Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again; The eternal years of God are hers; But Error, wounded, writhes in pain, And dies among his worshippers.    — William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878),…
Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again;
The eternal years of God are hers;
But Error, wounded, writhes in pain,
And dies among his worshippers.
   — William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878), “The Battle-Field,” l. 33-36 (1837)
Pretty to think so. Though I’m enough of a student of history (and observer of the present political race) to have my doubts.
A Florida state judge has ordered the state of Florida to release their current list of suspected felons which it plans to use to scrub voter registration rolls. A similar…
A Florida state judge has ordered the state of Florida to release their current list of suspected felons which it plans to use to scrub voter registration rolls.
A similar purge list used in 2000 contained hundreds and possibly thousands of errors, barring some eligible Florida voters from the state’s presidential balloting. Republican George W. Bush gained the White House after winning Florida by 537 votes after a recount battle.
“This is good news for voters because now these records will be open and available for public inspection to help protect the right of every eligible voter in Florida,” said Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, one of the plaintiffs.
All well and good, and it should prevent the problems from the 2000 election, where accusations were made that many potential Demoacratic voters were improperly disenfranchised.
Of course, now I’m waiting for someone to sue because their privacy has been violated …
Well, heck, didn’t realize today was Dominion Day Canada Day. Happy-happy to those northern readers of mine….
Well, heck, didn’t realize today was Dominion Day Canada Day. Happy-happy to those northern readers of mine.
I don’t necessarily agree with the causes or the sentiments, but the winning t-shirts in the Designs on the White House contest are, indeed, clever and attractive. Those who like…
I don’t necessarily agree with the causes or the sentiments, but the winning t-shirts in the Designs on the White House contest are, indeed, clever and attractive. Those who like that sort of thing will certainly find them the sort of thing they like.
I won’t be buying any, but I promise not to grimace (too badly) if anyone wearing one shows up at my house.
Mission statements: Should be a touchstone against which you can place any decision you’re trying to make for the business. Should be short. A short paragraph at most. Bullet points…
Mission statements:
Needless to say, most mission statements violate many, if not most, if not all of the above. Mission statements were a really hot Managerial Thing a decade or two back, part of the drive toward Quality. Like Sturgeon’s Law would indicate, 90% of them are crap.
I am, much to the surprise of many who know me only casually, very much an introvert. No, really. I have glib “stage presence,” and don’t shrink from public speaking…
I am, much to the surprise of many who know me only casually, very much an introvert. No, really. I have glib “stage presence,” and don’t shrink from public speaking (or bellowing), but I am profoundly introverted when it comes to more “risky” interactions (i.e., ones in which I might either offend or come off looking like an idiot, regardless of the probability).
So, a few days ago, when one of our IT managers sent out a note to the Global IT group (all 600-odd of us) soliciting opinions about how to deal logistically with hardware keys for software, I considered, then sent back a note to him alone, weighing in on the subject, offering some suggestions, etc.
After all, you never do a Reply All to a big global group. Certainly not intentionally.
More the fool I. Folks saw this as the perfect opportunity to get some global visibility. Over the course of a couple of days, a good dozen people sent a note to every IT person in the company, passing on their concerns, ideas, hopes, kvetches, etc., on the topic. As the rhetoric got more heated (and as I considered that every one of those messages was also going to top IT management), I just shook my head. Not because the suits aren’t open to new ideas, but because they don’t like to have lots of chatter in their in-boxes.
It was all topped off by someone — call him Bob — waxing lyrical about their pet ideas for global supply management, conveying not only an amazing degree of hubris in the brilliance of their insights, but a profound ignorance of what exactly the corporation already does regarding global supply management.
At which point, one of the veeps stepped in, declared the message thread formally closed, and pointed out in not-so-gentle terms just what knowledge the last sender was missing on the subject.
Ouch.
So, sometimes it’s good to be introverted. Or, at least, polite.
The Bush Administration is not known for being forthcoming with information (even compared to the normal bureaucracy). This particular excuse, though, takes the cake. The Bush administration is offering a…
The Bush Administration is not known for being forthcoming with information (even compared to the normal bureaucracy). This particular excuse, though, takes the cake.
The Bush administration is offering a novel reason for denying a request seeking the Justice Department’s database on foreign lobbyists: Copying the information would bring down the computer system.
“Implementing such a request risks a crash that cannot be fixed and could result in a major loss of data, which would be devastating,” wrote Thomas J. McIntyre, chief in the Justice Department’s office for information requests.
Wow. Hope Mr McIntyre is looking for another job pretty quickly.
“What they’re asking for is a lot, and it’s not something at this particular point in time we have the technical ability to do,” Justice Department spokesman Bryan Sierra said Tuesday.
McIntyre explained in a May 24 letter that the computer system — operated in the counterespionage section of the Justice Department’s criminal division — “was not designed for mass export of all stored images” and said the system experiences “substantial problems.”
“It sounds like incredible negligence for an agency that is keeping public records to keep them in such a precarious condition,” said Stephen Doig, interim director at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University. “I’ve never heard the excuse that making the equivalent of a backup copy would somehow cause steam to rise out of the computer.”
The government said an overhaul of the system should be finished by December and copies should be available then.
Well, there’s a difference between a backup copy and a full report of all the data in the database. That’s probably a heck of a lot of data.
Still, it all sounds pretty dubious to me.
Paper copies of records still are available for review four hours each day for people willing to travel to Washington, the Justice Department noted. Williams said the index available to researchers there is at least 12 months outdated, “which kind of renders it useless.”
Indeed. So the system is so precarious that even creating an index of just the last year is beyond its capability? Gimme a break.
(via Doyce)
So, which is a more reprehensible effort to subvert the electoral process: Republican activists signing petitions to get Ralph Nader on the ballot with the idea that he’ll draw votes…
So, which is a more reprehensible effort to subvert the electoral process:
Conservative groups have already mobilized for Mr. Nader in Oregon as well as in Arizona, where 46 percent of the registered voters who signed petitions last month to get Mr. Nader on the ballot were Republicans, almost double the percentage of Democrats or Independents, according to a state Democratic Party lawyer.
“I felt it as my obligation due to the dirty tricks that the far right were doing to stack the seats at that convention,” said Moses Ross, communications secretary for the Multnomah County Democratic Party. “I felt obliged to encourage our Democrats to do something about that.”
I find it ironic that the candidate ostensibly running to break the two-party system instead finds his support and opposition focused on how his candidacy can help one or the other of the two parties.
(via David Bernstein)
Heh. (via Scott)…
Dropped down to 205 as of yesterday. Which may or may not be a crack through the plateau I’d been on for most of a month. I will celebrate loudly…
Dropped down to 205 as of yesterday. Which may or may not be a crack through the plateau I’d been on for most of a month. I will celebrate loudly if I break 200 (though, alas, most such celebrations as come to mind involve food).
Also, I’ve retired all my size 42 pants, and the 40s are feeling pretty baggy. The 38s are fitting well, which is (to my mind) fairly miraculous. Dare I imagine a 36? Gads!
The secret to good Kid TV is coming up with something that parents can enjoy. No, really. That not only encourages parents to let the little tot burn their eyeballs…
The secret to good Kid TV is coming up with something that parents can enjoy. No, really. That not only encourages parents to let the little tot burn their eyeballs out watching the show, but it ensures a certain amount of audience retention — if there are jokes and stuff that are multi-layered, then as the kid grows in maturity and cognition, there will be something still there for them.
(Conversely, TV producers, if you want to get parents grabbing the remote in a Pavlovian fashion, be sure and fill your kid show with scatological references and lots of disrespect for parents, authority, and academic achievement. Oh, yeah.)
Katherine’s tastes have evolved over time. Here’s the current list of (from what I’ve seen*) top picks. Not all of them fit the category above (and it’s an interestnig mix of both fairly sophisticated and very childish/simple), but enough of them do that Margie and I don’t go stark, raving bonkers.
What’s Hot: Kim Possible. Recess. Maggie & the Ferocious Beast**. Lilo & Stitch.*** Hi-5. Tom & Jerry. Miffy. Max & Ruby. JoJo’s Circus. Maisy. Powerpuff Girls. Oswald. Bob the Builder.
What’s Not: Pooh. Rolie Polie Olie. Sesame Street. Arthur. Stanley. The Wiggles.**** Blue’s Clues. Tweenies****. Clifford.
What’s Hanging In There But May Be On The Way Out: Dora the Explorer. Dragon Tales****. Scooby Doo. Franklin. Little Bear.
(And, yeah, there’s a lot of Disney stuff up there. Go fig — they don’t have a lot of 3rd party commercials.) Also shows from Noggin and Nick Jr. and PBS Kids and Discovery Kids and Cartoon Network.
* Bearing in mind that I don’t frequently see most of her daily TV viewing. Margie may have further comments.
** Though she had a nightmare about it the other night.
*** May be an opportunistic time slot.
**** There is a God.
Livingroom is once again soliciting good but under-read blogs. Throw in some nominees. The reason for this series was that whilst there are plenty of blog awards that identify the…
Livingroom is once again soliciting good but under-read blogs. Throw in some nominees.
The reason for this series was that whilst there are plenty of blog awards that identify the most popular bloggers, best designed blogs, best photobloggers etc. – unfortunately only a few select blogs tend to win these competitions whilst thousands of excellent blogs go unnoticed and uncelebrated. ‘Celebrating the Underblogger’ seeks to identify and promote these bloggers – the Underbloggers.
Good idea. I might do some browsing through the previous list some time.
(via InstaPundit)
Katherine is getting old enough that, if she wanted to, she could go downstairs early in the morning and watch TV on her own, rather than coming into our room…
Katherine is getting old enough that, if she wanted to, she could go downstairs early in the morning and watch TV on her own, rather than coming into our room and soliciting one of us (or whichever one is not already off at work) to come downstairs with her.
She opined yesterday that she’d rather not do that, but that there was a simple solution that some of her friends at preschool recommended, to wit: her own TV in her room.
I opined back that such a solution was not on the charts.
Margie and I have talked about this, and we both feel pretty strongly against TVs (or computers) up in the kid’s room. Whatever folks feel comfortable with, of course, but for us, we’d rather know what she watching and doing, and, perhaps, even share in the experience, or let her share in ours. The point being doing things (even separate things) together, rather than apart.
Margie grew up in a household with limited TV watching. We watched a fair amount, but, even though John and I from early ages had the hand-me-down black-and-white in our room, we were not encouraged in the evening hours to watch stuff on it, but, rather, to watch stuff with the ‘rents. And I think that was a good thing all around.
So … the first of what will likely be several million requests for a TV in her room. Here we go …
Note to self: Hissing from the second floor bathroom window at a cute trio of raccoons waddling atop the side yard fence will cause them to hesitate for a moment…
Note to self:
Hissing from the second floor bathroom window at a cute trio of raccoons waddling atop the side yard fence will cause them to hesitate for a moment the first time, but will not frighten them off.
A squirt bottle of window cleaner, however, seems to do the job.
Since I started including Google ads down the sidebar (no click-thrus yet, btw), it’s been amusing watching how they change as Google reindexes the page and decides what it’s “about.”…
Since I started including Google ads down the sidebar (no click-thrus yet, btw), it’s been amusing watching how they change as Google reindexes the page and decides what it’s “about.”
Yesterday, Amanda sent me a screen capture showing how it was full of ads for Bush and Cheney, probably due to this story being toward the top of the page when it was spidered.
This morning, amusingly enough, it’s full of ads for Kerry-related stuff, probably due to this story.
To add to the irony, neither story was particularly complimentary to the figure involved.
So, just because you see an ad for something, don’t assume it’s something I’d buy for myself. It’s just Google, like you, trying to figure out what this site is all about.
I’ve yet to see one review of the new Spider-Man movie that doesn’t say it’s better than the first. Which is pretty impressive, because the first one was pretty good….
I’ve yet to see one review of the new Spider-Man movie that doesn’t say it’s better than the first. Which is pretty impressive, because the first one was pretty good.
So, that’s one thing I’ll try to get to this weekend …