We've been remiss this year in sending out holiday cards, the first time in some time. I'm going to firmly plant the blame on the weather (for one, it can't defend itself against my accusation), but I did take the time to put together a virtual card in lieu of sending out printed ones.
It's available in two varieties, a virtual Christmas card (note, this will resize your window, so open in a new window if you don't want your window resized), or as a 3.8MB PDF.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Making minor deities disappear in a puff of logic since 1972
Thu, 25 Dec 2008
Tue, 23 Dec 2008
The Bloom Is Off The Rose
I was an enthusiastic Obama supporter, but I'm starting to fall off the bandwagon and he's still President-elect...
Avid readers of my blog might not be particularly surprised. I began to have my doubts about Obama back in July in my post "Change I Don't Believe In"
I'm just not convinced that Obama represents the change he ran his campaign on.
My friend Rus has pointed out that it was Obama's coattails that ushered in Prop 8 in California. I've been telling (lying to?) myself "ah, but this is only an unintended consequence, you can't hold Obama responsible for the other agendas the electorate pursued on the ballot".
Of course, Rus has been pointing out that Obama's position on gay marriage isn't far removed from Prop 8. Namely, Obama supports civil unions, and not marriage.
So my disenchantment with Obama has been building for several months, and the saccharine cherry on top is who he has selected to lead his inauguration. I fear this is the start of a very worrisome sequence of events.
Avid readers of my blog might not be particularly surprised. I began to have my doubts about Obama back in July in my post "Change I Don't Believe In"
I'm just not convinced that Obama represents the change he ran his campaign on.
My friend Rus has pointed out that it was Obama's coattails that ushered in Prop 8 in California. I've been telling (lying to?) myself "ah, but this is only an unintended consequence, you can't hold Obama responsible for the other agendas the electorate pursued on the ballot".
Of course, Rus has been pointing out that Obama's position on gay marriage isn't far removed from Prop 8. Namely, Obama supports civil unions, and not marriage.
So my disenchantment with Obama has been building for several months, and the saccharine cherry on top is who he has selected to lead his inauguration. I fear this is the start of a very worrisome sequence of events.
Comments are closed for this story
Name/Blog: rus
URL: http://rus.berrett.org/blog/
Title: that was a short honeymoon...
Comment/Excerpt: http://thephoenix.com/blogs/takebackbarack/
Name/Blog: Khan
URL:
Title: It's like I said in July...
Comment/Excerpt: The rose colored classes are off... He's 100 times a better president-elect than McCain, that goes without saying... But I'm not giddy about Obama like I once was back in June.
URL: http://rus.berrett.org/blog/
Title: that was a short honeymoon...
Comment/Excerpt: http://thephoenix.com/blogs/takebackbarack/
Name/Blog: Khan
URL:
Title: It's like I said in July...
Comment/Excerpt: The rose colored classes are off... He's 100 times a better president-elect than McCain, that goes without saying... But I'm not giddy about Obama like I once was back in June.
Sat, 20 Dec 2008
I Couldn't Have Said It Better
Cenk Üygür of "The Young Turks" wrote an excellent point on gay marriage.
The upshot of it is that social conservatives apply the bible inconsistently as an instrument of hate. Read his article on Not Another Word On Gay Marriage.
The upshot of it is that social conservatives apply the bible inconsistently as an instrument of hate. Read his article on Not Another Word On Gay Marriage.
Comments are closed for this story
Name/Blog: rus
URL: http://rus.berrett.org/blog/
Title: Stoning the Adulterers.... OT vs NT
Comment/Excerpt: It is obvious that the author of this article knows little about even the very basic concepts of Christianity. The Law of Moses called for some crazy stuff (like stoning adulterers for example). The law of Moses was the collection of written laws given through Moses to the house of Israel (as recorded in the Old Testament) and was as a replacement of the higher law that they had failed to obey. The Law of Moses was fulfilled at the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and was subsequently replaced by the fullness of the gospel (as recorded in the New Testament). Jesus not only taught that the Law of Moses was to be done away while He was on this earth (see John 8:1-11 for example) but also via revelation to his early Apostles after His ascension. One of the major questions the early Church in Palestine had to decide was about the obligation of Christians to the ceremonial law of Moses. The matter was solved by the conference held in Jerusalem, as recorded in Acts 15 and Gal. 2. Despite this, the Jewish Christians in particular still had difficulty giving up the ritual of the law of Moses... but the old Mosaic law was still not in effect nonetheless.
Name/Blog: Khan
URL:
Title: OK, then...
Comment/Excerpt: The Law of Moses is the foundation on which Christianity is founded. I have yet to find a Bible that opens with "The Old Testament is omitted here because it was fulfilled with the resurrection of Jesus Christ...." Conservatives who want to treat the Genesis story as equivalent to evolution in the schools seem to put a lot of veracity into the Genesis story, so (as purely a rhetorical exercise) consider why Genesis isn't repudiated along with Mosaic law... In any case, if we now hold the Old Testament as "held harmless" as the social standard by which we stand in judgment of homosexuals, then what appears to be left in the New Testament are the letters of Paul. And just as soon as Paul is done castigating homosexuals (and the prideful, deceitful, envious and disobedient), he warns that any of these judging the others won't be spared God's judgment. You can take exception with the sections of the bible that Cenk selected, but if you just want references from the New Testament, then I refer you to Romans 2:22... "Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery?" Cenk's very valid point is that the Bible is being applied as an instrument of hate against the homosexuals because they are an easy target. You don't hear the social conservatives raising millions of dollars to strip adulterers of the ability to remarry... Why is that? "Because there are too many of them. Their followers are adulterers. They don't make for good scapegoats. They are not an easy target to ostracize and focus your hatred on. Gays are perfect. They are a small enough percentage of the population and different enough from the rest of us to be able to get people to focus their negative, barbaric instincts on them."
Name/Blog: rus
URL: http://rus.berrett.org/blog/
Title: not quite...
Comment/Excerpt: 1) The Law of Moses is the foundation on which Judaism is founded; the Law of the Gospel is the foundation on which Christianity is founded. 2) The Law of Moses is the collection of carnal commandments, rituals, symbols and ceremonies given through Moses to the house of Israel... the Genesis story predates Moses by quite some time. 3) The laws of carnal commandments and pretty much all of the ceremonial law were fulfilled at the death of Jesus Christ, which ended the ritual of symbolic sacrifice by the shedding of the blood of the "Lamb of God" (e.g. the Son of God). Paul reinforces this in the verses you cite, namely in Romans 2:17-29 and Romans 3:1-20. Here, as a prelude to declaring that men are justified by faith in Christ alone, Paul states that man is not justified by the law of Moses. Remember that the Jews in Paul's day were really no better off than their Gentile associates because they (the Jews) violated the laws of God that they were teaching (Jesus called out the hypocritical leadership of the Jews in that day many times... which ultimately led to why he was crucified). The Jews considered themselves to be God's chosen people (Romans 2:17-20). Having the Law of Moses, they assumed the prerogative to stand as lights for "them which are in darkness". Yet, as Paul states in versus 21-24, the leadership were violators of the laws that they were teaching. Their professions of piousness were nothing short of blasphemy. In verses 25-29 Paul is saying that conformity to Mosaic Law (which has a visible and measurable outward appearance) was no longer the standard, but instead the Lord places emphasis on what is in the heart. Paul continues on in Romans 3 to state that no flesh is justified (e.g. saved) by the deeds of the Mosaic Law but by faith in Jesus Christ. It was a revolutionary concept at the time. Fantastic stuff.
Name/Blog: rus
URL: http://rus.berrett.org/blog/
Title: Bible as an instrument of hate...
Comment/Excerpt: The Bible is not being used as an instrument of hate. In many many instances in the Four Gospels, Jesus teaches to hate the sin but to love the sinner. All sexual transgression (adultery, homosexuality, etc) can be forgiven via repentance.
Name/Blog: Khan
URL:
Title: Paul was unequivocal...
Comment/Excerpt: .. condemning homosexuality along side adultery. Discussions of Mosaic law and Genesis are irrelevant to Cenk's argument because you can find examples in the NT as I pointed out. A modern conservative movement offers up Prop 8 to restrict marriage to homosexuals, but why did they stop there? Why not make it illegal for adulterers to remarry? They have broken their covenant with God, have they not? Is adultery less of a sin than homosexuality? Why then why was it left out of Prop 8? Conservatives don't hate the sin of Adultery as much as the sin of Homosexuality not because one is more heinous than the other, but because you can more easily get away with casting stones at a minority who doesn't have a voice in your congregation.
Name/Blog: Khan
URL:
Title: P.S. Just to clarify my earlier points...
Comment/Excerpt: When I said that Mosaic law is the foundation of Christianity, I'm referring to the shared culture both Judaism and Christianity share-- Jews are not the ones who are predominantly erecting 10 commandments statues outside of courthouses across the US, it's Christians who are doing so. I referred to Genesis because many of the same Christians are using Old Testament verse to inform our present day educational system... So why not use Old Testament verse to inform our present day legal system when it comes to adulterers (as it does to homosexuals)? Finally, I am not arguing the Bible is intrinsically hateful. I'm arguing that the selective application of Biblical verse has a hateful effect. Why does Rick Warren ban "unrepentant gays" from his church, but not "unrepentant adulterers" or "unrepentant divorcees"? Haven't these people also broken their covenants with God?
Name/Blog: Rus Berrett
URL: http://rus.berrett.org/blog/
Title: can't speak for someone else's faith...
Comment/Excerpt: I can't speak for Rick Warren, but I suspect that those persons that have broken _any_ of the laws of God are still welcomed in his Church insofar as they are willing to offer up a broken heart and a contrite spirit, e.g. they are seeking repentance (for adultery, homosexuality, or otherwise). Someone that has denied God and His laws and is unrepentant may be welcomed insofar as said person does not disrupt the Spirit for others to enjoy the services. Perhaps you have a quote from him where he states "unrepentant gays" are not welcomed whereas unrepentant sinners of another stripe are welcomed. *shrug* You seem to be looking for something here that isn't there. "Unrepentant" by its very definition implies rebellion against the laws of God. If someone is unwilling to repent (of any sin... murder, homosexuality, adultery, fraud, etc), then why would you suppose such a person would even want to attend a Church service? I'm not good at ferreting out the source for your outrage here... sorry.
Name/Blog: Rus Berrett
URL: http://rus.berrett.org/blog/
Title: adultery
Comment/Excerpt: Adultery I believe was at one time illegal and punishable by law in many states (and according to what I have read may still be in some states... although the laws are not currently enforced). The state should have a compelling interest in monogamous relationships in my humble opinion. Perhaps we should re-enact and enforce some of those old laws. A felon loses his/her right to vote; does it not follow that an adulterer should lose his/her right to marry? You make a strong case. I'm on board. ;)
Name/Blog: Khan
URL:
Title: Unrepentant, and adultery...
Comment/Excerpt: Imagine you are an alien visitor to whom the cultures and practices of earthlings are foreign. You might not scratch your head if you saw a fountain marked "Coloreds" and "Whites Only". You would scratch your head if a white could drink from the colored fountain with impunity, but if a colored person drank from a "whites only" fountain and was thrown in jail. It doesn't take much to realize that the inconsistent application of the law is a clear case of injustice. The same principle applies to the tenets of the Bible. In my view, selective application of the Bible transforms a holy book into an instrument of hate, and when the Saddleback Church restricts access to one, but not the other kind of sinner, it bears that hallmark of hatred.
Name/Blog: Shirley
URL: joannstu@embarqmail.com
Title: Ms
Comment/Excerpt: I'm trying to find out if any of the current-day Jews practice the "stone till death" laws of the old testament. Please advise
URL: http://rus.berrett.org/blog/
Title: Stoning the Adulterers.... OT vs NT
Comment/Excerpt: It is obvious that the author of this article knows little about even the very basic concepts of Christianity. The Law of Moses called for some crazy stuff (like stoning adulterers for example). The law of Moses was the collection of written laws given through Moses to the house of Israel (as recorded in the Old Testament) and was as a replacement of the higher law that they had failed to obey. The Law of Moses was fulfilled at the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and was subsequently replaced by the fullness of the gospel (as recorded in the New Testament). Jesus not only taught that the Law of Moses was to be done away while He was on this earth (see John 8:1-11 for example) but also via revelation to his early Apostles after His ascension. One of the major questions the early Church in Palestine had to decide was about the obligation of Christians to the ceremonial law of Moses. The matter was solved by the conference held in Jerusalem, as recorded in Acts 15 and Gal. 2. Despite this, the Jewish Christians in particular still had difficulty giving up the ritual of the law of Moses... but the old Mosaic law was still not in effect nonetheless.
Name/Blog: Khan
URL:
Title: OK, then...
Comment/Excerpt: The Law of Moses is the foundation on which Christianity is founded. I have yet to find a Bible that opens with "The Old Testament is omitted here because it was fulfilled with the resurrection of Jesus Christ...." Conservatives who want to treat the Genesis story as equivalent to evolution in the schools seem to put a lot of veracity into the Genesis story, so (as purely a rhetorical exercise) consider why Genesis isn't repudiated along with Mosaic law... In any case, if we now hold the Old Testament as "held harmless" as the social standard by which we stand in judgment of homosexuals, then what appears to be left in the New Testament are the letters of Paul. And just as soon as Paul is done castigating homosexuals (and the prideful, deceitful, envious and disobedient), he warns that any of these judging the others won't be spared God's judgment. You can take exception with the sections of the bible that Cenk selected, but if you just want references from the New Testament, then I refer you to Romans 2:22... "Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery?" Cenk's very valid point is that the Bible is being applied as an instrument of hate against the homosexuals because they are an easy target. You don't hear the social conservatives raising millions of dollars to strip adulterers of the ability to remarry... Why is that? "Because there are too many of them. Their followers are adulterers. They don't make for good scapegoats. They are not an easy target to ostracize and focus your hatred on. Gays are perfect. They are a small enough percentage of the population and different enough from the rest of us to be able to get people to focus their negative, barbaric instincts on them."
Name/Blog: rus
URL: http://rus.berrett.org/blog/
Title: not quite...
Comment/Excerpt: 1) The Law of Moses is the foundation on which Judaism is founded; the Law of the Gospel is the foundation on which Christianity is founded. 2) The Law of Moses is the collection of carnal commandments, rituals, symbols and ceremonies given through Moses to the house of Israel... the Genesis story predates Moses by quite some time. 3) The laws of carnal commandments and pretty much all of the ceremonial law were fulfilled at the death of Jesus Christ, which ended the ritual of symbolic sacrifice by the shedding of the blood of the "Lamb of God" (e.g. the Son of God). Paul reinforces this in the verses you cite, namely in Romans 2:17-29 and Romans 3:1-20. Here, as a prelude to declaring that men are justified by faith in Christ alone, Paul states that man is not justified by the law of Moses. Remember that the Jews in Paul's day were really no better off than their Gentile associates because they (the Jews) violated the laws of God that they were teaching (Jesus called out the hypocritical leadership of the Jews in that day many times... which ultimately led to why he was crucified). The Jews considered themselves to be God's chosen people (Romans 2:17-20). Having the Law of Moses, they assumed the prerogative to stand as lights for "them which are in darkness". Yet, as Paul states in versus 21-24, the leadership were violators of the laws that they were teaching. Their professions of piousness were nothing short of blasphemy. In verses 25-29 Paul is saying that conformity to Mosaic Law (which has a visible and measurable outward appearance) was no longer the standard, but instead the Lord places emphasis on what is in the heart. Paul continues on in Romans 3 to state that no flesh is justified (e.g. saved) by the deeds of the Mosaic Law but by faith in Jesus Christ. It was a revolutionary concept at the time. Fantastic stuff.
Name/Blog: rus
URL: http://rus.berrett.org/blog/
Title: Bible as an instrument of hate...
Comment/Excerpt: The Bible is not being used as an instrument of hate. In many many instances in the Four Gospels, Jesus teaches to hate the sin but to love the sinner. All sexual transgression (adultery, homosexuality, etc) can be forgiven via repentance.
Name/Blog: Khan
URL:
Title: Paul was unequivocal...
Comment/Excerpt: .. condemning homosexuality along side adultery. Discussions of Mosaic law and Genesis are irrelevant to Cenk's argument because you can find examples in the NT as I pointed out. A modern conservative movement offers up Prop 8 to restrict marriage to homosexuals, but why did they stop there? Why not make it illegal for adulterers to remarry? They have broken their covenant with God, have they not? Is adultery less of a sin than homosexuality? Why then why was it left out of Prop 8? Conservatives don't hate the sin of Adultery as much as the sin of Homosexuality not because one is more heinous than the other, but because you can more easily get away with casting stones at a minority who doesn't have a voice in your congregation.
Name/Blog: Khan
URL:
Title: P.S. Just to clarify my earlier points...
Comment/Excerpt: When I said that Mosaic law is the foundation of Christianity, I'm referring to the shared culture both Judaism and Christianity share-- Jews are not the ones who are predominantly erecting 10 commandments statues outside of courthouses across the US, it's Christians who are doing so. I referred to Genesis because many of the same Christians are using Old Testament verse to inform our present day educational system... So why not use Old Testament verse to inform our present day legal system when it comes to adulterers (as it does to homosexuals)? Finally, I am not arguing the Bible is intrinsically hateful. I'm arguing that the selective application of Biblical verse has a hateful effect. Why does Rick Warren ban "unrepentant gays" from his church, but not "unrepentant adulterers" or "unrepentant divorcees"? Haven't these people also broken their covenants with God?
Name/Blog: Rus Berrett
URL: http://rus.berrett.org/blog/
Title: can't speak for someone else's faith...
Comment/Excerpt: I can't speak for Rick Warren, but I suspect that those persons that have broken _any_ of the laws of God are still welcomed in his Church insofar as they are willing to offer up a broken heart and a contrite spirit, e.g. they are seeking repentance (for adultery, homosexuality, or otherwise). Someone that has denied God and His laws and is unrepentant may be welcomed insofar as said person does not disrupt the Spirit for others to enjoy the services. Perhaps you have a quote from him where he states "unrepentant gays" are not welcomed whereas unrepentant sinners of another stripe are welcomed. *shrug* You seem to be looking for something here that isn't there. "Unrepentant" by its very definition implies rebellion against the laws of God. If someone is unwilling to repent (of any sin... murder, homosexuality, adultery, fraud, etc), then why would you suppose such a person would even want to attend a Church service? I'm not good at ferreting out the source for your outrage here... sorry.
Name/Blog: Rus Berrett
URL: http://rus.berrett.org/blog/
Title: adultery
Comment/Excerpt: Adultery I believe was at one time illegal and punishable by law in many states (and according to what I have read may still be in some states... although the laws are not currently enforced). The state should have a compelling interest in monogamous relationships in my humble opinion. Perhaps we should re-enact and enforce some of those old laws. A felon loses his/her right to vote; does it not follow that an adulterer should lose his/her right to marry? You make a strong case. I'm on board. ;)
Name/Blog: Khan
URL:
Title: Unrepentant, and adultery...
Comment/Excerpt: Imagine you are an alien visitor to whom the cultures and practices of earthlings are foreign. You might not scratch your head if you saw a fountain marked "Coloreds" and "Whites Only". You would scratch your head if a white could drink from the colored fountain with impunity, but if a colored person drank from a "whites only" fountain and was thrown in jail. It doesn't take much to realize that the inconsistent application of the law is a clear case of injustice. The same principle applies to the tenets of the Bible. In my view, selective application of the Bible transforms a holy book into an instrument of hate, and when the Saddleback Church restricts access to one, but not the other kind of sinner, it bears that hallmark of hatred.
Name/Blog: Shirley
URL: joannstu@embarqmail.com
Title: Ms
Comment/Excerpt: I'm trying to find out if any of the current-day Jews practice the "stone till death" laws of the old testament. Please advise
Tue, 16 Dec 2008
Agile Shenanigans
One of my teams at work has been involved in a pilot project to deploy the Agile methodology,
Scrum. If you're reading this far, I presume you have an idea what Scrum is, so I'll just come out and say it:
I'm calling "Shenanigans" on the "Agile Manifesto".
Simply stated, this is what the Manifesto says:
But, take the first element-- individuals and interactions over processes and tools... I'm far from a gearhead-oriented manager. My humanist management philosophy is well documented, so on the face of it, I would tend to agree with this statement.
Yet sometimes, the most important problem you need to solve on a team or in the course of conducting business is not "individuals and interactions", but "processes and tools"...
In some projects, comprehensive documentation may actually be a better artifact than "working software". You may want to "negotiate a contract" between parties if communication challenges (say with a vendor or a customer) will save time, hassle and energy. In some cases, it's far better to publish an API than to conduct "customer collaboration", for example, or to follow a plan if that's the most expedient way of solving the problem at hand rather than revisiting things that have already been decided and agreed upon.
One last example, and I'll end my rant... If Agile had been invented in the 1970s, then many of the folks working on software at the time may have developed code more productively and with less gnashing of teeth and pulling of hair.
But when Y2K came around, what do you think the remediators would be more grateful for? That there was "comprehensive documentation" about the date/time functions, or that the developers were able to launch "working software"?
If you would have told the developers 30 years ago that there was a "Y2K" defect in their code, in Scrum, that defect would be placed on a backlog, and be deprioritized so frequently that eventually any ScrumMaster worth his weight would have taken it off the backlog after a year or two. After 2-5 years, if not a decade or two, the people who originally may have realized there was a Y2K bug would have moved on, and the decision to take the Y2K bug off the backlog wouldn't have been realized until... you guessed it, a few years before Y2K when suddenly everyone was scrambling trying to figure out "are we vulnerable?"
And the teams responsible for remediating the problem? The 1970s Scrum teams would have focused not on documentation or negotiation of contracts or producing any artifacts that could be useful if only for software-archaeology purposes, but on code that met a 1970s "definition of done".
Don't get me wrong, I'm a big proponent of Agile, but because there are occasions to value items on the right more from time to time, it's probably best to put the Agile Manifesto on a "credits" page and grant it "historical anecdote" status rather than front-and-center in many slide decks about the Agile methodology.
I'm calling "Shenanigans" on the "Agile Manifesto".
Simply stated, this is what the Manifesto says:
We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:Now, I understand if some of these guidelines were necessary for the formation of the Scrum methodology. Scrum is tool- and technology- agnostic, so taking the focus away from those aspects which the methodology doesn't prescribe isn't surprising.
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan
That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.
But, take the first element-- individuals and interactions over processes and tools... I'm far from a gearhead-oriented manager. My humanist management philosophy is well documented, so on the face of it, I would tend to agree with this statement.
Yet sometimes, the most important problem you need to solve on a team or in the course of conducting business is not "individuals and interactions", but "processes and tools"...
In some projects, comprehensive documentation may actually be a better artifact than "working software". You may want to "negotiate a contract" between parties if communication challenges (say with a vendor or a customer) will save time, hassle and energy. In some cases, it's far better to publish an API than to conduct "customer collaboration", for example, or to follow a plan if that's the most expedient way of solving the problem at hand rather than revisiting things that have already been decided and agreed upon.
One last example, and I'll end my rant... If Agile had been invented in the 1970s, then many of the folks working on software at the time may have developed code more productively and with less gnashing of teeth and pulling of hair.
But when Y2K came around, what do you think the remediators would be more grateful for? That there was "comprehensive documentation" about the date/time functions, or that the developers were able to launch "working software"?
If you would have told the developers 30 years ago that there was a "Y2K" defect in their code, in Scrum, that defect would be placed on a backlog, and be deprioritized so frequently that eventually any ScrumMaster worth his weight would have taken it off the backlog after a year or two. After 2-5 years, if not a decade or two, the people who originally may have realized there was a Y2K bug would have moved on, and the decision to take the Y2K bug off the backlog wouldn't have been realized until... you guessed it, a few years before Y2K when suddenly everyone was scrambling trying to figure out "are we vulnerable?"
And the teams responsible for remediating the problem? The 1970s Scrum teams would have focused not on documentation or negotiation of contracts or producing any artifacts that could be useful if only for software-archaeology purposes, but on code that met a 1970s "definition of done".
Don't get me wrong, I'm a big proponent of Agile, but because there are occasions to value items on the right more from time to time, it's probably best to put the Agile Manifesto on a "credits" page and grant it "historical anecdote" status rather than front-and-center in many slide decks about the Agile methodology.
Comments are closed for this story
Mon, 15 Dec 2008
Greetings from Iraq
Unless you're living in a cave, you've heard of the rather, shall we say, cold reception at a press release in Iraq. In the off chance this is news for you, let me set up the story.
Nearly six years ago, Cheney went before Tim Russert and stated that Saddam has made things so bad in Iraq that "from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators."
Russert pressed: "If your analysis is not correct, and we're not treated as liberators, but as conquerors, do you think the American people are prepared for [that]?"
Cheney's response was unequivocal: "Well, I don't think it's likely to unfold that way, Tim, because I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators. I've talked with a lot of Iraqis in the last several months myself, had them to the White House. The president and I have met with them, various groups and individuals, people who have devoted their lives from the outside to trying to change things inside Iraq [...] The read we get on the people of Iraq is there is no question but that [...] they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that."
Fast forward to today. Bush is in Baghdad giving a joint press release with Prime Minister Maliki, when the following event goes down:
For a President who has been actively trying to whitewash his legacy (Google News reports that there are "about 5,452 from Nov 15, 2008 to today for bush legacy"), this actually puts a much more appropriate exclamation point on the past six years.
Nearly six years ago, Cheney went before Tim Russert and stated that Saddam has made things so bad in Iraq that "from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators."
Russert pressed: "If your analysis is not correct, and we're not treated as liberators, but as conquerors, do you think the American people are prepared for [that]?"
Cheney's response was unequivocal: "Well, I don't think it's likely to unfold that way, Tim, because I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators. I've talked with a lot of Iraqis in the last several months myself, had them to the White House. The president and I have met with them, various groups and individuals, people who have devoted their lives from the outside to trying to change things inside Iraq [...] The read we get on the people of Iraq is there is no question but that [...] they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that."
Fast forward to today. Bush is in Baghdad giving a joint press release with Prime Minister Maliki, when the following event goes down:
Here is your goodbye kiss, you dog!
For a President who has been actively trying to whitewash his legacy (Google News reports that there are "about 5,452 from Nov 15, 2008 to today for bush legacy"), this actually puts a much more appropriate exclamation point on the past six years.
Comments are closed for this story
Name/Blog: rus
URL: http://rus.berrett.org/blog/
Title: goodbye kiss
Comment/Excerpt: You have to give W props for his ninja-like reflexes to dodge those shoes!
URL: http://rus.berrett.org/blog/
Title: goodbye kiss
Comment/Excerpt: You have to give W props for his ninja-like reflexes to dodge those shoes!
Thu, 04 Dec 2008
Eric Robison on Barack Obama
Anyone who's been to my house knows that I'm a big Eric Robison fan (if they don't know his name, they know his art, my house is practically plastered with his work).
Today I came across a photo of a painting Eric did of Barack Obama.
Today I came across a photo of a painting Eric did of Barack Obama.
Comments are closed for this story
Wed, 03 Dec 2008
(Updated) Timelapse of Christmas Tree
Inspired by Spencer, I decided to capture a time lapse of our decorating the Christmas tree. We picked it up Friday afternoon, let it sit Saturday while I worked on the dishwasher project (more on this in an upcoming blog post), and put the lights on Sunday and the ornaments on Wednesday.
I've also exported the movie down to only 3.4MB so it's a lot more download friendly.
I've also exported the movie down to only 3.4MB so it's a lot more download friendly.
Comments are closed for this story
The One About the Burning Dishwasher
This is a long story, so I'm going to try a narrative style that attempts to convey what's been going on with my dishwasher in 5 minutes instead of an hour.
Meanwhile I still need to fight the cretins at Sears to repair my old one so I can recoup SOME of my cost from the old one. And it occurs to me that even if I had signed up for the "extended warranty" it wouldn't have made my experience any better. More evidence that these things are scams. If they can't send the proper part to your house, what difference does the extended warranty serve except to illustrate only that much clearer that you've been screwed twice over?
This and my privacy trees (yet another blog post) and my car repair taking longer than I anticipated has resulted in a quite unpleasant November (excepting Thanksgiving which is always nice to spend with family).
- My dishwasher caught on fire.
- It's only 4 years old, a Kenmore Elite Stock #17462. Model #665.17462.300. It's an OEM Whirlpool unit
- I suspected something was up when I smelled a strong plasticy burning smell.
- At first I thought it was a baby bottle nipple burning on a heating element
- Opened the door to check, got water all over my floor as the dishwasher didn't stop
- Pressed the cancel button. No buttons on the front are responding to input!
- Tried the GFCI circuit. Didn't kill the dishwasher
- Ran to the garage, tried to turn it off at the circuit breaker. Must have counted wrong cuz that didn't work.
- Grabbed Christine, who was sleeping. (Did I mention it was 3am?)
- Told her "let me know when the dishwasher goes off"
- Found the switch that finally shut the thing off.
- Christine thanked me for saving our house and our lives from fire, and went back to bed
- I was too amped, and couldn't go to bed if the thing could still be smoldering
- Called the Renton FD.
- They pulled it out, cut the power cable, disconnected the water and sewer
- They then left, but I was still amped so I opened it up. Photos below of the melted parts.
- Called Whirlpool and Sears the next day. No recall. But they'll fix it for free (reimburse us) if we just pay the service guy.
- Not a bad deal, they can be out the next couple days.
- This sucks, we have lots of baby bottles to wash.
- They show up, oops, don't have the parts they need. They'll order the parts.
- WTF?
- Parts begin to show up. They call back to reschedule the appointment.
- They show up to install the parts.
- Oops, they sent the wrong part.
- WTF? I've been without a dishwasher for a month now!
- Wait a few more days. Another part shows up.
- They schedule to come out.
- WTF? They sent the wrong part again!
- But what's this? The part number is correct? They're mislabeling parts at the factory? WTF?
- On Fri. 11/28, I ask "Can you guarantee that you'll have the correct part by Wed?"
- Their response "Probably, but no."
- On Sat. afternoon, I go to Lowes (screw Sears and their crappy Kenmore private brand and service)
- Note to self: Don't buy a Whirlpool. It's the same thing, different skin.
- Selection criteria: Which stainless steel models do you have in stock?
- Wow, this one is really quiet. Let's get that one. Don't have it in stainless.
- Damn. Here's one. Well hot damn that thing is expensive... But it's in stock and I'm not going to wait another month to get the one I got repaired. I'm going to install this TODAY.
- OK, let me go get my hatchback, my sedan won't fit a dishwasher.
- Damn. This thing won't fit in my A3... without taking out the floor panel for the spare wheel, and even then the hatch is open. Good news is Lowes is just a mile away from home.
- I need to buy a dolly just to get this thing in my house single handedly.
- OK, brought it in the house, moved the old one, shoot, the stupid firemen cut my electrical cable.
- Whew, I jury-rigged the damn thing so that I can fit my dishwasher back there and the power just barely reaches...
- Crap! The water line is 48" long and the connector on the new one requires more like 60" since it connects near the front. Run to ACE to pick up a braided steel 5/8ths water line.
- Damn. The sewer drain is now making it hard to fit the damn thing in, and the previous dishwasher has damaged the particleboard flooring. Gotta pull it out and in and out and in releveling the feet.
Meanwhile I still need to fight the cretins at Sears to repair my old one so I can recoup SOME of my cost from the old one. And it occurs to me that even if I had signed up for the "extended warranty" it wouldn't have made my experience any better. More evidence that these things are scams. If they can't send the proper part to your house, what difference does the extended warranty serve except to illustrate only that much clearer that you've been screwed twice over?
This and my privacy trees (yet another blog post) and my car repair taking longer than I anticipated has resulted in a quite unpleasant November (excepting Thanksgiving which is always nice to spend with family).
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About Me
I started my career as a serial entrepreneur building online businesses, followed by spending the better part of a decade on social networking.
I was born and lived in Turkey for 17 years. I speak fluent Turkish, and can get by conversationally with French.
Outside of work and family, I'm an amateur photographer, Audi enthusiast, Apple evangelist, Disney fanatic and tend towards libertarian/progressive political ideology.
Friends follow me on Facebook, coworkers/professionals on LinkedIn, photography enthusiasts on Flickr and others/all-of-the-above on Twitter.
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Comment/Excerpt: Thank you for sharing your digital card... Much love to Seattle, from Boulder!