Okay, maybe one more post for December
It's hard to believe that next month, it will have been a year since I changed formats for my homepage and started publishing this website (in its current incarnation). As I gain the desire to abandon these static updates for a dynamically-updated front page (using blogging software or something similar), it's kind of amazing that I ever thought that manually updated pages were a good idea. Still, that's the way its been for almost a year and it's likely to stay that way for the foreseeable future.
Anyway, as this will likely be my last post for the month (and thus, for 2005 as a whole), I'm going to try and squeeze in several things that I've wanted to talk about lately. So be warned, what follows may be lengthy and will probably be dull.
I know it looks weird in IE
It has been brought to my attention that the top portion of the table on my website (the one with the title and search field) looks a little funny in Internet Explorer. I know, I don't care. I'd like to fix it so it looks the same across browsers, but the functionality is there and I don't have time to look at the code and figure out what it's doing. Sorry, IE users. At least it isn't totally broken.
Personal junk be here
As I said in my post-and-run a couple of days ago, it's been kind of a rough holiday season for me. Money has been tight, leading to the cancellation of Jessi's trip to Africa in January with the Peacehouse Foundation. I feel absolutely horrible that she can't go and I feel that I'm to blame for a lot of that (not managing my money the way I should), but there's nothing I can do about it now. I encourage people to still support PHF and especially Project 640, which is being organized by Jessi's brother Ernie.
With money being tight, our Christmas cheer has naturally been somewhat dampened. We had to settle for a cheap artificial tree and a few modest decorations (pictures can be seen in the Christmas 2005 portion of my Coppermine gallery), and have had to scale back gift-giving a bit. Still, we're pushing through and I know that we'll have a good Christmas no matter what our money situation is, because we'll be with each other and we'll be with our family and friends. Okay, that's enough Sappy Christmas Stuff™, now on to Horrid Family Drama™
Last month (or was it earlier this month?), a tense situation in my family came to a boil. My younger sister and her husband have been in a tough spot lately, caused by financial difficulties and the stress of raising two children - and compounded by my sister's recent diagnosis of bipolor disorder and my brother-in-law's seemingly immature attitude about the whole thing. I won't go into specifics or condemn either of them for their actions, but needless to say it has placed a tremendous burden on the rest of the family, especially my parents who were put in the position of caring for the children and financially supporting their family while they self-destructed.
Things on that front are marginally better now. Still, it makes one wonder what would possess a person to get married and have two children inside of two years. Craziness, I tell you.
I won't go into details because I haven't the energy, but it looks as though I will find myself employed at IOT by March. It's become a matter of where I'll land more than if I'll land. I'm happy about that, but still a bit nervous about the future.
I also started reading the Harry Potter books. You may burn me in effigy now.
Wiretaps, inter-library loans, the NSA and you!
I'm sure you've all seen news stories on the allegedly illegal wiretaps that the President authorized the NSA to engage in under an execute order. I'm not a constitutional lawyer, but any wiretap that occurs without the express authorization of a judicial officer seems pretty unconstituational to me, and in clear violation of Fourth Amedment. Still, almost more alarming is Bush's justification and defense of these wiretaps. His argument basically boils down to "We have to do this to win the War on Terror™, and anyone who is against it is being irresponsible and is a bad person okay?!?" That sort of idiotic speech from the POTUS doesn't exactly foster an atmosphere of discussion and change, know what I mean?
Also, I'm sure some of you saw one or more articles about the UMass Dartmouth student who was questioned by the DHS upon requesting a copy of Mao's Little Red Book. Obviously, the government monitoring of inter-library loans wouldn't have even been possible before the War on Terror™ (and it's highly successful predacessor, in terms of violating civil liberties, the War on Drugs™). The scariest part of the whole equation is that the professor of the course in question has said that he won't teach a course on terrorism next year because he's afraid of what he might be subjecting his students to. The atmosphere of fear and suspicion in this country has started to adversely affect our education system. Does that freak anyone else out a little?
At some point, we as a people have to ask ourselves a question: If these measures are truly necessary to win this "war" (and I'm not saying they are), is it a war worth winning? Is trading our liberty for safety so important that we would become that which we are fighting?
Oh well. It's not as if any of you are paying attention. At least the Senate had the good sense to strike down the renewal of the Patriot Act. That's score one for those of us who still give a crap about living lives outside of the sphere of government surveillence. At least for now.
Okay...I think that's all I have for today. I've got a few more hours of work to do, then I'm out of here for the weekend. I'll be doing Christmas Eve with my folks, Christmas Day with Jessi's family and then who-knows-what for New Year's. I hope to get to hang out with my good friend Jeremy somewhere in there, who is home for a couple of weeks from Japan, where he teaches English.
Anyway, everyone have a happy Holiday of Their Choice and a pleasant New Year.
-Sam
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