Nader brings on the ice age

So Nader’s running and there’s been a flood of anger from the left, curiously enough. It seems there’s a lot more people than I thought that believe that a democracy can only be properly represented as a two-party system. The Lone Ranger Of Righteousness (AlterNet) explains some of the current administration’s misdeeds:

“…That doesn’t even count global warming, which … now brings the potential for melting polar ice caps to shutting down the Gulf Stream and plunging Europe... [More]”

You know George Bush and his cabal are damaging the country and must be stopped no matter what. You’ve heard, recently, that Ralph Nader is an egomaniacal loose cannon, bent on America’s destruction. Let me explain why I think John Kerry is also a danger.

There’s a groundswell of activism and political interest these days in the States, mostly driven by Bush’s extreme policies and positions on pretty much everything. People are pissed. People are getting involved. People are trying to make a... [More]

“The only thing new in this world is the history you don’t know.”

- Harry Truman

“I think it would be a good idea.”

- Mahatma Gandhi (when asked what he thought of Western civilization)

The story is probably apocryphal, but it is said that Wilde was at a dinner party seated next to a young woman. He said, “I’ve recently come into a small bequest of 40,000 pounds which I do not need. I have, alas, never had sex with a woman. If I were to give you the bequest, would you have sex with me?”

She responded, “Yes, Mr. Wilde, I would.”

“Well, will you do it for 2 pounds?”

“Mr. Wilde, what do you take me for?”

“Oh, we know what you are. Now we are simply haggling over the price.”

Kerry: He’s Peaking, Already (CounterPunch) goes to the heart of the problem with every “viable” Democratic candidate:

“Kerry agrees with Bush about the tax cuts. He agrees with him about the Patriot Act. He agrees with him on trade. He agrees with him on the war. … Kerry voted for the Patriot Act and he voted for the ‘03 attack on Iraq.”

He’s a veteran of the war Bush skipped out on … but he objected to it afterwards. The sad thing is that objecting to the crime that was Vietnam will hurt him more than... [More]

Please be advised of a new Microsoft Knowledge Base article entitled: Steps that you can take to help…. In it, you’ll find the recommendation that you should “…not click any hyperlinks that you do not trust. Type them in the Address bar yourself.”

So now, you have to type all URLs by hand because Microsoft can’t fix their browser. Isn’t it time to consider Opera or Firefox?

A read on Slashdot put this latest development into persepective:

“To go back to an often used analogy, if Microsoft... [More]”

I just want to remind people that every single second you wasted feeling outraged by Janet Jackson is time you can never get back. There are morons who are suing someone (I really haven’t the foggiest who they aim to lay low for their suffering) for being forced to see Janet Jackson’s nipple on Sunday. Their lawyer stated that “…[a]s a direct and proximate result of the broadcast of the acts, (Carlin) and millions of others saw the acts and were caused to suffer outrage, anger, embarrassment... [More]”

Why is it that so many people in America believe in it, right or wrong?

They’re taught to from a very young age.

This is an old, old story. I’ve seen it a few times before and was reminded of it again when someone posted it to a Slashdot article. It’s worth reading all the way through.

A recent article devoted to the *macho* side of programming
     made the bald and unvarnished statement:

                Real Programmers write in Fortran.

     Maybe they do now,
     in this decadent era of
     Lite beer, hand calculators and “user-friendly” software
     but back in the Good Old Days,
     when the... [More]

President Bush has been on television a few times in the last few weeks, first giving his State of the Union address, then in a more recent interview on ‘Meet the Press’.

After the State of the Union (2004 edition), it was apparent that Bush was honing his laser-like focus on a new batch of enemies for this election year: gays, teenage-sex and steroids. It used to be unions, the poor, terrorists, communists, but, having vanquished all forms of evil abroad, he’s ready to fight domestic... [More]

Coming up tomorrow night is a State of the Union address by the Commander-in-Chief of the United States of America. Considering some of the humdingers thrown around last year, the state of the country this year and the fact that it’s an election year, this year’s should be the best ever!

To get ready, you can go the serious route or the hell-in-a-handbasket route.

The serious route is a single sheet of paper, a State of the Union Scorecard (TomPaine.com), in which the major issues facing our nation our... [More]

Installment 28 (MNFTIU) made me laugh, but in a sad way.

Installment 30 (MNFTIU) just made me laugh. Quoting that is waaaayyyy easier than poking holes in Bush’s space plans myself. I’m reproducing choice quotes below just to have them, but I’d browse to the link so you can see the little office dude in a space helmet delivering the lines.

“
Wait a minute … how are we gonna get to Mars?

“Check it out — we’re going to build a base on the moon! Then we’ll literally FLY TO MARS!!! In space!

“And we all have to... [More]”

Rewrites Considered Harmful? by Neil Gunton thinks developers, especially Open-source ones, make a mistake when moving to a completely new code-base. You see, the old code-base had a lot of testing time in it and was, if not more stable, at least had known bugs.

This is a good argument and one that most project managers are aware of. However, stability is relative to the given feature set. A product is well tested with feature set A. Within 3 years, the product will have feature set B. What must a project... [More]

We’ve become used to seeing contraceptive solutions for women — there are no widely-used ingested male contraceptives. Though condoms are largely seen as a ‘male’ contraceptive, I think most reasonable people can see that they are equally as inconvenient for women. ’Are You Using Anything?’ (AlterNet) talks about a new “Reversible Inhibition of Sperm Under Guidance”, an injectable contraceptive for men “developed by professor Sujoy K. Guha, an Indian researcher of biomedical engineering at the Indian... [More]”

The most amazing practical joke was perpetrated over New Year’s. Friends foil Olympia man’s home (The Olympian) shows pictures of an apartment completely, and I mean completely, covered in aluminum foil.

The pranksters covered doors, door framers, the toilet, everything … they even:

• “unrolled the toilet paper in the bathroom, enveloped the bath tissue in aluminum foil and rolled it back up again”
• “used foil to encircle Kirk’s spare change — each individual quarter he had left atop a living room bookshelf”
• “overed... [More]”

Here’s a question I found about George Bush’s penchant for vacations (Ask Yahoo!):

“How many vacation days has George W. Bush taken to date as president? …”

A fair question for a present sitting on top of the worst economy since the Great Depression, fighting wars in two countries (Afghanistan and Iraq, for those with shorter memories) and performing radical surgery on many of America’s most important laws and institutions (forming the largest government agency to oversee the ‘Homeland’ being one of the... [More]

Moveon.org campaign videos

Move On.Org is sponsoring an ad contest that has just wrapped up the first phase. They got over 1500 entries for a contest called Bush in 30 seconds, which solicits ads describing Bush’s achievements over the last 3 years. (Yeah, it’s only been 3 years; feels longer, doesn’t it?)

Voting for the main event is over, but you can still vote for the funniest, best youth ad (“Al Keyda” should be in the ‘funniest’ list, but “Bring it on” is the winner here, I thought) and best... [More]

Kids are like a hangover; they’re the punishment you get for having fun.

The Daily Show brings us another great, totally straight-faced interview by Rob Corddry called Red Menace*. In this one, Rob interviews a dude who is completely earnest about boycotting movies with “communist” and “unpatriotic” Hollywood stars. There must be a tear in the eye of every rabid, right-wing radio or TV idealogue right when they see this guy (which they won’t because it’s on the horribly unpatriotic Daily Show).

He’s from an organization called PABAAH, which is a really cool acronym... [More]

Is this seriously a screenshot?

Wow. Coming in April. Time to upgrade.

No Joke! 37 Years After Death Lenny Bruce Receives Pardon (NY Times) highlights two completely inadvertent examples of high comedy. Apparently, George Pataki has pardoned Lenny Bruce of his obscenity charge 37 years after his death. Unfortunately, that’s a little late to prevent the US government from having hounded a man to his death for having an unsanctioned sense of humor.

For those bits of high comedy, you have to read his announcement:

“Freedom of speech is one of the greatest American liberties,... [More]”

The article Guilty of Being a Palestinian in Iraq by Kathy Kelly (Counterpunch) documents the plight of two Palestinians in Iraqi internment camps run by the US in the flowering democracy of Iraq.

1. Is there corroboration for this?
2. Where would it come from? CNN? Not likely.
3. How spun is this against the US?
4. What percentage true is it?
5. Is it any wonder Germany got so far as it did in WWII?
6. Why do we always ask “how could the German people not know?”
7. Japanese internment camps
8. If these were Iraqi soldiers doing this to... [More]

Threat level orange. Merry Christmas

U.S. Raises Threat Level to Orange (Newsday) announces that all may not be “Mission Accomplisheder” with the capture of Saddam (as the White House put it).

“The government on Sunday raised the national threat level to orange, the second-highest, saying attacks were possible during the holidays and that threat indicators are “perhaps greater now than at any point” since Sept. 11, 2001.”

I’m sure all of America’s fear- and world-weary travellers really appreciate the... [More]

Drinking Responsibly During the Holidays (The Onion) is a list of rules for kids of all ages:

• If you are a woman, remember: Women are more sensitive to the effects of alcohol. If you are a man, remember: Women are more sensitive to the effects of alcohol.
• Always drink from the bottle labeled “XXX.” The bottle with the skull-and-crossbones on the front is poison.
• Drinking alone is a telltale sign that you know better than to put up with anybody’s bullshit.
• Drinking more than seven nights a week is not... [More]

Warmups

1. 25 squat jumps
2. 25 regular pushups
3. 25 wide pushups
4. 25 diamond pushups
5. 35 crunches (legs up)
6. 35 bicycles
7. 25 leg raises
8. hold legs 6 inches off ground for 45 seconds
9. Stretch up

Drills

1. Mirror drill − 3 minutes
2. Front hand education − straight lead/backfist, straight lead/hook, hook/backfist, low straight to high straight
3. Knife drill − standing in place, practice 5 angles of attack
4. Knife drill − with a partner, parry (meet) 5 angles of attack with the same angle, going back and forth... [More]

This was a private, only two participants and the second one showing up late. No bowing in was necessary.

As a private lesson, student requests determined what was practiced, and here is what your correspondent retained as lessons:

hook kicks

practiced next to the wall, just hitting the thigh of the partner. Due to the wall, the leg has to come up straight, but when veering into the target, the trajectory is nearly parrallel to the floor. It is important to twist the hips before the rear... [More]

Warmups

1. Shadow boxing
2. 75 jumping jacks
3. 25 pushups
4. cat stretch
5. 25 wide pushups
6. cat stretch
7. 10 reverse negative pushups (start low, not on the ground, push up to halfway on the count, back down when say ‘down’)
8. cat stretch
9. 25 bicycles
10. 15 crunches with legs pulling in as well (like jacknives, but collapsed)
11. stretch up (3)
12. 20 Squat jumps
13. Tiny break
14. 10 squat thrusts

Live Round

Go for about 3 minutes apiece:

1. Straight Lead
2. Straight Lead/Backfist
3. Straight Lead/Uppercut
4. Straight Lead/Hook (high)

... [More]

Both earthli Projects and the earthli WebCore are still in development, but here’s a screenshot showing the new look for the job page.

Beware of those who believe in altruism. It’s a quick step from believing it may exist, to seeing it everywhere, to believing yourself capable of it. If you think you are being altruistic, you have more than likely failed to examine your own motives properly.