Myself as Emily Litella

Myself is a bit tempted to go trolling (tempted, because Myself would never, ever do such a thing), to every right-leaning blog that defended the Tax-cut package which removed the tax credit for the lowest income wage earners. Those who obediently towed the party line, saying the poor don't pay taxes anyway, so it's just welfare, it's not their money, it's mine because and I do pay, etc. seem to be left twisting in the wind with a knife in your back, (well, maybe thats a bit much). If it were me I'd be pissed at congress, royally pissed. First, if you idiots didn't cut it to begin with, none of this liberal, See I told you this was a tax cut for the rich, punishment of the poor, class warfare, etc. screeds would have happened in the first place. (Myself does not know of anyone who posited against low income tax credits before it was taken out but Myself could, of course, be wrong). Second you idiots then put us in the position of having to defend your actions, which we did (even Myself will admit), quite well, utilizing some often wonky arguments to justify an action in order to enact and economic policy that is, purposefully non-wonky. Thirdly you then caved like a house of cards, voting 94-2 to restore the credit, while adding more stuff, further eroding your stance of keeping a *ceiling* on the size of the tax/economic package. OTOH I could just say, oops, never mind.

Ever the microbe Myself

note: posting date modified to keep near top of page

NZ Bear's feature New Blog Showcase results for week one, Myself did not win, (hell I was tied for dead last ZERO links), not overly dissapointed though, (does my writing suck that badly?), given the number of blogs. I even voted for a few but got no reciprocity, even though by voting for someone else it lessened my chances of winning, but as a citizen of Blogistan, I felt it was my duty. Apparently NZ Bear has made three votes mandatory for upcoming weeks. Oh well, I guess I can enter again, from my latest site meter reports, there were only a few people that even bothered to look, so I'll just use the same post. If I'm not last his time I'll be happy. On a brighter note I got a blogroll link at Cooking for Losers, even posted a modified post of mine. The site is not really a blog more like a site which has funny, quirky stuff about food, cooking, cooking disasters, with some actual real and practical recipes thrown in for good measure. Big Alohas for you.

If any of you bloggers did vote for me, let me know

Votes for Week2:

The Whiskey Bar This often Atrios commentor/contributor does excellent work on use of sound bites to characterize this administration's matter of empahsis and props for sourcing each quote also.

Myself votes again for Happy Furry Story Time with Norbizness sure he doesn't back up his statements with any supporting arguments, but with this level of cranky, curmengeon-ness, (not a word I know) you don't have to. Also for his use of the word fucktard.

RandomActOfKindness in reciprocity for your same, although a bit Chicago/Illinois centered, well written and thoughtful.
Tiger:Raggin&Rantin good objective reviews of the showcase blogs as well as other blogs and current events, makes me want to pop in now and again.
Mac-a-ro-nies another often Atrios commentor/contributor offers democratic veiwpoints that Myself can't help but agree with, You go Girl.
David E's FablogNot exactly breaking news, but still I have to give credit to family that have paved the way for Myself to be here and queer (althought I still have a bit of a problem with the in your face stuff, sometimes)



comments:

- Myself has noticed that some people's permalinks for their entry posts do not work. This is probaly NOT a Blogspot problem it is most likely because your post is too recent. Blogspot automatically generates an archive at the end of the week. Thus, if your entry was written this week you have no archive. you must manually create the archive. Hey if Myself can do it how hard can it be?
- Fiskings are for the most part, pretty lame. It's failry easy to go line by line and pick apart a left/right opinion piece, that you don't agree with. Myself realizes it's a common blogger tool, but try and take into account what the original text is saying, and not interpet it such an obviously unintended fashion for the sole purpose of making straw men arguments that you gleefully knock down. (Note to Myself: possible blog topic)
- If you want to blog like Atrios/Instapundit, go for it, but do it properly, link to the source of all your quotes, use indentation, italics or something to indicate what is the quote and what are your words. At least try to resemble the quasi-journalism-news-blog writing syntax that the big boys use.
- Myself tends to prefer blogs that have some personality, either some emotion (humor, anger, joy whatever), or reveal some aspect(s) about your person (who you are, what you do).

question

if video killed the radio star; what did the internet kill?

hanabata days

The other day I asked my niece what she was snacking, which looked like some dark green powder in a plastic container the size of a small test tube. She informed me that it was called Raven-something-or-other-like-that, Myself tried it and it was extremely sour and tart. It had the added effect of turning my tongue a hideous blackish-purplish-greenish color. Needless to say I loved the shit. It did remind me of the strange things I used to snack on when I was in the third grade, such as ramen tar tare, take a package of dried ramen, crush it into pieces, dump the seasoning packet on the ramen crumbs, shake it up and scarf it down. Yum. Also Jello™ straight out of the box, as well as instant pudding, Nestle Quick™ and Ovaltine™. I was also known to munch on a cinnamon stick.
I remember when I got busted for taking the jello:
Mom is looking in the kitchen cupboards:
Mom: "What happened to all the Jello?"
Myself: "I ate it"
Mom: "You ate it?"
Myself: "I ate it for recess snack"
Mom: "Who made it?"
Myself: "No one, we just ate it"
Mom: "You just ate it right out of the box!?"
Myself: "uh huh"
Mom: "well, don't do that anymore"

Myself's microbe votes

From Truth Laid Bare these are the blogs from the New blog Showcase that I liked:

Happy Furry Story Time is like a grumpy George Carlin (is that redundant?)
RantDudes RavingsThis guy is like Jerry Seinfeld on meth.

In General these blogs are all very well written, and, unlike myself, shows considerable thought was put into them.

things that I didn't like:
- If you use the word hyperdifferentiation I will very likely stop reading at that point.
- Overly left/right wing blogs, there's more to life (and few things more boring) that blogging hooray for our side and boo on the other. Sure my political leanings are readily proffered, but not in every other post.
- the weather: If you really feel the need to blog about it, then just say where you are and what it's like, I really, really don't want a detailed weather report. What I sometimes do is give them my weather report: Hawaii, 80°, clear blue skies with cooling 5-15 mph tradewinds, just to f**k with them.
- broken links - If the link that you post as the one to use for your vote doesn't work or takes you to your homepage - FIX IT - I fixed mine.
-

Microbes on Parade

I entered my blog in the New Weblog Showcase at Truth Laid Bear. It should be appearing the first week in june. Maybe I can evolve into a multi-cellular organism. I read some of this weeks blogs and I have to say some of these are good, (makes myself look kind of slack), I was especially impressed with some of the customized templates. I loathe dicking with the template I have, (again, pretty bad for a techie), it's just that HTML is such a pain to deal with, I'd rather look at at an abend dump, well maybe not, how about JCL? (end geekspeak).

Any other microbes out there looking for a little consentual reciprocal linking? (safe only, limits respected).
Vote early and vote often.

Update: Apparently I'm already there, but the link is not working (oops, no votes for myself), oh well, maybe I can re-enter next week.
looks like the only archive link that is working is the oldest one, (sigh).
UpUpdate:my bad, I have to archive pages myself and set the settings, permalinks should work now. (this is the point where I get a whack on the back of my head)

get away

It"s a good thing to get away from it all even if you never go anywhere. I took off from work last Thursday and Friday and with the weekend and the Memorial Day Holiday, I had five days of nothing, so did not check my email, never checked the various blogs and discussion groups, and had a mini vacation. I did some household chores, went to the beach and got a suntan, rode my bike around town and in general goofed around doing not much of anything. I watched a Japanese lantern ceremony on Memorial day, at sunset, they float literally hundreds of lanterns in memory of those who have been lost. There was something very peaceful and calming watching hundreds of lights floating away on the ocean. I enjoyed it immensely. The only problem is that sitting at my desk I'm wanting to go on vacation again.

Clenis™

Heh Heh, that's funny Big A

Yo, Ho The Pirates Life for Me

I just got my brand new shiny Creative Nomad IIc MP3 player. I decided to splurge and got the 128M onboard but did not get any extra flash cards (although I will probably buy one later). My original Nomad which I purchased about three years ago, was inherited by the boyfriend, hence I absolutely needed a new one. And what with all the players out today, I got the IIc for only ten bucks more than what I paid three years ago for the 64M model. So after a bit of installation frustration, because I did not know that the USB port on my PC needed to be enabled via the BIOS (always keep your original manuals people, some techie I am eh?), I was happily downloading mp3"s on my new player, and I thought of all the mp3 files I have, well over a thousand, which if purchased, represents a lot of coinage. So am I stealing this music? Technically Yes. But don't try to use a moral argument to stop downloading, because it's rather hypocritical for music companies and even artists to preach moral behavior. Am I breaking the law? Technically Yes, but it's a chance I"m willing to take that I"m not going to be thrown in prison for downloading the Simpsons Theme song. Am I depriving artists - who have slaved in the industry for years, toiled and struggled - of much deserved revenue? Yes, but not in all cases.And what is their take? At say $4 a CD (generous), with say 10 tracks = 40¢ per song. The problem as I see it is that technology has surpassed the law, current laws are not effectively enforceable. Why is it this so different than cassette tapes? Because the internet allows for pirating on a massive scale never before seen. Furthermore, the recording industry cannot point to anyone, (since Napster is gone), and say, *stop thief!* So they go after those who they consider to be heavy traffic pirates. Internet Providers are caught in the middle, between customer privacy, and legal obstruction, even passive collusion if you believe the RIAA hard liners. What the industry needs to do is accept that music downloading is going to happen, and work with it. Because with true P2P programs, you are never going to be able to eliminate pirate downloading. A big issue is that the price of music today is too expensive, at least in relation to the kind of product available today. The music being produced today is, in most cases not worth $17 a CD. Why should I pay $17 for and entire CD when I only really want one or two songs, which I was forced to do before, but now I don"t have to. It is, IMHO, worth $1 song, tops. And that's for new hits. Older tunes? less than $1. With the sheer quantity of music being produced today, my consumer dollars are better spent on getting the specific tunes I want, and not, in essence, paying for something I don"t want in the form of eight tracks that are in all probability not as good as the single. I predict, that a new paradigm will emerge, like Apple itunes, pay a nominal fee and go for it, the music industry will be less inclined to crank out garbage, when fans can pick and choose what they want to hear and in this way the overall quality will improve, but there will be an explosion of one hit wonders as consumers get only what they want and pay for only what they get.

Affirmative Action is needed

I think you have to look at the purpose of AA, one purpose, is to give certain minorities a chance at a good job, college etc.. Is it unfair? Perhaps, but I would argue that it is less unfair than legacy, nepotism, or the old boy net, which most who oppose AA do not have as big a problem with. There will always be some cases where a supposedly more-qualified white person will have been passed over for a seemingly less-qualified minority, but I would argue that the reverse also happens today even with AA. I think we can all agree that before AA, and the Equal Rights Amendment, things were definitely unfair to minorities. That being said the left argues that AA is a way of attempting to repair those years of unfairness. The right argues that little miss Sally Whitebread has never discriminated of been unfair to minorities so why is she being treated so unfairly? Why should minorities be given an extra leg up? Surely these things should be decided purely on merit, (snarky remark edited). In other words society as a whole doesn"t have to give minorities squat for what society has done to them. Whereas those on the left argue that society as a whole must allow for some recompense for all those years of unfairness. It may not be my fault personally, but I feel that I have to take responsibility as part of society, and I’m willing to pay the price of having some instances of a little reverse discrimination. Those on the right are not willing.
AA can also be argued this way: Nepotism, legacy, Old Boy Network, will not be going away anytime soon, the boss can pretty much do whatever he wants in terms of hiring his relatives, and schools are not going to reject a wealthy alumnist"s idiot son and lose his fathers generous donations. These things overwhelmingly benefit white people. So we give some non-white people a leg up only to compensate for the preferential treatment given to whites. Yes, two wrongs don"t make a right but it does make things a bit more equal, if in the face of wrong #1 (legacy) not going away. But wait, most whites are not wealthy, or related to the boss, or know someone high up enough, to benefit from these things. To which I would say, Well why don’t you take your own advice and pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, work hard and perform well and raise yourself up to that level.
Also of note: minorities of Asian descent do not benefit from AA, and that"s whole other can of worms.

post inspired by Angry Bear™

I know what I said but..

I know I said that I wouldn't do the around the blogosphere thing but this one I think is special. I was scanning Cursor.org and saw that Where is Raed is back. This is the blog of a young man in Iraq, specifically Bahgdad. While there is speculation about the validity of this blogger, it is a facinating read if true, and gives accounts first hand accounts of someone actually there, that most of us in the US did not see. Read it while you can.

Mom's day misc.

Yesterday was Mother’s day, unfortunately I had to work 1 – 8pm, so I was unable to go over to my mom’s. I did arrange to have some flowers delivered, and I took my parents out to dinner on Saturday night. The thing is, when I called my mom on Tuesday, or maybe it was Wednesday, to let her know I had to work, she mentioned that my brother was out of town for the entire weekend, so he was suggesting that we do something next week, instead of this weekend. It kind of pissed me off that I have to arrange my schedule around my brother’s schedule. It’s something that happens whenever we try to have some kind of family event. Now I realize that he is busy, but I think he should be willing to re-arrange his life a bit sometimes too. So I took my mom and dad out for dinner (my Dad’s birthday was earlier in the week, so it was something for both of them. The First restaurant we went to was very crowded. So we went to a nearby place, one which we don’t frequent as often as the first, but we were able to get a table without waiting, and we had a nice evening, the food was good, not great but good, and we talked a lot about my older brother and the problems he has been experiencing lately. I was kind of thankful that I don’t have to deal with the stuff he does, and realized that my life is pretty simple, maybe even boring, sometimes I think it’s a bad thing but other times it’s not so bad.

I'm trying to not do the around the blogosphere thing when I'm pressed for time and write original stuff as much as possible, so cut me some slack ok?

Bananas vs. FOBs

The topic of American born Asian (a.k.a., ABA, bananas, johk sing, etc) vs. Asian born Asians who have moved to the US (often referred to as FOBs, imports, ornamentals, etc.), seems to bring a out a lot of passionate argument. Being a third generation Japanese American, I hope gives me some perspective, so... The biggest problem I have is with those who will accuse me of being “whitewashed” or calling me a “sellout” to my culture, heritage, etc. Because we look Asian and don't act the way FOB’s think we should. We don’t speak the language, don’t eat all the foods, don’t observe all the traditions, we just don't think, but mostly act, and behave,(right?), like you do. While this is generally true and it does lead for a bit of an identity crisis for some, it has never truly bothered me, primarily because, well, that’s the way I am, that’s the way I was raised, part American, part Japanese, I am both. I suppose being raised in a city where I am actually NOT a minority, (Honolulu, Hawaii), might have possibly skewed things. I really don’t see myself personally as being marginalized as some people have pointed out. Yes, as part of the greater population of the US, the marginalization of Asians exists and occurs with all too much frequency, assumed to always be immigrants, being portrayed as stereo-types in the general media, but I don’t go looking for examples or cry racism at every turn. OR even say in being *marginalized*, give me a fucking break.
I don’t see the marginalization here because when I look around, I see Asians and Asian culture everywhere. I see two Hawaii Governor’s who were Asian, (Ariyoshi, and Cayetano), I see a State legislature House, Senate, with more non-white surnames that white ones. I see the university name the baseball stadium the Les Murakami Stadium. I can buy dim sum and sushi at the 7-Eleven. I can even get saimin and rice at McDonald’s, my last name will rarely be mispronounced, . With each new generation, we, as Asian Americans, become more Americanized, but Asian traditions will still be a cherished and integral part of our lives, because it’s a source of identity, (I know I’m not white) and I fully realize that it would be a terrible shame to ignore, or worse, turn my back on, my ethnicity. (I try, i can count in japanese, and speak a smattering of rudimentary words and phrases), I was raised to embrace both Japanese and American cultures, but I have to say American was primary. (Scooby Scooby Doo Where Are You). Are there conflicts? Yes, but you deal with them, and make it work. Does that make me whitewashed? Am I so unlike you who I look so much alike? as to be gaijin? you decide, and tell me. Maybe, but you know what? I really don’t give a shit if you think I’ve sold out, because I know that I can accomplish far more than you as an FOB ever will in the good ol US of A, because I don’t put limits what I should or should not do, or what I will or will not do simply because of what my ethnic culture says so. If I want to have an intimate relationship with a black person, I can. If I want to say, run for political office, or even if I want to buy a house, and move in to whatever neighborhood I desire, . Thats the way it is, its neither good, bad, nor an insult if you do call me whitewashed because I really don't get all that worked up about all this shit. Of course that’s not to say that anything goes, you would not, for example see me on Jerry Springer, because I have had the Asian concept of saving face ingrained into me, (as well as going to every funeral of even the most remotely, distant relative that you have never seen since you were two, thanks Mom). But I would have no problem walking into a room filled with white people, and schmoozing with them (I'd much rather be somewhere else tho, even blogging). My point being if you cling too tightly to your ethnicity, and not allow for some Americanization, then it’s your loss, you gotta give to get, and only you know how much you are giving. (one of Myself's rules of life). It’s why you are in the US in the first place, or at the very least part of why your parents came here, so go LIVE YOUR LIFE

very busy at work, so nothing new for a couple of days, (yes I do this at work).Maybe I'll post about it. Have some ideas for posts though. Terrible thing how work interferes with blogging.

About email worms

I was on a message board the other day and someone had gotten an email from someone they knew, but it turned out the email was spoofed, generated by a email worm, while he opened the email, he did not open the attachment, because the person who sent it usually writes a bit more that "check this out". So he asked what is a worm, how does it work, and what can you do to prevent this. Being that I have some knowledge on the subject, I posted a response that I thought may be helpful to the novice, and I thought I should post it here also:


There is really no "easy explanation" as to how an email worm works, but I hope this helps. The worm is a program, just like your internet explorer, MSword, Excel, Resident Evil or solitaire, once the program executes it can pretty much do anything to your PC, read, write, delete, execute other programs. If you use MS Outlook, your address book is stored in a folder and its always in the same place on any PC, so the worm knows where to look and can read it. Furthermore each address entry has a specific format so the worm can sift though the file and knows what is an address and what is not. The same goes for ICQ, and your browser cache. Knowing this, the worm can now execute your email program and send a replica of itself to all the addresses it found.

As for the second part, again there is no easy answer, one way you can possible verify whether an email is actually from the person is to look at the email header, and verify that the mail server is the same as the persons email account, if you get an email from JoeBlow@hawaii.rr.com and the header says the email server was xtreme.uk.net and not the Hawaii road runner mail server then it may be falsely generated. Of course no one does this on a regular basis, the cold truth is there is no easy way to verify the sender is legit or from an infected PC. You can usually safely open any email you get, although there are some sophisticated worms that can execute when opened, the vast majority need you to open the attachment to execute, you need to have anti-virus with an email checker to scan the attachment.



Suggestions on prevention: spend $30 for anti virus software and update it on a regular basis. Get the most current updates of Outlook and Explorer. There is a setting you can turn on that will check if you have the most current version. Better yet don't use MS outlook at all, hackers know it's the most popular email program and write their virus specifically for outlook. That preview window in outlook is the same as opening it and as stated above there are some rare, smarter worms out there. Use an internet email like yahoo, hotmail, or pay $5 a month to subscribe to a messaging service like NetAddress, your address book resides on their server, and they always have the latest virus preventions. Or you can buy/download an email program that has public-key cryptography, like MailSafe or PGP which allows you to sign an email with an electronic signature that guarantees the sender is who it say its from. This also has the advantage of having the address book in a format that the virus may not be able to read. (emphasis on may not). Delete your cookies and temporary internet files and delete your history, on a regular basis, you may have to do more typing but you won't leave a trail of addresses that can be easily found.


Also very important: another way of being infected is if you have roadrunner or DSL. You MUST, repeat MUST, get a firewall installed or you will in all likelihood get infected from there.

Bold and Audacious..... exploitation

So the 2004 Republican National Convention will be held in New York City in September. Normally conventions are held earlier, like July/August. Tearful & solemn tributes up the yin yang predicted

"Emphasis" theirs

via Tom Tomorrow

From this it seems that the "Saddam has WMD's and would in fact use them against our troops" screed was, well, a lie.

Officials inside government and advisers outside told ABCNEWS the administration emphasized the danger of Saddam's weapons to gain the legal justification for war from the United Nations and to stress the danger at home to Americans.

"We were not lying," said one official. "But it was just a matter of emphasis."

Officials now say they may not find hundreds of tons of mustard and nerve agents and maybe not thousands of liters of anthrax and other toxins. But U.S. forces will find some, they say. On Thursday, President Bush raised the possibility for the first time that any such Iraqi weapons were destroyed before or during the war.

"just a matter of emphasis"...yeah right.
this article calls a spade a spade. I heard this quote from Penn Gillette, from Penn & Teller, on their Showtime show Bulls**t it's a good show, debunking such things as the environmental wacko movement, psychics, feng Shui, bottled water, and the like, but here's the money line:

"No ends justifies the means, of lying"

That's the way love goes...

Federal terrorism charges were filed yesterday against a 20-year-old California woman who allegedly threatened to kill the passengers and crew of a cruise ship sailing to Hilo last week, said U.S. Attorney Ed Kubo.
Kelley Marie Ferguson of Laguna Hills was charged with two counts of threatening acts of terrorism, Kubo said. Each count carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years. Probation is not allowed under the statute, meaning Ferguson would be required to spend some time in prison, if convicted.

snip...

"The defendant said that she never wanted to go on the cruise with her family and that she wrote these notes hoping it would shortern her time on the cruise, thereby allowing her to rejoin her boyfriend in Orange County, California,"

Why oh why do people do these kinds of stupid things?

Time for a new PC

So its time to buy a new PC, my current one is (get ready to say wow that's old), a 200Mhz pentium, purchased circa 1995 (say it now). Buying a new one is not the problem. The problem is offloading the data from the old girl. The CD-burner died about six months ago, and I have no zip drive or tape backup. I figure I have about 6 gigs of data that I want to keep. What I may try to do is to remove the dirve from the old one and try to hook it up to the new one, I have no problem opening the case and puttering with it. Maybe I can buy/get some USB/Firewire transfer utility. I just hope the old girl can last a few more weeks.