I spent a great evening drinking beer and talking to Stoner and Snowflake. Heard a lot of interesting things about my neighbors:

There's one guy that was almost kicked out because he pushed a kindergartener off his bike and stole it. He was given a second chance.

The guy across the hall has absolutely nothing in his apartment except a bed. The bed has no sheets.

The only thing stopping everyone in the apartment complex from beating up on the guy in the room without the bed is that they are all on probation for past offenses. Except Snowflake.

The guy before the guy who live in my apartment before me was a narc who rented the place looking for drug use. He was discovered and kicked out. This has apparently happened twice.

One guy down the row from me thinks that he is a maintenance man, but he isn't. He's apparently pretty harmless, but I've been told not to let him in my room under any circumstances.

As near as I can tell, I am the only person here that is not getting food stamps.

Stoner's grandfather is an old-time country musician that I've heard of. The only thing I remember hearing about him is that he was a hard core drug addict.

Everyone here is one big happy family. The landlord apparently regularly loans out money to tenants. The managers are letting snowflake use the office computer so that she can learn how to type. Everybody owes everybody else money and no one is worried about it.
Snowflake is the only tenant she is aware of that has actually lasted more than a single six-month lease here. She's moving out in September. Stoner is moving out in August when his lease is up.

I really like my neighbors.

I was driving around and I took a wrong turn. Next thing I know I see a sign that says "Entering Virginia." Didn't say "City of" or "County of."

I must have really taken a wrong turn...

Apparently, the famous "Bill Gates will give you a zillion dollars if you email this to 10 people" hoax was accidentally started by a former University of Houston student:

Jonathon Keats at Wired Magazine decided to track down the origin of the Bill Gates e-mail tracking hoax. After a few dead ends he finally located then-student Bryan Mack, who created the hoax on November 18, 1997 while at the University of Houston. In Mack's own words: 'It was just a joke between a couple friends' that eventually got out of hand. One of his buddies had gotten a make-money-fast spam and Mack said 'I can come up with something better than that.' Three minutes later, Bill Gates' email-tracing program was born. At first he just sent it to a few friends, but those friends sent it to other friends (and so on), and it didn't take long for the e-mail to transform from a joke to a full-fledged hoax."

Here's the Wired story.

That hoax never bothered me. The one that bothered me was the email tax. I swear that every week at UFC some new coworker would tell me about it. I'd tell them it was a hoax and they would look at me as if to say, "You naive, naive boy..."

Update: Or not. Bryan Mack writes to say that he was a student at Iowa State and not UH. Apparently, the UH connection was that an archivist who helped them find Mack was a UH student.

A fraternity Greek-named co-ed organization at Texas A&M has put together a really cool program:

"Beat the hell outta scalpers" is the slogan of Alpha Phi Omega's TicketMart, a free service that helps fans sell Texas A&M football tickets they can't use to interested buyers before every home game.

"The inflated prices that scalpers ask for are outrageous, and it's not fair to Aggies," said Shiloh Venable, a senior human resource development major and TicketMart chair.

TicketMart has been in operation for more than 10 years, but many students do not know that it exists.

"We are trying to spread the word across campus and the Bryan-College Station community so that as many people as possible who have the opportunity can use it," Venable said.

Anyone who wants to sell football tickets can fill out a form on or before any home game day and Alpha Phi Omega, a national co-ed service fraternity, will try to sell the tickets for face value in the Memorial Student Center during the three hours before kickoff.

If the tickets are sold, the money is mailed back to the seller within two weeks.

Alpha Phi Omega does not charge a service fee but will accept donations, Venable said.

Unsold tickets are destroyed or can be mailed back to their original owner.

Tickets with seating anywhere in Kyle Field are accepted and TicketMart serves both students and visitors to Aggieland.

"Everyone who wants to enjoy Aggie football should be able to," Venable said.

My father had season tickets to the Longhorns last year. The Nebraska game came on a bad weekend and he couldn't use the tickets. He used some online service months in advance and there was a while when it looked like the guy was going to punk out on paying Dad back. Ultimately, the guy paid up (face value). I remember thinking that there's got to be a better way of going about it. Looks like the Ags have found one.

[via Chris]

Apparently 24 is right-wing propadanga:

Yet 24 is not uncomplicated Fox Television rightwing populism; it is a little cleverer than that. All three series have had near the centre a fictional African-American US politican, David Palmer, now president, who seems wise, decent and intelligent - much more so, it has to be said, than the real US president. The counter-terrorism unit crowd are sensitive and rather liberal types, except when they're busy gunning baddies down. They are hardly natural Guardian readers. But you could imagine the hero, whose CV includes a literature course at university, logging on to the Guardian's website.

Yet the most powerful messages are indeed rightwing, even paranoid. The outside world is a great arc of danger and spite, determined to bring mayhem to the doorsteps of Middle America. Bandit Mexicans, pathological Serbs and Russians, sadistic Arabs, and icy English mass-murderers are constantly repelled at the last minute from causing the deaths of millions of Americans. President Palmer and his counter-terrorism unit heroes mean well. But foreigners are simply mean.

It is easy to laugh at the silly moustaches, dodgy accents and thin characterisation of the villains, just as one quickly comes to understand the clichés of the plot-line, such as the necessity of Jack Bauer's tedious daughter being kidnapped on a regular basis. But the "war on terror" is no joke, and 24 is addictive propaganda.

Let's see, the iconic president is both African-American and a Democrat. They spend half their time in the second season trying to avert a needless war, [spoiler in white]the Muslim double-agent is a rich white girl, a Muslim cleric uses Muslim teachings to try to convince an Islamist to give up information on his group, and the villains in the first season are all European.

Yep, sure sounds like right-wing propaganda to me.

[I can't remember where I got the link, probably Warliberal]

MSN has an interesting article on the lengths that some people will go to in order to get a date:

The process at First Impressions is simple, but has an almost cloak-and-dagger feel to it.

Clients are told they will meet their “date” at a stylish cafe in New York’s Soho area. The date will be sitting alone, reading a copy of The New York Times. If you are a boy, you are told your date's name is Susan Green. You are told she is single and lives in the area. She likes film, travel and painting. You are to assume that she's roughly your age and that you find her attractive. As the client, the onus is on you to approach her, introduce yourself and pick up the tab at the cafe.

Afterward, your date — actually a First Impressions consultant with an advanced degree in psychology — reveals her real name, describes what kind of impression was made and makes suggestions for improvements.

I was lucky to have pretty much stumbled upon Eel (with some help from Kevin and Callie, of course). The same was true for Anna. To walk up to someone I don't know and try to pick them up is something that I've never really had the gumption to do. I've tried on a couple of occasions, but most encounters have been by pure chance.

To walk up to someone knowing that I'm going to get a critique instead of a date is downright impossible for me to fathom.

Man, I'm glad not to be single.

Contrary to the title, Online Porn Excerpts, this article has no excerpts from online pornography. Instead, it has a bunch of grey old men talking about pornography in the most sterile fashion possible:

"There are a number of plausible and less restrictive alternatives to the statute. The primary alternative considered by the District Court was blocking and filtering software. Blocking and filtering software is an alternative less restrictive than COPA and, in addition, likely more effective as a means of restricting children's access to materials deemed harmful to them."
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy's majority ruling.

[...]

"I cannot accept (the majority's) conclusion that Congress could have accomplished its statutory objective
protecting children from commercial pornography on the Internet in other, less restrictive ways."
Justice Stephen Breyer in dissent.

I'm actually kind of surprised that Breyer is dissenting. Makes me wonder who voted which way.

First they said that fats were bad. Then they said it was carbs. Now, in mice at least, it's protein:

Eating too much protein can prevent an embryo attaching to the wall of the womb or hinder its early development, the findings suggest.

Although the research was done on mice, scientists believe there are implications for humans, especially people on Atkins-style diets.

"It’s conceivable that people who have protein intakes greater than 30 per cent may have problems conceiving," said Dr David Gardner, who led the American study.

The upper limit for protein consumption under Atkins guidelines is 35 per cent of total calories, but devout disciples of the diet might consume a greater proportion.

The research stems from the observation that protein in the diet affects levels of ammonium in the female reproductive tract. In herbivorous animals such as cows this has been known to cause reproductive problems.

Previous studies have shown that ammonium harms mouse embryos grown in the laboratory, causing genetic effects and retarding development.

Dr Gardner, the scientific director of the Colorado Centre for Reproductive Medicine in Englewood, set out to discover whether the same effects occurred in living mice.

The scientists found that ammonium levels in the oviduct, where the early embryo forms, were four times higher in mice given the high protein diet.

Four-day-old embryos in these animals had fewer cell numbers and a higher rate of cell death.

This is a crucial stage in embryonic development, since it is just before the embryo attaches to the inside of the womb. Without implantation, pregnancy cannot occur.

A total of 174 young embryos were transferred from both groups of mice to surrogate mothers fed a normal diet.

Despite the switch, only 65 per cent of those taken from high protein mice developed into a foetus. In contrast, embryos from mice on the lower protein diet had an 81 per cent success rate.

As the Atkins people point out, what happens in herbivore mice and cattle may not apply to humans. I certainly hope not. I look to fiber and protein as being the almost unquestionable goods in dietary habits. While I have no intentions of ever getting pregnant, there may be different effects for men. I drink a lot of milk. Milk has a lot of protein.

What I'm curious about - and what the article doesn't say - is whether or not protein has the same nutritional effects in herbivores as it does in carnies. If so then there's reason to believe that this problem could transfer over. If not, then trying to draw a parallel seems like a pretty pointless task.

All is not well in blogland. No, I'm not going on another hiatus (though posting next week will be light). Nucleus appears to have an ongoing grudge with my current host, or is dying. I had to take my blogroll off the main page last week. This week it's making me log on between every single screen that I use, which makes short posts take longer when I don't have wbloggar handy.

With a lot of help from my good man (and frequent commenter) Mike Ahlf, I'm getting set up with a new host shortly that will be powered with Nuke Nucleus 3.0. It will hopefully be up in a week or two.

Eel has a pet peeve: Yuppy names.

It struck me as an odd pet peeve at first. Why would anyone pick that, of all things, to have a pet peeve about? But since she's been delivering babies and assisting the deliverance of babies, it makes more sense than, for instance, my catastrophic loss vulnerability to finger-nail polish. She gets a lot of weird names day in and day out. Since getting up here I am in complete agreement with her. You would not believe the names that people up here have. One of my trainer's names at OmniStar was actually named Laetwynn (not a psuedonym!) and when they were talking about their families up there, I'd say the name Kaden was far more prevalent than the name Chris. Part of the rationale for this is for originality. But an article from Health & Medical News says that they might should hold their horses in that regard:

Some parents today who invent some original name for their baby, like 'Grast', could - through simple random chance - unwittingly be determining the names of thousands of children 10 years from now," said Bentley, of the college's Centre for the Evolutionary Analysis of Cultural Behaviour, which uses biological ideas to understand cultural change.

Using British and U.S. government data, Bentley and Hahn tracked the popularity of the top 1,000 first names for baby girls and boys in the U.S. for every decade in the 20th century.

They found that a few names were thousands of times more popular than the majority with many uncommon names. They said the distribution followed an "elegant mathematical function," called a power law, that is maintained over 100 years, even though the population is growing.

Hahn and Bentley developed a model which closely predicts the distribution of name popularity over the last century. The model is based on the population genetics concept of 'random genetic drift', in which the frequency of genes in a population fluctuates according to chance, and where there is only a small population of breeding parents.

The most yuppy name that I ever considered was Bailey, if Anna and I had a boy. It would actually be Rayford Baylor Whitlock with Bailey shorthand (yes, I'm aware that Bailey and Baylor are both 6 letters, but Charles and Charlie are both seven with the shorthand name having more syllables than the formal one). That would have been allowed because Baylor is a family name (I'm somehow actually related to the University's founder on my mother's side of the family). The chosen girl's name was Jodine Clair Whitlock, Jodie for short, named after grandrelatives. Eel will have to tell me whether that's yuppy of not :).

One name that hadn't been born yet and that I doubt I will consider in the future is ESPN. But apparently I'm behind the curve on that:

His parents said ESPN loves baseball, basketball and football, and Rebecca said she's hoping to have his room done in sports theme before the TV ESPN comes.

And, of course, ESPN enjoys watching SportsCenter every night with his father.

However, Michael and Rebecca said they don't think the name will put pressure on him to become a superstar athlete; they're just catering to his interests at the moment.

All in all, Rebecca said, she likes unique names. She wanted to name her two younger daughters "Disney" but was shot down both times by Michael. They compromised on Sterling, now 21 months, and Kendall, now 11 months.

If the McCalls have another son, would he be "The Deuce?"

Well, if ESPN had a twin, his name would be "EXPN." However, the McCalls don't watch solely ESPN for their sports. They planned "Fox Sports McCall" for a second son.

Espen (the way it's supposed to be pronounced) would be a yuppy name. I think it would be a disservice to yuppy names to call ESPN a yuppy name.

I apparently have a new neighbor. Well actually I'm the new one and he's just been out of town until today, but you get the idea. He's way too excited about having another tech-nerd in the building. I say "too excited" because while it would be cool to talk tech with a neighbor, I'd rather it not be this guy. To give you an idea, Stoner does not strike me as the kind of guy that gets agitated too easily, but it's very apparent that this dude agitates him whenever he opens his mouth.

The new guy has a... err... thick build, but the most prominant feature is Robert Paulson-style woman-boobs. He's told me his name about five times so far and I can't for the life of me remember it, but I'll just call him Meatloaf here. He apologized in advance for what he said would be "loud orgasmic noises" coming from his room (he lives next door) for whenever his girlfriend was over.

I could live a hundred years without the imagery involved with those sounds.

Please, please pray that I do live a hundred years without hearing those sounds.

Last night while I was cleaning up my apartment, the door flung open. I was afraid it was Meatloaf, but in fact it was a huge gust of wind.

From a cold front.

In late June.

I'm all in favor of aphrodisiacs for women, but this may be taking it a bit too far:

The female rats flirted more when injected with the drug and Pfaus and his colleagues said: "Females treated with the highest dose of PT-141 also attempted to mount the males." In rats, this is considered a sign of sexual impatience.

[via Lex]

I expected a number of things when I came up here. I expected cooler summers than I was accustomed to. I expected drier weather. In most of these expectations, I have not been disappointed.

I'll tell you what I did not expect, though. I did not expect this sun tan. It did not even occur to me that I would need to invest more money on sunscreen in Idaho than in Texas. It's not a matter of spending more time outdoors, but I suppose the elevation and dry sunwaves or somesuch.

All I know is that I have a farmer's tan. Few things look worse than a farmer's tan. So yesterday I wore my tanktop and the result is odd mixtures of white and red almost in the design of a superhero costume. Oh, and a white outline of the tanktop straps. And a really, really sunburned neck.

I apparently moved all the way from Texas to Idaho to become a redneck...

I've said before that no University president ever gets appointed without some promises of taking the university to the "next level," whatever level that happens to be. Baylor University's president is apparently no different:

Baylor, which already bills itself as the largest Baptist university in the world, has even bigger ambitions. In the words of the school's president, Baylor aspires to be "the finest Christian institution of higher learning on this planet." This is Texas, after all, so nothing is quite so important as scale. And Baylor has a plan—specifically, a 42-page document that articulates a vision and outlines a strategy to achieve it by 2012. "Within the course of a decade, Baylor intends to enter the top tier of American universities while reaffirming and deepening its distinctive Christian mission," reads the plan, called Baylor 2012. It rejects the notion that "intellectual excellence" and "intense faithfulness to the Christian tradition" are mutually exclusive, although it notes that not many universities have been able to do both effectively.

Baylor 2012 calls for, among other things, an Honors College with its own dean and faculty; at least 10 new doctoral programs in the social sciences and humanities (in addition to its existing 17 doctoral programs in a variety of disciplines); and a world-class faculty, with 200 new appointments over the course of a decade.

Additionally, Baylor's administration has hopes of locating the George W. Bush presidential library on campus. A $103 million science building is under construction. Baylor has embarked on what one faculty member calls a "huge building spree" of athletic facilities, and the university plans to construct a new residence hall every two years until 2012.

Some at Baylor want the university to become a "Protestant Notre Dame." The connection is not coincidental. Although there are no official ties between Waco and South Bend, faculty at the two schools (particularly the philosophy departments) have met for a number of structured conversations. Michael Beaty, a philosopher and director of the Baylor Institute of Faith and Learning, did his doctorate at Notre Dame. Both Baylor's president and his chief faculty recruiter acknowledge their intellectual indebtedness to Notre Dame's George Marsden—who warned about the secularization of U.S. higher education—and to the Notre Dame model.

I'm all about Baylor becoming a first tier school nationally because it'll make Jay's degree more valuable. Even though Baylor is not the kind of school I would have chosen in large part because of its overly socially conservative atmosphere, I am happy that they're going to remain true to their vision. There are plenty of secular private schools with rigorous academia. In an age where Texas Christian University asks to be called simply TCU to distance itself from its founding, it's refreshing that a university doesn't lose sight of what it is.

Then again, Jay had to endure six years in that atmosphere and would probably come at it from a very different perspective.

Since UH actually has a contending baseball team year in and year out, I don't make a habit of rooting for Texas Longhorn baseball as I do with football and (to a lesser extent) basketball. I rooted for Rice during the College World Series last year. I was indifferent.

But since Texas made it to the College World Series this year, I was hoping that they would pull it out and sorry that they didn't. I was hopeful then disappointed.

Then I read about their poor sportsmanship by not taking the second place trophy, and some of my anti-UT feelings started to surface. I was not particularly pleased.

Then I read Kevin's classic Shorthorn post on the matter, and my anti-anti-UT feelings came back up, leaving me indifferent all over again.

Right back where I started...

Update: Apparently I misread the tone of Kevin's post. Much to my amazement, he was actually going to be happy for UT if they won prior to the poor sportsmanship. My bad!

Radley Balko has this thought on the Walmart sexism lawsuit:

I'm a little puzzled by the Wal-Mart sex discrimination suit. Seems to me there are three assumptions the left takes with respect to the retailer, and to the business world in general:

A) Wal-Mart is a ruthless mega-corp that will do virtually anything to cut costs.

B) Women, particularly women executives, make a fraction of the salaries men do.

C) Women are just as competent, experienced and eager to assume executive roles in retail as men.

Now, given those three assumptions, we're to conclude that:

D) Wal-Mart knowingly promotes costlier men to executive positions than less costly women who are just as eager to take those positions, and who are equally or better qualified.

I'm no labor economist. But to me, it just doesn't add up.

There are actually some interesting points made in the comments section on both sides of the issue.

Larry Eastland punches some numbers of how abortions affect the electoral landscape:

• Republicans have fewer abortions than their proportion of the population, Democrats have more than their proportion of the population. Democrats account for 30% more abortions than Republicans (49% vs. 35%).

• The more ideologically Democratic the voters are (self-identified liberals), the more abortions they have. The more ideologically Republican the voters are (self-identified conservatives), the fewer abortions they have.

This isn't particularly surprising given the core constituencies of both political parties. But translating percentages into numbers for the purpose of evaluating their impact on politics makes the importance of these numbers real. It's one thing to quote percentages and statistics, it's quite another to look at actual human beings. For example:

• There are 19,748,000 Democrats who are not with us today. (49.37 percent of 40 million).

• There are 13,900,000 Republican who are not with us today. (34.75 percent of 40 million).

• By comparison, then, the Democrats have lost 5,848,000 more voters than the Republicans have.

What I find most interesting about this is the number of Republican abortions. It's long been my belief that the public is far more pro-life than the polls suggest (at least insofar as first-term abortions are concerned) and these kinds of numbers validate my belief. That Republican parents account for 41% of the two-party divide speaks volumes.

There are a number of pro-choice female-types that I know that have said "I wouldn't have an abortion, but I think it should be legal" that, when faced with an actual pregnancy that would greatly inconvenience them (college, for instance) probably would at least strongly consider it. My usual response to that question is to ask "So if you were pregnant today, you'd put your life on hold for nine months?" and am often responded to by a very, very thoughtful look. I think the same is true for many people that give the pro-life response to a pollster. Everything changes when the abstract becomes real. Sometimes, I can attest, it changes to the pro-life position. Given the instant-gratification nature of modern American society, though, I suspect more often than not it changes the other way. I think Republicans would be very disappointed if the right to kill the unborn were no longer protected by the atrocious Roe v Wade decision.

As for the subject of aborting votes as a whole, I'm reminded of seeing a pro-life rally on C-Span who said "They'll keep aborting theirs and we'll keep aborting ours and eventually we'll outnumber them!"

That's under the assumption, of course, that Republican's kids will remain Republican as they grow older. That's probably true more often than not, but social conservatives have been reproducing in greater numbers than social liberals anyhow and many of their children will convert at least temporarily in their college years and a decade or so beyond. Some will have children and shift to the right, some will have children and stay liberal, and others will decline to have children and will be replaced with other children of conservatives.

It reminds me of the debate between the emerging Republican majority versus the emerging Democratic one. Republicans say that since conservatives have more kids and Red States are growing in population and Red States vote Republican, Republicans will perservere. Democrats say Hispanics vote Democratic and since the Hispanic population is greatly increasing and that society is growing more urban and even in Red States cities go Democratic, Democratic dominance is inevitable*.

Soothsayers on both sides of the aisle are making assumptions that may not hold up. Republicans are assuming that kids that come from conservative households will remain conservative and ignore phenomena as in Arizona where the influx is primarily liberal and the higher populations are actually pulling the state towards the center. Democrats assume that Hispanics will always be a safe Democratic vote by 2-1 margins and that's an assumption that was once made about Irish and Italian immigrants whose grandkids are starting to veer right.

I'd be interested in knowing what the fallout rate is among liberals and conservatives when it comes to their children. Anecdotally I would say that there is probably more fall-out on the right than the left to counteract the higher reproduction rates of conservatives. Of course I say that at a time when most of my friends are childless, not wealthy, and young enough to be at the "foolish young liberal" stage of their life, so I could well be mistaken. It seems to be that people that come from liberal families (a) don't see the contradiction between liberalism and family that conservatives do and (b) those that come from single-parent or atypical households are suspicious of "family values" talk because they got by with just one parent, thankyouverymuch. There are of course Alex P. Keatons out there that rebel against their liberal parents by becoming conservative, but I'd say that those (again, looking at my sample-selection-biased 20-something peers) are outnumbered by those children of conservative parents that respond by becoming liberals, libertarians, or apathetic non-voters (and out of the Republican pool).

*- I know, horrible sentence construction. Forgive me.

Update: Michael Williams posts on the subject. His first (and right now only) commenter makes the same observation about liberals from conservative households and vice-versa, though his rationale is slightly different.

The parade of interesting dreams continues. Last night Audrey was in my dream. We were hanging out after having spent some time apart, but something was wrong. I asked, at some point, "Why aren't we talking?"

"What should we be talking about?"

"What we've always talked about!"

A few years ago when Anna and I parted ways, it was difficult in more ways than one. Procedurally, the most difficult part was that we were so used to one another. Not just as a romantic partnership, but as friends and confidants. Like many parting couples do, we made a promise to remain close friends. It was as selfish as magnanimous because we each needed someone and we were both the most qualified individuals for that.

Then there were physical needs. I don't mean sex, but rather openly displayed affection. Hugging instead of kissing her goodbye was one of the roughest transitions. There was also suddenly talking about our futures seperately instead of as one. It even seemed logical at the time that we could continue to act as a couple even if we weren't because, hey, we had nothing better to do.

While our final months were not particularly happy ones, they were what we understood. As with any couple, talking about us was one of the big things that we talked about. It was really difficult to get away from that comfort zone. But I needed out of the relationship and she (pre-Pierce) wanted to keep going and we would have found ourselves talking in the circles over and over again. Yet even though I was vaguely aware of it at the time, it still seemed attractive in its own way.

Like many parting couples do, we renegged on the close friendship promise. She became preoccupied with Pierce and I with Audrey and the transition actually seemed smoother with each other out of the way. There were a lot of questions left unanswered and there was the desire to continue to talk about us, but it was largely unproductive. Her strong, strong, strong disapproval of Audrey provided a much-needed schism that was probably inevitable.

A year or so later when Audrey and I parted ways, I remember her writing an email saying that she really wanted things to continue the way that they were. I remember walking out of Occupational and Environmental Safety class at U of H, thinking of nothing but her. I'd told her that I needed some time and space and that I wouldn't be seeing her again for some time. She objected vociferously and she had a good point: Why not?

The argument also held. Then I looked over at the Science building where I knew Vince also took night classes and realized that I might run in to the soon-to-be-lovers. In front of God and country I cried the last tears of that affair. Then I became angry that she'd dragged things on for so long while I'd been remarkably unhappy and then prepared to jump ship when something better came along. I don't often take pride in my angry and embittered behavior when I'm experiencing it, but I'm grateful that I felt what I did at that moment because that saved me the prolonged agony of holding on to what was no longer real.

Yet then, as now, there is the motivation to reach out to these people from my past. Anna and I have been talking a lot more recently, but no amount of communication can give us together what we once had. Things with Audrey are and probably forever will be more complicated, but the desire I sometimes have to drop her a line and talk about what we've always talked about seems reductive. I've gone my own path, she's gone hers, and the only place for us to go is into the past.

Anna, Audrey, and I would be much better served going into the future and not talking about the things we've always talked about.

The last senate election were supposed to be a bad one for Republicans, but they held the line and even gained a seat. This senate election was supposed to be good for Republicans with a few Dem retirements in conservative states, but things are looking pretty good for Democrats right now:

Seven months ago, the Democrats' quest for the Senate appeared hopeless, and Republicans, who cling to a slim 51-to-48 majority (with one independent), were confidently predicting they would widen that lead. Especially in the Republican-friendly South, Democrats were staring at a wipeout, with five of their Senators — Fritz Hollings of South Carolina, John Breaux of Louisiana, John Edwards of North Carolina, Zell Miller of Georgia and Bob Graham of Florida — all deciding to retire.

But Democrats have since recruited credible-enough candidates that the party now has a shot at holding on to three or four of the Southern seats — in South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida and Louisiana. And in the West, Democrats are hoping to nab the open seats left by the retirement of Republican Senators Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado and Don Nickles of Oklahoma, and to take on the vulnerable Lisa Murkowski in Alaska. So suddenly the math has changed: Democrats can see their way to a net gain of two seats, which would give them a slim advantage in the Senate. "We're at the cusp of a victory in November," says Senator Jon Corzine, who chairs the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. G.O.P. leaders insist that the Democrats' hope is a pipe dream. Most of the seats up for grabs are in G.O.P.-heavy states that Bush won handily in 2000. "They simply cannot blow away the reality," says Senator George Allen, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

What makes Democrats sound so giddy? Bush's sinking approval ratings and the poll numbers showing that voters, by 49% to 37% in a TIME poll in early June, say they plan to vote for a Democrat rather than a Republican in congressional elections. Democrats also see two favorable omens in the special-election victories for two House seats, one in South Dakota on June 1 and one four months ago in Kentucky.

If voters decide to keep Bush (because they can't stomach Kerry) but his poll numbers remain as low as they have, I believe the voters will probably take it out on the Republican congressional candidates. If Kerry wins, the Republicans may pick up his senate seat and possibly that of his vice president if it's Florida Senator Nelson (looks unlikely, though, as I've seen his name mentioned less and less in current weeks).

Since most House seats are safe, the Senate is likely to be where the action is. So far most of the press has been focusing on Illinois, where the Democrats will almost certainly pick up a seat. I've not been following the senate races in the south (where the Republicans have a chance to pick up some seats). It's worth pointing out that Democrats were really excited about taking Colorado last election (with the "endangered" Senator Allard) and it didn't happen. They have to pick up at least one more seat beyond Illinois to regain the Senate.

The Democrats seem to have done a pretty impressive job of candidate selection this time around. It was Bush's (or Rove's) recruitment of national figures (Lamar Alexander and Libby Dole) that helped keep open seats safe.

DavidMSC responds to the news that San Antonio has overtaken Dallas in population:

You see, San Antonio city limits DO contain 1,214,725 residents. Dallas city limits contain 1,208,318 residents. Therefore, S.A. has more people. But wait: if you gauge population according to Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA), then the Dallas metroplex contains 5.6 million people, whereas S.A. only has 1.7 million people. The reason is that the "metro" area surrounding Dallas includes Fort Worth and many large suburbs, but San Antonio has no such adjacent/bordering suburbs and communities.

And really, when most people think of "big cities," they are thinking of Chicago, D/FW, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and others of similar size, shape, composition, etc.

So where does San Antonio rank in terms of MSA? Number 29. Behind Sacramento, Cleveland, and other technically "smaller" cities.

Dallas has more than suburbs, though, it also has Fort Worth. For anyone outside of Texas, never accuse someone in Fort Worth of being in Dallas (or even worse, a suburb). That still puts it ahead of San Antonio no matter how you calculate it, but I like to make the distinction because (a) I have roots in Fort Worth, (b) that leaves Houston as bigger than Dallas (albeit smaller than DFW), and (c) I'm petty.

Less shall soon be more again:

The nearly naked looks once favored by pop stars like Christina Aguilera and television shows like "Sex and the City" are giving way to more demure styles that feature far less skin, fashion executives say.

From the runways of Europe to the malls of America, shirts and skirts are getting longer and the waistband on jeans, which had been going south in a hurry, has begun to rise, these people said.

"People are tired of seeing so much skin," said Greg Scott, chief executive of Bebe, a 195-unit chain that is known for selling slinky tank tops and short skirts.

A year ago, Scott said, Bebe's best-selling styles were belly-baring tops and low-rise jeans. Today, he continued, Bebe stores are selling more tops that fall below the waist and knee-length skirts.

"That whole midriff-baring thing is completely over," Scott said.

Where last year's jeans may have had a 7-inch rise, today's jeans have an 8- or 9-inch rise, Scott said, referring to the length from the inseam to the waistband.

"This way," he continued, "when you sit down, you don't see everything."

Eel and I have the guilty pleasure at gaffawing at what those young folks are wearing these days. It's going to cycle back and forth (I wouldn't mind a Victorian renaissance that didn't involve all black!)... just so long as it cycles back to conservatism when my future daughter is in junior high, I'll be a happy camper.

[via Theosebes]

Steel-toed Catapillar boots are very handy when it comes to smashing cans.

Makes it way fun, too.

Idaho's web page is down right now. The whole friggin' state's web page.

Note to self: May be an IT opening for the State of Idaho in the year future involving web page maintenance.

As most of you know, Illinois senate candidate Jack Ryan has dropped out of the senate race when his divorce documents were unsealed by a judge who felt that Ryan's need for privacy was outstripped by the public's right to know all the lurid details. I didn't say much about it because I can understand both sides of the legal argument and don't know what the law on the matter actually is. It is, of course, another example of dirty politics (the requests and judgment came after reports were leaked about Ryan's sexual picadilloes).

Consider the source for what it is, but Matt Drudge says that the same could happen to John Kerry and Kerry's campaign is crying foul. Regardless of whether or not Drudge is being accurate, what's good for the goose has got to be good for the gander, legally speaking. Hasn't it? I can't imagine why it's okay to release Ryan's records but not Kerry's. If the "right to know" exists, I'd imagine that right is escalated in a presidential race. Of course, the media may suddenly decide that restraint is a good idea.

For what it's worth, I doubt that Kerry's records have near the amount of dirt that Ryan's did. I'd imagine that they're not flattering, though. Whatever the law says I'm inclined to say that divorce documents that are voluntarily sealed by both parties (as in the Ryan case and maybe or maybe not the Kerry case) ought to stay sealed, but a judge says that's wrong.

This is too cute to be true. I'll have to keep my eye on Snopes:

A Canadian man, driving a car packed with weapons and ammunition, was intent on killing as many people as possible in a Toronto neighbourhood but gave up the plan at the last minute when he encountered a friendly dog, police say.

The middle-aged man, who police say is mentally disturbed, had planned to carry out the shooting spree on Wednesday to ensure he would be put in jail permanently.

Police say he had set himself up in an east-end park to load his weapons and then planned to drive around shooting.

He told police that a dog then approached and started playing with him.

Police say the encounter melted the man's heart, and he then went in search of police to give himself up.

[via Seabrook]

A couple nights ago, I noticed Eel's peculiar way of asking for a backrub. It occured to me that with female friends and/or love interests in years past, most of them had a peculiar way of asking for backrubs and similar things.

-2004-
Eel: [innocent look] Hey, you know, if you were to give me a backrub, I would be completely okay with that. Just so you know...
RAW: Alrighty...

-2003-
Lisa: [sorrowful look] The world is nothing but an expanse of bleak, sorrowful nothingness, but I'll change the subject if you give me a backrub.
RAW: Sure...

-2002-
Scarlet: [commanding look] Hey, give me a backrub.
RAW: Okay...

-2001-
Audrey: [confused look] Hey, I'm sorry for everything wrong I've ever done and I hate to ask it of you since I've treated you so shabbily, but could I have a backrub? Being this perpetually confused about my love life is very stressful.
RAW: Sure...

-2000-
Anna: [suddenly dead silent]
RAW: [asks question to see if she's in a bad mood]
Anna: [gives terse, one-word answer]
RAW: [tries to think of what he could have possibly done to make her upset. Comes up with nothing]
Anna: [starts smoking out the ears]
RAW: What's wrong?
Anna: Why haven't you given me a backrub?
RAW: Huh?
Anna: I've been sitting on the floor in front of you for half an hour and you still haven't given me a backrub.
RAW: Oh, I didn't realize that's why you were sitting there. I didn't hear you ask for one.
Anna: I shouldn't have to ask.
RAW: Huh? Then how am I supposed to know that you want a backrub?
Anna: Why wouldn't I want a backrub?
RAW: I don't know?
Anna: EXACTLY!

Andrew Olmsted takes issue with Bigwig's arguments for a Kerry Presidency. The whole thing is worth reading, but the part I found most interesting was his analysis of how the political parties have done in wartime:

First, I have to take issue with Bigwig's assessment that Democrats are better war presidents than Republicans. Let's examine the subject in reverse chronology. Our current President has led us into two campaigns in the current war, and I think it's too early to judge him a success or a failure. Before that we had the dust-ups in Kosovo and Somalia. Kosovo was a 'victory,' in that nobody on our side got killed, although we didn't actually accomplish much other than giving the Albanian Kosovars a chance to take revenge on their Serb antagonists. Somalia, of course, was a tactical victory and a strategic defeat, one that can be laid squarely at President Clinton's feet (though there is no evidence to suggest a Republican president would have acted any differently, as we had no strategic interest in Somalia). Our last 'big' war was the first Persian Gulf war, an operational victory that ended in a strategic defeat. Before that was Panama, which was arguably successful, and Grenada, which was also arguably successful. This takes us to Vietnam, a war we decided we didn't want to fight any more and so turned into a strategic defeat, with a great deal of help from President Nixon, whose impeachment sealed South Vietnam's fate. Korea, of course, was a statemate, but it stalemated only because the U.S. forces (during Truman's presidency) agreed to a ceasefire just as they were driving the Chinese north again, giving the Chinese the time they needed to stabilize their positions and turn the war into the bloody statemate it became. World War II, of course, was a big victory for the United States, and President Roosevelt deserves credit for his part in winning it. World War I, conversely, was another operational victory that turned to a strategic defeat in large part because President Wilson was so willing to give everything else away in exchange for his ill-fated League of Nations. The Spanish-American war was a big American victory under President McKinley. That brings us to the American Civil War, which was managed brilliantly by America's first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln.

So what do we have in all this? Not much, quite frankly. In the big wars (the Civil War, WWI, WWII, Korea and Vietnam), we have one Republican success (Civil War), one Democratic success (WWII), one Republican failure (Vietnam), one Democratic failure (WWI), and a mixed failure (Korea). Hardly a clear enough trend to justify voting either way in November. Not to mention the fact we don't really know how members of the opposition would have done under similar circumstances. It seems to me that success in war comes down more to the person in the White House, regardless of his party affiliation.

The only war history I've studied in-depth was in Greece, so I can't credibly comment one way or another on his analysis except to say that I'm not sure you can go back too much further than the 70's when there was a shift in foreign policy within the parties. If anyone feels more qualified, I invite you to do so in the comments section.

Viktor Navorski (Tom Hanks) is a traveller from eastern Europe whose country is thrown into civil war while he's in the air. He can't go home because there is no recognized government in control there. He can't enter the US because his passport was invalidated once the rebels took control of the nation's capital. So he's stuck in the international lounge until everything gets sorted out bureaucratically, diplomatically, or militarily.

I'm partial to movies where innocuous characters are put into a complicated premise and are left to get it all sorted out. It can lead to some great character development and is rarely a paint-by-numbers movie the way many plot-driven movies are. The 'foreigner' bit also added to my interest, as I like "strange person in a strange land" angle.

Unfortunately, all of these ingrediants did not add up into a movie that worked, for me. Eel likened it to those stories we had to write in elementary school incorporating various vocabulary words. That seems about right. There appeared to be a hit-list that the movie wanted to work its way through: lovable hero, capable hero, quirky cast, romantic subplot, and warm and fuzzy feelings for the viewer.

This movie is an uncomfortable conglomeration of Cast Away and Forrest Gump but without the discipline of the former or the scope of the latter. Cast Away made its mark by working through the cinematically tough terrain of watching someone stake out a life in inhospitable land. It was quite literally do-or-die, so it was at least interesting to watch. There were many scenes reminiscent of that in The Terminal, but the urgency of figuring out how to feed himself at the airport was undone when he exhausted similar energy on his love interest, flight attendant Amelia Warren (Catherine Zeta-Jones). While some lucky breaks (the empty gate) were necessary, others (having all the necessary items to create a water fountain to impress Warren) were a bit much.

I'll grant that character development is difficult for a character that can barely speak English, but it took the easy way out by simply giving Navorski a quirky cast of characters that aren't particularly meant to be taken seriously. In fact, just about every time the movie came up with a modestly difficult point from which to move forward, it opted for cheap laughs.

The only non-quirky character in the supporting cast was Frank Dixon, the airport/customs security manager who isn't quite sure what to do with Navorski. Dixon doesn't come off as a particularly bad guy and I thought they could develop a really interesting relationship of two good guys in opposition purely by circumstance (much like Tommy Lee Jones and Harrison Ford in The Fugitive). But when the going got tough, yet again nuanced and interesting characterization took a hike.

There were also some opportunities for interesting character development between Warren and Navorski, but it was far outshadowed by the paint-by-numbers nature of their interest. I would have much preferred a romantic undercurrent unexplored with two very different people who manage to touch each other against all incompatibilities rather than trying to take it to the next level with Navorski trying to win her over while she tries to get her act together.

Unfortunately, with its desire to be both cute and insightful it ended up being neither (or, at best, an uncomfortable mixture of both). I laughed at some of its jokes, but even at the time it was a hollow laughter of missed opportunities.

I almost relucantly give this movie 2 1/2 stars our of four. I'm tempted to give it a lower rating, but I'm not going to penalize the movie for what I thought it should have been. I just wish I'd known before I plopped down $14 that it wasn't the type of movie I was interested in.

The Terminal [IMDB]

Roger Ebert and his happy pills gave the movie 3.5 stars.

A girl that I dated in 2002 has Phil Pritchett lyrics on her AIM profile.

I must have done something right!

I almost can't believe that I'm saying this, but I agree with Michelle Malkin word-for-word on the first paragraph of her take regarding Dick Cheney's dropping of the F-Bomb:

I'm not going to bother linking to the story. It annoys me. I am still have nightmares about the dangling heads of Nick Berg and Paul Johnson and Kim Sun-Il, and all the mainstream media will be prattling on about today is Dick Cheney's use of the F word. He shouldn't have said it. He had a bad day. He lost his cool. Many conservatives are cheering about it--Patrick Leahy deserved it, blah x 3. But I personally don't like when public figures curse in public [strikethrough mine -RAW], whether it's Cheney or Bono or John F'n Kerry. It's fine for blogging (though the strongest you'll get from me is a damned or a hell). It's fine when you've stubbed your toe or dented the car or missed winning Powerball by 2 (or 3 or 4) numbers. Yes, it's cathartic (who wouldn't want to tell off a whiny Democrat), but I just don't like it when conservative public figures use the worst profanity. [viamanda]

Her next paragraphs are reminiscent of my third grade teacher saying (not wholly inaccurately) that cussing is demonstrative of a poor vocabulary. On one hand I agree. On the other, Eel's browser crashed three times while typing this post and I vehemently was putting my lack of vocabulary on display just a moment ago. In any case, lists some cursingless put-down and requests some from her readers. Amanda has one of the best collections quoted here.

Nic from Shoes Etc. brings up an interesting point about the media coverage of the the F-bomb flap:

I'm not shocked or offended by Dick Cheney (or John Kerry, or anyone else) swearing. I'm just amused by the way the press has to dance around the direct quotes, since there are still some words you aren't supposed to say on television or print in a "family" paper.

It made me smile this morning to hear the radio newscasters saying "the F word." (I started substituting other F-words..."Frog yourself!" "Frappe yourself!") And I was beside myself with delight to see that the Washington Post has made journalism history by printing, without dashes, the direct Cheney quote. That's accuracy in media!

Interestingly, in the same article the Post censored George Bush's quote about Adam Clymer, saying "major-league [expletive]" instead of "asshole." Does that rearrange the hierarchy of bad words, or will direct quotes of an unseemly nature only be reported from this day forward?

And lastly I shall also link to my thoughts on the media's refusal to directly quote bad words when the bad word is at the heart of the story:

Be the word either of the above, or any other four letter word in which the word used is important, newspapers do us no favors by editing it out. If someone was shot after yelling an ethnic slur, I want to know what the ethnic slur was. If he was "taunting him" with cuss words and the cuss words underscore the nature of the taunting, say the goddamn words. I know, I know, plugging the ears of the children, but come on. They know the words. They know how they're not supposed to use them and, in the case of articles like this, it's obvious that they are being used offensively. Of course, that might make them use it when they want to be offensive... but you know what? They're going to anyway.

Update: Kevin points out that the statements only became public when Senator Leahy made them so. I can't say I particularly approve of amplifying privately made comments because they use "unacceptable language." In fact, that kind of defeats the outrage of the language in the first place. It's analogous to gossiping "Can you believe Charlie is gossipping about Joe cheating on Joan?"

So of course there's a political motive, though Leahy and the Democrats aren't particularly scoring points with me on this one. I don't like the language that Cheney used, but I have a hard time getting outraged about it.

Michael Williams is less generous with Leahy and the Democrats than I am:

Civility is for opponents, not for enemies. Everyone reading this knows I'm biased against the Democrats in general, but that bias isn't "prejudice" because there's plenty of evidence available on which to base judgement. It should be clear to everyone that the political tactics the Democrats are using as the minority party are far dirtier than anything the Republicans did when they were out of power. Beyond all the "minor" issues like their attempts to block judicial appointments and to talk down the economy, the Democrats are purposefully undermining the War on Terror for their own political gain.

[...]

Many on the anti-war left actually are anti-American, can that be denied? And they uniformly support the Democrats. Can anyone then argue that Democrat politicians aren't influenced by their anti-American donors and constituents? You'd have to be naive, or think the rest of us are.

Some on the left actually are enemies of America, and when leftist politicians do their bidding to undermine the War on Terror, they become enemies of America as well. I think the Vice President's advice to them is right on target.

I agree about there being an anti-Americanism on the (far) left, though I decline to paint the entire anti-war left with that brush. The type of phrasing used here as well as the nature of the defenses made in the comments section of WorldMagBlog are part of the problem rather than the solution. It's one thing to say "It's no big deal that he cussed" (which is certainly a legimate position) and another to say "It's okay that he said that because he was talking about evil, evil Democrats."

I try not to get on my soapbox too regularly about civility in the political sphere (I never said that I succeeded, just that I do try). It's not evil civility that I disagree with Cheney on as I'd be just as inclined to object if he said "I'm fucking sleepy this morning." But the response of some that the political parties are at war with one another reminds me of Anthony Lewis's comparison of John Ashcroft with Osama bin Laden.

Last night Adam wrote the following in an AIM message:

I just got a spam e-mail from "Mohammed Whitlock". A relative of yours?

Today I got an spam email from Jim Sanford. Mr. Sanford doesn't exist, but just a couple of days ago I recieved an email from an aquaintance named Sanford Hollings. Is it possible that when spam generates names that it pulls from names on email items already in a mailbox? Sanford and Whitlock are not particularly common names.

In at least two states, conventional anti-alcohol puritanism is meeting with some resistence.

Delaware remains the only state to keep the BAC requirement at .1 and is willing to forego highway funding. Charles Hill has some great links on the subject over at Dustbury.

Colorado senate candidate Pete Coors wants to lower the Colorado drinking age from 21 down to 18. Coors - as in the Coors brewing family - is probably not the best person to make this argument, but it's an argument that needs to be made. The current drinking age is a joke.

There is nothing that intrisically takes place between 18 and 21 that makes one ready to drink. Indeed, very few actually wait until 21. The only actual effect it has on drinking is that the 18-21 set have to at least take a modicum of precaution to avoid getting caught. Some fraternities hire off-duty cops for security so they (a) get an insurance break and (b) can ward off other cops eager for some easy tickets.

In my estimation, there are only two advantages to the current laws. First, during my single days if I was at a bar and saw a female-type without an X written on her hand I knew she was at least 21. That was good to know, but I'm not sure public policy should be written around that. The second issue involves drunk driving. Having five years between being able to drink and legally drink helps kids get the driving thing down pat before alcohol legally enters the picture. Having two years is a bit more disconcerting and if you add to that how many kids are independent for the first time in their lives, too much freedom at once can be a bad thing.

So I'm not 100% in favor of lowering the age limit, but I do have nothing but admiration for whichever state bucks the federal blackmail that caused many states to bring the drinking age up to 21 in the first place. Having different laws in different states allows for us to compare and contrast and let each area determine what's right for it.

This joke was funnier in its previous form when it was actually using a former president (Clinton).

Jennifer Larson uses her blog as a casting call for a boyfriend:

PERSONALITY--moderately gregarious, good sense of humor (as in, "gets my jokes"), honest, faithful, affectionate, intelligent (which can be interpreted as street-smart or book-smart, and if I had to choose, I'd pick street-smart), should have a decent relationship with all family members who are not clinically insane, mature, moderately impetuous, not afraid to ask me what "impetuous" means if he's not sure, ability to take care of creepy-crawly things that I can't deal with, knows how to cook--or willing to learn, passable in other domestic arts (dishes, laundry, vacuuming), has enough going on in his own life that he won't fixate on mine, lack of snobbishness, confident, trusting, patient, and wants children.

PHYSICAL--I've dated all types. The bodybuilder and football player were nice, but so were the guys who were extra cuddly. I'm not picky, but health is a concern long-term. I prefer brown hair and brown eyes, but that's not a requirement. I love Troy Aikman and he's blond and blue. My height or taller is preferred: 5' 6". If you have a nice smile and use it a lot, you're in. Bonus points for nice eyes. I used to like the guys with long hair, but that is in the past. Short hair, please. Shower daily. And shave. Facial hair is negotiable, but I prefer none.

I never particularly thought it wise to use the blog to try to wrangle myself a date, though having used various online dating services I'm not sure exactly why I have that double-standard. It mostly comes down to an unwillingness to talk about my current romantic life on the blog. With the exception of a single post about Lisa, the only current that I've talked about has been Eel and even that was only after things settled down a bit and it became obvious that she was going to be a part of my life that I couldn't not mention.

But the part I found most interesting about Jennifer's post was her addendum:

***Addendum: Can't mind being blogged about under a nickname of sorts.

This is probably another reason that I never felt inclined to talk about this date or that (though not a reason to not use the blog to snare a femalien). If you're going to date and blog it seems that at some point you're going to have to tell your significant other that you've been talking about them with strangers. Sugarmama went through that a while back. Since I knew my relationship with Lisa was going to be temporary I had little to fear from telling her about the blog (which I did as soon as I posted about her). I was lucky with Eel because she knew of the blog before she knew of me.

Blogger's knowledge base confronts the issue.

Thrillhouse notes the following story:

BURBANK, Calif. -- A 20-year-old California man who dropped out of high school to care for his ailing father has earned the first perfect GED score the state has seen in the past decade.

State officials say Zachary Olkewicz earned the only perfect score among the 569,000 people who took the GED in California in that period.

He is one of only six people nationwide last year to answer every question on the test correctly.

Olkewicz is now attending college and hopes to someday open a computer software design business.

I'm curious, do universities care how well someone scores on the GED? If I recall, some don't allow GEDers in at all, so I assume they wouldn't. But I'm curious how they would juxtapose Mr. Olkewicz next to someone who graduated with a 3.0 GPA in high school. On one hand he's demonstrated that he is capable of learning and presumably of being a good student. On the other, he may have just had a really, really good test day.

He's free to go to a JuCo for a couple of years and generally speaking if you do well at that level you can get into most any state university. Cal-Berkeley is probably out, but UCal's populate the top 100 universities in the nation. In Texas they may not be able to transfer easily into UT and A&M, but Texas Tech or UH shouldn't be a problem. OU is also pretty generous with transfers as, I'd imagine, are most flagship universities in smaller states.

I'm not a Linux user at the moment. I have a Linux machine that is ready to go, but I haven't set it up yet. The more recent versions have been leaps-and-bounds improvements over its predecessors and soon it may get to the point where it's all I use. Time will tell. But I am one of the most pro-Microsoft people I know in that I don't believe that Linux's dominance of the OS market is inevitable. I'm relatively knowledgeable about computers and if I'm not willing to make the switch, then how can we expect people who want their computer to be as easy to operate as a microwave to take the responsibilities that come with open source software?

Slate's Clive Thompson makes an astonishingly good argument for Linux without even bringing up the open-source OS:

We prefer our software be super-easy to install and use. The computer industry began with home-brew boxes that everyone had to program for themselves, but that was a huge hassle. The computer revolution didn't explode until the first Macintosh arrived, with its point-and-click simplicity. You didn't need to know anything about software or programming to use a Mac. We asked for ignorance, and the industry responded.

And now it's biting us in the rear. Consider: Most spyware arrives on our computers with our permission. We download a free application like KaZaA, or one of the many apps that deliver local weather reports or synchronize your computer's clock (usually from WhenU or Claria). The software asks us to click and approve a ponderously long "end user license agreement." Somewhere inside that license the company explains, sotto voce, that the tool will monitor your surfing, or even control your computer remotely. Any smart computer user would never agree to such a thing.

But of course, nobody reads those agreements. Hell, I write about technology for a living, and I don't read them. Adware makers exploit our laziness. That seems kind of sneaky and underhanded, doesn't it? Except all software makers behave the same way. Above-the-board folks such as Microsoft (which owns Slate), Yahoo, RealNetworks, and Google use equally confusing click-through agreements that you don't read either. And they also sometimes install monitoring applications, again with your supposed approval. Software is now so complex—requiring so many gazillions of tiny files all over your computer—that most consumers don't want to bother to know what's really going on.

The industry's cultivation of ignorance goes beyond the use of indecipherable user agreements. The software industry has lobbied hard for laws that keep you in the dark. If you, or any public-spirited programmer, wanted to figure out what the software on your machine is really doing, tough luck. It's illegal to reverse engineer the source code of commercial software to find out how it works.

Open source software doesn't have that problem at all. If the spyware and adware get to the point that the hassle counters the advantages of using an idiot box, I wouldn't be surprised to see more people switch.

I still don't think it will happen, though. If Microsoft sees a threat in that area they'll likely start getting really serious about spyware and mitigate the problem. Unlike spam, it's actually not an insurmountable issue even with proprietary software.

I've said in the past that I oppose burdensome legislation in the area of spyware (though I don't oppose all legislation) because I think the market will provide the answers. If the existing market structure doesn't, I expect that Linux will be the beneficiary.

Last night Eel's sister Sally was in my dream. I don't know what the dream was about, but I remember that Sally was there and there was something about ice cream.

I met up with Eel's family this weekend and out of nowhere Sally insisted that we absolutely positively had to get ice cream on the way home. So we did.

I haven't eaten ice cream in four months.

Weird.

Andrew Olmsted makes the following case against voting for Kerry if one is dissatisfied with Bush:

I thought of this while reading this review of an extended argument in favor of voting for Kerry by Jeff of Caerdroia. The author of the original argument makes many good points regarding the failings of the Bush administration. I have noted many of these problems myself, and I don't think even President Bush's most ardent supporters would dispute that he has made a number of significant mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is these problems that have led me to strongly consider voting for someone other than President Bush in the upcoming election, and I suspect that the argument will be a factor in many people's votes.

But our system doesn't actually allow us to vote against anyone: in the end, we vote for a candidate. And, as the old saw goes, there is always a worse road than the one on which you are travelling. I realize that there are a significant number of people who claim to be for ABB, but I suspect that the vast majority of them would vote for President Bush if the alternative were sufficiently horrific. In any case, the problem I see is that if I'm to vote for someone other than President Bush, it needs to be based on the belief that the candidate will be a better president than Bush. As difficult as it seems to be for partisans to accept, mistakes are inevitable in any endeavor; whoever takes the oath of office in January 2005 will make plenty of mistakes during his term. Therefore, the fact President Bush has made mistakes is insufficient to demonstrate he's not fit for a second term, because his successor will undoubtedly make errors as well. So if your argument is that Bush has to go because of his mistakes, there is an implied corollary that Kerry will not make as many mistakes.

I'd be lying if I said that I was as excited about the prospect of four more years of Bush presidency as I was a couple of years ago. The war in Iraq has not gone as well as I had hoped and the administration has some responsibility over that. The economy is improving, but I no more credit Bush for that now than I did blame him when it went south. Even at my pitiful wages I'm enjoying Bush's tax cuts, but it has not been met with much of any discernable attempt to rein in spending. Most disturbingly, the administration has lost its composure.

But I'd also be lying if I said that I will oppose Bush this year or that I regret voting for him nearly four years ago because despite all of this, Al Gore has made it very clear that the right man won in 2000 and John Kerry has said and done absolutely nothing to demonstrate that he will improve things one iota. If someone else had won the nomination I might be considering voting the other day, but that probably wouldn't change the fact that they'd be running on a platform that I oppose. To alter a saying that's been making the rounds: The news has been terrible for Bush and I'm against everything Kerry wants to do... but the news could change.

So unless I lose my mind and vote Libertarian, I'm pretty safely in the Bush camp.

Dateline: 1995-96

I never really went through a "girls are icky" stage. I wasn't a horndog growing up, but there had always been an almost clinical fascination with people of the female sort. With the exception of my neighbor's sister, I really didn't have any acquaintances that were female and about my age. When I eventually did become interested in females at about the fifth grade, I hadn't the slightest clue how to interact with them.

That all changed in late junior high and high school when I picked up a couple of female friends. When I started getting on ACME I started collecting more. Even with my female friends and sorta relationships, however, there was a failure to completely comprehend how these strange people worked. As I did eventually begin to understand them, I still couldn't relate to them at all. They were alien to me.

In that sense, it's fairly natural that the first girl that I could truly understand and relate to I fell in love with. Her name was Ora Walls and we were only seventeen. I really didn't realize how important that was at the time.

We met on ACME. She'd signed on and became instantly popular with just about everyone. I was out of town when she first logged on so when I first came on she messaged me. She was interested in getting to know this person that she'd heard so much about. We hit it off instantly.

As with many femaliens on ACME, she was pursued by several guys. I became her pointman while she tried to sort it all out. I was coming off a sorta relationship where I'd perpetually have to keep competing for my girlfriend so I had little or no interest in competing for her. It was refreshing, in a way, because it meant that I could be a lot more open with her without worrying about my status or potential with her. Since I was out of the hunt, she could be similarly open with me.

That all changed when out of nowhere she developed an interest in me. At first I resisted it because it disrupted the nice equilibrium that we had. There were also a number of other problems. Mostly that she just wasn't right at all.

I was attracted to short and slender girls. She, on the other hand, was 5'8" and had quite a figure. I wanted somebody more on the cute side but she was more on the feisty side. She wasn't who I was supposed to fall in love with at all.

But yet there was something undeniably there. She understood me in ways that no one else did at the time (Jay and I were on the outs). I could be so much more open with her and felt that she was being truly open with me. Most importantly, in a world of superficial and plastic girls, she was completely genuine and there was enormous depth in the way she thought and felt and an astounding connection with the way that I thought and felt at the time.

I can say, without hesitation, that she completely changed my world. While I thought it might be better if I fell for someone that lived closer by or fit more of my pre-set criteria, there was no way I could pass up an opportunity with someone that was so there, available, and right for me.

While I was coming to these conclusions, she was coming to quite different ones. Thoughtful and deep though she was, she was a thoughtful and deep seventeen year old with a romantic history as scant as my own. She felt that her charismatic talents might be wasted on someone such as myself. For some of the same reasons that I conquered when making my determination that I wanted to be with her, she made the determination that she didn't want to be with me.

It all came to a head one night when we were supposed to see each other. She never showed and things were never the same again. All that I will say about that evening is that there was the possibility that she was pregnant with a child that wasn't mine. To give an idea of how devoted I was to her, I honestly contemplated being the stand-in father to her child. Maybe it wasn't mine, but since it was half hers I knew that I could love it all the same.

There are two reasons that this never came to pass. The first reason is that however closely I looked at the situation, she didn't want to be with me. I could be the best stepdad on the planet and it would probably have only left me babysitting the kid while she was trying to do better. There was something intrinsically wrong about that and even in my drive to be with her, I knew it. The second reason it came to pass is that it turned out that she wasn't pregnant. Part of me was sorry that she wasn't because it meant definitively that we wouldn't be together. Part of her was sorry that she wasn't because it meant definitively that she and the non-existent baby's father would never get together.

Looking back, we were pretty messed up kids. We were mature for our age, but our maturity had an isolating effect which ironically stunted our social growth and in a very different way made us considerably less mature than our peers. We didn't know how to deal with the thoughts and feelings that no one around us seemed to be thinking and feeling. We didn't know how to answer the questions that no one else thought to even ask.

Even in the many ways we hurt each other, it was only because we were so right for one another.

There's more to the story than all this. It didn't end with the non-existent child or even that heartbreak. There was a second round and, in a different way, a third and fourth one. But sometimes the story is best left incomplete.

It's a shame that I'm trying to cut down on my electronics spending, because my home entertainment system will just never be complete without this.

John Kerry is presently both a senator and a presidential candidate. Really, he's a senator in name only right now because he's been missing nearly every important vote since his presidential run. Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and his associates have been calling on him to step down.

It's my general belief that the Massachusetts Republicans are being a bit insincere. If the shoe were on the other foot, I don't think they'd be saying this (the Democrats would). Kerry has made it known that he would be running for president for some time now and this type of thing is not unheard of. When Bush was running in 2000 a death row inmate was given clemency because both Bush and Perry were out of the state and the acting governor was a Democratic legislator. No fault on Bush, either, as people who elected him in 1998 knew he'd probably be running for president.

On the other hand, it's fair to point out that Bob Dole did resign in 1996 when he ran for the presidency. Of course, that Dole had a Republican governor appointing his replacement and Kerry would be replaced by the Republican governor's Republican appointee has nothing to do with anything, right? It's typical political games and while I am reluctant to side with the Republicans on the matter, I haven't felt the need to call them on it.

Until now.

Apparently Democrats are trying to set it up so that if Kerry gets elected there would be an election to replace him within six months or so instead of the traditional two years. I'm frankly not sure to what degree this is constitutional and that's something that should be looked at, but Romney's rhetoric is over the top:

Governor Mitt Romney said yesterday that the Democrats' fast-paced effort to eliminate his authority to appoint a US senator if John F. Kerry wins the presidency is a ''political gimmick' that denies voters a fair campaign.

The bill would set up a special election between 145 and 160 days after an incumbent formally declares his or her intention to resign. If Kerry were to win the presidency, a special election could be held in late March or early April 2005.

The current law allows the governor to appoint a person to serve until the 2006 election if Kerry were to vacate the office early next year.

''That's not an election; that's a sweetheart deal," Romney told reporters. ''It's a political gimmick. . . . It's robbing the citizens of the right to a free election."

A shorter election campaign could benefit two congressman, Edward J. Markey of Malden and Martin T. Meehan of Lowell, who are already amassing large war chests. Markey has well over $1 million, and Meehan's account has swelled to $2.3 million. A slightly longer campaign would give other congressmen with smaller accounts, Barney Frank of Newton and Stephen Lynch of South Boston, time to catch up.

Six months should be ample time for a campaign. What Romney is really upset about is that the Republicans are hoping to gain a senate seat without winning a senate election. Current law dictates that to be the case, so the Democrats are trying to change the law. At least they're trying to do it before-hand this time instead of like their antics in New Jersey.

I can't blame Republicans for being excited about the possibility of licking their presidential wounds (if Kerry wins) with a senate seat or two (if Florida Senator Bill Nelson is the VP and his successor is picked by Governor Bush), but since the Democrats want an election and the Republicans don't, it's not particularly true that the Democrats are somehow being anti-democratic here.

Hopefully none of this will be an issue because Bush will be re-elected, but Romney's outrage that a state that hasn't had a Republican senator in decades won't have one appointed for them is more than my stomach can handle.

[links via Comedian and Safety]

Cody Clark links to a fascinating article on a research experiment to make promiscuous rodents into monogamous ones:

Could the day come when a simple bit of gene therapy might cure infidelity?

In a report out today, researchers say they were able to perform that bit of molecular magic on the meadow vole, a mouse-like rodent. The genes involved are the same in humans, they say, though the mechanism is likely to be far more complex.

By transferring a single gene to the pleasure center of the naturally promiscuous male vole, researchers at Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory University in Atlanta were able to make it happily monogamous, they say in a letter in the journal Nature.

They're not actually suggesting gene therapy can fix human infidelity, but the research has important implications for brain disorders, such as autism, that make it difficult for people to bond with others.

''It really highlights the connections between social behavior and gene expression,'' says Gene Robinson, director of the neuroscience program at the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign, who was not involved in the study. He calls the research ''exciting.''

The male meadow vole is promiscuous, but his cousin the prairie vole is the settle-down-and-raise-a-family kind of guy. In studying the brain chemistry of the two mammals, researchers found that when the monogamous prairie vole mates, the pleasure hormone dopamine is released in its brain. The receptors for that dopamine are located in the brain's pleasure center, which also happens to be where the receptors for the hormone vasopressin are located. And vasopressin is linked to social learning.

As Cody says, we don't know much yet about how this might effect humans, but it brings up some interesting ethical questions about rewiring human nature.

Jack Cluth links to a really interesting article on prostitution and art:

NEW YORK — What do you call it when a woman approaches a wealthy man through an intermediary and offers to have sex with him on camera and then sell him the videotape?

Art, of course.

The body-for-a-price in this case belongs to the New York-based conceptual artist Andrea Fraser. She approached the man, an unidentified art collector, through the Friedrich Petzel Gallery in Chelsea. The result is an hourlong, unedited videotape shot with a single fixed camera and showing the artist and her patron engaged in sex. (It will be on view until July 9 at the Petzel Gallery.)

So what distinguishes this piece of work from pornography or prostitution? Simple: According to the gallery's Web site, www.petzel.com, Fraser's work "raises issues regarding the ethical and consensual terms of interpersonal relationships as well as the contractual terms of economic exchange."

Oh, it's raising issues! Well, OK, then.

Back in college I tried to come up with niches in the market that existed because of petty things such as morality. I figured that people willing to exploit those niches could make a killing. I had two ideas, one very similar to this. Now they've both been done.

One of the ideas was remarkably similar to this. I won't go into the details of how exactly I came up with the idea, but it it was a fantasy camp for porn. The basic sales pitch is "How much would someone pay to be in a raw porn flick?"

The term "raw" being included because I wouldn't have wanted petty things like cinematography to ruin the mood. The point was, basically, that they would be paying for wild orgy sex with well-paid and attractive actresses (or actors, I guess). They would pay the "movie studio" and the movie studio would then pay the actresses. They'd be paying for the chance to be in a movie and not the sex and voila, legal prostitution.

The other idea involved a hookup site for unhappily married folks for no-strings-attached sex with people similarly unhappy in their marriage. The motto was "Discrete Encounters: Making unhappy marriages a little bit happier"

Anna was less than impressed with my entreprenuership. For my part, I'm not as impressed with the idea now as I was back then. The Discrete Encounters idea has been done a hundred times over and has not been as successful as I'd imagined it would be. Porn Fantasy Camp, thankfully, would probably be just as unsuccessful.

In response to Google's GMail, Yahoo has changed a number of its policies regarding its free accounts. Space is no longer an issue (yay!). Something must have happened in the conversion, though, because now their spamguard is practically useless. I don't generally get much in the way of spam except on the yahoo account because its records are so easily accessible by spammers.

They need to fix this.

Leaf by leaf and page by page
throw this book away
All the sadness all the rage
throw this book away
Rip out the binding and tear the glue
all of the grief we never even knew
we had it all along
-Ben Folds Five, "Smoke"
I must confess that I like the radio up here better than I do in Houston. There are less commercials and without the rap and R&B stations that I don't listen to (I think there is all of one up here), there's even more variety of the music that I do listen to.

For some reason, Eel and I were listening to adult contemporary on the way home yesterday. It was a variation of Houston's Zoe Bonet's "Love Thoughts" thing where people call in and tell their story and make a dedication.

One woman called in that was ending a marriage with someone that she dubbed "the love of her life." The basic problem was that they didn't get along in the slightest and it had become apparent, love of life or no, they weren't going to any time soon. She asked for a song to reflect these feelings.

While I tend to start going in analytic mode when I hear stories like this, it was obvious by her mood that she was pretty exhausted by the whole thing and just wanted to hear a love song. But, strangely, Delilah (Zoe of Gate City) went all Dr. Laura on the caller and expressed doubt that it was right at all if they couldn't get along. It was a point that I couldn't disagree with, but given the circumstances I thought it was just bizarre. The two of them went at at it for about five minutes when Eel and I started begging them to just play the danged song.

They did. It was an awful song, so we turned it.

Dawn Eden has some worthwhile thoughts on finding that special someone:

The other night, I ran into a woman I know who informed me she was so dissatisfied with the caliber of men she was meeting through her social circle that she had joined a personal-ad Web site.

Unfortunately, she added, the Web site—one of the biggest in the business—had thus far turned out to be a bust. The five responses she'd received in her ad's debut week ranged from the perverted to the inane. But what could she expect? According to a survey on the site, she was compatible with only 4 percent of its members.

Just a lonely little 4 percent. How sad. I gave her the requisite "poor baby" platitudes. It wasn't until I got home that it hit me.

Assuming that the Web site's statistics hold true for real life—which they probably do, given the large sample—and assuming what I learned in fifth-grade math still holds, Personal Ad Gal can theoretically walk into any room containing 25 men and discover one case of mutual boat-floating.

It boggles the mind.

When things ended with Audrey, there was a certain erroneous assumption on my part that I was wasting my time searching for someone immediately compatible with myself. Audrey was the pinnacle of compatibility, yet there was rarely a moment where one of us wasn't pissed off and the other hiding in an emotional cave. So, it seemed to me, the answer was simply to find a good person and smoothe over whatever personal and temperamental differences that existed.

It made sense when I thought of it. I am, as Eel is prone to say, "a bird of rare plumage." If Keirsey's estimates that only 15% of the public is compatible with myself were correct, it seemed a waste to immediately discount the majority 85%. Especially when I'm such a great guy that is very skilled at getting along with a wide variety of people. In yet another display of our innate similarity, Audrey had reached a similar conclusion in her own life.

The year 2002 is littered with remnants of mini-relationships and sorta-relationships that were destined never to work. Because I was spending so much time and effort trying to make the unworkable work, I was downright exhausted when someone that I actually was somewhat compatible with came along.

Whenever someone complains that none of their relationships seem to be working, one of my stock phrases is that "every relationship fails until one finally succeeds." The ultimate truth in that - that it only takes one - applies as much to the hunt as to the feast.

The truth is that the compatibility rate is far less than 15% or even 4%. Of that percent, you have to find someone that isn't already attached, that is emotionally ready for a relationship, and whose practical dreams are compatible with your own. There's a good chance that we're talking well below 1% when everything is considered.

But all it takes is one. It takes finding one of those people and making things work with them. It's easier said than done, of course, but you only have to succeed once.

[via Dustbury]

I finally have my desktop hooked up to the Internet. It's really nice to be able to surf the net without having to use the eraserhead or different keyboard.

Instead of using my preferred Opera, I went ahead and installed Firefox to give it another shot. I've mentioned this before and no one has commented to my recollection, but I'll go ahead and explicitly ask: Is