Greetings, earthlings.... If you're interested in reading more of my work, you can find it at Bad Samaritan: The Next
Generation. Feel free to contact me if the urge strikes you. Cheers, y'all!!!
Well, MT is installed on my new server, so all that is left for me to do is to put my weblog together. I would still be sitting at the starting line, spinning my wheels in the mud, were it not for the kindness of Brian Kane, who installed MT on my server, and talked me through the geek-speak part via Yahoo! Messenger. God, I LOVE technology- I'm just at the bottom of the learning curve. The goal is to have my new site up and running today if possible, but I'm not going to drive myself nuts about it. At the worst, sometime this week TPRS will have a new home and a new look. I'm pretty excited!!
This is from my wife, Susan. Someone's sending me a message???
THERE'S A LOT OF SADNESS IN THE WORLD
Right now, as you read this,
17 Million Americans are having SEX!
And you're on the computer!
I take it the gloves are off, Mr. Gore....
In case anyone was harboring any doubts about whether or not Al Gore is up for another run at the presidency in 2004, well, there is no longer any reason for doubt. In a blistering critique in today's New York Times, Gore comes out with guns ablazing.
Gore also said the recent wave of corporate scandals has put at risk "nothing less than the future of democratic capitalism."
"Uncommon power has combined with uncommon greed to create immense deceptions and losses," wrote Gore, who lost to Bush in the 2000 presidential race. "A major correction is needed in the course of our nation. It is needed first and foremost in the composition of the next Congress."
Some of the questionable corporate accounting practices at Enron Corp., WorldCom and other firms -- now at the center of a number of criminal investigations as well as the national political debate -- took place during the Clinton administration, in which Gore served as vice president, as well as during the Bush administration.
Gore hasn't said whether he plans to seek the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004. But his broadside echoed the rhetoric of his 2000 presidential campaign, calling on Democrats to put "the struggle between the people and the powerful" at the heart of their message for November's midterm elections.
Frankly, I'm pretty excited by this burst of rhetoric. If Gore had showed half this fire during the 2000 campaign, he wouldn't have had to worry about Shrub stealing the election from him.
At this point, Shrub is clearly vulnerable on a number of fronts. The key for Gore, or whoever is the Democratic nominee in 2004, is exposing and exploiting those vulnerabilities so that the elctorate will see Shrub for the corporate shill he is. Keep your fingers crossed, kids....
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Surprisingly, common sense does win on occasion....
One of the most challenging questions of our era has been what to do with the World Trade Center site. How do you strike a balance between a memorial and commerce? Is that even possible? As it turns out, we may not have to worry about that.
New York officials are considering a land swap that would give the city complete control of the Ground Zero site, officials involved in the plan told CNN Saturday.
Under the proposal, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the land where the World Trade Center once stood, would trade the site for the city-owned land under New York's John F. Kennedy and La Guardia airports. The deal would cut the Port Authority out of the rebuilding process.
Officials said the deal was feasible, but predicted it would not be easy to negotiate.
The sticking point, as ever, is money. Given the amount of highly priced office space that existed in the Twin Towers, there is a LOT of money at stake. In this case, though, the realization that this is something that transcends financial considerations may just be winning out. And how rare is that in our society??
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A view of the backyard at TPRS World Headquarters.
The Gulf of Mexico is just past the far end of the lake.
Just watch out for the water mocassins and the gators, OK?
A Canadian with some interesting takes on the neighbor to the south, as well as the world in general. If more of us were Canadian, I think we'd all get along better....
Nominations
Today's the day (I hope), and Movable Type is the weapon of choice. I had originally decided to install pMachine, but the general consensus was that having to register to post comment is not going over well. So, not being one to ignore sound advice, MT it is. Many heartfelt thanks to Brian Kane for his moral support. Most of my effort today is going to go towards MT (oh yeah, and spending time with my family...), so wish me well, y'all....
Because I say so.... Hey, sounds like reason enough for me. Mr. Harris has some interesting things to say, and I also enjoy the unique design of his weblog. He's also the power behind the throne at Caption of the Day.
Nominations
As mainstream media begins to become more and more fragmented, individual commentators (bloggers- that would be us, kids...) are beginning to get more notice. John Leo of US News & World Report acknowledges the trend in his article, "Flogged by Bloggers".
Bloggers, Web loggers who run commentary and stray thoughts on their own Internet sites, like to play "gotcha" with the established media. A favorite target is the [New York] Times, which has developed the habit of running front-page editorials posing as news reports....
The mighty Times may not have noticed that a lot of bloggers- some with small reputations, some with no reputations at all- now swarm over its news columns searching for errors and bias. The established media learned long ago how to marginalize critics and shrug off complaints of bias as the ravings of right-wing fanatics. But the bloggers aren't so easily dismissed. They don't bluster. They deal in specifics and they work quickly, while the stories they target are fresh. They link to sources, to one another's sites, and to the articles under attack, so readers can judge for themselves. The blogging revolution, says commentator Andrew Sullivan, the best-known blogger, "undermines media tyrants."...
Keep an eye on bloggers. The main arena for media criticism is not going to be books, columns, or panel discussions, and it certainly won't be journalism schools. It will be the Internet.
Such is the beauty of an open society and Internet access. We ARE watching, and I think it's a good thing that some of us are out there deconstructing main stream media outlets. I just wish I had the time to jump in as well....
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Professional football returns to Houston tonight. OK, so it's only a scrimmage against the Dallas Cowboys, but the NFL is back for the first time since the Oilers left in 1997. Even better, Bud Adams' team is STILL in Nashville...
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Today, much as it pains me to say it - I'm afraid we're going to have to dispense with our usual routine of swapping business cards, secret handshakes, and wives. Yes, today I'm here on behalf of the American people - at least the non-millionaire, non-ivy legacy, non-landed gentry American people who are always getting in the way of our rightful and deserved progress. Unfortunately, I need to keep those poor morons deluded and happy if our kind are to win the next election, and at present, they're plenty steamed over the way you boys have been conducting business lately. Now of course I would love to continue to turn a blind eye to business as usual, much as my daddy for me over my Harken deal back in '90. But that's just no longer possible. With the collapse of big outfits like Encom and WorldRon, it's now clear to even the little people that many of you have gone too far, and that if I don't at least give some empty lip service to reining you in, there's not a snowball's chance in hell that they're ever going to let us privatize Social Security. And boys, that's the prize. Don't ever forget it. Keep your eyes on it. Because once we get our hands on that, we're golden. Forever. And as for all the old people who were too dumb and lazy to work hard and invest exclusively in sure things, well they can bunk in the low-rent, change-your-own-bedpan nursing homes they deserve.
[T]oday, in the interest of propagating the illusion that my entire legislative agenda is NOT focused exclusively on stuffing the wallets of the handful of fine caucasian gentlemen sitting in this room, I want to announce the formation of a Corporate Fraud Task Force. This financial SWAT team, headed by the Assistant Vice Deputy Attorney General, will grab headlines for several days after this speech, thereby hopefully rendering my administration impervious to wholly accurate charges of flagrant corporate cronyism. So watch out, at least for a little while, because they're going to be on the lookout for a few scapegoats to arrest, parade in front the cameras, convict, and lock up in a golf course prison for 14-16 months while this whole "dirty business" hoo-ha blows over once and for all. Got it? Get it? Good.
Since when are we in the nation-building business
Shrub has made it clear that he wants a new regime in Iraq, stating that Saddam Hussein "is a man who poisons his own people, who threatens his neighbors, who develops weapons of mass destruction". While it may be tough to argue with that assessment, I still cannot see how the US would be justified in attacking a country that has committed no overt act against the US or it's neighbors. Meddling in the internal affairs of governments, however odious and objectionable they might seem, puts the US in the position of playing moral policeman. Not only that, what is the alternative? Thus far, I have not seen a plan that presents a coherent and viable plan for a post-Saddam Iraq. How do we know that the alternative will, in the long run, be any more palatable that the devil we know?
Another question to consider is this: Once Shrub gets a taste for toppling leaders that he doesn't like, where does he stop? It may seem a silly question, but it is a point that needs to be considered. When do we stop meddling in the internal affairs of a country and allow their own people to work things out? American military force may be a short-term fix, but it is not a solution designed for the long term. That is, unless we plan on occupying Iraq indefinitely....
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Susanna Cornett is "keeping an eye on the spins and weirdness of media, crime and everyday life"- and, I might add, doing a hell of a job. Susanna is a bit farther to the right than I am, but then who isn't?? She does have some interesting things to say, and I enjoy the fact that she's not dogmatic. She has her point of view, but she's not about to bludgeon you with it. (Thanks to Lauren Coats for tipping me to this one. It's a keeper...)
Nominations
Within the next two weeks, I'm hoping to update TPRS and finally make the big move to my own domain. I have the host, I have the domain name- now all I need to do is to decide what the site will look like. My biggest decision will be formatting. I love hand-coding it, but it is just too time-consuming, particularly for someone who will soon be working 50-60 hour weeks. I've narrowed it down to either pMachine or Movable Type. Decisions, decisions. I'm not sure what I'll do, particularly since I'm barely competent in HTML. PHP sounds more like a party drug than a scripting language, so I'm a bit out of my element here. If any of y'all have any words of wisdom to impart, I'd be forever in your debt. Stay tuned....
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Somehow or another, TPRS got nominated for "Best New Weblog" in The Bloggys, which I'm assuming is a good thing. Not bad for a weblog that is the technological equivalent of an '86 Yugo with bald tires and a cracked windshield! Thank you to whomever is responsible. Rewards aren't what it's about for me, but I suppose it IS nice to be recognized as more than just another pretty face. I believe the voting ended yesterday, and I'm all atwitter...well, OK, not really, but I don't want to be disingenuous now, do I??
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No pet should have to suffer the agony of demonic posession....
Is your favorite housepet possessed by Satan? Entangled by the stranglehold of Evil. Well, now there is hope. Helen Gunther brings you the only site on the Internet dedicated solely to pet exoricisms.
Ms. Gunther appears to be quite serious about this endeavor, stating "I have recently started communicating with the dead. The spirits have informed me that I should begin doing pet exorcisms, and so here I am." Indeed. Now pet owners will have someone to talk to when Fluffy begins foaming at the mouth and projectile-vomitting....
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Hey, at least I'm not Jim Traficant,right??
That does it! Charles Krauthammer is OFF my Christmas list!!
Until now, I've generally had a soft spot for Charles Krauthammer. He's a bit too far right in most cases for me to feel all warm and cuddly with him, but he generally has some interesting things to say. Then he has to go and get personal:
To understand the workings of American politics, you have to understand this fundamental law: Conservatives think liberals are stupid. Liberals think conservatives are evil.
For the first side of this equation, I need no sources. As a conservative, I can confidently attest that whatever else my colleagues might disagree about -- Bosnia, John McCain, precisely how many orphans we're prepared to throw into the snow so the rich can have their tax cuts -- we all agree that liberals are stupid.
We mean this, of course, in the nicest way. Liberals tend to be nice, and they believe -- here is where they go stupid -- that most everybody else is nice too. Deep down, that is. Sure, you've got your multiple felon and your occasional war criminal, but they're undoubtedly depraved 'cause they're deprived. If only we could get social conditions right -- eliminate poverty, teach anger management, restore the ozone, arrest John Ashcroft -- everyone would be holding hands smiley-faced, rocking back and forth to "We Shall Overcome."
Liberals believe that human nature is fundamentally good. The fact that this is contradicted by, oh, 4,000 years of human history simply tells them how urgent is the need for their next seven-point program for the social reform of everything.
Liberals suffer incurably from naivete, the stupidity of the good heart. Who else but that oracle of American liberalism, the New York Times, could run the puzzled headline: "Crime Keeps On Falling, but Prisons Keep On Filling." But? How about this wild theory: If you lock up the criminals, crime declines.
Actually, Charles, the reason I tend to dislike the Conservative point of view is that Conservatives tend to be humorless and overly convinced of their own moral and intellectual superiority, while too often playing fast and loose with the facts. Since when is agreeing to civilly disagree such a difficult concept for Conservatives to grasp? Must they resort to insults and name calling when they have no case to make? I fail to see how the public political dialogue is served when a respected political columnist refers to a segment of the population he disagrees with as "stupid"? That just demonstrates to me how bankrupt Conservative philosophy can be at times. It's unfortunate that tolerance doesn't seem to be a tenet of Conservatism.
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The new TPRS mascot needs a name. Anyone have any ideas?? So far, we STILL have only one vote for "Fluffy" (thanks, Brian!) The winner gets an acre of possibly malarial swamp land (or they would, if I had any...)
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