Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2003/10/08/recalling-demolition-man/
Those who live in California ought to be grateful, in that when their government is seized in a coup d’etat, the replacement is not a military general, but a Hollywood actor who has played one. At least the rest of the government is still in the hands of Democrats.
Perhaps the classic Stallone-Snipes-Bullock movie “Demolition Man” may be more than just a great movie, but also prophecy. In this movie, Stallone plays a cop who gets framed for a crime, and cryogenically frozen until such a time as he can be reformed by society. He is thawed in to a future in which Los Angeles and San Diego have merged in to a single administrative region named San Angeles, sex is entirely virtual, and Arnold Schwarzenegger has served at least one term as president, thanks to the sixty-second amendment, which was passed specifically for him.
It turns out that in July, Orrin Hatch sponsored an amendment to the Constitution, stipulating that, “a person who is a citizen of the United States, who has been for 20 years a citizen of the United States, and who is otherwise eligible to the Office of President, is not ineligible to that Office by reason of not being a native born citizen of the United States.”
Those who live outside California ought to watch out, for they may be next; Schwarzenegger became a citizen in 1983. I think this might be a good time to invest in Taco Bell, as this was the only restaurant to have survived the Franchise Wars that took place while Stallone’s character was playing popsicle.
/danny
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2003/10/12/no-one-expects-the-spanish-imposition/
Oct 12 Bahama Natives discover Columbus of Europe lost on their shores, 1492
Surprise is the key element.
I once parroted Monty Python at The Pizza Place. “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!”
Jorge, a middle-aged man with wry wit and a little boy, who was waiting tables in California because of age discrimination in Mexico, reminded me that “The Indians do.”
I thought a moment, and offered that if the Indians had, they might still be around. He smiled and agreed.
Of course, in Mexico, the Indians are definitely still around. Unlike the English settlers, the Spanish came as conquerors. A mighty empire felled by a fairly small group of pale men, armed with little more than ambitious zeal and some mighty impressive technology. What they neglected to bring in their quest for gold was a supply of pale women.
So, in Mexico, most people are still Indian, even if most of them are also European. And they’re migrating North to fill the vacuum left by all the Indian blood that we have squeezed nearly dry from our own nation. In my heart, they are entirely welcome. Our Great American Melting Pot still tastes somewhat bland, and our friends from south of the border are bringing their hot sauce to help us out.
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2003/10/15/steady-progress-on-all-fronts/
They are emptying our dumpster. This is normally done on Thursday, except that they’ve missed the past few weeks due to the garbage haulers’ strike. The strike is now over and it would seem our dumpster in now emptied. Yay!
It has been too long without a camera, so as soon as I had a few dollars in the bank, I ordered a new one. My Canon S400 with a 128MB memory card should arrive tomorrow. I also have a number of 8×10 prints of some of my pictures on the way, which I have a modest ambition to frame and try to sell. I’ve also got my license nearly cleared out, the car is in the shop to fix up all its annoying quirks, not to mention the front brakes, and I’m hitting Boston next week so Yayoi can attend an international job fair and we can both explore this ancient American city together. Life aint all that bad.
Meanwhile, my aggregator project is coming along. If you have any interest in aggregators, combined with any interest in testing software that is being actively developed you are welcome to check out http://dannyman.toldme.com/scratch/toldme/?mode=myfeeds and provide some feedback.
Before I work on that more, I have to compose a cover letter for a gig in Luxembourg.
/danny
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2003/10/15/misquote-for-baylisa/
From: Danny Howard <dannyman@toldme.com>
To: baylisa-chat
Subject: Re: misquotes & sidesteps (and hiding behind podiums)
[A response to some random flame-fest.]
If I may misquote here:
Friends, colleagues, SysAdmins, lend me your eyes;
I come to bury this thread, not to praise it.
The sniping that we post gets archived;
The good oft trimmed from attribution;
So let it be with LISA. Danny, unemployed;
Tells you that LISA hath noble purpose;
‘Tis so, we should be nice to each other;
With fortune shall LISA answer for it
Here, by your involvement and the rest —
For the poster is an honorable man;
So are we all, honorable men —
And women — here, to help each other;
In our professional capacities.
We ought to say of one another, that;
“You are my friend, faithful and just to me,”
And I say each of us is ambitious;
And each member an honorable man —
Or woman — who hath paid their annual
Dues, and thus does LISA’s coffer fill:
Does this LISA seem professional?
When the poor have cried for advice, some
hath flamed: Our trade should be made of
Sterner stuff. Yet we are professionals;
Each of us honorable men — and women.
I write not to insult the poster’s skill,
But here I am to post what I do know.
You all do love your trade: not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to reply again;
Without flames — reserved for brutish beasts;
That we have not lost our reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in our shared careers, with LISA;
And I must pause ’til it come back to me.
My apologies to Mr. Shakespeare.
/danny
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2003/10/20/public-radio-mini-vans-and-cell-phones/
Overhead on WBEZ, during their pledge drive, just now:
“Maybe you’re driving the kids home from school and you’re sitting in the mini-van, just pull out your cell phone and call in your pledge of support!”
Because if you’re trying to pilot a mini-van around a school, with excited kids in the back, through rush-hour traffic, this is an ideal time to dig into your purse to find your credit card number to read off over the phone.
/danny
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2003/10/20/tsa-ignores-box-cutter-e-mail-tip/
If you have any curiosity about the box-cutter kid, I recommend this excellent AP item.
The kid attends a Quaker college, which has inculcated him with an ethic of civil disobedience. After he snuck these items on to the planes, he sent e-mail to TSA:
The e-mail provided details of where the plastic bags were hidden — right down to the exact dates and flight numbers — and even provided Heatwole’s name and telephone number.
“The e-mail author also stated that he was aware his actions were against the law and that he was aware of the potential consequences for his actions, and that his actions were an ‘act of civil disobedience with the aim of improving public safety for the air-traveling public.'”
In a mere five weeks his information was forwarded to the FBI, when Southwest Airlines discovered the contraband. Remember September 11, when we missed the impending attack because our national law enforcement bureaucracies failed to share information? Thank goodness we created more new bureaucracies that don’t share information!
The government’s response?
Deputy TSA Administrator Stephen McHale: “Amateur testing of our systems do not show us in any way our flaws. We know where the vulnerabilities are and we are testing them … This does not help.”
If they know where the vulnerabilities are, why does it take them five weeks to figure out that an “amateur” has gamed the system? It would seem that what is not helpful is that a bright college student can so easily embarrass our “security.”
/danny
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2003/10/22/us-stands-alone-beside-israels-policy-of-pissing-off-muslims/
Since I’m being a news dork this week, allow me to paraphrase an AP wire report on our nation’s latest outrage:
UNITED NATIONS – The U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly approved a resolution Tuesday demanding that Israel halt construction of a barrier jutting deep into the West Bank and dismantle the section already built. It raised the possibility of further U.N. action if Israel doesn’t comply.
The vote was 144 in favor, 4 opposed and 12 abstentions.
The United States … voted against it along with Israel, the Marshall Islands and Micronesia.
The resolutions of the 191-nation General Assembly are not legally binding, but they are considered a reflection of international opinion.
Of course, we vetoed a Security Council resolution last week, because it was written by hot-headed Arabs. So, they took their message to the streets and got it cleaned up by the EU, so that we could demonstrate just where we stand in our War on Terrorism: with a nation founded as a result of the Holocaust busily walling its religious minority in to ghettos.
When we ask, “Why do they hate us,” this vote might lend a clue.
I’m driving to Boston tomorrow. It will be nice to be away from my news aggregator project for nearly a week. I’ll take some pictures with the digital camera I recently splurged on and post them here. It is nice that I get to live in the United States, and not have to worry about things like a failed national security regimen, and an administration hell-bent on pissing off anyone who might feel compelled to take advantage of these failures.
/danny
Feedback Welcome
