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Saturday, December 21, 2002

President Bush received a smallpox vaccination Saturday
posted at 9:12 PM

I created this 3d model of myself and dressed it here.
posted at 7:26 PM

Krups, "The Butcher Shop" 150 Watt Professional Power Meat Grinder
My early Xmas present. I ground a sirloin steak into four burgers last night. Grilled outside. Excellent! No bits of bone, no ground-in gristle, and with luck, no bad strains of E. coli either.
posted at 7:15 PM

The number one song in the US the week I was born was
Mack The Knife done by Bobby Darin
posted at 6:15 PM

From the Michigan Daily Tribune
ROYAL OAK - The city demolished a home on Robinwood Avenue Monday after a guinea pig infestation rendered it uninhabitable.
posted at 4:20 PM

Home Page: American Memory from the Library of Congress American Memory is a gateway to rich primary source materials relating to the history and culture of the United States. The site offers more than 7 million digital items from more than 100 historical collections.
posted at 3:52 PM

Highly recommended is this week's episode of This American Life: Why We Fight.
We ask a few basic questions about the coming war with Iraq and why we're fighting it. Broadcast the weekend of December 20-22 in most markets, or available on the web site after January 2 via RealAudio.
posted at 3:45 PM

Friday, December 20, 2002

"Remember when you were young, how life sparkled with
vibrance, color, and passion?

"Every breath had meaning, every word carried your
hopes and dreams. You woke up every morning with
the energy to climb Mount Everest, and when you kissed
your lover it was like magical fireworks exploding
on a movie screen."

And then the SPAM came.

posted at 11:15 PM

New approach could help avoid school deficits

Something is clearly wrong here, and Ronnyjane Goldsmith thinks she knows what it is. Goldsmith reviewed the district's budget on the Internet last week, and then the former number-cruncher for the Baltimore City Council wrote a letter to Mayor Martin O'Malley.
The problem, she said, is that in the current budget, there's no comparison with actual revenue or expenditures in the past two years. Actual is the operative word. "Year after year," she wrote, "budgets have been based on and compared to prior year budgets that do not reflect the revenue or the expenditures actually made. By doing this, deficits are compounded year after year, and the only outcome is disaster."
posted at 11:02 PM

Corporate sponsors sought for Ehrlich inaugural

Despite a pledge to keep his inaugural from appearing too corporate, Gov.-elect Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. is actively seeking donations from companies of up to $20,000 to pay for three days of celebration but has yet to establish prices for supporters of more modest means.
posted at 10:57 PM

Allegations of racism at school denied

The principal of Evangel Christian Academy criticized Friday reports of racial tension at his private school as "totally false" and insisted that when he said "I don't have any trouble with the coloreds," he was referring not to African-Americans but to South African "coloreds," a label for mixed-race persons used by the former apartheid government.

McDaniel has denied any racial prejudice at the school, and Friday re-emphasized his claim that the controversy is the fault of John Runk and "the diabolical path" Runk has taken by accusing the school.

posted at 10:53 PM

FindLaw Legal News - Baseball Star Ted Williams' Body to Remain Frozen

MIAMI (Reuters) - A bitter family feud over the body of baseball legend Ted Williams has been resolved five months after his death, with his children agreeing it should be preserved frozen, a spokesman for the estate said on Friday.
posted at 10:47 PM

Fascicules
Frequency Codes have been established in the entire Universe due to the increase in the Sixth Senses. Each person’s Megawatt Power has been measured and Duties have been allotted accordingly
posted at 10:32 PM

Wyeth, Nestle Offer Free Tins to Stem Spread of AIDS; Children's Agency Balks
...bad blood between Unicef and the industry dates back to the 1970s, when Nestle and other formula makers routinely blitzed developing world countries with ads featuring fat formula-fed babies and gave out free samples in maternity wards to attract women to their product. By the time the freebies ran out, women's own breast milk usually had dried up, too. Few could afford to purchase any formula, or they diluted it to make it last longer, sometimes starving their babies in the process. In protest, activists organized a world-wide boycott of Nestle products, and Unicef refused to accept any cash donations from the big formula makers -- as Unicef has done with other pariahs such as makers of land mines and cigarettes.
posted at 10:24 PM

BBC NEWS | Business | Nestle insists on Ethiopia refund
The Swiss-based food giant, Nestle, has defended its demand for $6m in compensation from famine-stricken Ethiopia.
posted at 10:22 PM

U.S. News: Last-minute nominations for memorable holiday gifts; books to mark (12/23/02)
Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books editor Deborah Stevenson's suggestions for holiday gifts.
posted at 7:55 PM

U.S. News: Last-minute nominations for memorable holiday gifts; books to mark (12/23/02) Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books editor Deborah Stevenson's suggestions for holiday gifts:
posted at 7:55 PM

sunspot.net - education
"I don't have any trouble with the coloreds," says Evangel Christian Academy principal, E. Lamar McDaniel.

At least a half-dozen parents are withdrawing their children from the private Evangel Christian Academy in Rosedale after two former teachers accused top administrators of making racist comments.

Parents say the allegations have added to an unstable atmosphere at the school, and that administrators will not respond to their concerns.

The principal, E. Lamar McDaniel, repeatedly denied the allegations during a recent interview at the school. "I don't have any trouble with the coloreds," he said. "I've even stayed in some of their houses" while visiting missionaries in Africa....

"There has never been any kind of racial discrimination at this school," McDaniel said. "We are trying to diversify our student population. As a matter of fact, we'd like to find some Korean children to attend our school and raise the bar. They are such good students."....

Former teacher Arthur Byrd said he heard racist remarks while he was teaching music and drama at the school: "The principal often made comments about 'people like you' and then told me he didn't want all of the music I was teaching to be black, although I was told to teach gospel music," said Byrd, who isn't sure why he and his wife, Cynthia, an elementary teacher, were let go last year.

Byrd said he had a disagreement with Nelia McDaniel last school year when he signed out one afternoon after his classes were finished. "I'm a 310-pound black man," Byrd said, "and she said, 'Look boy, you do what I tell you to do.'"

posted at 6:55 PM

Dan Rodricks on Ehrlich's promise not to raise taxes: Hey, Governor Soon, read my lips: You won the election, you can stop serving campaign baloney now. Just do what everyone else does: Blame Parris. That's the great thing about following in this guy's footsteps - you can say it was Governor Spendening who got you into just about any mess that comes up. Like Bogey and Bergman in Casablanca: You'll always have Parris.
posted at 5:59 PM

Not your father's antiwar movement, Ellen Goodman, Boston Globe.
Todd Gitlin, historian of the '60s, has seen this as well. ''The silent majority of antiwar sentiment hasn't found its style or form. That's a serious obstacle,'' he says. ''We in the 1960s would have looked stupid if we were mouthing the rhetoric of the 1930s. Why is it smart to sound like 1967?''
....
Indeed, the rallying cries of current protesters may often sound off-key, too simplistic, and too '60s to attract a crowd. But at the same time, the more complex, thoughtful, layered reservations about war in Iraq don't make much of a rallying cry.
Reading the ads and petitions signed by actors and academics I try to envision a protest march with posters full of their asterisks and footnotes:
''Hell, no, we won't go, we want the UN to have a chance or because preemptive war is a dangerous precedent or because a cornered Saddam is more frightening than a contained Saddam or because... Hey, hey, what do you say?''
posted at 5:54 PM

sunspot.net - letters to the editor
Revealing the racism behind GOP policies
I fail to see why Senate Republican leader Trent Lott is being asked to offer repeated, ritual apologies for making a statement that obviously reflected his actual beliefs.
Wouldn't it be more appropriate to thank Mr. Lott for revealing, albeit inadvertently, the undercurrent of racist elitism behind Republican social and economic policies - policies Democratic leaders have done little to oppose?
Jon Swift
Baltimore
posted at 5:42 PM

sunspot.net - letters to the editor
Money for inaugural could fund teachers
Gov.-elect Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s plan for a Republican inaugural extravaganza party to cost $1 million (possibly the most expensive in history) is out of place at this time ("Ehrlich inauguration to be hearty GOP party," Dec. 12).
The economic downturn and Republican-inspired tax cuts at federal and state levels clearly threaten to gut education funding. Since the Republicans insisted on their support for education during the election, they could take a first step by using most of this million dollars for the state's education budget, and partying less. This money could pay for 20 badly needed teachers for one year and reduce class sizes in schools with special needs.
Werner Gruhl
Columbia
posted at 5:41 PM

sunspot.net - print edition
CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuela's Supreme Court ordered the federal government to transfer control of the Caracas police force yesterday from President Hugo Chavez and give it back to Caracas Mayor Alfredo Pena, a leading Chavez opponent.
posted at 5:36 PM

sunspot.net - print edition
CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuela's Supreme Court ordered a temporary halt yesterday to an oil industry strike that has crippled exports from the world's fifth-largest petroleum producer and strangled domestic gasoline supplies.
The court issued the order while it considers the legality of the work stoppage, which is part of an 18-day-old general strike against President Hugo Chavez. The strike has stopped oil exports from this key U.S. supplier and sent global prices above $30 a barrel.
However, it was doubtful that the court could force workers back to their jobs.
posted at 5:35 PM

sunspot.net - health
WASHINGTON - An FBI search of a wooded area outside Frederick, part of the anthrax investigation, wrapped up yesterday, officials said.
The search took place a few miles from the former home of Dr. Steven Hatfill, who worked at the Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, the primary custodian of the virulent Ames strain of anthrax found in the letters that killed five people and infected others last year.
posted at 5:33 PM

sunspot.net - health
NEW YORK - The race to produce the first birth of a human clone is nearing the finish line - if you believe the public pronouncements.
Last month, it was an Italian fertility doctor, Dr. Severino Antinori, who promised a cloned baby boy in January.
Yesterday, it was a scientist who belongs to a group that believes life on Earth was created by extraterrestrials. Brigitte Boisselier, head of a company called Clonaid, said a cloned baby girl is expected to be born this month.
And she says she'll offer proof the baby is a clone of the woman carrying it to term.
posted at 5:32 PM

sunspot.net - health
ARDEN HILLS, Minn. - Data recorders in airplanes, the so-called black boxes, describe what went wrong after a disaster. Now, medical devices are emerging to act like a black box in the human body, except they're being used to prevent disaster.
posted at 5:31 PM

| Lords of the Rhymes > Lyrics |
Well I’m a hobbit warrior short and stout
I got the fuckin beats that will turn you out.
I’ll light you up like Longbottom leaf.
cause the orcs smoke the shwag, but we got the kief.

posted at 5:29 PM

From a blog, full moon bathed: "i totally dug on the fact that she was as boldhearted as her style, you feel me? cause sf is full of people who consider themselves counter-culture and really strong but still cringe and get all wilty at the sight of black men who by appearance seem to fit a certain stereotype. and that bugs me. but that discussion is for another time cause clearly, miss blue hair from this morning isn't one of those peeps."
posted at 5:11 PM

Thursday, December 19, 2002

And who knew The New Yorker was online? I guess it's the New Yorker.

Maybe it's not really The New Yorker.
posted at 8:56 PM

According to a study just released by scientists at Duke University, life is too hard.
posted at 8:53 PM

Kevin Cowherd alienates pretty much all computer people in a Baltimore Sun column of December 12:
There was a time when, if you had computer problems, you'd call one of your geeky friends, and he'd come over and fix it, and you'd give him a beer because you were such a sort.
But now your geeky friends are all working for software manufacturers and making six figures, and they're far too busy taking their Lexuses in for tune-ups to come over and help.

Let's see if any of his geeky friends ever wants to help him again. Geeks who, in his words, typically "have the pencil neck and the pasty complexion and the wardrobe straight out of the Pee Wee Herman catalog."

posted at 8:46 PM

New blog sidebar on the left. Links on it.
New colors.
Font still not quite right in every place.
Fixing little things.
posted at 6:42 PM

Tuesday, December 17, 2002

Gotta Have Faith
By PAUL KRUGMAN

George W. Bush is always careful to speak in favor of faith in general, not any faith in particular. Congressional leaders are less careful. Last spring Tom DeLay, soon to be House majority leader, told a church group that: "Only Christianity offers a way to live in response to the realities that we find in this world — only Christianity." He also said he was on a mission from God to promote a "biblical worldview" in American politics.

By the way, one piece of that biblical worldview involves scientific education. After the Columbine school shootings, Mr. DeLay suggested that the tragedy had occurred "because our school systems teach our children that they are nothing but glorified apes who have evolutionized out of some primordial mud." Guns don't kill people; Charles Darwin kills people.

Mr. DeLay isn't an obscure crank; he's the most powerful man in Congress. Still, is he an outlier? No. Don Nickles, now challenging the wounded Mr. Lott for Senate leadership, is less given to colorful statements, but is as closely aligned with the religious right as Mr. DeLay.

posted at 3:08 PM

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