Posts from — May 2007

What in earth are we doing bogged down in another land war in Asia? Didn’t we learn anything from Vietnam?

After Vietnam everyone said that the United States would never be stupid enough to get involved in another mess like that ever again. So all of the carefully compiled reports and information, all of the scholarly research on what went wrong, all of the reasoned tactics for avoiding the mistakes that were made, all of the intelligence gathered from a decade long disaster was bound and filed in the belief that this kind of conflict would never happen again so let’s look at other scenarios.

All of the talk about having an exit strategy before you commit the military, is a reaction to Vietnam. Among the many things that changed after 09/11/2001 was the memory of how we got into that mess that was Vietnam.

Setting aside all of that, let’s look at the “Army we had.”

[Read more →]

Anyone who fills the position should take the day off and spread a little guilt to keep children of all ages neurotic.

Enjoy yourselves.

Florida License Plates

Beneficiary

A weekend feature of Why Now.

Via Keith at Invisible Library, a video that Jessamyn at Librarian.net made while installing Ubuntu Linux on some computers donated to her library.

She has a pretty good description of the process and you get to look over her shoulder as she does it.

She’s at a small library and these are donated computers. If they had to buy the Windows software, it would cost them a mint. I have worked with donated computers and they usually need to be completely re-built on the software side, and no one remembers to include the software with the machines. You have to be fairly large for Microsoft to recognize you for special rates, so you end up with a situation that it would be cheaper to buy a new computer with the software on it, than to buy the software alone for a donated computer.

Guy of Rook’s Rant is celebrating his fourth blogiversary™.

Go congratulate or harass him as is your wont.

CNN reports that Wildfire smoke closes interstates in Florida. The Florida Highway Patrol has shut down Interstates 10 and 75 around Lake City, Florida because of a combination of smoke and fog.

The fires are in the Okefenokee Swamp, the large mass of green North of I-10 and West of Folkston, Georgia [the dotted line is the Florida-Georgia border]. You will notice there are no roads and not enough water for boats, so access to the fires is a hard slog through the mud. The special vehicles that were used for getting through the area are currently in a desert.

Without sustained rain, these fires are near impossible to extinguish, as this is what coal looks like before it dried and was compressed.

The Okefenokee was the setting for the world’s best political comic strip: Walt Kelly’s strip featuring Pogo Possum. Walt died more than 30 years ago, but his creation is still relevant. I think the neocons would certainly have caused Walt to resurrect the Jack Acid Society in their dishonor.

They learned a new trick today – if you step in just the right place on the big black box that says UPS, things get very silent as all of the equipment shuts down, and then very noisy when someone comes back to see why things are silent.

I have a long rant in progress, but it has to wait until tomorrow, as Dot want to lay on the keyboard, the kittens want to chew my shoes, things needed tending to outside, there is a new vehicle decision being made, but most importantly, it is impossible to get a decent reservation for Mother’s Day, so I took my Mother out to dinner tonight.

I would like to say thanks to my brother who sent the plants that I will have to dig holes for and tend. Nice, really nice. If they do well, he gets the credit, but if they wither and die, it’s my fault. What, they have no flowers in California?

Two For Lunch

Quick before Income gets here

[Editor: Income is being a laggard at lunch time. They are spending time under the computer desk [that is a wheel from my office chair at the bottom].]

Friday Ark

Tomorrow, Saturday, May 12^th is the Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive of the letter carriers.

And a reminder that Baton Rouge’s Cat Haven could use some help [as could every other TNR program in the country].

From Associated Press: Putin Offers Blunt Victory Day Speech

Who was President Vladimir Putin talking about when he said the world faces threats to peace like those that led to World War II?

Putin’s statement at a Victory Day parade on Red Square on Wednesday was artfully phrased to be both blunt and vague, but political observers have little doubt he was criticizing the United States for “disrespect for human life, claims to global exclusiveness and dictate, just as it was in the time of the Third Reich.”

[snip]

Shortly after his speech at the parade, Putin told veterans at a Kremlin reception that World War II showed “where militarist ambitions, ethnic intolerance and any attempts to recarve the globe are leading to.”

[Sergei] Markov [Institute for Political Research] saw that as another veiled reference to the United States.

“After the Cold War ended, the United States has initiated a new arms race,” fueling nuclear ambitions of many nations worldwide, he said.

“If a nation doesn’t have nuclear weapons, it risks being bombed like Yugoslavia or Iraq,” he said. “And if it does have nuclear weapons like North Korea, it faces no such threat.”

Because we don’t have enough problems, let’s re-start the Cold War. People don’t like it when you start throwing your weight around around, especially when they know you don’t have the resources to back up your words.

The real problem is that we have left ourselves in the position that Russia can be a bigger pain than the Soviet Union was. A lot of people who ignored the Soviets, listen to Russia. Russia is vital to European energy needs for some time into the future, giving them leverage.

The BBC covers the announcement, Blair will stand down on 27 June, and provides the press releases, In quotes: Global reaction to Blair’s exit.

John McKay does a quick round-up of The Blair years, but while noting Today’s the day, Jams O’Donnell needs some time to think about how he views what every one knew was coming.

My personal take is that Tony Blair did his country a great disservice associating himself with the Shrubbery. I would hope that that decision isn’t the only thing remembered from his ten years as Prime Minister.

At this point I suspect that Mike has a mole in the government working to provide him with this kind of publicity.

U.S. Treasury investigating Michael Moore:

Academy Award-winning filmmaker Michael Moore is under investigation by the U.S. Treasury Department for taking ailing Sept. 11 rescue workers to Cuba for a segment in his upcoming health-care documentary “Sicko,” The Associated Press has learned.

The investigation provides another contentious lead-in for a provocative film by Moore, a fierce critic of President Bush. In the past, Moore’s adversaries have fanned publicity that helped the filmmaker create a new brand of opinionated blockbuster documentary.

“Sicko” promises to take the health-care industry to task the way Moore confronted America’s passion for guns in “Bowling for Columbine” and skewered Bush over his handling of Sept. 11 in “Fahrenheit 9/11.”

In demonstration of my fairness and balance I would like to point out that this report reads like Mike wrote it. They included – the name of new film as well as the last two, the mention of the Academy Award, “a new brand of opinionated blockbuster documentary”…this is a rewritten press release.

I don’t guess the Treasury has anything better to do than enrich Michael Moore’s legal staff while positioning itself to seem to be opposing health care for September 11^th workers. I hope they like the way Mike will portray them in the movie.

The Associated Press reports: Fight breaks out at Boston Pops concert

Concert-goers, and even Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart, were caught off-guard when a fight broke out on opening night at usually sedate Symphony Hall.

Television video of the fight Wednesday night showed two men struggling in the balcony — one with his shirt pulled off — as several people stood around them.

Lockhart briefly halted the performance, which featured singer-songwriter Ben Folds, while the men were escorted out.

This didn’t happen when Arthur Fielder was the conductor, although one suspects that even Arthur would have been caught “off guard” by people brawling. Of course it was in the balcony. One certainly hopes the individuals weren’t season ticket holders.

Really, it’s not like this was opera or hippity-hop or whatever.

The BBC actually has an article in its magazine noting the golden anniversary of a typeface.

The comments are fun, including a number of really bad jokes, with a lot of people suddenly embarrassed that they are part of a discussion about something this trivial.

I take such things seriously as a publisher is one of my larger clients and I occasionally have to write Postscript code for him to do something for a book. Most people have heard of “Postscript fonts”, but are unaware that it is a language.

I buck the trend and use a serif typeface on this blog because I find it more readable, which is important when you wear bifocals.

I was going to specify Helvetica for this post, but I only have it as a Postscript typeface, and most people probably don’t have on their machines, so there’s no point.