blivet 2.0

Just an FYI… Hey, use that extra hour to vote for President on Tuesday!

In 2008, daylight time begins on March 9 and ends on November 2.

Daylight saving time In the United States.

Daylight Saving Time - When do we change our clocks?
Beginning in 2007, most of the United States begins Daylight Saving Time at 2:00 a.m. on the second Sunday in March and reverts to standard time on the first Sunday in November. In the U.S., each time zone switches at a different time.

In the European Union, Summer Time begins and ends at 1:00 a.m. Universal Time (Greenwich Mean Time). It begins the last Sunday in March and ends the last Sunday in October. In the EU, all time zones change at the same moment.

Some of your ‘devices’ may have a Y2K7 problem where they reset their internal clocks on the wrong day. Our DVD/VCR fell back last Sunday prompting far too many “what time is it, really?” exchanges.

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You say that like it’s a bad thing.

Nate Silver, who does FiveThirtyEight.Com, weighs in on Nevada in his series Road to 270: Nevada.

In addition, over at dKos, HigherPie spins the penultimate entry in the series on early voting in Nevada.

Deep Inside Nevada’s EV Numbers v9.0 - One Day Left
Well here we are. Just four days until Election Day, and only one day left for Nevadans to vote early.

The penultimate day of early voting saw most trends we’ve been chronicling continue, including the “lots and lots of people voted again today” trend.

It’s Barack the Inspirer versus John the Defiler, live in the Silver State, round 9!
<…>
Tomorrow is the final day of early voting in Nevada. I have a huge, mega-party diary planned, so be sure to find it at around 11pm tomorrow night [that's 10/31 -- ed.].

• Poladroid project : the easiest and funniest Polaroid Image Maker
  For your computer, not your camera. [via Garret]
  (tags: osx software photography images photos converter polaroid poladroid via:garret)

Thank you, Gleaner.

In addition, “some bitter angry wingnut group with more money than sense is spending oodles to insert anti-Obama DVDs into Friday’s edition of the Las Vegas Review Journal” according to TPM, er…, the Gleaner again. I can hardly wait!

There was some Republican on Hardball last night advocating a flat income tax. If Aristotle could figure this out 2,300 years ago, why can’t modern conservatives figure it out as well?

Those who have too much of the goods of fortune, strength, wealth, friends, and the like, are neither willing nor able to submit to authority….On the other hand, the very poor, who are in the opposite extreme, are too degraded.… Thus arises a city, not of freemen, but of masters and slaves, the one despising, the other envying; and nothing can be more fatal to friendship and good fellowship in states than this: for good fellowship springs from friendship; when men are at enmity with one another, they would rather not even share the same path. But a city ought to be composed, as far as possible, of equals and similars; and these are generally the middle classes.

…Thus it is manifest that the best political community is formed by citizens of the middle class, and that those states are likely to be well-administered in which the middle class is large, and stronger if possible than both the other classes, or at any rate than either singly; for the addition of the middle class turns the scale, and prevents either of the extremes from being dominant. Great then is the good fortune of a state in which the citizens have a moderate and sufficient property; for where some possess much, and the others nothing, there may arise an extreme democracy, or a pure oligarchy; or a tyranny may grow out of either extreme — either out of the most rampant democracy, or out of an oligarchy; but it is not so likely to arise out of the middle constitutions and those akin to them.

[h/t Kevin Drum]

[later ruminations:] When I was watching Hardball, I was roughly remembering this passage, but thinking it was from Plato’s Republic. Ah well, I’m glad someone can recall such things.

• What Progressives Need to Do After November 4th | AlterNet
  Assuming Obama wins, of course. If not, the ‘to do’ list is considerably larger.
  (tags: progressive 2008+election politics)
• The End of America - SnagFilms
  Naomi Wolf's The End of America documentary online for free.
  (tags: politics Bush 2008 documentary naomiwolf 2008+election activism)
• Pew Election Preview 2008: What if We Held an Election and Everyone Came?
  from Pew via “Wingtip Warriors” by Dahlia Lithwick at Slate. The report is a pdf download.
  "Pew Election Preview 2008: What if We Held an Election and Everyone Came? provides a comprehensive look at the rules, technology, registration figures and issues to watch in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. It finds that while significant improvements have been undertaken since the 2000 vote – and the resulting passage of federal legislation in 2002 – election administration remains a challenge."
  (tags: politics slate pew 2008+election pdf report vote)
• The VCR is dead - Boing Boing Gadgets
  JVC ceases production of the last stand-alone VCR.
  "[T]he disappearance of the VCR moves us one step closer to a world without a record button, where content is doled out in $1 increments. Say what you will about the quality of VHS tapes, but at least they could be resold and lent to friends. The same can't be said for iTunes." [via Ed]
  (tags: retro vcr video drm via:ed)
• anti-telemarketing EGBG counterscript
  The Direct Marketing sector regards the telephone as one of its most successful tools. Consumers experience telemarketing from a completely different point of view: more than 92% perceive commercial telephone calls as a violation of privacy. [via Eliot]
  Telemarketers make use of a telescript - a guideline for a telephone conversation. This script creates an imbalance in the conversation between the marketer and the consumer. It is this imbalance, most of all, that makes telemarketing successful. The EGBG Counterscript attempts to redress that balance.
  (tags: script consumer advocacy anti-telemarketing via:eliot)
• Good Vote.org
  "When you go to vote, do you know what to do if someone tells you you're not on the list or there's a problem with your voter registration?" [via mark @ wood s lot]
  (tags: politics tools voting vote via:mark)

Strange thing (to me at least), I am much farther to the left than Obama. Still, I think he is ‘the one.’ What’s up with that? [thank you Bart Cop]

• Police fear riots if Barack Obama loses US election - Telegraph
  Damn right. "If your television declares John McCain the president elect on the evening of November 4th, your television will be lying. You should immediately pick up your pre-packed bags and head straight to the White House in Washington, DC, which we will surround and shut down until this attempt at a third illegitimate presidency is reversed. We may be there for days or weeks or months. But we must be there. We must be there by the millions. We must show each other, and the nation, and the world that we have had enough, that we will not stand for one more stolen election, that we will not give in to fear, lies, theft, and intimidation."
  (tags: politics 2008+election Bush mccain obama)
• Lifehacker Faceoff: Battle of the Thumb Drive Linux Systems
  It never hurts to have one in your bag with your ftp program of choice, ssh, your GPG, and Firefox with your bookmarks and passwords.
  (tags: reference howto lifehacks resources linux usb thumbdrive)
• Protect Your Rights: How To Deal With The Police If You Get Pulled Over
  Just in case…
  (tags: politics lifehacks activism security police rights)
• Paul Wellstone (1944 – October 25, 2002)
  It's the sixth anniversary of his death in 2002. If you have the money to spare, may I suggest supporting Al Franken in his bid for teh Senate in Minnesota?
  (tags: politics progressive)

I seem to be easily amused these days and found this post from Atrios to be so. Perhaps you will as well…

8 Days

Be prepared for the final onslaught of the really stupid, when the media feels the need to balance reality with whatever horseshit the McCain/Drudge are spewing that day.

I recommend a locked windowless room with a vat of vodka. I’d take that advice except I must write this sucky blog for you, dear readers.

I find that now that I have cast my ballot, I simply want this whole thing to be over so we can get on with digging ourselves out of the mess we are in.

• Why Karl Rove Should Go to Jail | Rights and Liberties | AlterNet
  and Cheney and Bush and …
  (tags: Rove Bush impeachment politics)
• The Way Things Break
  'Open source climate education,' though a bit light on historical perspective. Such as The Limits to Growth or Thomas Malthus.
  (tags: science blog environment Climate via:eliot)
• The Flag of Earth - Home
  "The Flag of Earth symbolizes the Earth (the center blue disk), the Sun (the yellow disk on the left), and the Moon (the white disk on the right). The Earth and its most important celestial neighbors - the Sun and Moon - are overlaid on a backdrop of the darkness of space." [Kevin Kelly via Eliot]
  (tags: politics international flags via:eliot)