Project365 day 119

Project365 day 119 2007 04 30, originally uploaded by thepetecom.

TheWife is giving me a massage after a long, hard, soul-crushingly boring

day at the desk....I needed it bad!

BUSH KNEW ALL ALONG ON IRAQ AND SO DID DEMS

Well, if this isn't a nice little indictment of the two-party system, I'm not sure what is.

The most important thing to note is that, according to the guy who ran the CIA during Bush's build up to the Iraq Attack, Bush knew there were no WMD in Iraq but told us there were anyway. George Tenet now says that his "slam dunk" comment was "mis-used" by Bush and co. 3000+ dead Americans and hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis later, Tenet secured his place in the history books as a guy who needed a $4 million book advance to convince him to tell the truth. Meanwhile, Bush, Cheney, et al, still won't be impeached. But here are some details from [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18400008/|the transcript of last Friday's episode] of Countdown on MSNBC:

"There was never a serious debate that I know of within the administration about the imminence of the Iraqi threat, "nor," the former director of the CIA adding, "was there ever a significant discussion about the possibility of containing Iraq without an invasion," Mr. Tenet complaining in the book and in a "60 Minutes" interview to air on CBS Sunday that the administration twisted and misused his "slam-dunk" comment about the evidence of WMD in Iraq first to justify the invasion, then later to deflect blame onto Tenet and the CIA when no weapons were found.

Keith Olbermann, the host of MSNBC's Countdown went on to point out that the Dems were still perfectly responsibly for keeping the secrets Bush was keeping about the march to war:

When it comes to who else knew the American public was being lied to about Iraq, one Democratic senator now says you can add the entire Intelligence Committee to the list, Dick Durbin of Illinois making the amazing claim on the floor of the Senate that, while he and perhaps the 16 other members of that Intelligence Committee knew the administration was misleading the American public, he, perhaps they, kept quiet about it because, due to his position on the committee, he had been sworn to secrecy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DURBIN: A few hundred feet away from here, in a closed room, carefully guarded, the Intelligence Committee was meeting on a daily basis for top-secret briefings about the information we were receiving, and the information we had in the Intelligence Committee was not the same information being given to the American people.

....

I was angry about it. Frankly, I couldn't do much about it, because, you see, in the Intelligence Committee, we're sworn to secrecy.

Nice.

This is ridiculous.

So, which should be worth more morally speaking?

1) The lives of thousands of American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of lives of innocent Iraqi civilians.

2) Dick Durbin's reputation as a secret-keeper?

Every time I think I can't be more disgusted with our leaders in Washington, I'm more disgusted. It's not that I trusted Democrats to be honest, it's that I expected them to be ignorant. Instead, they were fully in on it but were too spineless to do anything about it.

These are our leaders, folks. Not a single one of them trustworthy.

So, in the end, not only did we "nay-sayers" know that Iraq had no WMD, but so did the Bushies, the Demmies and anyone with a brain.

Israelestine-Palestisrael Video Game for Windows and OSX!

Wow, there's actually a video game that simulates the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. It's called Peace Maker and it's coming to a PC or Mac near you from indy game company Manifesto. This is all according to [http://www.joystiq.com/2007/04/28/acclaimed-israel-palestine-sim-gets-commercial-release/|an April 28, 2007 post] at Joystiq.com. Here's a bit more from the post:

Created by a team of American, Palestinian and Israeli students at Carnegie-Mellon University, Peace Maker has won USC's Public Diplomacy Games Contest and was a finalist for Ashoka's Entrepreneuring Peace Contest. It has been highlighted by NPR and The New York Times. Said Manifest CEO Greg Costikyan, Peace Maker "takes on one of the most difficult world issues, presents it without bias or prejudice, and challenges players to think about the issues, to do better than the real-world leaders."

Pretty neat, huh? The game doesn't seem to portray one side as the good guys or bad guys--you get to choose who you want to be, the leader of the Palestinians or the Israelis. I can't wait to give this game a try.

I give myself thirty minutes of gameplay before I nuke the Earth with Israel's nukes! ;)

Corporations Are Weird

So, I have this temp job at a cancer testing lab. I do quality assurance on the data that comes with the tumor samples, basically, making sure doctor and clinic info gets entered properly. While it's not a very complicated job, it is important.

You might think that because this is a health-care-oriented company they'd be different from other businesses. However, this place ends up being just as corporate-headed as the rest of them. They're so cheap we have to bring our own Kleenex to work. They're so crazed about TAT (Turn Around Time) that my job gets very difficult and very important frequently.

Yet, we have these strange office parties where we're not allowed to use "I have work to do" as an excuse to avoid them. I'm not a very social person so I just like to go in, do my job and go home. My department got a keen speaking to when we blew off one of these social gatherings in favor of work. The other day we had one of these little "social events" and my boss sent us all emails encouraging us to go because she'd know who went and who didn't.

The thing is our department is a call center. If anyone in my department steps away from their desk customers end up waiting longer for service. So much for TAT.

This week is some sort of admin assistant appreciation day/week. Now, TheWife was taken to lunch and given a gift card for her work. This sounds perfectly reasonable to me. We get a week's worth of srupid events. Today we'll be playing bingo over the PA system.

I shit you not.

BINGO.

What? Are we in summer camp?

How about a $10 gift card at Amazon, or a paid hour off? Or just leave us the hell alone so we can do our jobs? Remember our jobs? Helping people get their tumors tested?

Later today I get to teach my boss's boss how to do my job. This is rich. The official story is that they're trying to make the process work more efficiently--which, I'l admit, is a good idea. The thing is, "management" (who ever they are) almost called last Friday my last day. Which was disappointing, but, ultimately, I understand I'm a temp so it's cool. The other thing is that they like me and I do my job well. Yet they seem to be having trouble justifying keeping me on.

So, now, everyone is asking me about my job. The other day I had a complete stranger introduce herself and ask if I could show her a portion of my job. I'm a temp(whore) so I say "Sure! Have a seat!"

Then I get an email asking me if I'd "accept" an appointment with my boss's boss to teach her how to do my job on Thursday. No "hey, can you teach me on Thursday?" request (her office is maybe 30 feet from mine), no personalized email request that would take all of 30 seconds to send, just a cold Outlook appointment email.

So, you can probably understand my confusion. In my ideal corporation, the boss already knows the jobs of those under him or her. In my ideal corporation, workers are happy because management respects them and rewards them and doesn't treat them like children. (Bingo today, what's tomorrow? Arts -n- Crafts??)

Please note that this has nothing to do with pay. It's all in how you deal with people and the way this corporation deals with me and my co-workers is kind of confusing and, IMHO, counter-productive.

Anyone care to enlighten me as to why we're treated like children or perhaps why my boss needs the guy at the absolute bottom of the totem poll to teach her how to do what I do?

Maybe it's my history in high school ROTC where they taught us about leadership and accounability that is screwing me up now. They taught us something I've lived by for my entire adult life: Never ask someone else to do something you wouldn't be willing to do yourself.

Of course, the corporate world is all about doing exactly that. Ah well...

PULLING OUT OF IRAQ MEANS FAILURE? WHO CARES?

I am getting so tired of this BS rhetoric. The Bush Admin are saying "if we pull out of Iraq, we'll be failing in Iraq."

This suggests we haven't already failed.

Yep, it's true--in case you haven't noticed, we've lost in Iraq. The idea was to remove a threat in the form of Iraq. Instead, we've created a much bigger threat to middle east stability (as oxymoronic as that sounds) and inspired AQ and other terrorists to take up the fight against America and American interests. On top of that, the state of Iraq seems solidly worse than it was under Saddam's rule. At least, that's what the United Nations and the LA Times are saying. Here is a cutting from [http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraq26apr26,0,5020129.story?coll=la-home-headlines|an April 25, 2007 article] at LATimes.com that gives us the details:

Academics are being assassinated, prisoners are being tortured, women are being murdered by their own families in so-called "honor killings," and civilians continue to be cut down by rampant violence, the United Nations said today in a report painting a grim picture of life in Iraq.

The report, which covers from Jan. 1, 2007 through March 31, was most notable for what it did not include: the number of civilian deaths.

That's because the Iraqi government refused to release those numbers, the U.N. spokesman, Said Arikat, said as he presented the organization's 10th such summary of the human rights situation in Iraq.

However, numbers obtained from various ministries by the Times indicated that already this year, 5,509 civilians had died violently in Baghdad province alone, which includes the capital.

In its last report before this one, issued in January, the U.N. said that 34,452 civilians had died in violence last year, a figure it based on information from government ministries, hospitals and medical officials. But the Iraqi government said the U.N. estimate was highly exaggerated, and it would not give information for the newest report.

Sounds yummy.

If you like the taste of tens of thousands of dead people.

So, when the House and Senate decide to give funding but set a withdrawal date for the troops, Bush and Cheney both speak out against it. Bush says that the troops need funds fast and that'll be the fault of Congress when he stamps a big "VETO" on their bill. Bush goes on to say that if we pull out now, terrorists would surely come to American shores. Letting this bill pass would mean more Americans dead.

Cheney echoed this opinion also mentioning how this bill doesn't support the troops.

It's amazing that Pelosi is so spineless. How do you not hit these absurd soft balls out of the park?

To Bush, I would say: You've created terrorists where there were none. That said, there still are much bigger threats to America than terrorists. You caused this mess and you should pay for it with your resignation or impeachment. Talk about the betrayal of the public trust!

To Cheney, I would say: Support the troops? What do you call putting troops in an unjust, unneeded war? If you supported the troops you'd have had SOLID evidence that Iraq had WMD before invading--instead, we waged a war that inspired tens of thousands to become terrorists and in the process lost more Americans in Iraq than were lost on 911. Then, when our troops do come home, they get horrible care at Walter Reed.

This is all big brother doublespeak. The White House accuses others of the very thing they themselves are doing.

Why isn't ANYone trying to call them on it?

So, yes, in the end, we've failed in Iraq whether we stay or go. It's the Bush Administration's fault.

Sadly, many of us saw this coming and didn't just speak out, we screamed out at protests around the world. Bush didn't listen. No one did, really.

And now Iraq is a failure, today, tomorrow, next week, next month and in the history books.

NEW EARTHY TYPE PLANET FOUND, LIKE WE'LL EVER GO

This is probably something I've been waiting for most of my life. No, it's not Bush getting impeached (I've only been waiting 6 years for that). No, it's a new planet. Not just any planet, either--it's one that scientists say is just like Earth. The following comes from [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/technology/technology.html?in_article_id=450467&in_page_id=1965|an April 25, 2007 article] at http://DailyMail.co.uk and it explains more about this new planet:

Above a calm, dark ocean, a huge, bloated red sun rises in the sky - a full ten times the size of our Sun as seen from Earth. Small waves lap at a sandy shore and on the beach, something stirs...

This is the scene - or may be the scene - on what is possibly the most extraordinary world to have been discovered by astronomers: the first truly Earth-like planet to have been found outside our Solar System.

The discovery was announced today by a team of European astronomers, using a telescope in La Silla in the Chilean Andes. If forced bookies to slash odds on the existence of alien beings.

The Earth-like planet that could be covered in oceans and may support life is 20.5 light years away, and has the right temperature to allow liquid water on its surface.

This remarkable discovery appears to confirm the suspicions of most astronomers that the universe is swarming with Earth-like worlds.

We don't yet know much about this planet, but scientists believe that it may be the best candidate so far for supporting extraterrestrial life.

The new planet, which orbits a small, red star called Gliese 581, is about one-and-a-half times the diameter of the Earth.

WAIT--a RED star?? Could this planet be KRYPTON??? ;) We just found [http://thepete.com/real-kryptonite-found/|Kryptonite] the other day, perhaps this planet revolving around a red sun is Superman's home?

OK, corny fanboy stuff aside, this is incredible, but sadly my hope for humanity has dwindled so dramatically, I can't imagine us ever seeing this planet first hand, or even via a probe of some kind. We're just too mired in our own pettiness to actually think about expanding any more.

We humans have no imagination, our entertainment is about as dumb as it can get and most of us are more scared we won't make it to see tomorrow, let alone a new planet. I bet the trillion dollars the USG spent on tWAT (the War Against Terror) could have gotten us quite a good deal closer to this new planet, if not all the way there. But there's probably no oil or money waiting for us on this new world.

Like we'd ever go without some sort of financial incentive...

Project365 day 113

Project365 day 113 2007 04 24, originally uploaded by thepetecom.

Me outside the Apple store in Century City with my new MacBook! WAHOOO!

REAL KRYPTONITE FOUND!!

OK, I know I don't have to describe what Kryptonite is. That said, I feel like I do need to remind you that up until recently, it was considered to be fictional. However, according to a various reports, a substance matching the chemical composition of Kryptonite (as described in Superman Returns) has been discovered. As usual, the media isn't doing a great job covering the story and the scientists involved aren't doing a great job of doing their (fictional) research either. Check out this clip from [http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2007/04/24/science-kryptonite.html|an April 24, 2007 article] at http://CBC.ca and see what I mean:

Canadian scientists have discovered a new mineral here on Earth that matches the chemical description of kryptonite, the substance that robs comic book hero Superman of his powers.

The mineral, discovered by geologists in a mine in Jadar, Serbia, has the chemical formula sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide, the same formula used to describe kryptonite in the 2006 film Superman Returns.

Huh, I first heard of this story on the BBC News podcast World Today Select and in the interview, the geologist they spoke with sounded British. Maybe he was a Brit who worked at a Canadian Uni? Anyway, here's some more:

But the similarities end there, said Pamela Whitfield, a scientist from the National Research Council's Institute for Chemical Process and Environmental Technology in Ottawa.

While the interstellar rocks from the comic books were typically green glowing crystals, the new mineral is a white, powdery substance with no radioactive qualities.

"It's definitely not radioactive," Whitfield told CBC News Online. "I was working with it for weeks and I haven't grown a second head or anything."

The article does not point out that radiation does NOT cause a second head to be grown, but it does cause CANCER. So unless cancer always shows up within a few weeks of exposure to radiation, I'd hardly say the jury is in. Also, it's not glowing and isn't radioactive because we can't say it's definitely from the planet Krypton. It could be the same substance from some other source. The part of Kryptonite that makes it dangerous to Superman (and to any living thing that can be harmed by radiation) is the radiation itself.

So, good journalism and good science, there, folks!

Sheesh.

Sadly, this substance will only be officially called Jadarite, after the location it was found, as opposed to Kryptonite, since it has no actual krypton in it.

Krypton is an inert gas we already have on Earth and has nothing to do with an alien planet.

Still, if scientists are cool with naming a planet Xena, you'd think they'd be down with naming a mineral Kryptonite.

FINALLY, SOMEONE ELSE SAYS CARS WORSE THAN TERROR

Over a year ago, [http://thepete.com/10-points/|I blogged] on a number of things that were bigger killers than terrorism. In my 10 Points post, I talked about AIDS, Cancer and car accidents. According to the numbers I dug up, car accidents kill 37,000 Americans a year while the number of people killed by terrorism was around 3,227 humans, worldwide. In my mind, this made all cars bigger killers than Al Qaeda. Finally, someone else has pointed this out.

Check out this cutting from [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/19/AR2007041902409_pf.html|an April 20, 2007 article] at WashingtonPost.Com:

Traffic injuries are the leading cause of death in people ages 10 to 24 around the world -- a huge, overlooked and largely preventable public health problem, the World Health Organization said yesterday.

In a new report, the organization promoted a long list of suggestions to developing countries, where most of the deaths and disabling injuries occur. The improvements include safer roads and vehicles, better urban planning, helmet laws, prosecution of speeders and drunken drivers, better education of the driving and walking public, and simple interventions such as putting reflective tape on backpacks.

...

About 30 percent of all traffic deaths worldwide -- roughly 400,000 each year -- are of people younger than 25. Although teenage and young-adult drivers are at greatest risk, younger age groups also have high mortality. In 2002, traffic injuries were the third leading cause of death for children ages 5 to 9, behind pneumonia and AIDS. About 46 percent of traffic deaths in sub-Saharan Africa occurred in that age group that year.

If I read that second clip correctly, 400,000 people are the under-25 that are 30 percent of all traffic deaths worldwide. This means that more than 1,200,000 Earthlings are killed by cars every year.

Now think about the $1 trillion the United States Government has spent on terrorism.

Don't you think that money could be better spent trying to develop technology that will save more lives on the streets and highways of both America and planet Earth? Terrorism deaths are a joke compared to the number of people killed in traffic collisions. You want another senseless massacre of more than 33 people? Just drive the streets of America and you'll come across more than that in a week, nationwide.

To think that thanks to the Virginia Tech Massacre, people want to take away all guns when cars are much more prolific killers. If we're going to take away everyone's guns, shouldn't we ban all cars, first?

Or you could just go on being scared of people when that thing in your driveway is more likely to kill you.

From WashingtonPost.Com:

Traffic Deaths a Global Scourge, Health Agency Says

By David Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 20, 2007; A09

Traffic injuries are the leading cause of death in people ages 10 to 24 around the world -- a huge, overlooked and largely preventable public health problem, the World Health Organization said yesterday.

In a new report, the organization promoted a long list of suggestions to developing countries, where most of the deaths and disabling injuries occur. The improvements include safer roads and vehicles, better urban planning, helmet laws, prosecution of speeders and drunken drivers, better education of the driving and walking public, and simple interventions such as putting reflective tape on backpacks.

"It is a big public health issue for kids, and we can do something about it," said Etienne Krug, a physician who heads WHO's department for injury and violence prevention.

As does most of the public health world, WHO eschews the term "traffic accidents." In a statement accompanying the report, the organization's new director-general, Margaret Chan, said that "road traffic crashes are not 'accidents.' We need to challenge the notion that they are unavoidable."

About 30 percent of all traffic deaths worldwide -- roughly 400,000 each year -- are of people younger than 25. Although teenage and young-adult drivers are at greatest risk, younger age groups also have high mortality. In 2002, traffic injuries were the third leading cause of death for children ages 5 to 9, behind pneumonia and AIDS. About 46 percent of traffic deaths in sub-Saharan Africa occurred in that age group that year.

"Vulnerable road users" -- pedestrians, motorcyclists, bicyclists, and public transit riders -- account for a much higher fraction of youthful traffic fatalities in low-income countries than in rich ones. But even within that generalization there are big differences. In Mozambique, about 65 percent of road injuries and deaths involved pedestrians. In Cambodia, about 75 percent were motorcyclists.

For all countries, the annual cost of road injuries in medical care, disability and property damage is $518 billion, according to the report. In low- and middle-income countries, the cost is larger than the amount received from rich countries as development aid.

"It is a very big economic problem, a very big development problem. It kills breadwinners and throws entire families into poverty," Krug said.

WHO is asking the World Bank and other institutions making loans for road building in the developing world to require that 10 percent of the money go for safety features, such as guardrails, barrier-protected lanes for bicyclists or pedestrians, speed bumps, traffic- calming roundabouts and lighting.

The authors of the report also said towns need to plan for the consequences of better roads. Dirt roads carrying slow traffic are often used as playgrounds. When the roads are tarred, children need other places to play, Krug said.

Many developing countries are addressing the problem. An African Road Safety Conference was recently held in Ghana, with 200 people attending. South Africa has a program called "Drive Alive," whose activities include everything from consciousness-raising about safe driving to distributing reflective backpacks to school children.

The report was accompanied by a second publication, which described 31 people killed or hurt in crashes around the world. It consisted of interviews with those injured and with family members of those killed.

The collection of those stories, called "Faces Behind the Figures," was produced with the help of Rochelle Sobel, of Potomac, whose son Aron, 25, was killed in a bus crash in Turkey in 1995, two weeks before he was to graduate from medical school. She subsequently founded the Association for Safe International Road Travel, which promotes traffic safety.

Although heart attacks kill two to three times as many Americans abroad as road crashes, traffic deaths are a significant cause of mortality overseas and the biggest one for young people, said Stephen Hargarten, a professor of emergency medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

From 2004 through 2006, there were 2,364 "unnatural" (that is, non-disease) deaths among Americans abroad, according to data gathered by the State Department. Motor vehicle crashes caused 740; homicides, 375; suicides, 270; drownings, 264; and miscellaneous injuries causing the rest.

An analysis of the data, produced by Hargarten and Bella Dinh-Zarr of Make Roads Safe, will be presented in Washington next week as part of the U.N.-designated Global Traffic Safety Week.

Project365 day 112

Project365 day 112 2007 04 23, originally uploaded by thepetecom.

Me from inside ThePeteCave, looking out, into TheLiving Room. ;)