Mind Vomit by the ikss ~ a journal
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Friday, Aug. 15, 2003Frivolity, government Fuck-Ups and the Friday Five
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�Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead�
-Lucille Ball
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
--Theodore Roosevelt, 1918
REGISTER TO VOTE
"The time is always right to do what is right"
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
"The "seven social sins": Knowledge without character,
Science without humanity,
Wealth without work,
Commerce without morality,
Politics without principles,
Pleasure without conscience,
Worship without self-sacrifice."
--Gandhi
"We have not inherited the world from our forfathers -
We have borrowed it from our children."
--Kashmiri, proverb
1. How much time do you spend online each day?
My computer at work has the net turned on pretty much all day (about ten hours, five days a week). However, I don�t actually look at it the whole time, so it�s hard to say. What I will say is that I don�t turn it on once I get home.
2. What is your browser homepage set to?
Mynetscape.com
3. Do you use any instant messaging programs? If so, which one(s)?
Nope.
4. Where was your first webpage located?
I think it was ikss.wbs.net�it was a poetry page I set up when I used to chat on a network called WBS (which was sold to Go networks who fucked it all up). Man, I loved WBS. After it went bye-bye, I looked at a variety of chatting options, but never liked any of them as much. Anyway, when WBS was sold to Go, my page was gone.
5. How long have you had your current website?
2 years, 3 months
~~~
Midday Shutdowns Disrupt Millions
By JAMES BARRON
A surge of electricity to western New York and Canada touched off a series of power failures that left parts of at least eight states in the Northeast and the Midwest without electricity.
-NY Times Headline, 8/15/03
Mason and our Credit Analyst, Kim got stuck in New York yesterday, as they were out there visiting some of our customers. Luckily, they have a place to stay and didn�t spend last night sleeping at the airport.
I must say I am greatly impressed by the fact that there was little-to-no looting (at least not in the U.S. I guess there was some going on in Ottawa, Canada) or violent crimes being committed. I vaguely remember the blackout of 1977 and how much rioting was going on. It was scary. You New Yorkers have shown one hell of a lot of fortitude and heart in the last few years, boy howdy. It�s encouraging.
~~~
So I got high last night�with my boss! Hey, it was his idea. I did put up a semi-righteous defense for a few seconds before I gave in. I know I should have felt uncomfortable with the scenario�but I really didn�t.
BN & I went to dinner at the Yard House, which was great fun. We had some really yummy food, a few drinks�actually, I had five. And I wasn�t drinking the cheap stuff, either, which would explain why I paid $120 for our meal last night (it was my treat, because she took me out last month). Anyway, since we were eating as we drank and since I don�t get drunk off of vodka easily, I was barely even tipsy afterward.
So anyway, we�re leaving the restaurant and decide that we want to go out somewhere else. BN, being in love, called The Little Big Man to see if he wanted to go out with us. So we drove over to his house, presumably to pick him up. However, his ailing mother was not breathing well, so he didn�t want to leave. So Instead we all hung out in the bedroom, getting high.
It�s a strange world in which I live.
~~~
I am getting such a positive reaction to my fundraising efforts! It�s great and rather motivational, I must say. Not just the money I am raising, but the encouraging things people have been saying to me. :) Of course, I also keep hearing people�s breast cancer horror stories, so it�s been an emotional couple of days around here. Most of the people at work who are donating, though, have given me checks. Therefore, their dollars won�t show on my donation web page for a while.
Anyway, keep in mind that we all have approx. three months to fit a donation in to our budget. Also, keep in mind that there are a number of payment options, including spreading your donation over a ten-month period.
Just some helpful hints for ya�ll.
~~~
So tonight I�m going to spend �Happy Hour� with Sondra and Amy. Amy has the next week off, before she gets back to her grueling work and school schedule, so tonight we shall celebrate her first night of vacation with free food and cheap drinks.
Tomorrow morning I am going on a walk, since I missed last night�s training in favor of not-free food and not-so-cheap drinks. And mota. Afterward, I may go shopping; I may just clean my apartment, which is in dire need I must say.
Sunday I am going to my parent�s house, as are a few of my family members, and we are supposed to all go out to lunch somewhere. Then Sunday evening is a long training walk (approx. 10 miles).
Fascinating life I lead, isn�t it?
~~~
And now, I leave you with this cheerful little article, which appeared in exactly one US news outlet, The New York Post. Remember all of the �POWs� we�ve been holding in Guantanamo Bay since the beginning of the war in Afghanistan, having not charged any of them with any crimes? You don�t? Don�t worry. Apparently not even the military remembers they�re there.
Article rescued by The Memory Hole.
US says it doesn't know how many detainees in Cuba
Reuters, 12 Aug 2003, 11:21 AM
SAN FRANSISCO - The US government said today it had neither an exact count nor all the names of hundreds of people captured in Afghanistan over a year ago and now detained at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.
US government lawyers made the disclosure during a court hearing in a case on behalf of Falen Gherebi, a Libyan national believed to be in US custody in Cuba.
In May, a US District Court said it did not have the authority to consider whether Gherebi was being held lawfully and remanded the matter to an appeals court.
At the appeals court hearing on Monday, the planned debate over the government's right to hold Gherebi dissolved into a more basic discussion over whether the US government even had kept complete records on the people being held.
"They won't let him out and they also won't tell us if he's there," said Stephen Yagman, a lawyer for Falen Gherebi's brother, Belaid Gherebi, a San Diego resident, who has sued to get his brother legal representation. "This is crazy. This is just nuts."
Yagman complained that the government has stonewalled such requests on behalf of Gherebi and other detainees by maintaining ignorance as to who exactly it had in custody.
A panel of appeals court judges hearing the case on Monday expressed shock about the apparent lack of record keeping on a group of hundreds of people, possibly including some children, who have been in custody for 577 days.
"It strikes me as astonishing that the government says they have no idea whether this gentleman is or is not being held," one said. "Don't you even keep records?"
Government lawyers responded that while they had attempted to keep records, they were incomplete because some of those who were arrested had not co-operated with authorities. They said that translating the names from Arabic to English had created further problems with spelling.
After scanning a list for names similar to that of Falen Gherebi, the lawyers said: "We think we have him but we're not sure. We can't confirm it 100 per cent."
The US government, which maintains the people being held are all dangerous individuals with connections to terrorists, has argued that the court does not have jurisdiction to rule on the legal rights of these people, since they are being held on foreign soil, in Cuba, on land that is only leased to the United States.
article copyright 2003 Reuters
~~~
Word of the Day for Friday August 15, 2003
cognoscente kon-yuh-SHEN-tee; kog-nuh-; -SEN-, noun;
plural cognoscenti -tee: A person with special knowledge of a subject; a connoisseur.
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