weekend update 2002-08-19

It wasn’t the best weekend I’ve ever had. My sister’s going back to England to live, and I had to say goodbye to her Saturday. I’m happy for her that’s she’s going back, because she really likes it there, but I’ll miss her. On Sunday, I went to Kokomo and Peru Indiana to photograph big things, which was cool, but on the way back, my brakes started grinding. So I had to take the car in and spend the afternoon getting new brakes put on, which really sucks, because I was just starting to really get ahead financially after buying the house. Very annoying. But at least I have new brakes. And photos of big things.

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Monkeys In The News

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As we all know, monkeys are cool(tm). Apparently, the UK thinks so too: they have a town that elected a monkey as mayor. That’s some monkey love for ya.
Other fun monkey links:
Monkey Wire — news of monkeys and apes
Famous Monkeys Through History
Hanuman The Monkey God — The story of the Hindu Monkey God
Curious George — the official site
Sea-Monkeys — I had some of these at work a few years ago
Monkey Madness — resources for people interested in monkeys
Hi Monkey — A monkey that travels around and lives with tibetan monks
Monkey Law — a cartoon
Web Monkey — resources for web designers and developers
Monkey Heaven — a tribute to the cult classic live action Japanese TV series Monkey

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FBI and customer discount cards

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According to Fox News: Store Customer Cards a Source for FBI?

So you have a secret craving for Little Debbie peanut butter bars and a penchant for Kendall-Jackson merlot?

While that customer loyalty card at the supermarket might perceivably save you a few pennies at the checkout counter, your buying habits could end up in the hands of government agents.

According to one privacy expert, at least one national grocery chain voluntarily handed over to the government records from its customer loyalty card database in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

And others say customer databases — including those culled from travel, financial and insurance industries — are routinely shared with the government for surveillance purposes.

“I think this is exactly what the FBI wants to do and there really isn’t any obstacle to them doing it anymore,” charged Lee Tien, a policy analyst with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

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liberal european cultures and fundamentalist Muslims

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This is a really fascinating article on the difficulties liberal european cultures face when fundamentalist Muslims emigrate to their countries. Muslims, who believe that homosexuals and women who are raped should be put to death, are trying to maintain their beliefs and even change the laws of the countries they live in to reflect their beliefs.
To me, there’s a simple solution to this problem:
1. Erect wind turbines throughout the U.S. Doing this in just three key states would produce enough energy to power the entire nation.
2. Legislate the use of hydro-electric fuel cells in all cars. Within 5 years, all cars could be using more energy efficient fuel systems, which would improve the environment and reduce global warming.
3. Get a whole bunch of nuclear bombs, and drop them on every Muslim country. Now that we’re no longer dependent on middle east oil, we have no reason to be allies with the sick fucks who live in Saudi Arabia, and we have no reason to try to negotiate or otherwise deal with Iraq, Iran, or any other backwards ignorant assholes.
Yeah, yeah, I’m not serious. Well, I kind of am. I know I’ve ranted and raved against Bush going to war against Iraq, and I don’t think I’m being inconsistent here. I don’t want Bush to create a war out of thin air to justify his own re-election in 2004, which is the one and only reason he’s even trying to wag that dog with Iraq. He doesn’t have any good reason to go to war. However, I don’t have a problem dropping a bunch of nuclear weapons on the heads of guys who think it’s okay to rape women and to then punish them for being raped by killing them. I’m really pretty much in favor of blowing them to kingdom come.

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The Meaning of Courage

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“for the same basic choice of courage or compliance continually faces us all, whether we fear the anger of constituents, friends, a board of directors or our union, whenever we stand against the flow of opinion on strongly contested issues…. A man does what he must-in spite of personal consequence, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures-and that is the basis of all human morality.” — From The Meaning of Courage, John F. Kennedy

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