Go Freakin' figure

Continuing my decline back into the world of Cable TV, I’ve been captivated by the Spike TV Bond Marathon. Comedy Central still rocks.

Thanks to that, I finally realized that John Goodman was the coach in The Revenge of the Nerds. I suppose it’s helpful to be watching the flick sober for possibly the first time.

(BTW- on the IMDB database, Goodman’s first film is Jailbait Babysitter If this isn’t an intriguing title, I don’t know what is…)

Go Tigers!

Our sports coverage has been a little slow lately, too much politickin’ goin’ on ovah here.

So not that anyone cares, I’ll just mention that my alma mater is a national champion again. In a real sport, one that the entire world plays, where men run both ends of the field for 90 minutes, instead of grunting for 15 seconds and resting for 30 for about 3 minutes, then sitting on the sidelines for 5 minutes or so.

Cool impulse purchase

So I was at Target to pick up paper towels and such, and they had a rack of 32 MB USB drives hanging by the checkout for $20. Floored me. I hadn’t realized they were so commodified yet, but hey…

I’d been tempted to grab one for a while; it’s a clearly useful product for moving work between the office and home. I’ve been using e-mail to do it ever since I got high-speed internet, but that’s kind of a pain, and what if I’m not going to hit the house? Floppies don’t work with the iBook, and burning a CD for each transfer seemed awfully damn wasteful. I did a quick price check when I got home, and while pretty much nobody is selling any USB flash drives smaller than 64 MB any more, all of those are $35 or more. Hardly impulse purchase material.

Small thing, but it made my day. Twenty bucks… Less than a case of beer…

Removing States' Rights - Republicans Continue To Change The Definition of Republican

After last week’s installation of the biggest welfare system in the last 10 years, the Republicans continue on their anti-Republican mission. Another biased news agency — In Theses Times — lays into the Bush adminstration for their plan to reduce the abilities of state governments to look into banking and securities fraud. What is going on?

Fox News Continues To Alter the Meaning of "Fair and Balanced"

The (admittedly impartial) CommonDreams.org — online home of Ralph Nader — hosts this story about MoveOn.org’s new Fox News Watch Group. The idea for “Justice for Judges Marathon” sprang from the mind of Fox News anchors Brit Hume and Tony Snow and was pitched to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist on 10/26’s Fox News Sunday. So, MoveOn.org is organizing viewers to keep an eye on the new alternative to yellow journalism. Here’s a couple highlights from the timeline:

• May 19: The Murdoch-owned Weekly Standard publishes an editorial calling for “marathon, stay-up-all-night sessions like those of yesteryear” in response to Senate Democrats’ efforts to block Bush’s four most radical judicial nominees.
• October 26: Fox News anchors Hume and Snow, in an interview with Senator Frist, challenge the Senator’s repeated contention that an all-night protest session would be counterproductive. Snow prods, “Make people stay in all night. Make it the central political event in Washington. Why won’t you do it?”
• November 12: According to a leaked email, a producer for Hume’s evening news show, Special Report with Brit Hume, worked directly with a staffer for Senator Frist, in an effort to choreograph the launch of the Republican protest as a “live opening shot” for Hume’s November 12 newscast. As reported in The Hill, the leaked memo read: “It is important to double efforts to get your boss to S-230 on time … Fox News Channel is really excited about this marathon and Brit Hume at 6 would love to open with all our 51 senators walking onto the floor — the producer wants to know will we walk in exactly at 6:02 when the show starts so they get it live to open Brit Hume’s show? Or if not, can we give them an exact time for the walk-in start?”

Wow. Now I know how the public felt in the early day’s of Hearst’s exposure. We live in a scary time.

Battle Royale

I just watched Battle Royale, an ultraviolent Japanese gore flick. It’s the shiz-nitt among film geeks as an import. The story line is that unemployment hit 15% in Japan and the kids started getting really unruly, so the adults instituted a rule that one class room of kids every year would be forcibly dragged to an island and made to kill each other off until only one kid is left standing. Not a very plausible premise, but it turns out to be a pretty cool kill fest as they each get different weapons and start killing each other off.

This site features a quiz that determines which of the 42 dead kids walking you would be.

“I’m a survior, of this f*cking game.”
- #5 Kawada


Which Battle Royale Character are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

And here’s a pretty cool fan site with a lot of neat info.

Rollerfeet Turkey Day

You could say that food is the center of a great Thanksgiving…

Becky’s pies are starting to meet Martha level quality… (Notice Mickey’s pathetic attempt at pumpkin pie hiding behind Becky’s oven-baked pride.)

This year the turkey (always my job) was soaked in a honey brine over night, then smoked with Cherry wood for 5 1/2 hours. The flavor was excellent, but the cock had done a little too much walking — it was stringy and gristle-y in the dark meat. It was good enough that at this writing the only remains of the dozen-pounder are a drumstick and 2 sandwiches worth of white meat. (Tonight’s supper had to be sushi on the south side at a new joint called Uchi.)

Evil Emily brought over these delicious twice-baked taters. I only had a bite but I’m pretty sure she wanted to kill me with one of these double-cheesed delights. (For the uninitiated, I’m allergic to all milk products, so one of these would’ve left me indisposed for a day or two — unlucky me. :o( )

Becky baked a scrumptious cornbread with pieces of whole kernel corn in it — the way I like it. Not pictured are the two type of stuffing, Emily’s broccli in yogurt, some store-made rolls and Becky’s fresh stewed cranberries. She prefers to know the source of her fruit…

I, on the other hand, prefer mine to be unidentifiable. Yum! (And all the better for spreading on sandwiches the next morning!)

Of course, the real blessing of Thanksgiving is companionship. Seated here you see Brian “G” Walters, Rod (our BNAT5 shill), Zach “the newbie cabbie”, Stephen Mick Mickey Ray, Emily (the dairy loving fiance) and my wonderful wife Becky.

After dinner and dessert we cleared the table and pulled out a new deck of Tobasco Green playing cards, a set of black/green/blue/red poker chips and we all contributed to Rod’s happiness. (I think he more than doubled his initial $3.)

Then we moved into the living room to try the new Trivial Pursuit Pop Culture DVD Edition. It was a blast — short games due to fairly easy pop culture questions. (Thanks to his US subscription I think even K-Pho could’ve played.) Rod and I played everyone else. The stats would show that we had more yards and first downs, but the other team was able to catch our three pie lead and found the center of the wheel first.

After games we wound down with a showing of Return of the Pink Panther. The guys giggled and guffawed through Peter Sellers hilarious antics, while the gals sighed at the juvenility of it all.

Happy Thanksgiving all! and special thanks to our guests for keeping us hapily occupied as we were away from our families.

DC Thanksgiving

Our Thanksgiving was damned fine, albeit more geographically-concentrated than Jank’s. We spent most of the day trying to keep to a tight oven schedule for turkey, two dressings, stuffed mushrooms, baked brie, two pies, plus the 4 casseroles that showed up later.

All told, 12 grown-ups, 2 dogs and a baby. Good time had by all.

Before:

After:

Cynthia Whips up some cranberry sauce (we also served the gelatinous cylinder form for the traditionalists in the crowd)

Pie was served. That’s it in front of all the booze. Pecan on the left, pumkin on the right. Mike showed up later with another pecan, so nobody wanted for pie.

Geekiest Thanksgiving ever. My friend Tom insisted I borrow an iBook and iSight so we could set up a video link between our Turkey Day get-togethers. We compared cooking progress throughout the day and occasionally yelled at each other’s unwitting guests. As the evening devolved, their feed turned into closed-circuit videogame coverage. Ours was more like stupor-vision.

Karolina digs in

as does Scott.

The Janks are famous

so i’m sitting in the middle of my sister’s living room last night trying to wake myself from the coma that was beginning to set due to massive amounts of turkey intake compounded by several long treks across shreveport to visit various relatives, when there i see it… a smiling billy jankowski in full uniform slowly fading onto the TV screen in the living room whose volume has been lowered in an effort to help my nephew get to sleep.

i dash over to the tv, turn up the volume, and there’s jank’s dad talking about his life in the military and how he would be ready to go to the middle east if called. he then tells the overly attentive news team - all with really big hair - that his son is in the reserves (fade to billy’s picture again) and who plans on remaining in the reserves for another “dozen years or so”… the story goes on and is followed by vignettes of military men and women wishing their families in the ark-la-tex a happy thanksgiving and hoping to be home soon.

so, billy, i’m not sure where you are these days, if you knew about the broadcast, or if your family even told you that they were going to be on the news, but i thought i’d let you know that i saw it. it made you sound like a hero. i’m sure families everywhere in the area breathed a simultaneous sigh as your dad effervesced over his son’s accomplishments in that dad sort of way. it was very sweet.

Newport Thanksgiving

Spent Thanksgiving with a co-worker, Chris, and his steady, Amelia. In the increasingly odd connections occuring with the move back to New England, turns out that Amanda and I worked together when I was up at SubSchool.

When I mapquested Chris’ place, turned out that it was a little over a mile from my temporary digs (below)
so I set out on foot, bearing pie, CoolWhip, rolls, butter, and, most importantly, wine.

Unlike New York, or even Boston, two cities of similar vintage, Newport has remained essentially unchanged for three and a half centuries. The streets are tiny and somewhat disconnected, and the houses are all good, solid, post and beam construction. The waterfront is lined with piers, wharfs, and docks which once were filled with merchants from around the world. In late November, 2003, there’s not a whole lot of masts cutting the skyline, but in July and August, the harbor below is a maze of floating docks, slips, and boats.

Most of the boats are out of the water now for winter storage and overhaul. I snapped this at one of the shipyards; these have lines from a relatively famous designer, Hershoff, I think.

To get to Chris’ house, I strolled past block after block of houses with placards on them saying “1700’s coffee house”, “Listed on the Nat’l Register of historic places”, and other trivia. As I’ve mentioned before, coming up here as a southern boy gives a sense of history that it’s hard to get in the new South. It also kind of humanizes the Revolution, putting a little perspective to how much smaller the population was, and how important individual contribution was to establishing community and country.

Supper was excellent. We gave thanks for old and new friends; for family and home; and for continued opportunity.

Amelia’s folks had sent her bar-b-q from her hometown, and Chris had done a delicious turkey breast. Two stuffings, two cranberry sauces, yams, and pumpkin pie to wash it down. We tried this year’s Beaujolais Neuveaux; not sure if I’m going to continue that tradition. At least not with the Georges DeBeouf wines. The last few years have tasted really ‘green’ and grassy; granted, it’s supposed to taste like a young wine, but it’s been a little bit more distracting than I’d hoped. This year’s had a great purple color, very clear, and not a bad nose. There wasn’t the sugar that many had promised due to France’s heat wave this summer. Or, I could just be talking out of my butt. In any case, my not-so-sensative palette wasn’t impressed.

Walking home was another joy. The wind had stopped, and Naragansett Bay was like a sheet of glass. I snapped this picture of the Newport Bridge, going over to Jamestown Island. The reflection shows the smoothness of the water.

Here’s another picture of the shipyard shown earlier. It’s from a different angle, and shows a couple of the larger boats on blocks.

Lastly, I saw this little dinghy tied up downtown. IMO, it’s got very pleasant lines.

Happy Thanksgiving to y’all.

Turkey Day Photo Derby

Say, how about another BpB photo derby?

I’m like, totally psyched about our impending Thanksgiving Day feast and will probably document some of it with the digicam.

So whether you’re cooking for 20 or having a turkey pot pie for one in front of the TV, capture a few Thanksgiving moments and share the love!

Aggie Fight Song

For many (most?) Texans “Rivalry Weekend” hasn’t even happened, yet. Friday the dismally bad Texas A&M Aggies (2-5 / 4-7) will play the easily dispirited University of Texas Longhorns(6-1 / 9-2), and it’s not as cut and dried as the numbers show. Even ignoring how easily the Texas game plan was disrupted during the loss to the Arkansas Razorbacks (and you just can’t count the loss to Oklahoma — there are several pro teams who couldn’t handle them), this game can be easily thrown by non-Athletic events. The tragic Aggie bonfire incident brought tears to the eyes of all Texans and fired up the Aggies to a win against the statistical odds in 1999. This year the Longhorns are facing second QB Mock considering transferring (second — not backup) even though he’s sure to be known historically as the Longhorn’s 2 minute QB if he stays. (Maybe Mack has figured out the right use for dual QBs?) Everyone on both sides of this rivalry will say “the stats don’t matter come Thanksgiving”, so here’s my log on the spirit fire.

Kiddie Corps

(sung to the tune of the aggie war hymn)

We are a bunch of country hicks,
We are a bunch of country hicks.
We are the kiddies of the kiddie korps,
All little aggies ages two to four.
We play the soldier boy from morn to night,
We are the boys with that “real high voice!”
“The Eyes of Texas are Upon You”,
That is the song they sing so well… “Makes me so mad I could just spit!”
So, all hail the mighty university,
We’re gonna beat you all to ricky-ticky zam, ricky-ticky zam,
All to hell with Texas A & M!

I want my mommy I want my mommy,
I want my mommy NOW!! - dangit.

Capital of Pork

Has anyone else noticed this entry? It may seem kinda boring and predictable, but the payoff comes about halfway down this page with this gem:

“MALL IN SHREVEPORT

In a nod to Louisiana’s two Democratic senators, the bill would even provide financing assistance for a mall in Shreveport that is to house, among other things, a Hooters restaurant.”

It makes me so proud to know that my tax dollars are going to support something on the order of South Park Mall.

Good writing wins out over political correctness...

He’s baaack…

Greg Easterbrook’s Tuesday Morning Quarterback has been picked up by NFL.com .

Congrats to Greg, and great news for football and good writing fans across the country…

Welfare for the Elderly

The Republicans are taking their bows for passing their new Medicare Bill and the WPost is saying this is a big sign that the Democrats need to consolidate their “message”. I think it’s a pretty good sign of a couple things for the Republicans, too.

Obviously, the GOP is pandering to senior citizens in an effort to have a landslide re-election. How they can decry government funded humanitarian efforts by the Democrats and then hold this legislation up as signifier of Republican values blows my mind. They, also, passed this bill because the Congressman demographic is notoriously skewed to the higher age groups (even without Strom Thurmond mucking up the numbers) and while they may not personally need this benefit all of their friends do. However, that kind of self-serving lawmaking is usually hidden from public view. The only real sign this bespeaks is that, Red or Blue, the values of the party are just a sham for vote and donation pandering.

I wanted to add to this topic with a personal story about discussing taxes with my family, but my memory is poor and I don’t like making things up. The summary is that all the near-retirement age family members were Bush supporters due to proposed tax changes. Even my parents are not immune to vote buying.

Howard Dean - Draft Dodger

Strangely missing from the NYT’s Most-Mailed Stories List (at least at 4 EST today) is this bit about Dean’s draft dodging. He got a deferrment for “his condition. It is aggravated by certain kinds of physical activity but not all kinds, she said. The condition is called spondylolysis, a low-back pain that sometimes radiates into the legs…

Dr. Dean said it was the military’s decision to grant him the deferment, but he also said he was eager to get it. Had he wanted to serve, he probably could have

The condition obviously wasn’t that bad, as Gov. Dean spent the the 10 months after his graduation from Yale, time he might otherwise have spent in uniform, (as) a ski bum in Aspen, Colo. His back condition did not affect his skiing the way the rigors of military service would have, he said, nor did it prevent him from taking odd jobs like pouring concrete in the warm months and washing dishes when it got cold. Yep, skiing is that much easier than humping a pack and carrying a rifle.

There’s even a hint of class warfare in the Times: “It’s one of the real inequities left in the system,” Mr. Tarr said, because young men from wealthier families could afford to pay for tests that might uncover some deferrable medical condition. IMO, one of the biggest reasons against bringing back the draft is potential abuses of the system like Dean’s.

David Brooks could be a sign of new things to come. Is the Old Grey Lady going to give the WSJ a challenge for the readership on the right?

Why don't you just let it die?

Even Slashdot types are pretty much against electronic voting. But the best part of the thread is the just the general viturpitude and quotes like:

How does this imply that there is a great conspiricy? Lots of people give money to the republicans. Lots of people write crappy software. Lots of businesses try to get away with things that they shouldn’t. Where is the proof that the reason for their actions is that they want the hand the election over to the republicans? It is just as likely that they are just incompetent and greedy, not conspiratal (sic).

Andrew Stuttaford at The Corner while citing this story, has possibly the best argument against e-voting to date: “Part of the problem with these systems is the conspiracy theories that they are bound to generate, something that will be deeply damaging to American democracy, particularly, if as seems likely, we are about to go through an unusually bitter election cycle.” Non-technical, easily understood, and powerful, IMO.

Bring back pen and paper…

Depressing Achewood

The most recent story-line at Achewood has been truly oddball and depressing (start the story here ), but the punch line for today’s episode almost made it worthwhile.

Defeating Dr. Evil with Self-locating Belief

Check out this collegiate paper in the PhilSci archives at Pitt. A funny and easy-to-read missive on the subject of Decision Theory, it discusses a possible Philisophical defense against Austin Powers’s mortal enemy.

Dr. Evil learns that a duplicate of Dr. Evil has been created. Upon learning this, how seriously should he take the hypothesis that he himself is that duplicate? I answer: very seriously. I defend a principle of indifference for self-locating belief which entails that after Dr. Evil learns that a duplicate has been created, he ought to have exactly the same degree of belief that he is Dr. Evil as that he is the duplicate. More generally, the principle shows that there is a sharp distinction between ordinary skeptical hypotheses, and self-locating skeptical hypotheses.

Arresting Protestors

In the midst of civil liberties groups questioning the FBI monitoring anti-war protests, the cops in Miami screwed up a little bit. While arresting a group of protestors who were being interviewed by a reporter, they arrested the reporter too, then they argued within earshot about what they were going to charge the arrestees with.

The Truth About Marijuana

According to the Quiz at the Drug Information: Marijuana section of Parents. The Anti-Drug.

QUESTION 2:
What percentage of 12th graders say that marijuana is “fairly” or “very” easy to obtain?

a) 27%
b) 46%
c) 52%
d) 67%
e) 88%

ANSWER:
e) 88%

The vast majority of high school seniors find marijuana “fairly” or “very” easy to obtain² .
Moreover, more than one-third of teens ages 14-17 say they could purchase marijuana within a five-block radius from their house³.

² Monitoring the Future National Results on Adolescent Drug Use: Overview of key findings, 2002 – Table 9.
³ Access to Risky Products and Perceptions of Risky Behavior and Popularity: Finding from the Annenberg National Risk Survey of Youth age 14 to 22. Institute for Adolescent Risk Communication at the Annenberg Public Policy Center.

Why do teenagers have it so much easier than I do?

Thanksgiving Sides

How’s about posting favorite Thanksgiving sides? Mine’s below. And the Doc can still eat this one…

Grandma Jank’s Strawberry Jello Mold

Ingredients
One package Strawberry Jell-o
One 12 oz container Cool Whip
One 8 oz container frozen shredded strawberries

Directions
Mix Jell-O with boiling water per directions on the package.
Stir Cool-Whip and strawberries (Thawed) into the Jell-O.
Spoon entire creamy mass into the mold of your choice.
Stick in fridge for a couple hours until set.

Eat. Goes well with cranberry sauce and turkey. Goes even better with picky kids. Believe it or not, this isn’t a dessert.

Turkey Day Approaches

So Kelly and I are hosting An Orphan Thanksgiving at our place this week (btw, Jank - are you coming?). Since we were in New Orleans this weekend to see The Boy get hitched, grocery shopping will happen tomorrow.

Before I read the Times editorial about factory-farmed turkeys (number one on the most-emailed list today), my primary Thanksgiving ethical dilemma was whether we should order a deep-fried turkey from Popeyes and pass it off as home-cooked, or if we should do a traditional one ourselves.

Now the liberal guilt has kicked in and I’m wondering if we should drop $40+ at Whole Paycheck to buy a free-range turkey. Anyone else worried about this?

Shiner Light

For you folks who are no longer in Shiner distance, you may not have heard about their new brew, Shiner Light. I was apprehensive about the idea, but it’s a great beer. Since I’ve been choosing less heavy beers lately (and been generaly dissapointed) this beer hits a craving for me. It retains a lot of the flavor of Shiner while being…light. I guess that’s where it got it’s name.

Letter 0.9

Here’s a cool little typing game . My first-try score is 87.

Wish Lists

The Foxtrot kids need a Wavebird or two for Christmas. What do you wish for? Post a comment and then send the link to your friends and family.

Money for Mexico

This story seemed to slip by the news feeds pretty quietly this weekend. Most people are gonna take the easy route and conclude that this is another signpost for drug dealers screwing the country. Flipping this on it’s head (in the manner I usually do) I see this as a signpost for our failed War on Drugs. If this is the truck they caught, how many slipped through unnoticed? Wouldn’t this country be better served by drug money being spent (and taxed!) here then in Mexico?

booze

How do we miss this so often?

Check out Magic Hat for bot good beer info and birth control info.

Great beer, BTW.

Quonset

So the downside to living in New England is that it’s impossible to throw a rock without hitting something of historical interest.

Quonset Point being a good case in general. They built all those round huts featured in WWII and points aft, and are currently building subsections for the New SSN (Attach Submarine).

More likely resonant with people is its prevalence as a suburb of Providence, right on the water, and the possibility that there’s pollution happening. In any case, I’ve probably contributed to that - Quonset is an area that we used to use for weapons qualifications, squeezing hundreds of rounds of 9mm and M-16 ammo, depositing copper and lead into the hillsides.

But it’s here. Much like the ports in which American ships hid during the Revolution, and parties of militia

(“Oh hell, I’m going to cry anyway” says the LCDR’s woman. The LCDR pours a stiff drink into a juice glass, pours water from the tap into the drink, and offers it to his woman. “I might not get you back this time,” she weeps. He offers her the drink, and she sucks it down. “Leave me with a baby this time, at least’ she begs, as they kiss, and it fades to a rainstorm in the South Pacific.).

running about, killing Brits and bringing democracy to the modern age.

There’s a fine tradition up here, largely overshadowed by apathy and the urge to make a buck. I’ve spent more than one night wondering why Rhode Island, smaller than Houston in both population and area, gets two Senators, same as the entire state of Texas. In short, it’s history. There is some value in being able to relate all the way back to the Revolution. A large value in knowing that freedom is only won by blood.

Look, there’s little more that I love than the United States. I’d been saving this anecdote, but one of the folks I drill with was up this way (not known for its republican bent) over the Fourth. Flags everywhere. He (a good Houstonian) was shocked at the patriotism

(“Excuse me, John Paul, I’m going to be a trifle busy,” asks Kirk Douglas’ character, immediately before he gets killed by Japanese fighters)

I wasn’t. 250 years of democratic rule, a almost a quarter of a millennium. There’s something there, bound together by a love of freedom inherent in man regardless of religious bent. America is a special place, a special idea, regardless of what’s happening in Washington, DC.

(“Do you think we have a chance to stop it?” asks Wayne’s lackey. “We have to try” says the Duke.)

Don’t lose faith in your country. We are blessed, one way or another. Brave women and men have met every challenge we’ve faced in the last two and a quarter centuries, and there’s no reason to think we’ll change that now. So pray. Believe. And always think ‘God (of your choice, of course) Bless the United States.

Department of Peace

So Kucinich is pretty vapid in general (see his search for a wife ), but the one piece of his that I’m actually fascinated by is his proposal to create a ‘Department of Peace’ (Notice the Reuters-style ‘scare quotes’).

No, truthfully, I think that there may be something here. I’m not happy at all that the entire focus on

(BTW- John Wayne movie on AMC - ‘It’s all right, I haven’t cooked for a man in a long time’. He’s a Navy Officer, too, about to bang a subordinate female officer after getting her drunk. Man, I tell you, life is good. I wish to hell I’d been able to go to Officer Candidate School in Newport. “Whaddya skin?” “Lieutenant Nurses who pull my leg”, says the Duke.)

killing people and breaking things as solutions to life’s problems. I also think that the State department has fallen on its sword with its continual kowtowing to the UN, etc (which passes to the argument that the UN’s pretty ineffective).

(“Oh, I don’t know, gin I guess, but not much” says the cute ensign nurse)

Regardless, I’m all about a department of peace, as long as it’s done well.

(highlight 3 from the unidentified John Wayne movie is the male ensign cutting in on the Lieutenant Commander who is dancing with the female Ensign Nurse. BTW, Wayne is a Navy Captain, son of a Chief Petty Officer.)

Yeah, you read that right. I’ve got no interest in war for war’s sake. Killing folks bears no merit for me on its own sake. I’m happy to do it when asked, and bear no bones about it, but would prefer not to.

Dept of Peace, IMO, could be revolutionary. The US DOP don’t deal with any country without great human rights records (Cuba, etc), doesn’t deal with any countries without completely free market deals with

(“Maggie?” asks the Duke. “Yes, Rock,” she answers, while taking off her cover and coat. “Whumpa whumpa whumpa whumpa” goes the AMC commercial break)

the US. Kucinich is on to something. IMO, this could be a followup and improvement on the United Nations.

(BTW - there’s a young Kirk Douglas giving a cameo. Still no clue what the movie is, but it’s B&W, and there’s tons of hot chicks, ships, Packards, and jeeps).

Honestly - why haven’t we done this sooner? IE, why didn’t GWB or WJC do this as soon as RWR won the Cold war?

(Back to the WWII movie- John Wayne gets promoted to Rear Admiral (Lower Half, or Commodore) by the Submariner who’s in command in Pearl. “Take these stars. I think they’ve brought me luck…”)

It’s not like it’s a novel management technique - concentrate on what you

(The flick is In Harm’s Way )

are weak on in order to make it better. We’ve been great in killing people, breaking things, and making sure that we have strength in place. But we have little experience in life past ‘peace’, or the end of major conflict.

On a philosophical bent, why have we (on the right) vilified peace so much? It’s a good concept, especially when we’ve kicked the living sh!t out people who threaten it. I’m all about a DOP, especially on American terms.

Franken

So I’m watching C-Span at 9 PM on a Saturday night in Downtown Newport, RI (Playground of the rich and famous, and home to about 500 rich high school girls at boarding school). And Al Franken is giving a speech at U-Midwest, somewhere.

The dude’s funny. Stuart Smiley lives on.

Regardless, he’s the first of you lefties that I’ve actually been able to take somewhat seriously. It’s almost enough for me to buy that there may actually be a ‘right-wing conspiracy’ in the media. He doesn’t get nearly the even-handed coverage that he ought to get.

I’m also 2/3 of a bottle of wine and a beer to the wind, but he’s making a lot of sense. Great bit with the second question he answered regarding media bias, and why liberal bias really doesn’t affect coverage. He really seems to understand markets… No, he really seems to be someone with whom I could sit down and drink much beer.

Do we have a POC for him to see if he can come on as a desk commentator?

Master and Commander: The far side of good

Blah, blah, blah - spoilers in the review.

Went and saw Master and Commander this evening with an old Navy buddy and a couple of co-workers. Also old Navy types, but neither of whom were ‘buddies’ while in the Navy.

The flick started well - foggy morning, off the coast of Brasil. The HMS SURPRISE commanded by ‘lucky Jack’ has orders to find and capture or sink the French ship ACHERON. One of the officers is indecisive on watch, and one of his peers jumps forward with the right call, which is to ‘beat to quarters’, or to man battlestations. ACHERON beats the living crap out of SURPRISE, and the Englishmen escape only by slipping away into a fog bank.

But basically, the flick blows. It starts great, with the responsibility of the Captain of a ship being bound more closely to the interests of his Country than the interests of his ship. But there’s a pivotal scene where the whiny bitch of a doctor inisists that the Captain of the ship go to the Galapagos instead of killing Frenchies. Honest to God, there’s an exchange that goes “But you promised…” “Sometimes Country takes precedence over promise”.

At the same time, there’ s a scene immediately before the climatic battle, in which Russel Crowe gives a speech straight out of Henry V. There’s enough time with the Frenchies that I expected to hear “I taunt in your general direction” before the final battle.

But you don’t, missing a huge opportunity, IMO.

Which I suspect is the lesson for the flick.

Look, I’m all about science, but the denouement in this film comes when the SURPRISE is chasing the Frenchies. One of the Royal Marines decides to shoot a bird and carelessly shoots the Doc. Crowe blows off the chase so his doc can sew on himself. Pussy.

There’s a great twist at the end, though.

Honestly, I’d go see the flick again (Wait here for postings.) There’s enough wind, sail, rope, and water to capture the romance of the sea for someone who’s woken up more often than necessary out of sight of land, and there is enough

(“Free Cigarettes from the folks back home” says the sign in The sands of Iwo Jima )

blind devotion to duty to justify the flick to everyone. Honestly, it’s worth a look. There’s enough blind blood lust to pacify hawks, and enough pantywaists to satisfy pacifists. I dug it, and will invest in a matinee next week. Won’t pay full price twice, though.

Thank God for Scrappleface

“Government is so inefficient,” the official wrote, “Choking bureaucrats with money will foster waste, mismanagement and greed that will eventually reach critical mass and destroy the programs. It’s all part of compassionate conservatism. We could have just cut spending, but that would have made us look less than compassionate. Don’t worry, we’ll get to the conservative part later.”

From Scrappleface

Getting Up For Gay Rights

I know…I know it is wrong for me to derive base pleasure from this but does it count that I, also, think she’s supporting a good cause.

Quick one, more later

Dan Ackroyd don’t like him no socialized medicine.

Expect a travelogue and update this evening - I’m moved into an apartment in downtown Newport, and frantically looking for a house so as to move the wife and young-un up.

This is what hapens to little girls who chew too much gum.

Because I love you all, I want to do my part to assure your safety. Here’s how to maintain the most current status levels of alertness and thwart those nasty terrorist threats.

This explains a lot. Now i realize that most of my childhood in Louisiana was spent under orange alert.

U.S. Says Iran Must Have Nukes! Why Would the World Believe U.S.?

A good point is made in this editorial at the Minneapolis - St. Paul Star Tribune. The IAEA says that Iran doesn’t have a nuke program and “Undersecretary of State John Bolton declared the IAEA conclusion ‘impossible to believe.’” Still, the IAEA has a better record of identifiying countries with nuculear programs than the U.S. does, especially of late.

Splish Splash - Baby Style

You parental types will surely get a good laugh at this baby version of Splish Splash although it may be NSFW depending on how uptight your co-workers are.

Corporate Welfare Should Be Spread Around

As long as Bush and Cheney are handing out corporate welfare to their petroleum, steel and textile industry buddies, they should broaden their sites. I understand that at some level the GOP really believes that the U.S. is better off paying to keep jobs in corporations that are either struggling against foreign competition or trying to keep their retail prices at 25% the rest of the world’s, but an investment in education is just as vital to the economy — short term and long term.

Layoffs were approved at a vote of 4 to 3 at Tuesday night’s school board meeting in Iowa. Cutting Mondays from the school calendar is an idea being used in Kentucky. Eliminating 12th grade is being considered in Colorado. All of these articles mention one signicant item: reduced hours for temporary workers will contribute to budget savings. This means fewer substitute and part-time teachers, mainly. Several of them also mention that they’ll have to wait to see how it affects the children’s education.

These news items should be alarming, but I guess it depends on what “no child left behind” means.

Fare is Fair

This article from the Stateman is probably only of local interest, but I thought I’d post it since we have a couple of cabbies on the porch.

Quagmire Redux

Caught the Kennedys programme on PBS’ American Experience last night, which proved to be more than just a routine history refresher. It neatly coincided with this article over at Salon I read yesterday (if link no worky, it’s in News & Politics, titled “Welcome to Vietnam, Mr. President”). How? Well I’m so glad you asked.

There’s been some talk, maybe even on this blog already, about how Iraq is starting to feel, look and sound a whole lot like ‘Nam. The Salon article goes into the obvious differences between the two, but also points out some eerie similarities, mostly with the speeches coming out of Washington now and then.

Early on in The Kennedys, there’s a televised 1963 interview JFK has with Walter Conkrite at the Kennedy compound where he is asked about the future of ‘Nam. JFK tells Conkrite something to the effect of “we want to see the Vietnamese government overseen by its own citizens as soon as possible” but then gives a foreshadowing of what was to come by stating (again, paraphrased) “however, this country is important to the future of democracy in the region and we will not turn our back and leave - we will do whatever it takes to stay in the country and ensure that democracy is put in place.” Sound familiar?

I think we have progressed enough in our involvement in Iraq for the ‘Nam similarities to be more than just left-wing alarmist yammering. We’re in real danger of repeating a historical mistake. Of course, Bush didn’t learn his history - this morning he’s across the pond making speeches and corralling Blair into “standing firm” with him and saying the same things we said 40 years ago. In 2015, after the 48,000th death, after the last blackhawk pulls out of the American embassy in Iraq with the last Americans on board, after our country’s economy is in the shitter to stay, maybe we’ll get a speech from one of the Bush twins like RFK’s stating that “we were wrong.” And maybe I’ll fly to the moon tomorrow to get a few rocks.

I Just Wanted To Say Penal

A raid on Michael Jackson’s ranch was prompted by molestation allegations from a 12 year old boy. While that is not funny — at all — I had to give you this quote:

“The charges will be simple,” Dimond told CNN’s Larry King last night. “Penal code 288, child molesting.”

Hee-hee! She said “penal”!

What’s the difference between Michael Jackson and Elvis?

WTC Memorial

Today the finalist for the WTC Memorial were revealed. I have my favorite, but am interested in hearing the opinions of everyone on the porch who, thank God, are not architects.

Energy Bill Passes House

The energy bill passed the House, despite a provision protecting the manufacturers and users of MTBE from litigation with one exception.

…the bill’s fate in the Senate could be complicated by a brouhaha over a gasoline additive, MTBE, that has been found to contaminate drinking water in at least 28 states. The bill would shield MTBE makers of liability in lawsuits unless they are found to be negligent in the handling of the product.

…[Tom] DeLay, R-Texas, had insisted the liability protection be part of the bill.

Sometimes I am so proud of my federal representatives, I could cry. I think Congress should extend this legislation to the makers of crack-cocaine and car bombs over a certain mega-ton rating — as long as they didn’t mishandle it, they should be exempt from litigation.

I’m repeating myself, but I still don’t understand why the oil, gas and electricity industries need the hand-outs included in this $32B (maybe more) bill. I thought one of the standards of the GOP was anti-welfare. Why does Exxon need money to expand their business? If they aren’t making enough, they should either go out of business or increase their prices.

Athletic, Drug-Free Loudmouth out on his ASS.

Key is done in Tampa. Hooray for Gruden, in my opinion. One of the (few) things I hate about football these days are individuals making a team sport into an individual sport - in order to make themselves more marketable.

I know I’m probably waxing nostalgic in a losing effort to the rising tide of ego and the almighty dollar - but I miss the days when a post-touchdown dance was a rarity, not a way to tie in a Sunday performance to one’s next music video. Goodbye Keyshawn, but not for long, I’m sure. The problem may have been that the lockeroom wasn’t big enough for both his and Sapp’s egos…

Overweight Drug-Addled Hypocrite Back on Radio

Salon has a good account of Rush’s return to the airwaves.

If the above link doesn’t work, this is under the “Just Posted” section of Salon’s home page.

Clark Against Flag Burning

Here’s a negative for Retired Army General Wesley Clark: He supports a ban on flag burning despite his professed support of dissent.

Matt Bennett, Clark’s communications director, said Clark saw flag-burning as a “very, very, very particularized form of dissent that he simply can’t abide. I guess he is carving out a little bit, but not very much. For the most part he is a very strong proponent of civil liberties.”

With a few ditto-head exceptions in the group, I know I’m PTTC, but the reasons Clark is a viable candidate for POTUS are the same reasons flag burning is a valid protest. His actions for this country, serving time and leading soldiers, under the flag are the same actions committed under the flag today in Iraq — only the motives are (questionably) different. Burning the flag is a shocking statement about what is preceived as desecration of this country’s reputation by the administration. Arresting a citizen for expressing their opinion in any non-harmful fashion is a violation of the reasons people fight for this country.

1337 Speak

Here’s a little education for you n00bs.

• font-only 1337 translator
• better 1337 tutorial
• google in 1337 speak

America's Most Literate Cities

from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater

The highlights from this study focusing on the cities of the BPB gang:

• 5. San Francisco, CA (which is odd compared to 52. San Jose, CA)
• 7. Washington, DC
• 22. Austin, TX (which is odd compared to 60. San Antonio, TX)
• 47. New York City, NY
• 49. Houston, TX
• 54. Los Angelels, CA (tied with Toledo, OH)

Here’s the rankings from the Educational Level:

• 2. Austin, TX
• 9. San Francisco, CA
• 20. Washington, DC (tied with Nashville, TN)
• 40. New York City, NY
• 50. Los Angeles, CA
• 51. Houston, TX

And for Becky’s edification, rankings by Booksellers:

• 2. San Francisco, CA
• 13. Austin, TX
• 15. Washington, DC
• 38. Houston, TX
• 59. New York City
• 60. Los Angeles, CA (tied with El Paso, TX)

More True Tales of the New Police

Terry Hughes is an extreme anti-Bush chemical engineer who was arrested and left in jail while his “elderly father succumbed to illness”.

Hughes first caught the eye of terrorism investigators in mid-August 2002, when a “confidential informant” showed them a copy of an e-mail Hughes allegedly sent to someone in Virginia, according to court papers. … The e-mail, which is only partly disclosed in court papers, mentions the author’s “chemical knowledge” and his purchase of an M-16. Hughes denies sending the e-mail or buying the rifle.
“Confidential informant?” he snaps. “There is no confidential informant. Apparently, I sent a threatening e-mail to X, who sent it to Y, who was scared. I don’t know anybody named X or Y. Given the U.S. legal system, you don’t find these things out.”

Isn’t one of the precepts of the American justice system that you get to know who is accusing you?

Men's Health Rankings

Men’s Health (which despite indications from the cover art is not about gay men) has an article listing Cities based on health ranking for men. Here’s a listing of key BPB cities:

2. San Francisco, CA; Fitness: A, QOL: A, Health: B
11. Austin, TX; Fitness: A, QOL: B, Health: A
24. Washington, DC; Fitness: A, QOL: D, Health: F
31. Los Angeles, CA; Fitness: A, QOL: F, Health: B
44. Houston, TX; Fitness: B, QOL: D, Health: C
49. New York, NY; Fitness: C, QOL: D, Health: C
90. Shreveport, LA; Fitness: F, QOL: B, Health: F

We aren’t doctors. So how did we take the pulse of 101 cities? We used data as our diagnostic tool. We sought the most definitive stats in the land, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention WONDER database for mortality data; the CDC’s Sexually Transmitted Disease Surveillance 2001 report; Crime in the United States, 2001, from the FBI; the EPA’s 2002 Air Quality Report; CDC Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data (compiled and calculated by BestPlaces.net); the 2002 Urban Mobility study; fitness data from Claritas research; gym-membership numbers from Scarborough Research; and, finally, physician data from Health Market Science.

SITN:Southern Drawl and Voice Rec

SITN, again, this time due to a voice recognition system that has trouble with Southern Drawls. We went through several RFIs and RFPs here at work and witnessed this same problem which is compacted with female voices.

Rage of the Moderates

Again, I turn to the NY Times Most Emailed Articles for inspiration:

Tom Friedman makes a call for more passionate moderates.

It has been a while since I referred to myself as a “flaming moderate” but that’s pretty much what I am. Over the weekend, I had Jank tell me that he had expected me to be more of a bleeding-heart liberal than I am, and I had another friend tell me “you’re a Republican, I don’t care what you say” and so I guess I’m still doing a good flaming-moderate job out there.

FTR, I’ll list a breakdown of my flaming positions on either side of the political fence:

Left:
* militantly pro-choice
* environmentalism - desire for stringent regulation and enforcement, PLEASE PRETTY PLEASE.
* health care - I believe that it is our responsibility to make sure everyone has access to the care they need.
* progressive income tax structure
* drug laws need to be reevaluated, the war on drugs is a farce and a waste

Right:
*death penalty - fully support it
* gun laws - wary of them, for the most part

Rage Against the Mundane

“…Some of those that bagged groceries are the same that burn crosses…”

Art Or Crap?

Take the Quiz: Art or Crap and you’ll surely do better than I did. Do you think getting a 9/16 shows my bad taste?

Belated Happy Veteran's Day

Sure is quiet around here with a certain person on the road headin’ north, isn’t it? (Jank was last spotted around 11 this morning heading north out of the District of Columbia. We tried to make sure he was well fed and sweating beer from the previous night.)

To kill the silence, here’s a fun game cynsmith and I have been meaning to post.

See if you can spot anything fishy on the new Bryan/College Station Veteran’s Memorial:

Evil Omnibus Energy Bill

My own personal American hero, Ralph Nader, has a really nice rant out about the evils of the new energy bill that is sprouting from another series of secret GOP meetings with oil executives.

There are major but vague tax breaks for domestic oil exploration and development, as if this long pampered and subsidized industry needs more tax-payer “incentives” to make more megaprofits. The bill contains no significant increase in average fuel economy standards- a bill of rights for producing more gas guzzlers that eat into your budget and pollute the air.

I am all for providing tax subsidies for companies who are trying to break ground in new industries, but giving another hand-out to a corporation that’s been in business this long is shameful. Compare our retail oil and gas prices to the rest of the world, and it’s obvious that we’re paying for it somewhere else. It’s not a far leap to realize it’s coming from our tax dollars. The oil companies need to stand or fall on thier own. Maybe they should take a lead from BP.

the CEO of BP (British Petroleum), Lord John Browne, referring to his big any as “Beyond Petroleum,” [is] selling solar energy ($300 million in sales last year) and warning about global warming

Moular Visual Synthsyzer

I wish I had a week or so of free time to play with onModular, a flash based…thing.

Bait and Switch Campaign Funding

Tom Tomorrow posted a bit at his website about this NYT article revealing a couple GOP members who are advertising for charitable donations, and then funneling the money into their own politcal campaigns.

aides to Mr. DeLay, the House majority leader from Texas, acknowledged that part of the money would go to pay for late-night convention parties, a luxury suite during President Bush’s speech at Madison Square Garden and yacht cruises.

Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, is planning to hold a concert and a reception in conjunction with the convention as a way of raising money for AIDS charities.

It won’t be long before they catch a few of the Democrats doing this same kind of wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing fund raising. I will say it right now: “Any politician that uses this tactic and does not disclose the donors and donations will not get my vote.”

"Poor Paris" Post

When I heard about the Paris Hilton video, it was a dream come true. I’ve always held fantasies of seeing stars naked and/or having sex, but Pam Anderson was not on the list. Mind you, I watched Pam and Tommy, but it was never something I would have ordered without prompting. Paris, on the other hand, has been on the list since she got out of that little sports car in the mini-skirt without any underwear.

Now that the video has leaked out (and if you haven’t seen it — whoa!) The jokes are starting to pour in. Here’s Paris Hilton Video: The Director’s Commentary, the latest t-shirt from the wrongest t-shirt company around, and Zulkey’s Paris Hilton Parody video.

HP&tPoA

Awesome! Awesome! Awesome! The trailer/teaser Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is now available online!

Could the Alabama Education Budget Problem be Solved?

Ha! Not bloody likely… but an interesting article. The only rich ones at the end will likely be the blood-sucking lawyers and Exxon-Mobil. :-)

Sorry, K-PHO, not all lawyers are blood-suckers….

Rewriting Science

This opinion piece at Salon.com (that they lifted from grist magazine) furthers my biologist friend’s belief that the Bush administration is committing an ecological holocaust. Unhappy with an upcoming report covering the flow of the Missouri river, Craig Manson — assistant interior secretary for fish and wildlife parks — issued a memo requesting a new reoprt.

This opinion is to be provided by a “special national team of [U.S. Fish and Wildlife] Service experts … referred to as ‘the Wise Guys’ or the ‘SWAT Team,’ [which] has served well in other complex, high-interest consultations,’” he wrote, with nary a trace of irony to soften the mafia-boss language. The replacement biological SWAT team will reach its conclusions after a 45-day study; the original team’s findings were based on more than 10 years of research and were confirmed by independent peer review as well as by the National Academy of Sciences.

Burton Delivers Deliverance Banjo Boy

A nice article at The New Yorker discusses Time Burton’s quest to cast Billy Redden, the banjo playing boy in Deliverance in his new film Big Fish .

Redden, who is now forty-seven, works ten-hour days as a cook and dishwasher at the nearby Cookie Jar Café, and he was hesitant at first about taking time off to appear in another film. For one thing, he had always regretted being the poster boy for “Deliverance”’s Gothic view of rural America. For another, he hadn’t enjoyed working with the film’s star, Burt Reynolds.

Soccer Is Dangerous

North Korea walked out on a game against Iran in the Asian Cup because a firecracker thrown from the crowd injured one of the North Korean players. I know that smoke from a firecracker can be decieving, but check out the effluent from this baby.

Amen, Brother

Judge Roy Moore was completely removed from office for disobeying federal order to remove the Ten Commandments statue he erected (in the dead of night, mind you) in the middle of the courthouse. Here’s my favorite part of the article:

The nine members of Alabama’s Court of the Judiciary unanimously voted to remove Roy Moore, who was elected to a six-year term as the state’s top judge in 2000.

Get that: unanimously.

Justice is served.

Wow, they ARE frugal!

A standout quote in the WSJ today …

“We’re pretty frugal people,” says the 46-year-old lieutenant in the San Diego sheriff’s department. But “TV is something you use day in and out,” he notes, and the picture on the family’s new $6,500 living-room centerpiece “is better than life.”

Nerd Test

Take the Nerd Purity Test and post your scores here. I’m not sure whether you want the highest or lowest score…

etrigan: You answered “yes” to 54 of 100 questions, making you 46.0% nerd pure (54.0% nerd corrupt); that is, you are 46.0% pure in the nerd domain (you have 54.0% nerd in you).
Your Weirdness Factor (AKA Uniqueness Factor) is 40%, based on a comparison of your test results with 378675 other submissions for this test.

Empire Falls

I suppose I should report that HBO is almost done making this into a film.

Without seeing the final product, they’ve already done a bunch of stuff right. Like: Russo, the author, got to write the entire screenplay. Filming was done entirely in Maine, using app. 2600 Maine extras. They managed to not piss off the locals by minimizing the impact on regular life in the three towns where they filmed. They got some serious starpower: Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Ed Harris, Helen Hunt, Aidan Quinn (who was arrested for drunk driving here during filming), Dennis Farina, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Robin Wright Penn. And the state says the production brought in about $250,000 a day, which is badly needed at the moment.

All in all, the movie could end up stinking worse than old haddock in the sun, but that’s besides the point to Mainers. We’ll see if it stays on HBO or if it will be a wide release thing.

Segway Alternative

Check out this cool little gadget from Bombardier. As soon as fuel cell technology is available to the general public (in what, 2099?) I’ll be all over this.

You Read That Correctly

Slow day here on the back porch. My final word(s) of the day for you people is Nut Poppers — try not to laugh.

Make MT Work For You

I’m still unable to get Trackback to work correctly. If anyone has any ideas, please, let me know. While I was trying, I came across this amazing helpful tool. Got to this link and at a minimum select these:

• TrackBack items
• Category
• Extended Entry

and I would consider adding these:

• Allow Comments
• Allow Pings
• Keywords

then click on the “Create” button. This will provide you with a bookmark you can drag and drop OR if you’re using IE it will create a registry entry for right-clicking. Bookmark and right-click what, you ask? Simplified posting of links to this blog in a pop-up window!

New Blog and a Geek Concern

I would like to take this opportunity to introduce a new blog hosted at Rollerfeet.com where I’ll be discussing the upcoming Butt-Numb-A-Thon 5 hosted by Harry Knowles of Ain’t It Cool News (to celebrate his birthday!) at the Drafthouse — my and Becky’s home away from home.

One of my first posts could use some input from you fellow geeks and you might enjoy reading the news article mentioned therein. (And this is my first time trying TrackBack©.)

Whining Over Tivo

This story over at Yahoo!News complains about how awful Tivo is.

TiVo [has] turned casual TV watchers into prisoners shackled to sofas, unable to keep up with the flood of their favorite shows.

Many TiVo users say they bought the device thinking it would allow them to take greater control of their TV watching. Instead, they find themselves burdened with another obligation in their already filled day.

I have, yet, to meet these people who don’t just absolutely love their Tivo (and I want to throw in a rant about personal responsibility) but this complaint brings up an idea I’ve been contemplating. Why can’t networks show “near-repeats”?

Instead of showing a new episode of Friends once a season and twice a year, show it on Thursday night then repeat it on Sunday night. The WB is already trying this idea, replaying their most popular shows on Sunday nights. It would eliminate the continuing problem of too many good shows on at once, and reduce the cost of running a network. Especially now that there are at least 6 major networks (ABC, CBC, NBC, Fox, UPN and WB) and several compelling competitors (Spike, MTV — not the video channel, Comedy Central, Cartoon Network), TV schedules are too crowded and networks are facing the an overwhelming glut similar to the fiasco that killed Atari .

An inspiration to us all

I do worry that as I get older, as my IRA gets bigger, as I have kids who need schooling, when I own a home and don’t have close daily contact with poor people that I’ll lose some sympathy for those less fortunate than me. I worry that I’ll get so focused on my own best interests that I’ll forget about what’s good for my country as a whole. Maybe certain ideas about how this country should be run won’t seem so objectionable to me anymore. Yes, I worry that one day it might make perfect sense to me to vote Republican.

Well, if George Soros can resist, so can I.

"Rich Colleges Receiving Richest Share of U.S. Aid"

Check out this article from NYT showing that Stanford students receive 7x the federal funds that CSU-Fresno students do.

• Stanford undergrad+grad students: 18,591
• Stanford tuition instate: $27,204
• Stanford tuition out-of-state: $27,204
• CSU-Fresno undergrad+grad students: 20007
• CSU-Fresno tuition instate: $1,796
• CSU-Fresno tuition out-of-state: $10,256

( stats from Students Review )

It may be grousing and throwing around numbers that mean very little, but it’s worth ruminating about. Stanford has higher base costs and a higher grad school mix, but shouldn’t “State” colleges get more funding? (Stanford’s not a traditional “Land Grant” institution, are they?)

Who Said Anything About Draft?

Maybe they meant draught?

The Defense Department recently (and quietly) removed the website it had erected, Defend America, asking for volunteers to join local draft boards.

Why Would I Watch "Average Joe"?

Why watch bad TV myself when so many bloggers are out there to say for me the clever things I would have said anyway. In her blog today, Lindsay Robertson has this to say about “Average Joe” — the show where a hot chick is surprised to find that what she thought would be “The Bachelor Rip-off” is filled with average looking men:

Just now, 21-year-old A.I./philosophy PhD candidate Tareq stared deeply into Melana’s cleavage and blurted these words: “It’s the simplicity of your complexity that is the catalyst of my infatuation.”
Okay, so I know the premise of the show is that these guys are smarter than usual, but it’s precisely said-with-a-straight-face sentences like that that really make a girl long to hear “You have a hot ass, and stuff.”

LOL! “You are pretty.” is always you’re safest bet for any situation with a female.

p.s. Pet Peeve - The link above will quickly become obsolete because Lindsay recreates her page by hand in Dreamweaver every time she makes an entry. I am all for DIY web, but when you’re using DW it’s no longer DIY — get a real tool, tool.

Jessica's True Story Lynched

I believe Jessica Lynch went through a horrible traumatic event. War is not easy on anyone who is involved, and those injured in battle deserve great respect. Especially on this day I have to question what kind of respect the media machine (and a complicit White House?) is showing by “spinning” the story of Jessica Lynch.

Lynch’s convoy was attacked after it left it’s designated route in Iraq. The humvee she was riding was struck by a rocket propelled grenade and it crashed into another vehicle. Eleven of her companions died in the attack. Lynch had a broken arm, leg and ankle along with a moderate head wound. This alone is a harrowing story. Throw in a member of Western civilization facing hospitalization in a foreign country and it’s even more frightening.

The writers of Lynch’s book and the producers of the Lynch movie want to add to that story. The want to punch up the color to make it more exciting. They want to extend the legend of war with lies of varying degrees in hopes of glamorizing the Iraq conflict. I have yet to bring myself to see the NBC made-for-TV movie and I don’t know if I’ll be able to read the book, but already the creators of myth are being hounded for this fable presented as truth.

Jessica Lynch herself has decried the way the military portrayed her before she even made it home. Now, the doctors who treated her in Iraq are speaking out against the book’s reports that she was raped during her ordeal.

Jessica’s true story is one that holds a lot of power on this day. It is through every veteran’s sacrifice that we enjoy the wonderful world we live in today. The best respect we can show them is by not exaggerating their triumphs, but boldly showing the truth of war — why it is so hard on the people who fight in it, and why it was so important to our history and our continued efforts for a free world.

OU Daily goes NYT

The wonderful student daily here at OU has their own little NYT“ish” scandal going on.

Worst part is he took his material from a writer at Harvard by the Highway’s daily rag.

Crusades Were Terrorism

In the wee hours of today, I thought I had discovered a new simple truth. After more rumination, I recognize it as an old familar truth taken from a new angle. Salon’s weekly world press round-up features an article in the Arab News (from Saudi Arabia) with these impactful insights:

… some blamed those who spread religious intolerance in Saudi society. “Society will bear responsibility for this,” said Hussein Nasser, a 28-year-old bank employee. “We put the men of religion above fault, and made them unaccountable. We gave them special privilege — and this is the result.” …

Catholocism put the men of the cloth as seperate and greater than the common man. In so doing, they fueled an incestuous power grab of the Western world’s sociteal views leading to The Crusades. The parallels continue in the war of extremist Muslims to kill anyone who doesn’t follow their strict code.

Hopefully the religious power grab of the U.S.’s political seats won’t return us to a cycle of literaly (or even figuratively) killing opposing religious views.

Finding Martin's Dialog. WTF?

Help me figure this one out. I got this toy from a happy meal. It’s Nemo’s dad, Martin (from Finding Nemo ), and when he’s placed in water or his top fin is pressed he makes this noise . What the heck is that noise?

(Now that the DVD is out you can buy/rent it. I highly, highly, highly reccommend this baby. It’s possibly the best Pixar movie, ever.)

Mr. Mestopholes Memories

I picked the Funny category, but I think Furry would be a better one. I’m mostly posting this link for Becky so she can reminesce about very large rabbits.

SodaPlay The Sequel

If you are pressed for time, whatever you do, DO NOT go to this site where you can build simple machines right in your web browser (java required) out of “straws”, then you can adjust the muscle, elasticity and gravity to make it move. If you’ve been to that site and know how addictive it can be, DO NOT go to the sequel of the site where you can race your soda creations against other soda engineers.

GWB Needs Special Protection

In the continuation of hypocritical behavior in our highest politicians — did you see this article I posted earlier? — Senate Majority leader Bill Frist is shocked, shocked, I say!, that the Democrats would use a political misstep to attack a sitting president. How dare they attack the president for starting a war based on faulty intel — it’s not like he was lying about oral sex in the Oval Office.

Lowrey's Bacon Curls - Microwave Pork Rinds

I picked these babies up in the half-off bin at a local convenience store. (How convenient is that?) They come in a bag just like microwave popcorn and are operated just the same.

You are now asking yourself “How do they taste? Will I like them?” You have to come to that conclusion on your own, but consider how this phrase hits you “warm moist pork rinds” — and you’ll probably have a good idea.

Fabulous News

Every door that closes opens up a window. Perhaps not the window that is expected, but good ones nonetheless.

First, a huge thanks to, well, everyone.

I got a verbal offer today from a company I’d been interested in since my Navy days. Good stuff; I will be in Rhode Island working on periscope imaging initially, but there is a whole lot else to explore. I know several of the folks I’ll be working with, and had contact with the company in some Navy tech development working groups. It’s not just a Navy contractor, though; they do sound for movies, records, and video games; and provide other geek-type services for industry and government.

Had the offer I got today come eight days ago, I probably still would be seriously considering moving, but it would have been a much harder sell to get Missy to pick up and go. Sometimes life (God) can still speak in an extremely loud voice, which I think is what happened when I was laid off. It’s a tempting enough position that I was pursuing it quietly but aggressively before getting the boot at my old job. Again, sometimes it’s funny how life works out. And the old rambling about predestination runs to the surface again.

It’s going to be tough leaving Texas (though I’ve been hard-pressed to find much to endear Houston to me - mostly due to the Katy Freeway. Can the state cede Houston to Louisiana?), but we’re headed back to somewhat familiar stomping grounds. Missy’s office in Hartford is thrilled that it’ll be possible to get her in the office once a month or so, instead of the current less-than-annual basis (BTW- I can’t say enough nice things about my wife’s boss. She buys lots of beer for her staff, and insisted Missy work from home (as a well-paid hourly employee) after we had Jake instead of letting her quit. And she picks up the tab for my DSL connection). My kayak can’t wait to hit Narangansett Bay, and the fly rods are eager to bend to trout again in the spring. There’s also slightly more vacation with this job, and Southwest flies out of Providence. If Ma and Pa Jank end up near Austin, we’ll be spending much vacation time down this way.

I’ll probably spend the next week getting the house here in shape to sell, and head up to Newport (or thereabouts, Rhode Island can fit inside the Sam Houston tollway) next weekend. Fly back for Thanksgiving, etc, and drive the other car up when the house sells. That’s going to be the major driver determining when Melissa and Jake move. Ideally we can get this all sorted out before mid-January, and be moved in somewhere before Boy 2.0 arrives at the end of February. Crazy.

So again - thanks for all the support, kind words, lies to colleagues on my behalf, and forwarded resumes over the last week. If I’d known that this offer was more than vapor, I’d have held off on posting earlier in the week. Beers’ on me the next time I see everyone.

Interesting Bit

From the folks over at Lockergnome from this dude’s blog

I believe that any industry that is seeing a move of their intellectual assets to a digital medium will go through four basic stages: ignorance, panic, protection and litigation, quiet acceptance. This was the case with software in the 80s and 90s, is currently the case with music, and will soon be the case with movies. I suspect that other industries like the professional photography market are facing similar issues currently or have in the past.

Etrigan The Thief

I’m not sure who I should be mad at, but I stole today and I have to <semi-sarcasm>blame someone else</semi-sarcasm>.

NPR had an article some time in the last few days touting the iTunes revolution. It covered the ground that singles are outselling albums — the extreme opposite of what happens in record stores. I know the drive behind this situation personally. I’ve been “out” searching for the Chingy single Holidae In, hitting iTunes, eMusic and every half-assed service around with no luck. So, I stole it. I used my favorite p2p program to find a copy and I downloaded it. Chingy, his record label and iTunes are out money because somewhere in the chain some idiot thought he’d be better off not putting this song up for sale electronically. (There’s no listing for Chingy on any of the sites.)

Oh, well. Their loss.

Bush Sets Stage For One Party System

In my heart-or-hearts I believe that there should be NO political parties and each candidate should stand/fall on his/her own convictions and ability to communicate them. The realist in me knows how out of reach this dream is, so I’ve “thrown away” several presidential votes trying to support candidates not in “the big two” parties. (Not really thrown away, since all the votes for Ross Perot and Ralph Nader wouldn’t have changed the electoral votes for Texas no matter how they were distributed — damned electoral system.) Now, the Bushies want to take things a step further and squelch the Democratic lawmakers.

The Bush White House, irritated by pesky questions from congressional Democrats about how the administration is using taxpayer money, has developed an efficient solution: It will not entertain any more questions from opposition lawmakers.
The decision was announced in an e-mail sent Wednesday to the staff of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees. House committee Democrats had just asked for information about how much the White House spent making and installing the “Mission Accomplished” banner for President Bush’s May 1 speech aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.
The director of the White House Office of Administration, Timothy A. Campen, sent an e-mail titled “congressional questions” to majority and minority staff on the House and Senate Appropriations panels. Expressing “the need to add a bit of structure to the Q&A process,” he wrote: “Given the increase in the number and types of requests we are beginning to receive from the House and Senate, and in deference to the various committee chairmen and our desire to better coordinate these requests, I am asking that all requests for information and materials be coordinated through the committee chairmen [ who just happens to be in the GOP ] and be put in writing from the committee.”

Bush supports would declare the Dems had worn out their right to ask questions because they were abusing it. The truth is that without the special prosecutor around anymore, this is the only way to (try to) get straight answers from the White House. Of course, since this avenue isn’t under the court’s jurisdiction, the White House can permanently stall (or even lie in response to) any questions they receive. After starting a fight like this, they better pray they can hold their control on the current two GOP branches of government in the next election.

Three Posts About One Topic

I just got through reading Scott Kurtz’s (of PVPOnline fame) review of Revolutions. It got me thinking about a personal struggle I had recently about fans and artists.

A few weeks back, I came across an article about a musician friend of mine who went into relative hiding after he had a “popular undergound” album. Jeff Mangum poured a lot of himself into In the Aeroplane Over the Sea and all the kids really took to it. If you ever saw Jeff perform live, you’d be hooked too. Due to the emotional depth of it, a lot of the album’s fans were able to hang their own personal troubles on it’s lush off-key chords and Jeff’s “through a glass darkly” lyrics. I read Kevin Griffis’s article with melancholy for both Jeff and Kevin. I was even moved to write Kevin an email.

The real power of a good work of art is that the audience finds pieces in the creation that fit the deep craters of the soul in a way more complicated than genes and proteins matching up. The gist of my missive to Kevin was that a lot of the things he found in Jeff’s music were his own emotional attachments to the work and were not neccesarily Jeff’s intentions. Jeff did not write ItAOtS to help Kevin with an emotionally trying time (though I know Jeff is glad that it did.) For Kevin to expect Jeff to continue creating songs that filled his needs is a guaranteed future let-down. Kevin wrote back and explained that he had written several versions of this article — some of them dealing with the exact issues I was bringing up. (Kevin’s email offered great insights into the depth of his writing and I was appreciative to get that look at it.) I was glad that Kevin recognized the therapeutic benefits of seperating his emotions entangled in the art from his expectations of the artist.

Reading Scott’s review (and several others I’ve seen around online) I get the same feeling I did reading Kevin’s article. The first Matrix movie was so powerful a work because nearly everyone who saw it could attach their own struggles with reality, the daily grind, hidden oppression, whatever — so it had a deep impact on an individual level. People like Scott attached so much need to the first movie that they laid out vectors in their mind for what they needed from the following movies. Since the politics and belief systems evolved in a manner different then their expectations, they felt the W brothers had let them down. They took it personal that what they needed from The Matrix was not availble in the sequels.

In an effort to fend off (the fictional projection in my mind of) Scott Kurtz, here’s some of my responses to his issues with the film.

The rebellion’s goal is no longer to fight the war against the machines but to stop it at any cost. Where before the humans were screaming LIBERATION, they now are just begging to be left alone so they can live out their life peacefully beneath the earth’s crust.
This is one of the things I really liked in the sequel. It’s easy to make a good guy/bad guy film — just ask the governor of California. It’s not easy to make a nuanced story where programs (the brains/souls behind the machines) can be good or bad, and then to take a character like the Oracle and put her good/evil polarity in question is even harder. I think the Ws did this well. Even more, I like the sermon that peace is achievable, war is not an inevitability for oppressed and oppressors (whether or not it’s realistic.)

he (Neo) restores the Matrix to working order, and starts the cycle of oppression over again. Then he dies. … The machines and humans will eventually go to war again and according to the oracle at the end of the movie, Neo will be back again when needed.
First, Scott needs to read kmc’s ideas about King Arthur. I’ll send him an email that will get lost in the deluge he’s sure to face. Second, I think it’s clear that humans lost the war in the five(six?) previous incarnations and the big diff this time is the truce. Hope survived. The Animatrix showed that the robots wanted peace originally, what’s to stop them from accepting it now? Also, oppression is only oppressive if it’s unwanted. I think the people currently in the Matrix will be given the choice of staying or leaving…but I may be adding my own emotional attachments. ;p

I hate how focus was changed in the second and third movies from the people imprisoned by the Matrix to the programs exiled in the matrix. None of those programs were good. They were either bastards or were just around to serve a purpose.
This is another thing I liked in the evolution of the Matrix. The conversation with Rama-Kandra hit me deep in the Chomskian language thought processes, in that the signs we attach to emotions are as useless as the flavors the Matrix builders assign to Tastee Wheat. ( Read this book — it is mandatory reading material for wannabe thinkers like me who aren’t quite smart enough to consume Language and Mind or Language and Thought ) The feeling of “love” could be so different from people to robots (or even person A to person B) but the end results — the externalization of the “signed objects”/emotions — are the same: protecting the things we love. If robots/programs are capable of externalizing in a manner that their actions look like love, what’s the difference? Better robots externalizing the actions we associate with love, then the tragic expression of love that warped human minds sometimes deliver.

If I’m fighting a war against machines, and I have a weapon that’s 100% effective against the machines, I would have a couple lying around my home city.
It’s pretty clear from the story (and is reflected in reality) that using EMPs eliminates the usefulness of ANY active electronics in the vicinity. Shutting down large systems (radar, security controls, etc) so you can activate an EMP and then waiting for them to come back online would be dangerous in a battle, leaving you vulnerable just before and after your only active weapon was used. Also, since there’s only one EMP on each ship and none at Zion, it’s easy to extrapolate that EMPs are expensive (time/materials/skill) to manufacture.

I can’t make any excuses for Keanu Reeve’s acting abilities (and I think it’s aprapos that the Drafthouse showed the trailer for Point Break before the film — {shudder}) but I think the W brothers did an excellent job of fulfilling their own needs in this film and time will probably reveal this to be one of the better film trilogies approaching the level of Star Wars IV - VI. If Scott and other overly-attached geeks can seperate themselves from the flim and approach it without expectations, I think they’ll learn to like it.

The Upside To Tax Cuts

Rural Kentucky schools are giving sutdents Mondays off for all but the last four weeks of each semester. The article doesn’t mention reduced federal support as being one of the primary reasons that schools are having to search for extreme measures to save money. They even try to leave the door open that this could be a good thing.

The verdict is still out on whether students perform as well, and whether schools save enough money to justify the switch. But Webster County Assistant Superintendent Rachel Yarbrough said it appears to be a success here so far in its first year.

I hate to be a negative Nelly, but when Kansas, Arkansas and Louisiana all decide to try the same thing with their education system…well, it’s foreboding. No child left behind! Except maybe for their education.

Look familiar?

View image

Ah, it was only a week ago today…can anyone relate to this little fellow?

The U.S. Is Responsible For Canadian's Torture

You may have heard about this story where a Canadian on a layover in New York was kidnapped by U.S. officials and deported to Syria through Jordan. By allowing this man to be turned over to a country that openly violates human rights, we are equally responsible for this man’s sorrow. When the American officials realized he would not be able to provide any of the answers they wanted they acted as judge and jury, convicting him of terrorism and committing him to unreasonable and inhumane torture. We should apologize to this man, his wife and his two young children but I know that will never happen.

Proverbs 16: 18 Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.

Our treatment of foreigners since 9/11 is despicable. I am simultaneously thankful and ashamed that this man gets to tell his story. We have not stooped to the low point that China and Syria so often do. We do not commit heinous acts like the ones mentioned in this story on our own soil, but it is clear that we willingly release people into the hands of countries that have no such qualms. I pray that we are treating the men at Guantanmo Bay humanely. It may be treasonous to say this: If we aren’t, I hope those men get a chance to tell their stories, too.

McYPR

Here’s a McSweeny’s parody that starts off as boring as McSwys but gets really funny at the end. Be sure to read to the very end or you’ll miss gems like this:

A Really Long Title, to Be Referred to Henceforth Only by Its Initials By Dave Eggers

Stoke the I/P Fire

Israel has decided that the right to live in your own home is a priviledge for some Palestinans. After encircling the village of Jubara, the Iraeli military have decided that the people living there need a special new permit to live in their houses.

The notices told of an unprecedented new order: everyone must apply for a special permit to remain in Jubara — the village has about 300 residents. The notices did not specifically mention expulsion, but Palestinian officials and villagers said they understand this to be the implied threat.
…
“We do not intend to dislocate people from their homes. Yet we need to take into consideration that people who do not need to be near the fence are not near the fence,” said Maj. Sharon Feingold, an army spokeswoman.

This is so much poorly disguised b.s. and it’s being enforced with rifles paid for from my pocket.

Mmmmm.... Tomacco

Looks like somebody did it.

How long until this ends up in Bloody Mary mix? Easy way to sneak that morning-after nic fix without violating no-smoking ordinances.

WiFi Locators

Just wanted to throw up a useful list of sites that may help you locate hotspots if necessary. I’ve had luck with Node DB, but the rest I haven’t had a chance to apply in the field.

Node DB
EZ Goal
WiFi Hotspot List
WiFi 411
WiFinder

Not an endorsement of any of the above; just a list. In addition, almost all large bookstores and chain coffee shops have access points. IMO, they’re not that bad of a deal, about $6 for an hour or $10 for all day, but YMMV.

Revolutions - Spoilers. Sorry SPOILERS!

You’ve been warned

DEAR GOD DON’T READ BELOW IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE FLICK

OK, I think I’ll agree that it rocked (small letters).

Likes -

Visuals The action sequences were as cool as a comic book, which IMO is saying a lot. I was always shocked at how much could be implied between panels in the good old X-Men and Superman books back in the ’80s. Revolutions had much the same quality. The classic showdown between Smith/Neo was ripped straight from the pages.

Zion finally showed some scale; some idea of an immense colony. Likewise, I finally was able to care that those poor bastards living underground were going to be slaughtered. The whole Hammurrubi race to the door, and the EMP end to the first wave/ prelude to the second wave was a pretty good twist.

I also was impressed with the Neo/Trinity flight to the Machine city - great sense of scale, great use of the sun.

At the end, it seemed to me to be somewhat significant that the Architect/the Oracle were in a park. The Matrix never resorted to using something artificial, like insisting there was no outside - the characters were constantly inside/outside, but in that kind of monochrome urban park that isn’t found outside of New York/Chicago type cities. There was no sign until the end that the Matrix acknowledged anything other than humanity as being worthy of simulation.

Acting
Look, possibly my favorite twist was when Smith took over a human, and came into the real world. It was uncanny to see two folks play the same character in essentially the same way. Good stuff. But it was hard to believe that it took so darn long for Neo to realize it was Smith. I mean, the guy was trying to call him and calling him “Mr. Anderson”…

Plot Points
Smith as a virus, completely remaking the Matrix in his image. But this was contrasted with Smith as a program, not a human in the final fight. “Why Won’t You Die?” asks Smith over and over and over. “Because I choose not to” responds Neo - Choice, the one truly human trait.

Kelly brought up Foundation a while ago, and the whole idea of predestination playing a role with current events. I’ve spent more than a few useless cycles dwelling on this, so bear with me: Much like faith ultimately comes down to a choice without proof, so does the predestination argument. There is no way to know for sure that life occurs according to a set pattern. It may, but real knowledge that it does falls outside the realm of human knowledge.

The Oracle hinted at this - “You can only see as far as a choice you don’t understand.”

What keeps drawing me back is how this lack of comprehension of simple choice, of the idea that humans do not have to accept the logical conclusion of actions (Neo’s success in the Matrix came when he realized it was all an illusion he could bend to his will) could so completely and totally destroy Smith, but did not destroy the Oracle or the rest of the NPC’s (or programs). Was the Matrix really sentient? The couple waiting for the Trainman in the station had as complete a grasp of their reality as most humans, but I’m continually drawn back to his “It’s just a word” references to Karma and Love.

Dislikes -

Look, call me old-fashioned but I’m kind of disappointed that after almost 8 hours of this crap that there are huge loose ends. What the hell happened to Neo? What was the Oracle’s thing about with the “Are you going to let out those who want out?” I don’t think it would have hurt much to let us know if Neo was dead or alive.

And what the hell was that with Trinity at the end. She spent about a half hour too long dying after the Logos had crashed. And it was painful to watch Keanu Reeves try to cry, not even given the fact his eyes were burned out and he had on that groovy headband.

Final thoughts -

It ain’t over. Too many loose ends, and too much an uneasy truce. Plus, the sun ain’t shining on the Humans yet.

Clark.

He’s got my vote.

iTunes Is Fully Supported by the BPB

Another update has been made to the Backporch that is not readily noticable. I have added some “hidden” code that allows iTunes users to easily pull songs/albums/artists that we link here on the site. The trick is to use the iTunes Linkmaker to find what you’re looking for, then click on the to get the iTMS html code. Here’s a few examples:

• Song: Texas on a Saturday Night - Mel Tillis and Wille Nelson
  
  - one of my favorite parts of Saturday night games at the Dell Diamond is this song
• Album: Sha Sha by Ben Kweller -
  
  - a great premiere album from a guy who did a Nirvana rip-off band in Dallas when he was, like, 14 — he totally redeems himself on this
• Artist: The Carl Stalling Project -
  
  - Carl Stalling is the genius behind the music of Bugs Bunny

Well, except for all those other people.

Initially I thought, “why meddle in a pointless holy war?” but then I remembered that’s what we’re all about here.

This from a story on the ban on “partial-birth abortions”. Issues of the story itself aside, this just seemed jaw-droppingly hypocritical, particularly considering the speaker:

“This right to life cannot be granted or denied by government, because it does not come from government — it comes from the creator of life,” the president said, receiving another lengthy standing ovation.

I could go on, but … oh, OK …

It seems unusual to me that a man with such a strong moral compass, when confronted with the question of whether or not to try to stop the killing of unborn babies, would respond:

But Bush is also mindful of the more moderate voters he cannot afford to alienate, and last week repeated a position he offered during his 2000 campaign. He said he would not seek a total ban on abortion because public opinion had not yet shifted to support such a move.

Scare ads for the masses

I think many of us have come up with ideas for how to explain to the propaganda-addled masses why our respective least-favorite heads of state are evil lying bastards.

If your least favorite happens to be George Bush, now you can put those ideas into action.

All eligible submissions will be posted on this web site and rated by visitors. The top rated ads will then be voted on by our panel of esteemed judges, including Michael Moore, Donna Brazile, Jack Black, Janeane Garofalo, and Gus Van Sant. The winning ad idea will be broadcast on television during the week of Bush’s 2004 State of the Union address, and the winner will receive a recording of the ad as broadcast.

Need A Smoke, But Don't Want To Leave Your PC?

Here’s a lengthy article discussing the history and current development of cigarette lighters. Be sure to scroll a little bit past half-way to see the PC lighter peripheral.

Bleg

My old Inspiron 3700 has been acting kind of funny for the last couple of months. I don’t use it for much besides trying different Linux distros, but I’m kind of flummoxed at what’s happening.

It’s got all the symptoms of having an overload relay trip off somewhere in the power chain- It’ll operate for a while, then kind of sigh and go completely dead. The light on the power supply goes out when it happens, and won’t come on until I unplug the PS and plug it in again.

Following an initial boot, it will last for approx. 5 min to an hour, but once it’s dropped off, I’m lucky to get 3-4 minutes before the power goes dead. I’ve googled it, but ATT haven’t found anything more interesting than “Send it back to Dell”. Which I’m disinclined to do - motherboard problems run about $200/pop plus shipping, and the machine is worth maybe $250. And Missy’s office just sent her a new computer and said not to bother sending the old one back.

Any suggestions? I’m on the verge of taking it apart and troubleshooting myself.

Matrix Revolutions

7:18 am - Got here at 6:55 am and the line had already formed. Becky, Rod, and I were numbers 10, 11 and 12. Dina made it at 7:10 and cut in line with us in front of nearly a dozen others. I got a page from Marcos who is over at Lakecreek saying “i bet theres not a guy dressed like neo, standing behind you? i hate geeks.” I got him beat, though. There’s a guy here wearing billowing flower-print pants that are split up the sides to his thigh. I may not be able to eat breakfast. I hope Jank thought ahead to take his new vacation priviledges to make it to a theater today.

More Space Freakiness

From Space.com - more of the obvious. “Sun on Fire”

(Thanks to WSJ’s Best of the Web for the link)

There’s no reason that there shouldn’t be solar storms occurring now; but there does seem to have been an uptick in freaky interplanetary behavior.

Unemployment, Day Two

I’m kind of digging this little laid-back first week. Took the kid to school in the bike trailer yesterday; today I biked down to the library to do a little bit of net searching on HCPL’s WiFi. The daytime crowd is pretty calm; not much besides a med intern working on a paper, and a mom home-schooling her kiddo.

Then school lets out, and about a dozen kids from the middle school (Junior High?) across the street literally ran into the library, and started playing an online RPG at the free computer terminals. It’s a pretty cool dynamic; but somewhere along the line no-one explained the whole idea of quiet in libraries.

The Punisher Keeps On Punishing

Why, oh why did they spend the money to redo The Punisher and not try to make it better than the first bomb? “John Travolta as the bad guy” should be your first clue how good this film’s going to be. I’m pretty sure he’s carrying some kind of curse since he forced Battlefield Earth on the world. Check out my digusted preview on the new The Punisher and be sure to click through to the trailer for a good laugh.

This Very Ugly Woman Has a Lot of Nerve

Linda Trip settled a lawsuit with the Defense Department for $595k because they leaked some of her private information to the press. This bitter petty woman broke the law secretly recording phone conversations with Monica Lewinsky for which she was sentenced to…nothing and was fined…zip. Her fanatical hatred of a WJC (which is surely rooted in the fact that he wouldn’t you-know-what her with Cheney, Dick) put her ugly pre-surgery mug in the limelight and she’s doing her damndest to stretch her fifteen minutes.

As part of the settlement, Tripp gets a one-time payment of $595,000, a retroactive promotion and retroactive pay at a higher salary level for 1998, 1999 and 2000.
…
Stephen Kohn, one of Tripp’s lawyers, declined to say whether Tripp is currently working, but said that under the settlement, she can reapply to any government branch.

Oh My God. Our tax dollars are being handed over to this filthy creature so that she can afford more plastic surgery. I hope all the right-wingers who kept her in kibbles and bits are proud of their progeny.

Just Give Me the Darn treat

This article speaks to what sad state of affairs this whole world is coming to.

I remember those days of trick or treating when I was elated to get 1 piece of candy from each house and not think anything else about it. (I must admit I was “that kid” who would moan about the folks handing out raisins, but only after walking away from the house).

This being the first year of my adult life to live in an honest to goodness house in a neighorbood (as opposed to apartment), Carrie and I were quite excited to sit at home last Friday evening and hand out candy. It was an enjoyable experience for the most part, but I was taken aback at how many kids would ask for more even though I had just given them 3-4 pieces of candy.

But at least I didn’t get my house egged or attacked by any deranged parents.

Chasing Bugs

Am I the only IE user on this thing? I’ve been bothered by invisible text ever since we built this extension onto the porch. I googled several times on the problem over the last few months to no avail until today. This website discusses a bug in IE that causes the problem, so I screwed up our CSS by adding a ‘line-height’ setting in several places (including some that probably don’t need it) and I don’t have the problem anymore.

Which leads to a bigger issue: If you see any quirks with BPB that are troublesome, let me know (and keep hassling me about it). Between this and the CGI Timeouts I think I’ve addressed any outstanding issues, but I need your help to keep me straight.

Daily Attack The POTUS Post

Here’s a couple whammies on the whitehouse today.

The LA Times is reporting that the Bush administration denied a request from Gray Davis to clear dead trees from fire-prone So Cal after 6 months of sitting on the request — and only hours before the most recent fires went hog wild. I don’t have the best memory, but isn’t Bush the one who’s been touting clear-cutting as a means of fire prevention?

FEMA spokesman Chad Kolton said the agency denied Davis’ request for an emergency declaration because California was already receiving more than $40 million from the departments of Agriculture and Interior to deal with a bark beetle infestation that has damaged thousands of acres of forest in the San Bernardino Mountains.

Yes, the “we’ve already given them enough money, why should we give them anymore” defense will stand here…

In other environmental related news, the Washington Post has an article saying that the Bushies are going to allow hunters and circuses in this country greater access to species that are endangered in other countries. I don’t neccesarily oppose this one, but the idea that it

would feed the gigantic U.S. demand for live animals, skins, parts and trophies, and generate profits that would allow poor nations to pay for conservation of the remaining animals and their habitat

smells funny to me and doesn’t seem like a good reason to do it. It’s not like animal fur is really a basic need despite that Jaime Gleicher says “People pay money for clothes, but shouldn’t it be, like, a free necessity, like water, because you need it?”

Some Movie Thoughts

If you’ve been to a movie lately, you’ve seen the anti-piracy ads. I’m not sure why they put these ads up at the movies since anyone at the theater is already a paying customer. Next they’ll be putting commercials on TV that decry fast-forwarding through commercials. After the anti-piracy ad, though, I did have to do some soul-searching about an upcoming film or two.

The ad I saw shows a stunt-man talking about all the work that goes into doing stunts for a film, and he wants to give you a guilt trip about boot-legging a movie because it cuts into his paycheck. I think Ben Affleck’s salary cuts into his paycheck more than boot-legging which leads to my soul crisis. I want to see Ben’s new movie but I don’t want to contribute in any way to his paycheck or the success of a movie that carries his name. I think Paycheck will be a good movie DESPITE Ben’s presence.

I want to start a boycott where people buy tickets for The Alamo (because it’s all filmed locally) or Honey (which will surely be awful, but it’s not entirely Jessica Alba’s fault that she can’t get a decent script) and then sneak into Paycheck. I want to support John Woo and Uma Thurman. I want a movie based on a Philip K. Dick story to do well. I just don’t want Ben Afleck to get any more of my money. His satisfaction rating is inversely proportional to his career timeline.

What should I do?

Bring back the draft?

I sincerely doubt it, but that’s what one Salon writer thinks might happen. Reading with even a slightly critical eye, you can figure out where the author stands on the Iraq situation… I hope he’s not just stirring the pot to try and scare 18 year olds into protesting/moving to Canada. I wonder why he didn’t use a Clinton reference when discussing draft loopholes… :-)

ONCE back in the saddle

Good news for all you cycling fans. As Jank stated here the highly touted Once squad, who’s title and supporting sponsors are set to withdraw this year. But have no fear Liberty Segueros, a division of Liberty Mutual is picking up the slack and keeping the main riders in tact for the next five years.

Let the hoopla of next years’ Tour continue to blossom.

Jank Wins the Lottery!

The severance package lottery, that is. As of Friday, I’m a statistic.

Truth be told, I’m not as devastated as being one of the last victims of the recession as I probably should be. Two months of paid vacation, and a job market finally on the up-swing is a good thing. I’d mostly maxed out my potential with my former employer, and had accomplished my goals for the position. It’s nice to finally be able to be completely open about being in the job market.

So if y’all know anyone looking for a BS Engineering/MBA type, feel free to drop me a line.

The whole weekend has been somewhat surreal. I wasn’t exactly surprised when my boss called me in to give me the boot; it had been clear the company hadn’t been bringing in the work necessary to support it. Truthfully, I was kind of relieved, since an uncertainty became a certainty. And I think it’ll improve my marketability, since I’ll no longer go into an interview saying “Well, the biggest reason I’m in the market is because my current job bores me.”

The company’s severance was pretty generous; like I said - two months vacation, and Missy and I have done OK saving for just such an occurrence. Money’s not an immediate issue.

The whole thing is pretty interesting emotionally. I keep swinging from a feeling of almost elation - freedom to actually hunt down a better job; time to catch up with the family and nagging projects around the house; time to continue getting in shape; plus it’s prime-time for catching specs and reds in the bays.

Then there are the times completely filled with despair - Holy crap, I’ve had friends out of work for months and months; there’s the kid on the way; am I letting down (my wife, my folks, my friends); why was I the one cut - Sometimes it’s tough.

But most of the time, it’s a question of continually running through possibilities - Do I immediately turn around and fire off resumes to the clients I had and stay in the industry I’d been trying to leave? Or do I spend more time targeting interests (I’m leaning towards the latter, at least for the first few weeks… At the worst, it’d be a nice break). And do I continue to look in Houston, or can I take advantage of a chance to move somewhere more attractive?

Regardless, it’s change, and I’ve been ready for it since returning from OIF. Be careful what you ask for…