GoBecky .net

Via HuffPo: The scope of John McCain's geographic dyslexia widened considerably this morning on GMA. Note his reference to the "Iraq/Pakistan border." This man wants to be president, folks.

For future reference:

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I first started thinking about email encryption when I read Cory Doctorow's excellent YA novel Little Brother (grab it for free under Creative Commons over at craphound). Then the Dems caved on FISA. At that point, I realized that in a very real way, we can never again assume that email (or other forms of electronic communication) isn't being monitored (or at least collected) by the government. In fact, we have to assume that it is. Fucked up, but that's where we're at.

So from now on, all of my outgoing email will be signed with my brand-spankin'-new GnuPG key...

Amazon's got a sale on in its Business & Finance magazine store today. That mostly elicits a big yawn from me, with one notable exception: Fast Company (website), which straddles the line between bleeding-edge business reporting and futurism, and is one of only four magazines I love enough to get in print (anybody want to guess the other three?), is available today for $7 for a one-year subscription.

If you're at all interested in the future of, well, the world, you should definitely check Fast Company out.

I've decided to start a video blog on vimeo. I probably won't post every vlog here, but I figured the first one deserved a shoutout. /grin/

001: Hello, world! from Becky Blitch on Vimeo.

Want more? Bookmark my vimeo channel. This weekend I'll add a sidebar to this blog listing the most recent videos, too.

I was expecting a confirmation email this morning, and when it didn't arrive, I thought I'd scan my spam folder just in case. Hilariously, while I did not find the email I was looking for, I did find a legit John McCain campaign email from the GOP. I have no idea how my email address made it into their hands, but how awesome (or, alternatively, creepy) is it that Gmail figured out it was junk?! (Particularly given, or maybe because of, the fact that I receive campaign emails from the Obama list every day and never junk them.) Rock on with the Obama-lovin', Google!

Headers and screencap after the jump.

Doing some Sunday shopping? Amazon always has some great deals in its DRM-free MP3 Store. I try to keep an eye on their bargain bin, and this morning came across one of the best jazz albums ever: Thelonious Monk Quartet With John Coltrane Live at Carnegie Hall for just $5. This is definitely in my all-time Top Ten, and whether you're an acolyte or newbie, for $5 you can't pass it up. Listen to the samples below, then go buy the album. It will be the best $5 you'll spend all year.

The brilliant Mark Fiore has done it again, sending up the twisted world of the Bush Administration & all its lawlessness, fearmongering, and propagandizing in one fell swoop. So follow along, class, as Snuggly the Security Bear teaches us all about how the new FISA law will be the end of all our loneliness and fear...

The Spies Who Love You! by Mark Fiore

The Obama campaign has put together some of the best pix from Pride around the country into a slideshow, and are also now offering an official Obama Pride t-shirt when you donate $30.

Show Your Support: Obama Pride

From an article entitled As Afghanistan boils, McCain keeps focus on Iraq in the Christian Science Monitor:

In a remark that sparked controversy, [Obama] said he would not rule out a unilateral strike in Pakistan.

"If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will," he said in a Washington speech last August.

McCain later highlighted the statement as a sign of Obama's lack of foreign-policy experience. "You don't broadcast that you are going to bomb a country that is a sovereign nation," McCain, who has endorsed a cooperative approach with Mr. Musharraf, said in February. "It's just fundamentals of the conduct of national security policy."

Unless you're George W. Bush. In that case, you publicly announce that Saddam Hussein & Co. has 48 hours to turn over the reigns of their (apparently un-sovereign) country or else you'll bomb the living daylights out of it; you then start firing missiles in targeted attacks even before he 48-hour deadline is reached; after the 48-hour warning period, you treat the citizens of Baghdad to a special fireworks show, eliciting shouts of "shocking!" and "awesome!" /smirk/

Since John McCain clearly has a strong grasp of the "fundamentals of the conduct of national security policy," as evidenced by his stellar academic background and ability to crash fighter jets, we can only infer that Iraq never was a sovereign nation, making Mr. Bush's actions perfectly legitimate and even worth emulating for another four years. Ha.

I repeat, for emphasis:

Charlie Crist is a dickhead.

The man's political ambitions have always been transparent, but in the past two weeks he has crossed the line.

It took me the better part of the week to recover, but this was nonetheless one of the best and most memorable days I've had in a long time! (And check it out, Eileen's sign gets some immortal YouTube love! Ftw!)

*Obama! '08! Be a part of something great!

I randomly stumbled on this 2-year-old rant (even more valid today) that perfectly sums up why I never log in to MySpace. Awesome.

Is your MySpace page ugly?

So I totally get the people who were squicked out when Google Street View first rolled out. At the time, I was all, "privacy, schmrivacy." Now Google Street View has come a-knockin' in my little subdivision, and, yeah, I feel a bit weirded out by it, to tell the truth.

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The data was collected on a Friday (recycling day) 6-8 weeks ago (neighbor's construction) around 1 PM (sun position & cloud patterns). All of that, plus the fact that I can now give you a virtual tour of my daily walk with Sydney (but won't)... it's cool, yes, but very, very creepy.

Dan Abrams uncovers an interview on FOX during which McCain said, "I didn't really love America until I was deprived of her company." Will the right-wing idiots smearing Michelle Obama over her "really proud" comment realize their hypocrisy?

The context wars rage on...

This is very, very cool: Spell with flickr

Tomatoes are fruit.

Via CNN

I've had a really shit few days, but this absolutely brought a smile to my face. One of O'Reilly's attack-dogs tried to ambush Bill Moyers in front of a bunch of other reporters, who subsequently chased him down and gave him a small taste of his own medicine. Fucking fabulous.

Best. Birthday Present. Ever.

I'm not sure whether this is funny, pathetic, or both.

(BTW, if for some reason, you want the real Barack Obama ringtones, they're available at the official BarackObama.com downloads site, along with some other really neat stuff. All free to download & distribute.)

A-fucking-men.

From CNN:

FDA warns of harmful nipple cream

(Updated below)

SPOILER ALERT: If you're waiting till this weekend to get caught up on this week's season finales, skip this post.

One more reason to flee to California: California Gay Marriage Ban Overturned

The AP reports:

"In a monumental victory for the gay rights movement, the California Supreme Court overturned a voter-approved ban on gay marriage Thursday in a ruling that would allow same-sex couples in the nation's biggest state to tie the knot," AP reports.

Domestic partnerships are not a good enough substitute for marriage, the justices ruled 4-3 in striking down the ban.

A key passage from the decision:

"Furthermore, in contrast to earlier times, our state now recognizes that an individual's capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual's sexual orientation, and, more generally, that an individual's sexual orientation -- like a person's race or gender -- does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights.

"We therefore conclude that in view of the substance and significance of the fundamental constitutional right to form a family relationship, the California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as to opposite-sex couples."

Maybe there's reason to have hope, yet!

This whole drama over Hillary winning big in WV yesterday, as she presumably will in KY next week, boggles my mind.

Let's look at some key figures from the exit polling, according to CNN's summary:

Clinton's largest margins, as expected, were registered among voters at the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder. Among white voters without a college degree, Clinton defeated Obama by 50 points. Among white voters making less than $30,000 a year, Clinton's margin of victory was more than 60 points.

Voters supported the gas tax suspension by an almost 2-to-1 margin. Those voters who supported suspending the gas tax broke for Clinton, 74 to 19 percent.

Only 38 percent of Clinton's voters said they would vote for Obama in a general election matchup against presumptive GOP nominee Sen. John McCain.

President Bush was able to win the socially conservative state twice largely on the basis of hot button issues such as abortion, gay rights and gun control.

What I'm about to say will probably offend a lot of people, so if you want to keep your image of me being an idealistic egalitarian unblemished, you'll probably want to stop reading.