Fiat Lux

In what bizarro world is this proposal indecent?

Only women over age 35 or 40 be allowed to drive and only in cities. On highways, he said, they could drive if accompanied by male guardians.

Saudi Arabia, of course! Women are banned from driving in Saudi Arabia, and a Saudi councilman Mohammad al-Zulfa has recently suggested easing the ban to allow some women to drive some of the time. But the thought that women might actually be allowed to do anything for themselves in Saudi Arabia is just too scary. What happened?

I'm in another quiet cycle. It's one of those times when there's not much that is moving me to post; although, of course, the usual litany of news, scandals, neo-fascist outrages, etc are still merrily chugging along.

If past history is a guide, I'll feel more like blogging in a few more days.

Bob Herbert's column today, and the multi-part NY Times series on class in America, is pretty depresing stuff. But Jesse over at Pandagon said something in response that ought to be emphasized:

There's no problem with the people who run the company earning more money. There's a problem when we set up an economy where they reap all the benefits for the company they run, as if everyone under them is simply a token functionary who adds nothing to the company's success.

There's a larger point to be made here about the whole issue of how the work world has changed in the past few decades but I'm strugling with the words for it.

Pansy and Marcy have hit their weight requirement and are now old enough to be spayed & put up for adoption. We'll be returning them to the SPCA tomorrow morning. With any luck, by this time next week they'll both be in good, loving, forever homes and being petted, played with, and cuddled by their new families.

It's been fun having them around and I'm sad to see them go. Not so sad that I want to keep them, but still sad.

The good news is that we'll probably pick up some more kittens to foster after we drop Marcy and Pansy off - possibly even a mommy-cat and her litter. I'll update when I know more.

We dropped off Pansy & Marcy this morning and have three new foster kittens chilling out in the dining room. No photos yet, they need to settle in. Soon, though.

My hands smell like bleach from having to sanitize everything the fosters used in bleach solution. Yuck. Next time I wear gloves.

The new fosters are settling in. We have three kittens this time, two girls and a boy, all about 5 weeks old. They are: (from L to R) Kiki, Knickers, and Kitnip.

No, we do not pick their names; yes, I would change them if I could. Kitnip is shy and hissy and will need a lot of socialization. Since she is all-black, this is especially critical, because black cats have a hard enough time getting adopted. Black cats with 'problem' personalities spend a LOT of time waiting for a home. Hopefully we'll be able to help prevent that.

Isn't she sweet though?

Nancy Pelosi says:

If you ever need any inspiration or need to know how urgent our work is, just remember that the CEO of Wal-Mart makes as much in two weeks as its entry-level employees make in a lifetime. A lifetime; not a year, not four years: a lifetime

Emphasis added.

UPDATE: Thinking some more, I want to add why I find this so annoying. Companies like Wal-Mart are almost entirely dependent on their front-line troops as generators of revenue. Wal-Mart would not make their huge profits if their stock clerks and cashiers and other front-line employees did not do what they did. So for them so be so poorly compensated when the CEO sits back and makes vast bucks as if that were totally unconnected to the long, hard, earnest labor of the poorly paid front-line troops is particularly offensive.

So this lovely Saturday, Scott and I headed down to the KRON-4 studios by invitation, there to meet up with about 100 or so of our fellow Bay Area Bloggers. Apparently KRON is trying to get a handle on this 'new' (at least to them) medium of communication and community.

There were snacks, free t-shirts, and a few short speeches by KRON staff about how great it was that we were there and what great things KRON would like to do to support the local blogger community, but the main focus was for bloggers to network with each other.

Anil Dash from SixApart was there, as was Craig from CraigsList, and Chris Nolan of Politics From Left To Right (one of my blogrolled sites). I also saw some of the local blog-related businesses represented, if the Technorati, Blogger, and Feedster t-shirts some folks were wearing was evidence. There were a bunch of local food bloggers and a broad range of other folks, from gay bloggers to photobloggers. I even ran into a former co-worker from Critical Path.

It was fun, but I found the event very stressful and ended up getting very snippy at Scott. I realized why on the drive home. Watching the food bloggers chat with each other and Chris, Anil, and Craig comfortably schmoozing, I felt like I'd felt all through high school -- I was sitting on the sidelines watching the cool kids all interact effortlessly while I struggled to make friends at all.

Despite making great gains over the years against my innate shyness, it is really hard for me to network, especially in a room full of people I don't know. Opening my mouth to talk to a new person is a big effort, and when the other person is someone who I perceive to be more accomplished than me, I'm often too intimidated to say anything at all. I get frustrated that I feel this way, which today led to me being short with the one person in the room that I could talk to without feeling scared.

Anyway, despite it all, I did get to tell someone whose work I enjoy that I like her blog, so that's a small victory. Maybe next time I'll be brave enough to tell Craig "thank you" for Craigslist.

UPDATE: KRON's coverage of the event is online now.

Kiki

First attempt at moblogging.

On the way home from the KRON event yesterday, Scott and I stopped off at a Cingular store and finally got around to unifying our cell phone accounts into one family plan, which ought to save us about $50 a month.

Of course, we offset these savings by going for the saleswoman's offer of "buy one, get one free" on the oh-so-cool Motorola V3 Razor. So now we have a new 2 year Cingular contract and his-and-hers Razors, and I finally have a phone with a camera in it.

I've wanted to try photoblogging for a while but didn't have the tools to make it happen. It's not that hard to pull photos off my Sony digital camera onto my PC and then upload to the blog, but it's not something I can do on the go. After poking around the net last night looking for moblogging apps, I found that Flickr has a tool that integrates with an existing Movable Type blog, and signed up. The post below shows that it works, although I have to figure out how to streamline the formatting a bit.

I could, of course, set up a full moblog here on the website; I found at least 2 freeware packages that would allow me to do it. But I'd need to set up a new MYSQL database on the web server and that would mean paying my web host some extra $. Plus it would mean some hours dusting off my old code skills to try to integrate that blog with this one. If Flickr starts to suck I might do that, but for now I'll go the free, no coding required route.

So, expect to see some photoblogging along with the usual stuff in the future.

Rosebud

Seen en route to work this morning.

Starbucks Corp. will close all 17 Torrefazione Italia cafes

Two of them are in SF and I really liked them. I guess I was one of the few who did though. Too bad.

Funny how even PETA can become that which they hate:

Two employees of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals have been charged with animal cruelty after dumping dead dogs and cats in a shopping center garbage bin, police said.

Investigators staked out the bin after discovering that dead animals had been dumped there every Wednesday for the past four weeks, Ahoskie police said in a prepared statement Thursday.

PETA has scheduled a news conference for Friday in Norfolk, Virginia, where the group is based.

Police found 18 dead animals in the bin and 13 more in a van registered to PETA. The animals were from animal shelters in Northampton and Bertie counties, police said.

The two were picking up animals to be brought back to PETA headquarters for euthanization, PETA president Ingrid Newkirk said Thursday.

Emphasis added.

An advisory panel organized by Mayor Newsom has come out with recommendations on changes to local regulations regarding some potentially vicious dog breeds, notably pit bulls. It sounds like they're on the right track & hope the plan moves forwards.

Dad's visiting his sister in Vienna (the one in Europe, not the one outside Washington DC). Calling him there would be expensive, not to mention hard to coordinate with that 9 hour time difference, but I sent him a "Happy Father's Day" text message. How times change.

I haven't done an update on the current set of foster kittens we've got because one of them has been very ill. Knickers started out healthy but did not grow and gain weight the way Kiki and Kitnip have. He struggled with being underweight, bouts of diarrhea, and possibly other underlying issues; the vets are not sure.

There's a general category called "failure to thrive" that I personally think he fell under. Knickers was the runt of the litter and for whatever reason he just didn't have it in him to grow and thrive. This is him in happier days:

One of the things you're warned in the foster parent training is that not all kittens make it to adulthood. You know that, but still you think you'll be able to save the ones you have. We did everything we could to try to save Knickers, but sadly, he left us today. We feel terrible that he never got his shot at a full, happy life as a cat, but at least here in our home he had as much love, care, and attention as he deserved. The little time Knickers had was as good as we could make it. We take some comfort in that.

Taken as a whole, the various Christian faiths comprise the vast majority of Americans today (77%, according to this source). Yet like manipulative children who cry "You don't love me!" to try to guilt Mommy into giving them yet another piece of candy, various US politicians like to try to pretend that American Christians are nothing more than another embattled minority. For example:

During a debate today surrounding an amendment by Rep. David Obey (D-WI) to fully examine allegations of proselytizing and religious intolerance at the United States Air Force Academy, six-term Republican Rep. John Hostettler (IN) rose to assert that "Democrats can't help denigrating and demonizing Christians." Rep. Obey, the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, interrupted Hostettler's deeply disturbing remarks and demanded that they be formally retracted; Hostettler ultimately agreed to retract one sentence from his diatribe.

Earlier in his remarks, Hostettler discussed the drive by Democrats to erase every "vestige" of Christianity from America; he also prefaced his remarks by noting that "The long war on Christianity today continues on the floor of the House of Representatives." During a meeting of the House Armed Services Committee on May 18th, while debating a similar amendment by Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY), Hostettler referred to "the mythical wall separation (sic) between church and state that's been erected by the courts."

It's insulting and infuriating to watch. These overprivileged asshats have never in their lives known what it's like to really be a member of a minority. They've never experienced discrimination or been demonized the way actual minorities have been. Their combination of ignorance and arrogance is astounding.

People like Rep. Hostettler need a good bitchslapping with the wet towel of reality. But these days, the likelihood of that happening is next to none.

What the hell were the so-called 'liberal justices' on SCOTUS thinking?

A divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses against their will for private development

I understand the general concept that there are times when a government can seize private land for public projects. I'm not thrilled with it, but I think there are cases when it can be justified. However,

"Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random," O'Connor wrote. "The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms."

So Justice O'Connor warns us. She is right. How long will it be until Wal-Mart starts leaning on local governments to condemn choice pieces of real estate for minimal compensation because of the jobs they will bring to a town?

They have some other funny fish plaques as well. I'm really tempted by this one

Order them here. No, I do not get a commission on the sale.

Moblog edition.

The remaining fosters are thriving and in the middle of a growth spurt. Kiki may even be ready to go back to the SPCA in less than a week, she's gaining weight so fast. Kitnip's health is not 100% but she seems to be recovering, albeit more slowly than we would like.

By way of the DNC Blog

Democrats
Believe capturing the person primarily responsible for the attack should be a top priority.

Republicans
It's been four years, and Osama bin Laden is still free, even though Bush's CIA chief says he knows where he is.

Democrats
Investigate the intelligence failures that led to 9/11.

Republicans
Do everything in their power to block the 9/11 Commission from doing its work.

Democrats
Propose creating the Department of Homeland Security.

Republicans
Push tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

Democrats
Believe we should have stayed the course in Afghanistan, not allowing the Taliban to resurge, the warlords to take power, and the opium trade to skyrocket.

Republicans
Ignore Afghanistan as the situation worsens.

Democrats
Believe that we should be honest with our troops about the reasons we go to war, give them everything they need to be safe, and make sure we go in with an exit plan.

Republicans
Manipulate intelligence to trump up reasons to go to war, don't give our troops the support they need, constantly mislead the public about the direction the war is going, and fail to make an exit plan.

A pal back East is waiting to find out whether he's getting laid off tomorrow. I'm keeping a good thought for him tonight.

For a number of reasons, mostly related to Scott being job hunting and us looking at moving apartments, I'm feeling very stuck in limbo right now. And it's not a lot of fun. So since I can't do much of anything related to my own work until Scott's job hunt concludes, I made some changes in my fall plans instead.

I registered for fall classes back in April, but last week, as the deadline for fall registration wound down, I switched from an Ethics class to one on Manegerial Accounting. I figured that given how difficult I find memorizing all the details of accounting rules, it would be better to get all my accounting course requirements out of the way while I still retained some of what I've learned in the last 2 semesters.

They're both required courses, so it's really just a matter of what order I take them in. I may not know where we'll be living this fall, but at least I feel like I have one thing under control and well-planned.

Oh, my friend did not get laid off. And more foster pix will be coming soon.

This morning we took Kiki and Kitnip back to the SPCA for spaying & adopting out. It was hard to let them go after all the stress and trauma we went through, but I know they will both find good homes. Pansy and Marcy did.