The New Road

Cannabalism is not a good thing

Or, or, maybe not. I'm confused.

The Incredibles

The Incredibles is looking great.

Fish

Don't tell Megan but we are thinking about giving her a fish tank for her second birthday. I've decided to concentrate on a salt water tank until I'm completely discouraged by it. I've started the process by buying The Conscientious Marine Aquarist. It reads really well. I like it when teachers write books on their subjects. They understand what techniques work with the students.

Off topic, I think this is the problem with most of the books, manuscripts and book proposals I read. The authors obviously know the topic, but know nothing about how to teach or present information effectively. They throw everything at you and provide no perspective or opinion.

Plumbers

As you can read in Lori's blog, we have been dealing with clogged up drains all night and morning. Here are some pictures of the MACHINE the plumbers used:

The warnings on the MACHINE were great. Don't put your arm in there or... oops, you will lose it.

And, don't use without the trigger because you may kill yourself:

From the looks of the rasp on the end of this thing there is no doubt in my mind that it could kill you.

But the story wouldn't really be complete without the mind numbing, teeth chattering racket this hellish contraption created. How Megan slept through it is beyond me.

Kerry On Iraq

I recommend you watch this video to see just how little the Republican Party thinks of your intelligence. To reduce Kerry's arguments this way (including the thoroughly debunked "Are you an anti-Iraq candidate? Yeah." line) is akin to compressing Bush's arguments on Iraq to "war is good."

War is a tough decision. It's a decision that costs lives and dollars and destroys countries. If you say that voting against a bill funding our troops but not reducing the tax breaks to do it is voting against the war then you are making silly compression arguments that undercut the logical thought process due a decision as important as one to go to war.

Obviously the Republican party wants you to abandon thought. To think of thinks in start black and white terms that bear no resemblance to reality. Let's apply some of this stark Republican reality to the situation we face today:

Is the war in Iraq going well? No.

Are the people in Iraq happy we are there? No.

Have we gained the support of the world by going into Iraq? No.

Have we lost allies by going into Iraq? Yes.

Are we better off for having gone into Iraq? No.

Was Abu Gharaib bad? Yes.

Were there al Qaeda in Iraq? No.

Was there any connection between Iraq and 9/11? No.

Were there WMDs in Iraq? No.

Based on this condensation, nobody should support Bush. It's obvious. But we all know that reality is not a yes or no proposition. We all know that the answers here are more nuanced (except for the last four). Perhaps we need to let people express their whole opinion without cutting them off (e.g. "Are you an anti-Iraq candidate? Yeah."). Perhaps we need a leader and a government that doesn't insist on jingoistic boolean logic style answers to complex questions that cost lives.

We let the Republicans have their say and explain their positions. But Democrats are being forced into this yes/no silliness. So if you are pro-Bush and you don't agree with the positions above, what do you say? Let's take the last one, about WMDs. I say no. What do you say? Yes. Of course not. We haven't found anything. A yes would be lying. But the right answer is somewhere between yes and no. We haven't found any, that's true. But we have found some intent.

So maybe this yes/no thing isn't a good way to run a country. Maybe this yes/no thing is trying to simplify issues beyond the point where you can make informed reasonable decisions. Maybe we need to acknowledge that some opinions are more complex than yes/no. Maybe you need to hear what John Kerry had to say since the beginning which has been very consistent once you listen to it fully. Maybe you need to stop listening to people that want to compress everything into yes or no when it suites their argument.

Why do people listen to Rush Limbaugh? Who compresses John Kerry into yes or no about Iraq. But when it comes to Abu Gharaib goes on and on with his excuses and finally ends up trying to convince us that torture is really a good thing, when you think about it in the right context.

So the Republicans think it's ok for Rush Limbaugh to go on and on justifying Abu Gharaib. But when it comes to Democrats you have to compress it down to yes or no.

Compressing arguments into yes or no is a sure sign that your opponents case is weak. The war in Iraq has gone badly so instead of trying to fix it and talk about what they are going to do, they spend their time using weak attack tactics like argument compression to lambast Kerry. A strong argument holds up in a strong debate. Everyone knows that. So in going to this yes/no right/wrong debate style the Republicans have conceded that the war is indefensible. Their argument is weak. They are weak. And this proves they are weak.

Well, there is one yes/no answer that I will gladly give. Do you want four more years of Bush and his cronies? Absolutely, positively no.

More Megan Pics

The Hardball incident

A lot has been made of the Matthews/Malkin incident on Hardball. Here is the transcript. It starts about 2/3's of the way down. Poor Willie Brown hardly gets a word in edge-wise. Basically I think this is a case of Malkin making this on-the-sly unsubstantiated slander attack against Kerry, which, regardless of what you think about him, isn't worthy of national media (though you can see it all the time on Fox News), and getting called on the carpet for it. All he is trying to do is get her to say yes or no to whether it was a self-inflicted wound.

Sorry, I can't really see the problem here. Someone goes on national television (MSNBC not NPR) and makes ridiculous allegations against a respected veteran and politician. She should get called out for that. Put up, or shut up.

Are we supposed to listen to this crap from the SWIFT boat vets just because they have Texas Republican money to fund their ads? We have been bombarded with their crap with no debunking, no investigative journalism, no balance or fairness. I'm glad that Matthews finally had enough of that crap and decided to call it out. You can say what you want, but being a vet doesn't give you the right to make accusations without having to prove them.

Digital Panoramas

O'Reilly opened it's new Digital Media site this morning. My article on digital panoramas is front and center. Woo hoo!

Traffic School

Man, I'm gonna be late. I'm gonna be late and I'm gonna fail. I can't believe I have to speed to get there. There is a freaking camera stop light, and I'm stuck behind three cars. I'll get snapped and get the same ticket when I'm going to the test to finish the ticket I already got for running a red light. How ironic is that. Come on. Come on. These people can't drive for crap.

Where is it. Oh, ok. When did that go in? I don't remember them building that. Why are all these cars waiting in line for this crappy little mall. What's that about. Is everybody taking the traffic school test today. Dude in the car ahead of me has a paper he's looking at. Holy crap. He really is taking the test. Hope they have a bunch of machines.

Parking, ok. A few minutes late. Man, I'm a loser.

"Hi... I'm here for the traffic school test."

"Uh, ok. Which school?"

"Uh..." The dude said bring your drivers license. Not the freaking paper with the school name on it. How the hell should I know? I'm horrible with names. Come on. Come on. I just saw it. What was it? "Home Traffic School".

"Ok. ID?"

Now what? What is this place. Where do I take the test? Oh, it must be in the back. There is a machine back there. Oh, ok.

"Yep, just sign in back there and you are good to go."

Right. Good to go. I hate fucking tests. I'm horrible at tests. Half the time I was taking the course before I had to do this thing I only got half the answers right before I had to hit back and then change the answers and try again. Right. Right. Good to go. Yeah. That's why I'm sweating like a freaking horse. I hate tests. Tests suck. If I lose my license that's going to suck. Why did I wait so long? Can't afford to lose my license.

Ok. Secret password? What's that. Write it down? Pen. Where is a pen. Markers. Right, yellow marker. Something to write on... Card. Ok. Sign in. Take the test... What the... Yeah, I'm here, I want to take the final exam. What's the deal. I know, go to the store, take the exam, I'm here, give me the exam. Hold on, secret password. Right. Back. Back. Back. New password. Ahhh... Ok. Now I can get the real final exam. Man, this site sucks. Damn. This site... really... sucks.

I need to read more. Read in more depth. I need to sit down sometime and learn how to read in detail. Everybody else seems to be able to read in detail, why can't i? I would have known what to do if I had just read the page with the password. Ok, settle down. Man, that scrollbar thumb is small. Sixty questions, that sucks. Ok. Obey traffic laws? Duh. True. Ok to run red lights? Uh... False. Is the whole test going to be like this? Pedestrian deaths are 1/6th of all traffic fatalities. Oh, man, I know this is one of those stupid factoid questions. It's either 1/6, or 1/4 or 1/8 or some such and what the hell does it matter anyway if I get the exact right answer? This is why I hate tests. Eighty questions? Your kidding me right. Oh, god... That sucks.

Ok, submit. Wow. For once you can only submit once. Congratulations? I passed. Holy shit. I passed. That's freaking unbelievable. I never pass this stuff. Wooo... Now I can get out of here. Right. Proctor sign out. Send me the thing in the mail. Take it to the court house. Woo. Done. I hate tests. I hate freaking tests.

Seriously.

Seriously. (Use headphones at work.)

Swift Boat connections

A picture from the New York Times connects the Bush Administration with the Swift Boat Vets. Thanks to Boing Boing for the link.

Eric's Wedding

Lori, Megan and I went to Eric's wedding in Sausalito today. The ceremony was beautiful and it was just a really nice day.

The scenery was also gorgeous:

Lots of great picture shooting to be had, and some video, which is something I haven't done in a while but I am looking forward to shooting more of.

Bachelor Party

We took Eric out for his bachelor party last night:

The company was great and the evening was fun. We ended up talking mostly about politics. Everyone was anti-Bush, some more than others. One guy in particular was a Bush Republican from the first election but has now changed his mind quite dramatically. He thinks that the current administration is bad for business because business likes a stable government, which is not what we have today.

It seems to me that Reagan really bolted on the Christian fundamentalist right onto the front of the party and used that as the wedge to move the party into the mainstream populous. The problem is that this new front end to the party has never really meshed with the back end, who were the traditional pro-business small government types. As an example, how can you be pro-small governemnt and for tons of idealogue based regulatory enforcement? Can you support a business innovation economy and still restrict stem cell research?

Now this friction is even more pronounced because Bush comes firmly out of the front of the party as an idealogue. He is not centered in his party and it looks like he might lose the back end because his radical policies are, as this guy put it, bad for business.

What I want is the old GOP back. The GOP that was pro-business, cigar smoking old white guys. They understood that the Democratic party needed to exist so that the other 90% of the populous felt they had some sort of voice.

This new radical GOP front face thinks that liberal thought is un-American and that liberals are traitors. The goal is the complete destruction of the Democratic party and all non-Christian liberal thought. Problem is that 50% of Americans are Democrats. Is half of American un-American?

The GOP needs to divest itself of this fundamentalist front-end and the Christian right needs it's own party that will actually attempt to implement it's social agenda. This marraige of fiscal conservative and social conservative is a match made in hell for all of us.

Controlling politics through language

A fascinating interview on how conservatives use language to control politics. (Thanks to Eric for the link.)

Al Qaeda targetting Canadian Drugs

This is my favorite story from the last couple of weeks. According to the article "terrorists might try to attack the domestic food and drug supply, particularly illegally imported prescription drugs". This despite that fact that "we have no specific information now about any al-Qaeda threats to our food or drug supply". Um, ok. Seriously, this has to be a joke.

I'm beginning to love this phrase "no specific information". I'd like to use it at work and at home. Honey, when is dinner? I have no specific information on that. Jack, do you have those TPS reports done? I have no specification information on that, but it is a pressing concern, or maybe even, an imminent threat.

Two cool things

Air Tunes - Megan and I went to the Apple Store last night. She played Nemo in the kids section and I picked up an Air Tunes Not only is this a portable cheap 802.11g wireless router that can extend existing wireless networks, it also plugs into your stereo and your printer. I hooked it up to the Home Theatre system using a fiber connection, installed a little software on the Mac, and next thing you know my iTunes music is coming out of my Home Theatre system in perfect digital clarity. Sweet. Nice going Apple.

Alien Vs. Predator - This movies was unexpectedly good. I won't say it's great. I don't want to get your hopes up too high. But if you like sci-fi and are a fan of either series then you will find a lot to like about this movie. It's short, but it's well done and the action ramp is pretty steep. I don't know what the critics are talking about. This is a good movie.

Sadie

Sadie was diagnosed with diabetes today. Lori has geared us up with all of the meds and I will be learning how to give the shots. Not the greatest of days. I'm glad to know that we have finally figured out what is wrong with her.

Nice picture taking day

Nice day out with Lori, Megan and the dogs. I first took Megan to the Marin headlands for one last shot at a panorama. The panorama wasn't as nice as I would have liked. I guess fate was kind when I had to try Mt. Tam because the headlands were fogged in.

I liked the pictures of Megan though. They came out pretty well.

More nonsense from the right

More silliness from the right with this article. Some choice quotes:

"In short, the Left hates George W. Bush for who he is rather than what he does. Southern conservatism, evangelical Christianity, a black-and-white worldview, and a wealthy man's disdain for elite culture — none by itself earns hatred, of course, but each is a force multiplier of the other and so helps explain the evolution of disagreement into pathological venom."

Which is just plain stupid. Obviously I don't hate W just because of what he is. I know a number of people with these beliefs and call them friends. Why do I hate Bush? Because; he stole the election, he invaded a country that hadn't attacked or threatened us, he turned the world against us, he turned our military into what he feels is the right hand of god, his administration is filled with cronies, his environmental policies are a disaster, and his fiscal and military industrial complex policies are looting the public treasury, destroying the middle class, tearing the soul of the country apart and creating an enormous debt burden that our children's children will be paying off. All of that is about what W does, not who he is.

Then there is this:

"And there is a great danger in all these manifestations of pure hatred. We are in a war. And in these tumultuous days, the Left's unhinged odium will resonate with and embolden not only our enemies abroad, but also the deranged, dangerous folk here at home."

Here is another way of looking at it. The rest of the world is reassured that at least half of the population of America has retained it's sanity and is looking to right the wrong of four years ago and elect someone fit to hold the office of the president in a world where unilateralism is the true enemy. Our enemies, namely Al Qaeda, have to fear a united world against them (as it was post 9/11), as opposed to having just a single enemy facing them alone (as we do today, thanks to W).

Where was all this ire of partisan hatred when the right pounded mercilessly on Clinton, with dredged up scandal after scandal and finally impeachment? Haven't they learned there lesson? Clinton did his best against Al Qaeda (read the 9/11 report), but was always accused of wagging the dog by the right. Don't they see their petty partisanship and win at all costs strategy is tearing this country apart and is what is truly opening us up to our enemies. This War on Terror is nothing but a silly political game to the Bush Administration. They delayed the release of information on their latest Al Qaeda arrest by four days so that it could come out on the day of Kerry's acceptance speech. Does that sound like serious leadership to you?

The right needs to calm down, get a grip, and realize that their hated Left is just as American as they are. That they need to stop all of this crap about redistricting, constitutional amendments, senseless unilateralism, and pointless political aggression. The left and the right need to be balanced, and they need to work together.

Of course, that reeks of hope and optimism. The pessimist in me says that on the day that the Kerry election is confirmed the right in the House will start an investigation on the Swift boat stuff. And that the investigations, scandal mongering, petty partisanship, bickering and obstructionism will last the entire Kerry presidency. All this because today's Republican party can't recognize the right of the Democratic party to even exist, let alone hold the presidency.

#7

According to this poem, I am old town type number 7.

Opinions

Which one of these should I use for the article. I cropped them a little on the advice of a co-worker. I think it shows that what you are looking out is a sea of clouds and not of water.

Option A:

Option B:

Option C:

Mt. Tam Panoramas

I went back to Marin just before sunset to get the panoramas I need for the O'Reilly article. The bridge, and the entire city, were still obscured by fog, but the Mountain provided some excellent vistas all the same:

Looking south towards San Francisco

Looking north into Marin towards Sebastapol

Looking out west towards the setting of the sun

A small crowd plays in the failing light

Even these panoramic pictures can't do justice to just how beautiful it was to stand above the clouds and watch as they spread out like a rolling ocean over the land below. Just as fun was driving through it. I rolled down the windows and smelled the fresh air. Russell stuck his head outside until the standing raindrops covered his head. He brought his head back in, shook it off, and stuck it out just as quickly.

As we crossed the Golden Gate to come back home the fog was so thick I couldn't see when I was on the bridge and when I was on the freeway. It was the thickest fog I have ever seen.

Sign up for Bush

If you want to see Bush or Cheney in person you will have to sign off on this:

I herby support Bush for Re-election to the of the United States.

No kidding. I didn't mistype this. This is from the real sign off sheet.

Hey! Why not use foreign languages in our Federal government? They obviously can't handle English. Maybe another language would be simpler.

Awesome evil overlord

I nominate this guy for Best Evil Overlord 2004!

More Rush stuff

I listened to Rush Limbaugh for about five minutes on my way to and from coffee this morning. First, he accused me of being Al Qaeda because, according to an official, they believe in "Anybody but Bush", and I have been known to say "Anybody but Bush". He went on to lie six times in consecutive statements that couldn't have taken more than a minute to rattle off. It's incredible. How can anybody take this guy seriously.

Very cool

Expect some of these attached to your Christmas cards.

Dog park

I took Sadie and Russell to the dog park today after work. Both Sadie and Russell got a lot of barking in and Russell got a good run or two. What I found strange is that Russell would fetch any ball you would toss, unless a dog got close to him or it anywhere along the path. Anyway, lots of cute dogs. Sadie and Russell really seemed to enjoy it.

Socks on a Rooster

Jacqueline took me up on my offer to have her own blog. It should help bring a little balance to the normally left-wing set of blogs we have here. ;-)

Driver's test

Trying to get stuff off my plate. I took my Internet Driver's School course on Sunday. Here is a hip tip; when taking the exam, any answer a juvenile delinquent would give you is never right:

When approaching an elderly man crossing a residential street what should you do?

1. Speed up, man! Like a bat out of hell!
2. Pop a couple of caps in his ass
3. Like... whatever...
4. Yo, that aint never happenin.
5. Slow down and proceed with caution

I figure the breakdown of the tests went this way. Either it was a true or false (e.g. Driving laws should be obeyed?), or it was one of these trivia questions (e.g. How many inches of thickness need to be in the groove on your treads), or it was one of these awesome questions.

Russell is here

Our ex-foster dog Russell is back with us for a couple of weeks. He is my second favorite dog photo subject. Poor Russell:

And to make matters worse, Sadie stole his dogs bed:

Hopefully his being around will cheer Sadie up, though it hasn't yet. She has lost a shocking amount of weight.

Nonsense statistics

I was listening to NPR yesterday on my way into Marin and an author of a new book was talking about environment issues and how to get involved. She talked about habitat destruction, species loss, and a new one for me, death from air pollution. According to her 200 people in the United States die from air pollution per day. That didn't even pass a sniff test for me, so I decided to get another statistic and compare.

If you multiply out 200 * 365 you get 73,000. So there are 73,000 people in America dying per year because of bad air. Wow. Here is another statistic 5.6 people are murdered per 100,000 in the United States per year. Do the math and that is 16,240 people per year. So according to these figures four times as many people die from air pollution each year than are murdered. Wow!

In fact, given her numbers, air pollution kills twice as many people per year as breast cancer. Seems a little odd.

I love bad statistics.

Update: As I was taking the Online Traffic School course I was told that one person every 13 minutes dies in traffic accident. That's 110 a day. Still less than air pollution. ;-) This air pollution is shaping up to be America's #1 killer.

Golden Gate Bridge

I took a drive yesterday to the Golden Gate Bridge to try and get a panoramic picture for my article. The bridge was socked in with fog, which is bad for panoramas, but pretty in it's own right. Here is the bridge viewed through a rare brake in the fog:

And the ground below where I was standing at the peak of the Marin headlands.

Better luck tomorrow I hope.

Megan series

This is one of my favorite Megan series ever:

It was at the aquarium in Tampa on Friday. More pictures from the Ocala trip are here, here, and here.

9/11 Story

I had another fascinating Jetblue conversation. Another passenger was interested in my laptop so we got to talking. How we got up on 9/11 I don't know, but he had a fascinating story to tell.

Turns out he works for Morgan Stanley and he was on the 60th floor of Tower 2 on 9/11. He was giving a morning briefing to his traders when he saw over his shoulder the first plane headed directly towards Tower 1. He said, "What the fuck was that?" to all of the traders, and the person next to him said, "You can't say that." He looked back and said, "What the fuck was that?" pointing out the side of the building. At which point he saw the explosion in the other building. It blew out some windows and a trader on the floor was sucked out of the side of the building. They looked up and saw the fire.

His brother is a fire fighter so he knew what to do (e.g., never use the elevators, keep low, bring water, take off high heels). They started down the stairs and got to the observation lounge on the 44th floor. The speakers in the building then told them to return to their offices because the problem was with the other building. He told the people around him not to go but 130 or so of his people got on the elevators. They were killed by the fireball when the second plane hit their building. The building reeled and shifted the doors around so that they couldn't open them. They tried and tried but weren't successful opening the door.

He then heard a thud, thud, thud on the wall and saw silver axes coming through the wall. It was ladder 1010 and they created a whole big enough to get 137 people out of the building.

Now at this point I could see he was choked up as he talked about the firefighters. One of whom told him to "tell Ghami I love her". He then trudged up towards the 44th floor to save his firefighter friends, never to be seen again. He says he told Ghami that the fireman loved her weeks later at the medal ceremony.

I asked him whether he would vote for Bush and he said no. That he couldn't tell the difference between the parties but it was obvious that Bush had failed in his war on terror. Three years later the terrorists are still there. He said, "Like Donald Trump I would say 'Your fired!'".

I was amazed, so I asked again. "You were there. On 9/11. In the building. You saw people die around you. And you wouldn't vote for Bush?" And again he said, "No."

Continuing on he said that he was part of the ceremonial army crew that keeps guard on the President and that he thinks the terror warnings are bogus. He cited as an example the Reagan funeral ceremony. He said that you could look around the cathedral and see almost the entire power base of the world, both former and present. Given his experience he says that if Al Qaeda had been a real threat that this convergence never would have happened. I would have been too much of a security risk.

Just before we split up to board the plane he said that he would vote for Kerry because of the stem cell issue. It's an issue for his family and on that issue along Kerry "bought his vote". I don't think he's a single issue voter, but I hadn't heard stem cell law being mentioned as a deciding factor before.

It was nice to hear from someone who was there that they don't suffer from the Republican jingoistic nonsense which has swept the nation after 9/11.

More FOX fun

I watched some FOX on the JetBlue TV on the trip out to Ocala. How anyone could think that network is fair and unbiased is beyond me. One show in the particular, the Beltway Boys, was just a Democrat slam-fest between extreme right and radical right.

Plus, the points they made were self-contradictory. At one point they played Tereza Heinz' speech about how a woman with an opinion should be considered self assured just like a man. One of the guys first says, "Didn't we leave that problem behind in the 50's." And then goes on to say, "I have no problem with opinionated women", all of a minute later.

Then later, after spending twenty minutes telling us how much of a liability she is, they say talk over a Democrat talking about her, saying "Why is Tereza important to the voters? She isn't on the ticket!"

And, of course, the news coverage itself is biased. Just look at the words they choose. One example is their using the term gay marriage instead of same sex marriage as every other network does. In case you haven't noticed, only people who are against same sex marriage use the term gay marriage. Apparently we are supposed to be afraid of the word gay. That's enlightened thinking.

What they say under the images is also important. Where other networks just cover Iran, Fox decides to put the 'War on Terror' iconography underneath Iran coverage.

I suppose all of this is just a natural extension of the right-wing hate machine that has the goal of the complete destruction of the Democratic party and an end to all liberal thought. What saddens me is when people defend fox as an example of how news should be. That's like looking at the state run news in the Islamic countries and saying, "That's news as it should be."

Funny thing happened at the Macaroni Grill

On our way into Ocala Lori and I stopped at the Macaroni Grill for dinner. While we were waiting for our food the hostess broke out into an aria a couple of tables down from us. She did a great job as well.

As we were getting ready to go she came near by so I asked her what the aria was. It was from Tosca. One thing lead to another and she sang Libiamo, ne'lieti calici from La Traviata for us. It was a shortened version, but it was great. To thank her we gave out waitress a nice tip in the hope that it would be pooled.