what?...who?...I don't get it.
2.4% that's the rate the economy grew in the last 3 months. Basically twice what was expected. Unemployment rates are leveling off, which is too be expected, it being a consistent trailing edge indicator. Now word on the street (street as in "Wall", not street as in "da hood") is that growth will be 4% this quarter. Extrapolating, by the time the election rolls around the economy should be ripping it up, pulling the unemployed back from the wayside, and the mildest recession ever* will be a memory. So what exactly will they find to complain about then?
*can't actually be verified pre-1917, sorry
In case anyone was wondering, I was reminding again this weekend that;
children are people too
if you're confused, reference this post and you'll see
These are still perilous times. But if anyone on September 12, 2001, had predicted that 22 months later there would still be no repeat of 9/11; that bin Laden would be either quiet, dead, or in hiding; that al Qaeda would be dispersed, the Taliban gone, and the likes of a Mr. Karzai in Kabul; that Saddam Hussein would be out of power, his sons dead, and an Iraqi national council emerging in his place; that troops would be leaving Saudi Arabia, Arafat ostracized, and Sharon seeking negotiations; that new Middle East agreements under discussion — and all at a cost of fewer than 300 American lives — then he would surely have been written off as a madman
who said this:
We should be pulling for America on this. We should be pulling for the people of Iraq. We can have honest disagreements about where we go from here, and we have space now to discuss that in what I hope will be a nonpartisan and open way. But this State of the Union deal they decided to use the British intelligence. The president said it was British intelligence. Then they said on balance they shouldn't have done it. You know, everybody makes mistakes when they are president. I mean, you can't make as many calls as you have to make without messing up once in awhile. The thing we ought to be focused on is what is the right thing to do now. That's what I think.
Leave you guesses in the comment section. And don't go all google-junkie on me either. I'm looking for gut instincts, not internet research.
ANSWER: Bill "how about a fine cigar" Clinton, it just goes to show how whacked out the democratic party has gone.
a few new additions to the mix tape. (as well as some tweaking to the existing lineup)
The new stuff:
19-2000 - gorillaz
Paradise City - Guns 'n Roses
Walk on the Wild side - Bob Dylan I decided to go with the original Lou Reed version
...and something by 311
For those of you who haven't read/listened to/watched British P.M. Tony Blair's Speech to Congress last week, do it. The text is available here (free reg. required) or you can watch the whole thing here (courtesy of C-SPAN). I recommend watching the speech.
He delivered a message that has been direly lacking from the white house. I have no doubt that all the items Blair mentioned are the same beliefs Bush holds. It's just that he is not a very good communicator, and thus politician. Actions are really all that matter to me and I keep a close eye on the news, but this may be a wake up call to the casual citizen about all the good stuff that has been done and the noble plans that lay ahead.
Okay I'm just going to clear up a few things for the self-righteous journalists and media icons.
When Scott Peterson whacks his wife and dumps her in the Ocean, I don't care! Neither do I care about what Kobe Bryant does in Colorado A missing basketball player doesn't concern me. All of these stories in no way affect me. Stop calling them news. I would rather hear an hour-long recital of all the congressional actions of the day, than listen to another "expert analysis" of what whoever's lawyer should/might do if somebody else's lawyer file a certain set of papers. I DON'T GIVE A FLYING FARK!
And another thing I've already harped on before (see here and here) but I really wish you would all stop passing off editorial pieces as news.
...And now to an issue near and dear to your heart, Free Speech. You see the first amendment, which you run up the flagpole every time you get it trouble, is pretty specific. It applies to the government (congress shall make no law...) not your employer, not your fans, not Entertainment Tonight, nobody but the government. So when you call the President a dirty SOB and all your fans get their radio stations to stop playing your songs, and thus stop paying you royalties, and when everybody avoids you like the plague, your free speech is not being restricted. You said what you said, nobody imprisoned you, reposed your home, or killed you. And for you whiny news commentators who complain about getting fired because of something you said. You see if all your viewers/listeners get pissed off because of what you said, and they call your network/station to say that they hate your guts, will never watch/listen again, and contemplating hunting you down to the ends of the earth to rid the human species of your wretched vileness, your boss not only has the right to fire you, he'd be declared legally retard should he not.
So there you go. Heed my advice and gain my viewership. Don't, and the contemplation begins.
My brother is in town, so I probably won't post a lot. Needless to say, fun will insue.
from the BBC:
Iran has acknowledged that a Canadian-Iranian photojournalist was beaten to death after her arrest outside a prison in Tehran. Vice President Ali Abtahi said Zahra Kazemi died "of a brain haemorrhage resulting from beatings". Ms Kazemi, 54, was detained on 23 June for taking pictures of Tehran's Evin prison. She was later pronounced dead after falling into a coma. But officials in Tehran are still refusing to allow Canada to conduct its own investigation into the photographer's death. "We are knowledgeable enough to examine the body and find out the cause of her death, so we will not allow foreign teams to investigate," Health Minister Massoud Pezeshkian told the AFP news agency.
normally I'd half-heartedly compliment the BBC for actually reporting news as news, not with their anti-american op-ed slant, but since this is serious I'll bypass the technicalites.
With this news and a recent statement from Reporters Without Borders that says there are have been 22 foreign journalists arrested and never seen since in the last month. They only question that remains is "Who will be first, North Korea or Iran?"
Okay this is what I've got so far:
Let's get it on -Marvin Gaye
Seven nation army -the White Stripes
Intergalactic -Beastie Boys
Drift away -Uncle Kracker
Livin' on the edge -Aerosmith
Underneath it All -No Doubt
We're not gonna take it -Twisted Sister
Smells like teen spirit -Nirvana
Times like these -Foo Fighters
Loser -Beck
You'll be a woman soon -Urge Overkill
Southtown -POD
I'm experimenting with various renditions and editing effects (acoustic, cropped, amplified bass, etc) an I'm looking for suggestions and comments. Hopefully you can all get a feel for the vibe I'm going for here.
Bob Graham (you know the Florida senator running for president) is now the proud sponsor of NASCAR Craftsmen truck series driver Jon Wood.... okay now that your done laughing, let me explain exactly why this is hilarious.
Allow me to stereotype a bit. NASCAR fans are generally fans of country music, country music fans and about as conservative as you can get. They also don't take kindly to people bad mouthing their president (a la the Dixie Chicks still aren't played on many country stations as per listener boycott) So what would make him think that this would change his reputation of being a liberal dove. I would not be suprise to see NASCAR fans marveling in that trucks defeat, booing his every mention, or even tossing a full keg of beer onto the truck from the stands in a race. The fans are that psycho, and that passionate.
Bob Graham, you are officially out of it.
I literally saw the weirdest thing to ever happen since the beginning of time. Long about 7:30 this evening Nathan, former western neighbor of TOG, came rapping at my door and merely told me to "come here" that was it. So being the gullible gloat I am, I followed thus embarking on farked up journey. There in the middle of the second floor hallway, hanging from a mirror holding bracket, was a fluttering sparrow. Yes, a freaking sparrow! Some it had managed to get a primary flight feather wedged into the 4mm gap between the mirror and bracket, and was flailing about like a sparrow caught on a mirror bracket. Now that my friends, takes the DTFU scale to never before seen heights.
So Nathan did what any normal person would: simply stand there and marvel at the statistical anomaly flapping before him. I, on the other hand, am no mere mortal. I, my dear readers, am compassionate. Yes I know it's a stretch, but keep in mind that my blanket hatred of people doesn't imply a willingness to ignore a fledgling bird. I could find any gloves, so I rounded up a hand towel and very carefully wrapped the birds body in it while I worked to free its left wing from the diabolical clutches of plastic and glass. Emboldened by the opportunity for heroics, and educated by seeing too many episodes for The Crocodile Hunter Diaries I worked the offending feather free, checked for damage, cradled the sparrow in my towel, took it outside, watched it fly from my hands into the wild blue yonder.
Now remind me again why I don't get any love from the ladies.
I'm beginning to compile a new mix tape for myself (ok, it'll be a CD but "Mix CD" doesn't have the same ring) I’ve gotten it written down on my mirror (via dry erase marker) which may be an euphemism for my desired sound. The vibe I'm going for is kind of hard to describe. The best I can do right now is that it will have a smooth edge, from a variety of genres.
Making my way down town
Walking fast
Faces pass
And I'm home bound
Staring blankly ahead
Just making my way
Making a way
Through the crowd
And I need you
And I miss you
And now I wonder
If I could fall
Into the sky
Do you think time
Would pass me by
Cause you know I'd walk a thousand miles
If I could just see you... tonight
It's always times like these
When I think of you
And I wonder
If you ever think of me
Cause everything's so wrong
And I don't belong
Living in
Your precious memory
Cause I need you
And I miss you
And now I wonder
If I could fall
Into the sky
Do you think time
Would pass me by,oh
Cause you know I'd walk a thousand miles
If I could just see you... tonight
And I, I don't wanna let you know
I, I drown in your memory
I,I don't wanna let this go
I, I've fallen...
Making my way down town
Waking fast
Faces pass
And I'm home bound
Staring blankly ahead
Making my way
Making a way
Through the crowd
And I still need you
And I still miss you
And now I wonder
If I could fall into the sky
Do you think time, would pass us by
Cause you kow I'd walk a thousand miles
If I could just see you...
If I could fall into the sky
Do you think time would pass me by
Cause you know I'd walk a thousand miles
If I could just see you...
If I could just hold you... tonight
-Vanessa Carlton, a thousand miles
aside: I actually saw Vanessa Carlton's first TV appearence, it was on 'the view' like 2 years ago and I thought to myself that this chick could play the piano like nobody's business, and that she could get real big real quick (yes, "the view", as in like 11:30 on a thursday morning. I suck like that) I also owned Norah Jones' CD a good 4 months before anybody had ever heard of her, and a full year before she won her bazillion grammys. I'm proud of these things, I don't know why, and I feel slightly embarassed about it. Why do I even care?
The beeb is at it again, this time it's the Iranian Student movement. Apparently demonstrating for your freedom means that Tehran jammed by protesters and apparently jamming all TV/Radio signals, disabling cell phone service, shutting down university campuses, arresting student protesters, and firing tear gas indescriminatly are "Safety Measures" because that's the heading the BBC has them listed under.
Are we absolutely sure that the BBC isn't secretly a western division of Al Jazeera?
Feeling the effects of insomnia and I'm out of drugs, so I might as well angst.
Lately I've been finding myself increasingly conflicted on political issues I hadn't really fully thought through. It's happening in various degrees on some issues, but I'll give you an example as to what i'm talking about. The estate tax (or the death tax as our stone cold righties like to call it), now there's a conflict. On one hand, if I give you 10 dollars, I see no reason for the federal government to get involved, I payed taxes when earned it, and you will pay taxes when you spend it, a third round of money siphering is unneccesary. So I also don't see any reason for the federal government to take a chunk of dead people's money that they give to their kids. One of the thing I like about the country however, is the economic mobility people enjoy, and over the last 30 years, that mobility has dropped. I read a study that says (note: beware all people who use that line, they are most likely making it up. I have searched in vain for the actual results, but can't find them. But, for what it's worth, the study can be used as evidence against my philosophical principles, and I would be retarded to make up evidence against myself. Anyway back to what I was saying before I opened these brackets) that from 1970 to 1980, 40% of the population was in both the top & bottom quintile of yearly income during different points in that decade. In the 80's that dropped to 38%, and in the 90's it was 36%. The estate tax rates have gone basically unchanged for the last 50 years, so that is obviously not the reason for the change, but getting rid of the estate tax surely will not increase that figure. Thus I've hit an intellectual hitch, which I must resolve before I arrive at my real opinion.
It may seem like this is relatively insignificant, but there's a larger principle at stake here. Do I stick to my philosophical ideals, knowing full well that they may dimish attributes that I find good. Or do I support any measure that would increase the prevalence of values I uphold. Most of the time, the two are one in the same, but sometimes it appears as though they work against each other.
It's possible that I'm just not looking at issues such as this in the right frame of mind and the two really are the same. Or that the value I hold dear really isn't worthy of all the respect I've given it. Or that my ideal isn't the intellectual rock I thought it was. Or it could be something else. Heck, I don't know, it's 5 a.m. and I'm angsting...and I don't really care right now.
In trying to cover the full spectrum of adjectives, the French governement makes the jump from irrelavent to absurd by banning the word email because it's english. All French civil servants (i.e. most of the freaking country) will now be required to use the french substitute "courriel" instead. The new description is a combination of "electronique courrier" or "computer squirrel" or something like that, I don't remember.
The real sad thing is to read how this became law:
"The move, made law by its publication in the official government gazette on June 20..."
So, aparently the most power position in the French governement is "newsletter editor" if you can pass laws merely by writing them after "all bleu staffers should now park in the west parking lot" and right before "the 18th of July is a scheduled day off so be sure to turn in your time sheets to your respective deparment heads at least one day before the normal deadline" I'm official assigning a DTFU: level 2 to the French governement for their internal processes.
kind of puts a new spin on their "worship" of multi-culturalism
note: today has been designated as a world wide in recognition of the student revolutionary movement going on in Iran, and this is my contribution
Iranian Blogs of Note
Notes of Iranian Girl
Iman and Farid's Iranian Weblog
Blogletter
Personal Perspective
I think its great that the Iranian students are demonstrating this massive desire for liberty. I also think the timing is interesting, the current clerical government has been in control for about 25 years, and the citizens demonstrating all seem to be young (<30 years old) so the mass majority of the yearning masses, have never known anything but this Islamic Code based regime. A people's will and desire for freedom can only be suppressed for so long. Free expression is a natural desire of all people push it down long enough and it will blow up in your face.
I don't however think that we as a country should play more than an outsider role. We should monitor how the clerics handle this, push for a reformed constitutional democracy, and punish any suppression of free speech with economic sanctions and embargos, and encourage other countries to do the same (though bypass the moral bog that resides under the U.N. patsy blue flag)
I hope we see some serious changes, and I think we will. For those of you who aren't keeping up on the happenings in Iran, I suggest you do. Not only is it important on a international level, it's pretty interesting too.
update: the students have apparently canceled today's demonstrations for fear of violent repression. It's time to start pushing
I'm facing a few cunundrums in my jouney towards compliancy, accesibility, and websitey goodness. First off, all of my linked buttons in the side bar have the ever so conspicous blue link bar bordering each of them, thus they are obviously not following my defined properites for all links. Not sure how actually to handle this, but I'll probably figure something out later.
The second issue also deals with the buttons, and images in general. All of the button images are hosted from this domain (i.e. they are called up with http://thatotherguy.net/buttons/notepad.gif and such) Now, the data-analyzer used by my host is this super powerful all inclusive tool that tells me everything I want to know about who visits this site, the problem lies in the fact that it counts every instance of access to any part of the domain as a hit. Therefore each time the main page calls up a button image, it's counted as a hit. So everytime anyone views the main page, It shows up as 13 hits (1 for the main page and 12 buttons), and that is annoying. So what I'm contemplating is just hosting all my images on my KU webspace. This creates a lot of unessecery data transfer, but I'm not sure what else to do.
Anybody have any ideas for either of this problems?
I came across a neat little canidate questionaire that lets you compare your views to the 2004 presidential candidates. You can find in here
My Results
1. Libertarian Candidate (100%)
2. Bush, George W. - US President (76%)
3. Gephardt, Cong. Dick, MO - Democrat (59%)
4. Phillips, Howard - Constitution (57%)
5. Edwards, Senator John, NC - Democrat (53%)
6. Kerry, Senator John, MA - Democrat (47%)
7. Lieberman Senator Joe CT - Democrat (45%)
8. Sharpton, Reverend Al - Democrat (44%)
9. Kucinich, Cong. Dennis, OH - Democrat (40%)
10. Dean, Gov. Howard, VT - Democrat (39%)
11. Graham, Senator Bob, FL - Democrat (32%)
12. Moseley-Braun, Former Senator Carol IL - Democrat (18%)
13. LaRouche, Lyndon H. Jr. - Democrat (-6%)
The scores are displayed on a curve so they are all relative to each other (i.e. the top canidate is shown at 100% but doesn't really share 100% of my views)
via the RANT via Heritical Ideas via Julian Sanchez via Jim Henley via Eve Tushnet via Kesher Talk...whoah, now thats a blog chain if ever there was one.
5 days later, and a half a world away, a general day of protest in support of the Iranian Independence movement has been generally agreed on. July 9th it will be. I'm planning on devoting the days post to all thing Iranian, and I suggest the rest of the blogosphere do the same. I know Andrew Sullivan will be there. Other sources have stuff to say, read all about it here and here
July 9th, Iranian revolution, be there or be...somewhere else.
Well I'm headed home for Independence Day (I've decided to cease all reference to the actual date because it diminishes the meaning of the holiday) but before I go, I'm leaving you with a few tips to think about this weekend. And so I present to you...
TOG’s Official Guide to Independence Day Glee
1. Many domesticated animal meats are acceptable grillable feasts, the neighbor’s cat however, is not.
2. Drinking and driving is never a good idea, so be sure to get fully hydrated before you go on that road trip.
3. The holidays are a time for family, friends, and fellowship. Any family bickering puts a damper on everybody’s fun. So be sure nobody sees you deck your brother-in-law.
And finally…
4. Beware all fireworks named “Commie Surprise”
I'd like to take this time to point out some recent blatant vindictive journalism.
The following is a collection of BBC Headlines from the front page of their Iraq coverage page.
Blix: Good man, wrong place
Complacency shattered in Iraq
US forces Struggle in Vacuum
US Strike show desperation
Coalition hits wrong notes
Losing the War
'Looters' killed in Iraq blast
Iraqi doubts about liberators
US condemned over Iraq rights
Now as a rule, I don't really care if BBC, ABC, NBC or anybody criticizes anything, exaggerates the miniscule, and they can spin facts to their hearts content. But, what I do take exception due, is flying those colors under the banner of "News." News is dry, simply the facts, not your interpretation of the cause of the facts. As far as I know, there isn't a single good news source out there.
UPDATE: a comprehensive report on the BBC's Iraqi war coverage is available here, but be forewarned, the text is dry, and necessarily so.
well apparently IE6 and Mozilla interpret even the basic CSS coding differently. But do not be alarmed, a plan is being formulated while you read this. My initial reaction is to just f-bomb the mozilla users (hi juby) and please the other 90% of the world with minimal effort. But that would be easy, and I'm not good at easy.
WARNING: tech speak ahead
okay, I just started the re-mockup here and I've already noticed a few problems. Mozilla apparently anchors the borders on the edge of the box and exands the thickness of the border toward the inside, wheras IE expands outward. This is probably a designed behavior for both browsers so I may be screwed no matter what.
The second problem is the background image rendering, IE seems to be stuck with a 20 pixel left padding for the top banner. There is neither padding nor margin of any sort assosicated with it. Mozillia has no such problems, but seems to have an unhealthy obsession for centering and an apparent disdain for resizing.
If I can't get this all standardized, I'm leaning towards setting up seperate templates for both IE and Mozillia and implanting a browser detection script in the inital page load, the re-directing as necessary. Anybody know how to do this and/or if it's even possible? Other suggestions or links to CSS references are welcomed, as I am relatively new to complex site design.
For (probably) the first time in history, my hometown of Wamego, Kansas is actually mentioned in an Associated Press article. 4500 people holla back! You can check the whole article here, but I'll give you all the important excerpt.
In Kansas, lawmakers took time to honor the 103-year-old story of a little girl, a dog named Toto and a land over the rainbow.
Now there’s a new name for Lincoln Avenue in the city of Wamego and 50 miles of highway that lead to it from Interstate 70: “The Road to Oz.”
Still, there’s no wizard in Wamego — not yet, anyway. A new attraction in the city between Topeka and Manhattan, Kan. — The Marvelous Land of Oz Museum — doesn’t open until October
Though nobody in Wamego calls it Lincoln Avenue, it's simply "Main Street", and there aren't 50 miles of road between there and I-70, there are about 7. Either way, this is most likely the high light of our media coverage for the next century.