The Radical Moderate

Just got an email that Geocities is shutting down. I haven't updated my web site in a long time, so it's no big deal. I'll have to see if there's another free site to which I can move. I don't want to put it on my own ISP's servers since I don't know how long I'll be here. It needs an upgrade anyway.

At least Livejournal, which has had rumors of extinction, is still here.

The Time article about how the Repukelicans will go after Sotomayor is enlightening. One of my favorite bits is pointed out. They keep talking about how wrong, nay, evil, it is for her to say her background could play a part in her decisions. Yet two of the darlings of the Right, Scalia and Alito, "cited at their confirmation hearings their backgrounds as Italian Americans as evidence they understand discrimination and the immigrant experience."

I don't seem to remember either party saying they were unqualified to serve because of those statements.

I'm also waiting to see if the Democrats go after Ricci, who was selected by the R's to speak. From other articles, it seems this wasn't his first firefighting lawsuit. One points out that he was one of 795 applicants for 40 jobs, and sued when he wasn't one of the ones picked. The article also points out he claimed to be 20 in 1995 and a little later, in 1997, said he had eight years of firefighting experience. Do the math.

Most importantly, in that case, it's the legal decision that should be discussed. What were the precedence? What logic did she use. Who the plaintiff was doesn't impact those, so the Republicans are playing a very dangerous game bringing Ricci into it in person.

Last night, after the acetaminophen kicked in, I realized something. Why should I be apologizing to my neighbors and my landlord? The "sin" is that of assuming the landlord was honest. That's a problem?

A number of people think I'm pessimistic. I'm not. I'm too optimistic, so I'm always getting disappointed. Not having sold more of my furniture in Israel bothers me because I trusted the Israeli movers. Now I might have to move again because it never entered my mind that a house setup this old was illegal.

As I've mentioned, I live in a one-bedroom mother-in-law unit added onto the house my brother and his fiance live in. Another guy lives behind me in a second small unit. There were mailboxes on our doors when I moved in, but no numbers. All the mail went to the house. That was no problem with basic mail, it's no a long walk.

However, when I bought items via the internet, they've knock on the house's door, not mine. I'm home more, but if they weren't home next door, the package wouldn't get delivered and a note would be left.

I put up numbers on my box and added a "B". I was having lots of problems getting the local folks trained to deliver it here. Then someone out West told me that they couldn't even enter the B into their USPS addressing computer. I called the USPS, they had me talk to somebody in their Copell office and they had me call the City of Farmers Branch to ok it.

Ooops.

The guy there told me this was zoned as a single family property and I'm not allowed to be living here. I mentioned this place looked thirty years old. He said then it was a thirty year illegal thing. They're going to start the zoning inspection process. I immediately called the landlord. He said they'll see how it plays out.

The father of the landlord, the guy who probably built the place, lives next door and is always tinkering. He must have seen the numbers I put up. The son didn't warn me when I moved in, the father never said anything when number went up. It just never entered my mind that people had built the units that long ago, had been renting for years, had put in a second driveway, and it was illegal.

The place is not great and I'd love to move, but I'm still job hunting and so have no statement of income to show a potential landlord. This guy rented it to me. Where else will I go and how much will I lose starting another lease if I find a job?

And people wonder why I sound so pessimistic.

Al Franken becomes the sixtieth Democratic Senator. In theory, that means the Dems can destroy any filibuster attempt. However, it's just a theory.

Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd have been too ill to show up to the Senate. Neither has anything mild, it's probably not curable and they're both very old. If they were honest folk, not politicians, they'd step down and let their seats be filled by healthy individuals. Not them. They'll cling onto power as long as possible.

That means stopping a filibuster requires not just rare Democratic agreement, but some Republicans crossing the aisle. The Congress is still split, still acrimonious and the Dems don't really have control.

Two of 'em actually, not the typical four.

More and more, it looks like I'll never get my lift from Israel. So, I postponed getting a bicycle. It would have made things easier for getting to the grocery store, and all the DART buses have bike racks on their fronts, but there's no real place to keep it inside and the weather would waste it outside.

So, a month ago, I to the Texas DPS approved motorcycle course. I trained on a scooter, since they're classified as a type of motorcycle. Then I began shopping. I didn't want to buy the very inexpensive Chinese bikes, because I didn't want to support China. However, other brands were just too expensive. New bikes were out. For weeks, I checked the classified ads and sites. Finally, I had to compromise. I found a guy selling a Chinese bike used. China already had their money, so I rationalized it.

Mark and I went out to check it on Friday (Saturday?) last week. It was in good condition and, as expected, bigger and more comfortable than a new one near its price. However, the alarm and radio were broken. Radio? I laughed. I told him that was no biggie but the alarm had to be fixed. They were closed Monday and told him they didn't quite get around to it Tuesday. However, on Monday I bought gloves and ordered a helmet from a bike shop near me, and Tuesday the helmet came in. I was ready.

This afternoon, the gentleman called and said it was ready. I took a bus over to meet him and we rode up to the shop on his newer, bigger, replacement scooter. I found out that I doubt I'll ever use the alarm. It goes of much too easily. A Texas wind storm will set it off. Oh, well. At least it works.

He signed over title and I drove it home. A few slightly scary moments, but overall was good. I now can get to the store and do other errands a lot easier. :)

No, not Gary.

Norm Coleman announced that he's conceded the race to Al Franken. It's much too late but, as I mentioned before, he could have kept going to the Supreme Court. It's nice he didn't do that.

I'm pleasantly surprised. Nice going, Mr. Coleman!

The Minnesota Supreme Court has ordered that Al Franken be certified for the Senate seat he won last year. The Republicans would not accept repeated recounts and the Governor has not wanted to give the Democrats a 60 seat majority in the Senate.

What I expect now is that the Republicans, who always claim that States Rights is what really matters, will appeal this to the US Supreme Court. What I'd love is for them to surprise me and prove me wrong.

A study was just released saying that Americans have an 80% chance of marrying by age 40. The funny part is who did the study: The CDC. Yup, the Center for Disease Control. Well, a subgroup dedicated to US health statistics. Still, that the CDC tracks marriage is an interesting statement. :)

Madoff was sentenced to 150 years for his financial scam. The DMW calls him "disgraced".

Nope. The real disgrace is that only Madoff and Stanford are being prosecuted. They're individuals. They did much less damage than the head of the Wall Street financial institutions that knowingly and egregiously put together idiotic derivatives, sold them, made millions, destroyed the economy, then sucked down bailout money while refusing to cut bonuses at their firms.

The problem is that Madoff and Stanford are individuals. The US is no longer "of the people, for the people, by the people." 'People' in that sentence has been replaced with 'corporation'.

Most businesses do good things and the corporate entity is important to the economy's well being. However, it doesn't mean the entity should be immune from its own actions, nor should the head of those entities escape punishment when they do wrong. Sadly, corporations can afford lobbyists while individuals rarely can. That's the big, sad difference that shows that they really don't believe in free enterprise. Nor are their Boards and executives averse to regulations that protect them at the expense of the average citizen.

In their search for more idiotic coverage surrounding Michael Jackson's death, the media has come up with this headline, courtesy of USA Today: Without treatment, cardiac arrest kills quickly.

I'm reading the news and just read an article that the SCOTUS decided that strip searching a middle-school kid for ibuprofen was illegal. The decision was 8-1. My first thought was "Thomas!". I called Marc and asked him it he'd heard about the decision. He hadn't and I gave him the box score. Same answer. Sure enough. It's the right one.

Thomas continually demonstrates how the far Right has decided the Constitution does not matter. He believes in judicial activism, that the court has the right to make any decision it wants in order to forward his own agenda. He is one of the key poster-children for what's wrong with this country.

I went over to Kerin and Mark's a little after 2pm, as that's the time I wrote the US-Spain Confederation's Cup match was starting. Unsurprisingly, it was 2pm EST, so I came over right as the first half ended.

The first surprise was that our team was up 1-0. Spain is the number one ranked national team. It last lost an international match in 2006. Sure, we'd lost to Italy and Brazil, but both had very questionable red cards pulled on the US, seemingly so the FIFA could prevent us from upsetting the soccer world order run by Europe and South America. Still Brazil would have probably won anyway, though against Italy we were up 1-0 so the ref gave a very questionable penalty kid to help Italy catch up.

We got into the semi by beating Egypt 3-0 while Brazil beat Italy 3-0. Brazil went undefeated while the rest of the teams in the pool were 1-2 and we went ahead on tie breakers. Still, I also expected that, if things got close, the ref would be under order to give out another Red Card to the US.

When the second half started, we still had 11 men. A good sign. Late in the game, we stunned Spain, against the run of play, and went up 2-0. There's be no significant penalties that could be misinterpreted before then, but finally the ref got his chance. Only a few minutes later, Michael Bradly had a penalty that was a clear Yellow Card. No surprise, out came the Red. Luckily, however, it was late in the game. We hung on for the last 10-15 minutes and won. We're in the final!

Another surprise happened shortly after Kerin went to work. M&K have four cats. When one jumped on the back of the couch and sat near me, I glanced, saw it was black and figured the cat was Merlin. He's very friendly. Then I did a double take. Short hair. That made it Lola, their most disturbed and unfriendly cat. She's hissed at me and clawed me before. I'd slowly been just walking up to her and briefly letting her smell me, over the last few weeks. Today, she decided she'd sit within range of me. She even let me briefly pet her. Nice!

Of course, then it went back to normal. Checking on my laundry, I came back and my standing up must have been too much for her. She hissed and ran. :)

An NYT reporter just escaped from the Taliban. He'd been held since November and this is the first time the kidnapping was covered. After all, the NYT asked all other media to not report on it as they felt the silence would help his safety.

Of course, if that had been a government employee, a private citizen, a member of an NGO or anyone else, the NYT would have splashed the kidnapping all over the paper. If the government, the family or the NGO had asked the NYT to be quiet, the editors would have deeply intoned how important is the "public's right to know" and what an important trust the media held in improving ratings by talking about it.

Is anyone at all surprised at the hypocrisy? I doubt it.

In a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court said that convicted criminals don't have the right to DNA tests that could prove their innocence. In a country where the we're innocent until proven guilty, a bunch of Conservanuts can say that the accused or convicted don't have access to evidence that might exculpate them. It doesn't matter than hundreds of convicted felons have been proven innocent with DNA evidence. It doesn't matter that it's been clearly proven that innocent people can plead guilty under pressure and threats from police and the court system. How dare a convicted person claim he was railroaded? Only white collar criminals are allowed to do that! All hail the activist scum who decry only those activist judges with whom they disagree.

The State Department has released its annual report on global human trafficking. While it's a very serious subject, and I applaud the interest, there is still a little humor in the presentation of it. Of course, it's a bit of a chuckle to see the introduction mention "Since President Clinton issued the first U.S. Government policy against human trafficking in 1998...", as the introduction is by the current Secretary of State -- the other Clinton. No, not George...

There's also her Washington Post op-ed. It covers the basics. Still, a pair of sentence stuck out. "The United Nations estimates that at least 12 million people worldwide are victims of trafficking. Because they often live and work out of sight, that number is almost certainly too low." So she's saying that UN statisticians don't understand the concept of "estimate" enough to have considered that one isn't just a count of those whom you see?

Still, as I said, it's an important issue and everyone should check the report.

Slavery isn't just in prostitution, though that's what gets the most publicity. It's also indentured servitude for work, which gets some, but not enough coverage. And not just in Chinese sweat shops. It isn't just child soldiers, and too many people think that stopped after the well publicized events in the 80s and early nineties. As the last countries to outlaw slavery were Muslim nations, and only in the 70s did the last ones do so (and Mauritania didn't criminalize slavery until this decade), many stories come from there. Saudi Arabia has a strong history of such. As a sidebar quote says, on page 9, "If you give a maid a day off, she might use it in a negative way."

Speaking of Muslims, you regularly see me railing against the Muslim World. On page 50, you'll find the list of the tiers of nations. You've seen me talk about the OIC, the Organization of Islamic Conferences. Fifty seven nations are members. So, where do the 57 fit? I created a spreadsheet from the OIC membership list and the report's Tier table. Tier 1 is full compliance, T2 is minimal, T2 Watch list is those at risk for dropping to T3, and T3 are those with major problems not making an attempt to change.

Not all 57 appear in the report. The OIC counts Palestine, the report doesn't mention it. Somalia is a "Special Case" not in the tiers, since it's such a mess there's no real central government that could do anything. However, the regular mention of it throughout the report indicates it would be T3. Comoros isn't mentioned at all in the report.

That leaves 54 OIC members put into tiers. We have: One T2, 25 T2 Watch List and 9 T3. That means 34 of the 57 nations, 64% of listed and 59% of member nations, are in the bottom two tiers. To make it even more clear, there are only 17 nations in Tier 3. What's that mean? http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/countries_of_the_world.htm lists 249 countries. The organization representing the Muslim world consists of 22% of the nations on the planet, yet the "enlightened and misunderstood" Muslim World makes up 53% of the countries with the worst records in human trafficking.

It is a global problem that all nations should pay attention to and try to eliminate. However, as with a still pond in summer, the scum always visibly rises to the top.

The sun had just set, so I went for a walk. As I was heading home, I heard some very noisy birds. I looked across the street and saw two blue jays swooping and screaming at the front of a house. I looked more closely. On the ground, in front of the bushes, a black cat was disappearing, into those bushes, with a bird in tis' mouth.

And you might have thought I misspelled that? :)

It's not just him knowing "good stuff" means the wet food.

When I got him, Star was sick. I was giving her wet stuff that was good for her, which is the only reason I kept giving Fred the daily wet stuff his previous owners gave him. I serve it on coffee saucers. Fred got used to the sound, as pure an item as Pavlov's bell. He doesn't respond to my other dishes clanking around. However, when I reach into the cabinet and clink two saucers together, he's up off the bed, or wherever he is, and instantly at my feet.

It might bore y'all, but it never gets old to me.

I was reading about the recent round of World Cup qualifying games, and a bunch of Iranian players wore green arm bands, signs of Moussavi's opposition party.

I forget where I first saw the news, but searching for the site for a Washington based NGO called Terror Free Tomorrow. It seems they ran a survey in Iran prior to the election. The results shows that "34 percent of Iranians surveyed said they will vote for incumbent President Ahmadinejad. Mr. Ahmadinejad’s closest rival, Mir Hussein Moussavi, was the choice of 14 percent, with 27 percent stating that they still do not know who they will vote for."

If the undecided voters split at the same ratio as the decided voters, a not very surprising scenario, you come up with something quite close to the reported results. The NGO is left leaning and their report on the results tries to whitewash the results, claiming that Iranians are really more moderate than results show.

The most interesting part is that most seem to understand clearly the faults of their government while still believing the elections will be open and fair. In addition, they overwhelmingly want election for Supreme Leader as they know he's the real power, only 20% believe the "President is the most important official in the Iranian government".

There's more interesting material there, I suggest people read the results.