I missed this one. IBM plans to open source [can I use that as a verb phrase?] Cloudscape. There are a number of things I'd like to try with an embedded database. Cloudscape is a good, high quality implementation.

1000 reasons not to vote for President Bush in November.

Quite a list.

CROWLEY: Mr. Keyes, when you look at this, and I know that you have said -- you criticized Hillary Clinton for going to New York, and we have to at least discuss the carpetbagger issue. You have said, look, I don't know what the issues are in Illinois, I'm going to listen. But is that, like this close to an election, really a bumper sticker you can run on?

KEYES: Well, I think I have addressed the issue of the very deep differences between what I am doing and Hillary Clinton. She used the state of New York as a platform for her own personal ambition. I had no thought of coming to Illinois to run until the people here in the state party decided there was a need. Just as people faced with a flood, or people in the case of 9/11, would call on folks, firefighters and others to help them deal with the crisis that they were faced with.

The people in Illinois have called on me to help deal with what they regard as a crisis. But from the point of view of my own personal principles, I believe in federalism. And I had to think this through based on my respect for the principle of state sovereignty.

This is about the most offensive thing I've heard all week.

"Even assuming a resumption of the very modest increase rate in the Spring, employment is unlikely to reach 132 million by the end of the year. This compares to 132.4 million when Bush 'took' office four years ago, and 135.3 million promised last January (though by one interpretation of his mangled speech, he was really only promising 132.5 million). This would make Bush the first president since the great depression to record an absolute loss in total employment during his administration.

A recent AP-Ipsos poll reports 46% of Americans 'approve' of Bush's handling of the economy. Who are these people and what have they been smoking?"

[via Dave Pollard]

Reading through this article reminded me about the great photos James Natchwey has on his site. Particularly this one, and this one. [warning: Natchwey covers war, famine, and disease; many of these photos are disturbing]

Natchwey is a living legend of photojournalism, consistently producing stunning, unforgettable photos. Looking through his site this morning, it occurred to me that his photos affect me in the same way as do Eugene Smith's work. Bold, direct messages that reveal more and more the longer I look at them. Seeing Smith's photos online don't do then justice. His prints are breathtaking.

POTD

Joy.

Spamusement. Brilliant!

Someone took the time to put together this side, iTunes iSbogus, without taking the time to understand the entire situation.

It may be true that the average artist will only get $.11 per song downloaded from Apple's store, but blame the record companies and music publishers for this, not Apple. Until artists are able to publish their own work and retain ownership, we'll have this problem. As long as the record companies effectively own the music, artists are at the mercy of the industry.

Oh good God. The Spot is back.

It seems that someone has cracked the encryption scheme used by Apple's AirPort Express.

"The paper was not front-paging stuff," said Pentagon correspondent Thomas Ricks. "Administration assertions were on the front page. Things that challenged the administration were on A18 on Sunday or A24 on Monday. There was an attitude among editors: Look, we're going to war, why do we even worry about all this contrary stuff?"

The Washington Post is running an evaluation of its own coverage leading up to the war in Iraq.

This morning, they're doing bag searches again to get on the ferry. And the guy doing the searches pulls me aside and says, "Sir, I feel that I need to confiscate this book."

I pause and say, in that tone of voice that most people would recognize as meaning, "have you lost your grip completely, chuckles?": "You need to confiscate... a book."

"Yes. I feel it's inappropriate for the other people on the ferry to be exposed to it."

Remember, we not yet safe, but we're safer. Right.

POTD

OK, dumb Unix question:

Why does

chmod g+s ./foo2

work, but

chmod 2777 ./foo2

doesn't? I'm not remembering my Unix 101 stuff here.

[Clarification: this is sh / ksh on Solaris. This works as I expected on Darwin / MacOS X.]

Out getting lunch, I saw a guy with this tatooed on the back of his neck:

(void *) 0x00

That really says something. He's totally fucked if he ever switches to Java.

POTD

I was Olive's babysitter on Saturday. She was a sweet monkey-girl.

I'm so tapped that I'm posting dog pictures. Please shoot me.

Bush criticized Kerry's plan to eliminate the tax cuts for those making more than $200,000 a year, saying that the "the rich in America happen to be the small business owners" who put people to work.

Bush also said high taxes on the rich are a failed strategy because "the really rich people figure out how to dodge taxes anyway."

Is this the new, brutally honest George W. Bush?

[via AP]

Prozac seeping into British water supplies?

Ah, yes. The United States' descent into a Banana Republic is complete: The European Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) will monitor the U. S. presidential election.

When this issue was raised in the House of Representatives, Republicans only agreed to the inspections only after amending a foreign aid bill with stipulations that U.S. federal funds not be used to support the United Nations monitoring elections in the United States. Because, you know, U.S. taxpayer funds shouldn't be wasted on things like fair and democratic elections.

When asked whether Alan Keyes, Maryland resident and radio talk show host, was selected simply because he was black, Rep. J. Dennis Hastert responded:

"I was out of town when that happened."

[Meet the press, Aug. 8, 2004]

Well, Mr. Hastert, Representative for Illinois' 14th District, Speaker of the House, aren't you paid not to be out of town when things like this happen? Don't you have an interest in nominating good candidates for office, rather than making the most cynical choice possible?

Nice online HCB exhibition at The Smithsonian.

Shame on you, President Bush. You are a better man than this.

Just following the successful Democratic convention, just following an announcement that the national debt has reached new heights, and just following news about remarkably bad job growth, you air an attack advertisement questioning Senator John Kerry's combat record and raise the terror alert level.

This is a shameful, transparent act. You should have prevented this advertisement from airing. It is a most unpatriotic act to question Senator Kerry's past in this way.

Mr. President, take control of your administration and your reelection campaign. Please put the good of the country before of politics.