tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-40968392011-04-21T12:19:24.217-07:00small d, Big JWhat Steven desJardins is interested in.Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comBlogger1091100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-1063037858884165622003-09-08T09:17:00.000-07:002003-09-08T09:17:38.870-07:00A scary story in today's Washington Post about a woman who died following routine surgery after doctors gave her two pints of the wrong type blood. She switched to a bed by the window, and the phlebotomist who came to take a blood sample took it from the patient in her old bed without checking the ID bracelet or asking her name.
The story doesn't say whether anyone asked her before the operationStevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-1061223019832242352003-08-18T09:10:00.000-07:002003-08-18T09:10:19.866-07:00Two stories in the Washington Post's Metro section caught my eye today.
The first, D.C. Shooting Investigated as Hate Crime, deals with the murder of a transgendered prostitute. Allegedly, he gave someone a blow job, who then found out that 'she' was a 'he', came back with a gun, and shot him.
This doesn't intuitively fit my idea of what a 'hate crime' is. If somebody is going around shooting Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-1060260834341635992003-08-07T05:53:00.000-07:002003-08-07T05:53:54.313-07:00I've been posting more on Livejournal than over here. The comments facility is nice. I'm considering putting personal stuff over there and political stuff over here, since it seems a waste to just abandon this blog, but I haven't seemed able to summon up the energy for politics lately, so postings may be sparse for a while. In the meantime, I've set up an open thread over there for people to Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-1059333635597513562003-07-27T12:20:00.000-07:002003-07-27T12:20:35.523-07:00 I planned to write about how I went to see Strangers on a Train last night at the Silver Theatre, followed by a Q&A with Patricia Hitchcock, who had a small part in the movie. I got to the theater not quite an hour before the movie was scheduled to start, planning to get a little something to eat first in the café, and found it was sold out. So instead I'll talk about the play I saw Wednesday Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-1058888329328597102003-07-22T08:38:00.000-07:002003-07-22T08:38:49.180-07:00I've seen Titus Andronicus on stage. I've seen the movie. But I've never seen it as a musical.
Tomorrow night, that will all change.
(Well, technically, I guess only the last bit will change. I still will have seen it on stage and as a movie.)Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-1058844090366742322003-07-21T20:21:00.000-07:002003-07-21T20:25:24.406-07:00I signed up for Distributed Proofreaders a couple of days ago, and did my first half-dozen pages tonight. It's associated with Project Gutenberg, which converts public domain texts into electronic form and distributes them free over the Internet. Distributed Proofreading allows many people to share the work of proofreading OCR'ed text. Once you register and start working on a project, the web Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-1058762067907460042003-07-20T21:34:00.000-07:002003-07-27T12:18:25.896-07:00From RISKS Digest:
At least they should then have created a brilliant logo.....
If you were a company called Powergen and you had a subsidiary that operated in Italy, what would you call that company's Web site?.
Probably not http://www.powergenitalia.com
But they really did.
Update: It's not true.
It should be pointed out that while the unfortunately named
http://www.powergenitalia.com
really Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-1058757750531061752003-07-20T20:22:00.000-07:002003-07-20T20:22:30.473-07:00Bursitis occurs when one of your joints secretes too much fluid, either from an infection or because of overwork or trauma. Symptoms include "pain, swelling, redness, and heat" (according to a site I Googled). That describes my elbow perfectly, except for the pain, the redness, and the heat. The swelling and the fluid are definitely present, though. There's a soft knob bulging out from my Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-1058738032934092003-07-20T14:53:00.000-07:002003-07-20T14:53:52.710-07:00The following letter from Steven Patt is an encouraging sign that Bush's honeymoon with the press may be ending:
Dana Priest and Dana Milbank described President Bush's statement that the United States gave Saddam Hussein "a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in" as "appearing to contradict the events leading up to war" [front page, July 15].
Wouldn't "a preposterous andStevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-1058727474448070212003-07-20T11:57:00.000-07:002003-07-20T11:57:54.216-07:00I started a LiveJournal journal, mostly so I can post non-anonymous comments to other people's posts, but partly to try it out. I do like the ability to have people comment on my posts. My userid over there is stevendj (desjardins was taken), and the URL is http://www.livejournal.com/users/stevendj/.Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-1058573944630768062003-07-18T17:19:00.000-07:002003-07-18T17:19:04.583-07:00To make up for that last post, cat people, I humbly submit the following link for you approval: My Cat Hates YouStevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-1058454875752391352003-07-17T08:14:00.000-07:002003-07-17T08:19:47.053-07:00The headline seems implausible, but the story looks real: Live kittens used to lure giant catfish
The cruel practice came to light when police boarded a fishing boat on the Po River in Northern Italy and found a stash of frightened kittens ready to be placed on hooks.
The case, which police say is not isolated, has outraged European animal rights groups.
Police believe greedy fishermen are Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-1058372412301710622003-07-16T09:20:00.000-07:002003-07-16T09:20:12.266-07:00There are some interesting nuggets in this Washington Post article on campaign fundraising. Bush raised more money than all the Democratic candidates combined (I had thought it was the other way), but the totals are reasonably close. I think Democrats will rally around whoever the eventual nominee is, so the amount of "kick Bush out" money that the candidate gets could be truly staggering.
The Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-1058223490419794992003-07-14T15:58:00.000-07:002003-07-14T15:58:52.316-07:00Cool link: The Proceedings of the Old Bailey Online
"On this day in 1731, John Piggot was tried for murdering a boy with a billiard cue." With a link to the court record of the trial, with summaries of the witness testimony.Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-1058222786017427142003-07-14T15:46:00.000-07:002003-07-14T15:47:48.703-07:00I've been giving some thought to the unacceptable level of clutter in my home, and I've made two decisions. The first is to establish a weekly 'To Do' list with one or two items to accomplish over the course of the week, to post it on my weblog, and to follow up the next week with a report on my progress. For instance, my goal this week is to clean out the metal basket by the door, which was Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-1057704208506344232003-07-08T15:43:00.000-07:002003-07-08T15:43:28.380-07:00If you live in DC and have never seen Lawrence of Arabia on the big screen, you have until Friday at the AFI Silver Theater before it closes. I had never seen it at all, and I'm glad I waited, because it was simply magnificient and a TV screen would not have done it justice at all.
One thing that struck me was how little action there was. Much of the movie consists simply of people walking or Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-1057703171866590622003-07-08T15:26:00.000-07:002003-07-08T15:26:11.806-07:00I got my first fruit share delivery today--five golden apples and a small basket of wineberries. The wineberries look like raspberries, but are smaller and more fragile, and taste a bit like wine. Very, very good.Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-1057432785509934212003-07-05T12:19:00.000-07:002003-07-05T12:20:10.923-07:00Yesterday's headline: Bush Utters Taunt About Militants: 'Bring 'Em On'
Today's headline: Attacks by Iraqis Growing Bolder
Never let it be said that I failed to give Bush credit when one of his policy initiatives produced its intended result. (Moron.)Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-1057432472427219112003-07-05T12:14:00.000-07:002003-07-05T12:14:32.403-07:00This may be small potatoes in the world of government financial meltdowns, but Clarion has lost its funding from the University of Michigan. The Clarion Writing Workshop is one of the best things I ever did, and it will be a tremendous shame if the workshop disappears after 35 years of helping to produce talented science fiction writers.Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-1057031173625594242003-06-30T20:46:00.000-07:002003-06-30T20:46:13.613-07:00I posted this in the comments at Calpundit a few days ago, and thought I'd repost it here:
Shorter Antonin Scalia:
I have nothing against homosexuals pursuing their agenda through normal democratic means, but I think it's okay for states to throw them in jail and strip them of the right to vote.
Shortly after that I remembered Romer v. Evans, the Supreme Court case where Scalia argued in his Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-1056731149258721302003-06-27T09:25:00.000-07:002003-06-27T09:25:49.230-07:00A scary post on the coming economic collapse. Possible collapse, that is--the Federal Reserve is running out of room to cut interest rates, and that could be Trouble with a capital T, which rhymes with B, which stands for, well, let's not get into that. I don't know enough about economics to vouch for the analysis, but I am worried.Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-1056711553182364512003-06-27T03:59:00.000-07:002003-06-27T09:27:17.100-07:00I've never understood why Antonin Scalia has a reputation for being very smart. I've read his opinions, and seen him lecture, and I've never gotten the impression that he was more than middling intelligent. He does seem convinced of his own brilliance, though. I get the impression that he reasons something like this:
1. Those people are really dumb.2. I'm much, much smarter than them.3. Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-959970822003-06-24T16:31:00.000-07:002003-06-24T16:33:32.000-07:00Catch-22:In Texas, Esshassah Fouad, a student from Morocco, was detained after his former wife accused him of plotting terrorism. She was sentenced to a year in prison for making a false charge. But Mr. Fouad was hit anyway with immigration charges, despite his pleas that he had missed school, violating his visa, because he was in jail.
America used to be a much fairer nation. (Although, Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-951707122003-06-01T18:12:00.000-07:002003-06-01T18:12:23.283-07:00I've been meaning to blog this quote from the Washington Post:
Initially, President Bush did not include money for the states in his tax cut proposal, as administration officials took the position that states had their own fiscal irresponsibility to thank for their budget crises.
Are these people dead to irony or what? Is it now the official administration position that having a budget shortfallStevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-951690642003-06-01T17:18:00.000-07:002003-06-01T17:19:10.000-07:00The Justice Department is prosecuting someone for holding up an anti-Bush sign outside a "Free Speech Zone". They claim that he was in violation of a law allowing the Secret Service to restrict access to areas around the President, but acknowledge that if he had given up the sign he would have been allowed to stay, so this prosecution is clearly about the message this gentleman was trying to Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-951579992003-06-01T10:27:00.000-07:002003-06-01T10:27:47.400-07:00The Bushes at Auschwitz:At one point Mr. Bush turned to Ms. Swiebocka and asked, "Do people challenge the accuracy of what you present?" Mr. Fleischer, who was accompanying the president a few paces behind, said he could not hear the answer.Why do Republican Presidents do this? There was Reagan at Bitburg, of course, and the first Bush's reaction to Auschwitz, "Boy, they were big on crematoriumsStevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-950865792003-05-30T09:36:00.000-07:002003-05-30T09:36:43.000-07:00U.S. Welcomes Fewer Refugees, according to the Washington Post. Last year the United States admitted 27,100 refugees, down from 68,400 the year before and a five-year average of around 76,000. Nearly 40,000 refugees have been approved to come to the U.S. (based on a well-found fear of persecution) but are stuck overseas waiting for background and security checks. I can understand why there's aStevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-949941682003-05-28T09:12:00.000-07:002003-05-28T09:12:03.140-07:00Teresa Nielsen Hayden, in her excellent essay collection Making Book, introduced me to the concept of the infix, which I will now use for its particular rhetorical effect:
Un-fucking-believable.
I refer to the last few paragraphs of this Washington Post article on Judge Pickering, who has been nominated for a seat on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The Judiciary Committee has received lettersStevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-949710692003-05-27T20:24:00.000-07:002003-05-27T20:24:38.396-07:00The web really is pretty amazing. I got up from a nap at 9:07 tonight, and couldn't remember whether the pharmacy at the nearby CVS closed at 9:00 or 10:00. It took about thirty seconds of web surfing to go to cvs.com, use their store finder feature, and find out that the pharmacy closed at 10:00 on weeknights. Before the web, I might have guessed wrong and either needlessly postponed picking Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-949042942003-05-26T10:56:00.000-07:002003-05-26T10:56:10.350-07:00I was browsing some tax law blogs today, and I came across this comment from March from Decnavda's Dialectic:
In game theory, deterrence requires a link between actions and consequences. The Afghan war did that well. The lesson was, "If you attack the U.S., the U.S. will destroy your regime." Good lesson. Attacking Iraq with U.N. authorization would teach the following lesson: "Disobey Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-947246782003-05-21T23:19:00.000-07:002003-05-21T23:20:23.000-07:00This Washington Post article on problems faced by ex-convicts has an example of something that drives me crazy.
Amy Hirsch, an attorney with Community Legal Services in Philadelphia, has studied a 1996 federal law that imposes a lifetime ban on people convicted of drug offenses from receiving family welfare benefits and food stamps. She found that the law had a devastating effect on women Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-945861202003-05-19T09:07:00.000-07:002003-05-19T19:23:34.000-07:00My computer died this morning, so I'm posting this from work. I won't be getting any e-mail until either the machine starts working again (doubtful) or I buy another computer. I see I can get a decent 14" iBook from Amazon for about $1250, so maybe this is a sign that I should abandon Microsoft forever.
Update: It turns out it's still under warranty. So I ought to be able to get it fixed.
Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-945677332003-05-18T23:19:00.000-07:002003-05-28T10:34:04.000-07:00Tonight I watched The Legend of Suram Fortress. For a while I wasn't sure if it was just pretty pictures that didn't make a lot of sense, or if I was just lacking the necessary cultural context and storytelling protocols to properly absorb and interpret the information. Either way, I had a hard time following the narrative. Many of the scenes seem pointless, like the one where a little girl Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-944558772003-05-16T09:06:00.000-07:002003-05-16T09:13:04.000-07:00Jo Walton is a treasure. Her latest journal entry grumbles about computer operating systems, which for most people would not be an opportunity for greatly original observations, but in her hands is a chance for some really cool prose.
Dos is like an old dog. It knows the old tricks really well, it's eager and even enthusiastic to go through them for me, but it can't learn new tricks any more.
Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-942096752003-05-12T09:09:00.000-07:002003-05-12T09:09:44.953-07:00China Miéville's Top 10 Weird Fiction. I'll have to check some of these out when my to-be-read pile gets a bit shorter.Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-941335062003-05-10T21:16:00.000-07:002003-05-10T21:16:26.480-07:00Tonight I saw The Iceman Cometh at the AFI Silver Theater. A magnificient play, but oh my is it depressing. Eugene O'Neill had tremendous empathy for people drinking themselves to death, but this time he strips away all their illusions, and then he twists the knife further. I had never seen it before and I'm very glad I went, even though they showed the entire four hours without a break. (It Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-941327052003-05-10T20:57:00.000-07:002003-05-10T20:57:43.863-07:00I got some samples of Neurontin from my neurologist on Wednesday, along with a prescription for when they run out. It takes a while to see if Neurontin does any good, because you need to increase the dose gradually. From what I've read, it's an unpredictable drug. It doesn't help some people at all, and when it does work the effective dose varies from person to person. You just have to try itStevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-938402072003-05-05T19:55:00.000-07:002003-05-10T20:48:04.000-07:00Via tnh, the Which Springer-Verlag Graduate Text in Mathematics are you? test.
If I were a Springer-Verlag Graduate Text in Mathematics, I would be J.L. Doob's Measure Theory
I am different from other books on measure theory in that I accept probability theory as an essential part of measure theory. This means that many examples are taken from probability; that probabilistic concepts such as Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-937816652003-05-04T21:30:00.000-07:002003-05-04T21:30:19.190-07:00I saw the following caption out of the corner of my eye as I walked past CVS today: POPCORN VENGEANCE IN DUPONT CIRCLE.
Upon a second look, I found the word was actually "vendor".Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-937329512003-05-03T21:02:00.000-07:002003-05-03T21:02:19.513-07:00This year's DC Film Festival is over, and for the first time none of the movies I saw absolutely blew me away. The best was Diana's Smile, part of the short films program, a deadpan sentimental tragedy about about an Italian woman who moves into a long-empty house and the spider who falls in love with her. Most of the short films were good this year, in fact, a pleasant surprise after the lastStevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-935244272003-04-30T04:18:00.000-07:002003-04-30T04:18:39.796-07:00Jeffrey Sutton has been confirmed by the Senate without a filibuster. Dammit. If you're curious why this is bad, check out Justice For All, ADA Watch, and Wampum.Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-932201222003-04-24T21:03:00.000-07:002003-04-25T04:30:50.000-07:00The DC Filmfest begins tonight, and I went to my first movie, Crazy Like a Fox, which was all right. It's about a Southerner who's forced to sell his farm because of debts, and we're supposed to sympathize with him over the land developers who buy it, because he represents tradition. To make this easier, the couple who buy the property are made as annoying, unethical, and dislikeable as Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-930828492003-04-22T18:40:00.000-07:002003-04-22T18:40:10.356-07:00I just got back from a condominium association meeting discussing the capital improvement projects for the next few years. The big projects are replacing the entire heating/cooling system, some electrical and miscellaneous work in the hallways, replacing all the windows, replacing the roof, replacing the exhaust ducts on the roof with mushroom fans, and replacing the cooling tower on the roof.Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-929623212003-04-20T20:36:00.000-07:002003-04-20T20:36:46.186-07:00Tonight was my birthday dinner, and the day was pretty full as well. First I went to see Maxwell Anderson's Elizabeth the Queen at the Folger Library, which was very good, although certain events seemed somewhat implausible. We went back to my apartment after that, where I hauled out my Wordsworth Dictionary of Shakespeare, looked up "Essex", and confirmed that everything past the point where Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-927216262003-04-16T09:00:00.000-07:002003-04-16T09:00:41.216-07:00A good post on Trollope, plus the Very Secret Diary of Will Shakespeare.Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-926885772003-04-15T19:18:00.000-07:002003-04-15T19:18:49.763-07:00There are certain channels which are listed on my TiVo lineup, like the Game Show Network and the Sci-Fi Channel and Comedy Central, which I did not actually receive. When I set the channel to those stations I got the blue screen indicating that there was no signal. Until a few days ago, when I happened to try it and got actual programming.
Since then I've made certain discoveries, such as thatStevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-926880112003-04-15T19:07:00.000-07:002003-04-15T19:11:37.000-07:00AOL is suing dozens of spammers for millions of dollars, according to this Washington Post article. Good for them.
Meanwhile, in the letters page, Philip Schmidt makes a remarkably stupid argument:
"According to an Associated Press article, Mr. Cason has been giving the dissidents Internet access in the U.S. Interests Section, as well as fax machines, radios, office supplies and other materialsStevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-926221092003-04-14T19:11:00.000-07:002003-04-14T19:12:26.000-07:00Tonight, to celebrate my birthday, I went to see Le Cercle Rouge at the new AFI theater in Silver Spring. The main theater is huge, with a very high ceiling and wide, comfortable seats. The show started promptly with brief credits for the theater's sponsors (no previews!), and the volume was reasonable. I'm very pleased about that; I'm often reluctant to see movies in the theater because most Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-925563302003-04-13T19:23:00.000-07:002003-04-13T19:23:13.310-07:00A followup on my GreenCine post from last week. The replacement discs they sent me arrived promptly and played fine. Meanwhile, they report that the disks I returned were broken in three places and the mailer appeared to have been soaking in dirty water. Unsurprisingly, they couldn't get them to play either. That first shipment really seems to have been cursed.
I've watched one of the Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-925557442003-04-13T19:11:00.000-07:002003-04-13T19:11:45.140-07:00Finally did my income taxes. I'm getting $785 back this year, which means I shouldn't have procrastinated so long. My total federal tax burden, including the employee share of payroll taxes, and counting tax-deferred retirement contributions as part of my income, is 16.6%. When you add DC taxes, it's 21.5%.Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-923399462003-04-09T21:54:00.000-07:002003-04-09T21:54:55.593-07:00Via Daily Kos, I see that Norm Coleman is now claiming that he is "a 99 percent improvement over Paul Wellstone". The folks over there are making the usual liberal partisan hay over what some might see as a tasteless remark, but I'd like to praise Norm (can I call him Norm?) for his modesty. After all, he could easily have said he was twice as good as Wellstone, but, not wanting to exaggerate, Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-919636452003-04-03T21:34:00.000-08:002003-04-03T21:34:41.610-08:00This story, about an Antarctic squid that's bigger than the giant squid, is seriously cool.Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-919635532003-04-03T21:33:00.000-08:002003-04-03T21:33:06.873-08:00Last week I signed up with GreenCine, a Netflix-like company. This would give me five disks out at a time (two from GreenCine, three from Netflix), and cost a little more than getting five disks from Netflix, but GreenCine had some disks that Netflix didn't.
Yesterday I got all five disks in the mail at once. This would at first seem like too many. But then I put Sports Night Disk 5 in, only Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-916788822003-03-30T18:13:00.000-08:002003-03-30T18:13:17.216-08:00Hugo nominations are due tomorrow, and as always I'm scrambling to catch up on my reading. Most years I've read enough fiction that I'm just filling in the gaps, but this time I've read so little short fiction that I didn't nominate at all in those categories, and so few current novels that I was very selective in choosing what to nominate. For example, Bones of the Earth and The Years of Rice Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-915274012003-03-27T21:14:00.000-08:002003-03-27T21:14:53.310-08:00Tonight I watched The Road Home, which was directed by Zhang Yimou, who did Raise the Red Lantern and To Live. The Road Home is about a schoolteacher who is sent to a small village and the love affair between him and a village girl, told as an extended flashback within a framing sequence about his funeral. It's a simple story, affecting mainly because of the care with details and the great Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-912744472003-03-24T04:01:00.000-08:002003-03-24T04:01:40.263-08:00I got back from Lunacon last night. It was fun, even though I mostly just hung out with my hotel roommates and a few other friends. Terry McGarry, who's in my Links section, was showing off her new novel, The Binder's Road. I also got to meet Cassandra Claire, the author of The Very Secret Diaries, who was attending her very first science fiction convention. (She mentioned getting a letter Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-910375342003-03-19T20:29:00.000-08:002003-03-19T20:31:21.000-08:00The week after my operation, I got a summons for a six to eight week jury trial. I got a note from my doctor saying that that would interfere with necessary physical therapy and sent it in. The trial starts tomorrow, so I called the automated system to make sure I'd been excused. The first two times I got somebody's answering machine, but eventually I got the automated system and typed in my Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-909632692003-03-18T18:31:00.000-08:002003-03-18T18:34:41.000-08:00Monsoon Wedding is about an Indian wedding and the family reunion that accompanies it. It's the sort of movie that I wouldn't have given a second look if it had had an American setting, and I would have been right.
Charade is an old Audrey Hepburn-Cary Grant movie about a group of villains chasing Hepburn because they think she has a quarter of a million dollars. There are secrets within Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-908633542003-03-17T09:07:00.000-08:002003-03-17T09:07:45.000-08:00Dept. of Missing the Point: "James C. Kopp, right, with attorney Bruce Barket, feared his trial would be a circus centering on the question of guilt, rather than his antiabortion beliefs."Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-908408202003-03-16T22:17:00.000-08:002003-03-16T22:19:26.000-08:00I've been renting DVD's of several TV shows lately. The best of these is Sports Night, the show Aaron Sorkin did before West Wing. It's not as good as West Wing, but it's still very witty with good dialogue and it's fun to watch. I don't think I'll ever be tempted to watch these episodes a second time, but they're worth renting.
Stargate: SG-1 has some good points. The characters mostly do Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-908181312003-03-16T13:27:00.000-08:002003-03-16T13:27:08.360-08:00I haven't mentioned any movies in a while. I had planned when I started this blog to comment on all the DVD's I watch, and I still think that's a worthwhile ambition. I'm going to try to get through the backlog in the next few days.
The best of the movies I've seen is Lagaan, set in colonial India. A dastardly British official doubles the lagaan (land tax) during a drought, basically because Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-908177532003-03-16T13:17:00.000-08:002003-03-16T13:17:47.890-08:00My DSL service was activated on Thursday, so web browsing has gotten a lot faster.Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-906307972003-03-12T20:38:00.000-08:002003-03-12T20:40:42.000-08:00I had my appointment with a dystonia specialist at Johns Hopkins today. I do not have "classic dystonia", or apparently any dystonia at all. She did make one interesting observation--I have "brisk reflexes" below the neck, but my chin reflex is normal, which suggests the problem is not in the brain but in the spinal cord.
The really important question, though, was whether Botox injections Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-906305412003-03-12T20:33:00.000-08:002003-03-12T20:33:12.483-08:00So far I know of two people who have linked to me from their sites, and one of them spelled my name right. small d, Big J isn't a great name, but I thought at least people would take it as a helpful spelling hint. I guess not. (Note: she may have fixed it before you click the link. In fact, if I hadn't chosen to publicly mock her, nobody else might ever have noticed. It hardly seems cricket.Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-901715592003-03-05T04:16:00.000-08:002003-03-09T16:27:56.000-08:00I sent the following e-mail to Sen. Bob Graham, who is reportedly undecided on the filibuster blocking Miguel Estrada from a circuit court nomination. The vote is coming soon. Speak out.
I am a resident of Washington, DC, which as you know may be having the first Presidential primary next year. My vote will be strongly influenced by the candidates' stances on judiciary nominations. In Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-899432322003-02-28T22:29:00.000-08:002003-02-28T22:29:43.390-08:00Last year the Washington Post had an article on Community Supported Agriculture, a scheme where people buy shares of a farm's output and get a delivery of vegetables each week during harvest season. The disadvantage is that you only get what's in season, but that's the advantage too. It seemed like it would be an interesting exercise, to cook with what was available instead of just going down Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-899426932003-02-28T22:13:00.000-08:002003-02-28T22:15:22.000-08:00The following quote is from Salt, by Mark Kurlansky:
The truth was that too much brine was being pumped too rapidly from underneath Cheshire. Hundreds of ambitious small-scale entrepeneurs were making salt. They became extremely competitive. Some would pump additional brine out and dump it in the canals just to try to deprive their competitors.
The brine that flows over the salt rock of Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-898669972003-02-27T15:32:00.000-08:002003-02-27T15:34:40.000-08:00One of the things I've been doing with my new TiVo is adding all sorts of programs that I might want to watch occasionally. For example, I added a season pass to record BBC World News and keep only the most recent episode. I watched it for the first time last night and was appalled by the story of Derek Bond, a British citizen who the FBI identified as one of their "Most Wanted" criminals, and Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-895786692003-02-22T19:05:00.000-08:002003-02-22T19:04:30.000-08:00I added a second hard drive to my TiVo today. I have one of the early ones, which only had a 14-hour capacity at the basic recording level. Its new capacity is much, much higher.
Best: 43 hrs, 49 minHigh: 71 hrs, 3 minMedium: 94 hrs, 8 minBasic: 159 hrs, 12 minStevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-895334252003-02-21T19:39:00.000-08:002003-02-21T19:39:45.890-08:00 Pope condemns sarcasm. Words fail me.
(Via Ted Barlow)Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-895329742003-02-21T19:28:00.000-08:002003-02-21T19:28:49.093-08:00This is an appalling accusation I hadn't seen before, from one of George W. Bush's childhood friends:
''We were terrible to animals,'' recalled Mr. Throckmorton, laughing. A dip behind the Bush home turned into a small lake after a good rain, and thousands of frogs would come out.
''Everybody would get BB guns and shoot them,'' Mr. Throckmorton said. ''Or we'd put firecrackers in the frogs and Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-894701012003-02-20T18:25:00.000-08:002003-02-20T18:25:47.973-08:00If I were in a Buffy musical:
They took...the stitches...OUT!!!!!
(Chorus: They took the stitches out!)Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-891491942003-02-15T09:34:00.000-08:002003-02-15T09:34:33.426-08:00Therese LePore, the phony Democrat (she changed her party registration from Republican to run for election supervisor) who gave George W. Bush so much help in the last election, is in the news again, this time making it harder for blind people to vote. This sort of thing happens all over, actually, and it wouldn't be worth picking on the dastardly LePore if not for the following amazing sentenceStevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-890684392003-02-13T18:55:00.000-08:002003-02-13T18:55:37.160-08:00I had my first physical therapy appointment today. It looks like Dr. Gunther is most concerned about my index finger, which wasn't fused. My hand is now in an active splint, which uses a rubber band to pull the finger straight. I'm supposed to take my finger out of the splint once an hour to exercise it and keep it from getting stiff (except when I'm asleep, of course). I think I stretched Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-888848752003-02-10T17:49:00.000-08:002003-02-10T17:49:28.826-08:00They took the splint off my hand today, and now each finger is just wrapped in a couple of layers of gauze. The fingers are still stiff, but I have pretty good range of motion. (For instance, I can touch the tip of each finger with my thumb.) And my wrist is moving pretty well. I don't think I can bend it quite as far back as I could immediately before the operation, but I'm sure now that Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-888328612003-02-09T20:42:00.000-08:002003-02-09T20:42:25.163-08:00Twelfth Night today at the Folger. Not my favorite production (although it was never less than competent, and Sarah Marshall was very good as Feste), but my eight-year-old niece liked it, which is the important thing.
The Harmonists is a movie about a group of Jewish singers--well, half of them are Jewish--performing in Nazi Germany. Naziism is an eternally bewildering horror, and this film Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-887834672003-02-08T20:15:00.000-08:002003-02-08T20:15:41.693-08:00I watched O Brother, Where Art Thou?, another Coen Bros. movie, today. I liked it more than Raising Arizona. The hero, Ulysses Everett McGill, is a thoroughly appealling scoundrel with the gift of gab, great heart, and human vanity and weakness. And the folk music soundtrack is great fun.
I also watched Disk 2 of Elizabeth R. This is an entertaining series, not a great one, but it continues Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-887418562003-02-07T20:31:00.000-08:002003-02-07T20:31:33.930-08:00My hand feels better. I'm just taking my regular pain medicine now (albeit in a double dose). I only itch a little under my splint, and I try not to think about that. I'll be glad on Monday when I can get my hand out of the splint for at least a little while, though, and I hope they'll put something lighter on when they see how it's doing.
I've read only one book since the operation, since Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-886288732003-02-05T20:03:00.000-08:002003-02-05T20:03:01.610-08:00My hand surgery was yesterday. Dr. Gunther performed a joint fusion on three fingers on my right hand and a 'soft release' of the index finger (which means that he straightened the finger as much as he could without doing anything drastic). He told me just before the surgery that he might need to graft some bone from my hip, if he couldn't get enough good bone from my fingers.
The Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-885257302003-02-04T03:19:00.000-08:002003-02-04T03:19:47.216-08:00Last night I finally watched the PBS Stage on Screen production of Waiting For Godot that I recorded, er, last year. A little too slow and somber, I thought--Waiting For Godot is meant to be funny, the profundity can take care of itself.
I saw Waiting For Godot live once, on a dark and stormy night. In the middle of the play, there was a loud crash of thunder and the theater went pitch black. Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-885255882003-02-04T03:13:00.000-08:002003-02-04T03:13:05.880-08:00My joint fusion operation takes place in a few hours. Blogging may be sporadic for a while, but I'll try to post an update in the next few days about how I'm doing. My right hand will be in a splint for the next three weeks, but I'm hoping that I'll at least be able to use my thumb.
There was much excitement yesterday, when the hospital called saying I needed to see my neurologist to get a Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-884677732003-02-03T03:56:00.000-08:002003-02-03T03:56:32.583-08:00Last night's DVD was Behind the Sun, a Brazilian movie about a pair of feuding families caught up in a never-ending cycle of vengeance, because they're both obsessed with honor and really, really stupid. It's a pretty movie, but dumb. Not recommended.Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-884122222003-02-01T22:48:00.000-08:002003-02-01T23:49:21.000-08:00The Bush expansion is proposing that rich people be allowed to shelter $30,000 per year in accounts that are like Roth IRA's, but without the current income restrictions. They claim that this will "encourage middle- and lower-income workers to save", which is the most transparent piece of crap they could possibly have come up with--why remove the income limits on the accounts, if they're meant Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-884110462003-02-01T22:15:00.000-08:002003-02-01T22:15:17.220-08:00The space shuttle Columbia disintegrated upon reentry earlier today. While a shock, this didn't hit me with the force of the Challenger disaster. Challenger was something I hardly believed could happen. Once it had happened, I adjusted inside, and deep down in my core I know now that space travel is dangerous and tragic accidents are inevitable.
What I wasn't prepared for was this sentence: "Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-884097042003-02-01T21:40:00.000-08:002003-02-01T21:40:37.850-08:00Cool & Crazy is a documentary about a choir in a small town in Norway, where fishing and music are the only industries. It was all right, but only the music elevated it to that level. The documentary portion of the film was disappointingly un-alien.Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-881989202003-01-28T21:02:00.000-08:002003-01-28T21:02:05.496-08:00I finished watching the first two episodes of Elizabeth R tonight. I really don't know much about that whole period of English history--everything between Richard III and Shakespeare in Love is fuzzy, basically--and this was a good introduction. Events move quickly, with, say, a rebellion lasting only a few scenes, and I find myself wondering about stuff on the story's edge. (Mary Stuart, for Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-881984682003-01-28T20:53:00.000-08:002003-01-28T20:54:57.000-08:00This article is the most depressing thing I've seen on the administration's war plans. A good case can be made that the Iraqi people would be better off without Saddam Hussein, even it takes an invasion to topple him. But the administration is doing their best to undermine that case, first by showing more concern for securing American oil contracts than in promoting a democratic regime, and Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-881973892003-01-28T20:29:00.000-08:002003-01-28T20:29:33.020-08:00Today I had a pulmonary function test and a brief pre-surgery exam. I learned that a taxi to the hospital costs $9.60 (plus tip), and that taking the Metro (via the free shuttle) is $1.10. Also, I have an unusually fast heart rate (110 beats/minute), which isn't reassuring. The nurse said I have "veins people would kill for", which outside of Sunnydale is probably a good thing.
Blood pressureStevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-880368262003-01-25T22:26:00.000-08:002003-01-25T22:30:27.000-08:00XANDER: Y'know, maybe we're on the wrong track with the whole spell, curse, and whammy thing. Maybe what we should be looking for is something like slayer kryptonite.
OZ: Faulty metaphor. Kryptonite kills.
XANDER: You're assuming I meant the green kryptonite. I was referring, of course, to the red kryptonite which drains Superman of his powers.
OZ: Wrong, the gold kryptonite is the power Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-880091502003-01-25T08:43:00.000-08:002003-01-25T08:43:16.086-08:00Weird dream last night. Somebody found a plane crash in the Mississippi River, which contained ballots for George W. Bush from the 2000 election. Right-wing pundits--that is, the "mainstream media"--were going on about how this proved Bush had won a majority in the election, and I was thinking, "Wait, these ballots can't be from Florida, can they? What would they be doing in a plane over the Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-879935672003-01-24T20:54:00.000-08:002003-01-24T20:54:02.096-08:00The Washington Post reviewed Intacto today, which I saw at the Hawaii Film Festival. The premise, that luck is an intrinsic characteristic that can be transferred from one person to another, and that a secret subculture exists in which players gamble to steal each other's luck, is original and has intriguing philosophical richness. The execution, sadly, is not as exciting. Individual scenes Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-879645592003-01-24T09:18:00.000-08:002003-01-24T09:20:00.000-08:00I'm quick to criticize the current administration, so it's only fair to comment when they do something right. SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt (who ostentatiously quit months ago, but hasn't been going anywhere) apparently championed a rule requiring mutual funds to disclose how they cast proxy votes on behalf of their shareholders. There's no obvious reason besides principle for him to do this. The Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-879391422003-01-23T20:43:00.000-08:002003-01-23T20:43:16.833-08:00Tonight's movie was Sabrina, with Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart. An enjoyable light movie. It's nice to see the buttoned-down serious type getting the girl, but it would have been nicer if he knew his own mind. The story was well told, which makes up for a lot.Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-878769702003-01-22T19:08:00.000-08:002003-01-22T19:08:58.020-08:00On Monday, the second anniversary of George W. Bush's inauguration, federal workers stayed home en masse. My old geometry teacher, Mrs. Collins, came by Marie's house and we talked for awhile about the gifted math program in Howard County, which everyone in my family went through and which my two nieces will soon be going through, and other stuff. Quesadillas and salad for lunch. I unwrapped Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-878764842003-01-22T18:58:00.000-08:002003-01-22T18:58:25.243-08:00Gertrude Janeway, the last surviving widow of a Union veteran from the Civil War, died a few days ago. She was 18 in 1927 when she married an 81-year-old veteran.
One widow of a rebel Confederate soldier is still alive.Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-878751232003-01-22T18:28:00.000-08:002003-01-22T18:28:47.066-08:00The Onion: "It makes sense. Those people making money on stock dividends didn't do any work, so why should they have to pay any taxes?"Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-878740322003-01-22T18:06:00.000-08:002003-01-22T18:09:39.000-08:00ANYANKA: You trusting fool! What makes you think the other world is any better?
GILES: Because it has to be.
Two more episodes from my Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 3 DVD's tonight. The quote above sticks with me because of its delivery, utterly weary, the words of a man who has lost every reason to hope, but retains at his core an ineradicable faith that the world can be made better. The Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-878366552003-01-22T04:17:00.000-08:002003-01-22T04:17:36.920-08:00My sister Susan was in town, so I spent the long holiday weekend out in Maryland. I had already given Susan her Christmas presents, but while the rest of the family was shopping for clothes I was wandering around a Barnes & Noble, and Susan decided that she wanted the copy of Salt I picked up, so she got an extra present.
Later that evening I faced the challenge of playing Connect Four with a Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-875982532003-01-17T09:25:00.000-08:002003-01-17T09:25:06.160-08:00Mitch Daniels, the White House budget director, says $300 billion deficits are "modest". In other news, it turns out Ronald Reagan's deficits were so damn humble they qualify for sainthood.Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096839.post-875740462003-01-16T20:56:00.000-08:002003-01-16T20:56:45.350-08:00I'll be going in for hand surgery next month. Those of you who know me know that I have some weird neurological problems, which include finger contractures. Most of the fingers on my right hand have curled inward so much they're basically useless. I'll be having the middle joints fused at about a thirty-degree angle, which should theoretically make them significantly more useful.
It means I'llStevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09873795627624579498noreply@blogger.com