SIDEHIKE.NET

“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

More word from Becky Orander, the Executive Director of the Arlington Life Shelter:

Thanks to everyone for your help so far in the disaster recovery process. There has been a tremendous outpouring of volunteer support and much-needed items. Unfortunately, this is just the beginning of quite a long process.

From what I’ve seen, Arlington has primarily guests from New Orleans that were receiving a great deal of social service support back home and will need the same here. Few owned cars and are used to public transportation systems, so Arlington’s limited transit options will be a shock to them.

Shelters are pretty much in maintenance mode. Volunteers are now being scheduled through the city at (817) 462-3700. The most pressing needs right now in Arlington are hair care products, perm kits and makeup for African Americans, furniture, mattresses, household setups (brooms/mops/cleaning products, etc). Drop off is Mission Arlington located at 210 W. South St., (817) 277-6620. Thank you in advance for your continued support.

Becky makes an important point in her note: An astonishing number of the people displaced from Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama were already impoverished before they were hit with this tragedy. This is a region that has always struggled with poverty. For example, click here to see a map (PDF) that shows the percent of people in Orleans Parish who made below common measures of a living wage as of the 2000 Census. The amount of purple on the map should be an eye opener. (This and more info can be found at the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center.)

As many of you may know, I work for an online dating company. Well, over the last year or so, this industry has become pretty darned crowded. There’s a lot of competition out there now, and one major trend is specialization. There are sites for religious matching, sites for people with specific jobs, and even sites that focus on finding people with compatible pets. But the latest site to enter the market really took me by surprise:

“Hannidate 2005, where you may find your perfect match through Hannity style romance.”

Yes, Sean Hannity.

Yes, that Sean Hannity.

I tell you, if his service doesn’t match him up with Alan Colmes, there’s no justice in this world.

If you think this pile is big, you should see the one Congress has been stacking up in D.C.

From New Scientist magazine:
Pentagon reveals rejected chemical weapons

Funny. I thought Tom Jones invented the “Sex Bomb” years ago…

Most bizarre among the plans was one for the development of an “aphrodisiac” chemical weapon that would make enemy soldiers sexually irresistible to each other. Provoking widespread homosexual behaviour among troops would cause a “distasteful but completely non-lethal” blow to morale, the proposal says.

This is fantastic news! CNN has fired rabid Troy Dungan impersonator Tucker Carlson from Crossfire. (And will likely fold Crossfire, altogether.)

Check out the story on Yahoo News:
CNN Lets ‘Crossfire’ Host Carlson Go

Key quotes:

The bow-tied wearing conservative pundit got into a public tussle last fall with comic Jon Stewart, who has been critical of cable political programs that devolve into shoutfests.

“I guess I come down more firmly in the Jon Stewart camp,” [CNN boss Jonathan] Klein told The Associated Press.

And the most promising to me:

“I doubt that when the president sits down with his advisers they scream at him to bring him up to date on all of the issues,” he said. “I don’t know why we don’t treat the audience with the same respect.”

So I’m dreaming of California.

If I lived there, I could live off of one day’s wages. That’s right — one day’s wages.

California has imposed a ban on spyware, and this might just be my ticket to riches!

According to their new law, “Consumers are able to seek up to $1,000 in damages if they think they have fallen victim to the intrusive software.”

Check out the details in this story from BBC News

Here’s my plan:

I figure I could have 80 spyware applications installed by 10am, and have my legal papers drawn up and served by dinnertime.

See you on the beach!

Right now, I’m watching a documentary on the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and I tell you, it’s fascinating. The film, Bonhoeffer (2003), is fascinating.

Bonhoeffer was a protestant theologian and Nazi resister who was hanged shortly before the end of WWII. Add this documentary to your NetFlix queue. Order it from Amazon. This is truly an amazing man.

Here are a couple of quotes from his writings:

On the waning of The Church:

Christ is really present only in the community. The church is the presence of Christ, just as Christ is the presence of God. But our church today is bourgeois: the best proof is that poor working classes have turned away from the church. Whereas the bourgeois, the petty officials, the artisans, and the merchants have remained. When the community is split, is Christ himself divided?

On the failing of man to act on Christ’s teachings:

We have been silent witnesses of evil deeds: we have been drenched by many storms; we have learnt the arts of equivocation and pretence; experience has made us suspicious of others and kept us from being truthful and open; intolerable conflicts have worn us down and even made us cynical. Are we still of any use?

There’s a lot of talk about the political leanings of Texas A&M and the University of Texas compared to each other. So just how different are they? Which is more “radical” compared to the state of Texas as a whole?

To find out, read on:

To compile A&M’s results, I pulled the precinct by precinct results from the Bryan/College Station Eagle. TAMU Campus-only results are from the polling location in the Memorial Student Center, which should be student-only. The “surrounding area” includes areas I know students live in College Station, and the portion of Bryan just north of Northgate. This will surely include faculty, staff, and the few people in town who work for non-A&M related industries, but should get 90% of the off-campus population, which is most upperclassmen.

To compile UT’s results, I pulled the precinct by precinct results from Travis County’s website. The UT Campus-only results are from the polling locations at Jester East and Jester West, and should also be student-only. The “surrounding area” includes polls that are close to the UT campus, mostly north of the river and east of MOPAC. Part of the challenge with UT is that many students commute much farther (especially from South Austin) but Austin is a real city, unlike College Station. So, essentially, the city population should be less representative of the student population. (However, over time, the city should have more influence on these students than College Station has on Aggies.)

One more challenge: Brazos county results didn’t show third party / write in votes for each precinct … they were only visible in the full-county view. Either way, there were only 103 votes for Nader in ALL of Brazos county.

Interestingly, Badnarik (Libertarian) beat Nader quite soundly in both areas. Apparently Ralph’s even less of a factor in Texas than ever before. Even on college campuses.

Click the image above for the results

Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted after that election. I’m glad it’s over. If I had to watch one more Sessions/Frost ad, I might’ve plonked my eyes out.

To my Democrat brethren:
I know you’re upset. I know you feel downtrodden. That must be the second-most frustrating way to lose. But before you start packing your bags, please remember that other countries have immigration laws. Even Canada. I know they don’t even seem like a real country, but international law seems to think they are. And if you want to move there, you may have to wait a while. At least, Reuters seems to think so.

As for me, my candidate still didn’t win. I’m not all that upset, because I think both of the obvious choices were pretty lousy, and we’re in for four more years of the same old bullshit either way. Here’s hoping for McCain/Giuliani vs. Dean/Sharpton in ‘08. Now that would be a fun fight to watch.