Recall Recollection =>
The important thing about the Gray Davis recall is not who's in or out, but that politicians should realize that they serve at the people's pleasure and that they can be terminated if they play fast and loose with the facts for political advantage (residents of DC would be well advised to heed this warning as well).

Anyway, my governor can kick your governor's ass.
jkb at 1:18 AM

Tickling the connection =>

Long time, no post.

Without Spending too much time lamenting my lack of productivity blog-wise (as useful for a third person reader as a page full of "I can't think of anything to write" exercises by a novelist with writer's block), let's just say I've been busy. Let me count the ways:

• I'm now in a third band, called "Plastic Supermodel". Three chord rock, up-tempo loud and fun. I now tell people that if they want me to join their band or project, they have to speak to my manager (i.e., my wife Leslie).
  
• Work, work, and more work. In fact, I'm working so much that it's hard to get any real work done - you know, things that don't pay the bills directly but would lead to a tangible increase in my quality of life.
  
• My daughter is graduating from high school in June, and is otherwise trying to make sure that any disposable income of mine is put to productive use furnishing jobs for members of the service economy, their corporate parents and their entire supply chain. (Sounds kind of noble, when you put it that way).
  
• N=(N+1)...
  

Well there's my phone again, and it off to do some more (unpaid) work on the rehearsal studio. I'd like to say let's do this more often, but I don't even know what this is, so I'll just say bye for now.

Maybe next time I'll write a list of why I don't blog more often, and what kind of tool I REALLY want.

jkb at 4:47 PM

All the moral justification needed for the US to invade Iraq and hang Saddam from the highest spire until vultures pick his carcass clean =>

Because it can.

What good is it to be an empire if you can't initiate unprovoked, unilateral action from time to time.

BTW, if I hear that this is a war for oil one more time, I swear I'll take a hostage. Earth to whack-job kooks (both on the left and the right): There is plenty of oil in the world, and they are finding more every day. War will in all likelihood send oil prices up and hurt the US economy, not to mention probably wreck Iraq's oil producing capacity in the short term once they employ the Swiss strategy and blow their wells sky high. Only a diehard conspiracy theorist could concoct a way for this to be of some benefit to GWB and his cabal of Fatcat Oil-baron Cronies(TM). A much more likely theory is that Bush Jr. is attempting to do a little legacy repair for dear old dad, the man who will be remembered by history as the guy who couldn't finish the job in Gulf War 1, and who lost his position while Saddam was able to keep his.

Another semi-plausable theory is that Jr. is hoping for a ratings bump that will get him through 2004. Still, if this is supposed to be some sort of Wag-the-Dog scenario, it seems like it's a little premature to me. George H. W. was riding high in the polls in 1990, only to suffer ignominious defeat a little over two years later. And if there is one period of history that GWB could be said to have studied with scholarly rigor, it is 1988-92.
jkb at 11:12 PM

Happy Freekin' New Year =>
Given that January 1st is nearly devoid of astronomical significance, and thus an almost a random date for the new year, then the 12th of that month couldn't be a much worse date for my New Year's greeting. Here's hoping that on the final tick of 2003, you're still breathing and your bank account has a positive balance.

My goals for this year:

• Make more money, but not so much that my daughter's financial aid suffers
• Learn how to use my anger to discover my fears and expectations
• Lose 10Lbs. (this is a perennial favorite for some, but a first for me)
• Have more sex
• Get my son into karate
• Get my daughter into a good college (see above)
• Ditch all my crappy cars for one car/truck that is slightly less crappy
• Get more quality sleep
• Create a plan for organizing my life (I am under no illusions that the actual organization process will take less than a decade, but having a good plan wouldn't be a bad place to start)
• Write more, edit less - it's easy to remain perfect if one does nothing
• Drive closer to the speed limit (the fines are bad enough, but traffic school is sure to cure anyone of lead-foot)
• Call my mom more
• Learn some drum rudiments
• Return friend's emails in a more timely fashion
• A bunch of other boring crap that I won't burden the reader with, but that needs to get done

Even a bad movie needs a script, and that's mine for now - plenty of re-writes are in store no doubt.
jkb at 11:18 PM

Long time, lot's to catch up on...

My daughter is applying to collages ("This one's only $35,000 - with room and board included!")... my son is in the cub scouts, pimping popcorn to the masses... I've got more work that I can schedule -- construcion, computer networking and troubleshooting, giging with two bands... my main band broke up but the remaining members formed a new one and have since been working feverishly on remodeling the old practice space to allow recording and high volume, late night rockin'... Christmas -- Taxes -- fixing cars -- reformating hard drives -- Aarrrrgh!!!

Calgon, take me away!
jkb at 11:32 AM

Just a thought =>
Of the things on Bush Jr.'s new lame-duck Christmas list is to do something about terrorist insurance, namely to impose some sort of price caps due to skyrocketing prices post 9/11. If he believed in markets as much as he says he does, he would realize that the current price is based on insurance companies realising that there is a much greater risk of damage and death due to terrorist attack than previously thought, and that maybe the way to lower these rates would be to craft US foriegn policy so that its actions would provoke less hostility towards us from other nations and nationalities around the world. Governmental interferance in markets, it seems, is only undesirable when it's not your idea.
jkb at 11:01 PM

Election night Grumblings =>
If I hear one more time that low voter turn-outs in this country are the result of "voter apathy", I swear I'm going to take a hostage. No, Virginia, it is not indifference or laziness or ignorance that has resulted in less than half of us showing up at the polls to worship at the alter of representative democracy and to give homage the memory of those brave souls who died so that we may enjoy the blessings of freedom, yada yada yada... It's more like the attitude of a condemned prisoner who is given the choice of what chemicals will be used to kill him. Reading the label to determine which poison will have the least unpleasant side-effects somehow loses it's attention-focussing effects when the results will be identical. Give me something to vote for and I'll show up with bells on. [Editor's note: Actually, I do vote, even in the primaries, if only because the polling station is just a few blocks down the street, and to vote no on all those farkakteh ballot measures.]

Seriously folks, a "none of the above" or "vote against" option on the ballot is just the ticket to help keep a few of the same lame-assed lifers from parking their trough-fed asses permanently in a legislative seat with little or no opposition. One could theoretically run unopposed and still lose, if the voters decided they've had enough of the clown. If I'm at a store and they don't have what I want, I still have the right to walk out without buying a thing. Sure, my district may temporarily be without representation in congress, but that would be a far better situation than being forced to choose between Satan and Kali to look after my interests (yeah right!) in the meantime.

Better still, make the whole thing a lottery. You'd save months of mind-numbing attack ads, with all that ominous background music, out-of-context quotes and unflattering slow motion video, and probably wouldn't be a lot worse for the ware. Not only would you eliminate all the self-rightious hand-ringing over campaign financing, as well as dreary hours of election night coverage, but you could probably make a little money on the side through ticket sales. All you need is a game show host with a lovely sequined clad assistant, plus a deep-voiced announcer, and you're done: "Tell us Rod, who's going to be the next representative from the 6th congressional district" "Well Chad, it's... Kevin Jones of Springfield, come on down!"

Just don't tell me about other country's high participation rates or that if I don't vote I'm committing some grave sin against society. I'm sure that voter turnout last go 'round in Iraq or North Korea was high enough to make some ivory tower sociologist twit cream his or her pants, but the right not to make a choice is every bit as important and sacred as the right to make one. At least this one's in the can, and not a moment too soon.
jkb at 11:47 PM

Wow. I want to write about 562 (more or less) different subjects right now, including:

• Soundproffing construction for music rooms


• What to do about the insanity of the Middle East and how we're basically fucked regardless of what we do or don't do at this point
  
• Overhauling my LAN/installing XP and OSX
  
• Wondering why I'm getting so much porn spam lately (along with penis enlargement and Viagra spam--must be related somehow ;)
  
• What kind of Legos I'm getting, I mean my son is getting, for Christmas, along with whether I'll get a $200 Playstation 2 or a $49 Playstation 1 and a DVD player
  
• Who I'm [not] voting for tomorrow, OR: why a fool and your money are soon partners
  
• The fun and challenge of playing in more than one band
  
• What kind of schools my daughter is looking at for college and why annual mean temperature is of great concern
  
• Being self-employed and wanting to get fired (kinda, not really)
  
• How the time shift is causing my symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder
  
• Why I'm bummed out that in my brief blogging experience I have yet to write anything worthy of Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Ambose Bierce or H. L. Menkin
  
• etc, etc, etc...
  

Unfortunately it's much too late and I've got to get some sleep. Peace out.


jkb at 12:58 AM

Reggie has a few choice words to say (way!), in her own inimitable style.
jkb at 12:18 AM

Tolerating Tolerance =>
Today's message of tolerance comes to you from Soundgarden:

Cry, if you want to cry
If it helps you see
If it clears your eyes

Hate, if you want to hate
If it keeps you safe
If it makes you brave

Pray, if you want to pray
If you like to kneel
If you like to lay

Don't come over here
And piss on my gate
Save it just keep it
Off my wave

- soundgarden->superunknown->My Wave

Kind of sums it up for me. It's hard for me to tweak my brain into the mind set that allows the hubristic stance that all people should subscribe to my points of view. I arrived at my various viewpoints (if indeed I'm ever really finished conceptualizing an idea) through my particular and unique experiential path through timespace, and expect that others have done the same.

This is not to say that I'm a moral relativist. I believe in Right and Wrong™ and a reciprocal version of the "Golden Rule" (I reserve the right to ignore it if you have first; in fact I reserve the right to change my mind about anything without notice, given new data and/or an alternate interpretation). I just think that most aspects of life are not to be elevated to the level of a moral distinction but are, more mundanely, a matter of taste. And where taste is concerned, there is no overriding moral imperative to distinguish right from wrong, good from evil, the saved from the damned. I like chocolate ice cream. Don't try and make it part of some moral crusade to save the landless farmers of Central America from exploitation by greedy transnational corporations. Good luck with your "consciousness raising" exercise, but if you harass me for my choice amongst 31 flavors, then you can, with all due respect for your tastes and opinions, fuck off.
jkb at 5:51 PM

Hmmmm, can't upload a new post that I just edited in TextPad, but I can type one by hand. Curoius.
jkb at 12:24 PM

My new friend from Maine, Regina Yount, gives a great recipe for soft pretzels. I'm salivating at the very thought of dipping them into cheese sauce or soup on a cool fall afternoon, which reminds me, it's time for the game!
jkb at 10:35 AM

No rest for the Wicked =>
So my daughter takes our son to church this morning, no doubt as part of some youth recruitment and indoctrination drive, leaving her unsaved agnostic parents at home with nothing to do and, thanks to daylight savings time, an extra hour to do it. Makes you wonder if God would have rested on the seventh day if there was a "Goddess" around ;)
jkb at 9:19 AM

Republic or Empire? =>
John Perry Barlow writes in a piece called "The American Republic is dead. Hail the American Empire. Or else", where upon he decries the recent congressional resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq, which is named, in appropriately Orwellian fashion, the "Resolution Authorizing the President to Use Force, if Necessary, to End the Threat to World Peace from Saddam Hussein's Weapons of Mass Destruction," [emphasis added]. A quote:

I believe that the American Republic died in the U.S. Senate last Thursday morning and was buried yesterday morning in the East Room of the White House.

Nice thought, except he's a least six decades off, for the death of the American Republic was certainly a fait accompli during the reign, er presidency, of FDR, if not Woodrow Wilson or even Teddy Roosevelt. In this the American Century, this county has assumed the mantle of the fallen British and French empires, spiritually and economically exhausted from the carnage of WWI, defeated the German and Japanese empires in battle during WWII, and bankrupted the Soviet empire in an economic and strategic war of attrition that lasted for over half a century to emerge as the last empire of the Millennium. Regardless of how we choose our emperor (can you really argue that any recent president's election has been a truly "democratic" process?), this country's effect on the international community is no less imperial than those more accurately named empires that have proceed it. Another quote:

Despite the fact that we have been exposed to far worse during our history - whether by Bloody Old England, the Kaiser, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, the Soviet Union, Red China, or, hell, France on a bad day - we have never before declared war without being attacked nor have we extended an American President the right to do so at his pleasure.

While this statement is correct as far as it goes, it neglects the fact that we seem to get into plenty of mischief without the niceties of a declared war, or even a nebulous congressional authorization. Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Serbia, even Persian Gulf I, were all against enemies who did nothing to provoke us directly, but had the misfortune of having leaders or governments that were on the wrong side of American political or economic interests. Now include all the totalitarian dictators we propped-up or opposition figures we had killed in the name of national security. Sounds pretty imperial to me. Afghanistan was probably the most justifiable conflict since World War II, a rogue government who harbored an organization who has made numerous deadly attacks against US citizens and property both abroad and at home. Even so, the war on terrorism seems likely to degenerate into a shadowy state of low-intensity conflict that may smolder well into this century, not an emergency to be overcome with life returning to "normal" afterwards, but an ongoing policy of aggressive action in order to maintain the our economic and ideological supremacy in the world. Pax Americana? More like Imperium Americana.

So it's wonderful that Mr. Barlow has acknowledged the fact that the US, in deed if not in word, is an empire. In fact it's possibly the greatest in history in it's ability project it's power onto any set of coordinates on the map. It's a situation long noted and decried by intellectuals on the left, who see meddlesome American interests as a threat to peace and justice throughout the world, as well one fully embraced by those on the right for whom empire is a metaphor for a kind of moral and economic manifest destiny. "America, America, God shed his grace on thee", goes the old song, and to some this reflects their belief in our God-granted ascendancy to the position of the world's last remaining superpower. They would do well to remember that all previous Empires have fallen, and usually from the inside out, so that the barbarians at the gates are merely removing an already crumbling facade, hollowed out by a combination of narcissism, hubris and inflexibility.

A constant state of war means that, by definition, power must be further concentrated into a central authority to coordinate matters of national security, with every aspect of everyday life eventually evaluated on the basis of whether it helps or hinders the war effort. When the entire world, even citizens of this country, may be involved in shadowy plots to undermine our position in the world, the logic of power insists that everything, even the hollowed ideals of democracy, freedom and human rights, must be sacrificed to ensure the security of the state. It's nice that people are noticing that the freedom-for-security bait-and-switch is happening right now, hidden under a cloud of rhetorical ash cloud thicker than the dust from any falling skyscraper. My question is, what took them so long?

Postscript:
Our one saving grace is that, so far, no nation or way of life has been able to successfully resist the virus-like vector of our Imperial culture. If at some point the US shrinks into the background of history, it may be because we have succeed in that goal with has eluded all previous empires, the total economic and cultural assimilation of the world into the ultimate of empires. Of course, by then, we'll have to contend with Mars and other extra-Terrestrial settlements who, unconstrained by the inertia of Earth-bound history, and with cultures and peoples of their own, may yet preside over the humbling of imperial Earth. The end of history? Pax Solaria? More likely just the wheel of history on it's way through another revolution.
jkb at 6:17 PM

I'm getting pop-up ads all the time now for things that have little to do with what I'm viewing, which leads me to believe that I've downloaded some rogue piece of stinkware that spawns ads that it thinks is related to what I'm viewing, but is poorly written (or has no intention of being contextual, and is just shoveling ads at me). This is as annoying as that crap that made commercial links from random words on webpages in a really ugly yellow highlighter style after loading a Grokster update last year. If there was ever a candidate for "There oughta be a law" status it's this kind of rudeness.

I don't feel like going on a hunt through my registry for the offending code, so it looks like it's time to reload from the disk image once again (thank you Ghost).
jkb at 12:05 AM

---

About me and this site =>
My name is John Bordage. I grew up in Maine, went to college in Boston, then moved to San Diego county, where I live with my wife, two kids, a cat, a roommate and his dog. I divide my attention between my family, my steady day-job as a carpenter, my freelance work as a tech consultant, playing drums in two bands, and staring at a computer screen for amusement and edification.

This site was developed using Dreamweaver 3, though the code was mostly writen by hand or cut-and-pasted from other examples. Work was done on both a Celron PC and a Mac G4, depending on which one my daughter was using at the moment.

Disclaimer =>
All opinions writen by me on this site are mine alone, and not those of my employer, my clients, my family, my bands, my mother, my pets, or any other person or entity that is not me. In fact, some of the opinions stated within are not even mine (sometimes I just like to say crap to see what it sounds like).

Those who are easily offended, ill humored or just plain ignorant should avoid this whole affair, as I will probably say something to offend just about anyone at least once, unless of course you like to be annoyed, in which case read all you like, see what the fuck I care. Asshole.