Monday, July 16, 2001

After the ceremony, Bush led the group in the Pledge of Allegiance, mistakenly urging them to hold up their right hands rather than place them on their hearts, as is customary. Yeah, I know, but I haven't said the Pledge of Allegiance for years, either.
elgoose, 7/16/2001 07:22:28 PM link

Wednesday, July 04, 2001

V - the alien invasion miniseries is released on DVD. I love this miniseries and have watched it many times, although it's hard to tell why. I find it much more dated than does the reviewer of the DVD and it relies too much on stereotypes as exposition. Nevertheless, there is something about this show that stands the test of time for me. Part of it is that I can't get over how bizarre Marc Singer's face is -- is that bad plastic surgery, or what? Part of it is the Michael Ironside character, which is pretty much the same character he has played ever since (except the brief stint on ER, many moons ago, when I thought he might actually get to have a character who was primarily intellect rather than menace).
I do love the casting of Faye Grant in this and think that it is her earnestness and strength that gives the story its credibility. On the whole, it's well-cast and plenty of fun. Oddly enough, it was the Fourth of July probably twelve or thirteen years ago, that I spent watching either a re-run or a tape of this miniseries with my friend Andrea in her tiny apartment in New York. Having memories like that attached to the show make it as much fun as the show sitself to me.
elgoose, 7/4/2001 04:26:23 PM link

Sunday, June 17, 2001

Making parenthood a biological fact for women but legally optional for men promotes men's control over women and children, allowing men to take or leave fatherhood at their whim. It lets men decide whether their country has obligations to their progeny. And it defines women as mothers — alone, unless men choose to acknowledge the existence of children they jointly created.
elgoose, 6/17/2001 07:52:27 PM link

Saturday, June 09, 2001

The Backslap Backlash As one veteran of past administrations and the corporate world puts it: "C.E.O.'s are used to flying their own planes, seeing only their own subordinates and being accountable to no one. They are profoundly certain of their own value system. They have contempt for the public and the press. They have none of the accountability required of a president of the United States."

The post-Jeffords, post-Jenna analysis drags on as the Bush administration goes from one dumbhead crisis of its own making to another. It seems pretty obvious to me that W has no clue about accountability and that he has surrounded himself with similar people. They also seem to have some trouble understanding the ability that many people have of being able to detect hypocrisy, unless they are so brainwashed by being members of the Party itself that they can't make any critical judgments on their own.

Maybe it's just a problem with memory. Although Jenna might be acting out with her underrage drinking escapades, as suggested in the Times OpEd piece, it might just be that she's as dumb as her Dad and generally insulated from understanding cause and effect. He sure seems to be. Maybe it's a Bush family trait; they just can't remember what happened last week, what promises they made, what spin was spun. It's politics with ADD.
elgoose, 6/9/2001 12:51:37 PM link

Sunday, June 03, 2001

Republican Right Rips Jeffords (washingtonpost.com)

I know I'm a little late with this and it's old news, so to speak, but This is a really good article about the immediate response of both the Republicans and Democrats to Jeffords's decision to leave The Party. There are good links to the immediate rants in The American Spectator, among others. According to The Washington Post: "A top White House aide said Bush's high command did not realize until Tuesday -- hours before the Oval Office meeting -- that Jeffords could defect." I take it to mean that the dumbheads in the White House thought that being elected as a Republican is equivalent to taking a blood oath that can't be taken back.

Surprise!
elgoose, 6/3/2001 02:00:12 PM link

"When those insecure and maliciously potent Windows XP machines are mated to high-bandwidth Internet connections, we are going to experience an escalation of Internet terrorism the likes of which has never been seen before."

The Register reports that XP will destabilize the Internet. And since Microsoft is forcing upgrades to XP 2000, it seems like all hell could break loose, just in the name of goosing Microsoft's bottom line, since the existing Office lines already have 90% market penetration.

Personally, I continue to be amazed at the companies, tech and otherwise, that I find out are still running Windows 95 and are perfectly happy with it.
elgoose, 6/3/2001 03:05:30 PM link

Wednesday, May 30, 2001

Poetry Soaked in the Personal and Political Now here's something I haven't experienced in a while, and certainly not since moving from New York to Ohio -- a story in the New York Times about someone I used to be slightly acquainted with. There was one Sunday, many years ago, when just about every page in the Arts section had a story or photo about someone I knew.

Tell me again why I moved to Dayton? It's harder to know if I feel like more of a failure because I'm here or because I didn't really ever quite do what I wanted when I lived there (or figured out what I wanted to do). I guess I've never figured out what I really want anyway, so I have no way of expressing it one way or another. But it is always odd to see old familiar faces in the Times.
elgoose, 5/30/2001 07:26:44 AM link

Wednesday, January 24, 2001

ACLU Press Release: 01-16-01 -- New ACLU Report Finds Ashcroft Record Rife With Hostility to Civil Rights, Civil Liberties

Press release from the ACLU with link to a report it sent to members of the Senate regarding John Ashcroft's very public assaults on the Constitution. The report itself is available as an Adobe Acrobat .pdf file and is well worth reading -- it outlines a variety of positions that Ashcroft has taken over the years that I find both offensive and frightening. As Attorney General, I believe that he would oversee the unimaginable rollback of civil rights that was already started under the Clinton Administration (the report points to a couple of these instances, including the Communications Decency act, thankfully overturned by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional, and the Effective Death Penalty and Antiterrorism Act of 1996).

"In December 1999, Ashcroft told the magazine Charisma that 'It's said that we shouldn't legislate morality. Well, I think that all we should legislate is morality.'" John Ashcroft's morality has nothing to do with mine and he has no right to impose his notions of right and wrong on me or anyone else in the bullying ways that the report outlines.
elgoose, 1/24/2001 01:18:46 PM link

Friday, December 29, 2000

Newsblogger

Too ... much ... information ... brain ... melting ... melting ... melting ...
elgoose, 12/29/2000 11:06:13 PM link

Friday, December 15, 2000

What it's like to live in a state that has pretty much no gun control at all -- we become a source of guns for the rest of the nation.

Other interesting and/or sensationalistic stories in the series in the local paper.

And while we are on the subject, here are two good articles about the gun industry itself: Gunmakers Under Fire and No Surrender from Mr. Saturday Night Special

On the whole, the need for gun control is pretty obvious to me, but I'm not going to hold my breath now that Mini-Me is going to be the next President.
elgoose, 12/15/2000 01:10:39 AM link

Tuesday, December 12, 2000

"Until now, carrying a raw salmon in your pocket has been...well...troublesome, if not embarrassing"

Auntie Delbert sent the dogs some lovely freeze-dried salmon from Seattle for a Festivus present. Man, they love that stuff, even though (maybe because) it smells worse than anything you can imagine. So they are learning a new word -- "fishytreats" -- something special for the holidays. Yum, yum, yum!

And she sent a lovely and fashionable Sailor Moon lunchbox for moi -- just the thing for carrying all my Sailor Moon stuff, except it won't all fit. But the trading cards and musical locket can go in there, and maybe the 3.5 inch dolls that my friend Ben sent me from when he visited China.

What this all means is that I have great friends who send me and my dogs presents from all over the world! And like all good friends, they humor and even encourage my obsessions. Please, though, no more Mister Potatoheads!!!!!! The Mister Potatohead massager (with Massaging Foot Action!) that I got for Christmas last year is absolutely the last Potatohead fetish I need!
elgoose, 12/12/2000 10:36:16 PM link

Sunday, December 10, 2000

The Soul of the Ultimate Machine

When computers become sentient... cf. the novel Galatea 2.2 by Richard Powers, who seems, on the basis of that book, to have also been at Urbana-Champaign when Dr. Smarr was. Which of them is the real visionary when considering the nature of sentience?
elgoose, 12/10/2000 08:31:21 PM link

Wednesday, December 06, 2000

LRB | John Sutherland: A Dangerously Liquid World

Organisationally, AA resembles nothing so much as a terrorist network. There is no central organisation as such, just a honeycomb of cells on the ground, none of which communicates directly with any of the others, with HQ or with the outside world. This is fundamental: 'AA has no opinion on outside issues; hence the AA name ought never be drawn into public controversy.' It has no views on politics or on anything (even alcoholism); it's pure praxis. On the ideological level, it remains faithful to its founder Dr Bob's dying injunction to the faithful: 'keep it simple' - empty, that is, of complicating doctrine or confusing theory.

Bwahha hahaha ha! This has to be both the funniest and truest thing about AA that I have read in recent months. And I have to say, based on some meetings I have attended, its organizational structure is not the only similarity it has to terrorism. Man, some of those so-called recovering drunks are mean, nasty and close-minded. There's a thing in AA saying "If you want what we have, and are willing to go to any lengths to get it..." I can say without a doubt that some of these folks don't have anything I want. Nasty!
elgoose, 12/6/2000 11:10:30 AM link

Tuesday, December 05, 2000

Infectious Diseases Rising Again in Russia

The great human die-off, continuing story.

In the future, will the 20th century be seen as the pinnacle of public health successes? Probably. We're treading water now, with nowhere to go but down.
elgoose, 12/5/2000 10:30:28 AM link

Monday, December 04, 2000

Check out the interactive Advent calendar!!
elgoose, 12/4/2000 08:20:32 PM link

No Need to Hide Styx Albums Now

Definitely hip to be square. Wait, that's Huey Lewis and the News, another pleasure even more guilty than Styx. At least I was in junior high when I loved Styx; there's no excuse for Huey.
elgoose, 12/4/2000 09:43:02 PM link

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