Letter from Moore to Bush

Michael Moore has a few truths for Bush on truth day.

At .::: [unsinnfälliges] I found the original article.

Byrd: I Weep for My Country

Robert C. Byrd also has some truths for Bush.

I found the original article at lies.com.

Herta for President

Extra 3 is on right now and Herta Deubler-Gmelin is a guest. I find this woman simply impressive. She has humor, she has intelligence and brings arguments. And to me, she stands for integrity and reason. Why do we have so few politicians of that kind? And why are the ones we do have pushed out because of stupid accusations? It's a shame, really.

Student Protests - With Detention?

Yes. We demand that the young generation become more political, take more interest in current events, and get involved, but when they do exactly that (and only say at the demos what many of us think too), we react like this: > A spokesman for the Bavarian Ministry of Education criticized the unexcused absence from class, but said that harsh sanctions such as reprimands should not be imposed. However, there should be pedagogical consequences, such as discussions in class or making up missed lessons. Saarland's Education Minister Jürgen Schreier (CDU), on the other hand, demanded that the protesting students have the class absence entered in their report card as "unexcused absence." The cited education ministries certainly have a very strange idea of a more political youth. Are politically interested young people only supposed to be politically interested and engaged outside of school? It reminds me fatally of the button bans we had at school back then. Political expression of opinion has no place in the school building was the attitude of the school administration back then. An attitude that still seems strange to me today, especially considering that many church-affiliated schools have crosses hanging in classrooms ... At Industrial Technology & Witchcraft there is the original article.

Dispute over overflight rights for US armed forces

How can German politicians still argue that this is not a violation of international law? There was no attack by Iraq on the USA, the position of the UN Security Council was blatantly ignored, and American interests were massively placed above those of the UN. It is not even certain that the attacked Iraq actually possessed weapons of mass destruction that could at least approximately confirm the potential threat indicated by the USA (on the contrary, UN weapons inspectors assumed that the threat was far less than portrayed by the USA), and the USA never cooperated with the weapons inspectors at any point (and did not, for example, provide them with the allegedly existing evidence of weapons of mass destruction). The entire war is based on propaganda material and claims made by the Bush administration. And that is supposed to not be a violation of international law?

At tagesschau im Internet there is the original article.

And another poem.

Viewing the little trick as a poem is one way to go about it. Though, to be honest, it was really more exciting back when Google was still indexing the page and search queries were directed to it, which then appeared as results solely because of the many search terms present there. That was a real feedback loop. At MEHRZWECKBEUTEL you can find the original article.

And again...

Well, this hype is getting on my nerves too, especially what makes it into traditional media sometimes. Too much focus on an allegedly new medium. But the decisive factor has always been the person expressing their opinion, not the form they choose for it.

Technology is just a tool here, nothing more. And a revolution is the virtual counterpart to the orange crate from which a lonely crusader preaches the end of the world—that's really not it.

But this slightly exaggerated form of self-importance also keeps popping up within the blogger scene itself, especially visible, for example, in an original blogger from the USA. Such colleagues seem to think they and their opinion are the best thing since sliced bread. Though I already find sliced bread pretty silly...

Sure, on the web it's easier to find a platform for expressing your opinion—but what's the point if someone writes something and no one reads it?

Sure, on the web it's easier to build networks and connections, to find things, to find people, to find opinions. But what's the point if you can find everything but no one is looking for it?

And even if people are looking for something, find someone, and read their statements—often it really just stays at the orange crate level.

Except of course for specialty blogs—that's a completely different topic. But the current media hype isn't interested in that—a shame really. There are already one or two small revolutions happening there.

Though I don't want to diminish orange crates: it's fun. And my orange crate is painted green. But it's not a media revolution.

Oh yeah. And a blog is not a diary. Just had to emphasize that again.

At das Netzbuch - ralles Weblog you'll find the original article.

Hairy Alpine Rose with Little Frog

Somehow I now have an image in my head of a flower with frog tadpoles hopping around croaking and fighting against fly agarics. And I'm not even playing anything like Super Mario Land or other jump and run games.

I found the original article at Telepolis News.

Legal setback for Telekom's 0190 debt collection

Good. Very good. I actually thought this tedious matter would have been settled long ago and that Telekom would generally only attempt collection once and then burden the actual provider with the remaining work. That would also be the only sensible approach, because only they can ultimately provide conclusive proof that someone actually intentionally used their overpriced rip-off dialer. And please, dear courts, insist on signed declarations of intent from users in the future. What Telekom has put forward in terms of arguments here is complete nonsense.

I found the original article on heise online news.

Eavesdropping attack on EU offices

Hmm. Somehow everyone is spying on everyone at the moment. I really should take a look at my phone to see if someone has already started eavesdropping there.

I found the original article at tagesschau on the internet at tagesschau im Internet.

Python Desktop Server 0.4.17

I thought I'd do a bit of self-promotion

I found the original article at freshmeat.net.

Seehofer threatens resignation in Union dispute

Things are getting interesting slowly. Should something really be brewing there, now that the FDP has become rather uninteresting? Preparations for the summer slump? Or just power games within the Union. Or has a Union politician actually developed something like a conscience. Oh no, probably just power games after all

I found the original article at tagesschau im Internet.

Clement plans draconian penalties for the unemployed

Nice class. Then we'll soon have well-trained toilet cleaners, because if a job center caseworker considers that reasonable, you'd better do as you're told. Sure, you can sue over it, but given what unemployed people receive, they can certainly afford a lawyer or even just legal protection insurance ...

Besides, what are we so upset about? After all, the unemployed are all to blame themselves anyway. They're probably all just too lazy to work. Structural problems and outright collapses of entire industries are certainly just figments of left-wing cranks' imaginations. The fact that, for example, the textile industry in my immediate area has been drifting on the economic doldrums for years is certainly also just imagination, same as the many thousands of unemployed. All lazybones.

Especially these young, lazy shirkers who don't want to work anyway. Never mind the shortage of apprenticeships, that doesn't exist. Herr Clement himself always traveled around the country and found an apprenticeship for everyone. Anyone who didn't get one is surely lazy.

And another step toward dismantling the social system and social coldness. Thank you, Herr Clement. (whoever finds sarcasm in this post can keep it)

At tagesschau im Internet there's the original article.

Regional Court: Spam not necessarily unlawful

With court decisions like this, we'll never get a handle on the flood of spam. This just legitimizes it even further. What absurd reasoning that it only constituted a one-time performance announcement and that the spammer claimed he wouldn't send it again. And? If I got a euro for every email that said "this is a one-time-mailing," I wouldn't be rich, but I'd have accumulated a pretty decent sum. And when will it finally be accepted that a performance announcement that might still be tolerable by post is definitely not tolerable by email? Every email consumes resources and incurs costs. Spam is under no circumstances tolerable. At heise online news there's the original article.

Mac User Against War

Hmm. So an action by Mac users against the war that is directed at Steve Jobs so that he would make a corresponding statement to the president is already quite amusing. But if the whole thing is targeting Mac users as an audience, should something like this really be in the info? > Therefore support for some web-browers (like e.g. 'safari') cannot be guaranteed. Sorry for that! I mean, why not support Safari in particular, which is the Mac browser since Apple released it? What else are we Mac users supposed to use - the browser of evil perhaps?

Particularly amusing is the reason why Safari might not work:> Taking this experience into account, we had to tighten many security measures. Hmm. I'm sorry? Now I really have to ask which browser one can use. But unfortunately that's not revealed.

At Der Schockwellenreiter there is the original article.

NPD Ban Failed

Great. This blunder clearly falls on the account of the Constitutional Protection Office, which prefers to spy on and incite rather than build clean procedures. And on the political leadership, which should have foreseen this debacle beforehand - either they failed because they weren't informed (which in my opinion would already be a disaster - a Constitutional Protection Office uncontrolled by Parliament is itself unconstitutional), or they bungled it because they knew about it and naively believed the Constitutional Court would overlook such a glaring mistake.

And what's the result? Instead of clearly positioning itself against ultra-right ideology, the Right will celebrate it as a victory and feel vindicated. Great. Thanks for that.

I found the original article at TAZ.

Cook's Resignation Speech

The title links to a RealMedia file (from the BBC) with Cook's resignation speech before the British House of Commons. Compare that to the speeches of Dubya.

Here's the original article.

Screamer

Reminds me that I wanted to port this to OpenMCL ...

At lemonodor there is the original article.

Trusted Debian 0.9

This actually sounds like I could give it a try now. It might be a path to upgrade my home firewall box to, as that currently is running an older debian release and must be upgraded. But I need to pull down all those stupid applications I have thrown at that little box, first. Because a firewall with so much applications is everything else but a firewall

Bei freshmeat.net gibts den Originalartikel.

Web Demonstration Against the War

I see it that way too. Participate. Set a link. Yes, they're only pathetic little signs, no, I don't believe George Bush will look at them, no, I don't believe he'll change his mind. Should you shut up about it anyway? Nope.

At Der Schockwellenreiter you can find the original article.

May the best team lose

Compared to that, Kirch, Bayern München and the DFB are really small fries.

I found the original article at kuro5hin.org.

Meyer rebukes Stoiber

Interesting. Both Seehofer (okay, by Union standards he's almost a liberal) and Meyer (not exactly known for his social conscience) are criticizing Stoiber's initiative and he's dismissing it as hot air. Will there be a few more nice instances of infighting? That would be timely, now that Möllemann is stepping down — we could use some new political circus.

I found the original article at tagesschau im Internet at this link.

Möllemann Returns Party Book

Hi! That he would give way on something, really astonishing.

But perhaps that's just a clever move to keep his mandates and then sit as an independent in the Bundestag or Landtag? Hmm. I can't imagine that the threatening expulsion proceedings were the only reason. Not with Möllemann.

At tagesschau im Internet I found the original article.

Virtual Observatory Discovers Brown Dwarf

Hmm. Well, that would be much more interesting than SETI: simply client software for distributed search of celestial bodies. Users register and receive data blocks (graphical data from telescopes) and search through them with the software for new celestial bodies (brown dwarfs, planets, whatever). When a client finds something, the corresponding data material is presented to experts. They determine whether there really is something there. And the finder gets to name the celestial body.

Unfortunately, that's far too obvious, so with distributed computing you'll probably continue to have only the choice between frequency analysis of background noise, cryptographic competitions, or maybe this protein analyzer after all.

At Astronomische Kleinigkeiten there's the original article.

False Report

Even that the Israelis themselves - who otherwise tend to take an extremely hard line - are now accusing the Americans of spreading false reports will probably not stop the war.

At Industrial Technology & Witchcraft you can find the original article.

War on War

The Schockwellenreiter links to websites with images that show war in its actual brutality. On one hand, to a website with excerpts from Ernst Friedrich's: War against War, and on the other hand, a link to This is War, a website with war images that news outlets simply don't show. Images that are far too easily suppressed and forgotten.

At Der Schockwellenreiter, you can find the original article.

Post without title

Now it's starting. The first episode of Enterprise. 100 years before Kirk. And the first Klingon is already causing trouble.

Schröder's Speech - a Well-Disguised Confession of Failure

One can only agree. A sellout of social democracy. What's left? A state on its way to social Americanization? And the perverse part: even this economic decline isn't going far enough for the Union. Welcome to this brave new world

At TAZ I found the original article.

Tatsuya Sato

Very beautiful black and white photographs by a Japanese photographer.

At photo-blogg.de .:. die Photounity mit dem Blogg I found the original article.

When commercial spam fighters spam to sell spam protection.

Ok. The summary: they sell email verification at Spam Arrest LLC (senders must first confirm that their email is a real email and not spam before the mail is delivered). And in doing this work they collect sender email addresses. And they've now sent unsolicited advertising emails to these sender addresses, where they offer their service.

Hmm. Fastest way to kick yourself out of the business? Maybe we do need a Business Darwin Award after all.

At Gary Robinson: Gary Robinsons Spam Rants there's the original article.

5th Stage goes to Team Telekom

Hey, is Wino practicing for the tour?

At tagesschau im Internet I found the original article.

Images of Spring

In the picture blog there are a few images of spring. Yes, it's coming. Really.

miniSD

Yet another memory card standard nobody needs ...

I found the original article at Gizmodo.

"Morning Prayer" at CeBIT: "Go a-head, go a-head, Te-le-kom"

Ridiculous. Completely insane. Well, at least they make themselves look like fools with a stupid grin on their faces.

Not so funny is that at the same time Deutsche Telekom is supposed to cut 40,000 jobs. No matter how many songs and dances you come up with, that doesn't change things.

If you look at how many hundreds of thousands of jobs have been cut in recent years, you understand why unemployment can't go down: jobs are simply being destroyed.

No matter how many speeches the chancellor gives, if the economy is systematically running itself into the ground, there's no simple solution to that.

At heise online news you can find the original article.

Remnants of Autumn

Remnants of Autumn

Well. This one is anything but a herald of spring. Never mind. It's still pretty.

And one last

And one more

So, that's it for now. But they really are pretty. Besides, I got to try out the macro function of the Kodak. Usable.

And another pair

And another pair

They sure are pretty ...

And more...

And more ...

Yes, I know, it's getting tedious, but there's one more coming.

Pussy Willow

Pussy Willows

Here are a few pictures of the lovely, fluffy, and absolutely annoying (I already mentioned that I'm allergic to them) pussy willows. Ok, I accept the sneezing, after all they really are true harbingers of spring.

We in Hesse

I can recommend passing along the advice to read the Spiegel article. Electoral helper activities around Koch. With illegal data collection and evaluation and similar games.

At das Netzbuch - ralles Weblog you can find the original article.

America the gullible

Oh Man: A Hoax is Circulating

A hoax is currently making the rounds in which images from the film Armageddon show an exploding shuttle. The images are being passed off as pictures from a spy satellite, claiming to show the Columbia. The embarrassing part: apparently members of the American military and Homeland Security are also distributing this stuff. Very reassuring. When will they launch a first strike against the suspected terrorists who allegedly attacked the shuttle? After all, you could easily present the images to the UN as proof of Hussein's rogue state status. Sure, the images are fake, but better than the false evidence Rumsfeld presented to the UN.

The original article can be found at Workbench - here.

Customize Apple X11 1

Jutta continues to tinker with X11 and has written two posts about configuring XTerms and other details.

At Hexentanz I found the original article.

Möllemann wants to stay in the FDP

Hmm. I also question whether it's a good strategy to harshly attack both the former party chairman Genscher and the current party leader Westerwelle if one wants to remain in the FDP.

Mental dissolution of a boxer? I mean, he's often referred to as a boxer, and many of them have a soft brain after years of boxing, from all the blows ...

At tagesschau on the internet you can find the original article.

Monitor Report on American Diplomacy

Monitor is running a report on American coercion of undecided candidates in the UN Security Council. African states are being presented with a clear choice: either be left completely isolated economically or cooperate. Chile is being blackmailed with the failure of economic negotiations. Overall, a diplomacy of extortion and bribery. Crowned by the spying on UN diplomats. With the goal of killing people.

Also interesting (in a very horrific way) are the photos of war victims (by Stanley Green and others). Everyone should remember that precision weapons are nothing more than weapons that kill people - and that the precision is just a lie. Unfortunately, hardly anyone really wants to see that - people prefer to convince themselves that war is as clean as American military propaganda (among others) depicts it. Collateral damage could just as easily be us - or any other civilian who happens to be in the wrong place. Even if that wrong place is their home, and all they do is live there.

The Cathedral

The Cathedral

There are plenty of churches in Münster. And the cathedral has certainly been photographed often enough. Never mind. It's part of Münster, the weather was nice, so it goes in here. That's that.

First Signs of Spring

First Signs of Spring

The willows already have their first leaf buds, shimmering in light green and giving the weeping willows a beautiful yellow-green color. I always look forward to it, even though I really should be upset: willows are one of the tree species that I'm allergic to ...

St. Joseph's Church, Church Tower

Josefskirche, Church Tower

OK, I may have overdone it a bit with the wide-angle lens...

Even More Church

Even More Church

The Josefskirche. I somehow like the church (as a building, really the function is quite irrelevant to me), it looks so out of place where it stands. Like a remnant of a bygone era.

Clutter

Cool. Absolutely cool. A bit buggy, but still cool.

You can find the original article at Ben Hammersley.com.

Memorial ride for deceased cyclist Kiwilew

That's a shame. But every now and then you're reminded that professional sports aren't as safe and carefree as they look on television. Kiwilew was a good driver. :-(

At tagesschau im Internet you can find the original article.