Year: 2006

09/11/2006

To commemorate Patriot Day, I present a copy of a revised Terrorist Threat Level scale. It shows the number of fatalities in several different categories, beginning with the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. (One could argue whether or not this was a “terrorist” act in the sense that the current administration uses the word, but no matter.)

Yep, it’s clear we need to be concerned about being killed by terrorists. The irony, perhaps, is that as I write this I’m battling a stuffy nose. I see that dying from the flu is six times more likely than dying from a terrorist act. Hopefully I’ll recover okay.

09/10/2006

Laralee and I really enjoy playing Settlers of Catan, a strategy board game that involves commerce, planning, and a little bit of backstabbing. The only real bummer for us is it’s a three- or four-person game, so we can’t play as often as we’d like… we have to wait until we’re hanging out with friends who are willing to play.

I figured the kids are old enough now to grok a game like this, so today I sat down with them and explained it. Alex and Kyra took to it right away, and played surprisingly well. Kyra started out strong, and Alex took a little longer to get moving but was soon cruising as well. The game ends when someone hits ten points, and near the end it was 9-to-9-to-9, so we were fighting for that last point. Kyra ended up victorious, although I think Alex was going to win on his next turn.

So all in all it was a lot of fun, and both of them are excited to play again. Finally Laralee and I will be able to get our “Settlers fix”!

09/10/2006

Seen on Digg, in a discussion about how Bush is outright lying about torture being used on “certain detainees”:

I love this new spin term for torture: “alternative interrogation method”. That’s like calling beheadings “alternative medical procedures”.

It may seem funny, but at the same time it’s a sad commentary on how the President stands before our nation and says, “I’ve said to people we don’t torture. And we don’t.” Yet on the very same day, it’s announced that certain people who have been held as “enemy combatants” were most certainly tortured, and will soon be given the privilege of a trial without a jury, without fair legal representation, and without the opportunity to even see all of the evidence presented against them.

How long can this continue?

09/07/2006

Another month (August) has come and gone, and Baghdad has seen another 1,500 or so of its residents killed in the ongoing violence there. This is the third straight month that more than 1,500 civilians were killed. Do the math, and you’re looking at more than fifty people per day being slaughtered by their fellow countrymen. And that’s just one city in Iraq.

But I’m sure the Bush crowd has the situation under control. Civil war? Hah! They treat it like it’s a bunch of high school kids pulling nightly pranks or something.

Wake up.

09/05/2006

It’s not quite winning the lottery, but we’ve been chosen to be a Nielsen Family! Woo hoo! That means we’ll get to share with the friendly TV-loving folks at Nielsen our list of favorite television shows.

I can’t wait for the call. I get to tell them we don’t actually watch television at all. No mindless drivel, laced with irritating and far-too-frequent ads for us, no sir!

09/04/2006

Jon Swift has some outstanding proposals for how the federal government can rename certain departments in order to clarify their missions and purposes. I think we’d all agree that some of these names would really help people understand how their government is working for them.

Old Name: Defense Department
New Name: Victory Department
The Pentagon has been on the defensive a lot lately when it should be on the offensive. This new name will send the right message to defeatists.

Old Name: National Security Agency
New Name: National Patriot Agency
Let’s see how many people would dare risk being called unpatriotic by criticizing this agency now.

Old Name: State Department
New Name: Pre-War Department
I think this will send a message that there are other options on the table if diplomacy doesn’t work.

Old Name: White House Press Office
New Name: Ministry of Truth
This name would undercut those skeptical members of the liberal media and the reality-based community.

Old Name: Homeland Security
New Name: Ministry of Fear
“Homeland Security” has always sounded a bit too folksy and it gives people a false sense of safety when actually they should be terrified.

Old Name: FBI
New Name: The Untouchables
Remember when J Edgar Hoover and his G-men were free to fight crime and no one else in the government would dare lay a glove on them?

Old Name: CIA
New Name: ?
Wouldn’t a spy agency be more effective if no one knew its name? I think we should disband it and then revive it undercover with a secret name. If people really need to refer to it they can call it the Agency-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named or You-Know-Who.

Old Name: Energy Department
New Name: Oil Department
Americans need to face facts that we’re not going to find other sources of energy anytime soon. The sooner we realize that, the better.

Old Name: Department of the Interior
New Name: Department of the Exterior
The name of this department always confused me since National Parks are all outside.

Old Name: Department of Transportation
New Name: Department of Planes, Trains and Automobiles
I think this would be a nice tribute John Candy.

Old Name: NASA
New Name: Global Warming Debunking Agency
Let’s see how long global warming fear mongers like James Hansen will stick around at an agency with this name.

Old Name: Health and Human Services
New Name: Government Handout Department
I couldn’t think of anything more apt than this.

Old Name: Federal Election Commission
New Name: Federal Re-Election Commission
Since most incumbents are re-elected anyway this name would make the agency’s responsibilities a lot clearer.

09/04/2006

Remember “web rings”? They popped up in the early- and mid-1990’s and offered a way for people to find information related to a particular topic. For example, you might want to find several web sites related to Tolkien’s writing (yes, I often visited the Tolkien Ring), or wedding planning, or car repair, or any of a thousand other topics. The rings were terrific for the surfer because the sites were right there, all linked from a single page. They were also terrific for the people running the sites, because a lot of visitors came from the rings and thus it was a good way to drive traffic to a site that might otherwise be lost in the web.

However, as search engines came into their own, the need for rings dropped drastically. When I can go to Google and type “Tolkien” into the box, I get 31 million pages. Sure, not all of them may be relevant, so I’d narrow my search a bit, but the point is I can find what I need with a few words and clicks. There’s really no need to have rings any more, yet they persist. Strange. Maybe the owners of the ring sites are hanging on to an antiquated business model, hoping to convince site owners to pay them a nominal listing fee, or maybe the site owners themselves aren’t terribly educated about the search engines, and think they need to be part of a ring (or several) to get traffic.

Either way, it’s interesting. The web evolves– daily, almost– yet we still see things that were a good idea a decade ago but are largely useless today.

Now if I could just get my Gopher client working again… ahh, good times.

09/04/2006

In a speech today where he advocated that we reduce our dependence on oil (ha ha!), President Bush delivered this whopper of a line:

My message to the world is this: Just treat us as we treat you.

We’re in trouble if everyone else starts treating us as we’ve been treating them… eavesdropping, wading through bank accounts, invading, forcing an unworkable form of government on the people, and so on. Sigh.