Monthly Archive for September 2004
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September 1, 2004
What About the Students?
It occurred to me today as I watched the annual discombobulation that is the return of college students to Boston that the city has it all wrong - instead of all the hoopla and restrictions placed on anything and everything prior to the DNC, maybe the folks in City Hall should have been considering the inevitable wackiness caused by the city's population suddenly increasing by over 100,000 in a two-week period.
As if Boston traffic isn't normally a bitch.
Man. I shoulda gone into the U-Haul business.
Posted by Turfdigger at 7:15 PM
This entry has been posted to: Ramblings
September 3, 2004
Where Was W?
...from an interesting article in yesterday's Guardian, via salon:
George W. Bush's Missing Year
'Who was this guy who came in late and left early?' After thirty years of silence, Mary Jacoby finds out what the future President really did in 1972
Before Karl Rove, Lee Atwater or even James Baker, the Bush family's political guru was a gregarious newspaper owner and campaign consultant from Midland, Texas, named Jimmy Allison. In the spring of 1972, George HW Bush phoned his friend and asked a favour: Could Allison find a place on the Senate campaign he was managing in Alabama for his troublesome eldest son, the 25-year-old George W Bush?
"The impression I had was that Georgie was raising a lot of hell in Houston, getting in trouble and embarrassing the family, and they just really wanted to get him out of Houston and under Jimmy's wing," Allison's widow, Linda, told me. "And Jimmy said, 'Sure.' He was so loyal."
After more than three decades of silence, Allison spoke with Salon over several days before and during the Republican National Convention this week - motivated, as she acknowledged, by a complex mixture of emotions. They include pride in her late husband's accomplishments, a desire to see him remembered, and concern about the apparent double standard in Bush surrogates attacking John Kerry's Vietnam War record while ignoring the president's irresponsible conduct during the war. She also admits to bewilderment and hurt over the rupture her husband experienced in his friendship with George and Barbara Bush. To this day, Allison is unsure what caused the break, though she suspects it had something to do with her husband's opposition to the elder Bush becoming chairman of the Republican National Committee under President Nixon.
Posted by Turfdigger at 8:11 PM
This entry has been posted to: Politics
September 7, 2004
Goin' Up the Country - The Return
After much in the way of hemming, and just a tad of the haw-ing, the first installment of pix from our summer's journey north are ready for consumption. Once again, our destination was the unsurpassed White Mountains region of New Hampshire, our tax-free neighbor to the north. This first of two picture posts covers our trip on the Conway Scenic Railroad's Notch train.
The pix are here.
The upcoming second gallery will tell of our intrepid adventures on the flanks of that great giant, Mount Washington - 6288' above sea level and home to the worst recorded weather on earth.
...cue ominous timpani roll...
As an interesting aside as we rev on up to the hoopla that is the upcoming presidential election - the journey north through Crawford Notch passes right through Hartt's Location, the first area to vote in the country in each major election.
Posted by Turfdigger at 1:50 AM
This entry has been posted to: Pixel Posts
| Ramblings
Was that the chair creaking, or...?
Great googly-moogly!
After just posting the bit about vacation pictures I realize that it's now after 2 AM here in the 'burbs of Boston - and I've turned 36. It's oddly comforting knowing that despite my cricks and creaks, I can still manage to be awake and alert after midnight. Then again, maybe I wouldn't have these cricks and creaks if I went to damn bed for a change...
- cue obligatory Beatles track -
Come on...you'd better damn well know which track - don't make me come over there...
Posted by Turfdigger at 2:04 AM
This entry has been posted to: Ramblings
Being for the Benefit of Mr. Chinni
My good buddy Joe will go nuts.
The good people at TiVo and the industrious sorts at Netflix have put their noggins together and come up with this idea:
Netflix and Tivo ushered in an age of couch-potato bliss. Netflix lets its customers browse through its huge movie catalog on the Web and rent DVDs through the mail without having to worry about late fees. TiVo lets people digitally record their favorite shows and zoom through the ads. But now couch potatoes are perched on the cusp of true paradise. Soon they won't even have to stand up to trudge to the mailbox; fat broadband pipes will let them directly download movies over the Net to their television.
Man alive, what's a poor techno-geek to do?
read the full story here.
Posted by Turfdigger at 2:11 PM
This entry has been posted to: Tech
September 8, 2004
Graham Book: Saudi-9/11 Investigation Blocked by Bush
Sunday's Miami Herald online had this story about Senator Bob Graham's (D-FL) newly-released book, Intelligence Matters:
WASHINGTON - Two of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers had a support network in the United States that included agents of the Saudi government, and the Bush administration and FBI blocked a congressional investigation into that relationship, Sen. Bob Graham wrote in a book to be released Tuesday.
The discovery of the financial backing of the two hijackers ''would draw a direct line between the terrorists and the government of Saudi Arabia, and trigger an attempted coverup by the Bush administration,'' the Florida Democrat wrote.
And in Graham's book, Intelligence Matters, obtained by The Herald Saturday, he makes clear that some details of that financial support from Saudi Arabia were in the 27 pages of the congressional inquiry's final report that were blocked from release by the administration, despite the pleas of leaders of both parties on the House and Senate intelligence committees.
Graham also revealed that Gen. Tommy Franks told him on Feb. 19, 2002, just four months after the invasion of Afghanistan, that many important resources -- including the Predator drone aircraft crucial to the search for Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda leaders -- were being shifted to prepare for a war against Iraq.
Graham recalled this conversation at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa with Franks, then head of Central Command, who was ``looking troubled'':
``Senator, we are not engaged in a war in Afghanistan.''
''Excuse me?'' I asked.
''Military and intelligence personnel are being redeployed to prepare for an action in Iraq,'' he continued.
Graham concluded: 'Gen. Franks' mission -- which, as a good soldier, he was loyally carrying out -- was being downgraded from a war to a manhunt.''
Graham, who was chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee from June 2001 through the buildup to the Iraq war, voted against the war resolution in October 2002 because he saw Iraq as a diversion that would hinder the fight against al Qaeda terrorism.
He oversaw the Sept. 11 investigation on Capitol Hill with Rep. Porter Goss, nominated last month to be the next CIA director. According to Graham, the FBI and the White House blocked efforts to investigate the extent of official Saudi connections to two hijackers.
This administration stinks like the break room across from my office...
read the full article here.
Posted by Turfdigger at 11:34 AM
This entry has been posted to: Politics
Cheney's Curse
From Rolling Stone online: Can W survive the curse of having Dick Cheney in his administration?
Should George W. Bush win this election, it will give him the distinction of being the first occupant of the White House to have survived naming Dick Cheney to a post in his administration. The Cheney jinx first manifested itself at the presidential level back in 1969, when Richard Nixon appointed him to his first job in the executive branch. It surfaced again in 1975, when Gerald Ford made Cheney his chief of staff and then -- with Cheney's help -- lost the 1976 election. George H.W. Bush, having named Cheney secretary of defense, was defeated for re-election in 1992. The ever-canny Ronald Reagan was the only Republican president since Eisenhower who managed to serve two full terms. He is also the only one not to have appointed Dick Cheney to office.
read the full story here.
Posted by Turfdigger at 4:51 PM
This entry has been posted to: Politics
September 9, 2004
The Mountain
So we finally climbed to the top of Mount Washington last July after a summer of training hikes in the Blue Hills. We decided that rather than make another attempt at last year's route on the eastern side (Tuckerman Ravine) that we would make a bid for the classic western loop - this loop consists of an ascent via Ammonoosuc Ravine trail to Lakes of the Clouds in the col between Mounts Monroe and Washington, then Crawford Path from there to the summit; the intended descent is via Gulfside trail across to the junction of the Jewell trail just below the summit of Mount Clay, then Jewell trail down to the trailhead. If we had left a couple of hours earlier, we might have had the stamina and daylight left to make the descent, but after climbing for about five hours and reaching the summit at about 3:39 PM, we knew that we didn't have the steam or the time, so we ponied up the dough and took one of the last Cog trains to the base.
Check out the pictures here.
Posted by Turfdigger at 9:11 PM
This entry has been posted to: Pixel Posts
| Ramblings
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September 11, 2004
Statutes and Lawsuits
A statute of limitations on 9/11-related lawsuits expires in several hours, this being the third anniversary of the horrific event. And it's about time that both the New York Port Authority and investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald have filed suit against the government of Saudi Arabia for its clear but apparently hushed involvement in the attacks. When news like this is being covered by an outfit like the BBC, it really makes ya think:
The agency that owns the site of the World Trade Center in New York says it is suing Saudi Arabia for damages suffered on 11 September, 2001.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey lost 84 employees in the attacks against the Twin Towers.
The agency did not explain why it held the Saudis responsible, but said it wanted to "preserve its legal options".
read the full story here at "the beeb".
Posted by Turfdigger at 3:36 AM
This entry has been posted to: News
It's a long, long way from Key West
I used to be a parrothead in that my wife and I were happy co-habitants with several avian companions over the years, but I'd never call myself a "Parrothead" in the capitalized sense. I do however, work in the great city of Boston and my regular parking spot is in fairly cloe proximity to the hallowed pasture that is Fenway Park - this allows me ample opportunity to witness the perpetual migration of Sox fans both to and from the park. Yesterday I was a bit, well let's say disturbed, by the apparent mass-infiltration of the Fenway / Back Bay area by countless minions of the man from the Keys who sings about cheese(burgers). The always superb (and recently renovated) blog crafted by that literary pundit of the technorati, Andy Ihnatko has a hi-larious take on the whole Buffett shebang:
There's just something about being wild and cutting loose and expressing your individuality -- but doing it in exactly the same way that 30,000 other people are doing it -- that I find highly suspicious. 30,000 similarly-attired people in a stadium doesn't say "rock concert." It says "cult mass-wedding." There's a hollow, desperate undercurrent to the proceedings. I just don't see these people as deep, abiding fans of Buffett...or of anything, really.
read Andy's whole spiel right here.
Posted by Turfdigger at 3:57 AM
This entry has been posted to: Blogfinds
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September 16, 2004
Calling the Kettle Black
In the recent and ongoing hoo-ha about the "military record" of one George W. Bush, some questions have arisen regarding the validity of documents submitted to and reported on by CBS. I find it interesting that the House Majority Whip from Missouri had this to say:
House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Missouri, said he collected signatures from 39 colleagues on a letter sent to the network calling for a retraction and asking CBS News to reveal the source of the documents.
"Clearly, their sources aren't what they need to be, or they're not willing to reveal even the nature of who their sources are," Blunt said. "It's hard for me to believe ... that CBS, an organization with a long and distinguished history in journalism in the past, would be willing to stand by this story when virtually everybody else has questions about it."
Kinda funny, since the Bush administration has stood by its story(ies) regarding why the US needed to invade Iraq - when virtually everybody else has questions about it.
read the full article at CNN.com.
Posted by Turfdigger at 6:46 AM
This entry has been posted to: Politics
September 17, 2004
Kettle's on the Boil
And the saga continues - but of course CBS is now doing the credibility dance:
NEW YORK (AP) -- CBS News is trying to restore its credibility after a week of questions about its report on President Bush's National Guard service -- yet it may never conclusively know whether it was duped by fake documents.
Read the full AP wire as reported on CNN.com
Posted by Turfdigger at 6:47 AM
This entry has been posted to: Politics
September 20, 2004
Photoblogging
So I've finally gotten around to starting up a photoblog.
Still fleshing out the layout and whatnot, but check out:
Posted by Turfdigger at 3:19 AM
This entry has been posted to: General Info
September 30, 2004
V for Victor(y)
V is also fairly close to the bottom of the pickin's as far as the alphabet goes, just like CNN coverage on this AP story yesterday, found buried at the bottom of the CNN homepage this morning:
U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero struck down a provision of the Patriot Act that authorizes the FBI to force Internet service providers and phone companies to turn over certain customer records. The companies are then barred from ever disclosing the search took place.
In his ruling, the judge called national security of "paramount value" and said the government "must be empowered to respond promptly and effectively" to threats. But he called personal security equal in importance and "especially prized in our system of justice."
This sounds like a great victory for the people ( although the decision is still open to appeal ) and comes as refreshing news, since the culled polls over at electoral-vote.com have been quite disheartening since the RNC ran its course and CBS ran their infamous story regarding the military record of W.
First debate is tonite - this will prove interesting.
CNN.com - Judge blocks part of Patriot Act - Sep 29, 2004
Posted by Turfdigger at 6:46 AM
This entry has been posted to: News
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