if we ignore the rather egregious trashing of my website on friday due to webhost operator incompetence, we can move on to the pit of despair known as network news. after reading this article, i was reminded of a period in college when, for a political science project, i taped about 48 hours worth of c-span and watched it ad nauseum. by the end of the project, i had become a c-span junkie...rather than treat our government like a series of news events, c-span makes it appear like a sports event: helpful tips about rules pop up on the bottom of the screen (the proposed amendment would...blah blah blah) and it is the players themselves, the senators and representatives, who trot out the requistite charts and graphs (thanks a bunch ross for the laughs) which explain why america is falling apart. By the end of each hour of coverage, I felt as if I had learned something about
1)our government
2)america's finances
3)current events
and much more. and, unlike the day all three networks covered the kennedy ship going out to sea to bury jfk jr.'s remains (both going out and coming back...live footage!), there's always some obscure committee meeting on c-span, c-span2 or c-span3 to watch. maybe if enough of us complain...the hard news will return!

my idiotic webhost decided to upgrade to a newer version of php on a production box during the middle of the day on friday, forgetting to set the "register_globals" setting, disabling my entire site in the process; it took me about an hour to recode my site to at least display articles properly...things may not be fully fixed until monday! awk! they later undid their change...leaving me with a site that's half-patched with no indication of where it would move in the future...i was furious, but at least i can use it again

reading this article about bob barr and john linder made me remember how much of a twisted guy barr is...here's an excerpt: 'Even though Barr has been described by the Almanac of American Politics as "humorless, pessimistic and sarcastic," he considers himself a people person. "I enjoy people very much," says Barr, who never smiles even through his squinty eyes once during the entire interview.' priceless. the man is a disgrace to the great state of georgia...

that's right, i updated the favicon to better reflect the dredwerkz digs in the land of the overtaxed & underrepresented...the good ol' district of columbia. be sure to delete any existing bookmarks you have to here and replace them to pick up the new icon in town! some other tweaks were made on the backend...i still need to implement the archive and search engine but that can wait until next week...

where have we heard this before? "The law currently allows federal funds to be used for single-sex public schools and classrooms as long as a school district makes comparable educational opportunities available for students of both sexes..." Hmm. Sounds a lot like "separate but equal" to me. Everyone knows that parents and class size determine progress, not stupid gimmicks.

this article points to a trend that could have a long-term impact on our nation's health and standing in the world; no other single aspect of american life galvanizes such hatred abroad as our reliance upon the death penalty; as a concept (a life for a life, the triumph of the state above the individual, the collective's ability to rule decisively and without error) it seems to strike against many of the truths our country was founded upon, and in the end, costs more, both financially and morally, to continue performing, than life in prison. any american can tell you that to keep a case in court, fighting back and forth on appeal, for several years, is much more expensive than simply throwing them in jail. time for a cost/benefit analysis? anyone? anyone?

ever wonder if, post-watergate, all the corporate/government conspiracy theories were just cooked up by a bunch of angry leftists? well, wonder no more: here's your standard smoking gun memo detailing exactly how Enron was able to manipulate the california energy crisis...one of the best lines occurs on page 3 where the memo opines "This strategy appears not to present any problems, other than a public relations risk arising from the fact that such exports may have contributed to California's declaration of a Stage 2 Emergency yesterday." Go here for all the legalese.

while going to see spiderman reviewed here, i saw an advertisement for america's credit unions. At the bottom of the ad was their slogan "where people are worth more than money!" followed by a tiny asterisk and the fine print "does not apply in MD, VA or DC". really inspires me to check out their website.

yes, a little late but better than never, it's time to review sam raimi's new flick, "spider-man". no dissension here...much like everyone else i know, i found this movie to be thoroughly enjoyable; the plot is simple yet workable, concerning high-school grad and genetic super-spider bitten peter parker (played unusually well by Tobey Maguire) becoming a superhero in the midst of his love/lust for Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) and his battles with the Green Goblin(Willem Dafoe). the casting for this movie was excellent, as each character seemed unnaturally suited for their role. Dafoe as the Green Goblin (by far the cheesiest character of the bunch, if only for his over-the-top outfit which is never explained in the depth that spider-man's is) is excellent, and the twisted relationship he has with both his own son and peter parker is well written.

Raimi's film also captures much of the web-swinging majesty in a way that I hadn't expected...after all, how much would you figure there was to swinging around? Instead, spider-man seems to think of a unique web-based solution to each conundrum, climaxing in a scene when he creates a giant slingshot from his own twine to propel him onwards and upwards. Besides the nice cinematography, the moral background to the tale also rings sweetly. Without divulging any particular spoilers, let me simply say that in addition to working with the obvious sexual tension between MJ and peter, there are familial issues, friendship issues, and a great idea of duty worked in. This is the sort of movie that Bill Bennett would like in spite of himself. While that may be a negative, the movie doesn't endorse any character as being "good" or "evil", instead preferring to blend shades of grey together in a rich tapestry that has one able to see all sides...a relativist nightmare where even Spider-Man comes off as all-too-human. if you're in the mood for a thrill ride coupled with a great drama and brilliant characters played by equally compelling actors, then spider-man is your movie; if you're not, then stay home and make the lines a little shorter!

yet another reason i like morphine: it works! the power of drugs to make us feel better is a life-saver and one that should be easily documented(until they take you off them); ironically, though, some drugs work better than others...including sugar! read this for more details; i just know some hmo is salivating at the thought of swapping sugar for zoloft and increasing both customer satisfaction and the bottom line simultaneously; how long will it be before someone does a study where they tell patients that they are receiving a placebo only to give them prozac and see if their condition worsens? good think this has been documented in 1996 and in 1998. Nothing like repitition to drive Lilly into depression.

i was walking through ft. reno park when i passed an elderly man. he asked me what the large set of buildings/towers were for, just as i was about to ask him the same question; i replied, "i don't know" and he told me he had been walking through that same area for 40 years and had never figured out what it was; he also mentioned that someone told him it had something to do with the civil war but that he was unable to confirm this; i just used mapquest to figure out it was called fort reno park, then typed in "fort reno park washington dc" into ixquick and came up with the answer. I had figured out that it was a reservoir, but the other information was useful. What took me four minutes took him over 40 years (and counting), not to mention that I got aerial photos, to boot.