Cooooooookies!

The Arnold

I don't suppose you heard - the media did not make a big deal about it - that Arnold announced that the borders should be closed to brown people? Of course you didn't. Then he pretended he didn't say it. Sort of like those groping incidents.

Anyway, James Wolcott brings us this:

The LA Times and the local news broadcasts out here (which really live down to their nitwit reputation--it's as if the anchors had the Botox injected directly into their brains) are aburst with stories about Arnold in Trouble. His poll numbers have sunk into Bush territory, the unions are running TV ads slamming the governor into the mat, and wife Maria Shriver has jumped in with both scary cheekbones to exercise damage control.

The best deadpan coverage of Arnold Deflated was provided this morning by the LA Times, which discussed fractures and friction in Schwarzenegger's political team as they fight over the oars on the lifeboat.

"Tensions played out last week after one set of Schwarzenegger consultants organized a 'Thank Arnold' rally on the steps of the Capitol at 10:30 AM on a Wednesday. Attendance was sparse.

What? California isn't going to recall Arnold?

Vermont High School the First to Ban Blogs

I didn't post about this at the time - about three weeks ago - but Rutland (VT) High School made a plop in the news by becoming the first school in the nation to specifically ban blogs and blogging because blogs are "not an educational use of computers".

Granted, a lot of blogs are not in any way educational, except in the broadest sense of the term. But it seems like an odd line to draw. In fact, many schools - often upper classes in high school as well as colleges - are using blogs and blogging as part of different classes.

The content available on America Online, the online service, for example, is rarely educational. Would a school specifically ban the use of AOL?

Nope. Doesn't make a lot of sense to me on the face of it. I can see some cause for concern about blogs - just as you'd have with various Web sites - because not all material is appropriate for all age groups. But just flat out saying that blogs aren't an educational use of computers sounds like lipstick on a pig.

Say Hello to a Vermont Way of Life, Rather Than a Political, Blog

A few folks have asked for more Vermont blogs - or, better put, more listings of Vermont blogs. For myself, I usually enjoy reading the words of my neighbors.

Hazen Behind the Trees is a fairly local one to me, since it covers Woodbury, Hardwick and the Northeast Kingdom as well as Vermont in general. I'll be adding it to the Vermont listing at the right (scroll down-down-down).

There is also Julia Lerman's blog.

Visit here and you can see quite a roster of blogs originating out of Middlebury College.

Pro Choice or Right to Life

There is probably just one point on which these two factions agree: that abortions should not be used as a form of birth control (although Pro Choicers, like me, would add "unless all other methods are exhausted).

I don't know anyone Pro Choice who is also pro abortion. The difference, however, is that as pro choice people, we feel that it is the right of the individual in the situation to make (usually) her best choice for her life and the life she's carrying. Pro Life people, however, don't want a woman to have an abortion, but they would (generally, I have spoken with people who are only opposed to abortion but they seem to be - in my own experience - the minority) also prevent a woman from having any other form of birth control. Pro Life groups demonstrate against Planned Parenthood when the overwhelming amount of work PP does is NOT termination of pregnancy but in programs to help a woman maintain good GYN health as well as sexual health education (staying free of disease, getting pregnant when she chooses). For years, I used PP for my yearly GYN checkups because they offered a sliding scale fee and were pretty darned good about making me smarter about my own body.

What brings this up is that I happened again over a Jesse Taylor posting at Pandagon that raises an important point about the morning after pill that too many miss:

Does anybody here know why the morning-after pill has a 72-hour window? Anyone? Well, you see, when the mommy half and the daddy half get together, it's a process called "fertilization". The problem is, however, that unless that fertilized mommy-and-daddy bit is implanted in the mommy's tummy, it can't ever become a baby nine months later. Unless it's implanted, it's a combined bit of regularly produced bodily secretions that in its then-current state cannot develop any further.

By any real standard of pregnancy, you aren't pregnant until you have an embryo in a womb. Which makes the whole debate over the morning-after pill in Illinois skewed. Pharmacists are supposed to be trained scientists. A huge part of that is understanding what drugs do to the body and how the body actually works. This is what gets me about the whole "pharmacists' rights" movement - they're apparently willing to completely manufacture a different reproductive system that affords them moral outrage.

It's not just that they're fighting for the right to deny women legal medical treatment - I could understand that from a moral perspective. It's that they're denying women treatment based on ignorance of how the drugs they dispense work. They don't want to do their jobs because they're bad at them.

Technorati Blog Search

I added this tool - in beta - at the right sidebar. But I'm not sure how well it works. For example, in searching This Blog for "Rumsfeld", it brought up a lot of Spanish language blogs. So we'll see.

When it Takes 3 of Florida's "Finest" to Handcuff a 5-Year-Old

From General JC Christian:

Awhile back, I wrote a letter to the First Sibling deploring Florida's coddling of kindergarten criminals. I wrote that letter in response to an incident in which a five year old little girl was handcuffed and arrested by police for throwing a tantrum. To me, it appeared as if Florida had become a bit too touchy-feely. Last year, they would have tasered the tiny delinquent. The child's lawyer recently released a video of the arrest. Although, as a Confederate Christian American, I still think the three white cops should have used a taser, you've got to give them credit for the efficient way in which they captured the dangerous little brown girl. You can watch it here.

Watch the video and you see that it's when the child is seated quietly that they drag her into handcuffs.

Nice work, Jeb!

Some Friends Mr. Frist Has

Also from The Carpetbagger Report:

Bill Frist’s religious-right friends, with whom he’ll be spending time this weekend, have quite a wish list when it comes to the federal judiciary.

Evangelical Christian leaders, who have been working closely with senior Republican lawmakers to place conservative judges in the federal courts, have also been exploring ways to punish sitting jurists and even entire courts viewed as hostile to their cause.

An audio recording obtained by the Los Angeles Times features two of the nation’s most influential evangelical leaders, at a private conference with supporters, laying out strategies to rein in judges, such as stripping funding from their courts in an effort to hinder their work.

Emphasize mine. Luffly.

Rick Santorum: Obsessed Man with a Plan ::cough::

From The Carpetbagger Report, where comments also point out that AccuWeather, based in PA, has contributed heavily to Rick's campaigning:

Sen. Rick “Man on Dog” Santorum has been stranger than usual lately. He exploited the Terri Schiavo controversy to fly to Florida for campaign fundraising, he used a Wal-Mart jet to do it, he threatened to shut down the Senate unless he got his way on Schiavo legislation, he flip-flopped on Amtrak funding, flip-flopped again on the death penalty, and just this week decided he may want to push off the nuclear option after fighting for it for two years. (Maybe his falling poll numbers are affecting his judgment.)

All of this nuttiness aside, Santorum’s decision to go after the National Weather Service has to be right up there among his stranger decisions. (Thanks to AYM for the tip.)

Do you want a seven-day weather forecast for your ZIP code? Or hour-by-hour predictions of the temperature, wind speed, humidity and chance of rain? Or weather data beamed to your cellphone?

That information is available for free from the National Weather Service.

But under a bill pending in the U.S. Senate, it might all disappear.

The bill, introduced last week by Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., would prohibit federal meteorologists from competing with companies such as AccuWeather and The Weather Channel, which offer their own forecasts through paid services and free ad-supported Web sites.

Rick? What about the hundred thousand or so you cheated the Pennsylvania school system out of to school your children specially when you and your children were not living in Pennsylvania? They've asked for you to repay them and you have not.

Some Statements from Some of the People Insisting that a Vote to End the Filibuster is a Vote for God

From the good folks at Daily Kos:

You say you're supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that, and the other thing. Nonsense. I don't have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist. I can love the people who hold false opinions but I don't have to be nice to them.
-- Pat Robertson, The 700 Club, January 14, 1991

And from Armando at DKos

Senator Ken Salazar (D-CO) continues to snipe at Focus on the Family, Frist's ally in Extremist Sunday. The Senator points out that Focus on the Family board member R. Albert Mohler, Jr said:

The board member, R. Albert Mohler Jr., said Thursday he stands by the comments he made in March 2000 on the cable news show Larry King Live.
"I believe that the Roman church is a false church and it teaches a false gospel," Mohler said at the time. "And indeed, I believe that the pope himself holds a false and unbiblical office."

Salazar called on James Dobson to repudiate Mohler. Well done Senator Salazar.

For Those of You Wondering About the Colorado Case Where the "Secret Service" Kept 3 Citizens from a Social Security Town Hall Meeting

Also from Skippy International (this time, by Pudentilla):

via the raw story we learn that the secret service has opened an investigation into awol's boys' little stunt of dressing up in government agent drag and booting americans from the "let's destroy social security" rallies the "reds" have been holding.

colo. lawyer says bush event being probed - a lawyer for three activists removed from one of president bush's town hall events said thursday that the secret service has opened a criminal probe into whether the man who escorted them from the hall was impersonating an agent.the man was dressed in a dark suit and wore an earpiece when he escorted the three from the march 21 event. the secret service has said it has determined the man was not one of its agents, but a staff member with the host committee.

but we told you so, three weeks ago. it's a double-plus ungood felony to pretend to be a fed when you're not according to 18 U.S.C. § 912 (1994) . we presume, however, that the secret service has yet to receive the iokiyar memo. no doubt the identity of the alleged perpetrator will be revealed shortly after the name of the guy/gal who outed valerie plame.

Some Things Write Themselves: Mr. Bush Cancels Earth Day Speech

From Cookie Jill over at the marvelous Skippy (International):

president bush canceled an earth day visit to the great smoky mountains national park on friday because of bad weather.

Perhaps brought on by his "Clear (Black) Skies" policy?

Wow! The Army Top Brass Cleared the Army Top Brass of Any Wrong-Doing in Abu Ghraib!

I feel so relieved. Don't you?

Now pardon me while I see how Arnold Schwarzenegger's investigation into his own misbehavior is going and then audit my own books to say authoritatively that I do everything right.

Say Hello to BadTux the Snarky Penguin

Find BadTux here.

How the Cookie Crumbles

Say Hello to

The Daily Blog with Kelley Bell.

I especially liked her Stress Reduction Kit.

Would Some Kind Soul...

... visit this site and click Search and tell me (Comments is fine) how many days it says it's been since I updated this blog? For days now, every new posting puts my "update" date farther back on Technorati. Other blogs also show 5-6 days without update when the blogs are spanking fresh.

Many thanks in advance.

Waaaay Too Much Contact Hurts Productivity: An Example

Let me give you an example of what I meant in the previous posting.

Early this week, I had one lovely man call my office at a time I'd specified I would be out. He left a voice mail. But instead of leaving it there, he then proceeded to:

• Send me a follow-up e-mail telling me he had called.

• Then leave a message on my cell phone (I was out of range so voice mail again picked up) alerting me that he had left the first voice mail and sent e-mail followup. Next, he calls my home number and leaves not one but two messages.

• Then he gets on one of the instant messaging services to look for me. When he doesn't find me there, he loads up two other messaging services and goes through the process of sending a message to authorize him to contact me directly through the messaging service.

• (Oh yes, it goes on)Now he calls me again at my office, getting my voice mail, to tell me to authorize him on instant messaging.

• Next, he copies that first follow-up mail from the first phone call to me at two additional e-mail addresses (ones I don't typically use for work).

• He does something else for five minutes THEN he text messages my cell phone BEFORE he calls to leave a third office voice mail to say he's text messaged me.

• Finally, he re-sends the very first e-mail YET AGAIN to EVERY e-mail address for me he could find, as well as goes to one of my Web sites and posts a note through the comment tool. This, he tops off with two more calls to my office voice mail, and one final round of text messages and cell voice mails and e-mail.

And why was he trying to contact me, you ask? Because he wanted to set up a conference call the FOLLOWING WEEK. Just for shits and giggles, I did a time study on how much time it took me to go through all of his schizophrenia-frenzied methods of contact: just over 20 minutes.

And the irony? He is the one who is usually difficult to reach. He won't return a damned call or e-mail until he needs something himself. Nor is this aberrant behavior for him; he frequently does this manic communication flood. No matter how many times I specify when I won't be available (cell service here is spotty), that's when he loves to contact me. And I always contact him immediately after I actually receive a message.

You know what? I think when we talk next week, I'll kindly tell him that the next contract we do together, I'm going to specify a per-contact charge. I'll be a millionaire in a week!

This is a Hoot: Constant Messaging More of a Hit on Worker Productivity than Pot Smoking

I found this study - reported everywhere but I'm linking from CNN - a hoot. I'll tell you why on the other side.

Workers distracted by phone calls, e-mails and text messages suffer a greater loss of IQ than a person smoking marijuana, a British study shows.

The constant interruptions reduce productivity and leave people feeling tired and lethargic, according to a survey carried out by TNS Research and commissioned by Hewlett Packard.

The survey of 1,100 Britons showed:

• Almost two out three people check their electronic messages out of office hours and when on holiday
  Half of all workers respond to an e-mail within 60 minutes of receiving one
  One in five will break off from a business or social engagement to respond to a message.
  Nine out of 10 people thought colleagues who answered messages during face-to-face meetings were rude, while three out of 10 believed it was not only acceptable, but a sign of diligence and efficiency.

But the mental impact of trying to balance a steady inflow of messages with getting on with normal work took its toll, the UK's Press Association reported.

I can't even begin to imagine what it's like to try to work in a busy office setting stoned simply because I know how little fun it is when I try to write complicated, detailed, technical text on something as lightweight as an antihistamine ('tis the season, as they say).

I've (unfortunately, for the most part) worked in busy office settings where others were under the influence of everything from caffeine overdoses and three-martini lunches up through the full range of heavy-duty prescription painkillers and things like Xanax all the way to sniffing heroin and cocaine. I used to believe that the only thing to make an office less productive than drugs/alcohol was the inter-office romance (now there's a killer!).

Yet my opinion changed with the advent of more work-based e-mail and messaging. I've seen a total nutcake cokehead programmer work better than I've seen lots of people being barraged by constant messaging of any time (phone, e-mail, instant messages, faxes, pages).

Now, I happen to be a great multitasker. The more things I juggle (up to a certain point), the more productive I can be. It's just my nature. I work remotely for publishers and companies across the country and I'm frequently working simultaneously on a wide range of projects. I happen to prefer e-mail for contact over phone, where possible, because it allows me (and them) to go back and reference what was said so there are fewer mistakes/wrong assumptions.

But even with all of that, the fastest way to put my productivity in the toilet isn't my occasional dose of antihistamine (to fight an allergy-originated migraine); it's when somebody decides they want to talk to me and then proceed to use 11 different forms of contact to say, "let's talk."

See the next message for an example.

Fellow Vermonters, MoveOn Wants Your Opinion

MoveOn.org is asking for Vermont voters to offer them feedback on whether they should commit resources to the discussion of a possible run by our single U.S. House Rep. Bernie Sanders to try to capture the U.S. Senate seat to be vacated by the retiring Jim Jeffords, now an Independent.

I posted the other day some of my thoughts about this on the day of Jeffords' unfortunate announcement. But while I'm of two minds on losing Bernie in the House (and that damned House needs more Bernies and less Toms and Dennys), I and my partner (that tall, good looking blonde man I live with) told MoveOn we supported their support of Bernie for whatever he decides to do.

Is Bernie perfect? No. But he's even better; Bernie is human.. and human is damned good compared to the "Godly" Frist, DeLay and Bush. Give me a human who tries his or her best over these faith-based fools anyday.

Yea or nay, if you're a Vermonter, take a moment to let MoveOn know your opinion.

[And a thanks to David Sirota who called this to attention. While I already had the MoveOn letter, David's e-mail notice helped me be sure I knew.]