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Today's Fortune: |
   
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Saturday, April 12, 2003
Hey now, not everything the Ayatollah says is crazy. I personally agree that a girl on a bicycle is worse than pizza.
.: posted by Grand Inquisitor Fnord Moco 4/12/2003
At first I thought this was stupid, but the more I think about it, the better it sounds. If they actually managed to get this law passed while there is a Republican President, House, and Senate, the liberal and moderate backlash would be so huge that we could guarantee a long blue streak in DC. That would bring a nice cooldown to our colonization efforts.
.: posted by Grand Inquisitor Fnord Moco 4/12/2003
You know about job security, the never-ending project, right? You were just too good of a worker. Plus, this is probably why you weren't laid off right after started there, you were on a critical project, and all of those people that had been there longer were doing nothing important. Now that your schedule is so open, you have no reason not to come visit more. If you get here by 11PM, I'll take you to a cool show.
.: posted by Grand Inquisitor Fnord Moco 4/12/2003
I'm getting spammed like crazy too. At least a hundred messages everyday. I finally set the junk mail filter on my account to high, which just means that it's easier to delete the spam.
I read an article by a military analyst that says we'll always be able to beat Muslims at war because they're so motivated to get killed. We, on the other hand, are very motivated not to get killed, and so go to great lengths to take only the most calculated risks. That may be the biggest advantage Europeans have over other countries--we don't glorify death to the extent that other cultures do.
.: posted by andy 4/12/2003
I have the answer for governance in Iraq. Send in the Ayatollah. Iran shows great models in using the latest 14th century techniques in running a country loaded with happy citizens. Islam is so wonderful, anyway. I heard a comment on the radio yesterday. Islam has you send your son to die for God. In Christianity, God's son died for you.
All of a sudden I'm getting spammed to death. They must have come out of hibernation.
.: posted by Dweeb Eubanks 4/12/2003
I watched the whole Saddam statue toppling live on tv the other day. It was a pretty moving moment, but some aspects of it seemed a little weird. First of all, the crowd really wasn't very large at all. The guy on CNN repeatedly said "as many as a thousand people," but it honestly never looked like more than a hundred. Not only that, but the harder you looked, the more you realized that there were at least fifty journalists and camera men in the crowd. Also, there were marines everywhere. They showed very few wide angle shots of the whole thing, instead preferring to zoom in on the scene, which is understandable considering that the main camera seemed to be somewhere on the Hotel Palestine. In the beginning there were very few women or children, but as the event dragged on, a few trickled in. Overall there never seemed to be more than 150-200 Iraqi-looking people.
Now, the first weird thing I noticed is that of the original crowd, they all appeared to be military-aged young men. The second thing I noticed is that there weren't very many of them. The third thing I noticed was the massive military presence in the Square, apparently blocking traffic. You can see on the far side of the Square a pretty good number of cars stopped (or maybe parked, who knows?) behind some American military vehicles, in the middle of the road. I also noticed that the vehicles in the Square were all combat vehicles, except for the tank recovery vehicle which pulled down the statue. Shouldn't that be attached to a different unit?
But really, the thing that makes me think the whole scenario was staged was the presence of the Pentagon 9/11 flag. How did that particular unit happen to have the Pentagon 9/11 flag in the Square outside the Hotel where all the foreign non-embedded journalists in Baghdad are staying? Of course they had a big photo op in mind, and they did a pretty good job pulling it off.
That said, I certainly believe the Iraqis are happy to see Saddam go, and I can totally believe that in all of Baghdad, there were several hundred people with a strong desire to pull down statues. I can also believe that there would be an American unit stationed in that Square, since all kinds of traffic went through it right up to the end, and of course there's a hotel full of foreign journalists right there. It makes sense to try to keep the place safe. And if you're already there, why not help the locals pull down the Saddam statue, right?
I dunno. The looting sure is sorry, though. This is another situation where it would have been handy to have more troops over there, so that we could spare some from the fighting to try and enforce some kind of order.
I understand about all the repression they've been through, and so they're certainly welcome to loot the palaces and whatnot. Rumsfeld himself said they're entitled to it, after what they've been through (probably to cover up the fact that we're helpless to stop it until more troops are on the ground). The problem is that just like with any looting, they're also looting of private residences, relief agencies, small businesses and just generally stealing anything not nailed down. And it appears that everyone is doing it, and it's happening consistently across the entire country. What kind of people have we "liberated"? Would it be the same here, if suddenly there were no one to enforce the law? Or is this a product of the Iraqis' unique circumstances? I guess probably every society has feverish opportunism lurking just under the surface. But since every Iraqi government facility has been stripped to the sheetrock and plaster, the new government is going to be starting from scratch, which means we're going to be spending lots of money.
One other thing. I'm very skeptical of our plans to import all kinds of "exiled" Iraqis to run the new government. If I were an Iraqi, I sure wouldn't be too enthusiastic about some Pentagon darling who hasn't lived in the country since the 1950s coming back to run the nation. How could these exiles be in touch with the Iraqi populace when they've comfortably avoided the collective experience in some wealthy first-world country (yes, I'm talking to you, Chalabi)?
That reminds me, Rumsfeld is a total colonialist chump if he thinks installing Chalabi is a good idea. I don't know nothing about nothing, but I can tell from my living room that Chalabi's participation is going to hurt the interim government. All those billions of dollars worth of intelligence and analysis, and Rumsfeld gets hooked on this guy? Give me a break.
.: posted by andy 4/12/2003
Friday, April 11, 2003
Not only did my accomplishments go unrecognized, I got laid off today.
Light bulbs, watch out, Jeremy's looking for a job.
.: posted by Jeremy 4/11/2003
Thursday, April 10, 2003
Everybody who thinks that engineering is a glorified vocation that doesn't require any kind of critical or creative thinking can lick my sack.
I'm finally getting to finish the software I started writing a year and a half ago. It automatically creates designs for adapters for the equipment we make based on a set of constraints defined by an engineer. This is just about the most complicated thing I've ever done, and I'm pretty sure that when I'm done, it's actually going to work. It has taken me about 3000 lines of object oriented c++ (yes, there is such a thing as non-object oriented c++) to do it. If this project doesn't get me some kind of recognition, nothing ever will.
.: posted by Jeremy 4/10/2003
A bunch of contracts and legal documents related to drkoop.com. Some employment agreements. G. Peter Malloy was granted an annual salary of 300K/year in August of 2001, four and a half months before the company went out of business. From what I've heard, that's the highest executive salary to date, not including bonuses.
.: posted by andy 4/10/2003
Something from Shawn.
I heard about a marketing campaign in asia for some cola. The centerpeice was supposed to be "Pepsi(or whatever) lifts your spirits!" The poor translation into chinese made it sound like "Pepsi brings your dead ancestors back to life!"
It's short, but I really like that story.
.: posted by Jeremy 4/10/2003
You'd think that would be the only logical explanation, I know. Nope, just something to do.
.: posted by Jeremy 4/10/2003
That's weird. I never pictured you as a volunteer type of guy. Is this chick-related, by any chance?
.: posted by andy 4/10/2003
Wednesday, April 09, 2003
This weekend I'm volunteering for the MS150. It's a 2 day bike ride between houston and austin to raise money for Multiple Sclerosis research. I'm gonna be a "SAG driver". I drive along the route in a big 15 passenger van picking up sick and tired bikers, taking them to the next break-point, or calling emergency services if need be. I've never done anything like this before. I hear it's a lot of work, but it still sounds like fun, though.
.: posted by Jeremy 4/9/2003
Geography Quiz. I'm not very strong on the Slavic nations.
.: posted by andy 4/9/2003
Info about the attack on the Russian convoy. What is up with those jerks? Why do they like Saddam so much?
.: posted by andy 4/9/2003
.: posted by andy 4/9/2003
Al Jazeera says Saddam Hussein is hiding in the Russian Embassy.
.: posted by andy 4/9/2003
It seems like every few years there is some outbreak of a disease called something like Chinese avian flu. Why is it that all of these viruses transfer from birds to humans in southern China? When it comes to dealing with birds in China, I think Mao had it right.
.: posted by Grand Inquisitor Fnord Moco 4/9/2003
Tuesday, April 08, 2003
Well, it turns out I was pretty much wrong about us not having enough ground troops in Iraq. So, just like the media, I'm going to pretend the war is already over. From here on out, I'll be criticizing America's efforts to transition Iraq to a democracy. I'm going to start by posting this article, which tells about a US-backed militia that is looting the hell out of a town near Najaf. It seems like our current policy in Iraq is, "My enemy's enemy is my friend." The whole thing kind of reminds me of Operation Phoenix and the Civilian Irregular Defense Groups in Vietnam.
It seems like the first thing we do when we invade a country is buddy up with all the most-hated minorities. In Vietnam it was the Montagnards and the ethnic Chinese; in Iraq it's the Kurds and the Shias (formerly known as Shiites, much the same way Muslims are formerly known as Mohammedans and Prince is the artist formerly known as the Artist Formerly Known as Prince).
.: posted by andy 4/8/2003
So I tried to log-in yesterday, got a bad log-in message. Contacted Leroy, got a new invitation, set up a new account, logged in, composed a rant, hit post, and got gibberish. Logged out, couldn't log back in. Went back to the invitation; it's expired. Sent an email to the address on the expiration notice, it bounced. Quit Mozilla, went to Safari, and it works (crossed fingers).
So let me tell you about the joys of living in the Empire/State of New York. I filed my state tax form early this year because I'm due a refund (shoulda known something was wrong at that point). Yesterday I get the return returned because "the amount entered on your wages line doesn't match the amount on your W2". It doesn't match because the W2 had x dollars and 22 cents. As per instructions on the return I entered the amount as written on my Federal return, in which the 22 cents is rounded off. If I use the w2 amount, my state return doesn't match my federal return.So some cretin in Albany said, "aha", and sent the damn thing back. Being ever vigilant, I locate a phone number on the notification document, and call it. Disconnected. Sooo, I call information, get a number and hook up with voice mail (If you have died, press 1. If your hemorrhoids are inflamed press 2. Etc). No humans. There is no Tax Department office in the thriving metropolis of Utica, so I can't get help there. I guess my options are 1) go to jail for 75 years for non-payment of taxes. 2) Pay a lawyer about $10,000 to try to fix the non-problem 3) Drive to Albany, hope there is really a Tax Department there staffed by humans, and look for help (fat chance).
To add insult to injury, State farm informed me they are raising my premium $80/six months because I drive to Utica twice a week to teach one course. If I retire, I'm supposed to vegetate.
I love New York
.: posted by Dweeb Eubanks 4/8/2003
Monday, April 07, 2003
Funny dialogue-style debate on the Iraq situation.
What are the odds that we'll actually find WMD in Iraq? I know they've got some possible weapons that they're testing, but I'll bet they all turn out to be pesticides or whatnot.
Then again, I read that they found chemical weapons in ready to fire rockets at the airport in Baghdad. I guess I'll believe it when it becomes really big news, but it seems odd that the inspectors couldn't even find weapons at the airport they flew into and left from.
.: posted by andy 4/7/2003
The Afghans are still screwed. How long do you think it will be before the Taliban or some other group regains control? How long do you think it will be before Afghanistan is a safe-haven for terrorists again? What a pathetic war, and what a pathetic thing to do to a country.
.: posted by andy 4/7/2003
I think my body is trying to tell me that it's time to stop nursing. It's too bad my dumbass digestive system can't tell the difference between this and this.
.: posted by Jeremy 4/7/2003
Sunday, April 06, 2003
Here's a giant squid story for Uncle George.
.: posted by andy 4/6/2003
Holy Crap! One of the fortunes actually came true! I have poison ivy on my arm, just like the gods predicted. I got it yesterday when I was tearing the old gutters off the side of the house. Turns out the vine that has been gradually creeping its way up the wall over there is not something benign, but is actually a giant stalk of poison ivy. I gave it an industrial dose of weed killer, in response to which it snaked its thorny tendrils at me in an attempt to pull me into its bristling green mandibles. I cut myself loose, though (a gentleman always carries a pen-knife, lighter, pen, handkerchief, and gat), and now I think it's starting to succumb to the poisons. This is good because last night it got ahold of the neighbor's dog, and she whimpered and squealed for hours before the plant finished her off.
.: posted by andy 4/6/2003
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