Plowing? What plowing?
Originally uploaded by joeszilagyi
All city streets are ice and packed snow. I don’t think Seattle even HAS plowing, but why would we? This happens every 18 years.
Uh oh
Originally uploaded by joeszilagyi
From his interview with Barbara Walters:
“When people are pulling down hundred-million-dollar bonuses on Wall Street, and taking enormous risks with other people’s money, that indicates a sense that you don’t have any perspective on what’s happening to ordinary Americans. When the auto makers are getting paid far more than their counterparts at Toyota, or at Honda, and yet, they’re losing money a lot faster than Japanese auto makers are, that tells me that they’re not seeing what’s going on out there, and one of the things I hope my presidency helps to usher in is a, a return to an ethic of responsibility.
That if you’re placed in a position of power, then you’ve got responsibilities to your workers. You’ve got a responsibility to your community. Your share holders. That if — there’s got to be a point where you say, ‘You know what, I have enough, and now I’m in this position of responsibility, let me make sure that I’m doing right by people, and, and acting in a way that is responsible.’ And that’s true, by the way, for members of Congress, that’s true for the president, that’s true for Cabinet members, that’s true for parents. I want all of us to start thinking a little bit more, not just about what’s good for me, but let’s start thinking about what’s good for our children, what’s good for our country. The more we do that, the better off we’re going to be.”
Thanks again, to the President that took our good name and utterly ruined it globally. Thanks again to the complete fools that elected this fool, who was completely and utterly unqualified to run a baseball team (which he failed at) let alone a world superpower. January 20th can’t get here any sooner.
Only took 32 years and a civil rights movement happening to coincide with it, but some of my work is finally in print, sorta. The Stranger used three of my photos November 20, 2008 edition, on the “Anatomy of a Protest” (click for the online version) article on page 16. It’s in the free news boxes now all over the Seattle metro area, and the photos are from my Prop 8 Seattle protest photos. Silly little thing, but it made me happy.
I joined in today at the rally at Volunteer Park in Seattle, Washington, which then became a march across Capitol Hill, down Pine Street, and finally into a huge celebration and second rally at Westlake Center. I guestimated about 10,000 people, and am seeing estimates online now of 6,000-9,000. It was amazing, and a strong nationwide civil rights action. There were protests and actions in nearly all major American cities, it looks like. These are my photos:
Prop 8 protest Seattle
Originally uploaded by joeszilagyi
Must be 10,000 people here, about to march
Update: Photos here.
I don’t know if I like this. I need to see the whole episode… the characters seem down-pat, for what they should be, and I like the art and animation, but I can’t tell if the old-school vibe is a put-on or homage…
Via Warren Ellis, you should read this. Warning: some comic, television, and Quantum of Solace/Bond spoilers.
First “photos” ever of extrasolar planets. This is made if extra awesome. I wonder what the intelligent design people will have to say about this. Or when Gort arrives, on December 12th.
Thank you, Amazon, fom sparing me from lines with your discount pre-ordering. This should be waiting for me when I get home tonight:
How is it my home state gets things right, while California gets it so wrong? Did the church money overlook Connecticut?
“It shows me that public opinion is really changing,” said Robin Levine-Ritterman, the first in line at City Hall in New Haven to get a marriage license with her partner of 17 years, Barbara, who already shares the same last name as a result of their prior civil union, as she clutched red roses.
The official start of gay weddings, a month after the state’s top court struck down a gay-marriage ban, underscores a steady expansion of gay rights in the U.S. Northeast in sharp contrast to California’s November 4 vote to ban such marriages, which sparked weekend protests by thousands.
Government by proposition, referendum, and initiative is great up to a point–but sometimes you need a neutral and bipartisan judiciary to tell the people crafting illegal and unconstitutional laws, well, when they’re crafting illegal and unconstitutional laws.
Brian Krebs, who does a tech blog here for the Washington Post, apparently got word that McColo, a big hosting provider/ISP in San Jose, California, was responsible for “75% of all spam” in the United States. This guy tracked down all of the information, and then brought all that info to the backbone carriers for McColo (a backbone, or carrier, in simple terms is the ISP that gives your ISP connectivity. What happened? McColo is history–they’ve been shut down by everyone and as far as the Internet today goes, no longer exists. Since spam is such big business, I wonder how long until Krebs gets targetted for some kind of retaliation? That was an act of balls of brass–read that article.
So far, so good. A fantastically accessible walkthrough and overview of quantum physics.
The concept of additional spatial dimensions is as far from intuitive as any idea can be. Indeed, although Harvard physicist Randall does a very nice job of explaining—often deftly through the use of creative analogies—how our universe may have many unseen dimensions, readers’ heads are likely to be swimming by the end of the book. Randall works hard to make her astoundingly complex material understandable, providing a great deal of background for recent advances in string and supersymmetry theory. As coauthor of the two most important scientific papers on this topic, she’s ideally suited to popularize the idea. What is absolutely clear is that physicists simply do not yet know if there are extra dimensions a fraction of a millimeter in size, dimensions of infinite size or only the dimensions we see. What’s also clear is that the large hadron collider, the world’s most powerful tool for studying subatomic particles, is likely to provide information permitting scientists to differentiate among these ideas soon after it begins operation in Switzerland in 2007. Randall brings much of the excitement of her field to life as she describes her quest to understand the structure of the universe.
How does this work? The Church moved to import millions (tens of millions?) of advertising dollars across state lines from Utah to California to ensure Proposition 8 and the banning of marriage rights for same-sex couples passed, and they’re upset now that others are using their free speech rights to protest the free speech that the Church used. That’s only extremely hypocritical, boys. Did the Churches honestly think they were exempt from scrutiny and criticism here…?
It is disturbing that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is being singled out for speaking up as part of its democratic right in a free election.
Members of the Church in California and millions of others from every faith, ethnicity and political affiliation who voted for Proposition 8 exercised the most sacrosanct and individual rights in the United States - that of free expression and voting.
While those who disagree with our position on Proposition 8 have the right to make their feelings known, it is wrong to target the Church and its sacred places of worship for being part of the democratic process.
The Federal Reserve is refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans from American taxpayers or the troubled assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.
Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in September they would comply with congressional demands for transparency in a $700 billion bailout of the banking system. Two months later, as the Fed lends far more than that in separate rescue programs that didn’t require approval by Congress, Americans have no idea where their money is going or what securities the banks are pledging in return.
This is lovely. I can see the value of not naming to the general public which banks are receiving the money–it would be an invitation to have runs begin on those banks. But to refuse to name them to lawmakers, who need to know these things? And to refuse to name non-banking institutions that received the public money? Uh uh, no way. The Bush administration again oversteps it’s bounds, and provides further demonstration of how they run America as a tinpot dictatorship.
The Mars Rover has died, and the mission has been terminated. NASA denied reports of a giant robot’s involvement and sounds of “transforming metal” playing any role.
So Andi has me watching reruns of Almost Live!, an comedy show that ran locally in Seattle from the 1980s to the 1990s. It’s got some famous alumni, like Joel McHale, who is now The Soup on E!. This bit kills me. May be not be as funny to folks not living in or from Seattle:
November 6th, 2001 is the day I married my amazing wife, my best friend in the world. Six years, darling. I love you so much. Happy anniversary.
We stopped for lunch after accidentally walking about 20 blocks.
Sent from my mobile phone.
Hotel room of the now
Originally uploaded by joeszilagyi
Sent from my mobile phone.
On our way to Portland
Originally uploaded by joeszilagyi
Sent from my mobile phone.
We’re off to Portland for two evenings, for our wedding anniversary tomorrow! No laptops! No internets! No elections! Yay! Let’s see how long I last before flooding the place with a flickr cameraphone assault…
The America which Obama described in his speech–that is the America that my parents told me about when I was young, after they came here. That was and is my home.
Good night, America.
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