Laminated Book of Dreams (a reprint of a finer work)

I needed a backup solution. I had a terabyte hard drive attached to the Mac Mini in the sitting room, but it died rather unexpectedly one day making it a somewhat less attractive backup solution. I gave in and bought a NAS. The Seagate Black Armor 110 NAS actually which I’m really rather enjoying. Their backup software is missing for the Mac, but that’s ok because I have Time Machine. Except that Time Machine is a finicky mistress and doesn’t like some kinds of systems. Particularly, it has issues with NAS not running as AFP. That’s ok, I thought, because there’s a handy “let Time Machine see unsupported drives” command that can be run. It made me happy until I tried it and found that it could not Time Machine up with my NAS. Sadness.

I decided that I would just go the way that I had done before and rsync me up a backup solution. It didn’t take that long to bash (ow, the puns, they burn) out a shell script and have an rsync solution working. Except for another snag. Whatever filesystem the NAS is using is not happy with hard links so my usual rolling backup didn’t want to play. There was a whole lot of failing going on.

I got a bit clever after that and decided that I would write in some more shell scripting to create a disc image (.dmg) as a HFS+J sparse image using hdiutil, attach it, rsync into the disc image and then detach it. No doubt a HFS+J partition would be able to support hard links… Anyway, here’s the script. Comments?

#!/bin/sh

#parameters
useDiskImage=1
diskImageSize=250g
keep=3

source=/Users/simsea
volume=/Volumes/simsea
dest=${volume}/Backups

# check parameters
if [ $keep -lt 3 ]; then
    keep=3
fi

if [ ! -d ${volume} ]; then
    echo Opening volume $volume
    mkdir ${volume}
    mount -t smbfs //simsea@192.168.1.2/simsea ${volume}
fi

if [ ! -d $dest ]; then
    echo Making destination
    mkdir -p $dest
fi

# make a backup disk image
if [ $useDiskImage -eq 1 ]; then
    dest=${dest}/Backup.dmg.sparseimage
    if [ ! -e ${dest} ]; then
	echo Creating disc image $dest
        hdiutil create -size $diskImageSize -type SPARSE -fs HFS+J -volname Backup -autostretch $dest
    fi
    echo Mounting disc image $dest
    hdiutil attach -readwrite $dest
    dest=/Volumes/Backup
fi

echo Deleting ancient backups
num=0
start=`expr $keep - 1`
# delete the oldest backups
while [ -d ${dest}/backup.${num} ]; do
    if [ $num -ge $start ]; then
        echo Deleting ${dest}/backup.${num}
        rm -rf ${dest}/backup.${num}
    fi
    num=`expr $num + 1`
done

for ((i = $start; i > 0; --i)); do
    other=`expr $i - 1`
    echo Moving ${dest}/backup.$other to ${dest}/backup.$i
    mv ${dest}/backup.$other ${dest}/backup.$i
done

echo Performing rsync

# do the rsync thing
rsync -v -a --delete --exclude-from=${HOME}/.backup/exclusions --link-dest=${dest}/backup.1 ${source}/ ${dest}/backup.0

# detach the image if necessary
if [ $useDiskImage -eq 1 ]; then
    echo Detaching mount
    hdiutil detach $dest
fi

go to the source

I’ve decided that I need to provide a history lesson for some people that keep shooting their mouths off in, what really ought to have been, polite political discourse. Generally speaking, I think that we need to invoke The First Corollary of Godwin’s Law for political discourse, but it’s just getting a bit out of hand.

The history lesson is on the Nazis and Nazism.

Nazism refers to the National Socialist German Worker’s Party, known more simply as the Nazi Party. In the expression of its name, the Nazi party was a combination of Nationalist and Socialist ideas. Though the party incorporated ideas from both the left-wing and right-wing, they are considered to be a far-right party as they themselves formed most allegiances with members of the right-wing.

The party was primarily a party for German Nationalism. They believed that the Treaty of Versailles was an act of weakness in the German leadership, the Aryan Germans were superior to all races, the Communists were gaining too much power, and international capitalism was a Jewish controlled movement. They believed that the state should be responsible for Social Welfare and originally had removed the “Socialist” from the title of the part to ease potential members’ worries that they were in any way a Marxist party. In fact, originally the party went through great efforts to assure the middle class that their only socialist ideas were to do with Social Welfare given only to those of the Aryan race. Through their nationalist policies, they called for a unified Germany as a “national community” that was completely “jew-free”.

Hitler himself was less interested in the “Socialist” aspect of the party than early members were. He was most interested in the “Nationalist” element. Hitler’s version of the Nazi party drew more membership through his oratory skills and that the party was seen as a backlash against the liberal and socialist policies of the post-WWI German government.

Rampant Nationalism is what history tells of the Nazis, not Socialism. Fascism is a form of extreme Nationalism. Genocide is a result of extreme Nationalism. Xenophobia and racial persecution is a result of extreme Nationalism.

Marx and the socialists opposed Nationalism. Socialism, put simply, simply means to make equal access to resources to all individuals with an egalitarian method of compensation. Marx and the other socialists had some pretty diverse and sometimes strange notions on how that should work.

Social welfare is a small part of Socialism where the state tries to assure that individuals can achieve a minimum level of income, services and other support usually at the expense of the taxpayer. At its roots is the idea that some services are basic needs for people and they should not be denied to people because of a lack of financial compensation.

We already have social welfare. Now we just need to make it work or get rid of it entirely.

go to the source

Let’s start by putting this in perspective. The U.S. Census Bureau said that 45.7 million of Americans had no health insurance in 2007 (roughly 15.8% of the total population, 18% of the population under the age of 65). Of those uninsured Americans, 8.1 million were children (roughly 10% of the population of children in the U.S.).

Let’s just talk about the children for a moment then. It’s not too long in the news cycle before you hear someone spouting off something along the lines of “Won’t someone think of the children” when championing their cause of the day. I won’t get into those causes quite yet, but let’s take their advice and think of the children.

According to the Population Reference Bureau 2008 report, The United States is 47th on the Infant Mortality Rate list boasting a 6.6 deaths / 1000 live births. This list does not include still birth data. Of the Developed Nations list from the IMF, the U.S. is dead last. I am not joking. The closest in the running is Slovakia at 6.1. Our favourite “Socialist” Healthcare punching bag, Canada, is currently running at 5.4 and the other “Shockingly Socialist” Healthcare, the U.K. is enjoying themselves at 4.9. The U.S. slipped from the 2006 report, ranking 33rd at 6.3. It seems to be that the situation is getting worse in the U.S. and better for everyone else.

The U.S. is very outspoken on each side of the abortion debate. Pro-life (anti-choice) supporters are in favour of, in its strongest form, making all abortions illegal because they believe that the feotus is a human life and must be preserved. The pro-choice (anti-life / pro-abortion) believe that a woman has the right to make her own decisions on her reproductive health and we should make it as safe as possible. (I’m over-simplifying, I know, but bear with). Polling data shows that 43% of the population is pro-life and that most of those who identify as pro-choice wish to find ways of reducing the number of abortions performed.

Let us assume then that most every woman who chooses to carry a pregnancy to term wishes for the baby to be born health and grow up to be President or an Astronaut. I’m thinking that this is pretty true regardless of their ideas on abortion. Ironically, if they were to give birth in another developed nation with “socialised” healthcare and less outspoken criticism of the choice of abortion, their child would have a higher chance of surviving childbirth. I’m thinking that if the 43% of the population indicating “pro-choice” were really very concerned about protecting the lives of potential astronauts, they’d start with the women who wanted to give birth. I would think that their first move would be to improve the healthcare system in the U.S. so that it could take better care of those who wished to give birth. Sadly though, and I couldn’t find statistics to support this hypothesis, I believe that most of the pro-life crowd are also anti-universal-healthcare. Also, I could not find any data on infant mortality against income in the U.S. but it would make sense that lower income would have higher infant mortality as well as non-insured have a higher infant mortality.

I don’t agree with where the current bill has gone and I sincerely hope that it gets washed out so that we can try again and do it right. The U.S. needs real healthcare reform. It does not need bending over to corporate interests as a patch-up measure.

The Bill had two objectives: provide healthcare coverage to those without and to rein in the ever rising costs of medical care. The Senate committee successfully managed to reduce this to making a vague arm-waving attempt at seeming like they are thinking about slowing the inflation of medical costs. Maybe. It would be like going to war with the primary objective of finding the leader and the high-ranking members of a terrorist network and bringing them to justice, and the secondary objective of inflicting peace on Middle East nations only to bail almost entirely and settle for installing U.S.-friendly governments who will help us with future oil interests.

The arguments come out almost as they always have. This bill is a job-killer, will hurt small businesses, will allow the government to decide to kill you, will kick small puppies in darkened alleys.

In the current system, Healthcare coverage is run by corporations, not doctors, not puppies with lab coats, not magic faeries or good-natured wealthy benefactors who would rather enjoy watching you grow up through the years, encouraging you through trials and tribulations, and celebrating your victories. A corporation has a legal obligation to do the thing that maximises the profits of the stock-holders. If you, as a prospective patient, would potentially cost the corporation millions in profits, you would be denied coverage. It is a simple equation. Not mean-spirited, not evil, not personal. Simple. Corporations are amoral. Trying to get them to act moral under their own devices is an impossible contradiction to their legal obligation to make more money. That’s where regulation came in. The idea was to try and give the implicitly amoral corporations a moral arm, the Jiminy Cricket of the corporate world.

In the current system, it is an amoral entity driven by profits that decides if your treatment for an illness will be covered. Think what you will of the government, but at the very least they are, as we are keenly aware, not driven by profit.

I recommend reading the short list of Healthcare facts on the non-partisan NCHC page. For example, the rate of employer-based covered dropped from 70% to 62% in ten years. Nearly 1.3 million full-time workers lost their health coverage in one year (2006 -2007). Nearly 40 percent of the uninsured population reside in households that earn $50,000 or more. Put simply, that means that the middle-class is losing their health insurance faster than anyone else. Businesses are more hurt by employees who are ill or have worries about ill family than a universal healthcare system, i’ll wager.

go to the source

I have a Volkswagen. Technically, I have two Volkswagens. A 2007 GTI of which I am very fond and a 1978 Beetle convertible. There’s a long history with the ‘78 and despite our differences from time to time, it’s a relationship I find near impossible to sever. My parents have been very kind in minding it when I’ve been living in the UK and now that I’m living in CA, we all thought it was time I came and fetched it. I looked online and called a bunch of people to see about having it transported out here. Estimates were in the $1,000+ range for having someone put it on a lorry and bring it out. Estimates were also very expensive for getting a car trailer and towing it myself. So, I made the decision to drive it all the way out to CA from MA. I know it was a bit of a gutsy move driving a potentially unreliable 30 year old car 3,000 miles in a short period of time, but I’m only young once and I have (near) absolute faith in the bug. Between ms. mosephine and I, we managed to figure out a way to time the trip in such a way to visit with a bunch of people and also spend Easter with my family (I think my mum liked that a lot). This plan, sadly, involved ms. mosephine and I to walk different paths and only briefly intersecting at Easter. She would not be accompanying me on the trip out to CA.

I started out on the Monday afternoon and went from Boston to Western MA where I met up with a longtime friend of mine who I consider a brother. I absolutely had to meet his new baby and spend some time catching up. I’m going to throw in a gratuitous pitch here, and, in case you’re curious, I have no shame in doing so. His band, The Aeon Saga, are doing well and really starting to make a name for themselves. If you’re a fan of metal, you should check them out. Speaking of metal bands you might like, also check out my cousin’s band, Desiccation. They’ve won some high school battle of the bands thing with a Boston radio station and are getting some good press. Right, shout outs are now down, the story may continue.

Got on the road properly after a nice breakfast and a good chat. I do realise that Boston to Northampton, MA does not a long trip make, but I really wanted to test the waters with the bug before I committed to a long haul across the US. There were other rules. No massive burns on speed. Yes, the car can cruise well at 70-75, but it’s more likely that something will go wrong so I was doing my best to keep it sub 70. Anyway, it didn’t take me long to get to New York.

New York was a pretty drive and one thing of particular note that I saw was the 4-truck orgy driving along at great speed.

I though about stopping at Niagara Falls when I passed through Buffalo, but ms. mosephine has not seen them as well, so I wanted to go with her as well. I know it’s a bit soppy, but there are just some things better done with company. Shortly after passing up that opportunity, Pennsylvania was welcoming me. This may sound insulting to those of you fond of Northern PA, but I didn’t really see anything terribly fascinating traveling through, so we move swiftly forward to Ohio, which, apparently, has so much to discover.

I had not been to Ohio before so I quickly discovered that it was raining in Ohio. I managed to get to just South of Cleveland before I called it quits for the night. “South?” you might ask, “but aren’t you going West?” Yes, that’s right, I am going West, but there was a small detour (adding 200 miles to my 3000 mile trek, but never-ye-mind). This diversion brought me to Kentucky

“Kentucky? What’s worth the diversion to Kentucky” I hear your elitist fake-America latte-drinking socialist bourgeois filth utter. Oh ho ho. What indeed…

I really felt like I absolutely must stop and see this and a pitiful extra 200 miles was not a deterrent. I figured at the very least, it would be a fun little excursion. Sadly, because I had to absolutely be sure to leave some disaster time in the remainder of my travels, I couldn’t devote too much to time this sojourn in KY.

And now for a section I like to call:

The Creation Museum (or, a lesson in self-restraint)

I would like to make this really very clear from the start. I did not go there to make fun of the people there or belittle their beliefs. I did anticipate the likely prospect of getting thrown out, but I wasn’t going to go out of my way. Taking that picture had already caused a small exchange of bad looks. Someone in a rather large pickup was coming out of the gate just after I had finished taking the picture and was crossing the road back. He’d got out into the road and then spotted me and backed up again just to glare at me for a while before driving off again. I think it was only when he’d worked out that I was intending on going in that he’d let me off the hook. So I drove in and parked up. The car already got some funny looks and when I emerged, I certainly had the worried looks from good little Christian children and their parents alike. The Hell-bringer has cometh.

So, I arrived and I would like to say that the people staffing the place were really friendly and very few of them even seemed to bat an eyelash at me. It’s always comforting to see people at places more likely to breed the exclusion-type behaviour being really rather friendly and accepting of others differing walks of life. Some of the other patrons were a little less so, but that’s their business.

After I had sorted out my ticket and what my plan was for seeing the exhibits, I really had to use the loo. I mention this only because I think I had inadvertently managed to terrify a boy with my looking exactly like (what later I would see as an exhibit) was the “ideal” of the pits of society. There was definitely some interchange with his mother about me complete with pointing and the likes. He honestly looked terrified. Moving on.

Their opening exhibit was one of an paleontological dig.

The chap on the the left sporting the orange and rather fetching white beard was apparently a Creationist Paleontologist… his counterpart, a Carbon-Dating Conspiratorialist. The exhibit was a slow introduction to the various straw-men and conflated arguments that would become more extraordinary as one progressed through the museum. Like any good argument, the first step is to convince people that you are being reasonable. It’s much easier to accept things far from reach if one can be convinced to accept the steps along the way. The argument is this: The difference between these two professional gentlemen is their starting points. The guy on the right started from the viewpoint that millions of years ago, there were dinosaurs and then some event or series of events lead to their extinction and were are left with fossil records that were created in such a manner. The Creationist comes from the starting point that the dinosaurs co-existed with man before the Great Flood and that event cause their extinction and buried their bodies under as the waters receded, protecting them against scavengers and so on while their flesh decomposed, leaving us with decent fossils. Their argument sets up the rest of the museum because you are presented with this argument in such a way that it is possible to see this and say, “that’s entirely reasonable… they are just looking at the same record and developing differing thoughts based on perspective. The creationist perspective is equal to the evolutionary perspective in terms of scientific credibility.”

Throughout the next section, there were a lot of “Human Reason vs. God’s Word” illustrations. The whole idea is really to set up the seeds of acceptance that the Creationist perspective is a valid scientific theory because from a certain perspective there is a logical series of events that is not impossible. Around the corner, they really kicked off the Christian proselytising with life-sized likenesses of religious figures.

This section mostly dealt with the history of society coming to question the word of God and also a criticism of various religious sects on appeasing the philosophical questionings of the word of God. This acceptance of the societal questioning of the Christian way is obviously the reason that society is now filled with, apparently, people like me and worse!

Somehow, we’ve grown into a society that can accept that only 1 in 4 (i believe that was the number they pulled out) of teens that attended church continue to do so after they leave home. It is also why in England 0.5% of the population will be continuing to attend church in only a few years’ time. As we all know, church-going is the only possible indication that people are going to be good people. What does this all have to do with Creationism? Well, by an ever-growing culture of question Christianity, we no longer can accept that Christianity may have the answers to tough biological, geological and chemical questions.

After that came a room filled with video displays

Each of the displays showed some biological event and was explaining how the inability of science to fully explain and recreate some detail of this biological wonder was proof of the existence and power of the Almighty. One really stuck out to me, so I shall use it as example of what really summed this whole affair up to me. The eye. So miraculous is the eye that the finest of cameras cannot replicate its elegance and function. Self-cleaning. Self-lubricating. Converts light to electrical impulses that our magnificent and wondrous grey-matter process the images. And, can be constructed in the womb… Therefore, the only possible creator of this most magnificent object is the Lord Almighty. Each eye is lovingly hand-crafted by the Lord and can be yours from this very special TV offer for only $19.99 plus shipping and handling. This, like the other propositions in this room is filled with minor distortions of reality and then using the distortion as proof of, as they see it, the only logical other conclusion. The eye itself: It is not self-cleaning nor self-lubricating. That is the job of the tear ducts. Without them, a separate system with a clear function, the eye would be neither clean nor lubricated. Also, converting light to electronic impulses is exactly what the CCD in the digital camera with which I was taking all these pictures does. I admit, however, that I’m pretty certain that Canon does not make use of wombs in making their cameras, so they got me on that one, but I’m not really sure I’d by a “womb-spawned” digital camera. Eyes are formed during gestation because of genetic material indicating that’s how a cell should behave. Another panel tries to demonstrate that DNA is impossible to have been created by any other means than an Intelligent Designer by using conflated analogies to the development of language. (Everyone spoke the same language until God punished them for the Tower thing when he “confused” their language so no one working on it could communicate with each other). So, even if DNA was the instruction for the behaviour of the cell, God wrote the DNA.

…and Adam and Eve co-existed with the dinosaurs.

Then we had the room of horrors.

They also made a big deal of the Great Flood as the massive global event that could explain things that science apparently can only explain by a massive global event. Like a flood. Now, my thing on this is pretty simple. Science may only be able to explain certain occurrences by a massive global event, but that does not equate to the existence of a God or Gods because it lends credibility to a section of a book. Way back in the day, humans created mythologies to explain the unexplainable. I remember as a child… “Why does it rain” “God is sad and he is crying. When he is happy, the sun will shine.” That is how mythology is created. Because science turns around and says “ah yes, the plants need rain and sun to grow strong” doesn’t mean that suddenly the mythology is correct. Making the case that way is called a straw man…

Anyway, there was a whole lot more that they conflated and distorted. It was not all like that though. One panel stuck out in particular:

“We’re All One Blood”

I think that’s a pretty good message. Onwards.

Mostly, there was little of outstanding interest along the way through Indiana and Illinois. I did go through Champaign, Il, hometown to a good friend and I was kind of curious about where he came from. Curious indeed. Driving across Nebraska was terrible. It was very windy and because it was a hideous cross-wind, I couldn’t even use the lorries as cover very well. Getting to Wyoming was a god-send… but… wait

oh… and then

A blizzard. Great. I got to Laramie, WY and they’d already closed the Eastbound road. My windscreen wipers had disintegrated so I had to find a place to get some more. Apparently, the local newspaper guy had seen it sitting their collecting snow and thought it was a great picture. So, I think my car will be in the Laramie Boomerang. Enjoy guys, enjoy. I made it out before they could close the roads on me and got to Rawlins, WY where the weather was better. I passed an upturned lorry the next day

The rest of Wyoming was beautiful and uneventful. And Utah was pretty good too. Driving out of Salt Lake City was interesting for about the first 10 minutes. Then it was just hellish. but it ended… eventually.

By the time I got to Reno, NV, I was so desperate to get home that I decided I would just push through the mountains and do the 4 hours or so that I had to go. The road down to Sacramento from the peak Sierra Nevada pass is super fun. In the dark. Yeah. Also, the bug hit a momentous occasion on the travels:

Apart from someone nearly running into the back of me in Vallejo, the trip was fine. A little spot of engine trouble from Sacramento, but I’m ok with that. I think it’s minor troubles with this crappy distributor I put in last spring and I shall be swapping it out soon. That is all.

go to the source

Ok. I think I’m going to have to get my rant on.

The thing I got on my mind came about because of an article that was posted about 5 Gitmo detainees admitting to planning the whole September 11th 2001 affair. The poster suggested that this was the nail in the coffin to The Truthers’ arguments that there’s something suspicious about the WTC building collapses (Just to be clear: I’m not a big conspiracy guy, but I do think that there’s something not quite right there). I laughed at the posting because I thought it was ridiculous. The very notion that people likely tortured beyond their sanity could be believed in whatever they said is laughable. The Washington Post did a reasonable 5 things piece on the Myths of Torture. The ideas that torture works or that people will say anything under torture are mentioned as myths with cursory information (more can be found by googling the sources and studies). The article actually makes a good point (said in a weird way, I think) that the “problem of torture” comes from the prisoners that do not have information. “The torture of the informed may generate no more lies than normal interrogation, but the torture of the ignorant and innocent overwhelms investigators with misleading information.”

Now that I’ve got that point made… Someone commented back along the lines of “If that’s what it takes to get the truth… I’d say it was worth it to torture them.” Aghast, I replied back that if they were American, I would find it hard to believe that they were, in fact, American at all. The Founding Fathers of that once great nation had little love for the idea of torture and less for anyone who would actually perpetrate such a villainous act. I found this chap to be particularly succinct.

Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any [prisoner]. . . I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary punishment as the enormity of the crime may require. Should it extend to death itself, it will not be disproportional to its guilt at such a time and in such a cause… for by such conduct they bring shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country. - George Washington

I think this makes a rather compelling case for investigation and prosecution of the Bush Administration and any and all soldiers responsible for carrying out those orders. I am also rather fond of this.

Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined, and imprisoned, yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half of the world fools and the other half hypocrites. - Thomas Jefferson

Fools *and* hypocrites. I think maybe we should try to be a little less of both. It was these people’s ideals on which America was founded and it is in these people’s names that these disgraces were performed? Or are we doing this in Jesus’s name or some other notion. I’m pretty sure that Jesus of all people would be so hot to trot on the old torture affair. I will leave this topic with one more.

Posterity: you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it. - John Quincy Adams

go to the source

Vienna Teng:

7 Apr 2009 (Tue)

7:30 pm

Somerville Theater Somerville MA Somerville Theater With Ben Sollee and The Paper Raincoat. [ event info ] [ buy tickets ] 55 Davis Square Somerville, Massachusetts 02144 617.625.4088

“Real plumbers are named Mario”

go to the source

What. The. Hell. Is. Going. On. Here.

This article came to my attention only moments ago and I am literally feeling queasy. I also was surprised to find out about this lovely gem.

A quick little round up then…

A terror attack perpetrated, not by foreign agents of death and doom, but by white American conservatives on American soil… against worshipers in their place of worship… including children. Children! You Fucking Pricks! And a fear and hate mongering film to make sure that you can go to sleep with a clear conscience after spending your days gassing Mosques.

Yes, America has free speech and, as far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing that says that one isn’t entitled to say pretty much whatever they want, but I think there’s some limitations when it insights violence or riots. But the most important part of all of this is that this past Friday, 300 people including Children were directly persecuted for their religious beliefs on American soil.

The America of old said “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” The new America says “Fuck you.”

go to the source

Watch this documentary on the state of the election process. Maybe even give them money.

go to the source

8:00 : I am rudely awakened by the instructions to school children being presented over a loudspeaker by the world’s most chipper woman. Thoughts of maiming and dismemberment enter my otherwise idyllic dream.

8:01 : Dream turns towards the darkness complete. Iron maidens are employed to deal with the clearly heretical youths. Discipline is assured.

8:10 : Strangely the voice over the loudspeaker seems to be making this stuff up without a script. Starts to “hum” and “ha” over what to say next. Wreaks terribly of someone who has 35 minutes of allotted loudspeaker time for which they only had 10 minutes of material.

8:15 : There are now instructions on what is permissible on the school grounds. It occurs to me that rules set only by a non-comprehensive list of “thou shall not”s is a bit of a weak thing. Surely, it’s a short list to say what is permissible on school grounds.

It is only permissible to be a good student and stay out of trouble.

As it stands, one might be able to say, “well, I know you said that there were no knives permitted on school grounds, but this is a scimitar… it’s not a knife at all.” Bloody semantics will get them every time.

8:20 : I’ve started to think that maybe I’m in the crowd of children be fore-disciplined for any potential future wrong-doings. I remember why I hated grade school.

8:21 : I decide that my dreams are perturbed irreparably and I shall go find some solace on the intertubes.

8:30 : I make it to the intertubes to find that no one else has had to suffer with this today. This wonderful beautiful place in which we now live had to have a down side. I think I found it.

go to the source

“But this universe consists of paired dualities. What is the converse of authority? Mr. Rico.”

He had picked one I could answer. “Responsibility, sir.”

“Applause. Both for practical and mathematically verifiable moral reasons, authority and responsibility must be equal - else a balancing takes place as surely as current flows between points of unequal potential. To permit irresponsible authority is to sow disaster; to hold a man responsible for anything he does not control is to behave with blind idiocy.“

(Robert A. Heinlein - “Starship Troopers”)

go to the source

currently, ms. mosephine and i are looking for an apartment in San Francisco. We’ve spent the last 2 weeks as good people in San Francisco do, trolling craigslist.org and going to open houses and all that jazz trying to find a flat that works with our requirements and price range. We have a list of requirements… negotiable and non-negotiable. For our maximum price, it had better have all of them.

An apartment came up in SOMA and it was in out price range, had all of our requirements, and, though the location was not necessarily ideal, it was at such a price that we were willing to overlook that detail. The pictures looked pretty good. So, I sent an email off to the renter asking to arrange a time for a viewing:

From: simsea
Subject: 2br - Luxury loft-style condo in the heart of SOMA w/ 2 enclosed bdrms
Date: July 8, 2008 8:42:18 AM PDT
To: hous-######@craigslist.org

Hello,

I am very interested in the apartment advertised on craigslist.org. Is it possible to arrange a viewing today before 3 pm or tomorrow?

Regards,
simsea

Short and to the point. I got the following email in reply the next day:

From: [some email address]
Subject: Re: 2br - Luxury loft-style condo in the heart of SOMA w/ 2 enclosed ...
Date: July 9, 2008 6:55:08 AM PDT
To: simsea

Hi,

The apartment is available now, i am the owner, fully furnished, i can rent it unfurnished too, all the utilities are included (water, garbage, electricity, heat..etc). Pets are allowed. This is not a share or something, the whole apartment is for rent and the price per month is $#,###. I am asking for 1 month’s rent payment plus 1 month as security deposit, the 1 month is for the 1st and the deposit will be returned at the end of the lease. So, it’s a total of $#,###. If my terms are ok with you please reply back, if you have questions please free to ask. More photos here: [link removed]

Thank you
Maria Clinton

Ok, all the important information is there… also, all utilities are included!? Sweetness… then i asked the all too critical question, “what’s wrong with it?” So, i sent another email back while i pondered that thought:

From: simsea
Subject: Re: 2br - Luxury loft-style condo in the heart of SOMA w/ 2 enclosed ...
Date: July 9, 2008 8:29:44 AM PDT
To: [some email address]

Hello Ms. Clinton,

I agree with your terms and would prefer an unfurnished apartment. For when can we arrange a viewing? I am available this afternoon, tomorrow until the afternoon and all of Friday.

Regards,

simsea

So, then I get this email:

From: [some email address]
Subject: Re: 2br - Luxury loft-style condo in the heart of SOMA w/ 2 enclosed ...
Date: July 10, 2008 3:23:11 AM PDT
To: simsea

Hi again,

Just a few more info. Equal size-2 bedrooms/2 bathrooms, 1300 sq. ft., washer/drier in unit, A/C, dishwasher, parking–1 spot included in the rent, safe neighbourhood, very quiet, no noise, close to transportation and everything else. It’s fully furnished, but i can rent it unfurnished also, same price if unfurnished, will use a moving company. As i said, pets are allowed. Building has maintenance-included in the price. The length of the lease is flexible: long/short term.
Now, regarding the transaction itself, i have to tell you that i bought this apartment as an investment and i’ve decided to rent it to cover the mortgage rates. I live in New Jersey and i have noone there to show you the apartment.
But, if you’re truly determined to rent an apartment, i will fly out there and show you the apartment. The thing is that i am an interior designer and i am swamped at work, we have to schedule a date when to come and show it to you, could be this days.
Let me know what your thoughts are and will go from there and, if you could tell me a little something about you, would be ok.
As for me i am an interior designer, i am 45 years old, not married, i am very kind, loving and i like long trips.
Can you, please, tell me an exact day and hour when you could be at the apartment?

Wish you all the best,
Maria Clinton

This email made me invent the name “crazy lady.” Also, the suspicion meter is off the scale on this. Doesn’t the “i am 45…” line kinda make you think I was hitting the craigslist personal ads instead? So, in earnest, I sent an email back thinking this is really weird:

From: simsea
Subject: Re: 2br - Luxury loft-style condo in the heart of SOMA w/ 2 enclosed ...
Date: July 10, 2008 8:49:21 AM PDT
To: [some email address]

Hello,

We am very determined to rent an apartment.

[snip…]

Does some time like Saturday 1pm work for you? If it could be sooner, I would be thrilled, but I am a very patient. I would like to hear your thoughts on availability.

Regards,
Andrew

Ms. mosephine and I went to dinner and pondered how weird this all was. I figured that if all is as this Clinton woman claims, then she’s probably someone who hangs out on Ok Cupid. So I thought maybe I’d have some friends of mine who have accounts have a look. I then thought that google will work just as well. I narrowed the search down to a page that someone posted in Hoboken, NJ detailing this exact scenario, but with the place of abode being San Francisco instead of New Jersey. He screamed SCAM. Our feelings we in agreement. Shame. Then comes the absolute hook:

From: [some email address]
Subject: Re: 2br - Luxury loft-style condo in the heart of SOMA w/ 2 enclosed ...
Date: July 12, 2008 1:42:13 PM PDT
To: simsea

I am having second thoughts, i am not feeling comfortable to fly out there without an ensurance first.
I’ve been burned before and if you want i will explain. All i need from you is to show good
faith, that you are serious about renting the apartment. I am having a very hard time with my boss in order to let me take a few days off, she said she will let me do it finally ,but i don’t want to just fly out there for nothing. My proposal for you is to wire the $#,### to a familly mamber or to a friend of yours via money gram, then e-mail me the receipt that money gram will give you, do not pick up the funds before i verify with money gram, if you’d pick up the funds before i verify with money gram the whole thing would be for nothing and will return to square one. If they’ll confirm that the funds is there i will contact you and let you know that i verified and then you can pick up the funds back from money gram and i’ll book the next flight and will fly out and meet you to show you the apartment. I would feel more comfortable knowing that you have the money and you are a serious tenant. When you make the money gram transfer deduct the fees from the $#,###. We will meet there and show you the apartment, if you don’t like it i will refund you for the money gram fees. If you like the apartment you pay me, we sign the lease, i will let the keys to you and you can move.

You can find a Money Gram location here:
http://www.moneygram.com/eFindUs/findUs.do?countryCode=US&languageCode=en

Thank you

P.S. Maybe you don’t know what money gram is, money gram is the fastest way to send money all over the world and they have 1000s of agencies all over the world. You have to know that for making a money gram transfer you need cash and to go in person with the cash to a money gram location and make the transfer, you have to have your IDs with you. That’s why i choose money gram and i think that this is best to make proof of funds in my opinion.

Kind regards,
Maria

Yeah. Sure.

go to the source

we're still alive. We had a slightly rocky start and instead if driving the bug, we had to leave it behind. It was being all meh and not running to my level of confidence. Suffice to say that I'm disappointed, but happy it decided to do that when we were still in eastern MA rather than somewhere further along. So we're making a great adventure with 2.0 litres of turbo-charged madness. Awesome.

Anyway, we've been to upstate New York, and then Shenendoah, Virginia, and now we're in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The whole eastern seaboard is being a bit of a dash as we have people we're seeing so it puts us to agreed times. It's good because we want off this coast.

More to come.

I went to the midnight showing of the new Indiana Jones film, The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I wasn’t expecting much, to be honest, as it would appear that the only person that screened the film that liked it was R. Ebert., and he, apparently, thought it was the greatest thing since soap was invented somewhere around 2500 B.C.

To its credit, the film had a lot in the way of movement and there was rarely a dull moment. Plenty of tense action scenes very much like the old Indy films we remember from way back. The filmmakers spent an awful lot of effort to make it look like the old films. Shot on cellulose film instead of digital, favouring stuntmen over C.G. effects where possible. These are definitely to its credit in terms of aesthetic viewability.

In terms of the plot, however, we have a problem. During the film, homage is paid to the previous films. The opening scene had me giggling about “that’s where they stored the Arc of the Covenant” and sure enough, we get a glimpse (to, I might add, the cheers of rowdy movie goers. At midnight, all movie goers are a bit rowdy t’would seem). We get a glimpse of a picture of the eternally sexy Sean Connery as Henry Jones Sr. We’re treated to some classic Indy moments and mannerisms. Sadly, it’s not Indy versus the Nazis, but rather Indy versus the Commies. We are unfortunately dealing with an amalgam of all Indy plots that came before but this time, for good measure, we’re going to throw on a good dose of…

I don’t know how to say this without being a bit of a spoiler for those of you who actually care about spoilers…

What’s the one thing you can think of that would make you look Indy in the face and say “you’ve got to be fucking kidding me”?

First, let me say that the setups are bloody ridiculous from the word go.

Secondly, let me say that i didn’t mind when it was all in good humour.

Lastly, when you figure out the answer to the above question, you will probably be less inclined to agree with R. Ebert, and more inclined to say “Indy… how… could you?”

go to the source

Now, I don’t normally watch Hardball or any of the other shouting match political so-called debate shows (part of this is that I don’t own a television and I don’t spend my life looking for the shows that I’m allegedly “missing out on” because I don’t own a television), but this one was sent to me for the sheer comedy goldmine that lays within.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YK0d8ENS__c

Verdict: If you’re going to flap about historically loaded words, you ought to know to what they refer. “Appeasement” the way that President G. W. Bush made reference to it is a powerfully loaded word with specific connotations. Missing that is missing the real meaning of the thing. Bandying around words like “appeasement” without knowing their meaning in order to drive nails into political coffins is a dangerous game.

go to the source

VW decided that they’d poll everyone about everything (their mascot is a classic VW beetle, looks like late 50s model) and some handy person has added a “More Cowbell?” poll. You know what to do.

go to the source

“Rich People: God Bless Us. We deserve all the opportunities to make sure our country and our blessings continue to the next generation.” - H. R. Clinton.

I’m wondering if the Obamas were all sitting around watching Senator and Former First Lady, Hillary Clinton, on the O’Reilly television programme, and, when she utter those words, released a triumphant howl of “Oh Yes!” Not only does she want to paint Senator Obama as an elitist, out of touch with the hearts and minds of American families, but now she spreads her wings as an entitled elitist out of touch with the common people.

Bloody Plebs, eh?

I have to give O’Reilly a small amount of credit here. “I’m not a middle class family, I’m a rich guy.” Honest and to the point.

Lets be fair here, it’s not like Obama hasn’t said or done some nasty things during this campaign, but I have to admire that he stood up and said that it’s got kinda nasty, it’s time to stop, and it just goes to show that no one is immune to rolling around with the pigs from time to time.

The Age of Entitlement in America must end.

go to the source

“why are you making a giant English muffin?”

“because we’re making a giant eggs benedict.”

“ah, of course”

Did I take photographs? Of course I took photographs

go to the source

May I have your attention please?

Hillary Clinton thinks you are stupid. There are a number of reasons that I say this. Most recently, that she’s convinced you are all too stupid to notice that she’s been lying to you and covering up by smearing and distorting the truth some more, inventing controversy where there is none. As a more general rule, she thinks you are all too stupid to do anything for yourselves. You need her to do it for you.

Do you think that she is right?

[edit: added some links and one for good measure]

go to the source

I have been playing on Facebook. Despite the controversy surrounding their practices, I can still play scrabble with my friends around the globe and I can still vague keep / get back in touch with people that I’ve accidentally lost contact with over the years. I install very few “applications” because mostly they are idiotic and irritating.

Yes, I am an elitist.

Visual bookshelf seemed like a good idea. I’ve recently discovered that I am allowed and capable of reading for fun (reading previously did not really make that much sense to me if it wasn’t a technical paper or book) and visual bookshelf is a pretty neat way to keep track and hear other people’s thoughts on potential future reading materials. Lately, it’s decided to send me emails saying “you’ve been reading this book for a week now. Is this still the case?” which is a bit of a “you read so slowly! Taunt!” Ah well. My excuse is that I read in binges and those binges don’t necessarily fall conveniently at the ends of books. So, shush now, “Visual Bookshelf”.

go to the source