IZ THE WIZ obituary

Thanks to Pink Smith for sending this in.

Planned downtime for Art Crimes late this week

Just a heads up: On the 30th and again on the 31st of January, we expect our network provider to do some scheduled maintenance, so Art Crimes, Wild Art Media, Eyegasm, Escape, and The Bench will all be offline for several hours both days. This might also mean the AC February update (which is looking pretty exciting so far) will happen later on the 1st than usual, depending on when they finish on the 1st. Thanks for your patience.

How "Rock and Wrap It Up!" helps rock stars feed the hungry in 500 cities worldwide

Volunteers redirect food to where it's needed most, one catered gig or lunchroom at a time. This idea is catching on like wildfire too. Now in 500 cities worldwide.

Rock and Wrap it Up is "an independent anti-poverty think tank based in New York."

Persue's new blog

Persué brings us news of his recent trip to the Wall Lords jam in China, and more.

pronunciation key: per-sway, not per-soo. 

Our store is hot

Our store server turned itself off today because the ISP's air conditioning system failed ... Should be OK a little later. I hope they fix it before graffiti.org decides to take a nap too. Workers are there now, so here's hoping. When it comes back, check out our new DVDs and magazine sale.

President-elect Obama's first YouTube address

It's a new day in American leadership, and what a difference. Let's hope Congress gets behind him and that his economic interventions work.

Of course, the idiots are freaking out too. So now is the time to step up our intolerance for hate speech and racist attitudes. It's not something we just have to put up with, it's a tiny cowardly minority with big mouths.

A NYTimes parody

Too funny. Must be a cynical week all over. Rumor is these folks not only spoofed the NYT but they also printed hard copies and distributed them in NYC, so be on the lookout if you're in the City.

Thanks to Katie for the tip

Video the Vote

A great idea: Put an army of citizen reporters out there with video cameras and thus monitor the voting irregularities online. It might not protect against the ballot boxes that get dropped in Florida swamps, but at least we'd get that license plate number.

Afghan Journalist Receives 20-Year Prison Term for Blasphemy

... which is only good because before they were going to kill him for it.

"Journalist [Perwez Kambakhsh] distributed an [Iranian] Internet article criticizing the Prophet Mohammed's views on women."

If you can't criticize your religion or ask questions about it, you're already in prison.

Voting for religious fanatics is also a terrible idea. Just say no to mixing Church and State. No telling what they might make illegal next.

Let's hope he gets a real appeal or a BBC airlift.

Good news: Data driftnets rejected as both bad and wrong

In an astounding feat of intelligent analysis and courage, a privacy and terrorism commission composed of technical experts funded by Homeland Security (USA) has reported that sifting through everyone's information about everything will not be an effective way to detect terrorists. Plus it would cause a lot of innocent people's doors to be kicked in, which is "un-American." They recommend revamping privacy laws to make them more coherent and protective and using traditional methods to look for terrorists.

Truly a triumph of mathematics and civil rights over fear.

Next let's elect people who will prevent the government from collecting and purchasing and seizing data on everyone. Because that's un-American too. And un-British, and un-Australian.

Anyway, a little good news in our handbasket to hell this week. Check the comments on the article too. Some intelligent life is out there.

Olbermann: Palin's own anti-American associates (her husband, for one)

In case the mainstream media forgets to mention it ... here's a little concrete. This woman who would be president is looking scarier (and more desperate and out of control) by the minute.

Separating the facts from the BS

Factcheck.org exists to keep the news media and politicians honest by examining what was said and finding out what's true. Unfortunately there is a lot of disinformation published and broadcast during presidential campaigns, so when you get suspicious "news", you can go here to see if it's hogwash or not.

Satanic Plumber Archive

400+ news articles from over two decades on underground New York City subjects..... City Hall Station, graffiti writers busted, Hickey + Ski interview, the Ket saga, the High Line story, WTC diagrams, subway blacksmith, TATs profile, Freedom Tunnel, Caine RIP....... it's all there and more.

via SaneSmith

Planned downtime Dec 1

Network maintenance will probably make Art Crimes unavailable for about 4 hours early on December 1. This downtime will probably delay the December update by a few hours. Don't panic! ;^)

Graff News

Bloggy news site about graffiti.