del.icio.us links for 2006-02-28

• gumstix - all things small: gumstix, inc. maker of the world's smallest full function miniature computers(FFMC,) brings gum stick size, 20mm x 80mm x 8mm Linux platforms to designers providing easy design flexibility at nearly half the price of and a third the size of all other offe (cool hardware linux)
• Fake model photography: With a very little effort, you can take existing photographs of everyday scenes and make it look like they're actually of miniature models. (art howto image photography photomanipulation)

PyCon 2006 coverage

Steve Holden has some great notes on PyCon 2006. Start with Lightning Talks and go backwards.

del.icio.us links for 2006-02-27

• Sploid: Port scam's dirty details: The outrageous Dubai Ports deal seems like political suicide for the White House, but handing over U.S. seaports to the United Arab Emirates is actually just more big-money cronyism for an administration that no longer cares what anybody thinks ... (bush corporate evil news politics us)
• YouTube - microsoft ipod packaging parody: Microsoft I-pod Pro XP 2005 Human Ear Professional Edition with Subscription (apple flash humor ipod microsoft video)

del.icio.us links for 2006-02-26

• Selenium: Selenium is a test tool for web applications. Selenium tests run directly in a browser, just as real users do. And they run in Internet Explorer, Mozilla and Firefox on Windows, Linux, and Macintosh. No other test tool covers such a wide array of platform (bugs javascript programming software tool web)

del.icio.us links for 2006-02-25

• The Xapian Project: Xapian is designed to be a highly adaptable toolkit to allow developers to easily add advanced indexing and search facilities to their own applications. (api c++ framework gpl php programming python search software)

del.icio.us links for 2006-02-24

• Easy Slide Shows With reST & S5: Create S5-style presentations using DocUtils starting with ReStructured Text. I wish I had this a year ago. (docutils markup presentation python restructuredtext)

del.icio.us links for 2006-02-22

• CNN.com - Bikers roll to military funerals to oppose anti-gay protests - Feb 21, 2006: They call themselves the Patriot Guard Riders, and they are more than 5,000 strong, forming to counter anti-gay protests held by the Rev. Fred Phelps at military funerals. (gay iraq motorcycle news politics religion us war weird)
• Sploid: 'The Aussie PM can go f@ck himself': A man found himself seated next to a musclebound gentleman reading a book bearing an ominous tile, so he reported the guy to Australia's National Security hotline. That guy was punk rock legend Henry Rollins. Henry had some choice words for the Australian (australia funny henryrollins liberty music news punk rock security sploid terrorism weird)

del.icio.us links for 2006-02-21

• Le Bazar à manatlan: HyPy: An interesting approach to making HTML/XML templates: Use a Python-style block indentation scheme for the start tags (without brackets), and throw away the end tags. You can also embed Python code. Compiles to Python byte-code. (html python templates xml)
• Sploid: If flu kills ravens, England is doomed: With the rapid spread of avian flu across Europe, the ravens are in danger of being wiped out by the virus. If the black birds die, it means certain death for the United Kingdom and what remains of the British Empire. (news sploid uk weird)
• Sploid: Bounty on Houston's top cop: Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt is calling for the surveillance of private homes. "I know a lot of people are concerned about Big Brother, but my response to that is, if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?" (evil houston news politics sploid surveillance texas us weird)
• Sploid: The first Americans were French!: Shocking new evidence suggests that the first American people weren't from Asia or even the Viking lands. Smithsonian Institution archaeologists now claim the first people to live in the Western Hemisphere were French! Or Spanish. (france history news spain sploid us weird)
• testosterone: A Manly Python Testing Interface: A curses-based (terminal) testing application for running your unit tests. Watch the screencast. Linked mainly because I love the name, but it looks very cool. (bug cool funny programming python tool)

del.icio.us links for 2006-02-20

• Albino Blacksheep - Live Design: Simple step-by-step CSS introduction. (css howto)

del.icio.us links for 2006-02-16

• The Joel on Software Discussion Group - Rails' Ridiculous Restrictions, a Rant: "As an entitled American who contributed not one line of code to Rails and has used it for all of one project, I am of course brilliantly qualified to bitch about it. Here's what SUCKED about using Rails:..." (framework programming rails rant ruby)
• Popaganda, The Art and Subversion of Ron English: This is worth visiting just for the freaky Marilyn Monroe vs. Mickey Mouse mashups. (art cool culture funny politics weird)
• President Bush Escapes From Weekly Bath: (audio bush funny mp3 news politics theonion us)

del.icio.us links for 2006-02-15

• Fuck Everything, We're Doing Five Blades | The Onion - America's Finest News Source: The best thing about this article is it was written two years ago, before Gillette actually came out with their 5-blade razor (Fusion). I guess the 6- or 7- blaze razor will be Antimatter. (funny humor rant theonion)

del.icio.us links for 2006-02-14

• Boing Boing: Ten ways Dick Cheney can kill you (apols to Chuck Norris): Be sure to check out the CNN script generator. (boingboing dickcheney evil funny image murder)
• Whatever: Writing Tips for Non-Writers Who Don't Want to Work at Writing: how to write better without you actually having to make an effort. (howto writing)
• Sploid: 'How to Survive a Robot Uprising': Since their birth over 85 years ago, Robots have been bent on overthrowing the human race and ruling the world. This ambition has earned robots the unfair reputation of being evil or dangerous. In reality, it makes them no different than humans. (evil funny howto robot sploid war weird)

del.icio.us links for 2006-02-13

• Hidden Valley Ranch Bombed by Balsamic Extremists: (audio humor mp3 news theonion us)

del.icio.us links for 2006-02-10

• KA-BLAM: Print On Demand: Printing primarily for comics and webcomics. 52-pg color comic for under $4/copy (qty-100). (comic printer)
• Speedy Gonzales Caged by Cartoon Network: Speedy Gonzales easily bested Sylvester the Cat, Daffy Duck and other assorted banditos in his nearly 50-year career. But the Fastest Mouse in Mexico can't seem to escape the clutches of the Cartoon Network. But he's "hugely popular" in Latin America. (cartoon mexico politics us)

del.icio.us links for 2006-02-09

• Sploid: Hero billed for armor, blamed for paying: An investigation into this bureaucratic travesty was completed yesterday. The Army will be reimbursing 1st Lt. William "Eddie" Rebrook immediately. However, they insist on blaming Rebrook for their embarrassment. (evil iraq news politics sploid us war weird)

del.icio.us links for 2006-02-08

• Sploid: Bush's NASA hatchet man resigns: Bush's inside man in the NASA press room, George Deutsch, has resigned from the agency following revelations that he lied on his resume. Deutsch stirred up controversy by insisting that the word "theory" be inserted after all references to the Big Bang on (bush creationism evil evolution nasa politics us)
• Four presidents and a rowdy funeral for a King: George W. Bush got his ass handed to him by mourners at Coretta Scott King's funeral. (atlanta bush evil georgia iraq news politics surveillance us war)

del.icio.us links for 2006-02-07

• CNN.com - Hells Angels get $990 K for dead dogs - Feb 7, 2006: A California county will pay nearly $1 million to settle a lawsuit brought by the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club after police shot and killed three guard dogs during raids of the group's headquarters and suspected members' homes. (california crime dog evil motorcycle murder news sanjose us weird)
• Exclusive: Can the President Order a Killing on U.S. Soil?: Unsurprisingly, current and former government officials say "yes," they could think of several scenarios in which a president might consider ordering the killing of a terror suspect inside the United States; but not officially the "legal views of the Just (bush evil politics terrorism us)
• Sploid: Hero billed $700 for his armor: "I last saw the [body armor] when it was pulled off my bleeding body while I was being evacuated in a helicopter," Rebrook said. "They took it off me and burned it." But no one filled out the proper paperwork, so the Army has now presented him with a bill (evil iraq news sploid us war)

del.icio.us links for 2006-02-06

• the Obakemono Project: A Gaijin's Guide to the Fantastic Folk Monsters of Japan (art japan reference weird)
• Sploid: Halliburton building U.S. concentration camps: The Bush administration's Homeland Security Department has given an open-ended contract worth $385 million dollars to Halliburton's KBR division ... to build U.S. prisons for immigrants and disaster victims. (dickcheney disaster evil news sploid terrorism us weird)

del.icio.us links for 2006-02-04

• Sploid: The devil's puppets: A small town just outside of Denver has gone berserk because an elementary-school music teacher had kids watch a few minutes of an educational videotape about opera. Parents accused the teacher of being a homosexual devil worshipper, and she was put on "a (colorado education gay music news religion us weird)

del.icio.us links for 2006-02-03

• Python at Google (Greg Stein - SDForum) (panela.blog-city.com): A writeup of Greg Stein's keynote last week at the SDForum Python Meeting. RPC is the method Google uses to scale horizontally so well. Python is rarely a bottleneck. "We use [MySQL] specifically because it is open source". (google mysql programming python)
• Google.com and Google.cn side-by-side image search: In this example, "tianamen". Oops, banned from China now. [via Schneier on Security] (china google image schneier search)
• Sploid: Defiant vampire will 'never give up magic': The Ukrainian vampire caught again by police last week has defiantly told police and the press that she'll never stop her witchy ways. Cops say she was selling blood to black magicians -- blood she took from Odessa's homeless kids... (crime news religion ukraine vampire weird)
• Sploid: NYC battles vampire rabbis: New guidelines issued by New York City’s health commissioner calls for rabbis to stop sucking the blood from the freshly cut foreskin of infant boys. It does not explicitly ban the practice, however. (news newyork nyc religion sploid us vampire weird)
• Sploid: The French get fat: A shocking new study by France's fashion industry has found that French gals weigh about 5 pounds more than they did in 1970. They're especially bigger in the butt, the study found. One in three Frenchmen are overweight, while one in four French women are (bigbutts diet exercise food france funny news sploid)

del.icio.us links for 2006-02-02

• BBC NEWS | World | Americas | US plans to 'fight the net' revealed: A newly declassified document gives a fascinating glimpse into the US military's plans for "information operations" - from psychological operations, to attacks on hostile computer networks. Internet as a weapons system, control electromagnetic spectrum. (dod evil iraq network politics propaganda us war)
• Quantum gravity for real (February 2006) - News - PhysicsWeb: Indian physicists have put forward a new way to test for "quantum gravity" -- the field of theoretical physics that attempts to reconcile Einstein's theory of general relativity and quantum mechanics. (news physics space)
• Don't Touch My Bone - Google Video: This is the dumbest dog ever. (dog funny video)
• The Sysadmin Song - avi - Google Video: Funny because it's true. (administration humor movie music video)
• crazy sleeper - Google Video: Never underestimate your opponent. (car funny video)
• CNN.com - No school, no books, no teacher's dirty looks - Feb 2, 2006: An extension of home-schooling, "unschooling" is when parents give their children total freedom to learn and explore whatever they choose. (atlanta education georgia news us weird)
• Google is right on China, by James DeLong [Politech]: Declan McCullagh writes, "Jim makes some good points. Though I'm not so sure about his swipe at the 1960s!" (censorship china economics evil google liberty politics rant)
• Brian Bolland - Cover Gallery - Gotham Knights 37 - Step by Step: 31 page tutorial/demonstration on how to make a comic drawing with Photoshop and a Wacom tablet. (art comic howto photoshop reference)
• Sploid: Human-animal hybrids?: As with all new genetic research involving human cells of any kind, the Bush Administration is strictly against these "chimeras" because it could interfere with God's ability to kill sick people. (animal bush chimera funny furry health news politics religion science sploid us weird werewolf)
• Sploid: Secret Service probes student’s dead-prez fantasy: A class of seventh-graders in West Warwick was asked to write about a “perfect day.” For some kids it might have been a ballgame, or a trip to Disneyland. But for one precocious little guy, it involved the deaths of President Bush and Oprah Winfrey. (bush corporate crime evil liberty murder news oprah rhodeisland sploid us weird)
• YouTube - Brokeback to the Future: Brokeback Mountain vs. Back to the Future (1-3) (flash funny gay mashup movie video)

del.icio.us links for 2006-02-01

• U.S. Copyright Office - Literary Works Registration: Since 1989, everything in the U.S. is copyrighted automatically when it is created . However, to get statutory damages for infringement, you have to register it with the U.S. Copyright Office. Otherwise, you can only get actual damages for infringement. (copyright law reference us writing)
• Coffee Whitener from Niro A/S: I once had something called "Coffee Whitener". It least it was honest in that it didn't claim to add anything in the way of flavor, and my coffee did get whiter. Who can resist a mixture of 60-65% glucose or maltodextrine and 30-32% hydrogenated vegetable (coffee food funny weird)
• Sploid: Ships of fools: In recent weeks horror after horror has happened onboard the world’s luxury cruise ships. (crime news sploid vacation weird)
• U.S. Department Of Corruption Denies Right-Doing | The Onion - America's Finest News Source: (audio bush evil humor mp3 news politics theonion us)
• President Creates Cabinet-Level Position To Coordinate Scandals | The Onion - America's Finest News Source: The centerpiece of Bush's plan is the Department Of Corruption, Bribery, And Incompetence, which will centralize duties now dispersed throughout the entire D.C.-area political establishment. (bush evil humor news politics theonion us)

Protesting effectively illegal

CNN reports that Cindy Sheehan has been arrested for unlawful conduct, a misdemeanor charge that potentially carries a one year prison term. Her offense? Refusing to cover up a t-shirt with an anti-war slogan when requested by the U.S. Capitol Police.

Just think about that. Even if you disagree with politics or position, on what grounds can you possibly justify this? I guess Bush thinks he can just rule by decree, like his predecessor.

You're next.

Update: The U.S. Capitol Police is in fact the only federal law enforcement agency that reports to Congress instead of the Executive branch, so I guess the GOP and it's policy of stifling any dissent is more directly to blame than Bush.

Also, CNN is now reporting that her t-shirt read "2,245 Dead. How many more?". Last night the content of the t-shirt hadn't been reported yet, and there was a correction that said it was originally reported she unfurled an anti-war banner (apparently not true).

Sheehan was released after four hours; I wonder if the charges will be dropped. I doubt they are stupid enough to make a martyr out of her. Wait, what am I saying? It could happen.

Update: Cindy Sheehan's version of how and why she was arrested.

I had just sat down and I was warm from climbing 3 flights of stairs back up from the bathroom so I unzipped my jacket. I turned to the right to take my left arm out, when the same officer saw my shirt and yelled; "Protester." He then ran over to me, hauled me out of my seat and roughly (with my hands behind my back) shoved me up the stairs. I said something like "I'm going, do you have to be so rough?" By the way, his name is Mike Weight.

The officer ran with me to the elevators yelling at everyone to move out of the way. When we got to the elevators, he cuffed me and took me outside to await a squad car. On the way out, someone behind me said, "That's Cindy Sheehan." At which point the officer who arrested me said: "Take these steps slowly." I said, "You didn't care about being careful when you were dragging me up the other steps." He said, "That's because you were protesting." Wow, I get hauled out of the People's House because I was, "Protesting."

Last update (I hope): FOX News actually has decent coverage of Sheehan's arrest, and the expulsion of a Congressman's wife:

Beverly Young, wife of Rep. C.W. Bill Young of Florida — chairman of the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee — was removed from the gallery because she was wearing a T-shirt that read, "Support the Troops — Defending Our Freedom."

She was sitting about six rows from first lady Laura Bush and asked to leave. She argued with police in the hallway outside the House chamber.

"They said I was protesting," she told the St. Petersburg Times. "I said, "Read my shirt, it is not a protest.' They said, 'We consider that a protest.' I said, 'Then you are an idiot."'

They told her she was being treated the same as Sheehan, a protester ejected before the speech Tuesday night for wearing a T-shirt with an antiwar slogan. Sheehan wrote in her blog Wednesday that she intends to file a First Amendment lawsuit.

Sounds like a Cover-Your-Ass manuvuer for the U.S. Capitol Police, which probably realized they screwed up mightily by tossing Sheehan, and needed to show she wasn't being singled out.

Note in the CNN photo of Sheehan being hauled out that you cannot see her t-shirt because she has her jacket on; she only had it half-off before being pounced upon.

Final update (for sure now):Capitol Police say they goofed on arresting both Sheehan and Young. Charges against Sheehan were dropped; Sheehan might sue anyway. They apologized to Young.

Also, now that I've seen a TV interview with Sheehan, you can see her t-shirt. It's just that it's black and her jacket is also dark, and she has her arm across her chest. All I can make out is part of a white "2".