I am not making this up.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Police sweep RNC 'welcoming committees'
From the Minnesota Independent:
Crackdown begins: Food Not Bombs house among Saturday raids
You can follow events on Twitter.
McCain Taps Palin Of Alaska After First 37 Choices Turn Him Down
From the satirical Funniest Blog in America:
Among the 37 Republicans and others who declined Sen. McCain's offer of a spot on the ticket were former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, Connecticut Senator Joe Leiberman, former New York City Mayor Rudy Guiliani, Los Angeles Dodgers manager Joe Torre, TV chef Emeril, recording artist 50 Cent, former New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath, actress Liv Tyler, Barney the Dinosaur, John McCain's wife Cindy, an unnamed bartender at Sky Harbor Airport Terminal C in Phoenix, New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, and the surviving members of the cast of 1960s TV sitcom Gilligan's Island.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Friday, August 29, 2008
The oenophile's lament
From the LA Times, via James Randi:
Milan's Osteria L'Intrepido restaurant won Wine Spectator magazine's award of excellence this year despite a wine list that features a 1993 Amarone Classico Gioe S. Sofia, which the magazine once likened to "paint thinner and nail varnish." Even worse: Osteria L'Intrepido doesn't exist.
Oh no, we can't have THAT
The publisher of a Twin Cities magazine says he was caught by surprise after a group of delegates coming to the Republican National Convention canceled an order of the magazine's guidebook after seeing it had a six-page section for gays and lesbians (Pioneer Press).
Tiny Tim time?
UPDATE: It's Palin.
Anyone taking odds today on Minnesota's Tim Pawlenty getting the nod as the Republican vice presidential nominee?
What a night
Did anyone watch PBS's post-convention coverage last evening? Jim Lehrer had a pundit panel there for reactions. He held off interviewing the New York Times's David Brooks until last -- no doubt dreading what we were about to hear. Of course, Brooks supplied the obligatory putdown of Barack's speech -- red meat to his constituency.
I wish I'd been in the PBS studio armed with a cream pie.
What a TV moment. "John McCain looks very, very small right about now." -- Kevin Drum.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Wisconsin heard from
Seen on C-SPAN just now in the runup to Barack's acceptance speech: An audience member holding up the sign
'CHEESEHEADS FOR OBAMA'
Minneapolis police detain, handcuff photo-journalist
Yet another hair-trigger response by authorities to legitimate picture-taking. This report is from Minnesota Public Radio.
ABC Reporter Arrested in Denver
Police in Denver arrested an ABC News producer Wednesday as he and a camera crew were attempting to take pictures on a public sidewalk ... more ...
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Minneapolis Police Seize Journalists' Notes About RNC Protest Plans
UPDATE 2008-08-29: They got their stuff back.
From The UpTake (via mnblue) ...
there is a report of Minneapolis police seizing citizen journalist notes and equipment and making up a reason later (9 minute video).
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Meet Ashwin Madia
Here's his first ad. He has a good shot at Jim Ramstad's currently Republican seat.
He's in the Third District -- I live in Betty McCollum's Fourth where her seat is so safe I haven't bothered to learn the name of her opponent.
And a shoutout to Ramstad. He's a Good Republican (TM) -- one of the last of the breed.
Vacation recap
I've been back in Saint Paul since Friday, but I haven't gotten my head out of the northwoods.
Here are some of the spots where we stopped. I'll try to post more about them soon. Click the blue pointy things for commentary.
If the embedded map doesn't work, visit here.
Jack
View Larger Map
Glitch let hundreds get free transit rail tickets
From comp.risks:
Apparently due to a programming error, ticket vending machines on the Long Island Railroad and Metro-North Railroad have been giving out free tickets whenever debit cards with inadequate balances were used, since 2001.
Ellie Smeal at the Democratic Convention
John Aravosis ran into Feminist Majority president Eleanor Smeal, former president of NOW, at the CNN tent at the convention.
Sophia, 1999(?)-2008
Ronnie and I got back from the northwoods late enough Friday that I decided to leave Sophia in Milo's care an extra day. As luck would have it, that was the night she chose to leave us.
Milo feels terrible about this happening on his watch. You can say "you did the right thing" and "her time had come" all you want, but often that doesn't stop the feeling that you somehow caused the calamity. Moreover, this was Milo's loss as much as mine; he and Sophia had come to be great friends in the past two years.
Sophia was about nine (no one knows for sure) and had diabetes. Up to the end she was happy, affectionate, playful, and purring, and her departure was speedy and mostly painless. I won't get another cat. But I may foster once in a while.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Sleeping under blankets
... again. Jeannie and Ronnie cooked a picnic supper.
It was cold at Herbster beach, so after enduring one night sleeping in tents we broke camp and returned to Jeannie's warm cabin.
Today we went halfway to Canada, along the north shore on the Minnesota side of Lake Superior stopping at Tettegouche State Park. A couple of miles of light hiking. Restaurant meals.
Monday, August 18, 2008
While camping in the northwoods ...
Biking and kayaking yesterday on the Iron River. Weather warmer than expected. Tenting tonight. Hey, there's a song. Here's a post from Grandpa Charlie:
From the "Spiritual Wealth" distribution list:
As the Russian poet Joseph Alexandrovitch Brodsky observed, "There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them."
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Known unknowns
Posted by Grandpa Charlie in NJ
From the daily email "DailyWealth"
President Harry Truman once observed that, "The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know."
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Friday, August 15, 2008
Like a cattle-car in the sky ...
... Ronnie's rebooked flight has performance characteristics better than 0% of all other flights in the FlightStats database.
There's a one in four chance her plane will show up here on time.
| Ontime | 25% |
| Very Late | 11% |
| Excessive | 36% |
| Cancelled | 9% |
| Diverted | 0% |
"It means that they don't want to tell people what that means."
John McCain's website:
John McCain Will Encourage The Market For Alternative, Low Carbon Fuels Such As Wind, Hydro And Solar Power. According to the Department of Energy, wind could provide as much as one-fifth of electricity by 2030. The U.S. solar energy industry continued its double-digit annual growth rate in 2006. To develop these and other sources of renewable energy will require that we rationalize the current patchwork of temporary tax credits that provide commercial feasibility. John McCain believes in an even-handed system of tax credits that will remain in place until the market transforms sufficiently to the point where renewable energy no longer merits the taxpayers' dollars.
Frank Maisano, energy industry spokesman:
"I don't even know what that means. It means that they don't want to tell people what that means."
Source: the nonpartisan FactCheck.org (which calls 'em as it sees 'em and criticizes both campaigns for misleading ad content).
Thursday, August 14, 2008
The swiftboating of Barack Obama
[UPDATED AND REPOSTED: Obama campaign responds; also, CNN link fixed (thanks, bro).]
Paul Waldman, Senior Fellow and Director of Special Projects at Media Matters on Larry King Live:
He said that the people who criticize him for getting the facts wrong are nitpicking. Well, knit — the truth is not nitpicking. Either it’s true or it’s false. And much of what Mr. Corsi has written is just plain false.
Transcript from cnn.com.
The start of a perfect vacation
A distant friend Ronnie, a nearby friend Jeannie, and I have conspired to spend the next week or so camping, hiking, biking, and kayaking in the northwoods of Wisconsin and Minnesota. To accomplish this, Ronnie was going to fly in from New York tonight and I was to pick her up at the Minneapolis airport.
But my phone rang. Northwest had cancelled her flight -- the equipment was still in Detroit due to an earlier East Coast storm. So she'll be along a day later, and we'll push north sometime Saturday.
This is not altogether a bad thing. We each get an extra day to catch up on chores we've been putting off.
There will be three people, three bikes, two kayaks, and one paddle. Oops, better stop on the way and get another paddle.
There's no itinerary and no fixed schedule. Even the flights are subject to change. We found that out already.
A hoax about a hoax
Did Martha Raddatz of ABC News misrepresent which candidate troops in Iraq support, as a chain e-mail alleges?
Nope.
It was a dark and stormy night ...
The annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest.
Tip o' the hat to Pete in Stockholm.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
'Focus on the Family' censors its own website
The Colorado Springs Gazette reports on a 'Focus on the Family' video segment by a conservative pastor (and former TV weatherman) urging viewers to pray for torrential rain during Barack Obama's acceptance speech at Invesco field.
The actual segment is no longer available on FOTF's website but you can still see it on YouTube (I'll embed it below while it's still accessible):
XM Radio gets an FCC wrist-slap
A notice in today's email:
Dear XM Subscriber,
The FCC has notified XM that some of our older receiver models (generally, those purchased before August, 2006) may not operate in the manner required by the FCC and may cause interference to nearby FM radio users depending on how the XM radio is installed or used.
It goes on from there.
Here's the backstory from the FCC.
I'm getting my magic beads.
We're all pirate broadcasters now.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
GPS sends truck driver astray
... 1,600 miles off course, to a nature preserve in England instead of Gibraltar, Spain.
The USA -- an ally you can count on when it doesn't matter
... [Some] believe that while Georgia have miscalculated the level of support it had from Washington, the US has also erred in thinking it could influence events so close to Russian borders.
-- Al-Jazeera
"Know what? If you can prove THAT - I'll endorse you!"
The about-face came three days after a spokesman for Kennedy, a Republican, said his Democratic opponent, Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., had "directed the Democratic Senatorial (Campaign) Committee to begin the first in an onslaught of negative attack ads against John Kennedy."
According to Kennedy's release, the time had already been purchased and the ads would begin running this week. But the Democratic group denied the accusation, and Kennedy's communications director, Leonardo Alcivar, offered no proof that such ads were in the pipeline.
* * *
Television stations are required to keep a public record of advertising purchases by campaigns. Miller said the DSCC would endorse Kennedy if he could produce such records.
More Al
Dr. Bob Meaders talks about his friendship with Al Franken and their shared commitment to advocating for our troops fighting abroad.
Monday, August 11, 2008
That equals 1000, right?
From Computerworld's Shark Bait column.
One of the items they ordered, a 1000 card-per-minute card reader was out of stock at the vendor's warehouse. The vendor, a major mainframe company, instead sent two 500 cpm readers.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Obama, Rock Star
'Anonymous Liberal' writes on Crooks and Liars:
The way to deal with the “celebrity” charge is not to lower your profile; it’s to turn that charge back around on McCain. If I were advising Obama, I’d tell him to get up there in front of that sold out stadium and say ...[more]
Bill Maher Q&A
From the Aug. 4 Hollywood Reporter.
"You know what? My kid's teeth are falling out.
I really better vote for the smarter guy."
Friday, August 8, 2008
Missouri voter arrested at primary
From Democratic Underground:
"Are you going?" [the police officer] asked again. I asked, "You mean leave without even having an answer as to why I am not allowed to cast my ballot?"
His answer was nonverbal; but he leaned in close, and I knew he was waiting for an answer. "Uhhh... with all due respect, officer... I feel that if I did so, I would be betraying my own conscience, and setting a bad precedent for all those citizens who share my right to vote."
About two nano-seconds after finishing my sentence, an officer behind me grabbed my wrists, handcuffed me, pulled me by the arm and pushed me into the back seat of a caged police car.
A conversation
jalopy: want to hear a story?
haettenschweiler: sure
jalopy: once upon a time, on a lake in upstate Minnesota ...
a young Indian brave ...
jalopy: (this goes on for a while, better get a cup of tea)
haettenschweiler: got water
jalopy: ... heard, from the opposite shore, what sounded like
the voice of a fair maiden ... singing ...
jalopy: he stood there at dusk, listening to the voice ...
entranced ...
jalopy: and as the sun set, his heart filled with joy at the
pure, clear, young maiden's voice raised in song
jalopy: he fell in love
jalopy: each evening he returned to the shore of the lake at
sunset
jalopy: hoping to hear the young maiden. and he did. the clear
bell-like voice entranced him
jalopy: finally, he could stand it no longer ...
jalopy: he dove into the water, and with swift, strong strokes,
he began swimming toward his one true love ...
jalopy: but alas ...
jalopy: halfway across the lake, his strength gave out ...
jalopy: and before he could ever meet the one true love of his
life, he drowned ...
jalopy: and legend has it that ....
jalopy: even today ...
jalopy: the lake where he heard the fair maiden's voice, and died
trying to meet her ...
jalopy: ... bears his name.
jalopy: Lake Stupid.
haettenschweiler: lol
According to Popular Mechanics ...
We could resume domestic offshore drilling and increase the supply of crude oil by one percent by 2030.
Or we could immediately lower gasoline consumption by about one percent by keeping our tires inflated to the proper pressure.
So tell me again why the McCain campaign thinks the latter is a bad idea?
How to annex a region
Say you're Dmitry Medvedev. Nearly two decades ago the Russian Federation lost the southern half of the Ossetia region when Georgia became an independent state. The northern half remained part of Russia.
Ethnic Ossetians in the region want no part of the Georgian state; they would rather be reunited with North Ossetia or become internationally recognized as an independent state.
It doesn't help that Georgia is making overtures toward NATO and that its leader is viewed in the international media as a charismatic champion of peace and democracy.
Here's how to start getting Georgia back, piece by piece:
- Declare to the world that Russia's role is that of a peacekeeper.
- Covertly send money, arms, and intelligence operatives to separatists in the region.
- Issue Russian passports to most South Ossetians.
- Wait until the world's attention is distracted by the start of the Beijing Olympics.
- Send in the tanks to "defend your citizens."
Thursday, August 7, 2008
At least 15 ways to poison DNS cache
A flaw in the Internet's directory lookup system is worse than we thought when it was discovered.
As it turns out, there are at least 15 known ways to run this attack and, Kaminsky suggested, perhaps 20 more undiscovered ways. So [Dan] Kaminsky's effort to keep the flaw secret to buy time, derided by some, now looks even wiser.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
From the Mundaka Upanishads
Contributed by Charles in NJ
Printed in 'Eat More, Weigh Less' by Dean Ornish, M.D.
Self is everywhere, shining forth from all beings, vaster than the vast, subtler than the most subtle, unreachable, yet nearer than breath, than heartbeat. Eye cannot see it, ear cannot hear it nor tongue utter it; only in deep absorption can the mind, grown pure and silent, merge with the formless truth. He who finds it is free; he has found himself, he has solved the great riddle, his heart is forever at peace. Whole, he enters the Whole, His personal self returns to its radiant, intimate, deathless source. As rivers lose name and form when they disappear into the sea, the sage leaves behind all traces when he disappears into the light. Perceiving the truth, he becomes the truth, he passes beyond all suffering, beyond death, all the knots of his heart are loosed.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Bishop-Zeldin (NY 1st district)
I'm related to the incumbent, a Democrat in a historically Republican district. He has my support as long as he remains sane. Character attacks like the one below may drive him over the edge, though.
Monday, August 4, 2008
House.IsEmpty()
A Mathematician, a Biologist and a Physicist are sitting in a street café watching people going in and coming out of the house on the other side of the street. First they see two people going into the house. Time passes. After a while they notice three people coming out of the house.
The Physicist: "The measurement wasn't accurate."
The Biologist: "They have reproduced."
The Mathematician: "If now exactly one person enters the house then it will be empty again."
Once a stoner, always a stoner
Dr. Bozivich thinks it's a kidney stone. I gave birth to my first one a couple of years ago. What I have been able to harvest so far resembles chalk dust, but I'm told that fits the category. Who knew?
I have been guzzling close to a half gallon of iced tea every day this summer, and the good doctor asserts that's often the culprit.
At the moment I have no pain and no current need for pain-killers, but I have an adequate supply of the Good Stuff (TM) if I need some.
Mild, severe, and hoo boy
Off to see the doc in a few minutes. I've been having on-and-off passing-a-stone-like symptoms (with no stone in sight) for a couple of months. At the moment I'm pain-free, but thank Gourd for Percocet ...
Rip it out and start over
Windows Small Business Server 2003 Routing and Remote Access was not forwarding packets after a network reconfiguration. I spent several hours and multiple reboots struggling with it, all to no avail. Then a thin faint voice called to me from distant memory of past misadventures: "Rip it out and start over."
From the MMC menu tree, right click the current server under RRAS and choose "Disable Routing and Remote Access." Let it uninstall itself. Then start the configuration wizard. Oh yeah, write down all your settings before you remove anything.
It works now, until the next time I try to shuffle things around in my network.
I've been managing various releases of SBS Server for the past eight years; Ubuntu Server for the past two months. I'm beginning to get the drift of Linux and I like it a lot. Once you figure out where the components are, you find it's easier to use than Windows and way more flexible. And you can pretty much run Linux on any old system unit from your junk box as long as it still boots up.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Mention my name in Sheboygan
The Pat Boone show (1957) with guest performers Dick Van Dyke and Shirley Jones.
It's phenomenal what you can find on the Internet nowadays. Wait, I SAID that already.
Doing the right thing
"The challenge is not to avoid growing old. Rather it is to grow old gracefully, that is, showering grace on those we love. We must bathe them in grace not as those would who are afraid the supply will run out but like those who believe that grace is limitless."Contract with an Angel Andrew M. Greeley TOR paperback edition Page 260
Saturday, August 2, 2008
BDSM in a Christian Marriage
It's amazing what you can find on the Internet these days if you just LOOK hard enough.
A Secret Wish
I wrote this in October 2001 and posted it to the Witchbaby bulletin board (now defunct).
A Secret Wish
Once upon a time, in the far-off land of Daskalion, the lovely, lonely princess Athena was kept sequestered in a castle under the evil spell of a witch named Penelope.
On days when the wind blew from the east, Penelope's hair got frizzled and hard, and bad hair days made her mad. She took her frustrations out on the poor girl in the castle, and when she served Athena her meals she said nasty things like, "You stupid ugly girl. You'll never amount to anything."
Athena loved Penelope for bringing her the food, and figured the nasty things she said about her must be true. She called herself "big stupid ugly Athena."
Penelope had a secret wish. I'll tell you about that in a moment.
Athena also had a secret wish. You'll learn about it later in the story.
Unbeknownst to Penelope, there was an ancient elf who lived in one of Athena's dresser drawers. He was named Asteris and he began as tiny as a whisper. Each day Athena would take Asteris out of the drawer and play with him.
Asteris loved Athena. He held her hand and told her good truthful things about herself. He gave her exquisite books to read, and a wonderful magic ring she could use to travel around the planet in her mind. Athena baked little chocolate raspberry cakes for the elf and made him paper collages.
"You are wonderful and special, Athena," the elf would say.
"No, I'm not," Athena would reply.
"Someday," he would say sometimes, "you and I will run away together."
Her little world of the castle was quite constricting, and the magic of the elf felt so good, that she heard herself say this to him:
"Yes, that we will."
And each day, when it came time to put Asteris back in the drawer, she loved him more than she had the previous day, and it seemed the elf had grown a little bigger.
Sometimes, while the elf was in the drawer, Athena used the magic ring to travel by herself. She learned ways to work the ring, and soon found herself in transports of delight, traveling in her mind to other castles in other far-off lands to play with other lonely princesses and princes. Gradually, the world was opened to her.
One prince, Telemachus, was particularly handsome. And he was lonely in the same ways Athena was. They formed a close friendship that turned to love.
Athena wondered about this. She felt love for the old elf, and new love for the young prince. How could she hold both of them in her heart?
One day, as Athena and Asteris were playing together, the elf made an announcement.
"Now," said Asteris, "I am big and strong enough to break the evil spell that keeps you here. And you are old enough to withstand Penelope. Come away and live with me."
Athena looked at the elf. He was old, and ugly as a toad. She thought of the handsome prince Telemachus.
"Um," said the girl. "I, I ..."
You see, Asteris had a secret wish too. His wish, and Penelope's, and Athena's, were all the same.
They all wished to find their hearts' desire in another person.
They all believed they could wrap up their hopes and dreams and hand them off to someone else and say: "I hereby vest all my happiness in you. It is now your responsibility to meet my needs."
All three of them were foolish children.
Only one of them was young enough to still be able to learn that you can find fulfillment and happiness only by looking inside yourself.
Do you know which one it was?
The End.
Cloquet, Minnesota's iconic gas station gets a 50th anniversary facelift
A clever ad campaign
These banners are part of an actual ad campaign for an online company in Argentina. If you're under the age of 18, you might want to divert your eyes. Electrical devices are serious business.
Doctor, your eyes
A psychiatrist's secretary walks into his study and says, "There's a gentleman in the waiting room asking to see you. Claims he's invisible."
The psychiatrist responds, "Tell him I can't see him."
Ayatollah Mohamed Baqr al-Hakim
From The Assassin's Gate by George Packer, which I have to get back to the library by tomorrow ...
They tell the story of the spiritual leader of the Shiite political party, killed in a car bomb attack in Najaf. He is blown into so many pieces his body can't be identified.
Finally, investigators bring a severed penis to his widow and apologetically ask whether she can make a positive identification.
The widow glances at the object and says, "That's not my husband. That's his driver."
Another chapter in the wonderful news about JESUS
From the extremely popular hymn "In The Garden" :
And He walks with me and He talks with me
And He tells me I am his own;
And the joy we share as we tarry there
None other has ever known.
See, Jesus is not only imaginary, he's HOMOSEXUAL.
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