Senate could decide Coleman-Franken race

"Ultimately, the Senate has complete authority to determine who was elected" — Washington University political scientist Steven Smith.

Full story at Minnesota Public Radio.

Let's all convert to Islam

That'll solve everything.

Watching Daddy Cry

A Kos diary for you this fine day-after-Thanksgiving.

"Direct speech makes dirty deeds too clear."

[A] major reason why the Bush administration was able to break numerous laws in general, and subject detainees to illegal torture specifically, is because the media immediately mimicked the Orwellian methods adopted by the administration to speak about and obfuscate these matters.

Glenn Greenwald via Kos.

Useful geek tools

... all brought together by Minnesota programmer John Sheehan (hat tip Code Project).

When Uncle Harry brings up Prop 8 . . .

With holiday gatherings of family and friends right around the corner -- I'm urging you to make the case against intolerance in a very personal way. Talk to someone you've never talked to about same sex marriage and explain that it's just not right to deny someone their freedom because of who they are or who they love. Best wishes to you and your loved ones for a happy and healthy Thanksgiving, Dear ACLU Supporter, This Thanksgiving we are reflecting on what family means to us. For those of us at the ACLU and many people across the country, that will bring to mind what happened to families in California as a result of Prop 8. So -- in what is becoming an ACLU tradition -- I'm writing to share some pointers for talking turkey this Thanksgiving about issues that really matter. Here's my biggest piece of advice for when Prop 8 and gay marriage come up over the Thanksgiving dinner table: Don't shy away from the conversation. Do what I'm hoping thousands of ACLU supporters will do over the holidays. Talk to someone you've never talked to about same sex marriage and explain that it's just not right to deny someone their freedom because of who they are or who they love. And you can tell them something else: Tell them the fight to stop Prop 8 from disrupting people's lives and denying gay couples the full measure of their freedom is far from over. Tell them your ACLU has gone to court to stop Prop 8. On the day after the elections, the ACLU and our partners, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Lambda Legal and Equality California filed suit asking the California Supreme Court to strike Proposition 8 down. The case we are making is a powerful one -- and I want you to know its details -- because if we are going to secure equal rights for everyone in our great nation, the argument for equality has to be made not just in a California courtroom, but in countless conversations between families and communities all across America. Here are the specifics on our lawsuit: Under California law, major changes in the Constitution -- called revisions -- have to be first approved by two-thirds of the legislature before going before the voters. The forces of intolerance behind Prop 8 went through a process for less serious constitutional changes called amendments. They didn't go through the legislature. So, our lawsuit -- and your Prop 8 conversations over the holidays -- will all come down to the same question: Is it a big deal -- a revision, rather than a mere amendment -- to take the right to marry away from an entire group of people? We firmly believe it is . What could be more serious than rejecting the very idea that everyone is equal before the law? And what could be a more drastic change than undermining the essential constitutional principle that we all have rights, which can't be taken away just because a majority of people might like to do so? These are the questions we're asking the California Supreme Court to consider at crucial hearings coming up in December. And, they are the questions I hope you won't avoid addressing in holiday conversation with friends and family. The passage of Prop 8 has hit a powerful nerve all across America. People are seeing for themselves the unimaginable pain and anguish it has caused. And the sense of outrage is growing stronger every day. With holiday gatherings of family and friends right around the corner -- I'm urging you to make the case against intolerance in a very personal way. Prop 8 has made clear that we all have a lot of work to do challenging discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. And we can't do it without you. So, be a little bolder this Thanksgiving. When someone makes an uninformed remark about gay marriage, don't let it slide. If they say they're glad Prop 8 passed, tell them you love them. Then remind them that no one should ever lose their rights or face bigotry because of who they are and who they love. Make it clear that, no matter how someone feels about same-sex marriage, gay people are a part of our community entitled to the same rights, the same dignity, as everyone else. Today, it is clearer than ever that the struggle for LGBT equality is one of the defining civil liberties challenges of our time. You can count on the ACLU to defend LGBT rights in courtrooms, classrooms, and legislative hearings all across the nation. We're counting on you to do the same around the water cooler at work and over Thanksgiving dinner. Be brave and outspoken. It's the only way to move freedom forward. Best wishes to you and your loved ones for a happy and healthy Thanksgiving, Anthony D. Romero Executive Director ACLU © ACLU, 125 Broad Street, 18th Floor New York, NY 10004

Thursday, November 27

The great American songbook limps on

Two and a half years ago I rented an XM satellite radio equipped car and was pleasantly surprised to hear Jonathan Schwartz, one of the air personalities from the now-defunct WNEW-AM (NYC), playing selections from the Great American Songbook. This was enough to convince me to purchase a used radio from eBay and an annual XM subscription.

A few days ago XM and Sirius completed their merger, and another former WNEW voice joined in on my satellite radio: jazz expert Les Davis.

Life is good.

Vaseline on the lens

Walking home from the eye doctor, it was as if a heavy fog had infiltrated Saint Paul's famous skyway. I'm told that moviemakers in the thirties smeared a bit of Vaseline on the camera lens to get the blurry effect I was seeing. Halos and sunburst effects around points of light. As it was dark out, I didn't have to worry about eye damage from bright sunlight.

My pupils are dilated for the next several hours.

My eyes are fine. As I'm diabetic, I should get them re-checked in a year.

Minnesota Senate recount update

By Daily Kos diarist WineRev.

Follow the link for some funny business in Dakota and Mower Counties.

Being a Programmer

I have this bizarre outlook with regards to writing code - I do it because it's fun. I don't really care how much money I make, or that one day I'll become a manager of some kind - I do it for the pure enjoyment of doing it. It just happens that there are people out there that will pay me to do what I consider to be a hobby.

This article, by John Simmons, won a prize as the "Best C++/MFC article of October 2008" from the Code Project.

If you have to ask what C++ and MFC stand for, they are ... well, if we're "bit mechanics," these are our toolkits.

Eat your heart out, East Coast drivers

Saint Paul, MN, 24 Nov 2008 4:11 p.m.

I would have gotten some of that $1.65 gas, but my tank was still full of $1.79 gas I bought a few days ago.

Kentucky fried turkey?

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Take the American Civics test

"How can political leaders make informed decisions if they don’t understand the American experience?" asks Josiah Bunting, III, Chairman of the National Civic Literacy Board of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.

More than 2,500 randomly selected Americans took ISI’s basic 33-question test on civic literacy and more than 1,700 people failed, with the average score 49 percent, or an "F." Elected officials scored even lower than the general public with an average score of 44 percent and only 0.8 percent (or 21) of all surveyed earned an "A." Even more startling is the fact that over twice as many people know Paula Abdul was a judge on American Idol than know that the phrase "government of the people, by the people, for the people" comes from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

Take the quiz here.

For those who would rather bother you than to do a web search

Here, let me Google that for you ...

A good engineer doesn't know everything, he just knows where to look.

The technology behind Daily Kos

Did you ever wonder how popular websites like Daily Kos, which got nine million visitors Election Day, manage to keep serving up content quickly and accurately without the timeouts and slowdowns that plague some of the lesser ones? Head wizard Jeremy Bingham explains how it literally took a year of planning to pull it off.

Jeremy's new blog is a must-read for the technology-addicted.

Who gets the vote?

From Minnesota Public Radio, a fascinating first look at some of the challenged paper ballots. Nearly three million are being recounted since the Coleman-Franken race for Senate was too close to call on the first count.

"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." -- H. L. Mencken

The End Times are coming ...

... as early as 2018. And President-Elect Obama is the Antichrist. Maybe.

I am so looking forward to the Rapture. All us left-behind people, we're gonna party like it's the end of the world.

New vote totals: Coleman 0, Franken 0

The recount is on.

Another reason why software patents are a bad idea

There's an outfit in Menlo Park, CA called WebXchange Inc.

They have a product called the TRANSWEB(TM) Exchange. It's a piece of software that routes and manages value-added Internet transactions.

Microsoft has a development platform called Visual Studio. Most Windows developers use it. Me, for instance.

WebXchange sued three big-ticket Microsoft customers -- Allstate Insurance Co., Dell Inc. and FedEx Corp. -- last March, claiming that some of their online services use Microsoft's Visual Studio development tool, and that it is elements of Visual Studio that infringe on TRANSWEB patents.

Sue third-parties, in order to get your primary target to settle.

Mercifully, Microsoft is responding with a lawsuit of its own, asking the U.S. District Court in San Francisco for a declaration that WebXchange's patents are based on existing technologies, and are therefore invalid and unenforceable.

I'm not in the habit of saying nice things about the software behemoth, but what the heck: Way to go, Microsoft.

Celebrating our new Irish-American President, O'Bama

The tiny Irish village of Moneygall (on the Tipperary-Offaly border) claims 19th-century resident and Barack Obama's great-great-great-grandfather, Fulmuth Kearney, as a native son.

Obama, McCain pledge to work together

McCain, who lost his entourage of Secret Service officers and multiple staff when he lost the election, was accompanied by his close friend and colleague, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. -- Reuters

It's OK, Lindsey was packing heat.

Did Microsoft relax Vista hardware standards as a favor to Intel?

"... at the last minute, we cave to Intel and give 915 and other chip sets a back door into the programs."

Or maybe the internal emails don't mean what they say.

I know Hewlett-Packard wasn't happy.

Minnesota butterflies?

[NBC's Lee] Cowan offered a sensational and -- by his own acknowledgement -- wholly irrelevant comparison to the "butterfly ballots and hanging chads" of the 2000 recount. Then he made a false assertion of ballots materializing out of thin air, and of unsecured ballots -- an assertion that seems to have been based entirely on the already-retracted claims of a Coleman campaign lawyer.

Media Matters on the election debacle that wasn't.

"This is the America I want to live in"

... says one of the commenters to this Kos diary.

The Beginner's Walk for Web Development

As a developer and coder, I rely on the World Wide Web for instant access to answers from experts. 

But as you know, there's good advice and there's bad advice and on the Web you get both kinds.

The folks at the CodeProject, with over five million members, have started an experimental Beginner's Walk for Web Development to help me find the good stuff.

At the moment it's a Table of Contents with no contents. CodeProject members at the Silver level or above are invited to edit the entries to link to articles they recommend.

Looks promising. I like these guys and I wish them success on this project.

" ... the RNC was a military siege of the Twin Cities ..."

"... arbitrary exercise of unchecked power."

Charley Underwood's blog, and here's his MPR link made clickable.

We are NOT going away on this one.

It's a joke, right?

On page A11 of this weekend's Wall Street Journal is an op-ed titled "The Surest Path Back to Prosperity." Among the sage advice offered: "This crisis did not develop overnight, and it's not going to be solved overnight. There's going to be difficult days ahead."

The author is George W. Bush.

Fixed my webcam

Years ago at Comp-USA, which as you know is defunct for all practical purposes, I bought a webcam. It came with driver files on a miniature CD, which I lost. I downloaded several wrong drivers, which were advertised as the right drivers, then carefully uninstalled each one after it didn't work.

Now I have found the right one, thanks to a fellow geek-blogger.

It's good when a technical challenge finally resolves itself.

Study: Inkjet printers are filthy, lying thieves

OK, this post is from way back in June 2007. But I didn't have a blog then.

How a meme got legs

meme, n. -- A neologism coined by Richard Dawkins. An idea that passes from one person to another, and, like a virus, mutates in the process. Some memes, once unleashed, are unstoppable.

In this lecture, dear reader, we examine the meme of the 32 absentee ballots that Minneapolis's director of elections forgot to count because the ballots rode around in her personal automobile. According to a Wall Street Journal editorial this was evidence of chicanery on the part of Democratic officials in the hotly contested Minnesota Senate race.

The Coleman campaign and friends made much of the fact that the ballots were, in fact, not deliverable to the proper destinations because those polling places had shut down for the day.

Sean Hannity chimed in: "We have an issue of ballots showing up in a car somewhere, and then they're gonna be counted? Where were these ballots before?"

Brit Hume, not one to be confused by the facts, added on-screen graphics reading "FRAUD ALERT."

Now with these "facts" fixed in your mind, dear reader, it is a let-down, isn't it, to learn from David Brauer that:

1. The ballots were never in the election director's car.
2. The ballots were never in anyone’s car for several days.
3. The ballots were never lost or forgotten, and spent Election Night until counting day in secure city facilities.

The source of the meme? The Coleman campaign:

"We were actually told they had been riding around in her car for several days, which raised all kinds of integrity questions," said Coleman's attorney, Fritz Knaak.

Sigh.

Cuba's pianos are dying

One thing that has helped sustain Cubans over the years is their love of music, and the Russians helped establish a music education system which continues today.

But not without some difficulty. The US trade embargo, coupled with a hot and humid climate and salt air, spells disaster for musical instruments, especially the piano, many of which are slowly dying.

Elizabeth Jones' film 88 Keys in Cuba examines how Irishman Ciaran Ryan was inspired to come to the rescue of the island's pianos with money raised by the music community back home.

From Al Jazeera.

Part One (13:06):

Part Two (9:20):

Serenity

Thanks, cousin JB --

Just before the funeral services, the undertaker came up to the very elderly widow and asked, "How old was your husband?"

"98," she replied. "Two years older than me."

"So you're 96," the undertaker commented.

She responded, "Hardly worth going home, is it?"

A few common-sense résumé tips

... from a professional résumé writer and career management coach.

I've been looking for something ...

... nice to say about the Norm Coleman campaign, and here it is:

There are a few unfavorable posts in the comments section of the campaign blog, and for whatever reason the moderator has let them stand.

Reproduced below are the one favorable and two unfavorable comments so far, as of 13-Nov-08 07:54. I trust all three will remain in place?

---

Typical Liberals

Whenever they can't win the election outright. they start "Finding" ballots. Of course, they are always in their favor

1) 2004 Washington's Governor's Race

2) 2000 Presidential Election (We got lucky on that one)

By: Joseph Mouser

Typical GOP

I do have to say a win is a win, but as for now let the recount happen and don't declare a win till it actually is official. and to Joseph Mouser, Chill!!!!! That's a pretty childish statement you made. Grow Up

By: Brandon

Perhaps in your world only the votes for you should be counted. In this nation, we believe in EVERY voter having their vote counted before declaring a victor. If you win FAIRLY, without demonstrating your current attitude toward the recount, most in the state might be happy to back you. But it seems even some of your supporters are growing tired of your devisivness.

By: mark

July 4, 2009

An early (and optimistic) edition of The New York Times.

Say it proud: Barack Hussein Obama, President-elect

Commentary in the New Yorker by Hendrik Hertzberg.

Coleman called on ethics

This letter constitutes a complaint against Senator Norm Coleman pursuant to Rule 2 of the Rules of Procedure of the Senate Select Committee on Ethics, which authorizes any person to file a sworn complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee “alleging that any Senator…has violated a law [or] the Senate Code of Office Conduct…in the performance of his or her duty as a Member…or has engaged in improper conduct which may reflect upon the Senate.”

Full text (PDF) at Huffington Post.

Windows 7 disappoints one reviewer

... the more I dug into Windows 7, the more I saw an OS that looked and felt like a slightly tweaked version of Windows Vista.

So saieth Randall C. Kennedy, who ought to know.

Google fixes world's stupidest bug

Got one of those G1 Android handsets? Don't type 'rm -r' in a text message until after Google patches your software.

More from The Register.

"Family Angel" Beth Ann Kucinich

CLEVELAND, OH (Tues. Nov. 11) - Proud Army Veteran, Beth Ann Kucinich, beloved youngest sister of Congressman Dennis Kucinich, died today, Veteran's Day, at Veteran's Hospital in Cleveland, after a battle with acute respiratory distress syndrome. She was 48 years old. Her family was at her side throughout the three week ordeal, as she struggled to survive while on life support. Beth Ann Kucinich served in the US Army at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky. A talented musician as well as an artist, she sold many of her works of art to her fellow veterans at the Brecksville Veterans Center. Her specialty was drawing famous cartoon characters for friends and loved ones on special occasions. An avid heavy metal fan, she attended many local area concerts and practiced her own music with a guitar, with an extraordinary impression of Janis Joplin. "She was pure love. Every action, every sentiment, every piece of art, every word she spoke was an expression of love. Beth Ann was our family's angel, our 'Heavy Metal Angel', said her eldest brother Dennis. "Our brother, Perry, passed away last December. Beth Ann never got over Perry's sudden passing. The two had been inseparable. She talked about Perry constantly and she longed to be with him," Dennis said. She was the beloved mother of Asher; treasured sister of Dennis, Frank, Gary, Teresa, Larry, and the late Perry Kucinich; and dear aunt and a great aunt. The Kucinich family will receive visitors at Golubski Funeral Home, 6500 Fullerton Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio on Wednesday, November 12, 4pm to 9p m, and on Thursday from 9:30 am until 11:00. The funeral service will begin at 11:00 am, with interment at Calvary Cemetery.

TMI, I'm told ...

Updated, see below.

(too much information) ... but after years of nagging by two different doctors, I'm having my first colonoscopy at age 67. The (delicately put) 'procedure' is this afternoon. I drank the awful concoction last evening and it had the intended effect.

Worst inconvenience so far: You can't do this unless you have a driver. None of the public service agencies I contacted were able to help. And you can't drive yourself. I had to reschedule twice before I was able to find a friend I was comfortable asking for this favor. My friend will stay in the waiting room while I am being scoped, then drive me home in my car.

Second worst inconvenience: Having to drink a half gallon of PEG-3350 plus electrolytes in an hour. It tastes bloody awful, but if you add flavoring, it tastes worse.

Third worst inconvenience: Hunger. My body keeps saying, "Mushroom Swiss burger with bacon." My brain replies, "In a while, dear, wait a little while longer."

I suppose, whether the medics find something or they don't, I will someday be glad I had this done.

UPDATE 7:09 pm: I'm clean. No polyps, no biopsies. Had first solid food in 24 hours.

Who Do You Think You Are?

A 60 minute MP3 podcast of an excellent This American Life episode will available online today (Nov 10) through Sunday the 16th.

Ira Glass went to Brown. Just thought I'd throw that in.

Al Franken's Odds of Winning Recount May Be Long -- or Short

From Nate Silver, the math nerd who made nerds cool.

PZ Myers gets an invitation

PZ Myers, a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris, relates an email correspondence with Christian talk radio station KKMS in the Twin Cities.

Whither those analog TV channels?

In February 2009 when the "standard" analog TV channels have to go off the air, some of the bandwidth will be allocated to wireless broadband Internet services.

In general, with some exceptions, this makes Democrats, geeks, Internet junkies, Google, and Microsoft happy. It displeases Republicans, broadcasters, and the telephone and cable monopolies.

How to remove your McCain bumper sticker

There'll be some changes made

Transition advisers to President-elect Barack Obama have compiled a list of about 200 Bush administration actions and executive orders that could be swiftly undone ...

"The kind of regulations they are looking at" are those imposed by Bush for "overtly political" reasons, in pursuit of what Democrats say was a partisan Republican agenda ... -- Washington Post

Plus a new look at:

• Embryonic stem cell research.
• The global gag rule on family planning.
• New environmental safeguards.
• Improved food and drug regulation.
• A fresh look at immigration enforcement.

Basically, undoing the Bush-era initiatives that were accomplished by executive fiat, including the reinstatement of a few Clinton policies.

I can hear the right wing howling already. Told you so. It's the end of civilization as we know it.

Bill Ayers speaks up

On the campaign trail, McCain immediately got on message. I became a prop, a cartoon character created to be pummeled.

What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been by Bill Ayers

Another fired employee gets prison time for sabotage

I'm beginning to see a pattern here.

All about Easter eggs

Even Bill Gates made one, it's said.

The Commodore PET (1979) was an improvement over my IMSAI 8080 (1975) in that you didn't have to build it yourself from a kit.

An Easter egg is an undocumented keystroke or mouse click, designed into a program, that displays a (usually entertaining) surprise message. Examples abound.

The Dog

What Happens When You Let Developers Create UI

Can you say "user-hostile" ?

Windows 3.11 finally put to sleep

Microsoft has officially withdrawn Windows for Workgroups 3.11.

For now this affects just the retail and OEM channels. Technet subscribers can still download WfWG, and there are a few copies available on eBay.

To run it, you'll need at least 640KB of RAM and a 10MHz 8088 processor.

Is this your $20 bill?

Today when I stopped at an ATM on our famous Saint Paul skyway system, I found a previous customer had left a $20 bill in the cash dispensing tray. I pondered my choices:

• Try to find the bill's owner (he was long gone);
• Leave the bill in the tray (it isn't mine);
• Turn it in to the bank branch (couldn't see why).

Finally, I decided.

If it's your bill, you can have it. Just tell me the serial number.

Squeaker in Minnesota

At 8:30 a.m., the race between Coleman and Franken stood where it had for hours — Coleman had an ever so slight lead in voting. With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Coleman was leading Franken by 0.03% — or 726 — according to unofficial results from the Minnesota Secretary of State's office. That thin margin triggers an automatic recount under Minnesota law.

-- Saint Paul Pioneer Press.

Road sign is 'out of office'

"I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated."

-- BBC News.

It's morning in America

In NY, court order allows actor Tim Robbins to vote

The supervisor said a police officer had been called over, he said, "at which point, I said to him, 'Are you trying to intimidate me?'" The police at the location said he had "every right to be there," said Robbins ...

-- AP / Yahoo

Dear John

"We had to lie to these people and say we were volunteers"

Paid GOP workers say they misled Wis. voters

MADISON, Wis., November 3, 2008 - Four employees hired by a temporary staffing agency to encourage absentee voting for Sen. John McCain in Wisconsin say they were instructed to tell people they were Republican volunteers.

The employees told The Associated Press in interviews on Monday they were hired by Allstaff Labor Group to go door-to-door in the Milwaukee suburbs locating McCain supporters and distributing absentee ballot request forms.

-- AP / Chicago Tribune

When you fire your sysadmin, change all your passwords

Sysadmin sentenced for attack on company's servers

November 3, 2008 (Computerworld) -- A systems administrator last week was sentenced to six months in prison for sabotaging three servers at his former workplace.

Priyavrat Patel had pleaded guilty in federal court in January to knocking out the servers over the long Thanksgiving weekend last year, critically damaging operations at his former employer, Pratt-Read Corp., a 200-year-old toolmaker in Shelton, Conn.

Ten ways to blow an employment interview

I've probably used five of them myself. From Monster.com.

Making it Count: How to Protect Your Vote & Spot Dirty Tricks

From barackobama.com.

Barack en español

The mathematical mystery chord

It's that elusive F.

"[Norm] Coleman ... has now sunk to an astonishing new low."

Damn, I went biking today when I could have been at this press conference on the State Capitol steps.

To Crosby Farm along the Mississippi, then back home along the trail that follows I-35E. They've removed the concrete lane divider where the trail crosses Randolph Ave. so you can bike across. Big improvement. Thanks, Saint Paul.

DFL Chair regrets calling Coleman 'lying sack of crap'

Must be a Stephanie Miller listener.

ST. CLOUD, Minn. (AP) ― DFL party chairman Brian Melendez said Saturday night he regrets calling Sen. Norm Coleman a "lying sack of crap" in St. Cloud while discussing allegations surrounding Coleman's campaign.

From WCCO / AP.

Or you can let the government vote FOR you

You may be in the majority of Minnesotans who support the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment (as does Minnesota’s entire congressional delegation [Representatives Walz, Kline, Ramstad, McCollum, Ellison, Bachmann, Peterson, and Oberstar, and Senators Klobuchar and Coleman] as well as senatorial condidates Al Franken and Dean Barkley), but the ballot is set up so that if you leave the question blank, the state will vote no FOR you.

Don't skip the question ... vote the WHOLE ballot.

Details at YesForMN.org.

Isn't this sort of, um, illegal?

I mean I'm askin'. Isn't there a limit on the lies you can tell about a candidate? From FactCheck.org.

A License to Kill

A new anti-Obama group runs a bunk-filled ad implying he'd give a driver's license to Mohammed Atta.

Giant spider eats bird

Article with photo.

"To McCain and the Republicans, America can't win unless most Americans lose."

The Republicans' answer to jobs being outsourced: continue tax incentives to companies that outsource jobs. Their answer to a broken health care system: throw everybody to the mercy of insurance companies. Their answer to rising economic insecurity: privatize Social Security. Their answer to rising costs and stagnant wages: trickle down tax cuts for millionaires instead of middle class families.

-- Hillary Clinton in today's Daily News

So what time is it, anyway?

For the more easily confused among us, the correct local time in all 50 U.S. states can be viewed at the Naval Observatory website.

While we're talking about timezones: If Google Calendar Sync is complaining about how "You seem to have outdated time zone information. Please run Windows Update," it's probably because you reinstalled XP with the "repair" option, wiping out some old updates, but Windows Update thinks they're still installed. So here's a .reg file that will help you work around the problem.

As always, use this only if you know what you're doing, and if you break your computer it's not my fault.

Norm's biggest donor sued by Texas Republican, Coleman blames Franken

Here's Norm (remember, he's the one who was going to pull his negative ads):

Here's the lawsuit (PDF) with supporting documents.

Here's the evidence that Al's campaign had anything to do with it.

Al's response at a press conference today:

"For Norm Coleman to try to deflect attention from this incredibly serious matter by attacking me with false claims is simply insulting to voters who have a right to know the facts before the election."

Spotted on 125th St. ...

... in Harlem at four this morning. He was wearing a lavender shirt with ruffles, orange pants, and a green fedora. He looked like he belonged in a BET sitcom instead of the M60 bus.

Then I noticed he had dollar bills stuck in his hatband. And I figured it out. He was on his way home from a Hallowe'en party.

What a great costume.

"As vice president OR ..." ?

Huh?