Larry.org

Sometimes I’m struck by how poorly historic lessons fit the challenges we face today. Especially with regards to globalization, especially collaboration, management and staff/team development.

Here’s a great video

by XPlane that sums it up quite effectively.

Thanks to out to the folks at The Innovation Weblog for bringing it to my attention.

Is darwinism the belief that Charles Darwin existed? Is Charles Darwin a religion?

Can I be a Darwinist? Or a Darwinista? Darwinian (without being specifically related to him)?

There's dinosaurs in the Bible?

Anyway today at a coffee shop in my grocery store (you guess which kind), I learned that Dinosaurs are in the Bible.

Apparantly this isn't a fact, it's a belief that some people have. There isn't any evidence so I suppose it's more accurate to say: Today in the grocery store I learned that some people believe that dinosaurs are in the Bible.

There's a number of interesting web pages about this. Google "likes" the Institute for Biblical & Scientific Studies Are Dinosaurs Mentioned in the Bible? page alot, and I can see why, it's a fairly comprehensive collection of interesting unproven bits of evidence that would support any reasonable person's conclusion that dinosaurs could be in the Bible.

Thing is, whatever unexplained creatures may have existed in the past, or the present for that matter, them aint the ones scientists mean when they use the word Dinosaurs. Interestingly, some of these Dinosaurs in the Bible pages posit that because the word Dinosaurs was invented in the 1800's that means that the word Dinosaurs could mean anything, even these creatures we don't have a word for in English that are in the bible. I'll let you try to work out that circular logic on your own. Don't spend too much time on it.. as it doesn't make any sense at all.

more...

So Dilbert.org has a very funny post about justifying ones own beliefs.

It's funny in sort of a "look everyone is full of it except you kind of way". Yet it pokes fun at you too, when you aren't looking.

Everyone believes in something. It's the justification for your personal belief that's being explored here. So what do I believe?

I believe in one God... well that's a prayer, and a belief statement but what's asked is why I believe in one particular God when so many believe in another. Or, more specifically why I believe in one God, this particular way. For a good piece about what I believe read this. I have some shadings of belief that diverge slightly from that. But on every major point that's what I believe.

more...

Just a quick note to let everyone now how happy we are that the George Mason Patriots are in the Final Four of the NCAA championships. For those that don't know, my two youngest brothers both attended George Mason University. It was a very small university when I was just going to college but around '85 or so it really started to become a great University.

We've really enjoyed watching the last two games (sweet sixteen against Wichita and elite eight against Connecticut). The Connecticut game was outstanding.

We'll be rooting for the Patriots in the next round and in the Championship.

Go Patriots!

Larry.org the next generation :). Has it been two years? Indeed it has.

Well after much thought and many hours of reviewing my options.. i've decide to revert Larry.org to a blog that Laura and I maintain.

The portal software I was using was great in that I learned alot about the underlying tech.. but at the end of the day it was just too cumbersome for my family and friends.

I hope you enjoy my new simplicity. I know I will!

Larry

Well it's been too long but I finally got the new Larry.Org up and running.

Let me know if you have any problems or feedback.

Thanks!

Larry

Here's an AIM session I had with my Dad last week, in which I disclose I broke my foot.



It's a bit embarrassing to explain this to your Dad, especially when you have his one month old grandson to take care of.

Me:

btw....

I broke my foot.

Dad:

You what?

Me:

I broke my foot.

actually my heel

right one.

Dad:

Are you OK. Will you miss spring training?

Me:

I should be ok for spring training.

it's fine.

as heel fractures go it's minor.

Dad:

How did it happen?

Me:

didn't do anything to my anke.

ankle

I jumped off a speaker at the christmas party.

Dad:

OK were you naked?

Me:

no

Now if I could just find a popcorn maker / towel warmer. Wow. This is just incredibly silly.

We had a great time on our last trip before the baby is born. We spent a week in a house my parents rented at the beach. It was called "Duck by the Sea" and was in Duck, North Carolina. All the houses were named. There were some very good names in our neighborhood. Laura's favorite was "Flip Flops and Pop Tarts" while I enjoyed the house name "Shore Beats Work".


We enjoyed the master bedroom as accommodation for Laura's Pregnancy. That was very nice and very much appreciated. We went to the beach three of the six days we were there and visited with the family, shopped and saw the Wright Brother's first flight memorial "Kitty Hawk" which is now in a town called Kill Devil Hills.


It seemed odd that Wright Brothers Memorial Park (whose name I'm sure I have wrong, as I 'm going from memory), which everyone 'knows' to be in Kitty Hawk is actually in another town called Kill Devil Hills. The park wasn't moved or anything as the place the first flight occurred pretty much defines the location of the park. I assume the reason the park isn't in Kitty Hawk is because the town of Kill Devil Hills has grown so much that the park was reassigned to it (rather than the town of Kitty Hawk) as the park must have become 'closer' to Kill Devil Hills. Either that or some political coup occurred. Probably a combination of both.


We shopped a little bit. There's a huge kite flying industry in the outer banks which is very cool as Kites are way fun. They had some enormous kites for sale. We played putt-putt at what was easily the most difficult putt-putt course I've ever played on. I was one over par at 55. It wasn't the typical windmill and bumper style course. Rather it was a course made in the style of the practice putting greens that people have begun putting around their homes in the last 10 years.


We had a crab feast and enjoyed a visit from Jennifer's in-laws the Cogans. All the kids were together with their families and we hired a photographer for a family portrait.


I've posted the digital snap shots I took on my online photo album here.

• Stronger than matches
• Distinctly this stinky

that is all.

So we're pregnant. We just hit about the halfway point. Pretty soon we should start feeling him move around in there. By "we" I of course mean Laura.


We're doing very well. By "we" I mean "I'm". Everything is going by the numbers and we're really very happy that we've had no problems thus far.


So this happy lack of problems leaves me wondering "now what". I realize that we "don't know what we're in for", but everyone seems to enjoy making sure we're aware of that. I think it's sort of 'rite of passage' thing with all parents. I'm sure I'll be saying it to first time parents myself. I'm going to try to remember how silly it is. I don't have any choice, it's not like we're not going to make it through the first year. My brother Steve had the funniest version of this. I said, yeah we're getting pretty close, I guess we should prepare or something. He started laughing and repeated "Prepare?" quite loudly. Then after giggling a bit more he said "It's the end of the world Larry, you can't prepare for the end of the world!" I found this quite amusing. I've since told everyone this story, especially those that volunteer the "oh you're not going to get any sleep next year" brand of new parent advice. It's funny how quickly they flip from "you are utterly unprepared for this phase, you have no idea how hard it's going to be, i scoff at your ability to live up the responsibilities you will soon face" to "what! it's not the end of the world!". So thanks Steve! That line has worked wonders.


Honestly I'm more worried about the ages 10-18 than I am 0-2. Laura sent me a great note that talked about this. It's available here.


Seems like good advice, if a touch obvious. I'm really not worried about how well Laura and I will do as parents. Everyones always told me i'd make a good dad, and I think I will. Laura is already organized and conscientious enough for two people so there might as well be an actual additional person. It'll be interesting to see how we react when we get to the tough parts. Luckily we both grew up with good parents so we have great examples to refer to.


This kind of thing does give you pause. I have plenty of time to think about it as I'm really not doing much compared with Laura. Well I'm doing some stuff but it's really small stuff compared to gestating a fetus. It's been kind of weird imagining what it's going to be like around here. Before we got pregnant I would think about what it would be like to have a kid. I would think about it when I was leaving to go somewhere. I'd think, well there's no way we would be heading out this quickly. Or I'd imagine a little person standing in the door as I head of to work.


It was hard to imagine the human interaction even then. I'd just 'see' the child looking at me. I'm looking forward to meeting this guy.


We're working on the name thing, and we're looking for a good midwife (if you have any suggestions please post them here).

It's been nice in Phoenix. I've grown to actually like it when it get's hot. Of course the good parts that follow assume you can move past the down side of it being really (really) hot. Luckily this is something most people that live out here figure out how to do after their second summer.


So what's good about it being hot:


Well for one thing, it's less crowded. In the stores, on the roads, in general. If you go out when it's 110+ out, you don't have quite as many people to deal with.


Also it's a really, really nice in the morning. If you get up early, it's unbelievably great out. It's 80 or 90 degrees, very low humidity, the sun is low so there's plenty of dramatic shadows and not a lot of glare. There's also a general bustle of people out and about enjoying the mild temperatures before the day gets going. There's never a cloud in the sky.


The evenings are fun too. Around 7 or so the temperature starts dropping. Not so fast that you can be immediately comfortable outside but fast enough that the real impact of the heat is softened up quite a bit. We're lucky enough to have a pool and this is a great time to jump into it.


You get a lot done around the house during the day. It's too hot to do things outside so you end up enjoying the indoors. It's nice during the summer to catch up on things you meant to do in the house during the winter.

This weekend I went to my 20 year high school reunion.

It was more fun than I expected, and I expected I'd have a good time.
I've added the pictures to my online photo album.

Everyone looked great and it was a real kick talking to everyone about all the stuff they'd been up to.

Basically all the conversations were variations on:

1) How have you been doing? What are you doing?
2) Where do you live now?
3) Do you have kids, are you married, and is this your significant other?

There was also a bunch of questions regarding whether or not you've seen or talked to this or that person.

All in all I'd recommend you go to your reunion. I enjoyed it most because no matter how insecure I was in high school, it really made me realize that I did have a lot of friends in high school, that they are all mostly normal and fun to talk to, and that they thought well of me and remember me as fondly as I remember them.

Having said that, it is one of the more surreal things you'll probably do. Once you get past the "catching up" questions it's really just a group of people standing around making slightly awkward small talk.

The nice part is when you reconnect with a person or three that you got along well with but, for whatever reason, didn't keep in touch with. I found those moments the most enjoyable, though of course a distant second to talking with those friends that you did keep in touch with and just haven't made the time to hang out with lately.

Eric sent me a link to this editorial in the NYTimes.



Yo, Ayatollahs!

By MAUREEN DOWD



Which has the line in it

the vice police are back arresting women in Afghanistan

which was news to me.



I considered why this was something I didn't see more coverage on so I decided to corroborate the story and found a detailed account of it here



A YEAR LATER, AFGHAN WOMEN STILL TERRORIZED



BY ZANA COURSEN-NEFF and JOHN SIFTON



So I read this piece on the bullshit that's starting to go on again in Afghanistan and I was reminded that, well they pretty much don't have anything to do in that country but eat dirt, and that .. gee it seems like this would have been, oh I don't know, good news to have seen 9 months ago when this first started coming to light. So how come it wasn't given more attention by the media?



This reminded me of a Jefferson quote I remembered from the Daily Show, which Laura and I successfully tracked down yesterday.

Stewart: Isn't it the media's responsibility in wartime ...



Colbert: That's my point, Jon! The media has no responsibility in wartime. The government's on top of it. The media can sit this one out.



Stewart: And do what?



Colbert: Everything it's always wanted to do but had no time for: travel, see the world, write that novel. I know the media has always wanted to try yoga. This is a great time to take it up. It's very stressful out there—huge war going on. Jon, hear me out, it was Thomas Jefferson who said, "Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army can reach."



Stewart: Stephen, Stalin said that. That was Stalin. Jefferson said he'd rather have a free press and no government than a government and no free press.



Colbert: Well, what do you expect from a slave-banging, Hitler-loving queer?



...

In the same article Laura Miller goes on to say..

a good humorist doesn't need to grandstand and sometimes barely needs to editorialize at all.

Which is where one of my deep beliefs starts to creep back in. When a humorist doesn't editorize at all, which sometimes happens on the Daily Show, isn't that journalism? And isn't it the kind of opinion driven journalism that empowers people to discuss and consider ideas rather than people and events? Isn't that the ultimate purpose of the basic human right of freedom of the press that our constitution empowers.



So just for grins, lets go way back to the exact Thomas Jefferson quote.



Which is found on this page Thomas Jefferson on Politics & Government 51. Freedom of the Press :

"The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them."—Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787. ME 6:57

So all of this to explain the thought that struck me about the exact Thomas Jefferson quote when I read it. The first thought in the quote:

The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right;

is especially important in my view.



It speaks to how mass market media is not only ineffective but in my view bad for government in general.



The mass market media comodifies opinion to the point that the press is no longer free in Jefferson's view because the press is not capable of expressing an opinion. This at a time where most every man is receiving media and capable of absorbing it.



So people rail against the media all the time. But the idea that the media is liberal or conservative is not really the problem. The media is the reflection of whatever public opinion is thought to prefer at the time. To extend the analogy this reflection is reflected by the values of the editorial voice of each outlet. If you consider all outlets as the whole of the free press then you should in theory get a fairly accurate picture of public opinion.



But do we really get opinions, dissent and a dialogue of ideas that enlightens and enriches ourselves and our government? I certainly haven't seen it in the last 15 years at least. We all know that the mass media has the power to create public opinion. Further, when this occurs mass media not only creates public opinion but actively discourages unpopular opinion. This has became common practice because, during the dawn of the media age, the newspaper barons needed to kill or bury unpopular stories because they were 'bad for circulation'. While many of the newspapers reformed themselves the genie got out of the bottle and the financial benefit of peddling news that supports the popular view was so great that it's now the norm, rather than the exception. We're seeing it in the extreme right now because we're 'at war'.



The sad effect of all this is that the media now regularly kill or bury real news stories that conflict with popular opinion and so fail to inform the dialog of the people regarding all the consequences of the actions of government. This has the intellectually chilling effect of not enabling us as individuals to fully form our own opinions.



This is why I feel that we so hunger for contradictory news and even seek it out in unlikely places like humor and other outlets that are allowed to have 'opinions'. In fact by being a fake news show that will many times not editorialize on pieces, The Daily Show wiht Jon Stewart succeeds exactly where I believe Jefferson envisioned the press delivering the most value to the people and therefor to the government.



I don't know if we'll see it my lifetime but I am firmly convinced that the way the media works in our time will be seen as one of the most corruptive forces on the human condition. Not because it's liberal or conservative, but because the media supports the idea that newsworthiness and popularity of opinion are somehow not only related to each other (which is completely ridiculous) but that popularity of opinion trumps newsworthiness because it's easier.



It may be easy to digest, easy to measure and easy to make money off of, but is it news? I think that it's fairly obvious that Women getting abused in Afghanistan is news, sure it's harder to report but so what. Are we not worthy of thinking about that kind of an idea? Didn't President Bush himself say that it would be hard to win the war on Terrorism? Isn't this an example of how hard it really will be?



The press should be reporting news that contradicts popular opinion so that we can test, temper and harden our convictions and values. If the press will not report news regardless of popular opinion then we turn our government into a hall of mirrors and we are no longer governing ourselves but are in fact governed without representation. That's what Jefferson is telling us. I am convinced that's what history will prove is occurring.

Nice one Eric.



I'm surprised that the joke involving their names didn't come up sooner in the comedy realm. I've heard it with Bush and Dick but never with Colon. Nice.

"You know the world is going crazy when the best

rapper is a white guy,

the best golfer is a black guy,

the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese,

the Swiss hold the America's Cup,

France is accusing the U.S. of arrogance,

Germany doesn't want to go to war,

and the three most powerful men in America are named 'Bush', 'Dick', and

'Colon'. Need I say more?"

— Chris Rock

Wheel b betor quikcly i hope. In the meantime please blink on the errors.

So yes, I'm the last to tell you this, but it really is a a good article and worth even registering on the NYTimes website.



It's spot on but here's a tidbit to encourage you:

In Mr. Stewart's view, "Liberals and conservatives are two gangs who have intimidated rational, normal thinking beings into not having a voice on television or in the culture." He argues that they are on their way to extinction: "Liberals and conservatives are paradigms that mean nothing to anyone other than the media. Liberals were relevant when there was a giant cause to fight for - civil rights. They accomplished it so well that the only thing left for them to do now is to get women into Augusta. So what are they? And what are Rush and the Ann Coulters battling? They're still fighting the cold war. You know, Russia gave up a long time ago."

Well Laura is resting again today and while I was hacking around she had MTV on in the living room. There was a video show on MTV about the best video artists. Well apart from almost all the videos being from the 80's I just have to ask.. when does anybody actually watch the videos?


Now, many would argue that not having videos on TV is a good thing, I would suggest that most of them haven't watched the programming that has replaced it on MTV. I guess kids are watching it.

Well I guess War is good for the economy. More details in an article on the Guardian's website about Sony applying for a patent on the phrase "Shock and Awe", supposedly for a PS2 Game title based on the war. What's amazing is this was posted on April 10th so Sony must have filed for that Patent pretty much with the start of the war.

Other goods planned for sale in the US include an "Axis of Evil" board game, "Iraqi Freedom" crockery and clothes as well as "Shock and Awe" trainers and dolls.

Which I suppose is the whole point. It's very well done actually, and quite amusing.



Captain Colon!



It's pretty funny that a super hero that can shrink down to fit in a digestive system hasn't figured out how to deliver ordinance with anything better than slingshot. Who the hell is this guy we're saving that he's eating entire chip bags and bottles rather than their contents?



I was going to do one about Alzheimer's, but I kept.... Hey! what is the screen I'm looking at?

I was talking to a friend the other day about an essay he wrote on the topic of patriotism and its meaning. He was most interested in how the emotional weight of that word was being used to further political agendas without regard for specific meaning. I really enjoyed the article he wrote about it (which can be found here).


In my response I asked "I wonder what your thoughts are on why we aren't presented that kind of perspective in the media?"


He referred me to Orwell's essay which includes the great quote:

Political language—and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists—is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

I'm curious what, specifically, the computer did that prompted him to shoot it. Too bad they didn't think to get a photo of the destroyed laptop.


Thanks to Charlie for the link!

Well pretty packed weekend. Worked half the night Friday night trying to get a client's vpn installed.


Saturday in Defensive Driving class.. let's just say it wasn't voluntary.


Saturday night, couples Wedding Shower for a friend of Laura's. More fun than expected. We actually tied for second on the "Bride and Groom Trivia contest" which was surprising.


Sunday we drove down to Oracle Arizona to visit my Great Uncle Bill and Aunt Kathy. It was great fun as Aunt Bunny (she prefers Anne), Uncle Hank, Aunt Lynn and Uncle Charles were all in town visiting. We cracked open numerous bottles of wine and imbibed while I showed everyone pictures from our trip to Virginia for Daniel's wedding.


After about two hours of this a few of us were no longer qualified as designated drivers.


While moving the computer to show some more photos to Uncle Bill somehow we knocked over a full glass of red wine which landed right on the front of the iBook and basically emptied right into the keyboard. After about two hours of cleaning and drying you could hardly tell it happened. I set it out for a day 'just in case' and fired it up this afternoon.


Thankfully it works fine! Important safety tip learned. Don't s spill wine on the iBook. I'm just bummed Laura didn't think to take a picture as it was quite a dramatic sight.

We could save ourselves and our family a great deal of money with this Voice over IP phone service.

Steve says he's going to try it out so I'll have to see how it works for him.

I guess the only wierd part is wiring the unit up to the house so you can use multiple lines.

Certainly makes it easy to justify the high speed internet costs.

I thought maybe I was just missing the coverage of them or something.


Senator Byrd made a good speech last week about the lack of debate on the War on Iraq.


He goes a little overboard on some parts.


He nails it on a few key points. 1) Our representatives are not debating this action to any great degree. 2) It is an important change in US Foreign Policy 3) Our aggressive rhetoric could be creating more problems than it solves.


4) And finally what are we going to do after we depose Saddam?



Naturally he goes after President Bush's administration but I have to wonder what the heck the congress needs the administrations permission for. I mean can't they just have these debates? I guess I'd like to know how these debates are getting held up.


I'm still amazed that the best publicly televised government debate on this was back in September and it was the British Parliament.


I guess I can't really blame President Bush for not prioritizing the worldwide demonstrations. Our system of government is built on an assumptions that the 'mob' is usually wrong. There's certainly no loud arguments, however coming from our representatives in Congress.



Again.. what about after we depose Saddam.. what then..

It's a great time to get a startup going



Worth a read, the full article is here.

Then my life would be complete.


Having been robbed this strikes me as a particularly interesting and engaging website.

Buy stolen goods online. You pay the shipping, which is kind of poetic in a way I can't explain.

So now that we're going down the last few steps toward war I still don't think that we know enough about what we're going to do after the war.


I feel a bit better about the coming conflict after Colin Powell's speech to the United Nations. I still think we're doing this without as much effort at avoiding armed conflict as we could have undertaken.


Sometimes I think about what this all will look like in a historical perspective. Especially given that history is written by the winners. It seems this could be a great victory for the world if we somehow back Saddam Hussein down and successfully, through concerted efforts on the part of all of our allies, institute a regime that is truly free and reflects the will of the Iraqi people.


My real concern is that we, in an effort to 'apply military credibility' to the (previously ineffective) rhetoric of the United Nations, we may have overplayed the 'overwhelming force' card. I'm truly afraid that by pounding so hard on the drums of war, we have created an environment in which we're putting an irrational and dangerous regime in a position in which they don't feel they have any choice but to take as many people as possible 'with them' as they go down.


I have to trust that there are some folks that are much smarter than I am making sure that's not happening. I hope to god that History doesn't classify this coming war as a terrible price to pay for such a small improvement in a troubled region.


Our legacy, our hopes for peace, our commitment to a world unified under the ideas of democracy and tolerance. We'll see how they survive the next few months.

Friend of mine is starting up a new Certification, so I'm probably going to help him.



I'm not that big a believer in them myself but then I've never really gone after pure coding types of jobs.



I always liked the hard stuff myself. To me the 'soft stuff' is the hard part. The soft stuff being the individual people, the vision, the team, building consensus and generally building solutions when you are working on a tough problem that's kicked a few dozen peoples butts. Too bad they don't have a certification for that!



Anyway good link from Tom rebutting my off-hand comment that I don't really find certifications all that useful. Course I was talking about in my work, not in his (he's an administrator/engineer type).



Interesting information. I guess I'll have to be getting smart on this market in the next few weeks.

Been busy on the biz dev front these last three weeks. Attended some training (or as I like to call it 'propaganda presentations'). Bit of work on the networking side and here I am.



Got two new small projects with an existing customer, and getting ready to close a new project with a customer I did a little pick up work for this fall.



Still looking for a good Microsoft Small Business Server System Administrator in the Phoenix area so I can finish another project.



Life is good!

Faster Horses indeed.



I had a phone call from a client today and it was our first call regarding a project. At the beginning one of the clients said "Wow me". So I said "Faster Horses". This immediately confused them and I enjoyed referring them to this article.



It's so nice that Christopher Locke is out there putting out the word and the vision. He's much braver and far more articulate than I but I love that he writes so much and so well.

Here's an amazing demonstration of someone with way too much time on their hands. I wonder what winning a tetris championship pays?



Thanks to Kottke.org for the link.

So everynow and then I get an e-mail from Eric that has something really funny in it. These two images cracked me up.



Enjoy!

Here's another interesting clock. Laura found this one.



(You'll need flash)

Good summary of what's wrong with our current security posture, why it's flawed and what we need to get better at.



It's frustrating for me that people keep pointing things like this out yet our leadership doesn't make any meaningful moves in this direction. The idea that detention, border security and cool toys is going to get us safer just wastes money, erodes our freedom and creates an environment in which the next attack will probably not be prevented.

Load this page on a system that has an open mike and the speakers turned up real loud.



Now make an electric guitar sound.

This may be one of the more interesting web pieces I've seen. What a cool project.



The page about the webserver is quite amusing.

Speaking of my wife she ran accross an interesting site tonight, while looking for a drop leaf table.



Sort of a place to collect wierd product/service ideas that could be useful or really stupid.



Half Bakery.

So here's more news that reminds me the long term damage of the war is being done by ourselves.



So I'm supposed to feel safer I guess.. and I feel cheated instead.

I'd pay much money to get to see this on the big screen.



I'd have to see the dubbed version though.. sad as that is.



I'm going to have to make sure the folks I know back in DC get out to it.

this little verse popped into my head:

Lift up your head

and look around

realize that answers to some questions

can't be found

So I don't know what the heck it popped into my head, but there you are.

Well I just watched the TiVo recording of President Clinton on Lettermen September 11th.



Now, I know that President Clinton wasn't perfect. I do still remember being embarrassed and ashamed by his lying to the American people. Despite all that though I have to admit that he is so charismatic and such a good speaker that I really miss him being in office.



Watching him on Letterman it occurred to me that there is really a big difference in the role he saw himself in as President and the way President Bush, or possibly even Gore or McCain, sees the role of the Presidency.



I believe that, to Bill Clinton, the Presidency's primary role is to see where we should be heading, see what's holding us back and then, to inspire and motivate the populace to make real progress in that direction. In short to lead, rather than to manage.



It would certainly explain his propensity to collect the best thinking of others and then package them up and use them to try to encourage action. Of course his critics always claimed that he was 'stealing' other people's ideas and claiming them as his own.



I'm not really sure what Bush see the role of the Presidency's as. I do know that, even if you hate President Clinton (and it's amazing how many people still vehemently do), that President Bush will never be able to inspire the country during a talk show interview answering questions unrehearsed. By contrast, even if you dislike President Bush, or really like President Clinton it's important to remember how ineffective he had become becuase of his stupid behaviour and stubborn inability to admit to it.



Dave was great during the interview. He was totally intimidated by President Cinton (he let an initial comment go by without making what would have been a great joke at President Clinton's expense). Despite being intimidated he did still manage to ask some tough, probing questions that allowed President Clinton to touch on some interesting areas. Of course with the way he enjoys talking, Dave could have just asked him "what time is it?" and he would have gone on for 30 minutes.

Another good link from my friend Steve: Some really interesting shots here.

Tough call in that we definately are less free in many ways, and I don't think it's reasonable to expect we are any safer. Of course the idea is we are supposed to be safer.. that's what governments always offer in exchange for freedom. In some cases it's a fair trade. I don't mind getting prodded and poked to get on an airplane. But when you starte talking about people being held without getting any opportunity to defend themselves in a public court...



I suppose it's easy to say that it's too big and too close to the events of last September for us to know if we're causing real long term damage to our freedom. Here are two interesting pieces of journalism that sure beg the question that title this entry:



From an article in Time magazine last week:

".. Congress passed the U.S.A. Patriot Act, which was designed "[t]o deter and punish terrorist acts in the United States and around the world, to enhance law enforcement investigatory tools, and for other purposes." The legislation gave Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft a license to expand the scope of their authority, and they have used their new powers, plus a few old ones, to detain more than 1,200 people in the U.S., Americans and foreign nationals, in the name of the war against terrorism. Most were picked up on immigration violations, their hearings closed to the press and the public. About two dozen (including Padilla) were detained as material witnesses in grand jury investigations, a rare practice before Sept. 11. The courts are still trying to figure out whether it is legal. (A federal appeals court in Cincinnati ruled last week that the secret deportation hearings were an unconstitutional attempt to put the government's actions "beyond public scrutiny.")"



Time Magzine's Lev Grossman

And from a Jim Lehr interview with Vice President Dick Cheney:

"JIM LEHRER: Are you concerned at all that the government in its role to react to this monumental event has maybe overreacted in terms of taking some freedoms away from Americans?



VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY: I don't believe that, Jim. I think - I don't think we've taken freedom away from Americans. We've tried to be very sensitive to that. We have tried to alert people to the dangers here, and my concern is that there will be another attack and we will find once that attack has occurred that there is something we could have done that might have prevented it but we didn't do it. "

I'm sure there's lots of harder hitting journalism on this topic out there. It's interesting that we are starting to see such obvious contradictions in mainstream press. I suppose I would agree that Time Magazine is less about news than 'stories' but you can't dispute that we've got many Americans being held without any recourse right now. How many don't we know about? How does their incarceration improve the security of our country and our freedom? How do we know these reasons are valid?



Is the idea that if we just give up some freedom so we can prevent someone from attacking us, as a justification for whatever infringments on our freedoms we have endured, directly in conflict with the our freedom if we don't know what this person would bring forward in his defense?



I suppose I've really already decided this is an indefensible position for our government to take up.

Too bad this isn't coming out this week. I wouldn't mind watching it tomorrow while all the networks broadcast loads of tripe revolving around the terrorist attacks on our country last year.

If you, like me, are not too happy with many of the news feed aggregation tools out there, check it out .



It's a nice product but is in my opinion much more usable if you apply this hack to add "collapse and expand" triangles to the feed display.

This week I upgraded the Mac to Jaguar OSX (10.2). It's very nice and I'm surprised how much faster it is. The day I got the upgrade done I picked up Diablo for the Mac from the bargain bin at the Apple Store (for just $14.95!). So needless to say my productivity, and my posting to this blog have significantly suffered.

This is the first post.

I recently read an article, I think it was in Time magazine about “famous last words”. It was interesting because there are some wierd ones out there. The article mentioned one from, I want to say it was Oscar Wilde but I could be wrong, anway his last words were in response to a question. The question was, “do you want to make your peace with God before…” to which he responded, “This is hardly the time to be making new enemies.”.

It seems too perfect that these were his last words but I suppose that it could have happened. I wonder why they don’t have a last sounds and things like that. I suppose that as we get into implanted technology you’ll be able to tell a lot about what the last moment of someones life was like.

Today is the Anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death. I don’t know what his last words were. I’m sure they’ve been recorded. It’s kind of weird that we celebrate the day he died, when you consider how stupid his death was. I mean I guess it’s unavoidable for us all to know that he would have passed away curled up in front of a toilet, I mean he was Elvis, of course this would be news. I can’t really think about Elvis’ death without thinking how he must have been really embarrassed when he realized that was going to be how he was going to die.

Today I’m flying to New York City to visit some friends and family. We’ll be trading the Phoenix dry heat for the East Coast humidity. We’ve got a full week ahead of us. From NYC we’re going to go to Richmond, then to Northern Virginia to help Christen our now Godson.

Should be fun.

Larry