I was going to blog about President Bush’s press conference last night — his total unwillingness to give a straight answer to any question being just the least of it — but as I reviewed a transcript this morning prior to posting, I decided why bother. It’s too depressing and today’s my day off, I want to enjoy myself.
I’ll just link to a recent Paul Krugman column on the Iraq mess that I find particularly apt.
I installed Gallery today as part of the preparations for getting the Rome photos online (they’re being developed currently). Gallery, like Movable Type, is an excellent freeware application with more features than you can shake a stick at, and lots of room for plug-ins and customizing.
It was a very smooth install; the only hitch being I had to upgrade my Java VM before I was able to run the Gallery Remote tool that makes bulk uploading of pictures MUCH easier. I used one of the included skins, which doesn’t really match the color theme for this blog, but it’s cute. Over time I may tweak the CSS some to bring them closer in line, but this is a personal site, so 100% consistency in look & feel is not my most important priority.
There’s a link the the galleries over on the right side of this blog, or you can see them here. Pix from Rome should go online in the next couple of days.
Trying to grind a half-pound of coffee in the Cuisinart because your coffee grinder won’t hold that much = a good way to waste time and coffee.
No great surprise I suppose, but it’s looking more and more obvious that Condoleezza Rice wasn’t exactly truthful in her testimony before the 9/11 panel this week, if today’s Washington Post report is to be believed. We’ll know for sure if (when?) the White House does release the PDB in question, but from all the leaks coming out, it certainly doesn’t sound like simply ‘historical’ material as it was described to the committee.
That said, I am by no means certain that 9/11 could have been prevented. It’s possible that an increased focus on domestic terrorism in the months leading up to 9/11 could have shaken loose enough of the data we had to “connect the dots” but it is by no means a sure thing.
What upsets me is that this administration is trying to take an attitude of total blamelessness for 9/11. Failures were “systemic”. Intellignece was not specific enough to be actionable. Principals were not asked to take actions. (Side note – maybe this is a Washington thing, but aren’t principals supposed to be the ones who decide to take actions, instead of waiting for their staff to tell them what to do?). Instead of saying, as Richard Clarke did, “We screwed up, we’re sorry.” they are saying, “We couldn’t have prevented it, so there’s nothing to apologize for.” That’s not good enough.
Arrogance is nothing new for this administration. But this is a time when it rings particularly sour.
For 7 years, a very nice cappuchino machine has been sitting unopened on our shelves. It was a wedding gift we registered for (thanks Dexter!), but for one reason or another we never got around to using it. Today, with the memory of the excellent coffee of Rome fresh in our heads, I finally cracked it open.
Success! Perfect espresso and froth. Using our friend Ben’s excellent Costa Rican coffee didn’t hurt.
Now I’m going to drink it and read some headlines while it’s still hot.
We’re back safely from Rome. We had a fantastic time.
I kept a travel diary, which I will be uploading over the next few days, plus shot 6 rolls of film which I will also upload. Please be patient!