Weekly free associations

I'm very late this week.

1. Please stop :: it


2. Move over :: Beethoven (no, that's roll over)


3. Sweet as :: sugar candy


4. Bet :: lose


5. Mad about :: the mouse


6. It’s over :: .


7. Intend to :: mean to


8. Blame :: game


9. Jefferson :: president


10. Heartless :: cruel

Thanks to Unconscious Mutterings.

Plat du jour

I hope they're talking about teeth and not dogs.

Happy birthday to me--I guess

Today is my 60th birthday. It's kind of scary: I'm within four years of the age my father died. On the other hand, I'm almost 22 years less than the age my mother went. I hope I'm as lucky as she was, but who knows?

I am glad I'm no longer a 50-something. That really got kind of boring a couple of years ago. I don't feel old mentally, but my body keeps reminding me I am. And my memory isn't what it used to be.

So, happy birthday to me, I guess.

Kennedy all the way

Triborough Bridge Renamed for Robert Kennedy

Now you can take the RFK to JFK.

Plat du jour--guest submission

Joanne found another one.

This is kind of an in-joke. In the transgender world, "GG" means "genetic girl." (It's not a particularly politically correct term.) I kind of doubt the accountant who owns this plate is aware of that.

Not all of the posts on FAIL Blog are fails

see more pwn and owned pictures

So, is this a FAIL Blog failure?

Obama's first mistake as president-elect?

I didn't see the interview of President-elect Obama on 60 minutes last night, but somehow it got into the question of how the college football national champion is determined. Obama favors an 8 team playoff to replace the single game between the top two teams. According to the AP, he said,

"It would add three extra weeks to the season," he said at the conclusion of a wide-ranging interview. "You could trim back on the regular season. I don't know any serious fan of college football who has disagreed with me on this.

He's probably right about that. However, what he fails to realize is that the NCAA, and the colleges that run it, don't really care much about the serious fans of college football. Their first concern is for the alumni and local fans who fill the stadiums during the regular season. They, and the TV broadcasters, are the ones footing the bill for the college athletic programs. For each game that is subtracted from the regular season, over 50 stadiums of ticket-buying fans are lost. A seven game play-off is not going to make up for this, even with increased fees from the TV networks.

And who knows? The NCAA just might have some concerns about how three weeks of playoffs (instead of one bowl game) might affect the student-athletes playing them.

This isn't a major mistake for Obama, but maybe he should just stick to politics and statesmanship.

Headline fail

Gov. Paterson, Legislative Leaders Meet Secretly
If they had met secretly you wouldn't know about it. Try "privately."

Plat du jour

I sure hope the misspelling is only due to the correct one already being taken.

Why I don't give to beggars on the subway

(in addition to the fact that it's illegal to beg on the trains)

From Overheard in New York:

Subway beggar to the people on train : Yo, my daughter just died and I don't have any money to bury her... (recognizes someone on the train) Yo!
Man on the train: Hey! How's the wife?
Subway beggar: Oh, she good, she good. She be working too! She working on the 4 line!

--1 Train

Bush admits he's dumb

Well, sort of. He is calling for "smarter government" to combat the financial crisis.

His call will be answered. We will have a government much smarter than his, in, what is it now, 67 days?

Plat du jour--guest submission

Joanne keeps finding them. This one's weird.

Dogs can be transgender, too

From Overheard in the Office:

Client with sick dog: I need to see the veterinarian on duty because my dog isn't feeling well.
Veterinarian receptionist: Is your dog a male or female?
Client with sick dog: She's a male.

Gander, meet goose

From the Associated Press (emphasis mine):

If first impressions matter, Obama and his wife displayed one similarity to the super-punctual Bushes, pulling up to the White House's South Portico 11 minutes early. The couples traded warm and easy greetings in the crisp autumn sunshine, with the wives exchanging pleasantries about the fall hues each wore - Mrs. Bush in a brown dress and Mrs. Obama in a red one.

While Obama and Bush, in business suits, proceeded waving and smiling down the White House Colonnade for nearly two hours of private talks, Mrs. Obama and Mrs. Bush had their own agenda...

It's wonderful to see a news story where what the men wore was noted, as well as the women's fashion choices. Kudos to writer Jennifer Levin.

Now I'm waiting for a male writer to do the same.

Happy anniversary--to me

Today is the tenth anniversary of the first time I presented as a woman in public.

Weekly free associations

1. Coverage :: full


2. Cynical :: bastards


3. Gust :: wind


4. Improvised :: ad libed


5. V :: W


6. Guests :: uninvited


7. Brutal :: Nazis


8. Grant :: Hugh


9. Pull :: man


10. Streaming :: audio

Thanks to Unconscious Mutterings.

Spam of the day

Michelle Obama nude

Central Park today

Click on a picture to embiggen it.

Semi-random thoughts

● I really think I'm seeing more people wearing Obama buttons since the election than before it.

● I've succumbed to twitter. Sometimes I post what I'm doing there, but I have NOT connected it to my phone. My last five tweets (I think that's what they're called) are over on the right hand column, and if you're a tweeter(?) there's a link to follow me there.

● I'm really enjoying the great decrease in my e-mail volume since the election is over. Even though I just skimmed most of them, I couldn't bring myself to delete all the political messages without opening them first.

● The struggling Wisconsin Badger football team finally won its first conference game today, beating the even more struggling Indiana squad. Indiana kept it close at first, because we kept giving them the football. Then we knocked out their quarterback and they were in deep trouble. I think their second stringer was already injured, and was only in for a few plays. Their third and fourth stringers could do nothing. Final score: 55-20.

Hold it until Monday

Bathrooms to Close Weekends at 19 NJ Parks

Plat du jour--guest submission

Another one from Joanne. Highly appropriate after the election.

A big thumbs down on Overheard in New York

Readers of the website Overheard in New York get to vote on whether they like or don't like an item that's posted there. Most receive pretty high approval ratings, no matter how stupid they are--to me anything getting under 75% is a rejection. It is rare to see one under 60%. So when a post gets only 37%, you know it's really horrible. Like this one:

Teen boy #1: I don't like any of her family except her mom. She's okay.
Teen boy #2: Her mom is crazy, yo. I want to rape her with this umbrella. I bet you if I fucked her, she wouldn't even remember, she's so crazy. Wouldn't it be cool if there were a hot chick, like 21, with Alzheimer's and you fucked the shit out of her and then the next day she couldn't remember?

--Q44 Bus

Plat du jour--guest submission

Vincine on the myHusbandBetty Boards owns this one. Thanks!

My (first) post-election post

I haven't been blogging much recently--only 11 posts in October, just one of which had any significant amount of writing. I haven't even done a "semi-random thoughts" post since August. There are a number of reasons--watching the Olympics and the conventions, exercising as often as possible, and doing my taxes among them. I blogged a little about the presidential campaign, but I stopped, mainly because I was just repeating what other people had said, often much better than I would have. I was also wading through dozens of political e-mails every day. Even just skimming most of them was rather time-consuming. I was tired of reading, let alone writing, even on non-political topics. I did my bit for the Trans for Obama effort, and one long post about the Olympics, but that was about it.

Now that the election is over, I'm going to try to post on a daily basis--and do some real writing also. Starting now.

I was slightly nervous going into Tuesday. Obama was significantly ahead in the public polls. On October 23 I had participated in a conference call of the leaders of the trans and gender identity communities (blush) with a couple of the Obama campaign leaders. They said their internal poll numbers looked promising, but they were acting as if they were three points behind. They weren't taking anything for granted. So I was feeling pretty good about Obama's chances, but there were some background fears--in 2000 (and maybe 2004) the Republicans had shown themselves to be fully capable of stealing a presidential election.

While I discounted the conspiracy theories about the electronic voting machines being rigged by their makers, I was much more concerned about them being hackable after the fact--my 25 years as a computer programmer taught me how difficult it is to make any system totally secure. Plus, I had first-hand experience of how flakey mark-sense readers can be. Hopefully the ones being used to count ballots in this election were better than the ones my installation had to deal with in the 80's. But I was (and still am) quite certain that they are not going to be 100% accurate, particularly when the ballots are being marked by untrained voters.

I was also concerned about voter suppression. Before the election there were charges in several states controlled by Republicans that there were suspicious wholesale purges of the voter rolls. Most, if not all, turned out to be quite routine, legitimate actions, except that some were done slightly too close to election day under the federal regulations. (There were also charges that ACORN was engaging in massive voter fraud in gathering registrations of new, presumably Democratic-leaning voters. This turned out to be highly exagerated.)

But election-day voter suppression, often just by making it extremely time-consuming to vote in predominantly minority areas, was a bigger fear of mine.

It turned out to be an unnecessary fear. While there some scattered problems, things generally worked well. It reminded me of Y2K--it was basically a non-event, because we in the data processing industry had worked our tails off for two years to make sure things went smoothly (In fact, it ended up being far smoother than most year-ends, because everything had been so thoroughly tested).

I had other concerns besides the reliability of the election results. I was a bit worried that the Republicans wouldn't need to falsify them. While Obama was running nine percent ahead of McCain in the polls immediately before Tuesday, I was concerned about how predictive this number was. It has been claimed (though some people dispute) that African-American candidates generally don't get as many votes as polls predict, because some white voters, when they finally get into the voting booth, just cannot bring themselves to vote for a black person (the Bradley Effect). I read that it could be as much as ten percent--though that really seemed rather high to me. But even if it were only half that, it could make the election a toss-up when figuring in the polls' standard margin of error.

It turned out that Obama got 53% to McCain's 47% of the popular vote, a six percent difference, neglecting third party candidates. So I think a little of my concern was justified. Fortunately, it was only a little.

Speaking of third party candidates, that was another concern of mine. It is generally believed that Gore would have taken Florida in 2000, had Ralph Nader not been on the ballot. Nader was also on the ballot in Florida this year, though he seemed to be attracting far less support than eight years ago. Still, in a state that was being called a battleground, a few votes could make a difference. And as we saw in 2000, Florida could swing the entire election.

It turned out that Obama beat McCain by nearly 200,000 there, with only 60,000 votes going to others.

Thus, my nervousness was unnecessary. Obama won easily. Given the state of the economy and Bush's unpopularity it would have been a huge landslide--but Obama is African-American.

I never really gave a lot of thought about having an African-American president. I vaguely remember reading Irving Wallace's novel, The Man, back in the 60's. It was a political thriller about a black president pro tempore of the senate, normally third in line, who succeeds to the presidency after some ridiculous coincidences. It was as much about 1960's race relations as it was about the presidency. I remember Shirley Chisholm running for president in 1972--only to find that her candidacy generated far more resistance because of her gender, than because of her race. Jesse Jackson was a much more viable candidate in the 80's--but I never thought he really had a chance to win.

Barack Obama came out of nowhere. He came to national attention with his great keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention, even before he was elected to the U.S. Senate. A scant 2½ years later he declared his candidacy for president. I have to wonder if he thought he had any chance to win at that point--or whether this was originally just a trial run for sometime in the future. I didn't consider him a major candidate--I favored Bill Richardson, who I thought was our best chance of getting the U.S. out of Iraq. When Richardson dropped out I was in a quandary: I wanted to back a candidate who was good on the Iraq question, and who had a real chance to win. Obama was good on Iraq and he had won the Iowa caucuses, but I had to wonder about his lack of experience. Hillary had more experience, but was not as good on Iraq, in my opinion--and she had beaten Obama in New Hampshire.

My choice was made when Bill Bradley endorsed Obama. I consider Bradley the best-qualified candidate for president we've had in decades, and if he thinks Obama has enough experience, it's good enough for me. When Bill Richardson later also endorsed him (despite his close connection to the Clintons), it was icing on the cake.

The fact that Obama is African-American had no effect on my backing him--either way. It was incidental--he was a candidate who happened to be black, not a black candidate. He wasn't making his race an issue. He was good on most of the issues I am concerned with, especially Iraq. Politicians (I probably should call them statesmen) who I admire vouched for his abilities. I would have been happy to support Clinton had she won the nomination, but I didn't think she was the better candidate. I didn't think Obama's race would make him unelectable--particularly since as early as February I started to suspect the economy would be the major campaign issue, and when the economy goes bad the incumbent party seldom wins.

And it didn't. As I said before, the prejudice against Obama's race was a small factor compared to the voters' desire to get the Republicans out. In 10 weeks we'll have a president I will want to hear addressing the nation, a president who will get us out of Iraq sooner rather than later, a president I will trust to appoint open-minded judges, a president who will govern on the basis of facts, not beliefs.

President Barack Obama. It makes me smile just to type that.

Art is in the nose of the beholder?

Belgian artist's work causes a stink _ again

ANTWERP, Belgium (AP) - One man's stink is another man's major art project. A piece by Belgian conceptual artist Jan Fabre at the Antwerp's MuHKA contemporary art museum is challenging the nose as well as the eyes.

The installation "Spring is on its way" consists of onions and potatoes hung from the ceiling in condoms. And the vegetables are, well, spoiling....

I'm on Fail Blog!

more fail, owned and pwned pics and videos

Plat du jour--guest submission

Found by Joanne on the myHusbandBetty boards.

Weekly free associations

1. In love :: with


2. Be my guest :: Disney


3. Number one :: son


4. Swallowed whole :: gullible


5. 50 percent :: off


6. Made in :: China


7. Supplement :: add


8. Right for :: you


9. Endless :: melody


10. Ceramic :: tile

Thanks to Unconscious Mutterings.

Plat du jour

I would say this plate belongs to El Juglar, except he works for a Mets minor league team, not a Yankees one. I dunno.

Weekly free associations

I've really gotten behind doing these.

1. Contemplate :: Navel


2. In the house :: Out of the house


3. Classical :: music


4. Quest :: Boggle


5. Best friend :: Man's


6. 1991 :: Bush I


7. Never will :: Say never


8. Fool :: Money


9. Unhappy :: Happy


10. Best man :: Wedding

1. Magical :: Mystery Tour


2. Shrimp :: Cocktail


3. Project Runway :: Hedda Lettuce


4. Economy :: Car


5. Porch :: Swing


6. State of affairs :: Oy


7. .com :: .net


8. Fifty cents :: 4 bits


9. Ripping :: Tearing


10. Bull :: Shit

1. Zoo :: Total


2. Neighborhood :: There goes the


3. Salute :: Flag


4. Immortality :: Teens


5. Dominion :: Canada


6. Rhonda :: Fleming


7. Parties :: Fun


8. Prince of Darkness :: Batman?


9. Garbage :: Pail


10. Standard :: Deviation

1. Insight :: ??


2. Irksome :: ??


3. Maybe :: Not


4. Confirmation :: Hotel


5. Bib :: Overalls


6. Stop! :: Go!


7. Lobster :: Newberg


8. Boys :: Girls


9. Fire away :: Hit Me With Your Best Shot


10. Give up :: the ship

Thanks to Unconscious Mutterings.

Plat du jour--guest submission

A transwoman on the myHusbandBetty boards just got this plate. Thanks, Steph!

Is this what Joan of Arc really looked like?

There are no pictures of Joan of Arc, apart from a couple very crude drawings. However, Patricia Nell Warren on the Bilerico Project thinks that this might actually be what she looked like, apart from hair color. Her theory is a bit of a stretch, but it's still quite interesting.

Plat du jour

Even the license plates are nagging me now.

Plat du jour

From Fail Blog. This was quite deliberate, I'm sure.

Another one from Overheard in NY

Little boy: Mommy, John McCain likes Abba.
Mom: Does he really now? Then you two have something in common.
Little boy: Noooooo!

--Overheard in New York

Today's best from Overheard in NY

Principal, over PA system: Attention: We are testing out the PA system. If you don't hear this, please call the office.

--Public School

Overheard in NY

No wonder our schools are failing.

Is this a setback for crossdressing?

Plat du jour

Found by an optician's on Lexington Ave.

Now we're number 7

The Transgender and Allies group has moved up to seventh on ActBlue's ranking of donors to the Obama campaign! We're up to 259 donors when I write this.

In two and a half days we've added over 150 donors (who gave about $8,000).

So please join in, if you haven't already. Help make the trans community visible politically. Read Kate Bornstein's latest post if you're unconvinced.

Just go to http://www.actblue.com/page/trans. Even if you can only afford a buck or two, it counts. And it all goes to the Obama campaign--neither ActBlue nor the Stonewall Democrats (who helped set up this effort) get anything. ActBlue does ask for a "tip" to help finance their operation, but it's completely optional.

Trans for Obama--keep up the momentum

The Trans for Obama Day is over, but our effort goes on. Contributions made today will count toward the Obama campaign's third quarter statistics, the last major reporting period before the election.

We also have a new goal: 261 donors. This should move us into 7th place on the list of groups donating to the Obama campaign through ActBlue.

So, if you haven't done so already, please make a donation. It's not too late. Large donations are appreciated, but any amount is welcome--the number of donors is of higher importance. The goal (aside from helping elect Barack Obama, of course), is to increase the political visibility of the transgender community and our allies.

Go to the Trans Community and Allies Page on ActBlue:
http://www.actblue.com/page/trans

It only takes a couple minutes. Even if you can only afford a buck or two--every penny goes to the Obama campaign.

It's also not too late to blog about our campaign. Joann Prinzivalli has joined the bloggers for the trans page group.

2:30PM UPDATE: We're up to 234 donors! and add some more bloggers to our list: Debra Porta, and Véronique. And then there's my friend Betty, who not only posted on the Daily Kos, but came out as trans there as well!

3:00PM UPDATE: The ActBlue site is having technical difficulties at the moment. Grrr!

5:30PM UPDATE: The site is back up. So you can donate NOW. Please.

We did it!

200 donors!

Only 6 more!

We need just 6 more donors to the Trans and Allies for Obama page to reach 200. We've got 9 minutes left until midnight. We can do it. Go to

http://www.actblue.com/page/trans

Right now!

UPDATE: I'm now told we're going by Pacific Daylight Time. And we only need 4 more now.

Mukasey: three steps forward, a big one back

On the same day I praised Attorney General Michael Mukasey for the latest of three positive developments, I got an action alert from the ACLU. It asked me to sign a petition to the Department of Justice's Inspector General, requesting him to determine whether the FBI has been violating its current internal guidelines on investigations. The action alert said:

Bush and Mukasey are at it again. They’ve announced dangerous new FBI guidelines that will severely jeopardize the personal privacy of innocent Americans. These regulations need no congressional approval and are terrifying...

If implemented, new guidelines will allow the FBI to interview you, your friends and your family under a false pretext.

The FBI could recruit secret informants and have them infiltrate peaceful protest groups.

Investigations based on little more than race, ethnicity or religion would be allowed.

The ACLU believes the proposal is unconstitutional.

But it's even worse than that. There are indications that the FBI is already acting as if the proposed new guidelines were in force.

So I signed the petition, and am asking you to sign, too (and unlike Trans for Obama Day, this won't cost you a cent). Just go to http://action.aclu.org/fbiguidelines. Here's what the ACLU suggested I send out:

Subject: We're all suspects?!

Under new FBI guidelines proposed by Attorney General Michael Mukasey, all the FBI has to do to put anybody they want under prolonged physical surveillance is assert an “authorized purpose” such as detecting or preventing crime or protecting “national security."

These kinds of Bush/Cheney/Gonzales/Mukasey “just trust us” policies have been eroding our rights for the past eight years. After illegal spying and top-level torture policies coming from the White House, this is absurd. Enough is enough!

These new guidelines would allow the FBI to interview you, your friends and family under a false pretext. The FBI could recruit secret informants, and have them infiltrate peaceful protest groups. And the FBI to could initiate investigations based on little more than race, ethnicity or religion.

The FBI could also search commercial databases for personal details about your life with no real reason.

And all of this would be allowed without an ounce of evidence that you or anyone else has done anything wrong.

These guidelines represent one step closer to a police state. And the worst part is that there is good reason to believe the FBI has been violating its internal guidelines all along.

Fortunately, there is something we can do about this before the new regulations are implemented.

I just demanded that the Inspector General at the Department of Justice launch an investigation to determine if the FBI has been violating its own guidelines. The Inspector General’s office at the Department of Justice has proven to be an unbiased, internal watchdog that has consistently exposed wrongdoing. We need to urge the IG to do it again. Take action now at:

http://action.aclu.org/fbiguidelines

We're number 8! We're number 8!

The Transgender and Allies group has moved up to eighth on ActBlue's ranking of donors to the Obama campaign! We've gotten 143 donors as of this writing.

So please join in, if you haven't already. Help make the trans community visible politically. If you still need some convincing, read my earlier post, and my original one from June. Or check out these bloggers' posts: Kate Bornstein, Helen Boyd (also her guest post on feministing), Angie Buhl, Laura Calvo, Lena Dahlstrom, Monica Helms, Andrea James, Dr. Morbius, Veronica Pejril, Riftgirl, Annie Rushden, Autumn Sandeen, Dr. Jillian Weiss. Also, Riftgirl's Sarah Palin video is hilarious.

Just go to http://www.actblue.com/page/trans. Even if you can only give $5, it counts. And it all goes to the campaign--neither ActBlue nor the Stonewall Democrats get anything. (But somebody's been sending in some big bucks: the group's total has increased about $3,600 today!)

6:00 PM (EDT) UPDATE: over 60 donors today, giving over $4,600--pushing us over the $10K mark!

Mukasey does another good thing

U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey continues to impress me. After this, and this, he has now appointed a prosecutor to go after Republicans who may have broken the law by orchestrating the firing of U.S. attorneys for political reasons--particularly for investigating possible crimes by other prominent Republicans.

This is somewhat of a reversal of his previous stance. In an address to the American Bar Association in August, Mukasey stated, "[N]ot every wrong, or even every violation of the law, is a crime." Technically, that is correct. But now he has been convinced that there may have been criminal acts here, as well as violations of the civil service law.

Bravo, Mr. Attorney General!

UPDATE: Already senators are warning Bush not to pardon any law-breakers found.

Trans for Obama Day--a good start

So far today we've added about 30 donors and $1000 for the Obama campaign through the trans page on ActBlue. If just 4 more people make donations we'll move up to the eighth largest group! If you make a donation NOW, you could be the one who moves us up the list!


Just click on:
http://www.actblue.com/page/trans

Here are some other people blogging about the Trans for Obama Day: Kate Bornstein, Helen Boyd, Lena Dahlstrom, Andrea James, Riftgirl, Annie Rushden, Dr. Jillian Weiss.

Assume nothing

From Overheard in New York

Man in elevator on cell: Yeah. That's what I'm paying for, right? Next time just make sure it's a male to female.

Trans-blog day for Obama

Today a number of trans and allied bloggers are renewing our plea to help the campaign of Barack Obama for president. Back in June a group of us sent out a request for donations to the Obama campaign through a specific page on Act Blue, the online clearinghouse for Democratic action, which was set up with the help of the Stonewall Democrats. The purpose of this effort was to demonstrate to the Obama campaign that we trans people and our allies are a significant group supporting him.

As you can see by the donor thermometer above we've had some success. As of this writing we are ninth on the list of groups donating to the Obama campaign through Act Blue. With a little effort we could be eighth. With a bit more, we could be seventh. Click here for my update.

I think (hope) that I'm preaching to the choir when I say that a McCain-Palin administration would be disastrous for the country, and for LGBT people in particular. While Barack Obama is not our perfect candidate, he is head and shoulders above his opponent.

He needs our financial support. The Republicans, the party of money, can always count on large donations from a small number of wealthy people, who want to use our government to increase their wealth, regardless of how that affects anyone else. Democrats like Barack Obama need the support of a large number of non-wealthy people, each giving a little, to counter this.

And as a group, trans people certainly are non-wealthy. If such a survey were possible, I'm sure we would find that the median wealth of trans people is far below that of the non-trans population. Many of us are the victims of employment discrimination. Many of us have to find new jobs, if not whole new careers, after transitioning--and transitioning itself can be very expensive.

So we don't expect large donations (though that would be nice, of course). We're looking to get as many people as possible to donate through the trans page. The number of donors is more important than the amount of money raised.

Everyone's help is needed. Your contribution, even if it's only $5, is needed. Please help. Please demonstrate to the Obama campaign that trans people are significant supporters. We need to be visible.

So go to http://www.actblue.com/page/trans and make a contribution. Every penny goes to the Obama campaign--no fees are deducted. Do it now, before you forget.

Thanks.

Weekly free associations

1. Hearing :: loss


2. Aggression :: Georgia


3. Charged :: particles


4. Traveler :: insurance


5. Hydrate :: water


6. Detox :: shampoo


7. Qualify :: Olympics


8. Prison :: cell


9. Frontal :: lobotomy


10. Pep talk :: halftime

Thanks to Unconscious Mutterings.

Plat du jour

A fan of one of those New Jersey football teams. (The only NFL team in New York is the Bills.)

Mukasey's on a roll

Justice Department won't send prosecutors to polls

Another good decision out of the attorney general's office. If the Bush administration weren't ending in a few months, I'd be wondering how long before Mukasey would be booted out.

A Bushie does something right!

U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey has rejected the denial of asylum for a woman facing genital mutilation and a possible forced marriage to her cousin. I'm impressed. After the miserable term of John Ashcroft, and the even worse one of Alberto R. Gonzales, Bush's latest A-G is definite improvement.

Of course, it's all relative. He's still a conservative Republican. He's just not a knee-jerk right-wing idealogue.

Best "Overheard in the Office" of the day

Female employee: You've never had Krispy Kreme donuts?
Male employee: Nope.
Female employee: Ohh. They are so good!
Male employee: Really?
Female employee: Yeah, they're better than sex!
Male employee: Hmm. You must be doing it wrong.

Centerville, Utah

via Overheard in the Office, Sep 22, 2008

I'm famous!

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5h2x8r8U5awx7fHsLIyvMbm53XEUw (I'm at the end.)

An accurate quote for once. But I don't think I was somber. Maybe the reporter was only looking at my friend. And for the record, I was wearing a glittery top and a skirt, and Tawdry had on an LBD. He was right about my necklace, though. I was running late and didn't have time to find the one I really wanted to wear.

This article is from Agence France-Press (AFP), and has already been carried by a bunch of news outlets around the world!

Weekly free associations

1. Heist :: Dortmunder


2. Hack :: license


3. Dane :: Nothing like a


4. Stings :: bees


5. Monkey :: business


6. Junkie :: dope


7. Pumped :: muscles


8. Brass :: tacks


9. Fight! :: 54-40 or


10. Vouch :: for

from Unconscious Mutterings

The ultimate silly online quiz

I could survive for 60 seconds chained to a bunk bed with a velociraptor
Thanks, Sandyshoes.

Plat du jour

I prefer chocolate.

Weekly free associations

1. Cut the crap :: ???


2. Scent :: smell


3. Vanishing :: cream


4. Wetness :: dryness


5. Cheap :: expensive


6. Badges :: stinking


7. Puppy :: love


8. Problem solver :: ???


9. Gambling :: addiction


10. Sophia :: Loren

from Unconscious Mutterings

I seem to have trouble with ones of more than one word.

Another one for the trans team?

From Liz Smith's column:

I THINK part of me would love to play a drag queen, just because it would be an excuse to wear loads of eye makeup," says the "Harry Potter" star Daniel Radcliffe.

Plat du jour

Eh, what's up, doc?

Plat du jour

Boasting about his/her salary, I guess.

Headline of the day

Teacher OK after crashing into bear on a bicycle

It must have been one of those circus bears.

(The AP did try to fix up the headline later: "Teacher OK after striking bear while riding bike.")

Plat du jour

Weekly free associations

1. House :: party


2. Think :: ahead


3. Clot :: cream


4. Believe me :: ???


5. Fumigation :: bugs


6. Bore :: drill


7. Luck :: draw


8. Patient :: doctor


9. Tremors :: movie


10. Pickles :: condiments

from Unconscious Mutterings

Plat du jour

A Martin Brodeur fan, I believe. Unless it's actually Brodeur's car.

Community organizer vs. governor

Plat du jour

No, New York is in the United States.

Plat du jour

In lieu of what? (unless this is referring to a very crowded bathroom)

Olympic thoughts

The Opening Ceremony: I thought the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony was magnificent--but at a cost of $300,000,000, they were hardly worth it. That's nearly $30,000 per athlete! Ooops, I forgot. The ceremony isn't for the athletes--they don't enter the stadium until most of it is over. Hopefully they had screens set up in their holding area so they could watch it.

Architecture: The "Bird's Nest" stadium and the swimming building (I refuse to call it a cube, because it's not one) are wonderful. I was a bit surprised at how attractive a lot of the Beijing architecture is. Somehow I expected it to be heavier, more practical than stylish. But even the extremely solid-looking tomb of Mao Tse-tung has playful moving fountains in front.

The NBC coverage: It was pretty good--I'll give them a B, maybe a B+. They handled the time difference quite well, even beyond insisting that events like the swimming finals be held in the morning Beijing time, so they could be shown live in prime time in the U.S. They managed to show the recorded events quite naturally, without pretending it was live. Only once did I notice an announcer giving the results of something that had not yet been broadcast. One problem, though, was NBC's tendency to wait until prime time to show the events that the U.S. athletes did well in. For instance, they showed the rowing finals during the day, except no mention was made of the women's 8 event, which the U.S. boat won. That they saved to show in the evening.

Personally, though, it was a pain avoiding news reports of the results of events that were not yet broadcast. I read the sports section of the newspaper a day late, just to make sure.

The level of NBC's expert commentary varied quite a bit. Some of it was over-technical (like fencing), some was lacking in depth (like gymnastics). Speaking of fencing, I found it impossible to follow. Even with slow motion replays, I couldn't really tell what was happening.

They kept the number of features down--there were just enough to give viewers an occasional break from the events, while still using most of the broadcasts to show the competitions. I was not the least bit surprised that there were no coverage of the living quarters of the average Beijing residents, however--let alone any mention of the rural poverty found throughout most of the country.

I did miss having a daily wrap-up. I suppose that might be difficult with the time difference. The only thing they did each day was to give a medal count.

The competition: Michael Phelps' winning 8 gold medals was tremendous--significantly more difficult than the 7 Mark Spitz won in 1972. For one thing, Spitz only swam the freestyle and the butterfly, while Phelps used all four strokes. Also, Phelps swam 17 races to Spitz's 13, I think it was. But also, I think the level of competition is just a whole lot greater today than it was 36 years ago. There was one factor, never mentioned in the broadcasts, where Phelps had it easier. Spitz completed his feat in the aftermath of the Palestinian terrorist attack on the Israeli athletes, and there was concern that Spitz, who is Jewish, might also be a target. It was a nice touch, though, for NBC to have Spitz electronically join Phelps in an interview--not that Spitz really had all that much to say, other than to congratulate Phelps.

In a way it was unfortunate that so many of the U.S. teams did so well. Their games took up a huge amount of the broadcasts, and I think coverage of individual events suffered because of that. I never saw a minute of wrestling, a sport I like a lot.

Officiating: As for the officiating, there was far too much controversy, particularly in the judged events. I don't ever remember there being problems with diving in the past, and there weren't any in Beijing, outside of some widely divergent scores occasionally. But gymnastics had some, and boxing was a complete mess. The winter games' figure skating has managed to come up with a pretty good solution to its problems: a change to a somewhat more objective system, and the use a large panel of judges (14, I think) from which a computer blindly picks a smaller number to actually use. Gymnastics would greatly benefit from a similar system. However, there would be a problem: gymnastics has multiple events going on simultaneously, 6 for the men, 4 for the women. So you'd need a huge number of judges, and I doubt there are that many who have enough experience judging world-class competitions.

To its credit, gymnastics has made some changes. It has made the judging criteria more objective. And quite some time ago it went to "neutral judging." All of the judges are from countries that do not have athletes competing in that event. But from that a different problem arises--although the possibility of biased judges has decreased, neutral judging increases the possibility of incompetent judges. Simply put, if a country is not able to develop gymnasts good enough to compete at the Olympics, it may not be able to develop judges that are good enough to officiate there. At the very least, they probably will not have been seeing very much of the Olympic-level skills back in their home countries. I think this was the reason it took so long for some of the scores to arrive sometimes, particularly in the early days--the "technical committee," which does have officials from the competing countries, were checking the judges' scores to make sure that at least the objective part was done correctly.

Then there's boxing. Without getting into the question of whether it belongs in the Olympics at all, its judging system just doesn't work right. They tried to make it objective, but what they came up with is totally inadequate. Five judges are arranged around the ring. Each has a button for each fighter, and they are supposed to push the button for a contestant when he lands a legal punch. If three of the five judges push the button for a fighter within one second, he gets a point. Fine. But the problem is that very often one, two, sometimes even three of the judges are not able to actually see where a punch lands--the fighters' bodies, or the referee, is blocking their view. The result is that many good punches result in no score. My prescription: increase the number of judges. Put two (or even three) on each side of the ring, so more of them will have an unobstructed view at any one time. Then score a point if half of them push the button within a second.

Miscellaneous: The Beijing Olympics were far more spectator-friendly than the Montreal games that I attended in 1976. The announcers in the venues were far more informative than we had. Except for the main stadium, none of the venues had viewing screens in 1976, and even the one there (this was one of the first ones anywhere) showed no replays). We had no cheerleaders at basketball games (forget about the bikini-clad dancers at beach volleyball--the sport wasn't in the Olympics in 1976 (Was it even an organized sport back then?)). We didn't have a pre-show to entertain us before the actual Opening and Closing Ceremonies took place. We were required to arrive an hour early, and then twiddle our thumbs.

Natalie Coughlin had the best smile of the entire games.

Sometime since 1976, I think fairly recently, gymnastics changed its competition format somewhat. First, they eliminated the compulsory exercises in the team competition. It got extremely boring watching gymnast after gymnast do the exact same thing, especially since these exercises were rather easy compared to the optional ones they did in the competition. (And with the women's floor exercise, they all used the same music!) Also, previously all of the athletes competed on all of the apparatuses (apparati?--I guess not) in the team competition. Now they have specialists. This has increased the average skill of the athletes actually competing (though I suspect is has made the selection of the team members a whole lot more difficult).

The floor they use for the gymnastics floor exercises is a whole lot more bouncy than it was in 1976, I think.

I looked at the nbcolympics.com website the first night of competition, but almost never after that. Besides my not wanting to find out the results of events that were going to be televised later, the live broadcasts on the web had no audio commentary, and very little visual either.

I never had the time nor the inclination to look at NBC's auxiliary channels very much. They had channels for basketball, soccer and boxing, plus one general one, all in high-definition, using MSNBC and CNBC among others. In addition, they occasionally had broadcasts on other channels--for instance, they had a couple of hours of the equestrian events on the Oxygen Channel, at least some of the days.

I doubt all of the Chinese women gymnasts are 16 years old as the current rules require, but I'm not sure they should have such a rule. I'd rather see minimum height and/or weight rules--that might reduce the over-emphasis on tumbling skills that we currently see. They certainly would be easier to enforce.

It was great watching the U.S. men's basketball team, the "Redeem Team," win the gold, after its bronze medal performance in 2004. It was great watching all these millionaire superstars put the team first and themselves second--especially the ones that rarely were used in the game. And it was very classy of them to drape their medals around their coach's neck for a team picture--coaches don't get a medal, only the athletes themselves.

My "Olympic records": The number of hits my glob got from people looking for information on Mary Carillo was huge--nearly 15,000 over the course of the two weeks. Each day about 95% of my visitors went directly to my Mary Carillo lesbian? post. The single day high: 2,228. (This last week it went down, of course, but there was still some residual Carillo effect. And it went back into triple figures yesterday, as she's now back here in New York, broadcasting from the U.S. Open.)

Weekly free associations

1. Groceries :: list


2. Deodorant :: spray


3. Psychic :: rip-off


4. Cherries :: pits


5. Spooky :: Halloween


6. Yogurt :: plain


7. Kitchen :: cabinet


8. Nothing personal :: ha!


9. Be nice :: I wish


10. Delivery :: Home

From Unconscious Mutterings.

Plat du jour

Internet radio weirdness

I'm listening to the Wisconsin football game via Yahoo! Sports. They transmit the statewide network radio broadcast. It's really funny sitting here in my Manhattan apartment listening to ads for farm equipment and soybean seeds.

Headline fail

John McCain Pick from Left Field: Sarah Who?

No, she's from right field. In fact, she's over the foul line.

From Overheard in the Office

IT guy: Your laptop is not booting up because you have a stuck function key. What happened, anyway?

Rep (refusing to make eye contact): Yeah, I ... uhhh, think I dropped something on it.

It guy: Like what?!

Rep: Ummm yeah, well, like my fist.

via Overheard in the Office, Aug 28, 2008

Question of the day

Can Gov. Palin spell "potato?"

Obama goes to the ball park and hits a home run

Some people, especially Republicans, say they are underwhelmed by Obama's acceptance speech. They expected (or at least wanted) a fiery over-the-top call to the Democratic troops to go out and spread the liberal word to rest of America. Instead, Obama delivered a forceful, but controlled, summary of the failures of the Bush-McCain program and a rationale for electing him President. He laid out specifics. He looked for areas of agreement, and gave little ammunition to those that would want to wedge off hunks of undecided voters. It was precisely the speech that was needed at this point.

Sorry, Republicans. Obama isn't going to be a predictable, easy target for you.

Plat du jour

Only 1 Michigan? I dunno.

That is to say, I don't know if that's what the license plate means. I do know there is only one Michigan (unless you count Upper Michigan as a different one, of course).

Semi-random thoughts

● As you may have surmised, I was pre-occupied with the Olympics for a couple weeks. (I'll put together a post with my thoughts on the Games sometime soon.) This week it's the Democratic National Convention and the U.S. Tennis Open that are taking up my time--not to mention the pile of mail that accumulated while I was watching the Olympics. I will try to resume my posting frequency, however.

● Since I finally shook off the cold that was plaguing me for a couple weeks, I've resumed exercising every day. Yay me!

● I don't remember ever needing to repair any of my refrigerators in my entire life even once. But now it's twice for the current one. It's making a strange, groaning noise (which, strangely, stops when I open the freezer drawer). I will grant that this is the first one that has an ice-maker/cold water dispenser (which is what failed the first time), but it sure seems that they don't make them the same way they used to. (UPDATE: Unsurprisingly, it was the ice maker motor. We were advised that as long as it's continuing to make ice it isn't worth replacing. Also, turning up the thermostat (i.e. letting the freezer get a little warmer) might make the noise disappear.)

● I think it's a little sad that some of Hillary Clinton's supporters can't get over the fact that she lost (a couple of my Facebook friends continue to post anti-unity things). What I've noticed is that some of the most vehement Hillary die-hards are gay men. They seem to have invested so much of their own identity in her campaign. It’s as if they feel that having a woman president is as close to having a gay man elected as they’ll ever get.

● On Saturday the University of Wisconsin Badgers start the football season with a game against the Akron Zips. The Zips???!! Who in their right mind names an athletic team the Zips? (I sure hope they're no relation to Appalachian State.)

Weekly free associations

1. Cry :: laugh


2. Stretch :: out


3. Efficient :: good


4. Brunch :: lunch


5. Afro :: hair


6. Preheat :: oven


7. Delicious :: apple


8. Global warming :: crisis


9. Actions :: reactions


10. Ride :: walk

Plat du jour

Hair?

Plat du jour

No, this is your car.

Weekly free association

1. Signature :: line


2. Olympics :: marathon


3. 100% :: pure


4. Damn! :: it


5. Gold :: fish


6. Fresh and natural :: advertisement


7. Fraction :: part


8. Hurry :: up


9. Summer :: Winter


10. 29th :: 30th

Plat du jour

Plat du jour

Plat du jour

Let's hear it for bad writing

The winners of San Jose State University's 26th annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest have been announced. The grand prize, given for the worst example of an opening sentence of an imaginary novel, went to Garrison Spik of Washington, D.C. for

Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber, and like the city their passion was open 24/7, steam rising from their bodies like slick streets exhaling warm, moist, white breath through manhole covers stamped "Forged by DeLaney Bros., Piscataway, N.J."

My favorite division of the competition is for "Vile Puns." The winner:

Vowing revenge on his English teacher for making him memorize Wordsworth's "Intimations of Immortality," Warren decided to pour sugar in her gas tank, but he inadvertently grabbed a sugar substitute so it was actually Splenda in the gas.

An opening sentence doesn't have to be long to be bad. There was this in the "Miscellaneous Dishonorable Mentions:"

She had the kind of body that made a man want to have sex with her.

Another "Olympic" record

Yesterday my glob had 1,223 visitors. Well over 90% went straight (tee-hee) to Mary Carillo lesbian?. (Anyone interested in my opinion on the matter should click on the link to my post.)

Plat du jour

NOICANT.

Happy birthday to my glob

It's three years old today. I've published 1,151 posts in that time. My first.

Well, it was an experiment at that point. I didn't know what I was doing. (OK, who said I still don't?)

(Hmmm, in writing this I noticed I have 9 posts in draft that I never published. I'll have to look into that.)

35,000 visitors!

My glob just received its 35,000th visitor. It only took about three months for the last 5,000. Thank you, Mary Carillo.

BTW, yesterday did not break my "Olympic record" for visitors in a single day. But it did come close: 979.

Plat du jour

Jaguars say "woofff?"

Mini-rants

● Why do the clementines in the current bag have so many seeds?

● I wish Tim Daggett would give a little more technical description when commentating on the Olympics gymnastics. I don't need him to tell me me something is "crazy hard."

● I wish this cold would go away.

● McAfee's patch doesn't work. Its Anti-Spam program still crashes my browser often. Grrr.

My Olympic records

I guess Mary Carillo's first broadcast stint at the Olympics was Sunday. So I wasn't surprised when my previous record of 278 visitors to my glob (set during Wimbledon) was smashed. I got 657 hits, mostly people wanting to know her sexuality, marital status, etc.

But that was just the prelude. Yesterday I got 1,001 visitors.

Plat du jour

The funniest cat picture I've ever seen

more cat pictures

Plat du jour

A James Bond fan, I guess. Among films I preferred From Russia with Love, though the recent Casino Royale may have equalled it. As far as the books themselves, On Her Majesty's Secret Service was Fleming's best.

Weekly free associations

Sandyshoes found this one at http://subliminal.lunanina.com

1. Month to month :: tenancy


2. Adjusted :: gross income


3. Prank :: juvenile


4. Mop :: up


5. Clarity :: preciseness


6. Parenting :: magazine


7. Glenn :: Falls


8. Fingerprint :: CSI


9. Pineapple :: Street


10. Attorney :: lawyer

Plat du jour

No, I haven't dropped off the face of the earth

I haven't posted in quite a while. The motel's Internet connection never worked properly after my previous post. We were able to get wi-fi access for limited periods at the public library in Lee later in the week, but there wasn't enough time to post. Since I got back to NY on Sunday, I've been suffering from a major cold, and sleeping more than usual--though it strangely let up a bit for one day, and I was able to get out. But the main thing I've been doing is to try to catch up on my e-mail and other Internet things, and my snail mail--which I still haven't done completely. And now the Olympics have started, which have grabbed most of my waking hours since yesterday evening. But I will get back to my glob.

First report from the Berkshires

We're up here in the Berkshires at the "Quality Inn." I suppose that's an accurate description--it doesn't say what level quality. Things got off to a rocky start when I noticed the door to our room didn't lock, at least from the outside. The next morning the motel owner (whose English leaves something to be desired) went out and got a maintenance man--telephoning him hadn't worked. I could see why--the maintenance man's English was far worse. I couldn't understand him at all. But he did fix the door lock problem, by wedging up the other door jamb, the one with the hinges! Somehow, that worked, allowing the lock to engage.

Occasionally the motel wi-fi works. This is the first time it's been up long enough to do more that check our e-mail.














At least the view from our room's nice little porch is good.

We did hear a very nice concert Saturday at the Berkshire Choral Festival, conducted by New York's own Kent Tritle: Handel's Solomon. Yesterday we went into Great Barrington and saw Mamma Mia! during a rainstorm. It was quite cute and silly. The movie, not the storm. That was severe enough to knock down tree limbs and cut the electricity in places.