Month: July 2004

MPEG-4 AAC vs MP3 vs Ogg:

Remember, I’m doing this for the academic purpose of comparing the merits of different audio encoding algorithms, something which I believe falls under “fair use” copyright provisions.

This guy has done the homework and conducted some head-to-head comparisons of the leading compressed audio formats to see what yields the best experience. Surprisingly, AAC is a poor third, behind lame, even at lower bit rates (I’m glad I have been using the — extreme setting on my lame encoding). Not that I’m a complete Apple partisan, but I had expected that, given the trouble of designing and releasing a new format, it would be demonstrably better.

<grumble>

I think I have been using AAC @ 192kbits for my CD rips, and they sound OK to me. My vinyl conversions seem to be too loud: there’s noticeable clipping on loud passages, so I may need to redo them and crank down the input volume.

NB: I haven’t listened to the samples posted at the link above yet. If anyone has, weigh in with your findings.

These read like editorial comments, more than anything else. Skim through them and see if you get the same sense.

Fox News Memos: The Whole Batch:

After the jump are about 30 memos from Fox News chief John Moody, released to journalists by the makers of the anti-Fox documentary “Outfoxed” to support their claim that Fox bends the rules and twists the news. And boy howdy, do they. There’s actually something kind of refreshing and admirable about just how blatant Moody’s directives are:

More here.

United States Grammar School Interim Report to Parents, by Nancy Greggs
– Democratic Underground:

Dear Mr. and Mrs. G.H.W. Bush,

Once again, it is that time of year when we update the parents of our students on their child’s progress, and we regret to inform you that your son, Georgie, is not doing as well as we’d hoped and expected when he embarked on his four-year program at our school.

[tip]

Lincoln on the 1864 Presidential Election :

We can not have free government without elections; and if the rebellion could force us to forego, or postpone a national election it might fairly claim to have already conquered and ruined us. The strife of the election is but human-nature practically applied to the facts of the case. What has occurred in this case, must ever recur in similar cases. Human-nature will not change. In any future great national trial, compared with the men of this, we shall have as weak, and as strong; as silly and as wise; as bad and good. Let us, therefore, study the incidents of this, as philosophy to learn wisdom from, and none of them as wrongs to be revenged.

But the election, along with its incidental, and undesirable strife, has done good too. It has demonstrated that a people’s government can sustain a national election, in the midst of a great civil war. Until now it has not been known to the world that this was a possibility. It shows that, even among candidates of the same party, he who is most devoted to the Union, and most opposed to treason, can receive most of the people’s votes. It shows also, to the extent yet known, that we have more men now, than we had when the war began. Gold is good in its place; but living, brave, patriotic men, are better than gold.

He lays it out quite plainly in his melodious 19th century prose: if the elections are cancelled or postponed, the terrorists have already won.

It might help to consider that the decision was made during a civil war when the opposing forces came within 5 miles of the capital, when the commander-in-chief was on the battlefield. Lincoln was made of sterner stuff than the current crop of Republicans.

[source]

World of Quotes – Adversity Quotes:

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.

Billmon on the corrosive effects of unchecked power:

One of the fascinating things about the GOP congressional majority that took power in 1994 is how quickly it has degenerated from a self-styled revolutionary movement into a corrupt political machine focused almost exclusively on maintaining its own power and fattening its own collective wallet. It took the old Democratic congressional majority a number of decades to make that same journey

The piece is long, but covers the shocking(?!) details of Tom DeLay’s deals with Enron and other resource extraction concerns and how likely the Republicans are to retain their base as they lose their activists — and their majority. Then they can go back to feeling ineffectual and angry.

Whiskey Bar: Election Prevention Commission?:

Suppose that one week before election day, the United States is hit by a major terrorist attack – I mean a really big one, like a dirty bomb on the Washington Mall or a liquified gas tanker exploding in the port of a major American city.

Suppose that on the eve of the attack, national polls and the electoral math both show Kerry-Edwards clinging to a narrow lead over Bush-Cheney, one that appears sufficient, barely, to put the Democrats back in the White House.

Let’s further suppose that a week after the attack, on the eve of the election, those same national polls show an enormous “rally around the President” effect, one that pushes Bush’s approval ratings back towards 80% – not only enough to guarantee Shrub a landslide reelection victory, but also enough to sweep the Republicans to a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and a 1932 or 1974-sized edge in our Chamber of People’s Deputies.

Under those circumstances, would you want the election to be held as scheduled? Or would you rather it was postponed for a month, until the initial shock had passed and the voters had had a chance to consider whether the administration’s incompetence and the relative indifference of the GOP Congress to homeland security needs might not have contributed to the disaster?

If your answer is yes, you definitely would want the election to go forward on the scheduled day, terrorist attack or no terrorist attack, then I guess you’re entitled to regard any legal tampering as an automatic outrage.

But if your answer is no, you would not want the election to go forward on November 2 under the conditions I have described, then you have to acknowledge that some kind of legal mechanism needs to be created soon to allow someone in a position of national authority to make the call to postpone the election.

Some interesting questions raised here. Discuss.

The Diddly Awards:

The Diddly Awards

Honoring the jaw-dropping achievements of the 108th Congress

Funny, until you realize who’s paying for these shenanigans.

Continue reading “your tax dollars at work”

Not that anyone should be surprised by these findings.

The New York Times > Washington > 9/11 Report Is Said to Dismiss Iraq-Qaeda Alliance:

WASHINGTON, July 11 – The commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks is nearing completion of a final, probably unanimous report that will stand by the conclusions of the panel’s staff and largely dismiss White House theories both about a close working relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda and about possible Iraqi involvement in Sept. 11, commission officials said.

The report, which is expected to be made public several days before the panel’s mandated deadline of July 26, will also probably be unwelcome at the White House because it will document management failures at senior levels of the Bush administration that kept the government from acting aggressively on intelligence warnings in the spring and summer of 2001 of an imminent, catastrophic terrorist attack, the officials said.

I doubt finding Osama bin Laden will push this off the front page, at least in quality newspapers.

The Bush campaign takes exception to remarks made by entertainers at a recent fundraising event, calling on Kerry to release videotape.

The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > Bush Rallies G.O.P. Supporters in Pennsylvania:

“The views expressed last night by the performers are their own views,” Mary Beth Cahill, Mr. Kerry’s campaign manager, said in a conference call with reporters. “The performers have a perfect right to say what they said, but it is not what Senator Kerry and Senator Edwards would say, and they do not approve of some of the remarks made.”

Given the people involved, the campaign could probably use that as a fundraiser, but as the Kerry campaign pointed, neither campaign releases that kind of information about the fundraisers.

Contrast that with the vice president using barroom language on the floor of the Senate (and afterwards saying he felt better for having done it — since when have GOP electeds defended their actions with “if it feels good, do it?”) — and then this gem:

jiveturky: The single greatest event of my life.:

At the front of this second bus was The W himself, waving cheerily at his supporters on the other side of the highway. Adam, Brendan, and I rose our banner (the More Trees, Less Bush one) and he turned to wave to our side of the road. His smile faded, and he raised his left arm in our direction. And then, George W. Bush, the 43rd president of the United States of America, extended his middle finger.

Read that last sentence again.
I got flipped off by George W. Bush.

A ponytailed man standing next to us confirmed the event, saying, “I do believe the President of the U.S. just gave you boys the finger.”

Unbelievable.