don't see this
latest comments:
As I've mentioned before, I think privacy is a dead concept. But arresting citizens for refusal to speak is a clear violation of the Constitution. No ifs and s or buts about it. This court frightens me.
The whole father's day/b-day/rent-huge party day weekend threw my posting off today. And work was crazy busy. More later...
So this afternoon I enjoyed some delicious spongmonkey love for lunch, all while sitting downtown, engaged by people-watching. Right before I get up to go look for birthday cards with Jill for one of my parental units, I hear a woman screaming at someone. The small crowd of people waiting to cross the street all turn their heads, to see an elderly woman yelling at a girl my age wearing a green shirt. The girl is clearly scared, and starts to run away from the crazy woman, who follows her. There's a brief three stooges-like moment when she's running through the crowd in a circle with the lady following her until after two revolutions she says "somebody help me...i don't know what to do" and I start to stand up, catching the crazy lady's eye in the process.
Crazy lady looks at me, my legs halfway to their fully upright position, and back at green girl, and screams "LOOK AT WHAT YOU MADE YOUR HUSBAND DO!" and wanders away. I abandon my half-raised position for the comfort of the stone block I was sitting on. Jill begins to laugh. Green girl crosses the street.
An odd lunch, to be sure.
That's right. I have tickets for next Thursday night at midnight. For the big show. Jealous?
The New Republic finally admits they were wrong. Good to see.
On a dorky sidenote, I just scored a copy of Adobe Creative Suite Premium. I can't wait to start messing around with it...using the GIMP for so long has left me a little cold, even if it is the coolest open-source software around.
This is too creepy. You can leave her on your desk for awhile and make her eyes follow you. Damn weird, in my not-so humble opinion.
Happy Bloomsday! Just don't celebrate it at the Irish Times, for Joyce's sake.
Saddam didn't love Al Qaeda. It is sad, really, to think that this is a news article. Almost as sad as the fact that the VPOTUS and POTUS spent the weekend plugging this very idiotic assertion. Let's go over the facts:
- Iraq was a secular state under Saddam Hussein.
- UBL wants to create a series of theocratic states, like the Taliban's Afghanistan.
- Oil and Water don't mix.
Pretty simple, eh?
I need to post some reviews, but work is super-busy.
In the last four days I've seen Napoleon Dynamite, The Chronicles of Riddick, Miracle, Snow Falling on Cedars, Osmosis Jones and one other movie I can't think of right now. I avoided watching Matchstick Men again, but I did see The Last Samurai for a second time.
I also spoke briefly to my friend down under yesterday. I've never seen the guy but he seems pretty cool, based on the ongoing updates to his life. And he occasionally takes breaks from coding to play some UT2004. Addictive as hell, in my experience.
Ending any evening with pizza mart and bill o'reilly bile is a recipe for oddness.
So last night I went out with Deborah and Brad to hit the reef. Later, Kevin and Jill joined us. A good time was had by all.
An odd link, to be sure, but here's the worst paragraph from it:
As a self-selecting group, those students who choose to participate in FRS are separated from others who are randomly assigned to their entries. The ordinary entry is designed to reflect the diverse make-up of the Williams student body with students from all over the world and of all different academic and extracurricular backgrounds. While the benefit gained by integrating students’ academic and social lives offered by FRS is undeniable, the costs to diversity easily outweigh these advantages.
Traditionally, students have complained that FRS lacks varsity athletes. But the homogeneity represented in FRS goes beyond how students wish to spend their free time. FRS implicitly encourages the entry full of potential English majors taking FRS 101 “Interpreting the Human Experience,” to spend all of their time with each other, and while interesting discussions may be stimulated by their class time, the chances of debates regarding computer science, biology or other academic passions are correspondingly reduced.
To those in the know, the line that FRS entries are "less diverse" than regular entries is idiotic. The argument that FRS entries have less time to debate "academic passions" is equally bizarre. The real argument, which I disovered only after I arrived in the purple bubble, is that FRS entries are artificially diverse, containing a wider-than-normal range of people from different backgrounds. JAs have embedded the stereotype of the "dorky FRS entry" into their mindset, which has little to do with the students who actually apply to be in FRS. Calling FRS the "the single greatest threat to diverse housing" is a misunderstanding of diversity unless having a mostly white bunch of kids who play sports is diversity. The authors should've called a spade a spade and said they didn't want to land a dorky entry. Which is why FRS will continue to be described as such in the future: this year's crop of bigoted JAs will tell all their students that the FRS entry is "weird" because the students who picked into it are all taking English 101. Talk about your basic bunch of freaks...
I love talking pigs. So should you.
From the Post today:
In Sanger's New York Times about the Clinton portraits, he makes references to the fact that Clinton alumni are circulating a joke about how many Bush administration officials it takes to change a light bulb. The answer is seven. But Sanger only describes two of seven roles. Here is the entire joke:
- One to deny that a light bulb needs to be replaced.
- One to attack and question the patriotism of anyone who has questions about the light bulb.
- One to blame the previous administration for the need of a new light bulb.
- One to arrange the invasion of a country rumored to have a secret stockpile of light bulbs.
- One to get together with Vice President Cheney and figure out how to pay Halliburton one million dollars for a light bulb.
- One to arrange a photo-op session showing Bush changing the light bulb while dressed in a flight suit and wrapped in an American flag.
- And finally, one to explain to Bush the difference between screwing a light bulb and screwing the country.
Funny, eh?
It's exactly right. I'd suggest buying the book to get it all. I've never bought into the idea that creating a large phone bank is an effective way to get people out anymore. Door to door is the only way to significantly get people to come out to vote. Period.
In Edward's perfect political world, Dems would stop focusing on visibility and concentrate on the numbers, state by state, that we can take back. Focus on the areas where a couple hundred voters make a difference. Target key races. Get volunteers to focus on personal contact rather than phone banks. That's why spending energy on phone banking from home software is such an idiotic idea. I think Dems were far quicker to use blogs effectively to raise money for special election candidates and the party as a whole. But inundating voters with phone calls and literature just doesn't work. This is why I refuse to phone bank. And so should you.