Statesman or Skatesman?

I’ll just quote this really cool site:

Last Christmas my Dad and me had a big argument. He’d found a picture of Enoch Powell on a pogo stick and claimed that politicians weren’t as interesting as that any more.

I’m doing politics A level and thought that he was wrong. So I wrote to lots of them to ask them what they thought, and whether they had ever been on any of the following…

(a) a skateboard;

(b) roller skates and/or blades;

(c) a space hopper;

(d) a go kart;

(e) a death slide;

(f) a non-motorised scooter;

(g) a BMX bike;

(h) or any other locomotive child’s toy?

Everyone said that none of them would write back. But lots did. And this website is the result.

There are some interesting replies there, and seeing Margaret Thatcher on a sled is really funny.

August 21, 2003

What is a lesbian-couple supposed to do if they want kids?

They go to a site with a great name Man Not Included. I wonder if they pay for donors? I know I could use the extra cash ;-).

(I’m sure I’m going to get some random hits for putting the words “lesbian” in my title. I’ve always wanted to say “lesbian” in a title, and I’m sure if I throw the words “porn” and “sex” in this message, I’ll get more completely useless hits.)

August 21, 2003

Who says you can’t buy votes?

You can at Taco Bell. Stop by any Taco Bell in California between now and election day, and you can buy a vote for your candidate. Buy a Crunchy Beef Taco, and they count that as a vote for Arnold Schwarzenegger. A Chicken Soft Taco, a vote for recalled Gov. Gray Davis. A Grilled Stuft Burrito is a vote for everybody else.

Apparently Taco Bell has taken out ads in major newspapers advertising this little promotion.

August 21, 2003

Bush is coming to town — and the town is on fire

President Bush is making a trip to Oregon and is also making an Air Force 1 pit stop in Redmond. He planned on making a stop in the Camp Sherman area (just outside of Sisters) to discuss environmental and forestation issues, but a fire up in that area which may move Bush somewhere else. The Santiam Pass is closed because of the fire, and probably won’t reopen for a few days.

The area is certainly getting ready for his arrival. Protests are being planned (though some folks are already protesting). Many of the Oregon Bloggers in the Portland area (like Emma, Jack, Rick, and Rob), will undoubtedly be blogging something about the mess that’s likely to come about in the next couple days. We’ll just have to wait and see.

On a side (but related) note, my mom got a call from the Secret Service the other day. My mom is the trauma coordinator at St. Charles Medical Center (SCMC). SCMC is the largest hospital in Eastern Oregon, and the main trauma center for this half of the state. Basically, my mom’s there to make sure that things are done right when big accidents or disasters come. She writes the hospital’s disaster plans, runs drills, etc… .

So she gets this call from these folks. My mom had only planned on working a couple days this week as she worked on a PILE of stuff last week so she could take it easy. Then the white house staff wanted to meet with her, and then the secret service asked her to make sure she was working on Thursday while Bush was here, just in case something were to happen. I do understand the government’s concern. It scared the heck out of mom to pick up the phone and hear the secret service on the other end. Granted, my mom never makes threats on the President’s life, nor does she counterfeit money (the secret service’s jurisdiction), but I would imagine talking to them would still be intimidating. I remember one time coming home to a message from the Justice Department. It was for a job reference for an old friend of mine, but it still scared the hell out of me.

Update on 8/21: Because of the fires, Bush will be speaking around 3:45ish at the county fairgrounds. I’ve heard rumors where he might be staying in Central Oregon tonight (actually, I’m 90% sure), but since I don’t want to piss off the secret service, you ain’t getting that information out of me.

August 20, 2003

“You need a license to operate that computer, ma’am.”

If things were up to John Dvorak, computer users would have to have a license to operate their computer. It’s an interesting, and well-supported, idea, and I’m sure it would save me the trouble of having to deal with morons all the time (of course, many of those folks I charge money for fixing their systems, so maybe I don’t want them to be trained 😉 ). Regardless, it certainly would slow down the spread of viruses, like this SoBig bastard that has made a return recently, of which I’ve received 160 copies of in the last 24 hours.

August 20, 2003

Get yourself a one-way ticket to Federal Prison!

George W. Bush needs to hire better folks to work on his campaign site. Not only is it running Windows 2000/IIS (which is never a good thing), Microsoft Exchange Webmail appears to be installed and wide open to public view. Guess the password, and off to prison you go! Thanks to waxy.org (who goes into more detail about problems with the site) for the link.

August 19, 2003

Any solutions to Bloglet problems?

If you look down the right-side navigation of this site, you’ll notice a form and link to Bloglet. The service (when it works) sends e-mails nightly to a list of subscribers. Those e-mails contain the headlines and text from my entries for the day.

The problem is that it’s very unreliable (though I would pay a few bucks for it if it worked right), and anybody who’s on my list, probably hasn’t received an update for a couple weeks or more.

I’m obviously not the only one with this problem. The site is up and down like a kid on a trampoline (sorry, bad analogy), and I was wondering if anybody out there has a better solution? The e-mail features in Movable Type are less than stellar, that’s for sure, and I don’t know if they’ll get fixed or not.

Does anybody else have their own Bloglet-like system? Need a beta tester? 😉

August 19, 2003

If you ever enlist in the army, this is information you need to know

Here’s 213 things you shouldn’t be doing while serving your country.

Some of the gems:

“I may not use public masturbation as a tool to demonstrate a flaw in a command decision.”

“I am not allowed to sing ‘Henry the VIII I am’ until verse 68 ever again.”

“The Chicken and Rice MRE is not a personal lubricant.”

Thanks to Gregg for the link (who has a new job, and is featured on his new company’s web site)!

August 19, 2003

SWAT team hand signals

Have you always wanted to know how to translate the hand signals that SWAT-team wannabes do on those cop shows? This sure does explain a lot.

August 18, 2003

It’s still a worm, but it’s a good worm

News.com reports that a new variant of the original MSBlast worm is doing good deeds. It applies a patch for the vulnerability that it and other MSBlast worms use to infect Windows systems.

While this is all nice and peachy, but the fact remains that it’s a worm, and it will continue to clog the arteries of the ‘net. But at least it’s doing some good.

August 18, 2003