Thousands flee as wind fuels flames

This must be why there's a weird haze outside and pieces of ash are floating everywhere. I'm not kidding.

According to Ann Coulter, this is treason

Rumsfeld Challenges Progress in War on Terror

Ah yes, the wisdom of overseas outsourcing

Pakistani transcriber threatens UCSF over back pay

Budget cuts at the copy desk?

Oops.

(from The Smoking Gun)

It's not exactly "Dewey Defeats Truman," but the New York Post made a colossal error today on its editorial page. The paper somehow printed an editorial bemoaning last night's Yankees loss to the Boston Red Sox, noting that the "Curse of the Bambino boomeranged this year" and that the Bronx Bombers "couldn't get the job done at home." The editorial concluded, "Wait'll next year!" Obviously, the Post piece was drafted while the Yanks were trailing the Sox, but was--unbelievably--not yanked when the club tied the game in the eighth inning and won it on Aaron Boone's walkoff home run in the 11th.

I sometimes lose sleep wondering whether I misspelled a name in a story that's gone to press or get sick to my stomach when I discover an easy-to-check error. I can't imagine what the editors at the Post are thinking.

I feel safer already

At Iraqi Depot, Missiles Galore and No Guards

Is it just me, or is Donald Rumsfeld looking dumber every minute?

Crossing the picket line

Doing our best to imitate France, pretty much everyone in L.A. went on strike this week. I don't have to ride the bus, but I do have to buy groceries. The workers have a right to strike, of course, and it's always in a person's best interest to maximixe one's salary. But at the same time I don't feel too much sympathy for them. Their main gripe is that they'll finally have to start shelling out co-pays. I say this is a good thing. One of the reasons health care costs are spiralling is because drugmakers and hospitals can keep raising prices, knowing insurance will pick up most of the tab. If people had to pay more of the costs, demand would wane, and prices wouldn't continue going up so quickly.

Of course, insurance should be set up in such a way as to encourage preventative care, without triggering abuses by patients or doctors.

Hey! Maybe we could set up some organization designed to carefully watch costs -- set up discounts with networks of doctors and reward them for being more efficient and making costs part of the health care equation -- and pass those savings onto the insured. Oh yeah, that's what an HMO is supposed to do.

Welcome to the real world, grocery clerks.

On the move again

I've signed the lease, ordered electric and phone (more importantly, DSL) service and contacted the movers.

I'll be in a decent location in Sunnyvale about 10 minutes away from work. It's Andrea's old apartment complex, only the rent has dropped $150 since she lived there, not counting the $50 discount I get because of the death of the previous tenant. The renter was required to tell me about the passing, presumably because the law reflects the sensibilities of thr Bay Area's Chinese population.

Anyway, I'm close to a grocery store and In-and-Out Burger, and a short walk takes me to a P.F. Changs's, Starbucks, Borders and misc. places. And then there's downtown Sunnyvale, which has a few shops and restaurants.

And of course, my beautiful girlfriend is a short drive away.

One of the worst ledes (yes, that's how it's spelled) I have ever read:

Davis on Letterman tonight
:

"Maybe it was only a matter of time, but still-Gov. Gray Davis has gone Hollywood. Well, maybe not Hollywood, but tonight he will go late night, 'Late Night with David Letterman' to be exact."

1 in 5 doesn’t speak English at home

"Nearly one in five Americans speaks a language other than English at home, the Census Bureau says, after a surge of nearly 50 percent during the past decade. Most speak Spanish, followed by Chinese, with Russian rising fast."

I found the study that the article article is based on. Portuguese ranked so low that they had to lump it in with Portuguese Creole. Yes, there is such a language. Considering the size of Brazil that can mean: 1) Not a lot of Brazilians emmigrate or 2) They all speak English, even at home.

I'm doing my part to make sure the latter is true.

Arnold's revenge on the L.A. Times

And on any newspaper, for that matter: ever try fitting "Schwarzenegger" into a headline with a subject, verb and object? Copy editors can't use "actor" as a substitute anymore, and his new position makes "Arnold" too demeaning. California journalism just got a lot tougher.

And for the record, I think this might be the first governor most people have seen naked.

Fox distorts, we deride

Study hits war views held by Fox fans


"Heavy viewers of the Fox News Channel are nearly four times as likely to hold demonstrably untrue positions about the war in Iraq as media consumers who rely on National Public Radio or the Public Broadcasting System, according to a study released this week by a research center affiliated with the University of Maryland's School of Public Affairs"

A big reason why homes cost so much in California

From today's San Jose Mercury News: "Because of the city's strict voter-mandated residential growth control initiative, the group had to go through the city's competitive application process multiple times to secure approval to build their 100-unit project in two separate phases, said Tom Iamesi, the group's director of housing development.
The city program, enacted by voters in 1977 and updated in 1990, established a formula that limits growth to about 200 homes per year, with 20 percent of those new homes allotted to affordable housing annually, said Jim Rowe, Morgan Hill planning manager."

And a primary motive for the growth-control measures, of course, is the state's wacky property tax laws, which reward cities for businesses, but not the residents who live there.

Why are Republicans so wasteful of tax dollars?

Questions are Raised on Awarding of Contracts in Iraq

From the New York Times:


"Last month the Iraqi Governing Council questioned why the American occupation authority had issued a $20 million contract to buy new revolvers and Kalashnikov rifles for the Iraqi police when the United States military was confiscating tens of thousands of weapons every month from Saddam Hussein's abandoned arsenals.

On Wednesday the Iraqi council, in a testy exchange with the occupation administrator, L. Paul Bremer III, challenged an American decision to spend $1.2 billion to train 35,000 Iraqi police officers in Jordan when such training could be done in Iraq for a fraction of the cost. Germany and France have offered to provide such training free."

Of course, the real question is not why the Republicans are so wasteful, but why they're so brazenly corrupt. They're spending like this so their contributors can get nice hefty government contracts.

Another Bush lie

Report Offered Bleak Outlook About Iraq Oil

New trouble for Schwarzenegger

New trouble for Schwarzenegger

"Browne said Friday on the television show “Inside Edition” that Schwarzenegger groped her ankles and knees during an interview in the 1970s."

OK, I'm no Schwarzenegger fan, but is it really possible to "grope" someone's knees and ankles?

Big news day

Lets summarize:

1) The Gropenator apologizes.

2) Rush Limbaugh is a drug addict.

3) No weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

4) The Bush recovery continues.

Am I forgetting anything?

My favorite is Drudge's take on the Limbaugh story. It wasn't "Limbaugh accused of drug abuse," but "Media orchestrates attack of Limbaugh." Ah, yes, the liberal media made him do it. And it looks like one of the side-effects of the drugs he was abusing is hearing loss, which may explain why he went deaf so early. Drug abuse is tragic, but it's hard to feel sorry when it happens to someone who'd made a career of castigating others for the very same thing.

Why can't Republicans just control themselves and take personal responsibility?

Women Say Schwarzenegger Groped, Humiliated Them

It's official

Andrea formally got a graphic design job at the Mercury News, the news I couldn't say publicly until today. Congratulations, sweetie!

Yeah, right.

White House gathering inquiry data

Why can't they just admit what everybody already knows? It was Karl Rove. I'll be glad to see that slimeball lose his job. It's too bad people that connected always land feet first, though.

Next up, the Lewinsky-style finger-wagging denial

White House Denies Leaking CIA Agent's ID