Just a quickie for contemplation... organized sports (in their current form) originated back in the Industrial Age, when workers' weekly work schedules were reduced to a mere five and a half 12-hour days (or longer) per week, and the upper classes wanted something to distract the proles from liquor, lewdness, corruption and abuse on their new full day off. As a side effect, the popularity of sports increased newspaper readership, as savvy publishers added sports sections and box scores to their papers.
Fast forward to current day... we apparently have players on drugs, refs on the take, and, in many cases, cultures of abuse and/or lewdness that far outstrip anything the originators feared. Change for the better... well, it doesn't always stay that way.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Monday, July 23, 2007
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Puppy Godfather
I often wonder at the odd turns life takes. Today, I went to work expecting nothing out of the ordinary... by afternoon, I was tentatively chosen to be a puppy's godfather.
Obviously, explanation is in order. The company president (who runs a hobby cattle ranch on the side) has dogs... Shih Tzus, of all things. His wife's been breeding their pair for a number of years, and they're hard to beat in terms of both physical cuteness and personality. They decided that this litter would be the last... but past litters have served them well, as they sold puppies or, in some cases, used them as rewards or incentives on business deals (always making sure they went to decent homes in the process, of course).
Somehow, it got into somebody's head that I needed one of these puppies. Don't get me wrong, they're cute as hell, and a pleasure to be around, but, well... as you can tell from my profile image, cats are more my speed. Especially at puppy age, dogs need attention, playtime, and socialization to mature properly, none of which I feel I could adequately provide, given the hours I spend in front of a computer. On the other hand, there's a gal in the office whose little dog died about a year back, who's fallen in love with the critters... but the current owners believe that she couldn't afford to raise one of their puppies properly.
So, here comes the strange idea (and I'm rarely put off by an idea's strangeness alone) - I'm to act as the puppy's godfather, which basically means that I'll front the bill for getting shots/neutered/etc. (and likely get reimbursed on the sly by the boss), and I'll be the "fallback" if the gal's life circumstances dictate that she can't keep the puppy for whatever reason. In return, the puppy becomes the Office Puppy, getting attention lavished on it by everyone there during the day, including spoiling/corruption by yours truly, especially at lunchtime.
It's not final... the gal in question is doing some family reunion thing until Monday, but odds are that I'll be a Puppy Godfather early next week. If so, I'll be sure to post a pic or two, on general principles... :)
Obviously, explanation is in order. The company president (who runs a hobby cattle ranch on the side) has dogs... Shih Tzus, of all things. His wife's been breeding their pair for a number of years, and they're hard to beat in terms of both physical cuteness and personality. They decided that this litter would be the last... but past litters have served them well, as they sold puppies or, in some cases, used them as rewards or incentives on business deals (always making sure they went to decent homes in the process, of course).
Somehow, it got into somebody's head that I needed one of these puppies. Don't get me wrong, they're cute as hell, and a pleasure to be around, but, well... as you can tell from my profile image, cats are more my speed. Especially at puppy age, dogs need attention, playtime, and socialization to mature properly, none of which I feel I could adequately provide, given the hours I spend in front of a computer. On the other hand, there's a gal in the office whose little dog died about a year back, who's fallen in love with the critters... but the current owners believe that she couldn't afford to raise one of their puppies properly.
So, here comes the strange idea (and I'm rarely put off by an idea's strangeness alone) - I'm to act as the puppy's godfather, which basically means that I'll front the bill for getting shots/neutered/etc. (and likely get reimbursed on the sly by the boss), and I'll be the "fallback" if the gal's life circumstances dictate that she can't keep the puppy for whatever reason. In return, the puppy becomes the Office Puppy, getting attention lavished on it by everyone there during the day, including spoiling/corruption by yours truly, especially at lunchtime.
It's not final... the gal in question is doing some family reunion thing until Monday, but odds are that I'll be a Puppy Godfather early next week. If so, I'll be sure to post a pic or two, on general principles... :)
Sunday, July 15, 2007
War in Iraq - time we were gone
I know, I know, that title is going to raise the hackles on some of my friends... but honestly, that's pretty much how I feel. It's not that I don't think the situation is winnable... it's just that, as a society, we're not willing to do what's necessary to win there.
Of course, the first problem is that we should never have gone in the first place... and not because regime change is bad. On the contrary, regime change can be a very good thing for all involved (except the existing regime, of course). Simply put, you don't open a second front on a war until and unless it's forced upon you. We took our eye off the ball in Afghanistan, and now we're paying the price for that there.
Many will say that, now that we've butted into Iraq, we need to stay there until we set things right. Lovely idea, if the goal is attainable. On the military front, you need a mix of at least three things - numbers, technology, and intelligence. We have a decent mix of numbers and technology, but our intelligence is crap. We make forays into insurgent-controlled areas, but, from what I've seen, pretty much only when we're clued in to a large concentration of insurgents... otherwise, we patrol our supply routes, try to maintain some semblance of order in areas we've claimed, and leave it at that. We could do more... if we had information from the local populace. Heck, more often than not, we can't even tell if an individual's a local, something the locals could tell us without hesitation.
So, how do you get the locals to give you the information you need to win? Now we're in the realm of politics. This bit, Machiavelli had pegged... in order to control a populace, paraphrasing a bit, best good is if they love you, but above all make sure that they fear you. We had our chance at getting the people of Iraq to love us... and pissed it away. That leaves the fear option... and that's where we will fail. Even the government that we helped establish doesn't fear us in the least... faced with a list of prerequisites for our continued presence and a two-month timeframe to complete them, their legislature is taking a month's vacation. Within the past day or two, their president has stated that (Allah willing) they could make do without American troops.
At this point, extreme measures would be required to get sufficient fear/respect to control things there... personally, I think the most likely to work would be the Mongol method (back before the Black Death dismantled that empire): conquer an area, let the locals know that they can do whatever the hell they want, so long as they don't interfere with the conquerors... and any that do get examples made of them... not just the troublemakers (if you could identify them), but the whole area. There were at least a couple of cities that were wiped off the map by the Mongols, but the remainder stayed in line until the empire's fall.
Now, look to yourself and your neighbors... tell me that any of you could stand behind, let's say, using a tactical nuke on Sadr City, even if that stopped all the sectarian violence. I know even I would have a hard time justifying it. But without that scale of reprisal, local leaders will continue to hold sway, mostly through fear... we won't get the intel we need to take down outside insurgent forces, never mind local militias... we'll keep the brakes on the violence, but the deaths will still come, just taking 5 years instead of 6 months, all the while with us being blamed for not doing enough to keep people for killing each other. Sadly, the best we can do at this point is to
get out of the way, let the civil war take place, possibly back a side if we are asked to do so, and let the new Iraq form as naturally as possible... and if we don't like what shape that takes, knock the anthill down and try again.
Of course, the first problem is that we should never have gone in the first place... and not because regime change is bad. On the contrary, regime change can be a very good thing for all involved (except the existing regime, of course). Simply put, you don't open a second front on a war until and unless it's forced upon you. We took our eye off the ball in Afghanistan, and now we're paying the price for that there.
Many will say that, now that we've butted into Iraq, we need to stay there until we set things right. Lovely idea, if the goal is attainable. On the military front, you need a mix of at least three things - numbers, technology, and intelligence. We have a decent mix of numbers and technology, but our intelligence is crap. We make forays into insurgent-controlled areas, but, from what I've seen, pretty much only when we're clued in to a large concentration of insurgents... otherwise, we patrol our supply routes, try to maintain some semblance of order in areas we've claimed, and leave it at that. We could do more... if we had information from the local populace. Heck, more often than not, we can't even tell if an individual's a local, something the locals could tell us without hesitation.
So, how do you get the locals to give you the information you need to win? Now we're in the realm of politics. This bit, Machiavelli had pegged... in order to control a populace, paraphrasing a bit, best good is if they love you, but above all make sure that they fear you. We had our chance at getting the people of Iraq to love us... and pissed it away. That leaves the fear option... and that's where we will fail. Even the government that we helped establish doesn't fear us in the least... faced with a list of prerequisites for our continued presence and a two-month timeframe to complete them, their legislature is taking a month's vacation. Within the past day or two, their president has stated that (Allah willing) they could make do without American troops.
At this point, extreme measures would be required to get sufficient fear/respect to control things there... personally, I think the most likely to work would be the Mongol method (back before the Black Death dismantled that empire): conquer an area, let the locals know that they can do whatever the hell they want, so long as they don't interfere with the conquerors... and any that do get examples made of them... not just the troublemakers (if you could identify them), but the whole area. There were at least a couple of cities that were wiped off the map by the Mongols, but the remainder stayed in line until the empire's fall.
Now, look to yourself and your neighbors... tell me that any of you could stand behind, let's say, using a tactical nuke on Sadr City, even if that stopped all the sectarian violence. I know even I would have a hard time justifying it. But without that scale of reprisal, local leaders will continue to hold sway, mostly through fear... we won't get the intel we need to take down outside insurgent forces, never mind local militias... we'll keep the brakes on the violence, but the deaths will still come, just taking 5 years instead of 6 months, all the while with us being blamed for not doing enough to keep people for killing each other. Sadly, the best we can do at this point is to
get out of the way, let the civil war take place, possibly back a side if we are asked to do so, and let the new Iraq form as naturally as possible... and if we don't like what shape that takes, knock the anthill down and try again.
Friday, July 6, 2007
Convenience vs. Security
There are a couple of well-known issues with computer security these days... the first (which has been mathematically proven) is that no system can be proven to be secure. The second is that security and convenience are two extremes of design, and an individual balance has to be struck between them on each project you create. It appears that I've become victim of one case of a little too convenient... one of my credit cards has been compromised.
Luckily, it looks like it's just the one card... best guess at this point is that one of the vendors I used that card with had a security oopsie on their stored credit card database, then the perps used the information gleaned from that to set up online login credentials with my provider, Washington Mutual, whereafter they changed the addresses and phone numbers to values useful to themselves. The only reason I was aware that anything happened was when I tried to make a purchase online today, and the card bounced.
So, now I'm getting a new card... and am going to likely have a week's worth of fun monitoring/verifying that things stay as they should, because WaMu's coders couldn't conceive that anybody would not want to have online access to their accounts. The hope is that, once I've got my new numbers in hand, I'll be as semi-secure as I ever was... but worst case, I may have to shut down all business with WaMu. The bad address and phone number have already made their way into two of my credit reports, so I get to have that fun, too... here's hoping things don't get too nuts from this.
Luckily, it looks like it's just the one card... best guess at this point is that one of the vendors I used that card with had a security oopsie on their stored credit card database, then the perps used the information gleaned from that to set up online login credentials with my provider, Washington Mutual, whereafter they changed the addresses and phone numbers to values useful to themselves. The only reason I was aware that anything happened was when I tried to make a purchase online today, and the card bounced.
So, now I'm getting a new card... and am going to likely have a week's worth of fun monitoring/verifying that things stay as they should, because WaMu's coders couldn't conceive that anybody would not want to have online access to their accounts. The hope is that, once I've got my new numbers in hand, I'll be as semi-secure as I ever was... but worst case, I may have to shut down all business with WaMu. The bad address and phone number have already made their way into two of my credit reports, so I get to have that fun, too... here's hoping things don't get too nuts from this.
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
A good time to be a courtier, I guess...
I could go overboard and make comparisons to conditions under 18th-century monarchies, but I'll try to restrain myself. "Scooter" Libby does a crime (although the appeals process is still ongoing...), gets sentenced to start serving some jail time, and, lo and behold, El Presidente steps forth and says "Don't worry Scooter, I won't let you serve any jail time!" He does so noting that the sentence he received is too harsh, in his opinion.
You know, I can think of a time when a president might have used this as a reason to spur a review of federal sentencing guidelines, and maybe quietly commuted the offender's sentence after some jail time had been served, but that's obviously not recent history. Of course, Mr. Bush tries to defend his action, because, hey, Scooter still has a fine he has to pay, and probation to serve, and he'll be marked as a felon from this point on (supposing he doesn't get pardoned first), but honestly, in that Washington these days, are any of those problems? Tell me that Scooter won't receive financial aid to cover his legal bills and fines from political contributors. Tell me that he won't be given an accommodating parole officer so he can schedule his meetings just like any of his other meetings he does as part of his job. Best of all, tell me that anybody he's likely to go to work for in the private sector will really consider his felon status a detriment to the company. I could really use a good laugh right about now.
All in all, it's not a hard concept... equal protection under the law, never mind whether you're connected or not. What's worst in this, though, is if you catch the video of Mr. Bush announcing this commutation... in comparison to any other announcement he's given in recent years (and he's given a few), he's batting his eyes like mad while giving it, which is usually a pretty good sign in most people that they're knowingly bullshitting you. I'd still be irked that he did this if it was just "hey, I really am as clueless as I usually act", but this just takes the cake.
Gods, but I do love it so when somebody (especially somebody in a position of trust) gives me an all-new low estimation of mankind.
You know, I can think of a time when a president might have used this as a reason to spur a review of federal sentencing guidelines, and maybe quietly commuted the offender's sentence after some jail time had been served, but that's obviously not recent history. Of course, Mr. Bush tries to defend his action, because, hey, Scooter still has a fine he has to pay, and probation to serve, and he'll be marked as a felon from this point on (supposing he doesn't get pardoned first), but honestly, in that Washington these days, are any of those problems? Tell me that Scooter won't receive financial aid to cover his legal bills and fines from political contributors. Tell me that he won't be given an accommodating parole officer so he can schedule his meetings just like any of his other meetings he does as part of his job. Best of all, tell me that anybody he's likely to go to work for in the private sector will really consider his felon status a detriment to the company. I could really use a good laugh right about now.
All in all, it's not a hard concept... equal protection under the law, never mind whether you're connected or not. What's worst in this, though, is if you catch the video of Mr. Bush announcing this commutation... in comparison to any other announcement he's given in recent years (and he's given a few), he's batting his eyes like mad while giving it, which is usually a pretty good sign in most people that they're knowingly bullshitting you. I'd still be irked that he did this if it was just "hey, I really am as clueless as I usually act", but this just takes the cake.
Gods, but I do love it so when somebody (especially somebody in a position of trust) gives me an all-new low estimation of mankind.
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