Legitimate credentials?

The New York Times: Campaign 2004 Web Diarists Are Now Official Members of Convention Press Corps: "Even as many networks are reducing their coverage of the increasingly predictable political conventions, the political blogs, which have become a fruitful alternative for individual voices, have been ablaze over the prospect of officially covering conventions for the first time. Ms. Merritt is one of about three dozen bloggers who have been given press credentials for the Democratic convention in Boston, which begins Monday. Another, Ana Marie Cox from the Washington gossip site Wonkette.com, will be working as a correspondent for MTV."

Attorneys Question Baltimore Schools

Attorneys Question Baltimore Schools Chief Financial Officer: "BALTIMORE -- Attorneys attempting to force Baltimore's school system to pay off its $58 million deficit slower than city officials want aggressively questioned the system's chief financial officer on Thursday.

The American Civil Liberties Union is asking two judges to rule that the city's plan to reduce the deficit by July 2006 would hurt students and increase the burden for already stressed teachers and staff.

'The school system cannot prioritize deficit reductions over the academic needs of the children,' said Louis Bograd, an attorney working on behalf of the ACLU. 'The system just can't make these decisions in such a short time.'"

Top 50 Law Blogs

Eddix Top 50 Law Blogs: In a related matter, I should be reading these blogs more regularly.

Section 8 Threatened

Section 8 Threatened: This was a shock to me - I really should read the news more often. Apparently Section 8 housing is being threatened by recent developments between HUD and the Bush administration. I can't imagine a worse idea.

Dedicated line

My ISP figured it out and now offers a dedicated data line that's about the same price as regular high speed internet. This is great for those of us who have to keep their landline for DSL. I love the way the FCC is getting all nervous about the coming of Voice over Internet Protocol;this description on their website makes VOIP seem like some bizarre and completely inferior technology. Nice.

The Alien Tort Claims Act

Good overview and commentary on the Sosa Case, the Alien Tort Claims Act (28 USC §1350 (2004)) and Federal Tort Claims Act(28 USC §2680(h)(2004)) on FindLaw, by Anthony Sebok: "The Sosa case arose from an incident that took place in 1985 in Mexico. There, members of a Mexican drug cartel tortured and murdered an American DEA agent. American prosecutors believed that a Mexican doctor, Humberto Alvarez-Machain, kept the agent alive in order to either to get more information, or prolong his agony. Alvarez was indicted in absentia by a Los Angeles grand jury, but the Justice Department could not get him extradited from Mexico. The DEA therefore hired a man named Sosa, as well as other Mexicans, to kidnap Alvarez and forcibly brought him onto U.S. soil -- where he was arrested by U.S. officials."

I'm Loving It.

This McDonald's website "celebrating Asian culture" appears to be real (otherwise its a lawsuit waiting to happen). Who says Mc Donald's isn't targeting minority communities? Turn off the sound on your computer, the jingle plays with every page load.

Presidential Comercials at the American Museum of the Moving Image.

The American Museum of the Moving Image has an incredible and revealing online exhibit, this time a history of presidential televion commercials. This is exactly the way to design a website.

Constitution Party.

I had no idea these people even existed. RSS = good. Constitution Party National Political Headquarters: "countless government officials in the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government take their oath to uphold and defend the Constitution with no understanding of the responsibilities that oath entails. Join the Constitution Party in its work to restore our government to its Constitutional limits and our law to its Biblical foundation."
Interesting to compare the amount of money the Constitutionalists spent on the site with the one the poor Socialists put up (is that redundant?).

That annoying Six Flags Commercial

Is available as a Windows Media file. You know, the one with the dancing old man. It's like driving a nail into my eye. This blog (which has some interesting and very funny stuff identifies the composer of that equally catchy and irritating tune as "Venga Bus" by the "Vengaboys." Ugh.

Dee Dee.

This poor fellow needs to to sue his plastic surgeon. I really dohave too much time on my hands.

David Hasselhoff is the AntiChrist

I really wish I had more to do at work today...I laughed a little at this, sort of: David Hasselhoff is the AntiChrist

Ooh, ooh, a new browser.

I haven't been able to make the switch to a non-I.E. browser because doing anything on the web becomes a colossal pain in the ass. This may be a possible solution, and God knows I applaud all of these open source geeks and everything they stand for. The author makes a few good points about why now (more than ever) is a socially appropriate time to switch browers.
Are the Browser Wars Back? - How Mozilla's Firefox trumps Internet Explorer. By Paul Boutin: "You've probably been told to dump Internet Explorer for a Mozilla browser before, by the same propeller-head geek who wants you to delete Windows from your hard drive and install Linux. You've ignored him, and good for you. Microsoft wiped out Netscape in the Browser Wars of the late 1990s not only because the company's management pushed the bounds of business ethics, but also because its engineers built a better browser. When Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale approved the Mozilla project - an open-source browser based on Netscape's code - in 1998, it seemed like a futile act of desperation.
But six years later, the surviving members of the Mozilla insurgency are staging a comeback. The latest version of Firefox, released this Monday, has a more professional look, online help, and a tool that automatically imports your bookmarks, history, site passwords, and other settings from Explorer. Meanwhile, all-conquering Internet Explorer has been stuck in the mud for the past year, as Microsoft stopped delivering new versions. The company now rolls out only an occasional fix as part of its Windows updates. Gates and company won the browser war, so why keep fighting it? "