People believing that they were contributing to an anti-war group were really contributing to the legal fund for convicted cop killer Mumia Abu Jamal.

In 1981 Abu Jamal shot and killed Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. Abu Jamal was convicted and the conviction was repeatedly upheld, despite a high powered, celebrity fueled effort to free him. Abu Jamal has never denied murdering Officer Faulkner, nor has he shown any remorse.

- From the National Review online:
A two-page advertisement against war in Iraq that appeared in Monday's New York Times directed donors to send money to a foundation that for years has been devoted to the defense of convicted murderer Mumia Abu-Jamal.

The ad for the group “Not In Our Name” was signed by various celebrities, (including the entire cast of My Dinner with Andre) but also included Mumia Abu Jamal. He has implied that he did pull the trigger but that it was not murder because it was acceptable to kill what he considered an oppressor. Now he is a remorseless pacifist.

As far as the Not in Our Name group, here is an excerpt from thier Statement of Conscience: We believe that people of conscience must take responsibility for what their own governments do — we must first of all oppose the injustice that is done in our own name.

First, maybe they should take responsibility for what their own members do in their name and oppose those injustices, before taking on the world.

Posted by jjdaley at 10:48 AM | Permalink

I like Janeane Garofalo. I like her sense of humor, her looks, her movies, etc. But unfortunately, she doesn’t get the celebrity thing.

Apparently she’s upset that entertainers like herself, aren’t being taken seriously by the serious media (like Connie Chung?!?) when they argue against the war. The point that she seems to miss is that the ONLY reason that she is given a podium to share her political views is because she is a slightly well known entertainer.

She is an entertainer!

That’s all we know about Janeane Garofalo and that’s all we care about Janeane Garofalo. We want her to entertain us. We didn't sign up for her to inform us. So whatever she chooses to communicate to us, we will treat as entertainment. Get over it Janeane.

(Andrew Sullivan also has some words on the topic of celebrity politics.)

Posted by jjdaley at 1:39 PM | Permalink

How screwed up are the elections offices in Broward County? Even worse than you thought.

Posted by jjdaley at 12:01 PM | Permalink

A few links for this afternoon:

GE brings a pen to life; A cool imaginary keyboard; A tile game; and from the Weekly World News, 10 ways to tell if your co-worker is an extraterrestrial.

Posted by jjdaley at 4:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Who would have thought that mailmen like to walk?

Experiments by the Postal Service for using the Segway Transporter have produced mixed results for mail carriers, apparently because walking keeps them warm, and they just got too cold on the powered scooters.

Posted by jjdaley at 9:31 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (2)

Only when they are:

In a message televised on state-run television in Iraq, President Saddam Hussein praised the demonstrations as evidence of international support for Iraq.

The protesters ''are supporting you because they know that evildoers target Iraq to silence any dissenting voice to their evil and destructive policies,'' Hussein told senior military officers and his son Qusay, the commander of the elite Republican Guards.

What was it Orwell said about pacifism?

Jim Henley, who braved the cold of the day, gives an opposing view.

Posted by jjdaley at 1:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (2)

At an event organized by a group who...
A-supported the massacre in Tienanmen Square, which
B-supports North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il
and who
C-sympathizes with Saddam Hussein as an opponent of American cultural imperialism,
... the professional American cultural icon, actress, mime and policy expert Jessica Lange addressed the anti-war protests today.

After stating that she wasn't there as a celebrity, she told the crowd that the Bush administration was to blame for making her look foolish. Let’s go to the video…

Posted by jjdaley at 3:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

For those of us who haven’t gone south for the winter, it might be fun to read these cold weather tips… from the Palm Beach Post.

Posted by jjdaley at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (2)

This is a well done and moving PR film on the people who are heading over to do the fighting. Obviously calculated and timed to enlist support for the war, it’s still an important perspective that is too often ignored by the media. A good broadband connection is required. (via Instapundit)

Posted by jjdaley at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Take off the roof.

Posted by jjdaley at 12:13 PM | Permalink

Do you use TurboTax by Quicken? Then you need to be aware that it has possibly installed a spyware trojan on your computer.
-From an article in Spyware (via Smithyanvil)

This is part of a disturbing trend in software for Windows. Mainstream vendors like Quicken are joining the ranks of freeware and file sharing application vendors by including trojans in the their software that monitor your computer, possibly reporting your habits without permission, and even disabling functions and other programs.

Lots of people have been complaining that their formally super fast, broadband connected computers have been dragging lately. I wonder what might be taking up those processor cycles.

Posted by jjdaley at 12:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (4)

I saw the ‘Daisy ad’ tonight. Is it just me or does it seem to be an advertisement for intervention. Admittedly, I wasn’t listening closely to the narration (It’s a commercial, who listens to commercials?) but my read was, that with the possibility of some crazed terrorist or dictator detonating a nuclear bomb, if we care about that little girl and her flower, we should do something about the terrorist/dictator -and fast.

Maybe it is just me.

Posted by jjdaley at 12:17 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)

A rundown of this morning's sites:

Today Lileks hoists John LeCarre on his own petard, dredging up his political writing of the past to illuminate his current idiotic positions.

Sheryl Crow (via the Angry Cyclist) shows off her real assets. If only.

Instapundit is the subject of a NYT profile.

Jay Fitzgerald starts the day with a look at ‘The Daisy ad.’

Cody Clark is back into Radiohead.

Jane Galt looks at how not to brand political ideas. But Reid Scott says advertising is a dying field anyway. Maybe. Probably not.

It’s Sanctity of Human Life day. But an ABC news story says that life on the planet is done. Well, in about 500 million years.

And you can now buy a kit to install a cigarette lighter in one of your PC bays. Actually pretty cool.

Posted by jjdaley at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (2)

Andrew Sullivan admits he takes Sheryl Crow more seriously than he should.

Ms. Crow showed up at the latest public relations exercise for the music industry, the American Music Awards, dressed in a sequined T-shirt with the message "War Is Not The Answer" blazoned across it. One word: Sequins? Here is a fabulously wealthy, famously cute singer, telling the impoverished men, women and children tortured, gassed and abused by one of the most disgusting dictators of all time that any attempt to rescue or liberate them is "not the answer." And she expresses this message in sequins. She couldn't afford diamonds?

It gets better. Read on.

Posted by jjdaley at 12:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (2)

There is certainly a need for skepticism, and even within a generally conservative circle, I’ve heard that skepticism from friends who question whether Bush has made his case for a war in Iraq and from others who are understandably hesitant to send their kids overseas into a chemical or biological battlefield.

It’s not un-patriotic to ask questions, or to offer an opposing point of view. This is just healthy national self-criticism and rational individual self-interest at work.

But the growing fashion of anti-Americanism is neither healthy nor rational. Here's an article by Victor Davis Hanson that tries to explain why. And here’s a previously linked article by Michael Gove that does the same.

Beyond the hapless Noam Chompsky and Barbara Striesands, take a look at some of the other agenda driven critics of American policy like convicted, admitted and unrepentant cop-killer Mumia Abu Jamal and make up your own mind about the motives of the organized 'peace' movement. (Wasn’t it Mumia’s previous position that killing for 'political' reasons was acceptable?)

Posted by jjdaley at 10:35 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)

I hadn't seen this before. Gawker is a daily-updated New York magazine/blog with lots of good links and content.

Posted by jjdaley at 11:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

Hint: Sidewalkshots.com

Posted by jjdaley at 9:44 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (2)

The Monster.com real-time salary comparison lets you see how much you make per minute relative to various celebrities. I chose Regis Philbin.

By the time I made fifty cents he was up to a hundred and seventy dollars. This is fun for about thirty seconds.

Posted by jjdaley at 10:02 PM | Permalink

The W32/Livra worm is Windows specific. Among other things, it steals passwords and emails them to a location in Russia. Look for the subject lines "Avril Lavigne - the best," "Reply on account for IIS-Security," and "According to Daos Summit."

Attachments include "AvrilSmiles.exe," "AvrilLavigne.exe," "resume.exe," and "Readme.exe."

UPDATE: Here's more on additional WinWorms going around.

Posted by jjdaley at 9:56 PM | Permalink

This is really too much. DC is a city that is out of control.

Posted by jjdaley at 6:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (2)

This is the link to join the settlement against the record companies.

If you purchased "prerecorded music compact discs, cassettes or vinyl albums (collectively known as prerecorded Music Products)" between January 1, 1995 and December 22, 2000 you may be eligible for a chunk of the settlement, up to five bucks.

As far as I know, receipts are not required. (courtesy of beachbummfd at the Marshfield Forum)

Posted by jjdaley at 6:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This could be interesting, if genuine. The author of Operation Reality says he's a detective and the blog is an anonymous journal of his undercover work. He could use some punctuation and review editing, in my opinion, but he does have a stream of consciousness style that lends itself to the subject matter.

I’m watching it for a while before posting a link to it on Guardroom because I’m not yet convinced that it’s real. But it does ring true in lots of ways. Stay tuned.

Posted by jjdaley at 1:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (20)

From LawMeme, an examination of the legal battle between SearchKing and Google.

It looks like a slam dunk for Google, but the suit raises interesting questions about what happens when a search service becomes a defacto standard. Do special legal responsibilities apply? Should it be treated like a public utility?

Posted by jjdaley at 9:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

In a review at BlogCritics, Dean Esmay highly recommends that you go right out and buy the remastered Live at San Quentin by Johnny Cash. So I did. Or more accurately, I 1-Clicked it, and hope to have it next week sometime.

And speaking of great old music, police in the UK have recovered more than 500 tape reels of Beatles music. The tapes, many from the long bootlegged Get Back sessions were stolen in the 70s and thought to have been lost. Hopefully, in a year or two, they’ll be cleaned up and available on Amazon as well.

Posted by jjdaley at 8:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (1)

Michael Gove, writing in the London Times says that ‘The hatred of America is the socialism of fools.’ He deconstructs the myth of America as a trigger-happy cowboy state over-eager to throw its weight around.

Posted by jjdaley at 6:54 PM | Permalink

These Flash movies are like Hanna-Barbera meets 1980’s vintage MTV. Here's Led Zepplin's Immigrant Song sung by cats dressed up as Vikings. One of the best is Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire.

There’s more at Rathergood.com. The winner, as far as I'm concerned is Pavarotti singing to elephants. Yeah.

Posted by jjdaley at 2:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

This is good. Elderly rapper, Boston gangster and Source magazine co-owner Ray Scott, who has reinvented himself as ‘Benzino,’ is trying to make himself seem important (and to sell records) by publicly feuding with Eminem.

Eminem, responding, has called Benzino: “Has-Benzino,” and “an 83 year old fake Pacino.” And now they’re publicly threatening to shoot each other and murder each other’s children (rhymes with “like JonBenet Ramsey.”)

Yeah, that’s good wholesome entertainment. Didn’t the Beatles and the Elvis have the same kind of back and forth thing going on?

Posted by jjdaley at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Freeman Dyson, Stephen Pinker, Marvin Minsky, Ray Kurzweil and, ah, Alan Alda are among the many prominent scientists that have submitted recommendations to the president (via the Edge) on the important science issues facing the nation. I’ve just scratched the surface, but so far, very interesting stuff.

Posted by jjdaley at 6:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (20) | TrackBacks (2)

Apple reportedly is planning to introduce a new feature: A light emitting, color changing case. Imagine your iMac pulsing and changing color to iTunes. Not just the screen, but the whole computer!

Here’s the patent application for a “light emitting device disposed inside the housing” that “is configured to produce a light effect that alters the ornamental appearance of the computing device.”

So the company that leveraged swivel lamp technology to astound the world, will next amaze us with a computer that works like those old barroom fiber optic beer displays from the seventies.

I already want one.

Posted by jjdaley at 11:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Globe is reporting that Special Forces are on the ground in Iraq. (They also say that they are witholding details to protect future operations.)

This fits with other reports (Strategy Page and Donald Sensing) with some experts believing that as a result, we will finish with the Iraqi military in a very short time, maybe within 12 hours, after overt hostilities begin.

Interesting take. We'll see.

Posted by jjdaley at 8:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

Here are some photos from the storm surge this afternoon in the Brant Rock section on Marshfield MA.

Posted by jjdaley at 6:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (6)

A day or two late and a dollar short, here’s the round up of books I enjoyed from 2002. Most came out in the last year, but some I just got around to.

Two of my favorites are by Irish writers, By the Lake by John McGahern and The Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor. Just fine writing.

Atonement by Ian McEwan was all it was chalked up to be, and that’s saying something.

I got around to reading Nobody’s Fool by Richard Russo, and I liked it better then Empire Falls, which was a very good book in its own right. July, July by Tim O’Brien was OK. Hollywood by Charles Bukowski was a riot. Now I guess, I'll have to see the movie.

The Rabbit series was compiled into one volume this year and that was fun to go back to. Updike’s latest, Seek My Face followed in the line of Brazil, S and The Coup. It was also pretty good. Crossing to Safety by William Stegner was a long enjoyable read from last winter. Last but not least, Paul Auster’s Book of Illusions was well worth the read. Just starting this new year reading Life of Pi by Yann Martell, and so far it is a fascinating book.

Non-fiction-wise, the (literally) big book of the year was that crazy (good crazy) Steven Wolfram’s A New Kind of Science. The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker was an important book, if a third too long, and J.M. Coetzee’s autobiographical, Youth: Scenes from Provincial Life II was just great writing. And finally, Why Orwell Matters by Christopher Hitchens explains, well, why Orwell matters.

Posted by jjdaley at 6:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (26) | TrackBacks (13)