I was listening to NPR's

I was listening to NPR's Morning Edition on the way to work and heard that the head of the National Forest Service had stepped down. Mike Dombeck's job was actually protected from the new Bush administration but when it became apparent Dubya wanted to "change" how the Forest Service does business (i.e. open thousands of acres of national forest to logging as well as new oil, gas and mining operations), Dombeck opted to step down and retire.

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand I wish Dombeck stayed in his position and fought the administration publicly. But of course this would have been impossible without him becoming a major scape-goat. On the other hand, I hope that Dombeck's very public resignation sends a message to both the Bush administration and to the public - reminding them how the new administration appears to have little concern for the environment and who's every statement lately seems to be reversing environmental policy in favor of big business and high polluting energy generating organizations.

Further proof of this comes today as Bush refuses to put price caps on energy. While I agree that forcing people to pay for what electricity, gas etc that they use, I feel that Californians are being completely shafted. I'll have to look around but I believe the power generating companies are selling power to the utilities at something like 200-400% profit. Unbelievable.

Heard from a friend at

Heard from a friend at the Wall Street Journal that major high-tech companies are cutting back on travel and haven't been able to send executives to meetings in Wash. DC at places like the Dept. of Commerce, Senate etc.

Yeesh.

Ouch. Sorry. The Winmag.com site

Ouch.

Sorry. The Winmag.com site is no longer in operation.

Spell it with me: R-E-C-E-S-S-I-O-N.

Interesting. This morning I read

Interesting. This morning I read on MetaFilter that George Bush tried to convince his EPA Secretary to join him in reneging on his Carbon Dioxide promises. She refused and in an effort to defend herself, the EPA leaked a confidential memo to the President from her.

So in the end it's what Bush and the money-hungry people he seems to represent wants...not the will of the people. I just don't get it. How did he get elected President? He seems to be representing only the corporations, rich and greedy conservatives and the religious right. I don't even have to make this stuff up....sheesh.

A user on one of

A user on one of the email lists I'm on posted a link to Scorecard.org's top polluter's in Boston. I checked the list for Salem and was appalled to see the amount of pollution being expelled by the Salem Harbor Power Plant. I've heard stores from my herbalist teacher of how she won't wildcraft (pick) herbs in town or even drink much tap water due to how bad it is. This freaks me out....there's not much I can do myself but it might help to do some research. It pisses me off that Dubya has backed off on his promise to curb carbon dioxide initiatives while paving the way for more coal-burning energy initiatives.. especially in the wake of a report stating that acid rain is still a problem in the Northeast US. Hello? Hydrogen? Biomass? Solar? Wind?

It turns my crank that Bush is intent on completely exploiting resources like coal and oil (MAJOR pollutants) which will trash our environment not to mention deplete over time. Why not give tax incentives to explore alternative, renewable energy now and save places like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from harmful drilling? (Oil exploration my ass)

The IE6 Public Preview was

The IE6 Public Preview was released today. I checked it against some of my old IE5.5 HTML tests and found that IE6 beta does not pass any of them. These 4 tests are by no means all the issues but they are the ones I got around to testing during the last round of IE betas. I'm hoping MS will post info about where to submit bug info for the public preview soon.

I've just had a case

I've just had a case of hiccups for the last 20 minutes and it's been driving me NUTS. I tried holding the breath and eating raw sugar with no luck. So I took to the Web. Sure enough - I found a cure that worked instantly!

Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. However, if you REALLY concentrate on seeing if the cure worked, it will. The cure isn't the act of drinking water upside-down, or holding your breath, or being scared. The REAL cure is the wait AFTER the trick cure that is the real cure.

So I just did away with the trick part of the cure. When I start to hiccup, I stop what I'm doing and concentrate on waiting for my next hiccup. It never comes. The WAIT is the cure.

The deadling for Federal Web

The deadling for Federal Web accessibility requirements is looming:

"We would have liked a longer window," Cleland said. While companies so far have been reluctant to openly criticize the six-month deadline, Cleland said he knows of at least one meeting of a number of prominent companies where leaders discussed ways they could delay the deadline.

"They're in a very tricky political position," he said, but "I will be stunned if we don't see some companies coming forward (to protest) as the deadline approaches."

Well if you won't do something good for the people on your own....then I say kudos to the government for stepping in. But it wouldn't surprise me if the Bush administration pulls a fast one on us yet again and delays the deadline. They seem to be reversing everything else good that the Clinton administration including multiple environmental laws, labor laws, and relations with North Korea and China that Bush appears to have given a big "Fuck you" to.

Not holding my breath on this one.

Good WaSP Members don't go

Good WaSP Members don't go away, they just take a break. Welcome back, Jeff.

It's taken a couple of

It's taken a couple of months but the Artemisia Botanicals Web site is finally live. I hope to add a lot more features including an "Herblog" for the store's owner, Teri Kalgren, and by the end of April people should be able to shop online.

Herbal Rules of Etiquette #1:

Herbal Rules of Etiquette #1: Never apply Tea Tree Oil to your skin when guests are in the room - especially if they are prone to smell-induced migraines.

*sigh*

I continue to believe that

I continue to believe that publishers will let anyone write a book. While my previous rants have focused on the fact that the computer book publishing market will take anyone who writes a half-way legible book proposal littered with technical jargon the Village Voice has proved that it's not just tech paperbacks that fall within this category.

One title, David L. Buhlman's Final Warning, billed as "an adventure story about a bleak near future that may be more likely than most would care to admit," imagines life after a takeover by the pagan-feminist New World Way. "In order to control population growth, people are put to death at age sixty, abortions are forced, and the sickness of pedophilia is legalized and encouraged. But with boys only, not girls. Girls are protected because they are identified with the goddess Gaia, the religious myth that undergirds the New World Way. The mainline Christian denominations are forced to insinuate the Gaian rituals into all religious ceremonies, and religious leaders who would not cooperate are imprisoned." The novel also features cloned ratmen who probably aren't Christian either.

MetaFilter is 2 yrs old.

MetaFilter is 2 yrs old. Yay!

I was watching The Spin

I was watching The Spin Room on CNN last night and caught this interesting and amusing snippet of conversation between hosts Bill Press, Tucker Carlson and guest author/actor Malachy McCourt:

Bill Press: Now, my first question to you is I was shocked today, I've always -- I've known all my life about St. Patrick, the patron saint of the Irish, I learned today that he was actually born in England and captured as a slave when he was 16 and taken to Ireland. You mean to tell me that you Irish all this time have been singing the praises to some Brit?

Malachy McCourt: Yeah. We're suckers for matinee idols. No, he was captured by Niall of the Nine Hostages and brought to Ireland and put to work on the hills, and there he fell in love with sheep, but then he escaped and went back to wherever the hell he went to.

But then he decided to come back and convert the Irish, and they thought, oh well, he talks -- he speaks a good line, so let him in, and off he went, and the next thing they're all Catholic and a perfectly good pagan civilization was totally ruined by this man.

Tucker Carlson: So, that is the genesis of the anger at the British then?

Malachy McCourt: Well, we're not really angry at them. How can you get angry at your inferiors?

Apparently George W. Bush will

Apparently George W. Bush will not be corresponding with family and friends via email while he's President of the United States. I guess that's a good thing seeing as he can't seem to safely articulate himself even in public.

So, this next week will

So, this next week will be a doozy. I have my mother-in-law visiting all week - whom I would never survive without. Every couple of months she come to visit for a week or two, and completely cleans & reorganizes our house. She's amazing! Plus, I have my youngest brother showing up Monday afternoon with his "girl friend". Yes, one space. He refuses to confirm or deny their relationship so I have to wait and see. Now since she's only 18 and on Spring Break from a college on the shores of Eastern Maryland, she is being accompanied by her friend. So I have 6 people in the house until Wed when my brother and his entorauge depart and my wife heads to Maryland for a conference. She will be returning Friday with her father (to pick up her mother) and my the middle child in my family, whom I invited up since he also enjoys working on projects with my father-in-law.

Wow. I'm going to need a vacation after all this ;)

I'm having a "What's on

I'm having a "What's on your desk" moment and, for a change, feeling strangely invigorated this afternoon. Of course, the home office desk was picked up by the wife - something I REALLY appreciate. I'm working on an editing project and CANNOT work when surrounded by clutter. I get distracted. I thought about listing "general" groups of things...but then, how can you get a good idea of who a person is if you don't explain EVERYTHING. Not only that but I tried to link as much as I could. I need a life. ;)

Enjoy.

Anyway, I currently have my laptop, a charging Audiovox cellphone, a vial of seasalt and a few drops of peppermint oil (keeps me awake and alert), a bottle of Aleve from a previous headache, a Sycom Total Recall 23 personal voice recorder (for taking notes, recording interviews), J.K. Rowling's 2 Comic Relief books, The Complete Book of Incense, Oils and Brews, Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft (the BBB or Big Blue Book), a PowerComm 3000 surge protecter, a Sun Microsystems 19in monitor, a green Sony 1.44 floppy disk, the casette case for a mix a friend made for me in high school, a 100MB Zip Disk of my wedding pictures, a .5liter bottle of Poland Springs, pictures from DefCon 2 yrs back, a handcarved statue of an old whaler, a sculpture of a mouse my mother handmade when she was in high school, blank envelopes, a set of unplugged Altec Lansing speakers, 2 linings of a casette case for more high school mixes, a stapler, a picture of myself and the wife in Williamsburg dressed in colonial garb - picture frame says "In your eyes I see the First Day of Forever" *sigh*.

SEVERAL business cards - both mine and others from years of conferences, a tiny wooden bench missing it's dog and cat figurines that sit on it, Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs, XML by Example, Teach Yourself XML in 24 hrs., 2 notepads - one with scrawlings from this week's work meetings and another with notes from herbalism class, manual for my old Motorola g520 cell phone, membership information for the UMass Alumni Association, manual for my Nomad Jukebox that I haven't used more than 10 times since I've gotten it, a Canon BJC-2010 printer missing the data cable, a box of Kleenex, a beige touch-tone phone, a SanDisk CompactFlash PC Card Adapter, an old, red Boy Scout Swiss Army Knife, a small box of four Energizer Industrial Alkaline AA batteries, a large Swingline stapler, a box of Strawberry Pocky, another box of Reduced Fat Wheat Thins, the insert from an MSDN CD, an old IBM 1.44" floppy disk, a Christmas Card "CD" from a reporter friend of mine, Adobe Photoshop 5.0 CD, a small 12-CD black cloth case with assorted CDs stuffed in the slots and in the front, a CD of Gilberto & Getz, another 100MB disk, loose Massachusetts for Folk CD, a demo of the Wild Wild West PC game, CD of Jonatha Brooke's Plumb, a blank CD no doubt containing a demo of a client's software, another blank CD, a CDR with files from a 9/2000 backup of my machine, drivers for my 3Com Network card, a Sugar Hill Sampler, and the cover from Ken Goddard's recent book "Outer Perimeter" - and that's not distracting.

It's windy and snowy, and

It's windy and snowy, and the power has been out in my house since late last night. The phones are up but the battery in my laptop about to die. Lots of wet snow on the ground. Pictures to come as soon as power goes back on.

I keep thinking more and

I keep thinking more and more about the shooting and who's to blame. And per usual, Ellis Paul's song comes to mind - you can listen to a little bit here:

Autobiography of a Pistol 

I'm a pistol, a forty-five,

I just shot two men in this hot-house dive.

Now I'm smoking - burning hot barrel of metal. 

Believe it or not, I was bought by this guy named Ray, 

a card carrying member of the NRA,


But he left me out in his car one day,

And now the finger on my trigger hasn't seen it's sixteenth birthday. 

Some things they never tell you when you're riding the assembly line. 

Like who'll be the hands to hold you and what's their state of mind - - 

Hey, I'm not much bigger than a pointed index finger. 

So who am I to lay the blame? 

I'm only here to cause some pain... 

The sirens -- 

I can hear them, they're singing ... 

They're singing my song, 

"When the sun sets, I get upset --

Darkness fills me and I want to light up the world"... 

Would you believe I've seen better days? 

I starred in westerns and won rave reviews.

Now I sit on a shelf, tagged for judgment day. 

I've got to change the jury's point of view.

You see, guns don't kill people, it's the bullets that do.

I said guns don't kill people, bullets do. 

Yeah, the bullets do... 

Finally the snow has started.

Finally the snow has started. I peaked outside and saw snow blurring past the lights. Hopefully things will pick up.

Jesus. Another school shooting. I'm

Jesus. Another school shooting. I'm ranting on MeFi.

I stopped by Stop &

I stopped by Stop & Shop 2 hours ago to pick up some basics - milk, eggs, meat... I felt like such a cad going out with the threat of this blizzard. I walked through the store self concious of "buying before the storm".The lot at the store was definitely a lot more full then it has been when I've gone shopping on weekdays while working at home. I was hesitant to move my car out of the lot at the end of the street when I left for the store. The old folks home lets us park there during snow emergencies but as of now the street has been plowed and there's no indication that I couldn't have gone to the office let alone park in the street.

Luckily I have a job where I can work at home with little problems.

The Mayor of Boston said for everyone to be vigilant and to stay at home if they can. I'm pretty pissed at the poor predicting right now - this morning it was going to start at noon. A few hours ago it was 3pm. Now they're saying the brunt will start tonight through tomorrow morning. More as it happens.

Well, they're calling for a

Well, they're calling for a nasty blizzard here in MA. Right now we're in a "lull" but I really wonder. The television and radio forcasters have really done a poor job this winter predicting snowfall. Connecticut has banned tractor trailers from the roadways and the City of Boston and State of MA has declared a "State of Emergency". The City of Salem has a parking ban but I did drive my wife to the commuter rail this morning albeit begrudgingly. Apparently MIT doesn't close if the President can get to work. And his house is on campus. I'm watching WCVB right now which has great details on their Web site.

I think I've been sleeping

I think I've been sleeping a little TOO soundly lately. See, I need white noise to sleep soundly. In the summer and early fall, it's the air conditioner while in the winter and early spring it's the humidifier.

I was told last week by my neighbors that a 5-car accident happened in the early morning hours and this morning, my wife and father-in-law moved around all the furniture in our guest room including a very-heavy antique bed. Never heard a thing.

Nor did I hear a reckless driver sideswipe my neighbor's car, taking off a side-view mirror, and our car ripping off a panel and leaving several scrapes. I decided to take a page from the book of one of my new favorite shows. The wife was smart and grabbed the digital camera taking pictures of all the damage and part of the tire-tracks in the snow. The snow had melted by the time I got up but I decided to see if I could get the whole scene.

The driver must have been going fast because he left a lot of tire marks - not black tar marks but white, like the pavement was ripped up. I think they blew a tire or something because the car was right around the corner. I was too chicken to go out the first time because some guy was sitting on the corner where the car was smoking a cigarette looking at me funny. I waited until he was gone before I headed out again and I peaked around the corner where a tow truck was picking up the car. Apparently the police already checked out the car this morning. Should be interesting to find out if the person was tanked or not - the tire marks are all swervy.