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April 2005 - Posts

No, not Tom DeLay, someone much more ethically challenged.  This e-mail came across the ether, striking fear into many a cubefarmer's heart:

--

Good afternoon,

 
who ever had sodas in the refrigerator on the second shelf, they exploded and made a mess.  Please remove cans and clean the mess
 
thank you
 
--
 
We're DOOMED.
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I spent lunch reading the UK's Attorney General's advice (pdf) to Prime Minister Tony Blair about the legality of the UK's participation in military action in Iraq (03/2003), essentially an explication of UN Security Council Resolution 1441 (pdf).  I love how the interpretation of laws, particularly international ones, are manifold and varied, yet still rather straightforward.  Further, what's awesome about this advice is that it takes into account how UN Security Council resolutions are made: with grave and deliberate intent and scrutiny to the exact words and the potential implications thereof.  The AG.uk goes into great detail on the arguments around the words and how to contextualize them to mean either 'yes, military action is authorized,' or 'no, it's not, exactly.' That last bit ('exactly') is pretty much the crux of the whole thing:  military action from the rectification of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait (UN SC 678 (1990) pdf) had never been unauthorized. So, with military action on the table, what's left to do?

To what extent and for how long debate was going to rage in the UN was still the actual debate.  A meta debate, if you will.  Yes, that's right, a debate about debate.  Fait accompli as some of our European partners might say.  It's this nebulous region between mutual discussion and actual Socratic philosophical meditations on Robert's Rules of Order.

Take this, for example: 1441's operative paragraph 12 (OP12) states in relation to a breach of compliance that the Security Council (SC) would convene to “consider the situation and the need for full compliance with all of the relevant Council resolutions in order to secure international peace and security” 

“Consider,“ not “decide“  i.e. the SC has decided to engage in further discussions should the Saddam Hussein regime be in breach.  Not that they get to decide whether military action is necessary.  A discussion.  Proof enough?  Nope.  The very same language is used by opponents of the war to mean that further discussions, with an unspecified duration, are required prior to action.  Quelle quandary!  Both France and Russia agreed to the “consider“ wording, leaving out specific assertions and tests regarding a decision.  UN Resolutions aren't made lightly.  In fact, this one was accepted 15-0.  That's the maximum vs. the 0.

Would the war be legal without a second (or 18th, depending on what perspectacles you don) UNSC Resolution?

Lord Goldsmith's conclusion: Dither all you want, actions would be defensible in a court. (Which court, now that's another discussion.)

On another note, fuck Denny's.

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This essay was one of many written by the third grade class of Al Saddam in Ramadi (recently renamed to “National School”) and is typical of most of Khanoume Jaffari’s class.

My Hero
by Fazia Akbar, 8

My hero is the man with the most courage and bravery. He is able to escape Amerki soldiers with no problems. I know he can run very fast with three legs! He is my hero because he is also a good muslim and has a beard and is named Zarqawi. I would like to use a computer some day with him. I would to take pictures for the Amerki soldiers to find on my computer. I think as a good runner I would be very fast and would use my scarf as a cape. Also, I would not flinch if someone put me in jail even if I had to wear a black bourkha like a tent! He is my hero because he saves us from occupations. I think he is really good at being a hero!


(Thanks, Ian!)

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Today, the KIA Sect'y went to Whole Foods for lunch.  Everyone that walks by gets this invitation to the babble party:

“Have you been to Whole Foods yet?  Oh my god, what an experience.”

No one's bitten yet.  I'm not sure what she's going to say about it considering it sounds like her first time there, but I'm eager to hear what spews forth.

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Europa - Constitution Reuters: “Metro newspaper showed 62.3 percent of respondents who have decided how to vote oppose the treaty.”  That vote's going to happen on 05/29.

That's up from the Metro newspaper 03/15 poll, 57.8%.  Salut!

Tim Lehmann, Assistant Director of PNAC thinks it's due to the Turkey issue (Weekly Standard).

It'll be Europe's just desserts (flan, probably) if France bails on the 500+ page Constitution, authored by one of France's former Presidents.  (Recall, good Citizens, that ours is about 11 pages.)

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  • “Spring Creek Nursery is having a sale, but they don't have unique plants.  For that, you have to go to Fort Collins Nursery... or Bath, they have really unique plants.”
  • Pasque flower- “I got two in pots ready to go, just gotta find a good site for it... it's a wildflower“
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Yes, it's the first bed I've ever owned
It's a Room & Board Parsons.

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It's come to my attention that people might have gotten the wrong idea about my opinion of the KIA Sect'y's actual expertise.  There's no doubt that she is a blooming cornucopia of gardening knowledge - even I'm continually floored by the depth and breadth of her advice and her ability to dispense it.  When I say “continually,” I do mean in a constant and ongoing fashion. What's amazing about her passion is that it's here, at work, where it's expressed (and, assumedly, in the garden, as well) - It has made me reflect on the whole bygone era where your hobby was also your work.  Here, for her, work is simply the downtime from her hobby where she gets to talk about said avocation.  But, dear readers, worry not - gardening's not the only thing her loquaciousness encompasses.

At this very moment, she's talking about the gas prices, middle east and how Bush is finishing up all the dirty stuff that his dad did and doesn't care, because once he's gone “he's got his, he don't care!”  Apparently, the big businesses are running the country and all our jobs are going elsewhere.  Recall, she's firmly ensconsed in the .gov.  No matter the topic, she's got an armchair / soapbox for it.

She's now transitioned on to how cold water breaks down oatmeal in a cup in the sink, since people keep coming by her desk to talk to her about the e-mail she sent out yesterday (which, in my opinion, is simply encouraging her self-righteous meddling):  “Cold water! A few minutes, that's it! Breaks down oatmeal like that! Not hot water! Cold water!”  She's a non-stop common sense elevator music soundtrack.

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KIA Sect'y read off the e-mail she was sending to everyone to a passer by - not for approval, but ostensibly to hear herself say it in a derisive and patronizing tone she uses for, well, everything.

While getting a cup of coffee I noticed that there was 1 bowl in the sink, when I returned there were more dirth dishes growing like weeds. Please claim your dishes or they will be disposed by the COB. The sink is for washing dishes not storing, and please do not leave paper towls in the sink, we do not want to have the sink clogged.
Later, she comes walking into the area laughing with her peers about how she lit a fire under peoples ass and that dirty dishes were growing like weeds.
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I work in a cube farm now, which I've tried to internalize and become one with. This is how most of the information workers work, so I should be able to master the art of cubefarming, right? The most unavoidable and annoying feature of this particular plot of cubes is the Know It All Secretary who stands watch at the entrance. On my first day, I was introduced to everyone but her (due to her absence at the time) and I've never bothered to talk to her since. We make eye contact some times, but no words. Over the months, I've grown to realize that she has an "expert" opinion on everything (she's always right, regardless of reality) and will literally talk anyones ear off if they let her. And they let her. Right next to my cube. Honestly, I don't know if she does any work. Granted, this is .gov, so I'm not sure that's a legitmate question to ask.

Today, though, in response to someone's question - "How was your weekend?" - she spent 46 minutes talking about gardening. Gardening is one of KIA Secty's favorite subjects. So that I don't go mad, I wrote down some of the points and topics she went off on:
  • In response to a follow up question about what bushes to plant that would require minimal watering she said:
    • hydrangia
    • coldflower - very little water, orangy flowers
    • redrocks
    • butterfly milk - blue flowers, blooms like crazy, not tall
    • golden rod
    • poppies
    • choriopsis
  • she keeps a garden journal with the year she planted which flower, etc.
  • squirrels will eat your bulbs, so plant deep, 16“ deep if possible
  • daffodils
  • tulips -2 types, darwin apple darts
  • lillies - grow tall
  • dahlias
  • chicken grid + soil + bulb food = excellent drainage
  • WalMart & Home Depot - plants for “bare roots“ techinique (an advanced technique)
  • In response to another follow up: how to get rid of mosquitos
    • mosquito plants
    • citronella - for evenings
    • plant during the day, they don't like the heat of day
  • worms!
  • making compost - 32 gal. trash cans, chopped up leaves, peat, manure
  • formulas for compost in a book she claims that allow her to grow things in this environment that people say that can't be grown
  • divides her garden into mini-gardens
  • bleeding heart bushes - two types
  • big ears - does not self-seed, beautiful flowers, expensive plant
  • her intention is to become a Master Gardener with a specialty in lillies
  • this weekend, she started on her miniature roses and planted tulips 
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Afghanistan's requesting a long-term US military presence in the country. This is obviously what the leftists and Europeans have been fearing since the beginning of the whole Star Wars saga in 1977 -- the enevitable construction of the Death Star. How horrible for them.

For the rest of us here in reality, though, this is the start of the end of the "projection" of US military power - the US won't need to project: we're there.

With human rights organizations now decrying the genocide in Rwanda as a failure of the UN, saying that it could've been prevented with a police force equivalent to the Brooklyn P.D., a minimum has basically been established: that level of police presence is sufficient to prevent atrocities. It follows that an equivalent level of military projection should be able to do more than just hold down peace, but actually make progress. The US has about 18,000 troops in Afghanistan now. The US has about 3,000 in Qatar, 10,000 in Kuwait, 4,200 in Bahrain, and a few thousand each in Saudi Arabia and Oman. (2002 numbers)

I'm sure neither Pakistan, Russia, or Iran'll be happy about that request.
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Europa - Constitution
Three guesses as to who said that. Me, good guess, but wrong. Jack? Also good guess, but still wrong. Yes, that's right, Jacques Chirac. Yesterday, the Head Cheese went on tv with a townhall style meeting in order to try to convince the country that they should vote "Oui!" in the upcoming May 29th referrendum for France's acceptance of the European Constitution. Seems like his future threats are more of a slow-to-the-party realization of France's actual status in the world. In the "Non!" camp are about 53%-55% of polled voters in France and Chirac's own party, the "Union for a Popular Majority." Sad times for one of the founders of the EU.

Greece's parliment is voting on Tuesday (04/19/2005) to see if it'll join the four other countries that have approved the EU Constitution (Lithuania, Hungary, Slovenia and Italy) [according to CNN.com... I thought Spain had also ratified it? Maybe that was just the "Si!" referrendum which needs to be formally approved by their socialist government. I'll check into that.]

The Economist has a rather pithy analysis (Can the constitution be saved?, 04/15/2005) of what'd happen if France says no on the 29th which highlights the utter bureaucratic morass that can happen when things are decided by committee. In a way, it's the height of Democracy, stagnation of decision at a governmental level that allows for the third and fourth tiers of society to function.
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Today, I had the unpleasant experience of looking into Tapestry source code. I really, really prefer to ignore it and have it do what it does without making me look it directly in the face. For, verily, when I do, I see comments like this that make me very sad about the state of affairs of software development and therefore, me:
// Still, this pretty much rocks!
I give up. Ian says it better.
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I thought I wasn't very specific in my last post and that left out a lot of really good fingerpointing. Apart from the fact that everything in software can pretty much be blamed on the last guy's mistakes, there're just some things that open source really gets wrong. Open source is literally the asbestos of the dot com boom. Seems like it was a good idea, but just hangs around and causes people damage, and is very expensive to get rid of once in place. Doesn't really do the job, either. Yes, the state of software gets more and more tragic and with people retreating into their own gated communes of drum banging freecoders clamoring that "everyone they know" agrees that Hunkertron on Struts with Rails is the best thing ever.

I'm currently working with Tapestry and Hibernate on BEA WebLogic 8.1 and they all just are totally horrible. Yes, yes, the architecture, design, Tapestry code and Hibernate mapping that whomever agreed to and then pretended to implement on WebLogic are horrible. WebLogic, itself, is fine. True. WebLogic, itself, does nothing except eat memory and produce logfiles. That's a hot business model, btw. The real frustration is that there's a lot of wading through egos, especially with Tapestry, to get to any real understanding. "Buy the book!" No, screw that, it's open sores, I should be able to learn all I want to learn from the internet, not to mention I already "get" Tapestry and had to subject myself to someone elses awful interpretation of how not to make Java suck all the while under the impression that learning a less sucky system will make getting any practical work done. No, it doesn't. Here, let me use the universal language of math to elucidate my point: Sucky Java + Less Sucky Tapestry = 1.5 Suck Units. That's literally 150% more suck than just Java. Get it? Ok, now add in Hibernate, which isn't so sucky a concept but it's use is ultimately unhelpful because it's just playing with shiny new toys. It's like renting an Elise when in Europe. I don't live in Europe and that's probably the only time I'd drive an Elise. Fun, enjoy the experience, but impractical. Sad, when Hibernate's supposed to make things more practical. Add a heaping helping of idiots asking stupid questions and self-important know it alls on the mailing list and you've got exactly what open source is: an excuse to surf the web at work and get paid for it. "I can't find the answer to this problem, it's totally not my fault! Did you see that hat Camilla was wearing! What a trollop."

"But [you're learning]/[you know] so much!" Sure, my brain is strong like bull and I know as much as ten men. Ten browner more Indian men than I, all making, oh, about a 1/10 of what I make. Next up: Implementing Stupid Peoples' Ideas.
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"Writing" code is crap. Especially the way I've been doing it for the last few years, which is predominatly fixing other people's poorly written and even more poorly documented stuff. It's classic janitorial scut. In addition, there's this whole open source trend to use the latest shiny thing. This means I have to know wtf about the shiny thing to fix it. It's never one or two new things to learn and learning about those things is never in isolation. It's dreary work to learn the combinations of new things knowing that people will continue to splatter random bits together and think they're the new hottness. It's not software "progress" that's got me irritated - I'm all for software progress, I actually enjoy learning the new spit-shined pieces of crap open source idiots think up so that they don't have to actually do any work - it's that the inanity is considered professional. Who's going to use this stuff and who's going to make it better? This is an expensive, throw away, one-off business, no matter how excited the guy telling you about it is.

Here's the manifesto for Prototype Designs, an Athena-from-my-hed company: The only product is one-off easily modifiable projects for corporations to show proof-of-concept so that they can then spend the big bucks on trying to implement a "real version." In my experience, the world lives, breathes, and commerces on prototypes anyway, this company would just be honest about it.
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Poetsmart: The only place to go for all your poet-training needs
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Farewell, Saul Bellow.
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It appears that CommunityServer 1.0 is out, which is a very big upgrade to .Text. Here's a converter that I may use.
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This month is the 10th National Poetry Month so before anyone accuses me of being a hippy, I've decided to post a poem or few a day that are topical and relate to things, as the word "topical" may imply.

The Joni Mitchell lyric a good first one because it shows an impassioned response to a war and a movement that's only become more relevant and more of a touchstone (or never-touch-stone) for today's protests, wars and debates on life, bombs and religion. Granted, there's nothing about performance tuning or acetone in your fuel, but it's got a whole lot of things in there that I think poems should have, including controversy.

The Dickenson, Rumi, and Gibran are, for obvious reasons, little cat feet for the house.
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"Houses"—so the Wise Men tell me—
"Mansions"! Mansions must be warm!
Mansions cannot let the tears in,
Mansions must exclude the storm!

"Many Mansions," by "his Father,"
I don't know him; snugly built!
Could the Children find the way there—
Some, would even trudge tonight!

- Emily Dickinson

The Window of My Soul

During prayer I am accustomed to turn to God like this
and recall the meaning of the words of the Tradition,
“the delight felt in the ritual prayer.”
The window of my soul opens,
and from the purity of the unseen world,
the book of God comes to me straight.
The book, the rain of divine grace, and the light
are falling into my house through a window
from my real and original source.
The house without a window is hell;
to make a window is the essence of true religion.
Don't thrust your ax upon every thicket;
come, use your ax to cut open a window.

- Rumi
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I came upon a child of god
He was walking along the road
And I asked him, where are you going
And this he told me
I’m going on down to yasgur’s farm
I’m going to join in a rock ’n’ roll band
I’m going to camp out on the land
I’m going to try an’ get my soul free
We are stardust
We are golden
And we’ve got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

Then can I walk beside you
I have come here to lose the smog
And I feel to be a cog in something turning
Well maybe it is just the time of year
Or maybe it’s the time of man
I don’t know who l am
But you know life is for learning
We are stardust
We are golden
And we’ve got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

By the time we got to woodstock
We were half a million strong
And everywhere there was song and celebration
And I dreamed I saw the bombers
Riding shotgun in the sky
And they were turning into butterflies
Above our nation
We are stardust
Billion year old carbon
We are golden
Caught in the devil’s bargain
And we’ve got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

- joni mitchell
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