Websites spotlight 1 (an occasional series of posts that spotlight some of the more usefull sites on the web)

The NBA is back:



Yeah after 3 months of watching classic games from the 80's, the new season is upon us and if your in need of a fix that either isn't supplied by a local network or you don't want to fess up the dollar for some cable type deal let me point you in the direction of a few websites that can help you out:

Davkabt - The original and best site for bittorents
Mixmasters - Not only does it have old and new games mostly available from download servers such as filefront, but also original video mixes and video clips of other sports
Sportbit.org - Another bittorent site that compliments DavkabT
elinksbasket - In an eastern european language but does supply links that can be downloaded through software such as emule and edonkey
NBA.com They have streaming media that is updated daily.

Google Watch & Scroogle: Do you know how much information Google is compiling on you?

Time to bring to your attention a website I found a few weeks ago. Its main purpose is to bring to the public information on Googles's monopolies, policies and data collection. While it may seem minor today within a decade or so google will have databases full of information on any i.p. address that uses it's services and this could have huge implications on civil liberties.

Now, while they have stood up to the US governments demands for access to this information so far, they have not been so dogmatic when it comes to the Chinese. In the case of China they have agreed to all the demands of the authorities so as to achieve their commercial goal of access to the Chinese market. A clear case of business interests before that of their users and possibly of decisions to come.

Even if they do keep this info away from prying governments, the data they have will be very useful, not just for Google but other commercial interests that may decide to take it if they wont hand it over.

Now you may be saying 'what's he on about? Don't this blog belong to google? And yes you would be right. So I have decided that for me the best form of defense is attack. How you may say? Well information is the best way to move forward. Learn where and when you are supplying data to Google.

The best place to find this out is Google-watch.org, and use Scroogle

Scroogle

Scroogle is a website and browser extension that basically hides your i.p. address, thus allowing you to use Google as a search engine but without Google recording your search data.


Call me a little paranoid, but if you where to look at my search engine results for the last year plus all the other data that google has collected on me, from clicking through on Google supplied ads and Googlemail, it could be interpreted in many ways depending on the persons political or commercial needs. Now while Google ain't doing anything wrong, at least lawfully, a lot of people who use it's services are not fully aware of the vast amounts of data being collected. While this may not be a problem now, it may become one in the future.

So head over to Google Watch and check out what you can do to keep your data away from prying eyes.

Word

Election Day in America or business as usual for the worlds number 1 democracy



Well folks it don't get better than this. It's the mid term elections and the whole world is waiting for the US to wake up smell the coffee and give the Democrats what we and they want, the chance to screw Bush over for the next 2 years and in the process maybe it will make the world a safer place for us and Hillary.

Now I ain't no Clinton fan, I firmly believe that the Democrats and Republicans are just two different faction of the one business party, but anything that puts a stop to this current administration is not a bad thing and in the weeks coming up to tonight, polls have showed that the Democrats could take both Houses. Obviously the lead has dropped as we have get nearer to the midterms but one thing that troubles me is the electronic voting machines, the Republican attempts to wipe voter registration lists and how this may effect the outcome.

like in 2000 & 2004 independent investigators has voiced concern that the Republicans are up to the same dirty tricks that gifted Bush; Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004. Some are suggesting that they even have their own secret polls that take this poll tampering into effect. This is a very worrying situation, especially when you consider that these actions by the republicans have the main effect of disenfranchising the votes of the people with the most to lose i.e. the poor and persons of ethnic minorities. Add to this the Democrats general demeanor, i.e. Gore allowing public officials aligned to the Republican party, to hand the presidency to Bush, and you can see the magnitude of this problem. And why are the Democrats not doing anything about this scandal? Well maybe because in Democratic held district's they are up to the same tricks.

Watch this video below to find out more or head to Democracy Now to see their report on this problem