new stamp

Virtual destructor

My fan base quickly pointed out that in the example code I sent through valgrind the other day, that class Derived didn't allocate any dynamic memory, and that not calling its destructor would not have been expected to leak memory. All of the comments I got suggested that if I had allocated some block of dynamic memory, either with a stl vector or a raw C-style array inside the constructor, and destroyed it in the destructor, the memory would be leaked in a call to the (non-polymorphic) base class dstor.

I went ahead and coded up the suggestion and found, yes, valgrind detects the leaked memory.

This makes me wonder, though: how the hell does delete know how large the thing is that its deleting?

I wish I could quit you

I got stuck in emacs while using cygwin. C-x C-c did nothing. So I tried M-x to type out a bunch of possible "exit" commands.

I tried:

quit
exit
leave

These are not meaningful ways to end emacs.

How do you quit?

M-x save-buffers-kill-emacs

Thank you google. If not for you, I might still be trapped in emacs hell.

valgrind non-virtual dstor leak bug

I ran valgrind on the following code which, you'll see, leaks the data stored in the derived class.

Valgrind does not seem to notice the leak. I'm not so happy about that.

/// test.cc
#include

class Base {
public:
virtual void blah() = 0;
~Base() { std::cout << "Base dstor" << std::endl; }
private:
int data_;
};

class Derived : public Base
{
public:
virtual void blah() {}
~Derived() { std::cout << "Derived dstor" << std::endl;}
private:
int data2_;
int data3_;
};


int main()
{
Base * bptr = new Derived;
delete bptr;
return 0;
}

..........
From the command line.

>g++ test.cc -o test.out
>valgrind --tool=memcheck test.out
==31535== Memcheck, a memory error detector.
==31535== Copyright (C) 2002-2005, and GNU GPL'd, by Julian Seward et al.
==31535== Using LibVEX rev 1575, a library for dynamic binary translation.
==31535== Copyright (C) 2004-2005, and GNU GPL'd, by OpenWorks LLP.
==31535== Using valgrind-3.1.1, a dynamic binary instrumentation framework.
==31535== Copyright (C) 2000-2005, and GNU GPL'd, by Julian Seward et al.
==31535== For more details, rerun with: -v
==31535==
Base dstor
==31535==
==31535== ERROR SUMMARY: 0 errors from 0 contexts (suppressed: 5 from 1)
==31535== malloc/free: in use at exit: 0 bytes in 0 blocks.
==31535== malloc/free: 1 allocs, 1 frees, 24 bytes allocated.
==31535== For counts of detected errors, rerun with: -v
==31535== All heap blocks were freed -- no leaks are possible.

Swedish Meatballs

"The steer grazes on grass during the day and enjoys the occasional swede as a treat."

Infant waterboarding

To ghastly to believe.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2008/04/18/ng.polygamy.crime.cnn

snowboarding

Pants and I finished our third day of snowboarding at this resort an hour outside of the city. They had this deal for newbs: $100, 3 lift tickets, 3 rentals, 3 lessons. I had a blast, and so did Pants, who before our first day had never been skiing, snowboarding or even sledding. It was her first time on a snowy hill. She liked it so much, we're talking about getting a season ticket next year -- $300 for the "limited" season pass (which means, on weekends, it's not good at the sister-resort up the street -- you can still go to the sister resort on weekdays, though) or $360 for the "unlimited" (good at the sister resort at all times). Pays for itself after 6 trips since usually lift tickets are $48. I'm totally psyched.

Welfare Dad

You know this guy is just going to go out and make the same mistakes the next time 'round. Those suckling at Uncle Sam's teat tend to think they never have to assume responsibility for their mistakes.

Bush: "I broke the law, I dare you to impeach me"

"Let me make it very clear and to state so officially in front of this committee that waterboarding has been used on only three detainees. It was used on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. It was used on Abu Zubaydah. And it was used on [Abd al-Rahim al-]Nashiri."

-- CIA director Michael Hayden, yesterday.

Waterboarding is torture. Torture is banned under international treaty. Bush violated international treaty. He broke the law. He should be removed from office.

Twelve McCain Supporters

In all of West Virginia, only twelve people voted for John McCain. Twelve. I bet they know each other.

Of course, that's still 1% of the West Virginia vote, because only a little more than a thousand people in west virginia voted. The rest must think they live in Russia where there's no such thing as democracy.

Awesome

Hologram

Racist

"You don't like people from outside the state coming in and telling you what to do with your flag. In fact, if somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we'd tell 'em what to do with the pole; that's what we'd do."

-- Mike Huckabee, while in South Carolina.

Unamerican

"I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that’s what we need to do — is to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family."

-- Mike Huckabee

Flu

I've come down with a nasty case of the flu which has incapacitated me since Monday night. I've been staying home mostly so I don't infect everyone else in the lab -- but if I went in to lab, I'd get nothing done there either.

The most-likely suspect for having infected me is, of course, Pants. She came home with something from work, and ended up staying home one day. She was slightly feverish, she tells me, but mostly, it seemed like a cold. When I finally contracted it, I skipped the cold symptoms and went straight for the chills. Fevers, sweats, malaise. It always happens that if she and I catch the same thing, it knocks me out 200% worse than it does her. Most of the time, I catch something and she never catches it from me.

The worst part about being home sick is that I feel totally unproductive. I wake up at night from work dreams and can't fall back asleep.

Hardware watchpoint in GDB

For some reason, the synatax for setting a hardware watchpoint in GDB is impossible to find in google. Or rather, there are misleading instructions on how to set the watchpoint. The instructions you'll find say "watch for when variable x gets changed by writing 'watch x'". But this never solves a memory corruption bug. At least for me.

This post is for my own purposes. I never want to waste 10 minutes searching for the proper syntax again.

Let's say I know that location 0xABCD1234 is getting corrupted.

Then the gdb command is:

> watch *((int*) 0xABCD1234)

Mukasey

The president of the Uninted States continues to violate the constitution he swore to uphold in torturing prisoners. He has asked congress to replace his former torture-enabler, the embattled Gonzales, with a new puppet, Robert Mukasey. When Mukasey went before the Senate, he would not say that waterboarding is torture. Waterboarding is torture. Mukasey has publicly expressed his willingness to allow Bush to continue torturing, to continue breaking international treatries in violation of the constitution.

Charles Schumer, a senior democrat, is now supporting Mukasey's confirmation based on a private conversation he had with Mukasey. What's his rationale? He says that Mukasey agreed with a hypothetical: if Congress were to pass legistation saying that waterboarding is torture, then it would not be out-of-line with its constitutionally granted powers and the President wouldn't have any recourse (except of course, to veto the bill).

The logic here is tortured. Schumer seems to think this consession is a hat-tip to the separation-of-powers provisions of the constitution. When did the constitution need consessions made to it?

Moreover, its a circuitous consession. It makes congress do much more work than it needs to! Congress does not need to say that waterboarding is torture. Legal precident and human decency defines it as torture. Worst of all, if congress were to legistlate that waterboarding is torture, then it effectively grants immunity to water-boarders up until this point: "Oh, I just water boarded that guy because it wasn't illegal at the time."

Schumer is doing a grave disservice to the anit-torture camp. Why is toture so hard to stand against?

Religion is evil

A catholic bishop makes up a story about how condoms give you AIDS. Does he have any proof for his claim? No. Of course not. But that's the thing. Religious authority has never been constrainted by the burden of proof, so people are used to just listening to whatever lunatic ideas they have.

This bishop has blood on his hands.

not surprised

The Post declares Putin's move a surprise. I disagree. He's always behaved like a dictator. Now he's just assuming the mantle.

Dead air

As we drove from North Dakota into Montana on Wednesday evening, the sun was setting and I was getting tired. We'd been driving since 9 that morning (central time) and it was almost 8 (mountain time). I scanned through the chanels on the truck's radio and stopped on a classic rock station which was finishing off some song I didn't recognize from the early 80's I figured. It went to a comercial break, but I stuck with the station because my other two options were a country station and an all-jesus-all-the-time station.

As the station returned from break, it went through its call sign

"One hundred point five. The rock."

< Dead silence >

I kept glancing down at the dial and started to chuckle to myself. They were broadcasting dead air; how embarassing. Thirty seconds passed. I was cracking up. These idiots clearly didn't have a very high value on their air time if they were letting thirty seconds go by without broadcasting anything. How unprofessional. A minute passed. I started to get a little peeved. The sun was setting into my eyes, so I adjusted the sun visor -- I was only able to see the road up to the horizon in front of me. Two minutes passed, still no music. Man, these guys seriously need work. I started to forget that I was listening to the radio. Five minutes passed. Then I finally hear

"One hundred point five. The rock"

< Dead silence >

Someone's clearly gone to take a shit after queueing up a whole bunch of music. The call signs keep coming but the music they've queued is not. Well surely their boss is listening to the radio and will jump into the booth and straighten the mess out. Five more minutes pass; my mind wanders and I start to get sleepy. Fortunately, the radio comes to its senses and I hear

"One hundred point five. The rock"

< Dead silence >

AAAAAAAAA. Play something goddamnit!

I switched to the country station.

Putin shutters Journalist Group over $2500

The head of the Educated Media Foundation is facing charges of 5 years in jail for accidentally walking through customs without declaring $2500 over the legal limit of $10000.

The foundation has been shut down, its computers seized, its accounts frozen.

Over $2500.

Putin is an enemy of the world.

GHWB (41)

Bigot

Rove To Abramoff: It's safe to break the law now

An uncovered email from Rove's secretary to Abramoff's secretary:

"I now have an RNC BlackBerry, which you can use to e-mail me at any time. No security issues like my WH e-mail."

Willing violation of the Presidential Records Act of 1978 by Bush's #2. (And yes, I do mean to imply Rove is a little shit.)

Impeach!

Sensitivity toward Islam

Pakistan is threatening to cut its ties with Britain over the knighting of the author of a literary work of fiction.

This work of fiction inflames Islamists and is insensitive toward moderates. Everyone knows that offending a great religion is blasphemy and punishable by death. Surely the British should have been more sensitive than to give any praise for a man who has lived under threat of death for 20 years. Moderates agree that he should be murdered, and if the moderates agree, then Britain is offensive in not carrying out the execution themselves!

In the name of world peace and sensitivity, murder the author!

Tanks and Students

Magnum photos is presenting 31 pictures that moved the world.

#27 is my vote for the most moving.

Star Wars

The evil emporer squelches the vote by positioning his Storm Troopers outside polling stations in areas of great unrest.

Cheney's hatred for America

He wages war on the principles that founded this country. His weapon: calling the Constitution a rallying point for pussies and terrorists.

That's the Republican party. A bunch of fascists.

Can we afford a Giuliani presidency? He's clearly in the Cheney camp when it comes to reckless disreguard for the Constitution.

Goodling had something to hide

For Gonzales, the shit hit the fan today. I can't see him remaining in office another week.

Goodling testified that McNulty lied to congress and that hiring inside the Justice department for *career positions* was politically motivated.

Goodline stalled the hiring of a layer from Harvard law specifically because of his political leanings.

The hiring of career layers and the appointments to political positions fall under different categories. Bush and Gonzales have presided over the worst politicization of the US govenerment ever.

Both should be tried for treason. They intentionally sought to violate the constitution they swore to uphold.

Wolfowitz's statement

Hitchens summary of this non-event is spot on.

Here's Wolfowitz's statement to the World Bank.

Wolfowitz non-scandal

I'm disappointed in the media for neglecting all facts surrounding the Wolfowitz case in their reporting of it. All that gets reported are the accuasations of a scandal. "The europeans are upset over a promotion of Wolfowitz's girlfriend" is all that gets reported. Since that's all that gets reported, it seems like that's all there is to the case and anyone can draw the conclusion that Wolfowitz has acted inapporpiately. This is a terrible sin of omission.

Again, I have to admire Hitchens for taking a firm stand when no one else will: Wolfowitz has been more than open with the world bank about his relationship with Riza, and the World Bank's decision to promote Riza so as to alleviate any conflict of interest is now being portrayed as Wolfowitz's decision based on nepotism or something even less seemly -- showering a girlfriend with money.

Hitchens has two articles that should be read.

From when the "controversy" first emerged: here

and from today: here.

I have no love lost for Wolfowitz. But men should only be convicted for crimes they commit. The press's attempt to try him the court of public opinion while not presenting any facts is shameful.

Kasparov Jailed For Disagreeing with Putin

Putin is an enemy of the modern world which holds as its most important principle the free flow of ideas.

Today, he jailed chess champion Gary Kasparov for demonstrating against his regime.

Karsparov had seen ahead a few moves; he knew Putin would come after him.

Vonnegut

I will miss him.

I've stolen another link from Sullivan's website: here's an exerpt from "A Man Without a Country"

march on washington

Seriously; the errosion of habeas corpus demands a response from the US citizenry. The stance this administration has consistently taken is that they don't have to follow any of the laws/constitutions that were written before they came to power. They can imprisson whomever for whatever reason for however long and be accountable to no one.

I'm not much of an organizer, but I'll march on DC if/when a civil liberties march gets organized.

From Sullivan's website, I got this link to a Harpers story about an imprissoned Pullizer-prize winning photojournalist. He's been imprissoned for a year. No charges have been filed against him.

Redacted

Big Brother Bush tortured a confession out of a suspected terrorist, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. What did that torture buy us? What he confessed can't be trusted or believed. Bush has tainted America's good standing in the world and emboldened totalitarians like Putin and Ahmadinejad.

Nashiri described his torture. Bush redacted the transcript.

ISP

Google announced a new broadband service.

I don't think it will work for me, though.

Gag

Under Gonzale's watch, the FBI abused its power to issue National Security Letters. These abuses have not come to light because of the gag order that the letters bring with them: people issued the letters must lie under threat of prosecution about having ever been given one.

One man speaks out. Annonymously.

The patriot act would not have become permanent if the gag order rule were not in place.

It's time we got rid of this insideous peice of legistlation.

Ongoing investigation

Duke Cunningham was brought down by one of the prosecutors that got fired. Her name is Lam. She was in the process of investigating Rep. Jerry Lewis when she got canned.

This scandal is obscene, and yet so very expected.

Every time the President has fought for more power, he has abused it.

Or did his wife send him out on a junket?

Libby hand wrote notes in the margins of Wilson's NYT op-ed. He asks

"Have they done this sort of thing before? Send an Ambas to answer a question? Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us?

Or did his wife send him on a junket?"

I'm sure it must have come up in the course of the trial when it was that Libby wrote these notes, but my bet is that he wrote them the day the op-ed hit the stands. If he wrote this note before he talked to Russert, then he lied.

Libby Documents

Sullivan posted this link to the website where the National Security Archive has posted all of the declasified documents that were part of the Libby investigation.

I'm going to rumage through them later.

Today, Pants and I painted the kitchen. The kitchen gets the afternoon sun, and the deep orange had faded to an orangish yellow -- except the parts of the walls covered by pictures. Those were still deep orange. We bought some organish yellow paint yesterday at Sears. It took two coats to cover the dark orange areas and one coat where the faded paint matched the new paint.

Krauthammer's Complicity

The Plame case is too important to let Krauthammer whitewash it as just some prosecutor going bananas over a simple memory failure.

The picture that Krauthammer paints of Libby is of a powerful man deftly handling dozens of issues simultaneously, who has forgotten a minor detail on a minor issue. The minor issue is Ambassador Wilson's op-ed blasting the State of the Union claim that Iraq was close to going nuclear. The minor detail was when Libby learned that Wilson's wife was at the CIA. This is Krauthammer's first deception: "minor" does not describe either the issue or the detail.

Krauthammer's second deception is in painting Russert's testimony as the only detail of the case that actually pinned Libby as a liar. In so doing, he treats the case as a simple he-said-she-said disagreement. The jury looks awfully culpable if they sided with Russert over Libby when all they had to go on was their testimony.

But that blame-the-jury stance is itself deceptive... Libby didn't take the stand at his trial. "He-said-she-said" doesn't work if only one person is couragous enough to say anything!

But lets get back to that second deception before I blast the first.

Krauthammer is ignoring the testimony from Cheney's press aid, Cathie Martin. Martin testified that Libby and Cheney had discussed how to handle the mess over Wilson's op-ed at great length, and had talked about Wilson's wife and her possition at the CIA as being key towards painting Wilson as a bumbling idiot who only got to where he was through nepotism. If your boss is super worried about one man and how to discredit him, do you forget?

FUCK NO!

This now is getting to the Krauthammer's first deception. The downplaying of the importance of Wilson's (AMBASSADOR WILSON's) courageous disagreement with the executive office. In Cheney's world there could be no dissent or everything would unravel.

Krauthammer is ignoring everything that Fitzgerald's suppeneas revealed about the climate of the vice-president's office. Cheney was obssesed with connecting Sadam with Nukes. Anything that could derail that opinon was locked-on for destruction: character assasination (e.g. Paul O'Niel), "expert" disagreement (e.g. Steven Hadley) -- whatever it took.

We know now that Cheney was criminally wrong. Criminally. He was resonsible for the Plame leak. He gave the order. Libby lied to protect his boss from a criminal indictment. That is a crime. You go to jail for crimes. For Krauthammer to argue Libby disserves a pardon requires he ignore the majority of the facts unearthed in Fitzgerald's ivestigation.

And here is where Krauthammer's motives should be examined. I think he feels he needs to get Libby off the hook, or else his own complicity in decieving the country into an unjustified war might land him in jail... well, I doubt jail, but he will find himself fired.

Blame Game

Now is the time to play the blame game. Not six months from now when Libby's appeal has been rejected and he begins his 2 year sentence. Now.

The White House's continued policy of ignoring the Plame case (or as they put it, of not commenting on an ongoing criminal investigation) is absurd at this, the 25th hour.

Libby was convicted. Bush can no longer hide behind his managed media stance of ignoring the bad stuff.

When Katrina hit, the talking point was that it wasn't yet time for the blame game. He said it over and over. He sent out his deputies and they said it over and over. And then people got bored and turned to other issues.

We must not let Bush off the hook. We must fervently reject the managed media stance this administration has taken. They are accountable and we are entitled to an accounting. If they will not give it to us the first time we request it, then we must ask again and again and again. We must not get bored.

Froomkin hits the nail on the head.

Do NOT follow that link

CNN's 4th most popular story was too much for me.

You got the balls for a quagmire?

Froomkin disects Cheney's interview with Jonathan Karl.

In 1991, Cheney predicted invading Iraq would guarantee a quagmire. Karl asked Cheney what it was like to be so right. Cheney answered.

Froomkin asks:

"So if I read this correctly, Cheney is saying: Yes, it's a quagmire. But after 9/11 we needed to prove that we weren't weak. Is that now the official White House position?"

Mini Speakers

There's a TV at the gym hanging from the wall when you enter. A 40" flat-panel. It's not viewable from any part of the gym except the front desk. I would suppose that the bored staff watch it, except that every time I walk by it, there's this same commercial playing.

The setting is a downtown area. People are walking around listening to their iPods. They are wearing big old fish bowls on their heads, to symbolize how the iPods are disconnecting them from their surroundings. It's subtle. Some people are just waiting for the bus, but one couple is trying to make out. Of course, the fish bowls are preventing them from actually kissing. Then one guy suddenly is holding a different form of an MP3 player: one with little speakers on it. He takes the fishbowl off his head, smells the fresh air of the city, and triumphantly smashes the fish bowl on the ground. He thrusts his tiny speakers up into the air over his head and everyone around him looks up amazed. They remove their fish bowls and cast them aside, removing their iPods as they do so. The couple that was trying to make out remove their fish bowls, too, and finally kiss. Awwww. Everyone in the city starts dancing in the streets as the camera pulls back and the screen fades to black.

This is the dumbest commercial I have ever seen. If people wanted to listen to their music through tiny little speakers, they would be doing so already. Really, though, if people wanted to listen to their music out loud, they wouldn't use tiny little speakers, they would use big old boom boxes. And people did used to do bring their boom boxes everywhere they went -- but because they weren't keeping their music to themselves that everyone else in the world pressured them to stop doing it. Why would tiny speakers be any different? Other people's music is annoying. Ever ride the bus and hear a guy with headphones turned up too high? I tap that guy on the shoulder and tell him to turn it down. Now imagine that guy with little speakers, bobbing his head in satisfaction as he spreads his perfect taste in music with total strangers. Death metal, without the base, with the screetching sound of the symbols and the upper notes of the guitar, and a singer's unintelligable voice.

Painting

Yesterday, Pants and I painted one of the two small bedrooms in our house. The old color was this bright yellow. Because we're putting the house on the market in a few months, we want to repaint everything in a neutral color. We've been using this one paint color called "bone." It's off-white, kinda greyish. When I rolled the first patch of paint onto the yellow wall, my eyes played a trick on me. Against the old yellow paint, the new grey paint looked purple. One of those color-wheel things: yellow is the oposite of purple. It wasn't until the whole room was painted that we finally realized we'd been using purple paint.

Bet

A friend of mine recently won a bet he had with himself. The loser had to cut a 1" square of skin from a part of his body, and the winner was free to do whatever he wanted with it. He's been under a lot of stress you see. I guess that ended. Currently, he's having a piece of skin grafted over a recent wound. It's convenient the patch is exactly the right size for the wound; it's unfortunate that to commemorate his victory, he had the patched tanned first.

Kagan

I read through several pages of reader comments in response to a recent editorial by Kagan on Bush's proposed 20K troop increase in Iraq. On the second page, there was one post which could have been read to either say "I disagree with Kagan" or "I agree with Kagan." I couldn't quite tell. All of the others were from very angry readers who wanted to see Kagan's fat lips wrapped around an apple while he roasts on a spit.

The basic gist of Kagan's article, if you don't feel like reading it, is that the Dems are wrong to criticize the surge/escalation because they don't have a better plan for winning in Iraq. Implied in Kagan's editorial, but deftly unsaid, was that the surge would accomplish what Bush has promised: stability in Bagdahd. Many of the responders noted that we had been trying for stability in Bagdahd for some time and that little has changed to suggest that this year we'll get it.

It's funny to me: Kagan criticized Hillary for proposing a cap at the current level of 137K troops because he sees that number as arbitrary and lacking a justification. Kagan doesn't take up the responsibility, however, of justifying an expansion by 20K troops that to me seems just as arbitrary and without justification. Does that feel intellectually dishonest to anyone else?

The other thing that bothers me is that Kagan acts as if an anti-escalation stance is somehow just Politics with a capital P because its evil. Dems feel like they can gain power by pressing the Iraq issue. But wait. That's exactly what happened. They gained office because the public voted on the Iraq issue! The current congress better reflects the will of the American public. Who the fuck is Kagan to suggest that their anti-war agenda is impure? Its called Democracy.

It's fitting that he included the word "Delusion" in his title.

Spring Shed

More old pics from my cell phone. This is my siberian husky in spring; this picture was taken after I pulled fur off of him for 10 minutes. I wasn't feeling very attached to the fur, so I just let it fall on the ground. He didn't mind me pulling hair off. He does this every year.

Same species

I took this pic on my cell phone two years ago while crossing campus. These animals could have grandchildren together.

csh

I stumbled onto a cool little page giving examples of fun things you can do with csh. I wish I'd found it years ago.

Three unneccessary judges

Last night the wife and I watched Tuesday's American Idol -- it was TiVo'd. This is the beginning of the season, so they're auditioning tens of thousands of singers. They were in Minnisota so the usual 3 judges were joined by Jewel, making a panel of four. Of the thousands of auditioners, many many of them are terrible and have no hope of winning. There are some who have no hope for anything. Many sing out of key, meekly, and in a narrow range. (Interesting note: 9 times out of 10 a guy who can only sing in falseto but lacks a mid-range and a bass, or a girl who can only sing deeply but lacks a mid-range and a saprano will describe themselves as having a great range.)

They're reactions to being told they should not be singing are mixed; some have set their hopes on winning this competition and becoming rich and famous and I assume loved, so that when they get cut they shatter.

There are also several whose reactions border on violence. They debate the judges, tell them "you only heard one song," and leave the room yelling obscenities.

This is the part everyone tunes into, of course, the "drama" that surrounds these whirling tazmanian devils of failure. Of course the producers know this and edit the shows to include the dramatic failures and exclude those who solemnly and gracefully accept that they will not win the contest. But since these people never make it into the show, we can only assume they exist; we can be certain that there are many vith violent delusions of grandeur.

There was something I noticed in watching last night that makes this explitive-flinging croud all the more amusing: the judges always agree. There was never a case of a border-line singer being given two thumbs up and one thumb down. In fact, of those given the golden ticket to Holywood, I was iffy on half of them, thinking they were pitchy or their voice went thin in the high notes... I would have expected the judges to be split.

But not once was their dissent amongst the judges. Their bar was low but way higher than most could get to. And the judges agreed on exactly where that bar belonged.

So effectively, there was a single judge up there, and three unneccessary ones. Why? Why hire 3 judges? Why go the next step further to hire a fourth guest judge?

I think it's because of the delusionals who protest and yell and scream and shake their fists at the judges. If there were only one judge telling a delusional that their voice is made for the deaf, then the bodyguards in wings (we never get to see them, but you know they are there) would have to step in and break up dozens of fights. The unneccessary judges are there to provide saftey; saftey in numbers. I could probably take Simon, but I don't think I could take Simon and Randy, and certainly not if Paula were there scratching at me. I'm not sure the presence or absence of Jewel would make much of a difference for me. She probably knows how to fight, but she's only 100 pounds.

White Whale

Garrison Keiler had a funny article on Salon. (To read, you have to obtain a "site pass" by watching an ad.)

Power

Slate has a good article on Bush's power trip. I read it yesterday while surfing Sullivan's website, but I would have read it on my own anyways...

revision and retirement

Hitchens has decided that the civil war in Iraq was inevitable -- that Saddam would not have been able to keep a lid on the boiling tensions between Shia and Sunni factions -- and that our presence in Iraq now as the pot begins to boil over is a good thing. There you have it, a revisionist explanation for why we invaded: to put ourselves in the middle of a religious struggle.

Meanwhile, Bush is considering a new strategy (or soda) called "Surge." The idea is that we need to provide security for the Iraqi people; that democracy cannot emerge in the presence of excessive violence.

WAY TO GO YOU FUCKING IDIOT. We could have used some security in Iraq immediately after we invaded, don't you think? You know, fill a power vacuum before allowing insurgents to get a good footing?

ITS TOO LATE, BUSH, YOU FUCKED IT UP.

Abizaid agrees. He's retiring.

Padilla

I've been disgusted by the descriptions that surfaced a few weeks ago about the detention of Jose Padilla. I am shocked and appauled. Horrified. Padilla faced no charges for years -- no indictment -- and instead was detained as an unlawful combatant on suspicion of plans to detinate a dirty bomb. The indictment that was finally delivered makes no mention of this dirty bomb. The reason? The only evidence against him are toture confessions.

Great job, Bush.

So while Bush has obtained no admissible evidence against Padilla, he's abused him so thuroughly, Padilla remains only the shell of a former man barely able to control his own body.

Salon has a great article contrasting the successful prosecution of a right-wing domestic terrorist threat in Tennessee and the miserable failure of a prosecution of Padilla.

From Salon:
"Given the chance to prosecute Jose Padilla in the way that countless prosecutions had been successfully conducted before, the Bush administration chose instead to go a new route, assuring us all the while that only they knew how to keep us safe. In that, they seem to have failed."

Gordievsky: Russia has become a terrorist regime

Powerful opinion piece by a former KGB agent.

Clown

Scaramela was a charlatan.

Kovtun was not poisoned Nov 1

The half life of polonium 210 is thirty days in humans. Now, thirty five days after Litvinenko's Nov 1 poisoning, a Russian business man, Kovtun, falls seriously ill and into a coma* from Polonium 210 poisoning. Fishy? You bet. Why would someone fall drastically ill so rapidly so long after an initial exposure to Polonium? After all, Litvinenko was hospitalized only hours after he first fell ill. Do you think the timing of Kovtun's hospitalization could have anything to do with the British arrival in Moscow?

*Kovtun's layer says he is not in a coma. Why is there a discrepancy? Why would the hospital say otherwise?

The Russians will say "Oh, look, Litvinenko poisoned another man but poisoned himself in the process, case closed. Everyone go back to your business and forget about this incident."

Litvinenko

A lot of my readers* have been emailing me asking why I haven't yet blogged about Litvinenko's poisoning.

(*All of them in fact. No one reads this blog.)

I have been following this case like a hawk, of course. I'm decidedly anti-Putin and I see the connection between Litvinenko and Politkovskaya as further evidence against Putin. (Can you believe that fucker dismissed her assasination by noting that her work as a journalist was inconsequential?)

So, the story for those of my readers who haven't been following it*:

(*Again, an empty set)

Litvinenko stumbles into a London hospital after a shitload of vomiting. 10 days later, he's lost all his hair. Litvinenko accuses the Kremlin of beging behind his apparent poisoning. Doctors struggle to identify whatever it is that's killing him. They fail; it kills him. They detect Polonium 210 in an unnatrually high concentration.

Polonium, it turns out, isn't available to anyone who doesn't have a nuclear reactor.

The Britts then start combing London for more of this Polonium and find it in minute traces everywhere Litvinenko has been.

His timeline is here.

Some of the controversy has revolved around Mario Scaramella who met Litvinenko for lunch at a sushi bar on the day of his poisoning. Scaramella has been accussed of being behind the poisoning, which he vehemently denies, since the two were friends and on the "same side" in the investigation into Politkovskaya's murder -- and because the topic of the conversation was a hit list from the Kremlin that Scaramella had gotten wind of... Scaramella was on it. Scaramella also says that Litvinenko did not eat anything

Today, Scaramella was found to have some amount of Po 210 in his system. (Traces or lots? Don't know.)

The rest of the controversy has been over the meeting that Litvinenko had with two former KGB agents in a London hotel on the day of his poisoning. It's a classic case of "you done it" -- Just like the dioxin poisoning of Ukranian candidate Victor Yushchenko two years ago.

Polonium 210 was found both at the hotel where Litvinenko met the KGB agents, and at the sushi bar where he met Scaramella afterwards. I'm no genius, but seems to me like the poison simply followed Litvinenko around with him -- he shed some at the hotel and then later he shed some at the sushi bar. This clears Scaramella's name.

Russian Mafia

The poisoning of an outspoken critic of Putin,Alexander Litvinenko, seems related to the assasination of an outspoken critic of Putin, Anna Politkovskaya. An italian man has turned emails over to Scottland Yard describing a well organized plot to kill Litvinenko by the Russian Mafia.

I'd put money on Putin being behing the whole thing.

Boycot OJ

Blood money buys Simpson's book.

Don't buy it.

Hitchens on Intelligence Squared

Hitchens was brilliant as usual on NPR's debate last night, Intelligence Squared. The topic of discussion was: Freedom of expression must include the right to offend. Hitchens and two others agreed, while another panell of three disagreed.

This topic was motivated, of course, by the uproar and the violence and the murder in the Muslim world following the publication of a handful of cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed in a small Danish newspaper.

The stream is available here.

Hitchen's concluding remarks begin at minute 49 in the 53 minute version and at minute 140 in the 143 minute version.

I'm transcribing his comments here:

"The real question, or if you like the sub-text question, before us is this "Is nothing sacred?" What we've been discussing is the old question whether or not there is such an offense as blashphemy or profanity?" Now if I don't tell you exactly what I think about the simpering speeches that came from the other side, I'm not censoring myself, I'm just being polite, and civil and just saving some of your time.

What I will not prevent myself from saying, and will not let anyone else prevent me from saying is the following: It is wrong and it always has been for churches -- powerful, secular, human institutions -- to claim exemption from criticism, which is what really is being asked here. If there's going to be respect, it has to be mutual.

Does Islam respect my right to un-belief? Of course it does not.

Does it respect the right of a muslim to appostasize and change belief? Of course it does not.

I have had to have -- I can name now four or five friends, six or eight, maybe, if I had time, five or six of whom you would certainl have heard of, who have to live their lives under police protection for commenting on Islam, for having an opinion on it, and this is getting steadily worse all the time. And it's grotesque!

Here is an enormous religion with gigantic power that claims that an archangle spoke to an illiterate peseant and brought him a final revelation that supercedes all others. Its a plagarism by an epileptic of the worst bits of Judeaism and Christianity. That's obvious, it seems to me.

Do you think -- How long do you think I'm going to be able to say that anywhere I like? It would already be quite a risky thing to say in quite a lot of places. I did not come to the Uninted States of America 25 years ago to learn how to keep my mouth shut, and I'm going to reject all offers that I change that policy, however simperingly they are put."

Double Standard

From Sullivan's blog, I found a link to David Frum's reaction to the allegations that the prominent evangelical leader, Ted Haggard, has been employing the servies of a male prostitute while high on crystal meth.

Frum frames the left's uproar over the issue as: "See, he's no better than anyone else." The left's glee in this, he charges, is out of toppling a high-and-mighty man, exposing his weaknesses and therefore ridiculing the ideals he stood for. Something like: "This man had ideals that he himself could not live up to."

This straw man liberal that Frum has constructed looks like quite the fool when Frum turns the tables on him and suggests that a man who tries to lead a moral live and fails is better than the man who makes no attempt to lead a moral life. The "hypocracy" that liberals accuse Haggard of, of knowing the difference between right and wrong but being unable to choose right, that hypocracy is more admirable than the bandit homosexual who unclosets himself, chosing wrong with an open distain for right.

Frum misses the point, almost purposefully.

The glee that I feel (I guess I'm that evil leftist) over this revelation is based on two ideas:

1) The moral compass that Haggard has tried to steer his life by points the wrong direction. He is wrong in saying that homosexuality is evil. Frum's argument is first framed on the premise that homosexuality is evil; the rest of his discussion requires the reader accept the premise. I reject that premise.

2) Those who most loudly condemn homosexuality are those who feel its "evil pull;" those who feel confronted with the choice between doing the right thing and doing that gay prostitute. If you're loudly criticial of homosexuality, it's because you're gay.

It is in this second idea that the notion of hypocracy arises. The hypocracy is not in saying that gay sex is evil and yet having gay sex anyways; the hypocracy is in asserting homosexuality is a choice (as murder is a choice) while KNOWING that the pull he feels towards homosexual behavior is not under his control. Haggard knows he is a homosexual and that the behavior is a result of who he is; he cannot correctly assert that he simply enjoys the behavior and is drawn to the behavior despite being straight.

Unfortunately for him, he lives in an evangelical culture that condemns homosexuality so roundly that he has no choice but to resist his homosexual tendancies. He can't be who he was born to be without being ostracized. And so his resistance turns into rabid defiance. The only way to control his behavior is to speak out against its source constantly. And his rabid hatred produced his rise in the community that supported that condemnation. Eventually he feeds the fire of hatred and intollerance in the community whose hatred and intollerance pushed him in the direction he was forced to follow. In physics, this would be called a positive feedback loop. A community of hatred that produces objects of its hate will continue to formet its own hatred.

The only escape is a radical meltdown of that society. It's what I hope for, that some day the evangelicals will realize the lunacy of their precepts and finally reject them. Haggard's position of prominence in the evangelical society and his very public and very poorly timed meltdown may break the positive feedback loop.

But I doubt it. Haters like their hatred.

Kim Jong Il can suck it

From today's Post

"South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported that North Korea said it would fire a nuclear-tipped weapon if the United States continues to refuse direct discussions with the country, according to the Associated Press."

Putin did it

I'm convinced Vladamir Putin assasinated a critic of his policies in Chechnya. This KGB agent, after all, thought Bush fired Dan Rather.

From the first article linked to above:

"There was no attempt to disguise the murder as a theft or an accident: Her assassin not only shot her in broad daylight, but he left her body in the elevator of her apartment building alongside the gun he used to kill her -- standard practice for Moscow's arrogant hit men... Whereas local thieves might have tried to cover their tracks, Politkovskaya's assassin, like so many Russian assassins, did not seem to fear the law.

...

After all, whoever pulled the trigger -- or paid someone to pay someone to pull the trigger -- has already won a major victory. As Russian (and Eastern European) history well demonstrates, it isn't always necessary to kill millions of people to frighten all the others: A few choice assassinations, in the right time and place, usually suffice... After the assassination of Politkovskaya on Saturday, it's hard to imagine many Russian journalists following in her footsteps to Grozny either. "

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Putin is not our friend.

Really really bad news

Crazy man with a nuke.

Shirking Responsibiliy

How to never take responsibility for your actions.

While we're on the topic of spinning Foley's tragic events for political gain, check out this YouTube of O'Reilly pinning this one on the democrats. (Link stolen directly from Andrew Sullivan.)

Hearts and Minds

How the new torture legistlation reads to an Iraqi audience:
"If we should accidentally incarcerate you, and you are innocent, make no mistake -- we will torture you until you confess."

Didn't we at one point seek to win Iraqi hearts and minds? Where has that ideal gone?

Wasn't that the millitary's idea? Don't our boys in uniform diserve our respect when it comes to deciding how to carry out the fight? Didn't the millitary perscribe the policy of winning hearts and minds so that in the long run fewer soldiers would die?

What has Runsmfeld done?

Habeas Corpus

The senate voted against habaes corpus for unlawful combatants.

Meanwhile, Slate notes that the language of the compromise over torture, which I had previously celebrated, seems to grant the White House permission to do whatever it feels like AND to keep the public in the dark about it.

No one in congress knows what techniques the president is actually using!

This is a sad day.

Phydeauxn't

From today's Post:

"Custom bones crafted from tennis balls were the only chewy toys Vicky Keslar's Golden Retriever couldn't destroy in short order, so on Sept. 10 the Crofton, Md., resident went online and bought a package of the hard-to-find bones from Phydeauxpets.com, the first site listed in the results of an online search for the item.

"Three days after that purchase, a record bearing the exact date and time stamp of that transaction, her name, address, phone and debit card number was among several records from the store that showed up in a shadowy online chat room frequented credit card and identity thieves.

"When contacted by me after I saw the stolen data being traded online, Keslar and nearly a half dozen other victims reported having shopped at that same pet store at the times specified in their records.

"Phydeauxpets.com owner Frank Papa of Carrboro, N.C., shut down the Web site on Sept. 15 pending an investigation of the data theft. Keslar didn't have any fraudulent charges against her debit card, but the thought of someone cleaning out her checking account right when all of her monthly bills come due prompted her to swear off shopping online with a debit card. Now, she uses a credit card with a $250 limit when she buys online. But she is still shopping around for another vendor of the scarce doggie bones."

Bush's strawmen lack brains, OZ has no comment

Froomkin tears apart Bush's silly arguments.

Paraphrasing Bush:
"You know what my detractor's say? They say that I am not the right leader to fight the war on terrorism. That's a pre-9/11 mindset. To think that we are not at war and that America should just stand by and let others attack us."

Mission Accomplished

Bush caved. He compromised on the key provision in the torture legistlation he called for in redefining the Geneva convention's article 3.

Fillabustering Anti-Torture Legistlation

Frist wants to fillabuster anti-torture legistlation.

I hear he plans to use the following campaign motto in his reelection this fall:

"We're just as bad as the terrorists"

Rendition

A couple years ago, news surfaced of a Syrian-born Canadian detained by Americans and sent to Syria to be tortured. The man set out to sue the Uninted States. A Canadian inquiry into the event has concluded that, indeed, the man was falsely accused and tortured. While being tortured, he confessed to having trained in Afghanistan; the inquiry concludes that he was never there.

That's right.

America tortures innocent people in the name of fighting terrorism. When torture produces confessions, those confessions are bullshit. So what's the point of torture?

There is no point.

Powell's letter to McCain is a poignant reinforcement of the fact that Bush's torture policy hurts America.

Sleep deprivation

An editorial on the Post describes the cruelty that is sleep deprivation and its historical use in fascist states to extract false confessions and not actionable intelligence!

In contrast, Sullivant posts an emai from a soldier in the first gulf war that describes the willingness of Iraqi soldiers to surrender knowing that when they were taken into custody, they would be given fair treatment.

Will they get fair treatment now?

No.

That's Bush's whole point. He dehumanizes the enemy and scares americans into believing all arabs are out to kill our families. Its fascist rule-by-fear. We should call it what it is.

Novak Speaks

Today's Post

Telepharmavangelism

A long time ago, TJ lent me The Faint's two albums "Danse Macabre" and "Wet From Birth," which I ripped onto my laptop. Then I went and bought one of their older albums so I'd have more to listen to. I never really enjoyed that album I bought, but man do I did Danse Macabre and Wet From Birth.

I just bought Wet From Birth new today, and Danse Macabre used.

I'm listening to a song on Wet From Birth called "Symptom Finger" where The Faint coin one of the coolest phrases I've ever heard. Telepharmavangelism. Selling people on cures to diseases they may not have.

I'm not sure that telepharmavangelism really goes on, yet. But considering my job future, I think telepharmavangelism will help my salary. If I ever get a position in a company where it's my job to telepharmavangelize, I'll totally credit my profession to The Faint. Thanks, guys!

Ann Coulter

"I think there should be a literacy test and a poll tax for people to vote."--- Ann Coulter on Hannity & Colmes, 8/17/99

More like that, here

Bushzilla

There's no way I'm the first person to have seen this photo and envisioned a gigantor Bush roaming the streets of Japan.

Murder, in god's name

An Honor Killing in Italy; bitch had it comin'. She was dating a non-Muslim and you know what god says about murder: do it whenever you fucking want.

False hope

I had thought there might finally be justice in the Ramsey case, but this article in the Times makes me think this little man who confessed is just looking for attention.

"Ms. Karr said that she and Mr. Karr were in Alabama together on Dec. 25, 1996, the day JonBenet Ramsey was murdered in Colorado."

rice hot

Slate has a set of searches performed by a single AOL user

"16006693 best place to retire
16006693 places like crawford but without cindy sheehan
16006693 crawford the town not cindy crawford
16006693 crawford tx
16006693 like crawford tx but not so hot
16006693 best places to retire not hot
16006693 best places to retire global warming
16006693 global warming mith
16006693 global warming myth
16006693 crawford hot
16006693 cindy crawford hot
16006693 rice hot
16006693 rice hot not recipes"

reverse hypothesis

I liked this editorial

"Haven't legions of experts - for decades now - identified the Mideast conflict as the centre of the world's chaos and the key to its pacification? Is there any diplomat who does not repeat ad nauseum the formula about the gates to a hell of future wars versus the gates to world harmony, all of which open in Jerusalem? ... The sad, reverse hypothesis is seldom posed, but it is actually much more likely: Every truce along the Jordan is fleeting, as long as the palaces and streets, the majority of the intelligentsia and the officials of the Muslim world hang on to their anti-western passion."

WWIII watch

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/09/AR2006080901514.html

Sullivan's YouTube of the day

I think this commedian says what everyone thinks (well, what non-Muslims think) of extremism in Islam and the vulgar ``moderacy'' in Islam that shamelessly degrades women giving support and legitimacy to the extremists.


"I think we've all heard why these terrorists are so highly motivated.
We've all heard this. It's because they're told that waiting for them in heaven are 72 virgins. And for those terrorists, this is a great thing to look forward to.

For those virgins, heaven isn't quite what they expected, is it?

I would hate to get that talk as a young child.

'You be a good little girl. You must always wear a burqua, you must always wear a veil, you may not go to school, you may not have a job, you may not learn to read, you may not vote, you may not drive a car. You may not sing, dance, play games or listen to music. You must live a life of absolute humility and cellibacy, and when you die

You will go to heaven,

where you will be a sex slave for terrorists!'"

Predicting sides

To listen to Andrew Sullivan, there is no hope but to watch the middle east plummit into a period of blood-letting as Islam struggles to find its place in the modern world. To listen to Harold Mayerson, the escalation in Lebanon could easily pull the world into a war, much like the escalation in Austria following Archduke Ferdinand's assasination pulled the world into WWI.

Sounds like we're lookin' at a war; so let's pick sides!

OK, US on one side, Iran on the other; who else?

Syria: Iran's side.

Russia: Iran's side - Russia is not our friend, they have been undermining basically every attempt we have made to cool the crazies in the past four years; they have rejected many times the idea of bringing up Iran for sanctions over the Nuclear Weapons program (and their violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that Iran signed!). They look to criticize the US at every oportunity; they have criticised the US for the lack of security in Iraq that resulted in the decapitations of four Russian diplomats. I should say that Russia is a good meaning country with good meaning citizens, ruled by a KGB agent who wants things to return to the gold-ol' days when the Iron Curtain kept the world from knowing just how bankrupt they were. Now everyone can see how bankrupt the kremlin is, and that's just not cool with Putin. He'd like that curtain drawn. Putin's so funny -- he says that he wants democracy but just not right away because there must be a transition period before the people can handle democracy... just like the "transition period" of communism where there would be gross food shortages and poverty, but that eventually everything would get put right. It just so happened that the transition period of communism never ended.

North Korea: Iran's side - not only are they full partners with the Iranians when it comes to missle technology, they just don't like the US. And by "they" I mean "he". God king Jong Il uses brinkmanship to finance his playboy lifestyle, and he seems fairly good about not rocking over the edge, but with the hell-bent attitude Iran has, my guess is that he'll end up dragged over the edge anyways.

China: This is the toughest call, but I think they'll be on the US's side. China does not want to be threatened by North Korea, nor by Russia. I think we'll end up in bed with the chinese, kind of like how we ended up in bed with the Russians durring WWII. We won't be good friends afterwards, or at least I wouldn't put all my chips on us being good friends afterwards.

Europe? Well, they'll probably stay out of it until they're dragged in. I think they will play the part of the US in WWI, pretending like they can go about their business and not get involved. When their Luisitania finally sinks, they'll join the US.

OK.

I hope this was a fun exercise in futility, that there is no WWIII, and that I don't get drafted to partake in Islam's infighting over whether or not women should be allowed to read.

Kind of Penis II fails during launch

Haha, North Korea.

Launching your type-o'-dong on independence day when no one in the US is paying you attention, you find out that it doesn't work.

"The controversial long-range missile failed less than a minute after launch, falling into the Sea of Japan, along with the other, less-sophisticated missiles."

Totalitarianism needs to be eradicated. Kim Jong Il has done nothing but harm the people of North Korea. And now he's hoping to paint his country in the corner.

Thom Yorke

From Something Awful

"22% of the letters in Thom Yorke’s name are superfluous. Fuck him."

The Smiths

I met with two professors at the Other university in north carolina with whom I've been collaborating off and on for quite a while. Let's call this pair "The Smiths." I took a course they taught a few years back, at which point, I found a nifty way to take one of their programs and make it much faster. So, I've re-written the core of this one program and met with them to talk about getting the revisions working properly -- in fact, I met with them a month ago, and realized that I had to go back and rewrite a substantial portion of the code to make it fast enough that it was worthwhile.

So in the past month, I would work on my dissertation during the 8 to 5 block, and then put in a couple of hours on writing this program. I called it "pleasure coding." I also put in some time on the weekends, too.

Anyways, it's working.

So I met with the Smiths yesterday along with several members of their lab, and one former member of their lab who is now working for a company I'll call Pork. If I were looking for a job in industry, Pork would be on my list. In fact, I will likely consider industry at some point, and when I do, I'll probably think about Pork.

Back to the story. Met with the Smiths and hashed out some details about which versions were where and how should we go about merging all of the code together into one source. At the end of the meeting, I was to combine the code from the various branches to the source into the code that I had been working on. I would then give that code to one of the Smiths' lab members.

So that's what I did today. I've sent the code, and we'll do some regressoin testing to make sure it's working properly, and we'll start distributing it. I'm psyched.

dissertation

I just spent the past week reading 50 some papers on croquet (read: the subject of my dissertation). Now I understand things well enough that I can start writing. That sucks, I don't want to write. I've got a paragraph to show for my last hour being at my computer. A paragraph writen, and three dozen web sites read.

Neglect

This blog is suffering from serious neglect.

E3 is going on right now; a blogger from the Post is covering it. I was excited to see a link to Fable 2 and followed it to so I could watch the trailer. But I don't have windows media player for Safari. At one point, I downloaded somehing so I could watch .wmv's but it will only show the first half of anything. It pisses me off sooo much. If anyone (Stromk) has a pointer for me on how to view .wmv's with Safari, I would greatly appreciate it.

Damnit. It's a bitching blog.

Unemployment

Pants and I were talking about how the boomers were gonna start retiring soon. That got me thinking: maybe the reason the job market is so tight is that this sea of extremely tallented (read: old) workers have filled all the best-paying positions. If that's true, then when the tide goes out, there should be lots of treasure waiting to be plucked off the coast.

The Post has an article about how Uncle Sam is looking to fill its ranks since over the next decade, the boomers are going to retire.

Krauthammer

Nice editorial on the complexities of oil pricing.

Hard-Fi's Performance Sucked

I want google blog search to find this post and to inform as many would-be concert goers just how bad Hard-Fi is in concert. Blame for yesterday's miserable concert falls squarely on the shoulders of their lead singer. HIs voice was atrocious. He was off key, he air-balled all of the high notes, and he substituted shouting for singing for roughly half of the concert. And despite the quality of his performance, he kept lecturing the croud about how they weren't applauding enough for him. He had no idea how bad he was. It did not occur to him that shouting is no substitute for singing. It did not occur to him that not even trying to stick to the melody was a bad thing. It did not occur to him how disappointed his audience was.

If he reads this, (I doubt he could), he will deny to himself how bad his performance was.

I love their album. They opened with the second track -- Middle Eastern Holliday -- and their singer belted out the first few words, I was in shock. "WTF? Why aren't you singing it right?". I was sad because this was the song I was most looking forward to, and at the time, I thought the singer was going to improve as he warmed up. Since they opened with it, I was not going to get the chance to hear it sung right.

By their third song, I knew there would be no improvement. The rest of the concert was to suck just as much.

Pant's and I have a few thought-bites of the concert.

* It's like they weren't trying
* We just watched a bad Hard-Fi cover band
* Very karaoke
* Mad props to whoever produced their album; they made someone with little tallent sound good.
* Half the audience followed them here from Britain.
* The rest of the band did fine -- didn't matter, the vocals ruined everything.
* Learn to play the harmonica and put down that Wind Piano, you loser.

Hard Fi

Hard Fi is playing the cradle tonight.

I've been listening to their recent album, "Stars of CCTV" over and over again. It's good stuff. I think the 2nd track is my favorite, though the lyrics aren't inspiring. That's fine. It's not always about lyrics.

In contrast, the Jenny Lewis CD I just bought has plenty of good lyrics. I think I'm gonna start collecting some of the lyrics I like on this blog; I like lyrics and this blog is for me not you, so stop your complaining.

"Didn't I see you in Vegas? It wasn't pretty, but she was ... (not your wife)" -- Jenny Lewis, (echoed by the Watson Twins).

Crackin' heads

Club Sandwich

Not our friend

Putin is not our friend. Time and again, he takes anti-democratic stances. He's rolled back democratic advances in his own country; governers are no longer elected, they're appointed by the Kremlin. He's stuck his nose into the elections in the Ukrane and Belarus. Cover story on today's Post: Russia delivered to Iraq US troop movement data during the invasion. How is that the act of an ally? It's one thing to make diplomatic protestations; it's another thing entirely to subvert troops on the ground.

Putin is using his "friendship" with Bush for his advantage in crushing rebellious groups in his country; after the USSR fragmented, Russia is using all its strength to prevent further loss of territory. So in the immediate aftermath of the Beslan seige, Putin makes it look like radical Islam was involved. That way he can use Bush's anti-terrorism rhetoric to justify brutal repression. Lessons from Chechnya are then taken to Georgia.

What Putin will not do, though, is acknowledge the democratic motives that Bush has. Putin is all about his own power. Why hasn't our foreign policy shown signs of reacting?

Putin

I don't like Putin.

During Ukrane's orange revolution, he took the "fradulent elections should not be overturned" stand.

Belarus is up for sanctions before the UN over their recent presidential election. All international monitors have ruled the election was neither free nor fair. What's Putin's stand? "Congrats Lukashenko! Great job crackin' heads."

Post article

Sex Symbol

From the A.V. Club:

"But who deserves to go? Unquestionably Mr. Covais, whose talents as a singer, a dancer, and a stage presence have escaped me entirely. And here's the thing that's most disturbing about him: Thanks to Paula Abdul, he's constantly referred to now as a "sex symbol." Okay, I'm confused: When you call this kid a sex symbol, are we still talking about the sex that involves fucking and whatnot? Or is there some other kind of sex that's possibly presaged by a choirboy singing "Starry Starry Night" in an angelic voice?"

Workahol

I had lunch with TJ yesterday at Patio Loco. I'd just discovered a bug in some code I released a long time ago. A big one. One to make a lot of Croquetta players unhappy. I drifted off in the middle of conversation with TJ to think about the reaction that I'd get. My absence from the converstaion was quite noticable. At least if there are three of us at lunch, and I drift off, the other two people can continue talking by themselves. Not so if it's just me and one other person.

I've been so wrapped up in my work for the past couple of years in an attempt to graduate. I have trouble not thinking about work. It really sucks. I mean, I love my work, but I don't want it to be my life. Even now while I'm typing this blog entry, my mind keeps drifting back to work. Of course, I'm at my desk in my office and it's between the hours of 8 and 5...

Job

Woot.

So I'm sorry everyone for leaving this blog so neglected for so long. I've been workin' some long hours. About mid January, I scheduled a job interview in Seattle for a post-doc. I was out there from Monday to Wednesday of this past week. I spent the week before that preparing a talk for the job interview. I talked about the flexible gates and the grassa extensions I'd made to Croquetta. It went over really well. I got the job.

That means I'm scheduled to move out to Seattle in August '07. A while from now, yes, but I've got lots of work to do between now and then. Coleman has offered me a job here as a post-doc. I'll stay here and work in his lab for a year after I graduate. I've got my fingers crossed, but I'm hoping for August. While the post-doc with Coleman will definately be a great experience, there was no interview process -- he just offered one day -- and so there was no build up of tension and then a release. So, I guess I feel more excited about landing the position in Seattle, but still, the work I'll be doing with Coleman will be really exciting.

I'm gonna have to make up a whole slew of new nicknames to protect the innocent.