December 2003 Archives

Did you know that

The 1997 ban on cattle byproducts in cattle feed ... has loopholes.

It exempts products such as cattle blood and gelatin, and allows "rendered" or slaughtered byproducts such as brain and spinal tissue to be placed in feed for pigs, chicken and other animals. Critics of the system say those animals could end up as feed for cattle.

and

USDA veterinarians... don't necessarily inspect downer animals for BSE. The New York Times on Sunday quoted a federal inspector who said of the 600 downers he saw tested at a Midwestern plant the past two years, only one was tested for BSE.

Pass the tofu, please. Mmm. Tasty tofu.

--> "Rehberg, Burns split on sick cattle", Mike Dennison, Great Falls Tribune, December 30, 2003, www.greatfallstribune.com/news/stories/ 20031230/localnews/133986.html

Read all about it!

"On December 13, when U.S. forces captured Saddam Hussein, President George W. Bush not only celebrated with his national security team, but also pulled out his pen and signed into law a bill that grants the FBI sweeping new powers. A White House spokesperson explained the curious timing of the signing - on a Saturday - as "the President signs bills seven days a week." But the last time Bush signed a bill into law on a Saturday happened more than a year ago - on a spending bill that the President needed to sign, to prevent shuttng down the federal government the following Monday.

"By signing the bill on the day of Hussein's capture, Bush effectively consigned a dramatic expansion of the USA Patriot Act to a mere footnote. Consequently, while most Americans watched as Hussein was probed for head lice, few were aware that the FBI had just obtained the power to probe their financial records, even if the feds don't suspect their involvement in crime or terrorism. "

Stanley B. Greenberg, the pollster for Gore in 2000 and Clinton in 1992, agreed [that Bush may gain white male voters in 2004]. "Younger, married white men are disastrously, overwhelmingly Republican," he said. "They are trending more Republican over time. Everything about George Bush speaks to them."

"Disastrously" is right. I know it's not the most helpful, sensitively worded question to ask, but...

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU STUPID MOTHERFUCKERS!?!?!?!

-->"For 2004, Bush Has Strength in the White Male Numbers", Los Angeles Times, www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/ politics/la-na-men28dec28,1,3302354.story?coll=la-news-politics-national

So this is the kind of bullshit we have to contend with. In an otherwise laudable article on the importance of journalistic impartiality we have this quote:

"On the left, the Democratic front-runner, Howard Dean, wants to purge the party of its centrists, to repudiate the 'Third Way' Bill Clinton advocated."

This is the kind of flip description that makes me want to jump up and down and scream incomprehensible obscenities (which wouldn't really convince anyone of anything, hence it's a good thing I'm writing in my blog instead.)

Look. The guy was governor of Vermont. He was reelected five times. He had to negotiate with Republicans. He had to negotiate with Democrats. He pissed off everybody at some point or another — too blunt, too liberal (he signed the civil unions bill! he's pro-choice!) not liberal enough (he was too pro-industry! he hated raising taxes! he weakened the environmental protection laws!). According to descriptions from people who were familiar with his style, he liked to get all the warring parties in one room and hash things out.

Al Gore — not a raging liberal by any stretch of the imagination! — endorses him. He's got some guy who used to be the head of AIPAC on his team. I keep reading comments on the blog from disaffected moderate Republicans.

There's nothing "radical" about this guy, except that he noticed that when you give the hardline right-wingers an inch, they take a mile. Ted Kennedy tried to work with them on education. They screwed him over. They play really, really dirty. I'm not talking about people like John McCain. I'm talking about Tom DeLay and his chums.

What would Dean be like if he actually became president? I'm betting he'd chart a course not that different from Clinton, except I think (hope!) that he'd stick to his guns when necessary. Clinton suffered too much from the need to be the nice guy. This gruff doctor knows how to be charming and thinks well on his feet, but I don't get the sense he has the same hunger for approval.

I just hope we get the chance to find out. Bush is in the ascendency at the moment. It's a long shot for any Democratic candidate — but please, no Bush lite this time! Al Gore learned from his mistakes. All Howard Dean is telling us is that the rest of us should too.

This is spam emailed to me on Christmas Eve, by a "good Christian". I suspect he scooped my email address from Blog for America. Identifying URL and email address munged to protect (and mock) the guilty. Note the subject header of the email!

From: "Spike" (Spike@boymypenisisreallysmall.com)
Subject: Do you consider yourself to be a patriotic American?
Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2003 09:01:13 -0600

If you do and whether you are a democrat an independent or a republican, There are some things that you need to know, and consider before casting the most important vote of your life and in our countries history this coming year. You may have the cry over and over that our civil rights are being trampled and taken away bite by bite. Well, you have heard correctly, absolutely. But what those loud voices are not telling you, is that our civil rights are being taken away by the liberal democrat machine, which has hijacked our democratic party and held it hostage for several years. I am sure that you have heard a story or two about certain organizations taking legal action against schools for mentioning Christmas or having Christmas parties. You probably were shocked and thought that this was being done by a small group of radicals. I'm sure you also have been angry and even felt exasperated at hearing about outrageous lawsuits for ridiculous things and you wondered when will this end? And every time you turn around you are hit with another expense due to some strange new government program. Example: soon in Washington you will be required by law to buy special trash cans, one for plastic, one for glass, and one for aluminum. Then you will be required by law to recycle and place your recyclables at the curb with your trash. If you don’t comply you will be fined. These are just a small number of encroachments of our freedoms being perpetrated by the democratic party and it is just the beginning. I invite you to visit http://www.whichissmallermypenisormybrain.com/ and read about many of the attacks on you and I and our way of life by the so-called "progressive" liberals.

Did Spike know he was emailing a enviromentally conscious Jew? What on earth is this precious "way of life" he refers to?

Do you consider yourself a patriot?

Then you should be furious right now... or you will after you read this interview with Anthony Zinni in the Washington Post.

Some excerpts:

This retired Marine commander is hardly a late-life convert to pacifism. "I'm not saying there aren't parts of the world that don't need their ass kicked," he says, sitting in a hotel lobby in Pentagon City, wearing an open-necked blue shirt. Even at the age of 60, he remains an avid weight-lifter and is still a solid, square-faced slab of a man. "Afghanistan was the right thing to do," he adds, referring to the U.S. invasion there in 2001 to oust the Taliban regime and its allies in the al Qaeda terrorist organization.

But he didn't see any need to invade Iraq. He didn't think Hussein was much of a worry anymore. "He was contained," he says. "It was a pain in the ass, but he was contained. He had a deteriorated military. He wasn't a threat to the region."

------

Zinni's concern deepened at a Senate hearing in February, just six weeks before the war began. As he awaited his turn to testify, he listened to Pentagon and State Department officials talk vaguely about the "uncertainties" of a postwar Iraq. He began to think they were doing the wrong thing the wrong way. "I was listening to the panel, and I realized, 'These guys don't have a clue.' "

That wasn't a casual judgment. Zinni had started thinking about how the United States might handle Iraq if Hussein's government collapsed after Operation Desert Fox, the four days of airstrikes that he oversaw in December 1998, in which he targeted presidential palaces, Baath Party headquarters, intelligence facilities, military command posts and barracks, and factories that might build missiles that could deliver weapons of mass destruction.

In the wake of those attacks on about 100 major targets, intelligence reports came in that Hussein's government had been shaken by the short campaign. "After the strike, we heard from countries with diplomatic missions in there [Baghdad] that the regime was paralyzed, and that there was a kind of defiance in the streets," he recalls.

So early in 1999 he ordered that plans be devised for the possibility of the U.S. military having to occupy Iraq. Under the code name "Desert Crossing," the resulting document called for a nationwide civilian occupation authority, with offices in each of Iraq's 18 provinces. That plan contrasts sharply, he notes, with the reality of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S. occupation power, which for months this year had almost no presence outside Baghdad -- an absence that some Army generals say has increased their burden in Iraq.

Listening to the administration officials testify that day, Zinni began to suspect that his careful plans had been disregarded. Concerned, he later called a general at Central Command's headquarters in Tampa and asked, "Are you guys looking at Desert Crossing?" The answer, he recalls, was, "What's that?"

------

... "I don't know where the neocons came from -- that wasn't the platform they ran on," he says. "Somehow, the neocons captured the president. They captured the vice president."

He is especially irked that, as he sees it, no senior officials have taken responsibility for their incorrect assessment of the threat posed by Iraq. "What I don't understand is that the bill of goods the neocons sold him has been proven false, yet heads haven't rolled," he says. "Where is the accountability? I think some fairly senior people at the Pentagon ought to go." Who? "That's up to the president."

--> "For Vietnam Vet Anthony Zinni, Another War on Shaky Territory", Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post, December 23, 2003, www.washingtonpost.com/ ac2/wp-dyn/A22922-2003Dec22?language=printer

So, a single cow in a herd in Washington state that could not stand or walk properly is making headlines and causing countries around the world to slam their doors shut to American beef exports. The U.S. government is rushing to reassure us that it's not a big deal and that the American food supply is safe. Besides, they told us initially, the cow never made it into the food production chain, anyway. (Oh, whoops, folks, yes it did!)

People who love their meat will shrug this one off. Aren't animal-rights activists and vegetarians always going on about this kind of thing? And the chances of any one person getting mad cow disease are pretty darn low. "You can't worry all the time about the things that might kill you — that's no way to live!" they might tell you. And that's true.

But what if there's more than one cow infected? And what about other food-borne illnesses? What if there were proven ways to reduce the incidence of illness from what you eat — and we were collectively choosing to ignore them?

From the blog today, this exchange in the comments section. For those unfamiliar with the Blog For America site and its conventions, "the bat" refers to the baseball batter icon that gets posted every time there's a fundraising challenge on the site. The goal is to fill the bat as quickly as possible. Meeting the goal ahead of schedule is called "breaking the bat."

Help me give my wife a full bat for her birthday! Click my name.

Kurt

Posted by Kurt in San Fran at December 23, 2003 04:41 PM

Kurt's post got this response:

Kurt, this isn't *that* kind of chatroom...

Posted by McBadBat at December 23, 2003 04:47 PM

Passed a bus earlier today with an ad on its side for McDonalds' Chicken Nuggets. The tagline said, "Now with white meat!"

What on earth were they putting in the nuggets before?

The White House portrayed Libya's promise to abandon weapons of mass destruction programs as affirmation of President Bush's hard-line strategy on arms proliferation and suggested the U.S.-led war in Iraq helped convince Moammar Gadhafi that he should act.

Some arms control experts, however, point to what is known about how and when the agreement came about and say that Libya's turnaround offers proof the United States should shift tactics in dealing with North Korea, Syria and other nations. A greater commitment is needed, they say, to the kind of patient but firm diplomacy that worked with Libya.

"The president is trying hard to portray this as a victory for his strategy," said Joseph Cirincione, director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's nonproliferation project. "But when you look at this, it's almost the opposite of the Bush doctrine."

--> "Libyan deal shows need for shift in U.S. diplomatic tactics, analysts say", USA Today, http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/ 2003-12-21-analysts-libya-tactics_x.htm

More fun Bush-bashing Flash action.

Oh, and we're so much safer since SADDAM (I typed Dubya before by accident, wishful thinking?) got caught, our terror alert status color is being raised to orange again. Thankyouverymuch!

Stumbled across this tonight:

Poem Written After Much Contemplation On The State Of The Californian Economy

I will cut your taxes
And increase spending
Like I think I should
I don't know what it is
That I am smoking
But it sure is good.

Venice Beach (2003)

This, and more, can be found on the Chortler's website

If you want a handy summary of all that is wrong with Arnie's goobernatorial record so far, Shannon_a has compiled a handy one here, complete with links to articles. It's really, really bad. Sure, the legislature isn't helping, but hey, Arnie was the one who thought he could beat them over the head and make them do his evil bidding. People are funny that way, sometimes.

Yep, Diebold again. Decertify them already. They have no business getting anywhere near a polling place.

"An audit of Diebold Election Systems voting machines in California has revealed that the company installed uncertified software in all 17 counties that use its electronic voting equipment.

"While 14 counties used software that had been qualified by federal authorities but not certified by state authorities, three counties, including Los Angeles, used software that had never been certified by the state or qualified by federal authorities for use in any election.

"E-Voting Undermined by Sloppiness", Kim Zetter, Wired News, December 17, 2003, http://www.wired.com/news/ evote/0,2645,61637,00.html

Check out BushTax.com. Yes, it's a site for Dean's campaign. But whether or not Dean's your candidate or not, the tax cuts really are your problem.

Even worse, our children and grandchildren will be paying the Bush Tax. Bush promised, "I came to this office to solve problems and not pass them on to future presidents and future generations." Yet as a direct consequence of his tax policy, over six years an American family of four will take on $52,000 more in its share of the national debt. That’s the Bush Tax.

Bush is largely to blame for the fiscal crisis that has forced states and communities to raise taxes and slash services. According to the non-partisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, “A conservative estimate suggests that federal policies are costing states and localities about $185 billion over the four-year course of the state fiscal crisis.” As a result, states have struggled to close deficits that have totaled approximately $190 billion over the past three years.

I really do.

But the news this afternoon is really getting me down.

I'm not a big fan of Clark, finding him a bit cold and arrogant. He says all the right things, but somehow, I just haven't warmed to him yet. But this is beyond the pale. How dare these slimeballs question his being in Europe testifying against Milosevic?

This is what we have to deal with:

Bush has said he is staying out of the campaign fray until after a Democratic nominee is chosen -- with a brief lapse on Monday to slap back at a criticism by former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, a Democratic presidential candidate.

But his fund-raising letters have gone on the offensive against Democrats.

The new letter said, "Democrats will do or say anything to defeat our president, wild accusations, reckless conspiracy theories and now raising money from foreign anti-American activists."

Right. And you all were just 100% behind your president when he was a Democrat named Clinton. I suppose your accusations were calm and your conspiracy theories carefully honed. And you would have raised money from "foreign activists" if you could have gotten away with it (Rumsfeldt might have something to say on the subject — wait, isn't Saddam the bad guy?).

It's just going to get uglier. I may as well accept it.

The one thing that makes me feel better: we perverted family-hating g*dless pagans successfully changed the predicted outcome of the American Family Association's poll, with a majority respondents stating that they support gay marriage. Present that to Congress!

If they go ahead with their stupid plan to ban religious symbols in state schools, including headscarves for Muslims, yarmulkes for Jews, and large (whatever that means) crosses for Christians.

I think I understand the problems they're trying to address — how do you integrate a religious minority? How do you prevent culture clashes? — but this is totally the wrong way to go about it. You can't drive differences underground — not without paying a heavy price.

If you believe marriage is a right for everybody and are tired of the right wing trying to force their narrow views on America, then take this poll. The organization behind it hopes that the results will reveal that most people are against marriage rights for gay couples. Give them a little surprise, eh?

www.afa.net/petitions/marriagepoll.asp

Because I just looked at Kimberly_a's friends list and realized I was clogging it with rantings about various candidates and it's probably driving everybody nuts. :-) I do have a life, really! Right now it involves baking a truckload of cookies (well, six dozen) for the annual cookie exchange I've been attending since 1992. I'm feeling somewhat under the weather but I realized this is the only day I can do it. Michael is working late so won't be haunted by the smell of baking cookies that he's not allowed to touch (that is, assuming they actually turn out to be any good.)

"If Howard Dean had his way, Saddam Hussein would be in power today, not in prison, and the world would be a much more dangerous place," Mr. Lieberman said. "The American people would have a lot more to fear."

And I agree with John Kerry...

"I think that this is a time that underscores that if we're going to beat George Bush, we need somebody who has the experience, and who got this policy right."

Though the person who got this policy right was Dean, not Kerry, not Lieberman, and NOT the Bush administration.

Doesn't anybody remember that saying "The end doesn't justify the means"?

And I have a bridge to sell you. If somebody doesn't blow it up first.

President Bush's anti-terrorism policies are about to come under fire from a somewhat unlikely source: A federal advisory panel headed by a former Republican Party chairman is set to rap the President's knuckles this week when it issues a report criticizing the administration for failing to develop a comprehensive, pro-active anti-terror strategy more than two years after the 9/11 attacks.

--> "Bush Gets a 'Can Do Better' From Terror Panel", Timothy Burger, Time Magazine, December 13, 2003, www.time.com/time/nation/ printout/0,8816,561414,00.html

OK, I can understand why Wes Clark doesn't want to consider a VP slot with Howard Dean — he wants to be the candidate after all! But this is dumb reasoning:

Clark, who says that he's uniquely qualified to go "toe-to-toe" with President Bush on security issues in 2004, said that whether he's on the ticket or not, the Democrats can't win with Dean as their presidential candidate.

"I don't think the Democratic Party can win without carrying a heavy experience in national security affairs into the campaign," he told Salon in a phone interview last week. "And that experience can't be in a vice president."

Right. How could a candidate whose main political experience has been being governor of a state (admittedly one that borders on another country) be elected President of the world's greatest democracy (TM)? What are they going to do, get a VP with more international relations experience and military background and let him advise on foreign policy? It would never work.

Well, true, maybe it doesn't work, but we have been referring to Dubya as "President Bush" for the last few years, haven't we? Imagine how well things could go if we had people in those two jobs with brains and hearts.

I know, I know, September 11, everything's changed, blah blah blah. I think Howard Dean understands this. It's not clear to me from Clark's muddled campaigning, that he does. It's a shame he's not willing to consider what could be an excellent partnership and a good thing for the country — and wasn't that supposed to be the point?

They found Saddam! I can't believe it! I'm so glad they didn't kill him when they did it.

Wow.

Was just at a dinner party where I was introduced to:

The video for Electric Six's "Gay Bar". Near-naked Abe Lincolns in leather... mmm. (Edited to add: the band's website is nearly as funny as this video. A piece about winning the Kerrang! magazine award describes the event thusly: "The award, a clear slab with a yellow K on it (good thing they didn't win two more, eh?), was presented by The League of Gentleman. 'I'd like to thank God and my record label,' said Valentine trying to keep it real. On the ride home, Dick Valentine and M. heard 'One of Us' by Joan Osborne and simultaneously realized how little the award actually means in the grand scheme of things."

Chin2: Indescribable (click this one

Then I came home to an email giving me the website of these Ukranian dudes who are convinced that the federal government goes around putting computer chips in people's brains. (Not to be confused with chips on shoulders or sticks up people's b***)

Going to bed now...

This hideous email has been making the rounds, in all caps as such pieces of shite usually are, claiming that Dean is "ANTI-ISRAEL!!!". This is ludicrous on the face of it — the guy's wife and kids are Jewish, for starters, but still, it's doing damage. I referred to a great rebuttal to this email in an earlier post Now, it seems that the Anti-Defamation League, a group not especially known for it's radical-left leanings, has come out in Dean's defense.

If the person who wrote that email is actually Jewish, I wonder if they've heard of Lashon Hara — speaking evil? Because they've engaged in it big time in this case. If they think they're supporting Israel in any meaningful sense, they are seriously deluded.

I'm so ashamed of myself. To think I, a grown woman, raised in Berkeley, lifelong Democrat and fervent opponent of the Bush administration...

I just spent 10 minutes watching the "Barney Reloaded" video. Yep. Uh-huh. I know it's just mindless propaganda, but... that dog is just so darn cute I can't stand it! I guess it's proof that Bush isn't all bad. Obviously, he has excellent taste in dogs. He's got the small cute terrier-loving vote all locked up. (That sounds dirty, doesn't it?)

For those who care, great post.

I want to try to visit this gallery and see the Morandi show they have right now. Giorgio Morandi isn't terribly well known, I think, but I found out about him when my advisor in the art department at UCSC turned me on to his crosshatched still-lifes, which are just beautiful. The show is only running through December 20th, so if anybody reading this needs a good excuse to go to North Beach, you should check it out!

Those rascally Diebold folks are at it again. This time, they want to punish a client who had the temerity to demand printed ballot receipts. I guess there's no reason that a company that makes ATM machines would know how to do that. But they sure know how to rip of their customers and voters! Check out this email and a quote from an article about it:

From: owner-support@dieboldes.com [mailto:owner-support@dieboldes.com] On Behalf Of Sue Page
Sent: Sunday, December 29, 2002 7:20 AM
To: Support
Subject: FW: sunspot.net - maryland news.htm
It looks like the University of Maryland is funded, and is not going away.
See attached article.

From: owner-support@dieboldes.com [mailto:owner-support@dieboldes.com]On Behalf Of Ken
Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 12:47 PM
To: support@dieboldes.com
Subject: RE: sunspot.net - maryland news.htm
There is an important point that seems to be missed by all these articles:  they already bought the system.  At this point they are just closing the barn door.  Let’s just hope that as a company we are smart enough to charge out the yin if they try to change the rules now and legislate voter receipts.
Ken

From: owner-support@dieboldes.com [mailto:owner-support@dieboldes.com] On Behalf Of Greg Forsythe
Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 1:49 PM
To: support@dieboldes.com
Subject: RE: sunspot.net - maryland news.htm
What does "charge out the yin" mean?  Or, was that supposed to be "yen".  Hate being left behind.
Greg

To:
Subject: RE: sunspot.net - maryland news.htm
From: "Ken"
Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 14:13:58 -0800
Importance: Normal
In-reply-to:
Short for ‘out the yin-yang’.  Perhaps a little too colloquial;  apologies for that.  In my defense, google turns up 694 references to the phrase.
Any after-sale changes should be prohibitively expensive.  Much more expensive than, for example, a university research grant.
Ken

A response...
"I find it appalling," said Del. Karen S. Montgomery (D-Dist. 14) of Brookeville, who plans to file a bill mandating a voter-verified paper trail.

"I'd really like to have [yin-yang] explained to me anatomically, with the assumption that almost any place it would be would be painful," she said.

--> chroot.net/s/lists/ support.w3archive/200301/msg00015.html

--> www.gazette.net/200350/ montgomerycty/state/191617-1.html

Dean Looming Larger on Bush's Horizon; GOP Advisers Who Had Relished Democrat's Candidacy Are Now More Wary
"Advisers to President Bush once relished a race against Howard Dean, but they say they have become increasingly wary of him, worried that his unconventional and intense appeal poses a threat they had once underestimated.'

Of course, last time they were faced with somebody like this — John McCain — Karl Rove managed to "neutralize" him quite effectively; hopefully Joe Trippi and company have read Boy Genius and are preparing to deal with whatever gets thrown at them. It's going to be nasty.

--> December 11, 2003, Mike Allen, Washington Post, www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ articles/A54392-2003Dec10.html

So according to a recent poll, Bush still would beat a Democrat — 51% to 40%. So, not great news to normal, sane people who are actually paying attention to the disastrous direction this country is going in Democrats.

But look closer.

Some people are saying that Dean can't win because he's too "smart", too angry, too liberal, blah blah blah. But Clark and Lieberman, the "safe" choices, do no better in this matchup. Nor does Kerry, or even Gephardt.

And Bush? People may think they want to reelect him right now, but an awful lot of them think he's doing a lousy job — his job approval rating is 51%. I believe his father lost his job with a higher approval rating than that.

OK, so maybe we're still doomed to fail. Bush has raised a lot of money and will pummel any challengers. But I still believe Dean has some pummel of his own. We'll see what happens in the coming year.

On another, more amusing note: In last night's debate, Al Sharpton said "I know Al Gore and Howard Dean like the Internet. Well, www.bossism.com doesn't work on my computer.'' I guess Al's Internet connection was down, because if you type www.bossism.com into your browser, you get a page that says this:

is the ideology that being a boss is an end in itself. It is an ancient tradition that undermines modern management because a bossist culture forces managers to support the weakest links in their ranks and shield them from any challenge. Malignant bossists are referred to as "bullies". A broad range of psychological evidence has identified the symptoms of bossism. The remedy for bossist culture is a form of cognitive behaviour therapy. This consists of identifying beliefs, challenging them with evidence from management and psychological research, and rewarding the replacement and counteraction of bossist beliefs with modern ideology.

There, there, Al. You can be cured.

As I mentioned a post or so ago, Michael and I went to Phoenix this weekend to participate in an initiative called the Southwest Voter Express in which volunteers from California would fan out across parts of Arizona and New Mexico to go door-to-door and talk to voters about Howard Dean. Our decision to go was made easier by the fact that close friends of mine moved to Arizona a few months ago and are living in Phoenix. One small detail: they are confirmed Republicans. However, they were incredibly gracious about hosting us, and we swore we'd avoid talking about politics (a vow we didn't entirely manage to keep over the weekend.)

Michael's friend Jason sent a bunch of folks an email today — it seems that his new company's first board game, Who? What? Where? is getting rave reviews! The Chronicle gave it a little man falling out of his chair (which in Chronicle-speak is a very very good thing indeed. Who? What? Where? is like a distant cousin of Pictionary — you get three cards of somebody doing something somewhere, and you have to draw it and your fellow players have to guess what it is you drew. Michael and I got a chance to test-play it a while back, and while I normally totally suck at games, I quite enjoyed this one, both because of the drawing and the total silliness factor. (I think I got "Dolly Parton on a rollercoaster singing kareoke" or something like that.

Anyway, it's kinda neat that somebody I know did something like this! Oh yeah, and I'm supposed to tell anybody who is reading this — check it out! :-)

Michael and I were in Arizona this past weekend volunteering for the Howard Dean campaign and visiting friends. It was quite the experience, for many reasons! I plan to write a longer post about it tomorrow because it's almost midnight. Goodnight!

I don't know what it is the last few weeks. First I meet Gavin Newsom at our big fundraiser a few weeks ago (I'm sure I made no impression whatsoever), then we end up sitting at the table next to Matt Gonzalez's table at Helmand restaurant last weekend, and then...

Thursday morning an email goes out to the office. Something like "Richard Gebhart is speaking today at the XYZ annual meeting. So-and-so says staff are welcome. Join them, if you're so inclined. No political endorsement is implied."

I didn't see the message right away, but when I finally opened it, I said to my coworker, "I think maybe they mean Richard GEPHARDT. The presidential candidate!"

"No, way, nah. This is just some different guy entirely."

"Hmm, I don't know..."

"Why would he be here, anyway? Isn't he in Iowa?"

I do a quick Google search. "I think it might actually be him. Should we just go take a look?"

We take the elevator down to the second floor, where the board room is. We walk in, and there's the members of XYZ, the staff of our organization, and "Yep, that's Richard Gephardt, all right!"

Quite surreal.

I guess we missed the first 20 minutes of his talk, which was mostly on security, the war on terrorism, and the Middle East, particularly the Israel/Palestinian situation. (He's not a big fan of the Geneva peace plan; says it's a nice idea but that "there's nobody to talk to.") In general, I was fairly impressed with him. On TV, he looks somewhat... preserved, but in person he looked great. I got a little misty-eyed when he mentioned a column in the New York Times — imagine having a president who reads the newspaper! He even took questions from the audience at the end and shook hands with everybody, looking directly into the eyes of each person he met.

The spell was only somewhat broken when one of my coworkers complained that he didn't answer her question directly, and another coworker quietly replied, "He never does."

So from now on I will be keeping a watchful eye on my email. I tell you, if "Wesley Clerk" or "Homer Deen" shows up for a talk, I will be there. Somehow, I suspect they'd get Joe Lieberman's name right, though...

Spam received today with the subject heading: "I have to say the girl is very aware of the camera at all times. fvcl"

I must have received about five emails about Paris Hilton in the last 7 hours. Damn the woman. Stuff her inbox all you like, people, just leave mine alone, please!

ELLIS, Adelaide


Wednesday, December 3, 2003

ELLIS, Adelaide - Passed away peacefully in her home in San Francisco November 28. A proud native San Franciscan, Addie spent all of her 95 years in the city she loved. She was spunky and irrepressible, with a ready laugh often directed at herself. Married for 55 years to the late Willard "Bill" Ellis, she devoted herself to the care of her family, home, and friends, but she was also a faithful volunteer with Mount Zion Hospital and the San Francisco Lawyers' Wives. After suffering a stroke in 1991, she had to abandon knitting and dressmaking, at which she was expert, but not her weekly mahjongg games; nor did she have to forgo her shopping and dining excursions, thanks to a collapsible wheelchair and her sturdy and caring helpers Danuta Sadowski, Norma Ramos, and Virginia Velasco. She is held in loving memory by her daughters and sons-in-law, Patricia and Lee Milovich and Nancy and Jerry Falk; her granddaughters and grandsons-in-law, Karen Milovich and Lorence Mailman, Katherine Falk, and Susanna Falk and York Kennedy; her nephew Robert Hermann; and her cousin Winifred Rice. Memorial donations may be made to your favorite charity.

www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi? file=/chronicle/archive/2003/12/03/MNELLISADE34.DTL

I keep going back and forth on this guy. Michael McCord seems to like him, and he's not alone.

But what are we to make of this?

Yes, and if the American people want to string suspected terrorists up by their most delicate parts, should the prez support that too? That was a silly thing for him to say — and his comments here are pretty silly too. Deregulation? In the energy industry? Successful? Oy.

Rapping Gollum?

Rapping Gollum!

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