davidvoegtle.net

Via the Wall Street Journal:
Barack Obama said a storm like Hurricane Gustav raises “bipartisan concerns” and it’s “fine” that John McCain visited Mississippi’s emergency operations center Sunday morning.
But he reiterated his worry that the security required for either presidential candidate could divert local law enforcement and other personnel from storm preparations. For that reason, Obama, [...]

Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization | Adbusters Culturejammer Headquarters: “An artificial appropriation of different styles from different eras, the hipster represents the end of Western civilization – a culture lost in the superficiality of its past and unable to create any new meaning. Not only is it unsustainable, it is suicidal. While previous [...]

Hotline On Call: AFL-CIO Drops New Mailers In OH, MI, PA, WI: One of the mailers aims directly to dispel myths and rumors about the IL senator. The other features worker testimonials on Obama’s record on jobs, health care reform and workers’ rights.
Union officials tell On Call that the mailers mark the launch of a [...]

Feminists cry foul over Fat Princess – Video Game Feature – Yahoo! Video Games: She’s Fat Princess, the star of Sony’s upcoming video game of the same name. Debuting at last week’s E3 expo, the colorful Fat Princess is a capture-the-flag game with a twist: you can thwart capture attempts by locking the once-thin princess [...]

Think Progress » Bush: ‘No regime should ignore the will of its own people.’: In a statement regarding new sanctions against Zimbabwe today, President Bush declares that “no regime should ignore the will of its own people“
(Via nearing @ Newsvine.)
Oh irony. To laugh or to cry, that is the question.

Coca-Cola to begin using hybrid trucks in Florida: While other companies are shying away from the considerable costs involved, Coca-Cola announced Monday it is rolling out 10 heavy-duty hybrid trucks in South Florida, part of a national campaign to put 142 of these so-called green trucks on the road in North America in the next [...]

Judge removed after racial comment: A South Carolina judge who admitted calling crack cocaine addiction “black man’s disease” has been banned from the bench, the state’s Supreme Court said in an order Monday.
(Via MSNBC.com: Crime & courts.)
Wow. Just wow.
It’s nice to see that the state supreme court stepped in and did the right thing, [...]

State failed to outline Bible classes for schools: I was sure the state board would give this matter the same thoughtful evaluation as it gave courses in aerobics and apparel in our public schools. In fact, the state board’s aerobics standards are specific to the point of making sure students can identify appropriate footwear. Standards [...]

POLITICS: Bush Forced al-Maliki to Back Down on Pullout in 2006: WASHINGTON, Jul 28 (IPS) – Many official and unofficial proponents of a long-term U.S. military presence in Iraq are dismissing Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s demand for a U.S. timeline for withdrawal as political posturing, assuming that he will abandon it under pressure.
But [...]

Steve Chapman: Are the media biased against Obama?: A study by the Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University, which conservatives have always regarded as sympathetic, says the three broadcast networks have been more critical of Obama than of John McCain in their recent news coverage.
(Via Chicago Tribune.)
Not a surprise to many [...]

Google Gmail Adds Secure Session Option:
Google has plugged one of the biggest security risks associated with using its free hosted Gmail mail service, still in beta after four years. You can now select an option in your account preferences to make every session require an encrypted Web connection.
(Via TidBITS: Mac News for the Rest of [...]

Key GOP senator won’t attend party’s convention: WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina won’t be attending the Republican national convention, which begins over Labor Day weekend.
(Via McClatchy.)
Whew. Is this another sign of a possible Republican Party meltdown? As noted in the article, Dole is the latest in a string of [...]

Study shows dementia patients recognize ‘elderspeak’: They may not be as sharp as they once were. Their memory may be failing. But people with Alzheimer’s can still sense when someone is talking down to them.
(Via McClatchy.)
When I was a teenager, I worked at a nursing home with an Alzheimer’s care wing. Quit a lot [...]

Justice finds that Gonzales aides broke federal hiring laws: WASHINGTON — Aides to former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales violated federal laws and Justice Department policies by illegally selecting employees based on their conservative and Republican leanings, a joint report by two department watchdog agencies reported Monday.
(Via McClatchy.)
I can’t say this is very surprising (more like [...]

That is not a competitive campaign. Including third-party options in polls right now clearly benefits Obama. An 11.5% victory for Obama would put him over 400 electoral votes, and put a whole swatch of red states either in play, or in his column. So, the question is, how can Obama go about raising the national [...]

McCain: Ratcheting up the rhetoric – First Read – msnbc.com: NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reports that there was never a plan for Obama to take the press to Landstuhl, despite the claim by McCain folks and others. The plan was to go with his military aide, retired General Scott Gration. The Pentagon said Gration was off-limits [...]

CalDAV support comes to Google Calendar: Well, fortunately, Google has just quietly introduced CalDAV support to Google Calendar. CalDAV is the protocol that iCal uses to transmit data over the web. Although some other mail and calendar programs support CalDAV, right now Google Calendar is only compatible with iCal. Finally, iCal and Google Calendar can [...]

John C. Coughenour – The Right Place to Try Terrorism Cases – washingtonpost.com: I have spent 27 years on the federal bench. In particular, my experience with the trial of Ahmed Ressam, the “millennium bomber,” leads me to worry about Attorney General Michael Mukasey’s comments last week, urging Congress to pass legislation outlining judicial procedures [...]

The Austin Chronicle: News: Cap Metro Cancels Shuttle Services: What’s going on? Cap Metro says it is retreating in fear of federal guidelines enacted in 2005, in response to special-interest lobbying by the private-charter bus industry. Basically, the private sector didn’t want any charter-service competition from transit agencies, and the current administration capitulated. This spring, [...]

Law.com – Memo: ‘Good Faith’ Protects Against Torture Charge: The Justice Department in 2002 told the CIA that its interrogators would be safe from prosecution for violations of anti-torture laws if they believed “in good faith” that harsh techniques used to break prisoners’ will would not cause “prolonged mental harm.”
Wait a minute, wait a minute. [...]

Law.com – High Court Justices Go Digital to Access Founding-Era Documents: U.S. Supreme Court justices on both sides in the landmark D.C. v. Heller gun rights case resorted to original documents in making their case about the meaning of the Second Amendment. But they used a little-known digital resource to get there, a project whose [...]

T
he Austin Chronicle: News: Texas Fiction Science: The State Board of Education does its part to fantasize biology: There’s nothing the evil overlords of the fictional future like more than a nice, healthy round of brainwashing. Whether it’s George Orwell’s totalitarian government of Oceania thwarting rebellious citizens in 1984, the “conditioning” of children in Brave [...]

The Austin Chronicle: Screens: The Hard Question: Why don’t zombies just eat one another?: So the question must be asked: Why don’t zombies just eat one another?
There. Someone had to say it, and I suppose I have thus unloosed the elephant in the living room. I realize this may be an unpopular proposition, but hear [...]

U.S. citizens in Europe give more to Obama – Decision ‘08- msnbc.com: “Barack Obama’s campaign has received roughly 10 times more money from declared U.S. donors living in Germany, France and Britain than his Republican rival, reflecting his popularity in Europe as he makes his first tour of the continent as the presumed Democratic nominee.”
Interesting [...]

newsobserver.com | HIV strikes fast, study finds: “HIV infects and attacks the body within days — much faster than previously thought — drastically narrowing the window of time when intervention is possible, Duke University researchers have found.”
Not good news, especially given this:
“We can narrow that window down, but we’re never going to be able to [...]