Thursday, November 15, 2007

Green Yorkshire


The images are from satellite pics over Yorkshire, England. Most are in and around Beckwithshaw, and some have family history.
Music composed and performed by David Beckwith.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Bush Critic, Harry Taylor, is running for Congress



Developing...

in the meantime...see below for more information.

Central Park Dancing Sticks


Central Park Bridge, originally uploaded by anonymoses.

Imagine my amazement when, while trundling through Central Park, I stumbled into this...

Monday, November 05, 2007

Harry Taylor, the man who dared to tell the president what America thinks, is running for Congress


Harry Taylor of Charlotte, NC

Bush critic to run for Congress

"I have never felt more ashamed of, nor more frightened, by my leadership in Washington, including the presidency," Harry Taylor proceeded to tell the president. "And I would hope from time to time that you have the humility and the grace to be ashamed of yourself." - Charlotte observer

From John Edwards Blog

Sunday, November 04, 2007

Friday, November 02, 2007

Facebook Friends on YouTube

- Jimmy Wales - founded Wikipedia in 2001. Since 2006, he has been Chair Emeritus of the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikipedia reference.

- John Perry Barlow - Founder of EFF, Lyracist for Grateful Dead, Internet Pioneer, and Harvard Professor. Wikipedia reference.

- Chris Bowers - Chris Bowers is a blogger for OpenLeft, and was until July 2007 a front-page blogger for MyDD. His focus is polling and analysis of the political blogosphere. He tends towards data-driven analysis, such as his partisan index, a ranking of how far each state in the United States leans towards a political party. Wikipedia reference.

- Stowe Boyd - an internationally recognized authority on business strategy and information technology, particularly regarding real-time, collaborative, process, and content management technologies.

- David Brock - Author, former conservative, founder of Media Matters. Wikipedia reference.

- Jason Calacanis - Jason McCabe Calacanis is CEO and co-founder of Weblogs Inc., a network of widely read blogs including Engadget – ranked # 1 by Technorati . Wikipedia reference.

- David Sifry - an American software entrepreneur and blogosphere icon known most recently for founding Technorati, a leading blog search engine. Wikipedia reference.

- Elisa Camahort - Co-founder of BlogHer. BlogHer may refer to a group blog and online community, or to an annual blogging conference for women. Three of the 2005 conference organizers, Elisa Camahort, Jory des Jardins, and Lisa Stone, began a company, Blogher LLC, which in 2006 also began a blog ad network. In 2007, BlogHers Act, a political blogging network by and for women, was started by the company. Wikipedia reference.

- Deepak Chopra - Wikipedia reference.

- Juan Cole - is an American professor of modern Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University of Michigan. As a commentator on Middle Eastern affairs, he has appeared in print and on television, and testified before the United States Senate. He has published several peer-reviewed books on the modern Middle East and is a translator of both Arabic and Persian. Since 2002, he has written a weblog, Informed Comment. Wikipedia reference.

- Korva Coleman - In her work as an NPR newscaster, Korva Coleman is responsible for writing, producing, and delivering national newscasts for NPR's newsmagazines All Things Considered, Morning Edition, and Weekend Edition. She is also a substitute host for Talk of the Nation, Weekend All Things Considered, and Weekend Edition Sunday. Wikipedia reference.

- Ed Cone - "Ed Cone writes one of the most useful weblogs by a journalist." If not the blogfather of NC...certainly one of them. He, along with Sue Polinsky are responsible for blogger conferences in North Carolina.

- Robert Greenwald - an American film director, producer and political activist recently noted for his documentaries critical of Fox News and of the Bush Administration, as well as numerous award-winning television movies from the 1980s and 1990s. Wikipedia reference.

- Jane Hamsher - an American film producer, author, and liberal blogger. She produced the major motion picture Natural Born Killers and founded the popular progressive blog Firedoglake. She has also contributed to The Huffington Post. Wikipedia reference.

- Joichi Ito - the chairman of the board of Creative Commons and the chairman of Six Apart Japan. He is on the board of Technorati, Digital Garage, WITNESS, Pia Corporation, Socialtext and iCommons. He is the founder and CEO of the venture capital firm Neoteny Co., Ltd. In October of 2004, he was named to the board of ICANN. In August of 2005, he joined the board of the Mozilla Foundation. He served on the board of the Open Source Initiative. He was a founding board member of Ex'pression College for Digital Arts as well as the Zero One Art and Technology Network. Wikipedia reference.

- Josh Joplin - Josh Joplin Group was an American Georgia-based pop music band led by singer-songwriter Josh Joplin. Joplin, a self-proclaimed "dork" who nonetheless dropped out of school in tenth grade to become a folk singer like his hero Phil Ochs, brought the group its trademark combination of introspective lyrics, catchy melodies, and lead vocals that, to many, sound identical to those of R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe (to the point that one Joplin song, "Happy at Last," begins, "I sound like Michael Stipe and I dream like Carl Jung"). Wikipedia reference.

- Carl Kasell - A native of Goldsboro, North Carolina, Kasell was a student of drama in high school, where one of his mentors was Andy Griffith, then a high school drama instructor. Although Griffith urged Kasell to pursue a career in theatre, Kasell took to radio at an early age as well. During his time at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he helped launch local radio station WUNC with fellow student Charles Kuralt.
He worked as an announcer and DJ at a radio station in Goldsboro before moving to the Washington, DC area in 1965. He advanced to the position of news director at WAVA in Arlington, Virginia before joining National Public Radio's staff as a news announcer in 1975. He has been the news announcer for NPR's Morning Edition since its inception in 1979.
In 1998, Kasell was finally able to join the phenomenon of radio game shows which attracted him to the genre in his youth when NPR launched its weekly news quiz, Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!, with Kasell as official judge and scorekeeper. The prize that Wait Wait... offers to its listener contestants is a recording of Kasell's voice for their personal telephone answering machines.
He is a member of the North Carolina Journalism Hall of Fame. In 1999, Kasell shared in the George Foster Peabody Award given to Morning Edition. Wikipedia reference.

- Guy Kawasaki - one of the original Apple employees responsible for marketing of the Macintosh in 1984, is a Silicon Valley venture capitalist. He is noted for bringing the concept of evangelism to the high-tech business. Wikipedia reference.

- Jon Lebkowsky - a consultant, author and activist who was cofounder of FringeWare, Inc. Lebkowsky also has a history of activism, and was a co-founder of EFF-Austin, an organization formed to be a chapter of the national Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). Lebkowsky joined the WELL in 1990, and became a host or co-host of several forums on the conferencing system, including forums devoted to Factsheet Five, where he had a brief stint as book review editor, and Mondo 2000, where he wrote several articles and formed friendships with editors RU Sirius and Jude Milhon. Through the WELL, he also became associated with Howard Rheingold and Whole Earth Review, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and boing boing, where he was Associate Editor. He had early associations with staff at Wired Magazine and was conducted a regular, weekly series of chats called Electronic Frontiers Forum at HotWired. He was a subdomain editor for the Millennium Whole Earth Catalog and, in 1996, he joined Rheingold's Electric Minds. Wikipedia reference.

- PZ Myers - an American biology professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris and a science blogger via his blog, Pharyngula. He is currently an associate professor of biology at Morris, works in the field of evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo). Wikipedia reference.

- Yoko Ono Lennon - Wikipedia reference.

- Greg Palast - a New York Times-bestselling author and a journalist for the British Broadcasting Corporation as well as the British newspaper The Observer. His work frequently focuses on corporate malfeasance but has also been known to work with labor unions and consumer advocacy groups. Notably, he has claimed to have uncovered evidence that Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, and Florida Elections Unit Chief Clay Roberts, along with the ChoicePoint corporation, rigged the ballots during the US Presidential Election of 2000 and again in 2004 when, he argued, the problems and machinations from 2000 continued, and that challenger John Kerry actually would have won if not for disproportional "spoilage" of Democratic votes. He is considered to have begun reporting for the BBC/Observer due to media bias/reporting restrictions in the US. Wikipedia reference.

- Eli Pariser
- Jay Rosen
- Peter Sagal
- Doc Searls
- David Sirota
- Steven Stucky
- Leif Utne
- Paul Waldman
- Jim Wallis
- Woodrow Williams
- Saskia Wilson-Brown
- Joe Trippi
- Bill Tancer
- Helen Mirren
- Juliet Binoche
- Amanda Marcotte
- John Malkovich
- RG Littlejohn
- Lawrence Lessig
- Jon Stewart
- Steve Gillmor
- Jim Gaffigan
- Tina Fey
- Howard Dean
- Peter Daou
- Wes Clark
In progress...

Facebook: More Popular Than Porn

It's all about relationships...

EXCERPTS from TIME Magazine:
"Currently, for web users over the age of 25, Adult Entertainment still ranks high in popularity, coming in second, after search engines. Not so for 18- to 24-year-olds, for whom social networks rank first, followed by search engines, then web-based e-mail — with porn sites lagging behind in fourth. If you chart the rate of visits to social-networking sites against those to adult sites over the last two years, there appears to be a strong negative correlation (i.e., visits to social networks go up as visits to adult sites go down). "

It seems that social-networking sites have not only usurped porn in popularity, but they've also gobbled up time Gen Y-ers used to spend on traditional e-mail and IM. When you can reach all of your friends through Facebook or MySpace, there's little reason to spend time in your old-school inbox. So, if social networking is becoming e-mail 2.0, then perhaps Microsoft's recent $240 million dollar payout for such a small stake in Facebook isn't that ridiculous.

The reality is that Facebook isn't just for kids. Last week — and this was a highlight — my dad, who just turned 75, added me as a friend on Facebook."

Friday, October 26, 2007

Fun Links

TubeMogul - TubeMogul is a free service that provides a single point for deploying uploads to the top video sharing sites, and powerful analytics on who, what, and how videos are being viewed.

blip.tv (beta)
blip.tv is the world's leading videoblogging and podcasting service.

CrapTV
Less crap, more CrapTV!

Welcome to Spot Runner
Spot Runner creates high-quality, affordable television advertising for the local business. Spot Runner offers a total solution for television. "We're revolutionizing TV advertising. Find out how you can put your business on television."

Metacafe – Best Videos & Funny Movies
Metacafe - Get the best internet videos - Funny videos, Amazing clips, Rare movies.

Current TV
Current is a global television network that gives you the opportunity to create and influence what airs on TV. The Al Gore Network.

Lulu.com - Self Publishing - Free
Looking for self publishing resources? Lulu.com lets you publish and sell and print on demand books, e-books, online music, images, custom calendars and ...

Twitter: What are you doing?
Social networking and microblogging service utilising instant messaging, SMS or a web interface.

Bob Young - The connection between Ibiblio, Open Source, Lulu, and the number 42

Bob Young, founder of Lulu.com, Lulu.tv, and Red Hat is coming to speak at UNC. Join us in the Sonja Haynes Stone Center at UNC-Chapel Hill, Tuesday, October 30th from 3:30-5:00pm.

memeorandum
Techmeme
BlogHer

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

BushWorld o' Fascism: Bushworldofascism vs Islamofascism

With BushWorld and the Pastors of Genocide pushing the term "Islamofascism" in a ploy to piss people off enough that we will agree to the neo-con vision of Armageddon, but which might well actually turn out to be Amerigeddon, one wonders:

What the heck is Fascism anyway?

A number of A+ list bloggers including Juan Cole, Will Bunch, Bora Zivkovic and Jude Nagurney-Camwell have written eloquently on the matter, as elaborated by this post by Jude.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

"Saint" Tancredo's Wall Spares Mexicans the Fiery Katrina

Tom Tancredo is being hailed as a saint for his visionary mercy when he created the wall that spared the lives of millions of Mexicans from the fiery Katrina that is engulfing much of their northern neighbor.

What kind of blogger are you?


"What Kind of Blogger Are You?"/>

ConvergeSouth Film Festival is now available online!

I love films. Well, many of them. And I loved most of the ones I saw during the ConvergeSouth Film Festival in Greensboro, North Carolina this weekend.
As I was watching, instead of having AFV pop to mind, I had flashes of Bunuel, Rouch, Dziga Vertov, Man Ray, Woman Rhea, Richter, Melies, Lumiere, Cocteau, Cockfinger, Eisenstein, and some of the pioneers of avant-garde cinema whack me across the glasses in Potemkian montage sequences, as my mind tumbled down the steps of ontological approval like a perambulator adrift on the gravity of pregnant steps of Odessa.

(working, working...)

ConvergeSouth: Post-Production

A blogger conference, like a movie, has 3 stages: Pre-Production, Production, and Post-Production. We are now in the Post-Production phase...and are seeking the help of those who may not have participated so fully in the other two phases.

Gathering, organizing and archiving photos, words, videos, music and such would be very useful...both for ConvergeSouth '07, as well as for future Converges.

If you were in attendance, and felt like you wish you could have contributed more...this is one way to do it. Another way is to volunteer for ConvergeSouth '08.

Monday, October 22, 2007

Rainbloggers Break North Carolina Drought! ConvergeSouth, Fifth Estate, Credited.

nfConvergeSouth was THIS BIG!
(photo of Ruby Sinreich by Iddybud)

WE ARE THE ONES WE'VE BEEN WAITING FOR...


(dans progress)



A
funny thing happened this weekend, beginning on Friday. While the stock market was going to shit, hominids were gathering in North Carolina to break the drought that was long plaguing the state. The impact was instantaneous and widespread.

Rain soaked the area represented by these holy blogger/rainpersons, and earth and heaven were once again speaking.

Here are some of the things unearthed by said rainbloggers...






THE GATHERING OF THE FIFTH ESTATE
As the blognoscenti of The Fifth Estate gathered, I realized that it was going to be impossible to spend quality time with everyone, but I am glad that I did get some quality time with some quality folk, in particular, David Hoggard, Jay Ovittore, Dr. Sue, Michael Habib, Bora Zivkovic, David Jordan, Scott and Barbara Nelles, Stew Pittman, Billy the Wordjones, Dan Conover, Lex Alexander, Fec Stench, Brandon Gross, Saskia Wilson-Brown, Robert Reddick, and a few others. Some, like Ben Hwang and Ed Cone were always on the move, and thus hard to trap into a long discussion on what's next.

THE FUTURE:
CHARLOTTE FESTIVAL OF THE FIFTH ESTATE

I am pondering a notion from the mind of Joe Killian, who wondered why these events could not happen twice a year...


UNCC college of Computers and Informatics Campus

Charlotte is typically very lovely in April and May, which is roughly six months from now. The University of North Carolina at Charlotte has a new campus dedicated to Information Technology, which auspiciousoly lies at the north side of Charlotte, very close to I-85, from whence most people from the Triad and Triangle would be coming. Seems like such an event might serve both institutions well.




University Place, Charlotte

Nearby is University Place, where people can stay, and party...and also NODA, charlotte's vibrant art district, which has venues for music, film, art, and good food. Again, this would serve both institutions well...


Charlotte Arts District (NODA)

Flight from other cities around the world are available, media coverage from the Charlotte Observer, sponsorship from Bank of America, Wachovia, BMW, and other deep pockets might be available...and Lord knows the city is always looking to promote the image of it being a state-of-the-art, world-class city. As I said also to Saskia and Brandon of Current TV and San Francisco...Charlotte's god in chief, Hugh McColl, loved San Francisco, and wanted to bring the best of that city to Charlotte. Among the projects he is involved with is the Echo Foundation, founded by Elie Wiesel and, i believe, headquartered in Charlotte.

Charlotte also has telemedicine, and is making great headway in holistic medicine...with Stewart Brand's recent involvement in the creation of a new holistic, hospital, replete with Feng Shui gardens, waterfalls, and much else besides. Surely an interesting topic for discussion... Perhaps health can be at the center of discussion, but maybe also other aspects of life for which the city is known, like investments, banking, business, sports...and these other quotidian, yet necessary, arenas.

Besides...the mayor is on Facebook.



Rainbloggers Break North Carolina Drought! ConvergeSouth Credited.

World Anthology of ConvergeSouth Reviews:

Current.com comes to Greensboro - Jude (Iddybud) Nagurney-Camwell has some great pictures of folks at ConvergeSouth, including our guests from San Francisco and CurrentTV, Saskia Wilson-Brown and Brandon Gross, as well as CrapTV's Jason McHugh.


ConvergeSouth: The Buzz That Was - Lenslinger, who writes: "When a shirtless Al Gore first twisted the internets out of molten lava, experts worried it would turn the people of the Earth into agoraphobic laptop addicts. Perhaps they had a point. Still, when used correctly, the series of tubes that is the web can actually bring people face to face - and I‘m not talking about those skeevy dating websites, either. I‘m talking ConvergeSouth. " Wondrous words, my friend!
ConvergeSouth Film Festival stuff
Late breaking news
ConvergeSouth 2008 - Volunteer and the job is yours - Sue Polinsky
Too fast from Greensboro to Milwaukee [A Blog Around The Clock] - Bora Zivkovic
Converging 2007 - Joe Killian
Converged - Ed Cone






ConvergeSouth - all good (except for…) - David Hoggard, "The Man with the Meat", wonders if some of the class leaders did not get the memo about the audience being smarter than you are. Elsewisely put, "zen mind, beginner's mind". Lively discussion!

A Morning’s Worth Of ConvergeSouth 2007 - CMF

2007 ConvergeSouth Coverage - updates by Billy Blog Jones

Twitter updates for 2007-10-20 - Amber Rhea

ConvergeSouth Saturday, Part 2 - Stephanie (NC Inkslinger)

ConvergeSouth - Joe Guarino

Thoughts on ConvergeSouth - Sam Harrelson

Just got back from ConvergeSouth - Angelico (Blue NC)

ConvergeSouth: Day Two Social Networking - Sir Leonard Witt

Saturday morning at ConvergeSouth - Anton Zuiker (with a link to Storyblogging session, which I regrettably missed.)

ConvergeSouth 2007 - Michael Kimsal






Social networks at ConvergeSouth - Ruby Sinreich

ConvergeSouth photos - Radical Georgia Moderate

ConvergeSouth 2007 Day 2 - Guillaume le Blogpoetistan (no lackbeard) keeping track of ConvergeSouthiana while reminding us of the importance of his majoral candidacy and his future mayoralty. May he bring peace and macrobiotic food to Blogsboro.

Don’t Question Us! - The Conservative Alternative

Tidbits from ConvergeSouth - Erik Huey

ConvergeSouth Liveblog III - Mama's Bloggin

Hello world! - David Jordan Jr. (currently inchoate)

ConvergeSouth first looks - Ben (the Wizard) Hwang

Attytood's Southern strategy - Will Bunch (who had graced us from Philadelphia)

BCR at ConvergeSouth today - Bull City Rising (Durham)

dan who?

Friday, October 12, 2007

Gore Peace Prize Stolen by Bush Inc.

Hans W. Bush, a cousin of the Resident, has pulled a few strings, and it appears that the Nobel Peace Prize is now going to go to George W. Bush, kleptomaniac -- who now insists on being called "The Prince of Peace".

When asked what he was going to do with the prize, Mr. Bush said he would like to use it as a pretext to go to war with Iran, Syria, Turkey, Blogistan, Amsterdam, and Paris. Maybe Atlantis. "But first, i think I need to clear some tumbleweeds back in Crawford. Let my brain rest a bit. Peace is hard work. Hard." And when asked what the future might bring, Bush said that he was still hoping for Baseball Commissioner.

Back at CurrentTV headquarters, Al Gore is fending off rumours that he was trying to steal the coveted prize from Bush, and an ad hoc panel of impartial Floridians told Frank Luntz that Gore should just move on. "If Bush has the prize, it's obvious he won it!", said one of the pathetic fascists.

Intro
You must enter an Intro for your Diary Entry between 300 and 1150 characters long.
Hans W. Bush, a cousin of the Resident, has pulled a few strings, and it appears that the Nobel Peace Prize is now going to go to George W. Bush, kleptomaniac -- who now insists on being called "The Prince of Peace".

When asked what he was going to do with the prize, Mr. Bush said he would like to use it as a pretext to go to war with Iran, Syria, Turkey, Blogistan, Amsterdam, and Paris. Maybe Atlantis. "But first, i think I need to clear some tumbleweeds back in Crawford. Let my brain rest a bit. Peace is hard work. Hard." And when asked what the future might bring, Bush said that he was still hoping for Baseball Commissioner.

Back at CurrentTV headquarters, Al Gore is fending off rumours that he was trying to steal the coveted prize from Bush, and an ad hoc panel of impartial Floridians told Frank Luntz that Gore should just move on. "If Bush has the prize, it's obvious he won it!", said one of the pathetic fascists.

When asked if he thought that Bush deserved to award, he candidly revealed that he thought it was actually going to go to John Edwards for his work at ending poverty around the world.

Asked about this comment, and what he thought about Bush's amazing victory, he said "the system is rigged", and then went on to say that he has learned his lesson, and that he will not be chided into allowing Bush to hi-jack reality yet again. "This BushWorld fantasy has got to end."
Besides, Edwards said, today is Iddybud's birthday, and the law of synchronicity favors a Gore victory, as that was what the great blogmeistress had stated as her desired birthday gift...and she is in harmony with the Tao.

I'm sure scientists will be debating these results for decades, maybe centuries. History is, alas, the final fiction.

Lesson 1: Nothing lasts forever.
Lesson 2: Carpe millennium.

Monday, October 08, 2007

Middle East Expert, Juan Cole to Speak at Davidson Tonight

The Iraq Crisis as America's Crisis
When: October 08, 2007 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Where: C. Shaw Smith 900 Room, Alvarez College Union
Speaker: Juan Cole
Ticket Required: No

Dr. Juan Cole, Professor of Modern Middle Eastern and South Asian History at University of Michigan and author of the Informed Comment blog will give a lecture on the situation in Iraq and its spill over effects in the U.S.

Juan R. I. Cole is Professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History at the University of Michigan. He has written extensively about Egypt, Iran, Iraq, and South Asia. He has given numerous media and press interviews on the War on Terrorism since September 11, 2001, as well as concerning the Iraq War and the building conflict with Iran from 2003. He has a regular column at Salon.com. He continues to study and write about contemporary Islamic movements, whether mainstream or radical, whether Sunni and Salafi or Shi`ite.

FOR MORE INFORMATION