Living in fear is no good to anyone.

Cheney's Levers:
http://www.overcompensating.com/posts/20070410.html

There are some quite good songs in this week's Contrast Podcast.
One instance is Cinema du Lyon's "Thank you Mr. Spell," which has a bunch of good samples in it. I picked out some from "Phonebooth", "Blade Runner" and "Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory," though there are others I didn't know the provenance of.

Peep Dioramas (The Lloyd Dobler bunny is awesome)

Congress votes to place a limit on the time that we occupy the quagmire known as IraqNam. The Senate votes to place a limit on the time that we occupy the quagmire known as IraqNam. Both bills provide $100 BILLION in new money to feed, house, arm, train, replace, treat, armor, protect, and destroy the troops throughout 2007.

In response, the President threatened to veto the bill. According to the today's White House Website, he said, "Congress's failure to fund our troops on the front lines will mean that some of our military families could wait longer for their loved ones to return from the front lines. And others could see their loved ones headed back to the war sooner than they need to."

So, according to Bush, by passing legislation that funds the troops, we are actually causing the occupation to last longer BECAUSE WE PUT A LIMIT ON THE length OF THEIR OCCUPATION OF A FOREIGN COUNTRY?

Wrap your head around that one for a bit. Only within the delusional world inside the Bloatway would anyone even consider making such an illogical, nonsensical argument.

I don't like Kezelis' use of silly words, but that doesn't make him wrong. (All emphasis in the quote above is the author's.)


I won't pay for television service specifically because of crap like this:
When tacky trumps substance

Comics:
Something a little... different.
Anniversary Gift
Sometimes himynameisjamie is fuckedupawesome: http://filthhole.com/?p=50 (NSFP)

Movie night was very crowded. The fried chicken came out good and was all eaten quickly. There were a bunch of friends of Omni's that few others knew. Most of them didn't really seem to fit in or enjoy our crowd. Things didn't quiet down until about 0330 when most everyone went home.

Saturday, lalabob11 and I drove out on US-60 East and up into the Manzano Mountains. I had planned a route, but part of forest road 422 was still closed for the winter, so we ended up having to backtrack to the highway. I took some photos of a deep wash while we were exploring. The photos will be uploaded to Flickr eventually. We then went up NM-55 and NM-337 to Tijeras. From there we had planned on going up to Sandia crest and watching the sun set, but instead decided to go to Hobby Lobby and buy crafty things. I got a couple of sun-catchers to put together and bake and lalabob11 got some point protectors for double point knitting needles. Then we went to visit her sister and see the new baby (I hadn't seen him in person yet). After that we had dinner at Shogun Sushi which was relatively cheap and reasonably good. The scallop sushi wasn't the freshest I've had, but it had especially tasty seasoning, so it was the overall best scallop sushi I've had. On the way back to Socorro we stopped at Walmart to see if they had the pocket knife lalabob11's been wanting. They couldn't be bothered to have someone come to the back and open the cabinet to see if they had the knife, so we couldn't get one (jerks). I ended up getting a set of two cast iron pans that I've been thinking about that were ~$5 cheaper than at the Socorro Walmart. The pans are both about 10 inches in diameter, but one is deep (3 quarts) and the other is shallow. The cool thing is that they can be used as lids for each other.

Sunday I was around the house all day, doing random stuff. I did some dishes, made turkey mole, baked a rich chocolate cake, set up and used the Roomba Sage that I ordered that arrived the other day (it vacuums pretty well and is relatively quiet, but it's not good at edges) and I made the sun-catchers. One is a planet with rings and the other is two frogs sitting on a lily pad. It's hard to find these sorts of sun-catchers in stores, but the company that makes them has a website, so I think I can order more directly if I want.

If you cross the U.S.-Canada border with a computer, you may be uselessly accosted.

Many Mennonites are leaving Missouri due to new ID requirements.

Only on Tuesdays

Smith v. Smith (scroll down a bit) is an interesting case regarding child custody and the gender identity of the child

In 1950, Senator Margaret Chase Smith spoke out against McCarthyism with this speech. There's good material to learn from there.

...the president can displace from office a man whose merits require that he should be continued in it. What will be the motives which the president can feel for such abuse of his power, and the restraints that operate to prevent it? In the first place, he will be impeachable by this house, before the senate, for such an act of mal-administration; for I contend that the wanton removal of meritorious officers would subject him to impeachment and removal from his own high trust.
--James Madison

I've long said that I won't keep anything secret that I am morally opposed to keeping secret (e.g. a National Security Letter, most classified information, etc.). I'd rather be honest and in prison for a white-collar crime than a liar. Here's a story of someone who's been forced to lie extensively and hates it:
My National Security Letter Gag Order

Diebold is suing Massachusetts because they didn't win a contract to install voting machines. MA says the selection process was open and well documented and that the Diebold voting machines weren't selected because they weren't considered the best.

Are Americans going in the Same Direction?

Does anyone know what anime/hentai this is from (NSFP). I saw the icon somewhere and was wondering what it was from since hentai that is silly can be quite fun to watch.

Phil Hoskins rails on about partisan politics:

Partisans infect our life with a no holds barred assault on ethics, decency and goodwill. We would be such a better nation, a better served public, and a less a danger to the world if parties could just be banned. Let each candidate for political office generate their own campaign, free of “slates” and parties; let them run on their own merits, not tied to a party and its own purposes.

Of course we as citizens would have to engage more fully in the process of electing and monitoring our government. We would have to be “enlightened” just as our founders hoped we would be. It would take work on our part, but just imagine what our public life would be like if no parties existed.

Why the "Main Stream Media" is failing. Many of the comments to the article are also interesting.

This timeline is an attempt to recall some of the worst moments in journalism, from the fall of 2002 and into the early weeks of the Iraq War. It is not an exhaustive catalog, but a useful reference point for understanding the media's performance. The timeline also points to missed opportunities, when courageous journalists—working inside the mainstream and the alternative media—uncovered stories that should have made the front pages of daily newspapers, or provided fodder for TV talk shows. By reading mainstream media critically and tuning into the alternative press, citizens can see that the notion that "everyone" was wrong about Iraq was—and is—just another deception.

There is a movie night tomorrow. I'll be making a very simple mac and cheese, maybe some fried hamburgers to optionally mix in to the mac and cheese, and also some green vegetables of some manner. I have some ideas for the movie, but nothing is definite yet, so feel free to bring things to be played.

Women and the Bush Administration

This is really long, but an interesting discussion:
Event Transcript "Same-Sex Marriage in California: Legal and Political Prospects"

This might be a new restaurant run by John of the former Hong Kong Restaurant in Socorro. schlake is probably going to eat there tonight and let us know if it's him and how the food is.

I went to a kirtan with royal_spice on Saturday. I was feeling ok before the chanting started. Then things got started and I felt really uncomfortable and alien. I couldn't bring myself to sing with everyone. I was thinking really hard about it. I realized I had to stop trying and it might come to me. About half-way through the second chant (there were four chants totaling roughly 2 hours), the uncomfortableness went away. I wasn't able get myself to sing along, but it wasn't a bad experience; once I got into it, the feeling was akin to dancing at a club or electronica concert but without moving and instead, sitting uncomfortably.

"[Attorney General] Alberto's [Gonzales] history reads like a paint by numbers, how-to instruction manual on how to destroy your local democracy."

A Silly Thing

A non-Silly Thing

There is movie night tomorrow. We won't be watching Dr. Tran (yet), but I will be making a big turkey and dressing.

Every time I go to Walmart, I glance at the empty shelf the Nintendo Wiis go on. On Tuesday evening, the shelf wasn't empty. There were two. I wanted to buy them both and sell the second to one of my friends at cost or eBay it if there wasn't interest among my friends. While waiting for 40+ minutes for someone to come over to unlock the case (I prodded many employees and there was an announcement over the PA), a couple came over and also wanted one. I didn't feel like being a dick/fighting about it, so I only bought one Wii.
For those of you with Wiis connected to the internet, my code is: 3369 4653 4227 1295

Hopefully the UCSF study will add to the pressure on the US government to rethink its irrational ban on the medicinal use of marijuana -- and its destructive attacks on patients and caregivers in states that have chosen to allow such use. Rather than admit they have been mistaken all these years, federal officials can cite "important new data" and start revamping outdated and destructive policies.

President Bush has not yet subordinated our judiciary to the military, but the more we learn about U.S. attorneys fired for failing to succumb to Justice Department and congressional political pressure, the more the Bush administration looks like the tawdry, third world, small-time dictatorship its opponents accuse it of being.

More anecdotal evidence for the ~30% crazification factor:
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/cm/content/view/179/159/

Why Private Police Forces are bad for most of us.

The other day, niap_si_efil lost his phone. He then found it. The condition he found it in sucks, but I was entertained.

I thought I had a good understanding of knitting looms. It appears they can be far more complex.

This is an interesting list. I'm surprised at how few names I recognized.
The 50 Most Important People on the Web

Ours has become a country operated by whichever group of thirty-percenters can bring the heaviest plate of blind, willful ignorance to the table, while shouting and chanting louder than anyone else.

The quote is from the comments, but the article has value. Things won't get better until they get worse because the honorable politicians are very few and far between.


What Does Marsellus Wallace Look Like? (NSFW video of animated text with voice-over.)

I wanted to post this yesterday, but the internet at work broke.

This month of Indian Cooking class is canceled. :( Maybe next month's class will make, assuming we have enough people.

I randomly found the icon I am using. It's silly.

This is cute little flash game: Sprout

DNA wrapping and copying video.

Giant Cadbury Creme Egg

( Everything Meme )

( You are a criminal. :P )

lalabob11, two_pi_r and I won't be in Socorro on Friday night, so there won't be a movie night.

This is weird. On September 11th, 2001, the BBC reported live that the WTC7 had collapsed ~20 minutes before it actually did. The not-yet collapsed building was on screen during the live broadcast. WTC7 is the brown one, right behind her head. If you watch the video, you can see it, or you can scroll down in the article to see stills of it.

How could our government not be interested in an unknown, highly technological object hovering over a major airport, as reported by competent airline personnel? What about passenger safety? Or national security? Or just plain scientific curiosity?

This copyright navigator is really cool.
http://navigator.carolon.net/

For MySpace users:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v209/ichagirl/myspaceass.jpg

...a society that believes in nothing is particularly frightened by people who believe in anything.
--Bill Durodie, Director International Centre for Security Analysis, Kings College
I just finished watching The Power of Nightmares, a BBC documentary about the Islamist and Neoconservative movements in the middle-east and the west, respectively. It makes clear many of the factors that have lead up to the debacle that is current US foreign policy.

Bruce Schneier explains the culture of Cover Your Ass Security.

You've probably heard about this murder:
"In 2004, Milwaukee teenagers Nathan Moore, Luis Oyola, and Andrew Ihrcke went out for a night of debauchery and ended up killing homeless man Rex Baum. Not only did they kill him, they brutally beat him with rocks, bricks, a barbeque grill and a baseball bat before smearing feces on his face, stabbing him and leaving him for dead. If that wasn’t bad enough, they were later found bragging about it."
You may not have heard what one of the boys' parents had to say:
The stepmother of one of the boys sent an email to Gabe of Penny Arcade in response to Gabe's rant "Here We Go Again" blaming the boys' parents for their actions. The letter is included in Gabe's post "A Rare Opportunity"

Some of why Windows Vista is bad for everyone other than Microsoft.

This is a neat clock. I may buy one.

How to build the Redneck Rollercoaser
There are some other videos of the car running if you click around.

This is just silly:
( St. Fu )

There is a movie night tomorrow. For those that had heard about my friend Amber from WA, she had some stuff come up with work and won't be here this weekend. I'm cooking ham steaks, brussels sprouts and corn. The movie might be a documentary about modern history and religious extremism, but it could also be something else someone brings.

"The News Media and Secrecy" by Phil Hoskins:

If we are to have any freedom at all we must always have the right to know about, debate and make decisions about any government program that impacts our personal lives in any way. It is our right as a citizen and there is never a justification for abrogating this right, at least absent "exigent circumstances."

And there is that phrase again, the one that this administration contends has already come into existence because some idiots flew planes into buildings and killed Americans. If this is all it takes to be "exigent" we are in deep trouble. A common definition might be "Generally, an emergency, a pressing necessity, or a set of circumstances requiring immediate attention or swift action." If this is a never ending war, the Administration's reasoning is merely a cover up for a power grab of unprecedented dimension.

The last line in that quote there really sums it up: the "war" on terror is never ending and the reasoning provided is just a cover up of the completely unreasonable, anti-democratic power grab of our now near-despotic executive branch.


Can Richardson build national appeal?

A 48 minute video put together by BBC4 about journalists in Iraq:
Iraq:The hidden story

Beatboxing Flute:
"Inspector Gadget Theme/Axel F" Video

A Chewbacca blog:
http://rrrrrrrrrrrrrnnnnnnnnnnhhhh.blogspot.com/

I submitted something to Contrast Podcast again:
Contrast Podcast 047 Alternate Versions

I don't know who miss_tenacity is, but I'll generally friend people I don't know that compliment me* and don't have offensive or boring LJs.

*She may have only been complimenting Elyse and not me**. Also, complimenting me is not a prerequisite for me to friend someone.

**I'm an idiot. The date of her post makes it clear that she was only talking about Elyse since she only just friended me today.

This is the most depressing thing I've thought about for a while. Realism is hard, but we need to stop living in fantasy land:
The truth about terror and terra

In a historical context, we [the United States] are the Huns, we are the ancient invaders of Egypt, we are the Nazis attacking France, we are the Napoleons and the Alexanders. We are the invaders and makers of war. And worse yet, when future historians look closely at these terrible times, they will conclude that it was our global policies that were the proximate cause of the 9/11 attacks, which in turn were used to justify our invasion of a country innocent of any connection with 9/11.

Humanity has always been at war. 9/11 changed nothing but how the constant war is sold to the populace. US foreign policy has caused many (maybe most) of our domestic problems, but those that lead our nation thrive on the foreign policy that harms everyone but them.

Those people who might actually have good ideas, a talent for leadership and otherwise would provide what we need to rescue our nation from a painful suicide are unlikely to seek office at any level, and least of all for the highest office. Fist, no sane person would be willing to go through the public bone picking over their most private matters. Second, no person with a shred of dignity and moral courage would go about the process of begging for the money required to run for office. It is demeaning and opens up opportunities for corruption that are anathema to our system.

This is probably one of the biggest problems with politics today. It's not just recent though: during the course of my Philosophy classes in college, I recall at least Plato and Chuang Tzu saying pretty much this same thing (I sadly don't remember exactly where they said these things). Those most able to lead effectively can not or will not because the process of becoming a leader in all political systems prohibits nearly all effective, fair and just leader-types from participating or wishing to participate.


On a lighter note, flow charts:
( Science and Faith )
( WWRFD )


If you like being angry at anti-contraception assholes, read these related links:
http://flemco.livejournal.com/1627427.html
http://community.livejournal.com/flemcomics/173542.html
http://theprojectplus.com/index.html

There is a Movie Night tonight. royal_spice is making eggplant parmigiana, I am making some yet to be determined manner of salad, Dorene is making rice and beans, and niap_si_efil will bring some pizza. I don't know what film we will watch.

Rob Kezelis summarizes many of the reasons I won't be voting for Hillary for President:

There are only 100 of you. You promised to uphold the constitution and protect it from enemies from without and within. At the very time that many smart, experienced and honest voices questioned Bush’s intel, you played it safe and hid in the crowd. Not exactly leadership qualities, eh?

When rape is a matter of timing
By Betsy Hart
The current laws don't work. I don't agree with Ms. Hart, but I also don't agree with the "feminists" she mentions. There are many lines, and many of them are blurry and in different places in different situations and at different times. Something more adaptable is needed.

"Web 2.0". two_pi_r applies the term only as a derogatory for webpages that are bathed in annoying javascript. To me, annoying javascript is annoying javascript; "Web 2.0" is about convergence of technologies and data sources and often does not include any javascript or necessarily even webpages. Here's what Tim O'Reilly has to say about it: What is Web 2.0? (I know the article isn't very recent, but it's been on my mind lately.)

It's rather like a puddle waking up one morning. I know they don't normally do this, but allow me, I'm a science fiction writer. A puddle wakes up one morning and thinks: "This is a very interesting world I find myself in. It fits me very neatly. In fact it fits me so neatly... I mean really precise isn't it?... It must have been made to have me in it." And the sun rises, and it's continuing to narrate this story about how this hole must have been made to have him in it. And as the sun rises, and gradually the puddle is shrinking and shrinking and shrinking and by the time the puddle ceases to exist, it's still thinking - it's still trapped in this idea that - that the hole was there for it. And if we think that the world is here for us we will continue to destroy it in the way that we have been destroying it, because we think that we can do no harm.
--Douglas Adams

I found it online. I don't know what essay or talk it's from.

The "War on Drugs" has been going on for several decades now without any discernible benefit to either our country as a whole or the American people. It has produced this minimal benefit while exacting a very high price, both in terms of dollars spent and the toll on the lives of people caught up in its net.

For the Nippophiles in the room (NSFW):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAYQZkAH9nY

This is sort of wrong:
( Kirby Valentine )

The various car manufacturers have test tracks where they run their cars. Here are aerial photos of many of them:
Test Tracks (I haven't found a way around the site registration, so I registered (free) to see the article.)

At that time that this essay was originally written, this was the only religious movement in North America of which we were aware which advocates genocide for followers of minority religions and non-conforming members of their own religion.

The Christian Right and the Rise of American Fascism:

"Secular Humanists," the popular Christian Right theologian Francis Schaeffer wrote in one of numerous diatribes, "are the greatest threat to Christianity the world has ever known."

The ideology of the Christian Right is not one of love and compassion, the central theme of Christ's message, but of violence and hatred. It has a strong appeal to many in our society, but it is also aided by our complacency. Let us not stand at the open city gates waiting passively and meekly for the barbarians. They are coming.

I'd like to be able to do something, but I don't know what I can.
Here's another article on the topic.

Do they see what the Bush administration has brought to our government? Are we supposed to accept torture and prisoner abuse as simply a new way to fight war? Do we accept the corruption found in our Social Conservative legislators simply because they were elected? This exposure of corruption is too vast to accept as the norm. By 2008 will the voters look at the GOP and think "corruption" and throw the rest of them out of office? They should! Damnit they should! Can we even try to locate anyone from the old Republican Party and ask them to return and help us eliminate this new corrupt mess? I think it would be a waste of time.

This was supposed to be a limited engagement in two countries, Iraq and Afghanistan, to be fought by regular career troops. The fact that it is now being undertaken by a disproportionate number of part-timers is, as Huckabee noted, testimony to the bad planning that went into this exercise.

I don't know much about any of the Republican candidates, but the small amount of info I have makes me like former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee the best from the Republican list.


I don't agree with this argument for paying for a national health plan with increased fuel taxes, but there is some interesting stuff there and in the comments:
A call for universal health care

Japanese honey bees killing a hornet in a really neat way.

Sometimes Reg Henry is really on:

A bunch of kooks in white jackets recently released another report that said our flat Earth is the subject of "global warming," which, of course, is nonsense because our Earth is not a globe. It may be a little warmer overall on our flat planet but climate change goes in cycles because the weather was invented by the Almighty to give people something to talk about.

After [Secretary of State Rice] complained several times that the department was facing a problem finding translators an exasperated Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY) asked why the department had not hired any of the translators fired by the Pentagon because they are gay and lesbian.

Maine rejected RealID:
http://www.northcountrygazette.org/articles/2007/012807RealID.html
Montana and New Mexico will likely be passing similar bills soon.

Too much secrecy helps terrorists according to the director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. Lots of other experts have been saying this for a while, but I haven't heard of anyone else as high profile saying it.

Actual security decisions FTW!!!

The most important lesson about the Iraq War for reporters was perhaps the simplest one: Don't assume the White House is telling the truth. It's a lesson that many reporters seem to be forgetting now that U.S. officials are escalating their claims about Iran's role in Iraq.

Germany, Italy and Canada are our allies, nations with a profound respect for the rule of law. Whatever the benefits of such circuslike kidnappings — the one in Italy was said to feature an impressive length of stays in luxury hotels — they are not worth the damage they do to our relations with our friends and to our reputation.

An ultra-conservative Washington think tank with direct ties to the Bush Administration is offering a $10,000 bribe to any scientist or economist who will dispute a global warming report released today by the United Nation's top scientific panel.

"I think you have to assume a 27% Crazification Factor in any population."

How increasing ethanol production from corn could cause lots of environmental and economic problems.

Romania "built our country on pirated Windows"

I've known the song for a long time, but I never saw the very weird video until today:
Aphex Twin - Windowlicker

( Mooninite Images )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignignokt#Ignignokt

Bush’s plan to destroy America

Debunking the myths of health care

I'm off to visit some of my PAX Enforcer friends. I plan to make various posts during my travel. If I haven't posted again by Friday afternoon, something has gone wrong (the internet is fuxxored, I have been physically incapacitated in some way, I am being held by the government without charge, etc.).

Even though I will be gone, two_pi_r and lalabob11 are hosing a movie night tomorrow. I don't know what the food or movie will be.

These comparisons seem obvious to me, but they aren't in the press as often as they should be:

Another Vietnam? Defenders of President Bush's Iraq war policy have long shrugged off such comparisons. But as the war heads toward the four-year mark and a newly empowered Democratic Congress takes aim at presidential spending for more troops, the comparisons are becoming more frequent.

Generals are saying the Iraq War is making us less secure. Whee:

Nearly four years in Iraq have hammered US army and marines into a skilled counter-insurgency force but has left it unready for war against a conventionally armed foe, US generals warn.

Is Bill Richardson the new Al Gore?
Richardson's my favorite prospective candidate right now, but there's lots of time for things to change.

A veteran Congress watcher observed recently that the salaries attracted two kinds of individuals to the job, the already quite rich and the crazies with causes. That may be a bit extreme, but there certainly is evidence that many desirable candidates forgo the experience because of both the high cost of campaigning and the relatively low pay, particularly those who are earning far more outside of public office. The hardship is probably more prevalent in the House where two-year terms mean almost perpetual campaigning.

This Daily Show clip isn't exactly new, but I hadn't seen it before:
Bush v. Bush

Many security specialists (including me, if that's not yet clear) are skeptical of the value of ID-based security generally, and believe that the TSA has not demonstrated (in the public literature at least) that an ID-based system is an effective or efficient form of protection against aviation terrorists. But because it is so easy to circumvent the TSA's mechanism, one does not need to agree with that broad point to see that the current system needs to be replaced. Since the ID system can be reliably bypassed by criminals and terrorists, we pay all of the costs associated with ID-based security and yet get none of the potential benefits, whatever they might be. That should be unacceptable no matter where one stands on the other issues. [bold emphasis mine, italics in original]

Clearly, liability is not all or nothing. There are many parties involved in a typical software attack. The list includes:

• the company that sold the software with the vulnerability in the first place
• the person who wrote the attack tool
• the attacker himself, who used the tool to break into a network
• and finally, the owner of the network, who was entrusted with defending that network.

100% of the liability should not fall on the shoulders of the software vendor, just as 100% should not fall on the attacker or the network owner. But today, 100% of the cost falls directly on the network owner, and that just has to stop.

"If my Democrat colleagues are truly opposed to the mission in Iraq, then as the new majority in Congress they should schedule a serious debate and a vote on cutting off funding for our troops," said Cornyn, R-Texas.

Cutting off funding for the troops in Iraq could be a great idea. The troops would mutiny and come home to see their families, abandoning the Iraqi Civil War to itself. The Shia and Sunni have been fighting for something like 1200 years. They can wait us out as long as needed, so we might as well just get out of their way.

If lawmakers make good on their pledge, the Heritage Foundation figures that 67 million more foreigners will enter the United States in the next 20 years. That surge surely excites multiculturalists and capitalists eager for an endless flow of cheap labor.
But Americans have a different desire.
In opinion poll after opinion poll, U.S. citizens say they want less immigration, not more. They want existing laws enforced, not nullified.

I sympathize with people who aren't making very much and are probably forced to comply with arcane corporate rules and who have to deal with weirdoes coming in with cans labeled "Rocket Fuel." I really do. But... c'mon. How much effort is involved in *not* being part of the common-sense-negating, spirit-crushing, Bush-era fear-slash-stupidity machine? The terrorists win again.

In the interests of dignity, we have taken public executions out of the public square where vendors used to go around selling treats to the slavering crowd. We have invented execution lite, strapping people to gurneys and injecting them with fatal drugs.
But even if we killed criminals by making them watch public-television fund drives until they expired, it would still be undignified. Premeditated killing is always undignified. The crowd outside still drools in its imagination.

This is really sweet (a myspace music thing):
http://www.myspace.com/computerthanks
I've heard other songs of his, but this one is extra good.

My doctor's appointment today was quick and simple. My appointment was at 1430. I arrived early, at 1405. A short wait later, they called me in, took my weight and blood pressure (both are going down :) ), and then I met Dr. Reid. I had never met him before, but as I believe discreet_chaos said, he is muppet-like. I got the referral I wanted, so I'll be staying at the Presbyterian Sleep Lab in Albuquerque some night in the next couple of months. I was out the door at 1428, two minutes before my appointment was supposed to begin. Awesome.

Choosing Secure Passwords

Time to junk the Electoral College?
I think the electoral college would be fine if we had a reasonable number of federal representatives (The UK has a ratio of one member of the House of Commons for every ~94,000 citizens; the US one member of the House or Senate for every ~560,000 citizens; the US congress is ~1/6th as representative of US citizens as the US HoC is) and the U.S. President was required to take part in a weekly question time (ala UK House of Commons). Since neither of these conditions are true, there should be more direct democracy in our country. One step in this direction would be direct election of the President instead of using the Electoral College.

And what has been the result of this astonishing performance? Have Kristol's employers fired him for gross incompetence? Has he been exiled from the national media for having been completely wrong, over and over again, about the most important issue facing America today?
Far from it! Kristol has just been hired by Time, America's leading news weekly, to write a column. This is the journalistic equivalent of handing the former captain of the Exxon Valdez a case of whiskey and the command of a fully loaded supertanker.

Fit an NES in an NES controller (click on the photo in the article for more info)

Last Saturday, I drove the jeep to Albuquerque with lalabob11. We didn't drive on I-25 at all. We took dirt roads all the way from Socorro to US-60 between the Blue Springs and Mountainair and then up various back highways until we got to the cement factory on I-40. It took us 7 hours to get up there, but was fun, and that was the point. It'll be a much more fun drive in the summer, with the top down.

On Sunday, houdini_cs and niap_si_efil came over and we did some maintenance stuff to houdini_cs's WRX, installed his front strut brace and also put the air compressor in my Jeep. Now I can air-down and air-up my tires out in the middle of nowhere if I need to. :)

I've taken the first step to deal with my sleep apnea: I have an appointment with my GP tomorrow afternoon so I can get a referral to have a sleep study done. Wheee.

I pretty much back this position:
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/news2/2007/01/time_to_remove-print.html

"They helped us load our van," Kutz said. Investigators used a fake identity to access a surplus Web site operated by a Pentagon contractor and bought still more, including a dozen microcircuits used on F-14 fighters.

The undercover buyers received phone calls from the Defense Department asking why they had no Social Security number or credit history, but they deflected the questions by presenting a phony utility bill and claiming to be an identity theft victim.

Elementary teacher Derek Porter witnessed 15 different car collision on icy roads outside his Portland apartment Tuesday morning and caught several on home video.

niap_si_efil posted this the other day:
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/040405fa_fact?040405fa_fact
It's a really interesting article about average human heights over time and why the U.S. height average isn't going up.

This service looks neat, but is only available in the Seattle area right now. There might be something similar out here in NM, but probably not in Socorro.

Webcomics: Lunchbox Funnies

I've met this cat:
http://www.stuffonmycat.com/index.php?itemid=2904
It's milkmandan's cat Aleph.

greyvorfeed is awesome.
In related news, Pentagon memo predicts 10,000 or more American soldiers could die in Iraq by 2008

My friend retrocareer also goes by the handle "mygiantrobot". In a few weeks, she is going up to WA to visit a bunch of our common friends. A couple of them made and sent her this freakin' awesome poster:
( My Giant Weekend Poster )

Random interesting things:

Parking in two spaces

I had seen the opposite as regards kittens a few years ago, but I'd never seen this before:
Think of the Puppies

http://www.skygod.com/asstd/abc.html

http://www.nsc.org/lrs/statinfo/odds_dying.jpg

Bush's speech is an in-your-face rejection of the will of voters who in November tossed out the corrupt, rubber-stamp Republican-led Congress and made it clear they want a swift end to Bush's Iraq debacle. It is a blatant "go to hell" to the American men and women who have died and will die because of his lunacy.

Fox and Hedgehog presidents

Clayton Christensen of Harvard Business School, and author of the highly acclaimed book "The Innovator's Dilemma," makes the point that real change and improvement come from "disruptive technology rather than improvements on the existing system."

That is, when things aren't working well, you've got to look for fundamentally different approaches to the problem at hand.

This is exactly what the political establishment and the teachers' unions fight to prevent in education. It's because their goal is not to deliver the best possible product to their customers, the kids, but protection of their own interests. Innovators whose goal is the best possible product will try anything to achieve that end, that goal, that very best result.

If it turns out that pedophiles like kittens, will cuteoverload.xxx be out of bounds?

Wearing helmets 'more dangerous'
Cyclists who wear protective helmets are more likely to be knocked down by passing vehicles, new research from Bath University suggests.
Original Paper

NM snowstorm as national political news.

Shipping Container Standardization
Wireless internet and contracts.(Read the comments)
As in beer

If you've traveled abroad recently, you've been investigated. You've been assigned a score indicating what kind of terrorist threat you pose. That score is used by the government to determine the treatment you receive when you return to the U.S. and for other purposes as well.

Curious about your score? You can't see it. Interested in what information was used? You can't know that. Want to clear your name if you've been wrongly categorized? You can't challenge it. Want to know what kind of rules the computer is using to judge you? That's secret, too. So is when and how the score will be used.

This newish BitTorrent client sounds interesting:
http://bittyrant.cs.washington.edu/

I just found out that one of my favorite songs is a cover and I've never heard the original.

Because the movie is ~3 hours long, the movie will start promptly at 8 p.m. tonight.

This is awesome:
( The wind )

This is even more awesome, but in a very different way:
President Bush -- quite frankly to general surprise -- has ordered that at that moment all classified records more than 25 years old and of historical value "shall be automatically declassified whether or not the records have been reviewed."
I'd be even happier if the cutoff number of years was lower, like 15 or even 5 years, but 25 ain't bad.

There will be a movie night tomorrow (Dec 22), but not one next Friday (Dec 29th). We will be watching Terry Pratchett's Hogfather tomorrow, assuming I can get it to play on my DVD player.

"Christmas makes things sadder and strengthens the cheap plastic crap industry. It's supposed to be about Jesus, and if it truly was, I'm sure I'd have a problem with that too."

Of all the tragic aspects of this national disaster, this is worst: The people who have been catastrophically wrong about everything are still in charge. And a year from now, when things are even worse in Iraq, we can be sure the neoconservatives will still be demanding that yet more American soldiers die so that Kagan and his ilk can continue to live out their increasingly destructive geopolitical fantasies.

Bush's actions don't border on criminal. They are criminal. He's a lunatic with keys to the greatest nuclear arsenal in the world, a madman with heavy artillery, a nutcase with military might.

The study, examining how sexual behavior before marriage has changed over time, was based on interviews conducted with more than 38,000 people — about 33,000 of them women — in 1982, 1988, 1995 and 2002 for the federal National Survey of Family Growth. According to Finer's analysis, 99 percent of the respondents had had sex by age 44, and 95 percent had done so before marriage.

"What If All the Ice Melts?" Myths and Realities

Fork Art

Furries, cute-junkies and potheads will like this safe-for-work animation:
http://www.machwolf.net/flash/puppies.swf

The MPAA are criminals, but most of us knew that.
"Remember pretexting? It's the cute name given to...well...fraud. It's when you call someone and pretend to be someone else, in order to get information. Or when you go online and pretend to be someone else, in order to get something."

Separating Data Ownership and Device Ownership
An alternative for when copyright fails.

I still don't like the fascist overtones, but this is far preferable to me than the various anti-smoking ordinances cities have passed (regulating the restaurant is preferable to regulating the patrons of the restaurant).
New York becomes first U.S. city to ban trans fats
NYC health board bans trans fats at restaurants

Safe for work spoof educational videos

superhappy failed at making me not want to read xkcd.
Perception: http://xkcd.com/c32.html
Sister: http://xkcd.com/c49.html

I meant to post this yesterday and seem to have forgotten.
There appears to be some controversy about a conversation incoming VA Senator Webb and President Bush had:
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/news/publish/Capitol_Hillbillies_20/10167.shtml
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/news/publish/Capitol_Hillbillies_20/10173.shtml
I agree with Webb. It's none of Bush's business.

Leaving Iraq: A campaign promise that can't be kept

Violent Physics Video

A bike theif

A Fractal Pecan Pie

Since I am posting later than I planned, I can add to it. The Thomas Dolby and BT concert was really good. Dolby was fun and told stories between songs. BT was very weird compared to his usual music, but it was really, really good anyway. I'm going to get the new album.

Those of you that haven't seen it already should read this post of greyvorfeed's. She describes the annoyance I'm sure many (most?) of us feel when the conservative media pundits start ranting this time of year.
http://greyvorfeed.livejournal.com/175024.html

Growing up too fast can be big problem for 'tweens'

"With one brilliant decision, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has wiped out hunger in America. In the eyes of the USDA, folks are no longer 'hungry.' The solution was so simple that people should have thought about it generations ago."

"The government discriminates against blind people by printing money that all looks and feels the same, a federal judge said Tuesday in a ruling that could change the face of American currency."

Good Agile, Bad Agile
This blog post strenuously knocks the Agile programming methodology and describes how things are done at Google (the poster is a programmer there). I've never really used the method, so I can't argue for either side. The way things are run at PMC is very similar to the Cowboy method.

Unless you are an internet fuckwad, you probably don't want to see the safe for work image behind this link.

The bacon rigatoni recipe I used to make somewhat regularly.

Dealing with the 'we' and 'they' of 'our' Iraq war
Dems reject Rangel's call for a new military draft
I'm a hypocrite as regards a draft. I think there should be one and all persons over 18 and below some certain age, regardless of sex, should be in the pool. I also think there should be ways to get removed from the selection pool, but I'm not sure what possible ways to get out would let someone like myself get out without unfairly advantaging the rich or disadvantaging the poor. If there was a draft and I was below the certain age, I would likely do my damnedest to get out of the pool.

This is silly: Stooge Sort

Animations (SFW):
Minilogue/hitchhikers choice
Kiwi!

Ages 5+

lamasong bought one of these for milkmandan_rss for his birthday. It looks pretty cool.
http://bigcrazystore.com/pro806390.html

Need to spice up your sex life? Roleplay as George W. Bush fucking America

Notes On A Fridge [On a Spaceship] (Serenity to be specific)

This essay is excellent. Go read it:

All global ambitions are based on a definition of productivity and the good life so alienated from common human reality I am convinced it is wrong and that most people would agree with me if they could perceive an alternative. We might be able to see that if we regained a hold on a philosophy that locates meaning where meaning is genuinely to be found -- in families, in friends, in the passage of seasons, in nature, in simple ceremonies and rituals, in curiosity, generosity, compassion, and service to others, in a decent independence and privacy, in all the free and inexpensive things out of which real families, real friends and real communities are built -- then we would be so self-sufficient we would not even need the material "sufficiency" which our global "experts" are so insistent we be concerned about.

(Thanks for linking to it pflarr)

If you don't know how to play the drums or piano, but do know how to edit film and want to make music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzqumbhfxRo

houdini_cs told me about Bill Monk at lunch today. I signed up and sent invites to all of the people I owe money to and all of the people that own money to me. It hopefully will replace my widget banking entirely. The EFF likes them quite a bit: Bill Monk Privacy

Nationally syndicated talk show host with 8 million listeners reveals evil Jewish plot.

Non-Newtonian Fluids FTW!!

Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra is fun:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSj6qna3aJc

Women in the ‘Quiverfull’ movement are kept at home -- away from the evils of feminism -- where they birth armies of God’s soldiers.
I'd guess that most of you are offended by the Quiverfull people. Does anyone have a plan?

Links with no explanation because I'm lazy:
Immigrants held without due process
An untold story of a real Marine finally surfaces
Wiccans sue feds over military headstone rule

Voting Machine Design

To say that politics has gone to the dogs is a libel on the dogs.

Self-esteem is down. Hyper-sexuality is up. It's even seen as a badge of empowerment. What, who, huh? Having the freedom to walk around in public like a vamp is empowering? Having the freedom to sell your body means women have achieved parity?

Fettes Brot

I'm definitely in the majority:

Watch or read this:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/10/23/olbermanns-special-comment-on-gop-fearmongering/

I meant to post this last Wednesday. Then on Thursday I realised I hadn't posted it yet, so I added to it and promptly forgot to post it again. The same happened Friday. Today, I haven't added anything to it other than this intro, but I'm actually remembering to post it now.

Rather than going to Congress and trying to negotiate changes to the law that regulates such activities, the administration simply grabbed that authority for itself, saying, in effect, "Trust us: if you knew what we know about the threat, you'd be perfectly happy to have us do what we're doing." In other areas, like the holding of prisoners in Guantanamo and interrogation methods used there and in the Middle East, one can only quote Moynihan on an earlier era: "As fears of Communist conspiracies and German subversion mounted, it was the U.S. government's conduct that approached the illegal.

Both political parties consider truth an expendable commodity in the pursuit of power. Neither party gives a damn about what's best for the country because the overriding consideration is always what's best for the party.

Need an election rigged?
http://www.fixavote.com/





Paint-spolsion commercial
Behind the Scenes commercial

Can't sleep? (totally safe for everywhere)
http://allenec.livejournal.com/93780.html

I got support points. Wheee!
http://www.livejournal.com/support/see_request.bml?id=650251
I'm not really into doing the support thing, but I do use some the more complex mobile features, so I answer questions when I can. This is the first support request where my answer was unscreened and the user closed the request, awarding me the points. The only other unscreened answer I have is awaiting close. The user may ask another question instead of closing the request though.

Security experts and security fanboys (such as myself) have been saying this for a long time. People still aren't getting it. I doubt repeating it will help, but I do like quoting and linking Schneier so much...

Our politicians help the terrorists every time they use fear as a campaign tactic. The press helps every time it writes scare stories about the plot and the threat. And if we're terrified, and we share that fear, we help. All of these actions intensify and repeat the terrorists' actions, and increase the effects of their terror.

...our job is to remain steadfast in the face of terror, to refuse to be terrorized. Our job is to not panic every time two Muslims stand together checking their watches. There are approximately 1 billion Muslims in the world, a large percentage of them not Arab, and about 320 million Arabs in the Middle East, the overwhelming majority of them not terrorists. Our job is to think critically and rationally, and to ignore the cacophony of other interests trying to use terrorism to advance political careers or increase a television show's viewership.

Scorecard from the War on Terror

I don't often read Wonkette, but this one about the Iran War (yes, Iran) is particularly interesting:
http://wonkette.com/politics/iran/war-all-the-time-204928.php

I sent Ronald L. Rivest an email today and had to deal with his spam filter:
http://theory.csail.mit.edu/~rivest/rsf/
It looks interesting, though I don't think it would easily work for me. I would definitely like to see the code whenever he releases it.

"Wombat Land" is a cool shirt:

I took a few big sections out of this one to make it "for public consumption". Comments are open, as is usual.

The questions overlap, so I'm going to have a sort of overlapped answer. I don't fully know what I want from life. As regards work, I hope to keep making enough money such that I don't need to worry about money too much. I'd like to do work more enjoyable/fulfilling than the programming I'm doing now. There are other jobs in the computer field that appeal more, but I'm not really qualified for them yet. What I'm doing now can be used as a stepping stone though. I'd kind of like to eventually get an SJD and become a judge somewhere, but I don't want to go back to school for any graduate degrees until I have a much larger savings base than I currently have and deciding to go to school for another 7-10 years isn't a decision I'm ready to make right now. I'd also like to be able to make convention organization a paying job somehow, but there are location issues with that (it would be much easier if I lived in a major metro area, and NM doesn't have any of those).

The immediate plan is for me to stay at PMC and save money as well I can (I need to budget better, but even with my lax budgeting, I'm saving a sizable portion of every paycheck, 15%-40%) until near Lauren's graduation. The plan then is for me to find a better job, hopefully in the western WA area, and we would move to that job after she graduates. We don't have enough information at this time to really plan more specifically. We'll see where we are in another ~year and have more things roughly figured out.

Of the parts of the country I've visited or lived, I like the Pacific north west the best. I really dislike the climate here in NM. The dryness and altitude work together to make my lungs strain with a near continuous low level amount of pain (I'm able to ignore it most of the time, except for especially dry days, but it's still annoying). I sleep waaay better in a more humid, lower altitude place. Washington appeals to me for the general prettiness in addition to the climate reasons. The Seattle area appeals to me more specifically because I already have a bunch of friends there, through PAX and other things. Depending on where political things go, I might like to leave the country on a long-term basis. I'm not really worldly enough to go anywhere but Canada in the soon, but I think I'd have time to get ready for many places if it came to that.

I have vague plans and goals, but nothing is really very long term. I want to be happy. I want my loved ones to be happy. I don't want to hurt others to do that. I deal with situations as they come and try to make them fit the goals, though I don't just stand by and wait/hope for fortune to come to me without effort.

If the Bush Administration was written in C (notice the subtle error):

if (person = terrorist) {
  punish_severely();
} else {
  exit(-1);
}

I got the code snip from flemco who got it from Boing Boing.

The day freedom died in the United States of America: "Freedom died in the halls of the United States Congress Thursday as the U.S. Senate passed White House-sponsored legislation that gives President Bush virtually unlimited power to approve torture of detainees and allows the U.S. military to hold, without due course or Constitutional protections, anyone it considers a terrorist or threat to this country."
The House votes to strip away another freedom: "Another freedom that used to be protected by the Constitution is stripped away, destroyed forever by a Congress controlled by power-mad despots with no concern for basic rights."

I can see some of you really liking this simple organizer:
http://www.pocketmod.com/

Monster Smart Car:
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_2012974.html

The quotes in the subject line are a really bad pun based on the code above, if you didn't notice.

When you sweep away the hype, the lies and the politics of George W. Bush's so-called "war on terror," you are left with one inescapable conclusion: The President of the United States is at war with freedom.

In Bush's myopic view of the world, freedom is expendable. Freedom has no place in a Presidency where power is everything and the only opinion can be his.

Many commentators have noted the apparent irony: The pope suggests Islam encourages violence--and Muslims riot in protest.

Many commentators have pointed out the apparent hypocrisy: Muslims are outraged by cartoons satirizing Islamic extremism while in Muslim countries Christianity and Judaism are attacked viciously and routinely.

Many commentators are missing the point: These protesters and those who incite them are not asking for mutual respect and equality. They are not saying: "It's wrong to speak ill of a religion." They are saying: "It's wrong to speak ill of our religion." They are not standing up for a principle. They are laying down the law. They are making it as clear as they can that they will not tolerate "infidels" criticizing Muslims. They also are making it clear that infidels should expect criticism and much worse from Muslims.

In a speech on the five-year anniversary of 9/11, the president described our enemies as "extremists" who have perverted religion into "a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom [and] rejects tolerance." It is long past time that our activists explain to the country what we, as gay Americans, know to be true: on the issue of homosexuality at least, Bush and his conservative allies are practicing what they preach against.

The Absurdity of Fear

The story of Oedipus, in 8 minutes, performed by vegetables:
http://www.oedipusthemovie.com/

When failed, flawed candidates are the only choices, all you get is a failed, flawed President.

George Carlin - Owners of This Country

I haven't filled out many other people's memes yet because I've been busy at work. I should get to it Monday though.