As doom approaches,


Maybe Kerry's not the perfect choice, maybe he's even a serious suckass choice. Doesn't really matter to me, as long as I don't have to live near a coutry led by Dubya.


Impressive election-time efforts from bright people:


Marc Perkel spends a couple grand setting up a direct line to offer Fahrenheit 911 for download off his site. You can just go there and get it if you haven't seen it, especially if you are an American voter. (My personal issues with Michael Moore aside, this is an important film for everyone to see, if only to balance the unbelievable bias of most American media institutions)


Also, Errol Morris. documentarian of the century and creator of the Apple Switch ad campaign, has created a series of "switch" themed ads for toppling the Bush regime (former republicans saying they won't vote for Shrub) , worth checking out.


Bummer: My American teacher, and apparently a large group of other ex-pats from Pensylvania, won't be voting this year because whoever's in charge dropped the ball on absentee ballots. Democracy shows itself to be circumstantial once again.
posted by Jer Clarke at 23:52

Quote of the day: John Perry Barlow



"TV in America created the most coherent reality distortion field that I’ve ever seen. Therein is the problem: People who vote watch TV, and they are hallucinating like a sonofabitch. Basically, what we have in this country is government by hallucinating mob."


-Found in an interview with Reason magazine (via boingboing). Barlow was a writer for the Grateful Dead before becomming active in the politics of cyberspace and was the co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a technological freedom advocacy organisation. Also of interest by Barlow : A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, a delicious and intense peice of cyber-philosophy if there ever was one.


-Also, tricked into watching CNN because it was playing in the pizza place, I couldn't help wondering what value can be derived from watching constant coverage of a hurricane that cannot be helped. Are the viewers at home gaining any knowledge because of it? Will it improve their lives somehow? How is this pointless data being sold as news at all? Isn't there a corrupt and stupid politician they could expose or something? (also, why does CNN have to constantly assert that they are the most trusted source for news? Does the station worry that the public will forget how much they trust them?)
posted by Jer Clarke at 22:50