Is It Live or Is It Memorex?

The Machine

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AC/DShe

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I went over to MSNBC to look for an article on something else, something that I was going to write about and have been distracted by these videos.

The article at MSNBC that distracted me was on tribute bands, and how they are rising in popularity. I think that this is probably because the new bands cannot even come close to the music of my day...but there is probably a more logical explanation, like the fact that our population is filled with folks my age and a little older, who grew up on this music and we always identify - for the rest of our lives - with the music that grabbed us in our teens.

It was the video of AC/DShe that grabbed me. An all female AC/DC tribute band. How fun is that?

Then it was The Machine; a Pink Floyd tribute band. This is an amazing feat, playing Floyd, and what makes them so good is their keyboardist (I swear it is always the keyboard players that make the tribute bands...anyone can learn the guitar well enough and most guitarists grew up trying to copy their favs, and most of the singers never compare - same true, here - but the keyboardist, damn, he is fabulous.)

Enjoy.

What tribute band would you join, if you could play? Or sing?

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How it Happens

The other day, while reading online (you know what they say…) I saw a perfect example of how it happens. We all know what it is; it is the Internet’s version of the game of telephone and it is far worse.

Someone reads something, they interpret it, then they post their interpretation, someone reads their interpretation, links to it as gospel and the original piece of news is lost forever. The comments in the blog post that follow reflect the anger and disgust – or joy, happy, joy, joy – at the grand “news” that is conveyed. Unfortunately, we cannot always believe everything that we read on the Internet.

The other day I read this headline to my husband:

Land of the Free? As of February 10, 2009 it will be illegal to re-sell children's toys and clothing

My reaction, as was my husband’s, was WTF? How would we survive if it weren’t for thrift stores? And, there are millions more people like us. Not to mention that kids outgrow their clothing so quickly that in thrift stores/second hand stores/consignment shops the children’s clothing is quite often brand new or nearly new.

I investigated further. The blog post linked to this article:

New law restricts re-sale of kid's products

OK, “restricts” is better than “makes it illegal.” The article goes on to clarify,

A new law which takes effect next month requires testing for lead and other chemicals on any kid products made before February 10th.
…
Members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission tentatively agreed that clothing and toys made from natural materials like cotton and wood will be exempt.

Now I am starting to see a more clear picture of what is going on…testing for lead levels and other illegal chemicals…cotton and wood products exempt. This seems a little more reasonable. It still seems a tad excessive and I am still a little outraged at the restrictions, but it is sounding far more reasonable than the original headline. I investigate further – going directly to the source.

CPSC Clarifies Requirements of New Children’s Product Safety Laws Taking Effect in February
Guidance Intended for Resellers of Children’s Products, Thrift and Consignment Store

The new law requires that domestic manufacturers and importers certify that children’s products made after February 10 meet all the new safety standards and the lead ban. Sellers of used children’s products, such as thrift stores and consignment stores, are not required to certify that those products meet the new lead limits, phthalates standard or new toy standards.
…
When the CPSIA was signed into law on August 14, 2008, it became unlawful to sell recalled products.

While this might be slightly inconvenient for consignment shops and thrift stores, that they have to confirm that the toys that they are reselling have not been recalled and they have to confirm that their products do not have excessive amounts of lead in them, it seems perfectly reasonable and it is a far cry from the original headline.

This was such a clear example to me of how it happens on the ‘Nets. How the rumors get started and how easy that it is for misunderstandings to occur and tempers to flare. While reading some of the comments following the two posts, the first, inflammatory one at Newsvine and the second, less severe one at KVUE (an “actual” news source) I was struck at how easy it is to cement in someone’s mind a misconception.

The commentors were furious, one going so far as to put out a call for massive civil disobedience. I was heartened to read some more tempered comments, including someone telling the original poster that he should research his information a little more before posting such an inflammatory headline – but the damage had already been done.

Now there is a counter movement against this regulation. The law, as I understand it, was fairly well thought out and supported by environmental organizations and consumer safety advocates. It makes sense to me – don’t sell shit that has been recalled or has enough lead in it to poison our children. Straight forward and reasonable - especially when we remember the outrage when the toys with lead in them were discovered; the law was an outgrowth of this lack of oversight. However, the inflammatory headlines and BS flowing around the Intertubes has created public outrage and ignorance.

And this is how it happens.

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Holiday Open Thread

OMG, Toyota's posting it's first operating loss since 1950! It's all the Unions fault... damn Unions, causing Toyota to go broke... oh yeah, Toyota doesn't have Union workers.
UPDATE: Just when I get flippant about Toyota and Unions, emptywheel puts out a great article on Toyota being a model for success.

I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Happy Solstice, Wonderful Kwanzaa and Happy New Year.

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Taking Bets: How Long Until it is Pulled

(Picture courtesy of Whitehouse.gov via Politico. By now, though, you can probably find it all over the web...it has been out for a few hours already.)

Dubya has never been known as "bright" - he is, contrarily, quite gullible. Not bright plus very gullible, leads to pictures that one will regret for the rest of one's life.

I saw this in Politico.

The comments led me to the definition of "the shocker." Unbelievable. When I read the definition, I too, spit coffee.

If I were in college and had the opportunity to meet the Pres and get my photo taken and the President were Dubya....I imagine that I might have done the same.

Holy Fuck.

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Some Doctor's Offices Have Better Magazines Than Others (And Some Doctor's Receptionists Let You Take Them if You Ask!)

(note from id - I edited this for size, it was driving me nuts!)

(Picture courtesy of "Discover" magazine.)

Sometime within the last few weeks I was in my Rheumatologist's office and found my way to an issue of "Scientific American." It was a current issue, which is a really big deal in a doctor's office.

This issue, October 2008, has the article "Web Science: Studying the Internet to Protect Our Future." Very cool article with some fascinating charts.

In summary, the article outlines a relatively new science, beginning in late 2006, of studying the Web.

The article defines it as

“This new discipline will model the Web’s structure, articulate the architectural principles that have fueled its phenomenal growth, and discover how online human interactions are driven by and can change social conventions. It will elucidate the principles that can ensure that the network continues to grow productively and settle complex issues such as privacy protection and intellectual-property rights. To achieve these ends, Web science will draw on mathematics, physics, computer science, psychology, ecology, sociology, law, political science, economics, and more.”

The article then goes into the mathematical algorithms involved in “PageRank” and the need to “engineer out” properties such as “link farms.” The article continues discussing how the study of the Web and the understanding of scale-free networks has led to a cross application of disciplines by applying “power-law degree” distributions to business alliances and even using it at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to

“improve its models of sexual disease transmission and has helped biologists better understand protein interactions.”

As if the above weren’t fascinating enough, the article then began to discuss the impact of blogs. The leading graphs discuss the origin of the phrase “six degrees of separation” [damn I love Etymology] and then goes on to admit that no one really knows the size of the blogosphere.

"It is difficult to estimate the size of the blogosphere accurately. David Sifry’s leading blog search engine, called Technorati, was tracking more than 112 million blogs worldwide in May of this year, a number that may include only a mere fraction of the 72 million blogs purportedly in China. Whatever the size, the explosive growth demands an explanation. Arguably, the introduction of very simple mechanisms, especially TrackBack, facilitated the growth. If a blogger writes an entry commenting on or referring to an entry at another blog, TrackBack notifies the original blog with a “ping.” This notification enables the original blog to display summaries of all the comments and links to them. In this way, conversations arise spanning several blogs and rapidly form networks of individuals interested in particular themes. And here again large portions of the blog structure become linked via short paths—not only the blogs and bloggers themselves but also the topics and entries made."

The article goes into the rise of “Semantic Web.” From my vantage point this is nothing more than drilling down information to get you as close as possible to what you are actually looking for. However, for Web Scientists and Web Designers it has actually led to a new programming language,

"Engineers have devised powerful foundations for the Semantic Web, notably the primary language—the Resource Description Framework (RDF)—which is layered on top of the basic HTML and other protocols that form Web pages. RDF gives meaning to data through sets of “triples.” Each triple resembles the subject, verb and object of a sentence. For example, a triple can assert that “person X” [subject] “is a sister of” [verb] “person Y” [object]. A series of triples can determine that [car X] [is brand] [To¬yota]; that [car X] [condition is] [used]; that [car X] [costs] [$7,500]; that [car X] [is located in] [Lenox]; and that [Lenox] [is located in] [western Massachusetts]. Together these triples can conclude that car X is indeed a proper answer to our query. This simple triple structure turns out to be a natural way to describe a large majority of the data processed by machines. The subjects, verbs and objects are each identified by a Universal Resource Identifier (URI)—an address just like that used for Web pages. Thus, anyone can define a new concept, or a new verb, by defining a URI for it on the Web."

The physical magazine has a very cool map of the blogosphere, which I had to find in Discover Mag so that I could post it. The Discover article explains it better anyway. (It also reminds me of the cartoon map of the blogosphere that I have spent so long looking for now, because I do not remember where I saw it, that I am now bored to death with this entire post.)

This science of new science might lead to a discipline devoted to studying exactly how Obama won the election. Funny how science works that way.

For more information on next generation web technology, I found this forum of forums while doing this research.

If I were more ambitious (and maybe more well) then I might be interested in pursuing something in this direction. I find the convergence of sociology, poli-sci, psychology, math and technology pretty cool. However, since I am not that ambitious (and tend to get bored easily) maybe I will just pursue a subscription to “Scientific American.” Kiddo wants it for Christmas anyway, so I could kill two birds with one stone [that was a metaphor, never would I advocate the killing of any birds with any number of stones.]

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Caption Contest

The Tongue Lasher!

Which man will be our next President?


Why can't I stop laughing... 7 of 6, get a hold of yourself!

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What Will It Take to Fix the Economy?

Get the latest news satire and funny videos at 236.com.

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"(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party!)"

With a big hat tip to iamcoyote, the republi-con hyprocisy is in high gear. (my highlights)

MINNEAPOLIS-- As residents of New Orleans were fleeing Hurricane Gustav, top Republican party officials donned pink boas and swigged vodka shots at a wild whirl of corporate and lobbyist-paid parties this weekend in Minneapolis-St. Paul.

Many corporate sponsors and their lobbyists carried through with plans for lavish entertainment of GOP lawmakers and others despite calls from the campaign of Sen. John McCain that Republicans should tone down the convention festivities.

"We will be contacting corporations and others to ask them to be respectful of events in the gulf," McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said Sunday afternoon.

Yet, last night lobbyists for the National Rifle Association, Lockheed Martin and the American Trucking Association put on a raucus six-hour party at a downtown bar featuring music by the band "Hookers and Blow." There was no evidence of any actual prostitutes or cocaine.

No night off for these republi-con party animals... I'm convinced they were glad the convention got curtailed by an act of God!

And yes, after what this country has been put through for the last 8 years, I'm an intolerant liberal blogger.

One observant Democratic challenger was ready to go... as pointed out by DvilleDem at Daily Kos.

Congressman Bill Shuster (R-PA), a GOP House deputy whip, was seen meeting with a group of lobbyists, who bemoaned McCain's call to tone down the parties which had already been paid for...

On the Sept. 1st Broadcast of ABC’s World News Tonight however, the Congressman can be seen arguing with reporters, fighting for his right to party.

Shuster’s opponent in the 9th Congressional district Tony Barr made the following statement. "We are saddened but not really all that shocked. At a time when the citizens of the Gulf Coast and literally running for their lives, and citizens here in the 9th District are feeling the pinch of an economy floundered by the policies of George Bush and Bill Shuster, where is our Congressman? Holding court with lobbyists who advocate the same failed polices that got us into this mess in the first place. At a time when drugs and drug related crime are the scourge of our streets, there’s Bill Shuster, partying with "hookers and blow!"

I can't wait for the pictures of this party.

UPDATE: Now we know why ATA was supporting a republi-con convention party. ATA (American Trucking Association) will support higher fuel taxes. The bastards...

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Seven of Six:

Hope this Helps

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Unicorn Sighted!

Well, kinda.

I have a good friend working for NASA who blogs with Livejournal, and she posted her approval of Kucinich's recent impeachment resolution.

We here at L'n'LPD all shout, About fucking time!, whenever Kucinich does this, even though it's futile. The worst part is that we wish there were other Congressmen to cheer, much less someone who's actually committee member with real weight . . .

But interesting to me is not the original post but this in the comments:

6/10/2008: 07:56 pm Tuesday (UTC)
montieth

Skimming through the articles, it seems like half of the points are just as justifiable against members of congress and the previous Clinton Administration. Especially where it concerns spying, war declarations and other such acts.

Ultimately this is a lot of daft posturing and really a waste of time for congress. I'm not sure, if that's a good thing or not at this point. But if they spend time on this and not on stupid wealth re-distribution plans, then hey.

Well, by golly! It's that rare beast, Conservative Libertarius Extremus! Notable for its propensity to automatically defend itself against current events criticism by rearing on it's hindquarters and invoking a Clinton. And this specimen then does a beautifully rendered counterattack with wealth redistribution. Maginifcent!

This specimen then takes another shot at being the last word following a weak assertion by a well-meaning other poster.

6/10/2008: 08:32 pm Tuesday (UTC)
montieth

The problem is that half of those things cited, Congress (both sides) is up to it's NECKS in. Wasteful spending in Iraq. You want wasteful spending, lets cut the earmarks that EVERYONE in congress plays with. Obama himself got to send what was it, $100,000 to his own church through Federal ear-marks on appropriations bills?

Misspending of funding? Bill Clinton, used appropriations budget money for the Military to pay for the Balkans campaign (does Kucinich think that's an illegal undeclared war?). That is to say, he wanted to do the intervention, Congress blocked him (which I think was wrong, but that's not the point), so Bill used the funding that the military had allocated for purchasing new systems and training budgets and instead used that capital for the costs of the peace keeping missions.

One could probably make an argument that the then 2003 state of body armor and protected vehicles other vehicles were a direct result of the Clinton Administration's decisions on defense spending. To hang THAT on the Bush administration is just utterly specious. It is, technically an argument more on long term planning.

Frankly, what congress needs to spend time on is working out a new budget, fixing a lot of criminal law problems and maybe perhaps addressing the strange balance of tariffs and funding the have for big agro which is in part why they're blocking the new drilling bills.

Lovely, just lovely. I feel like Marlin Perkins. Earmarks and pork are like honey to these beautiful creatures, and Libertarian can rarely resist them. Then follows with another textbook Clinton that is fantastic in its length and breadth. Once finished, the political beast then strides off in the satisfied rhythm of criminal law reform, tariffs, and budgetary abstractions.

After nothing but Hillary and Obama Whackadoodles for the last few months, I find my self giddy!

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Warning: Pee First

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Oh, You . . You . . . Guys!

Inquiring minds:

The Hill asked all 97 senators who are not running for president the same question: “If you were asked, would you accept an offer to be the VP nominee?”

Some senators laughed, but others took the question seriously.

Remind us to tar and feather the poor bastards that took it seriously later

Sen. Lamar "Flannel Shirt" Alexander (R-Tenn.)
“I know already who it will be: the man in charge of the search. There’s no need for me to respond. That’s how you get to be vice president.”

Ouch! Burn! And he's a Republican!

Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Colo.)
“You got your answer — a laugh. The president’s going to make that choice. You can see how much I’ve thought about it.”

What's worse than a sheep? A cynical sheep that mutters the truth while following the herd . .

Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.)
“We already have a vice president from Wyoming. So we’ll have to see if Sen. McCain asks me to chair his selection committee. That seems to work well. It certainly seemed to work well for the last guy from Wyoming.”

Someone needs to hide the alcohol and sleeping pills at the Capitol.

Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.)
“No, I can already preside over the Senate, and I do not enjoy spending a lot of time at ‘undisclosed locations.’ ”

Byrd, you chucklefiend!

Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho)
“I would say ‘No, Hillary.’ ”

One would have to wonder what Hillary would be doing in the Men's Room, Larry.

Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.)
“No. I don’t like going to funerals.”

And hide the sharp pointy things too.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.)
“Once is enough. I already have the T-shirt and I’m proud of it. I yield to my colleagues.”

. . and dozens of angry, paranoid voices all screamed out at once . .

Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.)
“Absolutely. Absolutely. I think I would be great. First of all, I know how to behave at weddings and funerals. And I know how to be commander in chief. I’d bring a lot of fun to the job. We would rock the Naval Observatory.”

And need I remind the honorable Senator that she was born in 1936? All she's rocking is the glider in her living room.

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska)
“No. I’ve got too many things that I still want to do as a senator. And I don’t like the idea of a job where you sit around and wait for someone to die.”

Jeeez . . have you had your Metamucil today, Ted?

And last:

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.)
“I have a unique perspective on this. I am the only senator to have announced I am not running for president because there should be someone here to serve as the Senate’s designated driver. I intend to stay in that position. The Senate needs a designated driver to stay behind and work on healthcare.”

I bet he doesn't put out on the first date, either.

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Godwinned!!

With a hat tip to those Kings of Tasteful comedy, Dennis Perrin & Jonathan Schwarz.



(The fantastic movie used for this clip is Der Untergang or Downfall in english.)

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