Discount SPCO tickets

The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra is partnering with my theater group, Lex-Ham Community Arts, in a program which will allow supporters of Lex-Ham to obtain vouchers for tickets for upcoming SPCO concerts (after December 8) for only $10 per voucher. The vouchers are good for ANY available ticket at any price.

Here's how it works:

1. You fill out the voucher request form
2. Send the completed voucher request form with payment to Lex-Ham Community Arts, 1184 Portland Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55104
3. Lex-Ham Community Arts forwards the voucher request form to the SPCO.
4. SPCO sends the voucher(s) to you around December 8.
5. You select from any of the upcoming concerts and contact the SPCO for any available ticket for that concert regardless of the price of the ticket.
6. You enjoy a wonderful concert

It's that simple!

This program ends on November 30, 2008. The vouchers will be delivered around December 8.

If you have any question, contact Shira@lexhamarts.org.

Drinking the ACORN Kool-Aid

How Cries of Voter Fraud Cover Up GOP Elections Theft

by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Greg Palast

Virtually the entire mainstream electronic media drank ACORN Kool-Aid this month brewed up by the Republican National Committee. Almost no one seriously challenged John McCain's comical assertions that ACORN, a grassroots voter registration group, "is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy."

While the Republicans had the distracted media searching for links between Obama and ACORN, RNC operatives were busily completing one of the most massive voter suppression and purging efforts in American history, stealing hundreds of thousands of Democratic votes across the embattled swing states and striving to arrange chaos and endless lines at the voting booths next week.

Full article at Huffington Post or via Common Dreams.

Romanian prison break -- Mongrel Max at large

Dotster customer service follies

I can keep on transferring my domains to GoDaddy, or I can stay with Dotster, pay double, and get more of the same:

Leland G.: Hi, my name is Leland G.. How may I help you?
Jack Rose: Hi Leland, I can't update name servers. The code is xL*************FIL
Leland G.: what name servers were you changing it to and what is your domain .
Jack Rose: I was changing the name servers to P****N.M*****Y.NET and L***S.I*****T.US, and my domain is I*****T.US.
Leland G.: ok just a moment

[A long pause ensues.]

Leland G.: L***S.I*****T.US is not a registered name server
Leland G.: that one wont work
Leland G.: is there anything more I can assist you with?
Jack Rose: It works for my other domains
Leland G.: the other was fine
Leland G.: oh hmm

[Another long pause ensues.]

Leland G.: I just looked it up
Leland G.: L***S.I*****T.US is being transferred
Leland G.: I would imagine that might make a bit of a hick up
Leland G.: i*****t.us is being transferred so yeah I think that's why its not taking as a name server
Jack Rose: what an odd reason -- my service doesn't expire until december
Jack Rose: well, i accept your judgment on the matter
Jack Rose: i was not aware of this rule
Leland G.: yeah I think since its being moved its not able to direct to it
Jack Rose: thanks for your help, leland
Leland G.: well is there anything more I can assist you with?
Jack Rose: nope
Leland G.: thank you for contacting support
Leland G.: have a good day

14 things to do if you are laid off from your tech job

#10: Move out of the Bay Area.

Quote without comment 28-Oct-2008

My first post on Daily Kos ...

here.

Timezone woes?

During my hard disk replacement adventure I used the 'repair' option to reinstall Windows XP Professional. This had unintended consequences. A few patches were overwritten by the repair, but Windows Update thinks they're still in place. So a few parts of my operating system are unpatched.

Moreover, Windows 2000, still running on my laptop, doesn't seem to have a patch for the new timezones introduced in 2007. My internal clock flipped back to standard time a week early. Here's how I fixed it.

If you don't know how to run a registry editor, don't try to fix this yourself. Hire me instead. I'm not very good, but I work cheap.

Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Time Zones\Central Standard Time (substitute your own time zone in the foregoing). Look at the REG_BINARY named TZI.

If it looks like this:

change it to this:

Now navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation. If StandardStart looks like this:

change it to this:

and if DaylightStart looks like this:

change it to this:

Then reboot.

This worked for me; it may not work for you; if you break your machine I'm not responsible.

Jack

"The current technology doesn't work as well as the old technology"

They just don't build 'em like they used to.

Barack asks you to believe

From Kos via Aravosis.

Hallowe'en scare tactics

Emi Kolawole calls out both campaigns for distorting their opponents' positions.

This is an egg

Local paper spells it out for you.

12 ways you can safequard the vote

From Yes! Magazine.

"You can't land here ... This field is condemned!"

Sunday morning in Denver

And the winner is ...

Christopher Reed, Republican candidate for Tom Harkin's U.S. Senate seat from Iowa, for lamest web page design.

An item of interest to Cheetos-addicted geeks

Death by cheesy rice buns

Winning contestant dies during competitive eating event

A Taiwanese graduate student vying for the "Big Stomach King" contest at Dayeh University died on Tuesday just before he could claim the winning title.

-- The Register (UK).

Pictures that make you go awwww ...

... right here.

Thanks, Grandpa Charlie!

(Alternate link here if the first one doesn't work for you.)

Obama wants to take away your guns. Or maybe not

A misleading NRA ad claims Obama voted "to deny citizens the right of self-protection."

... What Obama voted for was not any general repeal of the right of self-defense, but to uphold enforcement of the local gun ban, a "petty offense" that carried a maximum penalty of a $750 fine.

-- FactCheck.org.

The other white meat

Thanks, JB!

Decent Republicans

Still a few around.

In a sinking economy

Written & directed by Patrick Wilkinson, starring Rosa Esperanza González and Luis Xago Juárez.

I found 'em on Kos.

Wassup 2008

From 60frames via John Aravosis.

Trick or treat

This year I will take candy from the little kids with too much candy in their bags and give it to those who are too lazy to get their own. Might as well teach them what they have to look forward to as a democrat/socialist nation.

* * *

You mean take candy from the middle and lower income kids And give to the wealthy kids. That is what has been going on for the past 8 years. And look where we are. About time the lower and middle class got some candy. They work as hard or harder than these CEO's with their extravagent meetings who make money even thought they run their companies into the ground.

-- Online comments by two Star Tribune readers after last night's Barkley-Coleman-Franken debate [reformatted for clarity].

Gentoo wiki, portage down

... but it's coming back up piecewise. Something about a provider who didn't pay his bill. Here's one side of the story. It's a snapshot of their webpage as of midnight (12:01 am CDT 25 Oct 2008). Read bottom to top. We report, you decide.

I had no idea anything was up until I went there to investigate an Apache SSI problem. I resurrected the information I needed by typing the web page address into Google's search bar and looking up the cached copy.

P.S., it renders OK under MSIE 7 and Firefox 3.0, but it's a little ragged with Chrome.

The RNC promises, a year later

On October 23, 2007, the Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers and the University of St Thomas Justice and Peace Department invited the St Paul police to discuss the upcoming Republican National Convention ... Let's review.

-- Charley Underwood's blog at mnblue.

Vote "flipping" - does this account for it? Ya think?

... while we have no reason to believe that voting machines are actually flipping votes, the issues underlying these concerns are very real. We should not blame voters when the real problem lies with poor usability engineering of electronic voting machines ... -- Dan Wallach at Rice University

After years of rendering technical assistance to inexpert computer users, and observing their frustrated confusion at times, I am forced to the conclusion:

The nation ain't ready for interactive voting.

November concerts

Thu Oct 30 11AM Fri Oct 31 8PM Sat Nov 1 8PM	2001: A Space Odyssey Celebrating the 85th birthday of conductor-laureate Stanislaw Skrowaczewski Skrowaczewski: Music at Night Chopin: Piano Concerto #1 Richard Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra	Minnesota Orchestra Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, conductor Ewa Kupiec, piano	Orchestra Hall
Sat Nov 1 7:30PM Tue Nov 4 7:30PM Thu Nov 6 7:30PM Sat Nov 8 7:30PM Sun Nov 9 2PM	Mozart: The Abduction from the Seraglio	Minnesota Opera Jennifer Casey Cabot Michael Colvin Harold Wilson Jeffrey Halili Kathleen Kim Ben Johnson Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra Andrew Altenbach, conductor	Ordway Center
Sun Nov 2 2PM	GTCYS Fall Festival Bizet: Carmen, excerpts Gershwin: Cuban Overture	Greater Twin Cities Youth Symphonies	Orchestra Hall
Tue Nov 4 10AM Tue Nov 4 11:35AM Wed Nov 5 10AM Wed Nov 5 11:35AM	Young People's Concerts: The Tin Forest (Recommended for younger elementary) Shostakovich: Festive Overture Visconti: Overdrive (World Premiere) Mendelssohn: Piano Concerto No. 1, Mvt. 3, Presto Ravel: The Enchanted Garden from Mother Goose Suite Heitzeg: The Tin Forest	Minnesota Orchestra Mark Russell Smith, conductor Ann Bancroft, narrator Magdalena Müllerperth, piano	Orchestra Hall SOLD OUT
Sat Nov 8 2PM Sat Nov 8 4PM			Orchestra Hall FREE but all tickets have been allocated
Thu Nov 6 7:30PM	Guillaume de Machaut: La Messe de Nostre Dame	Diabolus in Musica	Basilica of Saint Mary
Fri Nov 7 8PM	Future Classics Ted Hearne: Patriot Antonio Carlos DeFeo: Four Portraits: por los ojos de los niños Andrew McManus: Identity* Ming-Hsiu Yen: Yun Wang Lu: Wailing* David Schneider: Automation Justin Merritt: River of Blood* * World Premiere Performance; All other works will be receiving their premiere performance by a major orchestra	Minnesota Orchestra Osmo Vänskä, conductor Steve Seel and Fred Child, hosts	Orchestra Hall
Sun Nov 9 2PM	Young Soloists Concerto Competition Finals Recital	GTCYS students Kerri LeJeune, piano	SPCO Center FREE
Sun Nov 9 7PM	Bare Soundz	Savion Glover, Marshall Davis Jr., and Maurice Chestnut, tap	Orchestra Hall
Sun Nov 9 7PM	Mozart: Quintet in A major for Clarinet and Strings, K. 581 Shostakovich: Selections from 24 Preludes for Violin and Piano, Opus 34 Beethoven: Septet in E-flat major, Opus 20	Minnesota Orchestra members Osmo Vänskä, clarinet Peter McGuire, violin David Brubaker, violin Aaron Janse, viola Eugena Chang, cello Milana Elise Reiche, violin Laurinda Sager Wright, piano Sarah Kwak, violin Matthew Young, viola David Williamson, bass Burt Hara, clarinet J. Christopher Marshall, bassoon Michael Gast, horn	Antonello Hall, MacPhail Center for Music
Thu Nov 13 11AM	Tavener: The Protecting Veil Bruckner: Symphony No. 4	Minnesota Orchestra Osmo Vänskä, conductor Steven Isserlis, cello	Orchestra Hall
Fri Nov 14 8PM			Cathedral of St. Paul
Fri Nov 14 10:30AM Fri Nov 14 8PM* Sat Nov 15 8PM	Landscapes of the Americas Martínez Y Compañón: Colección de Música Virreinal Frank: Elegía Andina* López: Fiesta! for Chamber Orchestra Ives: Symphony No. 3, The Camp Meeting Villa-Lobos: New York Skyline Melody* Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue (original jazz band version) * Not performed on Jazzed-Up Friday	SPCO Miguel Harth-Bedoya, conductor Terrence Wilson, piano	Ordway Center
Sun Nov 16 2PM			Ted Mann Concert Hall
Sat Nov 15 8PM	Lawrence Siegel: Kaddish: Music of Remembrance and Hope	James Bohn, baritone Jason Collins, tenor Krista J. Palmquist, alto Maria Jette, soprano VocalEssence Chorus VocalEssence Ensemble Singers	Ted Mann Concert Halll
Sat Nov 15 8PM	Tchaikovsky: Romeo and Juliet, Fantasy-Overture Debussy: Sacred and Profane Dances Brahms: Symphony No. 1	Minnesota Orchestra Osmo Vänskä, conductor Kathy Kienzle, harp	Performing Arts Center, Watertown-Mayer High School
Sun Nov 16 6:30PM	Rouse: Orange Blossom Special Copland: Rodeo (excerpts) Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (excerpts) Johann Strauss: Radetzky March	Minnesota Youth Symphonies Peter Ostroushko, mandolin and violin	Orchestra Hall
Wed Nov 19 10AM Wed Nov 19 11:35AM Thu Nov 20 10AM Thu Nov 20 11:35AM	Young People's Concerts: Bach to the Future (Recommended for younger elementary) Bach: Suite No. 4, Overture Bach: Suite No. 3, Air, Gigue Mozart: Symphony  No. 40, Mvts. 1, 2, and 4 Beethoven: Symphony No. 5, Mvts. 3 and 4 Dvorák: Slavonic Dance No. 8 Dvorák: Symphony No. 9 From the New World Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5, Mvt. 4, Allegro non troppo	Minnesota Orchestra Mischa Santora, conductor featuring Platypus Theatre	Orchestra Hall
Wed Nov 19 7:30PM Thu Nov 20 7:30PM	Mozart: Symphony No. 41, Jupiter	Minnesota Orchestra Sarah Hicks, conductor Sam Bergman, host	Orchestra Hall
Thu Nov 20 7:30PM	Bach: Prelude and Fugue in G Major Douglas: Suite Cantabile for woodwind quintet Poulenc: Sextet for piano and wind quintet Saeverud: Quintet No. 1 from Siljustol Op.21 Francaix: Quintette No. 2.	Bergen Woodwind Quintet Tim Lovelace, piano	Ted Mann Concert Hall FREE
Fri Nov 21 8PM Sun Nov 23 2PM	A. Scarlatti : Su le sponde del Tebro, Cantata for Voice, Trumpet, Violins and Continuo Durante: Concerto No. 2 in G Minor for Strings D. Scarlatti: Salve regina for Mezzo-Soprano, Strings and Keyboard Pergolesi: Stabat mater for Soprano, Mezzo-Soprano, Strings and Organ	SPCO Jamie-Rose Guarrine, soprano Nicole Percifield, mezzo-soprano Gary Bordner, trumpet Layton James, keyboard Daria T. Adams, violin Brenda Manuel Mickens, violin Leslie Shank, violin Evelina Chao, viola Joshua Koestenbaum, cello	The Music Room
Sat Nov 22 9:30AM Sat Nov 22 11:15AM	Flute and Friends Early childhood introduction to classical music for children 3-6	SPCO Joanna Cortright, host	Shepherd of the Valley (Apple Valley) FREE
Sat Nov 22 8PM Sun Nov 23 2PM	Morricone: Gabriel's Oboe Loewe: I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face Noble: The Very Thought Of You Kern: The Way You Look Tonight others	Minnesota Orchestra Chris Botti, trumpet	Orchestra Hall
Sun Nov 23 2PM	Gould: American Salute Beethoven: Fidelio, Overture Gounod: Faust, ballet music	Greater Twin Cities Youth Symphony Amir Kats, conductor	Ted Mann Concert Hall
Sun Nov 23 3PM	Gregorian Vespers Series	The Rose Ensemble	Basilica of Saint Mary FREE
Tue Nov 25 7:30pm	Joseph Schwantner: Music of the Soul..... and The Mountains Rising Nowhere Bruckner: Mass in E Minor David Maslanka: Symphony No. 4	UMN Wind Ensemble with Concert Choir and Chamber Singers	Ted Mann Concert Hall
Wed Nov 26 7:30PM Fri Nov 28 8PM Sat Nov 29 8PM	Mozart: The Abduction from the Seraglio, Overture Berlioz: Harold in Italy Delius: The Walk to the Paradise Garden, from A Village Romeo and Juliet Elgar: Enigma Variations	Minnesota Orchestra Yan Pascal Tortelier, conductor Thomas Turner, viola	Orchestra Hall

Alle Angaben ohne Gewähr

Obama leaves campaign trail to visit sick grandmother

From TPM.

Opie meets Richie Cunningham

OK, there's a little message in it too.

The wedding test

Thanks to JB ...

I was a very happy man. My wonderful girlfriend and I had been dating for over a year, and so we decided to get married. There was only one little thing bothering me. It was her beautiful younger sister.

My prospective sister-in-law was twenty-two, wore very tight miniskirts, and generally was bra-less. She would regularly bend down when she was near me, and I always got more than a nice view. It had to be deliberate. Because she never did it when she was near anyone else.

One day her "little" sister called and asked me to come over to check the wedding invitations. She was alone when I arrived, and she whispered to me that she had feelings and desires for me that she couldn't overcome. She told me that she wanted me just once before I got married and committed my life to her sister.

Well, I was in total shock, and couldn't say a word.

She said, "I'm going upstairs to my bedroom, and if you want one last wild fling, just come up and get me."

I was stunned and frozen in shock as I watched her go up the stairs. I stood there for a moment, then turned and made a beeline straight to the front door. I opened the door, and headed straight towards my car. Lo and behold, my entire future family was standing outside, all clapping!

With tears in his eyes, my father-in-law hugged me and said, "We are very happy that you have passed our little wedding test. We couldn't ask for a better man for our daughter. Welcome to the family."

And the moral of this story is:

Always keep your condoms in your car.

Need a power boost? Use your graphics card

The latest graphics cards have been used to break Wi-Fi encryption far quicker than was previously possible.

Story at the Register (UK).

Student hacker gets 90 days

From Computerworld.

I gave to the Atheist Bus

Hillary delivers on the Iron Range

I am now fully convinced that Barack Obama will carry Minnesota, in part by holding strong DFL numbers on my native Iron Range.

-- Minnesota Brown.

Lake County early voting will go forward

A Superior Court judge has ruled against the GOP's attempt to shut down the additional early voting centers in Gary, Hammond, and East Chicago, IN.

The ruling is 24 pages long. It's here if you're a legal junkie like me.

Check out the footnote on page 13 (fax page 14).

A person with Ubuntu

"A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed."

-- Archbishop Desmond Tutu

"I don't think the Democrats get it"

".... All these new rules and games -- could flip the vote to the GOP in half a dozen states."

The new registrations thrown out, the existing registrations scrubbed, the spoiled ballots, the provisional ballots that were never counted — and what you have is millions of voters, more than enough to swing the presidential election, quietly being detached from the electorate by subterfuge.

-- Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Greg Palast in Rolling Stone.

Read an excerpt at GregPalast.com, read it all on-line at RollingStone.com (they're having technical issues at the moment), or download it at StealBackYourVote.org.

We'll be right back after this commercial

US drops charges against 5 at Guantánamo

The former prosecutor in their cases complained that the military was withholding evidence helpful to the defense.

There are no plans to free any of the men, and the military said it could reinstate charges later.

More ...

Sleeping with the windows open

It's fifty-two and sunny in Saint Paul. I went for a walk after lunch. Lots of people wearing coats. They must not be from Minnesota.

Bumped into the veterinarian. "Hey Fred, I got a new cat." "Cool," he replied. Her former owners had her shots up-to-date, so Josie won't be meeting Fred for another few months.

I love this weather. Except for the static electricity. In earlier cold seasons I got in the habit of grounding myself with a coin or a key before touching an elevator button, or the handrail of an escalator.

Rule #1: Don't sweat the small stuff. Rule #2: Everything is small stuff.

Passionately Credulous Bigots for McCain

From Jesus' General:

It begins

More W.Va. voters say machines are switching votes

In six cases, Democratic votes flipped to GOP

WINFIELD, W.Va. -- Three Putnam County voters say electronic voting machines changed their votes from Democrats to Republicans when they cast early ballots last week.

From the Charleston Gazette.

"They get to write the history."

Reed Hundt was chair of the FCC during the Clinton presidency. He's written a thoughtful piece for TPM Café explaining why it's critical we do all we can to counter the assaults on democracy and free elections that are all but inevitable during these final weeks of the Presidential campaign.

Customer Service war stories

Bart Perkins at Computerworld, on why 'Customer Service' shouldn't be an oxymoron.

Taxes

 

The light bulb. Either 100% on or 100% off. Black or white. Totally "for" or totally "against". But reality is not so stark, and there lives the hypocrite.

More from Smithers.

Think we're winning? Don't get complacent

McCain's final strategy relies on two pillars. The first is aggressively playing to voters' fears of electing a black president.... The second is an aggressive use of innuendo to convince casual voters that Obama is in league with Islamic terrorists bent on killing Americans.

-- Josh Marshall

Security holes in new IRS systems

Uh-oh.

"These [robocalls] are legitimate and truthful"

CHRIS WALLACE: But Senator back, if I may, back in 2000 when you were the target of robo calls, you called these hate calls and you said --

JOHN MCCAIN: They were.

WALLACE: And you said the following: "I promise you I have never and will never have anything to do with that kind of political tactic." Now you've hired the same guy who did the robocalls against you to, reportedly, to do the robocalls against Obama and the Republican Senator Susan Collins, the co-chair of your campaign in Maine, has asked you to stop the robocalls. Will you do that?

MCCAIN: Of course not. These are legitimate and truthful and they are far different than the phone calls that were made about my family and about certain aspects that -- things that this is -- this is dramatically different and either you haven't -- didn't see those things in 2000.

WALLACE: No, I saw them.

MCCAIN: Or you don't know the difference between that and what is a legitimate issue, and that is Senator Obama being truthful with the American people.

-- Fox News Sunday

Desperater and desperater.

Skip Vista altogether? May be a good idea

Ballmer: Windows 7 is Vista, just 'a lot better'

October 16, 2008 (Computerworld) Windows 7 will be like Windows Vista, but more so, Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer said today as he defended the first two years of Vista and claimed that its successor will be a major release.

"[Windows 7], it's Windows Vista, a lot better," said Ballmer during a 45-minute question-and-answer session hosted by a pair of Gartner Inc.analysts at the research firm's annual Symposium ITxpo in Orlando today.... [more] ...

Friday night funnies

From Jesus' General.

You should know this by now, but ...

... it bears repeating.

Don't click on unsolicited email attachments. Ever.

What is the difference between a pigeon and a hedge fund manager?

A pigeon can still put a deposit on a Ferrari.

"He Lied" About Bill Ayers?

McCain cranks out some false and misleading attacks on Obama's connection to a 1960s radical.

At FactCheck.org.

"Hello. I'm calling for John McCain ..."

" ...and the RNC [Republican National Committee] because you need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge's home and killed Americans. And Democrats will enact an extreme leftist agenda if they take control of Washington. Barack Obama and his Democratic allies lack the judgment to lead our country. This call was paid for by McCain-Palin 2008 and the Republican National Committee at 202-863-8500."

Farewell to the last shred of John McCain's integrity.

Stock Market Joke

Thanks to cousin JB.

Once upon a time in a place overrun with monkeys, a man appeared and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10 each.

The villagers, seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest, and started catching them. The man bought thousands at $10 and as supply started to diminish, they became harder to catch, so the villagers stopped their effort.

The man then announced that he would now pay $20 for each one. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again. But soon the supply diminished even further and they were ever harder to catch, so people started going back to their farms and forgot about monkey catching. The man increased his price to $25 each and the supply of monkeys became so sparse that it was an effort to even see a monkey, much less catch one.

The man now announced that he would buy monkeys for $50! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now buy on his behalf.

While the man was away the assistant told the villagers, "Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has bought. I will sell them to you at $35 each and when the man returns from the city, you can sell them to him for $50 each."

The villagers rounded up all their savings and bought all the monkeys. They never saw the man nor his assistant again and once again there were monkeys everywhere.

Now you have a better understanding of how the stock market works.

John McCain's last remaining hope

McCain/Palin supporters let their racist roots show

An Al Jazeera camera crew catches the honest sentiments of McCain/Palin supporters at an Ohio rally.

David Niewert at Crooks and Liars.

The best line from the debate

"I think the fact that [the William Ayers/ACORN issue] has become such an important part of your campaign, Sen. McCain, says more about your campaign than it says about me."

Surprise your sweetheart

... with a Valentine Cruise.

"If you can't win it, steal it."

... If you can't steal it, claim the other guy stole it. If you can't claim the other guy stole it (yet), say they're about to and then kick up smoke that maybe someone will believe you. (Heckuva job, CNN.)

-- Brad Friedman in the Guardian (UK) on the Right's phony outrage about ACORN voter registration drives.

p.s. -- The Republicans had the same problems in 2006.

Look back in sorrow

The big differences in American politics today are between those with courage and those without it, those who can inspire and those who can't. Among the former are the late Paul Wellstone and John McCain -- politicians with deeply held views who are passionate about what they believe. They don't care much about the polls, they love this country, and they have a fair degree of contempt for Americans who are powerful but don't really give a damn about America or about most other Americans. On the other side is a large group of hard-boiled poll-watchers and ass-kissers who spend most of their time raising money from people and groups with a lot if it.

-- Robert B. Reich, Reason (2004), p. 200

---

McCain Vows End to 'Rancor,'
Betting on Maverick Appeal

--The Wall Street Journal, headline, September 5, 2008

---

"Instead, by his own account, Mr. Obama wrote a letter to the Treasury Secretary, allegedly putting himself on record that subprime loans were dangerous and had to be dealt with. This is revealing; if true, it indicates Sen. Obama knew there was a problem with subprime lending -- but was unwilling to confront his own party by pressing for legislation to control it. As a demonstration of character and leadership capacity, it bears a strong resemblance to something else in Sen. Obama's past: voting present."

-- John McCain's website

"My 401(k) is down $21,000 since the end of September ..."

And John McCain thinks I should be worried about William Ayers.

-- Leonard Pitts Jr.

Soldier adopts Iraqi puppy, Army grabs it

Ratchet, an Iraqi puppy adopted by an American soldier from Spring Lake Park, is alive, the Army confirmed Tuesday, as an animal rescue group expressed hope that it would be allowed to bring Ratchet back to the United States as soon as today.

Today's Star Tribune.

The Obama-Biden tax cut calculator

Try putting in Dick Cheney's declared annual income: $1,614,862.

A million here, a million there, before long you're talking serious money

October 14, 2008 (Computerworld) A reformatting error in an Excel spreadsheet has cropped up in the largest bankruptcy case in U.S. history, prompting a legal motion by Barclays Capital Inc. to amend its deal to buy some of the assets of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

The law firm representing Barclays filed the motion (download PDF) on Friday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, seeking to exclude 179 Lehman contracts that it said were mistakenly included in the asset purchase agreement. The firm — Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP — said in the motion that one of its first-year law associates had unknowingly added the contracts when reformatting a spreadsheet in Excel.

Full story at Computerworld.

IT's biggest project failures

"[T]ests showed that the new system was slower than the one it was designed to replace."

From Computerworld.

Paulson wants to keep the money -- all of it

Now wait a minute. This is a pretty important point here and Lord Paulson is completely wrong. Paulson appears to be suggesting that Wall Street did everyone a favor by graciously accepting taxpayer money, so no, there's no link between the $250 billion and executive compensation. Maybe Congress can quit their ridiculous TV stunts that Waxman loves so much and instead address issues like this and assert their damned authority. (I say this as a person who likes Waxman, but hate the made-for-TV dramas. I don't think I'm alone in this sentiment either.) Congress needs to quit acting like a secondary player in this and step up, now. Also, if I hear one more Wall Street pundit tell me about how neutral Paulson has been when the evidence says the contrary, I'm going to scream.

-- "Chris in Paris" on AMERICAblog.

Another RNC aftershock

They surrounded our group. They then moved towards one member of our group and took her purse. She said, "I do not consent to this search". The cops said, "You don't have to, you are arrested." The cops then moved her, and three other members of the group away from the area I was in. They then surrounded me. They took my bag and searched it. They found only a water bottle and bike tools. They asked what was in the bottle, and I said, "water." They then said, "Drink some of it," and so i did. They told me to stand and did not handcuff me. They searched the bag of the man next to me, and then told him to stand. One cop walked by us as he directed us through the other riot cops and out of the blockaded area. As we walked past the blockade, a female cop said, "How did 10-year olds get here" to the man next to me, who is in his 20's. A male cop in the blockade then said to me, "Way to go, Jesus" (i have long hair and a beard).

-- "Matthew," as relayed by Charley Underwood at mnblue.

We are NOT going away.

Hang up your spurs, John

John McCain has served his country well, but in the end, he may have wanted the presidency a little too much, so much that he has sacrificed some of the principles that made him a heroic figure in war and in peace. In every way possible, he has earned the right to retire.

-- Editorial in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Employees, not hackers, cause most corporate data loss

Negligent employees are far and away the largest cause of data breaches, but IT managers also listed outsourcing and malicious employees (possibly ex-employees as well, one assumes) as two significant reasons why data breaches often occur.

-- Joel Hruska at Ars Technica.

How do you say "Google" in Japanese?

Answer here.

"I want to download the Internet. Do I need a bigger hard disk?"

Download the Internet here.

ACLU-MN files complaint in wrongful death lawsuit

For Immediate Release October 6, 2008

Saint Paul, Minn- The American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota filed a lawsuit today against St. Mary's Medical Center and the City of Duluth in Federal District Court over the wrongful death of David Croud.

On October 12, 2005, a Duluth police officer saw David Croud in downtown Duluth demonstrating "odd behavior." She called for backup. According to witnesses, when backup arrived, the officers slammed David Croud against a brick wall then threw him to the ground, pushing his face into the cement. The witnesses said that they did not see Croud being aggressive in anyway. Then, the police pushed and hit Croud into the squad car and used a taser on him.

They put handcuffs and facial restraints on Croud and took him to St. Mary's Medical Center for his injuries. He continued to struggle, and hospital staff administered 10 mg haldol to calm him. When that failed to work, they administered a subsequent dose which, according to a review by the Minnesota Department of Health, resulted in him receiving three times the recommended maximum allowance of the sedative.

The hospital staff left Croud in restraints and on his stomach. When they returned, he was unconscious. He subsequently fell into a coma and died on October 18, 2005.

"David's life was tragically cut short on that October day," said ACLU-MN Executive Director Charles Samuelson. "He did not have to die, and now his family will suffer the consequences. They will never get him back; his children will never again get to see their dad."

Today, the ACLU of Minnesota filed the wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of James Croud, brother of David Croud, against St. Mary's Medical Center and the City of Duluth Police officers for depriving his brother of his life.

Attorneys in this case are Albert Goins of the Goins Law Firm and John Goetz of Schwebel, Goetz and Seiben.

The case for Barack Obama

"[T]he candidate has demonstrated the kind of calm leadership, intelligence and skillful communicating that will be needed as America deals with the present economic crisis."

-- San Jose Mercury News

A brilliant scheme for optical Wi-Fi

Boston University's College of Engineering is launching a program, under a National Science Foundation grant, to develop the next generation of wireless communications technology based on visible light instead of radio waves. Researchers expect to piggyback data communications capabilities on low-power light emitting diodes, or LEDs, to create "Smart Lighting" that would be faster and more secure than current network technology.

From cellular-news.com.

An open letter to white voters, or what McCain really thinks of you

I want to ask you a simple question: Which candidate -- McCain or Obama -- do you think has a higher opinion of your character?

-- Carmen Van Kerckhove at Racialicious.

"I thought she said yeah, the wind was really blowing"

On the other hand, what if my lovely and mysterious spouse issued me a rejection slip on the wind-whipped afternoon when I knelt, creaky even then, on a high hill over the wine-dark sea, and stammered would would would will will will you you marry me? What if she had leaned down (well, not quite leaned down, she’s the size of a heron) and handed me a lovely engraved card that said WE REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT WE CANNOT ACCEPT YOUR PROPOSAL, DESPITE ITS OBVIOUS MERITS? But she didn’t. She did say yeah, or I thought she said yeah, the wind was really blowing, and then she slapped her forehead and went off on a long monologue about how she couldn’t believe she said yeah when she wanted to say yes, her mom had always warned her that if she kept saying yeah instead of yes there would come a day when she would say yeah instead of yes and really regret it, and indeed this very day had come to pass, one of those rare moments when your mom was exactly right and prescient, which I often think my mom was when she said to me darkly many years ago I hope you have kids exactly like you, the ancient Irish curse. Anyway, there I was on my knees for a while, wondering if my lovely and mysterious paramour had actually said yes, while she railed and wailed into the wind, and finally I said, um, is that an affirmative? because my knees are killing me here, and she said, clearly, yes.

-- Brian Doyle in the Kenyon Review.

Sue Ann Nivens slipping talking points to McCain

From Firedoglake via Crooks & Liars.

Coleman finally gets it -- too late

Norm Coleman, running for re-election to the U.S. Senate from Minnesota, announced he'll remove the ads he's been running attacking his opponent Al Franken on personality issues.

Won't work.

Usenet: Not dead yet

If you're old enough to remember Usenet, then you're really, really old.

The story from Computerworld.

The real story on ACORN in Lake County

ACORN relies on mostly low-income canvassers to gather registration forms. To meet their quotas, many will be tempted to turn in bad forms -- like the current batch that made the news in Lake County, Indiana.

Under most state laws, voter registration organizations are required to turn in all the forms they receive from their workers -- even the ones that are obviously fraudulent.

ACORN did the next best thing. They separated the forms into batches: good, incomplete, and suspicious. The Lake County board of elections stopped processing forms when they discovered, to their horror, that many of the forms labeled 'suspicious' were suspicious!

The Right is milking this for all it's worth.

Here's a good article from Progress Illinois.

Town Meeting, Wasilla, Alaska

Found at Crooks & Liars.

How to avoid sending that embarrassing late-night email when you're really, really drunk

As a public service, Google has released Mail Goggles, a Gmail feature designed to prevent you from sending stupid e-mails in the small hours, when you're most likely to be inebriated and at risk of making a complete idiot of yourself. 

More from Cnet.

$250k damages sought from RNC police raid

And we are NOT going away.

Here's the press release and early MPR coverage.

Norm takes a couple more hits

From MNPublius --

Franken Denounces "Disgraceful" Ads in New Spot

Mark Dayton Slams Coleman On Oversight

Al's up in the latest poll, 43-37, his largest advantage all year.

A scary new Flash exploit lets hackers seize your webcam

A Flash Player vulnerability could allow attackers to gain control of a user's webcam and microphone, according to a security advisory issued by Adobe. The company has issued a workaround; however a patch won't come until later. As always, Web surfers should be careful where they're clicking.

From TechNewsWorld.

You don't have to be gay ...

... to support No On 8.

"DON'T TOUCH ME"

Security, there's a gentleman at Table 42 who doesn't know who he is.

States are purging voters illegally

From the New York Times.

Always overdesign your variables for expansion

The National Debt Clock in Times Square was put up when the figure was $2.7 trillion.

When it rolled over to $10 trillion on Sept. 30, the electronic dollar sign was replaced by the digit one.

The owners of the sign are planning to redesign it, adding two zeroes just to be safe.

That's reassuring, from a techie's point of view.

Time for a slowdown, says Wozniak

"It is time for the whole computer industry to maybe have a bit of a slowdown. For twenty years we have been in this replacement and upgrade market. ... It is very easy to postpone that when there are financial irregularities."

Steve Wozniak interviewed by the Telegraph.

"We buried the New Deal" -- Kucinich

"This was the largest single act of class warfare in the modern history of this country," Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, who led the fight in the House against the bailout, told me by phone from Cleveland. "It is a direct attack on the American people's ability to be able to stabilize their homes and their neighborhoods. This single vote will define the careers of everyone. We are back to taxation without representation, to markets that are openly rigged."

From TruthDig.

"They were getting manicures ... while American people were footing the bill."

Have you heard of anything more outrageous - a week after taxpayers commit $85 billion dollars to rescue AIG, the company’s leading insurance executives spend hundreds of thousands of dollars at one of the most exclusive [resorts] in the nation…Let me describe for some of you the charges that the shareholders, taxpayers, had to pay. AIG spent $200,000 dollars for hotel rooms. Almost $150,000 for catered banquets. AIG spent $23,000 at the hotel spa and another $1,400 at the salon. They were getting manicures, facials, pedicures and massages while American people were footing the bill. And they spent another $10,000 dollars for I don’t know what this is, leisure dining. Bars?

-- Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD)

The post-debate non-handshake

UPDATE: Josh Marshall says the two did shake hands after the debate, out of camera range.

Could it be that Senator McCain declined to shake the hand of his opponent after last night's debate in Nashville?

Who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?

For the record: Franken OVERPAID taxes

Norm Coleman's misleading ads claim that Al Franken, who's looking to unseat the incumbent, "broke the law, and didn't pay the taxes he owed in at least 18 states."

Norm conveniently leaves out the fact that Al paid taxes on all his income, but his accountant misapplied the state payments. Even though Al made money speaking in multiple states, the accountant paid all the state taxes in New York.

When he learned about the error, Al promptly paid up in the states where he was delinquent.

Norm doesn't have much in the way of issues to campaign on, so he's had to stoop to unfair personal attacks to gain any traction in this campaign. 

It isn't going over well with the voters.

Worst Windows flaws of the decade

From InfoWorld.

And he can't fly either

A link to a link (LA Times) and a link (Rolling Stone).

XP gets another six-month reprieve

Windows XP's effective end-of-life date (the "downgrade rights" date when system builders' preloaded OEM operating system choices will be limited to Vista) has been moved up yet again, from January 31, 2009 to July 31, 2009.

So sayeth ZDNet.

Rochester Debate Wrap-up

According to the comments: Barkley won. No, Coleman won. No, Franken won.

From MNpublius.

Keating economics: John McCain and the making of a financial crisis

But Barack Obama pals around with terrorists.

Steve Jobs didn't have a heart attack

... even though a CNN-branded website said he had.

The sort of thing that gives citizen journalists a bad name.

Don't mess with us Minnesotans

You're surfing the World Wide Web when you see a photograph that would be PERFECT for your new business brochure.

So you download the photo, trim off the copyright notice, and send it to the company that prints your advertising.

The photographer writes you a letter demanding $5,000 for appropriating his intellectual property.

Better pay it. Here's a narrative from the photographer's point of view. Lots of supporting documents too. The photographer was awarded $19,462 although he sued for much more. The total cost to the defendant -- judgment, legal fees, and expenses -- we can only speculate.

Where are they now? Just for fun, after you've clicked the above, and spent an hour or so reading all about the court case, visit here and read the last "customer testimonial."

What seven months will do to your soul

To: Campaign Leadership
From: Rick Davis
Subject: McCain Message
Date: 3/11/2008

John McCain is now the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party. It is critical, as we prepare to face off with whomever the Democrats select as their nominee, that we all follow John's lead and run a respectful campaign focused on the issues and values that are important to the American people.

Throughout the primary election we saw John McCain reject the type of politics that degrade our civics, and this will not change as he prepares to run head-to-head against the Democratic nominee.

John McCain will continue to run on his principles and will focus on the future of our country. The stakes could not be higher in this election, and John will contrast his vision for America with that of Senators Clinton and Obama. He will draw sharp contrasts: victory versus surrender to Islamic extremism; lower taxes and spending versus more big government; free-market solutions to health care versus costly mandates; and the appointment of strict constructionist judges versus those who legislate from the bench.

Overheated rhetoric and personal attacks on our opponents distract from the big differences between John McCain's vision for the future of our nation and the Democrats'. This campaign is about John McCain: his vision, leadership, experience, courage, service to his country and ability to lead as commander in chief from day one.

Throughout his life John McCain has held himself to the highest standards and he will continue to run a respectful campaign based on the issues. We expect that all supporters, surrogates and staff will hold themselves to similarly high standards when they are representing the campaign. To help guide you, please find talking points below.

This is an exciting time for our country and our Party. Thank you for your dedication and hard work. We face a great challenge this November: John is ready, and with your continued support I am confident we will succeed.

Thank you.

---

COSTA MESA, Calif., October 5, 2008 (Reuters) -- Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin accused Democratic candidate Barack Obama on Saturday of "palling around with terrorists," marking a shift to a nastier tone in the White House race.

[Earlier,] McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds [stated]: "Barack Obama is lying to voters. ... It's a bald-faced lie."

DSCC: Setting the Coleman-Franken record straight

FBI no longer needs factual evidence to begin surveillance

"The attorney general today gave the FBI a blank check to open investigations of innocent Americans based on no meaningful suspicion of wrongdoing," said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. "The new guidelines provide no safeguards against the FBI’s improperly using race and religion as grounds for suspicion. They also fail to sufficiently prevent the government from infiltrating groups whose viewpoints it doesn't like. The FBI has shown time and time again that is incapable of policing itself and there is good reason to believe that these guidelines will lead to more abuse."

Press release from the ACLU.

WTWM-TV

Wall To Wall McCain.

Advice to a new father

I'm talking about young Master Levi Johnston. He's the 18-year-old Alaskan hockey enthusiast who knocked up Sarah Palin’s daughter, and the National Enquirer describes him as "a boozing pot-smoker who doesn’t want to get married" -- and John McCain thinks he found his soul mate!

More from Bill Maher.

The Saturday Funnies

Compiled weekly by Bob Geiger. Click to follow link.

Not "one of them." From a "demographic standpoint."

Ashwin Madia has a good shot at winning retiring Rep. Jim Ramstad's seat in the Third District of Minnesota. The Republicans are quick to point out various "holes in his résumé" -- the ideal candidate, according to a spokesman, would be "one of them.... from a demographic standpoint, Erik Paulsen fits the district very well."  

Minnesota Republican chairman Ron Carey and state Senator Geoff Michel explain.

None of the above is intended as racial innuendo, of course.

Mensch

n. Informal., pl. mensch·es or mensch·en. A person having admirable characteristics, such as fortitude and firmness of purpose: "He radiates the kind of fundamental decency that has a name in Yiddish; he's a mensch" (James Atlas).

-- Answers.com

"Foolish Me"

UPDATED: The Community Reporter's website, which lags the print edition by about a week, is now current. Go here to read the rest of the post-RNC blowback.

I decided to cover a "peaceful march" on Tuesday, or so I thought. What could go wrong with the Poor People's March on the RNC?

The Community Reporter is a local monthly focused on Saint Paul's West End. Their October print edition exposes many of the ways the Republican convention harmed local residents and businesses.

Read Maxine McCormick's first-person account of the march here.

Check back here once they have Web posted the rest of the current edition's articles.

Be afraid.

Many individual computer users still don't take basic precautions against cyberattacks. -- Computerworld

VPN: How to get around a Chinese firewall

In China, Skype is an extension of the government's citizen surveillance project.

Dirty tricks

If you can't win on the issues, try scaring the electorate.

In which Jack saves the day

While I was on the road last month accessing my development computer (back here in Saint Paul) remotely, it quit working.

I called Maureen, the building-concierge-for-all-seasons. She kindly reset it for me. But the next day it had quit again.

I arrived home late one night, got partly unpacked, then took a look. It was frozen in the screen saver. So I reset it. In the morning it was stuck again.

CHKDSK for XP was next. It needs the whole computer to itself and a reboot, and I obliged. It got stuck in one of the five phases. I forget which. So now the Seagate hard drive was the prime suspect.

Downloaded Seatools for windows. Got errors right away. Now the hard drive is the ONLY suspect.

They have a version of Seatools that you can burn onto a bootable CD. It runs under DOS. It found and corrected one LBA. But the Windows tests were still failing.

Seagate's website said the 160GB disk was still under warranty, so I booted my copy of Ghost, moved everything to an 80GB disk I found in my junk box, installed the 80 as my C drive, and how many different ways can you spell voilà?

Obtained an RMA from Seagate, mailed off the sickly (but still ambulatory) disk, got a new one in the mail yesterday. Ghosted the little one back onto the big one, and we're on the air after less than two weeks.

I also learned a bit about changing your boot disk's drive letter ('cause I had to) ... you go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices and rename your DosDevices.

This is a success story. Boring compared to the ones about the disastrous failures. After getting burned multiple times, I now subscribe to the principle that hard disk failure is never a matter of IF, but WHEN. If your drive has even ONE bad sector, swap it out as quickly as practical.

P.S. -- The 80GB pinch-hitter drive is one I pulled from a carcass that died almost a year ago. Just for laughs, I ran diagnostics on it. FOUR bad blocks and it's still under warranty at Western Digital. Off it goes. I'll use the nice shipping box Seagate sent me.

“This pork is unsettling.”

$192 million for the rum producers of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands? 

$128 million for racetracks? 

$33 million for corporations in American Samoa? 

$6 million for manufacturers of toy wooden arrows?

Aaron Boyd at hamptons.com.

Debate aftershocks

TNR: Palin's final quote was from Ronald Reagan, warning that without vigilance, "you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children, and our children's children, what it once was like in America when men were free." In fact, Reagan was not warning about a general lack of vigilance about freedom, he was warning what would happen if Medicare was enacted.

John Aravosis has the reviews.

Did you know ...

83.5% of statistics are made up on the spot.

Eight kilotons of cash

One ton of cash. Mentally multiply by 8,000.

If it were printed up, it would weigh over 15 million pounds--or almost 8 kilotons--in $100 bills by my math.

More at Daily Kos.