This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter).
Posts here are rare these days. For current stuff, follow me on Mastodon
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Ah yes, this is the way it is supposed to work…
The House That Roared by Juliet Eilperin and Albert B. Crenshaw in the Washington Post
Republicans recounted indignities of their own: When Rep. Scott McInnis (R-Colo.) had told Stark to “shut up” during the committee meeting, Stark denounced him as “a little wimp. Come on, come over here and make me, I dare you. . . . You little fruitcake. You little fruitcake. I said you are a fruitcake.”
Actually, while all the tensions of this situation are a bit comical, the real problem here is that we don’t have a divided government right now. The whole separation of powers between the branches was designed to put checks and balances in place between the branches. In the original design, part of this was making sure the house, senate, president (and court for that matter) were all decided in different ways and served different constituancies.
The house was elected in small districts directly by the people, and was the representation for the PEOPLE.
The senate was appointed by the state legislatures and represnted the STATES.
The president was appointed by the electoral college and represented the NATIONAL STATE
Unfortunately, very quickly after President Washington, the electoral college ceased to be a deliberative body as it was intended to be, and became a rubber stamp for those electing the electors, to the point today that we usually don’t even know who the electors are, and only who they are “pledged” to. They weren’t even supposed to be behoilden to a specific presidential candidate before the election in the way it was supposed to work!! You were supposed to choose people to be electors who had good judgement and who could make the decision to pick the president from those nominated by the electoral college when they met. Don’t even get me started on how much of a corruption even HAVING primaries is… Anyway, while the way electors are proportioned between the states is slightly different than how it is done in the house, it is very close, essentially making the constituancy of both the president and the house to be almost the same. Thus weakening the differences of interest inherant in the design, and weakening the checks and balances.
Anyway, it was further corrupted by the 17th Amendment to the Constitution, which instituted the popular election of senators, thus depriving completely the states of a voice in the federal government, and once again aligning the constituancies and interests of the senate with the house and the president. Once again weakening the checks and balances.
And so we end up with a system that originally carefully seperated the interests of the three bodies, to ensure stong checks and balances and differences between the bodies, with one where the interests are now closely aligned. Now the ONLY time the checks and balances actually work as they were intended to work is when we have divided government, with the presidency and the congress in different hands. Because this is the only time the bodies will truely conflict with each other, resulting in the blunting of extreme actions on any side, and the forging of more reasonable compromises. (Although, I must admit, even in divided government, the congress often rolls over and does not protest at the encroachment of executive power into many areas that it should be protective of.)
Anyway… whenever there is no division, and we have all Republican control, or we have all Democratic control as has occured previously, you get the potental for unchecked abuses by both the congress and the presidency. Given that the other factors which attempted to ensure differences in interests between the branches have eroded or failed, divided government is really needed. Hopefully at the election the Dems will be able to take either the congress, or the presidency, BUT NOT BOTH.
OK, so I am buying a house. I am about to leave this apartment. I have been in this apartment for almost seven years. But in the last two weeks something has happened that has never happened before here.
I had a new set of neighbors move into the apartment directly below me about a week ago. And they are loud. Almost every night they are playing really loud music, with a big thumping bass line. I can feel the vibrations with every beat. And it sounds like for the second time since they have been here they are having a party or something. I hear lots and lots of loud voices from below. Muffled, but loud. And occationally loud TV noises too.
These people must be deaf or going deaf. None of my other neighbors have ever played their stuff this loud or made so much damn noise. I am trying to just watch a little TV here, and maybe sleep, but it is loud enough to be distracting.
This sucks.
I am glad I am moving in… 24 days… Woo!
So, I was supposed to meet Brandy after work to review more papers on the house. But the papers were not ready. But she called and was all saying she’d had a rough week and how about a drink. I was very tired, but got talked into it. We met near my new house. At which point it was noticed that smoke was pouring out of the front of my car and coolant was spurting out and leaking all over the ground. Oh good.
So we bought some new coolant at the nearby grocery store, went to Pizzaria Uno and had a drink while the stupid thing cooled down, then I filled up the coolant and drove home without it overheating again.
But this means in the morning I have to take it in to the dealer to have them fix the leak. Which means I have to get up way early since in the afternoon I am meeting Kelly to help me pick out and buy a new suit. I ruined my old suit by washing it by mistake, and I have a wedding to go to in a couple of weeks.
Anyway, I’ll have to deal with the car in the morning before that. Poo.
Kasp is ready to try again against another computer. I wonder if I’ll be able to get tickets again! These are fun to watch. And I always love rooting for the computer. They shouldn’t let the computer accept draws though!
Machine vs. Man: Checkmate (Steven Levy of Newsweek on msnbc.com)
Still, Kasparov is preparing to throw himself into the breach once more. In November he will play his third computer opponent in a highly touted match. The first, of course, was IBM’s Deep Blue, which in 1997 beat him in a battle that he insists to this day was unfairly stacked against him. Then, earlier this year, he fought to an unsatisfying draw against Deep Junior, programmed by two Israelis. Next up will be X3d Fritz…
(via ChessWatch)
OK, I know I am not going to be able to resist this. There is a wall in the loft of the new place that I think would be perfect to turn into a television. But I probably really should wait until after closing to buy it and a mounting bracket for it (so I can hang it from the ceiling). I am resisting the temptation to hit the “buy” button now. At under a grand now, these things are looking much better than they did when they cost five times that much…
InFocus X1: Another Price/Performance Breakthrough (Evan Powell on projectorcentral.com)
The simple economics of the situation will stimulate consumers who have never considered anything other than a television to think twice. Time was when projectors were for the rich, and the typical consumer had to stay with television. With the X1, the question will be “can you afford not to go front projection?”
Noticed yesterday that Randy registered for this site. Cool. Thanks Randy. Of course, I don’t think that actually achieves anything at this point. Originally I had it set up so you could only post comments if you were registered. But I turned that off after the second day. I think right now, the only thing you get if you register is the ability to see the other registered people.
I could make it so other registered people could actually add new entries (a “group blog”) but I don’t think I want to do that.
I suppose I could do something like email all the registered people whenever I do an update too. But I’m not sure about that whole thing.
I also discovered that with the free version of this software the mail features (like, send Sam an email whenever anyone leaves a comment) only work if you have an SMTP server running on the webserver, which I don’t right now. The Pro version lets you use an external SMTP server, and has a couple other interesting features. I may have to upgrade sometime.
Also though, while the old PowerMac G3 I’m running this on is fine for a static site, it is noticably slow with this dynamic site, and sometimes times out when I post new things. Kind of annoying. But when I get a new computer in January, I want to get another laptop, not a new desktop to use as a server!
Once again, this is a great speech. Read it. Read the whole thing.
Text of Prime Minister Blair’s Speech to Congress (Reuters at the Washington Post)
As Britain knows, all predominant power seems for a time invincible, but, in fact, it is transient.
The question is: What do you leave behind?
And what you can bequeath to this anxious world is the light of liberty.
That is what this struggle against terrorist groups or states is about. We’re not fighting for domination. We’re not fighting for an American world, though we want a world in which America is at ease. We’re not fighting for Christianity, but against religious fanaticism of all kinds.
And this is not a war of civilizations, because each civilization has a unique capacity to enrich the stock of human heritage.
We are fighting for the inalienable right of humankind — black or white, Christian or not, left, right or a million different — to be free, free to raise a family in love and hope, free to earn a living and be rewarded by your efforts, free not to bend your knee to any man in fear, free to be you so long as being you does not impair the freedom of others.
That’s what we’re fighting for. And it’s a battle worth fighting.
It may just be good speech writing and delivery, but it is *GOOD* speech writing and delivery. Conveying the message in a way I have not heard from W. Or if I have, it is somehow less convincing from him because of the other things he says and the stupid and disturbing things that come out of his mouth.
It may not convince me that the war was the right way to have gone about this, I think there were better ways that could have done less overall damage. But this leaves the impression that it comes from a man of integrity standing up for principals I can believe in and follow. One that thinks things through, and actually does have the world’s (and his country’s) best interests at heart.
By contrast, speeches by W make me feel like I am listening to a jingoistic idiot who has goals and objectives which I do not trust, and who I don’t believe thinks out or understands the full implications of his decisions and instead relies on the analysis of people who I trust even less.
Oh, and I liked his jokes near the beginning too:
Mr. Speaker, sir, my thrill on receiving this award was only a little diminished on being told that the first Congressional Gold Medal was awarded to George Washington for what Congress called his “wise and spirited conduct” in getting rid of the British out of Boston.
On our way down here, Senator Frist was kind enough to show me the fireplace where, in 1814, the British had burnt the Congress Library. I know this is, kind of, late, but sorry.
Actually, you know, my middle son was studying 18th century history and the American War of Independence, and he said to me the other day, “You know, Lord North, Dad, he was the British prime minister who lost us America. So just think, however many mistakes you’ll make, you’ll never make one that bad.”
And true, he didn’t address the problems with intelligence and other factors which rushed this thing along faster than needed, which is being shown more and more by the day. But I don’t think he needed to during this speech. It wasn’t the time and place for that.
Anyway, read the Blair speech. It is very good. Made me feel more patriotic than anything I heard anybody say on July 4th.
Wow. I just listened to Tony Blair’s speech to Congress. He blew me away. He is so much more convincing than W, so much more reasonable, and said all the right sorts of things. I would probably vote for this man in a second, whereas voting for W is pretty much unthinkable to me. I thought the way W rushed into Iraq was irresponsible and reckless. I think Tony would have worked toward the same result, even perhaps including the same level of military action, but just done it in a much better way.
In any case, Blair was very very impressive. If you missed the speech, look for a transcript or audio/video of it.
Anyway, more thoughts once I find a transcript online and am actually home from work and have time to think, as opposed to now when I have to get back to work.
For now, here’s a link to the CNN story on the speech.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/07/17/blair/index.html
Oh no, I saw this talk about gravity propigating at infinate speed, and just had to insert myself. Oh well.
What’s The Speed of Gravity? (Thread on tivocommunity.com)
Uh… several people have said that current experiments and theories predict an infinate speed for propigation of gravitational forces. This is just not correct. It was correct for Newton, but this was a big part of Einsteins General Relativity. One of the assumptions of the theory was in fact that gravitational forces would indeed propagate at exactly the speed of light.
Got in at 13:50 after once again taking my time at home. So six dollars for Kelly. I still feel very tired though. I slept on the couch, cause that is where I was, and I never sleep as well on the couch, which is probably why I do it 50% of the time. Anyway, still tired. Only one meeting today in the afternoon. The rest of my day today will be working through a couple of voice mails, a bunch of emails, and a huge pile of papers to evaluate and either throw away and read, and through all of this find items to add to my to do list.
It will be hard to keep awake. I think I will start with a walk to get a White Chocolate Molcha at the mini-Starbucks they have down the hall. I need to stop at the ATM too. Kelly took my last six dollars.
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