Ow, my aching head.

Go Giants!

2010-10-05T12:08:00.000-07:00

It was 1993, and Atlanta was still in the NL West.

In the final days of the season, the Giants had to win four games in a row against the (.500) Dodgers in order to force a playoff game against the Braves. I drove from my job in Big Bear to Dodger Stadium (75 miles one way) to attend each of those games.

When the Giants lost the last game of the series (ending the season with a paltry 103 wins to Atlanta's 104), I swore never to love (sports) again.

Though I have subsequently become a Dodgers fan, I have never found it within myself to root against the Giants. So, long story short:

Dear Giants,

Please f**k up the Braves for me. Thanks.

John

Burying the Lede, Tea Party Edition

2010-04-15T07:01:00.000-07:00

From the 13th paragraph of yesterday's New York Times article about the Tea Party:

Ninety-two percent [of Tea Partiers] believe Mr. Obama is moving the country toward socialism, an opinion shared by more than half of the general public.

Over half the general public thinks Obama is moving the US toward socialism?

Crikey.

In Praise of Music Visualizers (nerdy but beautiful)

2010-01-08T10:07:00.000-08:00

For the last five years or so, I've been a pretty die-hard Mac user. But before that, in what I term my "shameful past," I used Windows almost exclusively, even making my own computers.

I rarely look back on those days with any kind of excitement or yearning, but there is one thing Windows (or, more accurately, Winamp, a music player for Windows) has that Mac hasn't had: gorgeous music visualizers.

When I mention music visualizers to long-time Mac users, they just stare at me blankly. And with good reason: iTunes has had shitty music visualizers forever. Really crap, and pretty surprising for a company whose core audience for years was designers, filmmakers and musicians.

Meanwhile, on the Windows side, Winamp (and even Windows Media Player) shipped with beautiful, responsive music visualizers, going all the way back to 1997, when Winamp was first released.

I'm not writing this as a reminiscence or history lesson, much less as a Mac bashing opportunity. I'm writing it to beg, plead, and insist that everyone who runs iTunes 9, whether on a Mac or Windows machine, switch over to it right now, turn on the music visualizer, hit show full screen, and sit in wonder at something lovely and mesmerizing.

Okay, you're back. Great, right?

The basic construct of the visualizer is that one or more emitters emit particles, with our without trails, in constantly changing colors and shapes, and one or more invisible spheres exert gravitational pull on the particles. The three basic units here (emitter, particle, sphere) interact in surprising, beautiful, and frequently unique, ways (I think the variety and complexity of the interactions varies with the abilities of your graphics card, but I first discovered the visualizer on a first-generation MacBook Pro, so anyone who's bought a computer within the last 3 years, at least, should be able to enjoy). The visualizer's responsiveness and variety are so good that it frequently seems like the software "knows" the song, and is anticipating verse, chorus and bridge.

Thanks, Apple, for letting someone really dig in and show off what a music visualizer can do. And thanks also to whoever invented the visualizer to begin with. You rock.

P.S. Hit the ? key while the iTunes visualizer is running for a list of keys you can hit to vary your experience.

Productivity Software (nerdy, sorry)

2010-01-03T13:50:00.000-08:00

These are the free things I use all the time, and find myself constantly recommending to friends. They all offer iPhone components that sync to the provided information, so I can enter (and have access to) information wherever I am...

TRAVELING
Tripit: You sign up for free, and then forward all your reservation emails for flights, hotels, etc., to plans@tripit.com. The site parses the information in the emails, and posts your plans online. You can have Tripit friends, who can see your trip plans (though not in enough detail currently), and you can post your trips to Facebook (or not, if you'd prefer). The iPhone app really makes this site useful, with its quick ability to retrieve everything from confirmation numbers to airport maps to weather reports.

NOTES
Evernote: Basic sign-up is free, and is a full application for the Mac, Windows and iPhone. All sync through the Evernote servers, so everything is up to date wherever you go. Evernote allows syncing of text, websites, and (if you upgrade to the paid option) files of all types. This is a very full-featured application, but in its most basic sense it gives you access to all the little snippets of information you come across in daily life, wherever you are.

EVERYTHING
Dropbox: This is the one ring to rule them all. Dropbox is a free service (for 2GB; you can pay for more storage) that creates a folder on your computer that you drop whatever your want into. Whatever you drop in is synchronized (extremely quickly) to the Dropbox server, and then to any other computers you have installed the software on. You can then access the information from the Dropbox website, or from any synchronized computer. You can also share folders with other users, so that all parties can update the information in the same folder. The iPhone app allows you to look at whatever's on your Dropbox (assuming the iPhone can read the file) wherever you are. And you can star items on the app so it keeps them accessible even if you're offline. Do yourself a favor: go to the website and set yourself up. Now.

Radio Giant Faces Crisis in Cash Flow

2009-04-29T23:55:00.001-07:00

Somewhere tonight, the Dixie Chicks are laughing their asses off.

From The New York Times:

Radio Giant Faces Crisis in Cash Flow
By GERALDINE FABRIKANT

Clear Channel, the radio station operator that was taken private last
year, is facing mounting debt payments as media companies face a steep
drop in advertising....

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/30/business/media/30clear.html

Get The New York Times on your iPhone for free by visiting http://nytimes.com/iphoneinstaller

--
John Portnoy
Sent from my mobile, and in all likelihood filled with typos.

Heh

2009-04-05T07:10:00.001-07:00

http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/04/04/regularly-occurring-wrong-numbers-casting-for-oxygens-bad-girls-club/15965

--
John Portnoy
Sent from my mobile, and in all likelihood filled with typos.

Heart Muscle Renewed Over Lifetime, Study Finds

2009-04-02T18:39:00.000-07:00

It's disconcerting to find that the entire planet has been
contaminated with atmospheric radiation due to above-ground nuclear
testing. Still, at least it's being put to a good use!

From The New York Times:

Heart Muscle Renewed Over Lifetime, Study Finds
By NICHOLAS WADE

The finding upends a medical myth and suggests new therapies for heart
attack patients may be possible....

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/03/science/03heart.html

Get The New York Times on your iPhone for free by visiting http://nytimes.com/iphoneinstaller

--
John Portnoy
Sent from my mobile, and in all likelihood filled with typos.

Ant slaves' murderous rebellions

2009-04-02T11:49:00.000-07:00

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/tS9V6MoUQxw/ant-slaves-murderous.html

--
John Portnoy
Sent from my mobile, and in all likelihood filled with typos.

Change is coming

2008-11-06T21:12:00.001-08:00

Change of font, at least.

This drawing makes me very happy.

2008-11-05T09:06:00.001-08:00

Manassas

2008-11-04T14:23:00.000-08:00

Obama's final rally was in Manassas, Virginia.

Nice symbolism.

Today.

2008-11-04T12:42:00.001-08:00

I might cry today. Sorry, whoever is around me.

I realized a couple of days ago that this is the first candidate I've supported in the primaries who's gone on to (with luck) win the election. And I supported Obama early, without reservation, not as a lesser of two evils choice, but full throatedly.

So here we are. Very exciting. This morning, on my iPod song shuffle, up comes David Bowie's "Changes" (really):

I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence
So the days float through my eyes
But stil the days seem the same
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
Theyre quite aware of what theyre going through

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
(turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-changes
Dont tell them to grow up and out of it
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
(turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-changes
Wheres your shame
Youve left us up to our necks in it
Time may change me
But you cant trace time

Sorry for the extra dose of schmaltz. I'll leave with this:

I will be doing so ironically.

2008-10-27T12:51:00.001-07:00

Was There Too Much Sex And Profanity In The HBO Presidential Debate?

J-Pop and Politics together!

2008-10-25T13:35:00.001-07:00

There are few things I love better than J-Pop. One of them is Presidential politics. Here, now, for the first (?) time ever, the two combined:

one more thing

2008-09-29T22:02:00.000-07:00

Q: How do you know conservatism's dead?

A: T. Boone Pickens is now selling wind power. (And yes it's part of an elaborate real estate scheme, but he's calculating that the next political power center will be more likely to allow him to carry on his nefarious ends is going to be pro-wind power. And that sure as shit ain't the Republicans. So now he's OUR bastard.)

Welcome aboard, T. Boone!

Next up: Rupert Murdoch. Just you wait. Fox News is going to go under the knife within six months.

And if there's any justice, someone will find some dirt on Roger Ailes and throw him in prison, then bring every one of those motherf***ing administration officials (they know who they are) up on war crimes charges in the Hague, which we will be party to, because President Obama will have forced through the ratification of the treaty that binds us to the International Criminal Fucking Court. Ah...a man can dream...

things on my mind tonight

2008-09-29T21:41:00.000-07:00

Sorry. I'm too lazy to put these in separate posts:

Armageddon
Not maybe so much end of the world, maybe, but the end of the faux conservatism that post-Nixon Republicans morphed into. You know: the kind that wants to make the U.S. an empire. Now we're all going along for the ride! (Something about reaping and sowing is coming to mind.)
Democrats
I'm scared shitless about this whole thing, but let's just take a shallow breath and think about how well the Democrats have been playing this thing, from a purely political standpoint. This definitely proves the "good policy is good politics" theory. They are so in their element it's nearly making me weep.
Maddow
I love that thing that Rachel Maddow does where she scrolls through the dozen-plus Republicans she's tried to book on a particular segment to counter her Democratic guest. It's so deliciously aggressive and self-assured for a proud liberal. Again with the near weeping.
McCain
He is so personally unhinged from any objective reality at this point (even his facial expressions have become like cartoon character versions of themselves), it nearly (yeah) makes me weep. But not the same kind of tears.

That's it for now...

Homepage

2008-09-29T21:38:00.000-07:00

This should be your homepage.

Go change it. I'll wait.

Seriously.

And another thing (banks part deux)

2008-09-26T16:14:00.000-07:00

I read several economics blogs, try to keep up with the Bloomberg website, etc. I've read a lot of breathless paragraphs about the big traditional banks taking over the investment banks and the smaller traditional banks. I have questions:

Is there an economic upside in concentrating all the bad debt from the various failed institutions in only a few huge banks?
It seems like a bank such as B of A, which has low exposure to the bad debt, becomes more, not less, unstable by taking on others' bad debt. Am I missing something?
I keep hearing the phrase "too big to fail" used in conjunction with B of A, JP Morgan Chase, and Citi. Is that supposed to reassure me? Scare me? The phrase is never accompanied by follow-up analysis. If one of these banks is on the brink of failure (because of taking on the bad debt of all the smaller banks it's gobbled up), and the government has to step in, is this something the FDIC is equipped to handle, or will it require some other form of government intervention (nationalization, etc.)?
Where's Wells in all of this? (see earlier post)

Banks

2008-09-25T20:33:00.000-07:00

How many banks will be left in six months? Two? Three? And why isn't Wells being forced to swallow any of these bad companies? Why just B of A and Chase?

George Will

2008-09-23T08:23:00.000-07:00

Not a fan of John McCain's:

For McCain, politics is always operatic, pitting people who agree with him against those who are "corrupt" or "betray the public's trust," two categories that seem to be exhaustive -- there are no other people.

Davis and Wolfson

2008-07-08T10:39:00.000-07:00

I'm finding it depressing, and not particularly surprising, that two people associated with Hillaryland, Lanny Davis and Howard Wolfson, have both taken jobs with Fox News. Their decisions reinforce the idea that the Clinton campaign was being run by people who don't understand the 21st century media landscape.

I wonder how Hillary "vast right-wing conspiracy" Clinton feels about their new gigs. I imagine and hope she's livid.

Too depressing for words

2008-06-19T12:14:00.000-07:00

It's been hard for me to focus on anything else this week. And I should. I really, really should.

Take it away, Major General Taguba:

After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.

Having read the report, do you have any details to add that might illuminate why Taguba feels that way, Mr. Ackerman?

Some detainees were administered electric shocks, suspended by their arms from great heights and one showed "anal scars consistent with sexual trauma," according to one physician who examined the detainees, Dr. Sondra Crosby of Boston Medical Center.

[A] detainee, "Amir," was arrested in Iraq in August 2003 by U.S. troops. He endured a month of "being kept in a small, dark room" before transfer to Abu Ghraib. At the infamous prison -- around the time it was "Gitmo-ized" by Guantanamo commander Gen. Geoffrey Miller -- Amir was "sodomized with a broomstick and forced to howl like a dog while a soldier urinated on him," the report said. Similarly released without charge, he told Physicians for Human Rights that "no sorrow can be compared to my torture experience in jail."

Our Administration is evil, immoral and insane. And to be completely candid, I feel evil and immoral for not doing anything to try to stop it, relying instead on the inadequate institutions we have to check Executive power.

How I Learned I Was a Moron

2008-05-24T10:38:00.000-07:00

For the life of me, I can't figure out why Pacific Park in Santa Monica replaced its solar powered ferris wheel with a new solar powered ferris wheel, but this time one with LED lights.

I'm told it's because the new one is 75% more energy efficient. But...it's...solar...powered. Why do I care how energy efficient it is as long as it stays off the grid? Doesn't greenness then move to the cost of manufacturing a new ferris wheel, not to mention shipping the old one? Or the chemicals used in manufacturing the 160,000 LEDs used in the new wheel?

My brain is on fire. Can not compute.

Hillary as VP

2008-05-20T10:00:00.000-07:00

My first thought was "no." There was no upside for Obama, should he win (or vice versa: this was last year), to choosing Hillary that he couldn't find by choosing someone else less tainted by anti-Obama primary rhetoric.

My second thought was "yes." This was, perhaps surprisingly, after Obama won his 12 primaries in a row. The two of them had just had a debate, and Hillary had demured when having the chance to attack Obama. Things are coming to a close, I thought, and Hillary's being a good Democrat, and she deserves the slot.

Turns out that evening of Hillary not attacking Obama wasn't so much a quiet concession as it was a skirmish in some ongoing internecine warfare between factions in Hillaryland. Sadly, the Fuckwit Faction (Mark Penn) won, Hillary started attacking again, her supporters started doing questionable things, though all the while Obama's nomination grew ever more presumptive.

My current thinking is back to "yes." As a man, whatever my pretenses to a lack of sexism, I think I tend to naturally underestimate the intensity of many women's reactions to having a woman president. Although in my mind the problems with Hillary's campaign are based on huge strategic mistakes and her unwillingness to explain/renounce her support for the original Iraq AUMF, the optics of this situation are very bad, and may cause bad feelings more intense than usual between the rival Democratic clans.

(Argh. Just in the process of writing this post, I reread it and am doubting what I wrote. Or, more specifically, doubting that picking Hillary would be a good idea. If Obama is appealing to anti-war Independents, Hillary defuses his message. Must...stop...pondering...VP...choices...Jim Webb, AYEEEE!)

A Summation of My Feelings About the Clinton Campaign

2008-05-10T13:20:00.000-07:00

By someone who's a much better thinker and writer than I:

The dying days of the Hillary Clinton campaign have brought the breathtaking spectacle of a candidate lashing out at every element of public life that has nourished her career. The über-wonk has disparaged economists and expertise. The staunch ally of black America has attacked her opponent for lacking support of "working, hard-working Americans, white Americans." People who thought they knew Hillary Clinton have gazed in astonishment: What has she become? The answer is, a conservative populist.

I'm not a fan of liberal populism, probably because it's so emotionally appealing to wrap up the complexities of our country's economic and social dynamics in a little pink bow. But I do understand the need for populism as a tool of politics, and I suspect we'll see a lot of it from both parties in the fall.

What really burns me up is the calculus inside the Clinton camp that said, "In the primaries, Obama has appealed to better educated people, while our candidate has appealed to less educated people. How can we use that against Obama? Oh, I've got it! Let's steal the rhetoric of the modern Republican party! Let's appear on Bill O'Reilly's show!"

Madness.

Regarding the "gas tax holiday"

2008-05-04T22:36:00.000-07:00

Tonight expressing my opinion, Through the Looking Glass:

So, what of Hillary herself? She's touting a plan that's nonsense the way Dubya's war plans were nonsense; the reasons it can't work are widely acknowledged facts which aren't seriously disputed by anyone with relevant knowledge.

Perhaps, after days of publicly touting this proposal, she still doesn't know she's selling snake oil. Or maybe she knows, but doesn't care. Either way, she has left the reality based community.

My fingers are crossed

2008-04-14T21:05:00.001-07:00

That Hillary gives the same answer when she's asked.

The Upcoming Election

2008-04-08T09:31:00.000-07:00

It's taken a lot of soul-searching (and Google searching), and I've been on the fence for awhile now, but I've finally made up my mind.

I'm voting for Dana Worthington.

Quiz for the Day

2008-04-04T09:18:00.000-07:00

If you catch a fellow student cheating, would you:

A) Ignore it
B) Talk to the student privately
C) Rat him out to your teacher

If you answered (C), you're a prime John McCain voter.

Experiment HS-01, Day 1

2008-04-02T09:18:00.001-07:00

On the morning of Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008, having run out of shampoo, I grabbed the first bottle of Head and Shoulders I could find. Just before applying it, I noticed it had expired in February...of 2007.

Over the next several days, I will be presenting a diary of the results of my direct exposure to expired dandruff shampoo.

9:17 AM. It's been a half hour since I applied the expired shampoo. As of yet, there seem to be no ill effects. But the day is young...

John Adams

2008-04-01T08:51:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: This is what I would have written had I had my coffee: "It's all the fun of the Star Wars prequels, without any of the fun."

~~It's like watching the Star Wars prequels, but with all the fun spaceship and lightsaber stuff taken out~~, and with unmotivated Batman camera angles. And Laura Linney looking concerned, all the time.

Major Controversy Erupts Over Empire Strikes Back's Inclusion in Suspended Animation List!

2008-03-28T16:17:00.000-07:00

DEVELOPING.

MUST CREDIT OW MY ACHING HEAD:

JASON: Han wasn't put in a suspended animation chamber. As Lando tells Darth Vader "Freezing him in carbonite is risky - it could kill him!" Hence, carbonite's intended use was NOT for putting people in suspended animation. Even C-3PO says that Han could be kept alive - IF - he survives the freezing process. IF!

FRENCHIE: Hmm...that's interesting and all, but we never specified what a "suspended animation chamber" was, nor did we at any point specify the need of a reason for the suspended animation.

Just to clarify, we decided that being frozen through artificial means (the example was Han Solo) was acceptable, because it left the subject in a state of suspension without killing him. Now...if being frozen had killed Han Solo (that would have been fun), then this wouldn't be up for discussion. We know he was alive, and his vitals at least were able to be checked. This lets us know that he was alive while frozen...and very much suspended.

So it counts because he was suspended artificially, and he wasn't killed by it.

PS Was Chewie hairier in the last movies then he was in the first?

Know Your Mexican Emo Kid

2008-03-28T08:58:00.000-07:00

Got that memorized? Good. Now, ATTACK.

(h/t boingboing)

HELP DESPERATELY NEEDED

2008-03-27T19:20:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: JASON X wins the day as the most obvious miss from the list. I've updated the list with what people (well, let's be honest, what JASON) have added, and added an asterisk to the Empire entry, again courtesy Jason.

I'm trying to compile a comprehensive list of movies (and TV episodes) that feature suspended animation. Here's the list so far:

MOVIES:
• 2001
• Planet of the Apes (both)
• Alien
• Lost in Space
• Rocketman
• Minority Report
• Judge Dredd
• Demolition Man
• Sleeper
• Empire Strikes Back
• Idiocracy
• Event Horizon
• Solstice
• Solaris (original)
• Red Planet
• X Files
• Batman and Robin
• Austin Powers
• Forever Young
• Live Again, Die Again
• Jason X
• Strange New World

TV SERIES:
• Futurama
• Farscape
• Star Trek ("Space Seed" - the episode with Khan)
• Buck Rogers
• Twilight Zone episode "Quarantine" (nice catch, Kathryn)

Sequels don't count (Aliens and Return of the Jedi are OUT). Neither do movies where things are frozen and come back to life when thawed (like The Thing or Brendan Fraser in Encino Man), though that may be a good follow-up list.

There are no prizes and there is no reason I'm compiling this list. It just started as a conversation in Louisiana, continued tonight, and I feel like I'm missing some. So jump in in comments.

The Seventh Bullet Point

2008-03-27T14:23:00.001-07:00

People ask me why I'm supporting Barack Obama. My friends are split between Obama and Clinton supporters (as, until fairly recently, was I). I listed some reasons back in February, but in person I usually just stick to the seventh bullet point from that post:

That the Iraq war is going to heat way up between now and November, and its renewed prominence in the campaign is going to make Obama's consistent opposition to the war a much bigger deal than it seems to be in the primary.

I always feel a little guilty saying this, because although it seems completely rational and obvious to me, I certainly don't want it to sound like I'm hoping for things to heat up so that it helps get my candidate elected.

Unfortunately, my bullet point seems to have become reality.

W.

2008-03-26T21:48:00.001-07:00

Though I can certainly see the international appeal of an Oliver Stone film based on George W.'s life, I can't imagine it'll have much of a domestic run. Democrats are going to carry the psychic scars of this administration with them for a long time, and what Republican is going to go see Oliver Stone's left-slanted Bush-slamming?

Since it's being financed by a foreign sales company, presumably their model makes sense. But I won't be holding my breath for a summer 2009 release at Grauman's. Can I hear a round of "straight to HBO?"

Alan Dale

2008-03-23T14:13:00.001-07:00

Playing a Brit on Lost, and an American on Torchwood. He must be very confused.

The Most Incredibly Awesome Video of All Time, Ever

2008-03-22T11:37:00.000-07:00

Not normally an Onion fan (anymore), but they've won me over to their video with this:

Jasmine? Jacaranda?

2008-03-22T09:32:00.000-07:00

I got back to L.A. (from LA) last night, and all of a sudden for some weird reason it's spring. Sometimes my trips are like that. Now, since I've been a kid people have been telling me I'm not the center of the universe. But if I'm not, what possible explanation could there be for a change in the weather between when I leave and when I return somewhere?

In any case, there's a particular smell in my neighborhood (Los Feliz) at night in spring. I love the smell, but every year I wonder whether it's the smell of jasmine or jacaranda. I've heard different people ascribe the same smell to both flowers. Maybe until I find out I'll start calling it "jasmaranda." Though that sounds like a genie's name.

The other thing that I love about spring (and summer) evenings in Los Angeles is that, because it's warm at night, people leave their windows open. Stepping outside into my back yard becomes the auditory equivalent of the scenes in Rear Window where Stewart is staring into the windows of all the people across from him, watching them go about their daily business. Last night, as I was bundling laundry, I could hear five or six different conversations, all set to "Picture This" off of Blondie's Parallel Lines.

It's good to be home.

This.

2008-03-19T20:41:00.000-07:00

[T]hanks to decades of deregulation, the theater doesn’t have a sprinkler system - and the town the theater is in doesn’t have a fire department.

And now we have to put together an emergency response.

Is from this.

Obama's speech

2008-03-19T01:19:00.000-07:00

How could anyone not want this man to be our next President?

This is phenomenal

2008-03-17T15:30:00.000-07:00

I have never loved McClatchy quite so much.

Term for the day

2008-03-17T09:24:00.001-07:00

Moral hazard.

Read this for the depressing details.

By lending massive amounts to potentially insolvent institutions that it does not supervise or regulate and that may be insolvent the Fed is taking serious financial risks and seriously exacerbate moral hazard distortions. Here you have highly leveraged non bank financial institutions that made reckless investments and lending, had extremely poor risk management and altogether disregarded liquidity risks; some may be insolvent but now the Fed is providing them with a blank check for unlimited amounts. This is a most radical action and a signal of how severe the crisis of the banking system and non-bank shadow financial system is. This is the worst US financial crisis since the Great Depression and the Fed is treating it as if it was only a liquidity crisis. But this is not just a liquidity crisis; it is rather a credit and insolvency crisis.

Useless stat of the day

2008-03-17T08:57:00.000-07:00

My Macbook Pro, running Leopard, has been running for 33 days, 13
hours and 40 minutes without a restart.

I have the sense that it was only about 5 years ago that I would have
to reboot my computer (hand-built XP desktop) every few days because
some misbehaving background task would get a little too close to the
operating system; of course, I was running professional compositing
software on it, but still, it really does feel like both XP and OS X
are far more stable operating environments these days than ever
before. (I have no experience running Vista.)

These days, pretty much the only reason I have to reboot is because
some software update requires it. (This is more true on the XP side
because I have to run virus and adware software in the background.)

Cudos, Mr. Gates and Mr. Jobs (and presumably Mr. Torvalds)!

Maybe I've watched too much Terminator

2008-03-17T08:43:00.000-07:00

For whatever reason, when I watch the following (thanks for tonight's nightmare, Gizmodo), all I can imagine is me, being chased by it:

Superdelegate porn!

2008-03-13T14:54:00.000-07:00

Makes me hard just looking at it.

And another test.

2008-03-09T21:30:00.001-07:00

This from my computer (the other was from the iPhone).

Does it do lists:

Bullet point 1
Bullet point 2

Or numbers:

Number 1
Number 2

Or red?

What about bold? Or italic? Or both?

Test post from my phone

2008-03-09T21:27:00.001-07:00

Just seeing if this works.

Does this show up as paragraphs?

This?

--
John Portnoy
Sent from my mobile device. Please forgive any typos.

Exactly.

2008-03-07T22:51:00.000-08:00

Exactly:

...[L]et's assume, for the sake of argument, that she actually believes that Barack Obama cannot "cross the commander-in-chief threshold." One of the most important jobs a President has is to defend the country. If she thinks that Barack Obama is not qualified to do that job, then she should not support him over anyone who can. Specifically, she should support McCain over Obama.

That's why I think some enterprising reporter should ask her whether she would support Barack Obama if he were nominated. If she would, then she should be asked why she would be willing to support someone she does not believe is qualified to be commander in chief.

Whatever her answer, it would tell us something we need to know: either that her doubts about Obama are so serious that she would not be willing to support the nominee of her own party, or that she would support someone she thinks is unfit to serve, or that she does not believe a word she said about Obama, and is willing to impugn a fellow Democrat's fitness to serve as President because her own interests matter more to her than her party's or the nation's.

Anger

2008-03-07T09:15:00.001-08:00

For the first time in this Democratic primary, I'm actually angry at Clinton, and not just her campaign (Mark Penn) or her surrogates. Every time I see this:

It makes me angry. And not (just) because Clinton is mocking the aspirational in politics, which clearly exists and is an important component of getting people to follow you as a leader. It makes me angry because if Hillary becomes the nominee, she is going to have alienated a lot of young, eager, inspired voters who are currently Obama supporters.

And don't even get me started on this:

That's way over the line. As is the continued hinting that they may go to the convention and try to seat the Michigan and Florida delegations. The campaign may sleep at night thinking that they're signaling strength against the Republicans with this burn-the-place-down strategy, but what's the point in that if they've disenfranchised a large base of Democratic voters?

Maybe she still wins the presidency, maybe. But what of the down-ballot races? 2010 begins the redistricting process. Picking up state Democrats this cycle is crucial to making sure we can un-gerrymander Texas and several other states.

There's a lot that I agree with Clinton on, and clearly she's a strong candidate. But her early reliance on terrible campaign strategy has put her in a position where she believes (or is it Penn?) that she can win only by spouting the kinds of things normally reserved for campaign surrogates. And hearing that shit from her lips is nauseating me.

As of yesterday, I'm now actively hoping for Hillary to lose.

Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles

2008-03-05T09:49:00.000-08:00

The frustrating thing about this show is how, on the one hand, it does a great job tapping into the paranoia associated with the creep of seemingly autonomous technology in everyday life, but on the other tries to convince us that dual-core computer technology is super plus new, or that a virus can be written for a computer program, sight unseen.

Given how ubiquitous technology is these days, I would have expected more than a Terminator version of the flux capacitor.

What the...

2008-03-04T22:59:00.000-08:00

What kind of person reads Gizmodo? Look at these results! How could anyone take a poll and vote for anything over "Robots You Can Have Sex With?"

What kind of world are we leaving for our children?

Now that HD-DVD has lost...

2008-02-18T13:15:00.000-08:00

Let me be the first (?) to propose it's time the hyphen in Blue-ray (Blue-Ray?) go the way of the hyphen in email.

Fast Forward: April 26, 2008

2008-02-15T08:41:00.001-08:00

Mike Huckabee was nominated today by the Constitution Party and has agreed to launch an aggressive third-party Presidential campaign. George Soros, chief campaign financier to Republican candidate John McCain, weeps.

Someone at Amazon.com has a sense of humor.

2008-02-06T21:53:00.001-08:00

It's Tuesday!

2008-02-05T15:04:00.000-08:00

February 5, 2008. You all know what that means.

HAPPY FUCK COLIN POWELL DAY.

Why I'm Voting for Obama

2008-02-04T10:16:00.000-08:00

In no particular order:

His policy on Cuba
His support by red-state politicians, who see his ability to create coattails in their states
His tech policy
His lack of the name "Clinton" (not that I didn't like Bill, but I honestly do believe we shouldn't have Bush/Clinton/Bush/Clinton in the White House)
How much he's pissing off Paul Krugman, whom I love, but honestly, dude, it's politics, and if he has to piss you off to get Andrew Sullivan and George Will to say nice things about him, I'm 100% all about it.
That, on balance, I believe his splitting the independent vote and keeping the anti-Clinton forces at bay will be a November winner against McCain.
That the Iraq war is going to heat way up between now and November, and its renewed prominence in the campaign is going to make Obama's consistent opposition to the war a much bigger deal than it seems to be in the primary.
The fact that his "I'll bring Republicans and Democrats together" schtick is so utterly transparent, the way Bush's "compassionate conservative" schtick was an eye-roller, and yet so far it's having the brilliant effect of blunting the usual anti-Democratic candidate messaging by MSM centrists, and even (so far, and though I doubt it will last, a lot of people are going to have some 'splainin' to do) bringing some Republicans into a sort of detante with him.

There's more, I'm sure. I'll update later...

Just overheard on CNN

2008-01-05T12:20:00.001-08:00

Hillary adds an application on FACEBOOK. Can the youth vote be far behind?

Co-ed baby showers

2008-01-05T11:30:00.000-08:00

The excruciating baby shower, something until recently men only heard moaned about by their women, has gone co-ed.

It's enough to make me vote Republican.

My personal Leopard good/bad list (ongoing)

2007-10-27T12:23:00.000-07:00

Here's an ongoing list of things I haven't read elsewhere.

Why not? Everyone else is doing it:

PROS:

Spotlight searches list your e-mail attachments as separate documents, which is great for me, as most of the documents that are on my network are also documents I've either sent or received.
Mail Outbox is now a permanent fixture.
Bulleted and numbered lists in Mail!
Connected servers disconnect almost immediately when going offline. This used to be a huge headache on my laptop, as it would get very hang-ish for several minutes when I was connected to my office server and lost internet access.
Thank god. Finally, one click performs an action in a background app, instead of having to click to bring the app to the foreground and THEN being able to click to perform the action. This has been noted elsewhere as being able to scroll background documents without bringing them to the foreground, but it's more than that.

CONS:

Notes notes notes. Okay, I get notes' integration into e-mail being a good thing. But why then is there a completely unrelated Stickies application AND a further unrelated notes application in Dashboard? I love notes. Love 'em. I desperately wanted system-wide notes - why can't I highlight text in any document, right-click, and select SAVE AS NOTE? Why can't I? Why can't I select a Safari page or part of a page and MAKE A NOTE FROM IT? Why doesn't the Stickies application access a central notes database? WTF, Apple??
Still no consistency in apps when you close a window. Some quit the program (iPhoto), most don't.
Why can't I remove servers from my sidebar? My work situation is that I have a ton of Macs connected to our network. I see the first four or five listed alphabetically, then I can click on "all" (or something like that...I'm not working right now), but why can't I see a list of favorite servers instead?
(added 12:42 PM) Bulleted and numbered lists (see above) don't properly show up in .mac webmail. This has been a big issue with Mail; the way HTML mail is tagged in Mail doesn't properly render in other readers. I'm still testing (Outlook, Entourage, other webmails still to come), but this isn't encouraging.
(added 6:09 PM) Can't get my friggin' iCal to sync between my master computer (desktop, still running Tiger) and my laptop running a clean install of Leopard.
(added 11:28 AM on Sunday) I have Mail set to have Safari the default RSS reader; however, when I go to subscribe to an RSS feed in Safari, it asks me to subscribe in Mail.
(added 1:40 PM on Sunday) The bullets, numbers and point size rendering works fine in Hotmail webmail. That's more encouraging. Bullets and numbers also work on the iPhone, but it deletes text size renders, which I'm sure is intentional.

NEUTRALS or UNDECIDEDS:

General network behavior has changed. Not sure if this is good or bad. Unsunk iDisk now shows up as a server on my desktop, but (I believe) in Tiger, it didn't. I think I prefer the Tiger behavior, but I'm not certain.

HDNet Movie Programming

2007-09-23T19:48:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I sit idly, imagining the programming meeting between the HDNet staff and Mark Cuban.

HDNet Staff: "This month we're looking at programming movies shot from 1971 to 1975 and set in the deep south."

SILENCE

HDNet Staff: "Mr. Cuban? 71 through 75? Deep south?"

Mark Cuban: "You know what I want to know.:

HDNet Staff: "Honestly, no, Mr. Cuban. I'm new here and..."

Mark Cuban: "It's in the employee manual, for Christ's sake. Page 75."

HDNet Staff: "Right. I see it."

Mark Cuban: "Then you now know the sole criterion for programming movies on my movie network. I don't give a fuck when they're shot, or where they're set, or whether they're historical or whatever nonsense you people want to talk about."

HDNet Staff: "Yes, sir. Now I know, sir."

Mark Cuban: "And?"

HDNet Staff: "And yes."

Mark Cuban: "And yes WHAT, you maggot?"

HDNet Staff: "And yes, Harry Dean Stanton's in it."

Mark Cuban: "OKAY THEN."

And he hangs up the phone.

, "is Harry Dean Stanton in it?"

Teen Drinking

2007-09-16T11:05:00.000-07:00

I've been watching Friday Night Lights (short version: the best TV show ever made about the kind of person who used to beat me up), and the level of teen drinking is notable. I'm no prude (though I was much more of a stoner than a drinker in high school), but all the teen drinking (and the teen drinking in other recent series, like The O.C.) has gotten me thinking.

Where are our beloved institutional scolds on this issue? Surely the drinking age in this country is still 21?

Graduate Film Students

2007-08-05T10:23:00.000-07:00

Sitting with friends, having a drink in a hotel bar.

"Hey!" (from behind me.) I turn.

"Hey!" I respond, recognizing a group of friends, also randomly assembled at the bar. "What are you doing?"

"Charity poker event. I came in eighth."

"Cool, man. What's the charity for?"

"Graduate film students who've maxed out their credit cards paying for school."

There are days when I randomly run into people I know in this vast city, and it makes me happy, appreciating how a city of nearly 10 million people can self-select into a series of interconnected villages.

Then there are days when some incredibly inane, insular comment pierces my consciousness and I wonder what the fuck I'm doing here.

Rarely are the two days combined into a single, 2-minute event.

HBO: making me mental

2007-08-05T09:26:00.000-07:00

HBO is showing Practical Magic on HBO HD, and they're showing it letterboxed.

My confusion knows no bounds.

What I have learned today

2007-04-29T11:31:00.000-07:00

Iraqis hate Al Qaida more than they hate the U.S.

We have to get out of there.

Politicization

2007-04-28T08:40:00.000-07:00

As one blog after another, and one news article after another, recounts the politicization of the justice department, the CDC, the FDA, the GSA, and whoever's next, let us not forget the mother of all politicization efforts, and by far the one with the most tragic consequences:

Iraqi reconstruction in the early (potentially effective) days.

We can, after all, fix our own infrastructure, however slowly and painfully, without the loss of a hundred thousand plus civilian lives.

HBO

2007-04-27T09:16:00.000-07:00

Why does HBO show its HD movies in fullframe (the HD equivalent of pan and scan)? Showtime HD shows its movies letterboxed.

And why are the only seven exceptions to the above rule (that I've ever seen) the six Star Wars movies and...Without Limits, the Robert Towne movie about Steve Prefontaine??

'04 Kandyd vs. '07 Kandyd

2007-04-27T09:09:00.000-07:00

Things I am learning while re-reading my posts from 2004:

I was pissed-the-fuck-off at the way this country was being run. (Now, I'm mostly numb with occasional bouts of sadness, followed immediately by a resigned lowering of the head and topped off by playing Nintendo Wii.)
I wrote a couple of coherent, long-ish posts that hold up pretty well. I'm not sure I could do that today.
I was occasionally pretty funny, and the things that made me post funny things in 2004 are still making me laugh in 2007.

Has it really been two-and-a-half men...er, years?

2007-04-27T08:44:00.000-07:00

The best thing about waiting 2 and a half years between posts (my post-election depression was rapidly replaced with the depression of having my worst fears realized) is that all the crap I wrote in August of 2004 is still on my main page. Here's a sample:

Still waiting for him to give that speech about sending troops to Sudan. Thursday's only a couple of days away....

That was from Tuesday, August 31, 2004.

Still waiting.

Banana Republicans

2007-04-27T08:34:00.000-07:00

Kevin Drum, so far as I know, came up with the term.

(No, actually, apparently there's a book from 2004 with the title, though it didn't feel quite as banana republic-y back then.)

In any case, it couldn't be more fitting. I hope it catches on. Could be our answer to being called the Democrat Party.

Jingoism

2007-04-27T08:33:00.000-07:00

Not usually prone to it, but I have to admit that it really irritates me when I have to go all the way down to "U" to select "United States" in a drop-down menu on a web form.

The year the internet changed nothing.

2004-11-07T13:17:00.000-08:00

Remember when Howard Dean's campaign raised all that money on the internet(s) and fired all his volunteers up with his decentralized campaign, which drove him to the Democratic nomination, then to the Presidency?

Remember when activist websites like Moveon, America Coming Together and Daily Kos organized and motivated people from across the country to give their time and money so that they could drive a crushing electoral defeat to the dark forces of fear?

Remember the tear in your eye when Joe Trippi, having declared the internet(s) democracy's "killer app," was appointed head of the DNC, so that he could integrate his vision further into the mainstream?

Neither do I.

Stacking the Deck.

2004-09-22T08:05:00.000-07:00

No one who knows anything (such as B***'s campaign advisers) knows how voters will respond to a terrorist attack soon before the November election. So now there's this rightist attempt to steer the conventional wisdom toward the idea that the terrorists want a Kerry win. And if they succeed, then whether B*** has successfully protected us from attack will no longer be the issue. People will vote against Kerry because the terrorists want us to vote for him.

That's what Rove & Co. are trying to do. And if the Dems don't fight it hard with their own spin and attempt to steer the conventional wisdom (something they're admittedly not very good at), and there is a terrorist attack soon before the November election, well, Vancouver is beautiful and pretty close to my sister.

I wonder what this means:

2004-09-12T13:12:00.000-07:00

....regardless of whom they support, a majority of registered voters (60 percent) believe that the president will be reelected in November.

Is there a history of this question being asked? Does perception become reality? If this number persists, will Democrats vote in lower numbers because they believe their votes won't matter? Does this number change in swing/non-swing states?

I have questions.

Can't win

2004-08-31T15:49:00.000-07:00

The whole "we can't win the war on terror" thing, coming from whom it came from and all, deserves some derision, and it's receiving some.

But it's derision I can't personally share in, since it's also the very first thing B*** has said since 9/11 that's made any sense at all.

Still waiting for him to give that speech about sending troops to Sudan. Thursday's only a couple of days away....

Even Better...

2004-08-29T15:30:00.000-07:00

Switched from CNN to E! (they're doing a show on Hollywood's obsession with Kaballah), and heard this:

In Hollywood, there's no doubt that today's craze can be tomorrow's fad.

These posts write themselves.

overheard

2004-08-29T15:06:00.000-07:00

Watching CNN just now, and heard this gem from Carol Lin, the anchor, referring to a piece on the NY protesters:

I know it's democracy, but sometimes it's hard to take seriously!

Yes.

And in summation...

2004-08-28T08:57:00.000-07:00

The typically dry Matthew Yglesias says:

When you have a country where internecine disputes are being resolved by having one side bring on board the assistance of a foreign intelligence service while the other side decides to enlist the support of that country's domestic counterintelligence agency to discredit its opponents, something has gone a bit wrong with the interagency process.

Yes.

Pathetic vs. double-plus pathetic.

2004-08-28T08:34:00.000-07:00

If my previous post, regarding the Republicans fighting Bruce Springsteen with Foghat, showed a desperate level of rock me-too-ism, then this:

U.S. News & World Report mistakenly reported that the band would be joining Randy Travis and Bobby Womack on a pro-Bush concert tour designed to counter the anti-Bush rock roadshow featuring Bruce Springsteen, R.E.M., Pearl Jam, Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne. "I have no idea where they got that," Foghat drummer Roger Earl tells PAGE SIX. "Foghat are not supporters of George Bush, and we're certainly not going on the road with him." In fact, Earl seemed downright smitten with the John Kerry-favoring Springsteen tour. "I'd like to see Bruce Springsteen and Bonnie Raitt for president. We'd go on tour with them in a minute!"

Well, fill in the blank. At least they still have Bobby Womack.

If they fight...

2004-08-23T09:13:00.000-07:00

...with knives, we fight with guns.

If they fight with Springsteen, we fight with Foghat.

Uh.

On becoming what I most despise.

2004-08-14T11:32:00.000-07:00

I'm bi. I'm bi and I'm out. People look at me like I'm crazy. People I don't know give me derisive looks; my friends are sympathetic but more than a little sad. Although the people I'm closest to seem to understand my life choice, and even covet the advice I can give them having lived on both sides, I've also had people laugh in my face when I tell them. But I don't care. I've been bi since the mid-80s, and I'm tired of hiding it.

I use both Macs and PCs.

There, I said it.

You'd think this wouldn't be a big deal. I mean, if you were an alien from a far off galaxy (and were oblivious to industrial design), you'd look at the two types of computers and proclaim (I'm translating here): "eh, what's the diff?" But to Earthlings, apparently, there's a huge diff. The rivalry between Mac people and PC people is like that between Yankee fans and Red Sox fans...wait. That's actually the wrong simile. The rivalry is like that between San Franciscans and Los Angelenos: Mac devotees (San Franciscans) furiously despise PCs (Angelenos), while PC people really don't give a shit one way or the other about Macs.

In Los Angeles, the Mac maniacs rule. If you think anti-Bush partisanship is bad, try walking into a meeting in Hollywood with a PC laptop. "Microsoft is the devil." "Bill Gates wants to control your brain." I try to explain that I'm comfortable with both Macs and PCs. "System 9 Mac software lacked the pre-emptive multitasking and memory management of Windows," I'd explain. "But ever since OS X came out, I've been waiting for a stable version so I can try it out." Blank looks from the Mac partisans. "Bill Gates wants to eat your children and bathe in their blood," they'll eventually sputter.

Okay, so Macs are the computers for the rest of them. I shouldn't get all tech-y with people who want a computer that just works. After all, Mac partisans pre-OS X had no idea what they were missing out on. So, after the sputtering, I'll switch tactics to one that should sway every non-Commie American: cost. "Yeah, the other thing about Macs is that they're so expensive, and you can't upgrade them like you can a PC. I mean, I'd probably buy a Mac laptop, but I can totally upgrade my PC desktop a piece at a time as technology improves."

This line of reasoning has produced so many befuddled stares that I've been able to come to only one conclusion: a lot of Mac owners are Commies.

Recently I put my money where my mouth is and bought a Mac laptop. I did it a little bit so that I'd have familiarity with OS X (I work with a lot of Macs in my line of business), somewhat more so I could have Final Cut Pro at my fingertips (again, Final Cut Pro is getting a lot of buzz in my line of work), but mostly I did it so the fucking Mac partisans would shut the fuck up about my fucking computer.

(I'm glad I got that off my chest. I feel better.)

It worked, too. When I go into meetings now, people are all, "hey, nice laptop." Or, "is that the titanium or the aluminum?" Or, "wanna go out sometime?" My laptop has had the same effect on my image in the Hollywood film community as a good suit might have in the banking community. I walk tall now (well, mostly that's because my Mac weighs about 4 pounds less than my old Dell does, but pride must enter into it somewhere).

When I have my Mac with me and I proclaim I'm bi, everyone assumes I mostly hit for the right team, only occasionally, begrudgingly and drunkenly straying to the dark side.

They're wrong, of course. My primary computer remains a Windows XP desktop. My desktop has 2GB RAM and about 1TB of disk storage on it, so it's hard to give up.

But a funny thing is happening. I'm finding myself more and more attracted to getting rid of all my XP machines and switching over to Macs.

I'm not considering this because I think "Macs rule, PCs drool" or anything like that. The things that make an all-Mac household attractive to me are the same things that have me using as much Microsoft software as I can: each company is designing a holistic approach to solve various problems, and while each claims its approach works with outside hardware/software vendors, it only really, truly and properly works with its own products.

Here's where I'm headed with this: in the PC world, the problem Microsoft has most recently tried to solve is the Internet. If you use XP with Internet Explorer and, say Outlook, you get a very rich internet experience. If you have an "always on" connection, the internet becomes a fluid extension of your desktop. Fully integrating the internet into the OS makes me happy. It works the way I think.

Apple is doing something similar. They're offering pieces that, when combined, can integrate, index and control all of your digital media (music, photos and movies). For instance, I'm having an outdoor BBQ next weekend. I'm going to be able to hook a little box up in my backyard that will allow me to play the music residing on my computer on my outdoor boom box. But the kicker? I'll be able to control the music (volume, songs, etc.) using my cell phone. Geeky, yes, but useful. And there's nothing in the PC world that can, right now, offer the tight integration that can be achieved by a single hardware and software manufacturer.

So basically, I've decided rationally that buying Macs for the house is probably a better bet than buying PCs. And yet...I'm worried about making the switch. I'm worried that I'll end up buying into a more expensive set of components, just so I can streamline my music and (eventually) video watching at home. I'm a little worried that Apple, with its ever-shrinking market share, might not be around for the long term (even though it's sitting on a mountain of cash). But mostly, I think, I'm worried that before long, the mutant brain wave machine that surely lives inside each Macintosh will activate and turn me into a Mac-loving zombie.

It's going to be a fine line to walk, but it might just be worth walking.

Los Angeles Insight

2004-08-14T11:14:00.000-07:00

I'm taking the folks at lablogs.com up on their weekly quiz:

1. Where is the last place you ate out?
El Guapo Mexican food, on Melrose just west of Formosa. The food was so-so, the Olympics were screeching too loudly from every TV (wtf with the DNA strands? I thought I was watching a remake of Logan's Run), but the company and the margaritas were good. Parking, not so much.

2. How often do you eat out?
I won't count lunchtime trips to Subway. Probably 2-3 times a week.

3. Where is the place you eat most?
Zankou Chicken.

4. Where do you tell your friends that they "have to try"?
Sushi Hama on 2nd Street in Little Tokyo.

5. What dish do they have to order when they get there?
As silly as it sounds, I tell people to try the salmon. I think salmon is a great way to tell a good sushi place from a bad one, since it's hard to make raw salmon actually taste good. When in season, I also insist they try the TWO kinds of toro.

6. Where do you eat when money is not a concern?
Tam O'Shanter

7. Where do you eat when money is tight?
Zankou Chicken (money must be tight a LOT, since that's also my answer to #3).

8. What restaurant have you wanted to try but haven't been to yet?
Langer's Deli

Some nights...

2004-08-12T20:22:00.000-07:00

Jon Stewart is barely in control of his anger.

It's fantastic.

If George Bush...

2004-08-12T19:48:00.000-07:00

...gave a speech tomorrow (or...um...at the Republican National Convention?), taking the lead in bringing food and santiation to the Sudan, and really televised the shit out of it, he'd probably win this election. And it would have the bonus of being the right thing to do, which would have the further bonus of being probably the first real anti-terrorist act George Bush will have initiated.

Unfortunately, we have no troops, and probably no supply-moving aircraft, because of that other country we're in right now.

But, spitballing, what if George Bush gets up and takes the lead in bringing food and sanitation to the Sudan, and then announces that he's diverting civil aircraft and working with private industry in order to take the lead?

Shit. I'd consider voting for him if he did that.

Anyone want to make book on the chances?

Heh.

2004-08-05T13:36:00.000-07:00

Nixon is turning in his grave.

2004-07-06T07:37:00.000-07:00

Not icky, lying, thieving Nixon. No, I'm talking about Endangered-Species-Act Nixon.

The Bush administration has succeeded in reshaping the Endangered Species Act in ways that have sharply limited the impact of the 30-year-old law aimed at protecting the nation's most vulnerable plants and animals, according to environmentalists and some independent analysts.

B*** did it on the 4th. Think they wanted no one to notice?

Oh and here's the sentence that made my head hurt (it wasn't the hangover this time, I promise):

While some environmentalists praise the incentive programs, they say these projects are not enough to protect animals and plants on the brink of extinction.

Memo to "some environmentalists" (or maybe to the article's author): If the projects aren't enough to protect animals and plants on the brink of extinction, don't fucking praise them.

I try to be fair and balanced (honestly) in my assessments. Every time one of these things happens, I first apply the "if a Democrat were in the White House, would I still be upset" test. Then I apply the, "is there any hint of ideology behind this decision" test. The answer here to both is clearly "no," unless you count corporatism as an ideology, and Mussolini can tell you where that leads.

Why I Am A Democrat

2004-06-23T17:14:00.000-07:00

On jury duty in Los Angeles

2004-06-21T11:17:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting in a jury assembly room in downtown Los Angeles. It could be a jury assembly room in any city in this country, except for the American Cinematographer magazine sitting on the magazine rack.

I love being here. I love doing my civic duty (geeky, I know). But even more than that, I love the chance to be in a room with a random cross-section of the Los Angeles population. When I lived in San Francisco, I usually got around town on public transportation. Being on the bus can be a great equalizer in a city. But until the Red Line opened, I hadn't been on Los Angeles public transportation since 1983.

(In case you didn't know, everyone drives everywhere in Los Angeles.)

I used to think that one of the main reasons Angelenos don't have a public life is that they don't ride the buses.

Riding the bus leads to being around The Other, which leads to taking away fear of The Other, which leads to wanting to be around The Other. Ipso facto!

More recently, I've become convinced that our lack of public life is more a function of the transient nature of the population here; apparently, the longer you live somewhere the more likely you are to get to know your neighbors. Whodaguessed?

But blaming it all on not taking the bus has a certain populist romance for me, so what the hell: everyone in Los Angeles should be required to take the bus somewhere at least once a month.

Catholic stuff.

2004-06-17T15:13:00.000-07:00

A lot of people (bloggers!) are talking about how Bush is trying to get the Pope to help radicalize the US Catholic clergy, hoping that such a thing would marginalize Kerry.

Strangely enough, none of the items I've read mentions the Latino vote, which is certainly overwhelmingly Catholic, and which is also swinging Kerry's way.

Getting Kerry excommunicated is, as they say, a "free gift" or an "added bonus." I think the point here is that enlisting Catholic help shows that the B***ies don't believe they can get the Latino vote using carrots.

Hell, even the second generation Cubans are against him.

On why two computer monitors just aren't enough

2004-06-17T15:04:00.000-07:00

Two web pages, Outlook, sticky notes, 2 IMs, a download going on in the background, and desktop icons.

I need three computer monitors. Things are getting lost. Efficiency is dropping. And now I need to launch Word!

Ch-ch-ch-changing.

2004-06-17T10:27:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I've done the "oh I'm so angry with the B*** Administration" thing since I started this blog.

And I am.

But now I just kind of feel sorry for it, like I felt sorry for the child murderer at the end of "M."

Some of it will be over soon, I believe.

Other stuff will linger. The important stuff will only get resolved over the next four years: are we still a republic? Do we get some of our freedoms back? Do we figure out that our democracy is stronger than nihilism, or do we NOT figure it out, only to figure out eventually that it isn't?

I'll probably weigh in on things I think would help us maintain our society, but that won't be the focus of this blog anymore. There are too many voices now. I'm too polite to "pile on." (!)

And anyway, people (especially bloggers) need to start thinking about the things that need to be done going forward. Having Kerry in the White House doesn't mean we're home free.

So I'm going to post what I think, sometimes, and what I'm feeling, sometimes, and I'll probably write more about my life, or make shit up, or whatever. In any case, we'll see where it all goes.

In Praise of iTunes

2004-06-17T10:16:00.000-07:00

So I work here, in this little office, in a facility where people are in, and are out, and other people are in. Some -- the ones who make eye contact in the hallways, say hello, try to strike up a conversation or at least converse back when I do -- are nice. Some -- the ones who walk down the hallway, eyes down -- aren't.

In this building there are probably 50 shifting people. And out of these, every day there are four or five who have iTunes loaded onto their computers. These computers sit on a common network. The network allows everyone who has iTunes set to share see the music of everyone else who has iTunes set to share.

This is so incredibly cool. I don't know these people. It's possible that the people who share their music are the people who walk down the halls with their heads down (after all, some of their music SUCKS). But knowing that I can listen to other people's music, that they WANT me to listen to it, and that they can listen to mine...without knowing me...and yet getting to know me...this rocks hard. Right now, one person is listening to my music. My name is on my office door. I hope the person makes an introduction.

Google Bombing!

2004-06-11T13:59:00.000-07:00

I'm just cutting and pasting here, but it should work for the purposes Drum intends:

Currently the google results for the Democratic National Convention brings up a fake republican site pretending to be the official convention site at the top of the results. In effect, an actual, practical, use of the googlebomb to screw with your political opponents (so a tip of the hat to the wingnuts who pulled this off).
This post is merely an effort to get the real Democratic National Convention site back up to the top of the search rankings. I encourage other bloggers to join in this counter googlebomb. Unlike "flip flopper" and the other fun googlebombs, this one actually matters.

I wish I had said that.

2004-06-10T15:30:00.000-07:00

"We're like contestants on Wheel of Fortune with a long phrase spelled out in front of us with maybe one or two letters missing. We know what the letters spell. It's obvious. We just don't have the heart to say it out loud."

The New York Times Gets the Memo.

2004-06-07T22:46:00.000-07:00

So now they're also reporting what the Wall Street Journal said yesterday:

A team of administration lawyers concluded in a March 2003 legal memorandum that President Bush was not bound by either an international treaty prohibiting torture or by a federal antitorture law because he had the authority as commander in chief to approve any technique needed to protect the nation's security.

The memo, prepared for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, also said that any executive branch officials, including those in the military, could be immune from domestic and international prohibitions against torture for a variety of reasons.

One reason, the lawyers said, would be if military personnel believed that they were acting on orders from superiors "except where the conduct goes so far as to be patently unlawful."

So, here's the deal.

We are at the edge of losing our Republic. I'm not hopeful that we'll hang on.

"Jim, please ask Bill to pass the income exclusion benefits."

2004-06-07T17:11:00.000-07:00

"Why don't you ask him yourself??! He's sitting right next to you!"

Yep, things in the Republican-controlled House are peachy if, by peachy, you mean infantile.

The relationship between two House committee chairmen has become so strained that they have stopped talking to each other and rely on an intermediary to negotiate over corporate tax-reform legislation.

Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.) and Small Business Committee Chairman Don Manzullo (R-Ill.) communicate through Rep. Jim McCrery (R-La.), a senior member on the Ways and Means Committee, to convey their positions and learn about each other’s views on a set of tax breaks for American corporations that have been ruled illegal by the World Trade Organization.

Back to the Present

2004-06-07T12:27:00.000-07:00

It's good to know some news is still getting through the Reagan white noise. Unfortunately, this is the news:

The working-group report elaborated the Bush administration's view that the president has virtually unlimited power to wage war as he sees fit, and neither Congress, the courts nor international law can interfere. It concluded that neither the president nor anyone following his instructions was bound by the federal Torture Statute, which makes it a crime for Americans working for the government overseas to commit or attempt torture, defined as any act intended to "inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering." Punishment is up to 20 years imprisonment, or a death sentence or life imprisonment if the victim dies.

"In order to respect the president's inherent constitutional authority to manage a military campaign ... (the prohibition against torture) must be construed as inapplicable to interrogations undertaken pursuant to his commander-in chief authority," the report asserted. (The parenthetical comment is in the original document.) The Justice Department "concluded that it could not bring a criminal prosecution against a defendant who had acted pursuant to an exercise of the president's constitutional power," the report said. Citing confidential Justice Department opinions drafted after Sept. 11, 2001, the report advised that the executive branch of the government had "sweeping" powers to act as it sees fit because "national security decisions require the unity in purpose and energy in action that characterize the presidency rather than Congress."

Fucking war criminals.

Reagan

2004-06-06T18:16:00.000-07:00

Everyone is commenting, so I'll be brief.

When I heard Reagan was shot, I cheered. I remember being in high school and hearing and looking at my friends and cheering.

Yeah, it was wrong morally. I should never have cheered. Granted.

But when I look at how the cancerous group of people who surrounded Reagan have subverted our country's democracy during the current presidency, I can't help but wonder what would have happened if Reagan had died during the attack, and Bush 41 had started his presidency eight years early.

Basically, while my head says this, my heart says this.

NBA Finals

2004-06-06T18:09:00.000-07:00

Has there ever been a worse opening theme for a sporting event?

Pumping Fists

2004-06-02T17:07:00.000-07:00

This article made me pump my fists in the air and mouth the words, "YOU'RE GOING DOWN, FUCKER."

President Bush has consulted an outside lawyer in case he needs to retain him in the grand jury investigation of who leaked the name of a covert CIA operative last year, the White House said Wednesday.