Gary Trudeau is giving all proceeds from The Long Road Home (the story of B.D. getting wounded in Iraq and his homecoming) to the Fisher House Foundation which helps the families of wounded soldiers. Good going, Gary.
| Comics | Military | Charity | Social Enterprise |
"As I understand it, a fly's lifespan is less than a week, so a natural death may soon occur."
-- Fly on the wall has firm's e-mail abuzz for four hours
| KPMG | Animals | Insects | Flies | Your Blank of the Day |
"The reason that the US secretary of state attacks Iran is because she had her heart broken by a young man from Qazvin while they were students."
-- Unhappy love affair explains Rice stance on Iran: MP
| Dating | Condoleeza Rice | Your Blank of the Day |
Actually, I liked this better than Ocean's Eleven. Whereas O11 had a good con plot, but sort of annoying characters, O12 dispenses with any semblance of sense, and instead just lets everyone have fun and riff. And guess what: Matt Damon is not actively annoying, but kind of funny! 3.5 stars.
A fairy tale of 1940s Brooklyn, the friendship that springs up between an altar boy and a rabbi, the moral choices of the street, and Jackie Robinson.
| Pete Hamill |
Bizarre. Someone leaves a post entitled "i am lonely will someone please speak to me" on a bulletin board about... Movie Codecs? Others who search for "i am lonely" on Google find the thread. And thus, a community is born. 75 pages and counting.
All the lonely people, where do they all belong? On www.moviecodec.com!
From boing boing.
| Online Communities |
In July 2002, Bush Illegally Shifted $700 Million to Begin War on Iraq
Woodward said he found that the administration quietly shifted money around to pay for early preparations for war in Iraq, without the approval of Congress. He said those preparations included building landing strips and addressing other military needs in Kuwait.The money, about $700 million, was taken in July 2002 from a budget item that had been approved for the war in Afghanistan, Woodward wrote.
"Some people are going to look at that document called the Constitution, which says that no money will be drawn from the Treasury unless appropriated by Congress," Woodward says in his CBS interview.
Found (a while ago) on Eschaton.
| War | George W. Bush | Constitution |
I'm toying with the idea of switching Ishbadiddle over to WordPress. Toying, as in "have done no research on feasability of said move." But I'm getting tired of the commenting CAPTCHA being half-broken. Anyone out there have thoughts on the matter?
| Movable Type |
A story of faith, redemption, and free dessert.
| Essays | Catholicism |
I suppose by now you've heard Karl Rove's latest -- that "Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers."
Hillary and Chuck demand an apology. You should, too. If you're a New Yorker, call Bloomberg and Pataki and demand that they repudiate Rove's comments. Mayor Mike has tried to walk the line between his party and his constituents, most of whom were just roundly slandered by Mr. Rove. Not in NYC? Represented by a Republican? ask them to repudiate Rove's comments.
Shameless.
| 9/11 | GOP | Mike Bloomberg | New York City | George Pataki |
Cool Tools pointed me to the St. Clair signbuilder, which enables you to make PDFs of ANSI Z535 compliant warning signs. (Whatever that means.) I couldn't resist making a few for political purposes, and/or for use on blogs. Download and enjoy.
| Web Tools |
Oh, sure. Today, putting out fires. Tomorrow, enslaving the human race. I, for one...
| Japan |
Terrorist Flypaper or Terrorist Training Ground?. Via Frank's RNWA.
| War on Terror |
We saw Hecuba, with Vanessa Redgrave in the title role, at BAM last night. It's only up until the 26th, see it if you can. Although these tragedies, they're kind of a downer.
|
Forbes has a piece on how much it would cost to be Batman:
The Bottom LineFinal Cost: $3,365,449
The Training: $30,000
The Suit: $1,585
The Belt: $290
The Car: $2,000,000
The Cave: $24,000
The Alter Ego: $1,109,574
The Butler: $200,000
C'mon, guys. You're Forbes, you should know better. You've mixed one-time capital expenses with recurring cash outlays! Which is fine if you were only going to be Batman for one year, but who would build a $2M Batmobile, go through the training, etc., just to fight crime for one year? Get me a PV on being Batman, then we can talk about the economics of being a superhero.
(Article via The Morning News.)
| Economics | Superheroes | Comics | Forbes |
Patrick writes:
According to a website I frequent today is the birthday of Alan Turing, Alfred Kinsey, and is Midsummer’s Night, which is the traditional night in Sweden for women to get pregnant. In honor of these things I thought it would be great to have National Sexual Perversion Day. When I googled "Perversion Day" to see if anyone else had this idea I found that several Christian website were using the term to describe various "Gay Pride" days. Let's start a movement to declare June 23rd Sexual Perversion Day, so that the ChriRight (a word I just invented) won't use it anymore!
| Holidays | Sex | Guest: Patrick |
Get it?
Man, torture is so funny. Thanks, Chris Muir, for lightening up what's really a downer of an issue. Abu Ghraib -- it's really just like a fraternity prank! Gitmo -- it's like a cocktail party!
Torture.
Let's be clear what we're talking about here. I have no doubt that what goes on in the prisons run by the U.S. military is kind, compared to those of our enemies, both current and historical. I also have no doubt that Messrs. Muir and Limbaugh would not particularly enjoy being subjected to the tactics they mock so well.
The question isn't, are we better than our enemies? (Thank you, Senator Durbin, for demonstrating Godwin's Law on the Senate floor). The question is, do the ends justify the means?
| Torture | Guantanamo | Abu Ghraib | History | Military | WWII |
DOTWHO judge Maura Moynihan fact-checks Ed Klein's ass:
Ed Klein, author of the book in question, The Truth About Hillary, alleges that New York’s late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan "despised" Mrs. Clinton, that he once hid in a cloakroom to terminate a conversation with her. Nonsense. I think I know Senator Moynihan better than Mr. Klein, because he was my father. Mr. Klein also claims firsthand knowledge of a meeting between my parents and Mrs. Clinton that took place in their apartment in Washington. It was during this meeting that Mrs. Clinton, then the nation’s First Lady, discussed the idea of running for the seat my father was about to vacate.Mr. Klein puts quotes around statements that were never uttered. I can confirm this because the only other persons present during this meeting were myself and our Tibetan cook, who speaks about 10 words of English. Mr. Klein has now gone on the record to say that he spent "several hours interviewing Mrs. Moynihan." Puzzling indeed, in that Mrs. Moynihan—my mother—hasn’t seen Mr. Klein in over 20 years. I’d like to see the transcripts or hear the tapes of his on-the-record talks with Mrs. Moynihan. And it would have been difficult for him to interview Senator Moynihan, because he’s dead.
As they say on teh internets, PWNED! (Look it up, old guys.) Not that this'll make any difference to the Hillary haters.
| Daniel Moynihan | Maura Moynihan | Ed Klein | Vast Right-wing Conspiracy | Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them |
Looking for a new job? How about stepping into the shoes of a certain Victorian era detective?
Applicants should be at least 6' tall, slim, well spoken, with an outgoing and friendly personality. The job would suit a student looking for extra money.
There is the option to work part-time or full-time. The pay is £8.00 per hour and the museum is open from 9.30am - 6pm every day.
Please email your CV as a Word document attachment + JPG PHOTO attachment. We regret that body piercings are not permitted as they would not be in period. Please state your height, when you can start work, and the days of the week you can work (we are open every day except Christmas day!)
| Arthur Conan Doyle | Employment | Improvisation |
For a long time, the idea that the federal government would slash spending for PBS/NPR has just been an urban legend. No more!
House appropriators have proposed more than $220 million in crippling funding cuts for public broadcasting in the new fiscal year. Proposed funding cuts as severe as these – representing 45% of federal financial support – are nothing less than a direct attack on the future of public television and radio. The proposed cuts constitute at least malicious wounding, if not the outright attempted murder of public broadcasting in America. [cite]
Now I'm not sure that we would have public funding for NPR/PBS in an ideal world, but that's not what this is about. This is an administration that has no problems subsidizing big corporations and faith based NGOs. This isn't about principle, it's about throwing the conservatives a bone since they hate the content that public broadcasting produces. This is a plebiscite on the programming of public broadcasting, programming most of us appreciate even more now that the commercial broadcasters have lost their cohones with respect to news coverage and the networks have given up any pretense at producing children's educational programming.
The simplest thing to do is to sign MoveOn's petition. They have over 870,000 signatures, and are trying to get a record one million in a week. If you're feeling ambitious, contact your representatives directly to bring the point home. But take a stand in the culture war, please!
I'm skeptical about the ability of any system to help me fix this. Even the basics -- make to do lists, break down projects into smaller pieces, prioritize, delegate -- are things that I know how to do, and know I should do, but I can't actually bring myself to do. And yes, I know, I've managed to get a couple of Ivy League degrees, have a family, a moderately successful career, and of course a blog, so how bad could it be, right? Well, sometimes it can be pretty bad. It's not that I want to be 100% productive. I just want to get things done without so much angst, anxiety, and adrenalin involved.
So it may surprise you -- it certainly surprised me -- to learn that I bought an actual self-help book.
Continue reading "The Anxiety of Getting Things Done" »
posted this | this entry's link
| 42 comments
Categorized:
Community, Featured Posts
See also: Time Management | GTD | How To | Productivity | Organization |
I just finished reading Freakonomics, by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, which is all about economic incentives and how they play out in such diverse fields as sumo wrestling, real estate, and the naming of children. Along the way the book considers such questions as "Why Crack Dealers Live With Their Moms" and "What Parents Do That Really Matter". It's a good read, and if you like their new column in the Times magazine (and how can you not like a column that includes gems like "Chen has taken steps to ensure that future monkey sex at Yale occurs as nature intended it"), definitely worth picking up. Even if you hated econ class like I did.
Today's Wall Street Journal has an article that is ripe for the Freakonomics treatment: When Players Don't Pay, which examines the practice of fining sports players for misconduct:
Steve Patterson, president of the Trail Blazers, says the point of fines is to deter misconduct, not collect cash. "I don't think anybody is interested in seeing athletes who are making millions of dollars turn over money to owners who are worth billions of dollars."In the world of pro-athlete punishment, the true price of misbehavior is often negotiable and not paid in full. Unbeknownst to most fans, the fines and suspensions that leagues and teams loudly announce -- for transgressions ranging from starting a brawl to wearing a baggy uniform -- are regularly reduced or forgiven altogether. "Usually, a player only pays a portion of the fine," says attorney Jeffrey Kessler, lead lawyer for the NBA and National Football League players' unions. Leagues and teams "may make a deal to give back half the money, sometimes less, sometimes more," he says.
If you make a million dollars a year, a $10,000 fine isn't much of a disincentive -- even less so if there's a strong possibliity that you won't have to pay it, or you'll have to make much less. Remember John Rocker? His $20,000 fine turned into a $500 fine. The craziest incentive system has to be NASCAR, where the fines are all pooled and the top 25 racers get to split them.
What kind of disincentives would really work? Howzabout this: All fines in a given sport are pooled. At the end of the season, the worst performing team gets the pot, to be used for recruiting of new players.
Or just give the fines to fund tickets for needy kids. That way, when players weasel out of 'em, it comes with a healthy dollop of shame.
| Economics |
Or your TiVo or JayVo or whatever you kids are using these days. A couple of years ago, we were flipping around the TV and heard Rosie Perez say the words "Greg Pak." After making sure neither of us were hallucinating, we kept watching; she was introducing Greg's film Mouse on Reel New York, the PBS short-film show. (Yikes, that was in 1998!) Well, Greg's on it again tonight:
"Super Power Blues" on Reel New York tonight"Super Power Blues," a short film directed by Greg Pak, produced by Karin Chien, and starring Sakura Sugihara and Brian Nishii, screens tonight on public television in New York City as part of the shorts anthology series Reel New York.
Reel New York
Friday, June 17
10 pm
WNET, Channel 13 in New York CityThe film tells the story of a superheroine who has to save the world day after day -- when all she really wants to do is sleep with her boyfriend.
I haven't seen this one yet, so I'll be sure to use my antiquated analog machine with the moving parts to capture this broadcast.
Oh, and in case you missed it, there's a new Pak comic title out: Marvel Nemesis: The Imperfects. I've picked up the first ish and it's pretty good, especially a hilarious section with The Thing being sassed by a bunch of kids. #2 is out, guess I'll have to stop by the comics store sometime soon...
| Superheroes | Comics |
Is the Downing Street Memo finally getting some political traction?
The president “may have deliberately deceived the United States to get us into a war,” Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said. “Was the president of the United States a fool or a knave?”...
“Quite frankly, evidence that appears to be building up points to whether or not the president has deliberately misled Congress to make the most important decision a president has to make, going to war,” Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, senior Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, said earlier at the event on Capitol Hill.
Misleading Congress is an impeachable offense, a point that Rangel underscored by saying he’s already been through two impeachments, of President Nixon in Watergate and President Clinton for an affair with a White House intern.
| War | George W. Bush | Downing Street Memo | Impeachment | Law |
What Korean kids think of Japan.
(It's all about the disupted territory of the Liancourt Rocks.) Via URLDJ.
| Korea | Japan |
Which TV dads made more money?
Answers at CNN/Money: TV Dad Salaries (in 2005 dollars!), or below the fold. I've hidden the text, just select with your mouse.
Continue reading "Pop quiz!" » |
Following up on the CunningScam post of a couple days ago:
A defense contractor whose real estate dealings with Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham have raised ethical questions has another connection to Cunningham: He owns a boat docked at a Washington yacht club ---- a boat on which Cunningham stays while working in the Capitol.-- "Yacht owned by defense contractor docked at Cunningham's slip"
The best part of this? The boat is actually named for the Congressman: The "Duke Stir". So not only has MZM given Rep. Cunningham a very, very friendly price on his California home, they also let him stay on a yacht in D.C. that's named after him. TPM has the story.
Come on, guys. A yacht? Can you be a bit less stereotypical here? Let's have some imagination, people!
| Bribery | Randy "Duke" Cunningham |
From a comment at Thudfactor's blog I surfed over to the blog "Church and State 101", where I found this argument:
Well, we have bad news for the neo-Darwinian crowd: You folks CANNOT HAVE IT BOTH WAYS. Either man really was and is created in God's image, so that slavery is wrong and owning animals is yet fine -- OR ELSE -- man is a mere animal with no ethically-relevant difference from giraffes, zebras and pigs, since he does not bear God's image. But this would affirm slavery in principle, by breaking down the barrier between man and beast -- even if no honest neo-Darwinians come forward to admit the truth.
So if you believe in evolution, you don't believe that man was made in G_d's image, that we're just another kind of animal. But since it's OK to own animals, it must be OK to own humans! So if you believe in evolution, you support slavery, QED.
Never mind that Chas. himself abhorred slavery.
Why do I get drawn into arguing with these people?
| Evolution | Slavery | Creationism | Religion |
I just wanted to post a "Michael Jackson has been acquitted" article without the seemingly inevitable "Beat It" pun.
Actually, there is a point to this post, and that's to point to this randomWalks post that points out that 2,200 journalists were assigned to cover the Jackson case. Compared with 800 embedded reporters in Iraq.
No wonder.
| War | Journalism | Terror Entertainment Complex |
So here are the facts:
1. California Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham sold his house in Del Mar for $1.675 million. There was no listing.
2. The $1.675 million asking price was based on an estimate of local comparable houses. That estimate was prepared by Elizabeth Todd, a major campaign contributor to Rep. Cunningham.
3. The buyer was Mitchell Wade, a military contractor. (The contractor, MZM, Inc., did not buy the house directly -- MZM set up an LLC to purchase the house.)
4. Wade/MZM immediately put the house up for sale, at the same price as they bought it from Cunningham. There were no buyers.
5. After sitting on the market for 8 months, Wade sold the house at a $700,000 loss.
6. MZM is a campaign contributor to Cunningham, giving him $13,000 in the 2004 campaign.
7. MZM also benefited from Cunningham's support. "Cunningham, a member of the House defense appropriations subcommittee, which sets Pentagon outlays, acknowledges lending his support to Pentagon programs that benefited MZM. In particular, the congressman backed a top-secret program in human intelligence gathering that MZM profited from."
As Henry David Thoreau said, "some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk."
Cunningham's response to all this? Why, invoke the Chewbacca Defense, of course!
In an interview Wednesday, Cunningham conceded that the circumstances surrounding the transaction could raise "fair" questions, but he insisted that the real estate deal was legitimate and independent of his efforts to help Wade win contracts.-- "Cunningham defends deal with defense firm's owner". Emphasis added."My whole life I've lived aboveboard," Cunningham said. "I've never even smoked a marijuana cigarette. I don't cheat. If a contractor buys me lunch and we meet a second time, I buy the lunch. My whole life has been aboveboard and so this doesn't worry me."
Later, he added, "The last thing I would do is get involved in something that, you know, is wrong. And I feel very confident that I haven't done anything wrong."
Because you know, I may have apparently accepted a $700K bribe, laundered through a real estate transaction, to influence the spending of military contracts -- but I'm not a pot smoker!
(His son, on the other hand...)
Talking Points Memo also has the story.
| Bribery | Randy "Duke" Cunningham |
Christian Coalition: Gays Should Wear Warning Labels
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
(New York City) The leader of a conservative Christian lobby group says that gays should be required to wear warning labels.
"We put warning labels on cigarette packs because we know that smoking takes one to two years off the average life span, yet we 'celebrate' a lifestyle that we know spreads every kind of sexually transmitted disease and takes at least 20 years off the average life span according to the 2005 issue of the revered scientific journal Psychological Reports," said Rev. Bill Banuchi, executive director of the New York Christian Coalition.
The journal regularly publishes articles described by many mainstream psychologists as misleading and faulty. The homosexuality morbidity study was conducted by the conservative anti-gay Family Research Institute.
______
Thank God (or whomever) that the New York Christian Coalition doesn't speak for all Christians.
| Homosexuality | Nazis |
Remember email appliances? Well, I find myself actually in the situation that I’d like to get one for my grandparents. Trouble is, all those email appliances seem to have tiny screens. My grandparents, being old, don’t have such great eyesight, making me skeptical of the utility of an LED screen the size of those old hybrid typewriters. Anyone have any ideas?
I considered a laptop that could be locked down to make it effectively an email appliance, but that’s a chunk of change for the functionality. Oh yeah, and space is a premium, or I’d consider doing the same with one of the spare, if old, desktop towers we have around my office.
Movielens, the UMN collaborative filtering site, has finally fixed its publishing system, so that it can show more than 50 movies at a time on a page. Therefore I am proud to bring you my list of all the movies I've rated, broken out by genre. Note that they don't have all the movies ever made in their system, so this isn't a list of everything I've ever seen, but there's plenty here to peruse:
Also, a few other lists:
Before you go howling "you only gave Title three stars!?!" let me explain how I approached these ratings. Three stars is good. I like three star movies.
5.0 stars: Wow. A movie that stays with you, a movie you can watch again and again and again. Transcendent.
4.5 stars: A great, great movie.
4.0 stars: A must-see movie, among the best of its genre.
3.5 stars: An entertaining movie that's a cut above.
3.0 stars: A solidly likable and entertaining movie.
2.5 stars: Pretty good movie, but somehow fails to deliver on its promise.
2.0 stars: Disappointing. Not worth the time, effort or money to watch, let alone make.
1.5 stars: A pretty bad movie, but there's at least one good thing about it -- a good line, a cameo, something. Don't bother watching it, though.
1.0 star: This movie is actively bad. There is absolutely nothing to recommend it. You will want your 90 minutes back.
0.5 star: Every available copy of this movie should be burned, the remains ejected into space on a collision course with a black hole.
The idea is to have something approximating a bell curve, even though ratings systems like this will tend to be top-heavy, since you're more likely to see movies that you think you're going to actually like. I don't come out too badly on this:
Ratings ProfileThis chart shows your overall ratings profile. | ||||||||||
| ||||||||||