Fiat Lux

Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman on the Supreme Court and a swing vote on abortion as well as other contentious issues, announced her retirement Friday

And we all though it would be Rehnquist to go first.

Now, of course, the shit will truly start to hit the fan. It's not going to be pretty.

One of the professors at USF e-mailed this out today:

CASTING CALL: The Apprentice on NBC

The search is on for Donald Trump's next "Apprentice" on NBC !

NBC's "The Apprentice" is coming to San Francisco to conduct interviews.

Beau Bonneau Casting in San Francisco is seeking business-savvy go-getters who have what it takes to "make it in the boardroom."

Interviews will be conducted at the Beau Bonneau Casting Studio in San Francisco on Friday, July 8 or Monday, July 11, by appointment only with a possible second interview on Tuesday, July 14. Selected candidates must be available for the show for up to eight weeks in the Fall of 2005. Candidates must be at least 21 years old and a US citizen.

If you meet all the criteria and are interested in interviewing for the show please call 415.249.9383 a.s.a.p. and leave the following information after the beep.

- Your name
- 2 Telephone numbers where we can reach you
- Your educational background (MBA, PhD, etc.)
- Where you are currently employed
- Why you think you have what it takes to "make it in the boardroom"

Beau Bonneau Casting will be calling you back to set up an appointment if we are interested in interviewing you. Thank you.

Beau Bonneau Casting Staff
http://www.beaubonneaucasting.com

I'm not interested, but I am somewhat amused. Does the professor think that's a good use of his students' time?

With the long holiday weekend upon us, those parts of the blogworld that have not taken off to enjoy some time away from their computers have settled in for a nice long spell of speculation about Karl Rove, the Plame leak, and the best question of all: Who told Rove? Digby in particular has been on a roll in the last day or so, but there's plenty of other good stuff out there as well if you want to spend time in front of your PC instead of out barbecuing this weekend.

As much as I would love to see Rove's career go down in flames and take the rest of the right wingers with him, I'm sceptical it will happen. The right wing machine has had a long time to study not only Watergate but l'affaire Clinton for "what not to do", and if nothing else, those guys are good at covering their tracks. I seriously doubt a legal case will be able to be successfully prosecuted, even assuming there's a DA willing to press charges.

Perhaps I'm too much of a pessamist here. I'd love to be proven wrong.

On this Independence Day, I give you the words of Nameless Soldier, currently on location somewhere in Iraq:

America doesn't maintain itself. It's corny, but Freedom isn't Free. I'm not talking about the military or anything like that. This isn't an effort to recruit anyone, it's just an acknowledgement that if we wan't to keep democracy fresh and real we have to keep working on it, otherwise we are bound to lose it. Unless we are active in our comunities, those in charge will think that they can treat us like door matts. Our freedoms are "use or lose" items. If you don't use your right to speak out, you may wake up one day to find out that you're not allowed to. The same goes for all of our other rights. Already, some of those have felt feet trying to trample on them.

One of the great things about America is that it represents something different to each person. I guarantee that George Bush sees America differently than a new immigrant, but that's only the beginning of the differences. Each of us uses a differnet mix of our liberties, each of us values certain things more than others. And by taking advantage of the unique experiences and knowledge that each of us has developed, we are a force to be reckoned with. In roughly 250 years our nation has risen to greatnes beyond anything that might have been imagined by the founding fathers, and we have done it because of our freedoms. Without the rule of law and civil liberties we would have nothing.

But some of those liberties are under attack. There are those in America who value corporations above individuals and profits over freedoms. And it is time for us as a nation to rise up and say that we will not except that option. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is time to stand up and demand that those rights stop being chipped away at. It is time to remind those in power what America was founded on.

Since 9/11, there has been a lot of talk about what it means to be a "patriot." Is it someone who is willing to go to war? Maybe a patriot is someone who is willing to make hard decisions. I don't think so. To me, true patriotism lies in a willingness to remember what your nation is supposed to be about, and then acting on it. Patriotism is not about blind loyalty to your nations leaders or founders, it is about a willingness to always look for the truth. Patriotism is about making your nation better than it's ever been before, and making it better for everyone, not just the rich. I say that there is no better tribute to the last couple of centuries of progress than to continue to progress.

Down in Palo Alto, visiting friends for the 4th, I managed to snag a shot of their pet cat Valeria, who started life as a feral kitten and is now one of the cats that make up their household. She's still pretty skittish of strangers, so getting her to sit still for a photo took some time and patience.

Scott apparently was up late & heard about the bombings shortly after they happened, but unlike 9/11 chose not to wake me up for this one. So now it's about 6 hours after the fact and I'm playing catch-up. I even turned the TV on to MSNBC but was soon treated to some utter stupidity: A nameless newscaster suggesting that commuters in major cities bear some responsibility for preventing these kinds of atacks, and since Londoners have lived with this sort of bombing attempt for a long time, it's partially their own fault for not noticing the bombs.

Jerk. No wonder I don't watch TV news anymore.

If this is another al-Quaeda attack, it's a concern. But it's also noteworthy that the attacks they have made have steadily declined in severity since 9/11. That attack killed just under 3,000. Madrid killed about 200. This one, so far, has killed less than 50. Whether that is due to AQ's decreased capability or increased security measures taken after 9/11, I don't know. Maybe both. At any rate, continued attacks = bad thing, but decreased casualties = good thing.

I expect the war drums will beat louder now. If anything good can come out of this bombing, it will perhaps call more attention to the fact that our misbegotten invasion of Iraq is not helping fight the "war on terror". Although whether BushCo will see it that way, I seriously doubt.

Haven't done this in a while!

Sweet Potato Pie - James Taylor
Only A Dream - Mary Chapin Carpenter
Inside - Sting
Blow Wind Blow - Alison Moyet
Shepherd Moons - Enya
Lohengrin, Prelude - Richard Wagner
Burn Down The Mission - Elton John
Jump (For My Love) - Pointer Sisters
Self Control - Laura Branigan
The Wild Frontier - Bruce Hornsby and the Range

Here's the rules: Open iTunes, randomize your playlist, and write down the first 10 songs that come up.

Kevin Drum blogs today about being invited to attend BlogHer, and Chris Nolan encourages him to attend. So far so good. But then Chris veers off the deep end and I have to ask, what was she thinking?

If you are a man who like code and software and things that plug in, and is perhaps having trouble finding a girl who likes Java (and knows it's not just a coffee) and undersands your inner Geek, this might be the PERFECT place for you to spend a summer afternoon.

The ratio at most tech conferences is hugely biased toward men that will assuredly not be the case here.

I'm not planning on going to BlogHer (my reasons why are here), but I find that approach rather demeaning. Not "come to BlogHer to learn more about technology, politics, developing a niche blog, blogging for business and woman's issues, among other things, and have fun too!" Nope, it's flat out, "Come to BlogHer to try and get a date." And then the official BlogHer weblog posted her comments, in an approving manner.

You'd think after all this time that we could do better.

All that said, knowing that Kevin is going does tempt me somewhat to go despite my previous post. I'd like to meet him. And looking over the evolving agenda, I see they've toned the mommy focus down somewhat (a plus for those of us who are childfree). And as a student, I can get in for a nice low price. So call me on the fence, but still inclined towards "no".

Noted while waiting for the N-Judah at 48th Avenue.

Clicking through series of links this morning, I ended up coming across an article in "The Chronicle of Higher Education" regarding applying for jobs in academia and how reading applicants' weblogs had an impact on the hiring process. I'm not looking to work in academia, but this did hit on an issue I've wondered about: could what I've written here come back to haunt me professionally down the line?

I'm well aware that what you post to the Internet never really dies. Knowing that, I've deliberately avoided some subjects in this weblog and tried to minimize the comments I made on others, including work. But according to this article, even that might not be good enough for some potential employers:

Professor Shrill ran a strictly personal blog, which, to the author's credit, scrupulously avoided comment about the writer's current job, coworkers, or place of employment. But it's best for job seekers to leave their personal lives mostly out of the interview process.

It would never occur to the committee to ask what a candidate thinks about certain people's choice of fashion or body adornment, which countries we should invade, what should be done to drivers who refuse to get out of the passing lane, what constitutes a real man, or how the recovery process from one's childhood traumas is going. But since the applicant elaborated on many topics like those, we were all ears. And we were a little concerned.

[snip]

...in truth, we did not disqualify any applicants based purely on their blogs. If the blog was a negative factor, it was one of many that killed a candidate's chances.

More often that not, however, the blog was a negative, and job seekers need to eliminate as many negatives as possible.

Well, Fiat Lux has been online for almost two years now, and judging on how much of my traffic comes from Google, even taking it down would not prevent people finding what I've blogged. If someone reads what I have to say here and decides not to hire me because I'm too opinionated, or because of my particular view on things, or because they think I'm a risk for what I might possibly say in the future .... well, that says more about their own issues than it does about mine.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't care whether this blog could affect my job prospects in the future. Of course I care. But since I can't de-Google myself, I'm damned already in some people's eyes. I might as well keep going on.

Remember that rosebud I photoblogged not too long ago? This is it today.

I haven't said much about the Wilson/Plame/Rove imbroglio, mostly because so many other people are doing such a great job of covering it. But I am following the events closely and hoping for some actual charges to be filed.

That said, the PoorMan has a really good and funny post on the defense of Karl Rove today, definitely not to be missed.

And the race to the bottom continues. One inventive company, recognizing that there are timezone, distance, and cultural difficulties involved in outsourcing programming jobs to Southeast Asia, is coming up with a creative solution:

Take a used cruise ship, fill it with programmers, and park it three miles off the US coast so that it is no longer subject to US laws and regulations (like OSHA rules, overtime pay, etc). Pay the programmers less than $22,000 a year and make then work 10 hours a day. And then say that since the ship is so close to America, that it's really a way of keeping American jobs at home.

It sounds to me more like indentured servitude than a decent job opportunity.

• Although the article says that each programmer will have their own room, what about spouses or children? I suspect they won't be welcome.
• They say that the pay is $1,800 a month, they don't mention whether the employees will have to pay for things like laundry service, medical care, entertainment, or other amenities -- it could well be that most of their cash will go right back to the employer.

• The article mentions 'shore leave' for employees, but how often, and how much leave? And what happens if an employee decides to quit, or has a family emergency, or has some other reason for needing to get off the boat?

The telling comment, it seems, is this one: "The pay is about three times what they earn in India today." That will make those jobs highly desirable to Indians if not Americans. And with the ship parked so close to the US/Mexico border, it doesn't take much imagination to cook up a scenario where you import a boatload of programmers through Mexico, put them on the ship in international waters, and bingo, you have a totally unregulated sweatshop where the inhabitants cannot get away without permission unless they're willing to risk a three-mile ocean swim.

It's a situation bursting with the potential for abuse.

Hat tip to Kulam Yachad for the link.

Cat and mouse, 21st century version:

Still waiting for a new batch of foster kitties -- apparently the SPCA has had a lull in kitten intake this summer.

This is interesting:

Jewish settler Avi Farhan, determined not to give up his home overlooking the sea when Israel quits the occupied Gaza Strip, is looking into becoming a Palestinian.

"I have met with Palestinians. I am willing to be a test case for peace and take up Palestinian citizenship," Farhan told Reuters. "It will hurt me to give up my Israeli citizenship, but I want to remain here."

[snip]

Farhan, a Libyan-born Jew who left Tripoli for Israel at the age of three in the wake of the 1948 war at Israel's creation, said seven families were willing to stay in the mostly secular Gaza settlement of Elei Sinai after Israeli troops leave.

Farhan, 59, helped establish Elei Sinai after being forced to leave the Sinai settlement of Yamit in 1982. Like the West Bank and Gaza, Israel captured Sinai in the 1967 war, but returned it to Egypt under a peace deal.

"I fled from Tripoli, endured the displacement camps in Israel, and then I was kicked out of Yamit. Today I won't be a refugee again. I have no strength," said Farhan, a restaurant owner. "The Israeli government says it is concerned for my security if I stay here. I will worry about my own safety."

Maybe there's more going on than meets the eye in this story, but at least someone's thinking outside the box here. Kudos to him.

I love the Smithsonian. Look what they just came out with:

Eighty years after the Scopes Monkey Trial, a trove of about 60 unpublished photos from the landmark case has been found in Smithsonian Institution archives, including a shot of Clarence Darrow's courtroom sparring with William Jennings Bryan.

[snip]

Among them is one of Darrow, the most famous defense attorney of his day, interrogating Bryan, the orator and presidential candidate prosecuting the case. The trial had been moved outdoors because of the heat. Bryan fell ill and died five days after the trial ended.

Here's a link to the Darrow/Bryan shot in question. It's grainy but still impressive.

Picked up three new foster kittens from the SPCA today. All boys -- two orange tabbies, one all black. They're littermates, six weeks old, and full of play!

They're settling in now. I should have some pix to post tomorrow.

It's very hard to get photos -- these three will NOT sit still.

OK, these boys wriggle like a bunch of wiggle worms whenever I go near them with a camera, so it's been hard to get some decent photos, but these should do. The SPCA named them Edger, Allan, and Renford, but I decided there's no way in hell I'm calling the third one anything other than Poe. How could you not?

Anyway, they're darlings; social, playful, and very high energy. There's an 8-ounce weight range between the smallest and the biggest, so at least one will go back to the SPCA for adoption before the others, but we'll see how it goes.

Here's Edgar and Poe. Edgar is the black one:

And here's Allan! He's the runt of the litter and Scott's favorite:

We had the kittens out for a play session and I flipped on C-Span for some background noise. Sen Coburn was holding committee hearings on renovating the UN Building. And what do I see but His Hairpiece, Donald Trump, sitting there in the first row.

I'm assuming he's there to testify but didn't stick around long enough to find out. It did get me thinking though... the new UN building, brought to you by Donald Trump? It could happen...

Why Egypt? I understand why a fundamentalist Muslim group would want to attack the UK or Spain or America, or even Bali, but why Egypt? I'm sure there's an explanation, but I can't think of it off the top of my head.

At any rate, bombings suck.

Seen on Judah and 45th Avenue.

Nathan Newman makes some excellent points about how liberals, too, can work against their own self-interest. In this case, by opposing efforts to build more local high-density housing in New York City:

while I understand the nostalgia for Brooklyn's low-rise housing and it is lovely for those who can continue to live there, the reality is that blocking higher density there condemns others to homelessness and the rest to increasingly long commutes. And while quaint neighborhoods are preserved in Brooklyn, it means more people will be driven out into the suburbs to create more strip malls, SUVs, environmental degradation, and Republicans.

And don't forget sucky commutes, too. The NYC area has some of the best commuter mass transit systems around but even so, trying to get to a job in Manhattan from the affordable-housing zones in New Jersey, Long Island, or further out is no picnic.

I used to live in a three-bedroom apartment in Soho. It was a sweet deal -- the apartment had previously been the building superintendent's, so it came into the market at the low end of the rent spectrum ($1200), and being rent-stabilized rent increases were less than $50 a year. Despite its being a sixth-floor walkup, I hung onto that place for a decade, knowing damn well I'd never find a deal like that again. I shudder to think of what that place is being rented for today - I would not at all be surprised to find that it's been decontrolled and renting for $2600 or so.

At any rate, call me a hypocrite for supporting more housing out of my own self-interest, but I'm all for it.

Washington Note guestblogger Leon Hadar called my attention to an interesting article in the NY Sun today. It's about some language in an upcoming congressional bill called the ADVANCE Democracy Act that would, among other things, require the US diplomatic corps abroad to

draw up democracy transition plans for unfree regimes, with input from nonviolent opposition movements in the various countries.

It would also

allow the State Department to "use all instruments of United States influence to support, promote, and strengthen democratic principles, practices, and values in foreign countries." It charges the CIA and Treasury Department with tracking the personal assets of dictators and their associates.

ADVANCE would require the secretary of state to approve an annual report designating nations as either democratic, undemocratic, or in transition.

This is one of those ideas that, if it were implemented by a competent government, is not objectionable. Promoting democracy and working with local organizations to help peacefully implement democracy in less-than-fully-democratic countries is a laudable goal. But a mandate like that in the hands of a self-serving bunch of incompetents who care more about the preservation of their own power and the interests of their buddies than about anything else -- in other words, BushCo -- it instead engenders feelings of concern and cynicism.

Do you really expect that if this becomes law, that the Bush administration would countenance a report officially designating their buddies in Saudi Arabia as undemocratic? If you do, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you. But without impartiality, this act becomes just another way to politicize things like civil service promotions and foreign aid allocations. In other words, a big old mess.

I wasn't always this cynical. It would be really nice if there were some flickers of hope on the horizon, but it's a long time until the 2008 elections.

Allen and Edgar are going back to the SPCA tomorrow! We've had less than 2 weeks with them, but it's been fun. Here's Allen in the kitchen, getting ready to pounce on his offscreen brother:

Why can't Democrats get "flip flopper" to stick against Republicans?

I was reading a transcript of the Santorum / Stephanopolis interview today and started to wonder. After all, here's a classic example of inconsistancy in a position. On the one hand, Senator Santorum says:

I believe my view is the view that’s held by most Americans, which means we need strong families and strong communities, and we don’t need government really dissembling those institutions.

On the other hand, he also would support a consitutional amendment banning abortion. Birth control is about as personal a family issue as it gets, and yet this man is willing to have the government control that aspect of your family life. It's a massive inconsistancy and yet nobody calls it that.

Just wondering.

Now back to the transcripts, since I cen't get my butt out of bed early enough on Sunday to watch this stuff live. *sigh* One of the not-so-good things about living on the West Coast.

Life in the fog belt of San Francisco ... a lovely summer day, and yet here, it's not.