bonglonglong

On Monday, United States Olympic Committee Chairman Peter Ueberroth said:

"The world will learn a great deal about San Francisco during the next two days ..." (source)


And the world has.  We've learned that San Francisco values the freedom of expression of its residents so little that it will deceive them in order to placate a foreign power.

The Olympics may not be about politics, but at this point it's disingenuous to claim that the torch isn't.

Thousands lined up on Wednesday along the published route of the Olympic torch to celebrate the unifying spirit of the Olympic games and China's extraordinary presence on the world stage, or to protest the policies of a repressive regime and their own government's unwillingness to take a strong stand for freedom.  But they never saw the torch -- the icon of Olympic politics that drew them out.

Instead, Mayor Gavin Newsom and San Francisco's police changed the route of the torch without notice as the relay started.  The torch was escorted through streets filled mostly with the phalanx of police guarding it, whisked around from site to site by bus, and returned quickly to the airport for a perfunctory closing "ceremony".

San Francisco has shown that it values image more than truth.  In retrospect, Beijing could not have chosen a better city for the torch's only North American stop.

Confusion strikes US torch relay

Olympic torch dodges S.F. protesters

Torch leaves San Francisco after surprise route designed to thwart protesters

Torch entries on SFist

 

photo by Scott Beale / Laughing Squid

As always, Lawrence Lessig is better at explaining my views on copyright and art than I am. It's a 19 minute video, but I couldn't recommend it more. If you are working in art at all, please, PLEASE watch it. You might thing that copyright law is boring, or that it's obvious that you want to hoard and protect your work zealously so you can make more money... but please give this a watch.

According to this, the candidate that is the lesser of evils for me Kucinich. I find that sort of odd, but whatever.

Pick Your Candidate

Here's how it works, if you want to know. If you agree with a candidate, he gets point(s). If you disagree, take point(s) away. Unkown/other results in no points. The number of points given or taken depends on the weight you set. "Meh" is worth 1 point, "important" 2, and "key" is worth 5. The items you disagree about will be listed directly underneath each candidate (if they score greater than zero).

Because I wouldn't be a good citizen without pointing out faults while solving none of them, here are flaws that I see... Even with the weighting thing, there are certain areas which still are unfairly weighted. There are three Iraq War choices and three Gay Marriage choices, but only one for Abortion and none for Intellectual Property reform. (Please don't read in to this list any perceived importance or lack there of on any of these. The fact that I think Abortion shouldn't even be discussed and that IP reform is the most important thing on the list does not blind me to the fact that the various bits and bobs about Abortion are more important to some people than anything else.)

I'd also like to point out my horror about two of these. One is that we are considering banning assault weapons, in clear and vibrant violation of the second amendment, without passing a further amendment to revoke the second. If that's what you believe, then fine, but the constitution is pretty clear, and even if you don't think the constitution is clear, maybe that's a thing that should be clarified - by an amendment.

The second is that there is a line item for torture, that I don't have to ask what they are talking about, and that there is anyone, anywhere in this country who might click "support" for this. TORTURE. I think that anyone who supports TORTURE should have to stand up in front of a room full of school children and say the phrase "I support TORTURE." I actually think that they should have to do that for anything. No flowery language. Just "I support TORTURE" or "I support building the Berlin Wall... I mean a FENCE around our BORDER.

Have I mentioned that almost all of the candidates support building a fence around the country.

Seriously.

A fence.

It's been done twice already. The Great Wall of China and the Berlin Wall. Do we really need to protect ourselves from Mogol Hordes? Or, more likely, do we really need to keep our citizens on this side of the Iron Fence.

But I digress.

Could someone PLEASE give me a candidate who makes any kind of sense? Anyone?

As if the man isn't in our homes enough, the Fed has announced that as of Feb. 19, 2009 analogue TV signals will stop broadcasting. Everything will switch to digital. So if you don't have cable or a dish, and have coat hangers for antennas, you will be screwed. Oh, but wait, big brother has a plan. The Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has set aside $990M to help people with the transition. Each household is allowed a certain number of coupons, which can be applied for from the man, to purchase a box that will convert the signal. However, you do have to prove that you have an analogue TV set, don't have cable, or a dish. This is the part that confuses me, how exactly do you prove that? "You can see that I have no cable by the proof that I have no bill!"
link 

Prosecutors have dropped the rape charges in the Duke Lacrosse case. I thought this was going to happen when it came out that the lab results showed biological material from several people inside of the accuser and none of those people were any of the accusers. Apparently that wasn't the only hole in the story.

Durham district attorney Mike Nifong dismissed charges of first-degree rape against the three former players after the accuser told detectives she was not certain about a crucial detail in the alleged assault, the newspaper said.

Rape charges dropped in Duke lacrosse case - Yahoo! News