Hunting The Muse

Esterton: World Hopping

Dreams Of Esterton: World Hopping

hahahahaha

Excellent followup. Laughed out loud on the finger line.

Eric (Robert) Rudolph

Olympic bombing suspect captured

I think that whole "Why do killers always go by all three names?" thing is a sham. This guy probably just goes by Eric or ER or something. Lee Harvey Oswald probably went by Lee O. It's just the media that ascribes the middle name as a way to separate them, I bet. I can't believe this has never occurred to me before. Silly me.

Words.

Whine. Think. Say. Do.

Smooth Typing

FingerWorks TouchStream KeyBoard

This might make me want to get a 15" powerbook. I wonder if it will work with the new rev?

House with Greenhouse

Portland Oregon Real Estate - Compass Realty, Inc. - Clackamas Oregon Real Estate

Here's one house I'm going to look at soon. I might prefer a 4-bedroom but this one seems pretty darn cute. Hope it's in a decent neighborhood. It's in North Portland.

Israel

Just for the hell of it, I'm going to go on record about how stupid I think Israeli security policy is.

"Let's increase settlement activity in contested land! That'll convince the Palestinians to stop attacking us!"

It's the insistence that Israel can't pull out until the violence stops that is the whole problem. Settlement activity is not punitive, it's provocative. There's also the issue of the settlers believing it's their rightful claim, but the way to handle that issue is not to do a disingenous end-around.

This pattern is that chess-move kind of thinking I've written about before - where you set things up so that if you fail, it strengthens your position. It's deliberately asserting a double-bind. In this case, the people behind the settlement believe it's their rightful claim. So instead of trying to negotiate, they skip that and move in. Then if there is retaliation, they can claim that settlement and occupation is a matter of punitive security.

The part that works to their benefit is that it is not true that if they simply pulled out, the retaliation would immediately disappear.

If a powerful third party like the US or the UN chose to take an active part, one possible way out would be to insist on Israel pulling out first (without abdicating claim), and in exchange, share in taking aggressive action against Palestinian terrorists who continue to sponsor attacks after the withdrawal. After the pullout is complete, peace talks can take place.

This general line of thought has been on my mind for a while. Israel-Palestine conflict is a political area I don't feel well-informed on at all, because the mass media only talks about the stupidest surface level. So it'll be interesting to see over time how my opinion on this changes... if it changes.

Political Brainbusters

1. If Iraq destroyed WMD before the war, as is currently theorized, then it means that Iraq was in compliance of resolution 1441.

2. Jessica Lynch's father denies that she had amnesia and says he isn't allowed to talk about details of the rescue.

The Legend Of Tral

Dreams Of Esterton: Getting The Lead Out

I wrote a new chapter for Dreams Of Esterton over at StorySprawl.

Probably one of the worst chapters I've written recently, but sometimes you have to do that if you're going to get the muse in gear again.

Pete and I have a goal to finish Esterton by the end of the summer. As you can see by the map, there's still a ways to go.

Debugging

damon wright | administrivia: Bugs

I suppose there are worse ways for a ladybug to go.

Or ARE THERE?

Tax Cuts For Families That Aren't Poor

Tax Law Omits Child Credit in Low-Income Brackets

So, part of this tax cut raises the per-child tax credit to $1,000 from $600. But, only if you make more than $26,625/year. If you make less, you don't get the tax relief. It was in there originally, but then the Republicans decided they couldn't afford it.

Delay Abuses Power

Just what did DeLay know about the Dems' Texas plane?=TheHill.com=

Evidence mounting that Tom DeLay (house majority leader) diverted federal resources in an attempt to force a result in the Texas state legislature. He was trying to get Texas redistricted to force more democrats out of the national house of reps. Redistricting is a state matter.

Roland SCC-1

I had this awesome soundcard that I bought ten years ago for just under $400. It's a Roland Sound Canvas SCC-1. ISA, MPU-401. Great sounds.

ISA doesn't really exist anymore. It pains me that the card is right there with all those great sounds and I can't use them. I hate it.

I spent a couple of hours looking for a way around it, and found one company that sells USB-powered enclosures for ISA card, but it's incredibly complicated and by the time I buy the slot, power supply, and case, I'm spending enough money to just buy another piece of midi hardware.

And so I have this worthless card here with wonderful sounds. I hate that!!!

I should just accidentally step on it or something, just to give myself a legitimate reason to be depressed and then have closure.

Oregon Trains

Lewis and Clark Train

For fellow Oregonians. I'm thinking of doing this this summer.

Idea Generation

Compendium of idea generation methods

Way too many ways of coming up with ideas.

SARS In Toronto

Possible new Toronto SARS cases

Once again, SARS is on the front page of msnbc.com with a big scary image, with a United States health agency putting Toronto on their do-not-travel list.

Compare this with the latest graphs of active SARS cases in Canada and worldwide.

Fear of SARS is a stronger threat (and weapon) than SARS itself.

Not A Problem

Spinsanity - Dowd spawns Bush media myth

This article nitpicks about a Bush quote, most of it is irrelevant to me, but the part that struck me was near the end; a good illustration of Bush either being "on message" or a mindless automaton. "Those particular terrorists are either X or Y. Either way, they aren't a problem anymore." Really strange how the virtually same phraseology is used in all these different cases. Is there something about that phrase that "tests well" to the public? Weird.

Meat Trees

Yahoo! Top Stories - Tree That Give Meat Instead Of Fruit!

Please, please, please let this be a hoax.

Update:Hoax.

Free State and Condorcet

Voting Methods Report for the Free State Project

The Free State Project is an organization that is seeking to gain a critical mass of 20,000 people to all move to a low population state in an effort to reshape that state's political reality. They are libertarian. To choose their state, they have recently decided to use the Condorcet method. This voting methods report is notable because it has some new opinions that I haven't seen before, including Saari's admission that Borda is flawed to strategic voting.

Finances

In my freelance business, I've got a cost target, a six-month rolling average, and a four-week rolling average. I'm relieved right now because for the first time in seven weeks, I'm above my four-week rolling average. I'm also just shy of beating my cost target for the first time in five weeks, and if I kick ass over the next two days, I might be able to beat my six-month also. That would be a welcome change; I need to keep my income (and confidence) up if I'm going to be buying a house. Really I should just get off my duff and try to find a third recurring client. Anyone need a solid perl/php/java programmer that knows how to plan and doesn't go off half-cocked? ;-)

Truthout Interviews Dean

t r u t h o u t - TO Interview with Howard Dean

Man, this one just about sold me. I've still got some time, but I'm pretty close to endorsing this guy. He still hasn't said "neocon", but he's pretty solid. This interview made me say "Yes!" out loud three different times.

2004 Elections And The Economy

Here's the thought that I can't shake:

The Republicans have to know that the tax cuts they push aren't the best way to encourage the economy. The normal theory is that they say it's the best way, when their actual goal is to drive the country in as deep of debt as possible so that social programs have to be cut, so they can shrink government and stop giving handouts to the people that aren't in power yet, but may be in the future. Because they are the threats to their sustained power.

But the economy is bad, and voters know that. If they aren't utilizing the best strategy to improve the economy, they are risking their own power.

I know they want to retain future power, but I don't believe they are so single-minded about it that they would throw away their short-term power. The thought that I can't shake is that they must have something up their sleeve. Something that they can manipulate that actually will make the economy improve or seem better in time for a year from now.

The other two explanations are that they really truly are blind, arrogant, and stupid from their power and will be completely surprised when voted out of office. Or... that their tax cut strategy really is the best way to improve the economy and I'm just a big dummy (along with Warren Buffett and Bill Gates Sr). I should take an economics course...

Dean Quote

Grist | Main Dish | Rebel with a | 21 May 2003

Grist: As governor, you supported a plan to store the nation's waste at Yucca Mountain, Nev. Do you still think this is a good solution?

Dean: As governor of Vermont, it was a grand idea because it would get the waste out of Vermont. But now that I'm running for president, I've got to reassess it and see what the science looks like.

Oh man. Great interview, but...

Taco Bell Thriller

SignOnSanDiego.com > News > Features -- Michael Jackson out on the town for fast food

Well, this is the strangest Michael Jackson story I've ever read.

I really do try to feel sorry for the guy. It's just so hard.

Buffy Buffy Buffy

So I watched the series finale of Buffy. Man, what a great show. So glad Whedon penned the last show.

I don't know what everyone is smoking regarding the last two seasons going downhill. I thought they were great. I always thought seasons four and five were the weird ones. Adam? Glory? Season Two with Angelus, Spike, and Dru will always be the best one. But six with all its darkness, confusion, and nerds was incredibly difficult, emotionally rich, and mature. It had the musical episode, and by far the creepiest episode ever, the one with her in the mental hospital. Shudder. That one out-matrixed The Matrix. I mean, I have the willies just thinking about it. Yikes. And this season... it wandered a bit, but it tied up the overall themes of slayerdom beautifully. Buffy's relationship with herself, her chosen-ness, her alone-ness, and her power.

So I loved it. Ended at the right time, too. Or just shy of it. I so want to see an Andrew spinoff. That Dungeons&Dragons scene was priceless.

Matrix Reloaded

Wow, I honestly don't know what the big deal is with everyone hating Reloaded. I thought it was great. I really didn't like the first movie all that much. Good special effects, stooopid dipshit pseudo-philosophy. Way too pretentious. Reloaded was much, much better, brought some philosophical complexity to the trilogy, made the questions harder to answer, and even enriched the first movie for me since it brought some of its original certainty into question. There's a lot to chew on now and I think the overall series has more integrity. I'm very much looking forward to the third movie. I'm even looking forward to seeing the first two again.

The Downfall Of...

Blog :: Gary Hart :: Restoring the American Republic

Gary Hart (who is not running for president) compares the USA to Rome.

Texas ReDistricting Effort Fails

News 8 Austin | 24 Hour Local News | TOP STORIES | Democrats cheered at the Capitol; Quorum reached

Welcome news. If the stars are aligned right, maybe it will rejuvenate some Democratic passion elsewhere.

Voting Blues

110702otter

There's a general article pointing to all sorts of writings about vote fraud, some more conspiratorial than others.

That said, I think that it's worthwhile to always strongly oppose any electronic voting system that does not have a verifiable paper trail.

On the other hand, this doesn't concern me so much on a personal level, because I live in Oregon, and we don't have electronic voting machines because we only do vote by mail! Woo-hoo!

Another Oregon Blogger

Strangechord. . . reverberating

I like Emily's writing. Nice design, too.

Turnabout

In trying to find some of that manipulative thinking that works so well for the Republicans, this one occurred to me: The Republicans are Pavlovian in their blind, single-minded support to whatever philosophy become vogue for the party, as dictated to them by the leadership. They don't really have any spine. Congressmen that were for balanced budget just four years ago are completely for the opposite now, it's like they don't even have minds of their own. No integrity, no moral consistency.

So if they fight that they have to show it by going "against the grain".

It isn't perfect, but it's something of an example...

More Todo Thinking

Erik Benson's Weblog: prioritization

Erik goes temporarily insane about todo items, as I am apt to do at times.

Predicting Group Behavior

Meatball Wiki: InformationDerivativeMarket

This is weird. Evidently these markets, by tying group opinions to financial investment, can accurately predict the outcome of various events. Check out the futures markets that predict the outcome of presidential elections.

Social Software and Polarization

Don Park's Blog

Don wrote some concerns about social software and I agreed/expanded on the points in the comments and discussion afterward. Some of the ideas I shared seem to be getting some airplay on other weblogs in the community.

Microfinance and Bundle Of Goods

Ant's Eye View: Towards Micropolitics, Part II: Microfinance

This makes my arms physically anxious because I want to reach out and do something. The end part of the article describes quite a bit of the charity idea I've had for a while; of matching up exchange rates to real value of local currency so people can know where their contributions would do the MOST good.

Rapidly Forming Groups

Social Software

Bill Kearney offers a counter-argument that I find cogent:

The fact that groups can form more rapidly will do more to devalue the ability of any one group or cult of personality. Yes, for those ununsed to the process it will be a terrifyingly vast expanse of rapidly changing groupings. Hang on, it's going to be a fun ride.

Just because groups might more rapidly form doesn't mean that the opinions of each individual member will be changing any faster.

Law Games

Salon.com News | GAO chief paints bleak budget picture

U.S. District Judge John Bates, a Bush appointee, was "clearly wrong" in ruling against the GAO's lawsuit for the people who met with the Cheney energy task force. The GAO went to court when the White House refused to release the names, saying the public had a right to know whom the Bush administration consulted in drafting its energy plan and whether Congress needed to talk to other interested parties. Walker said he didn't challenge Bates' decision because the ruling would not stop the agency from seeking other White House records, but a failed appeal could hinder future investigations.

See, I'm absolutely convinced that the White House knew that the risks of appealing and losing outweighed the benefit of a successful appeal. Which puts them in the position of only needing one bad judge. It's this kind of chesslike manipulative thinking that I'm sure the republicans are better at than the democrats. They're not as burdened with the internal control that says, "But we can't do that!" I've been noticing all term how Bush's strength is his willingness to break unwritten rules and taboos. This is a skill that can be learned without selling your soul, I'm sure of it. It's not directly manipulating an opponent, it's making a series of unthreatening moves around the perifery that restricts the movement of your opponent.

So the question is, when you are dealing with someone who does that, how do you beat them? Despite my belief that you can learn how to do it, I think it's a mistake to get sucked into their game. However, I also think it's a mistake to remove yourself from the battle to be above the fray. Democrats get stuck in this all the time. They think they are taking the high road when they're really burying their heads in the sand. There's a way to respond so that you are engaging them vigorously, but not on their terms. That's the approach to use. I want to get better at that, myself.

Pianos

I went piano hunting today. I have a friend that owns a piano store and is also a composer whose music I really like, so every so often we get together and shoot the breeze and go over our music. I brought a couple of my preludes in today and he liked them, and surprisingly liked one of them more than the other when it would have bet money it would be the opposite. We also talked about pianos and I fell in love with a gorgeous cherry 6'4" grand piano and I would really like to buy it.

The problem is that I am in an apartment right now and buying the piano would exhaust some of the money I was trying to save for a down payment on a house.

I'm much more excited to buy a piano than a house, but...

ugh. I've been stuck in this space for too many months. I think it's time to find a mortgage person and find out how I can organize my money to be able to buy both. Will mortgage companies loan you money for more than the appraised value of the house? Hell, they let you roll in credit card debt. Why not?

Jesus And Politics

Harper's Magazine: Jesus Plus Nothing, p. 1 of 11

Some of you may remember an article a few months ago about seven or eleven congressmen all sharing a house that was discovered to belong to a religious organization.

A writer ended up stumbling in to the organization and wrote an exposé for Harper's.

The general gist is that this large community attracts people by appealing to their sense of service, and with the lure of giving oneself over to a protective force (Jesus) entirely. But the twist is that they tie it into a complete lack of accountability and responsibility. Removing self from the equation entirely means they can move entirely from "desire", interpret it as God's will, and not feel responsible for the consequences because they trust Jesus. They would see it as freedom from guilt - they feel no need to second-guess the impact of their actions, because they are agents of a higher purpose. The truth is that it isn't guilt and self-doubt they are making themselves free of. Instead, they are "freeing" themselves of their own essence. The moment they start turning against their essence is the moment that they start listening to someone else's rules about what parts of their soul are holy and unholy.

I'd sure like to know more about the rebuke moment they mentioned. The murmurings of "Thank you Jesus..." I wonder what came next? Is that just a big self-con to make themselves feel like they are accepting the "rebuke" (disagreement), without actually dealing with it? Do they then proceed to listen to the source of disagreement and integrate it into their own views? Or do they say a quick silent prayer and then change the subject in a state of essenceless "bliss"?

I've got my own religious beliefs, but they are far from this state-of-grace crap you come across so much in all the pseudo-Christian bullshit out there. What's interesting about this is that a lot of the qualities I'm reacting against here are prevalent in societal groups from all across the political spectrum. You've got faux Buddhism that tries to separate self from desire and earthly experience. You've got airy-fairy new age spirituality that tries to meditate the self away from intensity. You've got the free-love stoners, those offshoots of the hippies that are incapable of physically expressing a passionate opinion. You've got the whole centrist waffling political correctness thing. And you have the far religious right that is obsessed with demonizing the self. It's all fear of the self, using any opportunity possible to run away from the self.

That's not to say I think Objectivism and Atheism are valid, either. But I don't feel like venting about those right now.

Liberal Media

Anshell Media

It's a company that plans to launch a major liberal radio station in 2003.

Buffy Biography

WHEDONesque : Comments on 1330 : A&E Biography: Buffy the Vampire Slayer -

Oh, gotta tape this!

Congressional Redistricting

In response to an earlier entry a commenter asks if such a redistricting effort is something that should be considered fair. I don't know if it's explicitly disallowed, but it seems to go against the intent of fairly representing populations. It's required when Census is taken, but I don't know that it's prohibited at other times. I think it's another case of the republicans having no problem with breaking an unwritten rule, or in other words, completely ignoring the intent of the law. It's quite controversial, as illustrated in this other article via Salon. Pretty rare that opposing lawmakers would resort to truancy.

Update: Check out the more detailed description of the Texas situation over at msnbc. I love the quote at the end from the New Mexico Attorney General (democrat): "I have put out an all-points bulletin for law enforcement to be on the lookout for politicians in favor of health care for the needy and against tax cuts for the wealthy."

San Francisco

The Great San Francisco Bubble / Life in America's last great progressive cocoon, as conservatives snicker and pule

I lived in the bay area for a few years. I never felt entirely comfortable in San Francisco. It always felt a bit posed. It was similar to how I felt in Disney World. I was never really offended, I just felt bemused. At any rate, it was hard to attach to. I did meet some nice people, though.

Klingon Interpreter

County seeks Klingon interpreter

Another example of independent and social journalism trumping mass media. Right now this AP article is linked to off of the front page of msnbc.com.

At the same time, there is another article over at kuro5hin describing what the actual truth is.

Dreams Of Esterton

Damon and I did some work on Dreams Of Esterton over at StorySprawl tonight. Old side, but still entertaining when you put the work in. We deleted four chapters, improved two, and added two more. I think it's coming together.

GOP Redistricting

Salon.com News | GOP tries to redraw districts before 2004

In Denver, Republican lawmakers pushed through legislation Wednesday that is designed to give first-term GOP Rep. Bob Beauprez political breathing room in a district he won by only 121 votes last fall. White House political adviser Karl Rove lobbied for the plan, and Republican Gov. Bill Owens is expected to sign it.

Hmmmmmm.... :-)

The Whole World Changed

Salon.com News | God's whip hand

There's a great series of articles over at Salon on the Clinton Wars and the emerging ultra-right-wing power in Congress. The section I'm reading now details how DeLay almost single-handedly brought the impeachment process back on track. It's pretty creepy.

"I didn't hear anyone discuss impeachment. It was over. Then DeLay assumed control. In most districts in the country, a majority was against impeachment, maybe a majority of Republicans. But a majority who voted in Republican primaries was for impeachment. When you put individual members under the gun, a lot of them could get killed in a primary. That was the way he did it. I heard of Christian radio stations going after Republicans. Right-wing groups were stirring it up in parts of the country outside of the Northeast. Most of the pressure went through the Christian right network. It happened over a ten-day period. The whole world changed." - Rep Peter King (R-NY)

Blogging Sucks For Conversations

We've got it all wrong. We're all sitting here with our weblogs posting little idea-lets onto our weblogs, waiting for people to come to our weblogs for unrelated reasons. Then maybe they'll read our thoughts and respond.

Basically, we're making the conversation subservient to the posts. Shouldn't it be the other way around?

The A-List folks have the advantage of a built-in audience that are there for no other reason than being a built-in-audience. They're not there for the merit of each individual post. Why are they there? Partly because of momentum, partly because of community. Lots of people read Mark Pilgrim and Dave Winer (who probably don't want to be joined with an "and") because lots of other people read Mark Pilgrim and Dave Winer. They also read because they write good entries, but really, does every single one of their entries deserve that much audience and discussion? It's a false advantage.

Here's what I want. I want meta-conversations that we can redirect to our blogs on demand. When I write a post that is topical in some way, I want to ping a conversation about that topic. (We've got topicexchange, but that isn't a collection of conversations; it's a collection of blog entries designed to elicit conversation.) The conversation is going on before I ping to it, and after. But when my blog entry pings the conversation, that ping would be considered part of the conversation. Everyone participating in the conversation would see that ping and be able to read my blog entry. And then the best part of it would be that any further conversation following up to that ping would automatically be showing on the comments section of my blog entry.

What does that mean? It means that you don't necessarily have to be reading my weblog in order to post a comment to it. It also means that people who read that entry out of my built-in-audience can find my weblog entry and the discussion it inspires just by reading my weblog; and commenting on it will be also sent to the meta-conversation and read by a much wider audience of people.

The weblog entries should be subservient to the conversation. Until it us, we're all just on a big ego trip.

Categories

When we try to understand or keep track of a large number of items, we eventually reach a point where we can't remember them all at once.

So, we start to categorize. When things are simple, we can split every item apart into categories so that:

• Most categories have at least one item (otherwise what's the point?)
• Every item is in only one category

What's bad is that when we do that, we make internal compromises. "Buy Gift For Mom" has several possible categories. "Errands", "Purchases", "Family", "Stuff To Keep Mom Happy So She Doesn't Send Me Bitter-Tasting Fruitcake", etc. The category we choose actually ends up depending on the other items, not on the qualities of the item itself. "Well, it looks like a bunch of these are Errands, which leaves these other ones over here, so I'll make an Errand category."

The problem is it doesn't scale. Say you have an Errand and a Do At Home category. One of your items is that you want to hang pictures, which requires fasteners that you have to go and buy. Well, it's an Errand, but you also want to do it At Home. One of your other Errands was to buy a new lamp. It occurs to you that with the new items, it makes more sense to reorganize everything into Home Improvements, Buy Gifts, and Hobbies. You shuffle everything around.

That's the danger of making the items dependent on each other. It doesn't scale.

Eventually you hang your pictures, but still have to buy the lamp. You also have to buy a gift for your niece. You find the categories too limiting. You have the bright idea of using subcategories. Buying the gifts for your niece and mother are both in the Gifts categories, but they are also Errands. So you make Gifts be a subcategory of Errands. Now if you want to see what Gifts you have to buy, you can just look under "Gifts". And if you want to see all of the Errands you need to run, you can just look under Errands, and see both your normal Errands AND the Gifts you need to buy. Groovy!

Except... one of the gifts for your niece is going to be a dolly that you make. You make dolls in your spare time. You have all the materials at hand, you don't need to go out and buy any. You just need to make the damn dolly. That's not an Errand. It's a Gift.

So you pull Gifts onto its own level so it's not a subcategory of Errand anymore. But... now the other Gifts aren't Errands anymore either.

So, you get the bright idea of using multiple categorization. This is awesome! Now you can specify that some of your Gifts are Errands, and some aren't, even though they are all Gifts. Now when you look up under Errands, you see everything that is marked as an Errand, even if some of those items have multiple categories.

You find out you have an allergy to nuts. You mark it as Doctors Appointment, and also as Groceries. You ding your car - mark it as Insurance, Auto, and Errands. Everything's great! Now whenever you are in the mood to work on your garage, you can just click on the Garage category and do everything on that list. Let the categories think for you!

Except... now you have so many categories that you feel kind of like you need to start categorizing them. Plus, you forgot to put your Allergy To Nuts item in your Stuff To Keep Mom Happy So She Doesn't Send Me Bitter-Tasting Fruitcake. She sends you fruitcake, you eat it, you get deathly sick. If you had had Health as a subcategory in Stuff To Keep Mom Happy So She Doesn't Send Me Bitter-Tasting Fruitcake, then you wouldn't have had that problem.

So what do you do now? Is this where you just start to think your life has gotten too complicated and you whine for someone to take it away? Will someone help me file my papers in my filing cabinet?

Hart Mentions NeoCons

Blog :: Gary Hart :: Restoring the American Republic

I mentioned in an email to a contact that the first democratic candidate who actually mentioned neocons would probably get my vote. I was making the point that I doubted any of them would actually have the guts. Well, (former) Senator Hart mentions them here. He's not running yet, but I guess I hope he does. He's the closest candidate to fitting my description from a few entries ago; a progressive who can pass as a centrist. Plus, his foreign policy credentials are unmatched from the other nine candidates.

Update: Damn. He's not running. That sucks.

WMD (Not) In Iraq

Sunday Herald

This is a newspaper in Scotland, I believe. I don't know how much to trust it. But it says that that US officials admit that they never honestly expected to find a huge arsenal of WMD.

Fighting Telemarketers

How To Make A Telemarketer Cry (or, Suing Bozos for Fun & Profit)

Here's a good yarn of a lawyer who fought a telemarketer - has lots of good links about tools to use to identify the yahoos calling you.

Double Binds And NLP

"Modelling the Structure of Double Binds" by James Lawley

This is an interesting paper that explores the concept of the "Double Bind", which is basically the pattern of, "I'm screwed if I do this, I'm screwed if I do its opposite, and I'm screwed if I do neither." It's a way that people are drawn to express conflicts as no-win situations.

What's also interesting is that it offers a solution to escape the pattern that is purely diagnostic and non-emotional. I just love how it talks about creating the circumstances in which transformation can occur and then waits for it to happen spontaneously. (sarcasm if it wasn't clear).

It's probably because this article comes from an NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) journal, which is a frustrating form of therapy in its mixture of good and bad points. It's very much about noticing, identifying, and synthesizing/integrating patterns we all indulge in, patterns that might be getting in the way of our health. That's good. But its strategy for breaking these patterns is through conditioning; creating change in the pattern's surrounding environment. Rather than actual emotional acceptance of the "opposing" force. The reason this is bad is because it doesn't leave room for the possibility that there is a positive reason for a negatively manifesting symptom. If NLP even works, all it means is that the same misunderstood emotional reality will later seek a different way to express and manifest itself, perhaps even through more corrupt means. Which is probably good for both the validation and revenue of the NLP business...

Copland and McCarthy

Congressional Testimony

Aaron Copland was called before Congressional Hearings held by McCarthy to explore his connection to communism. I'm sure there are plenty of fascinating testimonies in this collection, but Copland was interesting to me just because he's one of my favorite composers. To find it, load the page and search for "Copland". It shows many of the dirty tricks people use to question people when they are on a witch hunt.

X-Men Politics

Seeing 'X2' as a political education

I saw this movie on Friday and really enjoyed it. This particular article attempts to tie in X2 with the liberal experience of the Iraqi war. It's a weak tie-in, but it does at least bring up a few thoughts that I want to let tumble around in my head a bit.

President Lieberman

Salon thinks Lieberman outperformed the other candidates.

There wouldn't be a worse thing for the 2004 election than if Lieberman won the Democratic nomination. He's the most conservative of all the candidates, the most "Bush Lite", and offers no representation to those who have an interest in the right to privacy. Those who care most about aggressive foreign policy and strong moral values, and those who respond to a folksy neighborly fellow, would probably just vote for Bush. Those who care most about the economy and "other domestic items" would probably be drawn to whatever third-party candidate would inevitably surface to challenge him. Most of the appeal of Lieberman is his "electability", a diagnostic term that has less to do with voter appeal and more to do with attempting to guilt the voters into "doing the right thing". The problem is that he's a compromise candidate, and there's a difference between compromising on an issue and compromising on a candidate. Voters know this, and it's why, if he gets the nomination, we will see even more third-party "vote stealing" squabbling than we saw even in the 2000 election.

The problem is that they've got their strategy all wrong. If you want to win, you don't pick a centrist that pretends at times to be an extremist. You don't frustrate the attuned senses of the loyalists to try and lock in the inherent wafflers. You do what the Republicans did with Bush - you pick an extremist that can act like a centrist. Right now the Democrats don't have one of those, we haven't for a while, and until we do we are probably screwed.

Lieberman better not win. I've written before about how after thinking for a long time, I believe voting for the principled "third party" candidate is an unprincipled vote if the vote is submitted in an unprincipled system (as ours is). But if Lieberman is elected, it would show that the Democratic party has learned absolutely nothing from 2000, and that the party as it is now needs to be destroyed as soon as possible. There's no way I vote for someone who places personal morals above citizen freedoms. Freedom IS moral.

Domain Name Frustration

God, that was freaky. One of the domain names that I am not responsible for, but have an active interest in, expired. I only found out randomly. Four days expired. I have no idea how those expiration processes work, maybe there's a big grace period or something. Anyway, I paid for it off of my credit card (and let the site maintainers know that they should pay me back). That would have been bad had it expired, because it would have meant that a successful singing group would have seen their site transform into a porn site. :-)

Life In The Studio

ProSoundWeb | Week 1: MM documentary pg. 1

I saw this linked from an article off of slashdot. It is a journal by an audio engineer working on a major label project for a new group, and it's hilarious, detailed, tedious, and above all, fascinating. Well, there's one thing above that - it's LONG. If you're going to read it, split it across a few days. It is quite, quite good though.

Theory

That the administration has WMD in Iraq, has for a while, (whether the evidence is real or manufactured), and are just holding them back while waiting for the democrats to overextend themselves by implying they were never there. Instant campaign issue.

Small Noticings

Technology: I found a company that offers free conference calling. I've already hooked my blog up to GeoURL, but it looks like I can do some nifty stuff with BlogChalking and BlogMapper, too. I'm learning about MoBlogging. Finally, I read Joi Ito's Emergent Democracy paper and my brain practically exploded. My main two impressions are that the whole "emergent" spin has a subtly authoritarian flavor that de-emphasizes the consciousness of the individual participating humans (including our ability and desire to BREAK rules, go against instinct, cut against the grain, all of which I believe are strengths), and that the main missing step in all this is the part that translates thought and discussion into ACTION, and encouraging that action. I will write a more detailed summary of my thoughts later.

Politics: I had to tell Adam, the presidential candidate, that he wasn't eligible to run due to the 35-year age limit in clause 5 of Article II of the Constitution. But then I realized I had misread his age. He'd be 34 upon election, but 35 before inauguration. I'm sending him campaign suggestions. He also tells me about how to (almost) register to vote online, which answers a question I had in an earlier blog entry. Evidently, there are constitutional loopholes that would allow Bill Clinton to become president again. I also found some Constitution Cliff Notes. Oregon State Bill 655 (the state "Super-DMCA") looks pretty scary. I wrote my rep (Greenlick) and senator (Ringo), and neither had heard of it. Ringo wrote back and it turns out he sits on the committee it's assigned to. His aide looked into it from my email, they realized they had concerns, and Ringo will be bringing up these concerns in the next public hearing. As I wrote in the followup email I sent tonight:

There are so many problems with it. For one thing, someone can be guilty of the crime even if they are not involved with any sort of transaction or usage. "... possesses, manufactures, develops, assembles, modifies, programs, promotes...". Not only that, but doing so with a device that can *manufacture* such a device. I admit I'm rather libertarian when it comes to technology freedom, but that's absolutely ridiculous.

Surprising that neither had heard of it. Encouraging that one guy can just drop an email to his state representation and actually see change start to happen.

MoBlogging

Joi Ito's Web: mail2entry moblog code update

Using this, if you have a cell phone that can take pictures, you can snap a picture, send it as an email, optionally with some text, and it will then show up on your weblog. Neat.

There are also audioblogging services so you can post mp3s of your voice onto your blog just by making a phone call.