Monthly Archives: June 2009

Letterman Saves America

Something occurred to me just now.

Since Letterman inadvertently started up his feud with Sarah Palin, not one right wing terrorist has shot up a church or tried to perform a mass killing at a Holocaust museum or gay theatre or abortion clinic or NAACP or LULAC affair.

This means that the Palinites have stayed in their mom’s basements writing hate mail to CBS rather than assassinating Americans they don’t agree with. As long as they still have tissues to clean themselves off with while staring at their Miss Wasilla bathing suit posters, America is safe.

Somebody give this guy a medal.

GOP Wants Harsher Tone Toward Iran : NPR

“When I see violence directed at peaceful protestors, when I see peaceful dissent being suppressed, wherever that takes place, it is of concern to me and it’s of concern to the American people. That is not how governments should interact with their people… I do believe that something has happened in Iran where there is a questioning of the kinds of antagonistic postures towards the international community that have taken place in the past, and that there are people who want to see greater openness and greater debate and want to see greater democracy. How that plays out over the next several days and several weeks is something ultimately for the Iranian people to decide.”

– President Obama, 6/16/2009 on the Iranian protests

Normally I’m with the say it prainly and clearly – and somewhat loudly – crowd. Obama is clearly of the “speak softly” crowd and is currently withholding the “big stick”. This is an internal affair and since our history of messing with Iranian politics is pretty horrific, our prez is doing the right thing by standing by and pointing out that violence and repression are bad. Besides, the guy at the top and his cronies will still be in charge no matter who gets to be president there; and those cats have never liked us.

Meanwhile the GOP are running around like idiots and screaming for Obama to condemn the election as a sham and, presumably, send in Force Recon to back the protestors.

The Iranians already see anything we are doing as meddling. Why antagonize them further?

“A state television channel in Iran says the government summoned the Swiss ambassador, who represents U.S. interests in Iran, to complain about American interference. The two countries broke off diplomatic relations after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. An English-language state-run channel quoted the government as calling Western interference ‘intolerable.'”

One, even if the opposition is seen to win last week’s election, they are STILL more conservative than even the current whack job crowd of conservatives we have. Two, where the fuck was the GOP where Bush stole two elections in THIS country? Their hypocrisy stinks to high heaven.

Even the media is missing the friggin point, as this short-sighted article clearly shows.

Look, just because eight years of Bush taught us that knee jerk emotional reactions were the approved policy response doesn’t mean Bush and Co. were ever RIGHT in their overreactions to situations. Quite the contrary, in fact.

“(Obama) should speak out that this is a corrupt, flawed sham of an election and that the Iranian people have been deprived of their rights.”

– McCain, over-reacting as usual

Some are billing this as Obama v. McCain 2. If so, Obama still wins on both points and correctness.

As a segue, this article points out how much worse we would be if John Sidney McCain III was nominally in charge these days.

The core point is this however: we have no dogs in this fight and no real reason to jump in other than to express an interest in the will of the people prevailing without much violence. Yep, that’s it.

Besides, weren’t the neocons actually pulling FOR Ahmadinejad?

The GOP is forgetting one important lesson from the Bible studies they supposed go to:

“A gentle answer turns away rage, but a harsh word stirs up anger.”

– Proverbs 15:1

Ten Grand is Buried Here | Microsoft Australia (Prepared to be bribed)

Apparently I just found out how much Firefox is worth to me.

Ten thousand Australian dollars.

Microsoft has put out some bizarre kind of search contest where you can “find” AU$10,000 on the internet. Go here if interested.

It won’t let you use Firefox (and presumably not Opera or Chrome, etc.) to perform the search.

Granted, I don’t have the spare time to play the game. Nor do I use IE for much more than some work sites I need to use it for.

However, I really don’t see where Microsoft thinks it’s viable strategy is to insult a rival’s better product while trying to bribe tech savvy customers to come back to it’s flawed product.

Not to mention that Microsoft search has always sucked (though the new stuff apparently is *pretty*).

Whew!

Back when I converted the blog database to MT 4, I ran the upgrade scripts on an old set of blog entries. Thus I lost the date/time stamps on everything from August 2007 to June 2008.

Sure, I could have just knocked out re-editing all those hundreds of entries, but where to find the time? Answer? There never was any time.

So, I finally did it. A few every odd day or so, plus a concentrated push during lunch breaks and conference calls over the past couple weeks and I finally knocked out the edits. It wasn’t hard, just time consuming. So they are back and searchable. Dead links and bad grammar untouched of course as I don’t do revisionist history unless I really, really screwed up and need to make amends and give a mea culpa.

Anyway, more entries for you to ignore.

Lifehacker – Food Week Roundup: The Best of in Delicious Bites – Food Week

The folks over at Lifehacker had a nice food overview week last week. Here are some of the highlights of the week and I will link some personal faves that may or may not have made their list so seriously check that last link just in case.

Equipment-wise, they link to an article on how to properly season a cast iron grill. Also, articles on the bare minimum of utensils you need, as well as a list of tools for the best kitchen.

That said, the last list there tends to imply you can skimp on the pots and pans. Honestly, mostly through our wedding presents and by checking sales, we’ve collected a decent set of All-Clad pots and pans and could not be more pleased with the results. Yes, some of this stuff *does* cost money, but when you get the right stuff, it is so worth it.

Do as I say, not as I do

This is about right. Every time I see Ukrainians rising up and Iranians fighting for their right to a fair election, I think about how pathetic our country is to have allowed Bush to serve two stolen terms.

When it comes to walking the talk of democracy, we suck.