The Governator

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What is “amazing for someone that does not come from a political background like myself,” said Governor Schwarzenegger, is that “this line is being drawn” between Democrats and Republicans on climate change. “You say to yourself: ‘How can it be drawn on the environment?’ But it is. But the great thing is more and more Republicans are coming on board for this. Seeing how important this is. And more and more Democrats and Republicans are working together. ... I said in my inaugural address: ‘There isn’t such a thing as Republican clean air or Democratic clean air. We all breathe the same air.’ Let’s get our act together, fix this problem and fight global warming.”

-- Thomas L. Friedman for The New York Times

I think we have been converging, and that global warming is becoming less partisan, as we come in from the extremes of Gore's 'the sky is falling' and Senator Inhofe's 'global warming is a leftist conspiracy.' I am mainly keeping this because I thought the Governator is so cute with this.

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The Governator

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What is “amazing for someone that does not come from a political background like myself,” said Governor Schwarzenegger, is that “this line is being drawn” between Democrats and Republicans on climate change. “You say to yourself: ‘How can it be drawn on the environment?’ But it is. But the great thing is more and more Republicans are coming on board for this. Seeing how important this is. And more and more Democrats and Republicans are working together. ... I said in my inaugural address: ‘There isn’t such a thing as Republican clean air or Democratic clean air. We all breathe the same air.’ Let’s get our act together, fix this problem and fight global warming.”

-- Thomas L. Friedman for The New York Times

I think we have been converging, and that global warming is becoming less partisan, as we come in from the extremes of Gore's 'the sky is falling' and Senator Inhofe's 'global warming is a leftist conspiracy.' I am mainly keeping this because I thought the Governator is so cute with this.

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The Equal Rights Amendment??

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Federal and state lawmakers have launched a new drive to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, reviving a feminist goal that faltered a quarter-century ago when the measure did not gain the approval of three-quarters of the state legislatures.

... The renewed push to pass the ERA, which passed the House and Senate overwhelmingly in 1972 and was ratified by 35 states before skidding to a halt, highlights liberals' renewed sense of power since November's midterm elections. From Capitol Hill to Arkansas, legislators said they are seizing a political opportunity to enshrine women's rights in the Constitution.

... The amendment consists of 52 words and has one key line: "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex." That sentence would subject legal claims of gender discrimination to the same strict scrutiny given by courts to allegations of racial discrimination.

-- Juliet Eilperin for The Washington Post

It's the seventies, again! This was a little morning jolt. I thought this was deader than disco and platform shoes. It just goes to show that you never can tell.

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The Equal Rights Amendment??

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Federal and state lawmakers have launched a new drive to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, reviving a feminist goal that faltered a quarter-century ago when the measure did not gain the approval of three-quarters of the state legislatures.

... The renewed push to pass the ERA, which passed the House and Senate overwhelmingly in 1972 and was ratified by 35 states before skidding to a halt, highlights liberals' renewed sense of power since November's midterm elections. From Capitol Hill to Arkansas, legislators said they are seizing a political opportunity to enshrine women's rights in the Constitution.

... The amendment consists of 52 words and has one key line: "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex." That sentence would subject legal claims of gender discrimination to the same strict scrutiny given by courts to allegations of racial discrimination.

-- Juliet Eilperin for The Washington Post

It's the seventies, again! This was a little morning jolt. I thought this was deader than disco and platform shoes. It just goes to show that you never can tell.

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YAHOO, indeed!

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SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc. plans to offer unlimited e-mail storage to its roughly quarter of a billion users, starting in May, it said on Tuesday.

The world's biggest e-mail service is scrapping its free e-mail storage limit of 1 gigabyte, or about a billion bytes of data, responding to explosive growth in attachment sizes as people share ever more photos, music and videos via e-mail.

... "We are giving them no reason to ever have to delete old e-mails," Yahoo co-founder David Filo said in a phone interview. "You can keep stuff forever."

-- Eric Auchard for The Washington Post

Now, if only they would do away with that three-month rule (or is it one month?), whereby they delete your account if you don't use it in that time. Or at least extend it to a year. Just in case you get disconnected and getting back into cyberspace is not so automatic for you - a very Monk-ish possibiilty.

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YAHOO, indeed!

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SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc. plans to offer unlimited e-mail storage to its roughly quarter of a billion users, starting in May, it said on Tuesday.

The world's biggest e-mail service is scrapping its free e-mail storage limit of 1 gigabyte, or about a billion bytes of data, responding to explosive growth in attachment sizes as people share ever more photos, music and videos via e-mail.

... "We are giving them no reason to ever have to delete old e-mails," Yahoo co-founder David Filo said in a phone interview. "You can keep stuff forever."

-- Eric Auchard for The Washington Post

Now, if only they would do away with that three-month rule (or is it one month?), whereby they delete your account if you don't use it in that time. Or at least extend it to a year. Just in case you get disconnected and getting back into cyberspace is not so automatic for you - a very Monk-ish possibiilty.

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The Dark Arts of Dean Koontz

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There is no denying that Dean Koontz is a master of suspense. He has the art of drawing you in and building your expectations and then playing around with you, and then BOOM! Personally, I don't think Stephen King even begins to compare with him, and to think that I used to labor under the impression that Koontz was just a King wannabe, hah!

Koontz has become a reliable source for me to get my fix for pulp, and you know what a terrible addict Monk has become for this stuff, practically mainlining the drug into his veins. When I'm at the library browsing for my pulp fiction, if I find myself coming up empty, I know that I can stroll into the Koontz section and pick up something high-octane for my needs.

"False Memory" is no exception. It's already becoming a favorite, in fact, though I'm still early days into this thriller page-turner.

Indeed, the diabolical hypnotist is already in Beauty's apartment with his fist around Beauty's throat, thus concluding the chapter. See how he hooks you? It's going to be hard going to my "Israel" reading this morning, but I at least have that much discipline. Besides, I'd feel bad if I gave the whole day to Koontz. That's what the weekends are for, naturally.

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The Dark Arts of Dean Koontz

♠
There is no denying that Dean Koontz is a master of suspense. He has the art of drawing you in and building your expectations and then playing around with you, and then BOOM! Personally, I don't think Stephen King even begins to compare with him, and to think that I used to labor under the impression that Koontz was just a King wannabe, hah!

Koontz has become a reliable source for me to get my fix for pulp, and you know what a terrible addict Monk has become for this stuff, practically mainlining the drug into his veins. When I'm at the library browsing for my pulp fiction, if I find myself coming up empty, I know that I can stroll into the Koontz section and pick up something high-octane for my needs.

"False Memory" is no exception. It's already becoming a favorite, in fact, though I'm still early days into this thriller page-turner.

Indeed, the diabolical hypnotist is already in Beauty's apartment with his fist around Beauty's throat, thus concluding the chapter. See how he hooks you? It's going to be hard going to my "Israel" reading this morning, but I at least have that much discipline. Besides, I'd feel bad if I gave the whole day to Koontz. That's what the weekends are for, naturally.

xXx

More Bad News from the Middle East

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The Saudis are seeking common ground with Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah?? So I gather by reading Jim Hoagland's column. I would think this would be bigger news. If this is true, that civil war is definitely breaking against our interests. And Israel and the West are in some dire straits indeed. But I guess that's life in the Middle East.


(Source: Jim Hoagland for The Washington Post)

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More Bad News from the Middle East

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The Saudis are seeking common ground with Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah?? So I gather by reading Jim Hoagland's column. I would think this would be bigger news. If this is true, that civil war is definitely breaking against our interests. And Israel and the West are in some dire straits indeed. But I guess that's life in the Middle East.


(Source: Jim Hoagland for The Washington Post)

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Stringing Out on Pulp

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Aww, Beauty reveals to her tormentor and ravisher the secret of her video recording - at the very end. That's what I mean by Koontz being able to play with us. It can actually be frustrating, this turning our expectations and emotions into a pretzel. And the only thing you get out of it is being whisked past a few hours of dealing with oneself and one's life, though this is the point and its value, too.

It can make one feel regretful about spending so much of one's life on pulp and this addiction. If only I could feel more interested in the history, which might be still an avoidance of one's own real life, but at least it is substantive and edifying, though this is undercut by the fact that Monk's teflon brain cannot really build anything out of it - in one ear, out the other, so to speak.

There is the thought of going for the higher-brow fiction, such as Joyce Carol Oates' "Rape: A Love Story." It is fiction, it is fun, and it is substantively artful. Even the Nina Zero series is richer. Maybe one can experiment more boldly with trying out substantive fiction, undestanding that it still has to have that page-turning fun about it, such that Charles Dickens is not likely to work, as a particular example, which is a very tricky balancing act. Tom Wolfe's "I am Charlotte Simmons" is an example of a novel that satisfies that test. One can always have the more pulpy stuff on hand when a particular experiment fails.

(A couple of other examples of novels that pass this delicate and tough balancing test are "The Kite Runner" and "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time." These are works that don't merely manipulate our emotions and wow us with their sensationalism. They bring out aspects of our reality in a way that makes us marvel over the wondrousness of our life and world. It is a lot harder to find these, and it is a matter of subjective taste. Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" is another example.)

Meanwhile, the ready adjustment is to spend an extra session with the history at the expense of the pulp, so that the works of a Koontz can retain more of its potency and black magic. An addict always has to recalibrate the dosage in order to retain the edge of his drug. This holds for pop fiction, too.

xXx

Stringing Out on Pulp

♠
Aww, Beauty reveals to her tormentor and ravisher the secret of her video recording - at the very end. That's what I mean by Koontz being able to play with us. It can actually be frustrating, this turning our expectations and emotions into a pretzel. And the only thing you get out of it is being whisked past a few hours of dealing with oneself and one's life, though this is the point and its value, too.

It can make one feel regretful about spending so much of one's life on pulp and this addiction. If only I could feel more interested in the history, which might be still an avoidance of one's own real life, but at least it is substantive and edifying, though this is undercut by the fact that Monk's teflon brain cannot really build anything out of it - in one ear, out the other, so to speak.

There is the thought of going for the higher-brow fiction, such as Joyce Carol Oates' "Rape: A Love Story." It is fiction, it is fun, and it is substantively artful. Even the Nina Zero series is richer. Maybe one can experiment more boldly with trying out substantive fiction, undestanding that it still has to have that page-turning fun about it, such that Charles Dickens is not likely to work, as a particular example, which is a very tricky balancing act. Tom Wolfe's "I am Charlotte Simmons" is an example of a novel that satisfies that test. One can always have the more pulpy stuff on hand when a particular experiment fails.

(A couple of other examples of novels that pass this delicate and tough balancing test are "The Kite Runner" and "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time." These are works that don't merely manipulate our emotions and wow us with their sensationalism. They bring out aspects of our reality in a way that makes us marvel over the wondrousness of our life and world. It is a lot harder to find these, and it is a matter of subjective taste. Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" is another example.)

Meanwhile, the ready adjustment is to spend an extra session with the history at the expense of the pulp, so that the works of a Koontz can retain more of its potency and black magic. An addict always has to recalibrate the dosage in order to retain the edge of his drug. This holds for pop fiction, too.

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