Archive - May 2005

My shoulder is starting to feel better today. I gingerly biked into work to open the store and left once the midshift crew arrived. Finished editing the MYSA photos and finished the documents to file my business. So I'll be mailing those out tomorrow. Woo hoo. Have to find some time to create my web site now ... or in a few weeks rather. I still have other web sites to finish for clients.

I'm feeling pretty good though now that I am done with MYSA and also because Skrue just told me about the save toby site which is just about the most brilliant thing I expect to see this week. Visit Toby.

In other news, I have been looking at my copy of All the President's Spin which I read 6 months ago or something like that and have been meaning to comment on and today is the day to cross that off my list. Once this is done, I will have to blog my reaction to the 9-11 commission before its 10 year anniversary.

Few will be surprised at the information in All the President's Spin by Ben Fritz, Bryan Keefer, and Brendan Nyhan (all formerly from spinsanity.org). At the same time, you might be surprised by just how far the President's flacks go ... for instance ... is it really necessary to align the President's head with the carvings on Mt Rushmore during a speech there? If he wants to campaign as a guy who doesn't make policy by focus groups, he sure shouldn't get prepped like an SI swimsuit model before speeches.

The authors see the Bush administration as a hybrid between Reagan and Clinton approaches to the media.

The administration combines tight message discipline and image management -- Reagan's trademarks -- with the artful use of half- or partial truths and elaborate news management--Clinton's specialties-- in a combination that is near lethal for the press.(page 35)

Of course, Bush used this strategy to elevate U.S. policy against Iraq to full occupation and war. Far from using a reasoned debate to manufacture consent for war, the White House "glossed over gaps in intelligence and caveats about sources, frequently preventing worst-case scenarios as fact." (page 145)

We all know this, but I bring it up again because the authors nicely explain why this is a problem.

Government officials have a special burden to present intelligence findings since they often depend upon classified information that cannot be independently confirmed.(page 145)

In manufacturing reasons to go to war, the administration did not stop at using only the intelligence that supported its case, it totally ignored basic facts surrounding the WMD debate. In talking about stockpiles of botulinum, sarin, and VX, the Bush Administration never made it clear that these stockpiles were estimates of what could have been weaponized and most certainly would have degraded significantly since (page 171).

One last fun fact from the book comes on the very tired subject of Bush's closely choreographed visit to the U.S.S. Lincoln to prematurely announce "Mission Accomplished."

The White House also altered its own website to deemphasize the victorious tone of Bush's address. The President's speech was originally posted under the headline "President Bush Announces Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended." Shortly after Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank took note of the headline in an August 19 article, however, the White House added the word "major" so that by August 26 it read "President Bush Announces Major Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended."

Interestingly, even with the after-the-fact edit, the headline is still wrong. Afterall, would one consider the operations in Falluja and other such large scale operations major or not?

Reading books like this, on subjects like the Bush Administration put my relentless optimism to the test. I really want to believe that most everyone does what they think is right - balanced somewhat with a dose of self-interest. Reading just how far these political flacks will go to promote the policies of whatever corporation is underwriting the day leaves me somewhat stunned at my own naivety.

of becoming irrelevant, I still have relatively little to blog about. Well, nothing really. I seem to have messed up my shoulder somehow while working at the bookstore. When not there, I've been trying to finish the photo work for MYSA and am nearly there.

I guess it has been more than a year now since Massachusetts legalized gay marriage and as The Moderate Republican reports, God has not yet pulled out his boom stick.

I've been stressin lately with a lot of tasks. This has left me tired all the time and generally feeling a bit gross. So I am unwinding by reading something fun for a change - just reading is actually a change right now which is sad. Practical Demonkeeping by Christopher Moore who wrote The Stupidest Angel. It is just what I need.

"Your curses were in Arabic, though, right?"

"A language I prefer for its music."

"But I don't speak Arabic. Yet I understood you. You did say, 'May the IRS find that you deduct your pet sheep as an entertainment expense,' didn't you?"

Today was a productive day, but could have been much better. I got some good work photography work done (which means I deleted a lot of photos ... ahh weeding) and managed to do some work toward establishing my own business. Tonight I even started studying for the Micro Econ course I am taking Independent Study right now. Finally.

But I spent too much time trying to figure out a stupid problem for a site I am working on which is hosted on a dumb windoze machine using ASP rather than PHP which is far superior. From what I can tell, there is no easy way to use ASP to take the results of an HTML form and email them to an address. In PHP, it is way easy. But whatever.

I didn't have much of a chance to read political stuff and probably won't in the near future as I continue to focus on work and understanding micro econ. But I hope to offer some interesting stuff from time and again.

I came across some good news in that a prominent court case revolving around excessive use of pepper spray by police has been resolved in favor of those committing the civil disobedience. Who would have thought you can still find a court in the U.S. to rule against legalizing torture? Granted you really cannot compare using excessive force against people committing civil disobedience to torturing random Middle Eastern taxi drivers in Afghanistan (NYT registration required, but worth it), but you take my point. Regarding that taxi driver - I actually blogged about this in the past after reading a MOJO article.

I seem to remember Prez Bush giving a speech in which he said that the United States does not do this sort of thing...

Some of the same M.P.'s took a particular interest in an emotionally disturbed Afghan detainee who was known to eat his feces and mutilate himself with concertina wire. The soldiers kneed the man repeatedly in the legs and, at one point, chained him with his arms straight up in the air, Specialist Callaway told investigators. They also nicknamed him "Timmy," after a disabled child in the animated television series "South Park." One of the guards who beat the prisoner also taught him to screech like the cartoon character, Specialist Callaway said.

So when you think the Mayor of Edina, do you think mass transit supporter?
Well, he is.

A Minnesota Appeals court apparently found that the existence of PGP on a defendant's computer was evidence of criminal intent. This is no different from a giving the cops the right to search anything they want to anytime - because you shouldn't be afraid of it if you have nothing to hide. Totalitarian thinking.

My mom just sent me this study looking into issues of weight - she knows the Doc behind it. It is an interesting read - especially the part discussing differences in activity levels between people of different weights. Some people tend to stand more or generally bounce around during daily activities which throughout the year can burn 35 pounds of fat. ADHD - the new weight loss plan...

I just don't know what to believe. I have been out of the pro-biking loop apparently because I am the last one to find out that Tyler F-ing Hamilton, who would be the most inspirational American cyclist were it not for Mr. Lance, is out of a job due to a two year suspension after testing positive for doping. DOH. This is the guy who completed the tour (in 4th I believe) after doing more than 75% of it with a broken collarbone and no painkillers (that would have been doping).

He denies it of course. I want to believe him. In fact, I do believe him, but I wonder if I am a fool for doing so.

I'm so sick of this - and I worry for the future of sports as doping becomes less detectable. As the science improves, it becomes harder and harder to tell who developed their stamina naturally - and what does naturally mean?? Is it fair to sleep in an tent simulating high altitude? Apparently that has the same effect as EPO, a biking doper favorite which is banned.

Ultimately, the problem lies in the fact that sports are not sports. Sports is business. Businesses need to make money. You need to win in order to make money. What does all this mean? Surely, sports have always suffered from those who would cheat. Somehow it feels like we are heading toward a cusp at this time though.

I think the brightest future in my mind would be multiple leagues of play. We certainly have enough people. Perhaps an NFL where people can volunteer as guinea pigs to try out the latest growth hormones while playing other mech like warriors on the field. A separate league for those who are dedicated to playing games with the best bodies they can create through nutrition and hard work rather than chemistry (Glucosomine would be an allowed supplement here). I can't imagine American audiences caring about the sportsman league when they can stare at huge warriors coked out on whatever the chemists created that morning so the sportsman league might be insulated from the cheaters and those who don't really care about the sport aspect of sports.

On a different note - mad props to Klink who totally worked some nice routes in the gym today and took some great lead falls.

9 May Newsweek has a number of interesting stories about China. Among some of the other interesting things I learned - it would appear that in 2007, Chinese will pass English as the most used language on the net. Look out for double-byte.

Also

If every Chinese citizen consumed as much energy as Americans do, China would use all the petroleum currently produced in the world. Chinese scientists have tracked some of the 46,000 glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau with increasing alerm. Some sicentists predict that rising temperatures will melt most of China's glaciers within this century, taking with them the sources of Asia's greatest rivers -- the Yangtze, the Yellow, the Indus, the Mekong.

Imagine my surprise when I found the movie Convoy featuring Kris Kristofferson on my parents' TIVO. Sweet! I listen to CW McCall on every roadtrip and now I'm watching a mile long convoy with 11 long-haired friends of Jesus in a chartreuse microbus.

It is amazing where you can find anarchist wisdom ... oh yes, in a CB Trucker movie even.

Woman: Yeah, but they're all following you.

Kristofferson: No they ain't, I'm just in front.

Good stuff.

I reckon I could start checking on news stories I've missed over the past week but I think I need to keep rolling on the photo editing. Hoping to get caught up on the news this weekend.

I saw a commercial yesterday for Star Wars III which started out "Sith Happens" which I thought was both clever and daring. Saw Star Wars III last night at midnight at Southdale - a movie theatre I said I would never return to after having paid nearly an hour's salary to get a damn popcorn that could not be refilled. Last night was fun though and AMC Southdale redeemed itself a wee bit by offering dollar Coke drinks and small popcorns for a dollar.

As for the movie, well, I don't have much time to write as I rush to work this morning on my 3.5 hours of sleep but I definitely enjoyed it more than any of the other recent Star Wars movies. I thought the politics behind the transition from republic to empire were some of the most believable politics of the series so that was an improvement and there were some really fun light moments that made getting to the theatre 2 hours early well worth the wait.

That being said, I think that Lucas was never able to recapture the sense of levity in episodes 4-6 from characters like Han Solo and Chewbacca. Regardless, the series is complete and strongly complete at that.

Waking moments staring through a camera or at the computer screen. Not without results though. I love this one.

In other news - it would seem that Newsweek has been stupid and published a poorly referenced story that in turn sparked riots that led to multiple deaths. Super. The story was that American interrogators flushed a Qu'ran down the toilet to intimidate some detainee. Co-worker Neil and I had the same reaction ... that is not possible. You don't just flush a book down a toilet. Unless they have really different toilets down in Gitmo.

At any rate, it seems like another case of the business model colliding with an ethical (or perhaps even accurate) model of journalism.