Defiantone.com

Carl Rove is hated by University of Iowa students - wait a minute - isn’t he universally loathed? Check out this story about his recent lecture - I think the crowd could have been considered “hostile.” - CNN picked up the story too

What do you know about the NSA? I’m guessing that you’re aware that they are a domestic security agency but thats probably about it. What do they know about us? Quite a bit more than I would have imagined. Check out the article at the Wall Street Journal.

A NY charter school is going to do the unimaginable - they are going to pay teachers 125K/yr - far more than the administrators in charge. Competition for the jobs is fierce but this could change the way we think about paying our educators. Lets hope that they are on the right path - read on at the NY Times.

Here is an unofficial list of the top ten Hubble images - cool stuff

Here are some great pictures from Russia - they still have a little catching up to do after the fall of communism - then again, we have quite of bit of catching up to do in any area where there are trailer parks and white trash.

Improv Everywhere does some amazing things in places you wouldn’t imagine. This time, they started a musical in the middle of a food court without the knowledge the consumers seated around them. There is a video of the performance - unfortunately, I can’t watch it but its gotta be great. In the past they sent 200 people in blue shirts and khakis into a best buy - needless to say, security flipped out. Check it out!

Lenin has fallen apart - literally

Thats all

It turns out that there was quite a bit of response, from Russia no less, about the NY Times article. Some of it was very much in line with that of the author, some was written from the viewpoint that he should keep his nose out of their business, and the rest suggested that he had intercourse with himself. Check out the comments here

Russia is supposed to be a democracy - from what I’ve been reading lately its more of an autocracy.

Our president speaks - too often at times - and we’ve had the joy of technology to record some of his most eloquent moments. Someone took the time to list the top 50 Bush quotes - I know that he has speech writers but he has a hard time speaking on his feet. The list is well worth it if you are a fan or a hater. Either way, its a good way to waste 5 minutes.

I wish I had something else but there is nothing else - damn, I am bored.

I’ve been sitting around for the past few days and have thought of little but at the same time I’ve found that my mind is in constant motion. It appears that I am just waiting for time to pass and for things to happen rather than trying to get out there and make things happen. I wonder if I should stop the pacifism and get more agressive with the way that I treat my life. Then again, I have been told that I can be a bit of a jerk at times.

At work I’m at a bit of an impass as the majority of my work is done here. I really won’t have any major projects to complete before I leave, all that I need to do now is wait until August when I can get the heck out of here. I have been busy the past week and the work has been great. In case you aren’t aware, if you can keep me busy at work I really don’t mind it all that much but I really wouldn’t do it for free… it is work afterall.

As long as everything goes through as planned, I should be home in November/December of this year for a weekish and then home again next year for a period of time yet to be determined. I know that with my personality type that there is only so much time I can spend sitting around content doing nothing. After that, I know that I need to keep busy or the boredom will take me down for the count. So, I was thinking that maybe next year when I go home I should find something that I can volunteer for to take up my time for a week or two. I wonder how hard it is to get involved with habitat humanity or something of the like. I don’t think I’ll have the type of fundage to go do something really cool but I’d also like to take a trip to Russia before it becomes closed off again. I’ve talked to a few people and they’ve said that the policies in place in that country are starting to form a new rift with ours. Its not communism but their business and social practices among other things.

Ole girl is out of town for a few weeks so I’ve got to do some cleaning around my house and get rid of as much crap as I possibly can. Last night I went through one of my closets and threw away almost two weeks worth of garbage. Its a shame that I didn’t do it the night before as I had plenty of room left in my trash can. If you didn’t know, here in my local council (think of it as a small chunk of a county) they only pick up trash every other week. I alternate trash pickup with recycling and you only get one bin each. There is no size varienty. WYSIWYG.

I was once told by my dad about something he said while at work. He said “its insane to do the same thing repeatedly and expect to get different results” or a close approximation of that. I wrote something in one of the letters for our big inventory the other day that was similar to that but slightly… meaner. They made me change the entire paragraph around so that the truth didn’t sting quite as bad. Its a shame… it was good… here’s a chunk

All of these discrepancies can be attributed to mistakes made while processing … Obviously, given that the number of discrepancies has not decreased since the last inventory, it is known that the current system … …is ineffective. … … Continuing to use the same system without change would most likely result in no positive impact on the discrepancies seen here. Repeating the same process in the same fashion and expecting different results is ludicrous.

I originally used the term insane but I thought of Space Balls for a half a second and thought using ludicrous was a much better option.

Over the weekend I was in Cambridge enjoying the rediculously nice weather; yes, I said the weather was nice… there is no sarcasm, it was an amazing day. So, after going punting for an hour or so we went over to get a some beverages. If you’re not from the Fens (the Fenlands) you probably have no idea what punting is. If you’ve seen the gondolas that travel venice imagine a much smaller version that is pushed up and down the river on a long pole that is used to push against the river bottom. It was a fairly cool trip and there was tons of info so if you’re not the type for that crap, well, you’ve probably already given up reading what I’ve written here today. So, as I was saying, we were in a McDonalds getting a beverage… why McDonalds? We couldn’t find a corner shop that sold soda and we knew where a McD’s was so we headed that way. Old girl was standing behind me in line and got up close and sniffed my shirt. She said that I didn’t smell like I normally do as I guess (according to what she says) I have a very distinctive smell. I said I guess I smell like punt. I didn’t put less emphasis on the “p” of the word so it kinda sounded like another word that rhymes with punt. Needless to say, I got some laughs and a few weird looks from others that heard it.

So, we stopped at the bookstore after getting some coffee. Yes, I’ve been drinking dirty bean water recently… its odd, as soon as you get me started drinking that stuff I’m amicable to drink it more often. Its like you’re opening the floodgates or something like that. I won’t go out on my own and get it but if you get some I will as well. So, we old girl wants to stop by a Borders and we do. We take a few steps in the door and she is off checking out the new releases, I tell her that if we don’t leave soon I’m going to be off to the races… and I was. I’m a huge fan of instant gratification and I hate to wait so I walked out of there with 5 books that I’ve wanted to read. I was like a kid in a freakin candy store… my parents never took me into one of those and it was probably a smart choice as I don’t need sugar and I sure as shit don’t need any caffeine I don’t like to be ignorant, I want to know as much as I can. I got a great quote along that line today… check this out

“ignorance is not a simple and passive lack of knowledge, but is an active stance; it is a refusal to accept knowledge, a reluctance to possess it; it is its rejection”

I agree with that statement, I don’t like it when others around me stagnate and stop looking for more in life and in the world. I guess thats why I get so mad when people tell me that they are reading. I ask what and they give dubiously tell me “Harry Potter” I immediately ridicule them for reading a book written for children. They are reading antiknowledge.

Oh yeah, found a cool russian saying Vsievo mira nie piereyebiosh! … You cannot fuck the whole world! But, if you’re me you’re sure as shit going to try.

Looking through the window of the rushing train, I think: Siberia, so this is how it looks! I heard this name for the first time when I was seven years old. Stern mothers from our street cautioned “Children, behave yourselves, or they’ll deport you to the Sybir!” (They said it in Russian -Sybir- for this sounded more menacing, apocalyptic.) Gentle mothers would become indignant: “How can you frighten children this way!”

It wasn’t really possible to imagine Siberia. One of my friends finally showed me a drawing in a book: In a heavy snowstorm walked a column of tattered and hunched-over men. Heavy chains with iron balls at the end were attached to their hands and legs and they dragged these balls behind them over the ground.

Siberia, in its sinister, cruel form, is a freezing, icy space… plus dictatorship.

In many states there exist icy territories, lands that for the greater part of the year are frozen over, dead. Such, for instance, are the vast stretches of Canada. Or take Danish Greenland, or American Alaska. And yet it doesn’t occur to anyone to frighten children with: “Wash your hands or they’ll send you to Canada!” or “Play nicely with that little girl or they’ll deport you to America!” In those countries, quite simply, there is no dictatorship, nobody puts anyone in chains, nobody imprisons anyone in camps, dispatches him to work in hellish frost, to a certain death. In those frozen lands, man has one antagonist -the cold.

I read this in a book… thought I might share it. I’m sure the copyright layers are going to kill me now…

So, as you might have guessed from my previous posts I’ve moved back into the standard phase of angry, pissed off, and semi-rebelious. I try my very best to do what I am supposed to do but I am unable to hold my tongue. Some have said that I speak what is on my mind, regardless of who happens to be listening. I’m really looking forward to this weekend. Tommorow I’ll go check out Henry Rollins at the Hammersmith in London and on Saturday one of my friends is getting hitched. I have given him all of the generic wisdom that I can and I have offered him understanding because almost anybody that has ever gotten married is going through some of the things he and his old lady are doing.

Pre-emptive strikes on a foreign land… BAD IDEA!

Just because another country has the ability to hurt us doesn’t mean that we should go and pick a fight with them. If we were to hold true to this plan, we should have attacked N. Korea a long long time ago. We would have already suffered through a third world war as we would have nuked the USSR. China would be on the list as they pose a threat as the worlds fastest growing superpower. I don’t think we should strike another person before they decide to attack us. If they act suspicious we should be wary but we shouldn’t strike first. Imagine if either the US or Russia had decided to strike first when we were locked in a global struggle for power? I probably wouldn’t be here typing this right now.

Rumsfeld…. is an idiot.

If I get around to it, I’ve got some serious work to do on my pc this weekend and I’ve really got to clean my house… thoroughly. Opening up the windows to get rid of the smell is no longer a viable option… I stink and I make the house stink. I can only live in my odor for so long. I need to stop being lazy and get around to fixing the problem.

Weakness… I’ve been feeling a bit too much of it lately and I need to stop being such an idiot. I’ve noticed that I’ve backed down in areas where I thought I might not. I need to get back into the things that will allow me to survive in this world. I need to know more than my adversary so that I might crush him, I will win this battle for global supremacy one way or another.

Today is my last day of work (here) but I’ve got class starting next week so I’ll have less time to check out the news and such. This only means I’ll need to manage my time more efficiently. I’ll have to learn how to cook, clean, and play all at the same time. Its the only option.

Found a really cool site today full of pictures from Russia… with love. Actually there is nothing in these pictures and that is the truly frightening part. Check out some insane pictures of Chernobyl.

A lake disappeared in Russia…. yes, its completely gone. Read more here