The Hackenblog

Sizzlin’ G-20 Wives.

(via Dr. Krugman, of all people)

Go ahead and click. You know you want to.

Now only $8.40, will be $14.00 on April 10, 2009, eligible for Free Shipping at Amazon!

Now only $7.80, will be $13.00 on April 10, 2009, eligible for Free Shipping at Amazon!

More information than you can shake a stick at at The Wapshott Press.

But, for busy people, here’re links:

The life and times of Anna Cora Mowatt: “Fashioned Lady, Recovering the Lost Legacy of a Victorian American Superstar.” By Kelly S. Taylor, Ph.D.
Edgar Allan Poe, Henry David Thoreau, and Ralph Waldo Emerson were among her fanboys, but too few people know about their idol. The Wapshott Press is honored to present the life and times of the fabulous Anna Cora Mowatt to her well deserved, and long overdue, larger audience. More information and a pdf of Chapter 1.

“The Tagger and Other Stories,” edited by Ginger Mayerson (but I only wrote the first and last stories):
40% off pre-sale to stimulate the economy and whatever else there is to stimulate [heh]. Act now! Sale ends April 10. “The Tagger” by Ginger Mayerson; “Across the Universe,” by Laura Dearlove; “Atlantis” by Kitty Johnson; “Impossible Love” by Kathryn L. Ramage; “The Unsent Letter” by Chad Denton; “Finding Courage” by Gail Marlowe; “Fast Forward” by Logan; “Extraordinary” by Emily-Jane MacKenzie; “I’m Not Your Boyfriend” by Lene Taylor; “When George MacFadden was Eaten by a Dragon by Colleen Wylie; “You Know You Should be a Better Person (But You’re Not)” by Karmen Ghia; “Mick” and “Mark” by Molly Kiely. Authors and Excerpts (also see sidebar); “Finding Courage” Serialization; and “The Unsent Letter” mp3.

And if you really hate Amazon, drop me a line at editor AT wapshottpress DOT com and we’ll work something out. Eventually these books will be in wider distribution, but at full price.

“WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Moving with unusual speed, the Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday passed legislation to recoup most of the $165 million in retention bonuses paid to American International Group Inc employees.

“Responding quickly to public outrage over the bonuses after the giant insurer received government bailouts of up to $180 billion, the House voted 328-93 to approve a 90 percent tax on bonuses for some executives at companies getting federal aid.

“The tax would apply to executives with incomes over $250,000 who worked for companies that got at least $5 billion in government aid. That could ensnare others getting federal help, such as mortgage financing company Fannie Mae.”
House votes to recoup bonuses from bailed-out firms, by Jeremy Pelofsky and Susan Cornwell, Reuters, March 19, 2009

Or maybe it’s just a bot thing. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be an appeal. Oh well.

Femme Femme Femme is a magnificent art blog that is a joy to read and voyage of discovery. It also gives my crappy French a nice work out, n’est-pas?

“Watching the national news media struggle to cover the economic crisis lately, one could be forgiven the fear that the United States had grown too ignorant and lazy to govern itself.

“Between mis- and disinformation, cheap political posturing and crowd pleasing histrionics masquerading as commentary, the public has been inundated by a flood of dangerous nonsense. Cable news networks must think their audiences have the attention span of fruit flies.

“Many in the New York/Washington media establishment appear to identify with the financial and political geniuses who got us into this mess, and to share their values. Jamison Foser at mediamatters.org noticed that coverage of President Obama’s budget in The Washington Post and The New York Times centered mainly upon increased taxes affecting “the oil and gas industry, hedge fund managers, multinational corporations and nearly 3 million of the nation’s top earners,” poor babies.

“ABC News produced a heartbreaking tale of woe about harried professionals scheming to reduce their incomes to avoid higher tax brackets. A dentist told the reporter she was contemplating cutting her income from her current $320,000 to under $250,000 by having her dental hygienist work fewer days and by treating fewer patients.

“Neither she nor the reporter appeared to have any idea how marginal tax rates work. To wit, she’d pay the higher 36 percent rate only on income above $250,000. The current rate is 33 percent. Hence, Dr. Happy-Tooth’s brilliant plan would save her exactly $2,100 in taxes at a cost of $67,900 in forgone income. No wonder people like her vote Republican.

“ABC subsequently filed an amended version of the story making itself look a bit less foolish.”
Simple story fails public, by Gene Lyons, Arkansas Democrat Gazette, March 12, 2009

Is it even possible for ABC and Greedpublicans to look less foolish?

As usual, Gene Lyons nails it.

God dayam that was boring.

The parts in the jail and the jailbreak were the best parts, but the rest was just boring. This movie had even less dimension than the comic.

You could spend about the same amount on the collected comics and get more for your money. They’re better, deeper, and more satisfying.

Full disclosure: I read the collected Watchmen about six years ago and have thought about it and reread it a lot since then. But I didn’t really understand it until I saw “Dark Knight,” and starting reading and thinking about libertarian fascism. Watchmen makes the same point that a Big, Wise Daddy is not going to save us in any way we’d like him to, but the Watchmen comics do more to make that idea crystal fucking clear. (Super secret fact: if you hold the comic up to a mirror by candle light under a full moon after payday, you can see ‘fanboys are stupid’ watermaked on certain pages. Not many people know this, and I’ll be killed if I reveal my source [I just made it up]).

“This is the second blog in a series in which young artists talk about the art they created on city traffic control boxes as part of our effort to beautify East Hollywood, Thai Town, and Little Armenia. LA Commons — a non-profit organization that works with communities across the city to highlight their ethnic, historic and cultural assets — enlisted the artists who are from local neighborhoods. To protect the art, the boxes have an anti-graffiti coating.”

“Message from the artist: ‘I started this project with Grace at Hollywood Youth and Family Center as a part of community service. When that service was done I kept on going because I love this project and I want to be a part of future art projects. One more thing I have to say (about the 27 fellow youth artists) … we started out strangers and ended up friends.’”
Young artists beautifying neighborhoods – RaeVaughn, Eric Garcetti blog, March 6, 2009

I’ll try to keep the links updated as they get posted, no promises though. Here’s the first artist:

Young artists beautifying neighborhoods: Eddie Cortez

“WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Howard Dean, a practicing physician before entering politics, was under consideration by the Obama administration for the post of U.S. surgeon general, CNN reported Friday.

“Dean, who recently wrapped up a four-year term as Democratic Party chairman, has been a supporter of health reform, and has privately made clear that he is interested in the job, according to the cable network.”
Dean under consideration for surgeon general: report, Reuters, March 6, 2009

That would be excellent!

But who is this bald guy in the background? Even to a civilian like me, he’s obviously Secret Service.

I mean, does he have fangirls? Is his job cool or annoying? Does he have a code name? Could it be…Cueball?

Yeah, yeah, Michelle went to a place where they feed homeless people and dished up some food and looked completely fabulous the whole time. She’s a nice lady. I guess she has to do something to keep busy while the girls are at school. I, for one, think it’s wonderful. I can’t recall the last time I saw or even heard of a First Lady dishing up food in, well, anywhere, can you?

We interrupt our regularly scheduled blogging.

Ian, thanks for the call. We had a bad connection so I couldn’t understand your email address when you told it to me.

About the No on 8 list, if you click on a few links, you’ll discover that list came from the California Secretary of State.

If, as you said, you didn’t give any money No on 8, then I don’t know how your name got on there. I suppose you could track it down with the reporting organization.

And now back to our regularly scheduled blogging (such as it is).

Proceed at your own risk:

Who has the time and resources to make stuff like this? I salute them.

On a girl, these would be merely unfortunate.

And, no, I am not posting that picture on my blog, but I’m damn happy to link to it.

The Cage, in Leggos.

And I thought I was a Trekkie.

They’ve lost it:

“License and warrant your submissions: You do not have to submit anything to us, but if you choose to submit something (including any User generated content, ideas, concepts, techniques and data), you must grant, and you actually grant by concluding this Agreement, a nonexclusive, irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual, unlimited, assignable, sublicenseable, fully paid up and royaltyfree right to us to copy, prepare derivative works of, improve, distribute, publish, remove, retain, add, and use and commercialize, in any way now known or in the future discovered, anything that you submit to us, without any further consent, notice and/or compensation to you or to any third parties. By submitting any information to us, you represent and warrant that such submission is accurate, is not confidential, and is not in violation of any contractual restrictions or other third party rights. You further agree to inform LinkedIn in the event that any such information has changed since your registration with LinkedIn and, if appropriate, you agree to make such modifications yourself to your profile.”

~snip~

“Indemnify us: You have to indemnify us and hold us harmless from any damages, losses and costs (including, but not limited to, reasonable attorneys’ fees) related to third party claims, charges or investigations, caused by (a) your failure to comply with this Agreement, including, without limitation, your submission of content that violates third party rights or applicable laws, (b) any content you submit to LinkedIn or (c) any activity in which you engage on or through the LinkedIn.”

I think this means if they have a data breech, they’re off the hook for anything the data raiders get. Or if they hand over your data to whomever, like the TSA, that’s okay, too.

And from the “Privacy” Policy:

Log files, IP addresses and information about your computer

“Due to the communications standards on the Internet, when you visit the LinkedIn web site we automatically receive the URL of the site from which you came and the site to which you are going when you leave LinkedIn. We also receive the Internet protocol (IP) address of your computer (or the proxy server you use to access the World Wide Web), your computer operating system and type of web browser you are using, email patterns, as well as the name of your ISP. This information is used to analyze overall trends to help us improve the LinkedIn service. The linkage between your IP address and your personally identifiable information is not shared with third-parties without your permission or except when required by law.
Consent to LinkedIn Processing Information About You

“Certain information you provide to LinkedIn may reveal, or allow others to identify, your nationality, ethnic origin, religion or other aspects of your private life, and more generally about you. Please be aware that in providing information to LinkedIn for the purposes of opening your user account, you are expressly and voluntarily accepting the terms and conditions of this Privacy Policy and LinkedIn’s User Agreement. The supplying of all such information by you to LinkedIn, including all information deemed “sensitive” by applicable law, is entirely voluntary on your part. You have the right to withdraw your consent at any time, in accordance with the terms of this Privacy Policy and the User Agreement, but please note that your withdrawal of consent will not be retroactive.”

I like LinkedIn, I just never put much on it, like 70% of my Profile. It’s probably harmless, but even paranoids have enemies.

Ah, the internet. It’s like life now: gotta be careful what you say to whom, where, and how you say it.