Archive for October, 2004

No Fact left behind

Monday, October 11th, 2004

I am sure many of you checked out all or part of the debates. And if you are like me you often wondered if some of the exact, very conveniently round figures that were thrown out by the candidates resembled in any way the truth. Well it seems there is a seemingly good resource on the Internet for that analysis: FactCheck.org.

So it seems Bush does own a timber company.

Not that it matters much, but at least there are some other things there that we can review and look for a kernel or two of truth.

NPR RSS Feeds & the Tao of Depression

Thursday, October 7th, 2004

While searching for a story I heard on Morning Edition about depression, so I could make a point about the treatment for depression being just as stressful as some of the stresses thought to cause depression, I found out that NPR has RSS feeds for some of it’s news and programs. Scratch another couple minutes from my daily routine as I will be throwing some of these on my bloglines account right away.

Oh and I couldn’t find the story I was searching for, but basically the woman who wrote a book was talking about how stressful everything is today, since we have so many demands on our time, and the work week has increased and there is a constant pressure to succeed and do more faster and earn more money to buy more crap (Including her book I guess). Then she talked about the way there is no simple magic bullet cure all for depression and it’s not just medication but a whole management regimen where you have to work hard at controlling your depression.

Well as I was listening to this it sounded like there was a lot of pressure to build up this management framework around your depression, which could in turn cause stress as you could wonder why all the hard work you are putting in at controlling your depression isn’t working and how it is possible fail in this mighty quest to control your feelings, and it just seemed like the total wrong direction to go for dealing with depression. I mean why apply the principles of management and work to your problem if applying those very things to other aspects of your life has caused the growth of this problem. It seems to me the solution to many problems in our society is to do something; do anything. And likely that attitude is how the problem came about in the first place.

Now I don’t really know what depression is, or know if I have ever experienced it. But it seems to me that applying the same thinking that caused the condition in the first place is not going to fix it.

I would recommend buying a hammock, and using it.

Terror Threats

Wednesday, October 6th, 2004

Well I am glad I stumbled upon Schneier’s blog today, it gave me some lunchtime reading material, and I found he recently wrote on a topic I have had interest in and displayed scorn for, DHS terror alerts. I published a cynical email I sent to the DHS back in April of this year. And so Bruce Schneier’s blog entry from a couple days ago: Do Terror Alerts Work? obviously struck a chord with me. Not only because his essay echos my sentiment, but because he is a respected security expert who does a good job of analyzing the terror alert system and the current government misuse of them.

Sure it’s a bit long and obviously not as profound ;-) as my letter, but I certainly think it is worth a read and some consideration, and even a few emails to your congress critters to let them know that if it really is simply a choice between political CYA alerts or a new pair a shoes, that you would prefer to opt out of paying Tom Ridge’s salary and head right to the nearest cobbler’s shop. Of course we could always have them keep the tax dollars, since they already have them, and do something that would actually be effective in providing for the security of the homeland.

Crypt-O-Blog

Wednesday, October 6th, 2004

I just found out that Schneier is changing the format of Crypt-O-gram, for the better in my opinion. He will now continuously post his articles in a blog format. Schneier on Security. I have always liked reading the crypto-gram emails monthly, but sometimes it was a bit much to chew on all at once, and delayed my getting any work done on the 15th of the month for an extra hour or so while I digested the articles. Anyway fire up Bloglines and throw in the RSS feed.

If re-elected

Wednesday, October 6th, 2004

What Bush will do if Re-elected:

Introduce the Protection of Adorable Children and Church-Going Families and Also Stick Michael Moore’s Bulbous Ass In Prison Act of 2005

Well that’s the only one of the things on that page I thought was funny, but there appear to be some other funny things on Shrove Tuesday (Observed). Like the New Air Safety Measures:

Proactive bullet to the knee of every 25th passenger