links for 2009-08-25
Reply
Monthly Archives: August 2009
Those Meddlesome Liberals!
They made sure so many things we take for granted came to be. Think how much better off we would be if corporations and lobbying groups had their way… and shudder.
1. 40-hour work week.
2. Paid vacation.
3. Overtime.
4. Unions.
5. Highways.
6. The internet.
7. Clean Air Act.
8. Superfund.
9. School loans and grants.
10. Food and drug inspection. (Okay, it’ll take a while to get back to normal.)
11. Medical and drug research.
12. Public education.
13. Moon landings (Velcro! and dehydrated ice cream!)
14. The GI Bill and VA mortgages.
15. Public sewers.
16. Municipal parks and playgrounds.
17. Medicare.
18. Medicaid.
19. Fire departments.
20. Police departments.What are some of the other evils liberals and/or government have made proud patriots pay for?
Well, let’s see what Bill Clinton signed into law that counts as a public good in my mind:
Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 – take that, party of “family values”
Americorps – because after Reagan/Bush we needed to take care of our own in rural areas
Brady BillJim Brady took a bullet for Reagan early in Ronnie’s first term and it took 12 years and a Democrat to pass a law requiring a waiting period and a background check before purchasing a handgun.
Minimum Wage Increase Act – because those damn working poor had waited years for a raise
State Children’s Health Insurance Program – yes, the original one whose expansion Bush 44 vetoed TWICE. President Obama signed expansion and authorization legislation in February 2009.
Taxpayer Relief Act – because everybody knows Democrats are the “tax and spend” party… um.
There were other bills and initiatives Clinton signed off on that I consider to be less admirable – DOMA and DADT, Communications Decency, welfare reform. And of course health care reform and campaign finance reform went down to defeat.
Jimmy Carter didn’t fare too well but he did get a few things right:
National Energy Act
Public Utilities Regulatory Policy Act
Windfall Profits Tax – later repealed during either early Reagan or early Bush 42
Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act – because 103 million acres of National Park land is a good thing
Department of Energy – it’s in our national interest to conserve energy
His record on civil rights and human rights and towards a more peaceful world will be his legacy – he was the first American president to call for civil rights and protections for gay persons.
Even Ronnie Reagan signed an illegal-immigrant amnesty act and adjusted the Social Security system to adjust for new retirees, and tightened federal standards for disposal of toxic waste. He even passed a Tax Reform Act in 1986 to sweep away many kinds of tax shelters. Huh.
Given the cynicism underlying some of the rosily-named bills passed during Bush 43 (the underfunded No Child Left Behind Act and others), it’s tough to pick something nice to say here – but I guess I’m glad for the Do-Not-Call Act, but the CAN-SPAM act was a big steaming pile o’ FAIL.
So yeah, we’ve probably have been a lot better off under Democrats, but we definitely need balance from the more conservative side to rein in the worst excesses of comfortably-ensconced pols. As long as they’re REALITY BASED, that is.
Workout Diary
20 minutes on the recumbent bike, a couple of sets each on 4 weight machines (2 upper body, 2 abdominal). Gave up soda for ice water at the same time, feeling better already.
BBC NEWS | Health | Apple-shaped women’s asthma risk
Okay, so I’ll try to make a habit of posting when I go to the health club that’s located in my work building. I went twice last week for the first time in nearly a year and seem to have successfully kicked my Sprite habit (and my candy bar habit) in favor of large amounts of ice water, and a cup or two of unsalted unbuttered popcorn. It seems logical to be really true to this during the week and give myself a little slack on the weekend, so we had pizza last night (ooh!! Big woop). As I don’t really have easy access to the health club on the weekends, I’ll try to go 3 times a week to start with.Body mass index (BMI) has been widely used as a standard measure of obesity.
But some researchers argue that waist circumference may be a more useful measure because it more closely reflects levels of visceral fat deposits found around the body’s organs.
Visceral fat is metabolically different from other types of fat found in the body, and may have different – and more profound – effects on health.
Researcher Julie Von Behren said: “Visceral fat is metabolically more active – it can produce compounds that may cause inflammation. Inflammation may then be related to asthma.”
In fact tomorrow I’ll probably go for just an aerobic workout and follow a similar plan to when I had personal trainers; weight training every other day or so.
We’re both eating healthier at home and also at work for lunch I’m often eating salads instead of the more caloric hot meals at the cafeteria. Today, for example, I passed on the pasta marinara at lunch and had a fairly big salad. Some of the hot items are pretty high in fat (and I find it difficult to pass up the super-loaded Mexican specialties). David also made it to his health club. Yay us!
links for 2009-08-23
Upgrade-a-Go-Go
UPDATE II: Today’s date is April 7, 2012. About a week ago, the graphics card fan on my computer started making these eeerie WOOOooooooOOOOooooo noises, like a cartoon ghost. And then a few days ago, it just stopped running; the fan was stuck and my computer would run for a few minutes before the screen would go black.
So, farewell good and faithful friend. Now I need to figure out what to do next.
My husband David removed the card and reconnected the inboard graphic card back into play. I can do everything I need to do with the exception of Second Life or my little experimental Open Sim world – I can limp inworld to a meeting or to listen to music, but that’s about it. Building or terraforming are out (it was all the terraforming I was doing in my private grid that was probably the last straw).
The solution at this point is either to buy a whole new computer (which is a pain, as I have all these pictures sorted into folders that I use for the church website) or to swap it all into a bigger case with a better power supply.
The latter option looks like the way forward; a new case is about 40.00 and a power supply of at least 500 watts will set me back about 60.00.
It’s a pain, but the upside is if we can get all the computer’s guts swapped over, there will be plenty of room for a truly capable, normal size graphics card – probably an nVidia 550, 560, or similar. I’m kind of waiting for prices to drop as the new 600-series cards were just released last week.
Carry on reading, if you wish to see how I did get the Galaxy GeForce 9600 LP to fit. There are now other low profile, low power options, but this one worked great for far longer than I expected.
links for 2009-08-21
-
Two posters report very positive results with Galaxy 9600 Low Power Low Profile card from Best Buy – no additional power connector needed. Runs very well even though rated for a 300w psu and the Gateway only has 220w. Something about the Gateway's power efficiency?
Tom Ridge Comes Clean (Almost)
@pourmecoffee Of course we knew crap like this went down. But nobody said a word until they could publish their tell-alls.
Tom Ridge on National Security After 9/11 – Washington Whispers (usnews.com)
Ridge was never invited to sit in on National Security Council meetings; was “blindsided” by the FBI in morning Oval Office meetings because the agency withheld critical information from him; found his urgings to block Michael Brown from being named head of the emergency agency blamed for the Hurricane Katrina disaster ignored; and was pushed to raise the security alert on the eve of President Bush’s re-election, something he saw as politically motivated and worth resigning over.
Shorts And Sports Sandals
… they’re the American uniform at home and abroad.
UPDATE: Just wanted to add what inspired this:
And Far Away | Footwear that should be burned and buried
The way American tourists dress drives me crazy. Khaki shorts, worn-out and drab-colored t-shirt (or shirt), and the infamous sandlas, often with socks. Damn. It’s as if this “uniform†comes stamped out with their visas. I’ve never been to the US so I don’t know if that’s how they dress in their daily lives, but I sure hope not.
Yes, well, many Americans dress like this in our daily lives, because it’s easy, cheap, and comfortable. I was amused by And Far Away’s post, because it was totally true and funny. I actually wore khaki shorts to work today with those gawd-awful green Tevas, because we’re pretty casual at my office (especially in summer). As it happens, I was glad I had some water-friendly shoes on as I left (ON TIME for the first time this week) as it was raining pretty hard.
It actually felt nice to be out in shorts and sandals on a warm, wet evening. I got rain between my toes and thought about how fun it would be to run around without the umbrella, and just stomp in puddles like a little kid without a care. This propensity by Americans to run around stomping in puddles like a little kid without a care has gotten us into trouble before (see Bride, The Princess: Land War in Asia).
Not all of us can be fashionable people. Our neighbors to the North, Canada, routinely go out wearing much more stylish clothing than we do, especially on summer weekends, even before nightfall! Yet we Americans do not -we will go out to dinner so casually dressed that no one will look twice as we show up at a restaurant in what charitably could be described as “leisure” wear. I myself can’t stand to shop for clothes, and have very, VERY limited options in my closet for “dressing up.” So I “go casual” because it’s a lot less stress, angst, and self-loathing.
See those lumpy, bolsterlike structures up above my shoes and below my shorts? Those, my friends and robots, are my knees. Below them, if you care to look, are my cankles. There’s really no point in spending a lot of money on attractive shoes that draw attention to one’s cankles, is there? Especially if high arches require orthotic supports be worn in order to avoid extra foot, knee, and back pain. Sure, I’m now in my second week of avoiding processed sugar, reducing portions, and drinking lots of water. And I had a good workout last night at the health club, walked 2 miles with no major foot problems. So maybe I’ll be able to improve the look of my cankles with weight loss in a few months, and think about buying something nice to wear. Maybe.
I do have some nice slacks and tops that I bought for last year’s England/Ireland trip, and in fact I didn’t take a pair of jeans with me. Which is TOTALLY WEIRD, if you ask me. And then on a recent weekend trip, I once again didn’t take a pair of jeans. But I did take khaki shorts (sure, they’re big and roomy, and comfortable to walk in). And I took the Tevas, because they have some arch support as they’re built on a kind of hard-shelled chassis. My feet start to ache if I wear the older pair, the ones with soft soles and no support.
So I’m afraid that I, at least, will continue to wear the American leisure uniform of Fashion Slack. After being traumatized by watching too many episodes of What Not To Wear that never featured pear-shaped be-cankled women such as myself, I concluded that there’s just no point in bothering with fashion when you’re up against a multitude of competing figure faults in a weird size that’s too big for regular size clothing but too small for “queen size.” Comfort rules! Although I do avoid unflattering clothing as much as possible (I took that much away from WNTW), I just won’t wear uncomfortable shoes, no matter how fashionable they may be.
Like And Far Away, I think extra-long, extra-pointy shoes for either women or men are just one big steaming pile of NO. The examples from there were entertaining, but I recently encountered shoes too bizarre for real life:
See, I actually own an outfit a lot like this in Second Life – short plaid skirt, kitty tail and ears, braided hair. It’s kind of a common look on SL, that I like to call “Neko Schoolgirl.” I do like to dress up more in SL, because it’s…
wait for it…
… cheap, easy, and comfortable. You just click on an item, or a folder of items, in your game inventory, and presto! you’re wearing different clothes (or sometimes a body of a different species). It’s fun “shopping” for stuff to wear or attach (I don’t mean anything like THOSE sort of attachments).
But what is with those crazy instruments of torture on her feet?? They’re like platform shoes gone ballistic, or ballet shoes with buttresses. That’s just… so very wrong. Also, the claws and crouching pose are slightly disturbing.
Strangely though… I don’t think I’ve ever seen truly baggy khaki shorts and virtual Tevas for sale in Second Life, even in the most American of shops. Guess we’re not willing to look like slobs if it’s just as cheap, easy and comfortable to be stylish.
Ginny
I can has iPhone?
Via: Flickr
Title: Shorts And Sports Sandals
By: GinnyRED57
Originally uploaded: 19 Aug ’09, 7.10pm CDT PST
Fitness Kick
Week 2 of giving up sugary drinks and most candy. Workout tonight. #fb
Google Reader Hotting Up
Still trying to keep up as Google Reader morphs into a global discussion group; it may eventually need some kind of killfile capability on username since there’s no control over what is shared or commented. It could be Usenet Wars or Listserv Wars all over again.
But other than those minor concerns, it’s very cool seeing so much interesting shared content. I mostly read via iPhone app, which lacks the Like and Send To buttons, but if someone can point me to the appropriate Javascript for those, I could save it as bookmarks in Safari and add it to Bookmarks. I use that trick to send URLs to Twittelator and also to del.icio.us.