Thought this photo was interesting from a contact of mine on Flickr -

Wow, this is just mindblowing -

In the past week alone, Republicans obstructed bills to end the war, restore habeas corpus to detainees, and grant Washington, D.C., a voting representative in Congress. And the White House has made a stunning 48 veto threats this year.

Boy, we're on the right track! Especially love that little bit about not restoring habeas corpus to 'detainees' ...

Dang, email spam detection sure has gotten fancy - I was impressed by this play-by-play:

Content analysis details: (12.2 points, 5.0 required)

pts rule name description
---- ---------------------- --------------------------------------------------
0.0 STOX_REPLY_TYPE STOX_REPLY_TYPE
0.1 RDNS_NONE Delivered to trusted network by a host with no rDNS
1.0 SPF_FAIL SPF: sender does not match SPF record (fail)
[SPF failed: Please see http://www.openspf.org/Why?s=mfrom&id=ayong%40brunauto.com.br&ip=66.45.58.204&r=mail.connectexpress.com]
1.7 IMPOTENCE BODY: Impotence cure
0.7 BODY_ENHANCEMENT2 BODY: Information on getting larger body parts
0.0 HS_INDEX_PARAM URI: Link contains a common tracker pattern.
2.0 URIBL_BLACK Contains an URL listed in the URIBL blacklist
[URIs: parttiny.cn]
2.9 URIBL_JP_SURBL Contains an URL listed in the JP SURBL blocklist
[URIs: parttiny.cn]
2.1 URIBL_OB_SURBL Contains an URL listed in the OB SURBL blocklist
[URIs: parttiny.cn]
2.5 URIBL_SC_SURBL Contains an URL listed in the SC SURBL blocklist
[URIs: parttiny.cn]

So it apparently assigns a point-value to certain rules within an email and if it gets more than 5.0 points - BAMN! I guess 'impotence' and 'body enhancement' appear so often in spam that they get their own rule for the detection software to look for. What's weird is that 'impotence' gets a full point more than information on getting larger body parts. Hmm. In any regard, technology at work for the bettermeant of mankind.

(OK, so I don't actually know if 'bettermeant' would be accepted in Scrabble® but who cares)

Flickr's Explore! page is usually pretty cool, though I have no clue what algorithm they're using to tabulate what they call 'Interestingness.' Needless to say, none of my shots have ever broken through the Explore! barrier.

Anyways, for the most part you're guaranteed to see some really cool photographs, but every once in a while apparently something slips through ...



We'll call her 'Marge.'

Congrats, Marge, on reaching Explore!

I found this link useful for testing a monitor calibration. Apparently, Microsoft didn't quite get their whole WCS (Windows Color System) down the first go around (and I'm kidding with the 'apparently' - of course they didn't get it figured out, they just rushed through it to get Vista out the door - and, to their credit, who really uses color management on a PC anyways?). So there are issues with Photoshop CS3 interacting with the WCS.

So anyways, the webpage I've linked to allows you to test your monitor profile within different browsers to test if your OS color system is doing its job by changing the gamma curves or the profiles (stripping/ asigning or converting profiles) of the embedded images. The bottom line = a color-managed browser will honor the embedded ICC profiles and display all three tagged files the same (corrected through the computer's monitor profile), while an unmanaged browser will show all three tagged photos differently and each tagged-untagged pair the same.

Mostly just tagging this for my own personal use - it's handy.

Al Gore mentions this in his book Earth In Balance about how we as a society tend to dump all of our unmentionables - waste, problems, pretty much anything we don't want to have to deal with - into the poorer areas. The inner city, the run-down neighborhoods. The ol' adage 'out of sight, out of mind' playing a huge role in those decisions.

So he jokingly referred to the analogy of SNL's 'Yard-A-Pult' - and, of course, the skit could be found on youtube:



I read this on an airplane a couple of weeks ago and couldn't stop laughing as I recalled this original skit and how fitting the analogy was. Of course, the reality of the situation is anything but amusing and of course you can only put your trash out of sight out of mind for so long before there is no where else that's out of sight.

But who cares for now - let's just let our kids deal with it.

Day #67

So I actually finished the drywall on Day #65 (Friday). Finally. Had taken a 500W halogen all over the room as I sanded it down and it looked really pretty darn good. Especially since this was my first ever drywalling experience, short of mudding up some cracks and patching some switch box holes in the past. I totally have the dude at drywallinfo.com to thank for a successful job! His 30-step methods for seams and corners were indispensable and - following them to a 'T' - I was really impressed at how he knew his stuff. It wasn't really all that bad of a job to do, but did at times find the motivation lacking. It's tough working full-time with a 7-year old trying to keep on a project of this size alone.

But it's moving along.

The insides of all the cabinets are primed and the door trim leading to the living room is half stripped. That job turned into a little nightmare, but I'm hoping to maintain the schedule of having all painting wrapped by EOD this Friday. If I can meet that deadline, I'll be on track to tear out my sink (yikes - no running water - that'll be motivation to keep cracking) and install the countertops that are in my garage at the moment starting on Saturday. I still have to pick out a sink and faucet, but that'll have to be arranged before the current sink comes out to make sure whatever I pick out I can actually bring home and it's not some sort of special order.

Julian was able to help out a bunch on this part of the project -



He loves painting, and I knew the job requirements for applying a primer to the insides of the cabinets was pretty low-pressure so I let him take a stab at it. He did a pretty good job after I taught him some of the ropes of painting (even gave him one of my nice brushes to use, which - after the last painting incident we had where he trashed a $20 brush I was a bit hesitant), and the real added bonus was he could crawl into the cabinets under the counters and reach way into the corners where it would have been hard for me to do!

So it'll be fun to keep plowing ahead. The space will be totally transformed just with the paint, but with the countertops and a new sink/faucet that'll make even more of a difference. Hardware for the cabinets will come at some point then soon thereafter.

And then ... all that will leave is the floor. Oh, almost forgot - once the new sink and faucet is installed, I'll have to install the garbage disposal. That'll take an afternoon of running back and forth to Mclendon's to get plumbing bits and pieces I'm sure. I'm holding off on installing the Bosch® until the floor is in so that'll actually be one of the last things I do.

Just read this on a news feed -

Tehran has prepared some expendable units against Israel as a magnanimous gesture of support for Syria and Palestinian people, knowing the war in this theatre will produce more Islamic radicalism throughout the region

Wow. 'Expendable' units. That's just beautiful.

When I went to look up a word in JFK's speech below, I mistakeningly mispelled it and typed 'sola' and came up with this somewhat chilling definition in wikipedia -

Sola scriptura (Latin for "by scripture alone") is the assertion that the Bible as God's written word is self-authenticating, clear to the rational reader, its own interpreter, and sufficient of itself to be the final authority of Christian doctrine.

That's just downright scary.

What I meant to search was 'Solon' - the Athenian lawmaker JKF alluded to. He apparently held the belief (among many others) that Athens was under threat from the unrestrained greed and arrogance of its citizens, and that even the earth (Gaia), the mighty mother of the gods, had been enslaved.

Interesting.

From Environmental Defense:

"A federal judge in Vermont today ruled against the U.S. auto
industry's attempt to block California and 14 other states [WA included] from
setting tough new limits on global warming pollution from
automobiles.

"In the ruling, Federal Judge William K. Sessions found that the
auto industry had failed to prove that it could not meet the
tailpipe standards, that the new standards would endanger
drivers or that Congress had forbidden states from setting their
own pollution limits.

"This ruling comes less than six months after a historic Supreme
Court decision in early April that the Environmental Protection
Agency has an obligation to regulate carbon dioxide under the
Clean Air Act."


Wow, so the auto industry was seriously trying to argue that increased CO2 standards would endanger me and all other drivers? Holy cow. They're as bad as the RIAA.

Played - in Seattle at the end but seemingly everywhere else as their intro - at Muse shows during their '07 tour. This blew my mind that it was originally given to the American Newspaper Publishers Association at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City on April 27, 1961.

The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; 

and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed 

to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings.  



For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy 

that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence--

on infiltration instead of invasion, 

on subversion instead of elections, 

on intimidation instead of free choice. 



It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources 

into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines 

military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations.



Its preparations are concealed, not published. 

Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. 

Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. 

No expenditure is questioned, no secret is revealed.



That is why the Athenian lawmaker Solon decreed it a crime for any citizen 

to shrink from controversy. 



I am asking your help in the tremendous task 

of informing and alerting the American people..., 

confident that with your help, man will be what he was born to be, 

free and independent.

Amen.

But it's not given in its entirety above or during the show, nor are the excerpts in chronological order. The complete speech can be found here.

So what has been accomplished is what brings up controversy - a different weaving of the words, omitting some, in order to portray an entirely different conclusion. Of course, JFK was referring to Communism - but taken out of context as it has been here, the words spoken offer a chilling insight into modern day civilization that JKF never could have dreamt of predicting. Or perhaps he could.

But nevertheless, it is a powerful assemblage of prose that strikes at the very heart of where we find ourselves now, perpetrated by the US government on nearly all levels.

Um, the company - Contech Electronics - recommends using this against dogs that have a tendency to pee in your lawn. It's called 'The Scarecrow.' I thought it was flippin' hilarious.



They mention on their website that it's even been used to battle unwanted tourists at Graceland! Think of all the possibilities. Your imagination is the only limit. I mean, you can just put this thing somewhere inconspicuously in your lawn aimed at the sidewalk and catch unsuspecting passersby with a bit of a soaking. Or the poor old mailman. Whee!

Went to see Muse last night here in Seattle. The sound level must have been pushing 130dB which was awesome. It was about a 180 from The Veils' show - whereas they had packed in/out their own stuff and I was ten feet from Finn - this show was quite the production (lighting, sound, video, effects, etc.). It was killer though, and I grabbed this photo from franfiorini's Flickr stream -



which is pretty representative what it looked like. Incredibly talented musicians, and I'm particularly drawn to the romantic-era pianism Matthew Bellamy weaves in a number of his songs. Wow.

Here is the setlist.

So the concert was really, really awesome. Turned out that the club, Off Broadway, was a dive just south of the Anheiser-Busch brewery in St. Louis. Really, really small. Which was fine, cos only about fifteen people showed up for the concert. The Veils showed up in a van and set all their own stuff up, played for I think a little over an hour (way too short but that's cos I would have loved to have heard every song of theirs) - including a cover of Bruce Springsteen's State Trooper off the Nebraska album. They asked us what we wanted to hear, so I asked for One Night On Earth - which Finn said they could do and did. Nearly brought me to tears. Sigh.

The three guys and one girl in the band were very polite, quiet, mellow and down-to-earth. I talked to each one of them for a bit. Bought a couple of t-shirts and (apparently, as I was told) the last 12" vinyl recording of the album Nux Vomica, so one of the guys of their 3-man crew - the guy in charge of selling the merchandise, which appeared to be the CD, this one vinyl album, and a couple of different t-shirts that he hung up on the wall behind him after having lit a candle and bringing up a Veils splash screen on his PowerBook - offered me a Sharpie® and told me I should get the band to sign it.

Totally a corny thing to do, which I apologized for, but now that I have it, this record will be something I'll hold onto forever. It was a really awesome and totally memorable evening and it couldn't have been more perfect.

So this video was off of the veils' second (and latest) album nux vomica and released by their label Rough Trade - it's called Calliope! ...



I woke this morning deep in the earth Laying bare with the granite and the moths Up I clambered and I was met by the sun It was then I saw you there, down on the street

My love You've come such a long way With no one to comfort you Or to tell you you're needed

You and I come from the same place But if I were to call for you What's there left to believe in?

So I signaled up to the high and crumbling moon We've made it then, my love Closed both my eyes and crawled under the sink And as I dreamt I swear i felt you in my arms again

You've come such a long way With no one to comfort you Or to tell you you're needed

You and I come from the same place But if I were to call for you What's there left to believe in?

What's there left to believe in?

What's there left to believe in?

No way, you're looking down Took my heart and ripped my crown And i'm fallin' for ya, and i'm fallin' for ya, And i'm falling for you, ah, That's enough to believe in.

You've come such a long way With no one to comfort you Or to tell you you're needed

You and I come from the same place But if I were to call for you What's there left to believe in?

What's there left to believe in?

You're all i've left to believe in