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"very high-level administration figures, particularly if they turn out to hang their hats in the White House complex" good god he's accusing the Vice President.
But some people are not willing to settle for medium fry either.
Matt Yglesias makes a very convincing case that the mole is George W. Bush.
Got to admit it explains a whole lot of puzzling policy choices.
Wednesday, June 02, 2004
Atrios and Traffic
Sitemeter says total visits 11,653 visits this week 5,879 (almost all referred by atrios). It's official more people have visited this site because Atrios linked than had visited in its previous history.
Weird. My big hit as a blogger was pointing out an error so obvious that no one else bothered to mention it which I found in the obscure New York Times in an article on the obscure topic of US torture. Weird.
Update: off like a light. My name has scrolled down so one would have to get to the archives to see it. Instantly my traffic is down to normal again.
Herseth Will Win
5:18 Rome time, 10:18 Central. 579 precincts reporting Herseth leads 89386 to
84787. Roughly (assuming total votes per precinct constant) Diedrich must win
53.5 % of remaining votes. The last 1941 votes went more than 54% for Herseth so this is very unlikely. I call the race for Herseth.
update: 5:25 Rome time only 11 more precincts reporting now Diedrich must win by 6.68 % of remaining votes and he won 6.67 % of votes in those 11 precincts. I'm not scared. I stand by my call.
update 5:28 Rome time. 604 precincts reporting in last 16 precincts Herseth beats Dietrich by 5.8% Diedrich needs to win remaining votes by 8% (whew).
update 5:32 Rome time. 618 precincts reporting in last 14 precincts Dietrich beats Herseth by 21% Diedrich needs to win remaining votes by 7.2% I'm not scared. I stand by my call.
update 5:37 Rome time. 633 precincts reporting in last 15 precincts Dietrich beats Herseth by 13.1% Diedrich needs to win remaining votes by 6.9% I'm getting antsy, but I stand by my call.
update 656 precincts reporting in last 23 precincts Herseth beats Dietrich by 13.7% Diedrich needs to win remaining votes by 9.8% (whew).
update 671 precincts reporting in last 15 precincts Dietrich beats Herseth by 15.6% Diedrich needs to win remaining votes by 9.3% I'm not scared. I stand by my call.
update 688 precincts reporting in last 70 precincts Herseth beats Dietrich by 1.6% Diedrich needs to win remaining votes by 11.1%. That really really looks unlikely.
update 6:08 Rome time. Now 700 preincts reporting. in the last 12 precincts Herseth wins by 3.2% Diedrich must win remaining votes by 12.85 %. That looks really unlikely.
update 6:22 Rome time 712 precincts reporting in last 12 precincts Dietrich beats Herseth by 12.2% Diedrich needs to win remaining votes by 12.6%. That looks very unlikely.
update 6:43 Rome time 725 precincts reporting in last 13 precincts Dietrich beats Herseth by 14.9% Diedrich needs to win remaining votes by 13.5%. That looks very unlikely. Recall approximation same number of votes in each precinct.
update 6:51 Rome time 753 precincts reporting in last 28 precincts Dietrich beats Herseth by 7.9% Diedrich needs to win remaining votes by 19.3%. That looks very very unlikely.
update 6:54 Rome time 758 precincts reporting in last 5 precincts Dietrich beats Herseth by 6.6% Diedrich needs to win remaining votes by 16.3%. That looks very very unlikely.
Update 7:05 Rome time 765 precincts reporting in the last 7 precincts Herseth beat Dietrich by 46.9 percent. Dietrich must win the remaining votes by 27.9 % That looks impossible, but the proof that precincts are totally different makes me no more certain than I was 11 minutes ago.
update 7:35 AM Rome time. in the past half hour 1 precinct has reported. Give me a break (a long break). I just spent a whole sleepless night following congressional election returns in South Dakota. How the hell am I going to survive November? Anyway I am off to sleep.
Final Update 1:29 PM Rome time 5:29 AM in South Dakota. 796 of 798 precincts reporting. Diedrich has won 4 more of the 16448 votes counted since I went to sleep. Assuming that the number of votes per precinct is constant and ignoring late counted absentee ballots, Diedrich would have to win 274 % of the uncounted votes (that means negative votes for Herseth). To be less surreal , there are two unreportgin precincts. My guess is they will report 657 votes Herseth's lead (which was roughly constant all night) is 2944 votes. congratulations congresswoman Herseth.
Debating Bush Debating a Straw Man.
Dana Milbank accuses Our President of debating straw men, for example when The President said
"Some say, 'Well, maybe the recession should have been deeper. That bothers me when people say that. You see, a deeper recession would have meant more families would have been out of work." It takes one to know one. I mean how Can Mr Milbank accuse President Bush of debating with absurd idiots when he himself is debating with President Bush.
Although you know, I'm not sure Bush did that well against the recession supporters. I mean generally families refer to people who are out of work not families. I mean is our president in favor of child labor ? Or does he assume that work is a family activity, because his dad kept finding people to bail him out when he messed up at whatever job he was supposed to be doing ?
Maybe President Bush should stick to debating Depression supporters.
Tuesday, June 01, 2004
Plan B might work out for Iraq
But only because the B-team was just over-ruled.
Batting 200. I tend to avoid making predictions, but I couldn't resist trying to guess the Iraqi interim government. I hedged a bit by making 5 guesses for 4 positions. Looks like I get 1 out of 5 Ibrahim al-Jaafari is a vice president. My last chance for a decent batting average was that the B team (Brahimi, Blackwill,Bremer and Bush) was trying to impose as President Adnan Pachachi (main qualification he is a Sunni and he doesn't hate Bush). In its last act the IGC insisted on Sheikh Ghazi al-Yawar who is very critical of the occupation.
I think this is very good news, because the interim government has to appear to be independent from the USA to get the support of Iraqis, since the vast majority of Iraqis are very angry at the USA. Also the fact that the IGC which is, at least made up of Iraqis, got its way, might partly mollify Iraqis who are angry over the repeated offences (some inevitable some criminal and stupid) against Iraqi national pride.
Ghazi al-Yawar sue doesn't look pleased (that is he is not crazy).
The Sheik is about my age, so I can take some comfort in the fact that, although I have gotten myself into some bad situations, I've never gotten myself elected president of Iraq.
And what about Ibrahim al-Jaafari. He appeared in an old poll as the most trusted man in Iraq. More recently he came in third making him the man in Iraq with the most support who is actually Iraqi (unlike Sistani) and sane (unlike al Sadr). He gets the vice presidency in a proto parliamentary system in which the prime minister has the real power. If, as cactus Jack Garner said, the US vice presidency is "not worth a bucket of warm s*it" what is the Iraqi interim vice presidency worth ?
Billmon's Whiskey Bar is open again ! I might have missed the re-opening but, I admit, that the temprorary closure drove me to Jack Daniel's for comfort. His memorial day post is beautiful.
GC 2009: Dead Nation Hands-on
Stand up against the shambling hordes.
As the night grows deep and Cologne settles into a contented sleep, how fitting is it that I come with hushed tidings of a truly promising PlayStation Network game about zombies? No, this isn't that silly Burn, Zombie, Burn! or Zombie Apocalypse. This is a dark, action-packed, well-paced, atmospheric downloadable from the extremely talented folks at Housemarque (the developers of one of my favorite games of all time: Super Stardust HD). This is Dead Nation, a recently announced PlayStation Network game that will make other zombie games moan with fear. It was definitely a major highlight from my first day at Gamescom.
Dead Nation, like its predecessor, is a dual analog shooter that will be available exclusively over the PlayStation Network. The game puts you in the shoes of a lone survivor of a ravenous zombie virus that has swept across the globe and turned the once living population into seas of molting flesh and scraping bone. In Dead Nation, players will move from mission to mission, killing as many zombies as possible while trying to stay alive.
In this particular shooter, you'll still be using the left analog stick to move your character through the top-down environments, but the right stick is only used to aim. Players will now have to hit the R1 trigger to open fire and press R3 to reload. Hitting R2 will execute a close-range attack while L1 throws/uses your character's secondary weapon. The face buttons are used to select those said weapons from a display on the bottom right corner of the screen. Players can also hit L2 to dash out of the way of an oncoming zombie for a short period of time.
Dead Nation already feels great. The controls are super tight, the weapons work nicely and the promise of a rewarding upgrades shop will keep gamers coming back for more. One of the things that amazed me the most about Dead Nation was the amount of detail in the environment, as well as the visual effects that flush the screen with a flurry of explosions and zombie parts. I'm especially impressed by the game's lighting, as every light source casts a proper shadow on the environment, including your flashlight.
Weapons in Dead Nation include a rifle, an SMG, grenades, mines, a flame thrower, a shotgun and more. These weapons can be enjoyed by two buddies at the same time, as local multiplayer is already planned for Dead Nation, though online multiplayer seems less likely. Although this might be disappointing for some, the online functionality planned for Dead Nation is actually quite fantastic.
As the PlayStation Network checks your account for geographic location, Dead Nation will actually start users off in their virtual country of residence, along with other players from that area. Then, players will cooperate as a whole to kill the zombies in that nation collectively and stats are displayed on the world map as you go.
Although my time with Dead Nation was short, the demo level was very engaging and gave me a great taste of what's to come. Running down a rooftop and then opening fire on a horde of zombies is fantastic. The zombie AI is actually one of my favorite parts of the game, as they're attracted to light and sound, and they run towards you when you really start letting loose with the ammo. There will be multiple zombie types to deal with, including exploding zombies, soldier zombies (military men turned undead... they still have guns!), and sprinting dudes. In other words, you're going to be maneuvering around the environment in a blind panic and wasting a lot of ammo as you play.
I absolutely trust Housemarque with this project. Dead Nation already looks sweet and the game still has plenty of time to polish up before its eventual digital launch. With frantic action, local multiplayer, tons of weapons and a unique worldwide scoring system, this is probably a game you don't want to miss.
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Much of every kitchen's working potential lies in the cabinet doors and drawers. Efficiently planned cabinet interiors can do wonders for a small space and even eliminate redundant or unnecessary cabinetry.
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Volume 5
DISCLAIMER: This story contains adult content.
Don't Forget the Dawn
The longer I spent as this creature, the longer I realized that as a human I had not really lived. Truth was I didn't believe vampires were the "undead". I mean in a sense we had died. In a sense our life force had been taken away from us. But I believed we were born again. You know. We were born under something new, under something different.
The first time, I must have not done it right. I didn't kiss long enough. I didn't love at all. I didn't appreciate things. When you lose everything you start to realize things you've taken forgranted. The time I spent complaining that it was too cold outside. Bullshit. I should have been spending time staring at the sun. I should have spent time just looking at it and all it's beauty. I should have been trying to instill a more clear view of how a rainbow looked like. I should have remembered how people seemed to smile more during the day time.
I should have remembered that people were less afraid during the daytime.
"It'll be ok, Arie won't be in too much trouble," Roxanne stated.
She could tell I was worrying.
We were sitting outside of the hall that Decadence usually resided within the warehouse. It was a dark hall lit by nothing but a single torch and blocked off by a huge burgundy steel door. Arie and Giovanni had been called in there earlier in the day. It was clear that Decadence was angry at them about what happened.
"Arie was just...protecting me."
"He should have never took you out of the warehouse. You are far too young. You have urges, you know. Giovanni told me about your...experience. Usually we try to hold off a killing for as long as we can."
Fuck. Giovanni could betray me so easily and tell someone else something that I told him in privacy. It was personal. I looked down ashamed. Ever had sex with someone you regretted having sex with. Imagine cheating on a lover. The dirty feeling you sometimes get afterwards. It was the best way to describe how it felt killing that cab driver. I acted on something so primitive to fulfill a desire and there was a regret. But I knew, nonetheless, that put in that same predicament, I'd do the same thing again.
"It's not his fault. I asked him to."
"I can see you two are getting a little too close than Decadence would like," Roxanne stated and laughed uneasily, "They are lovers...remember?"
I sighed heavily, "How could I forget?"
"He likes you though. He got himself in a heap of trouble. As well as the rest of us. I guess it wasn't only his fault, hence Giovanni being in there."
"What did he want with Giovanni?"
"Well Giovanni left us for a period in the past. He joined a group of vampires that called themselves the Sacrilege. They went against the church trying to get rid of all the rules that the church has in place. They are trying to bring back the old vampire, the one feared by humans. They are trying bring us back out of hiding. It's been so long that we have become a myth to the humans."
"What happened to the group?"
"Most were brought to justice. Giovanni happened to be one that got to his senses and left the group just in time. I assumed it was just a matter of time before the Dark Church came looking for him. Now it's just a matter of time before they come looking for the rest of us too."
She looked down.
She didn't seem too upset or worried about it. She wasn't like David. There may have been fear there. I didn't know at the time. There was one thing I'd come to learn about Roxanne. She was able to control her body in ways that none of us in the brood were quite capable of doing...even Decadence for that matter. She was stronger...she seemed...wiser.
She and I waited in that hallway. She told me stories about her days in Europe. Decadence and her had originated from the United Kingdom. They'd met great people back in their day all though I was far from being a good history accountant. There was always such a wonder in her eyes as she spoke though. At least she was interested in the events of the past.
It was almost an hour before Giovanni came out.
He walked over to us and smiled, "You guys wouldn't happen to have seen David have you?"
When we shook our head, he smiled again, almost like there was nothing to be done about it and disappeared as quickly as he usually did...drifting away into the shadows that he seemed to love so much.
Several seconds after he left, Arie followed. He was clearly more bothered then Giovanni. He didn't smile for one. He didn't even give me any eye contact when he stepped out of the room.
"Are you feeling ok?" I asked him, "Have your wounds healed? That guy hit you pretty rough."
He nodded, "I'll be fine. Vampires just need rest. We heal from everything. I'll head to bed."
"Well good, I was getting a little sleepy."
I looked up at his face. Arie still wasn't looking at me. He was looking away. I could tell the situation was a little more intense then I was first perceiving by how Roxanne seemed to slip away unnoticed until she was gone.
It was just Arie and I in the dark hallway.
"Decadence would like to speak to you in private," he stated, "Besides, I am not your maker. I can pretend but I'm not. It isn't right for you and I to sleep closely, you know. Vampires all need their own space. You can have the attic loft. I've already found another place to sleep."
It was too late. He was already walking away still without giving me much eye contact at all. I could hear his old footsteps drifting off into the darkness.
It was really gloomy. Had I done something wrong to him? Had there been something that I missed throughout all this? Just when I thought we were getting close and making a connection or some type of friend or at least brotherly bond, he goes and pulls the stranger card. And once again he withdraws into himself.
I look over at Decadence's door. I walk over.
I have to admit, I'm a little scared. I know I'm a vampire, but the idea of being alone with someone so old, so ancient scares the daylights out of me. The idea that she was also so much more powerful than I was scared me even more.
"Come in," she stated.
I walked into the room. She was standing there with a candle stick. It wasn't the first time that I'd seen her use the candle stick. It was clear that this warehouse was extremely dark. It wouldn't be such a bad idea to have a flashlight or something. However her candle stick seemed so strange and ancient as well. She didn't mind if the wax dripped over her fingers, which it seldom did as she held it.
"Decadence, first of all I'd like to apologize," I started as soon as I got the chance.
Her quarters were colder than the rest of the area. The only light came from her single lit candle stick although she had several sticks piled up against the stacked wall shelves. Vampires didn't sleep in coffins...at least not anymore. She had a bed there in this room. It was rather large and Victorian. Long drapes drifted along the floor and almost turned themselves into the rug.
She sat now at a table in the center of the room. Her extra long legs crossed one over the other. Decadence was attractive in a way and in some ways she wasn't. In certain lights her nose seemed much too big for her face, yet in other lights it seemed to structure her face remarkably. It was always a perception of lightness and darkness with her. How the light hit her was so important.
She completely ignored my statement, "I've lived for more years then I'd admit to knowing for certain. After a while counting becomes rather tedious. And I've protected this brood for many years as well. It seems today I have failed."
"No it's all my fault."