other went down. The one they used served both Congressional offices and the Congressional Research Service. Interestingly, during the day (7am to 7pm) …
