A clever Man

One night, 22 years ago, Leonard Bernstein showed up at Harvard in a cape and said that if 15 students and 2 bottles of Scotch were present, he would speak.

He did, and you should read it.

It will take a little time, but it's fascinating and oddly prescient.

Ooooooo Shiny..

I will willingly admit that I am a trekker. Despite Voyager and even Enterprise. So when I saw these items I got excited. Wall socket plate covers. Sweet, and pretty cheap over at ThinkGeek.com

The not fun part...

This was what I did the day after the election. The tiny Wellington Obama for Ohio office needed to be cleaned out and I found myself scraping this window for 2 hours on an unseasonably warm day.

It was in short, actual work. Something I try to avoid whenever I can.

It was, I suppose a kind of... allegory? A symbol of what's to come. For all the effort to get a new President, when the election is over, the REAL work begins.

Steampunk Con in California

Rossana and I flew out to San Jose to check out the Steampunk scene and see if it's a viable business avenue. We brought along Brass goggles, tshirts and some props but no corsets.

This was a first year con at a small boutique hotel. The hotel was modern, which didn't help the atmosphere but it was comfy. Our room was right on the main floor and no more than a stones throw from the dealers room. You have no idea the schlepping we normally do at a show. It was a joy to get dressed, step out our room door and sit down for breakfast, then walk a few steps and open shop. Heaven.

The con itself was well run and fairly well attended. The thing i loved was how different it felt. Lots of very different and creative costumes. The dealers room was actually interesting to walk through. The people we fun to chat with.

The big event was to have been the inaugural flight on board Americas first passenger Zeppelin in 70 years. Alas, when we arrived the weather was drizzling and the flights were canceled. It was a real bummer.

While there we ate at an Afghan restaurant and it was a delight. The food was amazing and I would encourage you to try it if the opportunity presents itself.

I greatly enjoyed the event. We made enough in sales to pay for the trip and got a lot of cool ideas. They've move the date next year so I don't know if we'll be able to make it. But with luck the East coast will come up with a steampunk con by then.

Here are some pics for you to check out.

A short moment of gloating...

A gentleman would accept the victory of Barack Obama with a quiet pride and humility.

Thankfully I am an American and am thus allowed to be an ass on occasion.

Please understand that I have never been a gloater. Never. My parents raised me well, with a respect for other peoples feelings. Gloating does not come easy to me.

But when you consider the sea of bullshit that we've had to wade through this past year, it seems only fair that a little bit of gloating be allowed. I have no wish to gloat over friends of mine who may be conservative. Most of my conservative friends fall under the 'small government/ socially liberal' heading. And that's fine.

I'm talking about gloating over the smug pundits and talking heads. The Rush Limbaughs, Karl Rove's, Sean Hannity's and Michelle Malkins. The gibbering assholes and self satisfied pricks who declared Obama simply could not win. The ones who just made shit up and went on endlessly about his lack of qualifications even while puting Sarah Palin up as VP with a straight face. The dicks who found deep connections between Obama and Willian Ayers while just skipping over the part where America gave Saddam Hussein chemical weapons technology. The ones who screamed Obama was a Socialist and a secret muslim and was unfit to hold the office because he didn't wear a fucking flag pin.

They never stopped gushing about the great war hero who was in fact a shitty Naval Academy student, a drinker, a womanizer, a gambler and a piss poor pilot who after returning from Vietnam cheated on and then dumped his wife in exhange for a rodeo beauty queen heiress.

Then he went into politics and spent the past few years kissing the ass of George Bush and towing the party line. THIS was the Republican maverick (tm) who at 72 would with an idiot sidekick save our nation? The fact that he came anywhere near the number of votes he did is a testament to how stupid a lot of Americans are.

And yet the kid who grew up raised by a single working mother and his grandmother, overcame the stigma of mixed race, studied hard, advanced himself, went to Harvard on scholarships, led the Law Review and rather than going into private practice worked in the poor communities until running for the Senate. THIS guy was the goddamned anti-christ!

I've read some stories recently that indicate Palin might have been even dumber (or at least less prepared) than stated by the kool aid drinking advisers stated she was. If you read through the comments threads you will often see this:

"It's over now, why don't we just move on?"

No. We do not just fucking move on. That's the kind of stupid thinking that keeps us from learning from our mistakes. Sure we'd feel better just to not think about the past eight years of bullshit, but we wouldn't learn anything. Remember the saying "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it." Yeah. That's why I am all to happy to continue disecting the rotting corpse of the Bush administration.

And I suppose that's why I feel okay doing a little gloating. Not a lot. There's actually work to be done. But a little.

Brisk baby...

As seven pm rolled around yesterday I started to feel that familiar knot in my stomach. I'd felt it four years ago too. It was much worse then, when I stayed up till 4 am watching the election results, feeling literally sick. Things were looking better yesterday, but that knot of anxiety was unavoidable.

Rossana and I finished another day of canvasing for our little hometown Obama office. The first day the power steering cut out on the minivan making the experience a lot like wrestling a schooner in rough seas. Yesterday was much easier. Drove out to Lagrange twice to deliver voter information. Then we went home.

By seven thirty I had to do something other than stare at the online election tickers. I went out to the shop and started cleaning up. They I started organizing paint cans. I checked the clock. 10pm. Things should be happening. But when I came inside I forgot that the shop clock wasn't yet adjusted for daylight savings yet. It was only nine.

Crap.

Watched some non-election tv and had some pie. When Ohio went for Obama I called my brother in Texas.

"We didn't fuck it up this year!" I yelled to hoots on the other end, then tuned in to the Daily Show special, occasionally flipping back to CNN.

Then, in a flash, it was over. John Stewart called for Obama. Rossana looked stunned, I suppose I was too. I flipped over to CNN just to make sure it wasn't a joke.

It wasn't.

It was then that I began to take off my clothes. When I got to my socks my wife raised her eyebrows. "What are you doing?"

"I promised that if Obama won I'd run a victory lap around the pond naked" I grabed a flashlight and put my shoes on.

"You did?"

"Indeed."

"It's pretty cold out there." she remarked.

"I am sure I will be quite aware of that very shortly."

"Don't bother the deer".

And off I went.

We did it.

Ohio did not f#ck it up this time.

Facial Experiment

A few weeks ago I decided to try a new look. With the upcoming Steampunk Convention I wanted to try a more old style beard. So for the first time in god knows how long I shaved part of my chin.

The results weren't bad, but I didn't like the overall effect. But before I started to grow it all back I took a few pics for posterity. What do you think?

Looking at the source...

It's been interesting to hear McCain and Palin go after Obama for his 'association' with Bill Ayers. There seems to be a constant back and forth about how much Obama associated with  "terrorist" Ayers.

The answer seems to be that he had very little to do with Ayers. Not that this fact will stop the more excitable members of the conservative base from frothing about the 'sekrit muzlim and his terrist buddies'.

But who is Bill Ayers? It's off to wikipedia! Go there now and learn.

While the accuracy and neutrality of wikipedia  is sometimes called into question I learned a lot about this fascinating man that I didn't previously know (and that isn't even mentioned in the media).

What  strikes me is that Ayers has always had, and still has a strong drive to provide quality education. He is a teacher. In the 60's he was motivated by his conscience to  do something about the Vietnam War. Part of that action was planting bombs.  His girlfriend was killed in a bomb making accident.  He considered himself a "little c communist" but insisted that he wasn't a terrorist: 

. "The reason we weren't terrorists is because we did not commit random acts of terror against people. Terrorism was what was being practiced in the countryside of Vietnam by the United States."

I'm not sure I would give him a total pass on the terrorism charge. Bombs cause fear, even when they don't specifically target people directly. The IRA would plant bombs and then call the police so they could clear and area, but they are generally agreed to be a terrorist group.  What Ayers did was take his struggle to stop an illegal, unjust and brutal war too far. He did some stupid shit.  Pundits and spinmiesters today are 'quoting' Ayers saying "wishes he could have bombed more" though it seems pretty clear that what he actually said was that 'we' (meaning all Americans) could have done more to try and stop the Vietnam War. 

Like many people in the world Ayers has contrasting elements. He is not a caricature. I urge you to do a little reading on the matter. As always there are layers. Things are not quite black and white. 

What seems pretty clear is that Obama is no protege' of Ayers. They aren't pals. They share no political agenda. But if we're going to start judging people by the company they keep, I would look at the people a certain 72 year old politician pals around with; starting with a guy who lied to get the war he wanted, allowed prisoners to be tortured in secret prisons, engaged in warrantless wiretaps, attempted to suspend habeus corpus,  presided over the biggest increase in government and the worst financial disaster on the past 70 years. 

THAT'S the kind of guy you should be distancing yourself from. Too bad he was your president.

A bit of fun...

My mum just emailed this to me. Enjoy.

A cowboy named Bud was overseeing his herd in a remote, mountainous pasture in Montana when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of a cloud of dust towards him.
The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, RayBan sunglasses and a YSL tie, leans out the window and asks the cowboy, 'If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?'

Bud looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, 'Sure, why not?'

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Singular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location, which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.

The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany.

Within seconds, he receives an e-mail on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses an MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with e-mail on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response.
Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP Laser Jet printer and finally turns to the cowboy and says, 'You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves.'
'That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves,' says Bud.

He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on amusedly as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.

Then Bud says to the young man, 'Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?'

The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, 'Okay, why not?'

'You're a Congressman for the U.S. Government,' says Bud.

'Wow! That's correct,' says the yuppie, 'but how did you guess that?'

'No guessing required,' answered the cowboy. 'You showed up here, even though nobody called you. You want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. Then you tried to show me how much smarter you are than me. And you don't know a darn thing about cows...this is a herd of sheep.

'Now give me back my dog.'

They eat their own...

If you've never heard of the late William F. Buckley you should poke around the internets or youtube to see examples of the mans writing and style. He was a noted conservative and if there's one thing you can say about the man it's that he was intelligent, very well spoken and had a great style. He had a rapier wit. I am not a devotee of his, nor do I think I would agree with him on many points but you have to admit its sometimes fun to see him work. Listen to him and you realize that todays talking heads and GOP surrogates are like a pack of howler monkeys.

His son Christopher, who also has a great deal of style, hell the man wears a fedora, has written a column for the National Review (a conservative magazine founded by his father) for some time but when he stated on his personal blog that he was going to vote for Obama his 'friends' turned on him like school of pihranna. Apparently his views were much sought after, until he made a choice that went against conservative dogma. He offered his resignation, which was quickly accepted. Quoting Ronal Reagan he said "I didn't leave the Republican party, it left me."

The last few weeks have seen lots of Republicans trying to distance themselves from McCain ( or rather George Bush). I don't blame them. Their party is being shot in the foot over and over by McCain. The biggest wound being the choice of Sarah Palin. Many undecided and a number of moderate Republicans are going over to Obama.

This is leaving an increasingly vocal and slightly unhinged group of die hards. The people who still insist the GWB is doing a heckava job. These people just cannot admin that their party and their president could be wrong. EVER.

Me? I've learned that it's wise to know when you are wrong. To be able to admint a mistake and to learn from it. These people? Not so much.

How do you say Trekker in German?

Found this neat video on youtube of a german Sci-Fi convention. I am impressed. Awesome costumes, lots of energy and lots of Jaggermeister. 

I don;t know if this is a typical con over there, but it looks like a lot of fun.

It's time...

After sitting back and watching as little men from little parties bark at each other I have decided that I cannot STAND anymore.

Therefore I have decided to throw my hat into the political arena. And by hat I mean a grenade.

President? BAH!! Steven Pack does not want your puny presidency! Steve Pack will be your

GOD-EMPEROR in '08

Think I'm mad?? Possibly. But click the link above to see how I am already spreading my message.

Things will be different under my all powerful administration. Very different.

The Big One

You may remember there was a bit of a kerfuffle about warrantless wiretapping a while back. Essentially, the government said that they needed to be able to intercept terrorist communications and to do that they needed the help of the phone companies. The phone companies agreed, without FISA court approval and eventually Congress gave them immunity for this breach of the law and public trust.

Nice.

But it was all okay, because we weren't really monitoring all those phone calls. We weren't listening in to people private communications. We were going to look at the HUGE number of calls made to and from the US from "Bad Guy" countries and once we had SOMETHING we would listen in. 

This, strange as it seems, makes a kind of sense. Filter the raw data. Apply some logic to it. And you might just get lucky and track down the bad guys. And George Bush could have actually pushed this through with America firmly behind it if had been A) Smart and B) Honest.  But he isn't and he wasn't. Like everything else he did he tried to cover it up with lies and BS. 

And there's the fact that unchecked surveilance powers is ALWAYS abused. Period. It doesn't matter what the law says or what your mandate or mission profile states. If you give people the power to listen into phone calls, they will. And they did. 

Now the denials begin. And again, some low-level NSA flunkies will get the axe. No one at the top had ANY IDEA this was being done. "We follow the law". Which we've heard before, haven't we?

Supposedly the program did help prevent some IED attacks, which is what it was supposed to do. But how much time was wasted listening to phone sex and monitoring Red Cross workers? I wonder how much dirt was collected on various political and military leaders? 

If you're not furious, you're not paying attention.

Fear not citizen!

Remember, if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide. Sure we placed 53 peaceful anti-death and anti-war protestors on a TERRORIST WATCH LIST, but that doesn't mean we did anything wrong, does it?