Journal Jun 2006

30 Jun 2006

Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

0900: Al hears, on a local MN radio station, John Gibson called out by FNC legal analyst Joe Napolitano: the Hamdan case is not a victory for terrorists, but a victory for the rule of law.
0900: Parody commercial for poop in the spirit of the anti-science, pro-global warming CEI ad
0930: Skit of the AAR ombudsman
0930: Christy Harvey: Dobson compared gay marriage with the British slave trade; Nancy Reagan convinces Frist to keep his promise to bring stem cell legislation to the Senate floor; Richard Clarke uses logic to ask what makes anyone think that terrorists didn't already know about the secret monitoring activities of the WH?
1030: Joseph Minton: O'Reilly calls anyone from the left the "far left" but the ones he calls the "far right" include: Nazis, militia groups, Timothy McVeigh, Rush, Michael Savage, the Ayn Rand Institute, Ann Coulter (though he has her on a lot), Pat Robertson, G. Gordon Liddy, David Duke, Jerry Falwell, Pat Buchanan, and Dan Quayle. Why doesn't he look down the hall [at FNC]? Examples of the "far left": Meg Ryan, Jodie Foster, Drew Barrymore, Danny DeVito, Billy Crystal, Matthew Perry (huh?), Al Franken (of course), Barbra Streisand, George Clooney, the NYT, the Atlantic Journal-Constitution, the entire French and German media, the Syracuse Post-Standard. Audio montage of more: Media Matters, ThinkProgress, Natalie Maines (Dixie Chicks), Molly Ivins, Bill Maher, Bill Moyers, Larry David, Che Guevara, the ACLU, MoveOn.org, Cynthia Tucker, the Boston Globe, St. Petersburg Times, George Soros, Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), Air America, Rob Glaser (Real Networks), Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), the Ford Foundation, Human Rights Watch, and Michael Moore.

29 Jun 2006

Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

1100: Tom Oliphant: Denmark is a model for what energy self-sufficiency looks like.

Other news and opinion from the past:

Debating a pathological liar on CNBC
http://www.workingforchange.com/blog/index.cfm?mode=entry&entry=E2052862-F0B1-BBFA-8841975A74376...
David Sirota calls John Stossel on his lies about the minimum wage.
Insurgents offer to halt attacks in Iraq - Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060629/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq
Iraq's US envoy wants to see cousin's death report - Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060628/ts_nm/iraq_usa_ambassador_dc

28 Jun 2006

Generally with Sudoku puzzles are both (a) solvable without guessing, just logic, and (b) symmetric like crossword puzzles. While (b) is not really that important, but a common style, just like said crossword puzzles. But if you interpret (a) as not needing to use "what if" scenarios, a form of trial-and-error, and thus guessing, then I've got two examples I've encountered that are the exception to the rule. The first is a symmetrical one generated by the open-source Sudoku on the Palm handheld:

+---+---+---+
|37 |95 |   |
| 24|   |   |
|8 5|7  |  9|
+---+---+---+
|  7| 46| 9 |
| 4 |   | 1 |
| 9 |83 |5  |
+---+---+---+
|7  |  8|4 1|
|   |   |97 |
|   | 75| 32|
+---+---+---+

The second is a nonsymmetrical one that came with one of the leaflets in one of my credit card bills:

+---+---+---+
|   | 5 |71 |
|8 7|  9|   |
|   |1 7|  2|
+---+---+---+
|   |89 |   |
|7  |5  |1 3|
| 9 |  1|   |
+---+---+---+
| 4 | 18|   |
| 79| 2 |3 6|
|5 8|   | 21|
+---+---+---+

For each of these, I found that a single, specific "what if" scenario can finish the puzzle when I get stuck. If anyone can figure out a purely logical way to solve these, let me know.

-res

Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

0930: Christy Harvey: the tobacco industry quickly try to downplay and sow doubt on the Surgeon General report that second-hand smoke kills about 50,000 Americans per year and that about 40% of people exposed to second-hand smoke show health effects.
1100: David Brock on Santorum and Hoekstra's WMD claims and their extensive play with O'Reilly, Rush, Hannity; Tony Snow denies W said Saddam/Iraq and 9/11 were linked

Other news and opinion from the day:

Court Nixes Part of Texas Political Map
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/28/AR2006062800660.html?referrer=email
Daily Kos: CA-50: the GOP's technology advantage
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/6/27/132814/755
Dems, take note! It's time to use technology to our advantage in a much bigger scale.
Molecular Characterization of Ancylostoma ceylanicum Kunitz-Type Serine Protease Inhibitor: Evidence for a Role in Hookworm-Associated Growth Delay -- Chu et al. 72 (4): 2214 -- Infection and Immunity
http://iai.asm.org/cgi/content/abstract/72/4/2214
One of Maureen's published collaborations.

27 Jun 2006

Yikes! It looks like my messing around with "robots" for search engine hits had the opposite effect -- completely erasing any record of www.res-alian.com (the main server) from Google. From what I saw, using a robots.txt file mainly restricts content, so I decided to promote search engine's web crawling by using the HTML META tag instead because it proactively encourages it (or prevents it, depending on how you use it).

But now, this site only came up as the RoadRunner mirror, and nothing else, on Google, probably because it was the last mirror to be updated with the META tags. The only search that came up with my site was a search for Evelyn's name, not Timmy, Maureen's, or mine, even though all of our names are in the keywords section.

Yet the Yahoo! search engine found my site just fine, when I put in any of our names or "resident alian." So I found another use of the META tag, specifying settings for "googlebot" in addition to "robots" -- both now say "index, follow" in their tags (try looking at the source for this page).

I also resubmitted my site to Google, so hopefully that brings it back. What a pain, though. I would have done better by leaving off the robots META tag, I bet.

Anyway, I posted my sort of first draft of the Radiohead concert review and list, which will be updated when the album actually does come out.

-res

Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

0900: Al broadcasting from the Stratosphere Tower in Las Vegas (to visit the 2006 Teamsters Convention)
0900: Rush's continued legal problems now include Viagra. I can hear Randi going "ewww!"
1100: Melanie Sloan on the anti-union (and dishonest about unions) Richard Berman, his relationship with the Dept. of Labor, and his anti-regulation organizations that are funded by the industries under such regulation; Grover Norquist's ATR and tax-exempt status
1130: Lawrence O'Donnell: Warren Buffett said about wealthy parents giving money to their kids enough so they can do anything but not enough that they can do nothing; the [conservatives] have successfully painted a dishonest picture of the "overpaid" auto worker to grow opposition to the labor movement; Rove's activity never waned while he was in danger of indictment; Rove get his speech labeling the war opposition of being "cut-and-runners" a day before Gen. Casey gave their plan for essentially "cutting and running" by the GOP talking point definition.

Other news and opinion from the past:

Daily Kos: Talking Liberally - Being Heard
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/6/26/8305/39469
A good primer on how to change hearts and minds instead of pushing them away.

26 Jun 2006

Tonight Ben and I went to the Radiohead concert at Embarcadero Marina Park, near Seaport Village in downtown San Diego. Of course, he's also going to the one tomorrow, same place. At least it's only the first time going back-to-back with the same act, but I think he went to 4 U2 shows on their last tour.

I'll post the set list and review soon, in the usual place.

-res

Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

0900: Audio playback of the argumentative Michael Fumento on Al's panel on Iraq in last Friday's live show from the DC XM studio
0930: Christy Harvey: about 40% of Iraqis (professional class) have left the country since 2003, and the Iraqi government issued 2 million passports in the last 10 months.

Other news and opinion from the day:

bobby kennedy and gop voter fraud
http://www.moby.com/node/7448
This is a good, short interview with RFK, Jr. on his Rolling Stone article investigating whether the 2004 election was stolen.

Other news and opinion from the past:

New US church leader says homosexuality no sin - Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060619/ts_nm/religion_episcopals_bishop_dc
Katharine Jefferts Schori knows what's really important in the Bible and makes a good argument for taking less seriously the stuff Christians don't observe today like not shaving or abstaining from pork.
Bush pushes Congress on line-item veto - Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060624/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush
Wasn't this already ruled unconstitutional after Clinton had it for less than two years (granted by a GOP Congress and struck down by the SCOTUS)?

22 Jun 2006

Well, it's been busy, busy, busy at work, so it took me about a month to get my posts edited and sourced. In the meantime, we've had a nice Memorial Day weekend complete with barbecue with our new hybrid grill (charcoal with a propane starter), Timmy's preschool graduation (15 Jun 2006), and Claire's graduation (18 Jun 2006). Also Timmy's been staying in Claremont for the week and again next week to learn how to swim at the rec center. He's doing pretty well so far.

Next week will still be busy at work, but at least I have less to listen to at work since Randi's on vacation tomorrow and next week. I'll try my best to minimize the number of items I list in my radio notes. And we'll see if the level of activity at work remains the same or gets lighter.

Some highlights (and lowlights):

Lay and Skilling of Enron were found guilty, and Robert Greenwald has a new documentary coming soon about Tom DeLay;
the right-wingers attack the science of global warming and Gore's movie;
stressed soldiers take their frustrations out on Iraqi civilians (while the right-wing disgustingly claims the left rejoices in these stories);
Congress neglects important issues by debating gay marriage (how about REAL solutions for protecting marriage (courtesy of dKos)) and flag burning;
the always spiteful Ann Coulter smears 9/11 widows (and they respond);
Zarqawi is eliminated (while bin Laden stays free);
my discovery of the Church Sign Generator and prog rock; a scientific study the shows homophobes are most likely closeted gays (just like in the film American Beauty);
Congress has a fake debate on Iraq as the 2,500th US soldier is killed; and
Rove escapes indictment, possibly to sell out someone else like Cheney, then continues smearing Dems, especially those who actually served in combat (Kerry and Murtha).

To sum it up, things are still pretty crazy in the US and the world, and I'll have to keep close watch on everything until we get real leadership, at which point I'll still pay attention but (hopefully) not have to go out of my way to read the important stories. I'll try to write more about my family, though, because that's what makes this journal unique and is probably what most readers (that I know personally) look for. New pictures will be posted soon.

-res

Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

0900: If the standard is "attacks didn't happen [on US soil]," then Clinton should be praised for the 8 years following the 1993 WTC bombing (only 35 days into Clinton's presidency), and W should be criticized for the attack in 2001 (almost 9 months into his presidency). Also, Clinton (or Dems or the left) didn't blame Bush Sr. for the 1993 bombing (at least noticeably, unlike many conservatives blaming Clinton now).
0900: Audio of Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NV) calling out the GOP "debate" at cynical attempts at scoring political/electoral points
0930: Judd Legum: in a FNC exclusive (of course), Rick Santorum and Peter Hoekstra announce they have "found" WMD, which is actually 1-page, declassified summary of pre-1991 weapons; the Army raised the max enlistment age to 42; highly partisan Warren Bell of National Review nominated to the board of directors for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
1000: Derek Douglas and Tom Hertz on the American Dream and intergenerational economic mobility in the US; audio of Rush blatantly mischaracterizing and lying about their study without quoting or citing opposing studies or statistics or offering any solutions; Al: no one's saying people can't succeed, just that the chances are much lower for the poor.
1030: Ron Pollack: prices went up on the top 20 drugs for seniors because of Medicare D.

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

1200: Santorum debunked on WMD on FNC! (by Colmes) Randi: it's like having your grammar checked by Yoda!
Father First, Senator Second (washingtonpost.com)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61804-2005Apr17.html
Santorum brings his wife's miscarried 20-week-old fetus home to the kids.
1330: Greg Palast in studio on the Voting Rights Act: the BBC got the GOP caging lists (on black and military voters) by georgewbush.org, who got them by mistake instead of georgewbush.com.

21 Jun 2006

Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

0930: Senate kills minimum wage increase; Al and his staff debunk John Stossel that increasing the minimum wage kills jobs. The states that have increased the minimum wage have the highest growth.
0930: Revisit: Rush claims 75% of min wage earners are teenagers in their first job, but according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 60.1% of min wage earners are 20 and above (at the time and Rush made his BS statement).
1100: Replay of skit with Tina Fey on vaginal abstinence-only programs
1100: Christy Harvey: stem cell researchers at Johns Hopkins were able to make new nerve tissue cells to allow paralyzed rats to walk

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

1200: Audio of Rush claiming the left blogs were happy about the two American deaths in Iraq -- uh, how about citing some actual blog entries, A-HOLE?
1200: 19 Senators (all GOP) voted for a bill that would give amnesty to Iraqis whose only crime was killing a US soldier.
1230: Caller turns around the logic of people who claim that because of W we haven't had a terrorist attack on the US since 9/11: if that's true, then it's his fault we were attacked ON 9/11.
1330: 52 GOP Senators voted against contractor oversight vs Sen. Chafee (R-RI) and 44 Senate Dems for contractor oversight. Caller's question to GOP Senators (and citizens): what's in it for you?
1400: Charles Taylor and Milosevic were tried for war crimes in the Hague, but Saddam is tried in the war-torn Iraq.

Other news and opinion from the day:

The Shadow War, In a Surprising New Light
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/19/AR2006061901211.html
A review of Ron Suskind's book, The One Percent Doctrine.

20 Jun 2006

Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

0900: Deconstruction of O'Reilly's talking points memo on Iraq
0930: Al reads the user-submitted answers to Ann Coulter's "Murtha is the reason they invented fragging" (i.e. someone should kill Murtha (typical hate from Coulter)) -- Ann Coulter is the reason they invented ___: feeding tubes (Al's staff); flogging; ten-foot poles; hunting accidents (yikes!); the gag flex; lithium; Adam's apple minimizing skin creams (a little personal); noise-canceling headphones.
0930: David Sirota: Cheney lies again that no one anticipated the Iraq insurgency and its being its "last throes"; coalition of the leaving; the myth of malpractice lawsuits driving up health care costs
1030: Lawrence O'Donnell on the Clinton surplus turned to a W deficit; Medicare admin costs are 2% vs private health care with 25%
1030: Melanie Sloan: David Safavian was convicted today on 2 counts of obstruction of justice and 1 count of making false statements or concealing information from the GSA ethics official, all in connection with Jack Abramoff.
1100: A replay of the interview with Richard Perle (from 11 May 2006) plus parts of the interview filmed by PBS (for a documentary on Perle) but not yet on AAR, including a discussion of George Packer and Cobra II.

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

1200: Cheney pre-debunks himself (from 1991) on insurgency
1230: Halliburton's stock went from $20 at the Iraq invasion to $63
1330: Randi: I can't find evidence of Rove's claim of Dems' "history of cutting and running" but lots of it in the GOP.
1330: Randi recommends the chapter in Sam Seder's book (FUBAR) on how to talk to a Republican.
1400: Audio of Cal Thomas on FNC unconciously(?) exposing the method of newsmodels and tabloid stories on Fox being copied on the other cable news stations
1400: A lengthy discussion of mixing news-propaganda and porn on FNC

19 Jun 2006

Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

0930: Christy Harvey on Coulter smearing Murtha; the crackdown on employers hiring illegals (but in 2004, the Bush administration fined 3 companies for $212k in fines, and in 1999, the Clinton administration fined 417 for $3.6M in fines); FEMA still unprepared
1100: Saurav Sarkar on his study for Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting: The False Debate Over 'Broken Borders'

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

1200: Randi recounts her weekend in Seattle for the conference "What is a progressive anyway?" with Michael Steele and Ron Reagan.

16 Jun 2006

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

1330: Call from Larry Johnson: Rove's non-indictment is a sign that he may sell out someone else like Cheney
1500: Audio of Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA) on Colbert on where he thinks the Ten Commandments should be displayed yet not being able to list them all
1530: Today the Congress increased indecency fines tenfold from $32k to $325k per incident.

Other news and opinion from the day:

Internet Archive: Details: Constitution Class taught by Michael Badnarik
http://www.archive.org/details/Michael_Badnarik
One of Randi's callers today mentioned this video class on the Constitution by the Libertarian.

15 Jun 2006

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

1200: Talking points in action, conflating Saddam's Iraq and 9/11, heard in Rove's speech before, Rep. Joe Wilson's (R-SC, NOT the ambassador whose wife was outed as a CIA operative) speech, and even the WaPo front page! Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) exposes the memo on the floor.
1200: Another horrible milestone: 2,500 US military dead in Iraq. Meanwhile, fake debate on Iraq in Congress that doesn't include contractor oversight, enough supplies for our troops, strategy review, etc., instead a meaningless, non-binding, "we will prevail" resolution.
1200: Audio of McLaughlin reading the causualties in Iraq (the only TV show that does so)
1230: Audio of Rep. John Larson (D-CT) on Murtha bravely speaking truth to power in the wake of the sham, fake debate on a non-binding resolution
1230: Audio of Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) talking about what we really need to talk about for Iraq like body armor and night-vision goggles for the troops, not a loyalty oath
1230: GOP House members also sick of political posturing by the rest of the GOP: Wayne Gilchrest (MD), Thaddeus McCotter (MI), and Walter "freedom fries no more" Jones (NC) (for the right reasons (our troops and the actual war)) and Ray LaHood (for the wrong reasons (politics))
1330: Call from Dr. Justin Frank (Bush on the Couch)

14 Jun 2006

Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

1100: David Brock on Ann Coulter's intellectual dishonesty; Al: basically what she's saying is "how dare you put up someone we can't smear?" (Also, the right-wing still DOES smear them.)

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

1200: W claims Iraq is now free and democratic.
Audio of a misguided Marine singing about killing an Iraqi family
1330: Rove, W, and O'Reilly (all avoiding war themselves) all spout the same talking point smearing Murtha and Kerry (who chose to serve and did so bravely).
1400: Audio of RNC chairman Ken Mehlman admitting (Randi: his "cleansing moment of clarity") to Jon Stewart that greed and cynicism caused the GOP to become parsers
1400: Churchill endorsed Facsism in the '30s but saw the light in the '40s.

Other news and opinion from the day:

Pemex - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pemex
The state-run Mexican oil company. Randi cites them frequently to illustrate the relationship between W and President Fox. I haven't done a whole lot of research on this yet.

13 Jun 2006

Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

0900: The (un-charged) service-deferring, chickenhawk Rove smeared brave vets Kerry and Murtha, saying they would be great for the "first shots", but not stay for the "last tough battles."
0900: W wants body language diplomacy with al-Malaki.
0900: O'Reilly claims "no evidence" of abuse in Gitmo. Al reads the evidence.
0930: Al reviews Mary Cheney's book and debunks it.
1130: Lawrence O'Donnell: no GOP politician or pundit has defended Coulter or said she speaks for him/her.

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

1200: Aegis contractors put up a trophy video of themselves gunning down Iraqi civilians in 2005, but today the Army cleared them of any charges because there's no law to govern private contractors.
1330: Audio of O'Reilly's report on Gitmo (denying the torture) after being given "almost total access" to the prison, access that no human rights groups get; he left hours before the 3 suicides happened

Other news and opinion from the day:

TechEd 2006: Hybrid hard drives to become Vista Premium requirement | TG Daily
http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/06/12/hybrid_hard_disks_again_vista_premium/
AJ told me about these combo flash-magnetic drives. Vista can use them to dump memory to the flash part instead of spinning up the hard drive part to hibernate or to wake up from standby with a cache stored in the flash area and only access the hard drive when it needs to. What I learned from CS about the memory hierarchy is the inverse relationship between space (low) and both speed and cost (high) as you get closer to the CPU (hard drive > system RAM > L[n] cache > ... > L1 cache > CPU registers). Flash would fill a great gap in access time between system RAM (order of nsec) and the hard drive (order of msec)).
The Best Games Never Published: A Visit to the Video Game Development Hell | TwitchGuru
http://www.twitchguru.com/2006/06/13/the_best_games_never_published/
Some great, unreleased adventure games and where to find prototype versions of them.

12 Jun 2006

Someone at work had the same church sign that Randi Rhodes uses on her website when she's away. It had a different message, of course, about one of the projects. But unlike the bulletin signs on Randi's site, the one at work had the URL for making the sign, ChurchSignGenerator.com, with a few different styles. There are also examples of real church signs, sometimes intentionally humorous ("Worry: a darkroom where negatives develop") or insightful ("God will accept broken hearts, but He must have all the pieces"), sometimes not intentionally ("the infallible word of God is taught hear"), and sometimes spreading hate ("AIDS cures sodomy").

Also, Carl had a recent discussion with our group about progressive rock, or prog rock. I remembered to look up the actual definition when one of Wikipedia's featured articles was on the band Genesis. It's interesting, rock that's heavily influenced by structured classical music and art. It can be experimental, long, and not necessarily radio-friendly. It's not for everyone, and even bands considered prog rock do not necessarily like the label or even some of their own creations. But I'd guess that someone like Thom Yorke is pretty happy with his experimental electronic music, both with Radiohead (Kid A and Amnesiac) and his forthcoming solo effort.

-res

Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

0900: Audio of right-winger on CNN (why?), Glenn Beck, comparing Gore to Hitler
0900: Sen. Santorum's website contains different content between the English-language version and Spanish-language one (no mention of amnesty).
0900: Al predebunks a potential distortion of his words that actually say he doesn't believe we should execute a sitting or former president or vice-president, as is called for by the Constitution of treason (the outing of am undercover CIA operative).
0930: Christy Harvey: right-wing groups against the HPV vaccine for fear of encouraging teen sex, even though the vaccine would prevent cervical cancer in 80% of women. The FDA just approved it, but the CDC approval is the next step (for insurance companies, state regulations, etc.), and the head of the CDC advisory board used to be big in the right-wing Focus on the Family.
1000: Jon Meacham: the only mention of religion in the Constitution (before the Amendments) is to ban religious tests for public office holders (Article VI).

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

1200: Three Gitmo detainees commit suicide.
1200: Gitmo to close yet Halliburton to expand it.
1300: The NSA is collecting information on social networking websites, e.g. (Murdoch-owned) Myspace.
1430: Call from Army Capt. James Yee, a Muslim chaplain serving in Gitmo who was later accused of being a spy and became a prisoner in Gitmo, then had the charges dropped
1500: Joan Jett in studio! Her new album, Sinner (the US version of Naked, released only in Japan), is out tomorrow.
1530: Call from Nancy Skinner on her Senate bid, the netroots revolution, and her friendship with Randi and Joan (still in studio)

Other news and opinion from the day:

proof that homophobes are just closeted gays
http://www.moby.com/node/7439
...at least about 80% of them, according to the quoted study.

08 Jun 2006

Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

0930: Joseph Minton on O'Reilly and cheerleaders now (against altered taping) and then (against suggestive routines), falsehoods on Malmedy in response to Haditha and his "half-assed apology"

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

1200: Zarqawi's gone! So where's bin Laden? Audio of Jim Miklaszewski on 02 Mar 2004 saying al-Zarqawi had ties to Al Qaeda, and W missed several chances to take him out
1300: Audio of Chris Matthews on 16 Mar 2004 explaining why Zarqawi was in Iraq in the first place, because we created an opening in Iraq by blowing it up
1330: The estate tax repeal was rejected! Only 0.27% of all estates in the US will pay estate tax.
1400: Sen. Jud Committee Chair Arlen Specter (R-PA) writes a letter to Cheney on NSA and FISA in order to get a written record of his concerns.

Other news and opinion from the day:

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi killed in air raid - Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060608/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_al_zarqawi

07 Jun 2006

Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

0900: Audio of Rush claiming the left rejoices in the bad news (shows us the good news, a-hole) in Iraq
0930: Christy Harvey: Norway rejects Wal-Mart.
1100: David Brock on AP reporter John Solomon attacking Harry Reid: Reid actually voted against what Abramoff pushed; his "free boxing tickets" are excepted in Senate rules because the boxing commission is a government agency.
1100: Audio of Neil Cavuto flip-flopping on daily dangers of our troops in Iraq

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

1200: Gay marriage ban fails cloture
1200: GOP candidates avoid photos taken with W!
1200: Audio of Matt Lauer confronting (yet providing an eight-minute forum for) the spiteful, hateful Ann Coulter's disgusting smearing of war widows and mothers without a chaperone on the Today show
1200: The 9/11 widows respond to the Coulter hate book!
1230: Audio of Kathy Griffin calling out Coulter's "facts" on the Today show!
1230: Audio of Jon Stewart calling out Bill Bennett on gay marriage on the Daily Show; Randi: you know who[/what] ruins more marriages and families than anyone else? Degenerate gamblers, economic pressures, instability, worry and stress about jobs and health care....
1430: Call from Mark Crispin Miller on Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election & Why They'll Steal the Next One Too (Unless We Stop Them) on the theft of the 2004 election and the nonpartisan election protection group VotersUnite.org
1500: Conservatives are now starting to talk about election rigging because of a Venezuelan-owned company called Sequoia -- hopefully this starts awareness on the nonpartisan issue of preventing election fraud.
1530: Call from Brad of BradBlog on Diebold machines in CA-50 election

Other news and opinion from the day:

Other news and opinion from the past:

Daily Kos: Fox News Was Playing in my Bank Line-I Didn't Go Quietly
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/6/5/16653/26146

06 Jun 2006

Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

1100: Melanie Sloan: Brian Bilbray lives in VA for tax purposes and resident tuition for his kids but is running for CA's 50th District.

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

1200: Randi on Dobbs for maybe the last time today
1230: Audio montage of W's "activist judges"
1230: Most of the "activist" judges in MA that uphold gay marriage were appointed by GOP governors.
1230: Audio of Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT) addressing what the nation's top priorities should be: national security, the war in Iraq, rising gas prices, rising health care and insurance costs, stem cell research, fixing FEMA, assisting veterans, reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act
1300: Randi reads the text of anti-interracial marriage laws in various states
1300: Audio of Sen. Mark Dayton (D-MN) on the federal gay marriage ban: "In addition to being un-American, this amendment is also un-Christian. Now, I hesitate to bring religion into this debate; I'm highly skeptical of politicans who do so. Giving a Bible to a politician is like giving a blowtorch to a pyromaniac. However, I reread the New Testament in preparation for this debate, and I cannot find a single instance in any of the four Gospels in which my savior, Jesus Christ, speaks a single word about same-sex marriages or even same-sex relationships. He intones six times against divorce, and twelve times against adultery, yet I'm not aware of any proposed Constitutional amendments to ban either of them, nor would I support them."
1430: Call from Greg Palast on his new book, Armed Madhouse

Other news and opinion from the day:

Sysinternals Freeware - Junction
http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Junction.html
I had no idea Windows (in 2000 or later with NTFS) had the equivalent of Unix' symbolic links (called junctions) until Ivan pointed it out to me as well as this command-line program that manages them. Careful -- junction.exe can also delete real, non-empty directories if you try it on one. I've been using Cygwin that has its own implementation of POSIX symbolic links using Windows shortcuts with the comment section containing the POSIX path for the link source (i.e. the real file or directory linked).
Fact-Checking the President's Statement on the Marriage Amendment - Center for American Progress
http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=1736995

05 Jun 2006

Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

0930: A Nexus search turns up only one recent flag-burning, and it turns out to be by a drunk, apolitical teenager.
0930: The GOP haven't come up with one example of a family farm being taken due to the estate tax.
0930: Christy Harvey: ABA voted unanimously to investigate whether W's signing statements are Constitutional; there were 322 signing statements total from all of the presidents before W, while W had 750 so far, maybe explaining the lack of vetoes; the Pentagon is taking out anti-torture language (Geneva conventions) from the new version of the Army field manual; the administration is refusing to prosecute breaches of medical records.

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

1200: Leola McConnell calls W out on gay hypocrisy on the waste of taxpayers' money on a federal gay marriage ban
1430: Call from Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX) on her visit to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan
1530: Caller mentions Halliburton stock has quadrupled in the last 3 years.
1530: Caller's analogy: when it's the taxpayer's money, the Bush administration can hire expensive contractors, but corporations that only care about the bottom line hire as cheap labor as they can get.

Other news and opinion from the day:

02 Jun 2006

Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

0900: Keith Olbermann catches O'Reilly in a lie about Malmedy, which he "clarified" but didn't "correct."
0930: Christy Harvey: the Competitive Enterprise Institute (funded by Exxon and Phillip Morris) is producing anti-science ads on global warming; DHS cuts funding to NYC and DC due to lack of "monuments" or "icons"; Frist's campaign was fined $11k for failing to report a loan for the campaign.
1100: Joe Conason: O'Reilly's SS story comes from McCarthy (but disproved over 50 years ago).

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

1200: Wayne Madsen does gossip on W/Laura/Condi...to one-up NYT?
1400: Audio of Olbermann furious at O'Reilly for calling WWII vets war criminals. In Detail. Including a cover-up on the FNC website.
1400: Audio of Rush dodging a tough question on Iraq from a caller and accusing the caller of lying about his identity
1430: Call back from the Army Captain "Joanna" who talked to Randi yesterday, clarifying her position on following her oath
1530: Carmen's last day on Randi's staff!

Other news and opinion from the day:

Daily Kos: CA-51: Traditional Republican
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/6/2/125725/6114
Bilbray-endorsed Jim Galley is on his third wife after having been married to his second and first wife, at the same time at one point. I'm surprised the story boke in the normally conservative San Diego Union-Tribune.
Media Matters - Fox's Keenan issued misleading attack on An Inconvenient Truth's box office earnings
http://mediamatters.org/items/200605300004
Gore's movie premiered on a grand total of 4 theaters, so it made several times more per theater than the actual dollar box office leaders, X-Men and Da Vinci.

01 Jun 2006

Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

0900: Rush et al repeat the false claim that Iraq is safer than DC.
0930: David Sirota: General Motors calls for government leadership on health care, a hint of progress.

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

1200: Phone bank jammer Chuck McGee released from prison and now back in the same jobs!
1230: NYC (and DC) ripped off from DHS funding
1330: Call from Gene Healy from Cato on W's power abuses on free speech and press, signing statements (exempting himself instead of vetoing; other presidents' signing statements only clarified), declaring enemy combatants
1400: Audio of O'Reilly smearing Murtha and the press; Randi: once again, O'Reilly is confusing "convicting" with "holding accountable" and "rejoicing" with "reporting"
1430: Call from Mark Benjamin on the Haditha massacre
1500: Harriet Miers to give ethics lessons! (Haven't we heard this one already?)
1500: Randi: Rupert Murdoch senses the change of power, so he sucks up to Hillary Clinton.

Other news and opinion from the day:

Rolling Stone : Was the 2004 Election Stolen? by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen/print
Yikes! Overwhelming evidence of GOP-led election fraud.
Probe Into Iraq Deaths Finds False Reports
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/31/AR2006053101058_pf.html

Past Journal Entries: 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001

2006 Journal Entries: Aug Jul Jun May Apr Mar Feb Jan

Common and favorite references and their acronyms:

Daily Kos (dKos): http://www.dailykos.com/
New York Times (NYT): http://www.nytimes.com/
Washington Post (WaPo): http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Randi Rhodes: http://www.therandirhodesshow.com/
Media Matters for America (MMFA): http://www.mediamatters.org/
Center for American Progress (CAP): http://www.americanprogress.org/
CAP blog (Christy Harvey, Judd Legum): http://www.thinkprogress.org/
Moby's journal: http://www.moby.com/journal/
Sojourners: http://www.sojo.net/
Tom's Hardware Guide (THG): http://www.tomshardware.com/
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF): http://www.eff.org/
SourceForge.net (SF): http://www.sourceforge.net/

My referral link for a free Mac Mini (legit): http://www.freemacmini.com/?r=160454 (why this is here)