Elderbear's Den

May 1, 2004 -- Exactly one year ago, on May 1, 2003, Pfc. Jesse A. Givens of Ft. Carson, Colo., was killed when his tank crashed into the Euphrates River in Iraq. He was 34. His company had been deployed to Iraq less than three weeks earlier.

A letter arrived a few weeks later for his family -- pregnant wife Melissa and young son Dakota. Pfc. Givens had written an emotional and touching "goodbye" letter to be opened only if the worst happened. About the time the letter arrived, Melissa gave birth to their second son, Carson.

Today, as NPR's Jeff Brady reports, Melissa Givens and her sons are still struggling to cope with the loss of a husband and father. While other soldiers from Ft. Carson have returned to an area dotted with "welcome home" signs, she's had to teach her youngest son about his father with photographs and mementos.

# posted by Elderbear : 08:49
 
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Welcome to Bonfire of the Vanities, Volume 43! While this bonfire may be short a few timbers, it is highly combustible. Enjoy …

Elderbear’s Den has a half-way through review of John Dean’s Worse than Watergate — “This is what happens when low blood sugar allows one’s gut reactions to get the best of their principles. Bush and Cheney should not be executed, merely imprisoned for life without parole, held with the others at Guantanamo, under the same conditions—no club fed!”

# posted by Elderbear : 08:33
 
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1. My age now is the product of a prime and a perfect square.


2. If you sum the digits of my current age, they add to a perfect cube.


3. At my next birthday, my age will also be the product of a prime and a perfect square.


4. At my last birthday, my age was a prime number.


5. CHALLENGE: If my current age forms one side of a pythagorean right triangle, how long would the other sides be?


6. CHALLENGE: Using only the digit “1” and any arithmatic operators, what is the shortest expression needed to represent my current age? I've been able to do it with 5 ones and a few operators. If you don't understand the problem, here's an example:
   
For example, if I were 16, one could write 11+(1+1)*(1+1)+1 = 16, but (1+1)^(1+1+1+1) is shorter.

   

• + addition


• - subtraction


• * multiplication


• / division


• x%y the remainder of x/y


• ! factorial


• ^ exponentiation

# posted by Elderbear : 03:56
 
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I came across some startling images on a little know German web site called Fotos. The photographs were taken in Iraq during the early stages of the war, and provided an unsanitised view of the Allied military presence in that country.

# posted by Elderbear : 09:14
 
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The 184-nation International Monetary Fund and World Bank wrap up their spring meetings with a pledge to focus on the need to support and enhance education, especially for women, in the developing world.

# posted by Elderbear : 08:35
 
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Man, there just isn’t any form of deception these assholes won’t employ to get you to come by their websites. I just got one today which had the subject line: OSAMA BIN LADEN CAUGHT! The message body basically says the news is on CNN (which it isn’t) and the person sending you the email has loads of pics with video to follow soon at a URL that’s an IP address as (opposed to text) in a subfolder named “pics” so you don’t have an reason to suspect it’s spam (which it is).

# posted by Elderbear : 00:35
 
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It's Over

Call me premature, but there’s no hope for anyone or anything in Iraq. In the oft-touted struggle for the exportation of democracy to Iraq, the government has done a fine job in replacing a single, secular, regime with a horrible human rights attitude with hundreds of religious regimes with horrible human rights attitudes. I know it wasn’t supposed to turn out like this. I know it’s only been a year, but when is enough enough? Is enough 1,000 American dead, an 5,000 wounded? Or is it 10,000 dead and 50,000 wounded? It’s easy to talk about resolve and “staying the course” when the course is 18 holes long, the resolve is a job milking cows or framing houses, and the closest thing anyone gets to blood on their hands is a bit of newsprint ink...

Which brings me to what another Vietnam veteran, a man for whom I have the highest respect, said. “After my experience in Vietnam was over, I looked back and thought, ‘If nothing else, at least we as a nation have learned something from this.’ But now, when I read the news, I see the exact same reasons and hear the exact same justifications for the war in Iraq. And I know we have not learned anything.”

# posted by Elderbear : 17:46
 
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NAPLES, Fla. (Reuters) - President Bush on Friday stood by an order that no more photographs be released of flag-draped coffins returning from Iraq, a restriction critics say is aimed at sanitizing the war for the public....

Bush has come under fire from Democrats for not attending a single funeral of the soldiers killed in Iraq.

# posted by Elderbear : 17:22
 
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I concluded with the gist of Carlyle's idea of war as a quarrel between two thieves, themselves too cowardly to fight, compelling boys of one village and another into uniforms with guns in their hands and then letting them loose like ferocious beasts against each other.

# posted by Elderbear : 16:20
 
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April 21, 2004

Friends,

I just got word that my new film, "Fahrenheit 911," has been selected by the Cannes Film Festival to premiere there in competition next month!

This is only the second time in the last 48 years that a documentary has been chosen to be in the main competition (the first being "Bowling for Columbine" in 2002) -- and, in fact, another documentary has also been chosen for this year. The non-fiction film revolution rolls on!

I am deeply honored by this announcement, considering it comes from our mortal enemy, the French.

This year's jury in Cannes is headed by Quentin Tarantino and also includes director Jerry Schatzberg, Kathleen Turner, Tilda Swinton and others.

"Fahrenheit 911" will be in theaters across the U.S. (and the rest of the world) this summer. More info, gossip and all the juicy details to follow...

Thanks everyone for your support.

Michael Moore

# posted by Elderbear : 01:36
 
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• A Picture's Worth: Amazing photography site. Stirs deep stuff within my soul viewing these images. Not only images, but short essays about them, by the photographers. Lots of beauty in a time of political ugliness.


• transphormetic: A wonderful work of mathematical genius. Cold, hard equations that create visually beguiling and enthralling images. Interactive. If you miss this one, you'll be left with 42 as the answer to the ultimate question about life, the universe, and everything.

# posted by Elderbear : 01:13
 
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# posted by Elderbear : 01:06
 
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One technical objection, not a big one, but perhaps worth mulling philosophically: I do not "agree" with your theme of "creeping fascism," since I really don't believe that fascism can creep, but it's really a question of semantics, not your theme to which I object. Repression can creep, and =is= creeping: groundwork is being systematically laid for more and more repression, and that's dangerous, I agree. But whether this repression will result in "fascism" awaits to be seen. Because "fascism" is a total system, with some very specific defining characteristics. Once it is here, we would not be writing blogs like this, we would not have the freedom to do so, there would be immediate retaliation I think. So my main objection is that when people throw the term "fascism" when they are referring to anything generically repressive, it dilutes the meaning of the term, and -- I fear -- may be like crying "wolf," making people become blase, think "same-old same-old" repression, and so not recognize the real danger of the identity and totality of fascism until too late...

still, it's a catchy phrase, and I doubt "creeping repression" would resonate as well . . .

This machine kills fascists

# posted by Elderbear : 14:48
 
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What caught me, however, was what I did hear within the hour. Anyone else in another job would have been fired for this kind of rank stupidity. The phrases I kept hearing the most were:

"My opinion is..."
"Not that I recall..."
and
"No one told me to do anything."

This is the last one that caught me the most. No one told me to to do anything. WHAT?! No one /told/ you to do anything? Is it really the job for the National Security Adviser to sit around and WAIT for people to tell her to do things?

Anyway, gimmicky as that chart may seem, there really is no reason to use IE in this day and age unless you're forced to, either by circumstances at work or just because you were born a masochistic Microsoft crony, or because some of the following reasons:

You've never heard of Mozilla Firebird - "The Best Browser, Bar None". Yes it may sound corny and somewhat unbelievable, but take my word for it - it's true.

Thanks to Torontonian AllSeasons for providing this simple list:

Peanut Butter
Canned Fish
Baby Formula
Mac & Cheese
Cereal & Bread
Soup
Pasta & Sauce
Rice
Fruits & Vegetables

It's the list of suggested items on the brown paper bag from the local food bank. "Your grocery list is someone else's wish list" it says above the list.

Speaks for itself.

Tomorrow's my birthday. I'm not sure how I feel about that. When I was a kid, I dreamed about growing up. Now that I'm well into adulthood, I can't figure out the attraction that growing up had on me back then. Somebody once said that childhood is wasted on the young. If so, then adulthood must be payback time.

This is what I do every year, mark the occasion by fretting. I fret my way through celebrations and special occasions. I tend to see the clouds for the silver lining. Or, as I like to say, how can you possibly appreciate the rainbow if you don't get struck in the ass by lightning first?

...

Missing your own birthday party! That's a little bit how I felt when Bush was anointed president.

Six out of 10 Americans say the Bush administration underestimated the threat of terrorism prior to Sept. 11, 2001, and nearly two out of three are at least somewhat concerned Iraq could become another Vietnam, according to a Newsweek Poll released on Saturday.

# posted by Elderbear : 23:22
 
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Globalisation and the US pose a more serious threat to the world than war and terrorism, according to a BBC poll. Corruption came second on a list of the biggest problems facing the world, the survey of BBC viewers worldwide found.

Conflicts - war and terrorism - ranked third, with 50%, followed by hunger, 49%, and climate change with 44%.

BBC World asked 1,500 viewers of its news and international channel for the biggest problems in the world with 52% saying the US and globalisation.

Respondents from Europe, Asia, North and South America, the Middle East, Africa and Australasia, ranked the power of the US and large corporations as the biggest worry (52.3%).

# posted by Elderbear : 14:49
 
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Calling Google Bombing "cybergraffiti" as the New York Times does is appropriate. Google did have good listings for this query, for the few who were probably doing it before this prank emerged. Now, Google appears happy for this blogging campaign (and now new ones) to spray paint whatever it wants above more relevant listings.

• The miserable failure search that returns George Bush's official Whitehouse biography. Now that right thinking people (but wrong thinking from my perspective) have figured out this little trick, Jimmy Carter's biography and a bunch of Hillary Clinton pages have also moved high onto Google's ratings. Carter may not have been the most effective president we've ever had, but shame on you for branding him a “miserable failure!” What president has done more for humanity after he left the Whitehouse than Jimmy? If you can't admire his Habitat for Humanity work, then you are a Miserable Failure as a Human Being, and at best have learned to dress yourself and not mess in the house!



• Then there's the classic Weapons of Mass Destruction — not found spoof. Worth a laugh over a year since it first hit the top of Google. And we still haven't found them! Bush lied! Nothing new about that, politicians frequently distort truth like Silly Putty. Bush's lie got us bogged down in an unnecessary war, costing hundreds of American lives, thousands of Iraqi lives, Billions of dollars, and our international good-will and credibility. When the Hague gets done with Slobodon Milosevich, perhaps they can begin a war crimes trial for George W. Bush.



• I'm not certain if this is a Google Bombing exploit, or just a page that illustrates how to write a website to rank high on Google's list. Search for Jew, and the top ranked page is (I won't give them the dignity of linking to them or naming them and thus consolidating their Google ranking) an anti-semetic conspiracy theory group.

# posted by Elderbear : 11:35
 
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You are a GRAMMAR GOD!


If your mission in life is not already to
preserve the English tongue, it should be.
Congratulations and thank you!


How grammatically sound are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

# posted by Elderbear : 02:35
 
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Don’t let word of that gun get around, though, because some leftist moonbat might decide it’s just the weapon for taking out Bushitler…who, if Elderbear is to be believed, made it to the White House only due to an eeeeevil Skull and Bones plot.

Oh, I see…you think that was stupid, do you? Well, if you think that was bad, you might want to hang on to that link—you’ll need it to cleanse your palate after you read this bit of cranial infection courtesy of Brian Noggle (who, along with this guy, needs to take the first step and admit he has a problem).

In case you didn’t pick up on it, that Skull and Bones post was an April Fool’s joke. A joke which, um, sucked.

The Left That Was demanded not the symbolic image of the “broken rifle”—so very much in vogue these days in pacifist boutiques—but the training and arming of the people for revolutionary ends, solely in the form of democratic militias. A resolution coauthored by Luxemburg and Lenin (a rare event) and adopted by the Second International in 1906 declared that it “sees in the democratic organization of the army, in the popular militia instead of the standing army, an essential guarantee for the prevention of aggressive wars, and for facilitating the removal of differences between nations.”

Homeland Security Notice: I didn't pen those words, nor did I endorse taking up arms against the government, nor did I endorse the revolutionary overthrow of the government. I merely cited Murray Bookchin—and this constitutes both “fair use” and “protected speech.”

# posted by Elderbear : 10:13
 
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A rabbi, a Unitarian Universalist minister, and a Wiccan priestess

# posted by Elderbear : 09:54
 
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One of the most remarkable aspects of the current downturn is that total wage and salary income (inflation adjusted) has not risen at all in the last three years. Moreover, the total wages and salaries generated by the private sector have actually fallen by 1.7%. Meanwhile, domestic profits grew by 57.5%. In other recent downturns total wages and profits grew in tandem, with total wage and salary income up by 3.7% over a comparable three-year period and domestic profits up by 12.6%.

# posted by Elderbear : 19:11
 
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America's largest corporations are less likely to face an Internal Revenue Service audit this year than at any time in the past decade.

Average taxpayers are not so fortunate.

Audits of individual tax returns have climbed 37 percent from 2000 to 2003, while audits of corporations have fallen 26 percent over the same four-year period. Corporations with assets of more than $10 million have seen a drop of nearly 23 percent.

# posted by Elderbear : 18:57
 
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Do you think its possible for a man to be free in present day America?

HST: Well, it depends on who it is. I'm doing pretty well. I don't know about you. I have a feeling it's going to be more of a struggle than its been for a while.

AB: Why's that?

HST: Look around you. The military state we're being sort of formed into--shit, I wrote about this last night, I forgot what I said. The military structure--did you read the book I just wrote?

AB: Yeah. Kingdom of Fear. I thought it was a very apt title.

HST: Yeah, more so than I realized when I came up with it.

AB: What do you think the think of how the Bush Administration is cracking down on civil rights?

HST: The Bush administration is a heap of Nazi shit. Bullshit. Yeah, you can put it that way. I don't know what your audience is ready for.

# posted by Elderbear : 19:37
 
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There are a lot of people out there who are inclined to laugh at this candidate. A few do so because they genuinely find him laughable, but most do it because they see him being laughed at in the news media. In this country we generally take our cues about whom we can safely laugh at from the mainstream press, and for the most part we laugh at the weak, the earnest, the sincere, the emotionally vulnerable. We laugh at people who are fat and ugly or who work as temps or at McDonald's because none of us want to admit that we're not the ripped six-pack guy on the cover of Men's Health, or a member of the Sharper Image target market. We're cowards, afraid of admitting to being who we are, and we laugh at people on the margins to avoid being identified as outsiders by the remorseless center.

It's the same with politics. Over and over again we have been told, in a million different ways, that a certain kind of idealism is actually childish weakness, and that the only pragmatic way of approaching life upholds force and commerce as the chief engines of social organization. That is why we laugh at people who use words like peace and community but praise as tough, responsible leaders anyone who's willing to drop the most mother-of-all bombs on defenseless foreign populations. We laugh at a person who uses the word peace for the same reason that we laugh at the person who works as a temp or at McDonald's: because we're afraid of being lumped together with him. We're afraid of being the proverbial punchline to the proverbial Dennis Miller joke about John Lennon and Joanie Baez and that goddamn Cat Stevens song, "Peace Train."

I will never forgive America for what Dennis Kucinich went through this year. Because he has had the audacity to call for an end to all wars, to announce plans for the creation of a Department of Peace, to question the very culture of viciousness and intolerance and crass commercialism that rules our public discourse, he has been labeled a lunatic by nearly every "responsible" press organ in this country and cruelly mocked to a degree that no civil society should allow an honorable man to endure.

# posted by Elderbear : 19:26
 
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Daniel Jorg, a student from Switzerland, has put together an excellent survey for bloggers and blog readers which should lead to some excellent research results.

Click on over RIGHT NOW!

# posted by Elderbear : 03:45
 
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