June 2005 Archives

Not that I'm surprised, but holy freakin' g*d: 

V.A. Faces $2.6 Billion Shortfall in Medical Care  

The Bush administration disclosed yesterday that it had vastly underestimated the number of service personnel returning from Iraq and Afghanistan seeking medical treatment from the Department of Veterans Affairs, and warned that the health care programs will be short at least $2.6 billion next year unless Congress approves additional funds.

Veterans Affairs budget documents projected that 23,553 veterans would return this year from Iraq and Afghanistan and seek medical treatment. However, Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson told a Senate committee that the number has been revised upward to 103,000 for the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30. He said the original estimates were based on outdated assumptions from 2002.

"The bottom line is there is a surge in demand in VA [health] services across the board," Nicholson told the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee.

Just last week, the VA revealed that the rise in demand for VA health facilities had caused a $1 billion shortfall in operating funds for the current year. That would more than double in the coming year without congressional intervention.

Put that on your "Support our troops" ribbon... 

The Patriot Act will be expanded, not rolled back, it seems.

Forget scaling back the Patriot Act.

Instead, the controversial post-9/11 law would be expanded to give the FBI new powers to demand documents from companies without a judge's approval, according to a vote late Tuesday by the Senate Intelligence committee.

The final text of the Senate Intelligence committee's amendments was not immediately available (here's a draft dated last month), and reporters were barred from the secret session during which the vote was held.

But the proposal appears to grant the FBI more power to seek information from banks, hospitals, libraries, and so on through "administrative subpoenas" without prior judicial oversight. The subpoenas are only supposed to be used for terrorism or clandestine intelligence cases.

One other detail: the FBI may designate that the subpoenas are secret and punish disclosure of their existence with up to one year in prison (and five years if the disclosure is deemed to "obstruct an investigation.")

On a tangental note, I'm reading the book edition of Riverbend's Baghdad Burning blog. President Bush must be so proud. 

(Here's an interview with Riverbend herself that I just found out about)

If you've ever searched the web looking for a good restaurant in the Bay Area, you've probably come across a page at Chowhound.com. A discussion board for people who are truly obsessed with good food, this is the place I go to every time I'm looking for restaurant recommendations.

Except I don't actually go directly to the site. See, it's kind of a big chaotic mess. You have to click through 4 pages of very long text to get to the Northern California discussion board. The site has two search boxes, for some reason, and browsing? Forgetaboutit. So I go to Google and type something like:

"dim sum" Oakland site:chowhound.com

This technique has served me well, many times, especially in Hawaii, when we were on Maui for only a few hours, and the only web browser I had handy was on my Kyocera Palm phone.

Last week I found out that Chowhound had published a book, and I scurried to pick it up.

If you read the reviews on Amazon, though, you'll find that half the people there love, love, love this book to death, and the other half are immensely frustrated with how hard it is to find the thing you're looking for in it. In short, not so different from the web site. And this was my take as well. So I didn't even try to look anything up in particular; I just enjoyed browsing it, marveling over the number of good taco stands on International Boulevard in Oakland, making a mental note to try some of the places in San Francisco Chinatown I'd never eaten in before, and reading the profiles of the major 'hounds.

All well and good, but then I read the interview with the Chowhound founder, Jim Leff, and he had this incredibly lame explanation for why things are set up the way they are. If I'd been in the middle of eating, I would have spit out my food in disgust:

Leff admits Chowhound is not an easy site to navigate, but he believes that the bad software and sloppy design act as a good interference, keeping out the chain-loving crowds.

"We're not trying to block non-expert eaters from eating well," Leff says, between mouthfuls of custardy buns at Gold Mountain in Chinatown. "We're trying to block them from posting about the Olive Garden." For him, Chowhound is about giving the mom-and-pop restaurateurs their due.

So, he thinks that computer-savvy people are more gourmet? That people who prefer good information design eat at the Olive Garden?

I give him full credit for enabling a great community to spring up, and for keeping it focused on good food. But this disdain for good design leaves a bad taste in this food-obsessed webbie's mouth.

Oh come on. It's like they aren't even trying anymore.

This is the latest phishy email I've received:

We recently have determined that different computers have logged in to your PayPal account, and multiple password failures were present before the login. One of our Customer Service employees has already tryed to telephonically reach you. As our employee did not manage to reach you, this email has been sent to your notice.
Therefore your account has been temporary suspended. We need you to confirm your identity in order to regain full privileges of your account.
If this is not completed by June 8, 2005, we reserve the right to terminate all privileges of your account indefinitly, as it may have been used for fraudulent purposes. We thank you for your cooperation in this manner.
To confirm your identity please follow the link below:

....

Thank you for your patience in this matter.

PayPal - Customer Service

Please do not reply to this e-mail as this is only a notification. Mail sent to this address cannot be answered. 

However, even if I was easily hooked, and I was all worried about my PayPal account getting temporary suspended cancelled indefinitly because they've  tryed (and faled?) to reach me telephonically OMG! Well, GMail would come to my rescue...

This just blows.

Anne Bancroft, who won the 1962 best actress Oscar as the teacher of a young Helen Keller in "The Miracle Worker" but achieved greater fame as the seductive Mrs. Robinson in "The Graduate," has died. She was 73. She died of cancer on Monday at Mount Sinai Hospital, John Barlow, a spokesman for her husband, Mel Brooks, said Tuesday...

From the New York Times...

THERE'S nothing wrong with self-pity. As a spur to songwriting, it's right up there with lust, anger and greed, and probably better than the remaining deadly sins. There's nothing wrong, either, with striving for musical grandeur, using every bit of skill and studio illusion to create a sound large enough to get lost in. Male sensitivity, a quality that's under siege in a pop culture full of unrepentant bullying and machismo, shouldn't be dismissed out of hand, no matter how risible it can be in practice. And building a sound on the lessons of past bands is virtually unavoidable.

But put them all together and they add up to Coldplay, the most insufferable band of the decade.

Yeah... I know a lot of people really, really like them. I just find their music kind of boring. Sorry. Perhaps I shall expound on my reasons why, someday when I've had more coffee.

I complain about religious people and groups a lot, because their priorities often seem very out of whack to me.

But when I see religious people doing the right thing, I need to give them credit for it.

From an article about the crisis in Sudan:

American evangelicals are in a rare position to be listened to, not just heard, in Washington and the United Nations. One goal for evangelicals is to bring political priorities closer to biblical values. International relief groups know firsthand that when American evangelicals speak with one voice, policymakers in Washington pay attention. And high-level pressure gets results overseas.

The United States is one very fractured country right now. But apparently, there are things we citizens agree on. Wouldn't it be lovely if the fundamentalists shifted gears, and we could work together to end the genocide in Sudan? 

This is really disgusting and horrifying.

Factory workers on the island of Saipan, which is American territory, are routinely forced to have abortions. OK, technically, they are given a choice: "lose the baby or lose the job, lady!"

And Tom Delay is totally outraged about this. Oh, except he isn't.

Saipan has spent millions on Washington lobbyists and given top Republicans in Congress free trips to the beautiful Pacific island, including one over Christmas for House Majority Whip Tom DeLay.

“You represent everything that is good about what we’re trying to do in America,” he told outgoing Governor Froilan Tenorio, a distant cousin of the current governor, at a dinner in Saipan this past New Year’s eve.

DeLay and other Republicans have vowed to fight to keep the laws the way they are on Saipan.

Last night Michael and I were sitting down to watch a first-season episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That plan was delayed somewhat when he turned on the receiver and a radio announcer said "...Magnetic Fields at Carnegie Hall."

For those who haven't heard them (or heard me talking about them before), the Magnetic Fields are largely the project of one man, Stephen Merritt, who pens dryly humorous and ironic songs about love and either gets other people to sing them (usually in a rather deadpan tone) or sings them himself in a dolefully deep voice. Many of the songs have blipping synthesizers merrily bopping along in the background (think Pet Shop Boys on acid); more recently, he's been taking an accoustic turn. Many of the songs are very funny (what other songwriter would use a line about the night sky containing "more stars than there are prostitutes in Thailand?") and some of them are very affecting— "It's Only Time" from their last album, i., comes to mind.

The concert on the radio was from a series called "Creators at Carnegie," and it's archived online. Click here to hear it.