This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter).
Posts here are rare these days. For current stuff, follow me on Mastodon
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Still small compared to the larger industry, but growing quickly. Woo! That means nicer places and more people and stuff. Cool.
Nudism becoming big biz (Rose DeWolf of Knight Ridder on CentreDaily.com)
Annual revenue associated with nude travel, nude resorts and other places where the only thing worn is sunscreen jumped from $120 million in 1992 to $400 million last year.
(via Fark)
Just like with Challenger. They lasted a little while and probably knew quite well what was happening. Not “instant” at all. :-(
Columbia crew probably lived at least a minute beyond last contact (LA Times on AJC)
The crew of Columbia lived for at least one minute after their last communication with NASA ground controllers in Houston, a potentially important finding that could affect future efforts to improve the survivability of space shuttle accidents, investigators said Tuesday.
(via Google News)
I just got an email from my grandmother encouraging her grandchildren to register in order to be able to vote in the primaries as well as the general election. She also implying a subtle endorsement of Dean as a possibility. I first wrote something longer and bringing up more esoteric points, but I ended up thinking better of that and shortened my reply to this:
Nah, voting in a primary implies endorsement of one of the two major parties, and even worse, acceptance of the ridiculous two party system and unfortunate legal recognition of parties rather than simply individuals and all sorts of legal mechanisms that favor the two major parties over independent candidates.
If one is a partisan, and active member of one of the two major parties, I guess voting in a primary would make logical sense and in fact be a recommended activity. But myself, objecting strongly to BOTH parties, only differing on which issues I violently disagree with depending on the party, and also the specific individual running, won’t be doing that.
As usual, I’ll look at all the candidates on the ballot come the general election (there are usually about 6 to 10 of them) and pick the one that most closely matches my stands on various issues. If nobody is on the ballot that matches more than say 80%, then I’ll write someone in who does. :-)
There was a second email from her talking about Governor Dean and mentioning again how important it was to vote in the primaries. This time I replied with this:
Having said what I said in the last one, Dean does seem kind of interesting. I’ve been reading his blog entries. Not that I necessarily agree with him on lots. But interesting none the less.
I’d be curious to see who comes up top for you in this “Candidate Selector”… you answer a bunch of questions on various issues, and it ranks the candidates by how well they match your views…
http://www.selectsmart.com/president/
Here is the ranking I got when I told it to not exclude anybody, even those who have withdrawn already, have not yet announced, and of course not excluding 3rd parties. Dean came in tied for 3rd with a 70% match to my views. Of the Democrats my best match is apparently Kucinich at 82%. This compares to President Bush at a 58% match to my views. (By comparison, Al Gore only matches me at the 29% level.) But the as yet unchosen and unnamed Libertarian party candidate comes in at a 100% match. So unless they end up nominating someone I really dislike, I’ll probably end up voting Libertarian again as I did in the last two Presidential elections. My candidates never win. :-) But they do most accurately represent my own views, which I believe to be important.
1. Libertarian Candidate (100%)
2. Kucinich, Cong. Dennis, OH – Democrat (82%)
3. Dean, Gov. Howard, VT – Democrat (70%)
4. Kerry, Senator John, MA – Democrat (70%)
5. Clinton, Senator Hillary Rodham, NY – Democrat (69%)
6. Feingold, Senator Russ, WI – Democrat (68%)
7. Buchanan, Patrick J. – Reform/Republican (67%)
8. Sharpton, Reverend Al – Democrat (65%)
9. Green Party Candidate (64%)
10. Leahy, Patrick Senator, Vermont – Democrat (62%)
11. Edwards, Senator John, NC – Democrat (61%)
12. Socialist Candidate (61%)
13. Lieberman Senator Joe CT – Democrat (60%)
14. Daschle, Senate Minority Leader Tom, SD – Democrat (60%)
15. Bush, George W. – US President (58%)
16. Bayh, Senator Evan, IN – Democrat (58%)
17. Gephardt, Cong. Dick, MO – Democrat (56%)
18. Biden, Senator Joe, DE – Democrat (54%)
19. Jackson, Cong. Jesse Jr., IL – Democrat (49%)
20. Graham, Senator Bob, FL – Democrat (45%)
21. Dodd, Senator Chris, CT – Democrat (44%)
22. Clark, Retired Army General Wesley K “Wes” Arkansas – Democrat (42%)
23. Moseley-Braun, Former Senator Carol IL – Democrat (41%)
24. Feinstein, Senator Dianne, CA – Democrat (39%)
25. Kaptur, Cong. Marcy, OH – Democrat (36%)
26. Phillips, Howard – Constitution (36%)
27. Bradley, Former Senator Bill NJ – Democrat (31%)
28. Gore, Former Vice-President Al – Democrat (29%)
29. Hagelin, John – Natural Law (26%)
30. McCain, Senator John, AZ- Republican (24%)
31. Vilsack, Governor. Tom IA – Democrat (11%)
32. Hart, Former Senator Gary, CO – Democrat (11%)
33. LaRouche, Lyndon H. Jr. – Democrat (0%)
For those of you who saw the SelectSmart results I got a couple weeks ago, this is more acurate, as last time I neglected to fill in the “how important is this issue to you” parts, so the various issues were not properly weighted. This is probably better. Although I think some of this may evolve over the next year and a half before the election. :-)
I wonder how my grandmother will react. Hopefully she won’t be too upset with me. :-)
It would not be fun to have to be a voter in this and pick between characters like this. But I don’t live in California, and watching this from the sidelines is going to be fun!
The Battle of the Accents (Don Hazen, Alternet)
Hard to believe, but this fall those two accented icons, Greek-born Arianna Huffington and Austrian-born Arnold Schwarzenegger, may well be battling to the wire to take the California governorship away from sad sack Gray Davis, who has embarrassed himself to near unanimous public contempt in the state.
(via Cursor)
If they didn’t want to comply, justice should have dropped the charges themselves to avoid the need. But for outright violating the courts order, not only should the case be dropped and Moussaoui set free, but the Justice Department officals responsible should be charged with contempt of court and sent to the slammer themselves.
Story on cnn.com
The Justice Department on Monday refused a federal judge’s order to allow accused terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui access to a captured al Qaeda leader because it would damage national security.
If there is real evidence against this guy, and it certainly seems there is, then he should in fact go to trial, be convicted if the facts weigh out the case, and then he should be sentenced appropriately. But the man is entitled to a full and fair trial. Which means he should have access to *all* evidence against him that the prosecution intends to use, and he should be able to have access to any potential evidence or witnesses that might be able to provide evidence to clear him. If the government feels it is unable to prove its case in open court, with full defense (and accused) access to evidence, then it can’t make the case, and needs to let him go.
Now they are directly defying the authority of the court? Even after already losing appeals several times? Who do they think they are?
This story is pretty disturbing, although it basically says things we knew before. Basically Rumsfeld and the Pentagon were so self-absorbed int heir own vision of things that they were completely blinded to contrary input coming from elsewhere. And not just from the “opposition” but by the State Department and CIA.
AFP on Yahoo News
Pentagon planners failed to develop detailed plans for postwar Iraq because they were convinced Iraqis would welcome US troops and that a hand-picked exile leader would replace Saddam Hussein and impose order.
…
Postwar planning documents from the State Department and the CIA were “disappearing down the black hole” at the Pentagon, a former US official was quoted as saying.
For example, the Pentagon ignored the “Future of Iraq” project, an eight-month effort by the State Department involving 17 agencies and dozens of exiled Iraqi professionals.
Officials in the Pentagon’s Near East/South Asia bureau, which houses the Office of Special Plans, were told to ignore State Department views, according to Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, who retired from the bureau July 1.
This is just one more example of this kind of thing coming from the Rumsfeld/Cheney/Wolfowitz worlds. They seem to pop up almost every day.
I hope W will learn from these fiascos and spend a bit more time listening to Powell, and less time listening to these wackos. Although so far, that does not seem to be the case. W seems to be one of the wackos himself, or at least controled enough by them that it doesn’t matter.
(via History News Network)
What? The buying uranium thing that was from information in documents proved to be forged and widely discredited many months ago is now true again because it is supported by “other intelligence”? It sounds like grasping at straws to me. Plus, they can’t keep their story straight.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&e=6&u=/ap/bush_intelligence
WASHINGTON – The Bush administration said Sunday the president’s statement in the State of the Union address about Iraq (news – web sites)’s seeking uranium was accurate and is supported by other British and U.S. information.
The strains are apperantly building up in Kurdistan.
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000102&sid=aPBWwTSw.6GE&refer=uk
Turkey warned the U.S. that its troops will fire back at U.S. soldiers if another attempt is made to arrest Turkish soldiers in Iraq, Milliyet daily reported, without saying how it obtained the information.
(via Unqualified Offerings)
Charles Krauthammer goes off on Democrats for supporting intervention in Liberia but having issues with Iraq and comes to the conclusion that maybe Democrats only support military intervention in places where there are no US strategic interests. Whatever. Maybe in some cases. Dunno. But perhaps they are BOTH wrong? We really should only be sending in the military when there is an extreme need and our national interests are in danger. This was not the case in Iraq, and it is not the case in Liberia either. There was no need for us to go into Iraq (although now we have no choice but to make the best of it). There is no need for us to go into Liberia. The main argument at this point to go into Liberia would be to help heal the wounds with the rest of the world incurred by the Iraq adventure. That might be something worth considering this for.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40916-2003Jul10.html
(via MaxSpeak)
This whole concept is a shameful travisty of anything even resembling justice or due process. The defendants can’t see all the evidence against them. There is no client-lawyer confideniality. (Not to mention they haven’t been able to see lawyers at all most of the time.) Hopefully there will be enough public pressure on this that either these eventually get transfered to a civilian court (unlikely) or the military keeps “adjusting” the rules as they already have a little to make these a little closer to what one would expect in a fair process.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/13/politics/13TRIB.html?hp
But as the Pentagon prepares for the first such proceedings in more than 50 years, it is encountering a potent criticism: many lawyers and bar groups say the conditions for civilian defense lawyers are so restrictive that they might not agree to participate in the process and thereby lend it legitimacy.
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