Back when I was a student at Pomona College, I used to do news reports for KSPC-FM, 88.7, the student radio station. One of the damned few real college radio stations left, since so many have gone over to NPR.

My boss back then, a friend and one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, was Gordon Robison. He went on to do things like write Lonely Planet’s Arab Gulf States book (including photography, at which he’s very good), and broadcast and produce for ABC Radio and CNN from places like Cairo, and Amman, and similar points in the region.

I’m pleased to say I just found his new blog/website — Mideast Analysis.com

Mind you, he’s sold his soul to the devil, as he’s about to go off to be Fox News’ bureau chief in Baghdad for seven weeks.

Still… If anyone could make Fox a bit more reality-based, it’s Gordon.

Seems someone at Microsoft tried to recruit Eric Raymond.

This actually makes a lot of sense. In the spirit of Utah Phillips’ story about moose turd pie, going to the guy whose complaints are the loudest about one’s product, and asking him if he can do any better through joining you, shows a good sense of chutzpah and cluetrain-ness.

But, as one would expect from someone who wrote the cheerfully unintentionally ironic, “How To Ask Questions The Smart Way” (that is, the article seems blissfully unware the real task is, How to Answer Questions the Smart Way… let alone, if one has done the job of programming efficiently, there shouldn’t be any questions in the first place, because The User Will Get It) — anyway, as one would expect, Eric jumps up and down, screams out, “That’s Moose Turd Pie!” and refuses to either become cook, or say, “It’s good, though.”

Proving, I suppose, that he really doesn’t know how to answer questions, smart or dumb.

I’ve been updating my user profile page with various bits of wisdom from here and there. Not having called attention to it, you may not have noticed. So, um, take a look, if that suits your fancy.

I’ve been listening to the Roberts confirmation hearings most of the day (about which I’ll say more later). NPR is doing a precis of it as part of All Things Considered, and they put back-to-back sets of questions by Senator Brownback of Kansas:

* How does Roberts feel about abortion? Is an “unborn child” a piece of property, or a person? Because, says Mr. Brownback, (approximately) “In our legal system, you’re either one of the other.” This is an offshoot of the thinking the Bush was alluding to when in the debates he started talking about Dred Scott.

* Then there was a set of questions about the recent Kelo decision, and eminent domain.

Here’s the scary part: How the subversives (a term I also need to write more about) could learn to adopt Kelo, and love eminent domain:

If “unborn children” are “property”, couldn’t the gummint exercise eminent domain on ‘em?

{beat}

Told you it was scary.

I first wrote this last year. It’s time, again.

*^*^*^*^*

rosefox lost a partner. Today I honor Rose, and grieve with her for the loss of Liam.

eleanor lost a piece of her sky, and will never again hear thunderstorms with the joy she once had. Today I honor Ellie, and offer what comfort I may.

A chain of events began that would allow the Administration to rationalize sending pecunium to Iraq, to return damaged enough to require months of hospitalization (in- and out- patient). Today I honor my brother Terry (regardless of genetics), courageous, loyal, and true.

These are the stories I know. I know, too well, that there are others. As someone who lost a father when he was seven, it’s the children left behind for whom I grieve the most.

Salaam.
Shalom.
Aloha.
Peace…

…be upon our brothers and sisters, our friends and lovers, our fathers, our mothers, our children, this day.

*^*^*^*^*

And, because this time I remember:

Till minne av Anna Lindh.

I wrote more recent memories about Anna here.

US Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist is dead.

It’s strange, the shadowing of Rehnquist and O’Connor through their lives. They both went to Stanford Law School, and graduated in the same class. Now they leave the Court the same year.

Anyway… Draw your own inferences about how this will now give Bush a 2nd Supreme Court nomination. Hard to tell how quickly he’ll act on it — one strategy would be to do it very quickly, to get the Court fully staffed at the beginning of the October term (October 3rd, slightly more than 4 weeks from today). I’m not sure to what degree the Senate Judiciary Committee will sit still for that, though.

Also hard to say is whether Bush will go for Alberto Gonzales. Some have said Bush would really like to be the President who appoints the first Latino Justice, but then there’s the Frank Rich school, who say Gonzales may be too enmeshed in the Plame Affair to get through the Senate safely.

And is it just me, or is anyone else suprised Dubya hasn’t recommended tax cuts as an immediate solution for all the food, water, and shelter problems in New Orleans? It’s his domestic policy answer to everything else, after all…

“I assume the president’s going to say he got bad intelligence.”

– Congressman Charles Rangel, of New York, on Bush’s comment about no one being able to predict the New Orelans levees breaking. From a New York Times article on the race and class issues surrounding the response to the disaster.