Mesh Magazine

Apparently Leeland Eisenberg (the man who took two people hostage with a “bomb” at a Hillary Clinton campaign office in Rochester, New Hampshire) might not be crazy after all. The Associated Press reported that he spoke to CNN during the standoff:

The man told CNN his name was Lee Eisenberg and that he needed to speak with Clinton about health insurance. “Something’s got to change. Ordinary people need help,” he said.

He said he was a mental health patient who had been told he couldn’t get help without “thousands of dollars” he didn’t have. “I need help,” he said. “I tried to get help.”

CNN reported that Eisenberg was articulate and impassioned about his cause. The hostages were released without injury, and Eisenberg was strapped with what turned out to be road flares.

Who should play Dianne Feinstein in Gus Van Sant’s upcoming movie about Harvey Milk’s assassination? My vote is for this actress:

Why?

Tomorrow, I’m heading to New Orleans for a week and a half. These are photos I took the last time I was there, in June 2006. It looked like this for miles and miles. It’s still a mess. Meanwhile, we are spending $300 million in Iraq every day.

Organizations working to rebuild New Orleans:

www.reliefspark.org

www.habitat-nola.org

www.emergencycommunities.org

www.stbernardproject.org

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Jammie Thomas, the first person sued by the RIAA for file sharing is appealing the $220,000 judgment against her for allegedly uploading 24 songs to the Internet. To that end, she has set up a Web site, www.freejammie.com, where you can donate to her legal defense fund. She also posted the above video on YouTube explaining that the main reason she wants to fight is to raise awareness.

This is sickening:

A 30-year-old Duluth, Minn., woman must pay six record companies $222,000 for violating copyright by downloading songs illegally and then sharing them through Kazaa, a federal jury has ruled in the first such lawsuit to go to trial. 

Larry Craig, the hypocritical, right-wing, closeted/self-hating gay senator busted apparently trying to solicit some man-on-man action in a Minneapolis airport bathroom, just announced that he will serve the remainder of his term. Even though he has one of the worst voting records in the Senate, he’s totally right in choosing not to resign. He shouldn’t have to resign for something that has no bearing on his ability to do his job. His fellow republicans are pissed, well, except for Arlen Specter, who said he should keep his job, because they don’t want any gay senators, especially not gay republican senators. Yetthey weren’t pissed when fellow republican Senator David Vitter decided to stay in the Senate after admitting to going to a female prostitute. Vitter’s just as big a hypocrite, having said that Bill Clinton should have resigned the Presidency because he had an adulterous affair. Republican senators actually gave Vitter a standing ovation when he returned to the Senate. So, kids, heterosexual adultery: a-okay! Homosexual adultery: not so much.

The world’s largest record labels kicked off their first lawsuit against a person accused of illegally downloading music, Jammie Thomas, a 30-year-old mother of two, who denies she ever downloaded the music.
“Thomas, who works for the Department of Natural Resources of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, is at risk for a judgment of more than $1.2 million if jurors found against her for all 1,702 songs. The recording association is seeking damages set under federal law of $750 to $30,000 for each copyright violation.”

Her attorneys claim that someone may have hacked into her wireless router and downloaded the music. Regardless, this suit is completely insane. $750 - $30,000 per song?! The record industry needs to be put out of its misery… I love you Radiohead. And I will never buy a major label album again. The companies that sued Thomas are Sony BMG, Arista Records LLC, Interscope Records, UMG Recordings Inc., Capitol Records Inc. and Warner Bros. Records Inc.

Republicans want to change California’s electoral process, splitting the electoral votes based on congressional districts, which essentially will hand them at least 20 electoral votes and the White House. They are only proposing this in Blue California, not Red southern states, or Ohio, Florida or Texas.

So, unless you like the sound of President Mitt “I’d Double the Size of Guantanamo” Romney, help fight this measure.

From Crazy Uncle Howard (Dean):
If you can’t win, cheat.

Apparently that’s the Republicans’ answer to our work here in California. If they have their way, your reliably “blue” state won’t be so blue in 2008.

Faced with a strong Democratic presence, Republicans are campaigning for a new election system instead of their own candidates.

If they get what they’re after, it could cost us the White House.
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