November 28, 2003
slinking in in the dead of night
juan cole has an amazing rant about how differently bush's dream of visiting iraq was from yesterday's cowardly trip to baghdad:
the President had to sneak in and out of Iraq for a quick and dirty photo op, clearly in fear of his life if the news of his visit had leaked. He did not even get time to eat a meal with the troops. He was there for two hours. He did not dare meet with ordinary Iraqis, with the people he had conquered (liberated).
November 27, 2003
what i'm thankful for
down in reno for thanksgiving. drove down past mt shasta yesterday. i should have fueled up in shasta because the next two gas stations were closed. i ended up sleeping in the truck in old fort, ca thinking the gas station would open in the morning. i didn't. i finally got to use that aaa card.
on the way down i got to listen to the surprise announcement that bush made a secret trip to iraq for thanksgiving dinner with the troops. one commentator was explaining how bush had gone there to show that iraq wasn't as dangerous as is commonly thought. the hole in that theory is obvious when they discuss the security precautions taken: landing with no lights, not announcing the trip until after he'd already left... i hope he at least got some new photos to use in his campaign ads now that all the ones in front of the mission accomplished banner don't seem so appropriate any more.
oh, a quick bush is a moron bit that my brother might like. bush visited nevada last week, unfortunately he just couldn't seem to pronounce it correctly.
November 24, 2003
three hours of power politics
msnbc.com has the blow-by-blow of the house's passage of the medicare package. they focus on the role my congressman, david wu, in the passage. i'm pretty dismaied at his choicec to support the bill. i wish they would have given him the chance to comment on his decision.
November 23, 2003
November 22, 2003
trade as a technology
over on ventureblog they've got a really good essay that conceptualizes trade as a technology. like (most?) technologies trade increases productivity. increases in productivity mean increases in production for a given number of workers. or, problematically, the same production with less workers. either means cheaper gizmos but if you're unemployeed that might not be much consolation.
November 18, 2003
good, funny japanimation
don park has some very funny screen caps from the japanese cartoon ebichu. it gets really good down around "what about her poor neglected left nipple"
one time at burning man...
phil, one of the guys in our camp this year at burning man put up his recollection of getting run over by the bar car. you may remember that it the same art car that was involved in the death of katherine lampman.
something funny for dan
i got sent a link to a picture of this tattoo, for some reason it just reminded me of dan.
November 14, 2003
what to do now that our unilateralism is home to roost
talking points memo has a great post pondering the various mistakes that have left is in the position of trying to withdrawal from iraq without looking like we're withdrawing
November 13, 2003
the couch bike
martin (for lack of a better link) sent a link to a story about a couple of guys who ride across prince edward island on a home made couch bike. it's pretty funny stuff.
November 12, 2003
November 06, 2003
i finally found a use for a state machine
i took a cs class at unr back almost two years ago and they taught us how to build state machines. it's a really cool topic but i hadn't had any reason to use one. today i implemented a binary tree iterator using a state machine. instead of using a stack each node has a parent pointer. the iterator has pointers to the current and previous nodes. i'm pretty stoked.
zoobomb hits the mainstream
zoobomb made it into the willamette week back in june but over the weekend they finally gotten mainstream coverage... well okay, it was only the oregonian but that's pretty big time for portalnd.
November 05, 2003
calling all portland single speeders
this saturday, nov 8th, one speed revolution presents: NOISE (Northwest Onespeed International Solidarity Event) where all us portlanders that couldn't make it to the single speed world championships in australia get togther and ride bike.
meet up at noon at the north portland bike works/the fresh pot (they're right next door to each other on n. mississippi & shaver) then ride to the super-secret rally point for the off-road riding.
the second rally point is at the jockey club (1001 n killingsworth) that evening. there'll be feats of strength, prizes, and most importanly: $1 papst blue ribbons.
no single speed? no problem we'll tape your shifter in place. so bring a good attitude it's gonna be fun.
american freedom for iraq
choice quote from an article in today's salon:
"How do you define American freedom?" he asked. As I fumbled toward an answer, trying to remember salient quotes from the Bill of Rights, he said, "I will tell you the definition of American freedom for Iraq: America takes our oil and gives us crime."
November 04, 2003
bring back the draft
salon has a piece up on the bush administration's under-the-radar campaign to fill the draft boards. it's very speculative but one point interested me:
In the last war fought by a conscript army, draft deferments for students meant that nobody who was in college had to worry about being called up until after graduation, and until late in that war, it was even possible, by going to grad school (like Vice President Dick Cheney), to avoid getting drafted altogether. In the Vietnam War era, college boys could also duck combat, as George W. Bush did, by joining the National Guard.
But that's all been changed. In a new draft, college students whose lottery number was selected would only be permitted to finish their current semester; seniors could finish their final year. After that, they'd have to answer the call. Meanwhile, National Guardsmen, as we've seen in the current war, are now likely to face overseas combat duty, too.
personally i think that's a great change, put the choice to everyone: 1 year in iraq/iran/north korea or 5 years in leavenworth. that said, i still doubt that anyone with strings to pull will end up in a combat role.
