Plato's Earwax

2010-11-15T17:23:00.002+01:00

Decided to move everything over to Wordpress. So all none of you who read me regularly, go here:

Plato's Earwax Wordpress Blog

David Sylvian - The Scent Of Magnolia

2010-11-09T00:12:00.000+01:00

Can't go wrong with David Sylvian. This, from 2000.

2010-11-07T11:12:00.000+01:00

Meta...

It's weird, writing anything here. I write in several other places and am active on Facebook. Of course I get lots of people to interact with there. Here, I am largely talking to myself. Having an audience isn't the point, really, but you start to wonder why post anything if no one is going to read it. Or, it is rather like the chicken and egg. You need interesting posts to get some readers but you are less inclined to post stuff if no one is reading it.

So far, most of the hits I get here are searches for the bands I have posted here. Which is why I am thinking of making this more of a place to post some obscure music or stuff I am listening. A music blog I guess.

We'll see. Anyway, I love this song by Wire. "One of us will live to rue the day we met each other."

"Rainbows Too?" Legendary Pink Dots

2010-11-04T23:27:00.000+01:00

Let's get all psychedelic with the Legendary Pink Dots!

Freur - Doot Doot

2010-10-31T00:53:00.000+02:00

Retro video of the day...

This one is by Freur. They weren't much back in the 80's but this song is just sublime. Who would have guessed that they would go on the be Underworld, a world class techno act. This is like 80's to the max!

2010-10-09T09:08:00.000+02:00

Random 10. I should set up a day each week to do this, whenever I have time. Today is the day this week. This is 10 random songs from my Cowon A3 which has about 6,000 songs on it.

1. Ultravox - When The Scream Subsides
2. Stan Ridgway - Going Southbound
3. SA42 - Submarine Dance
4. Oingo Boingo - Reptiles and Samurai
5. Portion Control - Refugee
6. Roxy Music - Street Life
7. The Decembrists - Odalisque
8. Orchestral Manoeuveres in the Dark - Messages
9. Gang of Four - At Home He's a Tourist
10. Placebo - Black Eyed

Ok, that was like an almost all retro 10, which fits the mood lately as I have reconnected with an old music friend. Have a nice weekend all zero of you who are reading this!

2010-10-04T23:18:00.000+02:00

Ubuntu

I have a multitude of computer choices in this house. I have a laptop that runs Vista, as does my wife. My desktop, which is approaching five years old now is running Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx. I originally installed Linux on this machine just for fun, to try something new. Now, as this computer has aged, it makes sense to run a system that isn't as much of a resource hog as Vista can be (though, my cheap ass laptop, running on an Intel Celeron, runs smooth as silk, after optimizing it).

I really enjoy Ubuntu, and after a year of using openSUSE with KDE I much prefer Ubuntu and the GNOME desktop. Not as fancy perhaps but it gets the job done easier and smoother than KDE does, at least on my system (I particularly have problems with Dolphin, mounting of external drives to the same mount point and graphics (older Nvidia) on KDE. All of these things just work with no fuss on GNOME).

Two things I can't get used. One is a CD/DVD burner. I have tried Gnomebaker and Brasero and several other, smaller, programs for GNOME and I still go back to running K3B, a KDE app. It does what I want with the options I want and intuitively. So I run it under GNOME, which is fine but still, minor graphics glitches and no sound (I could probably figure that out but just haven't prioritized it).

The other is more difficult. On Windows I always used Mediamonkey, which is for my money the finest audio player and organizer ever. Now on Ubuntu I use Exaile, which is a nice small player than does what I want for playing audio. Most other apps want to act like iTunes which I HATE (HATE HATE HATE!). The only problem on pretty much all of Linux is finding an mp3 tagger with the ease of Mediamonkey. MM can find tags from Amazon, download AND attach the album art (Linux seems to be averse to this as I can't find a single program that will automatically attach album art. They either save it as a file with a link to it or you have to download manually and attach). And then, you can even organize your files by tags automatically. I realize it is arcane to think in filenames but I guess I am old (and my Cowon A3, my Precioussssss, does not organize by tags either). The only program I can find to use in Linux that does something similar is mp3tag....a Windows program run with WINE.

Sadly, Mediamonkey itself won't run very well under WINE. It's really the only thing I miss from Windows. I wish they would either port the mighty Mediamokey to Linux or someone would come up with a quality tagger.

Android

2010-10-03T10:59:00.003+02:00

Now that I have an android phone I will hopefully post more often. Or not. I'm mostly talking to myself anyway.

The Sound - Sense Of Purpose

2010-09-05T11:15:00.000+02:00

An oldie....I always wondered why The Sound never made it as big as Echo & The Bunnymen and other likeminded bands because they were every bit as dynamic as anyone doing this kind of thing in the 80's. But then I realized...sadly it might be because they weren't pretty boys. Too bad, but I guess I can count them among my personal favorites that I don't have to share with too many.

The singer Adrian Borland, by the way, committed suicide by train in 1999 after years of suffering with depression. RIP.

2010-08-13T20:07:00.000+02:00

The greatest concert film ever...

is Stop Making Sense. Been listening to this in the car today on the commute. I only wish I could have seen them live when I had the chance.

Sigh.

2010-08-02T10:36:00.000+02:00

Common sense...

Yesterday on Fox News Sunday, Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner had this to say:

The Washington Monthly

Host Chris Wallace noted that "a number of top economists" believe that the nation, right now, needs "more economic stimulus." Boehner replied, "Well, I don't need to see GDP numbers or to listen to economists; all I need to do is listen to the American people."

This is of a piece with a conversation I have been having online with a couple of really far-right conservatives. That conversation was about the gulf oil spill and how they thought that the things that, in their opinion, Obama had failed to do were just common sense. They actually used the phrase, "it doesn't take a rocket scientist..."

Well, sometimes it does in fact take a rocket scientist. They derided me for "hating" common sense, which couldn't be further from the truth. I love common sense! Mine has served me well. Notice those pronouns. I have no problem with people making personal decisions based on their own common sense. Hell, make your own personal business decisions that way.

We aren't talking about personal decisions here. These are decisions that impact millions of people. While common sense might serve you well personally, basing large scale policy decisions on your gut rather than facts and the truth is crazy. I am pretty sure that Obama has received more information about oil spills and cleanup than these two I was talking to have. And I am positive, based on his past statements, that John Boehner ought to listen to an economist or two instead of basing his decisions, which could have dire consequences for millions of people, on his own gut and the American people which, quite frankly, very often don't know enough about macroeconomics to make these decisions. I sure don't, which is why I defer to those who do.

Everyone's common sense is different. Mine is probably different from yours and we can all figure out that George Bush's gut is telling him different things than Barack Obama's. Why is it better to follow your gut than to find out the facts and base decisions on reason? It's an odd thing that liberals have always been accused of making decisions based on emotion when very often it seems the opposite is true.

2010-07-31T12:27:00.000+02:00

I knew it:

Stare at boobs for longer life: Study | TheMedGuru

Frankfurt, Germany, December 6 -- A rather bizarre study carried out by German researchers suggests that staring at women's breasts is good for men's health and increases their life expectancy.
According to Dr. Karen Weatherby, a gerontologist and author of the study, gawking at women’s breasts is a healthy practice, almost at par with an intense exercise regime, that prolongs the lifespan of a man by five years.

She added, "Just 10 minutes of staring at the charms of a well-endowed female, is roughly equivalent to a 30-minute aerobics work-out."

...

In addition, she also recommended that men over 40 should gaze at larger breasts daily for 10 minutes.

Duly noted! Excuse me while I follow doctor's orders...

2010-07-31T11:29:00.002+02:00

It's almost difficult to believe that this thing is still here. Time to reactivate.

I have a personal diary that I have kept on a diary site under an anonymous name and have met some people and stuff from there. But I don't necessarily want that to be the public face of myself, since that is really the place where I share some more personal things, without linking to the public me.

I also want to have a place to post some political stuff and music stuff, much in the same vein as someone who I have seen for years online on political blogs and who I read and comment on. That would be cleek, whose blog I really like and would try to emulate or whatnot, with my own thing of course.

So this will be a place where I want to talk about politics, music and being an ex-pat in Norway or living in the States, or just living. Or basically, this will be about me and what I think, which I am sure will develop a large international following of perhaps a couple of people.

And to kick it off, here is possibly my favorite single song of all time.

2008-01-08T16:57:00.000+01:00

I haven't written here in a long time and was actually going to write something last night, while the Wife was off at a friends house drinking wine and talking about books. Things are going great over here, for the most part, other than the series of colds I have had since before Christmas, with this last one being a nasty throat thing. But then, after I finally got the kids to bed far later than normal (I think they were a little hyped about two days at school/daycare after having almost a couple weeks off.) I decided to surf my usual array of personal and political blogs and diaries that I read. One of my favorites is Obsidian Wings, a political blog that slants left but has writers and commenters from all sides, and posting rules to keep the conversation civil and interesting.

The first thing I see there is this post:

Andy Olmsted

by hilzoy

Andrew Olmsted, who also posted here as G'Kar, was killed yesterday in Iraq. Andy gave me a post to publish in the event of his death; the last revisions to it were made in July.

Andy was a wonderful person: decent, honorable, generous, principled, courageous, sweet, and very funny. The world has a horrible hole in it that nothing can fill. I'm glad Andy -- generous as always -- wrote something for me to publish now, since I have no words at all. Beyond: Andy, I will miss you.

My thoughts are with his wife, his parents, and his brother and sister.

What follows is Andy's post: a bit here; the rest below the fold.

I have been reading this blog for years. I have probably read everything that Andrew Olmsted has written there, under his name and the name he wrote under, G'Kar (taken from Babylon 5), which he had to use because he was a Major in the Army and had been deployed to Iraq to help train Iraqi and American soldiers. He was killed in an ambush of his platoon, along with one other person. I'm not going to copy his posthumous post here, but I encourage everyone to read it as it is incredibly moving.

I didn't agree with everything Andrew wrote, and I probably only exchanged a handful of comments with him. One of the things he says in this final post is, "If there is any hope for the long term success of democracy, it will be if people agree to listen to and try to understand their political opponents rather than simply seeking to crush them." This is what I admired him for more than anything, his openness to argument. He also stated that he didn't want his death to be used for political purposes, no matter your view on the War. I agree with that wholheartedly.

Even though my interaction with him was very slight, it still hit me like it was someone I knew. It is amazing, these intertrons, how you can make connections with people you never meet, how you can actually feel connected and like friends with people you have only even read and not interacted with. It kind of took the steam out of the happy, silly post I had in mind for last night. I read every one of the more than 600 comments on that blog post, and even left one myself.

Sometimes we read something that puts our lives into perspective. Life can be difficult at times, and we fret and worry about our problems. But we are alive. Like Andrew said in his letter, "I'm dead, but if you're reading this, you're not, so take a moment to enjoy that happy fact." And that is what I did. I am fortunate to be alive. To have a Wife who loves me despite myself. To have two wonderful kids. It makes me regret that I don't take the time to bask in that more often.

Rather than write something that will have no impact on the world, I am going to leave you with the link to the words of a man whose life was far to short (I'd repost it here, but I would rather you all go over there and read it, where he left it). And I am going to spend the weekend relishing all that I have. And watching some playoff football. I think he would like that.

R.I.P. Andrew Olmsted

Plato

By the way, it is been noted that, like myself, Andrew was a huge 80's music fan (it's actually one of the things I distinctly remember discussing with him a while ago), so I declare this weekend 80's weekend. I'm gonna listen to nothing but. And one of his all time favorite songs (and mine!) was "The Ghost in You" by the Psychedelic Furs, so I am including that video here.

Plato's Earwax

2007-05-06T22:01:00.000+02:00

In Search Of

Ok. I don't remember what this is called but I read about this a while ago. Apparently, what you do is list the names of friends who would like to get into contact with on your blog and then when they, like a lot of us, do a google search on themselves, this page will hit.

So, the people I am looking for email addresses for are Samuel Larson (or Samuel Bradley Larson) and Dan Campbell (or even better, search-wise) Dandon Campbell). If either of you guys stumble on my page you can contact me, Cory Nyberg, at platosearwax[at]gmail.com.

That is all.

2006-10-09T21:06:00.000+02:00

The fall of Tacitus

One of the first political blogs I stumbled upon was Tacitus run by Josh Trevino. What I liked about it was the quality of the discussion, even if I mostly disagreed with the proprietor. I never got to participate much, what with me being in Norway, 6-9 hours ahead of everyone else. Most of the good discussions took place while I was sleeping and I came to them the next day with not much to add. But I read it, and still read it, regularly. And as little as I interacted with the folks over there, it came to feel like I knew them in some way.

Well, after four years, Tacitus is closing up shop, for whatever mysterious reason Mr. Trevino has. Luckily, the good folks over there are intent on continuing on, with a new site, a new name.

So, the good folks at Tacitus are choosing a new name for the new site. I offered up platosearwax as a joke, but somehow it got onto the list of names to vote for. It isn't winning. And it won't. But I would gladly have given my handle to the new Tacitus.

Meanwhile, I might start actually updating this thing, with more political stuff. And I am going to try to participate at the new Tacitus, whatever its name might be.

2006-09-19T08:44:00.000+02:00

Wow, maybe I should update this thing, huh?

2005-12-28T15:11:00.000+01:00

I've decided to chronicle the times where I run across people being self-centered jerks. I went off on this a few weeks (months?) ago, where I talked about how people around here park. Well I had another one today.

I was taking the kids to the daycare and to get there I have to drive up this hill that has maybe a dozen cars parked along the right side of the road, making it a one lane road and forcing you to pull over to the side to let a car pass if you encounter one coming at you. Usually, no problem. Today, as I turned onto the road, I saw, way at the top, a car standing still but with his lights on and looking like he was going to drive down the hill. So I started up and then he started to move and by the time I got to the end of the parked cars, where the road is now wide enough for two cars he had blocked the road. He moved even further forward and tried to pull off to the side far enough for me to squeeze between him and the last parked car. Of course there was not enough room. So he starts honking and waving his arms, I guess to let me know that he is insane. So, instead of backing up one car length so that I can get past him, he forces me to go in reverse all the way back past at least a dozen cars to the beginning of the street. It was totally ridiculous and yet another example of people who think only of themselves, because, hey I was in his way and damned if he was going to reverse for any reason.

In other news, I just took a shower with my wife, something we hardly ever get the opportunity to do anymore, but something we used to do all the time.

It is friggin cold here. Well, cold by Bergen standards. It was 16F (about -6.5C)degrees this morning when I woke up. The car was an iceball and our house, being the seive that it is, is leaking cold air from basically everywhere. Being this cold means there is no rain or snow, which I guess makes up for it.

I have to go get the kids soon and then I am making Italian sausage grinders tonight for me and my wife.

I think the last year, when I haven't written much, cleared my head or something because I am enjoying writing in here lately (well, the last few days anyway). We'll see how long that lasts.

2005-12-28T15:10:00.000+01:00

As part of my recent decision to write in here more often, albeit shorter each time, I'll try a quick entry right now. We'll see how long it takes me to get driven nuts typing on a laptop keyboard. I am currently sitting in my living room with my wife's laptop on my lap (ha! using a laptop as a laptop!) and listening to Seinfeld while my wife is playing Sims 2 on our snazzy new home computer (the thing is awesomely fast in comparison to our old 1 ghz machine. For the techno geeks out there it is an AMD Sempron that only runs at 1.6 ghz but outperforms the Intel Celeron running at 2.8 ghz. And our huge hard drive is way faster as well. And it has 256mb of video ram instead of 32mb which renders web pages faster than lightning. Anyway, it rules. Thanks, Kristian (the guy at work who built the thing for me)). Desparate Housewives is on in 20 minutes and we are going to watch that.

Christmas was fun, if not busy. I'll post some pictures when I write something on the main computer as that is where the pics are. We ate the traditional pinnekjøtt, which is sheep ribs, salted and dried and then steamed. It is salty and greasy, and while it isn't my favorite meal, it's not bad once or twice a year. I don't like the kålrabbe that is served with it (that would be rutabaga, shredded and cooked with milk or something, it tastes sort of like squash which is gross--and I'll eat most anything). The kids got a massive pile of stuff, including a big doll house that they both love. The silliest item was an inflatable Disney princess chair that Emma got and both kids fight over pretty much constantly. Should have gotten Sara one as well. I got a new wireless keyboard and mouse, some clothes and stuff, whole season DVD's of Raymond, King of Queens and Seinfeld, DVD films Sin City and Star Wars Episode 3, a bunch of Sudoku books and more stuff. My dad the rich guy gave us cash, which we recklessly spent on a Sony DVD recorder, the new computer and a new vacuum cleaner, pretty much blowing that whole wad (he he I said "blowing that whole wad").

We, the wife and I, are both work free this week. We got the kids to the daycare (yes we are shitty, horrible parents who take any opportunity to get rid of the kids instead of using the free time to spend time together as a family.) at 9 this morning and ate some breakfast casserole while watching 2 episodes of Average Joe 4 we had on the DVD recorder. It was sort of white trash heaven. Later this week, hopefully, the in-laws are going to take the kids for a night and we are going to be all alone here for an afternoon, an evening and the next morning. I am not sure if I remember what it is like to sleep until you wake up on your own and leisurely arise to eat some breakfast in peace. I am sure I will wake up at 6:30 and not be able to get back to sleep.

And now I have to pee and go watch Desparate Housewives, so you are left with just this lame update.

Hope everyone had a blowjobby Christmas and here's to a blowjobby New Year!

I'll write later in the week.

2005-12-25T10:09:00.000+01:00

I'm writing this with the brand new keyboard my wife gave me for Christmas. Just wanted to type something.

I'm a dork.

2005-12-24T09:49:00.000+01:00

Just a quick note

Usually, in the summer, we take away the carpet from under our coffee table and live with the plain fake-wood-vinyl floor, since it is easier to clean the floor that way. But in the winter, the floor gets kind of cold so we put the carpet back down.

Since we did that this year, the kids, particularly Sara, have spilled soda, water, coffee, etc... more times on the carpet in the last week than they have on the fake-wood-vinyl floor in the last year. This is some kind of rule with kids, that if there is something on the floor you must spill on that, rather than on the bare, easy to clean, floor. It just happened now. Again.

And that's all the time I have for this, because I have about a million things to do before the in-laws get here in 6 hours.

Merry Holidays Everyone!

2005-12-24T09:48:00.000+01:00

Insanity

It has been complete and utter insanity the last few weeks. I have been working every day, but where I don't have a lot of access to a computer. And at home, we have had lots of holiday stuff going on, plus we got ourselves a DVD recorder so there has been a lot of TV watching instead of time on the computer. I haven't hardly even read anybody for two or three weeks. And tomorrow is the day we celebrate xmas, and I may even have to work so updating this weekend is probably not going to happen.

But, we have ourselves a brand new computer as well (thanks for the cash for xmas, dad!). It is incredibly fast and awesome. And next week my wife and I are both taking the week off and the kids will be in daycare so there should be plenty of time for a real update. And if that doesn't happen, someone needs to fly to Norway and totally kick my ass. Word.

Anyway, happy holidays (just to piss off the Fox "War on Christmas" News crowd) and I'll catch you all after I eat my pinnekjøtt (super salty and greasy sheep ribs, the Bergen tradition for xmas).

2005-10-31T23:01:00.000+01:00

Just Your Everyday Random Crap

Yesterday afternoon we went to a halloween party. Well...if you can call 4 kids and 5 adults a halloween party. The kids had fun and the adults sat around listening to jazz and talking, mostly in English for a change since there were two Americans there, one of whom doesn't speak Norwegian (not I. We were at our neighbor's house where they are also a Norwegian wife and American husband who have a son who is good friends with Emma). Nothing much to report from there really, just your average afternoon with the kids.

I didn't work today so I changed the tires on the car. Over here we don't use all weather radials but summer and winter tires. So every spring and fall I have to change the tires, which only takes an hour or so, but is murder on my back.

Speaking of that, I am apparently getting old and falling apart. Every day brings some other weird pain. My back, upper some days and lower others. My left knee makes incredible crackling sounds when I bend it and lately I can't put a whole lot weight on it without wincing in pain. And, not pain related but age related, a couple weeks ago I was looking in the mirror and noticed that I had some hair kinda flying free behind my ears. Thinking I just needed a trim, I tried to brush it back with my hand and realized the hairs were growing on my earlobe. Long ass hairs on my earlobes! I am on my way to looking like Einstein. And seriously, what the hell is it with losing hair on the top of your head and having it grow like weeds in your nose, ears and on your back?

My wife told me something funny that Emma said the other day. They were watching "Hey, Arnold!" and this old guy told the kids to be quiet, and if they weren't quiet they were going to have to move out. So Emma, with a serious and slightly scared look on her face, turned to my wife and asked, "If Sara and I make noise are we going to have to move?" I love kids literal logic. Today, she was wearing a shirt with a short sleeve dress over the top of it and angel wings, a tiara and carrying a silver magic wand and jumping on the bed. I laughed at her, because she just looked sorta funny and she stuck her tongue out and gave me a raspberry. Then she asked my wife why I was laughing at her. I guess I need to be careful from now on, she is starting to catch on.

It seems like most people like Law and Order: SVU the best, but now that we have all of the Law and Orders the best one is far and away Criminal Intent. Vincent D'Onofrio rules. I can't get enough of the way he figures out how to get under the skin of the people he is trying to catch. It's one of my favorite shows.

We finally got the package that I gave my mom money to mail when we were in the States...in July! In typical mom fashion it took her weeks to actually mail the thing. And then, 6 weeks later she got it back and typically she says there was no indication of why they sent it back to her, but I guarantee you there was something marked on it that told her why, she just doesn't remember or didn't see it. Anyway, she waits a couple of weeks and sends it again. We waited and waited and were about to give up as lost the two seasons of Cheers and one season of Friends that we bought in the States when it showed up last week....8 weeks to the day after she sent it.

And even though I wrote all the above totally random crap, I felt like I didn't really have anything to fill an entry. Just goes to show if I force myself to open the Write and Entry window and just write, I can come up with something, even if it was just banal crap.

2005-09-26T23:18:00.000+02:00

Ok. Talked to my sister yesterday and today. Apparently my mom had another seizure on Saturday night. So they were keeping her sedated and seizure free with the breathing tube in while they ran more tests. A chest x-ray showed that she had some pneumonia in one of her lungs. So they ran a spinal tap. You medical folks probably see where this is going. Turns out she has bacterial meningitis. The pneumonia in her lungs spread to the lining of her brain which causes all the symptoms that she had. They are now setting her up on damn near lethal amounts of antibiotics, which she will have to take intraveinously for the next 28 days. They think she will be good enough to take out the breathing tube this afternoon. She has been semi-coherent over the last 24 hours or so. She is still in the ICU, so not totally out of the woods, but the doctors are very optimistic that she will make a full recovery.

So that's a relief.

Don't have tons of time so I will relate only one other little observation unrelated to my mother. I have learned the hard way that you should never, ever say nice things about your kids. Case in point: Things sleeping-wise have been wonderful, both kids in the same room (though Emma goes to sleep in our bed and gets transferred later because Sara won't ever be able to go to sleep with the excitement of Emma laying almost withing arms reach) and sleeping until 7 or so. UNTIL...I say how nice they have been sleeping lately. I said this Thursday. Since then, not one night of good sleep. Either they are both up in the middle of the night, or Sara one day was up at ten after six. Or last night Sara was up and then Emma was up, both at around 4am and then Sara was all excited and laughing at Emma so I got the sofa and Emma shared our bed with my wife so Sara would shut up and go to sleep. This kind of thing happens every time you say something nice. "Gosh, they haven't had a cold forever!" BLAM, both will get the flu. "Wow, they are playing together so nicely, they never fight!" BLAM a day of complete chaos where they are after each others throats. It never fails. So, compliment them when they do good things, but for god sakes don't ever talk to anyone about how great your kids are.

More to come...

2005-09-25T11:49:00.000+02:00

I've been meaning to get back to writing but work got in the way. I started at the hospital again and can pretty much work as much as I want. What with that and getting two kids to and from daycare and trying to keep up with the TV shows we watch and the start of football season (I still get the Monday night game every week) I have had little to no time to write anything, let alone read stuff.

Eventually the schedule will smooth out and I can carve out some time to write stuff (right now I am writing this at 9:30 in the morning with the wife asleep and the kids (not) watching a video and playing around me). It also gets kind of daunting, what with me not having written anything substantial since before we went on vacation in June (and feeling like I should write something about that trip). I'll get to it eventually.

Right now the only significant news is that I got a phone call last night from my dad telling me that my mom is in the hospital (they are divorced). Apparently a stroke (she is 58), though they are running tests. She was disoriented the night before and had a seizure when they got her to the hospital yesterday. She is on a ventilator and they are running CAT scans and such to see what is going on. Supposed to know more today. This isn't totally unexpected, in an abstract sense. She is not really a healthy person, she smokes way to much and is basically a functional alcoholic (meaning, she spends her days at work sober and then drinks beer all evening, pretty much every evening). So I was kind of expecting something to happen eventually. Anyway, when I know more you will be the, well, tenth to know (pulled that number out of my ass). I will let you all know though.

Anyway, I have to pee and the natives are getting restless so I'll stop here. My wife watches a show tonight that I don't watch (some reality show about fat people from Norway, Sweden and Denmark). Maybe I'll write more then.

2005-09-07T15:17:00.000+02:00

More on this

I totally missed something in that post I had from yesterday. Something so big that I can't believe I missed it. There is more on the differences between the preparations done for the hurricanes last year in Florida and that done for Katrina here. The thing I failed to mention, or even think of, was that last year, when each of the four hurricanes to strike Florida were meticulously prepared for, was an election year. And Florida was a swing state.

I'll reiterate that I believe that the governor and mayor have a lot to answer for. Mistakes were definitely made, by everyone involved. The question I think you guys over in the States (I'm an American living in Norway if you are reading me for the first time) need to ask yourselves is: How comfortable am I with thought of the governments' reactions (thats all government, local, state and federal) to a major inicident and what happens if it is a major terrorist attack with no warning?

More of a personal nature to come soon. I'm starting to get that writing bug again.

2005-09-07T15:16:00.000+02:00

I'll write some more about this soon (yeah, right!). Let me just preface this cut and paste job by saying that I think the Mayor and Governor have a lot to answer for themselves. But Bush's choice for the head of FEMA is a joke. He didn't know that there were people in the Convention Center on Thursday. He said that he thought New Orleans would "drain quickly", contrary to, well, anyone who knows anything.

But what I wanted to show was the following press release from 2004. These are the preparations done for Hurricane Frances by FEMA. The questions that need to be asked are: Since it seems that very little of this was done for Katrina, why? Perhaps it has something to do with who the Governor of Florida is? Or maybe it has something to do with the kind of economic class that happen to live in Florida compared to Louisiana and Mississippi? I don't know, but they sure seemed to really go all out for Frances.

http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/display?content=3986

In preparation for Hurricane Frances, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is coordinating a massive response and recovery operation and strengthening the national capability to provide immediate assistance to any community in need after the hurricane makes landfall.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is currently coordinating federal response operations and readiness activities with state and local agencies through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and has pre-positioned emergency management personnel and supplies to ensure a rapid and effective response when Hurricane Frances makes landfall.

::snip::

The following activities are being conducted to prepare for Hurricane Frances:

*Homeland Security officials are fully coordinating preparations and holding daily video conference calls with our federal partners, governors, and other state and local officials in possible affected states.

*FEMA’s Hurricane Liaison Team is activated at the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida, to assist with advisories, information coordination and emergency evacuation activities.

*FEMA has deployed an Advanced Emergency Response Team to the Florida and Georgia State Emergency Operation Centers to facilitate state requests for assistance. Rapid Needs Assessment Teams have also been deployed to these states to provide support as necessary.

*FEMA has deployed emergency response teams and pre-staged critical commodities such as ice, water, meals and tarps in various strategic locations for immediate delivery to residents in affected areas.

*The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, at FEMA’s request, is coordinating the staging of 100 truckloads of water and 100 truckloads of ice.

*A first shipment of 30,000 tarps is en route to Atlanta, Georgia to be pre-staged for delivery to areas affected by Hurricane Frances once the storm has cleared.

*Four Urban Search and Rescue Teams have been deployed to Florida and Georgia for immediate deployment if needed and Mobile Emergency Response Service communication units are available to provide telephone, radio and video links in support of response and recovery efforts.

*Five Disaster Medical Assistance Teams (DMAT) and one Veterinary Medical Assistance Team have been activated or deployed to sites in Florida and Georgia to support medical facilities and hospitals that are not fully operational following the storm. An additional seven teams have been placed on alert, assembling teams and loading equipment in case they are needed. The DMATs comprise doctors, nurses and medical technicians trained to handle trauma, pediatrics, surgery and mental health concerns. DMATs also bring truckloads of medical equipment and supplies with them.

*Five pharmaceutical caches containing emergency medical supplies are being pre-positioned in Atlanta, Georgia, and Tampa, Florida.

*Preparations are being made for Disaster Field Offices and Disaster Recovery Centers to be established in the hardest hit areas within 72 hours after a federal declaration. This will allow impacted residents to receive disaster assistance as soon as possible.

*The U.S. Coast Guard has pre-positioned helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft to support response activities. Several cutters and boats have been relocated to safe harbors throughout the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic coast and inland waterways to await the passing of the storm. The U.S. Coast Guard is also broadcasting hurricane advisories and warnings to mariners along the hurricane’s projected path and coordinating area harbor safety committees to prepare ports and minimize potential damage. Following the storm, the Coast Guard will assist with post-hurricane response and recovery operations to aid navigation assessment and repair, marine pollution response, search and rescue operations, and support to other agencies and humanitarian aid.

*Aircraft from Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement will help transport FEMA officials to and from sites and will fly over the storm’s path following landfall to collect high-resolution images for damage assessment. The remotely sensed data will allow FEMA to better target areas needing immediate disaster damage assessment.

*The Department’s Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection unit is assessing the vulnerabilities and potential impact to critical infrastructure located in the storm’s projected path. Based upon these assessments, Homeland Security will be prepared to work with private sector partners and state and local government officials during the recovery phase.

*Homeland Security is working with the American Red Cross and other volunteer agencies to ensure sheltering and critical needs are met immediately. More than 350 shelter sites have been identified by the American Red Cross for those displaced by Hurricane Frances.

*FEMA is working with the General Services Administration to analyze vacancy rates of various safe housing options (including apartments, homes, RVs, time shares, mobile homes, hotels and motels) as part of a pre-planning temporary housing strategy for those whose homes are severely damaged or destroyed.

*FEMA is working to provide 10 trailers full of generators at the request of Florida that will be used to provide power to critical facilities affected by the hurricane.

FEMA contract inspectors are ready for activation, with surge capability providing for up to 15,000 inspections per day within 14 days of activation.

*All the National Processing Service Centers (NPSCs) are fully staffed and ready to register and process disaster assistance applications immediately. The Internal Revenue Service has provided additional operators to support tele-registration operations.

*Homeland Security is encouraging citizens living in the areas of projected impact to take precautions immediately by reviewing emergency communications plans, stocking water and non-perishable food, storing additional ice in the freezer, and checking batteries in a battery-powered radio so that instructions provided by local emergency management officials may be heard and followed. Most importantly, if ordered to evacuate, residents should do so immediately. Additional information about emergency preparedness can be found at www.ready.gov or www.FEMA.gov.

2005-08-17T16:06:00.000+02:00

Not that I ever use this thing anymore, and certainly not that anyone is reading it, but I was thinking of making this place a personal weblog, similar to my Open Diary journal. I don't know why, since I haven't written anything anywhere for a couple of months now. I am really good at starting weblogs and then never writing in them.

So stay tuned, all zero of you readers, for more silence.

2005-04-01T19:25:00.000+02:00

Public Service Announcement

The new New Order album (yes I am old) rocks the fuckin' house.

Word.

2005-01-26T15:04:00.000+01:00

Why do I keep getting visitors to my blog whose referrer page is a google search for "peed her pants"?

Google Search: sister "peed her pants"

2004-11-11T14:13:00.000+01:00

Idiocy Files, entry 1

In other crazy news, this is ridiculous:

For a year, Julee Lacey stopped in a CVS pharmacy near her home in a Fort Worth suburb to get refills of her birth-control pills. Then one day last March, the pharmacist refused to fill Lacey's prescription because she did not believe in birth control.

"I was shocked," says Lacey, 33, who was not able to get her prescription until the next day and missed taking one of her pills. "Their job is not to regulate what people take or do. It's just to fill the prescription that was ordered by my physician."

Some pharmacists, however, disagree and refuse on moral grounds to fill prescriptions for contraceptives. And states from Rhode Island to Washington have proposed laws that would protect such decisions.

(...)

The American Pharmacists Association, with 50,000 members, has a policy that says druggists can refuse to fill prescriptions if they object on moral grounds, but they must make arrangements so a patient can still get the pills. Yet some pharmacists have refused to hand the prescription to another druggist to fill.

In Madison, Wis., a pharmacist faces possible disciplinary action by the state pharmacy board for refusing to transfer a woman's prescription for birth-control pills to another druggist or to give the slip back to her. He would not refill it because of his religious views.

??? Really, if a pharmacy has a policy where they won't fill prescriptions for moral grounds, then they better state it upfront (and for Pete's sake, not giving back the prescription or sending it elsewhere should get that idiot fired and his pharmacy license taken away).. But what it comes down to is, if you have some personal reasons for not dispensing certain drugs, then perhaps pharmacology was the wrong job for you. Not to mention that some people take birth control pills for reasons not related to sex and pregnancy and what happens if there is only one pharmacy in town and the pharmacist has qualms about cancer medicine, or insulin?

Via Radley Balko

2004-11-11T14:08:00.000+01:00

The 80's Redux

I am becoming convinced that we are re-living the 80's. You have a re-elected Republican President, you have Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, a big fat deficit, the rise of the new Moral Majority, Opus is back, Duran Duran have a new album out, new Band Aid, creationism in schools, and the Simpsons are still on (they debuted in December of 1989). We live in interesting, if not recognizable, times.

2004-11-05T23:18:00.000+01:00

Flashback!

What with articles like this:Christian Conservatives Must Not Compromise I am starting to feel like it's the 80's again. It's the revival of the Moral Majority! Where's Ed Meese (John Ashcroft anyone?)? Where's Schlafly? And for Pete's sake, where are the Dead Kennedys when we really need them???

2004-11-04T20:42:00.000+01:00

Politics off the top of my head

Been thinking all day about what to write about this election. I'm kind of at a loss for words. It's not that Kerry lost, I was only lukewarm to him in the first place. I think it is a combination of things. One, that Bush won so convincingly, despite all the problems in his first term. I mean, we all know he wasn't exactly liked by the left. But he was losing support from many traditional conservatives and libertarians as well. And with all the stuff that went wrong in his first term ( Abu Ghraib (for which nobody has been held accountable), the Plame scandal, the deficit, lying about the cost of his medicare bill, misleading statements about the Iraq war, the many, many statements he made in debates and speeches that have been thoroughly debunked yet he continued to use them just for starters) I find it difficult to believe that so many people said, "Yep, he's my guy." But hey, thems the breaks. Congrats to Bush I guess.

The second thing was the votes for Senate races. Even more of a majority for the Republicans. What bothers me about that is that the Republican party always talks about small government, reducing spending, getting the government off our backs, yet they never follow through with it. The last four years saw the biggest expansion of government since Johnson, and Bush has yet to veto a spending bill. And in spite of this, Kerry gets labeled the big spending liberal. I wonder what they are going to do now that they are basically unopposed and can pass anything they want.

The third and most disturbing thing was the passage of anti-gay marriage laws in 11 states, and by a large number. I am speechless. I feel completely out of touch with what Americans are apparently thinking. I just don't comprehend what all the fuss is about gays getting married. Who cares, except for homosexuals? And even worse is the fact that I read a news item on Yahoo that says conservatives are delighted that a group of people in America are basically being denied rights (it is not special treatment, it is allowing them to be treated like any heterosexual couple who want the benefits of marriage).

Perhaps I have just become some elitist Euro-socialist (I'm not, really) but I just don't get it. Perhaps over the next few days and weeks I'll gain some understanding, but seriously I don't feel in touch with my home country.

I have more to say, but my thoughts aren't well, uh, thought out at the moment. I'll write more on this when I figure out how to say what I want to say.

2004-11-02T12:32:00.000+01:00

Election Notes

So the election is today. For those of you in America who wonder, it is big news here. Top story, mostly, on all the news every day for a couple days now. Two of the national channels here will go live sometime after midnight, one (the national channel I guess equivelant to PBS but they also show Sopranos and Third Watch and movies and stuff so more comparable to the BBC.) will have all their own reporters and the other channel is going live with a combination of their reporters and a feed from CBS. I really can't make a prediction. I voted for Kerry, not because he is my favorite choice but mostly because he has the best shot of getting rid of Bush.

Whatever you say about left and right, whatever your opinion is, I can't figure out what exactly people see in Bush. Seriously. Not only do I think he is a bad president, I think he is a bad Republican president. I never thought I would see the day when I looked back nostalgically at Bush I or even Reagan, but here we are. At least with Reagan, with whom I had some major disagreements, it seemed as though he came at his position from a learned, well read perspective. He, at least before he the end when he was showing some clear signs of his coming alzheimers, appeared knowledgeable and honest about his position and I can respect that. Junior, however, doesn't seem, to me at least, to have any other sources for his beliefs than whatever Cheney and Rove tell him and his "gut" (whatever that means.) People say he is likeable. I just can't see it. Even if he says something I agree with, he still doesn't seem like he arrived at his conclusion by evaluating the facts and logically coming to a conclusion. At the least, Kerry seems intelligent and thoughtful.

But lets get back to what I said about being a bad Republican president. Sure he has lowered taxes. But he has imposed more tarrifs than Clinton, added a massive amount of spending (i.e. aid to our poor, struggling drug companies) to medicare, increased education spending, takes the federalist approach to abortion and gay marriage, increased foreign aid, has spent like the stereotypical liberal (never once vetoing a spending bill), more new federal regulations than any other president, signed the campaign finance law, proposed legalizing illegal immigrants, the Patriot Act, has a Wilsonian foreign policy (activist internationalist). I could go on, but that should be enough to make one wonder what exactly a conservative sees in him.

And speaking of taxes, I have been thinking lately of the old idea that liberals are all about tax-and-spend. What I thought was, which is better: proposing new spending and coming up with a way to fund that spending; or proposing new spending and cutting the funding for that spending? At the least, democrats want to do the responsible thing and fund their programs with taxes, rather than borrow the money. It reminds me of something I read by James Carville, who said that if you personally were in debt, working three jobs to pay for your excess spending, what is the proper response to this? Do you quit one of your jobs and attempt to lower spending (but you only say you are going to cut spending and instead spend the same or even more) at the same time? Or do you do the prudent thing and cut your spending while leaving your jobs alone until you are in a position where you can afford to quit one of those jobs? Tax cuts with no decrease in spending is irresponsible. But somehow, Republicans are seen as better at running the economy (even though the economy has done better under Democratic presidents than Republican ones for most of the post WWII era).

So anyway, I voted for Kerry. More a strategic vote than a conscience vote. And even though I lean more liberal than conservative (I tend to call myself a left-libertarian) I can say that I never voted for Clinton (voted libertarian both times) even though I think he was a much better president than the current one.

2004-10-28T22:25:00.000+02:00

Long Time...

Geez, I haven't written here in a while. Haven't had the time. But I have installed the new PR release of Mozilla, got my Blog This! icon in there and I may try to blog from time to time as I am surfing. (I also may have more online time in the coming weeks/months, so we'll see how that goes).

Not that anyone reads this, although sitemeter shows a couple hits a day, mostly from folks at Obsidian Wings, where I very occasionally comment. Anyway, all two of you per day who check in, perhaps there will be something here to read.

2004-10-28T22:17:00.000+02:00

I've been blocked
Apparently, there is something I am not supposed to see on www.georgewbush.com. I can still see the site of course by using an American proxy, but what the hell?

2004-07-30T14:42:00.000+02:00

Political Survey

Survey floating around OD. I saw it on Zombywoof and Popeyechicken first.
Abortion: Though I have reservations concerning the concept of men's rights, and although I personally have a bit of a distaste for it (but, truth be told, if we were confronted with a pregnancy right now we would consider abortion. We truly don't want more kids and are taking precautions to stop that, but if it happened anyway...) this issue is between a woman and her doctor.
Age of Consent: Uh, I think a parent is responsible for, well, parenting. And each individual is different. However, for legal stuff I think 16 is reasonable.
Animal Testing: If we are talking medical research to cure disease, test away. If it is to test the latest hairspray, well that is pretty sad. However, I don't think animals have rights like humans do so I am not exactly for banning it. But it wouldn't bother me if it was banned for frivilous testing.
Death Penalty: It's murder. It's no deterrent. The State shouldn't be murdering people.
Downloading Music/Movies: Read Zombywoof's opinion on intellectual property. I agree with him.
Drug Decriminalization: Should be legal. And taxed.
Factory Farming: Fine by me. Regulate their waste disposal so as not to destroy the environment, but factory farming is fine.
Free Trade: The free-er the better.
Funding of the Arts: Sticky one. The arts are a worthy cause, it does improve our culture. I think the arts function better on their own however. But really, I don't care very much.
Gay Marriage: Fine. I think marriage should be a religious ceremony and civil unions for everyone.
Gun Control:There has to be some, or your neighbor can get his own ICBM. This really depends on where you are talking. We have gun control here in Norway, and since nobody has handguns, there isn't a lot of crime involving guns. However, I think the US is way beyond the point where gun control will have any effect on crime.
Immigration: Free and open borders.
Hardcore Pornography: I'm for it!
Human Cloning: Lots of ethical questions here, but that shouldn't stop science from pursuing it. Leave the science to scientists and ethics to politicians (that was a joke).
Military Draft: No. It's slavery. If there is a situation where the country is in grave, mortal danger, then it would seem logical that there would be plenty of volunteers and no need for a draft.
Minimum Wage Laws: As much as I would like to say that corporations should be allowed, in a free, capitalist society, to set the price of their labor I quite frankly don't trust corporations to act ethically.
Prostitution: Legal, regulated and taxed.
School Vouchers: No.
Taxes: Necessary to provide the things that people want from their governent. As much as a libertarian paradise of everyone paying for services as they use them sounds nice on paper, I believe that there are things that only the government can provide. We can debate what those things are of course, but we need taxes to pay for them.
United Nations: Has been a wonderful organization for helping the third world. Not so great as a political body (indecisive and idle threats with no follow through in some cases (and yeah, I know they are at the mercy of the member states so much of the blame for inactivity is the member states fault)). Good idea in theory, needs some work.
Universal Health Care: Cheaper and more efficient than the American system (You can talk all day long about waiting lists and such, but what it comes down to is that the US spends more than twice as much per person on healthcare and tons of people have non at all. And US health care is rationed as well: it is rationed on the ability to pay). I do think, however, that the scale that it would need to be implemented in the US is too large. Perhaps if it was done by state or region.
War on Terror: Let's just say it's a nice slogan, but what George Bush is doing is not eliminating terror.

2004-07-28T14:05:00.000+02:00

Thought I would add something from my personal journal here. I don't know what the future of this blog will be, I just don't have enough time to update very often. Anyway, I am posting this, and probably the only reading this so I am talking to myself, so that this blog doesn't get deleted or anything.

So this morning I was down taking the trash out at work and I saw something that sparked a memory of someone I am not sure I have mentioned here before. I saw a heavy nurse eating a hotdog. At nine in the morning. Now let me get the disclaimers out of the way before I go on. I have nothing against heavy people, primarily because I could stand to lose a pound or 30. And I certainly don't have a problem with anyone being overweight if they like themselves the way they are. For all I know, this woman is the most centered person in the world, so more power to her. What this did, though, is remind me of a person I used to work with back in the States.
We called her The Mustache. It was so descriptive of her, because she did in fact have a yucky black mustache, but also because she carried that ugliness into her personality as well (in fact, I describe her as ugly more because her personality was so offensive, even though she wasn't very physically attractive as well). She was just the most horrible person to work with. She never smiled, she always complained, and every conversation with her felt like you were destroying her life with your petty requests for her to, gasp, do her job.

Anyway, she was overweight. This was at a time where I had been about 40 pounds too heavy and had used a combination of dieting and massive amounts of time spent on my bicycle to get down to a pretty respectable 178 pounds. She was also trying to lose weight and constantly came over to talk to me about it. She gave me advice, advice she received from her personal trainer. Advice I didn't really need because I had lost the weight I wanted to lose and was back to eating sensibly and still exercising like mad (I found that if I rode my bike for 45 minutes a day through the week, I could eat most of what I wanted without gaining anything). But half the times that she came to me in the morning to waste my time and irritate me, she was eating a donut, or a Butterfinger (Mmmmmm....Butterfinger) or any other really bad for you food.
And that is what irritated me the most. I wanted to yell at her, "Hey! If you are so concerned about losing weight, how about laying off the donuts???" Basically, if you are going to complain about how heavy you are, and that you want to lose weight, it is hard to fathom why you are always eating fattening food. Right now, I am overweight again (fat, married and happy as the saying goes), and I eat plenty of bad food. But I don't complain about being fat. Well, only in the sense that I want to lose the weight but I haven't chosen to do anything about it yet. I know that, and thus I don't moan about being overweight.

Now I know that some people have a hard time losing weight and all that. But eating donuts is not gonna make you thinner, no matter genetics or psychology. And I know I shouldn't apologize for anything I think or write, but if you are heavy and were offended by any of this, fuck off. No, that was a joke. Seriously, I don't mean to offend anyone who is overweight. Just this woman who irritated me so. She can be offended all she wants. (and by the by, her sister also worked for the company, and she was really, really fat combined with really poor hygeine and the same aforementioned toxic personality. You can be really big and be plenty beautiful, but she wasn't at all.)

And this sort of reminded me of this girl in high school. She was heavy, and really shy and not very pretty and probably just wanted to be left alone or treated nicely. And to make matters even worse, once in class, for whatever reason, she peed her pants sitting at her desk. Of course, this was really amusing to 16 year old boys and she got mocked quite a bit for this (I have to say that I did no mocking to her face, but laughed inside at the same time that I felt really bad for her). And to make matters even worse, for her, was she had the biggest asshole sitting right behind her. he would poke her, flick her hair, kick her chair. It was terrible to watch, and I sat there and did nothing.

So this asshole is behind her. One day, he uses most of the class time to tie her shoelaces to the legs of her chair. She didn't notice until she stood up to leave in a hurry, like she always did, and fell flat on her face. And god help me, I laughed. Couldn't help it. The whole class laughed and I am sure she was absolutely humiliated.

And now I wonder whatever became of her. Hopefully she went on to be something really great. I hope she has a husband and kids, if that is what she wants. Or a great career. Either way, if I ever saw her again I would apologize for not doing something about that asshole. Or at least helping her up. And for the laughing. Sorry about that.

God, I hope my kids don't end up on either side of the kind of nasty shit that takes place in high school.

Zaphod

2004-05-11T11:29:00.000+02:00

Remember Memo-gate? Particularly the memo about Miguel Estrada and how he was "especially dangerous" because he was Latino. This brought charges from the right of racism on the part of Democrats. I don't want to get into that fight again (suffice to say that the way I read it, the Democrats thought he was "especially dangerous" because the Republicans would use his nomination precisely to force Democrats to oppose him and charge them with racism. Which is why the Democrats thought he was so dangerous; that opposing him would forever be linked to the fact that he was Latino, and not for the extremism of his views, according to them.). The charge was that the Democrats were opposing him because of his race. The Democrats countered that the Republicans were using his race to make him more difficult to oppose because they, the Republicans, would charge that this was based on his race alone.

The Democrats position on this leapt into my brain when I read this post by World O'Crap. It details a "spam" letter she received from NewsMax about supporting Vernon Robinson for Congress in North Carolina. And why should the readers of NewsMax support Mr. Robinson? Well, because he is black!

"Right now you and I have a wonderful opportunity to advance a cause we both believe in - stemming the tide of illegal immigration into this country, and returning our national immigration policy to some semblance of sanity.

"How can we do this? By helping a man named Vernon Robinson get elected to the Congress. Vernon Robinson is a very conservative black City Councilman from Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

[...]

"Think about it - if the only black Republican in Congress is an insistent supporter of immigration reform, it will become impossible for the Congressional leadership and the White House to keep putting the issue on the back burner. This is the opportunity we've been waiting for!"

So basically, you need to support Vernon Robinson because once a black guy speaks out on illegal immigration, it would become a major topic because why would anyone oppose a black congressman? You know, unless they are racist or something.

But the Republicans would never use race for political advantage, that's only something a Democrat would do.

If only the Democrats could have seen this coming...

2004-05-06T13:56:00.000+02:00

So I start a new blog and then don't update it at all. Mostly, I use it as a launching pad to other blogs while I am at work. But today I will do my lame impression of instapundit.com, i.e. link to a bunch of stuff and basically not comment on it. So here you go.

Gene Healey has a good article on Cato about the Jose Padilla case and the danger of giving the President discretionary power to hold a prisoner essentially forever.

My good friend Popeyechicken writes about the torture in Iraq that everyone and their brother has blogged about (except me). Just insert his view for mine.

Arthur Silber writes a post on the draft that I totally agree with. I don't always agree with Arthur, not being an objectivist/libertarian (at least not totally) but I find him, again and again, to be the most lucid and reasonable objectivist I have ever come across. If you aren't reading him often, you should be.

I just downloaded (gasp!) most of the new album from Ministry, Animositisomina For anyone who was a fan of industrial/punk in the late 80's, this is a welcome back!

Meanwhile, in my personal livejournal, I relate some much needed inventions for infants. Plus, dirty talk.

2004-03-19T13:33:00.000+01:00

Unfortunately, living in Norway means I don't have the kind of access to the cable news networks that you have in the States. Sure, we get CNN international and the BBC. And my satellite company recently added FoxNews, although the 6 hour time difference from east coast USA makes for difficulty in viewing the nightly display of propaganda. And hardly anyone get's CNBC (although more people than get MSNBC, which I am pretty sure is not carried anywhere in Norway).

It's too bad, too. I really miss watching the trainwreck that Dennis Miller's career is becoming. I used to really like that guy. Saw him live once, in the late 80's. I even bought his first book of rants. But based on the commentary I saw on Hannity and Milquetoast and from what I have read and seen on the net, he has really lost it. And this isn't a knee-jerk political assessment. He just isn't funny anymore. Limbaugh is funnier, and that is me climbing way out on my political limb, bacause I hate that guy.

Anyway, that all leads me to what South Knox Bubba had to say after watching Miller's "interview" of Eric Alterman. And see it for yourself here. It seems pretty obvious that not only has Dennis lost his funny bone, he is way out of his depth in political commentary and debate.

Too bad, he used to be good.

2004-03-16T15:57:00.000+01:00

Not that anyone is probably reading this at this point, but, uh, on to the next sentence. The purpose here is to provide a place for basically unedited political rumblings and comments about the news and other blogs. Unedited means off the top of my head, meaning that I am probably full of shit and absolutely wrong. I will correct myself if necessary (I strive to be factually correct, regardless of where that leads me politically).

I am what I like to call a left libertarian. I have definite libertarian leanings but have been a leftist in the past and still retain many of my lefty traits. I do tend to agree with liberals more than conservatives, although I think both have problems.

Posting will be sporadic and totally inconsistent (which are basically the same thing but I like both words). Trained and experienced (but not schooled) in marketing, advertising and computers, I currently live in Norway, where finding a job with no degree and little Norwegian work experience (I speak the language adequately at this point) has necessitated my taking a job as a porter at the hospital here (i.e. wheeling people around in beds, delivering supplies, taking bodies to the morgue, etc...) to feed my wife and two young daughters.

So that's the intro, as it were. Hopefully it will be less than a week before my next post (my job and home life provide less online time than any other period of my life). Links to my diary/journal sites are to your left.

Uh, ok then. See ya later.

2004-03-16T15:10:00.000+01:00

Testing, one two.

2004-03-16T13:45:00.000+01:00

Opening post. Unfortunately, I have no time right now. More to come.