Archive - Feb 2005

Twas a good weekend. I had a good time while being more productive than the weekend past. I'm starting to count down the days until March 10 - when Adam, 2 of his bros, Russ, Lauren, and I hit the open road for Kentucky. Picking up Margot en route. Gonna do some climbing. Gonna take a few photos. Hopefully gonna find some places to post updates cuz that is what I do.

For those of you who have not heard, it looks like I will be attending the Humphrey School of Public Affairs for grad school next year. In a year or so, I may have some informed opinions to add to this blog.

After far too long, it is good to see that some folks in the government are figuring out that computers can be used to make our lives easier. They usually aren't, but I believe we can find ways of doing it. Open source voting is a good idea. Any citizen should have the ability to see the computer code of the system which tallies votes. Granted that voting itself leaves much to be desired and is itself a small part of a much larger democratic system -- this is still a good thing. If it passes.

Rolling Stone Magazine offers a brief analysis of legislation which may increase the amount of fines the FCC charges for "indecency."

If the bill passes the Senate, Bono saying "fucking brilliant" on the air would carry the exact same penalty as illegally testing pesticides on human subjects.

Who needs freedom of expression when you have neo-puritans at the censor button? I'm tired of hearing about how the terrorists hate our freedom. If al-Qaeda were running things around here, they would find far more in common with the small-minded Christians of the Parents' Television Council than with the lefties that Ann Coulter consistently suggests they are in league with.

Damnit, I use my freedom. So in the words of Steve Earle, I say, "F the CC"

I found the Atlantic article which argues progressives should stop defending Roe and find other strategies for securing women's rights over their bodies. I discussed this in a previous post.

In that same issue, James Fallows wrote "Success Without Victory" which outlines a strategy for the United States in its supposed war against terror. As usual, Fallows makes a compelling case.

One of the suggestions is that the focus on securing air traffic is misdirected. Al-Qaeda has proven that it is innovative and the Spain train bombings suggest that (unlike the U.S. Government) it is not fixated only on air travel. That being said, choices have to be made and terrorists will undoubtedly study those decisions and attack wherever they find us vulnerable.

"Terrorism is simply too cheap, too available, and too tempting to ever be totally eradicated," says Stephen Flynn, the author of the recent book, America the Vulnerable. ... "What is required is that everyday citizens develop both the maturity to live with the risk of future attacks and the willingness to invest in reasonable measures to mitigate that risk."

Time to talk about the "War of Ideas." This is the new way of talking about "hearts and minds." In the parlance of the U.S. Gov, it means, "How can we convince the rest of the world to do what we want?" What it should mean is, how does the rest of the world perceive us, and how can we change that? The U.S. Gov simply fails to understand that the rest of the world understands (unlike most Americans) that while American rhetoric tends to be impressive, its actions are distressful.

Surprisingly, there is evidence that some in the Pentagon have actually objectively looked at the U.S. performance in this "War of Ideas." They found it lacking. Even counterproductive. I don't know that having a Dem in the White House would have really changed this given that the U.S. seems to be in the middle of an identity crisis. Am I Christian nation? This is somewhat offpoint, but as i have said in the past, I think there are few Americans who still appreciate why the Founders decreed a separation between Church and State.

Let's end on an upbeat note.

During the Clinton years Graham Allison, then an assistant secretary of defense, prepared a classified list called "A Hundred Horribles." It itemized scenarios in which terrorists could inflict disruption, destruction, and death on the United States, and ranked them according to potential harm. A 9/11-style episode, in which a hijacked airplane was crashed into a "trophy building," was on the list—in the bottom half.

This will be my contra to Shadoweyes.

The Vikings just gave up their best player for peanuts. Personally, I think it is a parting shot from McCombs. Moss Is worth a hell of a lot more than what they got: a linebacker and a couple of draft choices. So instead of losing 35-33 we will now lose 35-10.

And for all of those people who are obsessed with the "poison" he brought to the team--Bull. And for those people who are obsessed with Randy mooning Packer fans after he scored--PACKER FANS people!!!! I saw quite a few times where Randy gave the touchdown ball to a child sitting in a wheelchair right by the endzone.

Randy could be a headache for the front office, but where are the teammates who are screaming ye-haw - he's gone? I am sure for Randy it got tiring playing for a team of underachievers. This team needs more than a linebacker. This is the most wretched defense I have ever seen the Vikings send out. For this, I do push more blame on to those Denny Green decisions: getting rid of "trouble players" or horrific draft choices.

Excellent! Moss is getting traded. Apparently to the Raiders. I'm sure we'll miss his talents, but I hope Culpepper is now better able to lead the team without Moss' off the field (and occasionally on the field) distractions. Just as soon as we get rid of Tice, I'll be able to start wearing my Vikings gear - Kim just gave me two Vikes shirts that I desperately want to wear ... but this last season I couldn't even bring myself to cheer for them between Moss' offensive sportsmanship and Tice's bungling.

Poetic justice on the trade - Moss wanted to go to Atlanta (according to Jensen of the Pioneer Press) but Atlanta decided that although it would love to have his skills, they didn't want his personality messing up the team dynamic. I'm happy to say that after watching Moss' attitude poison the Vikes, he had to take a big drink. Enjoy chilling with Sapp on the Raiders, sucka.

Dead fingers now has his own blog on this site - I soon hope to change the front page so his posts will also show up on the front page, but for the time being, you'll have to check out his blog using this URI. Enjoy!

Popular Science magazine is running a feature about the top tech cities in the country. Minneapolis tops the list. Both the light rail and the system of sensors under heavily travelled roads which adjust the timing of the lights based on traffic density are contributing factors to this honor.

I actually got to ride the light rail on Monday on my way to a doctor appointment (still trying to figure out this odd bruising issue). Impressive. Clean and quick - it actually gets up to 55mph between Lake and Franklin. A computer voice tells you which station you are approaching and the signs at the station are helpful. Good stuff.

One of the interesting things in the article was the discussion of the ways in which Minneapolis responded to the high crime rate in the Phillips neighborhood. I believe they were referring to the CODEFOR program which used computers to track all crimes and resulted in a higher police focus on this predominately poor community of color.

I know very little about the issues around CODEFOR but I remember the leftist community was enraged by this program. Yet, Pop Science lauds the results of the program. I wish I knew more, but I don't. I wonder how the people of Phillips neighborhood feel about it now. Whatever the dominant feeling - I'm sure it is not unanimous.

Just returned from my last soccer game of the session. Going into tonight, we were ranked as the 2nd last team and we had to play the best team in the league. They must not have taken us seriously because we came out smoking, knocking in a quick goal and playing tough all night (that's tuff for all of you in the know). I actually started out gingerly with a much lighter warmup than usual because I have an injury to my right ankle on the lower instep which is both minor and painful. Annoying really. It makes cutting right quite difficult. I resolved to be responsible and take it easy. In the words of Noah to God: "Riiiiiight..."

Usually I take this time to talk about how I played but tonight I have to say that all my playing was as a little cog in a well tuned machine - which is how it should be. We played as a team and we won as a team. It is usually hard for me to avoid talking about myself, but quite easy tonight.

This was one of the most exciting games at Soccer Blast I have had the privilege of playing in. Sure its a bunch of people with limited skills playing out their fantasies, but tonight, when neither team led by more than 2 goals at any point, it was a free-aching barn burner. Their keeper had some brilliant plays and our keeper (who is actually ussually a defender) came up huge several times after breakdowns. Although it got really heated at times, with people taking shoves and even a swing at one point, the ref kept control of the game, and the cooler heads among us kept the hostility low. We often congratulated each other on hard plays against the boards and such.

This is the kind of game I love - the kind of game that reminds me why soccer has long been my favorite sport to play. I love the sportsmanship ideal of it, I like how physically demanding it is, and I generally like the people drawn to it. Now if I can just get a crowd to watch us!

I'm now hoping to rest my ankle some - I don't know if we have next week off or not. The new session might start right away next week. Either way, when we go to Kentucky, I should have no problem staying away from the cutting that makes it so tender. After tonight, I don't think I can stomach taking a week off to let it heal unless I absolutely have to - so I hope I am forced to by circumstances out of my control. In the grand scheme of things, this isn't such a bad addiction to have.

I'm having some nasty respiratory problem that makes breathing hard - so I'm not going to do much tonight. In addition, I'm working on some stuff behind the scenes so we can add klink and dead fingers as bloggers on this site. Weeeee

Started the day moving vehicles for the recent snow emergency. I noticed on Selby Avenue, right by St. Thomas the signs must not have been posted. There were approximately 30 cars with tickets.

The news that will be going around all day--the Godfather of blogging, Hunter S Thompson has killed himself at his home. He was 67 years old. "When the going gets weird-the weird turn pro". If you get a chance, please read Thompson's eulogy to Nixon: He Was a Crook.

In other news: St. Paul Pioneer Press print edition, "Advisors to Swift Vets hired to shoot down the AARP. Here is a paragraph

" 'They are the boulder in the middle of the highway to personal savings accounts' said Charles Jarvis the groups president and former Secretary of the Interior in the Reagen and first Bush administrations. 'We will be the dynamite that removes them' "

Oh this is going to be fun. Going after old people.
Don't you just love the choic of words these people use?

Welcome to my first blog post.

Hopefully we can discuss some politics, library issues, as I am a librarian at Hamline University in St. PAul, MN and we might get to some other issues as well. I will make sure we have no common decency as well. Flash a politician and tip your local librarian!