Currently with R at the 930 club to see Rufus Wainwright. First day at work was intersting. Didn't get home until 6:30, but it seems llike everyone there is a lot more... human. R picked that descriptive word while I was searching for something.
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Nominated.
Check Google News for the articles:
http://news.google.com/?ncl=http://moneycentral.msn.com/inc/news/providerredir.asp%3Ffeed%3DFT%26Date%3D20051031%26ID%3D5236618&hl=en
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First day at the new job today, so hopefully that goes really, really well.
Just got back from my four days in Colorado. I haven't had time to upload the pictures yet, but you can flip through the few that I put up yourself by going to my flickr page.
I'll update on the job's progress as much as I think best and will try to catch up with all of the interesting news later this evening.
A random poem, Suicide in the trenches by Siegfried Sassoon
I knew a simple soldier boy Who grinned at life in empty joy, Slept soundly through the lonesome dark, And whistled early with the lark. In winter trenches, cowed and glum, With crumps and lice and lack of rum, He put a bullet through his brain. No one spoke of him again. You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye Who cheer when soldier lads march by, Sneak home and pray you'll never know. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_the_Trenches ------
I'm in Colorado visiting the grandparents for four days before starting my new job but have been managing to keep abreast of current events thanks to their much appreciated addiction to PBS.
I watched Miers' withdrawal on the screen on the back of the seat in front of me just as I took off from DC and was reminded of my.entry back on Oct 6th (I'd link, but it never works when typing from the blackberry). In that entry, I said that Miers would get shut down and that it would give Bush the opportunity to nominate a real conservative. Along the same lines, last night on the News Hour with Jim Lehrer, David Brooks said what a lot of people aren't willing to admit: When asked if he thought that the next nominee would be another woman, Brooks explained that the president had *already made the gesture* and would not have to nominate a woman this time around. I have to wonder what's coming down the pike, but whatever it is I think that this is what Bush (or really Rove) had in mind all along. Harriet Miers was a ridiculous nominee and everyone knew it. She was a crony with no judicial experience and would probably have had a difficult time getting appointed to a circuit!
court, let alone the SCOTUS.
I also read a Krathauer OpEd in the NYT the other week that predicted this exact method of withdrawal for Miers (again, no linking), ie using the asking-for-documents-i-cannot-provide reason.
There were plenty of good predictions out there about the failure of the Miers nomination, but I wonder if anyone else thinks that this was a strategic move that planned for the withdrawal as well. I'd be surprised if an extreme conservative wasn't nominated next. Some suggest that if Bush bows to his base he'll end up with an intensly bitter battle in congress, but that if he nominates a moderate he'll alienate the extreme conservatives who've put him where he is. He's up a creek, that's for sure.
The other big news out of Washington was the indictment of Libby this morning. I'm glad that something came out of the investigation, but imagine that a lot of others share in my dissappointment that Rove seems to have escaped unscathed. My mom, who's visitng the gps with me, thinks that Scooter will take the fall for everybody. Not that he doesn't deserve it if he's guilty, but I have a funny feeling that he wasn't the one who came up with the idea of outing Valerie Plame.
One interesting thing that I noticed in statements from both the Vice President and a prominent conservative law-maker was that instead of using the phrase *innocent until proven guilty*, they're using phrases like *innocent until proven otherwise*. I heard this kind of doublespeak at least three or four times this afternoon as I watched CNN. It's as though one of the bulletpoints in some memo focused on not using the actual word *guilty* in association with the case, as it might skew the mind of the public to have the word and Libby's name uttered in the same context. They're probably right, but it's interesting to realize it.
There was enough good talk on the Libby stuff on PBS tonight and a lot of really good talk from the lead investigator, Fitzgerald, during his one hour press conference, so I won't waste too much thumb energy on the subject.
Unfortunately, the Miers and Libby news pretty much buried some other big news that came out on Thursday, the release of the final UN report on the Oil for Food scandal. On Wednesday, a coworker and I used our lunch break to attend a speech on the investigation into said scandal given by former head of the Fed and investigation leader, Paul Volcker. As the report wasn't coming out until the next day, he couldn't go into too many specifics as to its content and instead summmarized some of the logistics of the investigation. He expanded more on the content of the forthcoming report during the question and answer period and made it clear that there was definitely corruption found at the UN. He also seemed to think that there was a lack of administrative capability and oversight that allowed this corruption to continue.
The report that came out on Thursday named over 2,000 individuals and companies that had some corrupt practices in connection with the Oil for Food program and the story seems buried under the deluge of information regarding Miers and Libby. Too bad. The only interesting point that I had after listening to Volcker's speech was to wonder why the UN hadn't tried to foist the difficult administrative and logistical tasks of the Oil for Food program onto a body that was more experienced and capable, like the IMF or the World Bank. It seemed that a lot of the problems with corruption could have been stopped dead if a group with better accounting and audit skills had been around from the beginning. The UN is good at peacekeeping, but I don't know how good they'll ever be at managing the exchange of oil for food and medical supplies.
Ok, I need to kick this cold before I start my new job on Monday. Pardon any typos and the asterisks (*) instead of quotes, but this is what happens when you type with your thumbs and email blog posts.
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Wal-Mart is looking for new hires. They want young, dynamic people who are willing to work part-time and spend all of their earnings on trips to the emergency room because they don't have benefits.
An internal memo sent to Wal-Mart's board of directors proposes numerous ways to hold down spending on health care and other benefits while seeking to minimize damage to the retailer's reputation. Among the recommendations are hiring more part-time workers and discouraging unhealthy people from working at Wal-Mart.
In the memorandum, M. Susan Chambers, Wal-Mart's executive vice president for benefits, also recommends reducing 401(k) contributions and wooing younger, and presumably healthier, workers by offering education benefits. The memo voices concern that workers with seven years' seniority earn more than workers with one year's seniority, but are no more productive...
Ms. Chambers acknowledged that 46 percent of the children of Wal-Mart's 1.33 million United States employees were uninsured or on Medicaid...
Wal-Mart's benefit costs jumped to $4.2 billion last year, from $2.8 billion three years earlier, causing concern within the company because benefits represented an increasing share of sales. Last year, Wal-Mart earned $10.5 billion on sales of $285 billion...
The memo noted that Wal-Mart workers "are getting sicker than the national population, particularly in obesity-related diseases," including diabetes and coronary artery disease. The memo said Wal-Mart workers tended to overuse emergency rooms and underuse prescriptions and doctor visits, perhaps from previous experience with Medicaid.
Wal-Mart Memo Suggests Ways to Cut Employee Benefit Costs - New York Times
Indictments of top White House officials could come as early as today in the CIA leak case.
The grand jury meets Wednesday and CBS News has learned that at least one person — possibly several — have been notified they are targets of the prosecution's investigation, CBS News chief White House correspondent Bill Plant reports.
CBS News | D.C. On Edge As Leak Jury Meets | October 26, 2005 08:25:07
Some American tourists stuck in Mexico told CBS News correspondent Adrienne Bard the U.S. government didn't do enough to help.
"When you live in the largest, most powerful country in the world, you really would think that our government could get some military aircraft in here, swoop us up, and get us out of here," said Rodney Henson of Kentucky, who was still trying to get a flight out after six days.
FEMA spokeswoman Frances Marine urged Floridians to be patient, and reminded residents that problems such as the ones that popped up Tuesday were why officials suggested that people have 72 hours' of essential supplies — including water — available ahead of Wilma's arrival.
"People will have their needs met," Marine said. "The bottom line is that there's a plan in place."
CBS News | No Power, No Water, No Patience | October 26, 2005 09:30:05
The Washington Post writes
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A U.S. Army sergeant died of wounds suffered in Iraq, the Pentagon announced Tuesday. The death _ along with two others announced Tuesday _ brought to 2,000 the number of U.S. military members who have died since the start of the Iraq conflict in 2003.
Staff Sgt. George T. Alexander, Jr., 34, of Killeen, Texas, died Saturday at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, of wounds suffered Oct. 17, when a bomb exploded near his vehicle in the central Iraqi city of Samarra, the Defense Department said.
Grim Milestone for U.S. Military in Iraq
Rarely has a president confronted as many damaging developments that could all come to a head in this week. A special counsel appears poised to indict one or more administration officials within days. Pressure is building on Bush from within his own party to withdraw the faltering Supreme Court nomination of Harriet Miers. And any day the death toll of U.S. troops in Iraq will pass the symbolically important 2,000 mark.
Presidents Past Inspire Bush's Damage Control
This Link is just here as a reminder and a helper for me to finish the business plan that I've been working on.
and http://www.uspto.gov/ will be useful on how to get intellectual property secured.
Found this story on slashdot regarding a recent letter written from the White House to the Onion, America's Finest (fake) News Source.
You might have thought that the White House had enough on its plate late last month, what with its search for a new Supreme Court nominee, the continuing war in Iraq and the C.I.A. leak investigation. But it found time to add another item to its agenda - stopping The Onion, the satirical newspaper, from using the presidential seal.
Protecting the Presidential Seal. No Joke. - New York Times
Boeing and its joint-venture partner Bell Helicopter apologized yesterday for a magazine ad published a month ago — and again this week by mistake — depicting U.S. Special Forces troops rappelling from an Osprey aircraft onto the roof of a mosque.
"It descends from the heavens. Ironically it unleashes hell," reads the ad, which ran this week in the National Journal and earlier in the Armed Forces Journal. The ad also stated: "Consider it a gift from above."
The Seattle Times: Nation & World: Magazine ad "unleashes hell" for Boeing and Bell
And here I thought I'd have to wait until November... I am SUCH a nerd recently.
Press Release
Download
And also check out Ruby on Rails and learn what that's all about.
If you can't tell, I'm not very occupied here in my last few days at work. Some interesting tidbits that I've found online shortly before I'm going to head out to lunch.
I was watching Nature on PBS last night and learning about Gorillas and their dwindling numbers due to the trade in bushmeat going on Africa. I can remember thinking to myself, "I can't believe that can't just control their national parks and stop people from poaching." Then I read this in teh washignton post about poaching in national parks in the US and feel stupid and ethnocentric:
"When I look down in that hollow and see no viable ginseng population, to me that is a very serious matter," said Wissinger, a National Park Service special agent. "In my view they are an integral part in the portfolio of the nation's natural resources."
That portfolio is now showing heavy losses. While the National Park Service does not keep comprehensive statistics on how much poaching occurs in its nearly 400 parks, its 2006 budget request reported that thefts have helped spur the decline of at least 29 wildlife species. "The poaching of wildlife from national parks has been steadily increasing each year for the past several years," the document said.
Poachers Looting National Parks of Treasures
Can you trust Wikipedia?
The founder of the online encyclopedia written and edited by its users has admitted some of its entries are 'a horrific embarrassment'. What did our panel of experts think of the entries for their fields?
Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Can you trust Wikipedia?
Coming down with a bit of a cold this week actually. Sunday was mostly spent complaining about being sick and helping a neighbor to "fix" her toilet. I just helped with one really tough part and she did the rest.
Our ceiling start leaking from the water that had drained our of her tank at around 8:30pm. Annoying.
My last day with my current employer is on Wednesday and then I start a new job on Halloween! On Thursday, I'm flying to Colorado to use up my extra vacation days to go visit my grandparents.
The reason I feel fantastic is because Frist and Delay are both in a big amount of trouble and I'm experiencing some schadenfreude:
Read up on how to write a Business Plan in the wikipedia.
Google Stock Soars.... makes me wish I'd bought a hundred shares two years ago.... Hrm... Hindsight 20-20 and all that.
Yet another browser that you can download and check out... I don't think you need a password, but Go here to download Flock 0.5, which has been getting some buzz. It's a new browser that incorporates a lot of blogging stuff and rss stuff and has very shnazzy portable bookmarks that hook into del.icio.us.
Just a reminder for me to call up citibank and figure out where that $5 annual fee came from.
Now THIS is a headline that makes me happy: Arrest warrant issued for DeLay
Sweet! Take that, idiots!
ABC News: Rice Won't Rule Out Force on Syria, Iran
Per this quote, it's good to know that Bush always keeps a military option open:
The New York Times reports that E.T.S. will be Revamping ... [the] Graduate Entrance Exam.
The bad part, the test is going to get a lot longer at 4hrs total instead of the old 2.5hrs. The good parts:
Just finished watching a really good Frontline episode on Torture in Iraq (remember? Abu Ghraib? Remember how the guy who wrote some of the torture memos [pdf] for Guantanamo that were used as a basis for Iraqi prisoner treatment was named the Attorney General?)
The sad part about watching the documentary was that all of this is still going on today... and none of the people who are really responsible seem to have been held accountable. I'm not talking about sad girls with learning disabilities like Lynndie England, I'm talking about Rumsfeld, Pappas [pdf], BUSH.
MH, friend of the blog, pointed me to this ridiculous monstrosity of a musical ensemble: Cannon-the-band.com.
What the hell, they can play guitar better than I can, so I can't complain too much.
This can't be good: Iraq vote counts 'point to fraud'.
The article also mentions the LIES spewed forth by Condi in the days following the election. I'm sorry, but if you say something and have no proof for your statement whatsoever, I call that a lie. That might just be me. The media and pundits might just call it "spin". Idiots.
Quote:
If you've been slacking off on learning more about how someone in the Bush administration helped to expose the name of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, check out this timeline graphic on the New York Times' website.
No time for bloggin'
Here's an EIGHT PAGE article on NYTimes reporter Judith Miller's involvement in the whole Valerie Plame fiasco. I've gotten through four of those pages and am starting to drift off...
And this is a link directly to a video that I just used to teach me how to finally fold a t-shirt in two-seconds. IT IS AMAZING: t-shirt folding
No surprise here that Bush's talk with soldiers was scripted. Here's a google search on this topic. Bush's spin machine handpicked soldiers and had them practice their answers to the president during a video link "conversation" with soldiers in Iraq. Even more hilarious that the FOX news headline is Pentagon Denied Talk With Troops Was Staged. Sad that it took this long for the media to start calling Bush out on this as he's been doing it so successfully for so long with his little Town Hall meetings, etc.
You've been sleeping over at your girlfriend's place all week and you left your goddamn alarm clock set to 6:38AM. I can hear it through the wall. It's the Sony Dream Machine set to the buzzer setting and it's the same alarm clock I had growing up. I hate the sound of that thing. It reminds me of being late to home room.
I've invested in an alarm clock that plays a CD of my choosing for me to wake up to. Now I'm woken up to your alarm clock about 5 minutes into my first snooze hit and it continues to go off until I leave the house to go to work.
I left late the other day and the thing was still going MREEP... MREEP... MREEP... MREEP at 9am. Maybe if it was a consistent tone I could ignore it, but that pulsing is excruciating.
I saw you on the street the other day, but you were a block away and couldn't hear me cursing at you and screaming.
I wonder if it drives the cat crazy to listen to that crap all morning.
I wonder when the thing actually shuts off. It must shut off at some point, because it's not going when I get home. God help you if you're coming in and turning it off, but then leaving it set for the next morning.
If you were an owner of your unit instead of a renter, I might even have sent a message to the condo list serv. You're a cool guy, too! Which just makes it suck even more that you've done something so stupid. I'm sure if you knew it was going off, you'd do something about it, right?
If you find your window broken and your Dream Machine Alarm A set to "Off", it was either me or units 3,4,5, or 6.
You Suck.
Yours truly,
Unit #1
There's a new addition to the blog! It's the "Netflix Queue Section" on the left sidebar! It shows the ridiculously long Netflix queue that I've currently got working. I used this RSS Parsing Program that I found on this this handy RSS parsing program list.
Of course, I hate the idea of using someone else's parser, so this weekend I plan to use a tutuorial or two to figure out how to write it up myself (maybe then I can choose to only show ten of the movies in my queue instaed of all 110...
Scandals Take Toll On Bush's 2nd Term
The most amusing part about this article is the list of names at the bottom... Jedidiah? Jinger? Joy-Anna? Darwin strikes again!
This Article from BBC news reports that U2 doesn't think its concerts should be used to help raise money for politicians. Damn straight. I agree with the band wholeheartedly and I'm not swayed by the fact that it's Hillary Clinton who's getting bashed for doing the fundraising... especially since the next paragraph bashes Santorum as well. The US news doesn't appear to have picked up on this story very well, but Rush Limbaugh is making up lies about Bono having a mistress.... so that should get him some press. I'm not going to link to it as I don't think it deserves mention either.
God... since when did I become a U2 supporter? Lame.
This is just for me to remember to buy a Seirus Neofleece Comfort Masque from REI.com for winter scootin'
LAME DUCK
Bush's approval rating is down at 39% in the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC poll [Link]
I'd love to say that I'm the bigger person and that I'm not happy that his approval rating is low because I think it's bad for the country's image for our "elected" leader to be unpopular and that I don't want the country to be in the gutter, but I've hated this idiot for so long and think our current in-the-gutter state and his low approval rating mean that other people are finally starting to see the light.
I wish we had a better leader. I wish the country wasn't on this wierd-ass track towards evangelical, pro-life, big-government spending with a "no more big government". But I'll be honest enough to admit that I'm happy for the moment.
This is just a nerdy reminder for me in all my linguistic nerdiness, do not be concerned with it 'o' ye of little linguisitcs caring... : Phrasal verb bibliography
Now that I'm a total machead, it's my nerdly duty to always link to new mac stuff. Luckily, Think Secret is out there for me to link to and just leave it at that. Apple announced a new iPod today which:
Several headlines arrived in my email box this morning from Slashdot.org and this one is espeically scary. I'd been keeping up pretty well with the scary concept of RFID being used to track customers after they'd purchased things, but it's nice to see the Boston Globe taking notice as well: You need not be paranoid to fear RFID - The Boston Globe
And this one is scary and nerdy as well: Wirelessly Charging Your iPod and Cell Phone
Reminder: I need to finish reading this: TPMCafe || Gore on the Threat to American Democracy
and I need to post picutures from San Diego.. if there are any good ones.
This article talks about the upcoming investigation of a satellite launch gone wrong. The satellite would have helped t measure the thickness of North Pole ice sheets. My money is on either Exxon, BP, or Chevron having a hand in this one. Anybody?
I'm sad that the weekend is over. I'm going to lobby congress for a 2 day work week. Seriously, why does it make sense to anyone to work more than play? Ridiculous.
I failed to give any good blog over the weekend. Saturday was spent catching up on shows that I'd missed during the week... sad, I know.
Sunday was spent getting the bedroom ready for a new floor to be put in on Tuesday and a closet on Wednesday. This mean (1) Ripping out the old closet, (2) Putting everything in the bedroom into the living room and (3) Ripping up the carpet.
I thought I could get the closet out in an hour.
It took 3.
Same goes for ripping up the carpet. Who knew there was going to be so much crap to rip out of there? After I removed a few of the screws that seemed to be attaching the closet to the wall, it still wouldn't budge. I cut a line through the caulk that was holding one side to the wall and it still wouldn't move. I started taking it apart and realized that two backing pieces on each side were glued to the wall. At first I tried running a hacksaw blade through the glue, but this wasn't going anywhere. The next step was to just rip it off with the back of a hammer. This ended up ripping off plaster and paper from the drywall. I took pictures, so maybe I'll post one when I can reach the camera again (it's currently somewhere in the living room...
After a trip to the hardware store I started patching over the holes that I'd created. I'm taking my time though and letting it dry between coats of spackle as I really don't want this to show like the not-so-maginificent job I did on the bathroom wall.
Oh well. Time for work.
Paul Krugman's OpEd today in the New York Times via the Times Select Workaround at NewsBank: A Pig in A Jacket
I'll speak more to this topic when I have some time on Saturday or Sunday, but if you do your prereading, you'll enjoy my witticisms much, much more.... who are we kidding, there are only two othe people who read this.
In the Guardian article, "Breaking America's grip on the net" it's explained that recent events will start to relinquish the US' control over the internet. Is it bad if I didn't know that we owned the internet? I can't even believe how mad we are. We're such nerds! "No! They're our servers! You'll never control the mainfram!"
I knew the Dept of Defense funded and basically created the internet, but I hadn't realized that we still controled the hub... but I really don't think there is much of a hub anymore.
Let's just hope that this knew governing body can't shut down the pirate bay or something insane like that.
[Article]
Doesn't anyone realize what's going on? Bush nominates Miers, whom he knows the democrats won't like because of her lack of experience and semi-conservative values. At the same time, he knows that the conservatives won't like her either.
She'll get voted down and the democrats will get blamed for dividing the country, even though it took a significant number of Conservatives to vote her down as well.
Then he nominates a real conservative, all the republicans vote for him/her and we're totally screwed.
OR everyone realizes that this is his plan and tries to triple-cross him by voting her in. Then we're screwed.
The fact that Roberts didnt' answer any questions during his hearings, but was still a darling of the Neo-Cons makes it all the more interesting to hear stuff like this:
Start-up getting financing for fingerprint technology... someday soon you'll be able to pay by just swiping your finger on a nasty gummed up pad at the 7-eleven. And you thought that the touchpad on the Debit Card screen was disgusting, just wait until everyone with a finger or ten has wiped theirs across a reader.
This disgusting downfall pales in comparison to getting mugged for your finger. Who knows, maybe there will be a black market for rich people's digits at some point in the near future.
Click Here for a story about an Urban Fox loose in the National Portrait Gallery in London.
Pretty sure I warned about this at some point in the past, but the BBC reports today that the Spanish Flu came from birds, which means that we might want to all start getting really, really freaked out about the avian flu in Asia.
This is interesting and potentially disasterous: Britain has accused Iran of responsibility for explosions which have caused the deaths of all eight UK soldiers killed in Iraq this year.
Granted, the US supplies weapons to loads of places... maybe that's why we're blamed for so much just like the British are blaming Iran. This isn't to say that Iran isn't doing a horrible thing. I don't think anyone should be supplying weapons to insurgents, I'm just pointing out a parallel.
I know America is all about turning a quick buck, but the smoking gun points out a true asshole who is trying to trademark the name "Katrina" for an alcoholic beverage...
Listening right now to Bush Press Conference on wnyc:
UPDATES Below:
Choice quotes so far Re Harriet Miers:
And to think. R and I bought our condo in July... Thank goodness we got a relatively good deal and aren't planning on selling any time soon: Slowing Is Seen in Housing Prices in Hot Markets
Harvey Danger Downloads
and nerd it up with this: ARPANET Diagram and this Internet Architecture Wiki
Other things I need to remember:
Hooray! I STILL don't need to get cable! F' Yeah!: Adult Swim throws fans b'band lifeline
What's that? You say you've never been a judge before, but you're described as a "Pit Bull" of a lawyer by the man who nominated you? I say you deserve a spot on the Supreme Court of the United States of America, Ms. Harriet Miers. Another member of Bush's harem (see Hughes/Rice) is placed in a position of power. I wonder if these women are just replacements for Barbara in Bush's life. Does he need to have these strong female figures pushing him around? Who's nominating who here?
We'll see how this all pans out. I feel like there are going to be a lot of pissed off federal judges who thought they'd paid their dues and might get a spot at the top who will now feel snubbed. What did you expect from this guy but to surround himself and nominate personal friends? Pretty sure every president does that, though not to this degree necessarily.
More as this retardation develops...
I was wondering where Richard Pearle went after he and the other neocons helped to get us into this mess. I even have a Google Alert set up for his name just in case he actually pops up in the news. Looks like Maureen Dowd has noticed the same thing as she mentions Pearle in her OpEd column today:
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