Changing Places

The real reason Shrub wants to misuse the National Guard (again!) now – Bush’s failure to properly fund the Border Patrol in the first place.

What a schmuck.

Bush budget scraps 9,790 border patrol agents / President uses law’s escape clause to drop funding for new homeland security force

Bush budget scraps 9,790 border patrol agents
President uses law’s escape clause to drop funding for new homeland security force

- Michael Hedges, Houston Chronicle
Wednesday, February 9, 2005

Washington — The law signed by President Bush less than two months ago to add thousands of border patrol agents along the U.S.-Mexico border has crashed into the reality of Bush’s austere federal budget proposal, officials said Tuesday.

Officially approved by Bush on Dec. 17 after extensive bickering in Congress, the National Intelligence Reform Act included the requirement to add 10,000 border patrol agents in the five years beginning with 2006. Roughly 80 percent of the agents were to patrol the southern U.S. border from Texas to California, along which thousands of people cross into the United States illegally every year.

But Bush’s proposed 2006 budget, revealed Monday, funds only 210 new border agents.

The shrunken increase reflects the lack of money for an army of border guards and the capacity to train them, officials said.

Retired Adm. James Loy, acting head of the Department of Homeland Security until nominee Michael Chertoff takes over, said funding only 210 new agents was a “recognition that we need to balance those things as we go on down the road with other priorities.”

The White House referred questions about the border agents to the Homeland Security Department.

The law signed by Bush had a caveat that went virtually unreported at the time. A summary, published by the Senate Government Affairs Committee, required the government to increase the number of border patrol agents by at least 2,000 per year, “subject to available appropriations.”

Democrats were unhappy that the proposed budget used the escape clause so soon after the president approved the huge boost in border agents.

“We know we must do more to shore up security along our borders,” said Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, top Democrat on the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. “The president’s budget does not even attempt to meet this challenge.”

Some Republicans also were displeased.

“This is an area of homeland security that needs to be ramped up in order to increase surveillance and patrols of our nation’s vast and often remote borders,” said Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, chair of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

A Jan. 24 letter signed by leading Republican lawmakers implored the president to fully fund the new law “in order to secure our borders against infiltration by terrorists.”

The lead signer was Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and a leader of GOP efforts to toughen immigration laws and anti-terrorism statutes.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there – hope everyone was good to you.

My husband and sons remembered me for Mother’s Day (after a bit of prompting), before taking off – my older son to a role-playing game and husband and younger son to do computer parts shopping.

Normally, I would like being alone on mother’s day, weird as that seems. I enjoy spending time alone, though, and the hectic feel of weekends with everyone here is actually a bit stressful sometimes. Even today, there were the arguments between husband and older son.

But, today is a bittersweet mother’s day for me, having lost my own mother a couple years ago. For years and years after my dad died, I could barely stand father’s day, and now my feelings are similar towards mother’s day – it’s just a reminder of loss in a way. I try to remember the good stuff, but – underneath, there is a feeling of sadness.

But, in truth, the mother who remains within us is always alive:

The valley spirit never dies;
It is the woman, primal mother.
Her gateway is the root of heaven and earth.
It is like a veil barely seen.
Use it; it will never fail.

– Tao Te Ching, 6

Life continues with beauty and determination. Those are the gifts I will remember from my mother.

Thanks, Mom.

Sigh… if only….

Crooks and Liars

“Saturday Night Live,” opened their show tonight with Al Gore addressing the nation as if he was the President of the United States. Gore was focused and quite funny in this entertaining spoof of the current administration and their long range of failures. He also struck back at the media (update: when they claimed he said he invented the ‘internets’) by saying that he invented an “Anti-Hurricane and Tornado Machine.”

Video-WMP Video-QT

He touched on immigration, oil, the Middle East, judges and a host of other topics that have divided our country since Bush took office. I did enjoy GWB leading the charge to clean up Baseball’s steroid problem: “But I have faith in baseball commissioner George W. Bush when he says, “We will find the steroid users if we have to tap every phone in America!” Do you have a favorite line?

Here’s a link to their homepage so show them some love.

(rough transcript by reader Steve)

Announcer: And now, a message from the President of the United States.

President Al Gore: “Good evening, my fellow Americans. In 2000 when you overwhelmingly made the decision to elect me as your 43rd president, I knew the road ahead would be difficult. We have accomplished so much yet challenges lie ahead.

In the last 6 years we have been able to stop global warming. No one could have predicted the negative results of this. Glaciers that once were melting are now on the attack. As you know, these renegade glaciers have already captured parts of upper Michigan and northern Maine, but I assure you: we will not let the glaciers win.

Right now, in the 2nd week of May 2006, we are facing perhaps the worst gas crisis in history. We have way too much gasoline. Gas is down to $0.19 a gallon and the oil companies are hurting. I know that I am partly to blame by insisting that cars run on trash.

I am therefore proposing a federal bailout to our oil companies because- hey if it were the other way around, you know the oil companies would help us…read on”

Chinatsu Ban

From Rising Hegemon

From last nights gong show quality Larry King, Randi Rhodes poses a question to young freeper radio host Ben Ferguson:

FERGUSON: Randi, I have friends in Iraq, OK?

RHODES: Listen, you should be in Iraq. You’re 22. When I was 22, I was in the military. Why aren’t you there?

FERGUSON: I’m 24 years old.

RHODES: Why aren’t you there? Then go.

FERGUSON: And just because I support something doesn’t mean I have to always go fight.

RHODES: You go. You go. Go ahead. You go and then you come back because you know what happens when we come back?

FERGUSON: I support the Yankees doesn’t mean I wear their uniform.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it’s that sense of logic that will help us start and not prevail in any number of wars in the future if people vote GOP!

Support Operation Yellow Elephant!

This Modern World

Heh.

The (Mis)Behaviour of Markets: A Fractal View of Risk, Ruin and Reward by Benoit Mandelbrot and Richard Hudson

Benoit B. Mandelbrot, one of the century’s most influential mathematicians, is world-famous for making mathematical sense of a fact everybody knows but that geometers from Euclid on down had never assimilated: Clouds are not round, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not smooth. To these classic lines we can now add another example: Markets are not the safe bet your broker may claim. In his first book for a general audience, Mandelbrot, with co-author Richard L. Hudson, shows how the dominant way of thinking about the behaviour of markets–a set of mathematical assumptions a century old and still learned by every MBA and financier in the world–simply does not work.

As he did for the physical world in his classic The Fractal Geometry of Nature, Mandelbrot here uses fractal geometry to propose a new, more accurate way of describing market behavior. The complex gyrations of IBM’s stock price and the dollar-euro exchange rate can now be reduced to straightforward formulae that yield a far better model of how risky they are. With his fractal tools, Mandelbrot has gotten to the bottom of how financial markets really work, and in doing so, he describes the volatile, dangerous (and strangely beautiful) properties that financial experts have never before accounted for. The result is no less than the foundation for a new science of finance.

Everyone is wondering what happened to the market the last couple of days. Well, markets being fractal, they tend to be volatile. This book by Benoit Mandelbrot attempts to explain why, and how today’s traders are living dangerously if they ignore the real risks of the marketplace.

Worth a read, if you’re wondering how the market went down so quickly…

The Examining Room of Dr. Charles: Torches and Pitchforks

A *particular HMO*, which is a subsidiary of a big *health insurance company*, sent me a letter some time ago. It announced an arbitrary change to what they were willing to pay me for a pediatric well child visit. For a 30 minute office visit they were willing to compensate me with 10 dollars. Let’s count those dollars, with wide eyes and anticipation ― one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten!

You remember the physical your mom used to drag you to, during which the doctor made sure all your shots were up to date, screened you for any kind of developmental problems you might have, awkwardly talked to you about safety and sex and drugs and how to stand up to bullies, asked about your diet and exercise, made sure your family history didn’t put you at risk of anything, measured your height and weight and plotted them on a chart, listened to your heart for any murmurs that might one day harm you, listened to your lungs for wheezing that might slow you on the soccer field, checked your skin for moles that could turn into cancer someday, pressed on your belly to check on your liver and spleen, and… well you get the idea.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten! Sweet!

The government redistributes some of your tax money in the form of Medicaid dollars to private companies like United Health Group. They are “farming out” Medicaid these days, outsourcing it to private industry. Maybe the idea is that the free market coupled with lean, mean HMOs might save everybody money in the long run. It doesn’t. The National Bureau of Economic Research concluded that government mandates requiring Medicaid beneficiaries to switch to HMOs do not improve the efficiency of the Medicaid program, mostly because they lead to substantial spending increases with no demonstrable quality improvements. Where does that increased money go if I’m getting 10 dollars?

I was so intrigued by this most recent pay cut that I decided to check out the top brain of the *health insurance company*, figuring its CEO must have taken a cut, too. After all, that would only be fair, since his company needs to discount the 100 dollars a thirty-minute, comprehensive pediatric history and physical deserves to only $10.

I typed “ceo of *particular health insurance company* salary” into Google. I pressed enter. A list of links came up. I scanned them. I learned the name of *particular health insurance company’s* CEO. He’s been in the news, a lot lately, I guess. According to Forbes Magazine he personally made at least $124.8 MILLION in 2005. But that was just milk money compared to his $1.5 BILLION in stock options. Let’s count: one, two, three, four…

globeandmail.com : Shiller sees U.S. rally cutting out

Stock markets are still expensive, and investors could be in for an unpleasant surprise once corporate profits begin to weaken, says the Yale University economist who predicted the crash of 2000-2002.

Robert Shiller, whose 2000 book Irrational Exuberance became a bestseller for its gloomy but accurate forecast, said the current equity market rally is reminiscent of the mid-1930s rebound that followed Wall Street’s great crash of 1929. The Dow Jones industrial average tripled over four years between 1933 and 1936 — only to plunge once again in the runup to the Second World War.

Mr. Shiller said the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index is still valued at about 27 times earnings — far below the bubble-era peak of 46 but still well above the long-term average of about 15. Those numbers are based not on last year’s earnings but on a 10-year average of profits.

“I think we could have a number of disappointing years,” the economist said in an interview yesterday with The Globe and Mail. “We see earnings growing rapidly, but I feel skeptical about [the sustainability of] that.”

Via Calculated Risk. See here for more discussion….

I’m calling my husband Tom on his cell phone tonight since he’s up in Los Angeles at E3 until tomorrow. That’s all. So you don’t need to keep watch on my phone calls tonight or anything. Night night, sir!

(I think we ALL should tell the President whenever we’re making a call – that database thingie has got to be just so much trouble for him to keep track off, don’t you think?)

UPDATE:

Apparently, 63% of Americans SUPPORT fascism. Go figure.

A majority of Americans initially support a controversial National Security Agency program to collect information on telephone calls made in the United States in an effort to identify and investigate potential terrorist threats, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The new survey found that 63 percent of Americans said they found the NSA program to be an acceptable way to investigate terrorism, including 44 percent who strongly endorsed the effort. Another 35 percent said the program was unacceptable, which included 24 percent who strongly objected to it.

UPDATE UPDATE:

Yet one more reason I love Russ Feingold:

This Administration’s arrogance and abuse of power should concern all Americans. That the government may be secretly collecting, and using data mining to analyze, the phone records of millions of law-abiding Americans, as reported in the press today, is a frightening prospect. I am unaware of this program, and Congress needs to find out exactly what the Administration is doing and whether it is legal. It is time for the Administration to come clean with Congress and the American people. We can effectively fight terrorism and protect privacy, the rule of law, and separation of powers, but only if we have a President who believes in these principles. – Russ Feingold

Yum. I got them at Costco, but apparently you can get them online. They are packed in a retort pouch, kinda like MREs. So you can cook them in boiling water or in a microwave-safe bowl. They don’t need to be frozen or refrigerated, though, and apparently have an 18 month shelf life.

A lot better than those camping meals or MREs if you’re like us and keep a “bug out” kit around. (For earthquakes and wildfires, in our case.)

TastyBite.com

Tasty Bite food is all-natural. It remains fresh for 18 months without preservatives or refrigeration.

It’s all in the technology we use.

The food is cooked and filled into a uniquely designed multi-layer retort pouch. The pouch is then sealed and the food inside is sterilized, using very high heat and pressure. The sealing and the construction of the pouch ensure that no bacteria or other degrading factors can impact the food. This process also ensures greater retention of the food’s original aroma, texture, nutrients and flavor.

The retort pouch-packaging concept was actually developed by the Apollo Space Program. So, when we say state of the art technology, we also mean space age technology – we thought you’d enjoy this little fact.

It’s just not FAIR! Nobody has fun like this in San Diego. And check out those cool artist names – I just feel so deprived! I want to be in SF, where I can feel depraved!

Hummph.

Burning Man: Black Rock City Year Round: Special Events: Fire Arts Exposition

Experience this quintessentially San Francisco art experience, an exciting and incendiary exhibition of innovative and inspiring fire art! Ranging in nature from meditative and quietly interactive to spectacular, high-tech and utterly indefinable – these featured works of art and choreographed fire performances are pushing the boundaries of art internationally. Please join us for this landmark event as the City of San Francisco provides a forum to recognize artists working in this exciting and unique medium!

Artists Scheduled To Appear: Xeno, Vau De Vire Society, Therm, The Flaming Lotus Girls, Nate Smith, Jack Schroll, Christopher Schardt, SaDa Fuego, Pyro Spectaculars!, Pyronauts, Primal Fire, Meghan Pike, Nocturnal Sunshine, The Nekyia, Los Sueños del Fuego, Roger Lai, Laird, Marisa Lenhardt, Karl Nettmann, mN8Fx, Alan Macy, Loyd Family Players, Robert Kilpatrick, Scot Jenerik, InterKonnected, Hunter, Bob Hofmann, Flame Gypsy & Sexy Bitch, Justin Gray, Wally Glenn, Gamelan X, Charlie Gadeken, Orion Fredericks, Liquid Fire, Richard Friedberg, Fire Arts Collective, The Crucible, Coven Fire Troupe, Marque Cornblatt, Controlled Burn, Bill Codding, Paul Cesewski, Vance Cearley, BomTribe, Bad Kitties, members of the Burning Man Fire Conclave, and more!

Via MAKEblog.

But don’t worry about these people being in charge of national security, or anything….

Meet the new head of national security…

Via DKos….

Presidential Papers Found In Trash, Worker Finds Details Of Bush’s Fla. Trip Hours Before His Arrival – CBS News

A public sanitation worker in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday found a thick stack of papers with nearly every detail of President Bush’s trip to Florida on the floor next to a big trash truck.

The documents offer the exact arrival and departure time for Air Force One, Marine One and the back up choppers, Nighthawk 2 and 3, as Washington CBS affiliate WUSA-TV first reported.

The documents also list every passenger on board each aircraft, from President Bush to the military attaché with the nuclear football. A spokesman traveling with Mr. Bush in Florida confirms the report and says officials are still trying to learn more about the papers, CBS News White House correspondent Peter Maer reports.

Sanitation worker Randy Hopkins told WUSA-TV reporter Bruce Leshan that he could not believe what he was seeing when he discovered the presidential schedule.

“I saw locations and names and places where the president was going to be. I knew it was important. And it shouldn’t have been in a trash hole like this,” Hopkins said.

The documents also offer the order of vehicles in the President’s motorcade, Leshan notes.

Chain of fools….

Chain, chain, chain, chain, chain, chain
Chain, chain, chain, chain of fools
Five long years I thought you were my man
But I found out I’m just a link in your chain
You got me where you want me
I ain’t nothing but your fool
You treated me mean oh you treated me cruel
Chain, chain, chain, chain of fools

TPM Muckraker May 8, 2006 11:33 AM (Printable Format)

Hayden, President Bush’s pick to replace Porter Goss as head of the CIA, contracted with MZM Inc. for the services of Lt. Gen. James C. King, then a senior vice president of the company, the sources say. MZM was owned and operated by Mitchell Wade, who has admitted to bribing former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham with $1.4 million in money and gifts. Wade has also reportedly told investigators he helped arrange for prostitutes to entertain the disgraced lawmaker, and he continues to cooperate with a federal inquiry into the matter.

King has not been implicated in the growing scandal around Wade’s illegal activities. However, federal records show he contributed to some of Wade’s favored lawmakers, including $6000 to Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA) and $4000 to Rep. Katherine Harris (R-FL).

Before joining MZM in December 2001, King served under Hayden as the NSA’s associate deputy director for operations, and as head of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency.

King worked at NSA Headquarters in Ft. Meade, Maryland, in 2004 and 2005, both sources told me. “King was out there working on same floor as Hayden,” one former employee with firsthand knowledge of the arrangement said. “He was doing special projects for Hayden as an MZM employee.” Neither former employee knew details of King’s work for Hayden; one said he thought he was doing “special projects” for the director, while the other speculated it was “high-ranking advisory work.”

The garden is blooming all over right now, but this rose is one of the most unusual ones I grow. It is called “Hot Cocoa”, and I just love the color, which is pretty much the color of the trim on my house and the color of my garage door. This photo actually makes it look a bit pinkish, but it is actually a deep dark burgundy color. There is something about deep, saturated colors that really appeals to me.

This was our day at the beach with the San Diego Golden Retriever Meetup group – 50 goldens and their owners! It was a blast!

Very cool tree spirit art photography!

TreeSpirit Project

In and around trees once again, many feel they are a part of something bigger as people often do at the ocean or under the night sky. Sometimes the photograph seems to be an excuse to have fun or an adventure in nature again. People feel moved to climb, dance, swing or recline in a tree. Some share stories of how they love to sit under one special tree, or how they spent time in trees as children. Held naked in the sky by a tree’s limbs, excited yet humbled, feeling fully alive, people overcome old fears, or reclaim confidence in their bodies, or simply enjoy safe human community in nature. Some have a personal and powerful experience difficult to put into words.

I feel honored and blessed to document these gatherings because I have found a way to share my love of trees and my lifelong passion for being outside among them, in quiet surroundings, under the sky or the stars, feeling the sun, the wind, the rain, the cold. And a larger purpose has emerged unexpectedly, at once social, spiritual, and environmental.

—Jack Gescheidt

Jonathan Coulton » Mandelbrot Set

Pathological monsters! cried the terrified mathematician
Every one of them is a splinter in my eye
I hate the Peano Space and the Koch Curve
I fear the Cantor Ternary Set
And the Sierpinski Gasket makes me want to cry
And a million miles away a butterfly flapped its wings
On a cold November day a man named Benoit Mandelbrot was born

His disdain for pure mathematics and his unique geometrical insights
Left him well equipped to face those demons down
He saw that infinite complexity could be described by simple rules
He used his giant brain to turn the game around
And he looked below the storm and saw a vision in his head
A bulbous pointy form
He picked his pencil up and he wrote his secret down

Take a point called Z in the complex plane
Let Z1 be Z squared plus C
And Z2 is Z1 squared plus C
And Z3 is Z2 squared plus C and so on
If the series of Z’s should always stay
Close to Z and never trend away
That point is in the Mandelbrot Set

Mandelbrot Set you’re a Rorschach Test on fire
You’re a day-glo pterodactyl
You’re a heart-shaped box of springs and wire
You’re one badass fucking fractal
And you’re just in time to save the day
Sweeping all our fears away
You can change the world in a tiny way

Mandelbrot’s in heaven, at least he will be when he’s dead
Right now he’s still alive and teaching math at Yale
He gave us order out of chaos, he gave us hope where there was none
And his geometry succeeds where others fail
If you ever lose your way, a butterfly will flap its wings
From a million miles away, a little miracle will come to take you home

Also be sure to check out Chaotic Utopia’s Friday Fractal.

Chocolate Deities

Yin Yang

There is always light in the dark-–
the stars!
There is always dark within the light –the welcome shade of a tree!

The seed for one is planted in the other.

Under Heaven (Yang)
we have Earth (Yin)
The plant grows (Yang).
It flowers (Yin)

Interplay.
The theater of Life

Change is ALL that one experiences.
Presence in absence. Fleeting. True.

With a Chocolate Yin Yang, if a day feels a little too much Yin,
take a bite of the white chocolate. And, of course, vice versa.
The “seeds” are especially potent.

And when you finish this Yin Yang, you are ready to begin another!

In the flow of life.

Deborah Lippmann, A friend of mine from high school has started her own line of nail care products after years of being a “manicurist to the stars”. And now, she’s becoming a star in her own right, recording her first CD. I am extrordinarily proud of her!

Of course, I also feel a bit of creative envy. I was taking voice lessons here recently for a bit, but, I just don’t feel the need to continue. I’m not sure exactly why. I suppose much of it is the effects of studying Tao, and realizing how little need I have for extrernal recognition any more. Or perhaps I’m just really lazy. I don’t think there is any real fear involved, although it’s possible.

And yet, there is that twinge of envy for someone doing something so cool. I love music and it is a huge part of my life. I just figured out years ago I didn’t want to make a career of it. But I listen to so much of it, just went to hear Peter White and Richard Elliott yesterday, in fact, at a concert in Temecula. I love jazz, and I love that Debbie has put together this very cool jazz CD. Perhaps it is simply another path I didn’t explore, and wonder what might have been.

Anyway, it’s a really wonderful CD, and the nail care products are pretty sweet too. Check ‘em out at The Lippmann Collection. And Debbie – congrats for following you path. Beautiful job, girl.