CPB - It gets worse

It gets worse.

http://www.npr.org/documents/2005/jun/cpb_pdfs/rehm.summary.pdf

6/7 Diane Rehm

Col D. McGregor and James Fallows are labeled "liberal". (Not liberal is not a bad term when used towards someone who is a liberal like me but) --- Why, you ask?

"Col. McGregor's viewpoint was that troop tour of duty extensions in Iraq is hurting morale. Col. McGregor stated that U.S. troups are trined [sic] for linear combat not to be policemen in post-war Iraq. According to McGregor, the U.S. soldiers have killed innocent civilians which has bred bitterness and hatred among Iraqis."

"Mr. Fallows viewpoint was the same as Col. McGregor; open-ended, repeat tours of duty damage morale."

HOW IS THIS LIBERAL? THESE ARE FACTS.

So if you don't agree that everything is peachy in Iraq and/or even report on the factual morale problems with troops in Iraq you are biased?

This makes me SOOOOO mad.

NPR : CPB Memos Indicate Level of Monitoring

NPR : CPB Memos Indicate Level of Monitoring
This stuff is really getting me angry. I regretfully wrote emails to both of my PBS stations telling them I can't give them money because of this sort of stuff. I also told them I am very unhappy that my money might end up in the hands of the Wall Street Journal, Fotune or other corporate entities. I'm not happy about the integration of commercial media into the titles of shows on PBS let alone any sort of big media "product placement" in PBS shows. They have enough influence.

At least she wiggled her toes.

Persecution of Christians

I was watching John Stewart the other night and they had more commentary about the members of congress complaining about the persecution of Christians in America. I got to thinking about that. They are correct - but the persecution is by the conservative Christian right. I am really getting tired of them defining my Christian values as being about 10 commandments in the courthouse, keeping alive brain dead people by artificial means and actions to force Christianity on the unbelievers. People are not going to become believers by those means. Their persecution continues by ignoring my Christian beliefs in feeding the hunger, caring for the sick, the friendless and the needy, and working to make society less stressful on the people at the bottom. If there is any voice not being heard, it is the Christians trying to follow in Christ's footsteps. I'm tired of them getting center stage and defining Christianity under their terms.

Look Out World

Signing up for my mobile blog. I can take now take photos with my camera and they appear in the blog. Look out world!

The Old New Thing : A simple story in pictures
Funny

Active RFID - What about the environment?

My response to InfoWorld's The case for active RFID - Ephraim Schwartz

I hope any issues with the disposal of RFID tags - passive, active or otherwise - is not going to be an afterthought. I can only assume that passive tags are harmless, but your opinion piece on active tags makes me scared for all of the batteries being thrown in the garbage or scattered all over the earth. Maybe the added expense of active tags will encourage reuse, but that will won't stop eventual or accidental disposal.

What is the environmental impact of all of these tags in our disposable packaging? I hope we don't find out too late as we've done with the millions of old PCs and and monitors. My fear on RFID is that as they take off, disposal of billions or trillions (keep going....) of tags will be a problem.

Google Earth

Google Earth
This is just about the most amaizing thing I've seen in a long time. Wow. Very impressive.

Instant Library

Amazon.com: Books: The Penguin Classics Library Complete Collection
Just what I need once I build my new addition with a library.

Tonight I found a new bug. Each archive page has a footer that shows 5 random photos from elsewhere in the archive. On a page showing 5 random photos from the 25000+ photos in the archive, this picture appeared twice. Maybe I'm going to win the lottery? Maybe I should just fix the bug.

Old Photos

We need to get more older scanned stuff in the archive. Isn't this precious!

I copied a version of the Password Generator on Eric's Password Generator to Famous Family - http://www.famousfamily.com/password.html. This is a handy way to generate multiple passwords for site based on a single master password. I put a copy on FamousFamily so we will always have access to the generator. I also suggest going to the original sight and adding the bookmark. Luckily we use FireFox and Safari - so the fact it doesn't work on IE doesn't matter.

The hard part will be converting all those passwords over time.

Good news on the financial front. I bought some Cisco on Dec 30 2004 and it had lost money ever since. I bought it to keep an eye on my brother Tod's company. Today for the first time I've gained $2.30 on my 110 shares. Oh boy. Keep up the good work Tod.

Feed me better
We really need to get something like this started in the US. I really like his TV show, but I was meeting with some British coworkers last week and they mentioned this campaign. The point is to raise the issue of what our kids are being fed in the schools. I really like this.

moyers.mp3 (audio/mpeg Object)
Good listening. I had to write an email to WNET & CPTV explaining why I can't continue to be a public television member until something is changed regarding Bill Moyer's speech. He is right on the money.

Emma seemed to pick up the idea of twirling her fork in pasta. I'm not sure where she figured this out, but she does. We went out to dinner with Auntie Heather after watching Zack play a ball game. Emma got her pasta and just started twirling. It was cute.

It's out. Version 6.0 of the archive. I reworked the XML translation to use castor. That's NICE. Should make things easier to manage and allow for more features in the future. Also fixed some bugs.

I'm saddened. Another thing I was thinking about earlier this week was the reality of the relationship after someone in the relationship dies. Mom and dad knew each other for 36 years. They had an intimate relationship. They loved each other. Now mom has died. When someone in a relationship like theirs dies, each day the other person continues to live, it seems that the intimacy of their relationship diminishes. It must diminish over time because someone that you loved is no longer here with you. It's like the longer you live, the more distant your relationship with the other becomes. Regardless of whether you meet after this world, one can ponder only ponder the pain of this separation. I got to thinking about it and it made me pretty unhappy. I can't imagine how my dad is thinking and I wonder how I would cope with that situation. It must be difficult.

I'm saddened: On March 22, 2005 my mom died. I've been sad through the whole thing. There's more to read about the details at Judith Lloyd Famous.
In order to help myself with some of my sadness, I may write about it from time to time, beginning with I'm saddened.
Tonight we went to a symphony concert. The music during the first half was rather uninteresting, so I got to thinking. That's not good. I'm finding that I prefer to do activities where I can't just sit there and think.
My thoughts tonight were maybe I should have spent less time answering the phone and worrying about the details and spent more time just sitting with mom. I don't recall doing a lot of sitting with her when she was sick, but not near the end. The last day I sat with her a lot of the day but it wasn't the same. I do remember the first weekend she was in the hospital when we drove down. I remember going in early one morning to the Bel Air hospital. I got to sit with her in the morning all be myself. We talked about a few things. It was nice. After she went home for the first time, I spent a lot of time downstairs herding people and answering the phone. I don't know.

SCIgen - An Automatic CS Paper Generator. This is way cool.