Matchbook Romance

One of the truly cool things about working for Hot Topic is that when bands come in for photo shoots, or some other kind of visit, we often get a free mini-concert in the office.

Yesterday was Matchbook Romance, whom I liked quite a bit.

Emasculating Arabia

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1215415,00.html

Fascinating article.

Two choice, rather unrelated, bits:

Defining the orientalist project, Edward Said wrote of how occidentals feminised and infantilised Arabs, crediting them with 'feminine' traits like intuition and an incapacity for reason (so Arab magicians figure large in the mythology, but Arab mathematicians not at all), and rendered Arabia as pliant, sensuous, passive, awaiting penetration by the rational masculine west.

This is an illuminating remark. Is 'the Arab' unique in this regard, I wonder, and do the roots of such an 'orientalist' project fall in the realm of race differences or class differences, or does that question not make sense at all?

If the Industrial Revolution had birthed in the Fertile Crescent, how different would the world be?

"A released detainee, quoted by the New York Times on May 10, says: 'I realised [the Americans] came to obliterate a whole society, a whole civilisation' - a thought so old and so commonplace that one might hear it uttered, world-wearily, in any Arab cafe, anywhere across the globe...'American humiliates Arab' is not news."

*sigh*

Cotton Tank Top

I started knitting a cotton tank top in baby blue. From front to back, stockinette. I just came up over the shoulders and am now knitting the back.

I think I'm going to pick up stitches all the way around the bottom and put a funky trim on it.

I've never done cotton before, so I don't know how much it stretches during blocking. I may wind up picking up stitches on along the side in order to add some width.

Using: Bernat CottonTots. Size 6 US needles.

I picked up enough yarn to knit a matching tank, or turn out a twinset my making a little cardigan, in yellow, as well.

Guantanamo

http://www.fas.org/man/eprint/vonness.pdf Guantanamo Detainees: National Security or Civil Liberties," by Pamela M. von Ness, U.S. Army War College Strategy Research Project, April 2003.

Got this in the inbox today, haven't read it. Still reading the Taguba report.

Taguba, et al, Testimony

I watched most of Rumsfeld's testifying on a CSPAN repeat over the weekend, and got to hear the last 40+ minutes of the Taguba testimony this morning on NPR.

Of the two, today's hearing contained a lower crap:content ratio, and I have to admit, Lt. General Lance Smith (who is a CENTCOM deputy, if I've got it right -- remember, I'm jotting this down from listening, not seeing a name and title on a screen) didn't spend an overwhelming amount of his Rumsfeld hearing testimony droning on and saying nothing, either. Although, I'll admit that as interested as I am in all this, I zoned out for about 10 minutes somewhere in the middle.

I liked Major-General Taguba. I still haven't read the report, I meant to do so last night but wrote fiction instead. Hopefully I'll get to it tonight, definitely by the weekend.

Florida Panther Science Manipulated?

http://www.bushgreenwatch.org/mt_archives/000115.php -- U.S. Fish & Wildlife Biologist Charges Manipulation of Science on Florida Panther

A veteran biologist at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has filed a legal complaint against FWS, charging it with intentionally using flawed scientific data in decisions regarding the endangered Florida panther.

My Country Tortures People*

Want to know what I have to say about Abu Ghraib? Nothing. Everyone else has already said it.

Abu Ghraib
Robin Rowland, CBC News Online | May 6, 2004.


*This is not actually news.

Funny

Humor! On my blog! Well, hellfire, kids! How about that!

It's been way too long. I do still have a sense of humor, not just sarcasm. Today's break is to laugh hysterically at the CafePress offering of Making Light: LL YR VWLS R BLNG T S.

*bwahahahahahahaha*

God, somebody buy me the messenger bag or the coffee mug with this on it.

*wipes eyes*

We now return you to your regularly scheduled seriousness.

Sockage

One pair socks, knitted with Caron Dazzleaire yarn. Or Wintuk. Basically, worsted weight. I figured, what the hell, if they're too thick for me to wear with my shoes, they'll be perfect with my clogs. And I get socks under my belt without spending forever on them. A win-win.

Rumsfeld Testifying

I just listened to the first 20 minutes or so of Rumsfeld's appearance, and I'm much more pleased with his apology -- which seems like a true apology and admission of culpability -- than the one I heard on the radio from Bush. Bush seemed more like he was saying the equivalent of "I'm sorry you got offended", not, "I'm sorry I offended you", in a flamewar.

Cool Impending Book

Want to give Sidra a gift? How about Bob Edwards' new book, Edward R. Murrow and the Birth of Broadcast Journalism?

Just a suggestion, amongst the many fine and entertaining selections on my wish list.

Diebold Decertified in California

The Ban:

California Bans E-vote Machines

Inside CA's Diebold Decertification

The techs were told not to tell what they were doing, and not to answer questions.

There was no inventory control. Patches went on some voter card encoders but not others, and records weren't kept of which were which.

CA Bans Digital Voting Machine

The Inquiries:

A New Pentagon Papers Case - Newspapers, Blogs and the Diebold/Jones Day Memos

Diebold Knew of Legal Risks

Calif. Moves to Block Diebold's E-Voting Machines

California Grills Diebold Over E-Voting Foul-Ups

E-Voting Undermined by Sloppiness

Diebold admitted wrongdoing Tuesday at a meeting of the state's Voting Systems Panel, or VSP, and said it was making changes to its procedures for upgrading its systems.

But Secretary of State Kevin Shelley, who made an unprecedented appearance before the VSP, said he was disturbed by the company's actions and would not rule out the possibility of decertifying the machines in California.

"The core of our American democracy is the right to vote," Shelley said. "Implicit in that right is the notion that that vote be private, that vote be secure, and that vote be counted as it was intended when it was cast by the voter. And I think what we're encountering is a pivotal moment in our democracy where all of that is being called into question."

Maryland State Risk Assessment on Diebold System Report (PDF)

Analysis of an Electronic Voting System

Wow

I did so win the Writer's of the Future contest! I got the check in the mail today!

I'll be darned.

I must figure out what it is in that story that made it better than my others. Must must must. Actually have a clue there, too: I think it's the parenthood theme that grounds the story in a way a lot of my other stuff probably hasn't.

Of course, my opinion may change substantially the next time I read my WINNING CONTEST ENTRY (muahahahahahahaaha). We'll just have to see.

(Oh, shut up already, Sidra, cash the check and get drunk on the proceeds. You didn't write Watership Down, for Quetzlcoatl's sake. Oh, yeah? Well, maybe someday I will.)

There. You've now seen the inside of my head. Just as wrinkly, grey, and bloody as you expected, wasn't it?

Picture of Dorktitude: Me

God, I am such an easy lay. I went in to get a new charger for my 3-year-old Kyocera cell phone, and walked out with a new Samsung.

But it's a fliptop! Which I prefer! And, I only have about 20 phone numbers in my address book! So, big whoop-te-doo on the transfer, you know?

And, I got the cool $150 rebate, so the amount of money for the phone was about the same as that for the new charger I went in to purchase!!

And it gets better reception, oddly.

So, I'm going to turn in the old one somewhere, and let it get donated to the Salvation Army, or a battered women's home, or some such.

This was all perfectly reasonable! Really!

Really!

(...Pushover)

Touchscreen Voting On Hold in Ohio


Touchscreen Voting System On Hold

BELMONT COUNTY, OH -- Ohio voters planning to use the revolutionary touch-screen technology can likely forget it - at least for this year. A legislative committee says voters who use electronic machines should be able to confirm their choices with a paper receipt. Because the current voting boxes do not offer that option, the board has ordered Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell to cancel $128 million worth of Ohio voting machine contracts.