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So last week I mentioned that I'd love to see Rummy's list, you know, the vast numbers. Thanks to Dack , for providing me with a link to the Post article "U.S. Coalition for War Has Few Partners, Troop Pledges."

Rumsfeld: " Vast numbers of countries are with the US." I'd love to see that list.

Add this to your list of completely under-reported stories: Israel is silently giving the go-ahead to assassinations on U.S. soil. Oh, ok, sure. The Israeli statements were confirmed by more than a half dozen former and currently serving U.S. foreign policy and intelligence officials in interviews with United Press International. Why are we supporting the Sharon government? Can someone please let me know?

Well, the Lott moment may be over, but I am hoping that people will make a big deal about this move by the Bushies into affirmative action territory. How can the GOP say it is reaching out to black voters when it constantly interferes with college admission policy ? Why do "best government is least government" people jump so quickly to, uh, govern, when it suits their ideology? As I said, I'm hopeful, but not foolish. The White House is using the "let's compensate for this by mentioning historically black colleges a million times" strategy. And that sort of thing does work (cf. Reagan White House). Case in point: a GoogleNews search on "Bush historically black colleges" garners 56 hits alone.

This makes me sick: "Bush Declares Sanctity of Human Life Day." How many layers of hypocrisy can you count? He won't even use the A-word (i.e. "abortion") because he can't afford to politically, and he has a pretty dismal record as far as "human life" goes. Another sick photo-op to stroke the John Ashcrofts of the world. [from TBOGG ]

I haven't heard jack about these polling numbers . Why isn't this all over the news? CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll. Jan. 10-12, 2003. N=1,002 adults nationwide. (Results below are among registered voters.)... "If George W. Bush runs for reelection in 2004, would you say you will definitely vote for him, might vote for or against him, or will you definitely vote against him?" Definitely For Bush 36 % Might Vote For or Against 31 % Definitely Against Bush 32 % No Opinion 1 %

A glance at myself over the holidays. Explained to Springtime that I am thinking I don't do much that is creative, and I wish I did. She said "I think you're having a mid-life crisis," and suspects that I'm just being too hard on myself. "You're writing code, and that's writing." She's right, and I have the time to do creative things. But I keep thinking I've got more to do in life than this: Function GetNumberOfFoldersRecursive(index,sParentFolder) 'PRECONDITION: depends on a global var iNumFolders Dim FSO, oFolder, oChildFolder, oFile Set FSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") Set oFolder = FSO.GetFolder(sParentFolder) For Each oChildFolder in oFolder.SubFolders iNumFolders = iNumFolders + 1 MsgBox "oChildFolder.Name = " & oChildFolder.Name & " [" & iNumFolders & "]" ShowError("GetNumberOfFoldersRecursive...

Pareto's Principle is that 80/20 rule that says things like "80% of our personal telephone calls are to 20% of the people in our address book." But it doesn't account for how 80% of my work is created by someone who's personal space takes up 20% of my office. And this person gets more annoying every day. She complains and complains and complains, and she always gets what she wants because of her complainyness. And here I am, complaining about her.

Half of The Most Loathsome People in America, 2002 is funny, and half of it is juvenile, but the half that is good is excellent. It's from the some of the guys who wrote for the eXile , or still write for it... I'm not sure of the genealogy. I never liked the eXile ; I suspect the eXile was much funnier if you yourself wrote for the eXile (that is, if you were a frat boy who liked to take acid and troll Moscow strip clubs).

This is another one that has been totally underreported, a recent poll that Americans are getting less, not more, war-hungry : More than two-thirds of Americans believe the Bush administration has failed to make its case that a war against Iraq is justified, according to a poll by the Los Angeles Times published Tuesday. Why is it under-reported? If you do a Google news search on this topic , only the Arab News , the Sierra Times , The Toronto Star and yes, you guessed it, the Amarillo Globe-News carry the story. (I confess that I hadn't heard that the Globe and the News of Amarillo had merged.)

I didn't know about this until I saw it in the Onion . In the Lott-sanity of the last week, I completely missed it. Of course, if it's from the White House, it's bad, very bad. I don't think we've seen this much penis-waving since the Reagan administration. Who is writing this drivel that he's saying? Oh, and Missile Defense is back . Jesus - Poindexter, propaganda broadcasts , Missile Defense. Next thing: a sequel to Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

The Google zeitgeist page reveals (no suprise) that I'm ignorant of a a lot of stuff going on in the world. Like how Shakira's popularity goes way beyond the the States' Britney/Eminem/JLo tunnelvision. And that Las Ketchup is freaking huge in Germany and Spain. Funny how Google (along with NPR ) delivers most of what I actually hear about things. However, as Google's a search engine, it relies on my searches, not on any kind of culture-browse. That was once the province of weblog reading , but I think that the weblogs I read are mired in three quite narrow channels: techy/webby, politics, and brainy/literary. (Or, to be in keeping with the weblog-as-zeitgeist: evhead , tbogg and caterina .) And NPR has many limitations, not least of which is it's insane New Yorker -subscribing-Volvo-driving solipsism. (Or is that mine?)

What a nightmare. The Total Information Awareness Program is now a reality, folks. And look who's in charge! Rear Adm. John Poindexter, former national security adviser to President Reagan, is developing the database under the Total Information Awareness Program. Poindexter was convicted on five counts of misleading Congress and making false statements during the Iran-Contra investigation. Those convictions were later overturned, but critics note that his is a dubious resume for someone entrusted with so sensitive a task. Aldridge said Poindexter will only "develop the tool, he will not be exercising the tool." He said Poindexter brought the database idea to the Pentagon and persuaded Aldridge and others to pursue it. "John has a real passion for this project," Aldridge said. Yeah, I'll bet he does.

Depressed and wondering what I'm going to do now. I'm so overwhelmed with everything, one of those days when I want to get real drunk.

That illusory connection... again . The Idiot Called George Bush claims that "We need to think about Saddam Hussein using al-Qaida to do his dirty work, to not leave fingerprints behind." Huh? In the meantime at the Post , reality rears it's head: Chas Freeman, the U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the Persian Gulf War in 1991, said that the idea that a secular leader such as Hussein would link up with "religious diehards" who despise his government is "a very strange notion indeed." But Freeman said the administration's assertions might become a self-fulfilling prophecy if the United States does launch an attack. In that case, he said, Hussein might "make an alliance with the devil" and promote terrorist attacks if he had nothing to lose.

Reading a lot of dooce to keep my mind off the upcoming war. You should read dooce every day. Reading Ursula K. LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness which is hard for me to keep straight because I haven't read SF in a long time and I keep forgetting that the story takes place several thousand years in an alternate future, and that's supposed to make sense in some way. Otherwise it's brilliant: a planet of humans who are not born with innate gender identities, but instead take one on when they rut once a month. The characters are funny, and the LeGuin is not shy about examining the religious implications of a society ignorant of the Manichean allegory. But I'm never satisfied with fiction, either it's too real (William Trevor) or it ain't real enough. I'm much more comfortable with non-fiction these days. Except I've had a hankering for reading J.M. Coetzee after reading a review of the latest volume of his autobiography (which I would link to, ...

You should read Kinsley in the Post from Friday : "Ambiguity has its place in dealings among nations, and so does a bit of studied irrationality. Sending mixed signals and leaving the enemy uncertain what you might do next are valid tactics. But the cloud of confusion that surrounds Bush's Iraq policy is not tactical. It's the real thing. And the dissembling is aimed at the American citizenry, not at Saddam Hussein."

I took some 8-year-old girls to the zoo today. Pretty tired now. Best moment was when, on the way, they discussed how other kids make fun of your name, no matter how normal your name might seem. (One girl has last name "Katz," and a boy does a "meow" bit to her; stuff like that.) Having discussed this awful fact of childhood, they agreed: "let's think of all the kids we know, and try to figure out ways to make fun of their names." It was one of those moments, like something out of Milgram . I have to finish my class in the next week. I find myself still puzzling out lots of questions that I think I should have figured out a long time ago . Not included in that set of questions is the fact that many times I can compile code on my gcc compiler that my Microsoft compiler won't compile. It doesn't make much sense to me how a very, very wealthy corporation can sell buggy compilers. But then again, I work for (what seems to me) a fairly large com...

This, from "Foes of online music swapping sing out in Sacramento" : The group 3rd Storee , billed by record industry representatives as the next big boy band, said its latest CD, "Get With Me," was released Tuesday, but at a Sept. 28 concert, one fan admitted she had already downloaded the album. "When she told me that, instantly my heart just dropped," said 3rd Storee member Dante Clark, known as D'Smoove. "I was just hurt," Clark told the committee. "They don't see how much work, how many sacrifices, how much dedication goes into making an album. You feel like you've been robbed of something you worked so hard to gain." First of all: D'Smoove ? Does D actually get female interest when he whips out that name? What kind of woman goes, "hey, he's cute... and that name!" Second: 3rd Storee's appearance in Sacramento (not a photo op) was keepin it real. You know what I'm saying, the...

Weltschmerz is described as "Sadness over the evils of the world, especially as an expression of romantic pessimism." Could they be describing the Beatles' later output, or most emo records? ( Mineral comes to mind.)