Happy Leap DAY!

Roy Doty - artist extradinare. His card, my blog, his pic, my potential copyright infringement.

The beauty of data

The NY Times has published a 'blog' on movie data - the ebb and flow of the box office take since 1986. This in an interactive graph with a lovely representation. Please go by and visit and click around. Some neat things to note - look how long older films like Crocodile Dundee in 1988 - that thing lasted like 6 months.

1989 was a great year for film. 1990, not so much. The only thing I wish it would do is upon mouse over, show the full Box Office take. The color coding gives you and idea however. Have fun playing with this graph - absolutely a great visual graph to play with for hours. When was the last time you could say that?!

I hate to get political but seriously...

as much as I *hate* our current administration's policies, the thing that bugs me the most is the administrations 'spin' on almost everything they are trying to get away with. Currently I am writing about the FISA act, where bush & co. want to spy on anyone, anywhere, anytime. And, since this has been going on since Sept 12th, 2001 - can we also make sure that this illegal wiretapping is retro-actively made legal please? (sic)

But bush & co keep saying that the dems on capital hill want to have a vacation (rich considering bush has spent 27% of his elected time ON VACATION) instead of pass this (horrid) legislation. To quote CNN:
"The Democrats have made a decision that their higher priority -- over national security -- is taking another recess," Perino said.

The current laws are set to expire at midnight Saturday. The nation's intelligence agencies then will have to go to court for warrants to listen in on conversations between suspected terrorists overseas. Intelligence officials said that it will cause unnecessary delays, but the government will be able to get permission to conduct eavesdropping through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Even without court permission, agents also can listen in on a suspect's calls without a warrant as long as an application is submitted within three days. Additionally, any warrants already approved are good for a year from when the initial warrant was issued." ----

So in affect, only NEW suspected terrorists conversations would need the warrant AND only have to file the paperwork after three days from the START of said wiretap. How is our civil liberties worth this risk when our physical risk is near zero? I mean seriously, they can wiretap immediately, ask for the warrant THREE DAYS after and the warrant is good for a year. This is placing the country at risk? BS - its about the third largest lobbying group (telecommunications) in washington asking for a favor (ex parte) to keep them from getting sued (currently 40 such lawsuits exist) ex posto facto. bush & co want to grant this favor and the dems (who aren't the major recipient of said lobby cash) are probably waiting for more money from these lobbying firms before they do pass this law.

I see a big game of chicken being played with the American Citizens Civil Liberties in the balance and not one iota of our safety at risk. Shame on our system for this and ridiculous that our administration has been pulling these one liner quips and worse, the apathetic Americans for eating it up. Do your homework people!

Hey Brad Pitt, where's the love?

According to some new research in Denmark, I am related to Brad Pitt. Why were researchers in Denmark trying to find a relation between Brad and I? That's a very good question. I suppose you'd have to ask them... (or just read the article)

This research does bring up some disturbing questions:

• Did Brad and Angelina know they were related before they hooked up?
  
• Did Maddie marry me just to get closer to Brad? No, of course not...right honey? (It was probably to be closer to Paul Newman :-p)
  
• Does anyone care if all blue eyes come from the same gene pool when in all likely hood if you can go back *far enough* you are going to see we all came from the same murky sea of genetic evolution?
  

I mean, we all have two arms and five fingers on each hand - that's gotta be in the same gene sequence as say, the head goes on top and the feet on the bottom. We are from an extremely limited set of alpha parents if you go back far enough in time.

Anyway, belated happy birthday to my relatives out there I haven't met before - welcome to the family.