MoveOn On The “Intimigate” Scandal

This just in from MoveOn:

Dear MoveOn member,
According to the Washington Post, “two top White House officials” committed a high crime in the first weeks of July. They handed over the identity of an American secret agent to journalists. They blew her cover, risking the lives of colleagues and contacts and possibly erasing years of intelligence work. Why? “Purely and simply for revenge,” an administration official told the Post. The spy’s husband was a vocal critic of the Iraq war. (Sources below.)
The White House and the Justice Department have known about this crime for months — after all, the agent’s identity was published in scores of newspapers in early July. But until a few days ago, they did nothing about it. And even now, President Bush has said he has no plans to ask his staff whether they were connected to it.
Republicans contend that an investigation by the Justice Department will reveal any wrongdoing. But Justice Department chief John Ashcroft — who was appointed by President Bush and who employed key Bush advisor Karl Rove — is hardly neutral. Already, there are signs that the investigation will give the White House room to cover the crime up.
The simple fact is that the truth will only come out under pressure. If we don’t speak up now, the investigation could be left in John Ashcroft’s hands, and the perpetrators and the crime could be swept under the rug. Please tell John Ashcroft and Congress that you want a special prosecutor — someone who isn’t tied to the Bush Administration — to investigate this illegal and vindictive act.
Join us now at:

MoveOn.org – Intimigate

Continue reading

Come See Ron and I (Park and Ride) Play An Acoustic Set On December 16th At Noe Valley Ministry

I just found out that I’ll be playing at Noe Valley Ministry on December 13, 2003 — Saturday night!

Map to Noe Valley Ministry

Since we get to take over the whole church for the show – upstairs and downstairs – I’m going to take the opportunity to throw a little party while I’m at it.
So we’ll be performing three or four little sets over the course of the evening to showcase our stuff in-between the food and get togethering. That way, if you have other plans, you can still come by for a few songs and a drink or two whenever it’s convenient for you.
The festivities will be going on from 6:30-9:30 pm. Donations will be appreciated, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds.
Check out our first video for a taste of our acoustic set.
Hope to see you there!

Daily Show On Karl Rove-Based Leak Outing Joseph Wilson’s Wife As A CIA Agent

This is from the October 1, 2003 program.
The Daily Show was on the ball, right on schedule, again last night, so figured it was the least I could do to say up late again to bring this to you in a timely fashion.

Daily Show On Karl Rove Outing A CIA Agent
(Small – 7 MB)











The Daily Show
(The best news on television.)

Howard Dean On The Jay Leno Show!

This is from the September 30, 2003 program.
This was a classic appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Looks like we’ve got Hollywood on our side!
Jay put together some hilarious clips (3 MB) of Dean as a street musician and Dean as Pete Townsend that are quite historical. One of them features Rob Reiner as a passer by.
Jay sure did his homework for this interview. We get to learn about how Howard decided to become a Doctor and how he managed to balance being a Doctor with his duties as Lt. Governor before the Governor died and he became the “big guy.” We also learn about his favorite $125 JC Penny suit that he still owns to this day.

Howard Dean On Jay Leno – Part 1 of 2
(Small – 11 MB)

Howard Dean On Jay Leno – Part 2 of 2
(Small – 12 MB)

Howard Dean On Jay Leno – Complete
(Small – 23 MB)
Howard Dean On Jay Leno – Funny Clip (Small – 3 MB)









Shit Hits The Fan Over White House Leak “Outing” Joseph Wilson’s Wife As A CIA Agent

“Leak” isn’t really the right word for it. “Firehose” might be more appropriate. Evidence suggests that the White House basically cold called at least six different reporters to get the word out about the identity of Joseph Wilson’s wife as a CIA agent. Doing so constitutes a Federal Offense.
In case the name doesn’t ring a bell, Ambassador Joseph Wilson was the man the CIA sent to Nigeria, at Dick Cheney’s request, to investigate allegations that Iraq had tried to purchase “yellowcake” uranium in an attempt to make a nuclear bomb. Wilson came back from Nigeria and said he found no evidence of such things. Allegedly, in retaliation, the White House decided to out his wife. (That ought to teach him not to tell the truth.)
Dick Cheney, you might remember, states that he doesn’t even know who Joseph Wilson is. Once again, we are left with a conundrum, much like the situation with Condoleeza Rice’s not knowing about the Nigerian uranium evidence being innaccurate. Either Cheney does know who Wilson is, and is simply lying about it, or he actually doesn’t know who Wilson is, and is simply an idiot. Either way, it sucks that such a person is our Vice President.
Here’s a clip from the CBS evening news explaining the details of the situation that provides a nice primer before viewing the clip of Tim Russert questioning Condoleeza Rice on the subject on Sunday’s Meet The Press.
Here’s a link to the usual, largely incomplete transcript.
More articles on this to follow. All the clips in this entry are from September 28, 2003.
CBS Evening News On The White House Leaking Classified Info (Small – 6 MB)
Condoleeza Rice On Meet The Press Denying She Knew Anything About It (Small – 7 MB)

Continue reading

New Song and Video! Slipping Away

I just posted my first music video!
I just started the camera rolling and performed a song with the other half of Park and Ride: Ron Taylor. There’s more where this came from.
I just found out that I’ll be playing at Noe Valley Ministry on December 13, 2003 — Saturday night! Here’s more information about the event.
Hope to see you there!

Slipping Away


I thought it was time for a little music video to introduce you guys to Ron, and give you a little taste of us live — so you might come see us play at Noe Valley Ministry in San Francisco when we play December 16, 2003.
This song was the last song we wrote together when we were in Seattle in 1999. It’s one of my favorites.
Ron had just re-learned the song when we taped this, so I had to cue him for the chord changes. That’s why I keep pointing at him — that’s “the signal” for the chord change.
Hope you like it!

Continue reading

Info On Microsoft’s Voucher Program (The Result Of The Anti-trust Settlement)

Here’s a clip from KPIX that explains how to claim whatever you might have coming to you as a result of Microsoft’s anti-trust practices. Of course it’s too little, too late. (What a silly question 🙂
Nevertheless, if you are a business that has invested in Microsoft software over the last 7+ years, you could be eligible for some real cash. The vouchers can be used to purchase equipment and software from any manufacturer, not just Microsoft.
Here are more of the details of the $1.1 Billion Microsoft Settlement.
Click here for a settlement form.
KPIX On Microsoft’s Voucher Program (Small – 8 MB)



Help My Students Test Out Their Senior Project

I’m assisting with the Senior Projects for USF’s Computer Science Department this semester as sort of a warm up before I teach my own XML class next semester. (Yippie!)
We’re creating a little application that creates a little “personal web space” from the bookmarks and documents on your hard drive, and we could sure use some help testing out our client application.
It’s Windows-only right now, and only works with Internet Explorer 6. (I know it’s lame that it only works on IE6 on Windows, but this is only the first rev. So bear with me.)
Email me directly at lisarein@finetuning.com if you’d like to participate in our beta program. We’ll be needing testers from now until the end of the semester.
Thanks!

Lawsuits Not Affecting Filesharing Traffic


Activity on Song – Swapping Networks Steady

By Reuters.

Activity on file-sharing networks has not missed a beat this week despite the record industry’s high-profile lawsuits against individual song-swappers, industry trackers and executives said on Thursday.
“There’s no mass exodus, that’s safe to say. Ironically, usage this week and this month is up,” said Eric Garland, a spokesman for BigChampagne, a research firm that tracks peer-to-peer networks that enable file-swapping between different computers.
“We’ve been looking at dramatic increases on the FastTrack Network. The number of people using these file sharing services in the first 10 days of September is up more than 20 percent from the August average,” he said…
Greg Bildson, chief technology officer for LimeWire, said traffic on the Gnutella network, the underlying network that LimeWire, BearShare, Morpheus tap into, has not been affected.
Peer-to-peer officials said people would likely improve ways to conceal their identities to avoid lawsuits.
“If you’re smart, and most file-sharers are, you can insulate yourself,” said Wayne Rosso, president of Grokster, which is involved in a suit of its own against the industry.
Rosso said the lawsuits only wasted money, alienated music fans and will have less of a shock value in the future.
“The next time, the suits won’t get this kind of media coverage. They’re a desperate and dying industry,” he said.

Continue reading