Month: July 2007

07/14/2007

So I just got back from Denver, where I’d gone for the afternoon to (whee!) rebuild a couple of servers at BitRelay, my web hosting company. When I returned from the facility to my car, I saw a nickel on the pavement beside the door. Cool– even better than finding a penny.

But then I got into the car (thinking it was strange that the door wasn’t locked) and noticed that all of the change had been stolen! I have a little cup holder in my console where I keep about $30 worth of change– mostly for parking meters in Boulder and thereabouts. All of it, except a lone dime, was gone.

Looking around a bit, I noticed that both doors were unlocked, which never happens because I always keep the passenger one locked. I suspect what happened was a punk kid (or two?) used a hangar or long stick and reached through the one-inch gap where I’d opened the windows to keep the car cooler, and managed to pop the lock mechanism.

Bummer.

On the other hand, I can look at the positive side: they didn’t steal my wallet or credit cards, they didn’t jack the stereo or speakers, and nothing else was damaged. They snagged a handful of quarters and probably ran over to Arby’s for a nice juicy roast beef or something.

It’s too bad people are like that. Karma will catch them someday. In the meantime, I guess I’ll have to dig up another handful of quarters so I don’t get caught at a parking meter.

07/14/2007

When Rudy Guliani was mayor of New York City, he gave a speech and said this:

We look upon authority too often and focus over and over again as if there is something wrong with authority. We see only the oppressive side of authority. Maybe it comes out of our history and our background. What we don’t see is that freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.

I’m pretty sure I don’t want a leader who espouses those values.

07/02/2007

We just got back from our trip to Minnesota, which was a huge twine ball of fun.

One of the funny parts of the trip– at least for me– was the plethora of tourist stores hawking their goofy overpriced junk. A perfect example:

For some reason it cracked me up to see that you could buy a bag of rocks for five bucks. It was, in fact, a better deal than some other things you could pick up at these meccas of kitschy crap.

07/02/2007

The Decider strikes again.

Scooter Libby was tried by a jury of his peers and found guilty of obstruction of justice, then sentenced to two and a half years in the slammer. It seems justice had been done.

But then along comes Bush, waving his magic wand and commuting Libby’s sentence. No jail time for friends of the administration!

I respect the jury’s verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive.

Aha! Why do we even need these pesky juries and judges when The Decider can simply determine what’s right and fair? The rule of law has no weight any more.