I normally don't watch TV, because I don't have one myself (and like it that way; in general, I'd rather be doing other things). I get my TV fix in when traveling or visiting others.
True to this pattern, I availed myself of the TV set in the condo at Ocean Shores last Saturday. Meet the Press happened to be showing, and they closed with archival footage of Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey explaining LBJ's surprise Thanksgiving visit to Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam.
Transcript here.
Just discovered the WeatherPixie service (click the pixie image for more information):
There's a variety of different pixies; the punk boy was the obvious choice because he's so cute. Though he must get cold in that T-shirt under a mesh top in 8 degrees Celsius weather. Sometimes you have to suffer to be fashionable, I guess.
The only complaint I have about the service is how slow it is to update with the current conditions.
"Out there", the Iraqi dead and suffering are still unpeople, their latest death toll not worthy of the front page. Neither is the Amnesty report that former Iraqi prisoners of war have accused American and British troops of torturing them in custody, blindfolding them and kicking and beating them with weapons for long periods. Investigators from Amnesty have taken statements from 20 former prisoners. "In one case we are talking about electric shocks being used against a man ... If you keep beating somebody for the whole night and somebody is bleeding and you are breaking teeth, it is more than beating," said Amnesty's researcher, "I think that's torture." The Americans hold more than 4,000 prisoners - a higher figure, it is estimated, than those incarcerated at any time by Saddam Hussein.Full story here.
Many villagers complained the Americans had fired randomly at people.Full story here.Alaa Hosein, a 22-year old farmer interviewed in a Kirkuk hospital, said he and his cousin were returning from their fields when soldiers opened fire. Hosein was hit in the right leg, while his cousin was critically injured in the head.
"They came to make trouble, not to restore security," Hosein said
And just in case anyone missed the implications of the location of the raid, it's in Kirkuk, the major town in Iraqi Kurdistan. The Kurds hate Saddam for what he's done to them over the years. Every time a town in the Sunni Triangle is raided, we're treated to a claim that the opposition is nothing but Sunni "Saddam loyalists". Seems that turkey don't fly -- as I've said before, some of the resistance probably is from Saddam's old cronies, but (as evidence like the above demonstrates) it's highly unlikely that all of it is.
Interestingly, if progress is made in rooting out Saddam's cronies, it will probably increase the level of resistance: people who had been jittery about fighting the occupiers because of worries that Saddam might come back won't have that worry to dissuade them anymore.
Not that it's a surprise or anything, but the US-controlled puppet government in Iraq has decreed a radical program of economic "reforms" in Iraq. You know, the same garbage that has sunk economy after economy in the Third World, a refutation of how all the currently wealthy countries built their economies. Even the head of the normally pro-US Chamber of Commerce there has this to say:
It was an order from Mr Bremer. They didn't consult anyone about it.More here. (Whaddaya wanna bet that this particular news item never makes it to the Establishment media in the US?)
...As the guerrilla war against Iraqi insurgents intensifies, American soldiers have begun wrapping entire villages in barbed wire.Full story here.In selective cases, American soldiers are demolishing buildings thought to be used by Iraqi attackers. They have begun imprisoning the relatives of suspected guerrillas, in hopes of pressing the insurgents to turn themselves in.
It would be nice to have a smaller and more compact camera than my SLR, so I've been looking at reviews of compact digital cameras. Unfortunately, it appears that the basic parameters of the cost/benefit analysis I did a year or so ago really haven't changed all that much.
A particular disappointment is that there's apparently no relatively-inexpensive compact digicam that has a sensitivity greater than 400 ASA. That makes it generally impossible to do indoor available-light photography. Using flash is not an acceptable substitute, as it makes photography several million times more obnoxious, intrusive, and less discreet.
I also worry somewhat about the hindrance to spontaneity the less-than-instantaneous shutter-release would be.
It makes a 1970s-era fixed-lens rangefinder like the Canonet G-III QL17 all the more tempting.
On Club Day at Piedmont High School, 42 miles away from Oakley, the Caucasian Student Union had a table; its founders, Peter Maglaty and Matt Matier (son of Chronicle columnist Phil Matier) stood beside it. Peter wore a Confederate flag belt buckle.has no place in high schools has nothing to do white students not having cultures worth honoring but because the whole notion of "white culture" is nothing but a social creation invented to legitimize and facilitate human oppression (scroll down in the right panel to "What We Believe") (including, interestingly, the oppression of many in the "white race").
Various "white" peoples hated each others guts, saw nothing in common with other, and butchered each other for centuries before the whole concept of whiteness was invented in the response to the need to legitimize the enslavement of various darker-skinned peoples in the newly-acquired colonial empires of the European powers. Heck, the worst genocide in raw numbers was done by one "white" group (Germans) to another (Jews).
Have a "British Student Association" for students of British ancestry, a "French Student Association", a "Polish Student Association", etc. No problemo. But please, no "Caucasian Student Union" or similar garbage.
Still think I'm all wet about Iraq becoming our very own West Bank? Read this.
Time for a rant on politics in the big urban area to the south of us. I lived there for a year or so and still have lots of friends there, so I tend to follow what's happening down that way.
In a single word, "yecch".
It's bad enough that the guy is a complete toady of the corrupt Willie Brown regime. Add to that his stigmatizing of the homeless, and he's yet another reason why I don't feel I have much in common with what's called "gay" anymore. And the worst of it is, his victory has apparently primed him to become the Democratic Party's spokesman on urban issues.
To reiterate, "yecch". I sure hope Portland doesn't follow in San Francisco's footsteps and elect our own local right-wing Democrat, Jim Francesconi, to the mayor's office this year.
The bright spot of it is is that his opponent, Matt Gonzalez, one of the few truly decent politicians working within the system, really gave him a run for his money despite being outspent by an order of magnitude. And he's still on the Board of Supervisors (president of the Board, even) so he has plenty of opportunity to derail the worst of what Newsom cooks up.
Shall we discuss the recent accomplishments of former Governor Neil Goldschmidt?
First, he creates a bastard child "public corporation" called SAIF to run the state worker's compensation system. It's not a public agency so it's exempt from most oversight; moreover, SAIF can also engage in lobbying the same government that funds it. But at the same time it's a state-sanctioned monopoly that has obligation to go through any competetive bidding process.
After he leaves office, Goldschmidt goes to work for his creation. His product is "brainstorming" -- various verbal ideas discussed in person and over the phone. No tangible written work is ever produced! He gets $1.1 million of what amount to laundered public funds for his alleged labors. His work for SAIF also includes lobbying trips to Salem to see that the SAIF gravy train stays in place and efforts to either (a) completely privatize it and open it up to competitive bids or (b) turn it back into a public agency amount to naught.
Then he appoints himself an "elder statesman" who campaigns against the PUD effort in Multnomah County. Trust me, it's a bad idea (I should know, I'm an Expert On Public Policy) he says. I only have the public good in mind, he says.
Hee, hee! Surprise! All the while I was actually working with a group of Texas venture capitalists who want to purchase PGE and appoint me CEO of it. Hope you enjoy paying my self-awarded million-dollar salary out of your rates, suckers.
And remember, I only have the public interest at heart. I'm a Respected Elder Statesman. Trust me.
I don't often agree with conservatives, but I have to say that the crew at Brainstorm NW is right on the money when they label Goldschmidt a "godfather" and an "oligarch". He's starting to make former Philadelphia mayor Frank Rizzo look honest.
We interrupt this orgy of adulation for the US occupiers' capture of Saddam to inject some points of reality into the coverage:
On the "worth reading" list, I did run across the David Greiner Blog today. In particular, this item of his pretty much mirrors my own beliefs about why pretty much any democrat would be better than Bush.
So I've already received my second whining, groveling plea from AT&T to switch back after dumping them for Pioneer Telephone, who offer both a lower monthly service fee and a lower per-minute rate.
Not surprisingly, the rate AT&T is dangling in front of me attempting to woo me back is higher (both monthly fee and per-minute rate) than the Pioneer rate I'm paying. Moreover, I see not a peep of an offer to go back to billing my long distance on the same bill as my local service without the kind of hefty extra fee AT&T wants to slap on for this option.
Listen, guys. The days of the alternate carriers offering inferior sound quality and longer connection times are long gone. You can't compete on technical quality anymore. The only thing you have had to offer over the past decade or so is more convenient billing. You've now made a business decision not to offer that (at least not at non-extortionate rates).
So, congratulations. You win. You've finally convinced me to accept two monthly bills per month for one utility. Why on earth should I pay you five or ten cents per minute for this inconvenience when I can pay someone else three cents per minute?
I'll close by putting a word in for phonedog.com, the price-comparison site that led me to choose Pioneer.
Eric Margolis tends to think he'll be either put on a show trial in Iraq where he won't be allowed to speak in his defense, or he'll be plea-bargained into saying what Iraq's new masters want him to say in exchange for not getting the death penalty.
Going to be heading off to New Mexico to see my parents tomorrow morning. As an aside, Christmas Day and New Years Day are the only two days worth traveling during the holiday season. The airports that are overloaded madhouses the rest of the season are nearly abandoned. Instead of waiting in lines a mile long, you walk right up to the counter and two or three agents rush to serve you.
Anyhow, it means that I'll be away from my computer for a while.
So back to packing my warm clothes. Yes, warm clothes. As anyone who's actually lived there knows, despite its southerly latitude New Mexico is almost entirely made up of mountains and high plateaus; it has one of the highest average elevations of the US states. It can get plenty cold there in the winter.
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