BunkBlog

The President’s nominee to head the United Nations kind of hates international cooperation.

In an interview in 2000 on National Public Radio, Mr. Bolton told Juan Williams, “If I were redoing the Security Council today, I’d have one permanent member because that’s the real reflection of the distribution of power in the world.”

Yeah, great way to regain any sort of reasonable approach to foreign relations there.

I’ve decided to stop inundating my site with near-daily posts of the latest in epicurian experimentation. So, here’s the weekly wrapup (didn’t say I was gonna stop sharing entirely, did I?):
French Onion Salisbury Steak with Cheesy Bread – good, but a little too tomato – we’ll try it again with less tomato.
Honey-Sesame Pork Chops – not remotely worth the effort. Smelled great, tasted ok.
Honey Mustard BBQ Chicken – too much curry in the recipe. Next time, no curry.
Chicken Cordon blee burgers – great, yummy, definitely gonna do ’em again.

So, of the four new recipes, one definite keeper and two need modifications. That’s not too bad. I also made the semi-homemade clam chowder again. I likey.

US troops take shots at a vehicle driven by the Italian Secret Service, killing one of the agents that was escorting newly freed journalist Giuliana Sgrena to the airport.

Eason Jordan quit over his comments that suggested anything like this happens over there.

The Democrats introduced an amendment to a bill sponsored by shills for MBNA; the amendment would prevent poor military members from being screwed over by being forced into bankruptcy when they’re deployed and can’t handle their bills properly because they’re being shot at. The Republicans (wrapped in flags at the time, no doubt) shot the amendment down.

Way to support our troops.

Greenspan sounds U.S. deficit warning

bq. U.S. Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan issued one of his toughest warnings yet to Congress yesterday about the danger of letting the country’s giant budget deficits persist, saying “the consequences for the U.S. economy of doing nothing could be severe.”

Well, that’s it. He’s gonna be fired soon. Nobody is allowed to speak ill of Republican deficits. Democratic deficits, those are evil. GOP debt, that’s a patriotic duty.

This is a good description of why I’m building a MythTV box this spring. Of course, it may be illegal to build one by the fall, so I’d better get on it. Maybe I’ll buy an HDTV card for future use, before they’re banned in the USA.

Go innovation!

Previous post on this topic is here.

Concho Online is live. Now, to get more contributors…

If you haven’t seen the Oscar-winning short film, “Ryan”, go see it now. Fantastic. Beautiful. Heartbreaking.

Our new Attorney General sure has his priorities straight. Like his predecessor, Gonzales is making indecency a priority. That worked so well for Ashcroft, who was so bent out of shape about dirty pictures that he completely ignored the whole, “stopping bad guys from blowing up buildings” part of his job. Good to see we’ll get more of the same from the new guy.

First it was Kyoto we backed out of, now it’s the Women’s Rights declaration of the UN. We helped to write both the Kyoto Treaty and the Women’s Rights Declaration; now we refuse to support either of them.

It’s a stupid move, and it’s an obvious grandstanding ploy, as the Declaration is a non-binding statement of principles, not a law or treaty. We can’t even say the right thing anymore?

If you have read the whole book, bold it. If you have read part of the book, italicize it. If you own it but haven’t gotten around to reading it yet, ** it.
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While reading up on CivicSpace, I came across a reference to w.bloggar – a tool I used to update my site when it was a Movable Type blog, but was kind of frustrated by. It seems a lot more polished now, but I can’t help but wonder why I would use this external program to update my site, when I usually am using the “blog this” link on my browser to comment on something I’ve found online anyhow. Oh, and my plugins for LJ synchronization don’t show up in w.bloggar either.

Must ponder more.

That’s what I had in my yard today. On the good side, this should take care of our recurring problems with sewage backups. We had a great tar-and-paper pipe for our sewer, which was apparently commonly used around the time of the Second World War. Our house is probably the last on the block or the city to get it replaced. Joy.

After reading We the Media a few months ago, I came to the realization that San Angelo is most definitely an “underserved” market for local news and views. Like many small cities, we have a couple local television stations (although one is currently in a fight with the major cable provider so almost nobody watches it), and we have one local newspaper. That paper, usually referred to as the SubStandard Times, is so thin on most days it can cause a paper cut with the folded edge. Sunday’s paper is almost the size of the international edition of USA Today. And yet they charge as much or more for that thing as for the Dallas newspaper, also available for local delivery. Our ABC affiliate is from Abilene. So today I read Julie Moos’s article about citizen journalism, and I’m reminded yet again that it would be so easy to set up a site, using a CMS(Content Management System) like CivicSpace to provide a place for all the local people to share information, meet virtually or arrange to meet in reality, and generally recreate the town square of a true small town in this small city.

So, what domain should I use? I’m thinking something with the Concho River in the name, since most of the “San Angelo” URLs are taken. Concho Corral? Concho Online? Hmm…

According to the SciFi Channel, BSG returns this summer for its second season. Hey, if your season is only 13 episodes, it’s not too tough to make two seasons per year, eh?

The “doctor” has left the building.

Finished my homework a day earlier than necessary, played Pirates of the Spanish Main with monkey boy, went to the park until he asked to come home, watched Donnie Darko (brilliantly weird as hell), made barbecued pork loin for all and sundry (a hit), and now off to bed with nekkid woman.

Bonus – tomorrow is a day off.

pointed out something cool, so now I have an Audioscrobbler profile. If you go there, you can see what songs I’ve listened to in WinAmp. Just so ya know, if the songs are listened to during the normal work day, it was some other member of the household playing ’em.