The Democrats and Republicans only defend your civil liberties when it is convenient to do so. Check out this Reason article, which examines how Ashcroft and Kerry have undergone a peculiar role reversal.  Here’s my favorite quote:

Kerry then expressed his belief that bank customers are entitled to essentially zero privacy. “The technology is already available to monitor all electronic money transfers,” he wrote (emphasis added). “We need the will to make sure it is put in place.”

Uh huh. Is Kerry really that much of a safer bet than Ashcroft? Power corrupts, and once he has the power… ?

For the latest project of FreeCulture.org, the international version of the SCDC, we ask you to join us in excercising your First Amendment rights and celebrating a legal victory for artistic freedom… by taking pictures of Barbie in a blender and sending them to us!

I’ve tried writing down my schedule on my Handspring before, but I didn’t have much reason to stick to it, because nobody could see it but me. So nobody would know if I changed it, or just ignored it completely.

Now that I have a shiny new Mac and a Mac.com account, those days are over.

You can view my calendar in any web browser, although it seems that you can only see it in Eastern Standard Time, which may be confusing to those in different time zones (including me, since I’m in California!)

You can subscribe to my calendar with either iCal or Mozilla Calendar. Mozilla Calendar is becoming quite usable, I suggest checking it out if you’re on Windows or Linux and using Mozilla Suite, Firefox or Thunderbird.  Unsurprisingly the Mac version isn’t receiving much attention since we have iCal already. Mozilla Calendar is based on the open iCal standard, so it’s completely interoperable.  Hooray for open standards!

I now make this pledge to the world: My schedule will be at least 90% accurate from this day forward.  You should be able to look at my schedule and be reasonably certain that I am actually doing the things I claim to be doing at the times that I claim to be doing them.  If after following my schedule for a while, you determine that I have not followed through on this promise, you are to beat me with large sticks or shave my head or do something equally horrendous.  When I am not certain of my schedule, I won’t write anything down, or I will put question marks on the appointments.  So there!

It is now official.   CERT says ditch Internet Explorer for another web browser. Internet Explorer is insecure, and it is no longer being seriously updated, because Microsoft is too busy figuring out how to integrate it with the next release of Windows so that you can NEVER, EVER uninstall it no matter how hard you try. Jobs like fixing bugs or adding new features are simply unimportant when compared to the noble goal of user lock-in.

So what should you use instead of Internet Explorer? Mozilla Firefox Even Microsoft-owned Slate says to use Firefox.

See my review of Firefox on my recommended programs page. It’s kind of outdated, but I’ll work on it soon.

If you have tried Mozilla Firefox and you like it, stick this banner on your blog!

Or get some smaller and less intrusive Firefox buttons for your website.