WHEEEEEEEE!

"those parquet floors are like the worst possible mix with new shoes and alcohol" -mia

"heh. *looks up parquet*" - me

a silly game

It began to dawn on [Thorby] that control and ownership were only slightly related; he had always thought of "ownership" and "control" as being the same thing; you owned a thing, a begging bowl or a uniform jacket—of course you controlled it!

The converging, diverging, and crossing of corporations and companies confused and disgusted him. It was as complex as a firecontrol computer without a computer's cool logic. He tried to draw a chart and could not make it work. The ownership of each entity was tangled in common stocks, preferred stocks, bonds, senior and junior issues, securities with odd names and unknown functions; sometimes one company owned a piece of another directly and another piece through a third, or two companies might each own a little of the other, or sometimes a company owned part of itself in a tail-swallowing fashion. It didn't make sense.

This wasn't "business"—what the People [a tribe of space merchants, traversing an intergalactic silk road] did was business... buy, sell, make a profit. But this was a silly game with wild rules.

  - Robert A. Heinlein, Citizen of the Galaxy

Brandalism: PsyOps for Ad execs

People abuse you every day. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you're not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They're on tv making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are the advertisers and they are laughing at you. However, you are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with impunity. Any advert in public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It's yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head. You owe the companies nothing. You especially don't we them any courtesy. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don't even start asking for theirs.

pea sea

Eye halve a spelling chequer,
It came with my pea sea,
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rarely ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it
I'm shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect in it's weigh,
My chequer tolled me sew.

assuming a ladder

"We, as a country, are now in the grip of five kinds of politics that I want very briefly to discuss, if only to alarm you and depress you. I call them the politics of assuming a ladder; the politics of rent seeking, otherwise known as the war against Wal-Mart; the politics of learned dependency; the politics of speech rationing; and the politics of orchid building. Let me explain these in very short compass.

First, the politics of assuming a ladder. An old economics joke tells of an economist and a friend who are walking down a road and fall into a pit. The regular guy says, “We can’t get out.” And the economist replies, “Not to worry, we’ll just assume a ladder.” We have just had the last presidential election before the first of 77 million baby boomers begin to retire. They will put strains on a welfare state that, as currently configured, cannot endure. And so the entitlement advocates are assuming a ladder, assuming that something will happen to fix the problem.

No way to rule innocent men.

'There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Rearden, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with'.
  - Ayn Rand, "Atlas Shrugged"

from this slashdot thread

blame who?

Words of the Sentient:
"Some productive class Americans blame it all on immigrants, forgetting that we're a nation of immigrants -- and immigrants' children -- many of whom fled the same tyranny and corruption we face today. Sooner or later they'll learn not to blame people with funny names, funny clothes, or funny customs, but to look upon their own "representatives" as the foreign despots they've really become.
 -  L. Neil Smith

funny because it's true

"Oil prices have fallen lately. We include this news for the benefit of gas stations, which otherwise wouldn't learn of it for six months."
  - William D. Tammeus

list of things to return

So, if the US invented it they "own" it?
The Web was invented in Switzerland by a Belgian with a French name and a Londoner. Uninstall your browser and go back using Gopher and Archie.

Gunpowder was invented in China long ago and intended for recreational purpose only. The inventor could never envision its usage for anything else than making children happy, and uncivilised westerners use it today to maim them. Please return your firearms to the PRC. Do keep Charlton Heston.

Ships were invented in Greece to find a golden fleece. They were to be a means of transport and exploration, not military platforms. Please return the Nimitz to Athens.

The Latin alphabet was supposed to be used for Latin and derived languages exclusively. It was developed by legitimate scribes with Etrurian sublicenses, and never intended to be used by barbarians that cannot even write. ("write", for example, should be spelt "VRAJT"). Please send all your keyboards and typewriters back to Italy.

Bread was invended in Egypt as a tasty way of eating flour. It was never meant to be used in (bleargh) Big Macs. Send all your McDonalds to Cairo (though they will probably answer "thanks, but... let's just say like we took them, right?")

The Statue of Liberty was built in France to honour the values of Freedom, Equality and Fraternity, together with friendship between France and the US. It was not meant to symbolise a nation that claims to have saved France in the world wars (in the first the US entered only for one year, in the second they did not enter until attacked), calling the French "surrendering cheese-eating monkeys" (the "eating" remark, coming from an American, is really offensive) while never had a military occupation on their soil since the Brits left, and screwed all the statue was meant to represent by invading a defenseless country with bunches of black sticky liquid, and installing their puppet regime like Hapsburg Austria used to (ok, no sticky liquids back then). Unmount and shove it in a place the French will be all too happy to illustrate.

Cars were invented in Germany to visit the countryside in the weekend, not to be a penis supersizer. Please transfer of GM and Ford motor companies to Mannheim. Not sure whether they want the Humvees. Bikes go to Karlsruhe.

Circumcision was invented by people who had little water and lived in the desert. It was not meant as a way to prevent masturbation, and whoever thought for a second to cut a baby's willy because he might do "dirty things" with it in 15 years' time was a complete psycho. The idea was hygiene! Return to Israel your... oh never mind.

(from slashdot)

bastiat the troll

"The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else."
- Frederic Bastiat

unloaded...?

"Don't you meddle with old unloaded firearms. They are the most deadly and unerring things that have ever been created by man. You don't have to take any pains at all with them. You don't have to have a rest. You don't have to have any sights on the gun. You don't have to aim, even. No, you just pick out a relative and bang away, and you are sure to get him. A youth who can't hit a cathedral at thirty yards with a Gatling gun in three-quarters of an hour can take up an old empty musket and bag his grandmother every time at a hundred."
-Mark Twain

"Why stay?"

"There is a certain, really quite unimaginable intellectual interest that one gets from working in the context where you have to put broad theoretical and fairly complex conceptual issues to a test in the marketplace. It's a type of activity which forces economists like ourselves to be acutely aware of the fact that our actions have consequences."
 -Alan Greenspan, in Maestro, answering a reporter's question: "Why stay?"

hyperlinks subvert hierarchy yet again

For nearly four years - steadily, seriously, and with the unsentimental rigor for which we love them - civil engineers have been studying the destruction of the World Trade Center towers, sifting the tragedy for its lessons. And it turns out that one of the lessons is: Disobey authority. In a connected world, ordinary people often have access to better information than officials do.
...
We know that US borders are porous, that major targets are largely undefended, and that the multicolor threat alert scheme known affectionately as "the rainbow of doom" is a national joke. Anybody who has been paying attention probably suspects that if we rely on orders from above to protect us, we'll be in terrible shape. But in a networked era, we have increasing opportunities to help ourselves. This is the real source of homeland security: not authoritarian schemes of surveillance and punishment, but multichannel networks of advice, information, and mutual aid.
Question Authorities: Why it's smart to disobey officials in emergencies

the report these conclusions were drawn from (Occupant Behavior, Egress, and Emergency Communication)

where I got the phrase "hyperlinks subvert hierarchy"

democratic animals and dangerous literacy

Roper and Conradt found that if the herd stops chewing grass and heads to the watering hole, it's not because theh lead animal gave the command. Instead, when 51 percent of the animals start pointing toward the watering hole, the whole herd moves. This is how flocks of birds and schools of fish move, too. And the thresholds vary. When there are predators around, decisions require a super-majority: two-thirds have to be pointing toward the watering hole before they move. And this goes across the spectrum in biology, from insects to orangutans. By their actions, the members of the group all "vote", if you will. Democracy is in our DNA. Jefferson was right.
...
[Why children younger than 7 should not be taught to read using abstract alphabets as opposed to pictographic symbols. No shit, that's what he says, read the PDF.]
Historically, literacy has always brought in its wake violence and the domination of women. Medieval serf society was far more egalitarian than society during the Victorian era, for example. During the illiterate Middle Ages, Goddess worship was at an all-time high. Mary was worshipped more than Jesus or God. But within a generation or two of the introduction of widespread literacy in Europe, more than a million women were put to death as witches, the worship of the Goddess was suppressed, and the wise women went from being leaders in the community to being looked down upon as crones.

 Thom Hartmann, Crimes against Democracy [PDF]

feminony

That’s the lesson of the last week in sports: Feminism is phony. Sports are showbiz. Good-looking women get endorsements. Women who look and act like men don’t. Women who succeed against men on their own turf get respect. Women who constantly whine about equality—yet need their own, separate, unequal league to succeed—don’t get respect.
 -Debbie Schlussel, Lesbian Basketball, Season 9 vs. the Indy Chick

guns and dope

A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined,
but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a
status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them,
which would include their own government.
  -George Washington

We advocate:

1. guns for those who want them, no guns forced on those who don't want them (pacfists, Quakers etc.)


2. drugs for those who want them, no drugs forced on those who don't want them (Christian Scientists etc.)


3. an end to Tsarism and a return to constitutional democracy


4. equal rights for ostriches.

it's a cat, duh!

I'm suddenly envisioning an advanced, human-quality AI in an abandoned lab, where there is no input but when a cat walks over a keyboard that has been left active, which the cat does regularly because of that psychic perversity embedded in their feline genes.

The AI never had the keyboard input explained to it, and all other input is turned off. So it's in limbo, except when it gets characters splattered at it, apparently at random...
 - a sentient post

custumors (1500!)

I found this quote (the one following this paragraph, DUH) uncontrollably hilarious for some reason. Also, this is my 1500th post to this blog. Woo!

I know that most of you have worked in some sort of customer service at some point in your lives, probably retail. I bet a lot of you still deal with customers on a daily basis. They say some incredibly weird shit to you sometimes, don't they? While talking to a customer, have you ever found yourself totally speechless, and then when you find words you have to stop yourself from muttering "what the fuck?"
 -Mayor Wilkins, Comedy Goldmine: Customers Say Really Ridiculous Things

suck it, football.

Football is a mistake. It combines the two worst elements of American life: violence and committee meetings.
 -George Will

Go Redskins!

fallible heroes, in moderation

To say that there is a case for heroes is not to say that there is a case for hero worship. The surrender of decision, the unquestioning submission to leadership, the prostration of the average man before the Great Man—these are the diseases of heroism, and they are fatal to human dignity... History amply shows that it is possible to have heroes without turning them into gods. And history shows, too, that when a society, in flight from hero worship, decides to do without great men at all, it gets into troubles of its own.
 -Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.

inferior usefulness through apathetic complicity

Governments, "as the true representatives of their country", should have an increased voice in the governance of the internet, Communications Minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri said on Thursday. Also, "It must be shared based on need. We must allow newcomers to enter in the same way as the more established users" (this is a red herring argument[1]).

Even if most government/bureaucratic structures weren't hopelessly corrupt (*cough*OilForFood), needlessly self-perpetuating, and overly complex (*cough*USTaxCode), hyperlinks subvert hierarchy. Command and control power structures are streamlined, if not obsoleted by the internet (i.e. empowering the individual), which is why China tries to block content it doesn't want its citizens to see. I wonder if Ivy thinks the Chinese government is a "true representative [of its citizens]"...

[1] I know what John Galt would say; "The only proper propose of a government is to protect man's rights..." The internet and the services it provides and enables is available with very limited restrictions. Letting governments get involved would only pollute that environment and add more barriers to entry.

What You'll Wish You'd Known

The key to wasting time is distraction. Without distractions it's too obvious to your brain that you're not doing anything with it, and you start to feel uncomfortable. If you want to measure how dependent you've become on distractions, try this experiment: set aside a chunk of time on a weekend and sit alone and think. You can have a notebook to write your thoughts down in, but nothing else: no friends, TV, music, phone, IM, email, Web, games, books, newspapers, or magazines. Within an hour most people will feel a strong craving for distraction.
  -Paul Grahm, What You'll Wish You'd Known

Ooh, Burn!

It may help to understand [Middle Eastern Westernization as distinct from modernization] if we view [it] in a broader historical perspective. In such a perspective, cultural innovation is not and never has been the monopoly of any one region or people; the same is true of resistance to it. There has been much borrowing both ways, and disciples have not always been faithful to their models. Medieval Europe took its religion from the Middle East, as the modern Middle East took its politics from Europe. And just as some Europeans managed to create a Christianity without compassion, so did some Middle Easterners create a democracy without freedom.

 -Bernard Lewis, What Went Wrong?

parradiggum

The essential paradigm of cyberspace is creating partially situated identities out of actual or potential social reality in terms of canonical forms of human contact, thus renormalizing the phenomenology of narrative space and requiring the naturalization of the intersubjective cognitive strategy, and thereby resolving the dialectics of metaphorical thoughts, each problematic to the other, collectively redefining and reifying the paradigm of the parable of the model of the metaphor.

 -Chip Morningstar, How To Deconstruct Almost Anything

NB: Most GISs were SFW when I checked. Except for that morningstar one. Which might still be safe for work (if you work in a furry gay sci-fi porn store), but was highly disturbing to my virgin sensibilities.

switched fortunes

Just about the time that Supreme Court was ruling that the Nixon tapes had to be turned over to the special prosecutor, I was eating at a Chinese restaurant in Yorba Linda, the town in California where Nixon went to school -- where he grew up, worked at a grocery store, where there is a park named after him, and of course the Nixon house, simple clapboard and all that. In my fortune cookie, I got the following fortune:

DEEDS DONE IN SECRET HAVE A
WAY OF BECOMING FOUND OUT.

  -Philip K. Dick, How To Build A Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later

Robert Jackson and Ayn Rand

One of the quotes that has stuck with me most since I read Atlas Shrugged [bn.com] is (somewhat paraphrased): "If we make everything illegal, then we can arrest whoever we want!" Atlas Shrugged came out in 1957, but before that, [cato.org]: in 1940, Attorney General Robert Jackson (later Justice Jackson) warned federal prosecutors: "With the law books filled with a great assortment of crimes, a prosecutor stands a fair chance of finding at least a technical violation of some act on the part of almost anyone." The great danger, said Jackson, is that "he will pick people that he thinks he should get, rather than pick cases that need to be prosecuted."

"Everything illegal?!", you exclaim in disbelief, "why, that's preposterous!" Read on, brave soul...

To his Coy Mistress

http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/marvell/coy.htm
(by Andrew Marvell)

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day;
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood;
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.(..)

My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.

But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long preserv'd virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.

Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am'rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapp'd power.
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

( . Y . ) giggidy giggidy OH YEAH!

job description

All the President is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing, and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway.

  -Harry Truman

sea monster battery

I was just talking to a user who had been having problems with her machine -- it was losing its settings every time she turned it on.

Her: "I asked my boyfriend about it. He knows about computers, and he said it sounds like it might need a new SEA MONSTER BATTERY."

It took me a while to figure out what she meant.

---
(emphasis mine... bwahahaha) priceless
and a hint for the less computer-literate among us

the American dream according to Sharpton

A few days after [September 11th], I left home, my family had taken in a young man who lost his family. And as they gave comfort to him, I had to do a radio show that morning. When I got there, my friend James Entome (ph) said, Reverend, we're going to stop at a certain hour and play a song, synchronized with 990 other stations.

I said, That's fine.

He said, We're dedicating it to the victims of 9/11.

I said, What song are you playing?

He said America the Beautiful. The particular station I was at, they played that rendition song by Ray Charles.

As you know, we lost Ray a few weeks ago, but I sat there that morning and listened to Ray sing through those speakers, Oh beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, for purple mountains' majesty across the fruited plain.

And it occurred to me as I heard Ray singing, that Ray wasn't singing about what he knew, because Ray had been blind since he was a child. He hadn't seen many purple mountains. He hadn't seen many fruited plains. He was singing about what he believed to be.

[W]e love America, not because all of us have seen the beauty all the time.

But we believed if we kept on working, if we kept on marching, if we kept on voting, if we kept on believing, we would make America beautiful for everybody.

Starting in November, let's make America beautiful again.

 -Al Sharpton, 2004 DNC, via SeattlePI

freedom is to justice...

"Imperialist powers deprived most of the Islamic world of sovereignty; the prime demand, therefore, was for independence. Foreign rule was equated with tyranny, to be ended by whatever means possible. But tyranny means different things to different people. In the traditional Islamic system, the converse of tyranny is justice; in Western political thought, the converse of tyranny is freedom. At the present day, most Islamic countries are discovering that while they have gained independence, they enjoy neither justice nor freedom. There are some--and soon, perhaps, there will be many more--who see in democracy the surest way to attain both."

 Bernard Lewis, "Islam and Liberal Democracy: A Historical Overview," Journal of Democracy 7.2 (1996) 52-63

church + state = ethical economic system?

 -Nicholas Klassen, Islamic Economics

While I wholeheartedly agree with the above quoted statement (poor economies would benefit enormously if their agricultural efforts weren't devalued and effectively ignored by US and EU subsidies), I regard the rest of the article as a philosophical step backward. While its main point that an Islamic economic system would be fundamentally more ethical than today's corrupt Western corporate system is certainly arguable, Bernard Lewis and I share the view that it is (at least, currently) unworkable and widely susceptible to backslides into thoroughly un-democratic situations.

As Mr. Lewis also mentions in the 1995 speech linked above, "Islam" can be creatively interpreted and requires a more specific definition. Islam when used in the context of an "Islamic institution" is not just that, it is also a political system that does not mesh well with change and democratic dissidence when the majority happens to go against divine decree.

until gwen

Your father picks you up from prison in a stolen Dodge Neon, with an 8-ball of coke in the glove compartment and a hooker named Mandy in the back seat. Two minutes into the ride, the prison still hanging tilted in the rearview, Mandy tells you that she only hooks part-time. The rest of the time she does light secretarial for an independent video chain and tends bar, two Sundays a month, at the local VFW. But she feels her calling—her true calling in life—is to write.

You go, "Books?"

...read the rest (dead link) (this appears to have disappeared off of the web entirely... even the google cache is gone. try to get your hands on a June 2004 Atlantic (the one with Tony Blair on the cover) if you want to read this.

/too bad, good read

how to abolish war

Killing is not as physical as it once was. It's time for young, hopeful people to be relieved of fighting duties. War should be fought by the middle-aged men who are the ones who decide that war should be fought anyway. We don't have our whole lives in front of us. We're already staring down the barrel of heart disease and SEC investigations.
...
Maybe we're coming to the end of the long, dark modern age. Slaughters of unnumbered human beings continue, but not among people [like Japanese Lieutenant Colonel Takeichi Nishi] who knew Spencer Tracy. Warfare persists, but the scale of battle is returning to something that Hector and Ajax would recognize. Maybe each Jessica Lynch will become a legend. Maybe everybody's death will matter.

 -P.J. O'Rourke, Sulfur Island

bee a good scout

Its emphasis on the outdoors and on personal courage and initiative notwithstanding, the scouting ethos had always had something modern and totalitarian about it. [Robert Baden-Powell] could not even keep his nature notes under control: he told his trusting readers that industrious bees were to be admired: "They are quite a model community, for they respect their queen and kill their unemployed."

 -Christopher Hitchens, Young Men In Shorts

offensive culture

"The culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn't work, dont buy it. Create your own."

 -Morrie Schwartz, from Tuesdays with Morrie

free press

"Presidential campaigns are not won or lost on paid TV," says Josh Lahey, a Democratic strategist and researcher. "They're all about free media, so there's even more of a priority." The payoff for a successfully placed item is the effect of the story itself in influencing media coverage. This accounts for the intricate methods of story-laundering by which campaigns avoid the taint of open negativity while gaining legitimacy from a seemingly impartial media outlet.

 -Joshua Green, Playing Dirty

"All we know..."

"... is that we know something."

"When it comes to Iraq, are war critics pulling a [John] Don Passos, whose story was breathlessly titled "Americans Are Losing the Victory in Europe"? Or is this really another Vietnam? (Exactly what that means is rarely clear.) Will Iraq be to us what Afghanistan was to the Soviets? Hell, is Afghanistan—a place that is routinely described as both trudging toward democracy and sliding back under the Taliban's heel—already becoming the quagmire it was for the Soviets?
...
Halfway into the '00s—and barely into a new century—and nothing but big questions that require difficult answers. And more information than ever, none of which may make it any easier to draw the right conclusions."

 -The Age of Uncertainty, June 2004 Reason

taking a risk

In starting with him, though, he believes that the Justice Department is taking a risk. "This is the World Series, and they’re the Boston Red Sox," he exclaims. "They’re getting a chance that they haven’t had in 9 billion years, and if they blow this, they can never come back. Because where can you go after a jury says there’s nothing wrong with these movies? How do you go after a movie involving a husband and wife and the guy’s wearing a condom? How do you get someone to go after that, when you couldn’t even prosecute a tape where the guy comes in the girl’s mouth, and then he fucking stabs her? This is their one shot, and they fucking know it."

 -G. Beato, Xtreme Measures

Your commitment to democracy is measured by how vehemently you defend the rights of people you hate.

asked for you

"One of the things I found out [in the Gulf War], which is quite interesting personally is that people, at least men—I don't know about women—... go to great lengths in life to not find out the answer to the question, How brave am I? War presents you with specific opportunities to find out the answer to that question... The question is asked for you and answered for you, in front of you and in front of other people. It's interesting because you see it in all the people around you and you see it in yourself. And that's knowledge you have for the rest of your life."
...
"Accepting death [is] indispensable to defeating death," he wrote. "We [Americans] are a nation in which there are fewer and fewer people ... who accept what every twelve-year-old [in Bosnia] knows: That there are things worth dying for."

 -Mike Kelly, quoted in True to his Words

a what of whats?

Latent type checking gives you much more flexibility in your programming. The way I describe it to C++ programmers is that with latent typing, or Python in general, when you write a function, you get templates without templates. What you're saying in C++ with a template is that you've got code that doesn't care what type it works with. As long as these operations can be performed, then the code is happy. It's actually being evaluated at compile time and spewing out horrible error messages if it fails. But the idea is that the programmer is able to say, "I would like a Bag of Cats." The thing says, OK, as long as I can perform these various operations on Cats that I want to, I don't care if it's Cats or whatever. That's what you get for free with Python without any of that template syntax. It turns out that's incredibly powerful. It makes your programming a lot easier to write and, I think, to read.

 -Bruce Eckel, artima.com interview

Abu Ghraib cause and effect

The former senior intelligence official blamed hubris for the Abu Ghraib disaster. "There's nothing more exhilarating for a pissant Pentagon civilian than dealing with an important national security issue without dealing with military planners, who are always worried about risk," he told me. "What could be more boring than needing the coöperation of logistical planners?" The only difficulty, the former official added, is that, "as soon as you enlarge the secret program beyond the oversight capability of experienced people [and put it in the hands of a pissant like Cambone], you lose control. We've never had a case where a special-access program went sour—and this goes back to the Cold War."
...
"If you even give a hint that you’re aware of a black program that you're not read into, you lose your clearances," the former official said. "Nobody will talk. So the only people left to prosecute are those who are undefended—the poor kids at the end of the food chain."

 -Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker

an intriGAYing argument

"I believe that no religion should ever [expect] anyone [outside their religion] to believe anything. Therefore, if gay couples wish to join in a lifelong [legally recognized] union [with legal rights identical to heterosexual couples], that should be their right to do so. However, [labelling this union] "marriage" is not a defense of their inalienable rights [as a ctizen], but an attack on those people's beliefs that hold marriage to be a sacred God-given gift. To insist on the term "marriage" is to [provoke unnecessary conflict with] those who hold that homosexuality is immoral. We are supposed to be a tolerant society, so where is the tolerance to be found in those who wish to [impose] their will on Bible-believing Christians and Jews?"

 -by J, taken out of context (additions mine, obviously, as they change or add to the original stated idea)

most of the stuff in that original post and the comments is garbage, but the above statement is an intriguing assertion, just as intriguing as the libertarian argument that marriage be privatized, or shifted from a legal status to that of a contractual agreement.

the best compromises leave both sides feeling as though they got taken. so from the religious POV, an immoral union would now be legal. and from the gay POV, they would have equal rights (which i realize requires legal changes, thanks cb) but wouldn't be labelled the same as hetero couples. who makes out like a bandit?

and, of course, then there's this:

There once was a guy named Dave,
Who kept a dead whore in his cave.
He said, "What the hell,
You get used to the smell,
And think of the money you save."

if i could have it my way, gay couples could have a mutual contractual obligation (yes, i take the libertarian stance) with exactly the same rights a heterosexual married couple has. insisting on the term "marriage" is inflammatory and counter-productive because that's not really what this is about, it's about equal rights. so if you're not going to argue for sweeping changes to laws controlling the institution of marriage, at least attack the legal premise that civil unions aren't equal to "legally married" unions, don't attempt to provoke conflict over a word... that's not in anybody's best interest! (this is also an interesting read)

a meteoric disappearance

One night a couple of decades on, Jack returned to the show, as a guest on Johnny's couch; if you freeze the frame, the two silver foxes could almost be brothers. But then you look closer—the rueful tilt of Jack's head, the angular snap of Johnny's. Carson's voice is brisk and assured; Paar's is wistful and oddly childlike. Johnny didn't do "mercurial." If the talk show is an oxymoron, Carson invented an identity to match: affable and remote, familiar and unknowable. Paar made an entertainment out of his own pathologies: as Newsweek put it, "Russian roulette with commercials."

 -Mark Steyn, A Meteoric Disappearance: Jack Paar (1918-2004)

no explanation required

"It sort of comes across—and I'm sure it will on national radio—as the fact that I'm homophobic, or something. And I have absolutely no problem with gay people. Like I said, I've always been in the world of theatre and interior design..."
 -Linda Gray Kelley, Massachusetts Justice of the Peace who resigned as a result of gay marriages being legalized in her state, via NPR

It's funny to me that she doesn't feel the need to explain any further.

snake wang

As an adolescent, I once watched my wang shed its skin for three days, then emerge as immaculate as it was in my infancy—only bigger. Once you've seen that—and admittedly, it happened more than once—it takes something more than a weird little dermatological problem to spur you toward the assistance of a medical professional.
...
When my physician turned around, he stared at my groin and said:
"Good lord."
Normally, I'm delighted with this type of reaction. I have a tall and thin build, and people seem to expect my penis to reflect my delicate stature. However, the doctor's face didn't relay admiration. In fact, it didn't even register as being the face of a calm, indifferent medical professional. It bore a look of genuine horror.
...
 -Kevin Keck, Nerve.com

"What do you masturbate with?" He had a notepad out and was poised for my answer.
"My hand." I thought this was fairly obvious, but recalling several experiences with child-safety flotation devices in my teenage years, I understood the necessity of his question.
The doctor shook his head again. "No, what sort of lubrication do you use? Anything unnatural?"
Here I pulled my pants back on, cleared my throat and looked shamefully at the floor as I recounted nearly eighteen years' worth of the various products applied to my penis. Vaseline, lotions of all sorts, K-Y Jelly, baby oil — these items didn't even cause the good doctor to raise an eyebrow. It was when I rattled off the litany of shampoos and soaps, cooking oil, motor oil, 3-in-1 oil, toothpaste, Neosporin, Smuckers Apple Jelly, Vicks VapoRub, Papa John's garlic-butter sauce, Chapstick, sunblock, Hawaiian Tropic Tanning Oil, Speed Stick, butter, margarine (for what it's worth, margarine most definitely holds up better than butter) and ice cream that he reacted adversely. (Many of these items I used more than once, but the ice cream resulted in such a catastrophic mess that I must strongly discourage its use.)
When I was finished, the doctor merely looked at me and blinked. I looked away and tried to imagine what med-school course could have prepared him for this.
 -Kevin Keck, Nerve.com

that "gym" MMORPG

At these times I find myself wondering why he doesn't go and "build himself up" [at the gym] instead [of playing online video games].

Because the people who play this "gym" MMOR[P]G are even bigger dicks than Counterstrike players. Every time I go to the gym, all the high-level people are like "LOL, look at teh n00b". No one will tell me how many bench presses I need to do before I can level up, they just stare at me like I'm stupid or something. And good luck getting a party together to take on the higher-level weights. Half the appeal of MMOR[P]Gs is the teamwork, but nobody in gym seems to understand that.

Combine that with the tiny gameworld, lack of scenery, and other glaring faults, and it's easy to see that gym is no EverQuest. Maybe if there's a sequel or a patch, I'll look into it, but for now I think I'll spend my entertainment dollar elsewhere.

 -/. comment

random gladiator quotes

I wrote these on the back of a Cluck-U napkin at some point in time...

"If you find yourself alone, riding in green fields with the sun on your back, do not be alarmed. For you are in Elysium and you are already dead!"

"Rome is the mob. Conjure magic for them and they'll be distracted."

"Sometimes I do what I want to do; the rest of the time I do what I have to do."

say nothing

"English is the perfect language for [insert pet peeve here] because it allows you to talk until you think of what to say."

 -Garrison Keillor

contrast again

"We've got AIDS, SARS and all this shit going on. All these dead dolphins rolled up on some beach the other day. We are at fucking war, people are fucking broke, mothers are killing their kids, and the welfare thing is going on. And everyone is singing, "Everybody in the club getting tipsy." It's fucking insane."
 -Chris Rock, Rolling Stone interview

an honest politician...?

"I just long for the day I wake up and find that the Saudi royal family are swinging from lampposts and they've got a proper government that represents the people of Saudi Arabia."

"Every year the international financial system kills more people than world war two. But at least Hitler was mad."
 -Ken Livingstone, mayor of London

NATO precision

"Kosovo sent the world a message: wherever there is oppression, suffering, and injustice, NATO will show up six months late and bomb the country next to where it's happening."
 -P.J. O'Rourke, Speaking of the Candidates

(for fun, search for "Al Sharpton always excepted" in that thar article)

THA CICADANATOR!

"He is the inventor of a repackaged badminton racket -- Luning calls them "bad bug" rackets -- that will soon be on sale in Cincinnati area drugstores and perhaps on the Web for $3.99.

Luning says he got the idea after watching his son chase bugs on a camping trip and seeing "the thrill and excitement in his eyes." Swat 20 cicadas and you may call yourself a "hunter," according to the wrapper on Luning's rackets. Take out 70 and consider yourself a "predator"; if you reach 100, wear proudly the title: "CICADANATOR!!!""
 -Cameron W. Barr, washingtonpost.com, Sam Luning, cicadanator.com

Someone should tell the PETC(icadas) or the PETI(nsects) or whatever. Cicadas have feelings too, although they are probably blunted a bit by their exoskeleton.

post turtle

"While stitching a cut on the hand of an old Texas rancher (whose hand had caught in a gate while working cattle), a doctor and the old man were talking about George W. Bush being in the White House.

The old Texan said, "Well, ya know, Bush is a 'post turtle'."

Not knowing what the old man meant, the doctor asked him what a post turtle was.

The old man said, "When you're driving down a country road, and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a post turtle.

The old man saw a puzzled look on the doctor's face, so he continued to explain.

"You know he didn't get there by himself, he doesn't belong there, he can't do anything good while he's up there, and you just want to help the poor dumb thing get down.""
  - fark comment thread

my new official stance

"I think John McCain is a damn good guy, but I just can't reconcile myself with his anti-abortion stance. I mean, he thinks fetuses should be protected by law, but has the guy seen any fetuses lately? Those things are monsters! Those black unseeing eyes and the red skinless bodies, I think we need laws to protect us. At any moment McCain is going to open the fucking gate for an unstoppable tide of fetuses that will overwhelm us all. When fifty wet and skittering fetuses are banging on my barricaded door trying to break inside and chew through my skull I will be cursing John McCain's name."
 -Zack "Geist Editor" Parsons

just like that

"In the middle of the night, ... I lie awake and watch the moon slowly move between the pines and think of the advantages of dying. Not that we are given a choice. Well, yes, there is self-slaughter, but that has always struck me as vulgur and self-important, like people who walk out of the theatre or the symphony concert"
  -Sylvia Winstanley, in Julian Barnes' Knowing French, from Granta 84

One of the other things in that article that made me chuckle actually took me a while to figure out, and I'm still half confused about what it means:

"A little girl once said to me, 'I understand about the Stag Brewery, but what's the Lie Brewery?'"

The little girl is apparently smarter than me (on some level, perhaps creative mispronunciation), because I can't figure for the life of me what a Stag Brewery could be... Anyone?

distance between thoughts

Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see each other whole against the sky.
 -Rainer Rilke

Update: Just saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and I think this quote works very well with that movie. I definitely recommend it, so go see it. That is all.

most?!

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/ptech/03/11/resumes.fraud.reut/index.html

Breaking into a database is relatively easy because MOST DATABASE SERVERS ARE NOT PASSWORD PROTECTED, said Alfred Huger, director of engineering at anti-virus company Symantec.

Emphasis mine, obviously. That has got to be one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. EVERY database server I've ever used or even heard anything about has been pasword protected. I have an extremely hard time believing Mr. Alfred Huger's statement. The reporter should have at least asked him to provide a source to back up that statement. If I ever found out that a company that I bought a product or service from had a database (such as a database of attendees to, say, a university) that wasn't password protected, I would probably sue them. That's just gross negligence.

cluetrain vs. the news

The Article said:
CBS' evening news ran a weekly segment during the 2000 campaign on what comedians were saying, and it's returning this year.

Oh boy. Lewis Black isn't going to be too happy to hear about THIS.

"Three days after September 11th, I got a call from the New York Times. The New York times had NEVER called me before for ANYTHING, they hadn't even called me up for a subscription!

They called me up and asked me how I felt, and I said, 'W...what the fuck are you calling ME for?! It's three days after, call somebody who KNOWS shit! Explain to me, blblblbwWHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!! Get some experts, get ALL the fuckin' experts!! You can wait a week to talk to the assholes!'

'Well, we're interested in what comics are doing.'

Oh, oh, NOW you're interested? Why weren't you interested before, shithead? I'm a topical comic, what the fuck do you think I'm going to do? Go up on stage with a SOCK PUPPET!?

I'd go 'Hi, this is Gigi, she's a lot of fun,' 'Hi!' And after a couple of minutes, 'Hey, you wanna blow me?' 'Yeah, bblblblb.' And that'd be my act!

What do you think? Pretty good??

People'd say, 'Well, he's not as funny as he was before, but at least he's distracting.'"

  -a comment on fark

Everyone knows the news is bullshit... and we as humans in the 21st century have extremely honed bullshit detectors. Humans gravitate towards sincere speech and expression. I could go on about this, but instead I'll just link to my local mirror of The Cluetrain Manifesto. Perhaps this seems a bit non sequitir, but once you read The Article and/or the fark comments about the article, all will become clear.

collusion to ruin photographs

" Of course, "lay it on a flat surface like a Polaroid picture," doesn't sound nearly as cool."
  -reuters via yahoo

If Outkast was indeed paid (in advance) to include the "shake it like a Polaroid picture" reference in Hey Ya, that could be construed as an attempt to cause consumers to screw up their Polaroid film and therefore need to buy more. I'm not usually a conspiracy theorist, but this one is just too obvious to overlook. I smell a class-action lawsuit and a half! Even Jay-Z chimes in on the topic:

Rap mags try and use my black ass
So advertisers can give em more cash for ads... fuckers
I don't know what you take me as
or understand the intellegence that Jay-Z has

lost in transcription

what does this say?

oss in a nutshell

"If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas."
  -George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) via linuxfocus (oss)

agreed

"As for Valentine's Day, I prefer to celebrate I'm Not A Fucking Idiot Day. It happens a week after Valentines Day when all of the candy is on sale and all of the flowers have gone back to regular price."
  -some guy who writes the T-Shirt Hell newsletter

ho dear

""When Mel is finished with "Braveheart Jesus" what will be next? "Road Warrior Moses" or "Buddha Lethal Weapon.""
 - "Rick" from the comments here

the rest of the comments are good too. check it out.

why is it...

  "Why is it," he said one time at the subway entrance, "I feel I've known you so many years?"
  "Because I like you," she said, "and I don't want anything from you. And because we know each other."
  - Clarisse and Montag in Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451

whales don't have legs

"Harper's magazine provided helpful advice for folks who find a dead horse or moose on their property. The advice came from a pamphlet titled "Obliterating Animal Carcasses With Explosives," published by the U.S. Forest Service:

"Place one pound of explosives in two locations on each leg. Use detonator cord to tie the explosives' charges together. Horseshoes should be removed to minimize dangerous flying debris.""
 -the U.S. Forest Service, a pamphlet (thx wp.com)

Rule of the LGOPs

"An unofficial set of rules passed around the Fort Bragg barracks said it all: "After the demise of the best Airborne plan, a most terrifying effect occurs on the battlefield. This effect is known as the Rule of the LGOPs (little groups of paratroopers). This is, in its purest form, small groups of pissed-off nineteen-year-old American paratroopers. They are well-trained, armed to the teeth, and lack serious adult supervision. They collectively remember their commander's intent as, "March to the sound of the guns and kill anyone who is not dressed like you.""
  -Dana Priest, in The Mission, describing what happens when 82nd Airborne units improvise.

they're called zipties

""It was like a swarm of ants," said Reese. The soldiers just couldn't keep up. They began zip-stripping people (putting them in plastic zip-strip handcuffs) and throwing them in the "asshole pit," a little open-air barbed-wire enclosure they had built. Let the sleet and snow torture them a little."
  -Dana Priest, in The Mission, quoting a soldier's recollections about trying to stop Albanians from torching Serb's houses and possessions after the 1999 air war that destabilized Serbian control of the region.

inevitable

It's a good comparison... the associated prediction is that the internet will be taxed.

According to folklore, Michael Faraday, who discovered the principle of electromagnetic induction in the 1830's, was asked by a British politician to what conceivable use electricity might be put. Faraday replied, "Sir, I do not know what it is good for. But of one thing I am quite certain--someday you will tax it." This quotation is, in all likelihood, a myth, but nonetheless there is truth therein applicable to our times.

fire is orange...

"Can carrots burn down your house? This urgent question comes up thanks to reader Doug Forand, who writes to describe an alarming discovery he made recently while experimenting with carrots in his microwave oven. (You may be wondering why he was experimenting with carrots in his microwave oven. He had a solid scientific reason: His wife was not home.) Doug claims that if you break a carrot into two pieces, then place the pieces on a plate so they're just touching, then cook them in the microwave, "intense flames will start to shoot out of the carrot at the contact point.""
 -Dave Barry, 2003 Desk Calendar

Congress channeling Carlin

http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Dec/12192003/utah/121337.asp
"To view the bill on the Internet, go to http://thomas.loc.gov. In the box labeled "bill number," type in hr3687 and click the search button."

Hee hee hee. There's something about seeing the "banned" words in print on an official site that just gets me giggling.

LOTR heh.

have a spine, kthx

"A "No" uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a "Yes" merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble."
 -Mahatma Ghandi

fewer words

"To cut costs, many newspapers around the country are now using fewer words. Not need adjectives, adverbs. Nouns, verbs can communicate story gist ("Middle East Fighting")."
 -Dave Barry, 2003 Desk Calendar

oh, that W.C.

"Some son of a bitch put pineapple juice in my pineapple juice."
 -W.C. Fields, after studio officials secretly replaced his gin-laced juice with plain juice in an effort to keep him sober

a good rule

"...if your job involves a steering wheel, great heights, carrying a suitcase containing nuclear launch codes, machinery that may casually remove a limb, or, for the love of God, driving a bus full of adorable school children, it’s best to find another job. Because you cannot, in good conscience, drink while working under those circumstances. For all its benefits, being lit doesn’t improve your motor skills, depth perception or sense of balance. The last thing you want to do is kill someone or lose a hand, because ... they have the wrong kinds of bars in prisons, and it’s nearly impossible to execute a proper kegstand with only one hand."
 -Modern Drunkard Magazine

what's wrong with college?

"If the colleges were better, if they really had it, you would need to get the police at the gates to keep order in the inrushing multitude. See in college how we thwart the natural love of learning by leaving the natural method of teaching what each wishes to learn, and insisting that you shall learn what you have no taste or capacity for. The college, which should be a place of delightful labor, is made odious and unhealthy, and the young men are tempted to frivolous amusements to rally their jaded spirits. I would have the studies elective. Scholarship is to be created not by compulsion, but by awakening a pure interest in knowledge. The wise instructor accomplishes this by opening to his pupils precisely the attractions the study has for himself. The marking is a system for schools, not for the college; for boys, not for men; and it is an ungracious work to put on a professor."
 -Ralph Waldo Emerson

it's a riddle

"What does Brown think of his place on the cutting edge of intellectual-property regulation? I called him to find out. A receptionist patched me through to a cell phone. Brown was in a car and somewhat distracted; he had discerned clues to a fellow driver's mental condition and unwholesome fondness for his mother from his behavior at the wheel."
 -Charles C. Mann, Who Will Own Your Next Good Idea?

Gore-y details

AP story @ Yahoo!
________________
As Prepared for Delivery
Remarks
By Al Gore
November 9, 2003

FREEDOM AND SECURITY
...
For my part, I'm just a "recovering politician" -- but I truly believe that some of the issues most important to America's future are ones that all of us should be dealing with.

And perhaps the most important of these issues is the one I want to talk about today: the true relationship between Freedom and Security.

So it seems to me that the logical place to start the discussion is with an accounting of exactly what has happened to civil liberties and security since the vicious attacks against America of September 11, 2001 -- and it's important to note at the outset that the Administration and the Congress have brought about many beneficial and needed improvements to make law enforcement and intelligence community efforts more effective against potential terrorists.

But a lot of other changes have taken place that a lot of people don't know about and that come as unwelcome surprises. For example, for the first time in our history, American citizens have been seized by the executive branch of government and put in prison without being charged with a crime, without having the right to a trial, without being able to see a lawyer, and without even being able to contact their families.

President Bush is claiming the unilateral right to do that to any American citizen he believes is an "enemy combatant." Those are the magic words. If the President alone decides that those two words accurately describe someone, then that person can be immediately locked up and held incommunicado for as long as the President wants, with no court having the right to determine whether the facts actually justify his imprisonment.

Now if the President makes a mistake, or is given faulty information by somebody working for him, and locks up the wrong person, then it's almost impossible for that person to prove his innocence -- because he can't talk to a lawyer or his family or anyone else and he doesn't even have the right to know what specific crime he is accused of committing. So a constitutional right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness that we used to think of in an old-fashioned way as "inalienable" can now be instantly stripped from any American by the President with no meaningful review by any other branch of government.

How do we feel about that? Is that OK?

Here's another recent change in our civil liberties: Now, if it wants to, the federal government has the right to monitor every website you go to on the internet, keep a list of everyone you send email to or receive email from and everyone who you call on the telephone or who calls you -- and they don't even have to show probable cause that you've done anything wrong. Nor do they ever have to report to any court on what they're doing with the information. Moreover, there are precious few safeguards to keep them from reading the content of all your email.

Everybody fine with that?

If so, what about this next change?

For America's first 212 years, it used to be that if the police wanted to search your house, they had to be able to convince an independent judge to give them a search warrant and then (with rare exceptions) they had to go bang on your door and yell, "Open up!" Then, if you didn't quickly open up, they could knock the door down. Also, if they seized anything, they had to leave a list explaining what they had taken. That way, if it was all a terrible mistake (as it sometimes is) you could go and get your stuff back.

But that's all changed now. Starting two years ago, federal agents were given broad new statutory authority by the Patriot Act to "sneak and peak" in non-terrorism cases. They can secretly enter your home with no warning -- whether you are there or not -- and they can wait for months before telling you they were there. And it doesn't have to have any relationship to terrorism whatsoever. It applies to any garden-variety crime. And the new law makes it very easy to get around the need for a traditional warrant - simply by saying that searching your house might have some connection (even a remote one) to the investigation of some agent of a foreign power. Then they can go to another court, a secret court, that more or less has to give them a warrant whenever they ask.

Three weeks ago, in a speech at FBI Headquarters, President Bush went even further and formally proposed that the Attorney General be allowed to authorize subpoenas by administrative order, without the need for a warrant from any court.

What about the right to consult a lawyer if you're arrested? Is that important?

Attorney General Ashcroft has issued regulations authorizing the secret monitoring of attorney-client conversations on his say-so alone; bypassing procedures for obtaining prior judicial review for such monitoring in the rare instances when it was permitted in the past. Now, whoever is in custody has to assume that the government is always listening to consultations between them and their lawyers.

Does it matter if the government listens in on everything you say to your lawyer? Is that Ok?

Or, to take another change - and thanks to the librarians, more people know about this one - the FBI now has the right to go into any library and ask for the records of everybody who has used the library and get a list of who is reading what. Similarly, the FBI can demand all the records of banks, colleges, hotels, hospitals, credit-card companies, and many more kinds of companies. And these changes are only the beginning. Just last week, Attorney General Ashcroft issued brand new guidelines permitting FBI agents to run credit checks and background checks and gather other information about anyone who is "of investigatory interest," - meaning anyone the agent thinks is suspicious - without any evidence of criminal behavior.

So, is that fine with everyone?

Listen to the way Israel's highest court dealt with a similar question when, in 1999, it was asked to balance due process rights against dire threats to the security of its people:

"This is the destiny of democracy, as not all means are acceptable to it, and not all practices employed by its enemies are open before it. Although a democracy must often fight with one hand tied behind its back, it nonetheless has the upper hand. Preserving the Rule of Law and recognition of an individual's liberty constitutes an important component in its understanding of security. At the end of the day they (add to) its strength."

I want to challenge the Bush Administration's implicit assumption that we have to give up many of our traditional freedoms in order to be safe from terrorists.

Because it is simply not true.

In fact, in my opinion, it makes no more sense to launch an assault on our civil liberties as the best way to get at terrorists than it did to launch an invasion of Iraq as the best way to get at Osama Bin Laden.

In both cases, the Administration has attacked the wrong target.

In both cases they have recklessly put our country in grave and unnecessary danger, while avoiding and neglecting obvious and much more important challenges that would actually help to protect the country.

In both cases, the administration has fostered false impressions and misled the nation with superficial, emotional and manipulative presentations that are not worthy of American Democracy.

In both cases they have exploited public fears for partisan political gain and postured themselves as bold defenders of our country while actually weakening not strengthening America.

In both cases, they have used unprecedented secrecy and deception in order to avoid accountability to the Congress, the Courts, the press and the people.

Indeed, this Administration has turned the fundamental presumption of our democracy on its head. A government of and for the people is supposed to be generally open to public scrutiny by the people - while the private information of the people themselves should be routinely protected from government intrusion.

But instead, this Administration is seeking to conduct its work in secret even as it demands broad unfettered access to personal information about American citizens. Under the rubric of protecting national security, they have obtained new powers to gather information from citizens and to keep it secret. Yet at the same time they themselves refuse to disclose information that is highly relevant to the war against terrorism.

They are even arrogantly refusing to provide information about 9/11 that is in their possession to the 9/11 Commission -- the lawful investigative body charged with examining not only the performance of the Bush Administration, but also the actions of the prior Administration in which I served. The whole point is to learn all we can about preventing future terrorist attacks,

Two days ago, the Commission was forced to issue a subpoena to the Pentagon, which has -- disgracefully -- put Secretary Rumsfeld's desire to avoid embarrassment ahead of the nation's need to learn how we can best avoid future terrorist attacks. The Commission also served notice that it will issue a subpoena to the White House if the President continues to withhold information essential to the investigation.

And the White House is also refusing to respond to repeated bipartisan Congressional requests for information about 9/11 -- even though the Congress is simply exercising its Constitutional oversight authority. In the words of Senator Main, "Excessive administration secrecy on issues related to the September 11 attacks feeds conspiracy theories and reduces the public's confidence in government."

In a revealing move, just three days ago, the White House asked the Republican leadership of the Senate to shut down the Intelligence Committee's investigation of 9/11 based on a trivial political dispute. Apparently the President is anxious to keep the Congress from seeing what are said to have been clear, strong and explicit warnings directly to him a few weeks before 9/11 that terrorists were planning to hijack commercial airliners and use them to attack us.

Astonishingly, the Republican Senate leadership quickly complied with the President's request. Such obedience and complicity in what looks like a cover-up from the majority party in a separate and supposedly co-equal branch of government makes it seem like a very long time ago when a Republican Attorney General and his deputy resigned rather than comply with an order to fire the special prosecutor investigating Richard Nixon.

In an even more brazen move, more than two years after they rounded up over 1,200 individuals of Arab descent, they still refuse to release the names of the individuals they detained, even though virtually every one of those arrested has been "cleared" by the FBI of any connection to terrorism and there is absolutely no national security justification for keeping the names secret. Yet at the same time, White House officials themselves leaked the name of a CIA operative serving the country, in clear violation of the law, in an effort to get at her husband, who had angered them by disclosing that the President had relied on forged evidence in his state of the union address as part of his effort to convince the country that Saddam Hussein was on the verge of building nuclear weapons.

And even as they claim the right to see the private bank records of every American, they are adopting a new policy on the Freedom of Information Act that actively encourages federal agencies to fully consider all potential reasons for non-disclosure regardless of whether the disclosure would be harmful. In other words, the federal government will now actively resist complying with ANY request for information.

Moreover, they have established a new exemption that enables them to refuse the release to the press and the public of important health, safety and environmental information submitted to the government by businesses -- merely by calling it "critical infrastructure."

By closely guarding information about their own behavior, they are dismantling a fundamental element of our system of checks and balances. Because so long as the government's actions are secret, they cannot be held accountable. A government for the people and by the people must be transparent to the people.

The administration is justifying the collection of all this information by saying in effect that it will make us safer to have it. But it is not the kind of information that would have been of much help in preventing 9/11. However, there was in fact a great deal of specific information that WAS available prior to 9/11 that probably could have been used to prevent the tragedy. A recent analysis by the Merkle foundation, (working with data from a software company that received venture capital from a CIA-sponsored firm) demonstrates this point in a startling way:

• In late August 2001, Nawaq Alhamzi and Khalid Al-Midhar bought tickets to fly on American Airlines Flight 77 (which was flown into the Pentagon). They bought the tickets using their real names. Both names were then on a State Department/INS watch list called TIPOFF. Both men were sought by the FBI and CIA as suspected terrorists, in part because they had been observed at a terrorist meeting in Malaysia.
• These two passenger names would have been exact matches when checked against the TIPOFF list. But that would only have been the first step. Further data checks could then have begun.
• Checking for common addresses (address information is widely available, including on the internet), analysts would have discovered that Salem Al-Hazmi (who also bought a seat on American 77) used the same address as Nawaq Alhazmi. More importantly, they could have discovered that Mohamed Atta (American 11, North Tower of the World Trade Center) and Marwan Al-Shehhi (United 175, South Tower of the World Trade Center) used the same address as Khalid Al-Midhar.
• Checking for identical frequent flier numbers, analysts would have discovered that Majed Moqed (American 77) used the same number as Al-Midhar.
• With Mohamed Atta now also identified as a possible associate of the wanted terrorist, Al-Midhar, analysts could have added Atta's phone numbers (also publicly available information) to their checklist. By doing so they would have identified five other hijackers (Fayez Ahmed, Mohand Alshehri, Wail Alsheri, and Abdulaziz Alomari).
• Closer to September 11, a further check of passenger lists against a more innocuous INS watch list (for expired visas) would have identified Ahmed Alghandi. Through him, the same sort of relatively simple correlations could have led to identifying the remaining hijackers, who boarded United 93 (which crashed in Pennsylvania)."

In addition, Al-Midhar and Nawaf Alhamzi, the two who were on the terrorist watch list, rented an apartment in San Diego under their own names and were listed, again under their own names, in the San Diego phone book while the FBI was searching for them.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but what is needed is better and more timely analysis. Simply piling up more raw data that is almost entirely irrelevant is not only not going to help. It may actually hurt the cause. As one FBI agent said privately of Ashcroft: "We're looking for a needle in a haystack here and he (Ashcroft) is just piling on more hay."

In other words, the mass collecting of personal data on hundreds of millions of people actually makes it more difficult to protect the nation against terrorists, so they ought to cut most of it out.

And meanwhile, the real story is that while the administration

manages to convey the impression that it is doing everything possible to protect America, in reality it has seriously neglected most of the measures that it could have taken to really make our country safer.

For example, there is still no serious strategy for domestic security that protects critical infrastructure such as electric power lines, gas pipelines, nuclear facilities, ports, chemical plants and the like.

They're still not checking incoming cargo carriers for radiation. They're still skimping on protection of certain nuclear weapons storage facilities. They're still not hardening critical facilities that must never be soft targets for terrorists. They're still not investing in the translators and analysts we need to counter the growing terror threat.

The administration is still not investing in local government training and infrastructures where they could make the biggest difference. The first responder community is still being shortchanged. In many cases, fire and police still don't have the communications equipment to talk to each other. The CDC and local hospitals are still nowhere close to being ready for a biological weapons attack.

The administration has still failed to address the fundamental disorganization and rivalries of our law enforcement, intelligence and investigative agencies. In particular, the critical FBI-CIA coordination, while finally improved at the top, still remains dysfunctional in the trenches.

The constant violations of civil liberties promote the false impression that these violations are necessary in order to take every precaution against another terrorist attack. But the simple truth is that the vast majority of the violations have not benefited our security at all; to the contrary, they hurt our security.

And the treatment of immigrants was probably the worst example. This mass mistreatment actually hurt our security in a number of important ways.

But first, let's be clear about what happened: this was little more than a cheap and cruel political stunt by John Ashcroft. More than 99% of the mostly Arab-background men who were rounded up had merely overstayed their visas or committed some other minor offense as they tried to pursue the American dream just like most immigrants. But they were used as extras in the Administration's effort to give the impression that they had caught a large number of bad guys. And many of them were treated horribly and abusively.

Consider this example reported in depth by Anthony Lewis:

"Anser Mehmood, a Pakistani who had overstayed his visa, was arrested in New York on October 3, 2001. The next day he was briefly questioned by FBI agents, who said they had no further interest in him. Then he was shackled in handcuffs, leg irons, and a belly chain and taken to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. Guards there put two more sets of handcuffs on him and another set of leg irons. One threw Mehmood against a wall. The guards forced him to run down a long ramp, the irons cutting into his wrists and ankles. The physical abuse was mixed with verbal taunts.

"After two weeks Mehmood was allowed to make a telephone call to his wife. She was not at home and Mehmood was told that he would have to wait six weeks to try again. He first saw her, on a visit, three months after his arrest. All that time he was kept in a windowless cell, in solitary confinement, with two overhead fluorescent lights on all the time. In the end he was charged with using an invalid Social Security card. He was deported in May 2002, nearly eight months after his arrest.

The faith tradition I share with Ashcroft includes this teaching from Jesus: "whatsoever you do unto the least of these, you do unto me."

And make no mistake: the disgraceful treatment suffered by many of these vulnerable immigrants at the hands of the administration has created deep resentments and hurt the cooperation desperately needed from immigrant communities in the U.S.and from the Security Services of other countries.

Second, these gross violations of their rights have seriously damaged U.S. moral authority and goodwill around the world, and delegitimized U.S.efforts to continue promoting Human Rights around the world. As one analyst put it, "We used to set the standard; now we have lowered the bar." And our moral authority is, after all, our greatest source of enduring strength in the world.

And the handling of prisoners at Guantanomo has been particularly harmful to America's image. Even England and Australia have criticized our departure from international law and the Geneva Convention. Sec. Rumsfeld's handling of the captives there has been about as thoughtful as his "postwar" plan for Iraq.

So the mass violations of civil liberties have hurt rather than helped. But there is yet another reason for urgency in stopping what this administration is doing. Where Civil Liberties are concerned, they have taken us much farther down the road toward an intrusive, "Big Brother"-style government - toward the dangers prophesized by George Orwell in his book "1984" - than anyone ever thought would be possible in the United States of America.

And they have done it primarily by heightening and exploiting public anxieties and apprehensions. Rather than leading with a call to courage, this Administration has chosen to lead us by inciting fear.

Almost eighty years ago, Justice Louis Brandeis wrote "Those who won our independence by revolution were not cowards. . . . They did not exalt order at the cost of liberty." Those who won our independence, Brandeis asserted, understood that "courage [is] the secret of liberty" and "fear [only] breeds repression."

Rather than defending our freedoms, this Administration has sought to abandon them. Rather than accepting our traditions of openness and accountability, this Administration has opted to rule by secrecy and unquestioned authority. Instead, its assaults on our core democratic principles have only left us less free and less secure.

Throughout American history, what we now call Civil Liberties have often been abused and limited during times of war and perceived threats to security. The best known instances include the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798-1800, the brief suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War, the extreme abuses during World War I and the notorious Red Scare and Palmer Raids immediately after the war, the shameful internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, and the excesses of the FBI and CIA during the Vietnam War and social turmoil of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

But in each of these cases, the nation has recovered its equilibrium when the war ended and absorbed the lessons learned in a recurring cycle of excess and regret.

There are reasons for concern this time around that what we are experiencing may no longer be the first half of a recurring cycle but rather, the beginning of something new. For one thing, this war is predicted by the administration to "last for the rest of our lives." Others have expressed the view that over time it will begin to resemble the "war" against drugs -- that is, that it will become a more or less permanent struggle that occupies a significant part of our law enforcement and security agenda from now on. If that is the case, then when -- if ever - does this encroachment on our freedoms die a natural death?

It is important to remember that throughout history, the loss of civil liberties by individuals and the aggregation of too much unchecked power in the executive go hand in hand. They are two sides of the same coin.

A second reason to worry that what we are witnessing is a discontinuity and not another turn of the recurring cycle is that the new technologies of surveillance -- long anticipated by novelists like Orwell and other prophets of the "Police State" - are now more widespread than they have ever been.

And they do have the potential for shifting the balance of power between the apparatus of the state and the freedom of the individual in ways both subtle and profound.

Moreover, these technologies are being widely used not only by the government but also by corporations and other private entities. And that is relevant to an assessment of the new requirements in the Patriot Act for so many corporations -- especially in the finance industries -- to prepare millions of reports annually for the government on suspicious activities by their customers. It is also relevant to the new flexibility corporations have been given to share information with one another about their customers.

The third reason for concern is that the threat of more terror strikes is all too real. And the potential use of weapons of mass destruction by terrorist groups does create a new practical imperative for the speedy exercise of discretionary power by the executive branch -- just as the emergence of nuclear weapons and ICBMs created a new practical imperative in the Cold War that altered the balance of war-making responsibility between Congress and the President.

But President Bush has stretched this new practical imperative beyond what is healthy for our democracy. Indeed, one of the ways he has tried to maximize his power within the American system has been by constantly emphasizing his role as Commander-in-Chief, far more than any previous President - assuming it as often and as visibly as he can, and bringing it into the domestic arena and conflating it with his other roles: as head of government and head of state -- and especially with his political role as head of the Republican Party.

Indeed, the most worrisome new factor, in my view, is the aggressive ideological approach of the current administration, which seems determined to use fear as a political tool to consolidate its power and to escape any accountability for its use. Just as unilateralism and dominance are the guiding principles of their disastrous approach to international relations, they are also the guiding impulses of the administration's approach to domestic politics. They are impatient with any constraints on the exercise of power overseas - whether from our allies, the UN, or international law. And in the same way, they are impatient with any obstacles to their use of power at home -- whether from Congress, the Courts, the press, or the rule of law.

Ashcroft has also authorized FBI agents to attend church meetings, rallies, political meetings and any other citizen activity open to the public simply on the agents' own initiative, reversing a decades old policy that required justification to supervisors that such infiltrations has a provable connection to a legitimate investigation;

They have even taken steps that seem to be clearly aimed at stifling dissent. The Bush Justice Department has recently begun a highly disturbing criminal prosecution of the environmental group Greenpeace because of a non-violent direct action protest against what Greenpeace claimed was the illegal importation of endangered mahogany from the Amazon. Independent legal experts and historians have said that the prosecution - under an obscure and bizarre 1872 law against "sailor-mongering" - appears to be aimed at inhibiting Greenpeace's First Amendment activities.

And at the same time they are breaking new ground by prosecuting Greenpeace, the Bush Administration announced just a few days ago that it is dropping the investigations of 50 power plants for violating the Clean Air Act -- a move that Sen. Chuck Schumer said, "basically announced to the power industry that it can now pollute with impunity."

The politicization of law enforcement in this administration is part of their larger agenda to roll back the changes in government policy brought about by the New Deal and the Progressive Movement. Toward that end, they are cutting back on Civil Rights enforcement, Women's Rights, progressive taxation, the estate tax, access to the courts, Medicare, and much more. And they approach every issue as a partisan fight to the finish, even in the areas of national security and terror.

Instead of trying to make the "War on Terrorism" a bipartisan cause, the Bush White House has consistently tried to exploit it for partisan advantage. The President goes to war verbally against terrorists in virtually every campaign speech and fundraising dinner for his political party. It is his main political theme. Democratic candidates like Max Cleland in Georgiawere labeled unpatriotic for voting differently from the White House on obscure amendments to the Homeland Security Bill.

When the Republican leader in the House of Representatives, Tom DeLay, was embroiled in an effort to pick up more congressional seats in Texas by forcing a highly unusual redistricting vote in the state senate, he was able to track down Democratic legislators who fled the state to prevent a quorum (and thus prevent the vote) by enlisting the help of President Bush's new Department of Homeland Security, as many as 13 employees of the Federal Aviation Administration who conducted an eight-hour search, and at least one FBI agent (though several other agents who were asked to help refused to do so.)

By locating the Democrats quickly with the technology put in place for tracking terrorists, the Republicans were able to succeed in focusing public pressure on the weakest of the Senators and forced passage of their new political redistricting plan. Now, thanks in part to the efforts of three different federal agencies, Bush and DeLay are celebrating the gain of up to seven new Republican congressional seats in the next Congress.

The White House timing for its big push for a vote in Congress on going to war with Iraqalso happened to coincide exactly with the start of the fall election campaign in September a year ago. The President's chief of staff said the timing was chosen because "from a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August."

White House political advisor Karl Rove advised Republican candidates that their best political strategy was to "run on the war". And as soon as the troops began to mobilize, the Republican National Committee distributed yard signs throughout Americasaying, "I support President Bush and the troops" - as if they were one and the same.

This persistent effort to politicize the war in Iraqand the war against terrorism for partisan advantage is obviously harmful to the prospects for bipartisan support of the nation's security policies. By sharp contrast, consider the different approach that was taken by Prime Minister Winston Churchill during the terrible days of October 1943 when in the midst of World War II, he faced a controversy with the potential to divide his bipartisan coalition. He said, "What holds us together is the prosecution of the war. No man has been asked to give up his convictions. That would be indecent and improper. We are held together by something outside, which rivets our attention. The principle that we work on is, 'Everything for the war, whether controversial or not, and nothing controversial that is not bona fide for the war.' That is our position. We must also be careful that a pretext is not made of war needs to introduce far-reaching social or political changes by a side wind."

Yet that is exactly what the Bush Administration is attempting to do -- to use the war against terrorism for partisan advantage and to introduce far reaching controversial changes in social policy by a "side wind," in an effort to consolidate its political power.

It is an approach that is deeply antithetical to the American spirit. Respect for our President is important. But so is respect for our people. Our founders knew -- and our history has proven -- that freedom is best guaranteed by a separation of powers into co-equal branches of government within a system of checks and balances - to prevent the unhealthy concentration of too much power in the hands of any one person or group.

Our framers were also keenly aware that the history of the world proves that Republics are fragile. The very hour of America's birth in Philadelphia, when Benjamin Franklin was asked, "What have we got? A Republic or a Monarchy?" he cautiously replied, "A Republic, if you can keep it."

And even in the midst of our greatest testing, Lincoln knew that our fate was tied to the larger question of whether ANY nation so conceived could long endure.

This Administration simply does not seem to agree that the challenge of preserving democratic freedom cannot be met by surrendering core American values. Incredibly, this Administration has attempted to compromise the most precious rights that Americahas stood for all over the world for more than 200 years: due process, equal treatment under the law, the dignity of the individual, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, freedom from promiscuous government surveillance. And in the name of security, this Administration has attempted to relegate the Congress and the Courts to the sidelines and replace our democratic system of checks and balances with an unaccountable Executive. And all the while, it has constantly angled for new ways to exploit the sense of crisis for partisan gain and political dominance. How dare they!

Years ago, during World War II, one of our most eloquent Supreme Court Justices, Robert Jackson, wrote that the President should be given the "widest latitude" in wartime, but he warned against the "loose and irresponsible invocation of war as an excuse for discharging the Executive Branch from the rules of law that govern our Republic in times of peace. No penance would ever expiate the sin against free government," Jackson said, "of holding that a President can escape control of executive powers by law through assuming his military role. Our government has ample authority under the Constitution to take those steps which are genuinely necessary for our security. At the same time, our system demands that government act only on the basis of measures that have been the subject of open and thoughtful debate in Congress and among the American people, and that invasions of the liberty or equal dignity of any individual are subject to review by courts which are open to those affected and independent of the government which is curtailing their freedom."

So what should be done? Well, to begin with, our country ought to find a way to immediately stop its policy of indefinitely detaining American citizens without charges and without a judicial determination that their detention is proper.

Such a course of conduct is incompatible with American traditions and values, with sacred principles of due process of law and separation of powers.

It is no accident that our Constitution requires in criminal prosecutions a "speedy and public trial." The principles of liberty and the accountability of government, at the heart of what makes Americaunique, require no less. The Bush Administration's treatment of American citizens it calls "enemy combatants" is nothing short of un-American.

Second, foreign citizens held in Guantanamo should be given hearings to determine their status provided for under Article V of the Geneva Convention, a hearing that the United Stateshas given those captured in every war until this one, including Vietnamand the Gulf War.

If we don't provide this, how can we expect American soldiers captured overseas to be treated with equal respect? We owe this to our sons and daughters who fight to defend freedom in Iraq, in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the world.

Third, the President should seek congressional authorization for the military commissions he says he intends to use instead of civilian courts to try some of those who are charged with violating the laws of war. Military commissions are exceptional in American law and they present unique dangers. The prosecutor and the judge both work for the same man, the President of the United States. Such commissions may be appropriate in time of war, but they must be authorized by Congress, as they were in World War II, and Congress must delineate the scope of their authority. Review of their decisions must be available in a civilian court, at least the Supreme Court, as it was in World War II.

Next, our nation's greatness is measured by how we treat those who are the most vulnerable. Noncitizens who the government seeks to detain should be entitled to some basic rights. The administration must stop abusing the material witness statute. That statute was designed to hold witnesses briefly before they are called to testify before a grand jury. It has been misused by this administration as a pretext for indefinite detention without charge. That is simply not right.

Finally, I have studied the Patriot Act and have found that along with its many excesses, it contains a few needed changes in the law. And it is certainly true that many of the worst abuses of due process and civil liberties that are now occurring are taking place under the color of laws and executive orders other than the Patriot Act.

Nevertheless, I believe the Patriot Act has turned out to be, on balance, a terrible mistake, and that it became a kind of Tonkin Gulf Resolution conferring Congress' blessing for this President's assault on civil liberties. Therefore, I believe strongly that the few good features of this law should be passed again in a new, smaller law -- but that the Patriot Act must be repealed.

As John Adams wrote in 1780, ours is a government of laws and not of men. What is at stake today is that defining principle of our nation, and thus the very nature of America. As the Supreme Court has written, "Our Constitution is a covenant running from the first generation of Americans to us and then to future genera­tions." The Constitution includes no wartime exception, though its Framers knew well the reality of war. And, as Justice Holmes reminded us shortly after World War I, the Constitution's principles only have value if we apply them in the difficult times as well as those where it matters less.

The question before us could be of no greater moment: will we continue to live as a people under the rule of law as embodied in our Constitution? Or will we fail future generations, by leaving them a Constitution far diminished from the charter of liberty we have inherited from our forebears? Our choice is clear.

no line to cross

"If interrogators step over the line from coercion to outright torture, they should be held personally responsible. But no interrogator is ever going to be prosecuted for keeping Khalid Sheikh Mohammed awake, cold, alone, and uncomfortable. Nor should he be."
 -Mark Bowden, The Dark Art of Interrogation

you know how they can be

"In some stores, selling you a product seems to be merely an excuse to sell you the service agreement. Several months ago, my wife and I were shopping for a computer, and a salesperson attached himself to us, lampreylike. His sole professional contribution was to inform us, no matter which computer we looked at, that we would definitely want the service agreement. At one point he took me aside and told me, man to man, that we especially needed the service agreement, because —this is a direct quote —"You know how women can be with computers." He did not elaborate, but the implication was that, as soon as a woman is alone with a computer, she has some kind of massive hormonal surge that causes her to, I don't know, lactate on the keyboard."
 -Dave Barry, 2003 Desk Calendar

just three minutes?

"In 1953 John Lilly, of the National Institute of Mental Health, discovered that by placing electrodes inside the brain of a monkey, he could stimulate pain, anger, fear—and pleasure. He placed one inside the brain of a male monkey and gave the monkey a switch that would trigger an immediate erection and orgasm. (The monkey hit the switch roughly every three minutes, thus confirming the gender stereotype.)"
 -Robert Bowden, The Dark Art of Interrogation

Ikea traffic sucks

"I don't give a flying fuck if America was invading Sweden because they weren't happy with Ikea, Canada should have gave it's support."
 -SJ

hot air

This works quite well as a corollary to Parkinson's third law (see below).

"Of all possible committee reactions to any given agenda item, the reaction that will occur is the one which will liberate the greatest amount of hot air."
 -Thomas L. Martin

Parkinson's Laws mirrored in state legislatures

"C. Northcote Parkinson, an oddball with an odd name, was a British novelist and historian whose output ranged from Napoleonic-era military fiction to a history of sea-borne trade. But his major claim to fame was Parkinson’s Law (1957), which began a delightful series of books about how organizations make decisions, particularly bad ones. Here are some of Parkinson’s best-known laws..." (entire article)

1. "Expenditure rises to meet income."

"So don’t pay too much attention to whether a state "projects" a $1 billion deficit or a gap three times that amount. I can "project" a $100,000 deficit in my own household finances next year based on the fact that the vacation home my family "needs" to purchase cannot be financed at my current level of income."

2. "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion."

"In the state government context, the implications are subtle but critical. Most state legislatures operate under time constraints. They begin their regular sessions in January and end on a fixed date, often in March or April. But 10 states extend their regular sessions beyond four months a year, and another 10 operate without any meaningful restriction on how long they can meet in regular session. Interestingly, 13 of these 20 states are also among the 20 that have raised taxes during the last two years.
...
Why do legislatures that meet longer tend to end up with larger fiscal problems and a greater recourse to hiking taxes? Because the Parkinsonian "work" lawmakers do to fill the time allotted to them consists to a large extent of sitting in committee meetings at which a parade of government managers, state employees, and special interest lobbyists make the case for how much their pet program is "needed" and would be "sliced to the bone" unless the state raises taxes. Other "work" involves dreaming up new programs or pork barrel projects to attract media attention."

3. "The matters most debated in a deliberative body tend to be the minor ones where everybody understands the issues."

"Whenever you hear state lawmakers waxing eloquently about how they are "cutting spending to the bone" by shuttering state aquariums, turning down the thermostat in state buildings, or sending state employees to fewer out-of-town conferences, you can see one of Parkinson’s lesser-known laws in force. It is easy for politicians, the news media, and the general public to sink their teeth into these sorts of savings. You can gain of lot of rhetorical mileage out of anecdotes that involve relatively small amounts of money and evoke emotional reactions."

Federal Reserve "Board"

"I love Halloween, because it reminds me of a simpler, more innocent time - a time when I dressed up as a goblin and ran around the neighborhood shouting, "Trick or treat!" But that was last year. This year I think I'll have a more subdued costume. Maybe I'll dress up as a large piece of lumber and carry around a cardboard box labeled "Interest Rates," and every few steps, I'll drop it. Get it? It's the Federal Reserve "Board"! Dropping interest rates! Ha ha! I bet THAT will get a big reaction from the neighborhood kids! Probably in the form of eggs."
 -Dave Barry, 2003 Desk Calendar

heat death == bad

"Inf is Perl 6's standard numerical infinity value, so a list that runs to Inf takes ... well ... forever to actually build. But writing 1..Inf is OK in Perl 6, since the elements of the resulting list are only ever computed on demand. Of course, if you were to print(1..Inf), you'd have plenty of time to go and get a cup of coffee. And even then (given the comparatively imminent heat death of the universe) that coffee would be really cold before the output was complete. So there will probably be a warning when you try to do that."
 -Damian Conway, Exegesis 3 (emphasis added)

happiness is a drunk accordion player?

I asked professors who teach the meaning of life to tell me, what is happiness. And I went to famous executives who boss the work of thousands of men. They all shook their heads and gave me a smile, as though I was trying to fool with them. And then one Sunday afternoon I wandered out along the Des Plaines River and I saw a crowd of Hungarians under the trees with their women and children and a keg of beer and an accordion.
  -Carl Sandburg

lazy

"Efficiency is intelligent laziness."
  -David Dunham

respect

"Respect is not expected
but it's given
cause it's real."
  -DMX, How's It Goin' Down

the last refuge

"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."
  -Salvor Hardin, in Isaac Asimov's sci-fi epic Foundation

the foodservice industry?

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.

  -Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 1776

I think it's unfortunate that since the event of ubiquitous employment as opposed to perhaps a more human network or union of independent businesses, most people in the foodservice industry are not working for their own self-interest, do not feel invested or involved in their jobs or the businesses they are a part of, and therefore do not care about anything except the money.

today's writing tip

When writing a business letter or other professional communication, always conclude with a strong "action statement" that shows you "mean business."

WRONG: "Sincerely,"
RIGHT: "I will play tetherball with your spleen,"

  -Dave Barry, 2003 Desk Calendar

a tree falls...

"So, a tree falls in Switzerland, and Italy loses power?"
[Editor's note: aaahahahahahahahah!]
  -Bob Edwards, Morning Edition on NPR

about Coupling

in this article, there's a great quote about the new sitcom:

"It’s hard to give a hoot about the copulating population of Coupling or to regard them as much more than chess pieces with genitalia. The writer moves them about a board; now and then, two occupy the same square."
  - Tom Shale, Washington Post

get a life, W

"It's important for us to explain to our nation that life is important. It's not only life of babies, but it's life of children living in, you know, the dark dungeons of the Internet."
  -George W. Bush Arlington Heights, Ill., Oct. 24, 2000

omfg, t3h d4rk dung30ns of t3h int4rw3b!!!1

someday

"Some day, our country will track down the rest of the monsters behind the tragedy of 9-11, and make them pay, and I suppose that will make most of us feel a little better. But revenge and hatred won't be why we'll go on. We'll go on because we know this is a good country, a country worth keeping. Those who would destroy it only make us see more clearly how precious it is."
  -Dave Barry, 2003 Desktop Calendar

A memorial image (cheers maria).

Murder is always bad. There are many different definitions for murder, many different justifications for murder. In the Christian Bible, there were wars sanctioned by God in which murder and even genocide took place. Enemies and evil were very clear-cut, and victory was well-defined.

Now look at it from the perspective of another religion. Their God and his "mouthpieces" instruct them to go to war. War sanctioned by God. From their perspective, they are doing good for their religion, for the world -- when, in fact, they are being manipulated and used as pawns by their religious leaders to accomplish some political or just-plain-evil goal.

I would equate these religious leaders in Islam to pedophile Catholic priests, except that AFAIK, the leaders of Islam aren't doing as much publicly to fix the problem. That's possibly because they don't have as much centralized control over the Islamic extremists as the Catholic church as over its priests, but I think they could do a lot more to educate the general public in their own countries and abroad about how suicide bombing and terrorism is contrary to the beliefs of Islam. Then maybe the extremists would at least not have such a fertile recruiting ground.

"As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
  - Commissioner Pravin Lal, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

sports headline

yet another gem from Dave Barry:

Real-life examples of language usage sent in by alert readers:
Gary Tucker sent in a sports story from the Seattle Times concerning a Mariners-Indians game featuring a strong performance by Cleveland pitcher Bartolo Colon, with the following headline, which we swear we are not making up: "Bad Whiff of Colon."
  -Dave Barry, 2003 Desk Calendar

irrational greed

You can short-circuit the two or three neurons that people use for common sense by appealing to their greed. Nothing defines humans better than their willingness to do irrational things in the pursuit of phenomenally unlikely payoffs. This is the principle behind lotteries, dating, and religion. You can use this quirk of human nature to your advantage and it won't cost you a dime.
  -Scott Adams, The Dilbert Principle, ch. title "Machiavellian Methods"

a position

"Clear communication can only get you in trouble. Remember, you can't be wrong if you don't take a position. Don't fall into that trap."
  -Scott Adams, The Dilbert Principle

religious rule change

"Whatever the case – the question needs to be asked about the point of going to a church that stands for whatever happens to be popular at the moment and who are willing to change their church doctrine in order to increase membership. The latter is a cult – not a religion and the Episcopalians ought to reconsider having a church that doesn’t stand for anything anymore and whose doctrine is [shaped by] societal changes rather than [the Bible].

"Religions are wonderful things, but having a religion that is devoid of moral clarity is pointless. With football season coming up – Episcopalians would be better served staying home and watching a game on Sunday – the rules have changed less in football than they have in the Episcopal Church."
  -Steve Yuhas, about the 1^st gay bishop

"Julius Caesar" on patriotism & rights

Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar.
    -not Julius Caesar

Snopes.com has a rather insightful analysis of why this quote is so popular and has circulated so widely, even though it's not actually from Julius Caesar...

"Its popularity is not hard to understand: The USA has been embroiled in a war against terrorism far across the world and is contemplating war with Iraq, and the latter action, especially, has been the subject of much debate and dissension within America. This telling observation from Caesar appears to offer yet another valid reason for not yelling "Our leader; right or wrong!" and blindly following the President into war. It is therefore a favorite of those who'd rather sit this dance out, thankyouverymuch."

lost in the woods

If you get lost in the woods while camping, the first thing you must do is get your bearings. If you don't have a compass, stand very still, and listen carefully, until you hear this sound: "eh-eh-eh." That is Canada. Whatever you do, don't go that way.
    -Dave Barry

crazy world

You know the world is going crazy when:
the best rapper is a white guy,
the best golfer is a black guy,
the Swiss hold the Americas Cup,
France is accusing the U.S. of arrogance,
Germany doesn't want to go to war, and
the three most powerful men in America are named "Bush", "Dick", and "Colon" (sic).
    -Chris Rock

EDIT: wow, this quote is EVERYWHERE... Google says "about 5,730"! (+1)

crazy, high, floating

"He's crazy. He's high. He's floatin' on sneaky Pete wine."
    -Gregory Miller (Sidney Poitier), Blackboard Jungle (1955)

Well mister tree...

"Well mister tree, come christmas time, we'll have a party and both get lit up!"
    -Richard Dadier (Glenn Ford), in Blackboard Jungle (1955)