The New Road

Defending Bush

Stand back! I'm going to defend Bush! Crazy!

Boing Boing is reporting that Bush got mauled by an Irish reporter who asked him straight questions.

"Please, please, please, for a minute, OK?" the hapless Bush pleaded at one point, as he demanded his questioner go easy on him.

What Bush was actually asking was that the reporter simply give him time to respond. Which is simple common courtesy. In this case... duh, duh, duh, duhhhh, I think Bush was right. She was being pushy and rude. His answers were what we have come to expect, but it was nice to see him thinking on his feet somewhat.

You see. Fair and balanced. ;-)

O'Reilly on the Record

I've always thought that if you spoke in public, particularly as a speech, or on radio or television, that what you say is very important and you should be held accountable for what you say. That's why, for example, I stand by every single word I have said on this site. Its obvious, right? You can't just rant and say whatever, on the record, and not actually support what you have said.

Apparently Bill O'Reilly doesn't think so. If you are so far away from the perspective that having a nationally syndication television and radio show is important, and that way you say has gravity, I don't see why should have a this media access.

Heat Vision and Jack

This is hilarious.

100 Worst Porn Titles

This is great, but not for work.

Nice day in the back yard

Megan and I had some fun with a sprinkler in the back yard.

Ripley letter getting published

We just got a nice note from the Peninsula Humane Society that my letter to them about Ripley will be published in the San Mateo Independent Newspaper on July 3rd. That was unexpected and very nice. I hope it helps.

By the way, having a look at the dog adoption page I can't help but think that Candy seems like a very nice dog.

Fahrenheit 9/11

I saw Fahrenheit 9/11 with Mel and Landon last night. Of course I thought it was great. Though I was surprised a little about the production value. I was expecting more, but by the end I was ok with it. Also the constant switching between high definition video and standard television NTSC was a little annoying. It will be better on DVD.

Given that I listen to right wing radio on and off I was somehow expecting the same level of attacks but from the left. I didn't see that at all. I never saw one base personal attack. Like calling the President an idiot, or half-brained. The movie is about what they did, and the relationships they had (particular with the Saudis), not about their supposed worth as individuals, which is what I hear from the right. Not once did I hear that anyone who supported was a traitor (when Ann Coulter says the majority of Americans are now traitors because they don't support the war.)

I could go on and on but I won't. Hate Moore if you want, but you have to respect that he kept his level of Bush-Bashing above base attacks.

Rev. Sun Myung Moon

This Salon article on Rev. Sun Myung Moon is great. In case you hadn't heard he coronated himself recently. Actually I think a Democratic Congressman actually did the deed. Though he is a dear friend to both sides of the aisle. Most likely because he has a lot of money.

Some great Moon quotes and references from the article:

gays are "dung-eating dogs,"

the U.S. Constitution should be scrapped in favor of a system he calls "Godism" -- with him in charge

To teach teens that "free sex" is revolting, they're asked by Moon's followers to drink other people's spit out of a cup, and then consider how much more vigilant you must be when sharing other body fluids.

In a 1994 speech, he asked: "Do you like the smell of your husband's semen? Answer to Father. Does it smell good or bad? You may not like the smell of your wife's stool, but do you smell your own? Why don't you smell your own but you smell your wife's? Because you are not totally one."

Wrote his daughter-in-law, Nansook Hong, in her tell-all book: "Sun Myung Moon seemed to take pleasure in the reports that filtered back to East Garden of the beatings being administered by the Black Heung Jin. He would laugh raucously if someone out of favor had been dealt an especially hard blow."

The article is great. Definitely worth the read.

Dinner out

I went out to dinner last night with part of my team from work and Eric Meyer. We went out to the Town Hall restaurant at 8:30. We got there a little early so we went to a very nice Sushi bar that had some awesome sake. The company and the conversation was great, but I didn't get home until 12:30. Which meant that I needed to knock myself out so that I could get to sleep and that made it hard to wake up this morning. Lovely.

On the way back to pick up my car the police had blocked off the street where I was parked as they had their guns drawn on a suspect. Then on the way home I passed another two accidents. It was a very interesting drive home.

Bird Pictures

Lori took some great shots of the baby bird:

She says it will lose all of it's brown feathers and go almost completely white as it ages.

Hunting of the President

The Hunting of the President looks great. I hope it gets in wider distribution.

Be Kind

Please rewind.

"The DVD Rewinder is a great gift for the technical savvy, the couch potato, teens with too much time on their hands, and the gadget buff!

Fun and Frustrating

Play with lasers in your spare time.

Tea

Switching back to tea has been interesting. I've been branching out and trying lots of different teas, mainly from Peets:

	Assam Golden Tip - I found this one a bit too heavy and too malty. It would probably be ok if I added milk, but I don't. I also don't like to add sugar or honey if I don't have to.
	Darjeelin Extra Fancy Kalimpng - This one is really strong but good. Definitely a black tea that is still palatable without milk or sugar.
	Earl Grey with Bergamont - Peets has a really nice Earl Grey. It's got a solid flavor and the Bergamont, which gives it that Lemon Pledge smell is not overpowering. It makes a nice cup of tea which doesn't knock your socks off.
	Earl Grey with Lavender - This one is a really interesting take on Earl Grey. It shows just how much the blend is important to Earl Grey. The Lavender really stands out in both taste and smell. It's a nice change from the Bergamont. It's a little fresher and more pungent.
	English Breakfast - This is a very strong tea. The Peets version is pretty standard and unremarkable.
	Golden Dragon Oolong - This is my favorite of all of the teas. Which is unfortunate because it is very expensive. It has a very delicate flavor which stands out well without adding anything to the mix.

Private Rocket

This is truly amazing. I can see a time when these guys will have $1M joy rides into space.

Politics and Religion

If you read this blog on a regular basis you must be aware of the melt-down that occurred in the comments section of my Good week for Bush post. I take full responsibility for that. I should have known better. I learned a lesson as a teenager at Palmetto High School that you don't criticize a man's religion. For twenty years I kept fairly mum about religion until a couple of days ago when I let it rip. I thought it would be different because this time I related it only to myself, but I was wrong. And for that I apologize to anyone who was offended by the content of the conversation.

It's said that you shouldn't talk politics or religion at work. That's for a good reason. Unfortunately the two are becoming intimately linked. Recently I heard a radio host say that there were two types of people in America, those that believed in God and Good and Evill, and those that didn't. And that was in the context of a political discussion. This is a potentially explosive combination because now as we criticize each others politics we can easily slide into a religious debate.

One thing this experience has helped me see is how much my atheism plays a role in my politics, just as a Christian's politics are guided by their faith. I was always of the belief that the lack of a relgion meant that I could address politics without bias, but it turns out that my lack of a religion is in itself a bias. It's like an accent that you don't know you have.

Nice Father's Day

Lori and Megan cooked me a really nice breakfast this morning and got me a nice framed picture of Megan and I.

Now Lori has given me a little time to work on some stuff and I have been doing pretty well with it. I've gotten two articles done. One is a Java scripting language comparison for DevX. And the other is an article exploring the use of Groovy with XML for either OnJava or Java.net. It's funny how I am not a Java fan and yet I now have two more Java articles to add to the list. Both of the articles weighed in at around 3,000 words which is once again too heavy. Fifteen hundred words is actually really short when you think about it.

With Ripley's death and all of the upcoming travel we have had a lot of bills lately. But I've also been thinking about getting Lori a new computer for a while. So these articles will help with that. I figure six to eight articles will provide enough after-tax money to get her a new Aluminum 12" PowerBook with a SuperDrive and that should hold her four two or three years. I tried using her machine a couple of days ago and it was the most frustrating thing I had experience in a while. It was like working in molasses. She is a trooper to put up with it this long.

More Megan Pictures

Commenting more than blogging

A while back I said "bring it" when it came to political feedback on the blog. It was brought. I'm inundated. And now I can hardly find the time to actually blog with all this writing of soliloquies in response to all of the anti-liberal feedback I've been getting. It's pretty raw and rough in there. Apparently it's gotten so bad that some of my regular readers can no longer stand to read the comments.

Ah, well, such is life. BUSH SUCKS!

Obligatory funny site reference here.

Now for something

We can all agree upon.

More politics

I'm talking about politics all the time now, but I don't care. It's fascinating to me. Today has two stories, one big, one small. The big one is that there was no connection between al Qaida and Iraq according to the 9/11 commission. I've yet to hear the conservative spin on the story, but my guess is that they will slam on the commission itself.

The second story was Bush's speech to the troops. My favorite part was Bush's joke that they now have talk radio in Iraq, so "somebody should tell Rush." Which is funny, because Rush is the only talk radio host on the Armed Forces Radio in theatre. Oh, wait, that's not funny. Nor would I think that Iraq audiences think Rush's blowing off some steam or drop a nuclear bomb on Falluja lines were as funny as he does.

Bush also talked about how our faith and values changed Germany. Which is interesting on it's own. But I like to look at how Rush and "faith and values" got into the same speech. Since Rush is so filled with Christian family values, being a drug addict and a three time divorcee.

Update: If you want to hear a little gut wrenching right wing rhetoric, try a taste of this and this. It's Michael Savage on the Iraqi Torture scandal. It's probably not appropriate if you have kids around.

Cheney's linking Saddam and al Qaida

I guess Cheney's secret undisclosed location doesn't have a phone because he is back to linking Saddam and al Qaida.

LDraw

I just bumped into LDraw. I'm not sure what it is exactly. It looks like a community around a set of tools for designing Lego models then rendering them. Regardless, it's very cool.

Update: There is definitely some next level geek stuff going on with this.

Great quote

"You are betrayed. You fought for something you did not get. And the glory of the armies and navies of the United States is gone like a dream in the night, and there ensues upon it, in the suitable darkness of the night, the nightmare of dread which lay upon the nations before this war came; and there will come some time, in the vengeful Providence of God, another war in which not a few hundred thousand men from America will have to die, but as many millions as necessary to accomplish the final freedom of the people's of the world."

-Woodrow Wilson

Packed train

This morning the train was packed. Apparently they had some technical problems with the Fremont to Daly City line so everyone had to take a Richmond train Bayfair station, then transfer to another line to take us into the city. The panorama you see above is from the Richmond train, which was light compared to the citybound train:

This is what I thought riding the BART would be like every day. Thankfully on most days the train has lots of seats available.

Good week for Bush

Reagan's week long funeral provided excellent cover for Bush this week.

• News about the Justice Department providing memos justifying the use of torture.
• Ashcroft denying Congress access to those documents without invoking executive privilege. Which would have been contempt of Congress were it not Republican held.
• Bush himself at the G8 invoking a very Reagan-esque, "I never saw the memos". But then going on to tells us that we should be comforted by the fact that he has instructed the government to obey laws. (Don't know about you but it does bring me great comfort to know that my government will soon start obeying laws.)
• More stories of prison abuse, this time out of Afghanistan, but shockingly using exactly the same techniques as the seven lone bad apples in Iraq.
• The DoD bringing in a four star general to oversee the prison abuse scandal because a three star general could not complete the prosecution. Hmmm, wonder why that is when it was just a few bad apples blowing off some steam.

I keep thinking about Vietnam, which leads me to think about Apocalypse Now, and one of my favorite lines from that movie: "the bullshit piled up so fast in Vietnam you needed wings to stay above it. "

Riddick

The reasons that the Chronicles of Riddick is getting such bad reviews on Rotten Tomatoes is because the reviewers are not sci-fi fans. Anyone who likes Sci-Fi, really likes Sci-Fi, will love this movie. There is a weird new Borg-like enemy, perhaps even cooler and scarier than the Borg in some regards. Vin Diesel is excellent. The fight scenes are great. The effects are seamless and very engrossing.

I loved this movie. I thought it was a great followup to the original. It really expanded on the characters and the universe (and Underverse). A worthy sequel to be sure, and I encourage everyone to see it because we need to get to the third chapter of this story.

The critics are dead wrong. Chronicles of Riddick is great!

Kerry Rocks!

Turns out Kerry was in a band called the Electras. It doesn't sound very good, but hey, it's more cool stuff to know.

Photoshop Fun

My father-in-law is learning Photoshop and he is in Florida, perhaps this would be a fun thing to do.

Office 360

Here is my cube in the city as seen through my cellphone in 360 degrees (requires Quicktime VR).

Spam Nostalgia

It's crazy to say this, but I am actually nostalgic for the days of old when the worst of the spam was the silly African URGENT PROPOSAL spams. Those spams now seem so quaint in the light of all of the Cialis, Viagra, and Thanks for your Mortage Application spams. The recent wave of Newsletter #xxxx spams are not very nice at all. Trying to get past people's filters on subjects that are common for mailing lists. Not nice at all.

.NET books

According to my publisher .NET books are a hard sell. Little wonder since MSDN is such an amazing utility.

Ripley's Ashes

Megan and I picked up Ripley's ashes from the vet last night. We also got a paw print that you could tell was Ripley because of a rough spot she always had on one of her pads. Getting the ashes adds a level of reality to this that I don't think I was prepared for. In my logical mind I know Ripley is gone. I held her head in my hands as she closed her eyes for the last time. But yet I still, in my heart, was hoping that the dog door would just flip open one night and she would click, click, click back into the room and jump on the bed for one last cuddle.

H.R. 2264

On Meet the Press this morning Newt Gingrich was on and spouting off lies, as usual. This morning he claimed that the economic recovery that occurred during the Clinton years was due to his Balanced Budget Amendment of 1997, which is insane. The recovery was well underway in 1997.

The recovery really started with the Clinton/Gore deficit reduction plan laid out in H.R. 2264 which passed the 1993 budget by only one vote, Al Gore as the Vice President.

Newt's Balanced Budget Amendment passed the House but not the Senate. It never became law. No, we do not have a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution Newt. I hope we will, but that's because I am a fiscal conservative, which is why I vote Democrat.

I am sorry about Reagan. His films, like Bedtime for Bonzo were funny. But his economic policies were a disaster. He reduced taxes and increased defense spending which tripled the deficit. Even George H. Bush called it Voodoo Economics.

Let's face it. We were all better off financially under Clinton/Gore, and now we are running in serious deficits.

It amazes me how the Republican Media Machine allows people like Gingrich to get up on the podium and just spout lies without any repercussions. Here is what I have learned from the Republic Party of late:

• Repeating lies over and over again will convince people. (70% of people believe that there were Iraqi Al Qaeda terrorists on the 9/11 planes).
• If you cut spending on education (the un-funded "every child left behind" program) then you can lie as much as you like because nobody will know better.
• You can cover up a lie by yelling (Sean Hannity), turning off people's mic (Bill O'Reilly), or scoffing constantly (Rush Limbaugh), or my personal favorite, just by lying about everything (Ann Coulter).
• If you own the media (Fox) then you can say whatever you please because people that would contradict you won't get any airtime.

I guess that honesty is not a family value. Are these the kind of morals we want to teach to our kids? To simply yell more lies to cover up a lie? To be so narrow minded that you come up with justifications for torture so as not to give an edge to the opposition party? To viciously and publicly attack nay-sayers? To out a CIA agent who is a relative of a nay-sayer?

Newt is amazing. What was his major accomplishment in office? The mud slinging at Clinton with the six year Whitewater investigation culminating in the impeachment of a sitting President based on some private adultery. All the while hampering his ongoing battle with Al Qaeda. To the point where his use of Tomahawk cruise missiles on Afghanistan are to this day called the Monica missiles by the right wing media. Even today! When we know those missiles were aimed at Osama and how very important his death would have been. Newt single-handedly created an unprecedented level of partisanship and political dishonesty. Nice legacy. Nice morals.

Fahrenheit 9/11 trailer

The Fahrenheit 9/11 trailer is out. It looks great.

Switching to Tea

I think I'm going to switch to tea full time. I've been half and halfing for a while now. Coffee for breakfast and late afternoon, and tea in-between. But tea tastes better without sweeteners or milk, and it has a larger variety of taste. Plus it's cheeper.

The only problem is that the coffee shops I visit seem to do little justice to tea. It's mainly a selection of bags and some hot tap water in a paper cup. I think that's still better than coffee (to me) but I would love to have a Peet's near by. Peet's really gets tea. They have a huge selection of leafed teas and they understand the prep to get the most out of a tea.

Driving Votes

A good friend of mine at the office has volunteered his time to DrivingVotes.org. The idea is to organize road trips to swing states to help them get out the vote.

Barnacle Bill's Criminal Conspiracy

CBS is reporting on some tapes from Enron that shows show they raped California during the energy crisis. This is an absolutely shameless abuse of free markets.

Ripley Letter to PHS

I decided last night to send a letter and some pictures to the Peninsula Humane Society where we adopted Ripley. Here is the letter: