Real Billionaires for Bush

Why am I writing about parodies like Billionaires for Bush when I can go to the New York Times and get the real thing? The article discusses the travails of New Yorkers rearranging their lives around the convention, and particularly the costs to businesses in the closed off areas that are biting it big time as their regular customers disappear. The delegates, however are fighting back:

Cyndi Sanders, a delegate from Alaska, said she had stocked up on cashmere sweaters and coats at Bloomingdale's and Armani. "I've spent thousands of dollars already," she said. "We can shop and have moral values at the same time, you know."

I'm so glad Cyndi is focused on the local economy...

Garrison Keillor

Garrison Keillor's recent essay in "In These Times" is making the e-mail rounds; I've already received a couple of copies from various sources. It entitled We’re Not in Lake Wobegon Anymore.

You should read it. Things must be pretty badly out of whack if Garrison Keillor is waxing nostalgic about Richard Nixon.

(Of course, not many of my friends are aware that it was Nixon who introduced the idea of Universal Health Coverage long before it was fashionable to consider it an outlandish impossibility.)

I love Mr. Keillor for his directness:

The Union is what needs defending this year. Government of Enron and by Halliburton and for the Southern Baptists is not the same as what Lincoln spoke of. This gang of Pithecanthropus Republicanii has humbugged us to death on terrorism and tax cuts for the comfy and school prayer and flag burning and claimed the right to know what books we read and to dump their sewage upstream from the town and clear-cut the forests and gut the IRS and mark up the constitution on behalf of intolerance and promote the corporate takeover of the public airwaves and to hell with anybody who opposes them.

This is a great country, and it wasn’t made so by angry people. We have a sacred duty to bequeath it to our grandchildren in better shape than however we found it. We have a long way to go and we’re not getting any younger.

We certainly are not. The question is, are we getting any wiser...

Billionaires for Bush

What a day. It seems like all of Manhattan below 23rd st belongs to protest marches. It is all incredibly creative and inspiring, and even the police, who are out in force, seem to be having a good time. People are energized, the atmosphere is safe, and the signs are great.

Nothing evaporates cynicism and resignation like a good protest march. In fact, I am happy to have attended, even if it gets trivialized by the media and ignored by the Republicans. Of course, you've all heard that more people have been arrested during protests here in New York before the convention has even opened than were arrested during the whole of the Democratic convention, but of course, we're a much bigger city. I wonder what folks outside the city will make it all mean (or will they even care).

It is hard to describe how dislocated the city feels. The streets are either eerily quiet, or they are completely packed with people. Most cars in a huge area around the marches have been cleared (unheard of!), which makes the avenues and side streets seem bizarrely wide. The density of the police on the ground, and the frequency with which massed cavalcades of police (in vans, or on motor scooters) roar down the avenues, sirens blaring, is astonishing. It is at least as strange as Y2K, 9/11, or the big blackout. The feeling is not one of danger, but of out-of-the-ordinariness. In the middle of the commercial universe, stores are shut down, and consumers are not consuming.

I attended the Billionaires for Bush rally in Madison Square Park (for non-NY'ers, that is nowhere near Madison Square Garden, where the RNC convention is being held). There were pearls and top hats everywhere. The speeches were worthy of Roosevelt (Teddy, of course).
From their website:

Even though we own the media, it's nearly impossible to find unbiased news that faithfully speaks power to truth. To that end, we are pleased to unveil The Privileged Perspective, offering daily uppercrust criticism of stories improperly spun by the biased liberal media.

And it is early yet. If you're interested, my entire day's digital effluent is online at unclebrad.com.

Religion and Starbucks in NYC

From a poll by New York magazine, reported in New York Metro - What New Yorkers and Republicans Think of New York City:

Somewhat hilariously, 36 percent of New Yorkers surveyed think that there are more Starbucks than churches in New York (versus 51 percent of Republicans who think that), which makes you wonder what level of caffeination prompted 26 percent of surveyed New Yorkers (versus 7 percent of Republicans) to declare that New Yorkers are more religious than average Americans.

Of course, if you ask a New Yorker if they are more anything than average Americans, they'll say yes. Who wants to be average?

Time Out

This month's Time Out New York has elephant shit on the cover (and a disconcerting closeup of elephant posterior).

Now some may see this as an oblique commentary on the Republican National Convention. For me, it recalls my days as a boy scout in Bangkok, when our troop would join with scientists from the local university in camping trips up in Khao Yai national park, where we'd collect elephant shit for analysis, to determine the health of the herd (this is why I went into electrical engineering rather than biology).

The city was clamped down yesterday. Noisy helicopters hovering outside my window for hours. There are anonymous trailers parked over the city (I suppose that inside are surveillance and anti-terrorist equipment and personnel). The police presence is huge. The last time it seemed like we were so much under attack was 9/11.

Caller ID is Not to be Trusted Any More

Now that I've moved to VoIP, I notice that caller ID works much better; I'm not sure why (and I may just be noticing something that was there all along).

However, even though it is perhaps more informative, it is less trustworthy. SecurityFocus gives details on how VoIP allows CallerID to be easily spoofed by a hacker. This is not new, Security Corporation reported a year ago a simple (non-technical) way to fake your outgoing CallerID if you are a Vonage VoIP customer (the article is from last August; I don't see anywhere that the security hole has been fixed).

The hacks work two ways. First, I, as a VoIP subscriber, can place calls that claim to come from any number. Second, if you decide to block caller ID (i.e. you don't want callers to know who is calling), I as a VoIP recipient can still retrieve your number.

Note that Caller ID is unrustworthy for all telephone users, not just for VoIP users.

The reason for this state of affairs is similar to the reason we get so much more e-mail spam than telphone spam. The TelCo's are centrally controlled and highly regulated, and so much less subject to random hacking.

Some of the security holes will no doubt be tightened up eventually, as VoIP enters the mainstream and its vendors restrict openness of their network. But given the amount of time it is taking to get control of e-mail spam, I'm not holding my breath.

Cutting loose from Ma Bell

My main home phone number was transferred yesterday from Verizon to VoicePulse, an inexpensive VoIP provider. I plug my phone into my broadband router (I use cablemodem service).

The cool thing is I can plug a tiny box into any broadband connection anywhere in the world, and the phone works like it is in New York City (so calling from Beijing or Barcelona to Brooklyn is a local call).

Quality overall seems good. There are occasions where there is some line delay or cutting out, but they seem rare. I'll report back after I've been using it a while.

One downside: the tiny box requires power, so that is one more power supply I have to carry.

I am (slightly) less bullish on Skype and other computer based systems these days. The problem is I don't like my phone call cutting out when I open a spreadsheet or otherwise use my computer. It really does work a lot better for me to offload the telephone functions into a dedicated box.

So why don't I just go with my cell phone (like some of my friends do)? Coverage and call quality are the main problems. For example, I can get broadband in my 45th floor apartment, but a cell phone signal up here is hard to come by. It seems strange, but apparently a land-line broadband connection is easier to come by than a cell phone signal. So I need both. Again, ask me in a month.

Only in New York

Did you know you can get e-mail from the City of New York notifying you when Alternate Side Parking Regulations are in effect, and when they are suspended?

Did you know you can dial 311 from most phones in New York City, and a lady comes on the line saying, "Thank you for calling the City of New York". To me that's like dialing a number and hearing "Thank you for calling the Pacific Ocean".

She can answer any question about city government, even whether or not Alternate-Side Parking Regulations are in effect. You can reserve a tee time at one of the city's golf courses (of course, you can also do that online). When I get up the nerve I'll ask her what hours her establishment is open.

Note: 311 (like 911) doesn't work on my VoIP phone (or Skype).

"Watching" the Olympics

Instapundit Glenn points out that he sees a distinct theme in Olympic blog coverage (I would have called it un-coverage).

Of course, my friends, like Jim, are pointing me to sites that have a slightly different angle...

Strangers in our Midst

I went to Jakarta International School when I was growing up. We lived in a small village near Bogor on the island of Java (my dad managed a cement plant there), and I would commute into Jakarta to go to school every day.

During my sophmore year, I was asked if I wanted to join an Australian documentary team which had gotten special permission to go to Tanah Toraja, in the interior of the island of Sulawesi (closed, and quite inaccessible at the time) to film the elaborate funeral of one of the last noble members of the Toraja tribe. It was quite a trip. It was the first time I had seen a water buffalo slaughtered, the first time I had eaten sticky rice and burnt pig off a banana leaf, and it was the first time most of the Torajanese we met had ever seen a caucasian teenager.

That land is no longer isolated, people go on tours to Torajaland all the time. You can stay in a hotel, and buy a hamburger. I haven't been back, though.

What made me think of this?

Well, I'm starting to see Republicans coming to town, and I'm watching the New Yorkers look at them like they've never seen such a thing. Everyone tries to be kind, knowing that the visitors would never survive on the streets without the assistance of the natives playing Squanto. ("Excuse me, what is this thing you call alternate-side parking rules, and how do I know if they're in affect today?").

The cover of the July/August issue BizBash, a event industry trade rag which David gave me today, has the leader, "Ted Kruckel on Entertaining Republicans". We all could use lessons on how to interact with the strange and wonderful visitors.

Of course, most Manhattanites will tell you in private that they can detect the presence of Bridge and Tunnel (Queens? Jersey City? Omaha?) visitors by smell. It's not kind, and it's not pretty. (But you know, San Franciscans do the same thing...)

Kerry on the Daily Show

Of course, this is why I get all my political news from Jon Stewart and the Daily Show, where Kerry recently appeared.

"You'd be amazed at the number of people who want to introduce themselves to you in the men's room," he said. "It's the most bizarre part of this entire thing."

Of course, had he spoken to McGreavy (or any number of my buddies), he would have known all about this.

A Nation of Unhealthy Workers

This snippet from Tech Central made me think — Middle Man Mess:

As health care becomes a larger and larger share of consumption, health insurance disintermediation will become a larger and larger factor in employment decisions. Low-risk workers will tend to opt out of the corporate labor market. Corporations will tend to hire from a pool of workers with relatively high health risks. This in turn will raise corporate health costs more, which will lead to even more disintermediation.

This whole idea of getting health insurance through one's employer seems crazy. I can see why we can't have tax-financed universal health coverage, though. It would cost as much as a war in Iraq, and deficits matter. Oops.

Cheney's gay Halliburton?

The reality of hosting thousands of midwestern Republicans is settling in on New York. All my friends are either leaving, or volunteering, or starting rumors. I can't believe I scheduled myself to move households on August 30. I hope they let my moving truck across the Brooklyn Bridge...

Anyway, Deep Throat (in a position to know) told me at a party yesterday that substantial event planning for the GOP convention has been contracted to a heretofore unknown company ("Hope Events"?), run by Heather Poe, Mary Cheney's partner. To hear it told, it is Cheney's tiny gay Halliburton. Ah, small town politics. IANAJ [ournalist], but Google provided no confirmation, no reference to the organization, and nothing on the GOP Convention web site.

That's Entertainment

You don't have to be a Democrat to think this is funny, but you might have to be a New Yorker (you tell me).

The GOP National Convention is coming to New York City, home of Broadway, CBGB's, the Knitting Factory, The Metropolitan Opera, The New York Festival of Song, Caroline's Comedy Club, and a few other entertainment options. They have just announced their entertainment lineup. It reads like a parody of PlayBill. My faves:

Daniel Rodriquez: A former New York City police officer, Daniel Rodriguez is nicknamed "America's Beloved Tenor."

or this:

Sara Evans: Raised on a farm in Missouri, Sara Evans was singing every weekend in her family's band at age 5.

or this:

Michael W. Smith: In 1983, Michael made his first record called the Michael W. Smith Project. He wrote all the music while his wife, Debbie, wrote the lyrics... He is the proud father of five children.

Those Republicans sure know how to party.

The Truth Behind MoCap

I was over at Amy and Scott's house last week, and their 5-year-old son Gabe was showing me how he sings Steve Miller songs on his Karaoke PlayStation. You know, "I'm a joker, I'm a smoker, I'm a midnight toker; I get my lovin' on the run". I swear this kid has a future.

Anyway, he took a break to show me a special feature extension of the game, a video which documented the complex Motion Capture ("MoCap") behind the animated Karaoke "we are the world" handwaving dancers singing Britney's "Toxic" (you want to know what that's like? Get your own PlayStation).

Well, I finally found the QuickTime movie that explains the real inside scoop behind MoCap: 'The Man Behind The Motion'.

Seven minutes of deep drama. My favorite quote occurs on day 45 of the MoCap shoot:

Sometimes I think that Truffaut possesses me, because I speak with a French accent in the shower.

Alright everybody, places! We're back!

P.S. This is the same guy who did the famous Hazzard's video "Gay Boyfriend". If you've got the bandwidth, check it out!

Bears Night Out

Those bears party hard: Reuters reports on CNN:

A black bear was found passed out at a campground in Washington state recently after guzzling down three dozen cans of a local beer, a campground worker said on Wednesday.

...It turns out the bear was a bit of a beer sophisticate. He tried a mass-market Busch beer, but switched to Rainier Beer, a local ale, and stuck with it for his drinking binge.

Thanks to Jim over at Gotham Knights RFC for passing that along.

Of course, things like this happens all the time at the Dugout here in NYC.

On Julia Child's Passing

I miss Julia Child.

Estelle Shanley reminisces about Julia Child, saying

I recall that she once said that a person who didn't eat butter was a crank with limp hair.

Now there was a chef.

How to read the Troop Redeployment

I read this from the Instapundit: GIVING UP ON NATION-BUILDING.

GIVING UP ON NATION-BUILDING: Reader Bob Kingsberry emails: Bush is bringing our troops home from Germany because he realizes American-style democracy will never succeed there. After freeing the German people from a brutal dictatorship and protecting them from Soviet tyranny for almost fifty years, Bush is finally willing to admit that Germans aren't capable of contributing to the security and prosperity of the world.

My immediate reaction was that it is not at all clear that the US is capable of contributing to the security and prosperity of the world (though it is doing pretty well for the top tier of american society), and "American-style democracy" is barely working here in America.

I think I agree with Glenn that we're going to be heading off on an isolationist jag as the pendulum swings away from Bush. I can't see how the German's are responsible for this, though. It's just a natural public reaction to a horribly ill-conceived foreign policy.

The way you talk

Arjan has a way with words.

Bedingfield's music follows a traditional pop format without sounding too cookie-cutter. The singer combines hooky R&B and funk-infused pop tunes with spunky lyrics that are reminiscent of the vibe on Nelly Furtado's first album. ... she successfully takes on an alpha-female persona that injects her music with a heavy-dose of girl power.

The great thing about the 'net is that it gives me the ability to listen in on conversations that just don't happen in my 'hood.

Killing Two Birds with One Stone

I get it. We can destroy support for importing low cost drugs (which is driving U.S. pharma into knipshens), and fight the war on terror at the same time. CNN tells us how.

Of course "...we have no specific information now about any al-Qaeda threats to our food or drug supply," said Brian Roehrkasse, spokesman for the Homeland Security Department."

This just doesn't pass the Qui Bono sniff test...

Only In San Francisco

I'm in San Francisco at the moment, where I have the great joy of reading SFGate.com in its natural habitat. This is the land where sex is news: No Sex, Please, We're Republicans / Right now, to be sexually attuned and kinky is to be part of the anti-Bush revolution. Vive la résistance! Because right now, to be wantonly open about sexual matters is to be smacked down as some sort of radical, is to be scowled at by the FCC and the CIA and the petrified BushCo evangelicals, is to be considered the dreaded Other, all slippery and self-defined and dangerous. Go ahead, wave your vibrator. Feel like a revolutionary.

Yes indeedy. It makes me wanna vote.

The Hampster Dance

Have you seen the Hampsters Dance?

Am I Safe Yet?

Tom Tomorrow posts this:

Look, I have no doubt that al Qaeda wants to hurt us again. But as I've tried to point out before, trying to figure out what al Qaeda wants or doesn't want us to do is really a fool's game.

This is next to quite a wonderful analysis of George Bush declaring September "National Preparedness Month" (The war on terror is the only issue I think where Bush outpolls Kerry).

The Boss Francais

Bruce Springsteen pours his heart out for Kerry in Le Monde.fr : Tous en scène pour John Kerry.

How would you spend $144.4 billion?

The NY Times had a great graphic suggesting an alternative allocation of the US$144.4 billion we've spent on Iraq.

Another Flash in the Scan

Turn up your computer speaker volume and check out the Joan Crawford Mega Mix!

Jim Geiger pointed this out to me. The whole site is pretty amazing (also to see: the Madonna remixes). Flash on steroids. Bring plenty of bandwidth.

Compare it to the Republican Flash. Anyone have others I need to know about?

Possible Gods and Goddesses

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you may talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.

All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never met a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations, these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit — immortal horrors or ever lasting splendours.

C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

Liberalism Regained

From Harper's August 2004 Issue, pg 33:

DANIELS: We need a transformative vision, one advancing the notion that America can be more than it is today for average, ordinary people. The Democratic Party should advocate a program of basic rights, like the one enjoyed by many social democratic countries in Europe. Americans really feel that they have the best standard of living in the world. They don't, but they don't know they don't. Virtually every nation in Western Europe has universal health care. In Sweden, Norway, and Holland, the social benefits are so generous that poverty has been practically eliminated. Wages in most European countries now outpace wages in the United States.

NPUC 2004

Spent a great day yesterday attending New Paradigms in Using Computers 2004 at IBM Research Labs. The theme this year is "What can I do with WAY too much information?"

The conference is kept quite small, and lasts for just the day. It gives one the opportunity to actually talk to the speakers at length during the day.

Of course, my favorite talk was by my good friend Andreas Weigend, entitled People and Data: Understanding Customer Behavior.

However, learning about Brewster Kahle's work at the Internet Archive was also very interesting. They keep a permanent record of just about everything on the internet, and they're committed to keeping a record of just about everything else. No joke.

He also passed around some "books on demand" printed and bound books. It costs about a dollar to print and bind a 250 page paperback, using today's technology. It looks just like the penguin original. It turns out that that is cheaper than the cost to a library to lend a book. Think about it.

If you haven't seen the internet archive's Wayback machine, Brad says, "Check it out!".

I Hate Computers

Not that anyone noticed, but unclebrad.com has been down for a number of days with a bad disk. Since it is just a cute Mini-ITX box that lives in Los Gatos, and I was visiting here today, I thought I'd just go down to Frye's, buy a new disk, load up Fedora Core unix, and voila, all would be right as rain.

Well, Frye's bless them, has everything instantly. No problem there.

So I tried booting off a USB CDROM to install the OS, and it didn't work. Well I thought, no problem, I have Linux on my laptop, I'll just net boot off that.

2 hours of pissing around with pxe, tftp, dhcp, and G-d knows what else, and it's a complete disaster, I'm completely frustrated, and I'm late to dinner with a friend.

Thanks for letting me vent. It will all be better tomorrow.

Moab Music Festival

Just got my tickets to the Moab Music Festival, September 3-18 in Moab, Utah, one of my favorites in the country. The concerts range from classical to contemporary (e.g. They are doing the New York Festival of Song's At Harlem's Height program this year).

The settings, adjacent to Arches National Park, are stunningly beautiful. This is the only festival I know of where they take a Steinway piano and float it on raft down to a grotto on the Colorado river, and perform instrumental and vocal recitals in the natural amphitheater it creates.

GOP flier questions new voting equipment

From the St Petersburg Times: GOP flier questions new voting equipment:

"The liberal Democrats have already begun their attacks and the new electronic voting machines do not have a paper ballot to verify your vote in case of a recount," says a glossy mailer, paid for by the Republican Party of Florida and prominently featuring two pictures of President Bush. "Make sure your vote counts. Order your absentee ballot today."

The Democratic response? Rather predictable:

"It's unbelievable," said state Sen. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston. "They're the ones who won't certify a machine to attach a paper trail."

Not believable? Talk about a failure of imagination...

What to make of Teresa Heinz Kerry

Interesting to see the variety of opinions reacting to Teresa Kerry's speech, as collected by the BBC. The consensus seems to be, if you're outside the U.S., you find her attractive, articulate, smart and sincere. If you are inside the U.S., you find her snobbish, insensitive, condescending, and overly scripted.

Le Monde loved her, saying she "undeniably" brought more sincerity to his campaign: "She brilliantly passed her test before the delegates of the democratic convention".

They did work themselves into a bit of a corner trying to quote her famous "shove it" incident:

"Tu as écrit une chose que je n'ai pas dite, maintenant ferme ta gueule", a-t-elle dit en colère.

Funny how "shove it [up your ass]" becomes "shut your trap". I don't think it can have quite the same ironic blue-collar twinge in french.

Scissor Sisters

Went to a totally awesome Scissor Sisters concert at P.S. 1 Warm Up 2004 last night. It was done in the PS1 courtyard, which I thought was big enough to have hors-doeuvres for 20, but in fact had a packed standing room crowd of many hundred.

The music was great, outrageous and happy, '80s poppy with an '00s edge. They have an incredibly loyal fan base showing up at PS1, though I can't tell what crowd it is. There were a number of east village hipsters, a number of chelsea muscle boys, lots of young club kids, dancing girls, surfer dudes, mom-and-dad-and-baby-makes-three.

It's fun reading fan reactions to their music; check out this blog item.

Anyway, Adam knows one of the musicians, so we went up into the museum afterward to say hello. As we're standing around, U2's Bono comes out of the green room, under heavy guard, and waves hello before hopping on the elevator. I didn't have the presence of mind to tell him I appreciated his work for third world Debt Forgiveness, but it's probably a good thing (I mentioned it to Adam after the elevator doors shut, and he said sarcastically, "You know, he's also a musician..."). I know that.

Here are the main arguments on debt forgiveness, pro and con. My take: if you want to be right, you don't forgive third world debt. If you want to be effective, you do.

Margaret Cho

What little politics I can stomach these days is mediated by comedians (though Jon Stewart's coverage of the Democratic Convention was a disappointing yawner; and I had such high expectations...).

Margaret Cho, on the other hand speaks straight to me. A recent squib from her blog: My Family:

Koreans are a lot like Democrats. When we take on a new business, the entire family gets involved. Everyone takes a shift to cover the vast twenty four-hour schedule. Convenience store employees never rest, and neither does democracy. Just like the Kims, the Parks and the Ros, the Kerry and the Edwards clans put in many hours to assure their family business will be a ready success.

Cate Edwards and Chris Heinz are impressive kids to put out in front of the store. They beat me and my cousins hands down in counter charisma. If those two were put in charge of the cash register, we probably wouldn't have gotten robbed at gunpoint as many times as we did.

Why shouldn't we select politicians based on how well we think they've raised their children? Doesn't Mary Cheney's non-position on the Marriage Amendment accurately reflect her dad's politics? Ronnie Reagan Jr's dismal presentation at the convention reminds me why I couldn't take his father seriously. On the other hand, Chelsea Clinton, after having been ridiculed rather much during her dad's tenure, seems to have matured rather well; spending some post-grad time at Oxford didn't hurt. Don't get me started on the Bush twins... Whatever happened to Amy Carter?

Zoo Tycoon

Adam has become completely insufferable since he downloaded Zoo Tycoon onto his computer.

At first it was simply endless conversations on the right type of groundcover to put in the chimpanzee's cage. Then it was the relative merits of feeding dolphins or zoo visitors to the tiger sharks. Then it was what to do when the Allosaurs got out of control.

I suggested that he was divorcing himself from reality, and I ought to join his friends in staging an intervention.

He retorted that after all the complaints he was hearing from me about the democrats' convention and the state of politics in general, he didn't understand why I wasn't downloading games onto my computer also. Then he interrupted with, "excuse me , I have dinosaur poo to clean up".