Hopeless Geek

This is from my mother-in-law about her experience visiting the Obama rally in Corpus Christi, TX.

As my husband, friend, and I were approaching the Obama rally at the American Bank Plaza, I first saw a large group of my female teacher friends leaving. I asked them why they were leaving and they told me that as soon as they got out of their cars they were approached by some women and men who told them that they wouldn’t be allowed in if they didn’t have photo IDs. They were very upset about this. I asked my husband to get my substitute teacher photo ID out of the glove compartment as my friend and I made it through the crowd. We passed many women (we spoke to about 100) who were leaving for the same reason. A typical response was, “We were told not to bring our purses, but no one said anything about an photo ID and that’s where our IDs are.” They were all very upset about the situation.

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From Populist America:

The Protect America Act gives the federal government the authority to monitor American citizens’ phone conversations and e-mails, providing they are corresponding with persons “reasonably believed to be located outside the United States.” This bill, which was drafted mostly by the White House, was created in response to the 2005 scandal where President Bush was ridiculed for authorizing the National Security Agency to conduct a secret wiretapping program targeted at persons within the United States. A federal court ruling found that program to be what most people already believed it to be: unconstitutional.

The Fourth Amendment to the Constitutionstates: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

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bq.. An opinion poll suggests high voter turnout in Iraq has boosted US President George W Bush’s approval ratings.

“‘Sharp rise’ in Bush popularity”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rssⁱ/-/2/hi/americas/4544444.stm

p. Um, surprise? They wanted freedom and democracy? This was in doubt? The dude’s still an ass hat and should be kicked out.

bq.. Twenty-five years ago a law known as Bayh-Dole spawned the biotech industry. It made lots of university scientists fabulously rich. It was also supposed to usher in a new era of innovation. So why are medical miracles in such short supply?

“Fortune 75 - The Law of Unintended Consequences - FORTUNE - Page 1”:http://www.fortune.com/fortune/fortune75/articles/0,15114,1101810-1,00.html

p. Brilliant article about the effects of patent law on the medicine industry.

It you haven’t seen the Aristocrats … well, consider it. It’s a hellaciously good time as long as you have a sense of humor that knows no bounds but if there’s a budding puritan inside you you’ll leave in the first fifteen minutes (as many did).

It’s a romp though the basest parts of the human sense of humor and, in the end, shows just how desensitized we’ve become to some things … or think we have.

bq. “I saw two priests at a bar and I didn’t know if I should give them a drink or a Boy Scout…”

The point of the show is a joke. A single joke. This joke, however, is always improv, is always different, and is easily bombed. It can be five minutes, fifty minutes, or five hours, but it ends with the same phrase: “The Aristocrats!”

bq.. RICHMOND, Virginia (AP) — A rush to purchase $50 used laptops turned into a violent stampede Tuesday, with people getting thrown to the pavement, beaten with a folding chair and nearly driven over. One woman went so far to wet herself rather than surrender her place in line.

CNN.com - Panic ensues in rush for cheap laptops - Aug 16, 2005,

p. There is something very, very wrong with a situation when a four-year-old computer is sold for under a quarter of itsⁱ current value, en masse, and there is no crowd control at all. Even the Apple Store has crowd control when selling a large amount of new products at full retail, much less a quarter of the current value.

Does it take that much more effort …

• to type with capital letters where it matters? Are sentences too difficult a concept?
• to spell out the full word “you”?
• to learn that plural nouns, even acronyms, end with just an S and that possessive or contracted words have an apostrophe?
• to learn that the bastardization of the paragraph to two or three lines was designed for newspapers and that a real paragraph is a complete concept with sentences as complete thoughts?
• to learn to speak your own damned language better than people learning it as a second language?

Field Offices on the Saturday schedule

As of July, 2002, most of the larger DMV offices are now open for Saturday service once a month (usually the third Saturday of the month). This will allow customers who have difficulty getting to an office during Monday through Friday the option of visiting the DMV on a Saturday from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. As part of these new hours, these DMV offices will be closed on the Monday immediately preceding the Saturday service. These offices will open earlier and close later on the Tuesday – Friday of the same week.

Welcome to California indeed. They do, to their credit, include a handy chart to print out and scratch your head at.