Google Conspiracy Theory Followup

As a follow-up to my previous post, Google Maps has changed their software and I get much saner results when I search for shooting range near 92102.

Blogger Template Tweaked Today

I spent several hours today researching and then tweaking the templates for both this blog and my GGHPC blog. I started with the Minima template and made the following adjustments:

• Switched orangish colors to navy (mostly post headings)


• Changed hover color to red


• Changed from fixed-pixel widths to percentage widths


• Changed the fonts


• Adjusted margins

I also experimented with a custom styles for printing, but I could not get the results I wanted so I left printing alone. Everything looks great in Firefox, but IE looks terrible - the blog titles are partially obscured by the navbar and I can't figure out what to change to fix it. If you know what to do, please let me know.

Oh, those damn Mexicans and atheists

I need to brush up on mi español so that I can sing the national anthem in Spanish while waving my Italian flag and marching up Mt. Soledad to tear down the cross. Oh, and I need to do this while not buying anything... oh wait, that was May 1... damn, too late.

I consider myself lucky. I only received one or two racist emails (from people who should know better) that were absolutely outraged that the Mexicans were going to have a boycott. You know the complaint, how dare these illegals criticize America when they're the ones both (somehow) stealing our jobs and clogging the welfare rolls. Don't they know that freedom isn't free? Oh wait, am I mixing up my self-righteous indignation causes? Is it the Mexicans or is it al Qaeda that was responsible for 9/11? Or maybe it's those goddamned atheists that want to ban the pledge, take prayer out of the schools, and tear down crosses. Hey, I just realized - al qaeda... una quesadilla - OMG!

Anyway, these racist emails advocated shopping on May 1 to counteract the effect of all those damn immigrants not shopping on May 1. Wow. Now, that's a grasp on economics that you can only get by listening to Fox News (or getting drunk at Yale with your daddy's money). Of course! The solution to the immigration problem is more shopping!

I'm not going to pretend that I'm an expert at world affairs or that I understand what drives the global economy, but I've paid close enough attention over the years to realize that the people that are complaining the most are the same people that got us into the trouble that we're in. NAFTA was signed by the first Bush in 1992 and, it could be argued, is what caused this huge increase in illegal immigration. Well, at least China's economy is getting stronger.

If you want my thoughts on the matter (actually, I don't care if you want my thoughts or not - this is my blog), amnesty is a bad idea. I'm not against immigrants, but I am against illegal immigration. Amnesty would be unfair to all the legal immigrants that have been waiting 5 or 6 years for a green card. Also, with a current 5-6 year backlog and the Republicans averse to funding anything, any amnesty program that they propose would never have enough funding to actually work. No, my suggestion is to crack down on anyone that hires an illegal immigrant. Impose stiff fines or tax penalties on these companies and make it not worth their while to hire someone that is not here legally. Then, use those funds to actually fund the existing system to allow the immigrants that are here legally to get their green cards in a more timely manner.

But, enough about immigration, let's get back to something more dear to my heart. The Mt. Soledad Cross. Not the cross, itself, of course. I hate the cross. No, it's the 15-year old case to take down the cross that is dear to my heart. The case of the Mt. Soledad cross is clear to any reasonable person; a giant Latin cross on public land is painfully obvious as a violation of both the U.S. constitution and the California constitution. And it was ruled unconstitutional back in 1991. And every court in the land has agreed with this decision since then. The cross needs to come down, the cross should have come down, and if there is any fairness in the law, the cross will come down soon. Of course, our gutless elected politicians will spend as much public money as they can to appease the Christian majority in this town and to keep fighting for the cross and against what is the right thing to do.

Prayer! huh-yeah What is it good for? Absolutely nothing

Turns out that prayer is not only useless, it's been scientifically proven to be hazardous to your health:

Article: Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | If you want to get better - don't say a little prayer

Wimps, Sausages, and TV

I really wish the Democrats would get their act together and actually do something. Bush's ratings are at an all-time low, the American public has overwhelmingly turned against the war in Iraq and is convinced that it's a "bad thing", the majority of Americans know that Bush broke the law with his domestic wiretapping program, and yet, the Democrats are afraid to support a censure of George. Come on! It's a no-brainer... just like W himself.

No, the Democrats are too easily intimidated by words. Words from Republicans that claim that if you're not for the administration, you might as well be giving handjobs to the terrorists. I've always been disgusted by the Republican leadership, but the Democrats have shown that they also serve the Republican leadership with their inactions.

Off my soapbox, let me check in with my local world. Kara and I just had a wonderful dinner at The Linkery, followed by coffee at Rebecca's Coffee House. We dined and sipped with our friends and former-closer neighbors Tony and Edith. The Linkery is a local restaurant that specializes in homemade sausages and serves delicious food with an extensive and varied menu. This is our third time dining there and the food has been excellent each time. Tonight, I had seafood sausage tacos (made with mahi mahi, scallops, and shrimp) and the "sun salad" and we all shared the picnic plate appetizer with a chicken tarragon sausage. They have a menu on their web site as well as a blog that read regularly. Rebecca's is our local coffee house with the best scones in the world (I don't think they have a web site, so I can't link to it).

Finally, I want to mention that we've finally given up on Netflix due to their discriminatory DVD distribution process (the more DVDs you rent per month, the slower they ship new DVDs to you). Also in the last month or so, we've upgraded our TV antenna to DirecTV (with a DVR) and opened a membership in Citizen Video, a brand-spanking new DVD rental place in our neighborhood that specializes in foreign and independent movies. Thanks to the DVR, Kara has been able to watch all those Law & Order (all the different flavors of L&O, of course!) episodes that she never got to see before and I get to catch up on Daria.

See Dick Shoot, Penguins, and Kudos for Amazon.com

It's really too bad that Dick prefers hunting lawyers with a lawyer over hunting with G.W.

We just finished watching the DVD of March of the Penguins, which includes some very cool extra documentaries and shorts that, combined, are longer than the feature itself. Very charming, indeed.

Speaking of DVD, I received a copy of Fast Times at Ridgemont High as a holiday gift and I just got around to watching it the other night. I've seen the movie many times in the past, but Kara had never seen it before. It's a bit dated, but still a very good movie. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the DTS track to work and the track advertised as Dolby 5.1 would only play as stereo on my receiver. But, this gets to the point of this post. I was rather disappointed with the sound but since Kara had given it to me at the end of December and she had bought it from Amazon back in October, there was no way I could return this defective disk and expect a refund.

Thinking that I might have a shot at an exchange with a personal appeal, I filled out the contact form on Amazon.com, explained my predicament, and asked if there was any possibility of an exchange, since this was obviously a defective disc (after all, my other DTS discs played fine.)

The next night, we rented Junebug and I noticed that the sound wasn't right on this disk either. Uh oh, something was wrong with my receiver, I surmised, and started fiddling with the controls. I have a Sony STR-DE995 audio video receiver that I purchased 3 years ago and I had misplaced the manual. Fortunately, Google came to my rescue and I figured out that I (or Kara) had somehow ... well it's a bit technical, but suffice it to say, I changed some settings and miraculously, the sound was back to perfect. I quickly checked my Fast Times DVD and, voilá , the DTS track sounded wonderful.

Tonight, after a long commute to HelL.A. and back, I check my e-mail and I see that Amazon has written to say that they're making an exception to their return policy in light of my circumstances and that they're already sending me a brand new copy of Fast Times along with a return label so I can send back in my "defective" disk. I feel bad that I was wrong about the DVD being bad, but I really have to point out that Amazon.com has just provided excellent customer service. Kudos!

On a separate note, Junebug was an odd little movie, but Amy Adams really did deliver a standout performance.

Google Maps search for Shooting Ranges identifies government buildings and local newspapers as targets

I found out that you don't need own a gun to take advantage of a shooting range and it seemed like a fun way to blow off some steam on a weekend afternoon, but I wasn't sure if there was a shooting range near my neighborhood. So, I turned to Google Maps and searched for shooting ranges near 92102.

Sure enough, Google produced a list of nearby shooting ranges in the left pane, but what was initially amusing became disturbing as I continued to click the markers on the map. In addition to legitimate shooting ranges, Google maps identified these sites for shooting ranges near 92102:

• San Diego Daily Transcript, a newspaper
  
• San Diego Union Tribune, a newspaper
  
• California Public Utilities Commission
  
• San Diego County Library Law
  
• San Diego County Superior Court
  
• Downtown Information Center
  
• San Diego Public Library
  
• San Diego Convention Center
  
• Yellow Cab Company
  

I'm not sure what to make of this, but if I was a conspiracy theorist...

Here's a photo of the search (click for a larger version):

Heading to Columbus and Canarsie Memories

I'm heading to Columbus, Ohio for a week of work. I was last there about 13 years ago and I really liked the town. Of course, that was a mid-summer visit when the weather was very nice. This time I can look forward to possible rain, possible snow, and overall cold weather (compared to San Diego).

Grandma's Corner (112_1271)
Taken by me.

On a separate note, a simple (dark, even) photo of street signs at East 92nd Street and Bay View Place in Canarsie, Brooklyn, NY, has inspired more comments than anything else I've photographed.

Amazing!

Roman Catholics are Smarter Than Fundamentalist Christians

According to a report from the Associated Press:

The Vatican newspaper has published an article saying "intelligent design" is not science and that teaching it alongside evolutionary theory in school classrooms only creates confusion.

Also:

"This isn't how science is done," he wrote. "If the model proposed by Darwin is deemed insufficient, one should look for another, but it's not correct from a methodological point of view to take oneself away from the scientific field pretending to do science."

I was having an argument a few weeks ago with a friend who I would categorize as an agnostic (he might or might not agree) and he was vehemently in support of teaching Intelligent Design in the classroom. If I was a better debater, I might have been able to convince him of the error of his ways. Since I'm not that great at debating, I'm going to forward this to him to see if it changes his mind.

Of course, the guy is an Apple evangelist, so I might as well give up on trying to change him.

Alito, No!

I had to drive up to HelL.A. three times this week, which means I spent over 12 hours in my car listening to San Diego, Orange, and L.A. county radio stations. Much of that time was spent either listening to Alito hearings live or listening to the coverage of hearings on "progressive talk radio" stations.

I'm not sure what I think about Alito, but I do know that it's not the same as before the hearings. Before the hearings, the liberal press had demonized Alito as someone who would roll back Roe, suffocate civil liberties, put God back in schools, and would essentially hand the judicial branch over to the Republicans.

I will cede one thing to the pro-Alito side: the Vanguard issue is a non-issue. I listened to the questions and answers on this issue live during the hearings and I think Alito acted correctly. In this case, the Democrats/liberals were making much ado about nothing.

I wasn't even bothered too much that Alito refused to answer the question about whether he still believes that the Roe vs. Wade decision was unconstitutional, which is what he stated twenty years ago. It's pretty much what I expected from any nominee these days, whether they are Republican or Democrat; they're not going to answer that question. Of course Alito wants to overturn Roe and of course the Republicans and the Bush administration expect this to be true or they wouldn't be so gung-ho on the guy. It's just something that wasn't going to be "discovered" during the hearings.

But, the thing that troubled me the most about Alito, even more than his snub of his wife at the end of the hearings, is his dance around the issue of whether someone who can be proven innocent in real life after being proven guilty in court has a constitutional right not to be executed for the crime that they are innocent of. Instead of giving a common sense answer, "of course they do", Alito showed his lack of common sense and his bureaucratic leanings by rambling on about how the person would have to avail himself of the court appeal process. In essence, he would have no problems with executing an innocent person.

Is this the kind of person that we want on the Supreme Court, deciding our fate for the next 30 years? Well, I take back my initial statement of unsuredness - I can't support Alito and I hope that the Democrats stop his ascension to the throne court.

Goodbye Annie, I'll miss you

Pictures

Catch of the Day

My wife writes for a living, so I finally convinced her to start her own blog: Catch of the Day.

God saves miners, then changes mind

Just before bed last night, I caught a news report that 12 miners that had been trapped in a mine had somehow survived lethal carbon monoxide levels and had been found alive. The news report showed one of the family members saying something to the effect, "Our creator answered our prayers and saved our family" and "It's a miracle".

After I woke up this morning, I learned that the news of a miraculous rescue was a mistake and that, in fact, the 12 miners had died.

I truly feel sorry for the families of these miners, both for losing beloved family members and for having their hopes dashed. I lost both my brothers in a car accident many years ago and I know how painful such a loss can be.

However, anyone that was previously praising their "creator" for a miracle rescue who is now blaming the mining company and not their "creator" for the deaths of these poor miners needs to be slapped back into reality and slapped for being hypocritical. You can't have it both ways.

Attack of the Killer Squirrels

My dogs love to chase squirrels. Actually, when they see a squirrel, they focus in on the squirrel to the exclusion of anything else. I bet that if I let them tree a squirrel and left them there, they'd pass out from exhaustion before they'd give up trying to get the squirrel.

This is actually very annoying - dragging two 80 lb dogs in the opposite direction of a squirrel they want to chase. If only my dogs could read and understand the following news item, they might give up on chasing squirrel's entirely: BBC NEWS | Europe | Russian squirrel pack 'kills dog'

If you think that this is just something that happens in Europe (they're kinda weird over there, aren't they?), think again: When Squirrels ATTACK.

Beware! Beware!

Feeling fine

Just a quick post to follow-up on my earlier post... I had the stent removed yesterday and I'm feeling completely back to normal now, which makes Ray a happy boy. The stone never passed, but the urologist said that it might still pass in the next day or so. Oh boy, something to look forward to!

As for the stent removal - yikes! ouch! And he didn't even buy me a drink afterwards.

Happy Holidays!

Please note that I titled this Happy Holidays and not Merry Christmas. I'm not saying this to be politically or un-politically correct, I'm saying Holidays because I'm not a Christian and I don't celebrate the birth of the mythic Jesus baby. I'm an atheist. I celebrate the passing of the new year and, for convenience sake (everyone else's convenience, that is), I participate in a gift exchange on December 25. I do it because I like to give presents to my family and friends and, since I grew up in a religious family, that's the day they do their exchange.

For years, I've been pissed about the "Jesus is THE reason for the season" billboards that pop up each December, but I'm happy to say that I haven't seen any of them this year. Jesus is not the reason for the season - the Earth's orbit and the Northern hemisphere's tilt away from the sun is reason. Unfortunately, this is just one of many science facts that are lost on most fundamentalists.

This year, I get to be pissed about the entire "Happy Holidays is wrong, Merry Christmas is right" campaign of the religious right. This is yet another case where these fundamentalists want freedom of religion, but only if it means that everyone is a Christian. If they want to wish me or anyone else a Merry Christmas, no one is stopping them. But if I (or name-any-corporation) wants to be inclusive and wish them a Happy Holiday, you'd think I shouted out, "Jesus is not only fake, he's a gay cowboy on Brokeback Mountain!" Which, by the way, is probably true.

Oh, and for the even smaller percentage of people that call themselves Jewish (smaller percentage than atheists, that is), have a happy Hanukkah. At least from what I know, Hanukkah represents a historic event as opposed to a mythic one (the birth of baby Jesus). (If I'm wrong about this, post a comment and let me know.)

My Thanskgiving Vacation

I just got out of the hospital after a six-day stay. It was the day after Thanksgiving and I went in for a visit with my oral surgeon to "expose" my implant. Before, during, and after the visit, I was experiencing abdominal pain, but when I got home from the visit, the pain became unbearable. I phoned 911 and an ambulance brought me to Sharp Mercy Hospital.

I could barely move without pain in the emergency room. I was given a CT scan and an X-ray, but the initial diagnosis was pain in my kidneys related to PKD. They checked me in to the hospital, put me on an IV drip, and administered morphine, then Dilaudid, for the pain.

Every day I spent in the hospital, I thought for sure that I would be checking out by the next day. But, the doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. First, they thought I had ruptured some of my PKD cysts, but that diagnosis changed to pancreatitis (all the symptoms matched) until they finally decided it was a kidney stone in my right kidney.

Armed with the stone diagnosis, I went in for a procedure where the urologist stuck a telescope up my urethra and injected dye into my bladder to find the blockage. They also placed a stent in my right ureter and tried (with no luck) to locate the kidney stone and extract it. I was under anesthesia during the procedure, so I don't remember anything from the time I entered the operating room to the time they wheeled me out into recovery.

Since they were unable to recover the kidney stone, I was left with a string attached to the stent in my ureter that hung out of my penis like some sort of sick fly fishing bait (my friend Steve should enjoy that imagery). Oh, that and blood in my urine for the next 4 days (until today).

Two days after the procedure, I was finally let out of the hospital. I was (and am) still in a bit of pain, but nowhere near what I experienced in the hospital. The pain now has to do with the string in my penis, my swollen hand and wrist from an errant IV site, sores in the back of my throat from the breathing tube (for the surgery), and general pain in my stomach from the antibiotics. All this and I still have (presumably) a stone in my kidney that I'm waiting to pass.

At this point, I really don't care about the kidney stone. I just can't wait to see the urologist (sometime later this week) for a visit to have the stent pulled out of me. Oh, joy!

There is No God

I was driving up to HelLA this morning when I heard this wonderful essay by Penn Jillette as part of their "This I Believe" series, entitled "There is No God". Here's an excerpt:

I believe that there is no God. I'm beyond Atheism. Atheism is not believing in God. Not believing in God is easy -- you can't prove a negative, so there's no work to do. You can't prove that there isn't an elephant inside the trunk of my car. You sure? How about now? Maybe he was just hiding before. Check again. Did I mention that my personal heartfelt definition of the word 'elephant' includes mystery, order, goodness, love and a spare tire?"

I highly encourage you to read or listen to the entire essay by clicking the link above. I feel very much the same way that Penn does.

Random thoughts - Robertson, election results, and movies

This just in... Pat Robertson is still an idiot, as indicated by his recent statement on the 700 club:

I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city....

And don't wonder why He hasn't helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I'm not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that's the case, don't ask for His help because he might not be there.

In case you haven't been following the Dover story, the school board in Dover, Pennsylvania was packed by idiots that wanted to teach "Intelligent Design" in a High School Biology class. They were all up for re-election and they were all voted off the board in Tuesday's election.

Speaking of elections, San Diego elected another old white guy to replace the old white guy mayor that resigned in disgrace. I voted for Donna Frye, so I lost that one.

The nice thing about the election is that all those terrible initiatives were rejected by the state. I was particularly glad that Proposition 73 was voted down, but I'm also particularly disappointed that the majority of San Diego county continue to demonstrate their conservative-Christian/Republican leanings by voting for these things.

Finally, I'd like to mention that Kara and I have attended two sneak preview screenings in the last two weeks, and both movies were worth watching. First up was The Weather Man, starring Nicolas Cage as, well, a weatherman. Gore Verbinski was trying to make his American Beauty, but the result fell a bit short. The movie was entertaining, but nothing spectacular. One scene with a rambling, stream-of-consciousness narration of the private thoughts within the main characters head was probably the funniest scene in a while.

Then, we saw Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and it blew the other movie away (and pretty much everything else that has come out this year thus far). The movie stars Robert Downey, Jr., Val Kilmer, and a Liv Tyler lookalike (Michelle Monaghan). I went into this movie knowing nothing about it, not even seeing the trailer, so I won't tell you anything about the story. I'll just tell you that it was hilarious and that I will buy it when it comes out on DVD.

CUTEK Hires Symitar System Expert Ray Pennisi as Senior Consultant

Just a quick link to the official press release. Love seeing my name in print.