Back from a long hiatus

It's been almost two months since I've posted. Sorry.

In the interim since my last post, I have built a new computer, which I have up and running on Linux. I ended up going with the Mepis distribution - and have been quite happy with it. No more M$ for me.

I'm going to Washington DC next weekend to present at GURT 2007 (you can see my talk listed by clicking on conference program and then scrolling down to Saturday, 3pm).

I also found out last week that I'll be presenting a paper I'm co-authoring with Chris Potts and Peggy Speas at SALT.

In family news, there is a new canine member of the Davis family:






"Coal Davis"

aahhhh.

That's it for now.

Vilsack

I was watching John Stewart interviewing Tom Vilsack, current governor of Iowa and the first Democrat to announce he will run in the 2008 presidential campaign. Early in the interview (here's the link on youtube; the relevant comment occurs 3 minutes and 24 seconds into the interview - ain't technology great?), he discusses the war in Iraq, calling it a mistake and so on. OK, about as much as you can expect from the "opposition", I suppose. But then get this:

"We've created a culture of dependency with our presence there, and I think it's time for us to say to the Iraqis and their government, `hey, it's up to you, it's your country, you fight for it, you die for it.'"

....

Huh?! A "Culture of Dependency?" Is this guy serious? Who are you, Dr. Phil? This is perfect - how can we pull out of this thing without admitting that we're the bad guys? Oh, I know - make it the Iraqi's fault!

I think the post-hoc rationalization has come just about full circle now. Let's see:

1) Saddam has WMD. Iraq dangerous. Protect Americans.

2) Whoops. Saddam still dangerous - links to Al Quaeda. Protect Americans.

3) Whoops. Well, Saddam was bad. Protect Iraqis - give them democracy.

4) Hmmm.... OK, foreign insurgents bad, disrupting struggling democracy. Protect Iraqis.

5) Oh hell. Iraqis not grateful - keep killing our soldiers - need to take responsibility for their own problems. Protect Americans.

Perfect. Genius. Poor brave America - tried so hard to help, but now its time to let these people catch their own fish.

I really don't have much faith left to lose at this point, but I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope for a candidate who has the sack (sorry) to admit to the blood we have on our hands and deal in an honest way with our nation's responsibility to the people of Iraq.

Texas Christmas Extravaganza...

... is over. Its been a blast. On Saturday we went to my Nana and Papa's house for a traditional (in our family) Christmas feast - pizza. Yum. And then presents, followed by dessert and Texas State Championship Football at my Uncle Scott's and Aunt Margaret's house.

Then Christmas eve with Mom, Dad and Cara. And Christmas morning - Santa never fails. This year his elves were hard at work converting some classic Godzilla films to DVD :

Godzilla Raids Again and Mothra vs. Godzilla.












Cool.

I also got some cool new books, which I'll put on my "Currently Reading" list once I get started on them.

On Christmas afternoon we went to my Mammaw and Grandpa's house in Ranger - we ate turkey and dressing. Yum. And had more presents. Woohoo!

And today I rounded things off with a trip to the stockyards. I rode one of those electric bucking bulls - briefly. Quang caught it on digital camera, and you'll probably see it here soon.

That's it for now.

Back in Texas!

...and the weather's great. Home is always a good place to be.

But...

I still have few papers to finish.

One of them by Friday.

Sigh. No FF12 just yet.

Working at Forbes

I've spent the last few days working at the Forbes Library in Northampton, just up the street from my house, near Smith College. Somehow I failed to come here until this week. It's really a nice place.

欽ちゃんの仮想大賞

This is a skit from a Japanese show called kasou taishou 仮想大賞. These are the same guys that did the matrix ping pong.

My Amazon Debut

I've hit the big time - you can buy stuff with my name on it now at amazon .