"Dieu est grand, je suis toute petite" ("God Is Great, and I'm Not") was the only poor Audrey Tautou film I've seen so far. More of a typical French personal drama. I did really like "Amélie," "Diry Pretty Things," "Happenstance," and "He Loves Me... He Loves Me Not." The last is a must-see immediately after Amélie.
"BU uses T ads to promote benefits of biosafety lab," Boston Globe, 30-Sep-2004
So, the bioterrorism/bioweapons lab that Boston University wants to build in town is actually a "biosafety" lab. Nevertheless, all that ebola, anthrax, plague, and such would still look just great secured on a large plot of land out in the boonies — not in the densely residential Boston area.
Al Gore, "How to Debate George Bush," New York Times, 29-Sep-2004
James Fallows, "When George Meets John , Atlantic Monthly, July/August 2004
Sunday edition of the Boston Globe:
The Republican Party is attempting to convince Roman Catholics that Democratic nominee John F. Kerry is "wrong for Catholics" and at odds with his church. [...] Twenty-five percent of those expected to cast ballots for president Nov. 2 are Catholics, with even higher percentages in some battleground states such as Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire. A recent poll conducted by the Pew Research Center indicated that Bush leads Kerry among Catholics nationwide by a 7-percentage-point margin, [...]
—Michael Kranish,, "GOP urges Catholics to shun Kerry," Boston Globe, 26-Sep-2004
Coincidentally, I just unsubscribed from the Kerry email list, not because the campaign is too inept even to secure the bulk of the Catholic vote, but because they were simply sending too many annoying emails.
Brushes With Fame: In '95, I gave auto insurance advice to Joshua Micah Marshall!
We very much need exit polls here in the US in November.
Independent exit polls are one of the guarantors of democracy in countries emerging from or under authoritarian rule.
—Michael Barone, "Exit polls in Venezuela," US News & World Report, 20-Aug-2004
My workstation laptop hard drive had a sudden catastrophic failure, right after the local shop closed on Saturday evening. Most of the data was backed up in other places. Monday will probably be spent buying a new drive and rebuilding the configuration.
Requiem for a Dream was a good film, but not enjoyable.
The English Patient was good, of course.
I don't think they actually believe that:
Venture capitalists and other proponents of the offshore trend also downplay concerns about the loss of jobs, insisting that the work being sent to India — and increasingly to China, Canada, Ireland, Eastern Europe, and the Philippines — is low-level. Americans will get better jobs, they say, if companies are able to save money on the "grunt work." At IMlogic, Shah said, "There is wall painting and then the artists. The wall painting might be outsourced to India." Kenneth P. Morse, senior lecturer at the MIT's Sloan School of Management and managing director of the school's Entrepreneurship Center, said, "I think this means less software drudgery and more really cool software jobs."
—Beth Healy, "High-tech start-ups feel push to outsource," Boston Globe, 23-Sep-2004
Mary-Beth Cahill, I find this morning's email disconcerting in multiple ways:
Election Day is several weeks away, but our campaign is already considering our options should John Kerry or George Bush pursue a recount like the famous Florida ballot dispute in 2000. That year, the Bush campaign raised more than $14 million in the Florida crisis, compared to Al Gore's campaign, which raised $3.2 million. We can never again be outspent 4-to-1 in such a critical situation. Help us get a head start funding our recount efforts: https://contribute.johnkerry.com/gelac.html?team=4608
SoyBoy Smoked Tofu is especially good if you're trying to avoid cheese. Though it doesn't come close to a decent smoked gouda.
Yahoo is hiring a pile of HCI people. Guess they aren't about to roll over for Google.
Among the seventy-four members of the "113-person Nader 2000 Citizens Committee" who've signed a statement urging support for Kerry/Edwards in all swing states this year are: Phil Donahue, Jim Hightower, Susan Sarandon, Noam Chomsky, Barbara Ehrenreich, Howard Zinn and Cornel West. Indeed, Nader is without a single high-profile supporter anywhere this time around. And he has added to his list of enemies what he terms the "liberal intelligentsia": those he defines as concerned with his issues but willing to accept "the least worst option."
—Eric Alterman, "Bush's Useful Idiot," The Nation, 16-Sep-2004
One Nader supporter told me that she'd rather have Bush than Kerry win, since she felt a Kerry victory would make citizens too complacent. In many circumstances, I'd agree with that general position. However, I think that another four years of the Bush administration would likely cause irreparable damage to the country, putting it in self-feeding state of illness that "not even Nader" could pull us out of. I'd expect to see increasing militant nationalism, poverty, class conflict, religious fundamentalism, right-leaning judiciary, police state infrastructure, media control, subverted elections, environmental damage. I don't think people will be able to rise up against that, much less reverse it. More likely, citizens' unrest would be turned against their fellow citizens.
A classified National Intelligence Estimate prepared for President Bush in late July spells out a dark assessment of prospects for Iraq, government officials said Wednesday. The estimate outlines three possibilities for Iraq through the end of 2005, with the worst case being developments that could lead to civil war, the officials said. The most favorable outcome described is an Iraq whose stability would remain tenuous in political, economic and security terms.
—Douglas Jehr, "U.S. Intelligence Shows Pessimism on Iraq's Future," New York Times, 16-Sep-2004
In the 26th Middlesex District, which includes parts of Cambridge and Somerville, Representative Timothy J. Toomey narrowly defeated challenger Avi Green, a 30-year-old graduate of Harvard's Kennedy School.
—Scott S. Greenberger, "Cabral triumphs in sheriff's race," Boston Globe, 15-Sep-2004
Vote today. It's easy. Cambridge was nice enough to let me switch to Democrat at the polling location, since I was registered as Undecided. At my location, there were five people holding Toomey signs (four of whom appeared around 50 years old), and one guy holding an Avi Green sign (30).
Greg Mitchell, "Three Years After 9/11: More than 40% of Americans Still Think Saddam Did It," Editor & Publisher, 10-Sep-2004
Thomas Starr, "A thousand lives," Boston Globe, 14-Sep-2004
Ben Barnes on getting Bush into the National Guard (sadly, I don't seem to have an open-source QuickTime audio codec for this)
The vote by Log Cabin's 25 member national board marks the first time since the organization opened a national office in Washington, DC in 1993 that the organization has not endorsed the Republican nominee for President.
—"Log Cabin Republicans Vote to Withhold Endorsement from President Bush," 8-Sep-2004
Massachusetts residents: primaries are tomorrow. I've requested some groups' endorsements; will post here if I hear back in time. In any case, if you don't know your polling location, see WhereDoIVoteMA.com. See also the 2004 State Primary Candidates lists (which unfortunately are horrendous PDF-packaged bad scans, rather than HTML).
Here's MassEquality's primary endorsements. I believe the endorsement of Tim Toomey was controversial in gay-rights circles. Toomey's challenger, Avi Green, appears more progressive, but incumbent Toomey had been helpful. I already promised my vote to Green, since Thomas Finneran needs to go, and dismantling or punishing Finneran's supporters seemed like a good step at the time.
Read this article on absentee ballot fraud:
As both major political parties intensify their efforts to promote absentee balloting as a way to lock up votes in the presidential race, election officials say they are struggling to cope with an array of coercive tactics and fraudulent vote-gathering involving absentee ballots that have undermined local races across the country.
—Michael Moss, "Absentee Votes Worry Officials as Nov. 2 Nears," New York Times, 13-Sep-2004
I don't see any adequate safeguards or countermeasures when, as in Florida 2000, corruption seems to go right to the top.
The Archdiocese of Boston continues to pay the price for decades of harboring pedophile priests:
Less than a year after it paid $85 million to settle 541 sexual-abuse claims, the Archdiocese of Boston is facing at least 140 new claims [...]
—Kevin Cullen, "Diocese faces new claims of sex abuse," Boston Globe, 12-Sep-2004
Among the new tools is Reggie the Registration Rig - a hokey, but apparently effective mobile registration operation, which goes to places like NASCAR events, signing up all those NASCAR dads we've heard so much about this season.
—Rachelle Cohen, "GOP must be mammoth at grassroots," Boston Herald, 6-Sep-2004
Would the Democrats win the hearts and minds of these Nascar dads, were the Dem's own bigger, badder, FIRE-breathing, STEEL-CHOMPING registration rig, THE DEM-ASTATOR, to defeat Reggie the wimp wagon in a MONSTER TRUCK BLOWOUT, I wonder.
One reason I avoid the Boston Herald was given on 18-Mar-2004.
Palast bangs on ChoicePoint some more: Greg Palast ,"Don't look at the flash!: Ground Zero as Profit Center," GregPalast.com, 8-Sep-2004
Matthew Flatt added extensible printing to MzScheme 299.16, so I rewrote the C enum support in PGmz and ported from 207:
> (require (lib "pgmz.ss" "pgmz")) > (pg-status (pg-connectdb "dbname = template1")) *DEBUG* pg-connectdb: PQstatus()=3 poll_status=2 *DEBUG* Entered: pgmz_fd_ready(9, 0, 1) *DEBUG* pg-connectdb: PQstatus()=4 poll_status=1 *DEBUG* Entered: pgmz_fd_ready(9, 1, 0) *DEBUG* Entered: pgmz_fd_ready(9, 1, 0) *DEBUG* Entered: pgmz_fd_needswakeup(9, ..., 1, 0) *DEBUG* Entered: pgmz_fd_ready(9, 1, 0) *DEBUG* pg-connectdb: PQstatus()=0 poll_status=3 #<pg-conn-status:ok>
The debug messages show that PGmz is doing pg-connectdb
in a friendly way.
On July 30, 1973, shortly before he moved from Houston to Cambridge, Bush signed a document that declared, "It is my responsibility to locate and be assigned to another Reserve forces unit or mobilization augmentation position. If I fail to do so, I am subject to involuntary order to active duty for up to 24 months..."
—Walter V. Robinson, et al., "Bush fell short on duty at Guard," Boston Globe, 8-Sep-2004
It just so happens that, due to the high turnover rate in Iraq, we have an active duty position available for Mr. Bush right now.
Strange error in this important opinion piece shouldn't have gotten past an editor:
However, our dream of self-rule evaporated when Boris Yeltsin invaded our country with a force of 300,000 Russian soldiers on Dec. 11, 2003.
—Khassan Baiev, "'I fear for the future of Chechnya'," Boston Globe, 9-Sep-2004
US military deaths in the Iraq campaign passed the 1,000 mark yesterday, with more than 800 of them during the stubborn insurgency that flared after the Americans brought down Saddam Hussein and President Bush declared major combat over.
—Hamza Hendawi, "Military toll tops 1,000," AP via Boston Globe, 8-Sep-2004
The number 1,000 doesn't include the thousands more US soldiers physically and psychologically wounded in Iraq, nor (by some accounts) over 10,000 Iraqi civilians killed in the military campaign.
Amanda Griscom, "My Interview With Andre," Grist, 7-Sep-2004
"Seminal School-Portrait Photographer Dies At 92," Onion, 8-Sep-2004
Paul Krugman, "A Mythic Reality," New York Times, 7-Sep-2004
War is an abstraction in the American imagination. It lives there, cloaked in glory, as an emblem of patriotism. We show our love for our country by sending our troops abroad and then "supporting" them, no matter what. [...] Thinking of ourselves as only motivated by good intentions, we cannot fathom the possibility that we have demonized an innocent people, that what we are doing is murder on a vast scale. [...] The war, meanwhile, answers the Bush administration's need to justify an unprecedented repressiveness in the "homeland," and simultaneously prompts widespread docile submission to the new martial law. But more deeply still, by understanding ourselves as a people at war, we Americans find exemption from the duty to face the grotesque shame of what we are doing in the world.
—James Carroll, "The unwinnable war," Boston Globe, 7-Sep-2004
Avi Green stopped by, door-to-door campaigning. I've heard good things about him from a few people. If you live in Middlesex District 26, you can vote for him. The state primaries are in a week, Tuesday, 14-Sep.
Avi Green is challenging incumbent Tim Toomey, who has a more impressive Web site. On close inspection, however, Toomey's site is outdated in parts. For one example, the site's discussion of transportation issues says, "When completed in 2003, Cambridge Street will..." referring to a project that actually is still not completed.
If you want to read many suspicious letters to the editor, search the Cambridge Chronicle for "green toomey". Do people knowingly write like shills?
It's changing. And I'll tell you the way it's going to be: we're going to hear that a woman had a love affair with a frog. The producers are going to come to me and say: "Barbara, this woman had a love affair with a frog. Diane Sawyer already has the woman lined up. Do you want to do the frog?" And I will say, "O.K., but only if I can get the frog and his mother." And they'll say: "But the frog wants an hour. And before you do the frog, the frog is going to do `Oprah.' O.K.?"
—Barbara Walters, interview by Virginia Heffernan, "Barbara Walters: The Exit Interview," New York Times, 5-Sep-2004
When a nation's leader speaks of a divine calling to invade others, bad things tend to happen.
Bush also placed [the invasion of Iraq] within the context of an even grander mission. "America," he proclaimed from that altar-like podium, "is called to lead the cause of freedom in the new century....Freedom is not America's gift to the world. It is the Almighty God's gift." (Minutes earlier, New York Governor George Pataki described Bush as the Supreme Being's gift to the United States: "He is one of those men God and fate somehow lead to the fore in times of challenge.") [...] "This young century," he declared, "will be liberty's century. By promoting liberty abroad we will build a safer world....We have a calling from beyond the stars."
—David Corn, "Bush: It's About Me and My Crusade," The Nation site, 3-Sep-2004
The Catholic church, which historically has sometimes supported (or turned a blind eye towards) war and genocide in the name of God — and later seen the errors of those dark times — has spoken out against Bush's determination to invade Iraq.
If the American people have any collective intelligence and moral integrity at all, we will force the militant extremist Bush administration out of office in November. Talk with and mobilize your friends and communities to vote for Kerry. The Republicans are mobilizing massive numbers of evangelical voters who know not what they do. Outvote them, and rescue our country from its insane Bush-led moral descent.
There's something spooky about the state locking people up and compelling them to undergo religious indoctrination:
In mid-April, [Florida Governor Jeb Bush] opened a second faith-based prison: the Hillsborough Correctional Institution in Tampa, which will house some 300 women. According to [Americans United for Separation of Church & State's] Jeremy Leaming, "Although all faiths will reportedly be allowed to offer religious instruction and other services at the faith-based prisons, most of the programs are expected to be Christian. The Hillsborough set-up mirrors Lawtey's, where religious instruction and exercises are the tools used to reform, rehabilitate and, no doubt, convert as many inmates as possible." Leaming reported that "A spokeswoman for Bush said Hillsborough promises to provide `an environment that allows and encourages personal growth, self-reflection and character development.'"
—Bill Berkowitz, "Prisons, profits and prophets," WorkingForChange.com, 2-Sep-2004
One of the main reasons I criticized IndyMedia (with inappropriate rudeness, I admit) on 12-Jul-2004 is that cross-site tracking can obviate the requirement to obtain subpoenas in many cases, circumventing this kind of oversight and watchdogging: "ACLU Criticizes Secret Service Investigation of News Website That Posted RNC Delegates' Names," ACLU press release, 30-Aug-2004.
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