For those who don’t know, there is a proposition on the ballot in California that seeks to amend the state constitution to make gay marriage illegal. I don’t even want to get into this right now because I get too worked up. The proponents of Prop 8 are spinning it as being about education, and trying to convince people this is the only way to keep their kids from being brainwashed in school that it’s good to be gay. They are dumping millions of dollars into airing their misleading ads, and Prop 8 is in danger of passing. I’ve donated to the No On Prop 8 campaign. They still need money, so please give them some ASAP. Even a small amount can help.
A conservative Chicago Tribune columnist wrote that she believed Sarah Palin was unqualified, and should step down. The result was an inbox full of hate mail, and even threats. Sad, very sad.
Allow me to introduce myself. I am a traitor and an idiot. Also, my mother should have aborted me and left me in a Dumpster, but since she didn’t, I should “off” myself. Those are just a few nuggets randomly selected from thousands of e-mails written in response to my column suggesting that Sarah Palin is out of her league and should step down.
I was checking the weather on weather.com, since I noticed it had gotten really windy outside and wanted to see if a storm was coming. I noticed a weather statement that said the following:
WINNEBAGO-BOONE-MCHENRY-LAKE IL-OGLE- LEE-DE KALB-KANE-DUPAGE-COOK- KENDALL- WILL-LAKE IN-PORTER- INCLUDING THE CITIES OF…ROCKFORD…WOODSTOCK… WAUKEGAN… OREGON…DIXON…DEKALB… AURORA…CHICAGO…OSWEGO…JOLIET… GARY…VALPARAISO 927 PM CDT MON MAY 26 2008
…PNEUMONIA FRONT MOVING DOWN WESTERN LAKE MICHIGAN…
A PNEUMONIA FRONT CURRENTLY IN FAR SOUTHEAST WISCONSIN WILL CONTINUE TO RAPIDLY DROP SOUTHWARD INTO NORTHERN ILLINOIS AND INDIANA TONIGHT. THIS FRONT HAS BEEN MARKED BY A DRASTIC CHANGE IN TEMPERATURES AND A STRONG WIND SHIFT. TEMPERATURES ALONG THE LAKE FRONT HAVE DROPPED FROM THE LOW TO MID 70S TO THE MID TO UPPER 40S AS THE FRONT PASSES. WINDS HAVE SHIFTED FROM BEING LIGHT AND OUT OF THE WEST TO OUT OF THE NORTHEAST AND GUSTING UP TO 40 MPH AT TIMES ALONG THE LAKE. THIS FRONT WILL BE INTO LAKE AND MCHENRY COUNTIES BY 10PM…COOK… DUPAGE..KANE…DEKALB…AND BOONE COUNTIES BY 1045PM…AND THE REST OF NORTHWEST INDIANA AND NORTH CENTRAL ILLINOIS BY MIDNIGHT CDT.
A PNEUMONIA FRONT IS A RARE… METEOROLOGICAL PHENOMENA THAT IS TYPICALLY OBSERVED ALONG THE WESTERN LAKE MICHIGAN SHORELINE DURING THE WARM SEASON. THESE FRONTS ARE DEFINED AS LAKE MODIFIED SYNOPTIC SCALE COLD FRONTS THAT RESULT IN ONE HOUR TEMPERATURE DROPS OF 16 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT OR GREATER.
That is strange. So it’s a like a really bad cold front? I’d never heard of a pneumonia front, and I’ve lived on western Lake Michigan all my life. But the temperature outside has indeed plummeted. Hmm, learn somethin’ new every day, I guess.
Prozac, the bestselling antidepressant taken by 40 million people worldwide, does not work and nor do similar drugs in the same class, according to a major review released today.
The study examined all available data on the drugs, including results from clinical trials that the manufacturers chose not to publish at the time. The trials compared the effect on patients taking the drugs with those given a placebo or sugar pill.
When all the data was pulled together, it appeared that patients had improved - but those on placebo improved just as much as those on the drugs.
I hope I’m not related to Dick Cheney. I mean, if he and Barack Obama can be cousins, anyone can be related to him. I’m trying not to hold this against Obama, but it’s hard. Family ties can be strong ones, even for eighth cousins.
This makes you wonder (well it makes me wonder, and it should make you wonder too) what other famous people could be related. Maybe Mel Gibson is a distant cousin of Mel Brooks. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Rosie O’Donnell and Donald Trump have some common ancestors. Getting back to presidential candidates, wouldn’t it be fun to discover that Hilary Clinton and Rush Limbaugh are related? Yes, it would.
This all gives me hope that I might have a distant celebrity relative. Now all I have to do is find out who it is and get in their good graces. Or at least in their will. Of course with my luck, I’ll probably find out I’m related to Karl Rove.
Last week at work, everyone got an email from the company about accidental calls to 911. Apparently the city’s 911 center has complained that they are getting 911 calls from us, and people frequently hang up when they realize they’ve dialed the wrong number. This results in them having to call back and–if they receive no response or voice mail–dispatch someone here to make sure everything is OK (or so they claim). The email asks us to be careful when dialing and to stay on the line and explain that we mis-dialed if we do call 911 by mistake.
What I want to know is, what genius decided it would be a good idea for most corporate phone systems to require users to dial 9-1 to get an outside line and make a long distance call?! After that, it’s a simple slip of the finger to hit another 1 by mistake. I’m sure there was a reason for this choice–and I’m too lazy/busy to research it–but honestly, what do they expect? It’s going to happen.
Also what makes people think it’s ok to hit/bang on my cubicle wall when they walk past? For my first 10 months or so here, I had a window seat. It was nice! Now I am in a terrible location; I’m on an aisle outside the print/copy room and across from the drinking fountain (the water from which tastes like it came out of a rusty bucket, so I use a different one). And people walk past and tap on my wall. I guess they think it’s a friendly greeting or something, but it annoys the shit out of me (and often startles me too). Knock it off!
In case you haven’t heard, Congress has finally rallied together to address a major problem facing this country right now. Iraq? No. Health care? No. The economy? No. Immigration? No sir. Oil? No no no. Give up? It’s a newspaper ad.
MoveOn.org published an ad in the New York Times criticizing Gen. Petraeus for being a shill for the White House, presenting misleading information to Congress and the American people. Apparently the thing that really has our illustrious legislators burning bright with the fire of righteous indignation was the heading “General Petraeus or General Betray Us?” How dare they?! I’ll defer to MoveOn’s justifications rather than getting into them myself. They make sense to me.
To put this in perspective, I defer to the eloquence and knowledge of President Bill Clinton:
I sure do miss him sometimes! Sadly, it’s not just the Republicans involved in this nonsense. Many Democrats are jumping on the bandwagon as well, perhaps in fear of being left behind. My own Congressman voted for the House resolution condemning the ad. Way to go, Rahm!
Well, I hope now that Congress has dealt with this absolutely critical issue of a newspaper ad they’ll be able to move on to some of the lesser problems facing us. Like those I mentioned at the beginning of this post.
I’ve seen plenty of stupid and self-serving analogies in my *mumble mumble* years on this earth. . . and I won’t say this one takes the cake, but it at least gets a cookie.
Roberts referred to the work of the late author Norman Maclean, who grew up in Missoula [where he was speaking] and whose book “Young Men and Fire” chronicled the role of firefighters in Montana’s deadly Mann Gulch Fire of 1949. Like Maclean, lawyers and judges must sift through mountains of information to find the evidence that really matters, he said.
Roberts noted that both firefighters and lawyers are viewed as “a little bit nuts” and have a strong sense of camaraderie.
I wish there were more direct quotes in the article. I’m curious how far he took that preposterous analogy.
This has inspired me to come up with one of my own!
Software developers are like soldiers. We both often find ourselves in unfamiliar and difficult situations (working with other people’s code) and can accomplish the most when we work in teams. It’s important to coordinate in teams though, as friendly fire is always a danger (”Oh no you changed your function, now my module doesn’t work!”). We can both find ourselves in high pressure situations (”OMG showstopper!”) and never know when something could blow up in our faces.
First, there was a magnitude 8.2 earthquake off the coast of the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. I haven’t heard of any casualty reports and so far only a small tsunami has resulted from the quake. Looks like they got lucky.
Second, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced his resignation. Apparently Abe’s party has been mired in scandal. He has been PM for less than a year.
This headline made me do a double-take when I saw it on the elevator: Putin dissolves Russian government. Huh? CNN.com doesn’t have much to say about it. In fact, the paltry quote below is the entirety of their article on it at this time…
MOSCOW, Russia (AP) — President Vladimir Putin dissolved the Russian government Wednesday in a major political shakeup ahead of parliamentary elections in less than three months and a presidential vote next year, news agencies reported.
The dissolution is expected to result in a new prime minister, who will be seen as Putin’s choice to succeed him after he steps down next spring.
The newspaper Vedomosti, citing unnamed Kremlin officials, reported Wednesday that Sergei Ivanov, a first deputy prime minister and a leading contender to succeed Putin, could be appointed prime minister in the near future.
So he dissolved “the Russian government”. All of it? Really? I doubt that. I assume it means the parliament and the PM, but I don’t know that much about their government. Apparently CNN doesn’t either.
Just some little tidbits to let you know I’m alive and still sporadically blogging.
Luciano Pavarotti died of cancer at the age of 71. He was one of the Three Tenors. This is sad news. There are now only two tenors: Placido Domingo and the other guy.
I’m hot. My part of the office is not adequately air-conditioned. I had a desk fan but the cheap piece of shit stopped working a couple days ago. And do you think you can buy a fan this time of year? Well certainly not around here (the Loop). I’m fucked. Sweaty and fucked.
New iPods and an iPhone price drop. Neat, but I’m still not going to buy an iPhone. Probably not an iPod Touch either. It’s an ironic name since you can’t control it by touch like you can a classic iPod. Now I can just reach into my pocket and adjust the volume, pause or move to the next song by touch. The iPod Touch requires you to look. Perhaps it should be called the iPod Look.
The state government has still not given the CTA the money they are asking for. The fare increases and service cutbacks are 10 days away and counting. The measure has yet to pass a single house of the Legislature. And if it does, our illustrious governor has vowed to veto it. So either Governor Ratface has to get a clue or the Legislature has to pass it by enough votes to override his veto.
Updated 1:15pm: As it turns out, I did find a fan. I stopped into a Walgreen’s as I was passing by during my lunch break, and they had 6 fans! Not 6 models, mind you–6 actual fans. They now have 5 (or fewer). The new fan is bigger and noisier than the old one, but at least it moves air. We’ll see how long this one lasts. It seems I’m no longer sweaty & fucked.
