The Malcontent

OK, The Malcontent is not one to pile on for the easy shots, but in this case…

The inaccurately-named “Swift Boat Veterans For Truth” really sink to a new low in political campaigning. In case you have been living in a cave with Osama, this is a group of political operatives, led by right-wing slander monkey John O’Neill, who are impugning John Kerry’s character and record of military service. This is an ugly level of character-assassination to which no honorable person would sink, and these men should be ashamed.

The New York Times takes them apart today piece-by-piece here, and Slate does the same with their ad here. Perhaps the most telling indictment of these men who have sunk so low is Republican Senator and former Vietnam POW John McCain’s August 5th call repudiating the ad and asking the president to do the same. The president, apparently not a man particularly concerned with being honorable, has yet to do so.

Jerry Falwell is reportedly launching a christian law school this fall that will “be as far to the right as Harvard is to the left.”

Well, this fills a real need in the glorious Commonwealth of Virginia–there just aren’t enough right-wing christian lawyers there to meet the demand. Or maybe Jerry thought we needed another bottom-tier law school founded by a televangelist.

(Now that we have mentioned the other right-wing christian law school in Virginia, isn’t it odd that Regent’s bar exam pass rate–ranked 169 out of 177–is one of the lowest in the country? Clearly, prayer doesn’t work when it comes to the law.)

The Malcontent learns new technology slowly–the site now boasts a blogroll hosted by blogrolling.com, so that you might read other, better, more interesting blogs.

WIRED reports that hackers will be attempting to attack Bush/Cheney websites during the GOP’s Convention in NYC.

What’s at stake? Fundraising capacity, for one.

So what do you think, readers? Assuming such attacks come off, is this civil disobedience or interference with someone’s first amendment rights?

Email or comment, if you have an opinion!

OK, there is a horror movie in here somewhere….

A excellent series by Rick Weiss of the Washington Post shows us a good reason to watch the watchdogs–part of the Fine Print.

Weiss gets to the core of the matter:

Environmental and consumer groups say the Data Quality Act fits into a larger Bush administration agenda. In the past six months, more than 4,000 scientists, including dozens of Nobel laureates and 11 winners of the National Medal of Science, have signed statements accusing the administration of politicizing science.

What?!? Politicizing science? The Bush administration? What makes you think that? Oh, right: this, probably. And this. And this.

Um….Vogue for dogs. Yep, it’s all downhill after this.

OK, as someone who is fascinated by social computing, The Malcontent is a member of both friendster and orkut. Orkut, as several of my friends observed, has a massive number of members from Brazil. We don’t know why, but it is true. (According to a Reuters article, 23.5 percent of the users are from the United States, while 41.2 percent are Brazilians.)

I thought this was cool (I mean, what’s not to like about Brazilians?), but apparently a bunch of english speakers are unhappy with having to look at some posts and profiles in portuguese. One can only imagine how hard it must be for these poor english speakers…

Taking home the gold medal in “We Are Ignorant Jackasses from the Planet Closeminded” are the members at Orkut who formed “a group to discuss the influx of Brazilians on Orkut.” Apparently, they feel there is “Way too much community clutter, countless postings in portuguese.”

Pathetic is the word you’re looking for, folks. I know it may amaze some of my fellow Orkutians, but the whole world doesn’t have to speak english. And if you feel left out–well, learn another language, you lazy english-speaking bastards.

Well, despite The Malcontent’s suspicion that blogging is an addictive behavior primarily rewarding to the blogger, it is heartening to know that some readers have made reading this blog part of their regular routine.

Having heard from them, and feeling guilt over my likely irregularity over the next few days, I send you towards a treasure mine of excellent reading about very, very cool “tools.”

Always interesting, I find a browse through the cool tool list Kevin Kelly has assembled always inspires some new projects or ideas. I hope this will make up for my failure to provide more substantial blogging until next week.

For those Gen X readers who, like The Malcontent, are still slack–a wee confection from Tom Hodgkinson in The Guardian.