It's tactics like this that make the average American hate politics...

From Electoral Vote:

There is also more political news from the bench, in Louisiana. Incumbent congressman Rodney Alexander, who was elected as a Democrat, switched parties and filed for reelection as a Republican 20 minutes before the filing deadline so the Democrats would not have a chance to field an opponent. He was instantly embraced by the Republican party and showered with good will and money. The other guys went to court and the judge said the Democrats had to have a chance to submit a candidate. This decision was reversed on appeal and the state Supreme Court just declined to hear the case. Consequently, the Republicans will almost certainly pick up a House seat in the 5th CD in LA. Moral of the story: dirty tricks work.

Listing all the weapon systems that Senator Kerry tried his best to shut down sounds like an auctioneer selling off our national security. ... For more than 20 years, on every one of the great issues of freedom and security, John Kerry has been more wrong, more weak, and more wobbly than any other national figure.
—Sen. Zell Miller, "D"-Ga., Sept. 1, 2004

My job tonight is an easy one: to present to you one of this nation's authentic heroes, one of this party's best-known and greatest leaders—and a good friend. ... John has worked to strengthen our military. ... 
—Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga., March 1, 2001

On a conference call this morning, a co-worker (and major Bush fan) said how much he loved Zell Miller, describing him as "an old time Democrat".  I believe he'd more aptly be described as a "Republican-If-Not-In-Name".  That, or "Crazy".

Ask not at whom the Zell boils, he boils at thee (Keith Olbermann)

Can’t we all just get along?

In the first fifteen minutes of shared downtime we’ve had since a photo shoot we did last spring, Chris Matthews and I ran into one another smack dab in the middle of Broadway yesterday and, as the old time throng swept past us into Herald Square, we had our usual conversation: politics, movies, a little sports, television executives— all of it punctuated with his laugh (“Ha!”) and mine (“Huh!”).

The process is simple and productive: Give Chris a straight answer, let him talk, pick up your point when he’s stopped talking, share the oxygen with him, and everything’ll be just fine.

Seven hours later, Senator Zell Miller goes all Aaron Burr on him and fantasizes about challenging him to a duel.

Here’s a man who in a historical-blink-of-an-eye ago was calling John Kerry a hero and swearing the Republicans had ‘sold the country out,’ fresh off a fear-mongering speech that made his '92 keynote for Bill Clinton sound like a schoolmarm talking to a bankruptcy referee, and Miller gets mad at Matthews?

The gist of the message from the Democrat and/or Republican was: vote for John Kerry and America will be attacked. And when it’s attacked, it’ll be defended with “spitballs.”

So Chris asked him if he really meant that.

“It’s a metaphor,” Miller replied. “Do you know what a metaphor is?”

Umm, Senator? That’s why he asked. Did you really mean that metaphor? Wasn’t that metaphor over-the-top? Isn’t it predicated on a half-idea: that John Kerry tried to dismantle weapons programs (the ones Defense Secretary Dick Cheney had asked the Senate to dismantle)?

Of course, Senator Miller can’t answer those questions. He's a one-man political revolving door trying to lead the criticism of a flip-flopper. So all of a sudden he’s slapping a white glove, throwing down the gauntlet, and checking the newspaper for the exact hour of sunrise. Senator— you have the first choice of spitballs.

Matthews can talk to anybody, and listen to anybody. You just have to get with the rhythm a little bit. Bend slightly. Flex. You know, the kind of bending and flexing you have to do when you want to come out and condemn both major political parties in the same decade.

And incidentally, Senator, the show is called Hardball, not Spitball.

Although if my bosses are watching, I think we have the title for a new program.

This one goes out to a newly returned friend...

President Bush photographed wearing Air Force award he never earned
One Air Force office confirms story, but Air Force public affairs office pleads ignorance, gives out White House comment line.
By John Byrne | Raw Story Editor

A closer examination of a photograph included in President George W. Bush’s Air Force records, released by the White House earlier this year, shows then-Second Lieutenant Bush wearing an Air Force Outstanding Unit Award which he never earned.

Additionally, Lieutenant Bush would not have been authorized to wear the ribbon temporarily, the Air Force Personnel Center said in an email.

“There isn’t a ‘temporary’ wear of AF Outstanding Unit Awards for AF personnel,” the Air Force Personnel Center stated.

“I’ve never heard of temporary wear,” added Assistant Reagan Defense Secretary for Manpower, Reserve Affairs, Installations and Logistics Lawrence J. Korb, whose job included overseeing the Air Force Reserves from 1981-1985, in a telephone interview Wednesday. “The unit didn’t get this until 1975.”

The Air Force Public Affairs office tried to answer an inquiry, but went silent and said they just didn’t have enough information to answer after they heard the query was on President Bush. They deferred comment to the White House, and supplied the White House comment phone line.

RAW STORY reached the White House Press Office through the main switchboard, and a spokeswoman said they would look into it and return the call as soon as possible.

“We’re very short staffed this week,” she said, referring to the Republican National Convention.

The London-based newspaper The Telegraph sought comment on the issue Sunday but received no response.

The Air Force Historical Research Service Organization confirmed that the 147th Fighter Intercept Group and the 111th Fighter Intercept Squadron received an Air Force Outstanding Unit Award for the time period of 1965-1966, two years before Bush joined the service.

The Air Force also said both units received the Outstanding Unit Award in 1975. Bush was discharged from his Texas Guard unit on Oct. 1, 1973.

Between these dates, the Air Force said Wednesday, there are “no additional awards.”

More importantly, however, the above photograph had to have been taken some time between his qualifying as a pilot–since he is wearing his pilots’ wings–on November 26, 1969 and his promotion to First Lieutenant on November 7, 1970, since he is listed as a Second Lieutenant (see photograph below).

Bush earned his pilots’ wings on Nov. 29, 1969, according to his White House military biography.

His biography does not list that he was awarded the Air Force Oustanding Unit Award.

American media, having focused for more than three weeks on Swift Boat veterans’ attacks on Sen. John Kerry’s Vietnam service, has yet to report the story. It has, however, appeared in the The Telegraph, which carried a brief piece on the charges Aug. 29.

Walt Starr, a researcher, first reported the story in the popular liberal forum, Democratic Underground, on Aug. 23.

Punishment for wearing an award one hasn’t earned is punishable by bad-conduct discharge, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and/or confinement for 6 months under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

DEVELOPING…. Keep your eye on the main Raw Story page for updates.

Update:  While I do agree that the source is rather radical, I don't think that it reflects on the facts that A) the image above was released by the Bush campaign and B) Bush is shown wearing a medal he didn't earn.  Of course, he also once claimed to have been active Air Force when in reality he was just training there for the Guard, so we know he gets confused about those things easily.

Update 2:  One intrepid reader points out that The Air Force Distinguished Flying medal or The Organizational Excellence Award might be what Bush is wearing, as it's a black and white photo and they look similar.

The Air Force Distinguished Flying medal

The Organizational Excellence Award

While those are similar, look at a close up of the mystery Bush award and the Air Force Outstanding Unit Award:

While in black and white, the award worn by Bush is clearly light color | white | dark color | white | light color | white | dark color | white | light color.  This would not match the Organizational Excellence Award, which is the opposite in terms of light color / dark color.

The black and white award would also appear to have the white stripes be of uniform width.  This would not match the Distinguished Flying medal as is inner stripes are have as narrow as its outer stripes.

The last question brought up is:  why does this matter?  Because I hear from people all the time about how "John Kerry didn't deserve his purple hearts", that "John Kerry wounded himself to get a purple heart", or that "one of John Kerry's medals was only turned in when he did the paperwork".  And then I see those on TV at the Republican National Convention passing out purple bandaids, which stands in mockery of not just Kerry (who still carries shrapnel from Vietnam in his body), but many other veterans as well.

If Bush supporters want to say that what happened during the Vietnam era doesn't matter, then they need to live by that as well.  It seems to me that they want it both ways.

Read this on Slate and found it interesting, so I share it with my readers:

What does 9/11 tell us about Bush? Nothing.
By William Saletan
Posted Tuesday, Aug. 31, 2004, at 11:19 AM PT

For the past month, a group of veterans funded by a Bush campaign contributor and advised by a Bush campaign lawyer has attacked the story of John Kerry's heroism in Vietnam. They have argued, contrary to all known contemporaneous records, that Kerry was too brutal in a counterattack that earned him the Silver Star, and that he survived only mines, not bullets, when he rescued a fellow serviceman from a river. President Bush, who joined the National Guard as a young man to avoid Vietnam, has been challenged to denounce the group's charges. He has refused.

Now the Republican National Convention is showcasing Bush's own heroic moment. As John McCain put it last night: "I knew my confidence was well placed when I watched him stand on the rubble of the World Trade Center with his arm around a hero of September 11 and, in our moment of mourning and anger, strengthen our unity and our resolve by promising to right this terrible wrong and to stand up and fight for the values we hold dear."

Pardon me for asking, but where exactly is the heroism in this story? Where, indeed, is the heroism in anything Bush has done before 9/11 or since?

Two days ago at an Ellis Island rally, Dick Cheney described Bush's 9/11 leadership this way: "In the weeks following the terrorist attacks on America, people in every part of the country, regardless of party, took great comfort and pride in the conduct and the character of our president. They saw a man calm in a crisis, comfortable with responsibility, and determined to do everything necessary to protect our people."

Calm and comfortable. I appreciate that. This was a major selling point of Bush's 2000 campaign: He would allow us to "look at the White House with pride." But isn't a president supposed to, um, do things? Isn't it a bit strange to praise a man's leadership not for doing something, but for maintaining a certain appearance?

Bush partisans point out that he did do things in the 9/11 aftermath. In his convention address last night, former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik recalled Bush's famous visit to New York, "inspiring a nation as he stood on hallowed ground, supporting the first responders."

OK, so Bush stood there. He "supported," in a Clintonesque sense, the people who were doing something. He touched the mayor. As Rudy Giuliani told the New York Times over the weekend, "When he got off the helicopter, he put his arm around the back of my neck and said, 'What can I do for you?' It was a personal thing: 'I know what you've been through, and what I can do to support you?' "

Amid all this touching, did Bush put himself in any peril? He certainly did. As Giuliani explained to the convention audience:

When President Bush came here on September 14, 2001, the Secret Service was not really happy about his remaining in the area so long. With buildings still unstable, with fires raging below ground of 2,000 degrees or more, there was good reason for their concern. Well, the president remained there. And talked to everyone. ... [A construction worker] grabbed the president of the United States in this massive bear hug, and he started squeezing him. And the Secret Service agent standing next to me, who wasn't happy about any of this, instead of running over and getting the president out of this grip, puts his finger in my face and he says to me, "If this guy hurts the president, Giuliani, you're finished."

This is Bush's heroism? Showing up three days later, "remaining in the area," and enduring a hug?

The only moment of physical bravery any of last night's speakers could find in Bush's life was his secret trip to Iraq. "As I think about his leadership," Kerik recalled, "I think of the courage it took for our commander in chief to land on an airstrip in the dark of night, a world away, to be with our troops on Thanksgiving."

Thanksgiving? You mean, six months after we captured the airport and Bush declared victory?

And isn't "the dark of night" normally a term we use to describe the preferred arrival and departure time of people who aren't exactly overflowing with courage?

Or is Kerik pointing out the difficulty of landing a plane in the dark? Is he unaware, perhaps, that Bush wasn't flying the plane? That once again, as in Vietnam, somebody else was doing the hard part and Bush was along for the ride? That Air Force One has more security systems than any other vehicle on Earth? That Bush went to Baghdad to "be with" the troops in the same way he went to New York to "be with" the firefighters? That waiting for a safe time and place to "be with" people who have braved unsafe places at unsafe times is the difference between heroism and a photo op?

Maybe Bush's courage is moral rather than physical. Maybe it lies in the conviction Giuliani extolled last night: "President Bush sees world terrorism for the evil that it is."

Calling terrorism evil? Answering a deed with a word? This is courage?

Not fair, says the Bush camp. Bush has answered terrorism with far more than words. "He worked effectively to secure the cooperation of Pakistan," McCain pointed out last night. "He encouraged other friends to recognize the peril that terrorism posed for them and won their help in apprehending many of those who would attack us again and in helping to freeze the assets they used to fund their bloody work."

Ah, diplomacy. Now, that's courage.

The ultimate testament to Bush's manhood, supposedly, is the two wars he launched. As McCain put it, "He ordered American forces to Afghanistan" and "made the difficult decision to liberate Iraq." But the salient word in each of those boasts is the verb. Bush gives orders and makes decisions. He doesn't take personal risks. He never has.

I don't mean to be unfair to Bush. Vietnam was a lousy war. He wanted a way out, and he found it. But isn't it odd to see Republicans belittle the physical risks Kerry took in battle while exalting Bush's armchair wars and post-9/11 photo ops? Isn't it embarrassing to see Bob Dole, the GOP's previous presidential nominee, praise Bush's heroism while suggesting that Kerry's three combat wounds weren't bad enough to justify sending him home from Vietnam?

Watching the attacks on Kerry and the glorification of Bush reminds me of something Dole said in his speech to the Republican convention eight years ago. It was "demeaning to the nation," Dole argued, to be governed by people "who never grew up, never did anything real, never sacrificed, never suffered and never learned."

You tell me which of this year's presidential candidates that statement best describes.

William Saletan is Slate's chief political correspondent and author of Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War.

From This Modern World via Working for Change:

The names/bios for Survivor 9 (aka Vanuatu, aka "Islands of Fire") were released today, and one is a local!  Rory Freeman of Des Moines!  Click here to see.

From Scott Bateman:

You want Kerry to win in November? You and I have to stop these lies about Kerry's service that are out there in the news media, because this is how Bush beat McCain, and how the Republicans beat Max Cleland in Georgia--taking bona fide American heroes and destroying them. I'm doing my part--believe me, when I do a cartoon like this, I get angry email. But you can help too--email this cartoon to CNN, the New York Times, Fox News, MSNBC--wherever Kerry's record is getting distorted. Send it to your crazy GOP uncle. Get the damn word out, Slappy--Kerry is a hero, and bush and Rove and their ilk are sleazy.

So true.

Found this on JuliusBlog...  an interesting correlation...

I have put together a chart comparing Bush approval numbers to the timeline of terror alerts. (Thanks to Stuart Eugene Thiel for the amazing daily graphics that he prepares, comparing the approval ratings from different polls and media sources.) You can see it by clicking in the graphic below:

There are few things that are quite evident from the chart:

- Whenever his ratings dip, there's a new terror alert.

- Every terror alert is followed by a slight uptick of Bush approval ratings.

- Whenever there are many unfavorable headlines, there's another alert or announcement (distraction effect).

- As we approach the 2004 elections, the number and frequency of terror alerts keeps growing, to the point that they collapse in the graphic. At the same time, Bush ratings are lower than ever.

Update: for the record, we are not claiming that all these alerts are politically motivated. We are sure a considerable amount of these alerts were legit and caused by real and immediate information of potential threats. What is important to note is that many of these "immediate" terror alerts were later on discredited (in some cases they used old data, in other cases the announcements were less immediate and less urgent that we were lead to believe, as the press reported.) Those are the cases that could be interpreted as politically motivated, especially when they seemed to coincide with political news and events unfavorable to the administration.

A great piece in Esquire this month by Ron Reagan.

It may have been the guy in the hood teetering on the stool, electrodes clamped to his genitals. Or smirking Lynndie England and her leash. Maybe it was the smarmy memos tapped out by soft-fingered lawyers itching to justify such barbarism. The grudging, lunatic retreat of the neocons from their long-standing assertion that Saddam was in cahoots with Osama didn't hurt. Even the Enron audiotapes and their celebration of craven sociopathy likely played a part. As a result of all these displays and countless smaller ones, you could feel, a couple of months back, as summer spread across the country, the ground shifting beneath your feet. Not unlike that scene in The Day After Tomorrow, then in theaters, in which the giant ice shelf splits asunder, this was more a paradigm shift than anything strictly tectonic. No cataclysmic ice age, admittedly, yet something was in the air, and people were inhaling deeply. I began to get calls from friends whose parents had always voted Republican, "but not this time." There was the staid Zbigniew Brzezinski on the staid NewsHour with Jim Lehrer sneering at the "Orwellian language" flowing out of the Pentagon. Word spread through the usual channels that old hands from the days of Bush the Elder were quietly (but not too quietly) appalled by his son's misadventure in Iraq. Suddenly, everywhere you went, a surprising number of folks seemed to have had just about enough of what the Bush administration was dishing out. A fresh age appeared on the horizon, accompanied by the sound of scales falling from people's eyes. It felt something like a demonstration of that highest of American prerogatives and the most deeply cherished American freedom: dissent.

[Read the whole thing by clicking here]

Misty sent me this op-ed piece from The New York Times.  I thought it pointed out some interesting bits, so I pass it on to my readers:

Triumph of the Trivial
By Paul Krugman

Under the headline "Voters Want Specifics From Kerry," The Washington Post recently quoted a voter demanding that John Kerry and John Edwards talk about "what they plan on doing about health care for middle-income or lower-income people. I have to face the fact that I will never be able to have health insurance, the way things are now. And these millionaires don't seem to address that."

Mr. Kerry proposes spending $650 billion extending health insurance to lower- and middle-income families. Whether you approve or not, you can't say he hasn't addressed the issue. Why hasn't this voter heard about it?

Well, I've been reading 60 days' worth of transcripts from the places four out of five Americans cite as where they usually get their news: the major cable and broadcast TV networks. Never mind the details - I couldn't even find a clear statement that Mr. Kerry wants to roll back recent high-income tax cuts and use the money to cover most of the uninsured. When reports mentioned the Kerry plan at all, it was usually horse race analysis - how it's playing, not what's in it.

On the other hand, everyone knows that Teresa Heinz Kerry told someone to "shove it," though even there, the context was missing. Except for a brief reference on MSNBC, none of the transcripts I've read mention that the target of her ire works for Richard Mellon Scaife, a billionaire who financed smear campaigns against the Clintons - including accusations of murder. (CNN did mention Mr. Scaife on its Web site, but described him only as a donor to "conservative causes.") And viewers learned nothing about Mr. Scaife's long vendetta against Mrs. Heinz Kerry herself.

There are two issues here, trivialization and bias, but they're related.

Somewhere along the line, TV news stopped reporting on candidates' policies, and turned instead to trivia that supposedly reveal their personalities. We hear about Mr. Kerry's haircuts, not his health care proposals. We hear about George Bush's brush-cutting, not his environmental policies.

Even on its own terms, such reporting often gets it wrong, because journalists aren't especially good at judging character. ("He is, above all, a moralist," wrote George Will about Jack Ryan, the Illinois Senate candidate who dropped out after embarrassing sex-club questions.) And the character issues that dominate today's reporting have historically had no bearing on leadership qualities. While planning D-Day, Dwight Eisenhower had a close, though possibly platonic, relationship with his female driver. Should that have barred him from the White House?

And since campaign coverage as celebrity profiling has no rules, it offers ample scope for biased reporting.

Notice the voter's reference to "these millionaires." A Columbia Journalism Review Web site called campaigndesk.org, says its analysis "reveals a press prone to needlessly introduce Senators Kerry and Edwards and Kerry's wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, as millionaires or billionaires, without similar labels for President Bush or Vice President Cheney."

As the site points out, the Bush campaign has been "hammering away with talking points casting Kerry as out of the mainstream because of his wealth, hoping to influence press coverage." The campaign isn't claiming that Mr. Kerry's policies favor the rich - they manifestly don't, while Mr. Bush's manifestly do. Instead, we're supposed to dislike Mr. Kerry simply because he's wealthy (and not notice that his opponent is, too). Republicans, of all people, are practicing the politics of envy, and the media obediently go along.

In short, the triumph of the trivial is not a trivial matter. The failure of TV news to inform the public about the policy proposals of this year's presidential candidates is, in its own way, as serious a journalistic betrayal as the failure to raise questions about the rush to invade Iraq.

P.S.: Another story you may not see on TV: Jeb Bush insists that electronic voting machines are perfectly reliable, but The St. Petersburg Times says the Republican Party of Florida has sent out a flier urging supporters to use absentee ballots because the machines lack a paper trail and cannot "verify your vote."

P.P.S.: Three weeks ago, The New Republic reported that the Bush administration was pressuring Pakistan to announce a major terrorist capture during the Democratic convention. Hours before Mr. Kerry's acceptance speech, Pakistan announced, several days after the fact, that it had apprehended an important Al Qaeda operative.

OMG, Carrie pointed out this on her blog...  so funny, for either side of the fence...

http://www.jibjab.com/thisland.html

The following was posted by Tanner Brooks on Democracy for America's Blog for America:

According to a Homeland Security Department spokesman, U.S. officials are discussing the idea of postponing the November election in the event of a terrorist attack. American counterterrorism officials cited what they call "alarming" intelligence about a possible Al Qaeda strike inside the United States this fall.

Discussions about the postponement started with a recent letter to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge from DeForest Soaries Jr., chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Ridge has said he has "no specific or credible information about threats to the political conventions," but the November vote remains an open question.

Democrats are responding:

"I don't think there's an argument that can be made, for the first time in our history, to delay an election," said Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, a member of the Intelligence Committee.

"We hold elections in the middle of war, in the middle of earthquakes, in the middle of whatever it takes. The election is a statutory election. It should go ahead, on schedule, and we should not change it."

But many people are uneasy when the Bush administration talks about things like this. George Bush and his advisers are facing sinking poll numbers and the realization that just scaring people might not win them this election.

The administration that has done more to exploit fear for political gain than any other in recent memory is now talking about using that same fear to extend its term in office without an election.

George Bush and Karl Rove have a long record of using fear to pursue dubious policies from which they stand to gain. Time and again they have shown that they do not deserve the benefit of the doubt. Let us hope this isn't the beginning of something worse than we've yet seen.

So the local Super Wal-Mart has decided to offer four self-checkout stands.  Today, while heading towards a checkout with the cashier standing there doing nothing, my hands full of laundry detergent, Diet Rite Tangering, and the like, the cashier supervisor requested I try the self-checkout myself.

Hate it.

For one thing, it's overly complicated.  Really.  Like the way you have to tell it when you have an item (like soda) that you're not bagging.  Or the way that it tries to tell you to not take a bag for other items that it deems crushable (like paper towels).  And then it very loudly declares how much your purchase cost - like it's the business of everyone in the checkout area.  Plus the whole process of bagging my own stuff gave me flashbacks to when I was a cashier at Target.

I can understand that they might be helpful if all the regular lines are busy and you are in a hurry with one or two items.  But yeesh, don't send people there when there are aisles open and they have a number of unwieldy items.

What's really scary is that I can see stores like Wal-Mart moving to a completely self-checkout system in the next decade.  What better way to cut payroll cost than not have cashiers?  Don't get me wrong, I like automation in some ways - but if I wanted to bag my own stuff, I'd go to Aldi.

Wow, it's been nearly a month since my last update.  I should rename the site The Dusty Tome or something like that.  So I figured a quick update on the current State of the Jason was in order.

• Fourth of July:  I spent the Fourth with Kim's family - her dad (David), Mom (Cindy), Sister (Kristin), Sister's Boyfriend (Jeff) and Grandmother (Kim's Grandma).  On Saturday we went to a movie (more below on that), ate dinner at Crimmin's Cattle Co, then us "kids" drove to Altoona to watch the fireworks at Adventureland.  Sunday morning featured drinks in the hot tub followed by a delicious breakfast of eggbake and cinnamon rolls, after which we watched part of Band of Brothers and relaxed all day before brats for dinner and sparkler fun.  All in all a very relaxing and enjoyable holiday.
  
  
• Saved!:  We went to the movie Saved! on Saturday at the Fleur Cinema.  From the previews, it looks like a satire on kids in Christian High School, but there was actually a surprising amount of substance to the movie with an ultimately good message of tolerance with and without religion.  And it is rather funny.  Here's a pretty good review by Ebert, and here's one by Christianity Today which is pretty interesting.
  
  
• Fahrenheit 9/11:  Admit it...it's no surprise I went to see the new Michael Moore film.  Very good - I highly recommend those from either side of the aisle see it, if for no other reason than to be able to answer the question of "Did you even SEE the movie?" with an affirmative.  Not a whole lot more info than was in his most recent book, except for the Iraq stuff, which was fairly disturbing yet necessary to see the truth of war.  In fact, everyone who says that Saving Private Ryan is so good for showing the truth of war combat should see this movie.  I do agree with the film having an R rating, though, now that I've seen it. 
  
  Speaking of which...there has been a recent bit online lately about an anti-Moore site posting links to pirated copies of F911 due to Moore's past claims of being anti-American-copyright-laws.  I love his response:  “I do well enough already and I made this film because I want the world, to change. The more people who see it the better, so I’m happy this is happening.”
  
  
• Home Theater and WMVHD:  Finally got the Home Theater PC set up completed, the projector mounted to the ceiling (thanks to Rex), and the equipment on an A/V shelf.  So I've been buying these DVDs that come with a second disc containing the movie in the Windows Media Hi-Def format.  Mostly Imax movies (Coral Reef Adventure, Stormchasers, etc), but also Terminator 2.  Pretty, clear picture.
  
  
• Joey:  And thanks to BitTorrent, I have managed to see the pilot to Joey.  The never-will-air pilot, actually, as it had Ashley Scott in it, who has since been re-cast as the character is reworked.  While I thought Joey was funny enough as part of an ensemble on Friends, I don't really feel he works nearly as well as the main focus.  Yes, the pilot has some funny moments, but for the most part it's humor that I think would get very old quickly.  Too bad about firing Scott though - she's very cute.
  
  
• Boglin:  And I bought a Boglin off of Ebay.  So we'll soon know the answer to the question posed in my last batch of blog entries...
  
  
• WindDancer:  A WindDancer is a sort of airfoil-kite, kind of like a parachute but without the strapping-to-your-back-and-jumping-out-of-a-plane aspect.  Approximately 9x2 feet in size, it's designed to swoop and spin on its two strings controlled by the flier.  So far, it's taken some learning (such as how to make a set of lines and tie them correctly), and the wind hasn't cooperated (fairly uneven on the good days), but it's pretty cool.  I can't wait for a windy day to fly it - and it should be perfect to take to the balloon field for nights when flight is in question due to high winds!
  
  
• Kerry/Edwards:  Yes, I think it's a good choice.  Edwards should inject some much-needed energy into the campaign.
  
  
• And I bought some Grapples but have yet to try them.  Smell good, though.
  

So there you have it.  More whenever!

Finally!  The moment you've been waiting for!  New photos have been posted!

These include:  the long-awaited Chicago trip here, and the recent New Orleans / Pensacola trip here.

So after much delays in the Pensacola and Atlanta airports due to storms in Atlanta, I made it back to Des Moines around 2:30a Tuesday morning.

Destin beach near Pensacola is beautiful, probably my favorite above those in Cozumel and Puerto Vallarta.  And New Orleans is interesting.  A style all its own.

Pictures forthcoming.

Anyone else remember Boglins?  Think Kim would kill me if I buy one off of Ebay?

I'm flying down to Pensacola tonight for a small vacation with the Dvoraks and Bertschs.  Tomorrow we're driving over to New Orleans for an overnight, then Jess and I are renting a convertible for Friday - Monday so we can tool around the area.

Unfortunately, I've come down with some sort of sinus/throat infection.  I've been fighting it off the past few days, mainly feeling sore and stiff all over like I was hit by a car.  The doc put me on some new superstrong antibiotics, which seem to be helping, but they also make me nauseous.  Just what one wants for a vacation trip.

My article in Lockergnome on Asus ran yesterday evening, so I've been getting a number of supportive e-mails asking for a follow-up.  So here goes the continuation of the Asus P4P800-E Deluxe saga:

After the incidents on Monday, I did a write-up on what happened (which is the previous entry on this site) and submitted it to:

• Lockergnome
• Epinions
• Amazon.com (which hasn't yet posted)

I then called Asus back on Tuesday with the intent of letting a supervisor know these were out there, already generating responses, but that I would definitely post a fair follow-up if they'd make it right.

The only hitch...once again, the person answering the phone tells me that she doesn't see any supervisors around and that they must be at lunch.  All of them, again?  Yes.  So I say I'll call back later.

An hour and a half later, I call back and ask for a supervisor.  This time they ask who they can say is calling.  I give them my name, and she says one moment.  I am then routed to a voicemail box with the ever helpful "The person at mailbox 2497 (or something like that) is not available.  Please leave your message after the tone."  I leave a message going over the problem and what has happened so far, but not surprisingly, in the past 3 days, no call back.

So on Tuesday afternoon I decided to call NewEgg, the company I bought the board from.  A number of people have asked why I didn't call the retailer in the first place...  The reason is that I very specifically wanted a P4P800-E Deluxe board, and that Asus had a working revision, but only they had the power to insure one got to me - there was no way for an end-user or a retailer like NewEgg could tell from the packaging that they were sending me a rev 2.00 board and not a 1.2.  Plus NewEgg has a policy of no refunds on motherboards.  Anyway, I called NewEgg, explained the whole Asus experience to him, and he very helpfully agreed to break policy and give me a refund on the board.

So, lessons learned:  Asus = Bad Service.  NewEgg rocks.

I'd like to let the upper execs and management at Asus know how poorly their RMA people are acting, so I'm trying to find their email addresses.  Once I have them, this whole write-up along with links to the articles will be e-mailed out.  I'll be sure and post how they respond, if at all.

Watching Jurassic Park on the new HD projection system... life is good.

File this under "You Can Find Anything on Ebay":

http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=60345&item=3814121772

Ursus Mark-VI and VII bear suit set
Seen worldwide on television and in print.

Canadian inventor Troy Hurtubise spent 10 years perfecting the Ursus Mark-VI suit of armour, which is made of chain mail, galvanized steel, titanium, high-tech plastic, and liquid rubber.

The suit was featured in the National Film Board of Canada documentary Project Grizzly, which turned Hurtubise into a cult hero. It was also featured on Ripley's Believe It or Not TV and in the Guinness Book of World Records, for the most expensive animal research suit.

Ursus Mark-VII eliminates the chain mail and is made from stainless steel, aluminum and cast titanium.

It also features a built-in video screen, a cooling system, pressure-bearing titanium struts, protective airbags, shock absorbers, a robotic third arm, built-in regular arms and swivel shoulders.

The suits are unique because they were built totally out of Hurtubise's mind, with no blueprints, drawings or schematics. Buyer of the suits will also receive video copies of all Troy's tests related to the suits.

Yeah, yeah.  I've been pretty lax on blogging lately.  So here's some quick updates:

• Saw Kill Bill vol 2 a bit back.  Liked it ok, but thought the first one had more cinematic moments (Like when The Bride and O-Ren face off in the snow with "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood"'s beat playing in the background
• Ordered my Sony Cineza HD projector for the home theater!  Woo hoo!  Finally will use my HD satellite receiver, plus looking forward to playing Unreal Tournament 2004 at 110"
• Finally got the new Nolasoft server built and in place at Freese Notis on their dual DS-3s.
• Making progress on the other two secret projects in the works.
• Spending lots of time with Kim, the beautiful and talented artist.

And to Jessica -> You will be ok.  Things will be better.  It is for the best; deep down you know it's true.  And we are here for you.

From Scott Bateman:

The WB is reviewing some episodes of Wonderfalls with the possibility of putting it on the fall lineup!

Find out how you can help here.

Back in high school I was given a brown snake by someone - a biology teacher I think.  In a move that makes Jessica laugh to this day, I named it after my Physio teacher, Arlan Brown.  Unfortunately I made the mistake of putting Arlan Brownsnake in to live with Hydra, my Chinese Water Dragon.  I went to get a glass of water, and when I returned Arlan's tail was sticking out of Hydra's mouth.

While returning from a ride on the bike trail last week, I came upon a family looking at what turned out to be another brown snake.  I put the snake in my empty water bottle to take home to show to my nephews, both of whom ended up being only mildly interested.  So after keeping the snake I ended up calling Arlan II for a week, I set him free this evening.  Free to slither across my backyard to whereever snakes go, maybe into the clutches of a hawk or wild water dragon or the like.

Goodbye Arlan Brownsnake II - may much time pass before you meet your predecessor.