Internal Monologue

I hate this roadsign . It means "lanes merging", but to me, it looks like it's saying "There are two lanes now, and in a little bit there will still be two lanes, but one of them will have moved a little bit closer to the other, so you don't really need to worry about anything." Bad User Interface. I apologize profusely for the bad html and lack of pictures. But my blogging circumstances are less than optimal. [edit: added picture]

I already knew this, but Canadians really do pronounce the word "about" differently than Americans. It isn't just a South Park joke . It's really true. It's funny when you encounter in the real world something that's used as a cliche caricature so often. It's like hearing an Australian say "mate".   The service here at the Fairmont Banff Springs has been wonderful, and it is beautiful.   How come every time I leave town my agent calls me with an audition? Sigh.

Internal Monologue will be shifting to a slower pace for several days while my wife and I take a "Babymoon": our last vacation together before our son is due. I will probably have intermittent 'net access and may post here and there. I'm sure there is plenty of stuff out there on " The Internets " to keep you entertained in my absence.

Here's an article that talks about AIDS in Uganda. The prevention effort in Uganda had been quite successful, but the government dropped the condom part and things seem to have gone downhill. Of course, there could be other factors at work. But we shouldn't be surprised when something whose foundation is not based in reality doesn't work in reality. Of course, I'm not convinced that Christianists even want AIDS prevention to work. Better someone die than enjoy sex. When will we be free of these people? It's hard enough to combat a global pandemic without anachronistic superstition crippling our efforts. I used to be so contemptuous when hearing stories about superstitious resistance to polio vaccine and similar stories about Guinea Worm. But what our own government is doing by exporting abstinence-only ideology is just as stupid. Ooga Booga. We're just as blinded by anachronistic moral strictures as those benighted Neolithic tribes. Some say the E...

I'd known about this before, but when Andrew Sullivan talks about it I can trackback to his post and shamelessly steal a minute fraction of his readership to increase the pathetic traffic to my site! It's worked for me before . Isn't the Internet wonderful? Of course, once I put trackbacks on my own site (after I return from vacation) he can always do the same to me. And who knows? Maybe I've given him a reader or two.   Anyway, Lab grown meat. The idea is this: instead of raising animals in awful conditions , why not just grow the meat tissue in vats, disconnected from any living animal? This slate article Andrew links to has more. (Read the "Remarks from the Fray" at the bottom, especially the one about eating celebrity flesh!) Certainly, this would be more humane. It would probably also be more efficient, once the process was industrialized, since all the energy and ingredients could go towards making meat instead of building useless s...

...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated.   [WARNING: SHAMELESS PROSELYTIZING]   Why might you be assimilated? Because you may be a Unitarian Universalist , and just not know it yet! Take the good ol' belief-o-matic test and see. (I'm sure you've done the belief-o-matic before, it's been bounced around the 'net about a zillion times.) I'm convinced that UUism is highly compatible with the geeky demographic of my readership (all 6 of you, but there will be more soon!). To be fair, I suspect UUism comes ranked highly in many belief-o-matic results because UUism is compatible with a fairly wide set of beliefs.   Here are some Unitarian Universalist jokes:   Q: Why are Unitarian Universalists such lousy hymn singers? A: Because they're always scanning ahead to see whether they agree with the lyrics or not.   Q: How do you know you've angered the Unitarian Universalist branch of the KKK? A: You loo...

In this post , Andrew Sullivan rightly chastises Christianists for denying the reality that gay people exist. This denial is absurd. I am an actor in the Bay Area, and I can assure all you Christianists out there that gay people do in fact exist. And they really are gay. You really have to go through some pretty absurd contortions to get around this reality.   But Christianists don't just deny that gay people exist. They deny that straight people exist, too. They deny the existence of any form of sexuality that anyone would recognize as human. Dan Savage has been constantly hammering this point in his columns ( here , here , and here , and I'm sure there are more). Normal folk who just want to get responsibly laid every once in a while or even just have some hot, loving sex with their spouse are in for a big surprise. We think, "Those gay-bashers would never come after me! I'm a red-blooded man/womanly woman!" Well the evidence is pretty...

A fellow geek sent this along to me. Apparently this year, the Minnesota state high school quiz bowl tournament was broadcast on public television (i.e. real TV!). When my fellow geeks ( Mad Latinist and Grishnash ) and I made it to the final round of the state championship back in 1992, all we got to be on was the public school cable channel and a jazz radio station that constantly interrupted our games for traffic reports.   So yes, I'm a bit resentful that nerd-dom is more highly lauded today than it was durning my nerd-formative years. But then I get to say:   I WAS A NERD BEFORE IT WAS COOL!   And I'd like to think that my nerd- and geek-dom blazed a trail for the nerds and geeks of today to exist with less social stigma today than in ages past. Of course, a number of social trends have contributed to the "mainstreaming" of these once stigmatized sub-cultures:   The ubiquity of video games. Once the province...

I just saw the film Water by Deepa Mehta. It is a good film, and paints a very disturbing and sad picture of the fate of widows in 1930's India. These widows can be as young as 5 or 6. They can't remarry, can't wear colorful clothes, can't eat certain foods, and are abandoned by their families in squalid "widow houses". They are shunned and stigmatized in numerous ways. In the house in the movie, they are rented out as prostitutes by the head widow. Unfortunately, both child marriage and hatred of widows still takes place, in India and elsewhere. These are deeply rooted things and seem to create a tremendous amount of suffering. Numerous laws have been passed banning these practices in various countries, but in rural areas the laws are often ignored. I knew intellectually about these things before, but the movie really brought home the reality of what it might be like to be considered a widow in such a culture, even as a young child. It was i...

Chris Bowers at MyDD has a series of articles on tribal identity and the American voter. His basic argument is that voters vote their tribal identity, based on factors such as race, religion, and gender. Socioeconomic factors, such as income, union affiliation, and education play a lesser role in determining a voters behavior. This shouldn't be too surprising, but it is still a little depressing that a lot of us are  basically waving our flags and saying "hooray for our side". (And what is this blog but a small but perfect example of that?)   But Bowers paints a more interesting picture than two rival tribes beating their chests, though. This is from the most interesting of the articles I linked to above:   One side considers itself the "us" in a battle between "us vs. them," while the other side is trying to destroy the notion of both "us" and "them" in order to end the battle. One coalition wins when the ...

 More reasons we don't like " Joementum " Lieberman (the ostensibly Democratic Senator from CT who has a crush on all things Bush), from Atrios :   What a week it's been. Honored by his neocon pals , because they've made all the right decisions over the past couple of years, and now he supports "pro-life" license plates to support pregnancy crisis scam centers. The first time I ever heard of Lieberman was when I was a computer game producer and he was making a ridiculous puritanical stink/cynical political play by bashing video games. He's been doing so for quite some time: here's something from 1997 , and I bet if I wasn't so lazy I could find stuff even earlier. So I never liked the guy. I voted for him when he was Al Gore's running mate, but I don't think anyone on the left would hold that against me, given the alternative. Connecticut is one of the bluest states in the union. Can we have a real Democra...

A grassroots political movement is one that originates outside of established political parties, lobbyists, consulting firms, media outlets, large corporations, and major advocacy groups. An astroturf movement is designed to look like a grassroots movement, but is in fact the product of one of the above-mentioned groups. As usual, wikipedia has a good article on the subject.   According to this article , James Dobson's Focus on the Family (I decline to link, for fear of generating a bunch of wingnut ads on my blog) is spewing a bunch of astroturf opposition to marriage for same-sex partners. With Google and other 'net tools, astroturfing is easier to catch, but the same technology also makes it easier to accomplish. Because of this, you often can't take letters to the editor at face value, especially on highly controversial issues of national importance.  

There's a little video  on Crooks and Liars that is an excellent tutorial on what this issue is about. Of course, it's made from a pro-Net Neutrality perspective.   And I agree with this comment that "Net Neutrality" is kinda boring sounding and does not  frame the issue well. Not the sort of thing a non-geek is going to take to the streets for. Or even contact their member of Congress about. So how about "Net Free Choice" or "Net Equality" or "Net Fairness" or "Not letting some telco hack block my access to Internal Monologue"? Get the focus groups going.

Grishnash has a handy scale for you.

Remember back on May 20, when I reported that Bush and Blair would hold a summit and announce troop reductions in Iraq? Well, the summit (really a news conference) happened. You can read about it here  (if you register for the Washington Post. It's free.) and read a transcript here  (NPR, no registration necessary). A reporter asked if US troop levels were in fact going to be reduced to 100,000: Q: So the 100,000 figure -- PRESIDENT BUSH: That's some speculation in the press that I -- they haven't talked to me about. And as the commander in chief, they eventually will talk to me about it. The American people need to know that we'll keep the force level there necessary to win. And it's important for the American people to know that politics isn't going to make the decision as to the size of our force level. The conditions on the ground will make the decision. So I guess the 100,000 figure was just some BS floated by somebody to ...

One common misconception is that the lefty blogosphere represented by DailyKos et. al. (including your truly) is that we desperately want the Democratic party to become more liberal. This would be nice, but it isn't really our main beef with the likes of Joe Lieberman, Hillary Clinton, Diane Feinstein, the DLC, etc. Our main beef with them is that they don't stand up for the Democratic Party, and don't fight back against the Republicans. This article by digby paints a good picture of this frustration. It's ridiculous that Democrats are getting rolled, even on centrist issues where a majority of Americans side with them or could probably easily be persuaded to side with them. It's especially ridiculous when the Republicans are as unpopular as they are. The Dems in Washington seem so concerned about "maintaining civility", but that doesn't mean they have to give the Republicans a free pass as much as they do.   That's why we're su...

...the Christian Coalition and MoveOn.org jointly decide take out a big ad in the New York Times in support of it. The only people who are against Net Neutrality (which until very recently has been the effective law of the land) are the telecom companies like AT&T. The last thing I want is some cable company deciding which web sites I try to access will run faster than others.   By the way, according to digby , the House Judiciary Committee just passed enforcement for Net Neutrality 20-13. This is a major victory for grass roots activism that crossed the typical partisan lines. (Of course, titans like Google and Microsoft and Amazon were backing us up on this, too. Never hurts to have a few billionaires in your corner.)

...they think Stephen Colbert is actually on their side. This, from Think Progress , is almost too hilarious for words. Stephen Colbert is a fictional right-wing blowhard who was originally on the Daily Show and now has his own show.  He recently savaged George W. Bush to his face in a jaw-dropping performance at the White House Corresponents Dinner, and his performance generated a lot of controversy in the blogosphere. We lefties loved it: see the video here and thank him here . (I agree it wasn't actually that funny; it was more than that. It was awesome.)   Anyway, on his show Colbert recently interviewed Robert Greenwald, creator of the Outfoxed documentary and other lefty films. Greenwald has just made a film documenting Delay's crimes, called The Big Buy: Tom Delay's Stolen Congress . And in this "interview", Colbert (who is a PARODY of Bill O'Reilly, remember) attacks Greenwald with questions like, "Who hates America more...

I don't normally use the august platform that is Internal Monologue as a platform from which to link to silly videos on the web (well, OK, I've done it before ), but this one is really good . It's an illustration of the contrasting styles of Microsoft vs. Apple packaging, at the expense of Microsoft. But according to this , it was produced by Microsoft designers as a piece of self-criticism or parody. Apparently, this video was mentioned in the Wall Street Journal, but since they are cowards who hide behind a subscription wall (not to mention being a bunch of warmongering, Bush-toady shills, at least on their editorial page) they don't get a link.  

Well, the lefty blogosphere (of which I consider myself a member) has done a pretty good job in my opinion of linking the debunked Iran story (about forcing religious minorities to wear special clothing or badges) to the same crowd that pushed for an invasion of Iraq. A good summary can be found here . I'm glad we got on top of this quickly. As it is, I wonder how many people believe it.   Be on your guard for false memes unleashed for nefarious political purposes, folks! This is how the wingnuts move an idea from "unthinkably stupid" to "If you don't support it, you hate babies and God and Mom and America and Apple Pie."   The sad thing is, there was a time in the not-too-distant past when Iran looked like it was headed towrards moderation and reform. But high oil prices and Bush's "axis of evil" statement have put the kabosh on all that. (The despondent remarks of some anonymous State Department and CIA folks, including on Ir...

A picture of one of the rallies referenced in the previous post. (This image came from here .)

(For a definition of Christianism (as opposed to Christianity), see this post .)   It appears as though an organization called Teen Mania holds rallies called BattleCry  in various cities. Well, several lefties are freaking out about these events, such as this Daily Kos diarist , this one , digby , and plenty others (follow the links, there are pictures!). It sounds pretty scary. An excerpt from one account (from an admittedly hostile and somewhat snarky observer):   Indeed, it had a point, to recruit the future elite "warriors" in the coming battle against the separation of church and state. It turned dark and frightening on Saturday afternoon. After Franklin "Islam is a Wicked Religion" Graham came out to thunder against the evils of homosexuality and the Iraqi people (whom he considers to be exactly the same people as the ancient Babylonians who enslaved the tribes of Israel and deserving, one would assume, ...

At the bottom of this post about the McCain/New School affair, I complained that whenever the left speaks up, the wingnuts always complain about "incivility", dispite the constant stream of vituperation that spews forth from the wingnut noise machine. Glen Greenwald has a much lengthier, well-researched post on this phenomenon here .   Don't let fear of being labled "angry" prevent you from speaking the truth. Karl Rove used this trick against Kerry, and I think he fell for it. It's especially annoying when war supporters denounce war opponents as being "excessively angry". It is ridiculous for someone advocating the use of horrible violence (and war, even if justified, is certainly horrible violence) to accuse someone opposing violence of excessive anger. That is saying that heckling and chanting is somehow more impolite than bombing and invading. What a crock.   These smears of the anti-war movement are particularly laughable gi...

Remember back when I posted about a friend who asked, "Which is more intimate, 'I love you' or sex?" For me, 'I love you' is more intimate than sex, and I suspected that this would be true for others as well.   Well, I got an update on my friend's informal survey today. It seems that when people were initially asked this question, they responded that they were more conservative with sex than with "I love you". This is the opposite of my own response, and the opposite of what I thought other responses would be. But when my friend confronted the people being querried with examples of their past behavior, many of them revised their assessment and "admitted" they were more likely to have sex with someone than say "I love you" to someone.   Now this is fascinating to me. The fact that people could be in such denial about their own sexual behavior that they cannot answer this question accurately the first time around...

Jean Rohe fights back !   You assume that I have no experience making a living. I have been a full-time college student and have worked a job to pay my own rent and my own expenses for the past two years. You assume that I live in an "echo chamber" of liberal head-patting, when, in fact, I live in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, a neighborhood notorious for its cultural diversity and sometimes, conflict.   It bugs me that every time someone stands up and publicly rebukes some Republican warmonger to their face, the right-wing complains about the lack of politeness, and decries that our discourse has sunk so low. To me, it is a relief that people are finally standing up to the fetid combination of incompetence and immorality that dominates our governing institutions. Our public denunciation, stated forthrightly, is the least we can do.

OK, for those of you who don't know about the whole John McCain New School Graduation speech/Jean Rhoe smackdown, here's a quick summary: McCain gets invited to speak at the very progressive New School, and plans to give the same speech as he gave at other graduations. Jean Rhoe, who is scheduled to speak before him, chucks her previously prepared remarks and, looking at the text of the speech McCain will give, rewrites her speech, attacking McCain and his speech before he even gives it. The progressive blogosphere makes a hero out of her. For some more info, see her " why I did it " explanation on Huffingtonpost.com. Now apparently, McCain's chief of staff has replied to her and her classmates. The whole thing can be found here . This is the conclusion of his post: Should you grow up and ever get down to the hard business of making a living and finding a purpose for your lives beyond self-indulgence some of you might then know a happiness far ...

According to the Times online (from the UK):   Blair and President George W Bush will announce that they are to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq at a summit in Washington being planned for this week to welcome the formation of a new Iraqi government. The process has been carefully choreographed in an attempt to bolster the popularity of both leaders, which has been dragged down by the war. The phased withdrawal will see British troop numbers cut by several thousand and American forces by up to 30,000 by the end of the year, according to a senior defence source. Funny how it's happening right as the midterm elections come up. You read it here first. I'm looking for confirmation of this elsewhere. If this is true, it's about time. I'm an atheist, but God help Iraq. I feel we owe that country so much more. But with Bush and Rumsfeld at the helm, I'm glad we're lessening our presence. They are incapable of seeing reality, and as...

One of the advantages of getting your news from the blogosphere is that you get your news about 12 hours before everyone else does. Rarely does something major on the front page of the Times catch me by surprise. But the blogosphere has its perils: it's easy to float a story and get it spread around before it gets checked. (Then again, the main stream media wasn't exactly rigorous in some of its Iraq reporting either.) Here's a prime example: a story that Iran was going to pass a law requiring people of non-Islamic religions to wear identifying marks on their clothing. Well, it turns out that it is probably false , but it is already so widespread that it will be hard to stamp out the rapidly spreading meme.   I was going to blog this item, and I'm glad now I waited (though I admit it was more due to laziness than skepticism on my part).   Andrew Sullivan asks the next logical question : who put this out there and why? There is evidence that it is wa...

Read the book . Then read John Derbyshire's review , in which he is nostalgic for 1958 and uses rape statistics to justify his age preference in women. Then read Amanda Marcotte on Pandagon and see her disembowel Derbyshire, puree his intestines in a blender, and force him to drink it (as one commenter describes her savaging of his review).   Reading Lolita in Tehran is a good book; it is fascinating to see how women from Iranian culture react to this book.   The Stanley Kubrick movie version does not really feel much like the book, but it is interesting in its own right. Peter Sellers is great as Clare Quilty, and I think his appearances are the best scenes in the film. He is the exact right person to play that role. I think his recurring performances manage to capture some of the insanity that's there in the novel.   This subject has generated lots of commentary, and I don't have anything original to add. I just think it inter...

I just remembered this and dug it up from my journal. It took place in January of 1998 in the waiting area of an airport gate (presumably in the MSP airport, waiting to return to Seattle). I recorded it shortly after witnessing it firsthand. I reproduce it verbatim here. It is completely true. A young boy climbing all over his mother repeatedly saying "I'm going to marry you." Then he says "Boys marry boys and girls marry girls." I don't know if this is an accidental or intentional inversion, but he finds it highly amusing and repeats it many times. Then it seems he realizes that according to this new mantra, he can no longer marry his mother. So he accosts his younger brother (his father is there too) and says he's going to marry him. The younger brother has not been following the earlier marriage declarations, so doesn't really know what to make of this. After repeating "I'm going to marry you" and ...

Or maybe just  his ancestors . I, for one, would not be sorry to see Mr. "Torture  is OK" thrown out of the country. Or at least out of his current  post.    

An important distinction . (Found via this post at Almost Infamous.) Here is my comment: Thank you for your post. Nerd vs. Geek is an important distinction, and I think you elucidate it well. I disagree with the specificity of your geek criteria though. While I think they capture exactly the flavor of geekdom, one must remember that people can "geek out" on different things. For example, I meet criteria 1, 2, 7, 8, and 10 with flying colors. I almost meet criteria 4. But 3, 5, and 6 not so much, and 9 not at all. Nonetheless, I consider myself a geek and score pretty highly on those geek inventories one finds on the net. One can be a geek without playing Dungeons and Dragons or loving comic books or being an anime fan, as long as one engages fervently in mental activities of a similar nature and with a similar obliviousness to social consequences. That is geekdom to me. Using these more abstract criteria, it is possible to identify geek...

It seems the right wing in this country is driving itself into a xenophobic frenzy. This guy claims in this post that mass deportations of 12 million people are in fact workable, because the Germans were able to do something similar to 6 million jews in WWII: Not only will it work, but one can easily estimate how long it would take. If it took the Germans less than four years to rid themselves of 6 million Jews, many of whom spoke German and were fully integrated into German society, it couldn't possibly take more than eight years to deport 12 million illegal aliens, many of whom don't speak English and are not integrated into American society. Andrew Sullivan nominated this guy for his Malkin Award ("named after blogger, Michelle Malkin - is for shrill, hyperbolic, divisive and intemperate right-wing rhetoric. Ann Coulter is ineligible - to give others a chance.") One right wing blog, Polipundit , apparently kicked all of his guest...

This question was posed to me by a friend, although not quite exactly in that way. The friend was having a disagreement with someone about this question, and was doing some informal research on what people thought.   Another way of putting this question is: who's the bigger slut: someone who has sex with three different people in one week, or someone who says "I love you" for the first time to three different people in one week? (Obviously, we're talking about the romanto-erotic version of that first declaration of "I love you". Saying it to friends and family doesn't count (barring the case of incest I suppose). And neither do hippie declarations of universal amity ("I love you, man!"), nor do passionless formulaic utterances ("Yes dear, of course I love you."). Now of course this form of the question presupposes that both of the above-mentioned behaviors are slutty, i.e. promiscuous in an unhealthy way. And we are, in ...

C'mon, admit it. You can't get enough Purity Ball porn! To slake your thirst for information on this very real phenomenon, I give you the vow the girl's father says, straight from the  Focus on the Family website :    I, (daughter’s name)’s father, choose before God to cover my daughter as her authority and protection in the area of purity. I will be pure in my own life as a man, husband and father. I will be a man of integrity and accountability as I lead, guide and pray over my daughter and as the high priest in my home. This covering will be used by God to influence generations to come.   Pardon me while I channel Butthead for a moment: "Huh huh... he said God is going to make people come...huh huh."   High priest in my home! Yeah, that's the ticket. Unfortunately, my unborn child is a boy, so I won't be able to participate in such a wonderful ritual. I'm still totally going to be the high priest though. I'm goin...

Remember back when I was complaining that "cultural conservatives" have a pathological model of sexuality? Well, a friend of mind pointed me to a blog, which according to my friend is written by an Evangelical Christian Fundamentalist: slacktivist . And in his (I think it's a he) blog he asks, why do Christians hate sex? And in his next post , he gives an interesting account of why this might have come about. It involves early Christianity's appropriation of certain neo-platonic ideas that denigrated the physical in favor of the ideal.   I am very happy to see this analysis coming from within the Evangelical Christian movement. Like a therapist, I believe improvements always have more staying power when they come from within, rather than imposed from without. (Witness the American South and the lingering resentments about the Civil War and forced de-segregation.) I think much of the puritanical hysteria we have been seeing recently (OH MY G...

OK, maybe people don't want the phone company turning over their records to the NSA without a warrant. Turns out the WaPo poll I mentioned earlier isn't holding up too well. Here's another from USAToday via Atrios that seems to contradict it. Sorry I helped propagate the false meme. Even Internal Monologue can be duped by the hideously evil right-wing noise machine! I guess people are getting a little more nervous about such things now that they've had a news cycle or two to think about it and learn more. Or maybe the earlier poll was biased in some way.   I must admit that I am taking delight in watching the Bush edifice collapse. Once it does, maybe liberals and conservatives can get back to arguing with each other again. Until then, liberals and conservatives are all converging on the "hold this looney loser in check" plan.

(This is my first DailyKos diary) "How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?" -C. S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stomping on a human face -- forever." -George Orwell In this diary , PerfectStormer asks those calling the phone companies (to protest their cooperation with the NSA) to be nice to the call center reps they talk to. I certainly agree with this request. Certainly, one should be nice to people. I'm originally from Minnesota, after all. Being nice makes things more pleasant, and in most cases it's a better way to get what you want. Who wants to do a favor for an asshole? But something about this request for kindness brought up anger in me. I had the vague feeling that I was being had. Not by the diarist, whose earnest plea provoked sympathy. But by the circumstances which put a decent, innocent person in the path of my real and genuine anger. When we are angry with someon...

...the "big one" that we who oppose Bush dream about: the outrage brought to light that inspires a tidal wave anti-bush sentiment. According to this article , 66% of people wouldn't be bothered if the NSA gathered records of personal calls they had made. Of course, with the latest Harris Poll putting Bush at 29% , maybe there doesn't have to be a big one. Meanwhile, Republicans pass more tax cuts for the rich . Isn't there a national debt of 8.3 trillion , a defecit of somewhere around 400 billion , and 2 wars going on? (Remember Afghanistan?) Of course, to a Republican a tax cut for rich folk is always good, no matter what the circumstances. Update: Glenn Greenwald urges us not to take these first polls too seriously . Waiting a few days may give reality more time to sink in. Update II: SusanG gives a list of talking points to help explain the yuckiness of this illegal NSA program.

Here's a comment I posted to Kos. PerfectStormer  posted a diary asking people to be nice to the call reps when complaining about having their phone records illegally turned over to the NSA . I agree one should be nice to call reps. Indeed, one should be nice under almost all circumstances. I am from Minnesota , after all. But this plea for sympathy provoked something of a rant from me:   I understand that when you finally get through on a customer service call, the phone rep you end up talking to is so completely disempowered and alienated from the actual decision making process that yelling at them makes no more sense than yelling at part of a chair on which you have stubbed your toe. And I totally sympathize with people whose job it is to deal with dissatisfied customers who are often clueless and fundamentally responsible for the cause of their problem (e.g. not paying the bill). But it is incredibly frustrating for those of us w...

Oh no! Internal Monologue is now shamelessly whoring itself to Google advertisements! Formerly incisive commentary will now be watered down, corporate friendly, and anemic! The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Currency will demand I retract " coin fight " or they'll pull their ad dollars! To say nothing of how the Pace Foods company will react to " nostril salsa ". Are there no independent voices left?

It's an issue that's brought together both the left-wing and right-wing blogospheres . And major computer companies like Microsoft, Yahoo!, Google, and Amazon are on board . What is it exactly? I'll let the wonderful wikipedia provide a definition :   Network neutrality is a principle of network operational architecture . It means that the network is operated under the three principles of neutrality: non-discrimination , interconnection , and access . The principles can apply to any network. They govern the operation of the network, not the content or business practices of the network operator. Inherent in the definition is that network operations are distinct from the content side. Network neutrality is one way to describe the operational architecture of the global Internet . Nearly every nation operating a portion of the Internet, often by default, has adopted some form of the neutrality principle.   The United States does not ...

The Bush administration has claimed that it needs all these cool new powers in order to fight terrorists. And it assures us that us law-abiding docile citizens have nothing to fear from this. Well, a USA Today atricle tells us that the NSA has collected massive amounts of phone data from citizens not suspected of any wrongdoing: The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY. The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans — most of whom aren't suspected of any crime. This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, sources said in separate inte...