08-31-02007
Welcome to the blosxom years
When the sponsored links and decent donors of your current CMS starts featuring the likes of mail order brides, dating tours, and internet marketing consultants, it may just be time for a change....
With that, welcome to the Blosxom years here at pwan.org. I also switched the background color and made sure the page validates again.
Let me know if anything starts acting funky.
Signs of Homevalley Activism
I saw this in my homevalley newspaper during the recent Yuletime Parent-Girlfriend Introduction Extravaganva in Easton: Group says program equips students to face recruiters:
He (Peter Crownfield) said he always invites recruiters to examine his information and point out any inaccuracies.
"Every recruiter I've asked has come and looked at the materials," he said. "But they've never said anything was incorrect."
The students at schools where LEPOCO is permitted, such as Liberty, Freedom and Easton Area high schools, are receptive to the group, Crownfield said.
"We frequently get kids come up and thank us for being there for providing the other side of the story," he said.
Nice to see a bit of activism in the area I grew up. That there's any sort of coverage like this being published in the Lehigh Valley is pretty surprising. Perhaps some sort of tipping point has been passed.
Happy International Migratory Bird Day
Happy International Migratory Bird Day.
Perhaps you can celebrate by getting a temporary bobolink tattoos.
Denton
I was in Denton Texas over the weekend. A handful of pictures are up on Flickr. Enjoy.
Shokupanman, who is your toaster girlfriend ?
Are the adventures of Anpanman an analogy of the mission of Jesus Christ?Annual Hometown Flood
My hometown of Easton Pennsylvania appears to be having an annual flood.All that was missing was a house smacking the bridge.
The gawkers with their camcorders were back, a governor was again inspecting the town's damage and the residents of Phillipsburg were wondering how they could have the worst flood in a half- century -- again.
In September, when a wayward cottage struck the bottom of the Phillipsburg Free Bridge and then- Gov. James McGreevey toured the decimated riverfront town, parents turned to their children and told them they might never again see a flood like that in their lifetime.
Yesterday they returned, vowing never to say never again.
(P'burg is across the Deleware River from Easton. None of the Easton flood stories I found were so colorful.)The 2004 flood was blamed on Hurrican Ivan, and this year's flood on melting snow. Bah, I say. What's really changed between 1955 and today is the massive amount of development going on in the Easton area. The farmlands which would normally capture the water have been built over and paved, and now all that water runs off into sewers and goes directly into the river.
Word around town is when the next flood hits, the place to be is the Washington Street Wawa. Apparently they start handing out the free stuff just before the floodwaters reach the store.
Why's This Stone In My Hand Suddenly Starting Blinking
It's my fifth anniversary at Pappa Corp today. Apparently I get a fancy-shmanchy branded computer backpack to take up some more space on my shelf-o-swag.
Whole Wheat Radio Rocks
Whole Wheat Radio is great. There are a lot of good progressive/protest songs in the mix. It's worth putting up with the occiasional sappy country song.
Witch Ducking Reenactment
After 300 years, Virginia has pardoned the Witch of Pungo. In other news
... every year, a reenactment of Sherwood's trial takes place near the spot where she was thrown in the water -- now Witchduck Point -- with residents on boats playing the roles of sheriff, witch and town residents.
So what did the trial entail ?
Authorities took Sherwood out to the river, tied her up and threw her in the water. They tied a 13-pound Bible around her neck. But, according to Nash, she ripped off the ropes underwater and floated back up.
That must be one hell of a reenactment. I hope whoever plays the witch is a good swimmer.
Fishing
I spent a good part of yesterday on the Potomac fishing off a boat from Fletcher's Boat House.
I caught a lot of little white carp (enough to wish they'd stop biting long enough to let me eat my orange in peace), and my friend Peter go a couple shad and even a big catfish. It was a lot of fun.
Perhaps if I get around to it, I'll post some pictures, but don't hold your breath.
Stop Reading Blogs And Go Vote
It's that time again for much-coveted pwan election endorsements, now that we're four hours into the election and the few people in Virginia who may occasionally glance at the RSS feed have most likely already voted, and probably don't live in the 36th district anyway:
- Goven'r: Kaine
- Lt. Goven'r: Byrne
- Attorney General: Deeds
- House of Delegates, District 36: Plum
- School Bond: Yes
No surprises there ! I was surprised to see four Greens running in various house positions. Unforturnately only one of them has a website.
Results start getting a-posted after 7:00PM.
Twin Oaks Cabaret
I drove down to Twin Oaks last night and saw a most excellent production of Cabaret. I didn't know anything about the musical beforehand, and I wasn't going into it with very high hopes, but the entire production really blew me away.Tropical Storm
Egads, on Thursday night there was the biggest, longest lightning storm I ever remember, and it's been raining pretty much ever since, sometimes torrentially. The DC region is in pretty bad shape.
The storms haven't bothered my house much yet. The bottom of the steps had some water seepage by Sunday night, which I expecting since it had been raining very hard for a number of hours. But this morning I was surprised to find the seepage had spread to the downstairs hallway and the utility room, pretty much soaking 1.5 carpets. There was no love lost for the ugly utility room carpet, which I suspect already had prior water damage. I ended up pulling back the carpet in the hallway to find tile underneath. Then I ripped up the carpet in the utility room to find some more ancient tile, which had apparently lost all it's adhesive, since the tiles all moved and broke up as I removed the tile. So now the utility room has a bare concrete floor, and the hallway has half carpet, half tile. I'm not going to replace the carpet. From what I can gather, it acts like a wick, pulling in more water than would otherwise care to visit.
Apparently it may be a couple weeks before I'm able to get some carpet/flooring people in to fix things up:
"In 27 years here, I've never heard anything that bad," said Bill Ploskina, who owns the store on Buchanan Street, just off Lee Highway. "The number of people affected just has to be astronomical."
Folks should expect more of this in the future, seeing how sprawl leads to flooding.
P.S. Go read Occam's Razor's weather post. He gets the weirdness down right. By the third day Courageous Cat was starting to get visibly nervous as he watched as the rain hit the windows. I'm glad to say he lived up to his namesake with respect to the thunder and lightning.
It looks like inadaquet training is the excuse in most of the Iraq scandals. First there was Abu Ghraib:
The Army has initiated extensive changes in the way it trains for and conducts its worldwide detention operations, acknowledging that a series of investigations into prisoner abuse in Iraq, Afghanistan and Cuba revealed failures, omissions or confusion in Army doctrine and training that might have contributed to the abuse.
Then the stressed out recruiters needed some lessons:
The Army has become so concerned about recruiting ethics that it suspended all recruiting on May 20 to conduct a full day of ethics training.
And now the troops are getting some more 'no more shooting babies and old men' training.
Even before the final report is delivered, Army Gen. George W. Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, today ordered that all U.S. and allied troops in Iraq undergo new "core values" training in how to operate professionally and humanely. Not only will leaders discuss how to treat civilians under the rules of engagement, but small units also will be ordered to go through training scenarios to gauge their understanding of those rules.
The training, to include slide-shows, would highlight ''the importance of adhering to legal, moral and ethical standards on the battlefield,'' said Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, Multi-National Corps-Iraq commander in a statement today. "As military professionals," he said, "it is important that we take time to reflect on the values that separate us from our enemies."
Slideshows. Sweet. Because when 18+ years of a most-likely Christian upbringing fails, there's always Powerpoint to the rescue.
If I were putting the slides together, I'd use the Takahashi Method. Big fonts, few words. Slide 1: LIVE BABIES GOOD. Slide 2: DEAD BABIES BAD.
Too Many Changes
I write software for a living. Part of the job is doing code reviews of other developers suggested changes. Most of the time the changes are pretty small, so it's easy to get a handle on what they're trying to do, and it's possible to come to a decision about whether the changes really address the problem at hand, or whether it'll end up making things worse.
Every now and then a code review will come in that attempts to change hundreds of files at once. Usually these come pretty close to a deadline, so it's pretty much impossible to really review these changes. What it boils down to in these cases is trust in the developer. If the developer's been around a while and hasn't broken anything catastrophically in recent memory, I'll let the changes go in. If it's someone I don't know, I won't sign off on it, and will instead remove myself from the fan's splatter zone should anything end up hitting it.
I take the same approach on civic matters. Let's say the local quasi-government entity decides to update their governing documents. They make available a huge set of red-lined changes for review, and ask for a single up-or-down vote.
I tried going through the proposed changes, but the feeling was the same as with the massive code request changes - that whoever was proposing the changes couldn't possibly thought through all the impliciations, and that I was going to have to take on faith that there weren't any sort of hidden zingers in the changes.
As a result I didn't vote on the proposals. Since there was a 40% quorum needed for the changes to go into effect, not voting at all seemed more effective than voting 'No' and allowing those possible zingers to take effect. I was not being apathetic as the Post suggests.
In the future, it would be better if the Reston Association break up the governing document changes into a series of smaller bite-size chunks, possibily starting with lowerering or removing the 40% quorum requirement. The assessment issue should be its own issue as well, as should the changes that were needed to align the documents with current Virginia law. One vote per issue is the way to go, with incremental change.
Too Lazy To Walk
Forget getting folks to walk to the grocery or the post office instead of driving. People are getting too lazy to even walk their dogs, or stand in buffet lines:
The power scooter is an increasingly ubiquitous sight, with an estimated 1.2 million in use nationwide. But while the $1,000-plus vehicles have been hailed as a boon for the infirm and the elderly, they are now finding a new constituency: able-bodied people who simply don't feel like walking.
Just like Feldman from Ghostworld.
There's are racists in Herndon today, from faraway Oakton.
I saw this in today's WP:
"About 300 followers of an organization labeled a "hate group" will gather at a Herndon hotel today for a conference at which speakers will expound on what they see as the global threat of immigration to whites and the moral and intellectual differences among races."
The hotel in question is within working distance of where I work. I could pass pay it tonight if I make the wrong turn leaving the parking lot, though it's probably not worth the effort. The hotel's out in Sprawlsville, well outside what any local would call 'Herndon'.
On the positive side, it looks like Project Hope and Harmony finally has a web presence. Hurrah for them.
Theomedical ID Bracelets
...an idea who's time has come ?
Tax Breaks For Addicts ?
We don't want addicts out there sharing rides, now do we ?
Tarpit Demons
The tarpit demons of software hell await you !"SUVs for the American Refugees
Holy crap, my goofy SUVs for the Homeless idea may become a reality down in Katrinaville.
SUVs for the Homeless
It took over two years, but finally someone has found my SUVs for the Homeless project.
For what it's worth the Hybrid Thank Your Card Project is by far the most popular page on the site. Lots of folks looking for free cards out there in Internetland.
SUV Versus Reston Gas Station
Another aspect I hadn't considered before about owning a hybrid is that when an SUV takes out your local gas station, it may take a couple days before you notice. I guess that explains all the sirens and emergency vehicles speeding around Monday morning... I thought it was some sort of readiness review.
Sunset Hills And Wiehle
(Placeholder for a picture of the stickerage at Sunset Hills and Wiehle, assuming it's still there by the time I return with a camera.)
Update: I drove past the intersection this morning, and surprisingly the sticker is still there, but my digital camera is toast. Any picture taken outside is turns out 95% blank white space. I spent a good part of yesterday poking around all the options, and researching online, but I'm no closer to figuring out what's wrong with it. My current working hypothesis is letting it get banged about in my backpack for months at a time, including a possible soaking during a Lake Anne fishing trip back in June was Not A Good Thing. Time to get a new camera, I guess. Oh well.
Stolen Car
The DC police chief has his motor pool car stolen, has to go about his personal business on his own dime.
Ramsey arrived home early Sunday. When he awoke to go to church later that morning, he couldn't find the black Crown Victoria, and he and his wife went to church in her personal car, he said.
I wonder what sort of service he goes to that he needs a duffle bag full of riot gear.
State Department Existence
"I'm not sure the State Department even exists anymore."
(For a buddy who recently had the good fortune (though it may not seem so today) of being turned down for secret clearance by said department.)
Starbuck Delocator
The Lake Anne Coffee House has been added to the Starbucks Delocator database.Putting on Blinkers ?
A while back one of my English teacher friends was lamenting the use of spellcheckers, since his students would sometimes pick whatever word the program suggested, even if it made absolutely no sense in the context of the essay. With that in mind, the blurb below is on the front page of today's Post.
"Everything was out of control, so we just kind of put on to our little Kingwood experience," Bouchon, 43, a soft-spoken structural engineer, said in a recent interview as he sat on a sofa in his Houston apartment.
Spam So Funny It Can Wake Me From Hibernation
Dear Amazon.com Customer,
We've noticed that customers who have expressed interest in The Haskell School of Expression: Learning Functional Programming through Multimedia by Paul Hudak have also ordered Data Structures and Algorithms Using C# by Michael McMillan. For this reason, you might like to know that Michael McMillan's Data Structures and Algorithms Using C# is now available. You can order your copy for just $99.00 by following the link below.Back to hibernating now...
Soul Factory Giveaway
Perhaps, instead of giving away gas, this Humvee-driving pastor could have given away Metrochecks instead ?
Apparently in Deron's playbook, good stewardship involves no more than increased tithing.
Dorothy Day Dead Just As Long As That Beatle
Dorothy Day has been dead for 25 years now. There was a Catholic Worker farm in my home town in the 30s. It's McMansions and a golf course now. I only learned of this when I saw it in a blog entry. Damn you, John Lennon.
Some Guy From Missouri
Some SUV with Missouri plates followed me into the parking lot at work this morning, and waited for me to get out of the car. I figured maybe some sort of road rage incident. Maybe I cut him off on the toll road, or he didn't like that I wasn't tailgating the car in front of my at the stop light (That would cut off my automatic engine shutoff - I never pull up at stop lights. Pulling up at stop lights is evil. ), But when I got out of the car, he started asking me about the Insight, what sort of mileage I was getting (down to a pathetic high 40's now that I'm the burbs with the AC running), how it handled, whether I was happy with it, where I got it from, etc. Pretty much all the questions I was getting the first month or so I had the car almost three years ago.
Then he said it took him half a tank of gas to get from Wheaton to Herndon and it cost him $45.00 to fill his tank. That's a $450/week commuting habit for you kids bad at math. I told him it cost me around $20.00 to fill my tank every two weeks. (Actually that's up to about $21.50 now) He said I was lucky to have one, and how he wished he'ld gotten one when they first came out, but his wife wouldn't let him because her luggage couldn't fit in the back. I told him the two seater had caused a few problems in the past, but there were now a lot of 4 door hybrids available.
I didn't go into how there was pretty much no luck involved in getting the car, and how it was almost a hassle to find a dealership that would sell me one.
Superwonderful Smoking Manners Posters
The motherlode of superwonderful Japanese Smoking Manners posters.
My favorite is 'snowman', but 'paintbushes' was a close second. Thank goodness for the English translation, else that last one would make no sense whatsoever !
Selfish Issue
Baltimore school buses are getting equipt with surveillance cameras, both inside and out.
"Somebody has to step forward and do some things to protect these children and make the school situation safer for them," said Glenn Williams, president of Millennium Technologies, a Baltimore company involved in the project. Asked whether people might protest more surveillance in their neighborhoods, Williams said that was a "selfish issue."
From the Yellow School Bus Project FAQ
:8. Why did the Points of Light Foundation choose Nextel to be the product provider? Why did they choose Millennium?
Actually it was the other way around. Millennium came up with the idea for this project and approached Nextel to provide the technology and the Points of Light Foundation to ask them to manage the project and to administer the grants....
From the Millennium's Press Releases:... Millennium has just signed an agreement with Nextel to be a national authorized reseller of Nextel products.
Back to the WP article:The surveillance experiment is expected to begin in the coming school year on about 20 buses -- a tiny portion of the 1,300-bus fleet -- with the Maryland State Police and U.S. Justice Department providing a $200,000 grant for the equipment, according to a school transportation official.
Hmmm. At $10,000 a bus, and 418,000 buses in the nation, that's quite a wad of cash being passed around. Selfish indeed.
A phrase worth watching: surveillance bubble, no pun intended.
It all sounds like a dark echo of the late '90s escalation of the Internet and the dizzy dotcom boom. The only difference is that the optimism of the late '90s, the feeling that anything was possible, has been replaced with the post-9/11 fear that anything's possible. And while optimism evaporates over time, fear takes root; so it's unlikely this surveillance bubble, like the dotcom one, will burst.
Fear, dear reader, is good for business. But will the bubble eventually burst ? From an old Viridian Note:
"These WEF folks are freaked out. They see very bad economics ahead, war, and more terrorism. About 10% of the sessions were about terrorism, and it's heavy stuff. One session costed out what another 9/11-type attack would do to global markets, predicting a far, far worse impact due to the 'second hit' effect – a second hit that would prove all the world's post-9/11 security efforts had failed.
But, hey, if that ever happens, at least you'll know where your kid's bus is located.
its own tsunami
"This is a seismic kind of event that creates its own tsunami"
Only with traffic and empty buildings instead of mass graves and malaria.
No Q for you.
I wonder, if you're in Turkey, playing Scrabble, can you use a blank tile as Q.From the Support our Scouts Act of 2005:
SUPPORT FOR YOUTH ORGANIZATIONS- No Federal law (including any rule, regulation, directive, instruction, or order) shall be construed to limit any Federal agency from providing any form of support for a youth organization (including the Boy Scouts of America or any group officially affiliated with the Boy Scouts of America) that would result in that Federal agency providing less support to that youth organization (or any similar organization chartered under the chapter of title 36, United States Code, relating to that youth organization) than was provided during each of the preceding 4 fiscal years.
Meanwhile in Arizona:
Helen, along with 20 other teens, is an officially certified Border Patrol Explorer Scout. The 90-day training program, started last year by the Boy Scouts, exposes teens, ages 14 through 17, to a career with the Border Patrol. “It gives you a cool feeling, like you’re a real agent or something,” says Helen.
Border Patrol Captain Terrence Ford started off with the basics of statutory and criminal law. But the fare quickly became more challenging — if not controversial. The teens learn to raid buildings. They learn to pull cars off the road. They learn to shoot guns. They even learn to track “illegal immigrants” — or advisers dressed as illegal immigrants — on moonless nights with night-vision goggles.
Helen, smellen. Sounds like a Julia to me:
She had no memories of anything before the early sixties and the only person she had ever known who talked frequently of the days before the Revolution was a grandfather who had disappeared when she was eight At school she had been captain of the hockey team and had won the gymnastics trophy two years running. She had been a troop-leader in the Spies and a branch secretary in the Youth League before joining the Junior Anti-Sex League. She had always borne an excellent character. She had even (an infallibIe mark of good reputation) been picked out to work in Pornosec, the sub-section of the Fiction Department which turned out cheap pornography for distribution among the proles.
Saturday's March
I attended the march on Saturday with a couple friends. We were running late (after crashing at there place for too long after doing some 7:00 AM bird watching) so we joined the march at maybe 1:30PM, just past the White House, but before the piddly little 300-or-so member counterprotest at the Justice Department. The counterprotesters were on the sidewalk along the Justice Department, strangely enough sharing space with some socialists on the corner, probably much to both group's chagrin. Amazingly I ran into two other people along the march route.
The crowd was all over the place demographically. There were no big Bread-and-Puppet style puppets as far as I could see, and for that matter very little mass-produced signs. Most signs were pretty sloppy homemade jobs with a wide variety of slogans. There were lots of kids, and a lot of old folks, and very few kids in the protester-gothic get-up. The two black block style kids I saw looked really out of place. The closest thing to organized protest groups would be a few Code Pink groups every now and then, and a group of Buddhist monks. With regards to attendence, it wasn't shoulder-to-shoulder like it was during the March for Women's Health. Based on the number of CNN free giveaway flourescent green book totes in crowd, I'd say there was a pretty high crossoover of march/bookfair participants.
The police weren't in riot gear, and looked pretty relaxed - I even saw Police Chief Ramsey stop to get his picture taken with an upside-down flag outside the Justice Department. I've been too lazy to check and see if the pictures surfaced anywhere online yet.
Sadly no pictures since I haven't fixed/replaced my camera yet.
The Revealer Rocks
More good words from the Revealer:
We need theologically-charged, morally outraged, investigative historical reporting to tell us why and how the dead of New Orleans died, and when their killers -- not Katrina, but the developers and politicians and patricians who are now far from the city -- began the killing. It wasn't Monday, and it wasn't last week. We need journalists, not just historians, to look deeper into the American mythologies of race and money, "personal responsibility" and real responsibility. This isn't a religion story because God acted, but because people acted. It's not about what they didn't do, it's about what they did do, under the cover of civic development and urban renewal and faith-based initiatives that systematically eradicate the possibility of real, systemic response to a crisis that is more than a matter of individual souls.
The 'Do No Recruit' List
Do you know who your kids have been talking to ?
Over the past three months, recruiters have sought student names, addresses and phone numbers at the county's 25 high schools before families have been given the opportunity to remove their student's name from the recruiting list.
Go ahead and add your kid's names to the Do Not Recuit list.
You can opt-out even if your kid is under the age of eighteen. Eighteen, bah, when I was working on that high school robotics team a couple months ago, the scariest thing I heard (and there were lots of scary things I heard while working with the kids) was the school's junior ROTC program would visit the elementary schools at the end of the year to recruit the incoming 8th grade frosh for the program. So maybe you'll want to try opting your kids out around age fourteen.
(Come to think of it, a big part of the slowdown here at pwan.org, is a side effect of working with the kids. I'd hear about some weird-assed shinnanagins going on in the schools, and then self-censor myself because I didn't want any of the kids (or their parents) to find the posts. We'll I'm finished with that program, and there's been a suitable cooling off period, so the occassaional strange story may show up from now on.)
Larry Wall is going to attend the YAPC::NA Pugs hackthon.
Pugs is a Haskell implementation of Perl 6 that's being developed at a stunning pace.
Psychochronology
Given psychogeography's popularity, I would have through psychochronology would have more of a following....
High School Student Protests In Virginia
There are high school student protesters in Virginia as well. The Washington-Lee High School is in my old Ballston neighborhood. The walk from the Falls Church high school is a pretty good hike.
This and the student protests in California reminded me that many of these kids are probably language brokers within their households.
Being a broker makes complex linguistic and cognitive demands upon children, but it also offers them a position of power and responsibility within the family, a position often at odds with their more usual role.
Update:
There was a much larger protest along the Ballston/Courthouse corridor today. There were 1,500 students involved in today's march instead of yesterday's 200. It must have been a pretty slow moving group if it took them two hours to get from Ballston to Courthouse. The walk from Ballston to Courthouse and back used to take me an hour when it was snowy out, and some people hadn't shoveled their walks.
Neither Post article has bothered to explain the 'Si Se Puede' reference.
Another Proof Of Life Post
Here's a few of the things I've learned in the month or so since the last post:
I can swap out an electrical outlet without killing myself.
I plugged in the vacuum cleaner to an outlet I hadn't used yet in the new house, and it flared up with a mighty spark and the whole basement level of the house went dark. Since this happened at 4:30 on a Saturday, and I didn't feel like not having electricity in the basement until Monday when an electrician might show up, I went out and got a replacement socket, and managed to get it installed and power on in the downstairs level without killing myself or the cat. I spent the next couple days patting myself on the back for that.
Do not try to scare off toads with a hose
Toads like water, they will hop towards you if you try to spray them off your sidewalk with a hose. There are a lot of toads in my neighborhood. I usally see two of them walking from my car to the house. Sometimes a toad will sit by the window, and freak out the cat.
Courageous Cat is really a big scardey cat
He is frighted of toads (see above), other cats that come by the backyard, and fireflies. When he is startled he'll run off and start scratching up the carpet. I've spent a big chunk of change on various scratching aids which he ignores in favor of the carpet. I've been toying with the idea of getting more hardwood floors installed in house someday. The cat may be pushing that decision forward a bit.
I've learned how to distinguish a basement leak from cat piss
Major hints: a) no urine smell, b) lots more liquid. One night what started as trying to clean the carpet where I thought the cat had had an accident (see scardey cat above) turned into me pulling back a section of the carpet and setting up a fan to dry up the basement leak. It sort of reminded me of the basement scenes from Stir of Echoes, only without the sledgehammer. Really it wasn't that bad, nothing like burst pipes, and not that much carpet had to be pulled back. Still if the area continues to leak it may be a big problem
Virginia Primary Tomorrow.
This is just a short reminder for the locals that tomorrow is the Virginia Democratic primary for their senate candidate. Lucky Virginia primary voters get to choose between an ?ex?-Republican , a Republican campaign contributor. Wee hoo.
The Republican's sent me some campaign literature warning me the Contribtor worked against setting up mandatory Internet filters in schools and libraries. Eh ? That's supposed to make me vote against the guy ? However, the Republican does however come with some impressive endorsements, such as John Kerry and Arlington's Jay Fisette, and he's also sufficently antiwar, so I'll reluctantly endorse him.
Everyone registered to vote in Virginia gets to vote in primaries, regardless of current or past party affiliations, or what party you've contributed money to in the past. So if you're in Virginia, please get out and vote.
Update: It turns out there is a separate Republican primary in the 8th district. You can vote in either primary, but not both. I, of course, suggest everyone vote in the Democratic primary. There are still about two hours before the polls close.
Virginia Primary Today
A reminder for Virginia readers that today's the primary. Another reminder that you'll have to pick either a Democratic or Republiban ballot.
For what it's worth, here at the pwan we endorse Leslie Bryne for Lt. Governor.
However if I lived in District 67, I might serious consider voting on the other ballot, just so I could vote against Chris Craddock:In addition, he criticized Reese for voting to allow people applying for marriage licenses to get information on family planning and birth defects.
"It makes you question what [Reese] really stands for," Craddock said.
Officers In Ski Masks
One family reported that the father had been taken away by security officers who were wearing black ski masks.
As horrified shoppers at a popular Manassas strip mall ducked for cover yesterday, masked members of a Prince William County narcotics task force drew their guns and opened fire on an alleged drug dealer who authorities say threatened the lives of undercover officers while trying to escape in his SUV.
...
Many shoppers said they thought the officers wearing ski masks were gang members.
Po' Girl
I'm satisfing my Be Good Tanyas fix with lots of Trish Klein's Po' Girl. Good stuff, with non-klez (imagine that !) clarinet from Allison Russel.From It Can't Happen Here, Sinclair Lewis, 01935
What ho! What are you doing home? Why aren’t you in school?”
“Oh. THAT.” She squatted on the padded fender seat, chin in hands, looking up at him, not seeing him. “I don’t know ‘s I’ll ever go there any more. You have to repeat a new oath every morning: ‘I pledge myself to serve the Corporate State, the Chief, all Commissioners, the Mystic Wheel, and the troops of the Republic in every thought and deed.’ Now I ask you! Is THAT tripe!”
Platelet Donation
Did you know platelet donatation was different than regular blood donation ? I didn't. It looks like it's going to take about twice as long as a normal donation. That's probably too long for me to do it on a regular basis, but I'd like to try it out at least once. My appointment is on May Day.
Apparently there are sickle cell disease donations as well, but apparently I won't be asked for that anytime soon.
Photographer's Rights Flyer
Photographer's Rights Flyer, for a friend who was accosted outside the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington for playing with his PDA's camera last Easter.
The UUCA happens to be across the street from some National Gaurd facility, and apparently the guards were a little bored that Sunday...
Pez Snakefish
Hats off to whoever stumbled across this site looking for 'pez snakefish'.Peak Oil As Rapture Or At Least The New Y2K
Quit asking should I buy solar? Should I buy an axe? Should I buy a gun? The answers are no, no, and no. If in fact, billions of people will die, look at all the stuff that will be left behind. So, don’t buy it, pick it up off the ground when others leave it behind.
Or at least the new Y2K:
Those unhealthy people can barely walk up a flight of stairs right now. What are they going to do if there are no medicines to support their unhealthy lifestyle and no air conditioning, elevators, escalators, or motorized shopping carts to get their groceries?
Onward Christian Soldiers
Some troops' families angered by crosses at war protest site.
Sherry Orlando, a spokeswoman at Fort Campbell, Ky., said she doesn't want her husband, who was killed in Iraq in 2003, to be used "for someone's political agenda."
Apparently it didn't occur to the reporter or anyone mentioned in that article that all the dead may not be Christian.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the fence, the real gravestones are being engraved with the DoD advertising.
``I was a little taken aback,'' Robert McCaffrey said, describing his reaction when he first saw the operation name on Patrick's tombstone. ``They certainly didn't ask my wife; they didn't ask me.'' He said Patrick's widow told him she had not been asked either.
``In one way, I feel it's taking advantage to a small degree,'' McCaffrey said. ``Patrick did not want to be there, that is a definite fact.''
I wonder what's on Ms Orlando's husband's tombstone.?Paying down debt is Questionable Behavior
Pay down your credit card, get spied down upon.
They were told, as they moved up the managerial ladder at the call center, that the amount they had sent in was much larger than their normal monthly payment. And if the increase hits a certain percentage higher than that normal payment, Homeland Security has to be notified. And the money doesn't move until the threat alert is lifted.
I wonder where the money stays until the threat is lifted, and who gets the interest earned on it...
I like Pandora
For when I get around to it - maybe incorporate my pandora favorite songs list onto the page somehow. I like Pandora a lot, especially the Squeezebox integration. I looked into last.fm as well, but I hated how the songs I dislike would keep playing for a couple seconds until it switched songs.
Overwhelming Fire(fighting)power
There was a fire nearby. What caught my eye in the article was
Firefighters were able to extinguish the fire in about 35 minutes, said Trice. Two firefighters sustained minor injuries, but one needed to be taken to the hospital, according to Trice.
...
Trice said at least 30 emergency vehicles, which spilled beyond Fairwind Way and onto most of Moorings Drive, arrived on the scene. "Heavy smoke and fire were showing when they arrived," said Trice.
More than 90 firefighters helped extinguish the fire.
I'm sure a lot of those firefighters were taking part in six hour postfire hosedown, but still ninety people seems like a lot. Note the picture on the page says more than 100 firefighters were present.
It reminded me that I've seen two other accidents in the past week where I've seen an unusually large number of responders. In the first incident, it looked like a car had run up on the median along Elden street, and there were two police cars and a police motorcycle there, with three other police cycles across the street.
The other incident, there was a two car accident on Centerville Road with three hook and ladder firetrucks in addition to a lot of other vehicles, and a medivac helicopter. I guess the hook and laders could have been being used to block off traffic for the helicopter, but it does seem strange to see so many people at an accident scene.
Oh Dear
The order of the entries has gone all wonky on me. Time for a short script to touch everybody in order !
No Power Soon ?
Hmmm. I just got an emergency SMS message asking me to turn off all unneccessary electrical appliances because energy demands are at record highs because of the heat, and a nasty thunderstorm storm just kicked up out of nowhere. I hope I can finish this post before the power goes out.
The way its raining out now, I'm sure they'll be some water under the basement rug again tonight as well. Sigh.
Update: Never lost power, and the basement didn't flood. Hurray.There are no more hungry Americans...
... only Americans with very low food security.
That 35 million people in this wealthy nation feel insecure about their next meal can be hard to believe, even in the highest circles. In 1999, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, then running for president, said he thought the annual USDA report -- which consistently finds his home state one of the hungriest in the nation -- was fabricated.
But actually, he thought as he re-adjusted the Ministry of Plenty's figures, it was not even forgery. It was merely the substitution of one piece of nonsense for another. Most of the material that you were dealing with had no connexion with anything in the real world, not even the kind of connexion that is contained in a direct lie. Statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version as in their rectified version.
Boots, hungry people: there's no difference these days.
No Longer An Accident
Apparently the transportation bill passed passed on the July 29 calls for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to document non-traffic-related crashes, such as totsplats.
"We're not calling these accidents anymore," Adriann Nelson said, holding her 5-month-old daughter, Heidi. "These are tragedies..."
Tragedies on the same order as letting your kid get trapped in a washing machine. Until folks start calling these incidents 'crimes' instead 'accidents', kids are going to keep getting killed.
Nick Robertson Quote
It bothered me that the Whisky Bar 'A War of Ideas' post didn't include a link to the Nik Robertson quote. I know billmon was just pulling the text from the Plank post, but still it bugged me. So I tracked down the transcript. Here's the ending of the Robertson report that the Plank writer left out:
Whether or not the reports are accurate, the staff took them as fact. It seems in this climate of fear, no act is so barbaric it can't be believed.
Leaving out those last two lines certainly makes the stories seem more believable, no ? It changes the whole tone of his report, from one about what residents are willing to believe to one where these outrageous claims are being reported as fact.
Lesson of the day is question any post containing an unlinked quote.
Neither Blood Nor Angst Nor Taxes
Uwe E. Reinhardt has a wonderful editorial in today's Post:
A policymaking elite whose families and purses are shielded from the sacrifices war entails may rush into it hastily and ill prepared, as surely was the case of the Iraq war. Moral hazard in this context can explain why a nation that once built a Liberty Ship every two weeks and thousands of newly designed airplanes in the span of a few years now takes years merely to properly arm and armor its troops with conventional equipment. Moral hazard can explain why, in wartime, the TV anchors on the morning and evening shows barely make time to report on the wars, lest the reports displace the silly banter with which they seek to humor their viewers. Do they ever wonder how military families with loved ones in the fray might feel after hearing ever so briefly of mayhem in Iraq or Afghanistan?
Negative Amortization
Hmmmm. Housing bubble is starting to look more like a time bomb...
In the Washington area, more than a third (33%) of home buyers are using interest-only loans, up from about 2 percent (2%) five years ago.
According to UBS AG, an investment banking firm, more than 50 percent of borrowers who took option ARM mortgages in 2004 are making minimum payments. Their mortgage balances are rising each month, which is called "negative amortization."
I wonder how many of my neighbors are in this pickle.
Musical Craving
I have a sudden craving to visit Manhattan and see a musical:
(It's) your standard "boy-meet-girl, boy-designs-really-big-car-for-girl, girl-leaves boy-for-environmental-activist, boy-is-sentenced-to-death-for-crimes against-humanity" love story.
For what it's worth I also have a mighty craving for Nines pizza after some folks taunted me last night after just having left the restaurant.
More Vandalism at UUCR
Someone tried burning the new civil unions banner on Saturday night. Someone during the service said they were driving by the church at midnight and saw a brush fire in the woods by the church off Wiehle. When the fire department arrived they noticed the damage to the nearby banner. Did I mention my house is on the other side of the woods that were aflame ? Anyway the partially burned banner looks sort of dignified compared to the previous limp cut-in-half banner. I hope the church leaves this one up a little before replacing it.Noted Without Comment
"Our smokers are reporting that, for the first time in many weeks, 'make test' is faster than compiling Pugs itself. That is a clear sign: we need more tests! :-)"
Update: Day 119/120: they now have 7200+ testsThe Minutemen Visit Vermont
The Minutemen visit Vermont.
They began scouting out potential sites several weeks ago, poking around this hamlet with a downtown almost directly on the border. It was in Derby Line that they had their first problem with the elusive border. On one scouting expedition, member Bob Casimiro said they became, for a moment, illegal visitors in Canada.
Then came their first official patrol two weekends ago, which was dogged by protesters who assembled downtown and shouted slogans such as "Take your hate out of our state." The Minutemen had to patrol a bike path away from town, and then -- as the Boston Globe reported -- got lost and had to ask a local for directions.
If I find any of the Herndon Minutemen wandering lost in the paths of Reston, I will helpfully point them towards the bottom of the Potomac.
Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was asked what orders the troops have to handle such incidents. He responded: "It is absolutely the responsibility of every U.S. service member if they see inhumane treatment being conducted, to intervene, to stop it."
He said soldiers who hear of but don't see an incident should deal with it through superiors of the offending Iraqis.
That's when Rumsfeld stepped to the microphone and said, "I don't think you mean they have an obligation to physically stop it. It's to report it."
Pace then repeated to Rumsfeld that intervening when witnessing abuse is the order the troops must follow, not just reporting it.
Lose weight, save gas.
Lose weight, and save gas. On the macro-level at least.
Update: and reconsider singing in the shower as well.
Looking For Job
Just a quick note to explain my recent absence. Cisco has shut down it's Herndon development operation, so about a hundred developers, myself included, are out looking for new jobs now. I may have more to say on this once my final severance package check clears. For now, I'm going a little bonkers around the house trying to keep myself busy.
Someone has pointed out the my wiki on the site's been spammed pretty harshly, so one of my tasks over the next few days is restoring the wiki with some password protection.
Update:I have a new job with a startup. I start next Monday. I won't be mentioning the name of the place here, and I haven't come up with a code name for them yet, I'll probably just stick with the Cisco-era 'Papa Corp'. The wiki's been restored, with password protection so only I can update it, effectively whacking all wikiness out of it. Oh well.
Lake Anne Development Final Report
The Lake Anne Redevelopment Report has been published. There's a community meeting tomorrow night. The plan calls for the Crescent Hill apartments to be replaced with 1,650 parking spaces and a series of highrises up to twelve stories tall.
Oh well, it was nice living in a neighborhood without a construction crane in view for a few months at least.
Kinetic Sculpture Race
Amy and I headed up to Baltimore for the American Visionary Art Museum's Kinetic Sculpture Race. (Our heads made it into the far left of the picture with The Rat.) My photos are up on flickr.
Kind Of Tresspassing
Apparently visiting a school does not entail visiting the students:
The loudest voices came from some Montgomery County residents and Blair students who questioned why they were not allowed inside.
...
Trent Duffy, a White House spokesman, said blocks of tickets were distributed to several nonprofit organizations, including Young America's Foundation, which selected the individuals who received them.
...
Duffy said he did not know if any of those invited were county residents.
Keith Olbermann Is My New Hero
I don't have cable, and my TV viewing consists almost solely nowadays of Gilmore Girls DVDs and cheesy 1970 sci-fi movies from Netflix, so excuse me if I'm the last person in the country to hear about Keith Olbermann, but holy crap, he's my new hero.
Go now and watch that entire 10 minute clip, even if you've already seen it before.
Jolly Bankers / Uncle Earl Lovefest Placeholder
This is a placeholder for a gushy Jolly Bankers lovefest post, with possibly with some nods to Uncle Earl, since they put on such a great show. They are touring now. Go see them if at all possible, and ask Ms Andreassen when that rumored new Jolly Banker CD will be released !
Joke / No Joke
Joke: ""We must free ourselves from dependence on fossil fuels within 85 generations."
Not Joke: "We're setting a (radiation level) standard that not only protects our children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, but will protect for the next 25,000 generations."
But still, this paragraph was very funny:
Nevada officials, who are still hoping to block the project in court, questioned why the government would establish a protective annual radiation level of 15 millirems and then set a different standard to take effect "seconds after midnight" after 10,000 years, in the words of lawyer Joseph Eagan.
Damn it, where's the Long Now blog when you need it.
JavelinDirect Linux Port
The Javelin chip only had a Windows downloader, and I lost my only available Windows machine when Cisco took back their laptop. Luckily Parralax made the source for the downloader available under the GPL, so I could try to port it over the Linux if I only had the time...
Well, being between jobs provided me with a lot of time to burn, so a porting I did go. However, I start working again on Monday, so I most likely won't have the time for this anymore. I'm making what I did so far available on the Linux port of JavelinDirect page.
If you have experience with serial port programming in Linux, please take a look at what I've done. I'm certain there are some obvious port configuration issues that need to be fixed. Thanks.
Halloween Costume Notes
I'm in the process of making a rather intricate-for-me Halloween costume, so Incredible Stuff I Made is my new muse.
Cliche Kitty makes an appearence on the costume, along with a word search, a maze, and lots of little green men (well actually only 8 little men). The theme for the party is 'modern horror movies', which I'm interpreting to include 1970's dystopian science fiction movies.
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Courageous decided to rub up against the still-wet costume last night, so I've experienced the joy of washing yellow paint off the cat at 1:00AM.
Passadena Crackdown
The All Saints Church in Passadena is having it's tax exempt status investigated by the IRS because of a 2004 sermon entitled If Jesus Debated Senator Kerry and President Bush.
It looks like most news stories quote the ' “Mr. President, your doctrine of preemptive war is a failed doctrine. Forcibly changing the regime of an enemy that posed no imminent threat has led to disaster. ' line, but I suspect the actual reason for the crackdown may be in the final comment section:
Do you remember those days when your heart was full of hope that life could be different, that life could be transformed and healed, that life could be better and more wonderful? Remember the energy that brought to your life. Those dreams you have for your children and grandchildren, those dreams for your marriage or close relationships, those dreams for your job—they are powerful engines for change in your life. Don’t let anyone take them from you. Nor take from you your dreams for a new America and a peaceful world.
P.S. As of last Friday, I'm an offical member of the Arlington UU Church, after attending services for over five years or so.
Marketing Impeachment
Holy crap. I've been posting little "IMPEACH." stickers for a few months now. I wonder what the chance are that Kargo-X saw one of them.
I crank them out with a Brother label maker, 15 at a time, and keep them in a little duct-tape envelope in my wallet, waiting for just the right location for a bit of stickerage. I'm prepared ! The black on clear labels especially make for a nice effect. The labels are easy to remove so I don't feel too bad putting them down.
I've stuck a lot of them between Virginia and Pennsylvania by now after a few holiday trips...
What Harry Angel Would Smell Like
Did you know there are hummer perfumes:
H2, an eau de toilette that was blended by Firmenich, features top notes of cinnamon, mandarin peel and bergamot; a heart of cardamom, bourbon pepper and elemi, and a base of incense and red myrrh.
I wonder is 'cardamom' is perfume-speek for 'a soldier killed in an oil war' ?
Pissed And Whining
Like the Mayor of New Orleans, I'm pissed about what's become of the city. This Tim Naftali article expresses the unplaced anxiety I've had watching the situation deteriorate.
How is it possible that with the fourth anniversary of 9/11 almost upon us, the federal government doesn't have in hand the capability to prepare for and then manage a large urban disaster, natural or man-made? In terms of the challenge to government, there is little difference between a terrorist attack that wounds many people and renders a significant portion of a city uninhabitable, and the fallout this week from the failure of one of New Orleans' major levees. Indeed, a terrorist could have chosen a levee for his target. Or a dirty-bomb attack in New Orleans could have caused the same sort of forced evacuation we are seeing and the widespread sickness that is likely to follow.
I hope if anything similar happens in the Washington area, my neighbors are civilized enough to follow the Manahattan model for dealing with infastructure breakdown. But who am i kidding ? It's a total car culture down here and everyone who can will drive away from here just as quick as they can, leaving the poor and sick to fend for themselves.
BTW. Gas went up ten cents at my local station between the time I drove past it on the way home from work last night, and the time I left to meet friends two hours later. I forgot to check what it was on the way home again.
BTW, Where are the interviews of the New Orleans soldiers stationed in Baghdad. There are probably at least a couple New Orleans natives in Iraq who don't know if they have homes to eventually go back to any more. That's got to suck, though probably not as much as getting back from Iraq and being asked to shot Americans.
Housekeeping
The RSS feed should be working again. I also fixed up a few HTML errors so the page should validate now. Not that anyone gives a chuckle.
Simpson States
Homer States and Lisa StatesHerndon Minute Men
Some Herndon residents are setting up a day laborer stalking club:
One group would focus on taking pictures of the laborers while another group would photograph potential employers and possibly follow them to job sites ...
Another facet to "Operation Spotlight" in Herndon would be a group of volunteers that follow day laborers to their homes, in an effort to document potential violations of town zoning ordinances.
Herndon Day Labor Site Acivist Surveillance
The Herndon Day Labor site opened yesterday with incidents of activist surveillance.
Since October, the Minutemen have been photographing and filming employers who pick up workers at the 7-Eleven. But yesterday, members of the group mostly were training their cameras on the pro-laborer activists.
I wonder if they are going to send the activists names to the IRS as well. Maybe they can send their footage to the Pentagon instead.
Having secured the safety of Americans from crime, a Georgia police department has turned to selling Fords:
The East Point Police Department is teaming up with the "Ford Hybrid Patrol" to pull over fuel-efficient drivers at random in a customized Mercury Mariner Hybrid patrol SUV (complete with flashers and bullhorn). Drivers will be rewarded free gas cards.
Hi Mom !
And when justice is gone, there's always force.
And when force is gone, there's always Mom. Hi Mom!
Happy May Day
Loyalty Day parade canceled due to low turnoutSmall Gnome Bug
(I submitted a small Gnome bug report today.)
Update:The little bug is steadily making its way through the Gnome defect tracking system. It's so exciting !
Gary Snyder Likes His Mac
Why I Take Good Care of My MacintoshPriority Realignment Time
The average price of gas went up 18 cents last week. Finally some people may be aligning their priorities a bit better:
(Some mail boy in) Springfield said it is time to sell his 2001 Chevrolet Tahoe; he said it costs $75 to fill the tank. "That's taking away from other stuff I need," said R., a 22-year-old shipping and receiving specialist.
The extra money he spends on gas, he added, could go toward baby formula and clothes for his son, M., who was born Tuesday.
Update:(I removed the names from the block above to spare the kid the trama of googling himself in 10 years just to find his dad had a problem choosing between gassing up and feeding him.)
The Perils of Late Night Surfing
Sixteen ThingsJapan Photos
I was in Japan on a business trip for ten days in April, and I finally got around to posting some photos on Flickr. There's a couple non-Japan photos up there as well. The camera has a quicktime setting, which I accidentily had set for most of the Japan trip, so until I can figure out how to pull off Quicktime stills, this will be it for a while. They are very short movies, since I thought I was taking stills. Oh well. I had also captured some neat sound files of the Tokyo subway system, but I lost my mp3 player somewhere on the way back.
Five Year Anniversary
Today's the five year anniversary of this blog.
I was thinking of announcing a formal hiatus, given that I haven't had all that much to say recently, when lo and behold some actual blog-worthy content appeared in my inbox.
It turns out that a student from Georgia Tech has taken my old abandoned pre-blog OCL parser project and used it as part of the tool chain for his code generation project Dynamo.
I'm glad the old code finally proved useful to someone ! Perhaps I will put off the naval-gazing hiatus announcement post for a little while longer.
I ripped my first CD track today
I ripped my first CD track today. It was 'Regiment' from 'My Life In the Bush Of Ghosts'. I know, I know, even my dad's been ripping classical music for about four years now. I just never got into the whole mp3 thing. However, the CD's I've been buying lately seem to be of such shoddy quality I'm being forced into making digital copies before the disks go bad after a few plays.
FIRST Championship
The FIRST Herndon Robotics team that was sucking up all my time a while back is doing pretty well in the championship down in Atlanta. They are 17th in their division of over 100 teams.
Look for team 116 in the Archimedes division from the video feeds. They have two more matches tomorrow I think, and then potentially some rounds in the finals, if things keep going well.
Apparently the Herndon VEX team also won their competition today as well, which is pretty impressive, seeing they only had a month or so to build their robot from a totally new kit, and they couldn't use any parts from outside the kit.Smart Bombs, Dumb Payroll
The Army has recently identified 332 soldiers who have been hit with military debt after being wounded at war.
"They call and they call and they call," he said. "They're nasty to me." Sometimes, he said, he feels outraged. "I don't know how much you want from me. I already gave you one arm and a part of a leg."
The article claims that..
.. the root of the problem is an outdated Defense Department computer system, which does not automatically link pay and personnel records.
When was it ever fashionable to not have pay and personnel records linked ? "Poorly designed and broken" is not the same as "out of date", even if it's been poorly designed and broken for a very long time.
Another pet-peeve of this type of article is that the contractors responsible for the broken systems are never named. Who's getting paid to write and maintain these systems ?
Elfon Hosting
The lack of posts recently has been because I've been busy switching hosts from Earthlink over to Elfon, one of those bouquet renewable energy hosts. If you're reading this, the port should more or less be finished, though I may still need to clean up some loose ends. Wee hoo, this site isn't powered by dead things any more.
Now I suspect it'll only take an hour or two of being on hold with Earthlink customer support to cancel my account there...
Eighty Snakeheads
I was just thinking the other day, "What even happened to the snakefish ?". Well, eighty of them were found in the Potomac last Saturday.
"We would throw one in the cooler, two others would jump out and we'd have to chase them through the woods."
Don't Forget the Cisco Herndon Optical Group !
Finally, some press on Cisco cutting optical jobs.:
Press reports in northern California say 40 staff in Petaluma were being moved out of optical, many of them being offered other jobs within Cisco. One source says Cisco's Richardson, Texas, facility is also slashing optical jobs and giving several employees new assignments.
Looks like a repeat of the Herndon situtation from mid September - I'm guessing the folks were offered the option of moving to San Jose or RTP or leaving the company. There were around the hundred people in Herndon, Virginia, but only about a quarter of them were in optical.
Digital Divide
I ran into a good example of the digital divide yesterday, with respect to access to my local Virginia house delegate, Ken Plum.
I'm on the mailing list for the Reston Citizens Association, which is trying to get Reston incorporated as a town instead of just an association providing 4th level government type services (whatever that means).
Yesterday a message was sent out on the mailer asking folks to go fill out local delegate Ken Plum's 2006 Constituent Survey since there was a question about town status on it.
Lo and behold, it turns out there are also questions about withholding state funds from local governments that establish day labor centers, and about denying social services to folks without offical documentation.
This survey wasn't mailed to me. It is apparently only online, and I only learned of it by my association with a group not involved with immigration issues. I doubt most of the people that might be impacted by these issues have the time or access to get online and fill out this survey.
Also, I know of at least two groups with some online presence that are catering to the more jingoistic Herndonites. I assume have mailing lists set up that are directing their readers to this survey, just like the RCA led me to it.
Meanwhile, HEART (Herndon Embraces All in Respect and Tolerance) still has no web presence, and no mailing list I can find. I wonder which group is going to get their voices heard more this survey.
Perhaps HEART should rename itself to HURT (Herndonites Unorganized in Respect and Tolerance)
Let the Day Labor Lawsuits Commence !
Wowzers. Hats off to the Herndon City Council. They Herndon approved their day labor site. I drove by City Hall around 10:00 last night, but it looked like things had settled down bythen. I guess the lawsuites will start rolling in now:
"This controversy will not disappear if we . . . maintain the status quo," said Stef Woods, a lawyer for Just Neighbors, a group that helps immigrants.
Each side blamed the other for the animosity in the town, where foreign-born residents now make up 38 percent of the 22,000 residents.
I wonder if that foreign-born statistic refers to people born outside Herndon, outside of Virginia, or outside the United states. I suspect the number of non-Herndon-born residents currently living in Herndon is probably much, much higher. Maybe 90% or higher. I suspect even U.S. residents born outside Virginia would probably be greater than double 38%.
Day Labor Circus
I stopped by Herndon last night to attend the day laborer town council hearing. According to a friend who works at Reston Interfaith, the town's proposal to set up a formal laborer pickup site had been turning nasty lately. I figured I'd sit as some kooky out-of-towners' made some ridiculous claims, and otherwise offer support to folks actually offering solutions.
Wow, was I mistaken. I arrived around 7:15 for a 7:30 meeting, figuring like most civic meetings it wouldn't be very well attended. It turns out there were probably already 300 people in line to get into the building, with about maybe another 100 protesters playing for the three or so TV camera groups which were there. I figure the protesters were about equally split between the pro/anti-laborer factions. The pro-labor group was louder with better chants, but the anti-labor group was more into getting their petitions signed, and passing out their goofy paper stars. The chanting would kick in kick in everytime a TV crew passed by, At one point some city workers showed up with a sawhorse to separate the two factions, but otherwise the protesters seemed better civil to each other. The pro-labor side had better chants. The anti-labor "enforce our laws" chant was ambiguous at best. Someone had also setup a big screen TV outside the building that was showing the meeting going on inside. There was also one large empty area cordoned off with white 'public information area' tape, which made me wish I'd brought my camera.
I waited in line to get into the building until around 8:45 before tossing in the hat and going home. The line hadn't moved at all for about 15 minutes, there were still around 50 people ahead of me. From the TV, I could tell the meeting was still on the first agenda item, with the day laborer issue being item number three. I figured the meeting would adjourn at 9:30 before the day-laborer issue even came up. (Well I was wrong about that as well - according to that WP article things went on until 1:00 AM. Wow.)
The tone in the line was pretty nasty. Based on the chatter in the line, it seemed to be a pretty anti-labor group, but then again most of the pro-labor people were quiet. I could point out the pro-labor folks by their red paper hearts with the word 'tolerance' in the middle. A lot of the chatter was nasty to say the least. One woman was saying she chased some electricians out of her house when they couldn't produce green cards. Some other guy said he didn't know a signle word of Spanish, and never intended to learn one. At one point some sloppy lawyerly guy, looking like he had a few too many at the local pub shouting at some religous folks behind me about what allowed them to not follow all the laws all the time. One of the guys from the group went off on him saying had his passport, and that he was driven out of his country by the communists. The folks directly in front of me were debating whether the H2 or H3 was the better Hummer. That's not related to day-laborers, but may give some indication of the lines demographic.
The next meeting is Wednesday, which I will not be able to make, but I suspect it'll be a repeat of last night's performance. While in the line, I kept trying to remember whether it was in End of Suburbia or some Kunstler rant about how immigration issues would be one of the signs of the coming suburban apocalypse. (It was probably Kunstler rantinting in the End of Suburbia...) Anyway, it lokos like that horseman may have ridden into Herndon
Day Labor Here and There
The labor center thrust Herndon into the national debate over illegal immigration. At one point, Town Hall was forced to unplug its phone lines after listeners of a radio talk show deluged the switchboard with what officials described as hate calls regarding the day-labor site.
Police said the bomber drove up in a Kia minivan, called out for anyone seeking work and waited for his vehicle to fill up with men. He promised to return for more and had begun to drive away when the bomb detonated, killing the driver, passengers and many in the large crowd that had gathered.
Another Crime Against Nature In Arlington
Arlington resident Peter Jones buys a Japanese maple sappling, tends to it for 25 years until it's as tall as a shovel, then donates it to a local playground, where it is stolen within a week:
And so it was that Jones and Ike Sneed, facility manager at the recreation center, were left feeling like saps, angry with themselves for not chaining the tree into the ground. Such is the society: Even nature must be shackled, lest it be seized.
The tree has been since been replaced, but:
"There may be ways to anchor down the roots, but we don't know yet what we'll do," Temmermand said. "These trees are fragile, and they're at risk at a community park; they're easily portable and easily damaged. . . . You can chain it, but chains can get cut."
It's a good night to rewatch Harold and Maude. Maybe the tree's been liberated...
Hopefully This Post Just Makes Everyone Feel Sunnier
"Kids across the nation will soon rejoice,"said Upton, because they'll have another hour of daylight trick-or-treating."
But I shouldn't jest. Further DST is pretty much the first war time effort to cut back on energy use, even if it will save a piddly
I've Been Catted
I have a cat now. His name is Courageous, Coury for short. I'd promise picutres, but I'm not too good at following up in that respect. Take my word he looks like his namesake, minus the suit and sidekick.
Conversation With Mom
Here's a snippet from a conversation I had with my mother tonight.
Keep in mind my mom probably votes for whomever the Catholic church endorses:
Mom: The president left a message on the answering machine !
Jude: What ? Was he apologizing for the war ?
Mom: No. He wanted me to vote for someone on Tuesday.
Jude: Who ?
Mom : I don't know. I deleted the message before he could say...
Carus Recruitment
FromCarus's statement on the May 2006 issue of Cobblestone:
Unfortunately, some of the news reports and letters we have received have charged us with "recruiting" young people for military service and slanting the issue in favor of the Army. Neither point is true.
From the teacher's guide for this issue:
Journals: Students first read the articles silently, and then in their journals list 5 occupations that they learned were needed in the Army.
Class discussion: Students share what they wrote as teacher charts list of job opportunities in the Army.
Cooperative Grouping: Class selects 5 of the job opportunities and students form small groups for each. Each group is assigned to be the "Ad Agency" which has been hired to create a poster encouraging people who want that kind of job to join the Army.
Exhibit: Posters are displayed around the room or in the hall.
Enrichment: If possible ask an Army recruiter to come visit the class and discuss these job possibilities with the students.
The Bloated Stinky Corpse Of What Used To Be Clarendon
It took about four years, but the Washington Post has finally discovered the bloated, stinky corpse of what used to be Clarendon.
One of the reasons I moved away from Orange line corridor to Reston's Lake Anne neighborhood was specifically to maximize that "benign neglect" factor.
Cited for Misconduct
I thought with a title like "Military Recruiters Cited for Misconduct", it was going to be another story about agressive recruiters going after the mentally ill or autistic.
Wow, was I wrong.
Brilliant quote poem
TomorrowChrist on the cross
will be selling socks.
Your Chicken Plates Out Back
Howard students get photo-op'ed out of lunch:
On a day when the U.S. Senate passed a resolution paying tribute to civil rights icon Rosa Parks, who died last week, campus security guards were telling students that if they wanted to eat they'd have to come back when the president and first lady were gone, then go to a service door at the rear of the dining hall and ask for a chicken plate to go. Never mind that a student meal plan at Howard can cost as much as $2,500 a semester.
Charm City's Charming Those Charming Hybrid Owners
Baltimore's giving a charming discount at city garages to the first 200 hybrid owners that sign monthly contracts. Coast on over if you have to park around there.
Catholic Worker Fibbie File
The Revealer has a link to the recent FBI file referencing the Catholic Workers.
"Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy rotten system."
Canceled Cable Again
When I moved out to Reston, I started paying for cable TV again. I canceled it again today.
After having cable for six months, I still don't know the channel lineup, and haven't seen a single interesting new show. I thought I'd be so far out in the boonies in Reston that there'ld be nothing to do except watch TV, and that hasn't turned out to be the case.
Also most of the stuff I did end up watching, I already owned. That's the real kicker. When I finally do plop down and turn on the set, I end up watching something like The Family Guy or Futurama and I have all the DVDs sitting there reminding me I could watch them at any time.
Spongbob Squarepants Plasticrap
"The companies say they are targeting time-strapped consumers who would rather buy a SpongeBob SquarePants-themed Easter basket for $15 than refill the empty wicker baskets sitting in their basements. And they are appealing to the grandparent or aunt who wants to send something, just not more candy."
Loudoun County Border
Apparently AM radio still has enough listeners to overload poor little Herndon City Hall's switchboard. The mayor responds with some common sense:
Day laborers are not from another planet," O'Reilly said last night. "They're people. If people feel their borders aren't secure, they need to be talking to Congress or the president. I have a border with Loudoun County, not South America."
Update: The host of this show has been fired for some religious hate speech. Yeh, I know there was a substitute host that instigated the Herndon switchboard callbomb, but both were ultimately employees of Disney.
Bokashi
The stuff came in the mail yesterday for the Bokashi composting system, so it's up and running now. I went with Bokashi since my tiny yard isn't big enough for a larger composter, and as a single guy I don't produce all that many kitchen scraps. Supposively, it's for indoor use, but my kitchen is pretty small as well, so I have it in the backyard for the time being.Hey at least they confiscated the weapons
Man with bloody chainsaw let into U.S.Despres arrived at the U.S.-Canadian border at Calais, Maine, carrying a homemade sword, a hatchet, a knife, brass knuckles and a chainsaw stained with what appeared to be blood.
...
On the same day Despres crossed the border, he was due in court in Fredericton to be sentenced on charges he assaulted and threatened to kill Fulton's son-in-law last August.
Losing Hope (And Periods) Louisiana
Losing Hope In Louisiana. Apparently Ms Moses has also lost some periods:Jobs are as rare as snow in August, and thanks to Washington's prevailing ethic of handing out the goodies only to chartered members of the Goodies Club, barely a trickle of cleanup jobs are going to Louisiana businesses or Louisiana workers, and those few that are magically trickling down into the local economy are grossly underpaid.