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Performance anxiety
So, at long last, I have my first gig as a solo performer in one month, opening for the A-Sides. And I need a full hour of material.
It’s good to have goals. And deadlines and stress I suppose.
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Three on Iraq
First, there is this depressing report on civilian casualties in Iraq. The numbers are all going the wrong way.
Second is this post from Ross Douthat about the long term impact of Iraq, and how similar wars have affected the US and the British.
Last is this post from the Belmont Club. I haven’t read that site in quite some time (it’s a weird combination of gloom and optimism), but Wretchard does do sweeping phrases well. To wit:
Al-Qaeda, like all the evil vapors of the world through history, inevitably comes to resemble its predecessors. Soldiers of the dark eventually find themselves wearing the same livery. Flowers bloom in myriad ways, but evil, like pornography, is repetitive. It marches to same dull beat that all the Lost of the ages have heard call. Poor men, these al-Qaeda, they who would remake the world in their ostensibly new vision only to find it had been templated long ago by some sad and ancient corruption.
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Sunday link round up
- A creepy collection of suicide notes
- Google used this camera to create their new “Street View” feature (which is not in Atlanta, yet).
- Atlanta mayor Shirley Franklin explains why the lessening of racial majorities is a bad thing for diversity. Really.
- There’s a new, free version of Refactor! specifically for ASP.net. It’s pretty cool. When I installed it it deleted all of my toolbox snippets in Visual Studio, so be careful about that.
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Flying Squads
Unbeknowst to me, before now, the Justice Department sends out teams to fight street level crime in cities around the country. The Yahoo News article lists it’s failures, which are to be expected. It’s hard to see how it could be successful when all of it’s efforts and managements are so insulated from feedback. Sending out federal people to deal exclusively with local crime is a troubling trend.
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Application wanted
Some time ago I read that Bill Clinton (starting in his younger days) would try to meet as many people as possible in a day, and then at night write down the particulars of everyone he met. It would be nice to have some sort of visual web app to do that. It would allow the user to note all of the relevant details about a person, and also visually show his connections to existing contacts, companies and concepts/entities. It can be done manually in Visio, but that’s hardly a workable solution. Does anyone know of any products that do this?
If not, then it goes on the list of stuff to build.
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I bash John Edwards
Everyone should check out this Bob Schrum piece in Time Magazine (h.t. TDAXP).
Edwards had told Kerry he was going to share a story with him that he’d never told anyone else—that after his son Wade had been killed, he climbed onto the slab at the funeral home, laid there and hugged his body, and promised that he’d do all he could to make life better for people, to live up to Wade’s ideals of service. Kerry was stunned, not moved, because, as he told me later, Edwards had recounted the same exact story to him, almost in the exact same words, a year or two before—and with the same preface, that he’d never shared the memory with anyone else.
It’s always sad when people are actually worse than you think they are. Then again, the Edwards’ (sp) have run for president twice while they have young children, which should disqualify them in the first place.
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Thursday link roundup
- Ala. Officials Probe ‘Monster Pig’ Saga
State wildlife officials said Wednesday they want to know how the huge hog dubbed “Monster Pig” got into a fenced hunting preserve where it was chased down and shot to death by an 11-year-old boy.
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weighed 1,051 pounds and measured 9 feet, 4 inches from the tip of its snout to the base of its tail.
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Jamison was hunting with his father and the guides on May 3 when he killed the giant pig. He said he shot the huge animal eight times with a .50-caliber revolver and chased it for three hours through hilly woods before finishing it off with a point-blank shot. - Are you a good liar?
- Microsoft Surface
- Popular Mechanics how to videos
- Ala. Officials Probe ‘Monster Pig’ Saga
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Scientific recognition of my personality
Psychology Today has a Field Guide to the Loner, though not me specifically.
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Guiliani
As my libertarian and libertarian leaning friends have been bringing him up lately, here is a negative portrait of Rudy Guiliani.
And to expand on my bar rant of last night, he would make a great mayor (New Orleans needs one right now), and would probably make a great president if it were the year 1880. However, in our modern age presidents have far too much discretionary power, and pro-choice, thrice married, adulterous Catholics are far too good at living with contradictions to be trusted to keep their promises.
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Quick link round
- Puzzles and Mysteries from ZenPundit
- The Captain America Syndrome at the Washington Monthly. – They don’t actually call it that, but that’s what they’re talking about.
- This seems dirty, but it’s mostly medical. Quite funny though.
- Yet more Stirling engines