Help the CIA find those pesky WMDs!

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How wonderfully thoughtful — the CIA has posted a handy little online form so that people can submit tips on WMD locations (and other Iraq-related intel).

If you have information relating to Iraq which you believe might be of interest to the U.S. Government, please contact us through our secure online form. We will carefully protect all information you provide, including your identity.

To help us confirm and act quickly on your information, you must provide your full name, nationality, occupation and contact information including phone number. This allows the U. S. Government to grant rewards for valuable information. We will maintain strict confidentiality.

On the one hand, it’s definitely an interesting experiment. On the other hand, you can’t really help but get the feeling that they’re really stretching on this one.

(via BoingBoing)

iTunes: “Everything’s Cool (Safe as Milk)” by Pop Will Eat Itself from the album Two Fingers My Friends! (1995, 10:55).

Like, I guess I’ll just have to, like, get used to it now

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(Sigh) I suppose it was inevitable…

From the Fort Wayne Journal: Like, totally

Two decades after the song “Valley Girl” popularized it, a fresh effort is afoot to stamp out this linguistic quirk. The generation that grew up saying “like” is hitting adulthood – and the workforce. As a result, it is now in the lexicon of investment bankers, doctors and even teachers, where it can sound especially jarring. “I’m sure I say, ‘like’ a lot,” says Liza Sutherland, 28, a sixth-grade humanities teacher in New York. “I don’t worry so much about how my students speak.”

Like a verbal virus, this usage is also increasingly spreading to other English-speaking countries. British and Canadian kids now grease their sentences with the word. Sali Tagliamonte, professor of linguistics at the University of Toronto who has researched the speech of the elderly in the United Kingdom, found that they, too, have a surprising fondness for “like.” “If I showed you a written document of the conversation, you would think they were young women in North America, not 78-year-old ladies from Scotland,” she says.

[…]

Linguists say “like” has a growing number of meanings. It can act as a “hedge,” to tell the listener that what is being said is an approximation or an exaggeration. (Example: “She has, like, a gazillion shoes.”) It can also be a “focuser,” to declare that the next bit of information is important. (“He is, like, so hot.”) One of its most ubiquitous uses is as a substitute for “said.” (“So my mom was like, ‘Do your homework.’ And then I was like, ‘I did it at school.'”)

[…]

Defenders of the practice argue that these usages are just a natural evolution of the English language. Indeed, even some linguists say the word can be downright useful. When dropped into the middle of a sentence, for example, it gives the speaker time to gather his thoughts so he doesn’t say the first (sometimes insipid) thing that comes to mind. Studies also show that people who have learned not to use filler words are interrupted more often, and tend to use simpler sentences.

“It really is a wonderful, useful word,” says Muffy E.A. Siegel, an associate professor of English at Temple University in Philadelphia, who has studied the use of “like.”

Personally, this drives me up the ever-loving wall — and, of course, it’s even worse when I catch myself doing it!

Aah, the times they are a-changin’.

iTunes: “Innocent Children” by Crack Machine from the album Freak Accident (1994, 3:56).

Brother for sale

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Many years ago, I might have thought that this sounded like a really good idea…

Barbara Bennett wanted to sell her Brother brand sewing machine, so she bought a classified advertisement under “Miscellaneous” and “Items under \$50” in The Columbian newspaper.

Instead, the words “sewing machine” were accidentally dropped, leaving a “BROTHER” for sale ad.

(via Prairie)

Sponsorship

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I’m experimenting with something that I found via Snowman on the TPUG — sponsored weblog entries. Three posts on my site now have small, fairly unobtrusive text ads at the bottom of the post, for which I get some small amount of compensation.

I debated a bit back and forth on this when I first read about it, but finally figured it was at least worth a shot. At least these are paid for up front and are given with my permission, rather than just some random piece of comment spam showing up more or less at random.

And I’m certainly not above trying to make the occasional buck or two on all of this (oh, by the way, have you visited any of my three CafePress shops lately? …[ahem]…)! ;)

Now, if only Google would let me into their AdSense program…

iTunes: “No Sense At All” by Khan, Praga from the album Pragamatic (1998, 7:09).

Wartime President

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I was listening to “Sunday Edition” on the way to church. There was a story about President Bush’s appearance on “Meet The Press.” GWB wanted voters, when they go to the polls in Nov, to remember he is a “wartime President.”

There is a dark joke in Courthouses about a man who killed both his parents, then asked the judge to go easy on him as he is an orphan.

Yes, we were attacked on 9/11, but not by Iraq. My sisters and brothers in the military are being killed daily. GWB would not be a “wartime President” if he had not declared war, and gotten us into this unjust and immoral mess.

I hope voters do remember the war in Nov, but aslso the reasons GWB is a “wartime President.”

— Dad

Star Wars Parts IV-VI on DVD Sept. 21st!

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The good news: the “first” three movies in the Star Wars trilogy (parts VI [A New Hope], V [The Empire Strikes Back], and VI [The Return of the Jedi]) will be released on DVD on September 21st.

The bad news: as has been rumored, speculated, assumed, and generally grumbled about for quite a while now, the DVDs will contain the newer, fancier, Greedo-shoots-first Special Edition versions rather than the original, unedited, like-we-all-remember-and-love versions.

The original “Star Wars” trilogy, comprising the 1977 movie, its 1980 sequel “The Empire Strikes Back” and 1983’s “Return of the Jedi,” will be released on DVD as a four-disc boxed set in September, Fox Home Entertainment and Lucasfilm Ltd. announced yesterday.

[…]

The boxed set will contain the special editions of the “Star Wars” trilogy released in the late 1990s and not the original theatrical versions.

Ah, well. Even with the Special Edition changes (which, to be honest, some I like and some I don’t), any of the first three films are still far better than the disappointing dreck of Episodes I and II.

And yeah.

I’ll be picking this set up on day one.

Examining Bush’s military record

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More and more, people are getting to the bottom of Bush’s military record — the real one, that is, not the glossed-over propagand-ized version he’d like us to believe.

The Columbia Journalism Review is calling for more detailed investigations into the “torn document” giving details of Bush’s service record:

The now-infamous “torn document,” which the Bush administration produced in the spring of 2000 is a statement of service credit that Bush apparently earned for guard service in 1972-73. However, most of the dates and Bush’s name, except for the “W,” have been torn off.

At first, this document was often included in media summaries of Bush’s National Guard service. However, it has been notably absent from many recent accounts, simply because most reporters find it so incomplete as to be useless.

…But now that Bush has gone on record saying that he will release all records necessary to settle this issue, it’s up to the press corps to decide just how high or low to set the bar of disclosure necessary to get to the bottom of things.

The mainstream media will be a bit late to the game, though, as Calpundit already has a good look at the document in question — not the torn version, though…

To make a long story short, Bush apparently blew off drills beginning in May 1972, failed to show up for his physical, and was then grounded and transferred to [the Air Reserve Force] as a disciplinary measure. He didn’t return to his original Texas Guard unit and cram in 36 days of active duty in 1973 — as Time magazine and others continue to assert based on a mistaken interpretation of Bush’s 1973-74 ARF record — but rather accumulated only ARF points during that period. In fact, it’s unclear even what the points on the ARF record are for, but what is clear is that Bush’s official records from Texas show no actual duty after May 1972, as his Form 712 Master Personnel Record from the Texas Air National Guard clearly indicates….

Bush’s record shows three years of service, followed by a fourth year in which he accumulated only a dismal 22 days of active service, followed by no service at all in his fifth and sixth years. This is because ARF duty isn’t counted as official duty by the Texas guard.

So Bush may indeed have “fulfilled his obligation,” as he says, but only because he had essentially been relieved of any further obligation after his transfer to ARF. It’s pretty clear that no one in the Texas Air National Guard had much interest in pursuing anything more serious in the way of disciplinary action.

Truly a sterling service record for our Commander in Chief.

(via Daily Kos)

Ilium

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Oooohhh — a new book by Dan Simmons! Being a big fan of his Hyperion series (Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion, Endymion, and The Rise of Endymion), this is very good news in my universe.

On Earth, a post-technological group of humans, pampered by servant machines and easy travel via “faxing,” begins to question its beginnings. Meanwhile, a team of sentient and Shakespeare-quoting robots from Jupiter’s lunar system embark on a mission to Mars to investigate an increase in dangerous quantum fluctuations. On the Red Planet, they’ll find a race of metahumans living out existence as the pantheon of classic Greek gods. These “gods” have recreated the Trojan War with reconstituted Greeks and Trojans and staffed it with scholars from throughout Earth’s history who observe the events and report on the accuracy of Homer’s Iliad. One of these scholars, Thomas Hockenberry, finds himself tangled in the midst of interplay between the gods and their playthings and sends the war reeling in a direction the blind poet could have never imagined.

Simmons creates an exciting and thrilling tale set in the thick of the Trojan War as seen through Hockenberry’s 20th-century eyes. At the same time, Simmons’s robots study Shakespeare and Proust and the origin-seeking Earthlings find themselves caught in a murderous retelling of The Tempest. Reading this highly literate novel does take more than a passing familiarity with at least The Iliad but readers who can dive into these heady waters and swim with the current will be amply rewarded.

(via John Ludwig)

iTunes: “Feurio! (Remix)” by Einstürzende Neubauten from the album Industrial Revolution, 2nd Edition (1989, 4:49).

GarageBand is evil

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I’ve poked around with GarageBand a bit since I got it, but haven’t created anything major yet. However, it is way too much fun.

It’s also far too easy for me to put together something really, really stupid with it. This is dangerous. Fun — but dangerous.

And here’s the evidence: countrybounce — 71 seconds of banjo and drum loops.

I’m sure I can come up with something better than that given time. But for the moment, this stupid little ditty is it.

Enjoy.

Or don’t.

;)

iTunes: “Must I” by Lizette & from the album This Is (2003, 3:32).

Issue with my comments-only feed

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I have no idea if anyone other than myself is currently subscribing to my ‘comments only’ RSS feed, but I’ve noticed an odd issue with it that I haven’t been able to troubleshoot yet. I’ve asked for help on the TypePad User Group, but I wanted to mention it here too, in case anyone else has been noticing this or might be able to point out what I’m doing wrong.

What I’ve been finding is that each item in my comment-only feed is being given the date of the original post that the comment is appended to, rather than the date that the comment was added to my site. For instance, a comment added today to a post from August shows up in my newsreader with the August date instead of today’s.

Here’s the code I’m using for each item in the RSS feed template (the full template code can be found in this post from last week):

<MTComments lastn="20">
<MTCommentEntry> 
<item> 
<title><$MTEntryTitle remove_html="1" encode_xml="1"$></title> 
<link><$MTEntryPermalink encode_xml="1"$>#c<$MTCommentID$></link> 
<description><$MTCommentBody remove_html="1" encode_xml="1"$></description> 
<guid isPermaLink="false"><$MTCommentID$>@<$MTBlogURL$></guid> 
<content:encoded><![CDATA[<MTCommentAuthorLink show_email="0"> on 
<MTCommentDate format="%b %e, %Y %l:%M %p">: <$MTCommentBody$>]]></content:encoded> 
<dc:date><$MTCommentDate format="%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S"$><$MTBlogTimezone$></dc:date> 
</item>
</MTCommentEntry>
</MTComments>

Now, it all looks right to me, and the same basic code seems to be working in all the rest of my templates (for instance, in the ‘full posts plus comments’ RSS feed, each comment begins with a header that lists the correct date). For some reason, though, it’s not working here.

Any ideas?

Update: The issue has been fixed. Turns out that you can’t use an <MTCommentDate> tag inside an <MTCommentEntry> container (much thanks to Jamie Jamison for pointing me to the explanation).

The solution was fairly easy (and the code in my ‘how-to’ post has been updated): I just removed the date display from the body of the RSS item, and moved the closing <MTCommentEntry> tag up a couple lines. Here’s the new version of the above code:

<MTComments lastn="20">
<item> 
<MTCommentEntry> 
<title><$MTEntryTitle remove_html="1" encode_xml="1"$></title> 
<link><$MTEntryPermalink encode_xml="1"$>#c<$MTCommentID$></link> 
<description><$MTCommentBody remove_html="1" encode_xml="1"$></description> 
<guid isPermaLink="false"><$MTCommentID$>@<$MTBlogURL$></guid> 
<content:encoded><![CDATA[<MTCommentAuthorLink show_email="0">: <$MTCommentBody$>]]></content:encoded>
</MTCommentEntry>
<dc:date><$MTCommentDate format="%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S"$><$MTBlogTimezone$></dc:date> 
</item>
</MTComments>