Omni-matic

Ten Years on Blogger?

2011-01-01T23:07:00.002-05:00

Holy cow! I just looked at my Blogger profile and saw that I first created it in January, 2001. It's been 10 years! I haven't actually been blogging for the majority of those years, but still, I'm pretty damn impressed with myself.

Facebook Does It Again

2010-12-24T18:09:00.004-05:00

How many times can I log into Facebook and shout, "WTF?!!?"

A lot, as it turns out.

Today I logged in from a web browser I hadn't used before, and Facebook wanted to confirm it was really me. My bank does this too. What's interesting is that Facebook gave me a choice of how to verify my identity: I could answer a question along the lines of "Who is your favorite superhero?" or I could identify my friends tagged in photos. I went with the photo option. Normally this wouldn't be my first choice given that I have prosopagnosia, but I just had to see what this was all about.

The first set of photos popped up, with a list of names below. The 3 photos included one of a couple of Muppets, one of this person at age 13 or so, and one as an adult. The names listed included several people I hadn't seen in ages. I was stumped! I chose to use the first of my two "skip" options.

The next set started with this shot:

Face-blindness is definitely not a disadvantage here! The other two photos weren't much better -- they were taken from far away and impossible to make out. Fortunately there were enough clues -- the number of male children following him around, among other things -- that I was willing to make a guess. Next up was someone I haven't seen in, let's see, maybe 28 years. Lucky for me she hasn't aged as much as I have in the interim. The last was an easy one -- I only know one person who runs around in a suit of armor smacking people with a stick.

One thing I didn't like was the success page. It said, "Thanks Bill -- you've successfully restored your account." Restored? What does that mean? All I was doing was trying to log in. I wasn't trying to restore anything.

As I've thought about it, more observations and questions have come to mind, ranging from annoying to troubling. In no particular order:

Do any of my Facebook friends know that their names and photos (and photos of their kids) are being used in this way?
Is my photo being used this way?
If someone uploads a photo of me and tags me in it, and I don't like it, is there anything I can do about it?
Can I prevent my name and photos from being used in this way?
What else is Facebook doing or planning to do with its giant database of photos, text, and relationships?
Should I only friend people I know I'll be able to recognize?

Maybe this isn't that big a deal. I never thought the "superhero" and "mother's maiden name" questions were all that secure, especially since there's a good chance that someone trying to access your account already knows you and could probably answer some of them. Perhaps the photos are a more secure way to do this.

Or maybe it's bigger than that. Facebook knows what you look like, where you go on vacation, and what you think. It knows what you looked like as a child and what your kids look like now. And if you don't give it to them, your friends will.

Facebook is doubleplus good!

Alexa Snapshot: Facebook and Friends

2009-04-03T18:36:00.003-04:00

I was wondering if Facebook's redesign was turning out to be a failure. I've been using it much less since they changed it a month or so ago, not as a deliberate choice, but more because it's just not as interesting to me. Are other people still using it?

I took a quick look at Alexa, looking at a trend over the last 3 months. I also threw in MySpace and Twitter just for fun.

The blue line is Facebook; the measurement is daily reach. It's still going up! I guess I'm an outlier. By the way, Twitter looks tiny on this chart, but the growth rate is astronomical.

Omni-matic Lives!

2009-04-02T11:35:00.001-04:00

Hot diggety, this thing still works! And it sorta works on iPhone Safari. I may return to blogging after all. Twitter just isn't satisfying.

Moussaoui's expedited death sentence

2006-05-05T06:27:00.000-04:00

The jury spared him the death penalty, which will speed up his execution.

Death penalty cases take decades, but Moussaoui will be dead within two years. High-profile, heinous criminals aren't always well-liked by their fellow inmates. Look what happened to Jeffrey Dahmer, the serial cannibal, and John Geoghan, the convicted pedophile priest. (Both murdered in prison, in case you missed it.)

It will take a while for the opportunity to present itself, but what lifer wouldn't want such a badge of honor? I'm sure that's how it will be seen. (I haven't actually spent any time in prison, but I do watch a lot of Law & Order.)

The "Don't Nuke Iran" Petition

2006-04-17T20:57:00.000-04:00

This is so bizarre it has to be a hoax. Moveon.org apparently has the marijuana legalization staff mixing with the antiwar staff. But it's there on their web site, so apparently it's legit.

It says:

Petition: Don't Nuke Iran

Reports that the Bush administration may be planning a nuclear attack against Iran are alarming. A strong statement of opposition from the American public before that idea becomes credible is important. Please sign our petition and then alert your friends, family and colleagues by asking them to sign the petition.

"President Bush and Congress should rule out attacking Iran with nuclear weapons."
http://political.moveon.org/dontnukeiran/

As arrogant and stupid as our leaders are, they're not that stupid. This is not going to happen. We are not going to "nuke Iran," even if it does bring back memories of the song "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran."

There are more reasons this "petition" is useless. We've never, ever, made a "no first strike" pledge. Not for the Soviet Union or anyone else. It would be strategically stupid to do so. Every Democrat president in the nuclear age has understood this.

There's no chance in hell that a petition by Moveon.org would influence Bush's decision about something like this, especially if he were crazy enough to do it (and he's not--he's a lot of things, but crazy isn't one of them). And Congress has no say in it, so it doesn't matter even if they do care about a petition.

They don't say what those "reports" say, where they came from, etc. Which makes this whole thing seem like inflammatory fluff, the kind of thing we usually see from Rove and his RNC cronies. Shame on you, Moveon.

By any chance was this thing posted on April 1?

Postscript
See William Arkin's "The Pentagon Preps for Iran" in The Washington Post for info on contingency planning.

Ports and emirs and fear and politics

2006-02-22T07:00:00.000-05:00

I hate to admit it, but Bush is correct about the port ownership thing. However, the position is also completely untenable in the climate of fear that he has so carefully created.

The specific port issue is a molehill. Most of our ports are run by foreign companies. The work is done mainly by Americans. The foreign owners mainly sit back and collect profits.

It's important to remember that Al Qaeda is primarily concerned not with the destruction of the USA but with overthrowing the Arab monarchies and replacing them with theocracies. The emirs who own the port company, in the interest of saving their own skins, would have nothing to do with terrorists. The UAE, as Bush points out, is an ally, and they have close cultural relations with the US as well. It's also among the more modern and cosmopolitan places in the Arab world. There's no reason to suspect ill will.

But of course, none of this matters because we fear Arabs, and our nerves are kept tightly strung by the Bush-Rove method. Bush just looks like a two-faced fool (tool?) trying to help his wealthy Arab buddies. (Remember the scenes from Farenheit 911 of Bush Sr. with his oil-sheik friends?)

Why don't they just source it out to Halliburton in a no-bid contract?

Fourth Amendment

2006-01-26T06:23:00.000-05:00

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Read the full Bill of Rights at the National Archives.

Where are the conspiracy theories about Sharon's stroke?

2006-01-04T18:29:00.000-05:00

I just Googled (blogsearch) "sharon stroke conspiracy" and came up with nothing interesting.

When he had that mild stroke last week, I had a fleeting thought that it had something to do with Sharon's decision to leave the Likud party a month earlier. Then I thought, no way, if this was an assassination they would have done it right. Quick, natural, and permanent. It's not like the Israeli right wing to screw up an assassination. Today, however, with the news of his "massive" stroke and cerebral hemorrhaging, I'm wondering if there indeed is a connection. With Sharon leading a third party, Likud is in big trouble; without Sharon, the third party movement goes nowhere. There are a lot of powerful interests with the means and the opportunity to do this.

This is all speculation, but when I see dots I just want to connect them!

The Case for Whimsical Design

2005-12-21T23:25:00.000-05:00

I've had enough of Intelligent Design. It just doesn't explain enough. What's so intelligent about having an appendix that doesn't do anything except get infected? Or a tailbone, when there's no tail? What's so damn intelligent about hair that falls out of your head, or feet that get smelly, or the vulnerability to lower back strain that comes with bipedalism? Intelligent Design simply cannot compete with Darwin on matters like these. If there's any hope of challenging the place of science in the school curriculum, we need a stronger alternative than Intelligent Design. What we need is the theory of Whimsical Design.

Right away things are making more sense, don't you think? Case in point: an intelligent designer would have no business designing eyes that only last 40 years or so before you need booster glasses to read small print. A whimsical designer, though, would get a kick out of watching people hold a paper at arm's length, straining to make out the letters, denying emphatically that they need glasses. An intelligent designer would be hard-pressed to explain the balding gene. Under the theory of Whimsical Design, however, without balding there's no Hair Club for Men so of course it exists.

Why would an eight-year-old child think it's a good idea to use sandpaper to scratch the words "Yo Mama" into the paint on the door of the family car? An intelligent designer would make kids who are compliant and logical. Only a whimsical designer would try to achieve this kind of outcome.

Intelligent Design is simply a theory that doesn't fit the facts. Whimsical Design is a far comprehensive and reliable theory that will stand up to scrutiny. Please join my crusade to put the theory of Whimsical Design into the classroom where it belongs.

Cheney's no-fly zone

2005-11-30T06:29:00.000-05:00

Dick Cheney is protected at his official residence because it's already in restricted airspace. He's also protected by flight restrictions over his Montana estate when he's there. Now, the AP reports that his new home on Chesapeake Bay in Maryland has been declared a no-fly zone all the time, whether he's there, at one of his other homes, in his reinforced bunker at an undisclosed location, or elsewhere. We all know that homeowner's insurance doesn't cover acts of war, and he's probably got some expensive china and lovely landscaping to protect, so of course I understand the necessity.

Pilots violating the one-mile radius could be shot down.

Does his neighborhood have a Neighborhood Watch? Can neighbors call a number at the Pentagon to report suspicious aircraft in the area? Can all Americans protect our homes not only with shotguns to ward off burglars, but also antiaircraft guns to defend against hostile aircraft?

I'm no expert in aviation, but I wonder what this new government regulation can really deter a terrorist intent on attacking Cheney's third house with an aircraft. Once he enters the one-mile radius, wouldn't he be able to strike his target within a few seconds even if alarms go off and the fighter jets start scrambling right away? It just seems like it couldn't possibly make a difference.

Maybe he just didn't like the noise of airplanes overhead, so he found a way to make it stop. Kind of like Mayor Forgey moving the bus stop to move the loitering riffraff away from town hall.

No Child Left Behind and military recruiting

2005-11-13T08:38:00.000-05:00

I just learned something that really frosts my ass, to borrow a phrase from my dad. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, which is the federal education law, requires schools--I almost can't even type this--requires schools to provide the names of students to military recruiters. Don't believe me? Here it is in all its glory, Section 9528 from page 112 of the NCLB Act on the Department of Education web site.

SEC. 9528. ARMED FORCES RECRUITER ACCESS TO STUDENTS AND STUDENT RECRUITING INFORMATION.

(a) POLICY-

(1) ACCESS TO STUDENT RECRUITING INFORMATION- Notwithstanding section 444(a)(5)(B) of the General Education Provisions Act and except as provided in paragraph (2), each local educational agency receiving assistance under this Act shall provide, on a request made by military recruiters or an institution of higher education, access to secondary school students names, addresses, and telephone listings.

(2) CONSENT- A secondary school student or the parent of the student may request that the student's name, address, and telephone listing described in paragraph (1) not be released without prior written parental consent, and the local educational agency or private school shall notify parents of the option to make a request and shall comply with any request.

(3) SAME ACCESS TO STUDENTS- Each local educational agency receiving assistance under this Act shall provide military recruiters the same access to secondary school students as is provided generally to post secondary educational institutions or to prospective employers of those students.

(b) NOTIFICATION- The Secretary, in consultation with the Secretary of Defense, shall, not later than 120 days after the date of enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, notify principals, school administrators, and other educators about the requirements of this section.

(c) EXCEPTION- The requirements of this section do not apply to a private secondary school that maintains a religious objection to service in the Armed Forces if the objection is verifiable through the corporate or other organizational documents or materials of that school.

(d) SPECIAL RULE- A local educational agency prohibited by Connecticut State law (either explicitly by statute or through statutory interpretation by the State Supreme Court or State Attorney General) from providing military recruiters with information or access as required by this section shall have until May 31, 2002, to comply with that requirement.

I know more about this law than most parents because I used to market informational booklets about it, yet I never even suspected it contained such a crass and offensive component.

The part about consent means that parents can get their kids off the list. See Leave My Child Alone for more info.

The Impeachable Speck

2005-11-12T09:55:00.000-05:00

I just sent this email to my state representative:

Subject: Impeach the governor

Dear Representative Donelan,

I am appalled by the behavior of Governor Romney in recent months, and especially this past week. He has made disparaging remarks about our great commonwealth (often disguised as jokes) and the justices of our Supreme Judicial Court, and he has failed to defend the honor of our representatives in the United States Senate when they were insulted publicly (I'm referring to the "modern-day KKK" remark) at an event where the governor spoke. These acts and failures have come while he was pursuing his own personal gain as he seeks political support and monetary contributions for a future run for national office.

The Constitution says, "he should not have his attention necessarily diverted from that object [the public good] to his private concerns -- and that he should maintain the dignity of the commonwealth in the character of its chief magistrate...." This article, in establishing the rationale for providing the governor with a salary, also sets a high standard for his behavior--a standard that Governor Romney has failed to meet.

It is time for the house of representatives to investigate the governor's failure to maintain the dignity of the commonwealth.

Sincerely,

Bill Denneen
Greenfield

I'm tired of this guy putting down his own state for his own political gain. It's a violation of his duties as governor, and he should be held accountable for the damage he is doing.

The new Inquisition!

2005-11-12T08:03:00.000-05:00

Italian newspapers are reporting that the Vatican has a new policy against homosexuality designed to reestablish purity in the priesthood. The flaws disqualifying potential priests include not only behavior deemed impure, but also "deep tendencies" and even support of gay rights (or "so-called gay culture" as they put it).

The best part is the Inquisition. They're actually starting to round up the offenders. From the Boston Globe report:

In September, the Vatican launched a review of 229 American seminaries, theology schools, and other institutions that train priests, aimed in part at looking for evidence of homosexuality.

This is reminiscent of an earlier quest to expunge impurities:

Ferdinand and Isabella appointed Tomás de Torquemada in 1481 to investigate and punish conversos — Jews and Moors (Muslims) who claimed to have "converted" to Catholicism but continued to practice their "former" religion in secret. Some disguised Jews had even been ordained as priests and even bishops....The Inquisition against the Conversos culminated in the expulsion of all of the Jews from Spain in 1492. (from Wikipedia)

So there were Catholics, even priests, who had deep Jewish tendencies and supported the so-called Jewish culture. The Inquisition sure took care of that problem, didn't it? (*sarcasm alert*)

Oy vey.

Cheney emerges from the shadows

2005-11-07T06:35:00.000-05:00

It's refreshing to see Dick Cheney flushed out of his hole for a little while so we can see him in full daylight. The attention he is receiving from CIA Covert Agent Identity Revelation & Coverup-gate is a good thing for the country.

Columnist James Carroll offered a stinging review in today's Boston Globe of Cheney's entire public career. Some excerpts:

James Carroll
Boston Globe, Nov 7, 2005

When Rumsfeld became Gerald Ford's White House chief of staff, he again tapped Cheney as his deputy. Now they set out to destroy detente, the fragile new relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union....

When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, Cheney forged America's response -- which was, little over a month later, to wage an illegal war against Panama....

When the justification for the huge military machine over which Cheney presided disappeared, he leapt on the next casus belli -- Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. Hussein, a former ally, was now Hitler....

The unsentimental Cheney, eschewing human rights rhetoric, was explicit in defining America's Gulf War interest as all about oil. (The oil industry having made Cheney rich.) Cheney's initiatives, more than any other's, defined the insult to the Arab world that spawned Al Qaeda....

When the World Trade Center towers were hit in New York, it was Cheney who told a shaken President Bush to flee....The 9/11 Commission found that, from the White House situation room, Cheney warned the president that a ''specific threat" had targeted Air Force One...There was no specific threat....In Bush's absence, Cheney, implying an authorizing telephone call from the president, took command of the nation's response to the crisis.

I know that with a Republican Congress he'll never get impeached like he deserves, but this stuff--especially the last item--ought to be investigated. Even a staunch conservative should be offended by Cheney's coup.

Last week I came up with an absurd theory (let me state that this is pure satire in case it's not obvious). The theory is this: after screwing up the Supreme Court nomination, Bush either has a fatal "accident" or is killed in the next "al Qaeda" attack. Cheney takes over, a national crisis spawns, bye-bye scandal. It hasn't happened, so I guess he figures Bush is still useful somehow. (End of absurd, satirical, hypothetical speculation.)

"The only tired I was, was tired of giving in."

2005-10-25T06:14:00.000-04:00

Rosa Parks, with her simple refusal to hand over her dignity on a Montgomery bus, set the civil rights movement in motion. Such challenges to human dignity happen every day, all around us, and in many forms. I hope I can muster a fraction of Ms. Parks' vision to notice them and guts to stand up to them (or to remain sitting, in her case).

The most important legal issue facing our country: sodomy

2005-10-05T06:27:00.000-04:00

Everyone's dying to know what Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers thinks about sodomy.

But on some far-right websites, details about Miers's background, much of it apparently mischaracterized, continued to fuel activist anger.

Webloggers seized on a 1998 report to the American Bar Association's rules and calendar committee that included recommendations for developing policy on an International Criminal Court and removing prohibitions to same-sex adoptions.

ABA officials have stressed that Miers's role in passing on the report was purely administrative, but a weblog called Pro Life News nevertheless called Miers ''Bush's Pro-Sodomite nominee."

Another weblog brouhaha erupted over Miers's support for equal civil rights for gays, when she ran for city council in 1989.

In the same campaign, however, Miers also said that she opposed the repeal of the state's law that made sodomy a criminal offense.
The Boston Globe

You're for sodomy! No I'm not, you are! Oh yeah, I'm rubber and you're glue and everything you say bounces off me and sticks to you, you big ol' Sodomite! [runs away sobbing]

Turning on comment verification

2005-09-28T17:18:00.000-04:00

It's a pain, but I'm now getting comment spam for real.

Romney hates his own state. How's that for character?

2005-09-28T06:18:00.000-04:00

The Speck is really ticking me off. Three years ago, I gave him the benefit of the doubt about his residency. At the time, the Michigan-raised, Utah-inhabiting-for-tax-purposes Mormon was trying to convince the public that he really was a Massachusetts guy. He'd lived here for decades, raised his kids here, built a business here. I wrote a newspaper column entitled "Is he or isn't he?" about the Utah residency flap, and I came down on his side. Now I've been proven a fool and he's proven himself an ass.

The title of the article in the Washington Post says it all: Massachusetts Governor Makes His State the Butt of His Jokes.

Here's a summary of the residency issue, from Wikipedia:

While Romney kept his house Belmont, Massachusetts after 1999, it is debatable whether that was his primary residence from then until 2002, as for most of that time he lived at house in Park City, Utah and worked there also.

Further complicating the issue was that in while living in Utah, Romney had filed taxes as a Utah resident, receiving a $54,000 tax break (reserved for the “primary residence” of Utah residents) on his $3.8 million home in Park City. Additionally, in 1999 his Massachusetts state tax return listed him as a part-time resident and his 2000 tax return listed him as a full-time Utah resident.

In April 2002, after returning to the state and deciding to run for governor, Romney altered his 1999 and 2000 tax returns, changing his residency status for those years to Massachusetts resident from Utah resident.

This guy is about as disingenuous as they come.

"The Speck" and the Pope are out in right field

2005-09-16T06:36:00.000-04:00

Mitt "The Speck" Romney (he considers himself a "red speck in a blue state") proposed an utterly repulsive, wholly unethical and entirely illegal idea to the Heritage Foundation: wiretapping mosques. He said, ''Prevention begins with intelligence . . . How about people in settings, mosques for instance, that maybe are teaching doctrines of hate, are we monitoring that, wiretapping . . . ?"

It occurs to me this may be a calculated move to get the media to portray him as completely looney-tunes, which seems to be considered an important credential on the far right. You don't want to overdo it like Pat Robertson, but if you can get to a level of say Ashcroft or Bolton crazy, you improve your chances of an executive appointment.

The Pope is another matter. News reports say he's about to call for banning gay priests. Hello? Anybody home? Just on practical grounds it's a bad idea. There's already a priest shortage, and now he wants to add another group to the exclusion list. One not as large as "all women", but a traditionally strong pool for the priesthood.

Don't priests take a vow of celibacy anyway? If celibacy is the issue that's one thing--priests of any orientation make the same vow. But if it's a matter of personal identity and sexual orientation, this is a big stepp backward for an organization that is already stumbling. The message seems to be that God made a mistake when he created gay people (as he did when he created women, apparently). This institution that sought to strip all spiritual vitality out of my being over the first 18 years of my life continues to show me I was right to leave.

Let's ban lefthanded people while we're at it. God screwed up making them too. To the stake with them all!

Flashback moment

2005-09-13T06:28:00.000-04:00

I've always been a sucker for reviews proclaiming "his best work since Band on the Run" or "their best album since Some Girls". I fell for it 25 years ago, maybe 20 or 15 or 10 years ago too, and here we go again. Thursday's payday and I might have to arrive home with a couple of new albums.

Halloween, already?

2005-09-11T08:20:00.000-04:00

For weeks now the stores have been telling me that it's time to start buying Halloween stuff. I didn't buy anything, but it's probably a good idea to start thinking about it. I started by reading last year's Halloween post entitled, Thank God It's Over.

“This place is going to look like Little Somalia”

2005-09-03T22:01:00.000-04:00

Nice to know a Brigadier General in the National Guard is so gung ho about taking out the New Orleans "insurgency" as it's being called by Army Times. (Thanks to Boing Boing for pointing it out.)

There are good reasons why the law prohibits active duty soldiers from performing police duty in emergencies. The National Guard is supposed to be better suited for this sort of thing; policing in a domestic emergency is a very different thing from fighting wars overseas, requiring different training, experience, and perspective.

But that was before the War on Iraq made National Guardsmen de facto active duty troops, fighting for their lives and developing a survival attitude that denigrates the enemy so it's easier to kill him. They've been battle hardened, which is not a good thing when they are sent to police our own citizens.

Interesting, though, that Brig. Gen. Gary Jones drew the analogy to Somalia rather than Baghdad or Tikrit or Sadr City. Those New Orleans looters look a lot more like Somalis, don't they? I guess that means if you're black and still in New Orleans and you run into the National Guard, it would be a good idea to put your hands up or maybe even lay face down on the ground with your hands behind your head.

Who woulda thunk...

2005-09-03T07:03:00.000-04:00

that I'd be in total agreement with Newt Gingrich? Quote from today's Boston Globe:

"I think it puts into question all of the Homeland Security and Northern Command planning for the last four years, because if we can't respond faster than this to an event we saw coming across the Gulf for days, then why do we think we're prepared to respond to a nuclear or biological attack?"

This is exactly the line of reasoning that my favorite left-wing radio host, Rachel Maddow, presented on the Al Franken Show, where she was filling in. (Nothing against Al, but he picked a good week to take off. Rachel was perfect for the breaking news this week; she brings a high energy level and a stinging bluntness that were perfectly suited to the events that unfolded.)

The hurricane is a national crisis that pulled two other national crises onshore with it. One of these hasn't occurred yet--the next terrorist attack. The other is finally staring us in the face after years of denial: our energy crisis stemming from our dependence on fossil fuels, especially oil, made painfully obvious by the stinging price hikes to gasoline and home heating oil. Both of these crises are vitally linked to the president's favorite project, the War on Iraq, and both reveal the truth about that colossal mistake.

The obvious point about Iraq is that the National Guard troops and equipment are deployed where they don't belong, leaving us vulnerable to attack at home. The second point is a little more subtle but perhaps more devastating to Bush's political support, his "mandate" if you will, his "I've got political capital and I intend to spend it" attitude. I think a lot of the public support for the war was because of oil. No WMD's, no welcome parades for the liberators, no stability or security on the ground, no damage to al Qaeda, no functioning democracy to speak of--none of the many rationales that were offered turned out to be valid, yet people still supported the war. Why? Because the American people are smarter than a lot of people give them credit for. The unspoken rationale for the war, securing the oil supply, made sense to people no matter what the publicly stated rationale of the week. We all know that Saudi Arabia's not going to be our Sugar Daddy forever with all those terrorists ready to overthrow the monarchy. A stable, friendly Iraq would be a good thing for our oil habit, and if a bad guy dictator had to be overthrown to get it, so what? Everyone else in the world sees the war this way, and Americans by and large know it to be true as well.

Now, after months of rising gas prices 3 years into the war, prices have skyrocketed due to a crisis with origins in the Gulf of Mexico, not the Persian Gulf. Throwing Iraq into chaos has not achieved oil stability, and maybe it never will, now that the emerging democratic Iraq appears to be more interested in allying with Iran (d'oh!) than with us. Katrina has shown that oil stability has many vulnerabilities, and suddenly the policy of putting all of our resources into Iraq seems naive.

Sorry, W, but your political capital check just bounced.

My first comment spam!

2005-08-30T07:13:00.000-04:00

If it weren't 7 AM I'd break out the champagne. Omnimatic has arrived! Finally, after nearly a year of sweat and toil, I received my very first comment spam. It's a lovely piece about why we should all invest in timber. I'm going to delete it now.

Romney cuddles up to Bush

2005-08-23T08:02:00.000-04:00

I've never liked Mitt Romney. When he first ran for governor of Massachusetts he struck me as a disingenuous opportunist in the way he portrayed his residency. I know that's nothing new when a New England Brahmin like George HW Bush kept a P.O. box in Texas so he could vote there, and a Cubs fan by birth like Hillary Clinton moved to New York because she liked her chances in the Senate race.

If that were the only thing it would be no big deal, but ever since he decided to run for president (bored with his day job, I guess) he has begun singing from the Bush 43 hymnal like a choirboy eager to be chosen for a solo. Stem cell research? Against that evil witchery now; I HAD to pretend I was for it because, well, you know, I was in enemy territory up there in Massachusetts. Abortion rights? Against that one too, now that I'm looking for conservative votes.

Now Romney is praising the war in Iraq, just as other Republicans have begun to show some guts and call it what it is. "The enemy is emboldened by anything other than the strength of America," he said yesterday. I don't know that this is a flip flop, but it sure sounds like a big wet smooch on Bush's behind.

I can't imagine that this guy truly has presidential ambitions; surely he realizes that his international experience is limited to running the Olympics and that the Massachusetts governorship has never been much of a launching off point for national politics. More likely, he's angling for a cabinet post.

You have to wonder if he realizes that Bush is a lame duc when he says stuff like this: "And it's an extraordinary obligation and burden that the president faces. Every American life -- every life -- is precious, and it's an extraordinary burden, which the president carries very well and with dignity." Blech.

Stuff I like: Listgarden

2005-08-22T09:56:00.000-04:00

I've been looking for a tool to fill a hole in creating RSS feeds. The problem: blogging tools all create RSS feeds, but I wanted to have feeds for pages on the site that aren't blogs (my employer's site, not this one). Eventually this will be automated with a new system, but I wanted something for the short term--meaning cheap to free, with a very gentle learning curve, that can fit into the existing work process. I don't want people creating content once in HTML and all over again in RSS. And it had to be cross-platform and Mac friendly.

I found what I wanted in Listgarden from Dan Bricklin's Software Garden. He's the guy who jump-started the PC revolution by creating VisiCalc, the original spreadsheet. This tool--unlike a lot of open source stuff--is made for non-programmers. Some tech ability helps if you want to customize the output, but you really don't have to know anything other than how to follow well written directions.

In Listgarden, you add item headlines and descriptions, and the program generates both an HTML page and and RSS file. One well thought-out feature breaks the HTML template into 3 parts, so you can just use the middle (no head tags, etc) to create a server-side include. Then tweak the CSS a little and you can feed content to your existing HTML page while creating the feed. Another setup I'm considering is to use Listgarden to create email newsletters in HTML, with an RSS feed as an alternative.

The only drawback is that it's a pain to set up on a Mac because it requires the X-code Developer Tools to be installed (a gigantic download if you don't have it) so you can run Perl. The steps are easy to follow and work like a charm, but it will be a barrier for some people. The Windows version is nicely compiled into an executable. I emailed tech support about this and got a nice note back from Dan Bricklin himself (how's that for service?) explaining that he had a nice packager for Windows but not Mac, and if I find a good one let him know.

Free software with better customer support than anything I've paid for. Gotta love it.

They're probably Democrats too

2005-08-12T06:41:00.000-04:00

From today's Boston Globe

Boston's beloved pair of swans -- feted by city leaders, residents, and tourists alike as one of the Hub's most celebrated summer attractions -- are a same-sex couple. Yes, scientific tests have shown that the pair, named Romeo and Juliet, are really Juliet and Juliet.

See? Those damn activist judges go around messing with nature, and look what happens! This undermines the institution of mating. And it will lead to cygnetphilia and ultimately, bestiality.

I suppose we should expect a visit from Fred Phelps (who I will not dignify with a link, Google him if you must).

This has now triggered my Fred Phelps memory, which I'll share briefly. When we lived in Chicago we were a member of a wonderful church led by an inspiring minister. (I've been a de facto atheist all my life except for those two years.) This minister, Greg Dell, preached that "God don't make no junk" and that homosexuality was not a deviation, but part of God's creation, and that our diversity is something to be celebrated. Others in the United Methodist Church strongly disagreed and they put him on trial for performing marriage ceremonies for same sex couples.

When all this was going on, Mr. Phelps decided to pay us a visit. Fewer than a dozen Phelps people, mainly his family as far as I could tell, stood across from the church waving their sick signs and chanting unchristian things. On our side of the street, a good hundred or more church members and friends formed a human chain around the church and dwarfed the hateful presence. The "protesters" just looked pathetic.

I felt proud to be part of that church.

New language for evolution

2005-08-08T06:39:00.000-04:00

From Cathy Young's op-ed in today's Boston Globe:

In some ways, evolutionary theory is more compatible with conservative ideas than with leftist ones. Indeed, proponents of applying evolutionary theory to human social structures tend to be viewed by the left with suspicion, particularly on biological explanations for sex roles. As several commentators have pointed out, it's conservatives who reject the notion that complex organization requires deliberate central planning -- in economics. Why should biology be different?

This last point is a vulnerability in the Bushie worldview just begging to be exploited. If conservatives (read: Karl Rove) can use language to change the popular "estate tax" to the unpopular "death tax", why can't we talk about evolution with more potent words? We should start talking about the "market-driven biological freedom" theory versus the "centrally planned biological welfare" theory.

Kids need to eat!

2005-08-06T10:06:00.000-04:00

The average lunch period in US elementary schools has decreased by 6 minutes in the last two years, according to an article in The Boston Globe. Kids have an average of 24 minutes to get their food and eat it. I've learned not to send anything hard to open or slow to eat in my son's lunch. You'd better peel the orange in the morning or it won't get eaten. Even so, there are no guarantees. Often he brings his lunch bag home with not a single thing eaten. Not enough time, he says.

This short break in the day has a lot of functions to fill. It's a social occasion, when kids have a little less structure and a chance to see their friends from other classes. It breaks the day in two, providing an orientation point and a defense against the monotony of arithmetic and handwriting. Most importantly, it's about eating--refueling for the afternoon and for growth.

At least we're not dealing with the absurdities of lunch periods starting before 11 AM. With luck we won't have to face that until high school.

Manny and Millar

2005-08-01T06:55:00.000-04:00

I'm glad the Sox didn't dump Manny Ramirez. I'm equally glad they didn't dump Kevin Millar, because then I wouldn't get to read stuff like, "'I never say that,' said Ramirez, while Millar pretended to translate his remarks into Spanish." I wish I'd heard it.

Dads: Unite!

2005-07-29T06:49:00.000-04:00

Rebel Dad isn't too happy with NBC's new show, "Meet Mister Mom". Here's how NBC describes it:

Can Dad handle what Mom does? Dads are in charge in this new reality competition that takes some of America's busiest families and gives moms a much-deserved break!

Each week, moms from two different families are surprised with a luxury vacation, while the dads are left to manage their chaotic households. The results are funny, heartwarming and something every busy family can relate to!

During the week-long challenge, the two dads and their kids compete in various tasks (with the moms watching in awe on closed-circuit TV). Families are rewarded with a greater appreciation for each other ..and the winning family also receives a wonderful cash prize.

Sounds like "reality TV" has found yet another divisive wedge to stick into the lives of its viewers. Showing how hard it is to raise kids and run a house is a good thing. Deriving 100% of the entertainment value from making men look like idiots is the problem. At least the Nanny shows portray both sexes as equally idiotic.

It's disturbing, this whole idea of being entertained by the misfortune of others. The technology has changed, but we're still at the coliseum throwing people to the lions for a laugh.

Tantrums and an angry man in Canada

2005-07-23T15:55:00.000-04:00

I just let a guy have it for his ignorance about parenting. He wrote something about how much he hates kids and blames parents for everything that bugs him. I posted a comment to set him straight. I didn't intend to write so much but I guess he struck a nerve. I'm the guy with the kid who's having a tantrum, and I'd like a little respect please.
----------
Update: I may be forced to reconsider my position after realizing the Oompa Loompas are on Angry Man's side on this issue.

Oompa Loompa Song #3 (Veruca Salt)
Oompa loompa doompadee doo
I've got another puzzle for you
Oompa loompa doompadah dee
If you are wise you'll listen to me
Who do you blame when your kid is a brat
Pampered and spoiled like a siamese cat
Blaming the kids is a lie and a shame
You know exactly who's to blame
The mother and the father
Oompa loompa doompadee dah
If you're not spoiled then you will go far.
You will live in happiness too
Like the oompa loompa doompadee do

Ourmedia.org, and W sings "Imagine"

2005-07-19T06:38:00.000-04:00

I just discovered Ourmedia.org after reading about it in Hiawatha Bray's column in The Boston Globe yesterday. I hope I stumble across more gems like George W. Bush singing "Imagine".

Rove is too damn clever

2005-07-15T06:09:00.000-04:00

He is a political strategist, after all. Finding a hole to crawl into is just second nature.

Rove testified last year that he remembers specifically being told by columnist Robert Novak that Valerie Plame, the wife of a harsh
Iraq war critic, worked for the CIA.

Rove testified that Novak originally called him the Tuesday before Plame's identity was revealed in July 2003 to discuss another story. (Associated Press)

"I didn't tell the reporter, the reporter told me!" It's like when some young defendant on Law & Order outsmarts the prosecutors by having someone else testify they committed the crime, or by pulling an identical twin out of a hat to refute the DNA evidence. In fact, you might see this story work its way into a Law & Order script provided they can ratchet up the stakes with a dead body.

An email newsletter done right

2005-07-06T07:03:00.000-04:00

I've had a couple of questions on my mind lately about my kids. One was whether the new Star Wars and Batman movies might be OK for my son--I know they're PG-13 and he's younger, but would they be OK for him if he saw them with me? The other was a health question that we'd already seen a doctor about, but I was still thinking about it. If I had time, or if they were more urgent, I would have dug around on the web. But as it was, they were just hovering around in my mind.

Then I got my newsletter from ParentCenter. They don't come too often, and sometimes I delete it without reading it (who has time?) but this time I opened it and found a) a parent-oriented movie review of one of the movies, and b) an article on the health topic, after the heading "For your 8-year-old."

Well done! They've found the holy grail of information technology: the right information to the right person at the right time. It starts with good editorial decisions; they chose their subjects well. Then the personalization engine picked the right stuff for me. Then the design and layout got me where I needed to go. And the moderate frequency is just right. If it came too often I'd probably ignore it.

I don't work for them or anything; I'm just a pleased reader. It's nice to see something done right!

Linguistics and baseball

2005-06-24T06:26:00.000-04:00

Two of my favorite armchair hobbies come together in Dan Shaughnessy's column in the Boston Globe today. He looks at the origin of the word walkoff.

If the game ends with the home team at bat, it's a walkoff win because the beaten visitors are forced to walk off the field in disgrace.

Few of today's major leaguers can remember when they first noticed the new terminology, but there's little doubt ESPN has put walkoff into the mainstream of American sports talk....

According to ''The New Dickson Baseball Dictionary," the first walkoff reference appeared July 30, 1988, in the Gannett News Service: ''In Dennis Eckersley's colorful vocabulary, a walkoff piece is a home run that wins the game and the pitcher walks off the mound."

My interest here? I took a couple of linguistics classes in college and might have majored in it except for the evil Professor Lieberman. And I was an all-star third baseman in the 9-year-olds' league before my career entered a tailspin. I remember my shining moment that year, a walkoff double driving in the winning run and resulting in a pigpile on me at second base. Three years later I hung up my cleats for good when I couldn't get a hit in batting practice.

A new name for my boy

2005-06-15T07:58:00.000-04:00

My son, who has a classic Anglo name, declared yesterday that he wants to be called Björn. I told him we'll give it a try for a couple of days and see how it goes.

Last year he went through a "Chris" phase. Not quite sure how he got to Björn.

"I'm sorry for the fans who paid for this." - Mike Tyson

2005-06-12T08:37:00.000-04:00

At least he's being honest after the fact, if not before. I bet he still cashes his paycheck, though.

Is there another sport in the world where once-great athletes embarrass themselves as much as in boxing? For every boxer who retired on top of their game--and stayed retired forevermore--there must be twenty who fought one or two or ten fights too many, desperately trying to prove they can defy the ravages of age and wear while getting one more paycheck for the only job they've ever known. Sad, yes, but it's also part of the mythic appeal of boxing. Even the mightiest eventually fall; invincibility is an illusion, which means all of us stand a chance against the powers that beat us down day after day.

P.S. Speaking of mythic appeal (or a lack thereof), I've been trying, really trying, to work my way through Joseph Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces, but it's just too painful. Or too scholarly, I should say. I should have just gotten the Cliff's Notes.

Honey, I updated the router firmware!

2005-06-09T06:13:00.000-04:00

When she heard the news, my wife didn't sound as thrilled as I'd hoped. But then I explained the significance.

Ever since we got the new Mac to replace the aging Compaq, we had internet problems. First, the browser would slow to a crawl after 3 pm. I figured out it had something to do with DNS lookup.

She said, "*&#%$# computer!"

I said, "*&#%$# Verizon!"

Following a tip I found somewhere, I put the DNS addresses in the Mac, bypassing the router. That problem seemed fixed.

But then we'd just seem to get bumped off the internet every now and then for no apparent reason. I'd go down to the basement and power the router and DSL modem off and on to get it back. Then I figured out that sometimes--not every time--I could avoid the basement by opening the router settings in my browser and reconnecting PPPoE, which somehow was disconnecting itself. But sometimes this didn't work either.

She said, "*&#%$# computer!"

I said, "*&#%$# Verizon!"

Then I read up on routers. I learned that firmware is something you can update. So I downloaded the update from Linksys. (Luckily the old Windows PC still works because it didn't have a Mac installer.) And it's been smooth browsing ever since.

My wife didn't notice. At least she stopped saying "*&#%$# computer!" And I don't have to cancel Verizon after all.

Glad to have Olerud at first

2005-06-06T06:12:00.000-04:00

Enjoyed reading this in the Globe today:

John Olerud, who in the fourth inning bumped the lead to 3-0 with a sacrifice fly, followed Mueller with a softly lined single to right

Don't get me wrong--I like Kevin Millar, and I'm not down on him like many fans are this year because of his batting slump. I just like him better when someone is sharing the job with him. I hated to lose Mentkavicz (quick, call Spelling 911!) but now I'm feeling a lot better.

UPDATE (6/17): Since Olerud arrived May 27, Millar is hitting .400 (18 for 45) (source: Boston Globe)

Deal lets Milton Academy suspects avoid jail - AP via Boston.com

2005-06-01T11:48:00.000-04:00

This makes a lot more sense than a life sentence. Two years of pretrial probation, plus the requisite counseling and community service.

Now let's keep our eyes open for civil filings.

Life in prison for a teenage b. job?

2005-06-01T06:03:00.000-04:00

I read in the Boston Globe that charges were brought against the 3 boys over 16 in the school s_x case I wrote about recently. The charge? Statutory rape. The consequences? Life in prison at the most, being forced to register as a s_x offender at the least.

If it were my daughter, I'd be suing the school for dereliction of duty or whatever the legal term is. A boarding school plays the role of parents away from home. For allowing the situation to reach the point of repeated criminal behavior, Milton Academy must bear some responsibility. That girl was in their guardianship. I'm just dumbfounded that these boys, as wrong and stupid as they were to do what they did, are facing such serious consequences while the school gets away with sending letters to alums and donors showing how concerned they are.

More on this later.

(note: trying to avoid having my Sitemeter clogged with s_x searches)

Quoted!

2005-05-24T16:07:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since my words found their way into the advertising trade media. In an article for ClickZ about television ads in retail stores, Pete Blackshaw quoted me as a counterweight to the enthusiasm for Wal*Mart TV expressed by others still "in the game". Not only that, he reported my words accurately and used them in a thoughtful and interesting piece. Journalism lives!

Back in the day, I used to shake the foundation of powerful industries when I spoke. No, really. Like the time all the magazine publishers wanted to...well, I didn't stick around long enough to find out exactly what they wanted to do.

Loving NeoOffice (OpenOffice for Mac)

2005-05-22T09:53:00.000-04:00

One of the risks I took in switching to Mac was that my Microsoft Office 2000 discs would be unusable and I'd have to either find an alternative or ante up and buy the Mac version of MS Office. I'm immensely relieved to report that NeoOffice, one of the two OpenOffice options for Mac, is splendid (I generally try to avoid that word but it really sums it up).

First I tried to official OpenOffice Mac version but couldn't get past the X11 business. I thought I installed X11 but the Open Office installer still wouldn't run, so I gave up. (I got a Mac precisely to avoid getting sucked into endless tinkering.) So I went with the native Mac version, NeoOffice, even though it's not an "official" release. So far so good! I had an easy time making the invitation for our Cinco de Mayo party--lots of images, text boxes, playing with margins and borders and fonts, color shading, autoshapes, etc. etc. As I got used to using it, I began to find it easier than Word, which I've been using since 1993 and know pretty well. It's just, I don't know, better organized. Things I need don't seem to be buried 4 layers deep.

So if you haven't taken the OpenOffice plunge, give it a shot.

My other blogs

2005-05-22T08:34:00.000-04:00

After a few stops and starts, I think I'm getting the hang of multiple blogs. This is my general one, and the other two are on specific topics.

"To Snip or Not to Snip: Vasectomy Straight Talk" arose out of a book I'm working on. While waiting for some savvy editor with an eye for odd talent to give the thumbs up, this is my way to pass the time.

"What's Up With Greenfield" gives my take on this forgotten little corner of Massachusetts. Covers all salient aspects of life in Greenfield, from nukie pills to bad car repairs.

Saddam to replace Flea as bass player for Red Hot Chili Peppers

2005-05-20T22:20:00.000-04:00

Omni-matic has just learned that the famous photos of Saddam Hussein stripped to his briefs, published by The Sun today, were taken a roadie for the Red Hot Chili Peppers as the former dictator prepared to audition for the band. Early reports placed the former strongman at the drums, but a spokesman for the group later revealed that Hussein "played a smokin' bass" and "knocked the socks off" his future bandmates. Current bass player Flea reportedly has agreed to postpone his solo tour and remain with the band until the new guy is able to clear up a few legal matters.

How many people should we kill?

2005-05-15T10:32:00.000-04:00

Governor Mitt Romney wants the state to kill people. Massachusetts hasn't killed anyone, at least not intentionally and through due process of the courts, in several decades. But Connecticut beat us to it and who wants to fall behind Connecticut?

Columnist Jeff Jacoby at The Boston Globe doesn't like Romney's proposal because it wouldn't kill enough people. We'd put all these safeguards in place at great expense and what would we get for all our trouble? People would use these safeguards to avoid getting killed (we can't all be lucky enough to have a Michael Ross), and then we'd be right back where we started.

Jacoby's position is abhorrent but at least its logic is clear. And he brings up a legitimate question: what's the point of spending all this money on a "foolproof" system if it means hardly anyone will get executed?

Call me a crazy Christian if you must, but I don't think it's right to kill people. And call me a simpleton if you must, but two wrongs don't make a right. The state has the right to deny liberty and privileges to killers, but taking their lives puts us on the same low moral plane.

"Tree Bites Man" - remember that?

2005-05-01T10:05:00.000-04:00

I had forgotten this piece of Celtics lore, but Danny Ainge hasn't--because he still has the scar where Tree Rollins bit him.

Ainge had been in the league for only two years when he tackled Tree Rollins in a Celtics-Hawks playoff game at the old Boston Garden in April 1983. Rollins was a 7-footer, but Ainge -- looking like a cornerback bringing down a giant tight end -- hit Rollins low and took him to the floor. While the two rolled around the parquet, Rollins bit Ainge's finger, a wound that required a tetanus shot and several stitches. The most amazing part of the story is that it has been completely inverted in most retellings and the majority of American sports fans seem to believe it was Ainge who bit Rollins.

(from today's Boston Globe.)

The new iMac

2005-04-30T07:42:00.000-04:00

Got it, love it.

Except for...

a) the noisy fan. As the processor works and rests, the fan starts, stops, changes speeds, and is generally distracting. It's loud and active probably because it's contained in such a small space, and it's especially noticeable because it's right in front of you, instead of down on the floor. It's a little thing, but the little things matter a lot and Apple is usually great at making their machines pleasant to use. I'll live, but it will continue to bug me.

b) problems with DHCP and DNS using the router on my home network. In other words, the internet was really slow, and I blamed Verizon and my wife blamed the computer. Guess who was right? My wife of course! For anyone with this problem: get the DNS addresses from your ISP and enter them into the Mac's internet settings, so it's not going through the router for DNS. I don't know why this works, but I found the solution on MacFixIt and it worked. My Windows machine does not have this problem (perhaps the only problem it doesn't have).

Are you still with me? I've been loading CD's into iTunes like there's no tomorrow, and considering the condition of many of the cd's, there may in fact be no tomorrow. I'm about to rip Fountains of Wayne, which spent some time in the car--so it's been scratched, has sticky stuff on it, etc. I hope a careful cleaning is enough to rescue it.

Boston.com picks up bad habits

2005-04-21T07:41:00.000-04:00

The Boston Globe online has picked up a couple of bad habits from its parent, The New York Times. It now requires registration, which is fine but I wonder: why now? First step to subscriptions? Worse, it now throws a Flash ad at you once in a while before displaying an article. I'm sure I'll get used to it, but this morning I just wasn't ready for this kind of change to my routine (i.e. hadn't had my coffee yet).

The price of fun

2005-04-20T08:50:00.000-04:00

Sure, the sun was shining and all that crap but at the end of the day, the debit card statement brings it all back to earth:

Aquarium admission: $42
Parking: $29
Lunch: $22
Gift shop trinkets: $35
Ice cream: $13
Grand total: $141

I wouldn't take it back, but I can tell you we'll be eating beans and rice the rest of the month!

Sunny days in Boston

2005-04-18T22:49:00.000-04:00

The sun was out, and the people smiled. The people included me and the three wee ones as we goofed around on the dock by the aquarium, walked to Quincy Market in search of ice cream, and took a lot of pictures of each other. I hear there was a marathon going on somewhere, but our day was all about free movement without being directed toward a finish line.

The report from Greenfield is that Mommy is having as much fun as we are, maybe more. She's painted one room twice already, with 2 days to go before we return. For all the hell that February school vacation wrought upon us, this time around is just going incredibly well. A bit too well? Will it all fall apart before the week is halfway over?

I think if the sun keeps shining we'll be in good shape.

Can you pick out the real parody?

2005-04-08T21:11:00.000-04:00

One of these headlines is a parody from the Onion, and the other two are actual Reuters stories. Can you pick out the fake?

"Great Expectations for British Dickens Theme Park"
"Local Fox Affiliate Debuts Terror-Alert Van"
"Schwarzenegger Praises Pope's Devotion to Exercise"

Give up? Here are the stories:
1 2 3

How did you do?

This PC guy goes Mac

2005-04-08T06:54:00.000-04:00

I worked in tech support back in the days when we were excited about the impending release of MS-DOS 5.0. I marvelled at Windows 3.1. My first home computer ran Windows 95, and my second--which I'm sitting at this very minute--Windows 98. I have a knack for troubleshooting this machine--and plenty of experience considering it's a dog of a machine, one of the worst Compaq ever made.

It's time for a new machine, and quality is top of mind. It was going to either be a Dell or a Mac.

I surprised myself by going with a Mac. But Apple made it easy for me. They offered a handful of choices rather than an endless array of configurations. And looking at the specs, it's almost as if they looked inside my brain, figured out exactly what I needed and built these things just for me.

So there you have it. Bye bye Microsoft, hello Apple, let the movie-making and music-making begin!

Robots: At least it wasn't a remake!

2005-03-12T17:45:00.000-05:00

Took my boy to see Robots last night. We both liked it but neither of us loved it. If the writing had half the imagination of the virtual sets it could have been great.

Robin Williams had some funny moments as the comic sidekick, but if you're expecting a Genie reprise you'll be disappointed. Ewan MacGregor was just right as the earnest character -----INTERRUPTION----- I was writing this with my 3-year-old cuddling on my lap and out of the blue she started puking! Right down the front of my shirt! Luckily my shirt soaked it right up so none got on the computer. We're all cleaned up now. -----RESUME----- who doubts himself, then believes himself, then rallies the ragtag gang of misfits to believe in themselves too so they can band together against the nasty bad guys.

Did I mention the writing lacked imagination?

At least this film was a first--not a remake and not a sequel. Unfortunately, judging by the previews, that's all we have coming up this summer: memes from my childhood brought to life for my own kids.

First there's the new Herbie the Love Bug movie (but now he's just "Herbie", sans "Love Bug"). It looks as delightfully stupid as the original. Then there's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with Tim Burton directing and Johnny Depp playing Willy Wonka. The preview looks surprisingly similar to the original, which was great, but why make it over again when you can just rent the DVD? Then there's the mercifully final edition of the tired Star Wars series. Let's just put that broken-down horse out of its misery. Oh, and I almost forgot: Nicole Kidman in Bewitched.

I thought the nostalgia remakes were a fad that would go away. I thought that after the Brady Bunch movie, the Flintstones (quite possibly the wrost movie ever made), and the Jetsons that enough was enough...then we had Scooby Doo, Fat Albert, and probably a dozen others I've chosen to forget. Will there be no end to this tired (or tiring?) trend?

Doesn't anyone make anything new anymore?

Speaking of Dora...

2005-03-08T06:36:00.000-05:00

You wouldn't believe the endless stream of three-year old girls and their hurried parents and assorted siblings pouring in and out of the Opera House in Boston this weekend. I would have to say that Dora's Pirate Adventure is a big hit.

Fortunately we were only observers, having dropped the kids at my parents' for the weekend. We stayed at a fancy Boston hotel without any kids--just me, my wife, and Bambi.

(Who is Bambi? No, she's not a hooker. No need for that with hotel pay-per-view. Bambi is our greyhound, an ex-racer enjoying a second career as a couch potato.)

A television genius

2005-03-03T06:53:00.000-05:00

Great piece in the New York Times today about Nickelodeon's Brown Johnson. Any parent of a preschooler in the past 5+ years understands the power of Blue's Clues and Dora the Explorer.

"'People were making TV for kids that was lots of short pieces strung together like beads on a string. I thought 'We can tell a story that's longer, because otherwise they're all going to have A.D.D.,'' Ms. Johnson explained, using the abbreviation for attention deficit disorder. So she developed the narratives of 'Blue's Clues' and 'Dora the Explorer' to span the duration of the program."

I love Sesame Street too, but the pace and style of these shows really works for young kids, at least for mine.

Can you imagine an alternate universe where these shows never came around and "Barney" rules the airwaves? I'm shuddering at the thought.

Comments anyone?

2005-03-02T20:34:00.000-05:00

Don't be fooled by the self-absorbed persona--this ego of mine is not sustainable without a little interaction with my reader(s). So, make yourself comfortable, put your feet up, and tell me what's on your mind.

Teenage Sex

2005-03-01T06:32:00.000-05:00

Finally I can write about something in the news and to which I have a personal connection (it's not what you think!) and that is guaranteed to bring some search traffic.

I went to a prestigious (or substitute your own adjective) private high school in the Boston area that just made headlines for expelling five members of the hockey team. The offense? The boys, age 16 to 18, all engaged in a consensual sexual act in the locker room with a 15 year old female student. Apparently there was some bragging and the administration eventually caught on.

An op-ed piece by Joan Vennochi in today's Boston Globe looks at the legal implications of the situation. In Massachusetts, anyone under 16 cannot consent to sex, so anywone engaging in sex with a 15 year-old is committing statutory rape, as simple as that. The premise of the law is that children are unable to make a good decision about sex, which is absolutely right. The problem with the law is that in reality, kids don't magically gain this ability when they turn 16. A 16 year-old with a woody is perhaps the stupidest creature on earth, dumber than a bug flying into the light of the bug zapper.

The law as written makes no distinction between this dumb 16 year-old and a 45 year-old sexual predator. That's where those in authority need to exercise careful judgment in how forcefully to apply the law. It remains to be seen how this will play out with the prosecuters, but the school administrators, in expelling the five, failed to show any understanding of the situation beyond the black-and-white legal framework and the fear of being perceived as soft on discipline.

Immediate expulsion would be warranted if the case involved assault or explicit coercion, but that's not what happened here according to published accounts. By rushing to the zero-tolerance bandwagon, the Academy abandoned its obligation to help these 6 kids and their classmates grow to become responsible young adults. By expelling five and sending the sixth into exile, the Academy chose to turn away from the unpleasant reality of teenage sex instead of facing it head on. The sex isn't going to go away, yet now the administration has sent a message to the student body: We don't trust you. And you shouldn't trust us. Be paranoid.

The larger problem isn't that teenagers are having sex. It's that the school isn't helping students figure out how and a what age sex should fit into their lives. The fact that these six students have such a warped idea of sex and relationships shows me that the Academy is not educating its students in the art of life. That's something they need even more than U.S. History and Calculus.

I am not a manufacturer of coffee vending machines

2005-02-28T17:00:00.000-05:00

Let's be clear about that. If that's what you're looking for, try here or here.

Now that I've said that in a searchable post, I'll probably get even more Google traffic from Italy and Finland. Oh well.

Red Sox should let Wakefield start

2005-02-28T06:47:00.000-05:00

Tim Wakefield has earned a spot in the rotation, don't you think? Wake makes a good point in today's Boston Globe that maybe, at age 38, his body might be better suited to going every fifth day.

It's either me or Bronson...At his age [28], he might be a little more resilient than I am right now. I could probably pitch every day, too, but he's shown in the past that he can pitch back-to-back days -- two innings, two innings, then get the day off.

You also gotta love his 5 month old baby going to the World Series to see him pitch.

Oscar who?

2005-02-27T22:48:00.000-05:00

Have I even been in a movie theater in the past year to see something that wasn't rated G? I don't think so. I'm sure whatever movie wins will make it onto my rental radar screen within the next 18 months. Until then I can't be bothered thinking about it.

I'm still liking the Walker deal

2005-02-26T08:43:00.000-05:00

He rebounded and the Celtics won. The man learned some humility in his journey through Dallas and Atlanta. He's joining a team where he's a star, not the star. His presence puts Mark Blount in the second unit where he belongs. He's going to draw attention from the defense and open things up for Pierce and Davis.

There's a lot of talk about GP coming back but I don't see it happening. But wouldn't the return of Kenny Anderson be a hoot? Assuming the guy can still play; I haven't seen him lately.

Perhaps the biggest impact of this trade is that the fans are talking about the Celtics again--even as the Sox are starting spring training. They're going to go play with more confidence--and let's face it, fun--which will get them past the first round of the playoffs.

I like this team again.

Screwing around at the bonfire

2005-02-25T21:03:00.000-05:00

My friend Mike just called looking for a ride to the hospital next week. It all started Saturday night at his mid-February bonfire (related post: Rules for Daddy's Hangover).

Normally you wouldn't think an outdoor party would be the place to be on a cold February night in New England, but if you have enough wood and other flammable materials it can be quite cozy. The keg of Farmer Brown didn't hurt either.

Things started ominously with the arrival of a fire truck shortly after the fire got going strong. They pulled slowly up the drive, lights flashing, and Mike went over to talk to them. He came back with a piece of paper in his hand and we all thought it was over. "Citation?" someone asked. "Nope," replied Mike. "Cooking permit." Cool! The fire department can count on my support at town meeting for their budget request.

My wife and I missed the late fun, though--babysitter, clock ticking, money slipping away, you know how it goes. Then on Monday morning on my way to work I happened to drive past Mike walking out of Cafe Koko on crutches.

I rolled down my window. "What happened to you?"

"Broke my ankle stomping on the fire at 3 AM."

And I missed it! It's a pretty nasty break, too. His appointment is to have screws put in. Maybe a little glue too and a c-clamp to hold it all together, who knows.

Welcome back, Antoine

2005-02-24T17:14:00.000-05:00

I never saw this coming. I can't say I love him, but I like this move. We get to see more of Marcus Banks, and we get one of the better forwards in the league.

Report: Walker traded to Celtics

RSS from AP: You have to work for it

2005-02-24T13:14:00.000-05:00

The Associated Press now has RSS feeds, which is a good thing. They tell you that you can use Firefox, Bloglines, and other tools to access them, which is also a good thing.

But somehow they coded the page in a way that disables the auto-discovery features of these tools, so you have to manually copy and paste the feed URL into your reader. Neither Firefox or the Bloglines "Subscribe" button see the feeds when I am at AP's RSS page. Oh well. I have enough energy to blog about it but not enough to configure a feed.

Romney and the national spotlight

2005-02-23T07:07:00.000-05:00

I finally finished the sports section and came across this meaty story:
Boston Globe / Romney's road show

Romney is a guy who seems to be permanently running for office, rather than actually running his office. He's perfect for national office: he's squeaky clean and has no skeletons in his closet, and has no actual record that could be attacked because he doesn't really do anything except pose for photo ops and complain about the Turnpike Authority and occasionally fire somebody. I wrote about him in a column a few years back; I'll see if I can dig it up.

No time

2005-02-23T06:43:00.000-05:00

No time for blogging this morning. Spring training has started and I need to read about Manny's dreadlocks, Mueller's knee, and the lady who answers the phone at Fenway.

Rules for Daddy's Hangover

2005-02-21T07:57:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was not a good day. Daddy had a hangover. Mommy had to go out for a while leaving Daddy with the kids. The kids do not understand about hangovers.

I'd like to propose a few simple rules for kids when Daddy declares a Hangover Emergency.

1. No pooping or peeing in your pants, on the floor, or in any other manner requiring cleanup.

2. Before waking up Dad you must submit the request to a certified independent arbitrator. If approved, you must provide 3 days written notice, by certified mail, of your intent.

3. After Daddy wakes up there will be complete silence until he consumes three (3) cups of sufficiently strong coffee. If necessary, communication may be submitted in writing during this period.

4. No further explanation of Daddy's condition beyond "I went to bed too late--see what happens when you don't get enough sleep?" will be provided, so do not ask.

There, that won't be so hard, will it?

Broke blood vessel in head???

2005-02-17T17:16:00.000-05:00

According to Boston.com, the Patriots say that Tedy Bruschi suffered a "broken blood vessel in his head." Hello???

Here are some excerpts from the first page I found on Brain Hemorrhage.

What is a brain hemorrhage?
A brain hemorrhage occurs when a blood vessel, aneurysm...or a vascular malformation...in the brain ruptures. Blood may leak into or around the brain tissue. This leaking produces one of the most severe forms of stroke. Many patients become catastrophically ill and require urgent treatment.

What are the common symptoms of brain hemorrhage?
Abrupt onset of a severe headache is the most common symptom.

I think this is more serious than they are letting on!

UPDATE: Now they're calling it a "leaking" blood vessel. Still sounds like a ruptured aneurysm to me.

UPDATE 2 2/18/05: Now the team has confirmed it was a mild stroke. I don't know why yesterday I thought they were trying to hide something; I'm sure they were just running around trying to figure out what was going on, and trying not to say too much until they knew. Anyway. Must have been a hell of a scare for him and his family.

Drawing the line at AC/DC

2005-02-16T23:03:00.000-05:00

My 7-year old son loves hard rock. Nirvana, Jet, basically anything they play on "Lazer 99". Mostly we encourage it, but tonight when I was cleaning out my office he found the AC/DC album "Back in Black" that his uncle had given him for his birthday. After listening to the lyrics with a paternal perspective, I had put it right on the top shelf behind a dusty economics textbook. I mean, "What Do You Do For Money, Honey" and "Give the Dog a Bone" are not songs I care to explain to him at this age.

I told him he can have it back when he's 15.

I love Flashblock!

2005-02-16T06:42:00.000-05:00

With apologies to my friend Lucian at Macromedia, I just installed the Flashblock extension for Firefox and I am loving it! When a page has Flash content you see a button, which you can click to activate Flash. And a lot of times I do want to see Flash content. I just want to see it when I want it. I've always been annoyed that the Flash viewer doesn't have any user-modifiable settings (or that IE didn't let you control it) but I didn't want to uninstall Flash, because I really do want to see Flash content a lot of the time. Now I'm a happy camper.

Lost a battle

2005-02-15T22:21:00.000-05:00

Just got back from the school committee meeting where I spoke in favor of keeping teachers. Got shot down. Two teachers are getting cut, which will lead to larger classes in K and 1. I'm glad I got to say my piece, but sad it didn't make a difference. I think their minds were already made up.

"Missile Defense" continues to flounder

2005-02-14T22:46:00.000-05:00

The Missile Defense Agency reported a failed test. This is the brilliant system that's supposed to save Alaska and Hawaii should North Korea ever develop nuclear capability. (What? They already did? Oh my.)

The Missile Defense Agency announced today it was unable to complete a planned flight test after the interceptor missile did not launch from the Ronald Reagan Test Site, Republic of the Marshall Islands, in the central Pacific Ocean. The reason for not launching is under investigation, and program officials are reviewing data to determine the cause.

They're pretty brief in these press releases when the news isn't good. At least this program only costs $9 billion a year, a drop in the bucket compared to Iraq.

Gillette postmortem

2005-02-14T07:06:00.000-05:00

Today's Boston Globe has a fascinating and sometimes brutal assessment of Gillette by a former executive.

Gillette: the rest of the story:
"As soon as the real estate department in Cincinnati gets a look at the inner-city Gillette World Shaving Headquarters, it will calculate the value of its waterfront land and recommend the collection of inefficient, multistoried, 75-year-old buildings be sold."

It seems bad for Boston, but who really knows how it will all play out.

Smells like...

2005-02-13T09:28:00.000-05:00

Twice in 24 hours I was struck by the smell of two different kids' foods. One was canned spaghetti, the other microwave mac and cheese. Both had the distinctive smell of fresh puke.

How could I feed this to my kids? Well, it doesn't smell pukey to them. Besides, I'm sure the food companies had the kids' best interest at heart by providing partially predigested meals to ease the burden on their little developing tummies. Besides, I ate stuff like this growing up and I turned out...well, let's not go there.

If only they didn't like this bad stuff, I could feed them soy cakes and wheat germ and lentil loaf and feel like a good parent. But I can't starve them, can I?

Now I'm feeling guilty. Pass the Oreos.

Great morning!

2005-02-12T08:22:00.000-05:00

How 'bout this? The kids are playing, mostly nicely, together. THey're practicing "Amazing Grace" on the piano. The Mrs. is happily reading a book in bed. And I'm reading the news and posting to my blog!

Democracy's maxim

2005-02-12T08:21:00.000-05:00

From The New York Times:

"There is no single factor that explains why the Sunni Arabs, about 20 percent of Iraq's 28 million people, failed to show up for the election. Some were scared, either of general violence or retaliation. Some had little information. Others simply long for the old days of Mr. Hussein, and others like Mr. Ajili disliked their former leader but hate the Americans much more intensely. Still others believed that they were following the vague directives of their political and religious leaders."

This lesson is played out in every U.S. election, from the presidency down to the school committee: get out the vote. The other groups in Iraq understood this message clearly and seized the opportunity to gain influence. The Sunnis, for a variety of reasons described in the Times article, did not. And they lost out.

Red state/blue state again

2005-02-12T07:33:00.000-05:00

I speculated about this with school funding. Here we go again!
Bush cuts hit Democratic states, analysis finds (Boston Globe)

Hi tech, low tech, it's all procrastination

2005-02-11T16:57:00.000-05:00

I enjoyed this piece in The Boston Globe:

Confessions of an instant messenger:
"Enter: The facebook. If AIM is a gateway drug, The facebook is Internet crack. If you're in college, you know the deal: upload your picture, add in some interests, list every single band you've ever listened to, girls write down your favorite ''I love shopping and my best friends' quote from ''Sex and the City,' and guys write down that you like ''Scarface' and ''The DaVinci Code.' Then you browse through different profiles and compile a list of friends, some of which you know and some of which you've (maybe) met once but never talked to after that."

Back in my day (said the old man) we had a little printed facebook with black & white mugshots of those who bothered to send in a picture. The rest of us got a picture of a bear, which was actually better looking than any photo I would have submitted anyway. For wasting time, the facebook didn't last long. I had to move on to more time-consuming things like teaching myself to throw darts lefthanded.

Class size in early grades

2005-02-11T14:46:00.000-05:00

Normally I post some thought I've had after reading something or experiencing something in the day, but lately I haven't had time to read and have had even less time to reflect on anything long enough to consider it an experience rather than just sensory input.

One of the things that's been keeping me busy--to the point where it's moved into the "experience" realm--is our kids' school. It's budget time, and there's talk of letting go 2 teachers and increasing the size of the K and grade 1 classes. Our first grade will end up with about 22 kids, which is pretty good compared to a lot of school systems, but when you look at the research, it's actually not a good thing.

There is a ton of evidence supporting smaller classes in the early grades. The most compelling is the Tennessee STAR program, which found that, in a large, scientifically controlled study, classes of 13 to 17 students in grades K-3 significantly outperformed their peers in classes of 22-25 students. It also tracked these kids over time and found that the benefits persisted in later years even after the children returned to larger classes. And minority students benefitted the most.

The SAGE program in Wisconsin had similar results, confirming other research done in the 70's and 80's. As a result the US Department of Education states that class sizes should not exceed 18 in early grades; schools can even use Title II funding for the purpose of reduing class size. DOE no longer pushes this as a priority, following the realignment of priorities brought on in the No Child Left Behind Act, but it still acknowledges in a 2004 report that class sizes of 18 and under should be the goal.

So, where does this leave us? It doesn't add any money to our budget (no Title II money here that I know of) but it does confirm that increasing classes to 22 kids is a conscious choice to reduce the quality of education in our school. We're not just talking about losing the luxury of small classes; we're talking about lowering our kids' potential for future success in school. That may be OK with some, but it's not OK with me.

Traffic woes

2005-02-03T13:54:00.000-05:00

I use Sitemeter to keep track of how many people are visiting Omni-matic and where they clicked from. I tend to get Blogspot surfers right after I publish something, and I get some visits after I post something to a blog or message board, and I get people when I surf BlogExplosion. I also get stragglers from a reciprocal link at Pops' Bucket (who probably then hit the back button faster than you can put Pops' apostrophe in the right place). I even occasionally get hits from a search engine. But then they go away, and as far as I can tell they don't come back.

Has Omni-matic become irrelevant to the masses? (As if it were at one time.) Is my writing too middle of the road? Do I cover too much crap that people read about everywhere else?

Until now Omni-matic has lacked the dark emotional turmoil that makes some blogs engaging. I also never, ever post erotic pictures or verses from the Bible, either of which would lift my numbers.

Let's see if I can loosen up a little and give my readers more turmoil at the very least, since I don't think the erotica/Bible options are going to work for me. I'm feeling down about my blog! Aaaargh! @#^@#%!!! How's that?

I'm also going to look at a redesign of the template. The Blogger presets are OK, but I need to do better than OK.

Technical note: blogroll

2005-02-02T14:26:00.000-05:00

I took out the automatic blogroll using my Bloglines subscriptions. It was just too long and too slow to load. I've gone back to a shorter, manual list, which I'll change from time to time.

The art of the cover tune

2005-02-02T13:08:00.000-05:00

I've been noticing a lot of cover tunes on the radio in recent months: some great, some bland, some daring, and some just plain nostalgic. This morning I heard a new(?) version of Stevie Wonder's "Higher Ground", which got me thinking about how this same song propelled Red Hot Chili Peppers into the mainstream a few years back (years, decades, whatever).

I think recording a cover can be a great way for a band to show who they are. When you put your mark on something familiar, the distinctiveness of your sound stands out. By the same token, if your sound lacks any disctinction, your cover recording will make it all the more apparent.

I love Perfect Circle's version of "Imagine", painted in darker shades than the original. Whoever did that Crowded House song last year somehow managed to make it even duller than the original. Someone's got a remake of an old Supertramp hit which is pretty well done but lacks any differentiating qualities.

Remember Devo doing "Satisfaction"? Great stuff!

P.S.

2005-01-31T10:49:00.000-05:00

The media manipulation was so savvy, I'd almost call it "Rove-esque".

Anyone looking for a conspiracy theory to play with?

Bin Laden's influence on the election

2005-01-31T06:47:00.000-05:00

No, not the election in Iraq. Our election.

The New York Times today reported on an interview with John Kerry about the presidential election.

Reflecting on the campaign, Mr. Kerry said the release of the videotape by Mr. bin Laden on the weekend before the Nov. 2 election had reinforced what had been Mr. Bush's biggest advantage.

"I believe that 9/11 was the central deciding issue in this race," he said. "And the tape - we were rising in the polls up until the last day when the tape appeared. We flat-lined the day the tape appeared and went down on Monday."

I wrote at the time that the tape's aim was to help Bush, not hurt him as it appeared on the surface.

We all thought there would be some kind of violent attack like there was in Spain with the aim of changing the outcome of the election. Bin Laden instead accomplished his goal by manipulating the media. Simpler, cheaper, just as effective.

Regarding the Iraq election, I have to say it looks like a great thing has happened. I give credit to Bush and his team (wince!) for sticking with the plan. I have hope for that country now, which I didn't have yesterday.

Ma Bell will rise again

2005-01-29T07:55:00.000-05:00

SBC buying AT&T sounds like some kind of cheap horror flick. It's the sequel, actually, where the pieces of the beast that was slain in episode 1 recombine to wreak havoc on the world again.

THe other merger in the news, P&G buying Gillette, makes a lot more sense. But I want to know what they think in the boardroom in Cincinnati about Gillette's new vibrating razor for women.

bleh

2005-01-28T13:38:00.000-05:00

Feeling bleh about writing. Nine rejections and counting for my book proposal; my agent thinks I should get an expert co-author, but of course I'm resisting because it would change the whole point of the book, which is very personal and against the grain.

Bleh, bleh. I'm not changing a damn thing! So there.

In other news...I fixed my computer. The hard drive died a couple of months ago and I figured I'd need a new drive and someone to install it, and was waiting around for some money to appear to get it done. Tick, tock, no money. So I reformatted the hard drive, worked around various problems like not having the Windows product key, learned about stuff like having the right chipset drivers installed, and generally kicked this crappy computer's butt until it did what I told it.

Yesterday I tried speaking with a Minnesota accent, since we've been having Minnesota weather lately. I don't think it went very well.

The funeral home for me

2005-01-20T10:47:00.000-05:00

Every day on my drive home from work I pass a funeral home and chuckle. It's clearly the place for me when my time comes, based entirely on the name: Beers & Story. That's just how I want it! Everyone with a beer in hand, recounting my most embarrassing moments in my time on Earth. Of course we'll need music too. Not a recorded organ--I'm thinking more along the lines of The Fabulous Maurice (our local accordionist and County Fair headliner, truly fabulous!)

I'll be disappointed if they can't accommodate these final wishes of the yet-to-be-departed.

Power and the people in DC

2005-01-15T21:49:00.000-05:00

The inauguration is living proof of everything that is wrong with Washington. I don't just mean the crazy-extravagant, pimping, jangling parties going on around the city. That's always been happening at least as long as I've been around. The disturbing thing to me is how far the government is from the people it represents.

Over the Christmas break we took the kids to DC for a couple of days to see the sights and get a glimpse of the center of modern democracy. The White House might as well be The Kremlin. We were allowed to gaze through the iron fence at the structure, but that's it. A tour was out of the question--you need to arrange it 6 months ahead of time through your congressman, with background checks and who knows what else. Without this advance clearance (which, by the way, is probably more difficult than gaining access to classified documents) all you can do is stroll the perimeter, encompassing several city blocks, peering through the fences. The kids weren't up for that much walking so we just went to the "White House" visitors center, which is actually in a Dept of Commerce building far removed from the actual White House. Crap. Utter crap. There were a few exhibits on par with what you'd see at your local historical society, and a friendly park ranger whose job it is to explain that you can't take a tour.

I always thought of the White House as being accessible. Past presidents, in simpler times, welcomed the public. Tons of movies include White House tours, ranging from Pee Wee's Big Adventure to An American President (right? the one with Annette Benning), further perpetuating the myth that regular folk can actually get into the place. (update: Pee Wee toured tha Alamo, not the White House. So what am I thinking of that had a Pee Wee Alamo-like tour of the White House?)

The cold hard truth is that we live in a police state where the halls of power are further removed from the citizenry than ever before. Is it reasonable, considering the security situation? Sure it's reasonable, but its also a damn shame.

I think, in the end, I'm just shocked that as a citizen I felt so unwelcome at the place where our collective will as a people is executed in policy and actions. You'd think that a government of the people, for the people, by the people would be a little more accessible to the people.

Finally...but does anyone care anymore?

2005-01-12T15:43:00.000-05:00

Yahoo! News - U.S. Ends Fruitless Iraq Weapons Hunt:

The Iraq Survey Group, made up of some 1,200 military and intelligence specialists and support staff, spent nearly two years searching military installations, factories and laboratories whose equipment and products might be converted quickly to making weapons.

Hugh's Manifesto

2005-01-10T16:15:00.000-05:00

I love that manifestos are back in vogue. For a while there it after the bubble burst it seemed like no one wanted to write brassy, egocentric and brilliant (or moronic) treatises on something they care about more than ayone else does.

The Hughtrain at ChangeThis is a good one. i hope it's the start of a new wave of manifesto writing. I've got a couple I could dust off for the masses.

2005 already?

2005-01-03T15:21:00.000-05:00

It's gonna be a good year. I can smell it.

Not that I like everything I smell. Generally, the olfactory sense brings more bad tidings than good. So I'll just wish for a year of not much smelling.

Sailing adventure blog

2004-12-23T13:27:00.000-05:00

I'm involved in creating a blog for a pretty cool college course. A bunch of students are going to sail a square-rig tall ship for a couple of weeks starting January 5. My own college career involved somewhat more sedentary pursuits in the beverage sciences--something to be proud of, for sure, but not quite as distinctive as sailing on the HMS Bounty.

Gambling on Social Security

2004-12-21T13:25:00.000-05:00

I'm amazed they've kept this under wraps. They must be waiting for the perfect moment to unveil the plan for maximum PR effect. But I'm going to blow it by revealing the secret Bush plan for Social Security.

You know all about private retirement accounts, right? Where you get to keep your hard earned money in an investment account instead of paying it into Social Security. Well the new plan brings to the table an unprecedented public-private partnership that will give a totally new meaning to the "New Deal."

It's called the "Real Deal." How it works is, when you pay you Social Security tax, you can have it returned to you in the form of casino chips. You can use them at any casino in the land to hopefully make yourself a million bucks. No luck this week? Try again next payday! Between now and the time you retire, you're bound to hit a winning streak sometime! The government and the casino each take a cut, which helps social security become solvent while creating jobs in your community. It's the perfect plan!

There would be guarantees, of course, that the federal government will not encroach on states' rights, i.e. the lottery. Powerball, Megabucks and Lotto will continue to provide revenue streams for the states. In fact you may start getting scratch tickets in place of your state tax refund beginning in 2005.

And my feet went squish, squish all the way home

2004-12-16T21:27:00.000-05:00

Some students at the college where I work are about to set sail on a two-week adventure as crewmembers aboard a square-rig tall ship. They'll be out at sea, depending on each other for their lives, facing the elements, combining strength and skill to keep several tons of wood floating purposefully above the depths.

It's a good thing I'm going to stay at my desk.

When I was about 15, I took sailing lessons one summer on the Charles River in Boston. My first time out without an instructor, I capsized at the dock. I was soaked with Charles River toxic slime from the waste down. I took the subway home, and the little puddle forming under me would spread forward when the train braked, and backward on accelerating. The worst part was the shoes and socks. My poor Nikes were never the same again.

I'll take the compliment

2004-12-14T13:48:00.000-05:00

The Internet Anagram Server very kindly told me that "Omni-Matic" is "Not a Mimic". I do strive to be original!

Anagrams never lie, you know. George W. Bush? "He grew bogus". Also "Bug hews Gore". Operation Iraqi Freedom? "Remediate poor Iraq info."

Parenting can bring back memories

2004-12-10T22:24:00.000-05:00

Every once in a while, the kids come up with something that takes me back a long, long time.

For example, lately they've been singing

Jingle bells, Batman smells
Robin laid an egg
The Batmobile lost a wheel
And the Joker got away!

Doesn't that take you back?

High security in the kid's room

2004-12-10T14:48:00.000-05:00

My 7 year-old son has always had a strong interest in "keep out" signs for his room to keep his younger sisters from interrupting his Lego work. First there was crayon on the door ("kep owt!), followed by scotch-taped signs including dire warnings to those who dare enter and a carefully drawn skull-and-crossbones.

Now he's taken it to another level with something my wife gave him: a keycard activated alarm! He swipes his card when he leaves the room. If anyone opens the door without swiping a card, they get a recorded voice saying "Keep out!" followed by a brief siren alarm. It's a hoot! And he absolutely loves it.

It comes with two keycards: one for him, and one marked "guest" for mom and dad--emergency use only.