Times Picayune columnist Chris Rose recently has an interesting idea. He tells in this column how he attempted to book a lot of Oxford, Mississippi’s 650 hotel rooms for the night of the presidential debate to be held there. And found that they’d already been booked. So here’s another idea:
January 2008 archive
Jan 25 2008
Sharing Music
I don’t think I could express how much music means to me and what has influenced my perceptions and taste, but I’ve been really happy to see a resurgence of meaningful good music and I wanted to at least try and say something about it.
For christmas this year I got my mom’s record collection, and the amount and range of great albums she had started me thinking about the effect of collectively being influenced by music. I don’t know many people who dislike music, and most are at least affected by it emotionally in some way. So it has to do something right?
Jan 25 2008
Gulf Coast Slideshow!!
Jan 25 2008
Pony Party, Phone it in Friday
the game i had auto-published last night had an annoying soundtrack i couldnt turn off, so i had to delete that party and start again verrrry early in the morning……so this party is more ‘phoned-in’ than the usual friday offering….
i suspect this is a choking hazard….
Jan 25 2008
40 Years – Remembering Tet 1968
In August of 1967 General William Westmoreland claimed to have hurt the enemy so badly that “their major efforts” were limited to the periphery of South Vietnam.
“We have reached an important point when the end becomes to come into view,” General Westmoreland said in his speech to the National Press Club in Washington on November 21, 1967. “We are making progress…it (success) lies within our grasp, the enemy’s hopes are bankrupt.”
Meanwhile –
General Vo Nguyen Giap explained how and why the Hanoi leders had enticed the American forces to the borders of the South in an extended two-part article published in Quan Doi Nhan Dan (The Army of the People) published in September 1967. Giap cited the fighting along the DMZ and in the Central Highlands as principal examples of Hanoi’s strategy at work.
Quoted from A Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan
The Offensive began on the eve of the lunar new year, 30 January 1968. In it’s early hours Westmoreland still contended that the Tet attacks were a diversion and that the real objective was Khe Sanh.
Jan 25 2008
Docudharma Times Friday January 25
This is an Open Thread: Who’s behind the door?
U.S. Asking Iraq for Wide Rights on War
WASHINGTON – With its international mandate in Iraq set to expire in 11 months, the Bush administration will insist that the government in Baghdad give the United States broad authority to conduct combat operations and guarantee civilian contractors specific legal protections from Iraqi law, according to administration and military officials.
This emerging American negotiating position faces a potential buzz saw of opposition from Iraq, with its fragmented Parliament, weak central government and deep sensitivities about being seen as a dependent state, according to these officials.
Jan 25 2008
What are you reading?
The regular list
If you like to trade books, try BookMooch.
What are you reading? is crossposted to dailyKos
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein. OK, his social theories are wacky, but it’s a hell of a good story
the boy would live forever by Fred Pohl. In the Gateway series. Fun.
Statistical models: Theory and practice by David Freedman. Delves into the details of models, without getting overly mathematical.
The politics of congressional elections” by Gary Jacobson ….nicely geeky
Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow. Barely started, but it is already impressive (as is the subject)
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet. Interesting novel about 12th century England
The Art of Mathematics by Bela Belobas. Interesting, easily stated math problems. For slow solving.
Jan 25 2008
Muse in the Morning
 Muse in the Morning |
The muses are ancient. The inspirations for our stories were said to be born from them. Muses of song and dance, or poetry and prose, of comedy and tragedy, of the inward and the outward. In one version they are Calliope, Euterpe and Terpsichore, Erato and Clio, Thalia and Melpomene, Polyhymnia and Urania.
It has also been traditional to name a tenth muse. Plato declared Sappho to be the tenth muse, the muse of women poets. Others have been suggested throughout the centuries. I don’t have a name for one, but I do think there should be a muse for the graphical arts. And maybe there should be many more.
Please join us inside to celebrate our various muses…
Jan 25 2008
The Stars Hollow Gazette
Maybe Monday.
I want to keep on this FISA/PAA attack because Obi Wan, it’s our only hope. Or is it? Greenwald says it’s the only way into the bowels of this administration’s misdeeds, but probably not there are so many of them.
The blogger on top of the details is (as you might suspect if you’ve been paying attention) Tim Tagaris lately of the Dodd campaign. He may be posting elsewhere, but I’m mostly running across him at Open Left (ttagaris@dK, 1 diary a day bites kos- we were 0 == ‘Hide’ before you!).
His latest is time stamped 14:46:21 PM EST and practically all of it is-
Hearing now that Reid filed a 30-day extension and then filed cloture on that extension. If cloture is not invoked on Monday at 4:30, we’ll then vote on invoking cloture on extension.
Previous to that he posted-
Now! We might have a showdown
by: Tim Tagaris
Thu Jan 24, 2008 at 14:05:25 PM EST
Here’s where we stand right now to the best of my knowledge.
There will be a cloture vote at 4:30 on Monday. There are two potential outcomes here.
a.) Republicans get 60 votes. In which case, there will only be one amendment pending to the final bill, and that is Feingold/Dodd on blanket warrants, I believe. That will get tabled quite easily (much like Judiciary was today), and then the Intelligence Bill as we know it will get a a vote for final passage. b.) We stop Republicans from getting 60 votes, and we’re right back where we left off today — with no agreement on whether or not there is a 50 or 60 vote threshold to pass amendments.
Why is this a big deal?
Well, because there are a number of amendments out there that would serve as “poison pills,” forcing a presidential veto.
Before people got all bogged down in Thug debate crap we had this-
FISA: Republican Temper Tantrums
by mcjoan
Thu Jan 24, 2008 at 03:11:18 PM PST
We need 41 votes to prevent this. That means flipping members of the gang that caved on the Leahy amendment and/or Clinton and Obama returning to DC for the Monday vote, which is very likely given that the SC primary will be over and that is the night of the state of the union.
If the Democrats can hold together on this one, if they do more than just 41 votes but actually hold together as a party against this massive Republican abuse, this bill can be derailed. And this is a massive Republican abuse. Every Democrat who had an amendment pending, and that includes Diane Feinstein and Sheldon Whitehouse, need to vote with the Democrats to prevent cloture on Monday.
Hit the phones, e-mail, and faxes hard until Monday afternoon, folks. We need to flip as many of these as possible.
And from emptywheel on FDL this action list-
The Republicans have refused to allow an “upperdown” vote on any amendment since the Leahy substitution amendment went through. They’ve called for a cloture vote to vote on the SSCI bill, with just one minor amendment.
…
… several of these amendments, though they propose something the Administration has said would be okay, would really cause Bush to veto the bill.
The idea is cloture allows Bush to conduct his spying as he wants to, with Congressional approval. Whereas Reid wants to deliver what Bush has said he needs, rather than what he really wants but won’t admit to.
…
We’ve got three and a half days to get at least three of the following people to flip their votes from the vote on the Leahy substitution:
Bayh (202) 224-5623
Carper (202) 224-2441
Inouye (202) 224-3934
Johnson (202) 224-5842
Landrieu (202)224-5824
McCaskill (202) 224-6154
Mikulski (202) 224-4654
Nelson (FL) (202) 224-5274
Nelson (NE) (202) 224-6551
Pryor (202) 224-2353
Salazar (202) 224-5852
Specter (202) 224-4254 (What the hell–he had an amendment ignored today, too)…
We can win this one.
These are the posts referenced by Glenn Greenwald in his next to last update before he urges you to tune into Tim Tagaris.
So there you have it. The current situation as far as I know it.
Of course there were thousands of comments in the live blogging threads. Good luck.
Jan 25 2008
Tech Talk – Old – Uploading your first web page!
So you’ve made your first web page based on the last tutorial and now you want to know how to change it and upload it. The most important thing to remember when working with web sites, web hosts and servers is that everything is based on files and folders just like your computer. On most hosts you’ll be allowed to access the folder “www” or “public-html” in your account. This is where you’ll be doing 99% of your work. Inside that folder you can create unlimited new folders for various parts of your website.
Editing Your Page
You already know the basics of HTML if you are posting on blogs. You know how to create links and most know how to add images. How the page looks now, however, is up to you. There are a number of free web design programs but I think it is important that you know how to do coding by hand. This way you’ll be able to locate and fix mistakes later on.
Open up your “myfirstpage.html” page which you stored on your desktop last time. Right click or double click anywhere on the page to and select “View Source” or “View Page Source”. You will see the coding you cut and pasted last time.
Now let’s personalize it:
Jan 25 2008
Climate “Clearly Out of Balance” (American Geophysical Union)
Cross-posted from THE ENVIRONMENTALIST
The American Geophysical Union (AGU) has updated its policy on climate change with the pronouncement that changes to the Earth’s climate system are “not natural.”
The Earth’s climate is now clearly out of balance and is warming. Many components of the climate system-including the temperatures of the atmosphere, land and ocean, the extent of sea ice and mountain glaciers, the sea level, the distribution of precipitation, and the length of seasons-are now changing at rates and in patterns that are not natural and are best explained by the increased atmospheric abundances of greenhouse gases and aerosols generated by human activity during the 20th century.
More below the fold…