New Fed & New Blog Connection

Couple things happening online I'd like to bring to your attention:

Hey, there's a new Fed out now.

I would direct your attention to a brand new blog started by a self-professed drunk, surley, and self-obsessed grad student soon bound for Germany. I hear, and this is just a rumor, that she is HOT! HOT! HOT!

Also, thanks to the efforts of my partly-insane cable guy, I now have cable and internet in my apartment. One of the things about moving is that it forces you to encounter the strangest people. Mostly people who smell funny and are socially awkward. Still, new is new.

Move In Progress

President's Day Weekend was big-move weekend for Nelly and I. My movers came, and though they smelled of alcohol and cigarettes, they did a marvelous job moving my stuff in.

I have pictures. Most of the pictures were taken before Nelly's stuff arrived. So, to get the full picture, you'll have to imagine more furniture and more boxes strewn about.

From the street, facing east, first you have to climb the stairs...

Your first left takes you into the Living Room:
NorthWest, NorthEast, East, Fully Furnished

Left off the Living Room is the Master Bedroom:
NorthEast, SouthEast, South, SouthWest

Go back out to the hallway and head east, the next room is our Study:
To Be Painted, With Paint & Furniture

And then, at the end of the hallway, there's our beautiful Kitchen. Note the brand-new Fridgidaire fridge. And... la piece de resistance, the Dish Washer

And that's the tour. There's also a bathroom, but it's dimensions make it difficult to get a clean picture.

The place is coming along nicely. All the major tasks have been completed. Though there's obviously still some unpacking to do.

Busy Weekend

This weekend is going to be a busy one for Nelly and I. We are moving our furniture into our new apartment in Montclair, NJ. Tomorrow morning, the movers come for me and that will pretty much be the day I move into the new place permanently.

I wont have internet there until (hopefully) wednesday. May I just say that Comcast is rediculous, but they're the only broadband game in town. Unfortunately. I would like to register my disatisfaction with their customer service, their pricing, their website, and the incredible delays in activating new clients. Hopefully their actual cable/internet service is not as miserable.

Hopefully, after this weekend, I will have some nice pictures of the place for you to see. Keep an eye out (or subscribe to my RSS feed).

Also, is anyone else bothered by the fact that Pink Panther is the #1 movie? (Despite the abysmal ratings.) I think it would make more sense to me if I had kids.

Cheney Shoots,The Daily Show Scores

Cheney shot his friend and Jon Stewart and company are there with full-court coverage.

First, the news.

Then, the on scene coverage.

And finally, the analysis.

Oh thank you, Daily Show! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Shoot Your Friends

Dick Cheney


shot his buddy.


In the face.


With a shotgun.


Apparently, it was the dude's fault he got shot in the face. Oh. Of course. Dick Chenney, hunting quail -- a fat, slow moving bird -- ends up firing his gun right into his huntin' buddy. That's gonna be a tad awkward at the next fund-raiser.

It's not mentioned in any of the articles, but I'm sure there was some beer involved.

I really cannot believe that they're trying to blame the guy who got shot for this. None of the articles seems to be willing to point out the obvious. Dick Chenney spun and fired his shotgun wildly and struck his friend. (He did not, as far as I can tell, hit any birds.)

I think in a majority of hunting accidents, it's pretty clear that the person at fault is the person doing the shooting. Now, perhaps they are drunk. And perhaps they are tired. And perhaps they are pumped full of adrenaline about the prospect of killing some animals with a high-powered weapon, but that doesn't make the victim of the shooting responsible.

It's not like Whittington (the guy who was shot) was hiding behind some bushes in camo. He was walking up behind Cheney in the way that you would when someone is in front of you. "Hey look, there's my buddy Dick. Fat old Vice President Dick Cheney. Considering how out of shape the guy is, it's amazing he hasn't keeled over and died. I wonder if he has some more beer." <BANG>

I personally would not, but one could draw parallels between this hunting "accident" and other Bush administration follies. The shoot yourself in the foot imagery is definately appealing. Perhaps a satirist could draw Cheney shooting a dapper man (labeled Denmark) with a gun labeled Iraq War. That would certainly be an appropriate thing for a person to do.

In other news, it snowed here.

The Clandestine Bitch & Moan Society

Porter Goss has an opinion peace in today's New York Times. He's once again singing the refrain of "When the American people find out information about the activities of their government, the terrorists win."

The Daily Show did a pretty good job lampooning (video) this same argument when it was delivered by the Attorney General Gonzales. And it's just as much a non-sequitor coming from the head of the CIA.

Yes, the terrorists (whoever they may be -- Al-Qaeda's brand manager is a genius!) are viscious killers intent on killing americans and causing... er... terror. Yes they do not balk at torture, kidnapping, killing civilians, using weapons of mass destruction.

But we do. We do not want our military/intelligence services running secret torture centers out of former eastern block nations. We do not want our government abducting people and flying them around the world so that they can be tortured. We do not want our government listening in on our phone calls randomly and without a warrant just in case a terrorist decides to call his mom and say:

"Hi mom. I hope you don't mind me speaking English, _well_known_international_terrorist_ says we should practice all the time. Me and my friends _friends'_names_and_addresses_ are going to blow up the pentagon in a month. Seriously, on March _day_ at _time_, we're all going to get together at _leader_of_the_terrorist_cell_'s house and put on our bomb-_article_of_clothing_(Plural)_. Then we are going to hang out there for a couple hours and watch _left-leaning_tv_news_channel_. Yes, we are going to perform a terrorist attack on america. Yes we are. There can be no doubt. Thankfully,as far as I know, the _inept_US_intelligence_agency_(Acronym)_ doesn't have the technology to listen in on our conversations."

Which, if we're relying on the NSA/FBI to figure it out, is about the level of detail they'd need to divulge.

Look, CIA/NSA/FBI/ETC... You have a difficult job. That's why we give you billions of dollars every year to perform your clandestine operations. Their advantage is that they are not constrained by any rules. Your advantage is that you have way more people, technology, training, experience, and resources along with the cooperation of 90 percent of the world's governments.

You know, I'm just guessing, but I would think that would give you a pretty significant edge.

So please stop bitching about how every time you break the rules someone goes and tells on you.

I cannot maintain indignation

Perhaps it's all the cable tv and free internet. Or maybe it's just the volume of rediculousness that bombards me at every moment. But I just cannot maintain a sufficient level of indignation. I get in the car, I turn on the radio and the Attorney General is telling Congress that whatever the law says isn't their concern and they should just butt out.

And I am steaming when I get out of the car. However, once I get to the door, I have lost almost all that angry energy.

Perhaps it's something in the water.

And I have been thinking about posting about this whole wiretap issue for a while.

Meanwhile, have you seen the... err... "Mohammad Cartoons" They're not too hard to find, online. Most people I've talked to haven't actually seen the cartoons themselves. Mostly because American papers and media refuse to publish the images. Without having seen the images (but judging by the reaction in the Muslim world) I think a lot of people assume they're seriously offensive cartoons.

They're not. But the people in Lebanon are burning danish flags and embassies regardless. Regardless of the fact that this has nothing to do with the Danish embassy or the government of Denmark. Regardless of the fact that the images were published months and months ago and the Editor of the newspaper that published them had appologized. They're still going balistic in the middle east. (And the violence has spread now beyond anti-Denmark and onto anti-everybody.)

That's the sort of indignation that I am talking about. Perhaps that's why I cannot sustain my anger over Bush and company's power-grab, because all the anger in the world is already in use.