Category: politics

Forgive me.

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o rly?

20:20 hindsight.
Back at work today, a rare occurrence this month. Stayed late to get more done, trying to cram… make the time I have count. Politics today, sorry if I seem a little more liberal than normal – I about choked today when I loaded CNN.com.

When we made the decision to go into Iraq, many intelligence agencies around the world judged that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction…

… it is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong.

As president, I am responsible for the decision to go into Iraq.

George W. Bush, President of the United States
December 14, 2004

Wow. That’s a big mistake. A 30,000 dead-Iraqi, 2,100 dead American mistake.

So, removing Saddam was the “right thing to do,” from a humanitarian standpoint, and “the world is better off because he is no longer in power.” Great, I actually agree. Buuut… when did the US get appointed the sole “making the world better off” force? I’m all for (an unachievable) Utopian society, but one country doing what they feel is right, which also happens to be not what the global community thinks is right, is hardly the way to it.

Goodnight folks.

Posted on

chin on chest

I have no home.
Monday night and I’m up late, in one of those don’t-want-to-go-to-bed moods. Listening to a new album by a group called Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! that is really rubbing me the right way. Reminding me of the Arcade Fire, although they don’t sound much alike at all. I’ve got the blinds pulled up and the window open, inviting the cool night air into the room, along with all the sounds of late-night suburbia: the teenage neighbor boy arriving home from wherever his coming-of-age took him this evening, the occasional chirp of a cricket, and sprinklers spraying to life in the distance. In some ways, this is better than sleeping to me; but I do love my sleep. It’s nice; it strikes me as the first time in a while I’ve had the luxury of sitting here with nothing to do but write and listen to music. Work tomorrow will be busy, but not so terribly demanding that I go to bed ASAP. So I’m gonna sit here and do nothing for a bit, because I can.

5:30pm on Tuesday and I’m dozing off on this call… the action of my head dropping forward waking me from a moment of rest. I don’t know why I’m so tired lately, but today I have an agenda. Immediately after this meeting, my last of the day, I’m gonna run to the gas station. I’m gonna fill up the truck, and fill up my new little two-gallon gas can with an oil/gas mix for my new two-cycle blower. Then, it’s back home to mow the lawn and use that newly gassed-up blower. After that, I want to finally unpack my suitcase and do a proper level-setting cleaning job in the kitchen, y’know, catch up to where I should be. That’s what I want to do, I’m hoping I stick to the plan. Lately, there’s just not enough time. Neither of us have time really… Sharaun comes home from her day that begins at 4:45am and just wants to crash. I’m severely unmotivated for some reason, and have been feeling more tired than usual – I think I may have a sinus infection that’s been lingering since my last trip to Taiwan. Complain, complain, complain… I’m sure it makes for exciting reading. My apologies.

While I didn’t get a chance to TiVo it, because I only learned of it yesterday morning at work, I did read the text of last night’s Bush address in full on the internet. And while I concede it was indeed a well-crafted speech, I still find myself coming back over and over again to Bush’s “new” agenda of tying the war in Iraq to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Fine, there are “terrorists” in Iraq, and “terrorists” flew planes into our buildings. I simply cannot understand how people don’t remember that the #1, unquestionable, unmistakable reason President Bush gave this country for going to war was the purported “fact” that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Whether or not ending an evil regime or freeing a tyrannically ruled people or waging the global ware on terror are noble and just causes for a war, they are not the reasons America voted for war. When did that become OK? You know, I’m not one of those calling for the immediate withdrawal of troops, at this point that’s pure folly and will only lead to anarchy. But I am also not one of those people who have managed to seamlessly transition from supporting a war against a country who presented a real threat by having weapons of mass destruction, to supporting a war to end an evil dictatorship and free a populace, to supporting a war that is just the “… central front on the war on terror.” I respect our soldiers and the job they do. But, as a nation, I do believe we were lied to, and manipulated by the administration with regards to the justification for the war.

Here’s my random one-sentence thought roundup paragraph. Friday noon we leave for Oregon, doing the long drive once again. Spending the long weekend at my folks’ place, looking forward to the time away from work and this abominably messy house. The crabgrass is back in my lawn, I noticed it’s return today… and it’s back in force. This time, however, I decided I’d turn to my friend the internet to find a solution. Looks like I can get some stuff and totally kill the bastard-weed while we’re in the early days of summer… so I plan to act fast. I imagine it like I’m swooping in at the last moment to rescue the lady tied to the tracks, just before the train bears down on her. Downloaded and messed around with Google Earth tonight, and found it really really awesome. It’s a free download, and it does some amazing stuff.

Goodnight my friends, goodnight.

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newsworthy

Extra! Extra!
Good evening people. I’m finished with tonight’s entry early, and I’ve been feeling tired today so I think I’ll turn in early. Tomorrow I head over to the bay area for some customer visits, spend a night, and return late Wednesday. Should be a nice short jaunt, and I think it’ll be good to get out of the office for a while. Other than that, I recently added a season pass for the original Star Trek series to my TiVo. As if my TOS (TiVo-obligation syndrome) wasn’t a crippling enough affliction – I continue to pile on the time-wasting shows. Anyway, I love the original Star Trek, it’s so awesome. I have no idea why I’m writing about this. Here’s some more junk.

When I was a kid, I can remember my parents letting me listen to “my” music sometimes when we were on long trips in the Ford LTD. Thinking about that now, I don’t think I’m gonna be one of those parents. I mean, “my” music back that consisted mainly of bands like Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys, Ah-Ha, and the like. A far cry from my folks’ parental tastes for John Denver and Neil Diamond. Just thinking about them making that aural sacrifice and putting up with Casio-driven masterpieces like Speak and Spell really means a lot. Heck, Sharaun and I fight about what we’re going to listen to in the car on a regular basis. No sir, I’m afraid my kids are going to listen to whatever I’m listening to. Maybe by then they’ll have independent audio for each car occupant and this problem will resolve itself… but if not, my kids better learn to like Depeche Mode.

Am I the only one who doesn’t see the newsworthiness of this whole feeding-tube thing? Maybe I just don’t understand the long-term ramifications of the ruling, I’m willing to accept that. But this story has had top-billing in all major US news outlets for days now. There’s nothing more newsworthy going on in the world right now? Aren’t we still at war in Iraq? Doesn’t [insert country of choice here] have nukes? When I go to the BBC’s webpage, they have these stories. I wonder if American news is really as tunnel-visioned as it sometimes seems? Seems like we care more about car chases or the latest “amber alert” kid taken from an Alabama Wal Mart than the current state of world affairs. What, Iran refuses to stop weaponizing their supposedly fuel-grade radioactives? Who gives a crap, Demi might be pregnant with Ashton’s baby!! Tensions between China and Taiwan are higher than ever before? Booooring, did you hear about that kid in South Carolina who got suspended from middle school for wearing a confederate flag shirt?, I’m incredulous!

The other day the guest on the Daily Show was Tom Fenton, a former CBS news anchor who’s recently written a book about the what he sees as the sad state of news media in the United States. The interview was really interesting, and the following quote really says what I’m trying to get at here, so I’ll just go right to it:

I don’t think, at this time when our government tells us that there are people out there trying to blow us up or get their hands on radiological or biological or chemical weapons, that we can afford the luxury anymore of having a dumbed-down electorate.

Tom Fenton on the Daily Show

Of course, Stewart came back with the devil’s-advocate defense that the networks are just playing to the ratings and giving the dumb audiences what they want. Changing his voice and playing the role of some network news programming bigwig, he said something along the lines of, “If the people would rather see a truck on fire than what’s going on in Afghanistan, follow the truck!” Anyway, Fenton was a good sport – but I think the underlying message of the interview is pretty relevant. Especially since people are dying every day, and not because their feeding tubes are being debated in the Supreme Court. Well, I didn’t intend for this to become and anti-war thing, but while I’m here I might as well offer up one more bleeding-heart link. Thanks for listening.

And, thanks to the power of the internet – if you’re interested, you can actually watch the entire interview here.

With that, I’ll call it a night. Until tomorrow’s away-from-home entry, goodnight.

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upgrade

We're #1!
I know you can’t really see it – but last night I upgraded to the newest version of WordPress, v1.5. The upgrade went, for the most part, smoothly, with only a few stylesheet related errors I had to clear up. Scrubbing the stylesheet is good housekeeping anyway, and it even inspired me to test with Firefox and Opera to make sure everything renders kosher. So far, I’m really digging the 1.5 backend… although it may take me a while get used to where things are now. Looks like they’ve built-in some comment-spam moderation, which is nice… and in general there are more comment moderation features. I did a quick spot-check of most crucial blog-features, and they all seem to be intact and working, so I declare the upgrade a success. The only thing that bummed me out was how nice the Kubrick template looked compared to my same-old green… but… it’s comfortable.

Tomorrow folks, tomorrow I’ll be airborne. A little flying city, me included, all jetting our way to Taipei over an interminably long ~24hr travel time. I’m ready, mentally; physically, I still have to pack and haven’t even started planning for the actual work I’ll be doing while in town. I am excited, though, about hooking up with a buddy while in town and visiting the local custom shirt and slacks places. Tailor-made shirts and dress slacks for $20, you can’t beat it. And man, I’d pay twice that to get something that fits around my childbearing thighs. The right fit can make all the difference, not binding my junk while I walk, not cutting off circulation to my legs, etc. Until I can get less fat, it’s the only way to go. Plus, I’ll be interested to see if the puny Taiwanese measuring tapes can encircle the girth of my legs anyway… mighty American redwoods to their toy saplings.

I saw the chief of the CIA came out and said something about North Korea having more nukes than we thought they had, or something. We gotta get these bastards people. We gotta reach out the long arm of American justice and give them a little preemptive shot off the bow. This is America; we flex you flinch. I mean, how can we be expected to stay our trigger-fingers when we’re being mocked outright!? This is the USofA you commie dickheads. Remember those letters, they’ll be the last thing you see on the side of the ICBM that screams into your village. Here in America we have little love for axes, and we hate evil ones with a passion. So shape up, because cowboys don’t take insults lightly:

The Americans swagger like a tiger around the world, but they whimper before our Republic as the tiger does before the porcupine. That’s because we have our Great Leader Kim Jong Il, who is undefeatable.

Pyongyang Radio, North Korea

OK. For real. I can remember, as far back as a few years ago, hearing members of Radiohead wax on about how underappreciated the 70s group Can was. I downloaded their two most well-regarded albums long ago, and gave them each a little listening to. Since then, they’ve been waiting on my hard drive as quiet ones and zeros… needing only my pointing and clicking to transform them into membrane-vibrating analog pulses of air. Today at work, I pointed and I clicked – and I was taken by surprise at how much I immediately dug what I heard. Some of the longer, more experimental, tracks are pure avant-crap… but the tiny little slice songs are really enjoyable.

And before I go, I strongly encourage everyone to go and download a copy of the excellent OpenCD project. Then, the next time your friends and relatives ask you for copies of programs (because you work at a high-tech company and you must have access to free warez copies of all the latest appz), you can instead send them this great disc of OpenSource programs to replace the payware they’ve been duped into thinking is superior.

Goodnight.

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I can feel Spring coming

Spring flowers.
As you can see, I once again missed the midnight deadline for automatic posting. No biggie, I can always post 1st-thing in the morning on the day-of. Listening the Bright Eyes in my 15min before work officially starts, and I’ve got a meeting straight-away at 8am this morning. I have a feeling this will be a short one, since there’s just not much to talk about. Well, OK, I could fill reams… but not yet. So for now…

Ever since I’ve been riding to work, my legs have had a dull soreness during the day that I’ve really come to like. It sounds strange, but I like the feeling… it’s a kind of reminder that my legs have actually been “working” a bit. Riding to work has been more enjoyable that I thought, it offers some slight feeling of being unfettered; from my vehicle, from the roads, and from my normal sedentary commute. Even if the original end-goal was ~1hr of aerobic exercise a day, the means have turned out to be something I really dig – rather than something I dread.

As a born doubter, I guess I’m sometimes too pessimistic. By all accounts, the Iraqi people turned out in huge numbers for this past weekend’s vote. I’m not wildly liberal enough to blame some right-wind media fleecing, so it seems my negativism was unfounded. With that knowledge, it really becomes a moot point as to whether or not these people actually researched their votes, or just went along party/religious lines. The more important thing is that they came out and did it. Know what percentage of America turned out in 2004? 60%, the highest since 1968. The “liberated” people of Iraq tied us. I’ll be interested in the results, and who’s given power, and the distribution of votes. That’s right world, I’m interested… fear my piquedness.

I can feel spring coming… and summer in the distance. The days have been sunny and clear lately, taunting the cool temps with get-outside-and-do-something vibes. Stupid sunny days that beg for me to take sick days and do yardwork or sneak a pipe-smoke in the house with enough time to air it out before Sharaun gets home. I’m mentally planning camping and hiking trips, extended concert outings, all sorts of stuff. Pretty soon though, the devil-heat will settle over Northern California, and my rides to work will get a lot sweatier. I’m totally rambling.

Maybe it’s old, but you gotta check out this site. When you put up an obvious joke-site like this and start getting vitriolic letters from the offended, you know you’ve achieved the perfect level of sarcastic subtlety to fool the ignorant masses. Classic.

I really am sorry. Really.

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chalk or dirt trails?

Disturbing.
This weekend was a pair of gorgeous days… the brightest, sunniest, clearest days we’ve had lately. I don’t know what it is about gorgeous sunny days… they just make me want to do things, to get outside… and enjoy them. I think I did pretty well this weekend, taking time to enjoy two of the best rainless days we’ve had in a long while. As such, this entry goes down more or less as a play-by-play of the weekend’s events.

It started Friday night with the post-work round of beers and appetizers at the steakhouse/bar. That complacent mood just settled over me like a fog, making me feel just right just then. I didn’t care where we went afterward, or how long we stayed… it was one of the times you’re just with friends and drafting off the joy of company, small talk, and a the swirly happiness that an alcohol-infused bloodstream can provide. Luckily, I managed to maintain the feeling overnight… and early Saturday morning found us over at Kristi and Erik’s for a fine homemade breakfast of waffles and eggs. I ate and relaxed with that right-where-I-wanna-be feeling. Sitting on the couch watching a poorly-produced VHS video of Mexican bullriding… these people are dying… I’m mean, ceasing to live… it’s insane. It was a good morning.

In the afternoon Erik and I decided to go out for a ride, both being owners of new bikes. This city is completely crisscrossed with well-maintained, paved bike trails. They cut through neighborhoods, skirt duck-ponds and city parks, and where there aren’t defined trails – there are always marked bike lanes to the sides of every road. We had no destination, just wanted to get out in the sun and make a sweat offering to the weather gods. We ended up finding some empty lots with plenty of hills and ditches and rocks, and for a good 20min I was twelve again. Huffing my way to the tops of dirt hills, zooming back down to search for anything I could launch off of with my new gravity-given speed, fishtailing and riding wheelies… it was great. Once we got back to the trails, we “discovered” some parts of the city we’d never seen before, and, more importantly, some more trails we didn’t know about.

Riding on the trails made me think of something Pat had said earlier in the week, something about thinking there might be a trail-only shortcut that could ease my rides to work and back. Sure enough, the exploration Erik and I did led to the discovery of a completely new route than the surface-road route I’d been using last week. The alternate route is comprised of probably 20% road and 80% trail. Paved trails, mind you, but trails that wind their way to work in a much more direct route – and without any car exhaust or traffic lights or stop signs to compete with. I actually can’t wait to try it tomorrow, and see if it really does buy me time or not. Since I can’t drive the new route, I’ll need to borrow a GPS to compare the mileages… but even it does turn out to be longer (which I don’t think it will), I plan to take it anyway. It’s so much better, I’m so happy we “found” it.

Sunday, I woke up early and cleaned the bathroom and shower, finally replaced the burned-out bulbs in our closet, and made my first real yard-demanded trip to Home Depot. Picked up some crabgrass killin’ fertilizer and pranced around my yard pushing the SpeedyGreen 3000 in front of me like a proud father and his chemical-spreading baby carriage. To make sure the fertilizer gets in there good, I run the sprinklers for a few seconds in each zone. I don’t know why I’m going into this much detail… all I wanted to say was that, as I was standing in the driveway, watching the sprinklers in the sun and waving to neighbors – I was happy… I was content. I mean, it’s hard not to be… brisk mid-50s, cloudless sunny skies, and the feeling that I was witnessing what was the beginnings of a new summer.

I noticed today that several blogs are talking about Halliburton leaving Iran. I’m not usually one for conspiracy theories, but with recent “posturing,” it does seem that there could be a tad more to it than a simple contract expiration. They’re already charter members of the AoE, and the media coverage lately has had a snowballish be-afraid tint to it. With the headlines from the Iraq voting over the weekend being so rosy, it would seem that all my doubt and cynicism was for naught. I would, however, be interested in hearing the ballot tally… as in how many people voted. Not absentee, citizens in-country. Not that a low number would really prove much, I just think it’d be interesting as a percentage of the population. (Wow, ask and ye shall receive… 60% is awesome.)

Does anyone even notice that I alternate my little post image from left to right with each entry? That’s a manual process you know!

Goodnight.

Posted on

disrobe for peace

Bazooka time.
There’s something so awesome about stripping off the days clothes and trading them in for something looser and shoeless. Sometimes it’s the only thing I wanna do when I get home… pull off the shoes and socks, yank the outer shirt over the head, and swap the boxer-twisting jeans for some non-binding shorts. Perfect not-goin’-out wear for… not going out.

CNN ran an awesome story as their lead item late today (yeah, I’m back to trying to write at night). It was on the upcoming Iraqi election, and my favorite quote was, “Although most say they don’t know who the candidates are or where to go to vote, they say they will vote come January 30…” Yeah? They don’t know where to vote, but they will vote? Assuming they can wander the vast deserts of Iraq long enough to find the hidden, unpublicized, polling places… they don’t even know who they’re voting for… why vote? I know why… because they believe in the salvation that is democracy, that’s why.

One of the stats I like to keep track of how “saturated” the search engines are with regards to my blog; meaning, out of the total number of pages that make up my blog, how many have been spidered and indexed by search engines. Last night, Google must have done a huge update… and my saturation jumped from a previously semi-stagnant ~25% to a respectable 65%. It’s amazing what that jump translates to in terms of referrer stats. Google is now sending three people my way for every one it did before. It could be good for readership, but it’s also an even more fragrant flower to the spam bees. Stupid spam bees.

I sat here for 15min trying to come up with more to write, but I guess sometimes just going with what you have is the best strategy. With that in mind, I’ma press “Publish” and post these couple measly paragraphs. Goodnight.