drewish.com

nra

i went to that nra dinner on friday night but charlton heston wasn't there, they made an announcement that he wasn't feeling well but would be back in "fighting spirits" tomorrow morning. i am truly saddened.

bishop photos

pictures from the last bishop trip are up.

there aren't a lot and they're not very good but there's a funny dan sequence on there.

quick news update

tonight is the nra's dinner. i'm going to get a picture of me and charlton heston. stoked

i've been a bit sparse with the updates. here's a quick set.

• is israel trying to anoint arafat's successor?
• sharon and the settlements
• palestinian actions that sound a lot like war crimes
• women dying in sudan because bush thinks he's preventing abortions
• israel refuses to recognize the greek orthodox patriarch, they think he maybe pro-palestinian

oh and SATIRE WIRE IS BACK!

middle east

occasionally you'll find an enlightened israeli or palestinian who'll take their share of the blame and can still sympathize with the other side. a couple of months ago i got into an argument with some random guy at the deux gro nez (a restaurant), the guy was making some good points that i hadn't considered but wouldn't admit that israel could do any wrong. it was incredibly frustrating, this week's bitter lemons is a brilliant example of just the opposite. yossi alpher lays it out and i couldn't agree with him more. speaking of jenin:

There is nothing here to justify accusations of holocaust and massacres. Nevertheless, there are some indefensible positions that render it easier to criticize Israel. For example, the ongoing and anachronistic occupation of most of the West Bank and Gaza, and expansion and fortification of settlements that constitute a key provocation in the eyes of Palestinians, many Israelis, and all of the world. Or the systematic loss of credibility, since this Intifada started, of the IDF Spokesman, who has rarely if ever been able or willing to explain acts of humiliation and dehumanization of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers at roadblocks. Or the needless delay in allowing journalists into the Jenin camp. Or the simple fact that the current Israeli government has no realistic strategy for peace to accompany, and put into perspective, its justified determination to stamp out terrorist bases like Jenin.

he goes on, exposing some of my own biases

Some of the answers reflect objective realities that even the most talented Israeli spokesperson has difficulty dealing with. We are the occupier; the Palestinians are the occupied, fighting a war of liberation. We have tanks and attack helicopters, their only weapon is themselves. As the underdog, they are permitted to smuggle weapons and suicide bombers in ambulances, but we may not shoot at ambulances. In short, no matter what we do, they look far more appealing to an otherwise neutral TV audience in a 20 second clip, which is what public diplomacy has been reduced to these days. And where the audience is by definition not neutral--when satellite stations like al-Jezira enter the homes of 200 million Arabs--we don't have a chance.

i haven't denounced the suicide attacks on israeli civilians, i've qualified the transportation of bombs in ambulances, fuck i'm really ashamed to admit it but every time they show the casualty totals i hope that the ratio starts to even up. i have a hard time typing that, not a lot i can say to justify it. the whole deal has become very abstract to me. i suppose that's the consequence of reading so much about it. when i do catch the occasional video of it, it makes it a lot more real. seeing some pretty israeli girl on a stretcher after a suicide bombing makes clear how fuckedup the situation is, reading about it i can gloss over the fact that it's real people being killed not 22 copies of sharon (who i wouldn't shed a tear for).

empathy for me comes from being able to put a face with the dead, that is imaging someone i've met and spent time with being killed. i don't have many faces to put with the israelis but i met hundreds of palestinians when i stayed with them in the summer of 1998 so i've got plenty of empathy for them and their conditions. i don't like to think what this would do to me if i could fully empathize with the israelis as well, it's hard enough mourning one side.

i want to make it clear that the palestinians need to immediately stop attacking civilians, recognize israel's right to exist and once the security climate permits it elect a president who isn't a corrupt thug.

climbing with superglue

dan and i did a short trip down to bishop over the weekend. i took some pictures and they'll be up as soon as i can get the camera drivers re-installed on my laptop.

while we were down there i used some superglue to make a superhard scab over a sore i had on the back of my heel. it worked pretty good so after i gave myself a nice deep cut on the thumb trying to install a cdrom in my computer and i couldn't find any band-aids, i decided to push the edge of superglue first aid research. 8 hours later i'm not so sure if that was a good idea. the glue has kind of cracked in a couple of spots so i've got a traditional scab there. in other places the skin has either shrunk underneath it or bulged out. i'll let keep everyone posted on it's healing with a special news bulletin if i end up on antibiotics.

dsl

the dsl to my house has been down for a week now. nevada bell screwed up their billing and cut off the line, they're supposed to get it up by saturday.

israel and the palestinians

today as with most of the last couple of weeks there's not much in the way of good news. powell's mission is regarded by everyone but the israelis' and the bush administration as a failure.

as reporters are being allowed in to the west bank a grim picture is emerging. i don't really know where the independent (a british news org) stands in the left to right spectrum but they're calling israelis' actions in jenin a war crime. for the most part i'd say the brits are between us and europe in terms of supporting israli actions, but the stuff coming out of their press is much more anti-israli than in the us.

i do have a hard time accepting palestinian allegations of war crimes. i believe that at the least the palestinian authority has turned a blind eye to the suicide bombers but haven't' seen enough proof to convince me of much more than that. but leveling those sorts of allegations at the israelis is the pot calling the kettle black, you don't need an army to commit war crimes, although one ">helps.

every time i hear bush make the call for the pa to do it's part to prevent terrorism i have to ask with what? the isralis have systematically destroyed the pa's infrastructure.

i think on the whole the palestinians have had a much worse time than the isralis. they're complaining that they can't go out to dinner with out worrying about suicide bombers. the palestinians can't go out to buy food with out worrying about being shot by israli snipers and even then there may not be any food.

the worst part of this current stage of "situation" is that it's removed the middle ground that both sides had, the extremists on both sides are now the moderates. on one side you've got arafat who's one corrupt fucker and on the other you've got sharon, who never seems to mind killing some arabs. i'd love to see sharon and arafat both replace by more moderate people but the only thing the latest invasion has done is make both leaders more popular with their people.

maybe the only good thing that's happening is that the public opinion in the us seems to be moving away from single sided support for israel. i firmly believe that the us is going to have to impose a solution on both parties. if bush could get half a foreign policy together and push it along most of the world would go along with it. people are just sick of seeing no options, we need to provide one.

playing with .net

doing a bit more with the .net... man this is sweeet. i've got all object orientedness of java, a very cool ide (it isn't as slow as it seemed at first), and it can actually debug iis processes (unlike prior versions of vb).

.net first impressions

I've finally started playing around with some of microsoft's .net stuff. first impressions, it's pretty cool but EXTREMELY slow, even running on a 1.5GHz pentium 4.

cyber lovah

dan send me a link to herb zipper's film how to be a cyber lovah.

google ads

christophe bruno has an interesting report of his attempts at a poetry ad campaign with google's adwords. he lays out the contrasting goal that he and google have for their adds; google wants the adds to be relevant to the search so that they're more valuable, he wants the ads to surprise people and maybe catch them with an indirect interest.

after i'd received an email this weekend from a middle school student in texas looking for help with her report on princess diana, i started thinking that maybe i could have some fun with the ads targeting the other famous andrew mortons. you know... the biographer and the linux kernel developer?

i came up with:

we'll see where my $5.00 gets me.

ehud barak op-ed

ehud barak wrote this op-ed for the nytimes, it spells out a plan for israel disengaging from the west bank and putting up a big fence. his is one of the more moderate plans in israel.

climbing at donner

dan, heather, dawn and i went climbing yesterday. i was hoping we could get up to big cheif (a couple of wall next to the truckee river between tahoe city and truckee) but there was still snow on the road. we went up to donner summit to check that out, there was still a ton of snow up there but we were able to get to the peanut gallery (i'm pretty sure that was the name). it was so hard as to be funny. at any rate it was good to get outside.

dsl at the house

the dsl at my house was down on thursday and friday, i ended up moving my server in to work so i could get my mail. the connect to my house is back up but i haven't moved the server back yet.

hopeless

hopeless

blog review

i signed up for the peer-to-peer review project, it sounded like a cool thing to do, but the site i got stuck with bitsofmadness.com kinda sucks. here's the review i left:

This site held little interest for me, I suspect that unless you know the author (who, judging from a couple of the webcam photos is pretty cute) you be too into it either. Most of the posts didn't give enough context to make sense, they seemed directed at friends.

The design is strong, and I liked the comment features. The best part of the site was probably the disclaimer: If you know me in real life; are my friend, family member, or just an acquaintance, read this journal at your own risk. These are my real thoughts, and if it is going to disturb you to know what I really think of you, or for you to find out that I'm not the innocent little thing you thought I was, please don't read my journal. Maybe I'll add one like that to my site.

I don't mean to talk shit, it's just that this is an 18-year-old girl's site and I'm not the target audience.

visa troubles

i spent the morning trying to write an invitation letter to help my thai friend get a b-2 (tourist) visa for the states. it's the first time i'd ever had to do it, finding this sample letter made it a whole lot easier.

i've got to say that

i've got to say that calling president bush's comment line (202-456-1111) is a joke. you sit on hold for... we'll i've been on for 7 minutes now. ocasionally the recording will ask if you'd like to leave a recorded message, i tried that once but apparently bush's mailbox is full. i guess i'll just sit on hold.

when did the onion get funny again?

the onion--a who's satire has declined in quality for the last year or so--actually has a pretty cool article today: Nevada To Phase Out Laws Altogether. maybe it's just because i live here.

ohh man they hit again: 37 Record-Store Clerks Feared Dead In Yo La Tengo Concert Disaster. i guess you have to live with some rock talking fools for it to make sense. look at that second picture, the second clerk from the left on the top row looks just like brad bynum (okay with a hair cut).

we picked our side

i really get a kick out of hearing the us tell arafat that he needs to reign in terrorism. with what? the security forces the isralis have destroyed? how about telling the isralis to stop killing civilians too.

fucking lizard

well bob's lizard has shit on my bed twice now. i've had quite enough of that.

american terrorists

here's a good article about the creation of an eco-"terrorist" (i'm reluctant to call call someone a terrorist over property damage).

act is done

well the act is done. i'm planning on taking it again in june but the scores show up in 4-7 weeks so i guess i'll know if i have to then. it seemed okay, i just was going too slow and got caught short on a couple of the sections.

this afternoon dan, maya and i went out to river rock. it was a blast. we top roped two routes and they were both pretty cool. the first one had a cool first half but after that it was open handed slopers separated by impossible balance moves and decomposing granite that you had no chance of smearing on. the second route was a fun run up a couple of cracks, if it'd been bolted i would have loved to lead it. i know i said i'd take pictures and i meant to but the funny thing about that is that i'd plugged it in but apparently the other end of the charger wasn't plugged into the wall. net result: no pictures.

mideast humor

oh so while i was on the internet making sure i'd be able to use my calculator on the test i came across this little gem. (don't ask how i got over there when i should have been studing). as always satire wire cuts to the heart of current events: bush calls for mideast truce so u.s. can attack iraq.

choice quote: sharon suggested bush seek approval from arab nations by blowing up arab nations, while arafat suggested the president could get his way by blowing up himself.

act tomorrow

i've been studying like a mad man for the act tomorrow. i don't remember if i've announced my plan but i want to go to portland state in the fall. i'm handicapped by my high school gpa though; the first time i took the act i got a 27 but with a 2.25 gpa it wasn't good enough to get into much more than a community college. this time i'm shooting for a 30. i think my english score will be much gooder this time (a joke), and i'm not worried about the scientific reasoning or reading portions. it'll all come down to the math. it's pretty embarrassing how little of the math i know. i never learned any trig so that and the linear algebra are going to hurt me.

maya, joe's neighbor, who you may remember from this picture, came up to drop her boss off at the airport and is going to hangout for part of the weekend. after i finish up tomorrow we'll all go out to river rock and break in my new gear. i'll haul the camera out and get some pictures.

poor britney

aparently britney spears and that back street boy she was dating broke up because she wasn't "putting out".

stories from the intifada

read through a few of these, it's one of the most depressing things i've come acrosss.

climbing gear

i finally kicked down and bought a rope, an atc and some draws. this weekend after i take my act test dan and i will go out to river rock and do some climbing. maybe once my brother gets back, he's in maryland visiting friends for spring break, he'll be down to do some climbing outside.

nytime

in most of thomas friedman's op-ed pieces i find myself strongly agreeing with half and vehemently disagreeing with the other. today's piece about the underling problems with both the israli, arab and american regimes that prevent a meaningful solution.

and speaking or regimes, there was a pretty good quote in this article:

Most of Israel's top security officials also oppose expulsion. "Chairman Arafat abroad can do much more damage than he can under siege," said one security official. "Neither the United States or Israel has very good experience choosing leaders of regimes."

is it man or beast?

oh man i wish i'd thought this up. a guy i work with just passed along a link to the female or shemale quiz.

i'm a news junkie

i've begun to recognize the depth of my addiction to news about the middle east, down in bishop i was checking the nytimes twice a day to make sure i didn't miss anything. i go back and forth between hopeful obsession and utter disgust with the entire situation.

an open letter by an israli refusenik gave me some hope that there are people who understand what the other side is going through. it also made it very clear that no one is listening to them.

the nytimes did a good job of laying out the differences between the two sides. unfortunately it doesn't offer much in the way of suggestions.

worst cars of all time

the list of the worst cars of all time. notably absent is the '83 dodge aries station wagon.

it's april 1st, that mean that the internet is a magical place today, hoaxes and messed up websites. keep a sharp eye out... oh screw it i can't maintain that tone. there should be some cool stuff up though.