Why you should never put your photo on the Internet. Boy, I’ve broken that rule all over.

EDIT by matthew: The individual hosting the page has apparently decided to restrict access to it. I’ll see if I saved off the pictures — they were pretty funny.

I rarely read forwards.. but I read this one.. and I thought it would be appropriate in this forum

Why are We Still There? Every day there are news reports about more deaths. Every night on TV there are photos of death and destruction. Why are we still there?

Their highways are unsafe, killing 100’s daily. Why are we still there? We occupied this land, which we had to take by force, but it causes us nothing but trouble. Why are we still there?

Many of our children go there and never come back. Why are we still there? Their government is unstable, and they have sloppy leadership. Why are we still there? Many of their people are uncivilized. Many do not speak English.Why are we still there?

The place is subject to natural disasters, which we are supposed to bail them out of. Why are we still there?There are more than 1000 religious sects, which we do not understand. Why are we still there? Their traditions, foods and fads are unfathomable to ordinary Americans. Why are we still there?

We can’t even secure the borders. Why are we still there? They are billions of dollars in debt and it will cost billions more to rebuild, which we can’t afford. Why are we still there?

It is becoming clear..WE MUST PULL OUT OF CALIFORNIA! Same for Massachusetts.

Paul Murphy has an article up at Murphy Maphia about the rise in esophageal cancer which corresponds to soft drink intake. As always, Murphy Maphia supports Drupal Distributed Authentication, so you can log in over there using “my_name@barnson.org” and your password here.

Ok, I rarely post anything here but I read it all the time. I wanted to put my two cents in about things going on this summer.

After being upset that the orignal concert was cancelled because I paid a fortune for tickets. David Bowie rescheduled it for last night. Let me tell you for a man that is 57 years old, he still has it.

I used to be a huge fan in high school but then stopped listening for one reason or another. So when I heard he was having a concert, I thought what the heck. I had an opportunity to purchase tickets BEFORE they went on sale. I paid alot for them and had floor seats. He canceled his orignial concert in December because he had the flu. Good thing, I think I had it the same time he did.

Stereophonics opened for him and they were pretty good. Sang for about 30 minutes and then the set had to be changed. By 8pm, David was on stage, the place was PACKED. He was incredible. He sang until 11:30 last night. I don’t think anyone who went will be able to talk today…everybody was screaming and dancing.

Just thought I would share how I am starting my summer….not too shabby I do say so myself!!!

Hey Matt, Thanks for returning my Big Azz pliers.

In 1999, when I was still in college, complete with a slow moving dial up internet connection, I spent a good five months playing “Lords of the Realm 2”.. a strategy game that was basically SimCity (Turn based resource management) meets Warcraft (Battlefield strategies).

Yesterday, I finally loaded up and started to play the game I’ve been looking forward to more than any other for 5 years. LORDS OF THE REALM 3.

Today, I am going to uninstall it and throw it away. The interface is awful, it runs badly, it is completely different, and well, it isn’t worthy of the name.

So, that being said, I may go out and pick up “Civilization”, which I have been told is a great strategy and resource management game… I’m not sure. If I do, I’m sure it will be fun, but it won’t be the same. I was looking forward to this since I first heard about it years ago.. I was hoping it would take up my summer (finally a summer with no school).

I feel kind of like when i saw “Batman and Robin”. I looked forward to that for a while too.. and what I got made me want to leave the theatre.

So.. if anyone’s reading.. 1) Any suggestions gamewise? 2) Anyone been terribly disappointed by follow ups? Games, Movies, CDs?

I went to my first major metro city council meeting yesterday. Overall, my impression was that, 1) these people are professional blowhards, and 2) nothing gets decided on in meetings. I could see where every agenda item had been previously discussed and the council session was a formality in which prepared statements were issued by concurring and dissenting votes.

Did I mention they were blowhards? Professional, salaried blowhards?

The purpose of this longwinded missive is to show my frustration over publicly elected officials voting their own interests rather than voting for what the voters ask.

The reason I attended the council session was to watch the introduction of a smoking ban in bars and restaurants get quickly referred to a committee. Did you think the council would actually openly discuss their views on the matter, unrehearsed, council member-to-council member, making a stand and possible decision on a sensitive subject that has no doubt been on their minds for some time. Do not be a fool. OF COURSE they aren’t going to outright state their opinion. Not with the members of the media there hawking for off-the-cuff statements to turn into a luscious front page story in which Minneapolis council members are painted as unsensitive public health slayers. No, instead, the council quietly usher the smoking ban to several committees, where it will no doubt be fattened with political stagnation and slaughtered before it can ever rise up for actual ratification.

Actually, there had been a good amount of press coverage regarding the issue. Last week, 6 of the 13 Minneapolis council members called a press conference introducing the ordinance to ban smoking. Media had been informed. Public had been teased. And the public responded. Apparently, all 13 council member offices were flooded with calls, the large majority of which asked for a smoking ban. Yes, actual voters called in. Asking for a ban.

How do I know this? Because I called each council member’s office. And their assistant gave me the council member’s stance on the issue. So, they all have a stance. The all have a position. But they won’t discuss it at the council meeting. Especially my council member who is against the ban because he thinks patrons will flee the city and go to surrounding areas that allow smoking.

www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/council/ward13

This dude is either thinking in a fat, Upper Midwest, whitebread bubble or is getting influenced by a local hospitality industry sweetened with supplier support dollars from Big Tobacco. But he is not alone. Other council members follow this link of thinking.

This reason is absurd. The hospitality industry wants them to believe this fallacy. Look around the country: where has a ban on smoking hurt a large city? NYC and Boston citizens aren’t running from the metro to other cities that offer smoking. There is no precedent or data that shows a ban to destroy the local economy. Patrons aren’t going to run from Minneapolis to St. Paul. In fact, more people will go out to Minneapolis nightclubs & restaurants and spend more money. People are waiting for this ban to become a reality. Remember? They all called in to say so?

Most importantly, recent medical studies show that the elimination of smoking in public places reduces heart risk in metro areas (ACC 2004). There is, however, no stastical evidence from the hospitality assocation that shows how a smoking ban depresses their revenues. A vote against a smoking ban demonstrates that my council member cares more for a dollar sign than the long-term health of citizens.

Plus, there’s been talk over the government’s role in restricting how businesses serve their customers. But who was skeptical when Minnesota became the first state to ban smoking in the private workplace? No one seemed skeptical when the government forced private airlines to ban smoking in their planes for health reasons. The government has also forced private hospitals to ban smoking in public areas for health reasons as well.

Here’s what I don’t get (my overall point): the majority of constituents are in favor of a ban. Is it not my council member’s representational duty to carry out the wishes of voters? Voters understand the issue and are aware that the long-term health effects outweigh any unfounded assertion of commercial loss.

Aren’t these council members supposed to listen to their voters and execute?

I can think of a couple strategies for attacking my council member, because direct face-to-face isn’t going to work. I tried this yesterday when I approached him at the council city meeting break. He said, “You and I just see differently on this issue.” He made this point clear when he voted against sending the issue into committee!

(Because I’ve been scolded before for issuing vulgarity on this site I will refrain from calling my council member a SMUG PRICK.)

My strategy is to create a loosely legitimate new neighborhood task force called the Linden Hills Against Smoking and to start calling around the papers detailing how my council member is for cancer and disease and heart failure and cancer while his constituents have asked him to ratify a ban.

Word up.

Get in Groove, Sammy G

EDIT by matthew: Linked.

Sturgeon’s Law says that “90% of most things are crap”. Do you agree?

Bruce Perens is a noted Open-Source advocate, former employee of Pixar Animation, compelling writer, and noted programmer. He spoke a few years ago at the annual convention for the Utah State University Free Software and Linux User’s Group. Well, OK, calling it a convention when it only involved a few dozen people is a bit of a stretch.

Anyway, I was impressed by his ideas, though he’s definitely a better writer than presenter. In person, he’s actually a bit… what’s the best description… non-charismatic. But he’s been a seminal influence in the Free and Open-Source software communities, and his opinions have a great deal of respect for being on-target. Over the last few years, it seems his attention has been largely focussed on the legal issues related to free software, and broadening more and more into over-arching issues of freedom in the U.S. and abroad. He released the piece below in the early-morning hours today. Do you think he’s right?

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Why Our Boys Tortured and Murdered Prisoners

Bruce Perens <bruce@perens.com>

American GIs have tortured and murdered prisoners in Iraq. How could Americans have done this? Because we showed our GIs, by our example, that the rules have changed, that this isn’t the America they knew.

We started by showing them their votes wouldn’t be counted. Problems with ballots in Florida, the state governed by Mr. Bush’s brother, were severe enough to put in doubt which candidate won the election. Studies commissioned by two different newspapers concluded that Mr. Gore should have been declared the winner.

We showed them that our courts were biased. When the Supreme Court had to rule upon the failed election, the vote of the judges was divided upon political party lines.

We showed them that they’d lay their lives down for a lie. Saddam Hussein was a monster. But the weapons of mass destruction that Mr. Bush used to justify the invasion of Iraq still haven’t been found. And there doesn’t seem to be any connection between Iraq and 9/11. Ex Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neill reports that Bush planned the Iraq war before 9/11 and the election.

We showed them that our leaders embrace our enemies. George Bush Senior’s Carlyle Group handled the bin Laden family’s investments. Days after 9/11, while U.S. airspace was still closed to regular citizens, private jets sanctioned by the Bush administration evacuated 140 high-ranking Saudi Arabians, including the bin Laden family, from the United States. In 1983, while the U.S. was still assisting the dictator, Donald Rumsfeld was photographed shaking hands with Saadam Hussein.

We showed them that the White House was run for private financial gain. Vice President Cheney’s Haliburton Company was made the prime contractor for the tremendous project to rehabilitate Iraq. Mr. Bush didn’t even want to put this contract out for competitive bid. Oilman Bush maintained close connections with the fraudulent Enron executives and allowed them to directly set American energy policy.

We showed them that separation of church and state did not exist. The ban on stem-cell research, the ban on partial-birth abortion when the mother’s health would be at risk from continuation of the pregnancy, and the furor over same-sex marriage has shown that many states and the federal government still allow religion to drive civil law.

We showed them that America had become intolerant, and that our priorities were not with our soldiers in Iraq. While our boys were dying in Iraq and the torture had already started, we preferred to concern ourselves with a fit of national prudery over the exposure of Janet Jackson’s breast on television.

We showed them that civil liberties had been erased. The draconian PATRIOT act allows Americans to be jailed without any charges, without the right to confront witnesses against them, and they can be kept in jail indefinitely without a trail. It legalizes search and seizure without probable cause, denies the accused’s right to legal counsel, and restricts the right to free speech.

We Americans showed our boys that all of the things we held sacred about The Land of The Free were dead. Should it then have been any surprise that, following our example, their actions would not be unlike those of Nazi death-camp guards?

Mr. Bush is responsible. It is the social changes of the Bush administration, not Mr. Rumsfeld’s supervision of the Armed Forces, that set the context for the torture and murders.

We can prevent more torture and murder by showing our boys that America is not a lie. To do so, we must reverse the damage that Mr. Bush has done to our nation. The first step upon that path is to vote him out of office.

Bruce Perens

The master version of this editorial is at http://perens.com/Articles/WhyOurBoys.html Please check that location for the most recent version.
You may re-publish this editorial. You may excerpt it, reformat it and translate it as necessary for your presentation. You may not edit it to deliberately misrepresent my opinion. Most recent edit date: Mon May 10 14:31:20 UTC 2004

Well, the summer movie season is on us again, and I thought I’d list the movies I want to see…

I started last night with Van Helsing – arguably the most laughable, ridiculous movie I’ve seen in ages.. and it is so brainless and silly that I give it two thumbs up.

So, by weekend:

5/7 – Van helsing 5/14 – Troy 5/21 – Shrek 2 5/28 – The Day After Tomorrow 6/4 – Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban 6/11 – Tossup: Chronicles of Riddick -or- The Stepford Wives 6/18 – Tossup: Around the World in 80 Days -or- Terminal 6/26 – (Slow Weekend) Garfield (May stay home this weekend) 6/30 – SPIDER MAN 2!! 7/9 – Anchorman (Not king arthur) 7/16 – I, Robot (But a Vegas trip may delay this) 7/23 – The Bourne Supremacy (No tossup here, skip Catwoman) 7/30 – The Village (Maybe Thunderbirds) 8/6 – Collateral (But may use to catch up on movies I’ve missed) 8/13 – Alien Vs. Predator (Princess Diaries 2 for the kids) 8/20 – Exorcist: The Beginning (Waiting to see reviews) 8/27 – Anaconda 2, then again.. I’ll skip this one..

TOP 5 anticipated for the summer:

1) Spider Man 2 2) Alien vs. Predator 3) Shrek 2 4) The Day after Tomorrow 5) The Bourne Supremacy

LOOKING AHEAD TO NEXT SUMMER 2005: 1) Star Wars, Episode 3 2) Batman Begins 3) Mission Impossible 3 4) Charlie and The Chocolate Factory 5) The Pink Panther (These will probably change as new releases are announced)