2005 archive
My Little Gas Price Survey, 10/12/05 0
The downward trend continues another day. This looks good to me, since I have to go to Pine View Farm this weekend, and it’s a four-hour drive:
Claymont, Del., Exxon and Sunoco, $2.75 in the morning, $2.73 in the evening.
Claymont, Del., Gulf (Cumberland Farms), $2.71 in the morning, $2.69 in the evening.
Claymont, Del., Wawa, $2.69 in the morning, $2.69 in the evening (first price I’ve seen in Delaware under $2.70 in weeks).
Claymont, Del., BP, $2.71 in the morning, $2.69 in the evening.
Claymont, Del., Getty, $2.70 in the morning, $2.67 in the evening.
Claymont, Del., Gulf, $2.72.
Claymont, Del., Wawa, $2.71 in the morning, $2.65 in the evening.
Holly Oak, Del, Mobil, $2.69.
I Made the Daily Probe 3
Here’s the headline:
Blogger Thinks People Give a **** About His Blog
My Little Gas Price Survey, 10/11/05 0
The downward trend continues:
Claymont, Del., Exxon and Sunoco, $2.77 in the morning, $2.75 in the evening.
Claymont, Del., Gulf (Cumberland Farms), $2.72 in the morning, $2.71 in the evening.
Claymont, Del., Wawa, $2.72 in the morning, $2.69 in the evening (first price I’ve seen in Delaware under $2.70 in weeks).
Claymont, Del., BP, $2.73 in the morning, $2.71 in the evening.
Claymont, Del., Getty, $2.73 in the morning, $2.70 in the evening.
Claymont, Del., Gulf, $2.74.
Holly Oak, Del, Mobil, $2.75 in the morning.
Writer’s Block 0
I’m working on troubleshooting algorithms (that is, flowcharts) for some of the products my company produces. My mind screamed to a halt today. When I can’t write, I read, and I found a bunch of interesting stuff.
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is falling off the edge of Political Correctness. Now, mind you, when someone says, “You’re being politically correct,” my first reaction is wonder what kind of bigotry he or she is trying to hide. As far as I am concerned, much of what is attacked as “politically correct” is common ordinary politeness: One does not do in public what one knows will offend someone. End of story. But this is off the wall.
Pandagon picks apart an “Abstinence Only” campaign.
On the Huffington Post, Sam Harris looks at suicide bombings and concludes that
there is a direct link between the doctrine of Islam and Muslim terrorism.
Meanwhile, at Beliefnet, Jesse Kornbluth looks at Mr. Bush, Christianity, and world, in his post, Naked to Our Enemies (Thanks, Mr. President!).
At the Washington Post (my favorite paper, probably because I still miss living in the Washington area), Emily Messner tries to separate fact from fiction in the Harriet Miers situation, while George Will takes a look at a GOP Presidential hopeful who has no hopes for the nomination, but who does has a cause and, it appears, a sense of humor.
Also, at the Post, Sebastian Malloy considers science, DDT, and the current Federal Administration. In a larger context, much of what he says about the current Federal Administration applies to U. S. society as whole and its quest for some kind of protected life in a bubble with no danger, no risk, and perfect protection.
Alternet has another take, in fact two takes, on the current Federal Administration and science.
Blinq has a mediation on the new traffic report abbreviation for the Sure Kill Schuylkill Expressway
There was, of course, much more. But these were the highlights of my writer’s block.
My Little Gas Price Survey, 10/10/2005 0
A small downward trend continues:
Penny Hill, Del., Exxon, $2.77.
Penny Hill, Del., BP, $2.74 in the morning, $2.73 in the evening..
Claymont, Del., Exxon and Sunoco, $2.77.
Claymont, Del., Getty, $2.73.
Claymont, Del., Gulf (Cumberland Farms) and BP, $2.74 in the morning, $2.72 in the evening.
Claymont, Del., Gulf, $2.79.
Claymont, Del, Wawa, $2.72.
Holly Oak, Del, Mobil, $2.75.
And in my little corner of New Jersey; Jersey prices seem to be regaining their normal position as being slightly lower than Delaware prices:
Gibbstown, NJ, Valero, $2.67.
Paulsboro, NJ, Lukoil, $2.69.
Paulsboro, NJ, Exxon, $2.74.
Paulsboro, NJ, BP, $2.73.
Woodbury, NJ, Lukoil, $2.66 (this is where I filled up).
Attention Star Trek Fans 0
Go here.
Download the movie.
You may also need to get the codec. Follow the links on the download page to do so.
Play the movie.
It’s a hoot.
Need a Job? 0
Know computers? Understand CSS and PHP? According to The Register, Al-Qaeda is hiring:
You won’t find the ads down at your local job centre, but al-Qaeda is recruiting web techies for its fast-growing international internet propaganda operation.
According to Reuters, the fun-loving organisation has published web adverts “asking for supporters to help put together its Web statements and video montages”, or more precisely, it has “vacant positions for video production and editing statements, footage and international media coverage about militants in Iraq, the Palestinian territories, Chechnya and other conflict zones where militants are active.”
A Slow Day 0
at Pine View Farm. I finally got around to fixing the fences in the Back Field. Well, actually, fixing a couple of screens on the porch, but the technology’s the same. But a couple of things struck me from my initial reading of today’s paper.
I do commend this column from today’s Philadelphia Inquirer: Trudy Rubin’s take on what Mr. Bush left out of his big speech this week.
President Bush gave an amazing speech on terrorism and Iraq on Thursday in which he left out almost everything you need to know.
The speech was aimed at reversing the slide in public support for the Iraq war. The President’s theme? Iraq is “the central front in our war on terror.”
If we retreat, Islamic militants will take over Iraq and use it as a “haven for terror” from which they will destabilize the region and the world, he said. So we must “never back down” until we achieve “complete victory” – a term whose definition wasn’t provided.
Nor did the President give you the information to judge whether we should stay in Iraq.
And more is coming to light regarding the flooding of New Orleans. It appears the the levees were not breeched from above, but gave way from below:
The system of levees and concrete walls that was supposed to protect the New Orleans area from flooding was breached in dozens of places, investigators say, a finding that indicates that the failures were far more widespread than originally thought.
Engineers probing the failures said they were increasingly convinced that floodwaters did not overtop two key flood walls that collapsed on Aug. 29 after Hurricane Katrina struck, swamping large portions of the city. Instead, evidence suggests that the flood walls were weakened by shifting soil beneath the structures, according to a team of experts from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Open Mouth, Insert Foot 0
From today’s local rag, a very nicely done bit of satire:
Caucasians are getting it done!
Oh, yeah they are, and we at the White Men’s Speakers Bureau are thrilled to report that mouthy majority males are having another great year for us.
The boys are out there, speaking their minds and putting the world on notice that a white man gets to say whatever comes into his head, because, well, why not?
We spin the planet, we light the sun. Might as well yammer on about it.
So, William Bennett, take a bow, buddy. The former Education Department chief proved he hasn’t allowed accumulated scholarship in the fields of sociology, economics and history to alter his gut feelings about black people.
Follow the link to read more (and no, it doesn’t focus just on conservatives).
I’m a Hero 0
The neighbor lady called this morning. There was a snake in her basement and she couldn’t get hold of her husband on his cell phone.
So I went over and dispatched the snake to the Great Garden of Eden in the sky.
I did a little research and found out that it was an Eastern Ribbon Snake.
Neighbor lady was very freaked. She’s ready to move.
Baptists and Bootleggers 6
Some interesting commentary today regarding the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. The editorial and op-ed pages of the Washington Post offered a full buffet of food for thought:
Colbert King, writing from a liberal perspective, says in today’s Washington Post:
At first I didn’t know what to think about President Bush’s nomination of White House counsel Harriet Miers to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court. She certainly was not among the people that I expected Bush to select for the high court. But then conservative commentators and columnists — bless their hard-wired hearts — came down on Miers like tons of bricks in free fall. Thus I was visited with the following revelation: If Miers is capable of causing the right to weep, wail and gnash its teeth, she can’t be all bad.
E. J. Dionne, also in today’s Post, sees inconsistencies between the current Federal Administration’s stance on discussing (now) Chief Justice John Roberts’s personal life and Ms. Miers’s personal life:
Shortly after Bush named John Roberts to the Supreme Court, a few Democrats, including Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), suggested that the nominee might reasonably be questioned about the impact of his religious faith on his decisions as a justice.
Durbin had his head taken off. “We have no religious tests for public office in this country,” thundered Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), insisting that any inquiry about a potential judge’s religious views was “offensive.” Fidelis, a conservative Catholic group, declared that “Roberts’ religious faith and how he lives that faith as an individual has no bearing and no place in the confirmation process.”
But now that Harriet Miers, Bush’s latest Supreme Court nominee, is in trouble with conservatives, her religious faith and how she lives that faith are becoming central to the case being made for her by the administration and its supporters. Miers has almost no public record. Don’t worry, the administration’s allies are telling their friends on the right, she’s an evangelical Christian .
Ruth Marcus considers how Senator Frist and Congressman Delay managed to get in such serious public relations trouble (and perhaps serious legal trouble–we will have to wait and see about that) almost simultaneouosly.
Hubris, indeed, can be seen at the core of the twin dramas that have ensnared two top congressional leaders. But the fault takes many forms, and its manifestations in the cases of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) are as different as the two lawmakers themselves.
Frist’s hubris is that of the man whose overweening self-regard is such that he can’t imagine that anyone would question his behavior; DeLay’s is that of the man whose relentless drive for power is such that he doesn’t care what people think.
Whereas the Post itself, speaking from the editorial column, counsels restraint:
More fundamental is that it is no more legitimate for conservatives than for liberals to demand satisfaction on the “key issues of the day,” as Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) put it. Mr. Bush is not obligated to nominate a jurist with a stated philosophy that can be relied on to produce predictable votes on contested questions. The president promised during his campaigns to nominate justices who would interpret the law strictly and not legislate from the bench. He believes Ms. Miers would be such a justice and is willing to put his prestige behind the proposition, and that fact entitles the nominee to reasonable consideration.
I offer another perspective: This nomination has put a strain on the uneasy alliance between right-wing Christian groups seeking to promote a specific social agenda and business-oriented Republicans seeking to promote a particular economic agenda. The Republican Party has reached its current strength because these two factions have bargained to support each other’s programs.
It seems clear from their comments that a good part of the unhappiness of many Republicans, those with the social agenda, with the nomination of Ms. Miers is that, as far as they are concerned, she is an unknown quantity.
I think that the business-oriented Republicans realize that the social agenda of the right-wing Christian groups is not palatable to the nation as a whole. Remember that Mr. Bush’s majority in the popular vote was very thin in the last election and that, in the 2000 election, he actually lost the popular vote, while his victory in the Electoral College will forever be under a cloud.
There is, in short, no huge national mandate for change, and certainly not for the radical changes some of the right-wing Christian (and business) groups are calling for. The fate of Mr. Bush’s attempt to privatize social security (even when cloaked in the Trojan Horse of “personal accounts”) demonstrates that.
Nevertheless, significant parts of the business agenda have moved along: The rich have gotten richer, the poor have gotten poorer, business and environmental regulations have been relaxed or abolished, businesses have even been intimidated into firing lobbyists who are not members of the correct party.
Now the proponents of the social agenda are demanding payback from the business element, payback in the open, on top of the table, for all to see.
The business side of the house knows that payback in the open might well awaken resistance from the great majority of moderate or apathetic citizens and render that social agenda a non-starter, just as the social security proposals turned out to be non-starters.
In short, the unholy Republican alliance of the the Baptists and the Bootleggers is under severe strain. It will be interesting to see in what shape it survives.
Prayers and Prey-ers in School. 2
I seldom read the front page of the local rag. I usually start with editorial page, then work my way backwards to the front page, then move on to the local section, business, and the magazine. The comics come last. I have long believed in saving the best for last.
I found this little gem in the middle of the A section of the local rag.
A Jewish father of two Air Force Academy cadets sued the Air Force yesterday, contending that senior officers and cadets illegally imposed Christianity on others at the school.
The lawsuit was filed in federal court by Mikey Weinstein, an academy graduate and outspoken critic of the school’s handling of religion.
Over the last decade or more, the suit alleges, academy leaders have fostered an environment of religious intolerance at the Colorado school, in violation of the First Amendment.
One of Weinstein’s sons graduated from the academy last year; another is a junior there. Both have been subjected to anti-Semitic slurs from evangelical Christian cadets, he said.
If you go read the story, you’ll see that this suit does not ask for money. It asks that “the Air Force . . . bar its members, including chaplains, from evangelizing and proselytizing.”
Of course, these allegations are old news. You can learn more about what’s transpired at these links:
The U.S. Air Force said Tuesday it will appoint a task force to investigate allegations of religious intolerance at the Air Force Academy.
Here’s the result of the Air Force’s investigation of Brig Gen Johnny A. Weida, the Commandant of Cadets of the Air Force Academy.
And here’s the report to the Air Force Academy’s Board of Visitors on the overall complaints.
(Aside–the investigations found that the problem was not as severe as reported in the media, but that it was a real problem.)
Visualize these situations on a smaller, younger scale–in elementary school, junior high, high school.
My friends, this is the extreme, but it is the reason that the Founders had the foresight to say that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . .”
Now there are those who say that the courts have banned prayer in public schools.
They lie.
It is not a misrepresentation, not a misunderstanding, not a matter of interpretation. It is a lie.
Anyone is free to pray in a public school.
What no one is free to do is to impose prayer on anyone else. And all the court cases on record involve the State or its agents (and the public school staff, as employees of the government, are agents of the government) from imposing prayer on students. This is what the proponents of school prayer leave out.
Pause for a moment and consider, what would be the reaction from the proponents of school prayer if the prayer selected were a prayer to Shiva, the Kadish, the Apostle’s Creed as recited in the Roman Catholic Church, or bowing towards Mecca and praying to Allah?
I suspect that outrage would be a mild characterization of their reaction. It is clear that the intent of those who make a political issue of prayer in schools is to promote “the establishment of religion,” their religion, a particular brand of Protestant Christianity.
And kids are not stupid. They recognize, just as clearly as those who promote such things recognize, that “Moments of Silence” and other attempts to dress up the notion in fancy dress clothes are but an excuse for prayer.
And, at its worst, this impulse leads to the type of harassment that some significant percentage of non-Christian students have encountered at the Air Force Academy.
But wait! There is more. The Air Force Academy has been in the news for more than religious harassment. More than any other military academy, it has been in hot water for sexual harassment and misconduct.
WASHINGTON (CNN) — Of 579 female Air Force Academy cadets surveyed by the Department of Defense, 43 — or 7.4 percent — reported they were victims of rape or attempted rape, according to a draft report of the survey results.
In all, 109 cadets indicated they had been victims of some type of sexual assault in their time at the academy. Of those, 31 respondents were seniors, 15 of whom reported they were victims of rape or attempted rape.
A Pentagon official Thursday confirmed the authenticity of the document.
More female cadets at the Air Force Academy consider sexual harassment a problem than their counterparts at the other service academies, according to a congressional report released Friday.
The General Accounting Office report gives the first comparison of female cadets’ opinions on sexual harassment at the three academies since a sexual assault scandal broke at the Air Force Academy in January.
The survey was ordered before the scandal broke.
The Air Force in general does not have the same problem with allegations of sexual assault that its academy does, according to an agency spokesman.
“There is a cultural problem at the [Air Force] academy,” said Lt. Col. Dewey Ford, an Air Force spokesman. But Ford said allegations from Air Force Academy cadets of rape and sexual assaults that have publicly emerged over the last few months are confined to the school and are not an issue within the Air Force as a whole.
(Follow the links to read the full stories.)
So what the heck do reports of sexual harassment have to do with reports of religious harassment?
(I’ll get to it)
Harassment.
Some may argue that the cases of religious harassment were an outgrowth of good motives (leading the Lost to the Truth) gone bad.
None may argue that for sexual harassment or rape.
I argue that a culture that condones or ignores harassment for any motive implicity explicitly condones harassment for any purpose.
And those who would set others apart for their differences–by, for example, mandating Protestant prayer and thereby marking anyone who is not a Protestant Christian as different–implicitly creat an environment for harassment.
The public schools serve a mix of creeds. And some persons with no creeds. Tilting the schools towards one creed, any particular creed, will ultimately lead to harassment of the sort we have seen documented at the Air Force Academy.
One of my professors used to point out that history is full of irony. I was raised in the Southern Baptist Church (I’m still very much a Baptist, though I currently attend a Methodist Church, for the Southern Baptist Convention has been taken over by Hypocrites and Pharisees, but that’s another story). The fellow who founded the church I attended when I was growing up, Elijah Baker, spent a lot of time in jail.
His crime? He was a Baptist, and the Virginia Colony had an Established Church, the Church of England.
Yet those who claim his heritage wish to create a new Established Church.
And betray the memory of Elijah Baker and others like him, and likewise trespass upon the work of the Founders of this nation.
They would use prayer to prey upon upon others.
Fie upon them.
My Little Gas Price Survey, 10/7/2005 0
Still a slight downward trend–Wawa and Cumberland Farms dropped two cents, everyone else held steady.
When the day comes that nothing changes, My Little Gas Price Survey goes on hiatus until there is a change.
Claymont, Del., Exxon and Sunoco, $2.79.
Claymont, Del., Getty, $2.75.
Claymont, Del., Gulf (Cumberland Farms), BP, and Wawa, $2.75.
Claymont, Del., Gulf, $2.82.
Holly Oak, Del, Mobil, $2.79.
This Nation Is on a Mission from God 0
Thanks to the Suburban Guerrilla for this story:
President George W. Bush told Palestinian ministers that God had told him to invade Afghanistan and Iraq – and create a Palestinian State, a new BBC series reveals.
Why am I less than thrilled?
I guess I’ve never been really thrilled by self-righteousness and arrogance.
The White House dismissed as “absurd†the remarks attributed to Bush by Deputy Prime Minister Nabil Shaath in a BBC documentary series recounting a June 2003 meeting he attended along with Mahmoud Abbas, now Palestinian president.
Shaath said he stood by his recollection of Bush saying he had been “driven with a mission from God†when he sent U.S. troops into Iraq and Afghanistan and also lent his support to the eventual creation of a Palestinian state.
I think it’s absurd also.
But probably for different reasons.
My Little Gas Price Survey, 10/6/2005 2
Prices held steady or dropped today. I had to run an errand this morning, so I have a few extra observations that are at the top of the list below.
Brandywine Hundred, Del., (Silverside and Foulk), Exxon, $2.87
Brandywine Hundred, Del., Sun $2.85
Brandywine Hundred, Del., Getty and Shell, $2.83
(All four of the above are at the same intersection.)
Claymont, Del., Exxon and Sunoco, $2.79.
Claymont, Del., Getty, $2.75, down 2 cents.
Claymont, Del., Gulf (Cumberland Farms) and Wawa, $2.77.
Claymont, Del., BP, $2.75, down 8 cents.
Claymont, Del., Gulf, $2.82.
Holly Oak, Del, Mobil, $2.79.
Push Is Coming to Shove 2
‘Bout time.
Forty-six Republicans joined 43 Democrats and one independent in voting to define and limit interrogation techniques that U.S. troops may use against terrorism suspects, the latest sign that alarm over treatment of prisoners in the Middle East and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is widespread in both parties. The White House had fought to prevent the restrictions, with Vice President Cheney visiting key Republicans in July and a spokesman yesterday repeating President Bush’s threat to veto the larger bill that the language is now attached to — a $440 billion military spending measure.
Now we’ll see whether the House has the courage to do right thing, to hold the current Federal Administration to basic standards of human decency.
My Little Gas Price Survey, 10/5/2005 0
Only one observed change today (I missed the Mobil yesterday):
Claymont, Del., Exxon and Sunoco, $2.79.
Claymont, Del., Getty, $2.77, down 2 cents.
Claymont, Del., Gulf (Cumberland Farms) and Wawa, $2.77
Claymont, Del., BP, $2.83.
Claymont, Del., Gulf, $2.82.
Holly Oak, Del, Mobil, $2.79.
More! More! More! 0
Clear Channel, the Borg that is consuming the media, the Rupert Murdoch of Radio, wants more.
But that’s no surprise, is it?
Ease restrictions, Clear Channel says
Clear Channel Communications, the world’s largest radio broadcaster, called on Congress to ease restrictions on station ownership to help it compete with satellite and Internet-based rivals.
They’ve recently acquired one of my favorite stations; the previous News Director is gone (I do not know if there was any relationship between these two events); and there have been a few scheduling changes (noticeably the addition of Rush Limbaugh), but no other signs of major shakeups.
(Aside–Limbaugh seems to have trouble maintaining a foothold in Delaware. He was on WILM, then they replaced him with Gallagher, who’s not quite as strident and has a slightly more balanced sense of humor, and now he’s back following Gallagher.)
But I’m still dreading the day when it turns into another stinking classic rock station with a name (Ruth, Naomi, the River, Sue, that’s it, Sue, a radio station named Sue), but without call letters.
Or worse, another screaming talker.
Career Choices 2
For those not settled on a career, I suggest Chiropractic. Twenty years from now, there will be no end of patients who need their backs “adjusted.” I have received chiropractic treatments (referrals available upon request) and they really did wonders for me.
I see these potential chiropractic patients every day: Young males (and some females), driving with their seats almost fully reclined, hunched forward just barely reaching the steering wheel with arms fully outstretched, the tops of their heads just high enough for them to peer between the top of the steering wheel and the dashboard as they weave reckles slice gracefully through traffic.
Serious spinal compression and malformation coming up when they get a little older, methinks.
(I asked my son where this style of driving was covered in his Driver’s Ed. class. He said it wasn’t. I guess it’s just k3wL, dUd3.)
Ample professionals will be needed to help them with their impending spinal problems.
Conservative Intellectuals Deserting Bush 9
Robert J. Samuelson in today’s Washington Post:
Is compassionate conservatism (a) a genuine governing philosophy or (b) merely a clever sound bite?
Five years later, we know that the answer is (b).
and
In practice, Bush has taken the most self-serving aspect of modern liberalism (its instinct to buy public support with massive government handouts) and fused it with the most self-serving aspect of modern conservatism (its instinct to buy support with massive tax cuts).
And George Will reflects on the Miers nomination:
The president’s “argument” for her amounts to: Trust me.
There is no reason to, for several reasons.
He has neither the inclination nor the ability to make sophisticated judgments about competing approaches to construing the Constitution. Few presidents acquire such abilities in the course of their pre-presidential careers, and this president particularly is not disposed to such reflections.
and
In addition, the president has forfeited his right to be trusted as a custodian of the Constitution. The forfeiture occurred March 27, 2002, when, in a private act betokening an uneasy conscience, he signed the McCain-Feingold law expanding government regulation of the timing, quantity and content of political speech.
Of course, a lot of folks may not agree with Mr. Will that the McCain-Feingold law is an unconstitutional abridgement of political speech; rather, many see it as a (flawed) attempt to release political speech from rope of big money that has been slowly garrotting it for years. Those same folks, though, might look at the secretiveness and disdain for civil liberties shown by the current Federal Administration and draw the same conclusion:
The current Federal Administration has little respect for the Constitution or for the values expressed therein.