House of the rising Moonglum

Just saw Van Helsing. It gets four Beckets. Stinky but good. It was a combination of every movie ever made. The monster movies of course, but then also Lord of the Rings, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (complete with orc umpa lumpas), Interview with a Vampire, Brazil, X-Men, the Book Frankenstein (as opposed to the movie), James Bond (with Q as Bond’s sidekick), Batman, Aliens, and Star Wars, among others.

And all harems with three wives should have a blonde a brunette and a redhead.

Happy Halloween!

Do you want to help out ACT? (the great organization that helps get voters to the polls that Pam has been canvassing for.) Do you love Salon but are tired of sitting through the ad to read the content? Well now you can get premium while helping a good cause, when you order premium today and tomorrow, they give the proceeds to ACT. You have to use the offer page though, and not just the regular sign up page. And the offer ends tomorrow!

I don’t think anyone who lives in my district even reads this anymore, but oh well. It is time again for the endorsement list. Most of the big ones don’t matter since you already made up your mind on those, it is the judges that I am particularly concerned about. None of them ever get voted out of office, because everyone just votes to keep them. But this is really one of the most important parts of the election that you have a huge ability to affect. From the Trib: “Not one judge has been voted off the bench in 14 years, though several have richly deserved to lose their jobs.”

I’m working off my sample ballot, check out my last post on how to get a different one for Chicago.

So without further ado, the list:

President: John F. Kerry [4] (general principle, see other blog entries for more.)

Statewide:

Senator: Obama [16] (I’ve loved him since I voted for him in Hyde Park. He would be great for our state. Hey, the trib finally endorsed him! One of the few dems for senate they’ve ever done, and an awesome history if you don’t know what he’s done.)
9th District US Rep: Jan Schakowsky [33] (super liberal, but she gets a lot of stuff done for our district.)
13th District State Rep: Larry McKeon [52] (only choice)

(See the Trib and Sun Times and make up your own mind.)

Local:

Metro Water Recliamation:
Gloria Alitto Majewski [64] (all three dems because the reps didn’t run a campaign.)
Barbara McGowan [66]
Patricia Young [68]

State’s Attorney: Richard A. Devine [78] (for his strong stance against wrongful convictions, while bringing 124 fewer murders than last year.)
County Recorder: John H. Cox [88] (one of my few rep. endorsements, running to eliminate the position and fold its duties to the clerk’s office. This would be a great move, IF he actually follows through.)
County Clerk: Dorothy A. Brown [94] (her opponent lacks experience, but she shouldn’t take any more in house donations.)

(See the Trib and Sun Times and make up your own mind.)

County Judges (five openings):
Timothy Patrick Murphy [116] (only one)
Kathleen Marie Burke [120] (only one)
Laurence J. Dunford [124] (only one, what’s going on here?)
Michelle Jordan [128] (Strong record.)
Patrick T. Murphy [134] (only one, no relation to above.)

8th Subcircuit (two openings):
Sheryl Ann Pethers [138] (only one)
Mary Lane Mikva [144] (only one)

Judge Retention:

Yes to all, with the following exceptions, it is noted who didn’t like them:

Dorothy F. Jones (CBA, Trib, ISBA, CLBA, skipped the screening process)
William Maddux (CLBA)
Susan McDunn (CBA, Trib, ISBA, CLBA, lack of legal knowledge)
Dennis Morrissey (CBA, tardiness)
William D. O’Neal (CBA, Trib, lack of legal knowledge)
William Phelan (CLBA)

(See the LGBA, the ISBA, the Trib, and the CBA and make up your own mind.)

And finally I can’t find any information at all about the referendum, I’ll update when I do.

The ballots in Chicago are actually a little confusing. Fortunately you can check one out personalized just for you, AND see if you are registered all at the same time. Just click on the services on the left side and then registration status. As a bonus you get to see the biggest actual content menu I have ever seen (one item for every street in the entire city!). Fun and useful. It also gives you the full listing of wards and districts that you are in, which can be helpful in doing research to figure out who to vote for in the local elections. And it tells you where to vote.

And of course don’t forget to vote.

Keef Richards will be playing Jack’s dad in Pirates of the Caribbean II.

I don’t know how many of you use WordPress as your blog engine, but this post is for you.

Are you having trouble with comment spam on your blog? Did you just get 5000 comments from someone selling fat loss products? Have we got a solution for you! First, if you don’t already know it, check out your wp-config file to get your database name, user name and password. Then from a command line run:


> /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql -u user name -p password
Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or g.
Your MySQL connection id is 6427 to server version: 4.0.20-standard

mysql> USE database name


This logs you into the wordpress database. If you don’t remember what the name of the tables are, use show to find out:


mysql> SHOW TABLES;


One of the tables ends in comments, that is the comment table name. You can see your total number of comments with:


mysql> SELECT count(*) FROM comment table name


Now we can finally get to the fun part. remember the name of that jerk spammer that put all that junk on your blog? BAAALEEEETED!


mysql> DELETE FROM comment table name WHERE comment_author=”jerk’s name”


I told him I’d give him whatfor! Now go and steal me fresh jam!

See, it’s this sort of thing that plays into the fear centers. The Bushies have been playing an orchestra of fear for the past three years to keep us all in line. Hanging out with the University crowd doesn’t let that through, but in much of the country it is effective. I had conversations this past week with a number of otherwise intelligent people who believe that Kerry would be detrimental to our security. This is simply not true. Abandoning our troops while they are fighting out misgotten wars is detrimental to our security.

Even though the first year after 9/11 was totally mismanaged in terms of foreign policy (and thus to some extent security) Bush was “there in our dark hour” so he gets credit for being tough on security. His big win out of the Iraq war, Libya, is still supporting terror and Haliburton is building the oil wells thanks to lifting the sanctions. Oh yeah. Lots safer. And the Saudis are still exporting Wahabbism, but we need their oil. And bin Laden got away because we needed the troops that could have caught him in Iraq. And personal liberties are being reigned in without thinking about the actual security benefits of doing so.

I am just terrified that if there is another attack, the US won’t swing away from Bush, but to Bush, since he is the “security” president, even though much of his post 9/11 policy has made us less secure.

I would bemoan the fact that the American “everyman” is not smart, but if even the policy makers can’t see the logical errors in their decisions, how can people who don’t have a job of thinking about it get it right?

Pictures or Cool, Pictures or Cool?

Thank’s to Mike, my brain is about to explode. I heard that there was a U2 one coming out, which I REALLY don’t need, but then there is one that holds pictures too? Oh my. And the U2 one is just an old one. My poor brain is going to explode.

There is a Cmdr. Swift, who is the court appointed Lawyer for one of the Guantanimo detainees. His argument is basically that the entire set up that the president is using is unconstitutional. Given what I have learned over the past year or so about similar cases in WWII and the Civil War, I have to say that I agree with him. I also think that he is being pretty brave to make that argument in court. They make a comparison to Adams defending the British troops at the Boston massacre. While not exact, I imagine the feelings there are pretty similar.

A call to to keep your chin up from Jon Carroll in the SF Chonicle. He is a great writer, and it reminds us on the one hand that we can’t throw in the towel yet, but also that things aren’t really that bad.

From my mom. Through, I am not kidding you, snail mail. Read in a paper newspaper, photocopied, mailed, found online, posted to a blog. For some reason I find that absolutely funny.

I made the best steak I have eaten in a very long time last night. I don’t normally cook steaks, so this came as something of a surprise to me. Part of it was that the Jewel had shockingly good cuts on the day I went shopping. It was expensive but worth it. Take that good meat and combine the Steak au Poiure from “The Surreal Gourmet” (thus the need for the Cognac the other day) and you get something truly wonderful. The last time I made this was with Pam and Alain if memory serves, and I used tablespoons of pepper instead of teaspoons. Youch! Not so this time. The steak was just pink in the middle, the sauce was to die for, and the flames, oh the flames!

Apparently I am more of a man now than I used to be. According to my wife. We had a good three foot jet of purple and yellow flame from the Cognac. We also have fire insurance. But it was perfectly contained, and put out with the lid from the pan. Sauce was poured and dinner was served. The only better steak I have had was a better cut, prepared more carefully but with no sauce, Morton’s IIRC.

Oh happy day.

Palimpsest

I have seen some Republican calls lately for Catholics to vote for Bush, because Kerry is pro-choice and “pro-gay” (sort of). Well the Vatican has decided that kerry is not a heretic. They haven’t come out yet with a statement on Bush, but it looks bad so far. An example:

“Finally, the President’s persistant “unilateralist” demand that the United States must enjoy a privileged and unique status with respect to the use of force specifically and international law generally raises some concern that he is guilty of the Americanist Heresy (the belief that this country’s special conditions require deviations from universal laws of faith and morals), condemned by Pope Leo XIII in 1899.”

Jon Stewart mentioned that WalMart is building not only in the shadow of ancient pyramids, but also on ancient burial grounds. Apparently they did it in Hawaii. He made fun of their ad proclaiming “their spirit of aloha”, but the scary thing is that they really do have it. One saturday night in Lahue, sue and I mad a quick walmart trip, and it was completely full! It seemed like all the locals went there on Saturday night. I guess they really do have the spirit of aloha.

You know I really like the trib. They have some good international coverage and put some good human side on stories that CNN and NYT often will miss. But I’ve often wondered about their endorsements. It turns out that they have endorsed the republican candidate for president every four years since the 1800s. Apparently this last time really upset some people. Enough so that the editor in chief decided to reply. It is an interesting article, but he doesn’t answer some of the interesting points that he brings up. I really wish that people would be more careful about that (see: the presidential debates). I have to say that his answers leave much to be desired. The endorsement itself is OK, but they miss a major point. They view Bush’s using holding our country in check with fear as strength. If you look carefully at their argument it falls apart, and many of the things they criticize Kerry for would work in his favor reasoning as they did about Bush. I think I’ll stick to the articles which I still find quite good. Of course their local endorsements are much stronger, because the arguments are much more clear cut. But apparently they almost always endorse the republican senator as well. Heh, I wonder if they will endorse Keyes. And their congressional district endorsements are a riot. “Lipinski is endorsed, with the expectation that in 2006 he will have a record to defend in a real election for the 3rd District.” Too funny.

Actually looking at it more, it looks like they are not endorsing anyone for senate…. could that be right?

Did you like him on Crossfire? How about the thinking that led up to it? He was on fresh air and talked up a storm. Including a small bit on how Crossfire is doing a bad thing. Thanks for the pointer Ayman!

Well, it looks like the Republican party in Philidelphia is working hard to secure the African American vote. Or rather, secure not getting it. So, your plan to move 40 polling places in black neighborhoods fails, what to do now? I know, how about saying “It’s predominantly, 100 percent black, I’m just not going in there to get a knife in my back.” I heard that more African Americans were going to vote for Bush this time around. I bet this won’t help that prediction.

This doesn’t seem to be big news though, does this sort of thing happen all the time?

One of the bloggers I read, Omar, while not actually Pro-US, is so pro Saddam not being there that he ends up sounding pretty pro US. (He mistakenly thinks that Kerry will abandon Iraq and so has come out as Pro Bush, but that is another story.) In any case, I’ve never really understood quite why he was so very happy about being invaded. I mean there are bloggers out there who were persecuted under Saddam, and had relatives disappeared, but Omar seems to have been at the top of the heap, and as a doctor, done considerably better than the rest of the country. So, he just left the country for the first time ever. I guess as a doctor you were not allowed to get a passport without some serious explaining and garuntees that you would come back first. Being on top does not necessarily mean being free. The most interesting part of that post for me though, was that when in Jordan, he felt some of the oppression of a totalitarian state again. Coming from the oppressing violence of Baghdad and thinking that Jordan is oppressive. It gives me some hope that Bush hasn’t screwed Iraq up so much that Kerry won’t be able to fix it when he is president. Some of that “at least we’re free now” is still there.

Great quote from Newsweek:

“Bush has governed as a weird combination of Woodrow Wilson, Ronal Reagan — and Walter Mondale. He’s trying to make the world safe for democracy, coddle the right wing, and ladle out the pork. All at the same time.”

And speaking of Newsweek, did you see Zakaria on the daily show last night? I’ve decided that he is Jon Stewart’s equivilent in the real news. Certainly has his opinions about how to do things, but doesn’t keep any sacred cows. And he can be totally funny. Slipping in the casual crossfire reference… And I couldn’t get over Stephen Colbert screaming in the “spin zone”. “None of this is real! You are all lying!”

Me: “I need some booze”

Wife: “Well you walk yourself down to Zaky Means Corner Store”

Awesome.