metaxian

Blogistan Recently   7:15PM PST Moving Day. If my upstreaming changes today work correctly, then this may be the final post to Radio Free Blogistan at the http://blogs.salon.com/0001111/ address, in which case, I want to make it very easy for any future readers directed here by old links (sorry, everybody!) to get to the new home page at radiofreeblogistan.com. If I were really cool, I'd redesign this page so that it contained the moving message and then loaded the new page at http://radiofreeblogistan.com/ automatically, or immediately redirected to that page, or something cool like that. Instead people ending up here will have to follow a link like this one or the one in the title of this entry. If the move fails, then this message will seem kind of lame and embarassing in retrospect. For the technically minded, I will continue to use the Salon hosting and address for my salonika category, and possibly for hosting images and other large files within my storage quota. The blog-related categories (knowhow, metablog, radioactive, syllabus), along with a few knew ones (uh, i don't know... bloggerz, stereomovabletype?) will also be upstreamed to sections of radiofreeblogistan.com. The others will be squirted off to more appropriate hosts (for completists: fireweaver will show up at Dreamweaver Savvy once I get the templating integrated, memewatch will migrate to memewatch.com, outspoken will fold back into Bite Media, and x-pollen will go to x-pollen.com). I'm starting another new category today, unrelated to blogs. It's called "Agent7," it's about my clients and colleagues in the worlds of technology and publishing, and especially their instersection, and it will end up at waterside.com once we get the server-side includes inserted into the appropriate page. Update: The first try failed. I tried to copy the old #upstream.xml file into the subcategories that I didn't want coming over to radiofreeblogistan.com but that somehow resulted in a strange out-of-date rendering of the home page. To fix that I'm editing this file and reposting after throwing away the bad upstream files and restoring Radio to community upstreaming. If things get back to normal, I'll try the FTP approach, possibly by publishing yet another change to this cross-category entry. The semitruth hurts. Favorite new Salon blog: SEMI TRUTHS: The Radio Active Salon. Best feature: True news stories followed by semitrue embellishments. Bonus: Mentions Michael Jackson and pr0n. The last refuge of scoundrels. Conason: Ralph Reed, unpatriotic coward. Joe Conason calls an ad against Senator Max Cleland (D, Georgia) "[a]nti-American, unpatriotic and cowardly":Speaking of Osama and Saddam, their images provide the backdrop for what may be the single most nauseating, cynical and un-American political advertisement of the midterm campaign. [more at Bite Media] Salon blog watch. Well, I never did manage to surpass the blognovel in time, as Reverse Cowgirl rocketed past me into No. 3 position yesterday and went to No. 2 overall today. Scott has a pretty big lead in his No. 1all-time position but if I were him I'd still be nervous! I think it's clear, though, that RevCow is the first huge breakout success we've had here in our little Salon Blogs community, such as it is. I still have a chance of getting my now-comfortable No. 3 position back in a few days, but with the picky pornographer back on the case, my overall standing in the long run remains in doubt. Best new Salon blog name: Naked Emperor. RadioExpress! and my back button (checking a quote), just ate my post... rewriting it now... {Here's a Radio wish! Could someone make a version of Radio Express that pops up in its own window, like every other bookmarklet on the planet?}... Face it, naming your blog is the old band-name game writ large. There are so many more good band names than there are good bands. I could update that observation and maybe call it xian's law: "There are more good blog names than there are good blogs." But names are important. I won't belabor that. The Maturin character in one of Patrick O'Brian's books says at one point that one of the oldest superstitions is "naming calls." As a title, "Naked Emperor" (most recently seen tangling with pundiblogocrat N.Z. Bear) gets right to the point. It has the perfect tagline as well: Exposing the Obvious.

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A Supposedly Staggering Infinite Work of Heartbreaking Illumination I'll Never Read   9/28/2002 Ring Off. No matter who he was talking to, Rafe would mutter the same thing after hanging up the... Paid the Rent. The three kids chime in: Yeah me! ... "I love rock 'n' roll!" Bliss. What's the opposite of schadenfreude?

Bite Media   7:15PM PST Sullidittoing?. ShortStrings (no permalinks, but it was posted Tuesday, October 08, 2002), says Andrew Sullivan reports that Christopher Hitchens's new book on Orwell went from 1,074 to 4 on Amazon's best seller list after he chose it for his next book club discussion. War of the worlds. We are the alien overlords. I am reading in the New York Times our detailed plans for laying seige of cities in Iraq. We will attempt to control the minds of the inhabitants (demoralizing the fighters, calming the civilians), and systematically in our now infinitely superior ways conquer each city. Right fringe notices that Republicans are not conservative. Kevin Tuma hates FDR and Lincoln, favoring Goldwater and Reagan. What's interesting about this article is that he voices the "dirty little secret" of the Republican party. It is not now and has never been a conservative party, especially not in the sense of small-government conservatism. Conason: Ralph Reed, unpatriotic coward. Joe Conason calls an ad against Senator Max Cleland (D, Georgia) "[a]nti-American, unpatriotic and cowardly":Speaking of Osama and Saddam, their images provide the backdrop for what may be the single most nauseating, cynical and un-American political advertisement of the midterm campaign. Accuracy.org fisks Bush. Find here a point-by-point refutation of Bush's big speech. An excerpt:Bush: In 1995, after several years of deceit by the Iraqi regime, the head of Iraq's military industries defected. It was then that the regime was forced to admit that it had produced more than 30,000 liters of anthrax and other deadly biological agents. Political Parrhesia: The National Debt Marches Upward. Just passing this Political Parrhesia item along:The federal government's fiscal year ended on Monday, September 30. So, it is appropriate to take a look at how much the national debt rose in the past year. $100 billion? You wish. $200 billion? Sorry. Bush's real goal in Iraq. In an opinion piece in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Jay Bookman suggests that the Bush administration's ulterior motive in focusing on Iraq is a relentless expansion of American empire:This war, should it come, is intended to mark the official emergence of the United States as a full-fledged global empire, seizing sole responsibility and authority as planetary policeman. Python Jones takes on the Gulf War II drumbeat. [from cjf-forshac-the foreign desk-chris forshay]:the [uk] observer, 2/17/02:by Terry JonesTo prevent terrorism by dropping bombs on Iraq is such an obvious idea that I can't think why no one has thought of it before. It's so simple. The Poor Man speaks verily. Thanks to Textism, I'm now hooked on the political pontifications of The Poor Man:In revenge, I am hereby starting a movement to counter Front Page founder David Horowitz's "Take Back Our Campuses" movement. Please donate to my project to start departments of, oh, I don't know, Queer Islamic Post-Modern Environmentalism or something, in all our major public universities, with all classes to be conducted in French, or at least in a French accent. Shame on all of us.. Hear Bush the younger follow in his fathers tonguesteps with his version of "Fool Me Once."

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artsflow   7:16PM PST It's Otis! He looooves us!. White liberal guilt has never been so deliciously skewered. (via MZ) veriSign / netsol evil. this new two-tiered password scheme of netsol's, surely it is designed primarily to once again entangle passive Internet domain holders into staying with verisign out of inertia or, short of that, stuck like flypaper to the new authentication scheme until the inevitable renewal deadline passes. what is the easiest way to get all of my netsol domains transferred en masse to my preferred (or any other) domain-name registration provider? Question I just overheard me ask myself. "Where is my not-bag not-going?" Things that won't get done today. review tapers addendum for dead letters magazine finish installing pmachine install and test rss monkey set up godetia and wildflowertrips domains for b set up virtuser mail forwarding for antiweb.net send book promised to friend make household budget plan/prepare for moving site root to radiofreeblogistan.com *set up rss monkey* learn opml final notes on j-school panel jump menu for sidelists http://www.onfocus.com/snap/cats/ http://www.onfocus.com/bookwatch/index-media.asp http://www.onfocus.com/bookwatch/ rush to judgement mediajunkie.com/rush don't know if suexec or cgiwrap available <==figure out! Please Notify in my event log. Does that mean rss feed received? How notify? possible to do e-mail list, just send summaries? Also, how about "Mail this entry..." w.bloggar kung-log for MT make blog books page, link from masthead make colophon . typography . software, radio, dreamweaver, fireworks, textedit, palm desktop, eudora, ie, mozilla, opera, omniweb, netscape . hardware: mac, speakers, camera, handspring visor, pen and paper xmltree PEP is my codename for my dream application, the Personal Expression Platform start blog directory process include blog reviews blog books required reading by tool blogger radio movabletype livejournal other respond to blog-related e-mail try out manila consider bbCMS for ezone/thedeadbeat/mediajunkie/memewatch Type design, bold vs italics vs quot marks, not having a style sheet or set design, semantic <strong>? it's more like <span class="thoughts"> and defining that to look italic? accessibility and standards sometimes feel like an infinite regress traction people have died of exposure http://www.chron.com/content/chronicle/nation/crawford/index.html http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=28609 http://mcns10.med.nyu.edu/intro/brain.tumor.primer.html turing test for spam arrest q: how to use short listings in rss feed instead of entire post? abude brazil ins story meme Dylan @ the Greek 2002.10.11 notes. first impression of the band: a little more detail: the moon was going down the greek without the people ...and some raw notes scribbled during the show: if there's interest i'll actually transcribe the scribbles... Dylan rocked the Greek, yea verily. ...and mightily he smote them. the rumored covers (Zevon's "Accidentally Like a Martyr," "Brown Sugar," Neil Young's "Old Man"), the reinterps of classics (just like a woMan, i ain't ME babe), the recent material rousing the audience (Summer Days with its Charlie Christian, Django, old-timey feel with Charlie Sexton and Larry Campbell trading eights in their long maroon zoot suits looking reet pleet), the Berkeley crowd cheering that line "Even the president of the United States must sometimes stand naked" in "It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding," the everlasting resonance of the lonesome death of Hattie Carroll. Now is the time for your tears. Business they drink my wine... Money doesn't talk, it swears. Scans of notes and sketches to follow. The (other) mouse that roared. From Court News and Monster Weirdo come this report by DeVon Nolt of a lawsuit against Pixar and Disney on the part of Stanley "Mouse" Miller: The lead characters of the movie Monsters, Inc. were illegally copied from characters drawn by cartoonist Stanley Miller in the early 1960's, according to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California against Disney Enterprises, Inc. and Pixar Animation Studios, Inc., the producers of the movie. ... Disney and Pixar allegedly came into contact with Miller's work in 1997, when they reviewed a treatment for an animated movie Miller had proposed. Soothing the savage breast. Saw New Orleans piano genius Henry Butler last night with Amy DeNaio at the tiny 21 Grand performance space in Oakland (the show was produced by Earthwise, and Butler's appearance is part of a Basin Street Records "invasion" of the bay area also featuring Kermit Ruffins and Jon Cleary at other venues). Wow! Butler is so amazing. He draws on blues, jazz, country, classical, and just plain atonal weirdness. He has a muscular pounding style heavy on the syncopation, and an incredibly deep voice. One song was just a long serious of tuneful moans—a good fit for DeNaio who does a lot of vocalese in her work as well (she played an accordion borrowed from the next-door shop and later a sax with an effects pedal she played with her hand for her vocals). Mixed in with his own material, Butler reinterpreted Georgia on My Mind and, most thrillingly, the Entertainer. What a night. Turned my bad mood from the daytime entirely around, as tired as I was. Tonight it's Bob Dylan at the Greek. (Say, I've noticed that since I upgraded iTunes, iJournal is no longer able to detect the track currently playing....) 50 most loathsome. The Buffalo Beast names the 50 most loathsome people in America, 2002. Pretty over-the-top (fairly vulgar too), but funny and much of it is hard to argue with. A sampling: 13. SEAN HANNITY Misdeeds:   Without question one of the most smarmy, vile, hypocritical talking heads on television. Has the uncanny ability to vilify and generalize those who disagree with him, and then state that he's not a partisan person. Exploits his devout Catholicism and patriotism to the point that it makes you think he's selling something—like his book, whose cover features his giant head in front of one of the glossiest, waviest American flags ever. Much of his wrath can probably be traced to his displeasure that Reagan still can't remember his name although he's met him many times. Aggravating Factor:   Since 9/11, pretends to be genuinely convinced that anyone who disagrees with the Bush administration does not want America to be safe. Aesthetic:   Repressed kid from Long Island who got to college, was scared of sex, discovered other repressed white kids in conservative student group, joined them, devoted rest of life to blasting people who didn't. 12. EMINEM Misdeeds:   Expecting people to care about his shitty childhood because he is white. Dissing his mama. Lifting weights after he got famous. Is the official voice of white teenage suburban boys. Has already worn out his shock value to the extent that his next album will have to include slurs against parapalegics and land-mine victims just to raise eyebrows. Aggravating Factor:   For someone who sells millions of records partly due to making fun of other people, has no sense of humor about himself. Aesthetic:   Trailer-trash cracker with just a hint of Down's Syndrome. (I never said it was PC!) Geez.... Could they possibly cram any more ads into The Onion?

Meme List   7:16PM PST Fun for the whole family. Eric Myer's Stereotypes allows the user to construct a face by mixing and matching sixteen top and bottom halves. Brilliant... Anil Dash vs. the haters. Read Anil's Dash lengthy, patient discussion of the contretemps between himself and the readers of Little Green Footballs. Anil considers... Cream of wheat?. "I think they hypnotized me and put implants and poltergeists in my brain and had sex with me." Band haikus. Here are some Haikus Making fun of local bands. Fish in a barrel A Japanese variation on the cat meme. I don't know what %u306A%u3081%u732B means, even if I had the correct language-alphabet settings to read it.... Everything Burns's Memetracking 'Zeitgeist' Page. I love the way this page illustrates numbers-of-hits as font size! The search terms are great too. I have to... "Another list that starts with toilet paper" (after June Jordan). Found art? Reality programming? Pop anthropology? You make the call. Instant Parody: History of Michael Jackson's Face. The History of David Weinberger's Face... biker magazine ads from the early 80s. Get one fer yer favorite bitch French Pentagon Conspiracy Theory. While I'm not a big fan of conspiracy theories, the images do raise questions and deserve, at least, a debunking.