October, 2007 archive
Relevance 0
Dan Froomkin:
Asked how he found himself vetoing a children’s health insurance bill that had passed Congress with bipartisan support, Bush insisted that using a veto is “one way to ensure I am relevant.”
When a reporter followed up and asked Bush if he felt he was losing leverage and relevance, Bush replied: “I’ve never felt more engaged and more capable of getting the American people to realize there’s a lot of unfinished business.”
Which, let’s be blunt, is hard to believe.
(snip)
“There is a real question among Americans now about how relevant this government is to them,” pollster John Zogby told Whitesides. “They tell us they want action on health care, education, the war and immigration, but they don’t believe they are going to get it.”
Another take on relevance. Adrianna Huffington:
Yeah, the Current Federal Adminstrator is relevant.
So is a boil.
It causes pain until
. . . it
. . . goes
. . . away.
Follow-Up 0
More on this, which I mentioned a little while ago:
Under the revised list, poultry growers won’t have to file complex risk assessments for the propane they use to heat their chicken houses, two sources familiar with the regulations said.
An original list of 344 chemicals — some with specific weight thresholds — was proposed in April and caused an uproar among businesses that assumed they would be exempt from such terror-related reporting laws. Chicken farms fell under the umbrella of any business with more than 7,500 pounds of propane.
“It’s just silly,” said Pocomoke City chicken farmer Gary Pilchard who has more than 7,500 pounds of propane at each of his six chicken houses. “That’s the problem sometimes in Washington. You get folks sitting behind a desk, that might sound like a lot of propane, but in our world, that’s not.”
The rule ruffled other feathers as well.
Many of the chemicals on the department’s list are found on college campuses, but in small amounts. For instance, hydrogen chloride is used in chemistry experiments in several Yale University labs, said Peter Reinhardt, the school’s director of environmental health and safety. Each lab could carry between 3 and 5 pounds of hydrogen chloride at any given time, Reinhardt said.
But on the Homeland Security chemicals list, any amount of hydrogen chloride would need to be reported. Of the 344 chemicals on the original list, businesses would have to report any amount of 105 of them, including hydrogen chloride.
(More on hydrogen chloride here.)
Foiled! Curses Again! (Updated) 0
$%%$#^(^%*&^*:
A 31-year-old mother of four, Dawn Herb, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a disorderly conduct charge that can carry up to a 90-day jail sentence, in connection with a profane tirade she let fly when a toilet backed up on Oct. 11.
American Civil Liberties Union attorney Valerie Burch argues that to criminalize cursing and cite someone for using obscene language in their own home is unconstitutional.
Patrolman Gerald Tallo argues that Herb’s cursing could be heard throughout the neighborhood, creating a public disturbance.
Addendum, Later That Same Day:
Talk of the Nation on profanity.
First Son . . . 0
. . . is home on leave.
I hope to see him this weekend, before he goes back to finish being S(pl)urged.
Yeah, he’s one of those whose 12 month deployment turned into a 15 month deployment as the Current Federal Administrator continues to be, like Mike Nelson, trapped in the giant kelp.
Unlike Mike Nelson, of course, the Current Federal Administrator chose to swim into the giant kelp, dragging the rest of us with him.
Lazy 2
I’ve been sitting here for three days (with some breaks, of course) looking at this article.
I don’t have the energy the blog it. Just please go read it.
Heads Up! Verizon Users (Updated) 3
I don’t know whether this is true, but there’s a reason I use T-Mobile. Verizon users, check your inbox and let me know.
From TechDirt
Via Geek News Central.
Addendum, 10/17/2007:
From the New York Times. Follow the link for the full story:
But analysts and consumer advocates suggest the company may also be interested in gathering information as it prepares to tailor the advertising it displays on cellphone screens, based on individual customer habits and attributes. Mobile advertising is an untapped source of revenue among mobile phone companies looking to expand their businesses.
Drumbeats 0
Radio Times yesterday:
Go to the website (if the link doesn’t take you to this week, search the archives for October 16, 2007) or listen here (Real Player).
Adventures in Linux: Podcasts Working Perfectly 2
The cron job (for “cron,” read “chronometer, as in ‘timepiece'”) is working like a charm.
So much so that I’ve edited the line in crontab to read
0 4 * * * podracer > /dev/null
The “/dev/null” means that the emails that cron sends me about the cron job will be sent right to the bit bucket.
(That’s right, under Linux, programs can actually send you emails to tell you how they are doing and what, if anything, is going wrong, so you can, like, actually shoot the trouble. Unlike Certain Other Operating Systems.)
Geez oh man, Slackware just rocks.
RICO 2
Microsoft and Best Buy, made for each other:
The companies asked the justices to overturn a May ruling by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which said the civil suit could proceed. The Supreme Court is letting that ruling stand, which means the class-action lawsuit involving thousands of consumers with complaints against the companies will be litigated in federal district court.
Originally filed by one consumer in northern California, the lawsuit claims the companies’ joint venture violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, which is usually used in organized crime cases. Successful RICO claims provide for triple damage awards in civil cases.
In a friend-of-the-court filing on behalf of the companies, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said the filing of civil cases invoking RICO is out of control and urged the Supreme Court to hear the case as a way to determine whether the use RICO should be reined in.
Under the joint venture, Microsoft invested $200 million in Best Buy in April 2000, and agreed to promote the company’s online store through its Internet access service, MSN. In turn, Best Buy agreed to promote MSN in its stores.
The dispute began in 2003, when James Odom sued the companies after purchasing a laptop computer at a Best Buy store. Odom alleged that Best Buy included a software CD with his purchase that provided a six-month free trial to MSN.
Best Buy allegedly signed Odom up an MSN account with the credit card Odom used to pay for the computer. After a six-month free trial ended, Microsoft began charging him for the account, the suit charged.
Some years ago, I went to Best Buy to buy a washing machine.
In a few minutes, I’d picked out the machine I wanted.
Forty-five minutes later, I left the store, having not been waited on.
The next night, I came back. I told the Appliance Person, “I have 30 minutes. Then I’m gone.”
At 29 1/2 minutes, he deigned to devote to me the two minutes it took to place the order.
Three days later, the washing machine arrived.
I picked it up and took it home. And then discovered a dent.
I took it back. Customer Service was great. They sent someone out to help me bring it in from the van and processed the return. Then the returns guy asked, “Would you like a check or would you like to re-order.”
I said, “I’d like to reorder.”
He said, “Then you’ll have to talk to him,” pointing to the Appliance Guy.
I asked, “You mean you can’t process the order from here?”
“No,” he said.
“Give me a check,” said I.
Then I remembered that just 1/2 mile up the road was a Lowes. I drove up there and, 20 minutes later, drove away with the identical model of washer in the back of the van.
For $20 less.
Since then, I’ve never gone into a Best Buy when a CompUSA was available and never bought anything at Best Buy that I can’t carry out of the store in my hands.
And I always buy my computers directly from Dell or from Second Source.
There’s a Reason That It’s Known Locally as the “Sure Kill” 1
When I lived in Narberth, I used to ride this damned road all the time.
IRS 1
I have recently won a dispute with the IRS over a tax deduction.
I knew going in that it was iffy–and, no, I shan’t go into the details.
But I can say this: Throughout, they conducted themselves courteously and in a businesslike manner. Their only goal seemed to be determining the facts.
It is a good thing that Gonzo was not Commissioner of the IRS, or I would have likely been toast.
Drinking Liberally 0
Tomorrow, 6-9 p. m., Tangier Restaurant, 18th and Lombard, Center City, Philadelphia. Just behind Jeff.
Preceded by a rally for SCHIP in Rittenhouse Square:
“Ring Around Rittenhouse”
Vigil for Children’s Health Care
Rittenhouse Square, 1800 Walnut St., Philadelphia
Tuesday, October 16th
5:30 – 7:30 p.m.
Swampwater 0
From Sunday’s Washington Post (emphasis added):
The blunt truth is that while contractors are carrying out valuable roles, their overall effect has been to undermine the Iraq mission and the wider fight against terrorism. Worst of all, we have outsourced the most important core function of our government: to fight and win the nation’s wars.
I’ve said it before: Hiring mercenaries whose loyalty is to whoever signs their paycheck, rather than to the United States of America, is probably not a good idea.
Down on the Farm 0
So, at 9:30 this morning, Second Son’s on his way to Radio Slum to get a new router.
Three hours later and one call to Linksys (the router configuration wouldn’t open in my browser, and the support tech had to try a few tricks before we could get in there and open up Port 80 to get the website back on line), we’re back.
Adventures in Linux: Podcast Edition Follow-Up (Geek Alert!) 0
I mentioned here that all I had left to do is to get Podracer running as a cron job.
I’ve never had any luck setting up cron jobs, so I decided to RTFM.
I opened a terminal and entered the command man crontab (that tranlates into manual for crontab) and brought up the manual.
After reading the manual, I entered the command crontab -e to open my own personal cron file under my user name.
I entered this line in the vi editor (vi is not for the faint of heart; it’s taken me almost a year to feel at home in it).
0 19 * * * podracer
That means at 0 minutes and 19 hours of every day run podracer. The reason I selected 19 hours was to test whether I got it right.
I did. It’s a little after 7 p. m. and Podracer is happily automatically downloading podcasts even as I type.
When it’s done, I’ll edit crontab so that Podracer runs at 4 a. m. and every day’s downloading will be automated.
As it stands now, here are the contents of my signature file, which tells Podracer what to download (the lines preceded by the number sign are ignored by the program–they are to help me remember what the heck I’ve been doing):
#
#News
#
#Radio Times
http://www.npr.org/templates/rss/podcast.php?id=510027
#Diane Rehm Show
http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=510071
#Talk of the Nation
http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=5
#Voices in the Family
http://www.whyy.org/rss/voices.xml
#Whaddya Know
http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wyk/.jukebox?action=viewPodcast&podcastId=5243
#
#Linux
#
# Geek News Central
http://www.geeknewscentral.com/podcast.xml
#LQ Podcasts
http://feeds.feedburner.com/linuxquestions/LQPodcast
#LQRadio
http://feeds.feedburner.com/linuxquestions/LQRadioShowOnly
#Linux News
http://linux.quicksurf.com/?feed=rss2&cat=78
I highly recommend Geek News Central for anyone interested in the digital world. Todd Cochrane has a great newscast about geek stuff in plain English.
And he even read my email on the air and linked to Podracer.
