Yes Virginia, there are gays and muslims…

Politics, Rants

Our state’s tourism motto is ‘Virginia is for Lovers‘.

Recent headlines might make you think otherwise. In just the last week, a number of Virginia Epispicol parishes have split from the U.S. Epispicol Church over their tolerant treatment of gays, and a member of Virginia’s Congressional Delegation wrote a letter to constituents warning that if we didn’t change our immigration policies, we will be subject to more muslims in America.

I think our motto may need a qualifying asterisk to add some fine print…

* only applies to heterosexuals and lovers of a christian god

Shameful.

A Bigot in Congress
The Washington Post, 12/22/06

Lawmaker won’t apologize for ‘Islamophobic’ letter
CNN.com, 12/20/06

Episcopalians Against Equality
Washington Post, 12/20/06

with thanks to Waldo, AmericaBlog and Think Progress for the story

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Dear Washington DC BMW,

Rants

It’s 6:10 am on the Tuesday before Christmas. Why the hell am I writing to you? Because I’ve already seen, no… heard, your commercial that begins with the screams of a young boy and girl on Christmas morning twice, and you’ve impacted my day in a bad way.

Who there thought it was a good idea to build a commercial around the sustained and obnoxious screaming of some kid? Will that sell cars? To me your commercial is a startling and painful jolt. Whatever is happening at the time it airs, I stop and search for the source of the screams… is someone hurt? Has one of my own kids had an accident? No, it’s that damn BMW commercial on the TV.

You haven’t lost a customer, because there weren’t any BMW’s on my shopping list. But you’ve joined the many reasons that I have to look forward to Christmas, as I hope and pray that it will be the end of your awful screaming commercial. Wise up. BMW buyers may be nostalgic for images of their kids on Christmas morning. The screams, I’m sure they’d be glad to forget.

UPDATE: Apparently I’m not alone in hating this commercial. Scroll down to the comment by Columbia, MD about the BMW ad in this online chat from washingtonpost.com.

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Learning to Swim While Drowning in Spam

Rants, Technology
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I already knew I got a lot of spam, probably more than many since I have multiple email accounts, manage domains that default to my email, and have recklessly shared my own email address online for many years. But back in October, I decided to check just how much. So for a week, I saved my spam and counted it. During the week of October 2-8, I received 3,129 spam email messages, an average of 447 each day. Among the top subject lines were:Re: HI, Need medicine? All here!, We cure any disease!, Full of health? Then don’t click!, and Our store is your cureall!

And it could have ended there, a sad peek into the ugly wasteland that email has become. But no, it got worse, I could just tell. And so later the same month I repeated the same spam counting experiment. And during the week of October 23 – 29 I received 5009 spam emails for an average of 715 a day. Please, can I get a sympathetic WTF here??!!

At the end of my rope, I finally took steps that I had long resisted in order to stem the flow by signing up with Spam Arrest, a spam filtering service. I had heard good reviews from a few people, but was still hesitant to put anything between me and my email. Now I only regret having waited so long.

Sometimes a simple technology change can be a real lifestyle change. Caller ID, and Tivo are a couple of examples. Add Spam Arrest to that list. For the first time, I feel like I’m fighting back and maybe even have the upper hand in the fight against spam. Ninety-one percent of my email is spam! It’s sad that so much time and effort has to be wasted because of these lowlife email hucksters. It’s sadder still that there must be more than enough suckers in the world who respond to their crap that spam is a viable business at all.

It’s a big problem, and getting worse. Thank you Spam Arrest for giving me a way to fight back.

For further reading…

What’s with all this spam?
Network World, 11/8/06

‘Pump-and-Dump’ Spam Surge Linked to Russian Bot Herders
eWeek, 11/16/06

‘9 out of 10 e-mails now spam’
CNN.com, 11/27/06

Spam Doubles, Finding New Ways to Deliver Itself
The New York Times, 12/6/06

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Screaming Delivery

Diversions, Family

Here’s a flashback from the home video collection. It’s September 28, 1990, and we are a young couple in the hospital, awaiting the arrival of our first child, and using our new video camera to record the event. We had already been at the hospital since early morning by the time this clip was taken, and our daughter would not arrive until the very early morning of the next day. But it was a different story in the room next door.

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Time Flies in Soccer

Sports
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Just look at them, four boys from the neighborhood who have been playing soccer together since they were tiny. The first picture is from when they played on ‘The Sharks’ in 2000, when they were all about seven years old. Cary, the one on the right, has since moved away. But the others are still together on the field. Now they’re all 13. The lower photo is from yesterday, when their PWSI All-Star team won their division with three Sunday victories (two ending in shoot-outs).

I can’t help but wonder what this group will look like in six more years… in 2012, when they’ll all be 19. Probably getting ready for the World Cup in 2014! But whether or not that comes to pass, we’ve collected many happy memories on the soccer field watching them play. Especially that first goal, back in ’01.

 

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Good Grief! He Scores!

Politics

I know I wasn’t alone among Democrats who approached Election Day with serious caution against any pre-mature celebration, and in-fact fully prepared to find we had somehow once again blown what was being built up as a sure thing. The October 29th editorial carton by Toles in the Washington Post captured this pre-election anxiety perfectly…

October 29, 2006

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Here’s today’s follow-up. I love it.

November 9, 2006

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Republicans Blame Election Losses On Democrats

News, Politics

The Onion – America’s Finest News Source

WASHINGTON, DC—Republican officials are blaming tonight’s GOP losses on Democrats, who they claim have engaged in a wide variety of “aggressive, premeditated, anti-Republican campaigns” over the past six-to-18 months. “We have evidence of a well-organized, well-funded series of operations designed specifically to undermine our message, depict our past performance in a negative light, and drive Republicans out of office,” said Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman, who accused an organization called the Democratic National Committee of spearheading the nationwide effort. “There are reports of television spots, print ads, even volunteers going door-to-door encouraging citizens to vote against us.” Acknowledging that the “damage has already been done,” Mehlman is seeking a promise from Democrats to never again engage in similar practices.

(Via The Onion.)

At last… at long last…

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