My wife is watching auto racing. What does this mean? Does this mean that the back of my car will soon be covered with little '3's along with little american flags and images of a child pissing on a Chevy symbol? OK, maybe not but it's still surprising she would enjoy it.

There's an excellent article in Salon regarding the mood of the US right now. Go read it.

Currently reading: Origins of the Federal Reserve System: Money, Class, and Corporate Capitalms, 1890, 1913. It's a painful one to read. Thick enough with content you could cut it with a knife. Metaphorically speaking, of course, since I'm borrowing it from Ryan. I think that I'm going to read something really fun afterwards.

"Why do we kill people who kill people to teach that killing is wrong?"

All I can think of are Dennis Ritchie Films.

Another winner.

Walter Conkrite is my hero of the day. He's so clear and so elegant in what he does and how he expresses what he does. He seems to embody what I would want journalism to be.

I burned another CD today. I love being able to make mix CDs. My music, my way.

Sometimes I just don't know what to feel. I suspect that others feel the same way.

Today Joe and I were walking back from getting some lunch. While crossing a bridge over the green line a man walked by us with a bicycle. He looked pretty dirty and he had obviously been doing something that comes straight out of a Mountain Dew commercial. He asked us to stop and started asking the oddest questions like: "Where am I?" and "What day is it?" There was blood running down his shin.

He had taken a pretty bad spill, couldn't remember anything about it, couldn't remember where he had left his car and seemed to have problems remembering his name and someone whom we could contact. We got a phone number out of him and managed to get in contact with his father. His father asked us to call an ambulance and we did just that. A fire truck with concerned fire fighters and an ambulance showed up and started to care for him. He probably had a pretty bad concussion. He kept saying that he had "had one before" after "hitting his head on a rock in Utah" after a biking accident there.

I remember falling off a ladder once and hitting my head hard enough to knock myself out. I was very young. I was much more careful with ladders after that. Maybe that doesn't translate into bicycles or something.

On the way home from lunch on the train while staring at nothing as most people do I accidentally locked eyes with a young girl on the train. That's unusual in and of itself - strangers don't usually don't do that. She returned my smile with an equally honest smile. It wasn't flirtatious or anything like that. It was just an honest smile from a stranger; a welcome sight after an odd day.

I got a pile of books from Nat that aren't related to politics or history. Something a little less dry to enjoy. Of course, they were all Chuck Palahniuk books so we'll see how they affect my brain. In fact, when I think about it I realize that it's a long way from the non-fiction that I've been feeding myself recently.

I think that I'm finally ready to talk about last week's attack. I feel like I have processed it enough to know how I really feel about it.

The most interesting thing in the way that it's affected me is the fact that it's something that I haven't just buried my head in the sand to avoid. In fact I expect that it's something that I will carry with me for the rest of my life. And, as part of that acceptance, I think that's OK. It's important to be reminded of how precious life is and how it can change or be lost in an instant. It gives rise to the idea that you should treasure and make good use of the life that you have left because maybe tomorrow it will be gone.

I know that for myself I don't want to be in a position where at the end of my life that I have major regrets. I don't mean the kind of regret where you say "...but I never saw Paris..." - I mean the kind where you know that you didn't live your life with enough passion, that you didn't love hard enough and that you didn't stand up for the things that you believe in and make yourself heard. Those are the kinds of regrets that I think that I would find most disturbing and are the ones that I am trying hardest to avoid.

So I guess that aside from that drive to move forward and live my life much as I did before what else have I learned? Well, it's a constant reminder of what real grief and empathy is like. I didn't know anyone personally that died in the attack of but I still feel sad for everyone who lost their lives. That's empathy. I feel even sadder for those who were close to them and now have to go on living without them. That bothers me more than anything; that sense of loss that thousands of people are feeling at once.

Death is all around us, waiting for every one of us to enter her arms. We shall all do so one day. What we really need to do, every one of us, is to make sure that we have lived our lives day to day in a manner in which we can respect ourselves when that time comes.

I'm also very concerned that Justice is done in the names of the victims of the attack. And I'm talking about Justice, not Revenge. I'm convinved that the one thing that this country a great country, above all other reasons is Rule of Law. And you can't have Rule of Law without Justice. You have to have a system that is as fair and as equitable as possible. It's a sign of a civilization in which the participants have respect for one another. And when you have mutual respect, you have peace and prosperity.

My concern is that by calling this a War that we don't have to use our system of justice to administer punishment, as we should be. That we don't have to use the same rules that we apply to ourselves. Instead the decision to do so is made outside of the courts, outside of the power of the people. This would be revenge, grudge killings, not Justice. By using rhetoric around this tragedy that includes the word 'War' it means that we give unlimited latitude to our Commander-in-Chief do what our courts should be doing.

And, ideology aside and speaking strictly from a practical perspective, I suspect that reacting with military force would make the entire problem worse, not better. If the largely islamic countries in the middle east feel that we are exacting our revenge on the people at the cost of their national sovereignty it's likely to breed more radicals, more people that feel that a holy war is a good idea against the US. This would be bad for both parties involved. I feel that cooler heads must prevail or we are facing a situation where even more innocent, peace loving people will be harmed or killed.

If we do decide to invade one of the countries in the middle east in order to extract those that we feel are guilty, what will the cost be? I'm not just talking about the lives of the people who have to carry out that invasion, I'm talking about the cost of the lives of those who are innocent in the country that's invaded. When we're talking about the people responsible we're talking about individual people and small groups who are carrying out these terror attacks, not heads of state.

And what about the cost to our own society? What about the cost to our own way of life? Can we truly stand with our heads held high in the world community and say that we live by our own rules? That we are mature enough to administer Justice to everyone equally? What happens as individuals when we have to face our neighbors over the mythical picket fence? Can we have an honest discussion knowing that that we have supported a method of justice that we would ask to be applied to ourselves?

If we have to use the military to extract those who are responsible and bring them to justice here in this country, that's OK with me. As long as justice is administered here in this country and not on the battlefield which may include unnumbered innocent lives, listed as 'collateral damage.'

I also know that until that day comes that the military is a necessary, even welcome tool to every nation. To not have and not fully support a military is a folly. It's the question of how you use it that shows what the true character of a nation is. I hope that we prove that we are the kinds of people that the world can look up to in the way that we use ours, even in the face of unbelievable temptation to inflict damage on the lives of the people in other nations of the world as our own were so damaged.

We need to understand that when dealing with this issue that love and justice are the two most powerful weapons in our arsenal. Those are the tools that will win this 'War.' They are the only tools that we have that gives us a future of peace in which the members of the world community, from states to individuals, can look on each other with mutual respect and a world of peace.

Back to reality, I haven't seen a lot of discourse on this subject in the mass media where a vast majority of Americans still get their news. CNN has this running title 'America's New War' which makes me quite sad. They don't even leave out the chance that this will be handled in a more sane manner. In fact, the cynic in my wouldn't be surprised if they weren't hoping for military action. It would certainly boost their ratings even higher.

"The flow from knowledge to action draws upon the complete person
with his or her catalytic and synergistic potential.  Almost every
skill and academic disipline can find a ready use in the complex drive
for social change and in our society.  Commitment, a reasonable
self-confidence, a resiliency to overcome recurring adversities, a
zest for work, and the ability to focus on larger goals without
neglecting the daily details are some obvious traits of such a
primordial advantage.  A sense of humor for perspective and
self-control also comes in handy."

--Ralph Nader

I'm almost done with a book of essays by Ralph Nader. It's interesting to spend time reading about what his political views are from his own mouth instead of what you hear filtered through the mass media. ( That was the only way that I was getting information before since I didn't bother doing research on my own. So much for our free press. ) Anyhow, I was kind of surprised at some of his possible solutions to dealing with the problems of social justice, large businesses, government sponsored monopolies, the lack of public participation in government and various other problems in our domestic society. First and foremost, he's most interested in democratic principals and wants to see citizens empowered to use those principals in all walks of life from goverment to private enterprise, all the way up the chain. It's a laudable goal; one that I have to admit I would love to see achieved.

His solutions rarely include what is usually called "bigger government." It's very different from the administrative solutions that are the bread and butter of the liberals of the 1960s and 1970s. He proposes government chartered, volunteer-funded organizations whose role is to act in the public interest which act through civic action, legal challenges and research and education. He's done a good job of describing some successful examples as well. It's interesting stuff.

Today I hacked on code that makes it possible for you to tell who owns a running mozilla instance on an X Display. This has been requested time and time again and I just got sick of saying "that's how it's supposed to work."

I spent a good bit of the day working on rewriting the Mozilla launch script and .desktop files. It should be much more sane than it was. You can launch Mozilla Mail from the command line and it figures out if there's already a running instance and will open it there instead. It's pretty nice for even advanced users. I also removed a lot of other random cruft as well.

Ben came over for dinner. Eggplant was on the menu. Afterwords Shona wanted to test her newly acquired eclair-making skills. We were a bit fatter at the end of the night but very happy.

I am such a dork. I started downloading all of the promos for the new star trek series that's starting up. Next thing you know I'll be scouring the papers looking for dates for the next local convention or something. I blame memepool.

Speaking of memepool, there was an interesting link off of it. Something useful: Impropaganda Review. Ever wonder who funds the Global Climate Coalition? Surprise! Not people concerned about our effects on the climate, just the opposite. Some of the big hitters include Amoco, Chevron, Chrysler, Exxon, Shell Oil, and others.

And what's with the happy looking people on the front of their site, anyway? If I were to venture a guess I would say that they seemed care-free and unconcerned about the environment. I would expect to see that kind of naked manipulation in the brochure for a pharmaceuticals company. Brand, brand, brand, brand, it's all about the brand.

Spent the day hanging out with Nat and Joe and sometimes Ryan. It started off with some food. They had something called the Viagra Burger that Joe recommended. Afterwords, I didn't feel like moving. Not what I would call a real pick me up for something with a name like that.

Ryan didn't feel like moving much after showing off his drinking problem either. I'm pretty sure that each of those is at least 32oz of liquid, maybe more.

After that we headed out, picked up Nat's friend's jeep and we proceeded to do a little furniture shopping with Joe. He picked up a nice desk and a coffee table while I admired a rocking chair and some other random items in the store. Joe left a much poorer man. I managed to resist the urge to buy furniture.

We also had to go and get some other random things for Joe for his new apartment including some pots and pans, random sleeping gear and Nat added a waffle maker to his arsenal of cooking equipment.

It was a quiet day for me. I was mostly along to vegitate in the back of the jeep, take pictures and try not to think. As you can tell by the amazing boredom of this entry that I succeeded in clearing my mind of anything noteworthy.

Some random pictures from driving around town in the back of an open jeep. These are of varying quality.

Pornography, Patriotism, Slavery and a Place to Stay.

Some groomsman milling about.

Healing messages.

Faint image of the jeep reflected in a store window.

Luxury car?

Joe's hazy image in a dark mirror.

Nat's forehead illumated by headlights in dark mirror.

Yay, Mozilla 0.9.4 is released.

Long day. I didn't get a lot done, really. Worked on getting the 0.9.4 release out. We're waiting to see of someone coughs up a couple of patches overnight and if they don't we'll release without their enhancements.

Managed to get my CDROM burner working and made a mix CD from some songs that I enjoy. The Don Henley album was especially hard to get a song off of. The consipiracy theorist in me wants me to think it's intentional. It's probably just my crappy equipment. Check me out using my fair use rights.

Speaking of which, the protest in Boston for this Thursday has been postponed out of respect.

Started reading about Zope. I need an excuse to re-learn python.

"I can't believe this ever worked."

Nat Friedman wanted me to link to his page. He's trying to make his page 'more important' in the eyes of google. More power to him. He's neat because he writes about his dreams.

So here I am trying to build yet another daily diary page in the style of Advogato. I'm going to make a real attempt to keep this one up to date, though.