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unraveling

30.June 2002 Permanent URL to this day's entry

Another World Cup in the books, and thank goodness this one didn't have to get decided by penalty kicks. In spite of my historical German-ness, I have to admit I was rooting for the Americans (a.k.a. "the US," a.k.a. Brazil, a.k.a. Brasil). They just have so much more style about it. I guess that "do" on Ronaldo was just the ticket!

Fred Phelps is bringing his message of hate to Idaho in July, it seems. Apparently Moscow got on his radar when someone stole a Pride flag and attempted to burn it, making the news. (Oops, flame resistant!) A rally against the hate agenda is planned for Friendship Square on the 6th. His itinerary includes Boise; I plan to be in the counter-demonstration.

29.June 2002 Permanent URL to this day's entry

Owyhee River meanders, view from the hot springs

Finished working up my pictures and a brief account of the fourth Owyhee Rendezvous. Hope you like it.

We have to settle for what Texas likes in presidents, and what they like in textbooks. It's slippery slope for culture.

I see that NPR has ditched the form for permission to link to their site (the "about/under consideration" page I linked to on the 21st has gone away), and replaced it with a paragraph in their perfectly reasonable terms of use. Well done!

One of a (practically) infinite number of fascinating paths: Doc to John Patrick, a "retired" (his quotes) IBM veep, to Lawrence Berkeley National Lab's tour of wonder, which he found out about from The Scout Report, identifying interesting resources on the 'net.

John Patrick's story about (airport) security makes me think about how glad I am I don't travel with gadgets anymore. I did have to travel earlier this month, with some interesting little parts with sharp edges that couldn't be "turned on," and couldn't be opened for inspection (lest they be contaminated by particulates and/or finger oils). I put them in a checked bag, and happily, the airline did not lose it or decide it couldn't be loaded because it was suspicious.

Spinsanity offers antidotes to bias and rhetoric in the media, apparently from whatever side is needed. Interesting to come across this while I'm reading Bernard Goldberg's book, Bias, which complains mightily that the media are a liberal cabal, regardless of whether they harbor ill intents. The pointer to the Daily Howler was over a section I'd just read, and Geoffrey Nunberg's article in The American Prospect was also timely.

But even debunking can get carried away: Spinsanity's business about the protests surrounding Bush's commencement address at OSU seems to niggle over the point about students being exhorted to applaud, while saying nothing about the threats of "explusion and arrest" for student protesters. That's apparently not in dispute, and seems to me to be the central fact of interest.

28.June 2002 Permanent URL to this day's entry

Another failed go at deregulation, but this time from the UK instead of the US: Britain's railways go back to a non-profit single company. (Not to say that the demise of our nationalized railroad isn't just around the bend...)

Paul Krugman distinguishes the fine points of various corporate frauds. How many more rocks will be turned over?

Steve Ballmer provides a new twist on the robber baron story: What's good for Microsoft is good for China.

Ross Anderson's Palladium FAQ: what you need to know about the plans to take over personal computing.

27.June 2002 Permanent URL to this day's entry

Under God, or not? Turns out Judge Goodwin can't make up his mind. Seems reasonable to let all 11 judges of the Circuit Court have a go at it, rather than just the 2-1 express deal, but the circus of political leaders falling all over themselves expressing their support for the 50's-era version is amusing.

I'm in favor of the removal, personally. I don't recite that part when I recite, and I think it was a bad idea sticking it in there. Rote piety is meaningless, as are coerced expressions of religion. But hey, we're all used to it, right? Next thing you know, they'll want to pass a Constitutional Amendment banning disprespect of the flag by using it for bumper stickers, clothing decoration or shredding it with an SUV.

Having mentioned Qwest's plunge yesterday, I note that it "rocketed" upward today, 54%. That's up $.97 to close at $2.76, after dropping 57% the day before... In case that non-equivalence of up and down percentages hasn't reached your awareness, consider that the net two-day change after down 57% and up 54% is down 34%.

Kind of that whole bubble thing in a microcosm. Hard to say how much of it is fallout from Worldcom, but that's an ugly scene. The New York Times' report headline calls Worldcom's accounting fraud "stunning, vast and simple." (Not to be confused with the more complicated scam Robert X. Cringely laid out before the bubble really took off.)

Richard Reeve's retrospective on Watergate for its 30-year anniversary is worth reading.

Krugman: The nonsense on privatizing Social Security just gets deeper and deeper.

Cringely: Microsoft takes over the 'net. Film at 11. (Sorta rhymes with "Palladium.")

26.June 2002 Permanent URL to this day's entry

I was out of the office today, and checking the market closing prices is another body blow. No point in selling that Qwest stock anymore -- it's essentially worthless, apparently from guilt by association with Worldcom. Off 57% today, after dropping by more than half in the last several months, and the several months before that, etc. Worldcom's misstatement of expenses by $3.8 billion in 5 quarters is one hell of a miss.

Viewing toastytech's GUI timeline I realize that I've been through all that. It does skip lightly over X windows, which is mostly where I came in (X10), and where I've logged the most hours over the years.

(Thanks to one of PC World's newsletters for that.)

I guess this sets a new benchmark for academic over-achievment: teen-aged sisters with three Masters degrees (each). And 5 languages. Maybe after 3 or 4 they start to come easily.

Seriously out of control email virus, messages with various subjects puportedly from "Abdu Al-Shiraida," with well over 100 copies to me in the last 2 days. Looks like the W32.Yaha.F@mm virus, but the Symantec page doesn't describe the symptom of sending many copies (apparently?) from the same address.

Just out of frustration, I tried sending a "get a clue" message to abdu@telusplanet.net but surprise, surprise, 'helpdesk' on that system (actually on telus.net) tells me abdu's mailbox is full. I asked if helpdesk (or postmaster, or abuse) could possibly catch a clue.

25.June 2002 Permanent URL to this day's entry

Now we know the bubble is done for: they cancelled the Sand Hill soapbox derby.

24.June 2002 Permanent URL to this day's entry

Is a paranoid superpower the world's worst nightmare? The covert battle against Iraq is becoming overt, and Congress says yeah, that's OK with us. Is that a slippery slope we're sliding down?

Reports from Ohio State University are not reassuring. Students considering protesting during Bush's commencement address on the 14th were warned they would be arrested for any heckling or demonstration. Let's hope they didn't call out the National Guard for extra security.

The "preliminary final" revised maps of the Boise River floodplain are out, and all of the new folks inside the line are none too happy about it. It seems the latecomers built a little higher, and pushed them under. What I want to know is how you can have the river in your back yard, and imagine that you're not living on the edge?

The HP Women's Challenge is over for another year, and maybe over forever; if it survives to be 20, it looks like it'll be the Some-Other-Sponsor Women's Challenge.

21.June 2002 Permanent URL to this day's entry

Welcome to summer (for you northerly types, anyway). Some clouds this morning, but I could smell the lake, meaning morning wind was happening. I'm still wondering if and when my shoulder will be ready to go windsurfing again.

I didn't get up early and watch the USA take on Germany in the quaterfinals. Sounds like it was a good, close game, which unfortunately did not go our way. Lots of big Germans flopping around, working to "win any way they can."

Not everyone lost their shirts in the bursting bubble. Fortune reports on Global Crossing's insiders, sucking $5.2 billion out of the company and its duped shareholders.

Missed us by that much, and we only saw the asteroid in the rear-view mirror. This was a modest-sized one, good for only local devastation. The Beeb notes drily, "nonetheless, an impact from such a body would still be dangerous." Especially if it fell on top of you.

NPR says: "We are working on a solution that we believe will better match the expectations of the Web community with the interests of NPR."

Keep working. This form is egregious.

The Radio and Internet Newsletter reports on the day internet radio died: the Librarian of Congress writes up fees no one can pay, retroactive to 1998. The news story is that the fees were "cut in half" (from what CARP had come up with), but half of an order of magnitude or two too high is not a good deal. Of course, the RIAA didn't think the fees were high enough.

Wired reports on how Kuro5hin has found new life (asking for help), and what that crazy name means. I thought 'kuroshin' was some Japanese word I didn't know.

In his David Pogue's newsletter addition to his State of the Art column on 4 Mpx cameras, he mentioned "the Web's famous digital-camera review sites." So I can remember where to look for those, I'll put 'em here: www.steves-digicams.com, www.dpreview.com, www.imaging-resource.com and www.dcresource.com. I'm starting to get itchy for a 4 Mpx unit, but then I'll probably need to upgrade my 4-year-old P2-233/Win95 system after that. :-/

20.June 2002 Permanent URL to this day's entry

Looks like tightening budgets might put a stake in the plan to fill SF bay to enlarge SFO. Defunding the lawyers, lobbyists and PR consultants isn't the whole enchilada, but it might be the secret sauce.

A farm boy from Idaho invented television. True story. Wouldn't it be nice if Philo T. Farnsworth got recognized for his accomplishment on its 75th anniversary?

Prickly pear cactus flowers

We've got a bumper crop of prickly pear flowers in the front border right now! Here are 4 of the 2 dozen... I watched various bees visiting, as they dove head-first into the tangle of stamens, leaving only their abdomens exposed, quivering in nectar-induced ecstasy. One kind had a bright green head and thorax, with a yellow and black striped abdomen.

19.June 2002 Permanent URL to this day's entry

Washington State Parks are adding fees for day use parking at windsurfing spots in the Gorge: $5/day (or $40 annual) at Doug's Beach, the Hatchery, and Maryhill. Will they actually be spending that money on those places, or using it to balance their budget? Their site notes that their park system is in the top 10 among the states for number of areas managed, day-use attendance and overnight visitors, but 47th in dollars spent per visitor. (They don't mention where they are for dollars collected.)

Remaining US CEOs make a break for it.

Naked passwords on Earthlink: "(S)upport employees... have full access to the passwords of its 4.9 million subscribers." It seems scarier that they can't figure out the obvious workaround to the problem of forgotten passwords, which the story notes AOL uses.

(Via Susan Kitchens who was via Dave Winer, thanks to her visit to Cape Canaveral, and seeing the shuttle Endeavor take off. Her account makes it sound exciting, reminded me of the thrilling description of an Apollo launch by Norman Mailer in Of a Fire on the Moon.)

18.June 2002 Permanent URL to this day's entry

Weathered spire along the road in Leslie Gulch

Went to two amazing places in the Owyhee Canyonlands this weekend: Three Forks for the 4th "Owyhee Rendezvous" (stay tuned for my 3rd Rendezvous roundup -- or catch up on the first two while you wait), and a stop at Leslie Gulch, shown here, on the way home.

Then yesterday, a "commute" to Palo Alto, slightly more than a year after my 18 months of working down there. The scents are what are most striking, distant as they are from the conscious story-telling part of the brain. Honeysuckle, magnolia, eucalyptus stirred together in the warm afternoon breeze coming in from the ocean. I'd intended to come back the same day, but the work stretched out, and I was rewarded with the gentle evening on the peninsula.

I also got to watch most of the USA-Mexico World Cup game (after knowing how it ended, and after seeing the highlights on ESPN just before they reran the game itself). UNBELIEVABLE! I'm going to have to find a friend with ESPN for Friday morning, I can't stand it anymore. We'll know soccer has arrived as a sport in the US when the biggest games EVER are broadcast, and not just on some cable jerkwater.

But for the Mexicans... an unbelievable disaster. It's only a game, but they'd hoped to win. Our President cared so little, he slept through it. (Or maybe they don't get ESPN at the White House?)

A solar system rather like ours, "only" 41 light-years away. That's huge.

The Glossarist covers terminology from all over, with a Yahoo-sort of simple front-page category index. Is it really as good as it seems? Well, it was a little slow for me... With recent blurbs from Yahoo, Library News, Metafilter and now Earthlink's newsletter (where I heard about it) they may be getting a bit more traffic than they can handle. I also didn't like the way it hides the destinations behind its own numeric IDs, but when you get where you going, it looks on the mark.

I checked an area I know something about, botany. The subcategories for this area have both general-purpose offerings, and esoterica such as glossary resources for orchids, pollen and spores, carnivorous plants and so on. The two hops I tried were both safe and effective. Pulling a couple of words out of the dark recesses of my mind, I found the meaning of the term glabrous, and of the epithet glomerata without breaking a sweat.

Here's making lemonade out of your lemons: RV "camping" for the same price as HP's stock.

The Idaho Women's Challenge is on again, one of the premier worldwide cycling events for women. Or is it the premier event? I don't follow the sport closely enough to know, but 543 miles in the central Idaho mountains makes for an exciting race.

Who killed Arthur Anderson? Looks like Andrew S. Fastow.

13.June 2002 Permanent URL to this day's entry

$476 million for a bucket of ashes? Ouch. Mercury News reports that HP likely to shed Bluestone.

Remember that nasty anti-trust case against Microsoft? You know, the one where they were proven to have broken the law, upheld on appeal and all that. Imagine you're a Microsoft lawyer, and you waltz into court with a pleading to dismiss the suit from those unpleasant states who haven't rolled over. Redefining chutzpah, day by day.

Wired's trot through Blogging Goes Corporate provides one of the better parenthetical summaries of the realm: "A weblog -- or blog -- is a frequently updated website of personal ideas, thoughts, musings, news, information, or discussions of what one has eaten for breakfast." I should note that I have never written about breakfast, in more than 2 years.

See how many of the buzzwords you can find in their article: blogosphere, blogwagon, astroturfing (a gerund, no less).

Somehow I got off into some English blogs, and they led me back to Las Vegas City Life, something I missed last time I made the whirl. I liked the metaphor of "suburbs crawl(ing) further and further into the desert every year like concrete kudzu."

They also sent me off to the 'stan, and to my first visit ever to phone sex. Doesn't sound like it could be worth $4/minute.

Here's a surprise: the voter turnout in our primary was over 33%. Pitifully, that's the 2nd highest on record.

One of the Statesman's readers offers his view on why he can't be bothered to vote anymore. I hope it made him feel good to whine, whine, whine, because just failing to show up doesn't allow him to opt out.

11.June 2002 Permanent URL to this day's entry

Had one of those "where did he come from?" moments on the way home. I'd just made a right turn on a green light and was easing my way into the left lane. I'd been second in line, so no chance of anyone turning left to the same direction, or coming through the red late with no turn. The guy must've been 3rd in line, and was planning to jam on by me, but I "cut him off." He honked, then used the right lane to pass me, on up Glenwood hill and... (have you heard this one before, or did you just guess?) into the next queue, now in front of me instead of behind. Looked like he was on the phone, too.

They've torn up Mountain View between Glenwood and Cole, and it's slow going, so I went straight, took the "bumps ahead" detour and left Idaho 1A T3002 far, far behind. Too bad he doesn't read my blog, so I could lend him the advice to hang up and learn how to drive, twit.

It's retirement planning time for one of my co-workers taking the early deal. My boss came by looking for help, or maybe just commiseration. We both agreed that we needed someone with social skills to plan the party.

Halley's Comments are re-runs for the summer, but this is a good one I missed the first time around. On dying and going to heaven.

Accidents will happen. Get your nuclear waste route map now. We're inside the 5 mile band, 2.5 miles from the nearest route to Yucca Mountain. Southern Idaho, is both a waste container and a crossroads. The Columbia River is on the way, too.

Check out your state:

How terrible will the accidents be? Worse than the occasional volcano, train wreck, tornado, car crash, and so on? Maybe, but a lot less frequent. I don't think "leave everything right where it is" makes sense, and I do think that cask engineers can produce something economic and safe. Is it a worse threat than terrorism? Probably not, FWIW.

I'm not any better at giving advice than taking it, I suspect. I'm past the know-it-all stage (stop that sniggering back there!) and can equivocate most any position if given a chance. So, I can't say "I wish I'd written that," but I can say the book description makes it sound kind of interesting. The Weblog Handbook, by Rebecca Blood.

Here's a good accessibility idea, from CNN, reported by the NY Times: Skip to content:
<a href="#ContentArea">
<img src="whatever.gif" width="10" height="1" border="0"
alt="Skip to main content"></a>
The idea is that "regular" readers won't see it, but someone using a screenreader will (hear it), and can skip the cruft. Give me a minute to work that in.

Here's that Apple switch campaign. Good fun, good advertising.

10.June 2002 Permanent URL to this day's entry

Walk me out in the morning dew

Don Norman on usability in the Information Age: "...you're left to the mercy of the arbitrary imagination of an asocial programmer, programming at 3 in the morning. And, more likely than not, if you told him, 'Hey, people are going to have real trouble working this,' his response would be: 'Yeah, isn't that neat?' "

The NY Times reports on trouble in blogworld: someone let the barbarians into our quiet, techy paradise. I noticed the scuffle about "war bloggers" in a skim of a page of my blogroll, but it didn't hold my attention. The navel-gazing has got tiresome, I'm afraid. Is 2 years the awareness-to-peak time for the average fad? Oddly, while I'm less interested in reading blog after blog, I still have some enthusiasm for writing one. Caution: may be descending into narcissism now.

This skunkworks effort to implement cheap broadband has the smell of a winner about it. Big ideas come from little companies. (Etherlinx doesn't seem to have bothered with a website yet; another good sign?)

It's hard to believe that the enthusiasm for corporate reform has run out of gas already, but that's what Stephen Labaton and Richard A. Oppel Jr. are reporting in the NY Times. "A powerful group of lobbyists, playing on partisan disagreement in Congress, appears to have killed efforts to impose tight new controls on corporate conduct." Senator Phil Gramm, ever the avatar of virtue, has done his part in killing reform proposals, as ranking minority member of the banking committee. (They note that his wife just got around to resigning from Enron's board last week. No conflict of interest there!)

PwC Consulting to change their name... and write their own parody: "Our new name -- Monday -- is exactly what we want it to be as we create our new business: a real word, concise, recognizable, global and the right fit for a company that works hard to deliver results."

That's almost as brilliant as Boise Cascade becoming Boise. "Who is Boise?" the homepage navlink asks. What is Boise? Well, it's a city name, and a county name, and an apparent corruption of the French word for trees. A more pertinent question would be, why did Boise Cascade change its name to "Boise"? Perhaps abandoning their lumbering roots in Cascade, Idaho had something to do with it? But then, they've abandoned the whole state. (Not that everyone thinks that that's a bad thing, mind you.) All that's left is the headquarters of Boise, in... Boise!

Perhaps it's just a lack of imagination.

So we foiled a dastardly attack, bravo! We foiled it on May 8th, hmm, don't you wonder why they've been quiet about it? Gathering evidence, I suppose, which by now must surely justify the denial of Constitutional rights to one of our citizens. Head Hawk Wolfowitz adds more good news, that the plot had "not gone much past the planning stage." So what, exactly, had the guy done, or is that top secret and we can't be told?

I'm not a bleeding-heart liberal on this, I like domestic tranquility and the absence of radioactive isotopes as much as the next guy, but the story just seems a little too pat. I guess they'll tell us more when they're ready. Maybe for the 4th of July.

Meanwhile, for something simple that the gummint could do, run a website for Homeland Security. JOHO the Blog reports that it didn't come out that way. (Hmm, maybe they listened: there's a link to the Posse, er Citizen Corps site now.)

9.June 2002 Permanent URL to this day's entry

Having passed the moment for a little red sports car some time ago (which is not to say "it's too late now," but rather I'm LRS-pending), it's nice to know that the car I did get around to buying is really, really cool now. Rob Reiner, Larry David, Cameron Diaz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Carole King, Billy Joel, David Duchovny, Bill Maher... and us.

"It works on every level," says David, who is married to a staunch environmentalist. "I'm doing something good, and my wife has sex with me more often."

Or as Leo put it, "the most radical mass-produced car in the world" with no downside.

8.June 2002 Permanent URL to this day's entry

Cool and windy, the perfect sort of late spring day when one might go windsurfing in these parts. With my punk shoulder, I contented myself with calisthenics and voyeurism, watching the Williams sisters battle for the French Open title, and the English and Argentines in the World Cup. (I do wish someone hadn't mentioned the outcome of that game to me yesterday.) My employer's claims administrator sent me some forms about that workmen's comp. business: they want to know what medical treatment I've received (and from whom) for the last ten years. Sure, why not? I actually accepted it in a positive light; I could use a certain compilation of my medical records, given the disparate providers I've gone to. Do you suppose after they pull it all together they'll be willing to make me a copy (of my records, mind you)? Yeah, I didn't really think so either.

But things could be worse. My records could be on FBI computers, which seem to be managed to keep the acronym SNAFU alive. The good news is, they're secure from hackers (and maybe from invasions of your privacy?). The bad news is, they're not doing law enforcement (to say nothing of terrorism prevention) a whole lot of good.

Jeanette spent all day in Julia Davis Park, doing Arts for Kids, along with 100 or so others in town. The turnout was strong in spite of the less than pleasant weather, and she made masks and hats with 3 and 4 year-olds for hours and hours. The city underwrites the organization, but there are sponsors, too. One of the local television stations was one. They're the ones who broadcast on channel 6, and insisted that all references to them be to "Six on Your Side." That sounded funnier when she told me than it does here, maybe...

The boys were split 50-50 over the shark hat and the Tyrannasaurus hat.

7.June 2002 Permanent URL to this day's entry

While the Bush/Ashcroft team works on liquidating privacy rights in service to the War on Terror, the National Zoo is telling us that animals have privacy rights. Doctor-patient privilege for veterinarians and their patients? For their dead patients?!

6.June 2002 Permanent URL to this day's entry

Fine dining where I come from often involves a bratwurst, and R.W. Apple Jr. writes a fine review of the mighty sausage in the NY Times' Dining & Wine section. If you need to buy on-line, Usinger's would be the place to go, I imagine.

The good news is that US passenger trains may make a comeback. The bad news is that the cross-country "land cruises" that are so much fun may not be included.... The mention of "the world's best airport hotel" made me think of the world's best train station hotel that I know of, the Granvia in Kyoto. (The website is oddly perfunctory compared to the wonderful architectural complex the hotel is in.)

Friendly engineering, from Bill Hammack's Engineering & Life series. Sounds like something that would be pleasant to listen to on the radio.

Our story so far: stock options costs as a percentage of operating income for the companies in the S&P 500 two years ago were just under 5%. Now they're over 11%, and the NY Stock Exchange is set to propose that companies be required to submit all plans to stockholder votes. The Business Roundtable, representing the big boys and girls at the front of the line for options is squealing like a stuck pig, even before the proposal is out for scrutiny. They want the exchange to "proceed incrementally." No doubt.

"...(T)he education level of society has come up in the last 20 years, and the message is clear in the mind of the better-educated public that if you want to commit a crime, fraud is the way to go. The take is better, and the punishment generally is less." A pity aside from Chris Ayres in the Times Online, an article on why the current corporate debacle is probably not the end of capitalism.

Bush disowns EPA report on global warming, based on... personal incredulity? It's hard to know what basis he might have, other than sneering at "the bureaucracy." But down in New Zealand, it looks to them like Bush has seen the light (even if he's not ready to do anything about it). Go figure.

What's wrong with this picture? The intelligence agencies can't figure out how to talk to each other, and can't figure out how to connect the dots with the information they have. So Ashcroft's plan is... to collect more information?! Great, maybe they'll get lucky.

The soccer branch of my site has been inactive for some time, mostly because my soccer career is pretty much over. I was following 10 years behind Paul Spencer, figuring I should keep playing as long as he did. He made it to about 55, at least, but when he retired and moved up to the Palouse, I guess I felt I could slack off, or something.

But I'm still wild about the USA's 3-2 upset over Portugal in the World Cup on Wednesday. I'm happy to hear that there were a couple cheese-heads at the game, too. :-)

Here's what I'm talkin' about: Hybrid enthusiasts love that MPG. The new driving adventure is using as little gas as possible.

4.June 2002 Permanent URL to this day's entry

Bryan Hayes' excellent capsule history of the disk drive looks forward to Terabyte Territory; when supply leaves demand far behind.

Meanwhile, the company that started it all, IBM, is bowing out, or at least spinning it off, in a joint effort with Hitachi. It'll be that new San Jose company making disk drives.

The Hayes article tip came from the Harrow Technology report, whose latest issue also has a piece about the increasingly populous "big game" communities. That made me think of the episode of Star Trek - The Next Generation called "The Game." That fifth season of ST:TNG had some really great episodes. "The Inner Light" was a personal favorite, resonating with my grief over my mother's death in 1991.

The new robber barons, led by L. Dennis Koslowski, formerly of Tyco. Making "an egregious amount of money."

On the work-ethical antipode, how one child's death led to a worldwide project to solve the problem of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome: Chase 2.0.

Also from Cringely: we have a network of highways, most of all of which have plenty of cars on them. What if the cars become a network?

3.June 2002 Permanent URL to this day's entry

The Libertarian candidate for governor in Idaho's primary turned out to be wanted, if not by the voters. As the AP reported, he "agreed that his gubernatorial campaign might be crimped by the fact that he is hiding out to avoid an arrest warrant for probation violation."

Amid the stories of patriotism surrounding Memorial Day, there were the predictions of voter turnout for the primary; maybe 1 in 5 would bother to cast their votes. That's patriotic, eh? We voted absentee, before heading for Spokane and north Idaho for all of last week, and I can't find the actual tally anywhere online. Well, Ada County has their results posted, but nothing statewide past 2000.

I'm sorry to see that the Republicans think Jim Risch is their best candidate for Lt. Governor. He's a little man, and I'm not talking about his height.

Paradise ridge fields in sunset shadow

On the way home yesterday, the signs were still out on highway 55, "Caution: slick conditions / crickets on highway", but we didn't see any sign of the plague of Mormon crickets. Guess the poisoned wheat balls must be working. The fish at Lucky Peak were not interested in any bait being put out, though, apparently having had a holiday meal of the bugs.

My physical therapist told me the results of the X-ray I had taken a week and a half ago: "negative." So, no reason to cut into my shoulder and whittle away a bone spur. While bicycling along the 6 to 12" shoulder of US 95 this week, and thinking about ways to crash on a bicycle, I remembered one from last fall: I'd slipped on goose feces on the HP bikepath when making a tight, low-speed turn, one damp morning. Landed on my left shoulder, and maybe my left knee as well. Maybe it'll be all better in a year, if I keep up the painful therapy. :-(

Of course, no need to actually show me the 3 X-rays they'd taken; leave the viewing, interpretation and so on to the experts.

The lead sentence describing the underwater propulsion technology of the Seaglider is fascinating: "Seagliders fly through the water with extremely modest energy requirements using changes in buoyancy for thrust coupled with a stable, low-drag, hydrodynamic shape."

Still waiting for the final polishing and pix for Alan Arnette's Everest dispatches, but I liked this quote he had, from a friend: "Once you know the right thing to do, do it."

Making the world safe for energy distribution.

Being forced out may be kind of harsh, but a $33 million severance bonus should soften the blow for departing Dynegy headman Charles Watson. (Just in case some of the hundreds of $millions he made selling Dynegy stock have been frittered away.) No wonder they call it "constructive termination." As usual, employees and stockholders are left holding the bag.

Yes, George, there are blacks in Brazil. They're Americans, too - go figure. Maybe it was a problem with his Latin.

We got to listen to Le Show on the way home, too, with Harry having some fun with GW's radio gaffe: "God dang!" (to quote the President), after being told that his reading hadn't been properly recorded. (Dick Cheney's confidential had me in stitches, too.)

raveling

Tom von Alten      tva_∂t_fortboise_⋅_org

ISSN 1534-0007

Monday, 09-Dec-2002 23:19:34 MST
http://fortboise.org/blog/200206.html