05.25.07
Posted in Politics at 6:38 pm by nickeve
Step One: Read This article (click here)
Step Two: Continue . . .
How are we going to protect our future?
This is a question that bothers us too seldom. Instead, if you are like me, working too hard, trying too many things at once, worrying about the little things, you probably don’t even give it a thought.
But then you read something like Greg Palast’s report that 4.5 Million votes will be stolen in 2008. Just enough to keep the Republican machine rolling. Where does this information come from? Karl Rove’s emails. Emails that according to Palast came from John Wooden. Wooden was operating georgewbush.org, a spoof site about the presidency, when he received emails mistakenly sent to his domain instead of the georgewbush.com domain. According to Palast, the BBC verified the autenticity of these emails directly from GOP testimony. Watch Palast here (click me).
Palast is not a consipracy nut. He seems to have a ton of evidence about how the firings at the Justice Department are directly related to a larger plan to rig future elections, like they were tampered with in 2004. Just watch the video. He explains it well in his own funny style.
Step Three: Read Palast’s book, “Armed Madhouse”
It has most of the important documents he found in his long investigation of the plan behind Iraq and its relationship to election plannning for 2004 and 2008.
Step Four: Encourage your elected officials to investigate this further and punish all violations of voting laws
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05.18.07
Posted in Politics at 12:34 am by nickeve
Since you are reading this, I know you aren’t living in China. Or, if you are, you are one of the sneaky ones that knows how to reach content that is otherwise restricted by the “Golden Shield” initiative of internet censorship.
How do I know this? Well because, as of today, NickEve.com seems to be banned in China.
I only noticed this because I was using internetsupervision.com today at work to check some of our sites, and looked at NickEve.com to compare stats. I noticed that this site was not being found from the data center in Beijing. At first, I thought nothing of it, but when I found I could reach my other websites hosted on the same server from Beijing, I became a bit suspicious. I had indeed written an Anti-War post the previous day, but there was nothing in there about China, so what was going on?
To check, I went to the greatFirewallOfChina.org website as well as a few other places where you can try to reach your sites from within China. Lo and behold, NickEve.com was inaccessible on all these sites.
In my mind, the big question is - why block me?
Do they not like primates? Do they not want people to wish my dad well on his exams? Was it blanket disapproval of the latest Warring States songs? Who knows?
My best guess is they somehow found the word Chinese in the bear farming article and connected this somehow to the language about war in the last post. Warring States, the name of my band, is also a period in Chinese history, but I doubt they would be looking for such subtle clues.
In any case, what is frightening is how quickly this happened. Yesterday I wrote a little post on the war, and and today I am banned. If this is how good the tracking technologies are going to be in our country someday, I shudder to think of how quiet we’ll all have to be to avoid the attention of the mob.
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05.16.07
Posted in Politics at 9:35 pm by nickeve
Estimated Cost of the War in Iraq
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Enough already. How many more billions do we have to waste on a pointless conflict that is only making the world more dangerous?
It is very important right now to write to your representatives in Washington to get them to cut off funding to this senseless war.
If we keep funding it, it is never going to end.
Support the troops by letting them stop fighting this needless battle.
Want to know how to help? Check this site out. >>
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05.11.07
Posted in Music at 10:01 pm by nickeve
New Warring States Songs!
walk away (.mp3 file - 4.7mb)
the end of the day (.mp3 file - 4.4mb)
turn (.mp3 - 5.2mb)
laughing loudly (.mp3 file - 8mb)
sit still and listen (.mp3 file - 5.2mb)
Visit the Warring States MySpace Profile >>
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Posted in Toys & Comics at 12:05 am by nickeve
22Pages.com will be launching its Action Figure Portrait Gallery later this month. It’s a pretty fabulous collection of shots of contemporary action figures from every imaginable angle.
if you have you own action figure pictures, you will be able to post them to the collection as well.
Let’s face it. Everyone needs more dolls, er I mean action figures. Share those toys children!
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05.04.07
Posted in Books at 1:34 pm by nickeve
Nick Says
You Should Buy Next of Kin (click here)
You will learn many, many things from this book, but the two things you’ll never forget are that
1) Roger Fouts is a good man and a great writer
and
2) chimpanzees are amazing. Utterly amazing.
This book will make you want to learn American Sign Language so that you can converse with Washoe and the rest of her family at The Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute as well as with Chimpanzees and other primates all over the world.
It’s a very lively read, as Roger knows how to tell a story, and his story has its dramatic twists and curves with familiar characters we have all seen in our own lives (the insensitive boss, the mad scientist, the loving mother, the happy child). In brief, it is the story of Roger Fouts’ career working with chimpanzees that began almost by accident when he met Washoe in 1967 and went to work with Allen and Beatrix Gardener.
You’ll learn not only about chimps and people and their stories together, but also just how important Gestural Communication is to primates (including of course ourselves). I was glad to hear the other day that more research is being done regarding gestural language and Bonobos (you may have seen the recent NPR story about Primate Gestures).
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05.02.07
Posted in Toys & Comics at 6:49 pm by nickeve
I just bowled a 279 on my Nintendo Wii.
That’s right 279. I bowled a spare. Then 9 strikes. Then a spare. I missed two pins.
Here is a picture
I think my best game in real life is probably a 165 or so.
For those of you that don’t know what a Wii is, it is a new game system from Nintendo that uses a unique kind of controller. The Wii controller is wireless, and you wield it about in your hand like a tool, replicating many real life motions in the games you play.
So, in the bowling game of Wii Sports, which comes free with the Wii, you hold the controller like the handle of a sword. You lift your hand, as you would the ball in bowling. You click the B button, below the handle of the controller, and while holding B down, you bring your arm back and then forward again, copying the kind of motion you are used to going through at an actual alley. If you twist your wrist along the way, you can alter the spin of the ball, so you can throw curling shots like a pro. It is a total blast.
To me, it has the thrill of a real bowling experience without the elbow and shoulder pain you get in real life from chucking the ball around. And you aren’t in a smoke filled barn full of hicks with classic rock blasting in the background. (Ok, so maybe you are, but how your house looks is your business buddy!)
On your Wii, you create a Mii, a personalized avatar that is a character you can play as in games. My Mii is named Monkey, and looks very much like what I looked like in my band days about 3 years ago. Check out Sahar’s Mii (codename Cutie).
Virtual Life fills a need not easily filled by Real Life - the desire to see oneself perfected in an abstract form. How beautiful the cut edges of a perfectly rounded jaw. How flawless the spin of a virtual ball shattering down the alley. But it’s not a contest. Not really. It’s just a different aspect of the human funktionlust.
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