I totally read it on Some Guy’s Blog

• Megan and I redid the kitchen! It’s mostly her doing, although I did a lot of the furniture assembly. We repainted and redecorated. In somewhat related news, is there some place like Flickr and SmugMug that’s actually free?

• I thought the holidays went really well, although I personally was sick for most of Thanksgiving day and parts of the surrounding days. I am mostly over it now, but not completely. Yuck.

• I was effectively eliminated from playoff contention in my one fantasy football league. That’s tough to take, because I feel like the top three teams are all in my division, and I just didn’t get the breaks this year. If I find myself in a football league half as enjoyable as the Fans of the ACC fantasy baseball league that I am in—that’ll be a happy day.

• That fact has in no way damaged my enjoyment of this college football season, which is the most enjoyable in my memory—besides Tennessee’s 1997 championship, of course.

• I think Jeremy and I are really getting into some fruitful discussion areas. Changing minds, both your own and others, is tough!

• Thanks to this software, my iPod and I are finally getting along somewhat. I want to like it, I do, it’s a great piece of hardware but I much preferred loading up my iRiver—it just did what I wanted.

• I’ve been getting more exposure to Zimbra at work since we’re transitioning to a hosted service for our e-mail. That is one slick program! I’m excited that I might actually be able to use a calendar. Neither Google’s nor Yahoo!’s ever stuck for me.

• I’m going to see if my sister can turn out a design for my redesign. Then, even if that works, I’ll have to do the CSS part. Here’s hoping! After that, I’ll still have to do some work to get the categories into Mephisto ready shape. But I’m excited and ready to make the switch.

• As far as CISV goes, a new web design is in store there, and I think it’s really good. That’ll be a fun week to move the CISV USA site to something from the 21st century.

• I heard she started with one red paperclip.

Here are some links that will be helpful if you want to get Trac set up successfully on eApps.

http://summersoft.fay.ar.us/pub/subversion/1.3.2/rhel-4/bin/

http://projects.standblue.net/rpms/trac/rhel4/

http://support.eapps.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=114

The blog has found its next home. The poor thing. It might not be anywhere close to finished, either. I’m not sure where it will be housed next. I’m fairly certain that the next event will be a transformation into a Mephisto backed blog with a custom theme (although I may start with the one that I ported for CVREG). But one can never tell in this crazy world!

I should be getting back into the lovely rhythm I had before the blog went down. I’m getting a lot done while enjoying myself pretty consistently. I’d love to be able to keep that up.

There is nothing in the Constitution requiring candidates to be listed on the ballot with their party affiliations, and, if you think about it, the custom of doing so is vaguely undemocratic. It makes elections a monopoly of the major parties, by giving their candidates an enormous advantage?the advantage of an endorsement right there on the ballot?over everyone else who runs.

—Louis Menand, New York Times

Forty-nine per cent [of voters surveyed in election years between 1952 and 2000] believe that the President has the power to suspend the Constitution.

—ibid.

Unaware of basic governmental structure, or powerfully politically prescient? You be the judge.

So, I took a few pictures of the various sections a few weeks ago, and now it’s up on the web.

View Jim and Megan’s garden!

I didn’t go the flickr route except with a couple of them. And I have a problem spending $30 on something that my linux tools do at least a decent job of automating.

I also don’t have any captions on any of them, because, to be quite honest, I know the names of about a half-dozen of the plants. I know Megan knows more. Anyway, I talked a little bit about why I love the garden so much already, and I need to get rolling today.

Get a free 80-hour TiVo unit when you sign up for a service plan. I am pretty sure that the first plan is $14.95 a month, and, if you watch TV at all, it’s an excellent deal. You can actually watch the shows you want to watch, and the wish-list taping is an incredible way to bulk up the movie collection. Megan and I have actually canceled Netflix, the experiment has been so successful.

Please leave a comment if you sign up.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. —That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. ?Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

—Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, emphasis mine.

I don’t know how much closer to despotism you can get. This fact alone should lead anyone who has ever believed that American is fundamentally about responsible self-governance to the booth.

Never mind that this hypocritical, cynical, irresponsible, pandering, pointlessly deceitful, painfully ignorant, out of touch
stooge will perhaps have full support from a man with this record as your representative in the Senate if you do nothing to act.

Did I mention Bush was out-of-touch?

• American Sphinx, which reminded me that it is time to acquaint myself more closely with American political history—beginning with
• Team Of Rivals, a recent Abraham Lincoln biography. Lincoln was born during Jefferson’s administration, though I wonder if it’s possible for the two men to be more different.
• Studies in Mutualist Political Economy which I am slightly less than half way through. I’m reading this one to inform discussions with Jeremy. It does appear that we are getting to the good part.

What’s next? Good question. It may actually be a programming book. It’s been awhile!

Then it?s those evil liberals allying with Al Qaeda to deny you fresh sheets.

—Jeremy Weiland

One of Megan’s students asked her a question for her government survey: “Do you feel safer now than you did before 9/11?”

I have the hardest time even beginning to answer that question. Is this supposed to be a referendum on Bush’s performance? A meditation on security? An invitation to layman speculation about the potential of a terrorist attack on Richmond, Virginia and/or Houston, Texas?

Feel free to add your own impressions.