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I don't often talk about it, but I spent the first ten years of my career doing software development, mostly in languages so low-level that programmers today turn pale at the mere mention of their names. But I just ran across a terrific article by Damien Katz about handling errors in software. He makes the (very astute, IMO) observation that quite a lot of errors programs are "expected" to handle are things that, well, can't be handled. It's sort of the computer equivalent of running out of gas and expecting your engine to somehow "handle" the problem instead of stopping and waiting for the AAA guy to show up.
Damn. Now I want to learn Erlang.
A memorial gift of $1,000 will be made to your church if your covered auto is involved in an accident that results in your death or death of household family member.I have no idea of their prices, but it's an interesting approach.
The facts, on the surface at least, are suspicious: dozens of phone calls to the White House by a man later convicted in the case; the national Republican Party agreeing to pay more than $2.5 million in legal bills; phones jammed on Election Day, not only of Democrats but of a firefighters' group, in the first U.S. congressional elections since the Sept. 11 attacks. Democrats say that disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff may even be involved."The calls to the White House and the relationship with White House staff are a real eye-opener and should be a cause for concern on all fronts," said Sheila Krumholz, acting executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington- based research group. "It calls into question who the person was on the end of that telephone line."
Survey USA has put out another of their periodic 50-state polls. I decided to take a look at how much Bush's approval rating is below the vote totals he got in each state.
Latest CNN poll. When will they stop calling it "approval"?
Yep, that's our Attorney General. I can't figure out what is more stupid about this: the notion that it would have any significant effect on the Internet (which, someone should remind Abu Gonzalez, is worldwide), or the notion that it's even remotely compatible with the First Amendment.
The folks at gasbuddy.com have a cool map indicating gas prices by county in color kind of like a USA Today-style weather map.
The war in Iraq is now costing more than Vietnam per month in constant dollars.
The invasion's "shock and awe" of high-tech laser-guided bombs, cruise missiles and stealth aircraft has long faded, but the costs of even those early months are just coming into view as the military confronts equipment repair and rebuilding costs it has avoided and procurement costs it never expected.
Huh? They "never expected" to have to repair or replace all those gadgets that were designed for use in war zones? Who are these idiots?
You know, I really hate to point to the folks at the NRO Corner, but this one (hat tip to Angry Bear is too good to pass up. KLo should really see someone about that MPD. First, she tags Ted Kennedy as a socialist for this:
The president, the president should have called the head of the oil companies into the White House and started jawboning. He should have done that a week ago. Why he doesn't do that, I do not understand. He ought to be pointing out that hard-working Americans, middle-class people, who have their sons and daughters in Iraq and in Afghanistan, that this is not a time for greed. And he ought to activate and call the Federal Trade Commission-which is basically a sleepy organization that has given an interim report in terms of price-fixing and gouging-he ought to get them off and have them working seven days a week, 24/7, to make sure that we know exactly who is price-gouging. And third, we ought to have a bipartisan effort to recapture, recapture these excessive profits that are going to the oil industry and return them to working families and middle-income families.
Wait two hours, and find her posting (with apparent approval) this from Speaker Hastert:
We respectfully request that you direct the Attorney General and the Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission to investigate any potential collusion, price-fixing or gouging in the sale or distribution of gasoline, petroleum distillates or ethanol in wholesale and retail markets. We further request that scrutiny be directed to refining, the transportation of fuel by pipelines, marine vessels and trucks, storage and marketing activities and retail practices to determine if there is any unlawful manipulation of the price of gasoline. Sweeps of retail distribution centers should be undertaken to ensure that retail price movements are in response to a change in market conditions and not price gouging. Finally, we recommend that the Federal Trade Commission examine whether spot shortages of gasoline are the result of illegal efforts to manipulate prices.
Those clever Republicans. They want to make it a felony to sell a vibrator in South Carolina. The law would ban sale of devices used primarily for sexual stimulation and allow police to sieze sex toys from raided businesses.
One can only wonder what sort of interesting new interrogation techniques the police are likely to come up with with that sort of raw materials.
A wise man once said, "in any argument, there will be people on your side whom you will wish were on the other side." This is probably more true for God than for most of us. Here's the latest example.
Laura Mallory of Loganville filed an appeal last week to get the best-selling book series [Harry Potter] out of the [Gwinnett County, GA)] schools' media centers. She is an evangelical Christian who has three children at J.C. Magill Elementary School."I think the anti-Christian bias — it's just got to stop," Mallory said. "And if we don't say something, we'll just keep getting pushed out of the schools. And I pay taxes, too, and I think that gives me a voice to speak out about this."
...
Mallory said she has been contacted by other Christian parents who were concerned about the content of the books. On her complaint form, she suggested they be replaced by C.S. Lewis's "Chronicles of Narnia" series or Tim LaHaye's "Left Behind: the Kids" series.She admitted that she has not read the book series partially because "they're really very long and I have four kids."
"I've put a lot of work into what I've studied and read. I think it would be hypocritical for me to read all the books, honestly. I don't agree with what's in them. I don't have to read an entire pornographic magazine to know it's obscene," Mallory said.
Sure. Christians are getting "pushed out" of schools. Just to establish that you're working from a firm base in some other reality. Once you've established that, why bother actually reading the books when you can make up your mind based on what other people are telling you about them. And replacing them with "Left Behind"? Good grief. Why not just go straight to toilet paper? At least that would have some use.
About a year ago, a mentally disturbed Oregon man took some meth and decided to kill himself. He picked up a nailgun, pointed it at his head, and fired. Then fired som more. Stopped to reload. Kept firing until twelve 1-1/2" and 2" finishing nails were in his skull.
The next day, he went to a small hospital complaining of a headache.
Fortunately, doctors were able to remove all the nails, and the man has gotten treatment for his addiction and underlying mental illness.
Here's my homies. We be everywhere.
Now it's time to start on the vinyl! :-)
"Rabbit experts say the animal could be an escaped giant domestic rabbit. Some pet breeds can grow to more than three feet (one meter) in length." That's one honking big bunny!
Look, if you're a pharmacist, it's your job to dispense legally prescribed drugs. You're not a doctor, you're not an inquisitor. It's not your job to judge people's treatment or their lives. If you don't like that, there are plenty of other jobs out there.
At this point, I'm just waiting for the first case of a Scientologist becoming a pharmacist and refusing to fill prescriptions for antidepressants.
Last week, in America, a radio producer for a large syndicated program in the United States called me requesting that I go on the show, a show that has hosted me many times and where I’ve been referred to as, “Our man in Iraq.” But when I said Iraq is in a civil war, that same producer slammed down the phone and, in so doing, demonstrated how much he reveres truth....When the receiver slammed into the phone, the producer revealed himself naked; he was not supporting the troops, nor the Iraqis, but the President.
The right wing in the US appears to have come to believe its own press releases to the point that it believes they actually create reality. As I've said before, it's a particularly pernicious sort of lying. They don't intentionally distort the truth, they just ignore it and say whatever they want to believe.
BAGRAM, Afghanistan — No more than 200 yards from the main gate of the sprawling U.S. base here, stolen computer drives containing classified military assessments of enemy targets, names of corrupt Afghan officials and descriptions of American defenses are on sale in the local bazaar.Really. So after all the ballyhoo about the Afghan elections, we're still looking to "remove" Afghan goverment officials? What was all that talk about "letting them choose their own government" for?
...
A reporter recently obtained several drives at the bazaar that contained documents marked "Secret." The contents included documents that were potentially embarrassing to Pakistan, a U.S. ally, presentations that named suspected militants targeted for "kill or capture" and discussions of U.S. efforts to "remove" or "marginalize" Afghan government officials whom the military considered "problem makers."
OK, I'm not sure whether I think the idea that there's a feud going on between two dwarf Kiss tributed bands is actually stranger than the idea that there are two dwarf Kiss tribute bands.
30% of Republicans say Bush did something wrong. 70% of independents and 85% of Democrats say Bush did something wrong. You tell me who's out of step.
Yeah, me neither.
A senior administration official confirmed for the first time on Sunday that President Bush had ordered the declassification of parts of a prewar intelligence report on Iraq in an effort to rebut critics who said the administration had exaggerated the nuclear threat posed by Saddam Hussein.But this really raises as many questions as it answers. How was this "effort to rebut critics" to be carried out, if not by giving information to reporters? Is "rebutting critics" really a reason we ought to be declassifying documents? Isn't Bush calling either Cheney or Libby a liar?But the official said that Mr. Bush did not designate Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby Jr., or anyone else, to release the information to reporters.
Inquiring minds want to know.
No wonder these people worry about pornography all the time. It's because they, well, worry about pornography all the time.
A man who identified himself as Harry Taylor rose at a forum here to tell Bush that he's never felt more ashamed of the leadership of his country.He said Bush has asserted his right to tap phone calls without a warrant, to arrest people and hold them without charges and to revoke a woman's right to an abortion, among other things.
He was booed by the audience, but Bush interrupted and urged the audience to let Taylor finish.
"I feel like despite your rhetoric, that compassion and common sense have been left far behind during your administration," Taylor said, standing in a balcony seat and looking down at Bush on stage. "And I would hope from time to time that you have the humility and grace to be ashamed of yourself."
For anyone interested in reducing child poverty, there was heartening bad news out of Britain last month. In 1999 the Blair government introduced an initiative to end child poverty by 2020, with an initial goal of cutting it by one-quarter by April of last year. Recently the government reported that it missed that target: The number of children in poverty dropped by "only" about 17 percent -- some 700,000 kids over the past five years.via The Washington PostIf only we could have such problems in this country.
Since 2000 the number of American children living in poverty has risen 12 percent -- to 13 million. The initial growth was due to the economic downturn. But since then, despite the ongoing expansion, the poverty rate for children on this side of the pond keeps rising, largely because the benefits of the recovery have flowed so disproportionately to families at the top of the income scale.
Tony Blair announced a target in 1999 of eliminating child poverty in the UK by 2020. They don't claim to have all the answers, but it sure looks like they're doing better than we are.
You'd think they'd quit while they're behind. But nooooooo. The NRCC is accusing New York Democrats of being allied with the Communist Party. Apparently someone named Elena Mora, who is apparently the chairperson of the NY state Communist Party (who knew they even still existed?), who wrote a piece for the People's Weekly World (which I've never read but suspect would give the Weekly World News a run for its money on the credibility front) saying in part,
“New Yorkers have every reason to expect a big sweep for the Democrats in November, starting with the governor’s and U.S. Senate races, on down to the state Senate.The article mentioned four Democratic candidates by name, including "Kirsten Gillenbrand [sic]", who's running against John Sweeney for the 20th district House seat. This was apparently enough for an NRCC spokesweasel to come out with this remarkable bit:Extremely important for the national picture are the congressional races. It looks like New York voters will contribute at least one and maybe more seats to the 15-seat change necessary to end Republican control of Congress.”
“It’s good to know Democrats can count on the support of card-carrying Communists to win over the hearts and minds of Empire State voters,” Patru said. “While it’s fitting that the party of failure and the philosophy of failure would join forces, we find these revelations quite disturbing nonetheless. New York Democrats, particularly these candidates, should tell voters whether they are now or ever have been in cahoots with Communists.”No shame. No scruples. No sense of history or propriety.
And really. "Cahoots"? I know it's a real word, but it sounds like he's accusing them of going to a dive bar together.
The Pentagon has revealed that coalition forces are spending millions of dollars establishing at least six "enduring" bases in Iraq - raising the prospect that US and UK forces could be involved in a long-term deployment in the country. It said it assumed British troops would operate one of the bases.Is this what empire looks like?
It would be a remarkable ending to an ignominious career if DeLay handed the seat to Democrat Nick Lampson on a silver platter.
You know, you just never see rabbis or imams in these kind of stories arguing that they should be able to give traditional Jewish or Islamic prayers in mixed settings. It's always the representatives of the majority religion trying to whine about how persecuted they are. As folks back home used to say, "Get down off the cross, already. We need the wood."
[M]oved by our faith in God and this republican creed we join together now to defend representative self-government against the greatest assault it has ever faced.You think they're talking about the President lying the country into war and basically claiming to be above the law? Not a chance, pilgrim.
We have thrice led our Allies to victory against foes that enacted the worst possibilities of human depravity.Um...thrice? What on earth are they talking about?
Under the guise of scientific knowledge, and a fallacious separation of religion from public life, they have thrown off the yoke of reason, and denied our sovereign right to acknowledge, as a people, the existence and authority of the Creator.Eeeeaaaarrriiight. It's such a relief that we don't see churches everywhere we go, and that we finally made it illegal for anybody in government to end speeches with "God Bless America".
[I]n consequence of this power-grab, and the false claim that makes it possible, the Courts have purported to forbid prayer and other religious elements in government funded schools, activities and projects authorized by the people;Now, see, this is just what we in the trade call a "flat lie". You'd think that people who are all about the religion thing would take that bit about "not bearing false witness" more seriously.
[T]hey are attempting to deny the sovereign right of the people as a whole to define the public standard of marriage in accordance with their moral beliefs and practices;Yeah! Can't let our white women marry black men! That would be immoral! And nobody wants it to happen! (The previous statement fell through a time warp from 1961. Fits, though.)
And they have an ambitious program of legislation they'd like to see put in place.
It's an impressive document. They've pulled in bits from all sorts of sources including Winston Churchill, which is particularly funny given that one of the things they're railing about is the USSC giving any consideration to foreign laws. I don't know if I've ever seen so much concentrated wrongheaded thinking in one place.
Don't forget, though: these are the people who, in large part, brought us two terms of George W. Bush. Laugh at them, yes, but don't just laugh at them.
