Don't hold your breath kofi

From Business Week concerning the UN's desire to take control of the internet:

One proposal that countries have been discussing would wrest control of domain names from the U.S.-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, and place it with an intergovernmental group, possibly under the United Nations.

Gross [our rep from State Dept.] dismissed it as unacceptable.

Yeah, we want Libya and China to vote on internet policy.

Some countries have been frustrated that the United States and European countries that got on the Internet first gobbled up most of the available addresses required for computers to connect, leaving developing nations with a limited supply to share.

They also want greater assurance that as they come to rely on the Internet more for governmental and other services, their plans won't get derailed by some future U.S. policy.

Very good point. That's why we, who already rely on the internet for governmental,
business, and financial services, don't want to, and won't ever, cede control.

And from Yahoo:

BEIJING (Reuters) - China set new regulations on Internet news content on Sunday, widening a campaign of controls it has imposed on other Web sites, such as discussion groups.

"The state bans the spreading of any news with content that is against national security and public interest," the official Xinhua news agency said in announcing the new rules, which took effect immediately.

The news agency did not detail the rules, but said Internet news sites must "be directed toward serving the people and socialism and insist on correct guidance of public opinion for maintaining national and public interests."

Suuuuurre, give *them* a say in how the www is run.

I know what I'm going as

It's almost October. You know what that means.

Look at that smile. The next-year-you-get-someone-else smile.
The suit comes in kid sizes too, you know, if you're too busy or
tired to beat up your kid yourself and you want the neighbor
kids to do it for you.

No caption needed

From Yahoo, at a Red Sox game:

Haven't watched much ball since the Orioles did their self-destruct thing.
Leaves more time for Lost at least. Though I'm not sure I'm up to
speed on it yet.

giraffekiss

giraffekiss, originally uploaded by lumberjack.

OK, one more cup of coffee, another
giraffe kiss, then I'm gone.

Yawnapalooza

For the last year or so I've refused to do the overnight odd jobs
that my customers come up with. The money is good, but work the
next day can just be miserable. Well, yawnfull at least.
So I don't why I said yes to working last night. I guess they
caught me at a crazy moment. Anyway, so I did do a night shift
last night, and yeah, I'm too old for this.

But what a hoot driving home was. I had forgotten that this guy
could be so entertaining. Not so entertaining that I'd get up at 3:00 AM
to listen, but if you're already up in the middle of the night you'd be hard
pressed to find a funnier group of crazy people. I guess the fun part is trying
to figure out who's nuts and who's just goofing.

So, yawn, I better go chop trees. Have a fine one.

This Can't Be, Right?

From Yahoo:

PARIS, (AFP) - Terror suspects detained in France had been eyeing up the Parisian metro network, an airport and the headquarters of the domestic intelligence service as possible targets, sources close to the investigation said.

The suspicions were based on an intelligence tip-off from Algeria and from telephone surveillance, although there is no hard evidence they had settled on a particular target, they said.

But France isn't *in* Iraq. What gives?

Remember Ted?

No, Koppel, not the other one:

I’ve heard you say during the course of a number of interviews that you found out about the convention center today. Don't you guys watch television? Don't you guys listen to the radio? Our reporters have been reporting on it for more than just today. . . .

Sure, there were glitches in the federal response. But is response by TV
really the the way to go? "Get more water trucks on the road, Larry King says
the convention center has run out." or "Oprah says we need snipers on the
roof tops. (and also more glazed hams)" From the LA Times:

BATON ROUGE, La. — Maj. Ed Bush recalled how he stood in the bed of a pickup truck in the days after Hurricane Katrina, struggling to help the crowd outside the Louisiana Superdome separate fact from fiction. Armed only with a megaphone and scant information, he might have been shouting into, well, a hurricane.

The National Guard spokesman's accounts about rescue efforts, water supplies and first aid all but disappeared amid the roar of a 24-hour rumor mill at New Orleans' main evacuation shelter. Then a frenzied media recycled and amplified many of the unverified reports.

"It just morphed into this mythical place where the most unthinkable deeds were being done," Bush said Monday of the Superdome.

His assessment is one of several in recent days to conclude that newspapers and television exaggerated criminal behavior in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, particularly at the overcrowded Superdome and Convention Center.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune on Monday described inflated body counts, unverified "rapes," and unconfirmed sniper attacks as among examples of "scores of myths about the dome and Convention Center treated as fact by evacuees, the media and even some of New Orleans' top officials."

Sheehan glut

Seems like the only thing there's more of on TV than Cindy Sheehan is those
No Limit Hold-Um tournaments. Cindy even beats out the Bicker While You Build
Motorcycles Shows.
Anyway:

Police warned them three times that they were breaking the law by failing to move along, then began making arrests. One man climbed over the White House fence and was quickly subdued by Secret Service agents.

Sheehan, 48, was the first taken into custody. She smiled as she was carried to the curb, then stood up and walked to a police vehicle while protesters chanted, "The whole world is watching."

No they're not.

Story

Here's a heartwarming story. It's about a puppy-dog
who had a bowl of ice cream. Well, sorta. If by "puppy-dog" you mean, "a bunch of
Norwegians." And if by "bowl of ice cream" you mean, "got into a street fight with
those annoying Swedes."

From the trunks

odp01, originally uploaded by lumberjack.

One of the best dogs that ever was. (on the right)
He could sit like that forever, and he could talk.

And how did you learn about our company?

Glad I don't need to advertize, though this probably would fit my budget.

Rita

I'll be praying for all the people caught up in Rita, and Katrina, and
especially for those caught up in both. [What a thing, to escape New
Orleans only to have Rita chase you out of Houston as well. If it
was me, I'd make Kansas my next destination... oh wait, the tornados]

But what of those people, even some scientists, who are saying that
global warming is causing more hurricanes, or making the ones we have
more intense? I just read from the Independent:

Although the overall frequency of tropical storms worldwide has remained broadly level since 1970, the number of extreme category 4 and 5 events has sharply risen.

Then I went to NOAA, which is why I never get any real work done, and see why
they only go back to 1970. Because going back further completely blows the assertion.
Intellectual dishonesty bites.

Nightline

I finally saw part of that nightline segment, and read the transcript.
Amazing, listening to Reynolds say everything he could think of
to try and get a Bush-blew-it reaction. What a hoot.

The other Ted

Ted Turner shows his intellect:

Blitzer: "But this is one of the most despotic regimes and Kim Jong Il is one of the worst men on Earth. Isn't that a fair assessment?"

Turner: "Well, I didn't get, I didn't get to meet him, but he didn't look, in the pictures that I've seen of him on CNN, he didn't look too much different than most other people."

weird

From News of the Weird this week:

Elijah Walker, 35, who pleaded guilty to cocaine possession in Cincinnati in June, resisted complying with the state requirement that he also give up a DNA sample, in that he feared the state would use it to create a clone of him. (Said the prosecutor, reassuringly, "I'm not sure the state really wants another Elijah Walker.") [Cincinnati Enquirer, 6-30-05]

Har.

deer-headlights

deer-headlights, originally uploaded by lumberjack.

In the discotheque. No, really.

Fiction as News

Remember how dramatic Aaron Broussard was? Compelling story
except for being untrue.

Monday

Man, is it ever Monday. I had a full day's work before the phone
started ringing. And darned people don't realize that some days
I just don't want to hear from them, well, if they're in the exact opposite
direction from where I'm going. I'd rather they hold off doing
stupid things with their machinery until I'm back in their area.

Ah, foo, ok I better git. Work will be a nice break from what I did
this weekend. (I sorted through basement memories in the folks old
house, my old house, the house I partly grew up in) Lots of things
brought back memories, but lots of things had to be thrown away. And
what if I toss out a brother's boy scout badge, or a sister's favorite
baton? So it was melancholy mixed with winnowing, categorizing with
recollections on top. My mind still hums from the shifting of mental
gears. I envy those with only one gear; obsessed people expend almost
no energy above the neck. Which is why Michael Moore must sleep
like a (big) (slobbery) baby.

Update: Ha, day went well. They always do when you start
them with a little jab at Michael Moore.

Taibbi

Wondering who this guy is who's been vouching for Sean Penn's heroics, I've googled
Taibbi and read some of his stuff. And yes, he *is* anti-Bush, but one thing he wrote
in a Rolling Stone article surprised me:

There are times when American politics seems like little more than two groups in a fever to prevent each other from trespassing upon their respective soothing versions of unreality. At one point at Camp Casey, an informal poll taken around a campfire revealed that six out of a group of ten protesters, selected at random, believed that the United States government was directly involved in planning the 9/11 bombings. Flabbergasted, I tried to press the issue.

"Do you know how many people would have to be involved in that conspiracy?" I said. "I mean, start with the pilots . . ."

"The planes were flown by remote control," a girl sitting across from me snapped.

Six out of ten? I'm investing in Reynolds Aluminum.

Batter Up!

Dana Milbank via Drudge points out the baseball metaphors in the Roberts hearings:

``I'll start out by pitching you something of a softball,''

``You hit a home run yesterday,''

``it's my job to call balls and strikes and not to pitch or bat.

etc.
So where's my favorite: "no matter how nicely things started out, who didn't
know the Orioles would suck by September," ?

Katrina

432905CC000AF2920000475522007510909C050C019D0198010D, originally uploaded by lumberjack.

I got this in an e-mail and was struck by the beauty, well, and power.
This is supposed to be a Florida view of Katrina. I got no info with the pic, so
I'll just credit some-guy-with-a-camera. Good job guy-with-a-camera.

Rain

I quit early due to rumors of rain and generally bad traffic. I always tell myself
that I'll do office work when I quit early like this, but usually with no more
conviction than Ted Kennedy has with his abstinence pledges. Today I might get
some stuff done though; depends on how interesting the netnews is.

I'll tell you what, the Drudge headline: "Onlookers horrified as Michael Jackson is
spotted at a Dubai water park - wearing a skin tight all-in-one Lycra suit..."
is one I can wait for further details on. Truth is, I'm not clicking on the link only
because there might be a picture. Some things you just can't unsee.

Attn: P&G

From the Guardian:

A Chinese cosmetics company is using skin harvested from the corpses of executed convicts to develop beauty products for sale in Europe, an investigation by the Guardian has discovered.
Agents for the firm have told would-be customers it is developing collagen for lip and wrinkle treatments from skin taken from prisoners after they have been shot. The agents say some of the company's products have been exported to the UK, and that the use of skin from condemned convicts is "traditional" and nothing to "make such a big fuss about".

And buried in the article, in case you thought it couldn't get any more icky,
is the news that the same company is researching the use of aborted babies in their
beauty products.

Competition

Sean Penn gets tough with members of Oprah's crew who
were trying to rescue "his" victim.
"Back off! I saw him first."

Sean prevailed, explaining, "There's nothing in
the world as ominous as the sound of a 12 gauge
jacking in a fresh cartridge."

Sean the selfless

So Yahoo says Sean did pull people from the water:

"I witnessed him rescuing up to 40 people," presidential historian and author Douglas Brinkley told the New York Daily News. "He was up to his waist in toxic muck...I'm not going to comment on Sean's trips to Iraq or Iran, but in this case, he was an American hero."

On CNN's Larry King Live, Penn, 45, said he was just another person watching Hurricane Katrina coverage on TV, except owing to the fruits of his Oscar-winning fame, "I could afford to get on an airplane and get down there."

"It became easy to get out, for me to get a boat, and get out on the water with some other people, and try to get people out of the water," Penn said.

Alright, did he? Maybe, but it's hard to think that his motives were selfless. Why have
three people crew a bass boat is pretty much overloaded with five? I really would have been impressed if the
story had gotten out that he toiled anonymously.
and update: turns out the two "friends" were both [biased] journalists.. I knew I recognized Taibbi's name from
somewhere. I revert back to my screw-you-sean stance on the whole matter.

Sean, Where Are You Buddy?

Just a by the way, did anyone see Sean Penn come *back* from his mission?

Almost a Volunteer

It's no great distinction but we were able to get 5 bags of clothes to
the evacuees before the Armory quit accepting clothes. And I say it's no
big thing because everywhere I look people are clamoring to offer help.
I think wanting to help and giving money is the norm, it's no exception.

And I even looked into whether my skills might be of some use to the
effort. (they weren't) So what I'm doing, I'm just cutting down trees at
random in the "spirit" of pitching in. I have had to be careful in picking
which trees to fell because some of the homeowners in whose yards these
soon to be ex-trees reside have expressed dismay at my volunteerism.
The other, non-complaining, homeowners most likely weren't home at
the time.

Poor Performance

Maybe President Bush did make bad decisions in response to the
Katrina disaster. When Blanco couldn't pull the trigger and authorize
federal control, maybe Bush should have rolled over her and taken
control. [Of course the stupid 13% would have had a ball with that]
Instead Bush let the incompetent state and local team fail first.
From the NYT:

Aides to Ms. Blanco said she was prepared to accept the deployment of active-duty military officials in her state. But she and other state officials balked at giving up control of the Guard as Justice Department officials said would have been required by the Insurrection Act if those combat troops were to be sent in before order was restored.

In a separate discussion last weekend, the governor also rejected a more modest proposal for a hybrid command structure in which both the Guard and active-duty troops would be under the command of an active-duty, three-star general - but only after he had been sworn into the Louisiana National Guard.

Ah well. Let the shrill 13% run off half-cocked. It's evident that the (D) state
and local officials dropped the ball, first by failing to do their best with the
evacuation, then by blocking the Red Cross trucks, then by crying for more federal
aid while at the same time throwing up roadblocks to it's use.

School

I should have known the kid was looking for support when she said, "The music
teacher thought I was talking in class, and she made a mistake, and I was only
singing but she thought it was talking..." [a problem Bob Dylan also had]

So I says, "Gee, I hope we can keep her from making that mistake every week
this year," sorta a joke, really. Anyway, I stuck my foot in it and caused the first
school tears of the year. So I'll have to make some you-know-I-love-you-always
pudding tonight.

Fact? Or another hoax?

Who would make such things up? From the Guardian:

There were two babies who had their throats slit. The seven-year-old girl who was raped and murdered in the Superdome. And the corpses laid out amid the excrement in the convention centre.
In a week filled with dreadful scenes of desperation and anger from New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina some stories stood out.
But as time goes on many remain unsubstantiated and may yet prove to be apocryphal.

It sure was picked up by the media and reported as gospel though.

And while many claim they happened, no witnesses, survivors or survivors' relatives have come forward.
Nor has the source for the story of the murdered babies, or indeed their bodies, been found.

Could this be another cannabalism story? Was there rioting and unchecked violence?

Similarly when the first convoy of national guardsmen went into New Orleans approached the convention centre they were ordered to "lock and load".

But when they arrived they were confronted not by armed mobs but a nurse wearing a T-shirt that read "I love New Orleans".....

Here kitty-kitty

All the cute kitty pictures you could ever want.
Would that it were puppies, but cute anyway.

Katrina

Thank goodness, it looks like, with the help of Sean Penn, we've started to make
some headway getting the victims of Katrina to higher ground. What a guy, taking
only one photographer and one assistant so that the boat would have room for
a victim. (and there might even have been one, some places are reporting) Sean said
he spent 9 hours doing it, what a guy. Imagine what the save-count would have been
if he had just been able to start the motor.

I'm just pleased as can be with how our celebrities are handling all this. Travolta,
oprah, penn... pitching in with no thought whatsoever for themselves, selflessly
putting their noses to the grindstone, making sure their good side was towards the
camera possibly, but nose to the grindstone as well.

more..

100_2097, originally uploaded by lumberjack.

Brrrr...

Swimming under the falls

100_2110, originally uploaded by lumberjack.

Cold? You bet. But a nice way to end the last few
days before school. Now it's glue sticks, protractors, and a book bag the size of a healthy buffalo.

Good News Too

Cherenkoff has another round-up of good news from Iraq.
This is the information you can hear about from people who were there. In fact within
three months of us going in, there were good stories to be told. But the people who
make their living bringing us the news have decided that these stories have no value.

Ah well. Now the media will shift their spotlight to trying to blame a hurricane on the
president. Let them blame. They still haven't noticed that he isn't running for reelection.