Al is checking out Blosxom, which is Rael Dornfest's lightweight blogging software. That reminded me to mention that Pair.com recently enhanced their account setup, and the free scripts they offer with their Advanced accounts and higher now include Blosxom. Given that our last blog app changeover was so time-consuming, I'm not looking to try it again, but I do wish that Pair would also include Movable Type. That'd save us $12/month.

Today's political outrage: Bush guts Clinton-era rules on privacy of medical data as a payoff to HMOs and other large GOP contributors.

Josh Marshall explodes the myth of Bush administration managerial and political competence. This article should be required reading for spineless Democratic politicians; it shows how weak on the issues Bush really is. "But mostly, what the Bushies call "leadership" is just a confidence game. And over time, that kind of leadership will get its butt kicked by reality every time."

Some of the most insidious stuff the Bush administration does comes from the regulatory agencies and bureaucracy, which have been systematically turned into wholly-owned subsidiaries of big business. This stuff happens below the radar, for the most part. For example, this story in The Sacramento Bee, ISO rejects FERC's order to replace board, describes how FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, is trying to meddle in California politics. You might remember FERC as the Bush lackeys which famously stood by last year and did nothing while Enron and other energy producers lustily ripped off the people of California with their fraudulent "energy crisis." Now FERC has ordered the operators of the state's largest power grid to disband and create a new board that will allow energy industry representatives more control. The California board's response, supported by the governor and the state attorney general, was basically "Bite me."

More on the Green Party and its relationship with Nader in another good new political weblog, The Scrum. It appears that the Green Party is, as I expected, diving into its own navel:

The Greens had their first ever mid-term convention in Philadelphia in late July, amidst the corporate scandals and a plummeting stock market. When it came time for Peter Miguel Camejo, the Green candidate for governor in California, to speak, Sifry notes in L.A. Weekly he "ratcheted up the rhetoric on behalf of solar energy and the World Court. Excuse me? Handed the juiciest hunk of red meat they've ever seen in their activist lives, Greens are showing that, despite their recent growth, they remain political vegans."

Are you a web designer, web developer, or lawyer? If so, check out United States Patent 6,272,493: System and method for facilitating a windows based content manifestation environment within a WWW browser. My take on this one is that everything in it is either obvious, based on prior art, or both. What's your opinion?

I was talking to someone yesterday afternoon, and trying to remember the name of the famous chef whose restaurant Tom and I would be dining that night. My brain goofed, and said that it was this Charlie. I was told that I must be wrong, and that it was probably this Charlie. Well, we were both wrong: it was actually this Charlie. But no matter whose place it was, the Dry Creek Kitchen was pretty darn amazing. Yum!

File under "Things that make you say 'Huh?'" This site is in our referrer logs: the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Silly Movable Type tricks: you can now put your Netflix Queue on your MT blog. What do you want to bet that this is going to be on Tom's wishlist to be added here?

Wishing you hadn't missed out on that good Amazon deal on OS X 10.2 (aka Jaguar)? You took a look at this rebate form and saw that it didn't have 10.2 on it, so you were sure you missed your chance? If so, this rebate form may be the one you're looking for.

In one of the posts below (the one making fun of CA governor GOP nominee Simon), an old friend suggested that I take a new look at the Green Party. Done. Unfortunately, the Greens are just too wacky for me to take them seriously, and I don't share their values. Case in point: after I read her post, I looked at the Green web site to see if they had evolved a platform or policies that I could support. Turns out that their candidate for governor, Peter Camejo, was campaigning recently in my neighborhood, just 15 miles away in Santa Rosa. Here's the story from the local paper:

The Green Party's candidate for governor, Peter Miguel Camejo, marched in Santa Rosa on Sunday with more than 350 Latino and Green Party activists to rally for legislation that would allow undocumented immigrants to obtain driver's licenses.

"This issue, at this moment, is the single most important issue to the Latino community," said Camejo."

And that's enough for me. Let's break that down. A candidate for governor of California, who would be sworn to have "the duty to ensure that the laws of the state are faithfully executed," (quote from the state of California site) thinks that the most important issue for Latinos in California is to make sure that illegal aliens - that would be people who are criminally resident in this country - get driver's licenses. In other words, it's more important to help out criminals, because those criminals have the right ethnic background, than anything else he can think of. How could I even think of supporting a candidate that obviously would be unable to fulfill his oath of office?

And on a more self-centered note, what would this guy do for me? From reading his platform, it would appear that because I'm not part of the constituencies that he's pandering to, I get to help pay for things like (quotes from his site; paraphrasing by me) "legalizing undocumented workers," "living wages," state-sponsored guaranteed education for everyone, "increased rehabilitation and training," drug addiction treatment, and state help for people to buy houses. Some of it sounds fine in principle; other parts of his agenda I strongly disagree with. I was unable to find a proposal for this cornucopia that explains how to pay for it all. If the idea is to raise state taxes so that the better off (that would be me) pays for the free ride, count me out.

Regarding IRV (Instant Runoff Voting, which the Greens are pushing hard), it's obviously a good system, and it's just as obvious why the major parties hate it. The problem that I see with it is that it would greatly increase the participation of smaller parties. OK, I know that's part of the point. But the difference between the US and the other countries where IRV works well is that those countries are parliamentary democracies, with coalition governments. That's not our system; for better or worse, there is the party in power and the party not in power. Increasing the power of smaller parties in a winner-take-all system is a recipe for spoiler parties. And the Greens are mostly just that. It's indisputable to everyone except Nader that had he not drained votes away on the progressive side, we would have President Gore today. As a result, the nation is considerably worse off than if Nader had not run. And he bears that responsibility, whether he wants to shoulder it or not. It's pathetic for Nader and his lackeys to say that there's no difference between the Dems and the GOP. Under Gore, do you think the US would be raising arsenic levels in drinking water? Trying to drill in ANWR? Trying to eliminate basic civil liberties? Chipping away at reproductive rights? Cutting funding for Superfund toxic cleanups? Enacting a tax cut that drove the economy into recession, then lying about the tax cut's effects? None of that would have come to pass, had it not been for Nader and the people he duped into voting for him.

Wow, two years later, and I'm still pissed off.

We saw Signs tonight. I hated it. Dori liked it. I'm still trying to figure out why I disliked it so much.

I know, you're sitting around, wracking your brain, wondering, "My god! What shall I get Dori for her birthday! And it's tomorrow! Whatever shall I do?"

Let it never be said that I don't have sympathy for people who want to spend money on me. Hell, I'm happy to make it as easy as possible. So, I'll suggest two choices:

• If you look down a little bit on the right, you'll see an option under my name that says "Wish List." That's stuff that I've already picked out that you can get me from Amazon.com.
• If none of those options strike your fancy, you can get me an Amazon.com gift certificate (available in any denomination!). That'll go towards the Apple 20 GB iPod (Mac) that I have on order.

There's no need to thank me, it's just another Backup Brain service for our faithful readers.

Hey, kids! Thunderbirds Are GO! Starting today, TechTV has started running the 60's kids show Thunderbirds five days a week. I've always loved this British series about a brave family that runs an organization callled International Rescue. It's a bizarre yet strangely cool show that's done with puppets --oh, sorry, it's done with SuperMarionation™. F.A.B.!

As a book author, I've learned to take Amazon's sales rankings with a grain of salt, and as broad suggestions as to how something's selling, not as if a ranking is detailed market intelligence. But I noticed something interesting on the not-yet-released Apple 20 GB iPod. The Mac version's sales rank is 685. The Windows version's sales rank is 115. As I expected, Apple's going to sell a lot more iPods in the next quarter, which can only look good on Apple's bottom line.

Help Wanted

I'm soon going to be starting on a new book for Macromedia Press, and I'll need some good-looking Dreamweaver templates that I will use as the basis for screenshots. I'm not a Web designer, so I want to purchase some templates for use in the book. There is pay, but it won't be a lot of money. On the other hand, if you have some nice templates hanging around, it'll be a bit of incremental income. I need template sets for two or three different sites, each of which will need a home page and one or two templates for interior pages. Ideally, I'd like a corporate-type template, a template for a personal site, and something else (you tell me). Constraints: Must look good at 1024 x 768 and in grayscale, and they will be shot using Windows gamma.

I'm interested in buying the right to use these templates (and for me to modify them if necessary) for use in my book and in any subsequent editions. I'll need these templates within the next couple of weeks. In addition to the payment, I would be happy to include a credit and a link to your Web site in the book. If you are interested, please contact me via email (not in the comments here on the blog) using the link on the right side of this page.

Note: until I hire someone, this post will periodically be moved to the top of the blog.

Thinking about buying Mac OS X V10.2 Jaguar, but didn't want to pay $129? Irritated that you missed out on the Amazon $79 deal? Take a look at what CompUSA is selling it for--$129 will start to look good. (Via Hack the Planet)

If you've read this blog for any time at all, you'll know that I'm no friend of the Bush administration. I think that he stole an election with the connivance of his brother and a majority of the Supreme Court, and should not be in office today. Still, I'm annoyed by the lefties that print bumper stickers about 9/11 that say "Bush Knew." That's just way over the top; a president that knew and failed to prevent such an attack has committed treason, as far as I'm concerned. And I don't believe that Bush is a traitor to the U.S.

When it comes to assessing the blame for 9/11, I have, however, been appalled when Bush's lackeys try to blame Clinton. It happened on their watch, not Clinton's. Clinton may not have done everything possible to avert the threat (had he done so, the GOP would have mocked him for using the military), but the record shows that he took the threat seriously. A new article, The Secret History, in Time details how in its closing days (late 2000) the Clinton administration developed a detailed plan to roll back al-Qaeda's operations, handed it to the incoming Bush folks, who sat on it until early September 2001, when it was too late. This certainly raises Bush's level of responsibility for what happened. In the words of the article, "[The attack] wasn't averted because 2001 saw a systematic collapse in the ability of Washington's national-security apparatus to handle the terrorist threat." It's absolutely worth reading.