It was the perfect for Capital Brewery’s Bockfest. The weather was a balmy 20 degrees, the sun was out, and the crowd was ready for beer.
I arrived in Middleton a little before 11 a.m. The line was already quite long, but I knew beer awaited my arrival on the other side. Or at least so I thought.
TechCrunch first reported this, so I decided to check for myself. Yahoo! appears to be preventing ThePirateBay.org from being listed as a result in its searches. I’ve check through eight pages of results for “pirate bay,” and the site is not listed. A more direct search for piratebay.org also does not turn up the site. Google, Ask, and MSN still have the site listed as the top search result.
For those unaware, The Pirate Bay is a controversial BitTorrent site that has earned the wrath of the MPAA and RIAA. Both have lobbied to have the site shut down, but have been unsuccessful thus far as the company is located in Sweden. A list of legal threats against the company is available on their website.
Is this censorship? Is this the beginning of Yahoo! filtering other sites large organizations oppose? What happens if the government asks Yahoo! to filter results it does not care for? I know personally I will not use their search until their actions are explained and ThePirateBay.org returns to their top search position.
As a current Madison resident, today is voting day. I maneuvered through a traffic jam and slippery streets to reach the Gates of Heaven; my poling place around 9:30 a.m.
As I entered to cast my vote, a woman who was leaving said “Vote Obama!”
“You can’t do that in here’” informed an official.
The other woman did not seem to care. As I was undecided, and I feel strongly about campainging at the polls, her actions may have cost her candidate a vote.
Law prohibits campaigning within a certain distance of polling places. This is to keep voters from feeling intimidated. When I worked on campaigns, it was made very clear this line should never be crossed.
Some people are very vocal about the candidates they support. Others prefer to keep their vote private. My top two candidates are out of the election, and my third choice has yet to enter. Still, I would never have the gall to profess “Vote Richardson” while leaving a voting area, even if he was still in the race. It is one thing to support a candidate, and quite another to be obnoxious in a polling place.
For the record, Richardson was still on the ballot in Wisconsin, and thanks to one woman’s actions might have received a vote.
For those in my home state of Wisconsin, it is election day. Make sure to get out and vote, and vote with your heart. The presidential contest for both republicans and democrats will be close. I could see either candidate for each party winning the state. If you care about America, make your way to the polls before 8 p.m. this evening.
The murder of five at Northern Illinois University is the latest in a series of shootings involving innocent people, most with their whole life ahead of them.
MidwesternBoy has some advice for the next potential gunman in America that plans to go through with these kind of murders. Do the world a favor and start, rather than end with yourself.
The families of the victims are in our thoughts and prayers.
Over the last couple days, Madison has been home to some of the top campaigns for the 2008 presidential election. I’ve had the opportunity to cover each of them for dane101.
Here are my personal thoughts on each candidate, with a link to my article on Dane.
Barack Obama. I decided to fight my way to see him with friends rather than take a press pass for his speech. Apparently about 18,000 other people had the same idea. The entire experience was a bit surreal, like Elvis coming back from the dead to give a performance. Unfortunately, I was a bit disappointed in his speech. He came off as charismatic and intelligent, but I guess after all the hype I just expected more.
I came across the extra-geeky list “Seven Habits of Highly Effective Spaceship Captains” via Lifehacker. My personal favorite (althought #3 is also good with some gender reversal):
2. Always shoot first. Every good leader should be willing to do what he or she asks of her team. One of the reasons for the loyalty of the ragtag crew of Serenity, the ship Malcolm Reynolds captains in Firefly, is that Mal will throw himself into battle to protect his team. Whenever he has a crazy scheme or rescue mission in mind, he takes the first plunge. Lesson learned? Show your crew that you’re willing to take a bullet for them, and they’ll do the same for you.
On Thursday, The Capital Times newspaper announced it would cease operation as a print publication at the end of April. Published since 1917, the paper is one of two in Madison, joined by the Wisconsin State Journal. The Capital Times stated it planned to focus on online journalism and become the premier website for news and commentary for the area.
Reaction has been mixed. Most agree the lost of a newspaper is disappointing, but think the company might be better served by the move. Ben Broeren, a former contributor to the Capital Times wrote:
From my own experience, online readership of the Cap Times is hardly waning. As an intern, I read responses to my articles (hate mail and otherwise) from NY, UK, CA…A story jointly written by city editor Chris Murphy and I on one of Sen. Feingold’s listen sessions caught tens of thousands of hits online within a couple of days.
In an article for Dane101.com, I stated this is a good move for the Capital Times if done right. News is changing, and those that embrace and use the Internet as their primary source of distribution now will be better positioned later. All newspapers will eventually vanish, which will among other things make moving more difficult.
To see just how much the face of news has changed, I conducted an informal survey among friends of mine throught the state and country. Of the ten people that responded, all but one use the Internet as their primary source of news. Most read a local and national site (NY Times, Wall Street Journal, Cnn.com). When these people do purchase the paper, it is usually the Sunday paper, and often for add and coupons. As one respondent says, “We haven’t had a newspaper delivery in years. We get everything online.”
Only time will tell if this is the fist step towards the Capital Times being the Internet leader in Madison, or the deathblow to another American newspaper.
It was a cool winter day about a week ago when a friend got his new grill. He invited a number of us over for breakfast to break it in. I stopped by and enjoyed some grilled bacon and eggs.
After breakfast, my friend entered with a plate overflowing with meat. Hamburgers, chicken breasts, and pork tenderloin teetered on the plate. One false move and the mountain of meat would come crashing down. He set it down and proudly proclaimed, “This should last about a week.”
As I laughed, I thought back to an article I read in the New York Times called Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler. It was your typical article about how much meat people eat, where it all comes from, and how many resources it takes to produce. It was the kind of article I would normally assume is written by some vegetarian hippie, and thus totally discredit in my mind. However, that combined with the mammoth plate of meat my friend had just produced, got me thinking.
I hatched an idea so crazy, that it needed to be tried. The unwilling victim of my experiment would be me. I decided then that I would give up meat for lent.
Comments I’ve heard from normally rational people leading up to the elections:
“I’ll vote for Hillary because I don’t think an african-american can be elected, even in this day and age.”
“A vote for Mike Huckabee is like throwing your vote away. He’ll never be embraced by the country as a whole.”
It’s Super Tuesday, the day where the citizens from 24 states head to the polls to cast a ballot for their favorite candidate. Well, at least that is what is should be. The “who is most electable” variable is already in play, as people right of candidates they do not think they can win the general election in November.
What the hell is wrong with our country?
When did we as a country stop voting for who we believe would be the best candidate to lead our country for four years, and become lemmings that vote for a candidate that “we think can win?” This year started with one of the deepest field of candidates on both sides; yet on the democratic side we are already down to the two that sound most alike.
Iowa had the privilege of leading off the primary season. Rather then follow the latest Zogby poll, they voted for two of the most “unelectable” candidates in the race.
They voted with their hearts, not their minds. They voted for who they believe in, not who has the best chance to win. We saw what happened for years ago when “the most electable” person won the democratic nomination, no one gave a damn about him and he lost to an unpopular president.
As voters in 24 states go to the polls today, all I ask is that you do the same as Iowa voters did. Don’t over-think your vote. Don’t vote for someone because they are the lesser evil, vote for who you see as the best candidate. If everyone does, the best candidate will win.
For football fans in New York, it is a familiar story.
In Super Bowl III, the Jets were double-digit underdogs to the Baltimore Colt. Quarterback Joe Namath made a public guarantee that his team would win the game and become world champions. The Jets would win the game.
Nearly forty years later, Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress predicted the New York Giants would beat the double-digit favorite New England Patriots and win Super Bowl XLII. Burress would catch the game-wining touchdown Sunday night, and propel his Giants to a 17-14 victory, and a world championship.
I just watched one of the best football games and was driving home from my friends house; the excitement still flowing through me. As great as the Giants 17-14 victory over the Patriots was, there just felt like there was something missing. I tried to figure it out, but I just couldn’t put my finger on what could be missing from such a perfect game. As I arrived home and poured myself a glass of champaign, I finally realized what was missing…