babbling blue

It is a red letter day here in the U.S. I think from this point forward, August 13th should be known as “End of Rove Day” and we should all get to go home and get drunk to celebrate. It’s a miracle!

In case you haven’t heard or guessed (inconceivable!) I’m talking about Karl Rove’s resignation. This is a momentous occasion. The Devil has left the White House! Politicians and political functionaries leave for one of two reasons (as far as official excuses go): to spend more time with their family or for health reasons. Rove went with the family angle. His poor, poor family, having to see more of him.

Alas, I fear it’s too soon to celebrate too joyously. We can’t really count Rove out yet. He claims that he’s going to work on a book, but if he wanted to get involved in getting the next Republican president elected in 2008, this would be a good time to free up his schedule. Even if that’s not what’s going on, I just don’t see him as going out to pasture. He’s too devious. He hasn’t been so effective with managing Bush’s popularity while in office. . but how can he? His strength lies in getting the unelectable elected. I don’t believe we’ve seen the last of Dr. Lucifer Rove, Doctor of Spinology.

But for now, I’m just going to keep on celebrating.

I was walking along a downtown street yesterday afternoon, on my way to buy a fan since my office as like a sauna, and I saw a large crowd of people (including a couple cops) standing outside the Quizno’s across the street. On my way back from buying the fan I decided to go over for a look-see. I pushed my way up and peered into the window and saw a very strange site. . . a coyote sitting in beverage cooler!

I wasn’t sure I was seeing what I thought I was seeing at first, but it was real. He was just hanging out there, minding his own business while people like me gawked at him from behind the plate glass window. Apparently he had just wandered on in while the door was propped open. I guess he wanted a sandwich. He had a minor leg injury and was reportedly quite docile. He’s a cute little guy, isn’t he?

He was captured by Animal Control after about 40 minutes. He was treated for his injuries and is doing fine. The Animal Control people named him Adrian; he is set to be released in a nearby wildlife refuge. For more pictures and a news video, see the ABC 7 report.

In a recent Dilbert Blog entry, Scott Adams writes:

Now for an exciting round of what I call “too frickin’ cool.” The way this is played is that you describe some technology that is so futuristic, so Star Trekish, you can hardly believe that you are using it. When you are done describing this technology, you must be so impressed with your own story that you pause and punctuate it be saying, “Too frickin’ cool.” Optionally, you can add a “dude” or a “seriously” to further elaborate your point.

I actually know a person or two who talks like that. But that’s not really the point of this post. Scott goes on to say:

Yesterday I signed up for Google’s free service, Google Alerts. It sends me an e-mail any time my keywords newly appear on the Internet. My keywords are “Scott Adams Dilbert.” Now, I usually have my Blackberry 8700 in my pocket. So check this out…

Any time that 11-year old Vijay sits at his Dad’s computer in Lucknow, India, and blogs about his favorite Dilbert comic, Google finds it, and sends that link directly to my left front pocket. I reach in, pull out the Blackberry, click the link, and Vijay’s blog opens. I read it, just to see what little Vijay thinks of me today. In India. Minutes ago.

So the entire point of this post is to try to get Scott Adams himself to read this blog entry. How will I know if he does? I probably won’t. . . but I will know that it’s a distinct possibility and that’s too frickin’ cool (dude)!

Now any self-respecting geek loser with a blog (like me) is naturally going to read this and try to set off a reaction in Scott Adams’ left front pocket. I hope he hasn’t gotten tired of those notifications by now and therefore shut them off.

Scott: Dilbert rocks, you’re hilarious. By the way, the moon hasn’t crashed into the Earth yet, so I guess it was just refraction after all. Say “hi” to your wife for me.

I haven’t been doing many politically-themed blog posts lately, but that doesn’t mean I stopped caring or paying attention. Quite the contrary. But political posts take a lot of thought and effort, and it’s difficult to make them entertaining. Also, more often than not they just make me angry and depressed. But it’s time to cease the semi-silence!

As most everyone in the U.S. knows, there was an election yesterday. Despite being merely a midterm (which means midway through a presidential term, by the way), it was a huge election. Control of the House and Senate were both up for grabs. I’m happy to report that as of this hour, the Democrats seem to have won full control of the house, picking up at least 28 seats. . . many more than they needed. Unfortunately the Senate is not yet decided, but the two races that are still too close to call (Montana and Virginia) are both currently lead by the Democratic candidate. It looks promising, but I don’t want to get too confident yet; the lead in Montana is less than 2,000 votes.

All in all, this was a very satisfying election for us liberals in America. I kind of hoped that given how much the Republicans have been screwing up lately that our Senate victory would be more resounding. But then again most of the antics seemed to involve the House more than the Senate.

Some disappointments:

• Joe Lieberman won as an independent in Connecticut. He’s such a smarmy bastard! I don’t trust him.
• Tammy Duckworth lost in the Illinois 6th district (House). Duckworth is a Democrat that lost both of her legs serving in the Iraq war. She couldn’t be touched on Iraq (no one would dare accuse her of wanting to “cut and run”) but the attacks against her focused on immigration issues. Unfortunately it looks like the race baiting was effective in the end.
• A number of anti-gay marriage ballot measures passed. This includes Idaho, Colorado, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin (my home state, though after this betrayal I may refer to it as my “state of origin”). In fact the only same sex marriage ban that seems to have failed was in Arizona, but it’s too close to say for sure. The lovely state of Colorado hit us with a one-two punch, not only banning same sex marriage but defeating a measure to allow domestic partnership. To the all these states, and particularly CO, I say “Fuck You”.

Finally, if you didn’t see Comedy Central’s “Midterm Midtacular” last night (a joint “Daily Show” and “Colbert Report”), you really missed out on the hilarity. I’m sure you’ll be able to find the highlights on YouTube before too long. Otherwise it is available on iTunes (and it’s almost worth paying for).

If you like Battlestar Galactica and the Simpsons (if you don’t you should) you’ll love these pictures of the BSG cast if they were on the Simpsons. Go see them all!

As in pedometer, you sick little monkeys.

This site is awesome: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/

To use it, simply click the “Start Recording” button then use double-clicks to mark points on your walking/jogging/running/biking path. The site will give you the distance along the path you create. It can also tell you calories burned, which I think is based on jogging (which I don’t do).

Happy trails!

(Thanks Mike)

Science just keeps getting cooler! Physicists are now proposing that devices called superlenses could potentially be used to create cloaking devices.

Using a principle called “anomalous localized resonance,” superlenses placed very close to a small object could mask its reflected light waves by resonating at the same frequency, much like how noise-canceling headphones mask sound waves by creating a sound that is at the same frequency but inverted in phase.

So far this application for superlenses (which are real) is still theoretical and they’ve only worked out the math to cloak a tiny object, like a speck of dust. But it’s really just the beginning. If they can successfully cloak the dust, they can move up from there.

Read more here on Arstechnica.com.

What we all really use our computers for (video).

I don’t go to see movies very often (still haven’t see “Brokeback”), but I went to see two this weekend. I enjoyed them both! Here are my opinions on each.

Thank You for Smoking
I saw this one first, on Saturday afternoon. It was funny. I think it was the type of movie with a lot of subtle humor in addition to the obvious stuff. I’d probably have to watch again to see if I missed anything. The story involves a lobbyist and spin doctor for the tobacco industry. While you might be inclined to think that it’s just a long anti-smoking propaganda film from the previews or the title, you’d be wrong. It’s a satirical look at lobbying and spin in general, with a personal touch. The main character, Nick Naylor, deals with his 12-year-old son, his ex wife, his back-stabbing boss, a U.S. senator on the warpath and a sexy newspaper reporter. Lots of hijinks. I highly recommend it.

V for Vendetta
I saw this movie Sunday at an IMAX theater. I have to say, for big budget action films that’s really the way to go. Big and loud, as they’re meant to be seen. The movie itself was quite good. Set in the not-so-distant future, it shows us life in England after the United States has all but collapsed. England is now a totalitarian society, controlled by a High Chancellor and a small cadre of powerful Party members. People live in fear–of the secret police as much as terrorists or criminals. The depiction is reminiscent of 1984. The protagonists are a masked avenger named only V, and Evey, a young woman who gets thrust into the revolution by being at the wrong place at the wrong time. . . twice. Together they change the world. Or at least England.

I accused Crash of beating the audience over the head with its message, and the same could probably be said of this movie. But there’s a difference. With Crash the message is something most people already know, or will at least claim to. The message I took from V is what can happen if people allow fear to rule them. What it could be like in the future if society is cowed by threats and willingly sacrifices its freedoms in exchange for some perception of security. It says that if people don’t take advantage of the legal means available to them now to save their freedom, much more drastic and violent measures would be needed in the future to reclaim it. I agree with that, but it’s not an opinion that’s held by enough people. And that is the fundamental difference between V for Vendetta and Crash. With Crash, people argue about whether the movie was good or not, and whether it deserved to win an Oscar. With V, people will argue about and discuss the message. It’s something people need to talk more about.

This post is already longer than I intended, so I’ll stop here. But I may talk more about V in a future post.

I’ve started listening to the “Ricky Gervais Show” podcasts. It’s a series of 12 and they’re 6-7 episodes into it. It features Ricky Gervais, Steven Merchant and Karl Pilkington. Ricky and Steven created “The Office” (BBC) and “Extras” (BBC/HBO) and Ricky is the star of both of those shows. He’s funny and largely crazy. Steven plays Ricky’s agent on “Extras”. Karl is . . . how does one describe Karl? Well he’s probably the funniest of the three on the show, but without trying.

Anyway, listen for yourself: http://www.rickygervais.com/podcast.php

Also available on iTMS.