Archive for the 'History' Category


STOP SOPA AND PIPA 0

As a web worker, technologist, and community media supporter I cannot support the bills known as SOPA and PIPA. I disagree on multiple levels with the transfer of speech rights to a group of private entities and the onerous ‘policing’ actions foisted upon independent content creators.

Contact your representatives and let them know how you feel: http://americancensorship.org/

Creative Uses of Manpower 0

This picture is one. In 1918, 18000 Iowa National Guard soldiers formed a perspective oriented human statue of liberty.

Quite impressive.

via reddit

Prescience 0

Byron Dorgan (D-ND), in 1999:

Part 1

Part 2

Via DKos – Click for transcript.

Unanimous 0

Glad Iowa is taking the lead in this.

Gay marriage legal in Iowa

A New Era 0

At long last…

bushgtfo

I gladly await ‘change’.

The Buckminster-meister Blows Your Mind 0

I’ll need to watch this again, and then again before I’ll get the whole point. Runtime approx 1 hour.



For the uninitiated, here’s R Buck’s wikipedia page.

HT George

‘Black September’ 0

A DKos diarist takes a look at the month the financial calamity began to begin the ‘first drafts of history’. For those who don’t want to read the entire thing, here’s some of the meat from the conclusion:

American consumers sustained two massive shocks as a result of Black September.  First, their confidence was shattered not just by news of corporate collapses, including sensationalistic reports that they were newly responsible for trillions of dollars’ worth of mortgages, but more importantly by the magnification of those collapses by the public figures (the President, the Treasury Secretary, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Senators and Members of Congress) in statements that quite plainly advised Americans that imminent panic over the fate of the entire economy was a proper reaction.  And panic American consumers did, as millions of households listened to a President’s speech telling them that the End was Imminent, and then had sober discussions over the kitchen table in which they decided to drastically pull back on discretionary spending, literally overnight.

Full Article Here

Because It Can’t Be Repeated Too Many Times 0

Read this whole thing if you need to start understanding what’s happening in the financial markets and another reason to be anti-McCain.

Just read below if you want the kicked-in-the-genitals part:

How big did this market become? Here’s business correspondent Bob Moon and host Kai Ryssdal on American Public Media’s Marketplace from back in the spring.

BOB MOON: OK, I’m about to unload some numbers on you here, so I’ll speak slowly so you can follow this.

The value of the entire U.S. Treasuries market: $4.5 trillion.

The value of the entire mortgage market: $7 trillion.

The size of the U.S. stock market: $22 trillion.

OK, you ready?

The size of the credit default swap market last year: $45 trillion.

KAI RYSSDAL: That’s a lot of money, Bob.

As in three times the whole US gross domestic product, Bob. And the truth is that Moon probably underestimated. The unregulated and poorly reported credit default swaps may have actually passed $70 trillion last year, or about $5 trillion more than the GDP of the entire world.

I Met The Walrus 0

From the YouTube sidebar:

In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, snuck into John Lennon’s hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview about peace. 38 years later, Jerry has produced a film about it. Using the original interview recording as the soundtrack, director Josh Raskin has woven a visual narrative which tenderly romances Lennon’s every word in a cascading flood of multipronged animation. Raskin marries the terrifyingly genius pen work of James Braithwaite with masterful digital illustration by Alex Kurina, resulting in a spell-binding vessel for Lennon’s boundless wit, and timeless message.



All Hail Barry Larkin 0

With all the protesting over the Olympic Torch Relay, not the least of which is its modern origins, I want to bring up another important point in its history:

Barry Larkin and the 1956 Olympic Torch Relay

Thank you, Mr. Larkin.

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