Project Insomnia

The Merc is running this AP story: NBC dog show is football alternative

Thanksgiving is all about family, turkey and football on TV. Don't let Fido get his paws on the remote, however.

After two years of surprising success, NBC will present its coverage of the National Dog Show at noon today (Chs. 8, 11), after the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. John O'Hurley (J. Peterman in ``Seinfeld'') is back behind the microphone.

``The first time, it was a novelty,'' said Jon Miller, NBC senior vice president. ``The third time makes it a tradition.''

We're watching it right now (East coast) so I guess it will be on in a couple of hours on the West coast.

Blah, blah, another stolen election, blah blah blah. We know already. It appears that Sen. Kerry is no longer interested--if he ever was--in pursuing victory. So, another four years of illegitimacy. What else is new?

I've paid off and closed another account. Hooray for me! As usual with "payoff quotes", the balance they quoted was not quite accurate. Usually in these cases, it's the customer who ends up owing the creditor a couple of dollars to make up for interest somewhere. In this case, I received a refund check for... eight cents.

It cost them $.37 to mail the envelope, probably a penny or two for processing, and two minutes of call center rep time when I called to confirm that the account was really paid off and they owed me eight cents.

I wonder what my bank will say when they receive a deposit of eight cents?

The Moderate Independent's bimonthly update, Inside The Election Fraud Battle, notes that

Keith Olbermann of MSNBC, who has been about the only mainstream journalist to actually follow up on the many serious problems with regard to the integrity of the election, has pointed out, a concession speech, in effect, means nothing. It is not legally binding.

So, if you were thinking like a Bush goon, you would expect that either Kerry would stand up to the mischief that went on, not conceding in the meantime, and so your booby trap would work perfectly, or that he would just give up and let it go, as wimpy Democrats are prone to do.

But John Kerry chose a smarter course. Ask yourself the question, what if John Kerry were to do both, concede publicly but, at the same time, look into every instance of mischief, and see if in fact the election was fair or fixed.

This would be a no lose situation for him. The booby trap set up for him would become irrelevant, as he would have done the right thing for the nation, not putting it into turmoil while its troops are in battle.

But at the same time, he is still just as free to look into any voting irregularities as he would have been had he not conceded. Even better, he could do it without the press going insane and the nation being kept on tension-creating edge. All of the lawyers he could have sent to look into things still could be sent to look into things, and if the election is truly called into question, he could then, with ample justification so as to make it legitimate, come out publicly and retract his concession. It is the prosecutor, also one of Kerry’s previous jobs, who knows well enough to thoroughly prepare and investigate his case be leveling charges. You may have a real hunch that someone is responsible for a murder, but until you believe you can win that case in court, you do not make the allegation.

The rest of the article is well worth reading. It's hard to get up much enthusiasm--from my seat here in solidly blue California--but I would like to believe there's still a chance.

Warning: This page contains strong language and stronger opinion.

I'm no longer thinking of moving to Canada--at least not right now--but I love the idea of the "liberal elite" states (you know, the tax base) seceding to Form a More Perfect Union.

Here is an excellent BitTorrent FAQ and Guide, mostly focused on Windows clients. Recommended for anyone getting started with BitTorrent or those who need to fine-tune their homenets for best performance.

This is all over the news by now, but in case you haven't heard: Attorney General Ashcroft, Commerce Secretary Evans Resign

President Bush accepted the resignations of Attorney General John Ashcroft and Commerce Secretary Donald Evans late Tuesday in what is expected to be a series of Cabinet changes prior to the Jan. 20 start of his second term.

Both have held their posts since President Bush took office in 2001 and are the first two Cabinet-level officials to announce their departure since the president's reelection.

My feeling is pretty much what's being expressed on Slashdot: Yay, Ashcroft's gone. Uh-oh, who could be next? Uh-oh, we have a Supreme Court opening any day now and a prime candidate.
In other words, this is not necessarily "good news".

5minutestolive.com is featuring a Wendy's training video. It's an 8.5MB QuickTime clip, and the site may well have heavy load, so I've mirrored the video here.
Warning: Unsuitable for those with an aversion to bad 80s corporate training videos

The Register has posted an open letter, purportedly written by the "New Democrat Outreach Program", to the states who voted for Bush. Here's a sample, but be warned: there is language unfit for kiddies or anyone wearing blinders.

With hard work and superb organization, you have triumphed over John Kerry and the forces of Blue-state paternalism. Congratulations. The multinational corporations that hold you in bondage remain free to profit off your sweat nearly tax free, while their overpaid senior execs continue to pay a pittance in personal income tax.

Your primary and secondary schools will continue to turn out third-rate pupils with limited opportunities, while you enjoy the satisfaction of making it on your own without health care when a catastrophic illness bankrupts your family.

Your agricultural universities will continue issuing Ph.D.s in football, and bogus Protestant Evangelical and Fundamentalist theology, and how to jerk off a bull safely. Your children will learn to borrow enough money to erect chicken houses so that they, like you, can take custody -- not possession, but custody -- of Tyson's chicks, feed them, rear them, assume losses from those that fail to thrive, and in the end earn just enough money to service their endless debt, and realize a profit of perhaps $12K a year. Your bank thanks you; Tyson thanks you; George W. Bush thanks you; and I thank you.

There's much more at the link above, and I strongly recommend reading it.
On a similar note, Randi Rhodes (of Air America Radio) has a very interesting graphic linked off her main page, showing a puzzling statistic: the exit polls showing Kerry leading matched the final result almost exactly in states with primarily non-electronic balloting, but were almost completely wrong in states with primarily electronic balloting. Remember, of course, that the CEO of Diebold--the company who manufactured, supplied, and supported the voting machines--promised Ohio's votes to Bush.

Next week on "LAX": Naked man hides in plane wheel well at LA airport

A naked man climbed a fence at Los Angeles International Airport, ran across the tarmac and climbed into the wheel well of a departing plane before firefighters talked him out, airport officials said.

The 31-year-old Canadian man, who was described as mentally unstable, had been turned away hours earlier when he tried to buy a ticket on a Qantas Airways flight to Australia with only a credit card receipt.

Let's see Heather and Blair deal with this one...

Another reason to love bittorrent: The original, non "special" editions.
Note to MPAA monkeys: The files are not hosted or available on project-insomnia.com. Duh.

CNet News.com reports extraordinary Web traffic to the Canada Immigration information site following the Presidential election.

The site's traffic reached record levels that day, with six times more Americans visiting the site than usual, according to a report from the Canadian Press (CP) wire service.

A total of 115,016 visits to the site originated in the United States, accounting for 64 percent of the day's traffic, according to the CP report. The most visited page was the skilled worker online self-assessment form, a Citizenship and Immigration official told the news organization.

We visited British Columbia a couple of years ago and loved it. If I could find a job comparable to what I have now, I'd certainly consider it.

Oakland third baseman Eric Chavez collects another Gold Glove--his fourth consecutive such award.

"It shouldn't have been close,'' A's manager Ken Macha said. "Just having A-Rod over there makes things more interesting, but for me, Eric is head and shoulders above. We have all those (three) left-handed starters and there are a lot of balls hit down there to him. He's so important to our defense. Great for Eric, he's very deserving.''

Very disappointing.

I'm sorry Kerry felt he had no choice but to concede before Ohio's results were in, but I'll trust that he thinks he did the right thing.

I guess the pendulum needs to swing a bit more to the right before the correction. Well, let's get it over with.

Here's Mark Morford's take.

And lo and behold, it was apparently another completely tortuous and entirely knotted presidential election, unfinished until the wee hours and reeking of E-voting suspicion and exit-poll miscalculation and it all came down to, what? Ohio? Are you serious? What a thing.

And now Kerry's conceded and the white flag has been raised and we are headed toward the utterly appalling notion of another four years of Bush and another Republican stranglehold of Congress and repeated GOP chants of "More War in '04!"

Which is, well, simply staggering. Mind blowing. Odd. Gut wrenching. Colon knotting. Eyeball gouging. And so on.

Of course it's still really too early to tell, but these late afternoon exit polls show a number of states leaning to Kerry. CNN has a very good election index page from which any race, national or local, can be accessed.

Ever wonder what the fashionable European interior designer was doing in 1974? Neither did I, really, but the photo tour is interesting in an incredibly tacky, don't-ever-do-this kind of way.

We're counting on you. Don't let us down.

Signed, the entire world.

I mean back in the old days, we had people on at all hours. Now most everyone is on AIM or Yahoo, but they're always set away or not signed on. And there's something different about initiating an IM chat as compared to just talking in IRC.

Last week I had a great (online) conversation with an old friend, with the topic veering wildly in no particular direction. It was refreshing.