So much they stole his watch.

AC_FL_RunContent( ‘codebase’,’http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=7,0,19,0′,’width’,’396′,’height’,’443′,’src’,’http://infographics-nos.kpn-is.nl/infographic?map=http://infographics-nos.kpn-is.nl/projects/pr01015/’,’quality’,’high’,’pluginspage’,’http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer’,’movie’,’http://infographics-nos.kpn-is.nl/infographic?map=http://infographics-nos.kpn-is.nl/projects/pr01015/’ ); //end AC code

Hopefully they got his wallet too.

Source

There are two points I want to get across in this post. #1: the federal government spends far too much money on the military. #2: we're running up a huge deficit at an unprecedented rate primarily due to the unchecked militarism of the United States of America.

‘Death and Taxes’ is a representational poster of the federal discretionary budget; the amount of money that is spent at the discretion of your elected representatives in Congress. Basically, your federal income taxes. The data is from the President’s budget request for 2008. It will be debated, amended, and approved by Congress by October 1st to begin the fiscal year.

The poster provides a uniquely revealing look at our national priorities, that fluctuate yearly, according to the wishes of the President, the power of Congress, and the will of the people. If you pay taxes, then you have paid for a small part of everything in the poster. —Death and Taxes: A Visual Guide to Where Your Federal Tax Dollars Go

Visit the above website and play with the control for zooming and panning the poster. You can zoom in by department and branch of government. Very cool. Now let's briefly evaluate what we're spending our current federal budget on using the TrueMajority.com's graphic.

The big red slice at the top that accounts for more than half our federal budget is our military spending. The 15% X is a proposed decrease in this spending being proposed by the Common Sense Budget Act (CSBA). The proposal of the Common Sense Budget Act proposes we cut military spending by 15% and apply this $69 Billion dollars to:

• Provide health insurance to 9 million American kids who lack it
• Rebuild or modernize our public schools over 12 years
• Retrain a quarter million workers
• Cut our reliance on foreign oil in half over 10 years
• Restore recent cuts in life-saving medical research
• Invest wisely in Homeland Security by inspecting cargo containers entering our ports
• Save 6 million children who die of hunger-related diseases in impoverished countries annually
• Begin to reduce the deficits

Common sense really. This is a sound investment in our nation's future. I'm not 100% on board with the details of the proposed spending categories, but cutting our military budget by 15% is a damn good idea.

It is important to note that the above numbers on military spending are not accurate. This does not account for the hundreds of billions of dollars we're over budget on largely due to Iraq and "defense" spending This is not represented on the 'Death and Taxes' poster or the CSBA pie chart. We’re borrowing exorbitant amounts from other countries. Most experts have our daily borrowing pegged somewhere around $1.9 billion a day (some experts estimate as low as $1.36 billion). Yes a day. You read this correctly, almost $2 billion a day is being borrowed by the United States from other countries. The United States achieves this borrowing by selling interest-bearing promissory notes called Treasury bonds to foreign investors. One of the primary "investors" is China. The enthusiasm of foreign countries to purchase American Treasuries has for decades financed a false prosperity in the United States. This concerns many economists because our borrowing is like a house of cards constructed partially from the economies of other countries. We can't possibly afford to pay back these interest bearing bonds. When this house of cards collapses the repercussions will be felt by the counties that are currently financing our wars with their investments. Also, remember we're spending $2 billion a week on the occupation of Iraq alone.

Do we really need this much money budgeted for military spending? Not even accounting for the hundreds of millions were over budget, should more than half our federal budget be allotted for military spending? Of course not. Some may think that because of the prominence of the United States this outrageous amount of money is a necessary cost to protect us from people who "hate freedom". Not so. In fact, let's examine a rough break down of budgeted military spending by nation. The lunacy of our budgeted spending should be evident. Bear in mind this simple chart does not account for the $700 Billion in borrowing, which is largely poured into military spending.

$463 billion budgeted to the Pentagon is so unaccountable that not only could the Dept. of Defense not pass an audit, but the books are in such bad shape that an audit cannot be performed. We simply have no idea, nor does the Pentagon, where money is spent. See Financial Mismanagement in the Department of Defense Report.

What's driving us to spend this ill conceived spending? The American Corporatacracy of course. This is the American corporate oligarchs and apparatus warned of by Eisenhower that has been fully realized. What can you do? Write your state and federal representatives. Support the Common Sense Budget Act. Support the Sunshine in Government Initiative. Support state and federal term limits. This isn't a Republican/Democrat issue. This is a corruption issue that cuts across parties lines. Support some real campaign finance reform. Finally, simply telling your friends about this and building awareness will help. Forward this blog post or some of the links contained herein.

Some sources not previously linked to:

• Will Thomas
• National Debt Clock
• Economic Policy Institute:Debt and the Dollar
• SensiblePriorities.org

Cross-post

The first of what will be an ongoing series of technical video-casts from the founders of MindTouch. This short video provides a quick overview of the new DekiWiki “Hayes” architecture and explains some high level details of DekiWiki’s unique and powerful design.

Download DekiWiki

A London 2012 Olympic logo created by BBC website reader Richard Voysey has been chosen as readers’ favourite in an online poll.

Over 22,000 votes were cast on a shortlist of six readers’ designs selected by founder of the UK Brand Council, Marcel Knobil.

The BBC has received over 600 alternative logos and more than 10,000 messages about the controversial new Olympic logo, which was unveiled on Monday.

Graphic designer Richard Voysey, who created the image with his brother Chris, said: “I’ve been working from home and the logo was 20 minutes of my time as a first concept.” – BBC

I like this logo. It’s simple, clean, and it has the cute 2012 gimmick. It would be better if Zor could somehow be worked into the design too though.

The new London 2012 logo was recently unveiled. Oh my God it’s hideous.

I think the good fellow at ideapark puts it best:

The graphic designer(s) responsible for the new London 2012 Olympic games logo should be dragged out of their office(s) and drowned in the same vat of 80’s nostalgia they drew from when creating their abomination. Oh. My. God. It’s ugly. –ideapark » London calling. Tell them I’m busy.

The best analysis of the logo I’ve read was provided by this fellow. I took one look at this logo, turned to MindTouch’s designer and asked him: “What does the logo read, ‘ZOR’“? Apparently the intention is that the community create their own variation of the logo to demonstrate their Olympic Spirit, Jingoism, and Nationalism. Personally, I’m convinced this is a thinly veiled attempt to force us all to celebrate Zor. Dude, I like Robotech too, but come on.

Damien fit in some time between running for Leukemia and Lymphoma to setup a CafePress storefront for OpenGarden and MindTouch. Typically when someone provides us with an especially tasty bug, bugfix. or patch we make a donation in the name of the person to the charity of their choosing. So far this has benefitted EFF; however, if contributors would rather have scwhag we'll send them a MindTouch or OpenGarden garment of their choosing. The prices are our cost. Enjoy the duds and please send us interesting photos of you in your branded wear.

Seadragon promises:

If this sounds a little vague, consider the following four “promises” of Seadragon:

1. Speed of navigation is independent of the size or number of objects.
2. Performance depends only on the ratio of bandwidth to pixels on the screen.
3. Transitions are smooth as butter.
4. Scaling is near perfect and rapid for screens of any resolution.

You might already know of PhotoSynth. Perhaps prior to it being called PhotoSynth. PhotoSynth promises to change how we share photos and virtually visit places. Seeing is believing.

If you don’t see the video of the demo above go to the Ted page

.

Stunning. Another spectacular technology that Microsoft will likely never allow the public to benefit from. Meanwhile, you have Google Gears released for the world to Beta.

Useful links:

• PhotoSynth roots
• PhotoSynth
• Seadragon

I've just returned from The Casbah. The Casbah is only a few blocks from my home and is the <alleged> "happening" club in San Diego for indie rock music. It's been around for quite some time and boasts a long list of made bands that have graced the stage. Initially I was impressed with the club. It's intimate with a maximum capacity of 200+, has two bars, and has a long entry hallway that provides a partial view of landing airplanes at the San Diego airport.

The first band up this evening was Silverbird. They were OK. Folk-rock is how I would describe them, but I was playing billiards in the other room and I didn't give them a proper assessment.

Next up was Get Back Loretta. Kick ass would describe them accurately. So too does "best unknown band". They were young, fresh, enthusiastic and authentic. The lead singer and bassist was passionate and charismatic to an extent rarely seen. The drummer was a bad-ass. He kind of looks like a white Webster.

Last up was the main event. San Diego's sweetheart Dirty Sweet. This is when the evening took a turn for the worse. The small venue packed with prissy teenie-bopper preppy girls with ass-crowns, fancy-night-out-garb, and unfit shoes for a concert, who must have been drawn by the Dirty Sweet's general handsomeness. Now, full disclosure, I appreciate music and I believe showing appreciation for the band is important. I do not stand docilely by while a band rocks the house. It's important to respect the band by showing your enthusiasm for the music. For me this typically takes the form of quasi-head banging and exuberant bouncing. Bands are most often very appreciative of my enthusiasm because it's regularly infectious. Dirty Sweet did rock and I rocked with them for a short time. Nonetheless the docile cattle-like audience that consisted mostly of the aforementioned prissy and preppy looking young ladies and their hipster boyfriends were not fond of any general enthusiasm. Therefore I left early. It's difficult to enjoy a band when those around you don't understand that bands, especially hard driving rock bands, want to be shown your appreciation.

Dirty Sweet has a good sound. Very Southern Rock. Perhaps not the most original, but I'm sure the pretty young ladies they seem to intentionally court will carry them through to, at least, regional popularity if not beyond. Don't get me wrong, Dirty Sweet really did tear it up and I only caught part of their first set. I recognize the band was probably still just warming up. I think the band has talent even if the lead singer seems to wear eyeliner. I left early out of disgust for the band's audience who were appalled by any modicum of enthusiasm and The Casbah's staff who were equally ridiculous, which, I suspect, is an indication of just how un-happening the place actually is.  

In summary, The Casbah is not as nice a venue as I was led to believe. I liked the venue's intimacy, but I was very turned off by the general conservativeness of the place. It seems to be in identity crisis. On one hand it's positioned as the edgy hard rocking venue that Nirvana once played in the late eighties and on the other hand it had a largely preppy audience that freaked out when anyone got rhythmic with the music. In fact, a gaggle of attractive, prissy young ladies insisted that they didn't want any "hippy dancing" around them and heralded a bouncer at one point who mindlessly obeyed them to reign-in enthusiastic audience members. I'll give both the venue and band another chance, but my initial experience was not that positive However, Get Back Loretta is definitely worth catching. Sure, they're not as generally handsome as Dirty Sweet; so, you might not see as many prissy young ladies, but they were original and enthusiastic in a Modest Mouse sort of way.

Damien Howley, MindTouch's graphic designer is running a marathon to raise money for Leukemia and Lymphoma. He's a couple hundred dollars short of the required $1,700 minimum. The remainder he'll pay from his own meager MindTouch salary. Any donations would be greatly appreciated regardless of how small. It will only take you a few moments to donate, please contribute.