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Cost of the War in Iraq
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school daze
08.31.03 (8:41 pm)   [edit]
School starts again in two days, so I spent today busily preparing my lectures for the first day.

It's not a good time to be a student at my school. Because of the fiscal crisis going on in the state, tuition has gone up about 10 percent. At the same time, we don't have the funds to provide the same quality of teaching that we have in the past. We can afford far fewer teaching assistants than last year, meaning I can't do as much with my classes as I'd like to. Basically, they're paying more money for a worse education.

This particular school has a lot of students who fund their entire education themselves. They work full time jobs and still manage to take a full load of courses. They deserve better than what we're offering.

I would love to teach a writing intensive class sometime. It's my opinion that the most important skills a liberal arts education can teach you are how to reason and how to communicate your arguments in writing. Right now there's no way I could keep up with the grading for that kind of class. As an untenured professor, teaching is only 1/3 of my job (it's even spelled out in the handbook).

So I feel guilty and torn. I hate not being able to do my job as well as I want to. But if I give too much to this part of my job, I won't have a job at all.
 
ugly ugly ugly
08.29.03 (9:21 am)   [edit]
OK, my page officially looks like vomit. Help, anyone?

Goddamn fixation with earthtones...

Ever feel limited by the background color choices you have? Try [url=http://www.hitmill.com/html/p...]here[/url].
 
ranting about elections again
08.28.03 (10:07 am)   [edit]
Sorry for copying the entire article. My comments are below.

[i]08/28/03

Julie Carr Smyth
Plain Dealer Bureau

Columbus - The head of a company vying to sell voting machines in Ohio told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

The Aug. 14 letter from Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc. - who has become active in the re-election effort of President Bush - prompted Democrats this week to question the propriety of allowing O'Dell's company to calculate votes in the 2004 presidential election.

O'Dell attended a strategy pow-wow with wealthy Bush benefactors - known as Rangers and Pioneers - at the president's Crawford, Texas, ranch earlier this month. The next week, he penned invitations to a $1,000-a-plate fund-raiser to benefit the Ohio Republican Party's federal campaign fund - partially benefiting Bush - at his mansion in the Columbus suburb of Upper Arlington.

The letter went out the day before Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, also a Republican, was set to qualify Diebold as one of three firms eligible to sell upgraded electronic voting machines to Ohio counties in time for the 2004 election.

Blackwell's announcement is still in limbo because of a court challenge over the fairness of the selection process by a disqualified bidder, Sequoia Voting Systems.

In his invitation letter, O'Dell asked guests to consider donating or raising up to $10,000 each for the federal account that the state GOP will use to help Bush and other federal candidates - money that legislative Democratic leaders charged could come back to benefit Blackwell.

They urged Blackwell to remove Diebold from the field of voting-machine companies eligible to sell to Ohio counties.

This is the second such request in as many months. State Sen. Jeff Jacobson, a Dayton-area Republican, asked Blackwell in July to disqualify Diebold after security concerns arose over its equipment.

"Ordinary Ohioans may infer that Blackwell's office is looking past Diebold's security issues because its CEO is seeking $10,000 donations for Blackwell's party - donations that could be made with statewide elected officials right there in the same room," said Senate Democratic Leader Greg DiDonato.

Diebold spokeswoman Michelle Griggy said O'Dell - who was unavailable to comment personally - has held fund-raisers in his home for many causes, including the Columbus Zoo, Op era Columbus, Catholic Social Services and Ohio State University.

Ohio GOP spokesman Jason Mauk said the party approached O'Dell about hosting the event at his home, the historic Cotswold Manor, and not the other way around. Mauk said that under federal campaign finance rules, the party cannot use any money from its federal account for state- level candidates.

"To think that Diebold is somehow tainted because they have a couple folks on their board who support the president is just unfair," Mauk said.

Griggy said in an e-mail statement that Diebold could not comment on the political contributions of individual company employees.

Blackwell said Diebold is not the only company with political connections - noting that lobbyists for voting-machine makers read like a who's who of Columbus' powerful and politically connected.

"Let me put it to you this way: If there was one person uniquely involved in the political process, that might be troubling," he said. "But there's no one that hasn't used every legitimate avenue and bit of leverage that they could legally use to get their product looked at. Believe me, if there is a political lever to be pulled, all of them have pulled it."

Blackwell said he stands by the process used for selecting voting machine vendors as fair, thorough and impartial.

As of yesterday, however, that determination lay with Ohio Court of Claims Judge Fred Shoemaker.

He heard closing arguments yesterday over whether Sequoia was unfairly eliminated by Blackwell midway through the final phase of negotiations.

Shoemaker extended a temporary restraining order in the case for 14 days, but said he hopes to issue his opinion sooner than that. [/i]

[url=http://www.cleveland.com/news...]link[/url]

[b]My comments:[/b]

Some of you may recall that Diebold was in the news for a Johns Hopkins researcher having discovered that their touchscreen voting machines suffered from "sloppy code," meaning that someone could potentially break in and change votes. Because the Diebold machines leave no paper trail, such an act would be hard to trace or correct.

This is not to say that people at Diebold are changing votes. Part of me believes it's rather unlikely. Diebold also makes ATMs. That type of business is generally committed to accuracy, for fairly obvious reasons. It also turns out that the academic researcher was briefly on an advisory board for one of Diebold's competitors. What does that mean exactly? Nothing necessarily, but he should have disclosed it up front.

I'd also like to say a few things about the voting machine industry at large. There are very few companies that are actually in this business - I can count maybe 5 or 6 off the top of my head (but only 3 dominate). There is heavy competition between the companies. Consequently, the coding of all of their software is proprietary.

In my opinion, this type of secrecy has no place in elections. People need to see how the votes are counted if they are to have confidence in the process. If it means going back to paper ballots that are counted by a panel of human beings who are representatives from the various parties, so be it (It's what they do in Canada). So what if it takes a few days to figure out the final tallies. After the 2000 election, I think many people would be happy to give up the election night ritual of watching the states turn blue or red.
 
dreaming of the butter queen
08.26.03 (9:59 pm)   [edit]
Just got back from the state fair, where there were many fine sights: a 1000 pound pig, a 450 pound pumpkin, [url=http://www.mikedust.com/faira...]statues made out of butter[/url], and miles and miles of white people (it is Minnesota, after all).

The children’s barnyard exhibit was particularly disturbing. Here was an opportunity to see lots of brand new baby animals. Don’t get me wrong, I like baby animals. However, the way they achieved this was by bringing a whole bunch of extremely pregnant animals and seeing which ones happened to burst. When we got there, a pig was in the process of giving birth and there were several new lambs and a calf. All of the animals looked really hot and uncomfortable. I felt like I was in some kind of pregnant woman’s prison, or that maybe I had walked into an all-animal production of [i]The Handmaid’s Tale[/i].

But now to the happy part. Here’s what I ate:
  • Cheese curds (I can’t believe I’ve lived in Minnesota for 2 years without eating these).
  • A corn dog
  • Deep fried Cajun pickles (good concept, merely ok execution)
  • All you can drink milk (only 50 cents!)
  • An ice cream sundae with strawberries

    By the end of that, I was so full that I never got around to trying deep fried twinkies (or deep fried Snickers bars, or deep fried oreos, or…)
    		•
     
    I guess I was wrong
    08.26.03 (11:18 am)   [edit]
    And to think I always thought Pete Wilson hated immigrants.


    =http://graphics7.nytimes.com/...
     
    want want
    08.25.03 (10:06 pm)   [edit]
    ok, maybe I'm really immature, but somebody had a box of [url=http://www.tblog.com/user_ima...]these[/url] at work today and it really cracked me up.
     
    playing dolls
    08.24.03 (9:00 am)   [edit]
    A lot of people have been, well, cracking up at the recently issued George W. Bush aviator doll. I'll give you that it's pretty silly looking (I wonder what kind of uniform one wears when AWOL from ever-so-stressful national guard service. How many itty bitty baggies of blow come with that doll?).

    =http://images.kbtoys.com/g/to...

    Personally, I'm greatful that the doll doesn't emphasize his package as much as the real incident did. Or maybe they give you extra action figure socks so you can stuff it yourself.

    I remember when they first showed W in that suit on TV. Even my own sainted mother noticed something funny going on below the belt (Actually, she noticed before I did. Perhaps she is not so sainted).

    But the point of my story is. I don't think that's the scariest doll out there. This one is:

    =http://www.speaktomecatalog.c...

    To me it says, "Uh oh, we ran out of able-bodied adults to send over. Time to send the kiddies!" And listen to how he [url=http://tinyurl.com/kdhd]rocks[/url]! Freddie Mercury is undoubtedly rolling in his grave right now.
     
    pretty pictures
    08.22.03 (10:09 pm)   [edit]
    Whenever I'm feeling a little stressed out about the nation, I like to look at the graph on [url=http://www.pollkatz.homestead...]this page[/url]. Not only does it show the Bush approval rating doing a happy little nosedive, but it also tells us which polling agencies are more likely to give "Bush-friendly" results and which ones, well, don't. In [url=http://www.pollkatz.homestead...]summary[/url], Fox is the kindest to Bush (no surprise) and Zogby is the least kind.

    Many of you who have been reading my blog for a while would expect me to make fun of Fox right now. Too easy. But in fairness I have to admit that I'm not a big fan of Zogby either (technical explanation upon request).

    It actually matters a good deal which polling agency you look at. While many of them are theoretically asking the same question, minor changes in wording, sampling, and survey administration can knock around your results. For example, when Gallup switched from face-to-face interviews to telephone interviews, the apparent proportion of Republicans went up substantially. I'm not sure why this is the case, but similar effects have been discovered in other polls.

    So here's a tip: when you're trying to figure out what all those newspaper polls mean, look at how the question is worded exactly and think about how YOU would answer it, and then see if your answer actually reflects your opinions. It's amazing how many stupid questions there are out there.

    Here's a current favorite of mine: the Bush versus "unnamed Democrat" poll question. How is the typical voter supposed to answer that? So while I don't trust the results as being indicative of what the real election is going to look like, I do get some satisfaction that the current Bush is doing worse against unnamed Democrat than the last Bush was at the same point in his term.

    You have to have hope.

    Done geeking out now.
     
    The current state of capitalism
    08.21.03 (9:29 pm)   [edit]
    There's this little kid who lives on my block. The other day I saw him standing behind a card table selling something. As I got closer to him, I saw that it was some sort of beverage, but it wasn't lemonade.

    He was selling orange juice. From a carton. It wasn't even premium orange juice. And his house is two doors down from a convenience store where one can buy whole quantities of juice that hasn't been touched buy grubby kid hands (well, I'm not so sure about that last part).

    It reminds me of a new store I saw when I went back to Berkeley the other week. I can't remember the name of the place, but it advertised in big letters, "Bring us your stuff and we'll sell it on Ebay for you!" Yes, it's a store for people who are too lazy to sell something on Ebay themselves or have a garage sale, but somehow have the energy to schlepp it to a neighborhood with little to no parking at any given moment.
     
    honest graft
    08.21.03 (1:43 pm)   [edit]
    With all that's been going on lately, perhaps it would be good to think back upon the wise words of George Washington Plunkitt of Tammany Hall. Those were the days...

    Excerpt (circa 1905):

    [i]Everybody is talkin' these days about Tammany men growin' rich on graft, but nobody thinks of drawin' the distinction between honest graft and dishonest graft. There' s all the difference in the world between the two. Yes, many of our men have grown rich in politics. I have myself. I've made a big fortune out of the game, and I'm gettin' richer every day, but I've not gone in for dishonest graft – blackmailin' gamblers, saloon-keepers, disorderly people, etc.–and neither has any of the men who have made big fortunes in politics.

    There's an honest graft, and I'm an example of how it works. I might sum up the whole thing by sayin': "I seen my opportunities and I took'em."

    Just let me explain by examples. My party's in power in the city, and it's goin' to undertake a lot of public improvements. Well, I'm tipped off, say, that they're going to lay out a new park at a certain place.

    I see my opportunity and I take it. I go to that place and I buy up all the land I can in the neighborhood. Then the board of this or that makes its plan public, and there is a rush to get my land, which nobody cared particular for before.

    Ain't it perfectly honest to charge a good price and make a profit on my investment and foresight? Of course, it is. Well, that's honest graft.

    ...the city is repavin' a street and has several hundred thousand old granite blocks to sell. I am on hand to buy, and I know just what they are worth.

    How? Never mind that. I had a sort of monopoly of this business for a while, but once a newspaper tried to do me. It got some outside men to come over from Brooklyn and New Jersey to bid against me.

    Was I done? Not much. I went to each of the men and said: "How many of these 250,000 stones do you want?" One said 20,000, and another wanted 15,000, and another wanted 10,000. I said: "All right, let me bid for the lot, and I'll give each of you all you want for nothin'."

    They agreed, of course. Then the auctioneer yelled: "How much am I bid for these 250,000 fine pavin' stones?"

    "Two dollars and fifty cents," says I.

    "Two dollars and fifty cents!" screamed the auctioneer. "Oh, that's a joke! Give me a real bid."

    He found the bid was real enough. My rivals stood silent. I got the lot for $2.50 and gave them their share. That's how the attempt to do Plunkitt ended, and that's how all such attempts end.[/i]

    Such candor! I recommend reading the whole book (the part I quoted is right [url=http://www.uhb.fr/faulkner/ny...]here[/url]). I loaned my copy to a friend of mine and I never got it back! That's what I get for trusting someone with [b]Three Passports[/b]!!
     
    stealing elections
    08.20.03 (8:35 am)   [edit]
    Gray Davis gave a [url=http://www.bayarea.com/mld/me...]really great speech[/url] yesterday that summed up a lot of what I think is going on with partisan politics. Here's an especially good part:

    [i]Now let's talk about the recall. This recall is bigger than California. What's happening here is part of an [b]ongoing national effort to steal elections Republicans cannot win[/b]. [/i](emphasis mine)

    [i]It started with the impeachment of President Clinton, when the Republicans could not beat him in 1996. It continued in Florida, where they stopped the vote count, depriving thousands of Americans of the right to vote.

    This year, they're trying to steal additional congressional seats in Colorado and Texas, overturning legal redistricting plans. Here in California, the Republicans lost the governor's race last November. Now they're trying to use this recall to seize control of California just before the next presidential election.

    They spent $3 million to put this recall on the ballot, but you're going to have to spend $65 million of your hard-working tax dollars to conduct that election. I'm sure you'll agree with me that money could be better spent educating our children.

    Call me old fashion, and I am. Call me old fashion, but I believe when an election is over, the people have spoken and it's time to get to work and do the public's business. There are many reasons to be against this recall. It's expensive, it's undemocratic, it's a bad precedent, and it almost certainly will breed more recalls. The end result will be more campaigning, not less, more politics, not less, and less time to do the public's business.[/i]
     
    NIDA
    08.19.03 (9:03 pm)   [edit]
    OK, here's something I would have never expected from a Bush appointee. Dr. Nora Volkow, the new director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse has this in her pedigree:

    [i]Dr. Volkow (pronounced VOHL-kahf), 47, grew up in Mexico City, the daughter of a fashion designer and a pharmaceutical chemist. Her father, the chemist, had come to Mexico as a boy with his grandfather Leon Trotsky, the Bolshevik leader expelled from the Soviet Union by Stalin.[/i] [url=http://www.nytimes.com/2003/0...]source[/url]

    Furthermore, she doesn't seem to be a complete ideologue (of any variety), which is kind of refreshing these days.
     
    energy, feh
    08.18.03 (9:30 pm)   [edit]
    Why am I not surprised? I used to think we were governed by cowboys and angry dogs. Now I'm starting to think it's the Legion of Doom.

    From the [url=http://www.washingtonpost.com...]Washington Post[/url]:

    [i]Utility Officers Gave to Bush

    Tuesday, August 19, 2003; Page E02


    The top two executives of FirstEnergy Corp., the Ohio-based utility that is a focus of investigations into last week's cascading blackouts, are key financial supporters of President Bush, according to campaign records.


    H. Peter Burg, chairman and chief executive, was one of three hosts of a $600,000 fundraiser for Bush's reelection campaign in Akron, Ohio, on June 30. Vice President Cheney was the featured speaker.

    Anthony J. Alexander, FirstEnergy's president and chief operating officer, was a "Pioneer" for Bush's last campaign, meaning he raised at least $100,000. Alexander also contributed $100,000 to Bush's inaugural committee.

    The Energy Department has dispatched teams of investigators to the Midwest and Northeast. Democrats have questioned whether Bush's administration coddled electric companies because of his long personal ties to the energy industry. FirstEnergy's ties could increase Capitol Hill scrutiny of the White House handling of the blackout aftermath.

    Bush's campaign had no comment.

    Records compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics show that FirstEnergy executives contributed about $50,000 to Bush's last campaign. Energy and natural resource interests gave the campaign more than $3.6 million, according to the group's figures.

    When Bush was Texas governor, employees of the now-collapsed Enron Corp., the energy-trading company, were his most generous career patrons.

    -- Mike Allen [/i]
     
    I am the biggest geek ever
    08.18.03 (7:17 pm)   [edit]
    Guess what I asked for for my birthday (and am getting!)

    [url=http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/voting/pictures/vo tomat.jpg]votomatic![/url]

    Genuine Palm Beach County and everything.
     
    liquor laws
    08.15.03 (9:53 pm)   [edit]
    Ok, would somebody explain this to me? Tonight I was at my local liquor store (buying a six pack of Scape Goat pale ale) and I saw a sign posted that said that passports would not be accepted as valid ID for liquor purchase, unless the patron was actually a non-US citizen.

    I thought the passport was the gold standard of personal ID. I mean, the kids don't go around making fake [i]passports[/i] so they can buy a bottle of Popov.

    I've seen this type of sign at more than one place. What gives?
     
    The United States of Rock
    08.15.03 (5:13 pm)   [edit]
    If you're having trouble figuring out who to vote for in the Democratic primary, this should settle it.




    =http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.y...

    =http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.y...
     
    WMDada
    08.14.03 (11:10 am)   [edit]
    I'm going to try not to be cynical about David Kay's announcement. After all, this isn't the first time we've heard about a "discovery" concerning weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Take the mysterious trailers found a while back. They were subsequently discovered to have the [url=http://www.msnbc.com/news/951...]amazing capacity to produce hydrogen[/url]. For weather balloons. Perhaps one of the sinister Iraqis could have sneaked up next to an American soldier, handed him a balloon, told him to stand downwind, and lit a match. Mini-Hindenburgs everywhere!

    Oh, the humanity.

    So, let's suppose that Kay is really onto something. Is it proper that we invaded Iraq preemptively without any such evidence (trust me, if it were there, we would have heard about it a long time ago)? Is it good foreign policy to thumb our noses at our longtime allies in order to carry out such an invasion?

    Maybe you say yes to those questions. Then, I have to ask, whose brilliant idea was it not to restore electricity in Iraq? Or even worse, why are we failing to provide adequate supplies (machine repairs, weapons) to our own goddamn troops?
     
    pod people
    08.13.03 (10:04 pm)   [edit]
    I just was on a plane where I was sitting in the dreaded middle seat between two men.

    They were wearing identical blue button down shirts.

    They were wearing charcoal grey business pants.

    They were both reading USA today.

    They didn't know each other, but they realized they were taking the same connection to the same city after our flight.

    I half wondered if they were somehow contagious.
     
    virginal governor
    08.12.03 (6:28 pm)   [edit]
    I was right! Gary Coleman was on Star Dates!!

    A very kind and selfless person has written [url=http://www.fansofrealitytv.co...]a thorough review[/url] of the episode. It's a must read.

    My favorite quote:
    [i]Back at her apartment, Gary brags to the camera that he needs the crew to leave him alone while he gets her phone number. Meanwhile, we see a shadowy figure running away in the background. Could it be? Yes indeed, Stephanie is not sticking around to say goodbye, she is RUNNING AWAY![/i]

    Don't blame Stephanie.

    I wonder if Todd Bridges is single...
     
    fishy
    08.11.03 (10:12 pm)   [edit]
    I just ate sardine sushi for the first time.

    Heaven...

    Honestly, it's not gross - kind of like saba
     
    Celebrity governors
    08.06.03 (10:27 pm)   [edit]
    One part of the [url=http://www.latimes.com/news/p...,1,1102700.story?coll=la-home-headli nes]recall race [/url] that I've been watching closely is the standoff between Schwarzenegger and Richard Riordan. From Arnold's announcement, it looks like Riordan is going to bow out. It surprises me that once again Riordan is out of the final race. He's relatively moderate, politically experienced, and would be a strong challenger to Davis (as he would have been last fall, were it not for some shortsighted voters in the Republican primary).

    The prospect of Arnold as governor makes me nervous. The last celebrity governor did all manner of terrible things ([url=http://users.cwnet.com/phelps...]emptying out the mental institutions[/url] , for example, leaving thousands on the streets).

    Then again, I now live in the land that was once [url=http://abcnews.go.com/section...]Jesse Ventura's[/url] . I greatly prefer Jesse's style of governance to that of his successor. You never had to guess what was on his mind, and even if you disagreed with him, you knew he wasn't trying to deceive you.

    Well, maybe Gray will pull it off again. Say what you want about the man, he knows how to get elected.
     
    Whatchoo talkin' about Arnold?
    08.06.03 (6:00 pm)   [edit]
    Ok, I was fully expecting Arnold Schwarzenegger to run for California governor, but Arnold from Diff'rent Strokes caught me by surprise...

    From [url=http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPO...]CNN[/url] :

    [i]A representative of Gary Coleman, who played Arnold Drummond in the 1980s sitcom "Diff'rent Strokes," filed the necessary petition signatures and paid the required fee to place the actor's name on the California ballot for governor.

    Coleman, 35, who lives in Los Angeles County, could not be reached for comment. But his campaign treasurer, Steve Buel, who filed the paperwork in Oakland, told CNN that the actor's name "resonates with the voters." [/i]

    Wasn't he on Star Dates recently?
     
    a quick poll
    08.06.03 (1:15 pm)   [edit]
    How much does the following information worry you?

    [i]Three computer researchers from the Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins University, with help from a Rice University computer scientist, say they've uncovered vulnerabilities in the software purportedly used by Diebold Election Systems. More than 32,000 Diebold electronic-voting systems were used in U.S. general elections in November. According to the researchers, as a result of the vulnerabilities, voter anonymity may be breached, and votes could be modified or deleted. A caveat: The code analyzed by the researchers could be up to a year old. Diebold issued a statement refuting the researchers' claims. [/i]

    [url=http://story.news.yahoo.com/n...]source[/url]

    [url=http://story.news.yahoo.com/n...]longer story about the same topic[/url]

    [url=http://story.news.yahoo.com/n...]response from Diebold[/url]
     
    Larry of the Rings
    08.04.03 (9:26 pm)   [edit]
    Is it just me, or is Larry King starting to look like Gollum?




    =http://ia.imdb.com/media/imdb...

    =http://sc.groups.msn.com/tn/4...
     
    cheap white
    08.04.03 (11:40 am)   [edit]
    If you don't have a lot of money, but you want to buy a bottle of wine that's solid and different from the average cheap wine you'd find in a liquor store, try Aramis Blanc Sec, Vin de Pays Gascogne 2001.

    I've misplaced my tasting notes on it. Basically, I remember it as a dry white that's easy to drink but not at all boring -- good for parties. I tried to order a bunch for my wedding, but the order got stuck on a container ship somewhere. I found this out 2 days before the ceremony and basically flipped out.

    But I digress. You should be able to find a bottle of this for 6 or 7 dollars. I discovered it at a wine tasting at a local wine shop last spring.

    Next: red wine to bring to a party
     
    wine tip
    08.03.03 (11:04 pm)   [edit]
    A long time ago I promised to write something about wine I like (as opposed to the totally disgusting ones I reviewed earlier).

    So here's one: Omaka Springs Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2002

    For those of you familiar with the Marlborough. New Zealand wines, this one has many of the characteristic flavors of wines from this region -- lots of melon and passionfruit flavor, but not sweet. In general wines from this region taste nothing like the California sauvignon blancs.

    You should be able to find it for about $15. If you can't locate it, I've yet to have a bad sauvignon blanc from the region (although I'm not fond of Giesen). I've also had good luck with several vintages of sauvignon blancs from both Stoneleigh and Isabel wineries. You may be able to find Stoneleigh for about $11.

    Basically, you shouldn't be afraid to pick one at random. That's how I found the Omaka Springs one.

    Next: a cheap, tasty white wine!
     
    sign this
    08.02.03 (10:27 pm)   [edit]
    My life has just hit a pathetic new low.

    It's Saturday night, and what am I doing? That's right, I'm writing a pissy missive to a news magazine about its irresponsible use of statistics.

    I blame the recall election in California. Shouldn't the Republicans have put up a decent candidate back in November (say, one [i]without[/i] a fraud judgment against him) instead of doing this? Do I get to start paying people to collect signatures when I decide I don't like who's elected?