Month: March 2006

some of this stuff writes itself

First, esteemed “media critic” gets handed his ass by a correspondent.

Crooks and Liars:

KURTZ: But critics would say, well, no wonder people back home think things are falling apart because we get this steady drumbeat of negativity from the correspondents there.
LOGAN: Well, who says things aren’t falling apart in Iraq? I mean, what you didn’t see on your screens this week was all the unidentified bodies that have been turning up, all the allegations here of militias that are really controlling the security forces.
What about all the American soldiers that died this week that you didn’t see on our screens? I mean, we’ve reported on reconstruction stories over and over again…I mean, I really resent the fact that people say that we’re not reflecting the true picture here. That’s totally unfair and it’s really unfounded.
…Our own editors back in New York are asking us the same things. They read the same comments. You know, are there positive stories? Can’t you find them? You don’t think that I haven’t been to the U.S. military and the State Department and the embassy and asked them over and over again, let’s see the good stories, show us some of the good things that are going on? Oh, sorry, we can’t take to you that school project, because if you put that on TV, they’re going to be attacked about, the teachers are going to be killed, the children might be victims of attack.

Oh, sorry, we can’t show this reconstruction project because then that’s going to expose it to sabotage. And the last time we had journalists down here, the plant was attacked. I mean, security dominates every single thing that happens in this country….So how it is that security issues should not then dominate the media coverage coming out of here?

Then bloviating Bush sycophant suits up in his camoflage Depends and goes to New York — the front line in the war on terror:

Blogoland: Hugh Hewitt, Terror Warrior:

The third-tier talk show host strapped on his kevlar helmet and bravely reported from the front lines of the terror war while interviewing Michael Ware, a Time Baghdad correspondent:

MW: Let’s look at it this way. I mean, you’re sitting back in a comfortable radio studio, far from the realities of this war.

HH: Actually, Michael, let me interrupt you.

MW: If anyone has a right…

HH: Michael, one second.

MW: If anyone has a right to complain, that’s what…

HH: I’m sitting in the Empire State Building. Michael, I’m sitting in the Empire State Building, which has been in the past, and could be again, a target. Because in downtown Manhattan, it’s not comfortable, although it’s a lot safer than where you are, people always are three miles away from where the jihadis last spoke in America. So that’s…civilians have a stake in this. Although you are on the front line, this was the front line four and a half years ago.

How the hell do these people leave the house everyday?

And best of all, a GOP candidate for the US House tries to fob off a picture of a peaceful suburban street in Istanbul as one of a street in Baghdad. Follow the link and read on: it gets better. The picture he ends up using is some long-distance shot — no people, no details — as if he was hiding in the Green Zone, just as he accuses the liberal media of doing.

what did we do before the Internets?

Buy a roll of film, any type, grab a developer, mix it up, then look up the optimal processing times/temps etc here:

The Massive Dev Chart: B/W Film Development Times, Processing Data:

I just processed a roll of Forte PAN 100 following the helpful directions here and I’m glad someone has taken the time to pull all this together.
Continue reading “what did we do before the Internets?”

(rhetorical) Immigration Reform Question

Immigration Reform Question:

Why does most immigration reform focus on the supply-side instead of the demand-side?

At least, I assume it’s rhetorical.

If we (the people north of the Rio Grande) decided to fix the demand-side, we would have

  • acknowledged that some jobs/industries are exploiting unrepresented people (by keeping them off the books, uninsured, and unprotected from workplace hazards/dangerous working conditions)
  • devised a system to enforce workplace standards, ensure meaningful benefits and protections, and
  • come up with an immigration policy that admits qualified applicants to compete for jobs that natives are also interested in (ie, are not dangerous or poorly managed).

So far, it’s easier to blame the job seekers than the employers.

Now playing: Porrohman by Big Country from the album “The Crossing”

pulling the ladder up behind you

The inimitable TBogg takes note of this weekend’s immigration rally:

TBogg – “…a somewhat popular blogger” :

If this weekend’s organizers could get 500,000 people to turn out on Saturday for their march, imagine a one-day work stoppage. If all of my Hispanic employees and the Hispanics who make deliveries to us or provide other services didn’t come into work for a day, I’d be screwed. Now imagine if they all stayed home and didn’t buy anything for a day. They could bring California to its knees and you’d have business owners and factory owners and large contractors and the entire service industry screaming bloody murder. I still have fond memories of the stories of then Senator Pete Wilson getting a pissed-off phone call from a certain well-connected San Diego hotelier when one of her hotels was raided by la migra.

California? I think a few states would feel the pinch. I hope they do it. A colossal sickout: start in California and see if it gets any results. Then expand across the Southwest and Southeast.

This comment sums it up: Give it 50 years and the South American Union (or whatever they decide for a name) will be China’s biggest trading partner – they’re playing the long game.

Still looking for that Bush as Ché design . . . .

suburban safari, more of

Wildlife abounds, it seems. The raccoons I had assumed would move on when the weather warmed up are getting restless. We just heard a godawful ruckus, like cats fighting but more intense: four raccoons in the backyard, having a frank exchange of ideas about something.

I guess my softhearted neighbor is still leaving food out for all comers and they’re reaping the benefits.

paying one’s share

Taxes by the Mile:

Fuel-efficient vehicles are cutting into gas tax revenues. As a result, some states are experimenting with per-mile tax systems. In Oregon, an experimental system uses GPS to monitor how many miles a car drives. Drivers are then charged an appropriate road tax when they fuel up.

I wonder if the appropriate road tax includes weight per axle or other ways of measuring the actual costs?

a uniter, not a divider

I have been trying not to riff on politics lately — so many others are so much better — but this is too ironic not to share. Who will be first with a Ché style iconograph with W’s head under the trademark beret?

TomDispatch – Tomgram: Nick Miroff on How George Bush Unified a Continent:

Has Latin America ever had such a unifying figure?

At political rallies, his visage is held aloft as a beacon to regional independence and self-determination. He’s helped forge new trade partnerships to spur economic growth and alleviate poverty. And his leadership has fanned a gale-force electoral trend that’s sweeping the hemisphere to topple one pro-Washington government after the next.

Who is this grand inductor of Latin American leftism? Venezuelan fireball Hugo Chavez? Blue-collar Brazilian Lula Ignacio da Silva? Bolivia’s coca-farmer-cum-president, Evo Morales?

¡Epa! It’s George W. Bush, the accidental revolutionary.

In the past five years, the swaggering Texan has inspired a leftward surge that is uniting Latin America and threatening to knock Che Guevara right off all those natty t-shirts.

I have been mulling over the idea of the constraints associated with being a superpower and the freedom that comes with engaging your peers as equals, not as your lessers. I’m not sure being the Only Remaining Superpower is all it’s cracked up to be.

Of course, it’s not as if the US is as independent as supposed: it spends an awful lot of money and political energy in a co-dependent relationship with Israel.

color pinhole shots

Got some pinhole images back today. Ballard Camera does E6 processing and scanning, making it a one-stop deal.

The pictures are here in all their light-leaking glory. The fact that it’s a red leak makes me think it’s something to do with the counter window (which is red). It’s on the other side of the frame, though. The leak fogs the film in the lower left corner, upper right on the image. Bah, so much for my spatial reasoning. It’s right under the counter window. It seems like a simple fix: if I can get some felt to encircle the window to ensure no light leaves that circle, I should be OK.

Interestingly, the red blotches are not always visible on these thumbnails.

I also can’t work out the vignetting on the opposite side, what blocks that corner.
On the plus side, the daylight exposures look good. Some of the shady ones are too dark. More light/longer exposure times. Some kind of tripod rig is going to have to happen, as well.

The Assassin’s Gate: an observation

Not a book review, as I’m not clever enough to write one, at least of a book so widely discussed. But an observation is within anyone’s grasp.

The first chapter lays out the players, the dramatis personae of the war’s instigation and prosecution. The roots of the current war lie in the previous one, as often happens. Hard to tell from how it’s been managed but the underlying desire that drove the warheads was remorse and guilt over having abandoned the Kurds and Shia after the 1991 war, coupled with good old-fashioned greed over the oil reserves, and a leavening of revenge over Saddam’s attempt to assassinate Bush 41.

If Wolfowitz, Perle, et al felt guilty about what Iraqis suffered in the post Gulf War era, I wonder how they can sleep now? Wolfowitz is head of the World Bank, of course, and Perle is now carping at how poorly the administration has prosecuted his war.

acquisitions in hand

Fedex and the USPS were busy around here today.

  • My Mighty Mouse arrived today. I have checked them out in the store before, but still, it’s a weird but natural feeling to use one. Pretty neat little device and I like the optical tracking versus mechanical, for accuracy.
  • The LinkSys router/access point also arrived, and I’m using it now. I think ultimately, I would like to connect it directly to the DSL and put everything behind it. My cursory look didn’t tell me how to do port forwarding so port 80 traffic gets handled correctly. But I’m sure it can be done.
  • I also got a teeny 4 port USB 2.0 hub, since the olde skool PPC mini only came with 2 USB ports. And I have more devices than that.
  • So far, so good. The hub was by far the cheapest. I think it was a buck, with an additional 5 for shipping from Hong Kong.

Continue reading “acquisitions in hand”