***Dave Does the Blog

I am the walrus

Our church is doing a series of Wednesday dinner “shows” again this Lent. This year, it’s a multi-act play on the Trial of Judas Iscariot, with the audience acting as…

Our church is doing a series of Wednesday dinner “shows” again this Lent. This year, it’s a multi-act play on the Trial of Judas Iscariot, with the audience acting as the jury, this final night being when folks vote on eternal damnation or forgiveness.

Interesting concept, moderately well-crafted. It gets into some fairly deep and wide-ranging religious issues related to grace, faith, forgiveness, sin, what Jesus said, who he said it to, what it meant, and so forth.

I got to play Paul, which was kind of fun. Paul is not one of my favorite authors — I think either people have read a lot more into him than he would have expected when he wrote his epistles, or else he’s got a heck of a lot more cultural baggage packed along with him than was healthy to adopt, regardless of his theological interpretation of Christ’s message.

I played Paul (within the bounds of a fairly neutral script) as a slightly pedantic, slightly smug intellectual type, sincerely enthusiastic (and sincerely angry about his own failings), but also sort of self-aggrandizing in his “See what a horrible sinner I was and am?” attitude. I had fun.

Palm Sunday we’ll be doing the Passion for the Gospel. I got volunteered to do Jesus’ lines. Hrm. Certainly a dramatic enough role, but one I’m a bit uncomfortable with doing much with. “What’s my motivation here?” Yeah, right. Maybe I’ll just try to be earnest; that usually works.

Some tourists have all the luck

When we went to Covent Garden, all we got was a cold drizzle and some mediocre donuts. Obviously, our timing was off. (via Buzzmachine)…

When we went to Covent Garden, all we got was a cold drizzle and some mediocre donuts. Obviously, our timing was off.

(via Buzzmachine)

Boy, cott?

Kevin Parrott has a long post related to survey of comic book creators regarding the war in Iraq. It’s generally good (though there are places, while I agree with the…

Kevin Parrott has a long post related to survey of comic book creators regarding the war in Iraq. It’s generally good (though there are places, while I agree with the sentiment, I think he’s rhetorically unfair to the folks he’s skewering). But this one section, in response to a Kurt Busiek comment about “economic punishment” of creators who express unpopular opinions, is worth highlighting.

Kurt goes on:
“Here in the US, where a lot of this kind of thing is going on, we’re supposed to value free speech and free-flowing discussion. The appropriate response to someone who disagrees with you is disagreement, not sanctions — if someone gets up and says something I don’t like, I’ll argue with him, rather than trying to silence him. I think democracies work best when the voice of the people can be heard freely, when different ideas are vigorously supported or critiqued, not suppressed. Nonetheless, these people exist, so I suppose creators have to think about economic backlash from people who would rather that speech they don’t like didn’t exist.”
See, that’s the thing, Kurt. There is no free-flowing discussion available when it comes to actors, musicians, writers, and comic book creators. There’s no back and forth to speak of. THERE’S NO WAY FOR YOU TO HEAR THE REBUTTAL. When I buy a CD, and the songs on it are all telling me anyone supporting the action taken in Iraq is a subliterate fascist warmongering pig, just what the hell am I supposed to do? Learn to play a musical instrument, get myself a recording contract with a label, and produce my own album of songs expressing an opposing viewpoint? BULLSHIT. I can’t do that, and you (along with anyone else reciting the ‘economic punishment’ chant) know it. If I pay to see a movie, and the main bad guy is a stereotyped subliterate fascist warmongering pig supporting the President’s decision and cheering when Iraqi kids get killed, what the hell am I supposed to do then? Raise millions of dollars, form my own production company, write a script, hire actors and a crew, and film my own movie about how unfairly the movie I paid to see earlier portrayed war supporters? BULLSHIT. If I buy a comic, and the villain group is a subliterate fascist warmongering pig Zionist cabal trying to take over the world by supporting US involvement in Iraq and brainwashing the mindless American sheep to go along with it, what then? Learn to pencil and ink, front the money to self-publish, all in reaction to the stupid collection of paranoid scribbles I just read? BULLSHIT. I have no other way to react to any of this besides leaving the product on a store shelf, or not paying for the movie ticket – AND YOU KNOW IT. Right now, the only way I can rebut your statement above is by writing this post, and are you ever going to read it? NO. So where’s the free-flowing discussion? There isn’t any. It’s all one side – yours.

The post, as a whole, is worth reading.

I am not a number!

When last we left wireless carriers, back in July ’02, they were cheering the FCC for delaying number portability, though sobbing mightily, with wailing and gnashing of teeth, that it…

When last we left wireless carriers, back in July ’02, they were cheering the FCC for delaying number portability, though sobbing mightily, with wailing and gnashing of teeth, that it was still scheduled to go into effect in November ’03.

The lobbying pot has been at a low simmer since then, and now it’s up to a rapid boil — with a twist, because the wireless carriers are being joined in their efforts by their arch-rivals, the land line phone companies.

Number portability would mean that your cell phone number belongs to you. If you decided that Verizon’s service sucked, and you wanted to switch over to Cingular, you could, and you wouldn’t have to replace your business cards, send change-of-number notes to your friends or anything like that. Your number would follow you, the same as if you change long distance carriers at home.

Egads! say the wireless carriers. That will cost billions to implement! And, um, er, besides, ah, we need to make ourselves tie into the 911 system properly (even though we’ve fought against that, too), and we don’t have the programmers to do both projects. That’s our story, and we’re sticking to it!

What about competition? But the wireless industry is already highly competitive! they cry. Look! Almost a quarter of all customers change carriers each year! See how competitive we are?

Do you think that would mean even more people might change if it weren’t such a hassle to change numbers?

Don’t even say that in jest, man!

As I said, the wire/land-line carriers are getting into the act, too. That’s because they just noticed that there’s a provision in the regulations that would let someone transfer their land line number over to a wireless carrier. Since the land line carriers are already smarting at those people (about 3% thus far) who are going all-wireless at home, they certainly don’t want to do anything that would make that any easier.

So far, the FCC is sticking by its guns. I hope it continues to do so. This is a “regulatory burden” I think makes a lot of sense.

(via BoingBoing)

Sinking into the Sunset

One of the few bright spots in the lickety-split passage of the USA PATRIOT act in 2001 was that many of its more onerous provisions were set to expire in…

One of the few bright spots in the lickety-split passage of the USA PATRIOT act in 2001 was that many of its more onerous provisions were set to expire in 2005.

There’s already talk about making them permanent, instead.

Maybe we can have a bit more debate on the subject, this time around.

(via Volokh)

Friend of the friendless

Michael Moore is back out there, rousing his rabble and flogging his product (and in public!). Some excerpts: It appears that the Bush administration will have succeeded in colonizing Iraq…

Michael Moore is back out there, rousing his rabble and flogging his product (and in public!). Some excerpts:

It appears that the Bush administration will have succeeded in colonizing Iraq sometime in the next few days.

Right! Didn’t you see all those double-wide house trailers being offloaded in Umm Qasr, full of white Texas Christians, ready to colonize the depopulated Iraqi nation?

This is a blunder of such magnitude — and we will pay for it for years to come. It was not worth the life of one single American kid in uniform, let alone the thousands of Iraqis who have died, and my condolences and prayers go out to all of them.

Reserve your condolences for the folks still not liberated, Mike. The folks in Baghdad, Basra, Nasiriyah, and elsewhere, dancing and cheering and waving US and Iraqi flags, seem to think the effort was quite worthwhile.

What I am most concerned about right now is that all of you — the majority of Americans who did not support this war in the first place — …

Never mind that the majority of them seem to in the final place — even in San Francisco.

… not go silent or be intimidated by what will be touted as some great military victory.

Yeah. No military victory to be seen here. Move along.

Moore goes on to recount how proud he was to have won the best “documentary” Oscar, and how everyone (except a handful of spoilsports up in the cheap seats) gave him a standing ovation.

[…] And they were honoring a film that states the following: The first Gulf War was an attempt to reinstall the dictator of Kuwait; …

As opposed to the new invading dictator. Certainly the Kuwaitis were just as vehemently opposed to the UN invasion of Kuwait as the Iraqis seem to be opposed to the US invasion of Iraq.

… Saddam Hussein was armed with weapons from the United States; …

You mean these weapons?

… and the American government is responsible for the deaths of a half-million children in Iraq over the past decade through its sanctions and bombing.

Never mind that the sanctions and bombing were authorized with the imprimatur of the United Nations. Never mind the billions Saddam spent on palaces rather than food, during that same sanctions regime. Never mind the food warehouses found stuffed full of undistributed food. The “half a million Iraqi children” number is simply bogus; sanctions have done damage, all right, but not in that range, and not solely at the hands of the American government.

Which means either that Moore is deluded, or lying, or simply doesn’t care what he says, as long as it boosts sales of his books and movies.

Which, it seems, is what’s happening. Moore gloats about how more people have ordered Bowling for Columbine at Amazon than Chicago, and how he’s gotten funding for more documentaries, and how his books are best sellers, and all that jazz.

[…] I tell you all of this because I want to counteract a message that is told to us all the time — that, if you take a chance to speak out politically, you will live to regret it. It will hurt you in some way, usually financially. You could lose your job. Others may not hire you. You will lose friends. And on and on and on.

Funny. I really don’t hear that from “pro-war” people. I tend to hear it from anti-war folks who chime in about how they feel that it’s “dangerous” out there, that dissent is being quashed. “Help! Help! I’m being repressed!”

But, as Moore points out, he’s the darling of the media. And, he hastens to add, the Dixie Chicks’ sales and concert tickets are doing just fine.

They have not been hurt at all — but that is not what the media would have you believe. Why is that? Because there is nothing more important now than to keep the voices of dissent — and those who would dare to ask a question — SILENT. And what better way than to try and take a few well-known entertainers down with a pack of lies so that the average Joe or Jane gets the message loud and clear: “Wow, if they would do that to the Dixie Chicks or Michael Moore, what would they do to little ol’ me?” In other words, shut the f— up.

Which is why, of course, Moore’s doing so well. The media is being maniplated by its sinister masters into saying that dissent is being quashed so that dissenters will be scared — you can trust Moore in this, because Moore’s book is on the NY Times best seller list, and his movie won an Oscar, and is popular at Amazon, and he’s getting his old TV show back, and …

[…] Don’t be defeated by polls that show 70% of the public in favor of the war. Remember that these Americans being polled are the same Americans whose kids (or neighbor’s kids) have been sent over to Iraq. They are scared for the troops and they are being cowed into supporting a war they did not want — and they want even less to see their friends, family, and neighbors come home dead.

Wait. I thought the majority of Americans opposed the war. Now the majority supports it — but you can’t trust those numbers, because all those Americans are being manipulated by fearmongers, which they weren’t before, despite the efforts of Dubya to manipulate them with fear, which seems to be working now (so don’t trust these polls) but wasn’t working before (so do trust those polls).

This is not the time for the majority of us who believe in a peaceful America to be quiet.

It’s never time for Moore to be quiet, evidently, regardless of how much some of us would like a bit of peace.

Ah, well.

(via Andrea)

Those who forget the past …

… don’t have to show off embarrassing pictures from it….

… don’t have to show off embarrassing pictures from it.

News flash

I know this may be a difficult concept, but in the middle of a war zone, shit happens. If you’re staying in a hotel in downtown Baghdad, you may find…

I know this may be a difficult concept, but in the middle of a war zone, shit happens.

If you’re staying in a hotel in downtown Baghdad, you may find your building targeted. Especially if there is fighting in the area. Especially if there are visible lenses atop the building, which may or may not (to approaching forces) look like spotters for enemy fire.

If the tank commander who fired on the Palestine Hotel was really the sort of war-crime-committing, gun-happy, blood-thirsty sort that he’s being accused of by some folks, it would have been more than one shell.

Of course, the same could be said for the US military in general. If our goal was, as ANSWER puts it, to destroy Baghdad and kill tens or hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, we would have done it by now. If the US military wanted to kill the unembedded journalists, the Palestine Hotel would be a pile of rubble under air and ground assault.

The loss of life is to be regretted. But let’s not make more of this than it is. At worst, this was a tragic error. As currently described, though, it seems to have just been one of those things that happens in war, without malice or even negligence. That the news media in the Palestine Hotel have been magically thinking that their status would create a force field around the building says something about their own sense of importance; that they assumed that it was Iraqi fire at first should say something about what the record shows about the US military actions to date.

(via Command Post)

Swords into plowshares

I like this picture. I really do. After seeing so often this particular avenue full of the proud, marching, Moscow-on-Mayday ranks of Iraqi military forces on review before Saddam, this…

I like this picture. I really do. After seeing so often this particular avenue full of the proud, marching, Moscow-on-Mayday ranks of Iraqi military forces on review before Saddam, this shot of Charlie Company Task Force 1-64 of the 3rd Infantry Division brings it on home.

(via Andrea; larger version here.)

eFauxPas

An interesting article here from Bill Howard in PC Magazine on how to Save Yourself from E-Mail Faux Pas. I don’t agree with all his points, but by and large,…

An interesting article here from Bill Howard in PC Magazine on how to Save Yourself from E-Mail Faux Pas. I don’t agree with all his points, but by and large, he’s on target.

Send one complete e-mail, not two partials.

In other words, wait until you have the answer before you reply. Don’t reply with “I’ll tell you later.” Maybe. It depends on how long it’s going to take to respond.

Use clear subject lines.

Amen. For God’s sake, use subject lines of some sort, at least!

Cover one topic per message.

Probably good advice. At the very least, don’t slip in something off-topic way at the very end of a long e-mail.

Make the subject line work for both sides.

If subject lines are supposed to inform, make sure they don’t assume a particular point of view. An e-mail titled “Meeting with Dave” is not terribly helpful to Dave.

Append to the subject line when responding.

I agree in principle, that a given discussion thread should use similar or evolved subject lines as side discussions start up. Easier to sort that way. I also think it’s possible to make a subject line too long, and try to convey too much info.

No unnecessary attachments.

If I receive an e-mail message that is simply a container for a Word doc which is a memo — which content could have been in the e-mail message — I’m going to scream.

Don’t include previous messages.

I disagree. While it’s useful, over a long discussion, to truncate the original messages being automatically included, it’s still useful to be able to refer back to previously discussed points, especially over time. It’s also useful (if sometimes hazardous) if you invite a new person into the thread.

Write short — for PDA users.

Not many people I know use Blackberries or similar devices for e-mail, except in extremes. Staying succinct, though, is always good advice (even if I rarely follow it myself).

Check the cc: list.

Make sure that the people receiving the message are all still germane to the discussion (or should even hear about it).

Use addressee auto-fill cautiously.

Duh.

Angry? Save it to the drafts folder.

This can’t be repeated enough.

Beware the tone.

An old netiquette rule, especially true in a business setting where smilies might be unprofessional.

Give your kids grown-up e-mail addresses.

I never thought of this one before. His advice here is good:

If the daughter of a neighbor I hardly know e-mails me asking which laptop to buy, using the screen name mustanggurl with the subject “Love your help,” I’ll probably figure it’s yet another porn message that deserves the Delete key.

‘Nuff said.

Not beyond reproach

A number of folks continue to criticize Dick Cheney for his ties to Halliburton, especially in view of that company’s awarding of government contracts in Iraq. This Newsweek article is…

A number of folks continue to criticize Dick Cheney for his ties to Halliburton, especially in view of that company’s awarding of government contracts in Iraq. This Newsweek article is an example.

The stock market may be suffering, but Operation Iraqi Freedom has sure been good for business at Halliburton, the Houston oil-services company famous for its former CEO, Dick Cheney. The vice president hasn’t entirely severed his financial ties to the big defense contractor. Even while Halliburton is scoring Army contracts that could top $2 billion, Cheney is still receiving annual compensation from the company he led from 1995 to August 2000, NEWSWEEK has learned.

But it’s not quite as damning as it sounds, even if you leave aside the premature comments on the stock market “suffering” from the war. The biggest flap is over Cheney continuing to receive compensation from Halliburton, even after leaving as its CEO. The distinction seems to be between an $800K lump sum he could have taken when he left, or a deferred disbursement of annual payments “less than $180K” between 2001 and 2005; he chose the latter, for tax purposes.

It’s also noted in the article that he has an insurance policy on the monies; whether Halliburton is wildly successful, or goes under, he still gets paid.

Halliburton’s KBR subsidiary was recently awarded a cost-plus contract from the Pentagon to fight oil well fires in Iraq. While the article notes that the contract “could be” worth $1 billion, I suspect it will come to far less than that, since there were far fewer well fires than had been feared.

The article also notes that KBR is out of the running on a $600MM Iraq reconstruction contract.

Still, I have no problem with a reasonable investigation of the relationship. While Cheney may have no direct influence on the awarding of Pentagon contracts, indirect influence is certainly possible. As the old saying goes, “Caesar’s wife must be beyond reproach.” Cheney’s personal ties to his old firm may fail that threshold, but it’s not clear that it’s anything more significant than that.

Will wonders never cease

Andrew Sullivan notes: More good news from Southern Iraq, where the Brits seem to be doing a fantastic job. One question: how did they manage not to collapse as a…

Andrew Sullivan notes:

More good news from Southern Iraq, where the Brits seem to be doing a fantastic job. One question: how did they manage not to collapse as a military force? After all, they allow openly gay soldiers in their units, thus undermining unit cohesion, destroying morale, wrecking troops’ privacy and making it impossible to fight. A miracle against all the odds, I suppose.

I don’t imagine anyone in the Pentagon will notice.

Sow’s ears from silk purses

Andrea points out a case where even a story like this … More than 100 children held in a prison celebrated their freedom Tuesday as US marines rolled into northeast…

Andrea points out a case where even a story like this …

More than 100 children held in a prison celebrated their freedom Tuesday as US marines rolled into northeast Baghdad amid chaotic scenes which saw civilians loot weapons from an army compound, a US officer said.
Around 150 children spilled out of the jail after the gates were opened as a US military Humvee vehicle approached, Lieutenant Colonel Fred Padilla told an AFP correspondent travelling with the Marines 5th Regiment.
“Hundreds of kids were swarming us and kissing us,” Padilla said. “There were parents running up, so happy to have their kids back.”
“The children had been imprisoned because they had not joined the youth branch of the Baath party,” he alleged. “Some of these kids had been in there for five years.”

… some folks are more than willing to spin it like this commenter…

Of course the thousands that have been killed, lost limbs, or lost family members would be alive, whole and have parents. But hey, at the very least, these 100 kids are now free to roam around the city and have a cruise missle land on their heads.

What a maroon.

Vertigo, Then and Now

For fans of the movie Vertigo — or of San Francisco as it was in 1958 and as it is now — this site has a number of photo comparisons…

For fans of the movie Vertigo — or of San Francisco as it was in 1958 and as it is now — this site has a number of photo comparisons between movie scenes and how those streets look at present.

Bigger trees.

A lot more one way streets.

By and large, a nicer looking city.

Cool stuff.

(via BoingBoing)

Records retention

Well, frell. I can’t find my CY2001 TurboTax files anywhere. I’m about 85% certain that I made a copy before I migrated to my new PC, but I can’t find…

Well, frell. I can’t find my CY2001 TurboTax files anywhere. I’m about 85% certain that I made a copy before I migrated to my new PC, but I can’t find the damned thing anywhere. Which means either (a) I’ve misplaced it, or (b) I didn’t make a backup copy.

It’s not a huge deal — I know I still have the hardcopy of the returns and everything (conjures up image of where they should be, crosses fingers), but TurboTax does a nice job of importing the previous year’s information to fill in form information, remind you of things which you haven’t keyed in yet, etc.

Annoying, annoying, annoying.

Small consolation

Here’s a charming obit of General “Chemical” Ali Hassan al-Majid. His death was far quicker than the many he inflicted. One’s only consolation is that, either by the religious beliefs…

Here’s a charming obit of General “Chemical” Ali Hassan al-Majid.

His death was far quicker than the many he inflicted. One’s only consolation is that, either by the religious beliefs of his countrymen, or my own, he’s in a lot more trouble now than he would have been before a war tribunal.

(via Command Post)

Festival! Festival! Festival!

Photos from Kanamara Matsuri, Japanese Festival of the Steel Phallus. (via Scott)…

Photos from Kanamara Matsuri, Japanese Festival of the Steel Phallus.

(via Scott)

Those who forget the past are doomed to reprogram it

A fascinating bit of computer history here, as one of the gents involved in programming VisiCalc (remember it?) relates details of the development, and the hardware of the day, which…

A fascinating bit of computer history here, as one of the gents involved in programming VisiCalc (remember it?) relates details of the development, and the hardware of the day, which are hard to believe now, just a few decades later.

Before discussing keyboards, it’s worth noting that back in 1979 people viewed the keyboard as an impediment to using computers. After all, only secretaries could type and the rest of us need to be able to talk to the computer. Hence the decades spent on trying to get computers to understand speech. It turns out that most people could type (at least those who used spreadsheets) since it was a basic skill necessary for getting through college. In fact, speech is a very problematic way to interact with a spreadsheet. In fact, the spreadsheet itself is used as a communications vehicle rather than speech.
The Apple ][ had a simple keyboard that only had upper case letters and only two arrow keys. There were no interrupts nor a clock. If the user typed a character before the keyboard input buffer was emptied it would be lost.
[…] In 1978 the Apple ][ was viewed as a game machine. In fact, it was intended to be a hobbyist game machine. It had up to 64KB (that’s kilo bytes) or 65336 8 bit bytes, or 2^16 compared with today’s PC’s which now have 2^29 (512 Megabytes) or 8000 (ok, 8196) times as much memory. We had no hard drive. Apple had cornered the market for floppy drives but they weren’t universal so we supported the cassette tape player as a storage device but, fortunately, few users even know about it.
There was no way to start or stop the tape drive. We had to leave gaps in the data on the tape to allow for processing of each chunk of data before we got the next one.

Cool.

Words fail me

I think someone ought to check the coffee in the school office for illegal substances, because that’s the only possible explanation for insanity like this: Sal Santana II, a 12-year-old…

I think someone ought to check the coffee in the school office for illegal substances, because that’s the only possible explanation for insanity like this:

Sal Santana II, a 12-year-old Magoffin Middle School student, said he stuck his tongue out at a girl who declined his invitation to be his girlfriend. School district administrators viewed the incident as sexual harassment, suspended him for three days and are considering placing him in an alternative school.

Words fail me.

The district, naturally, declines to discuss any part of the matter. The boy’s father, though, notes that Sal has not been in any trouble this year, but that what he was told happened was:

“The teacher said he stuck his tongue out and moved it back and forth and waved at her like you were patting someone on the back and that that constitutes sexual harassment,” Salvador Santana said. “She said the girl was upset and scared.”

Yeah. Right.

Y’know, there are times when home schooling looks awfully attractive.

(via Doyce, who relates some other parallel cases which are terrifyingly plausible)

The “assault on Islam”

British troops in Basra have hooked up a PA system, so that, for the first time in fifteen years (since it was forbidden by the Baath party), the local imam…

British troops in Basra have hooked up a PA system, so that, for the first time in fifteen years (since it was forbidden by the Baath party), the local imam can call the people to prayer.

(via Command Post)