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fighting and mating rituals.

I so need to update my holiday traditions. Even the Airing of Grievances doesn't hold a candle to that.

(Stolen from here.

Here.

...has discovered the problems inherent in this approach.

I think you might be right. Also, I've noticed that it can be very difficult to figure out where a lot of "local news" web sites are located. I frequently see pointers to local news stories, in places like Dave Barry's blog, where the readers send in local stories that they think are relevant to the blog. In his case, these are usually funny/twisted stories, of course, but this happens with a lot of blogs. When I follow a link, I often find myself wondering where in the world this happened - and I often can't tell. The web site will just identify itself as "The Whoville Tribune", and not bother mentioning state or province or country. A "whois whovilletribune.com" request can take a long time, and then doesn't help, because the owner of the domain name may be an organization with headquarters distant from the place covered by the web site.

So one possibility is that google can't tell where a lot of local news sites, either. I don't know if there's a workable solution to this, other than to keep sending messages to the site saying that it would help if they at least identified the country that they're in. But that can be difficult, because it's also often hard to find a working email address in such sites.

That's like saying that guys like to pee on geysers just so they can say they did it!

"Oops". Sometimes I'm not sure if I'm reading Slashdot or Dave's Blog.

We know where the next "launch failure" is going. Michigan.

It should be noted that Buddy is number 3. And a much cooler name than "Colbert". Or "Xenu" And much better than "Serenity".

Teh Fatal Death Killer Remote Control Module of Deadly Doom.

More Erudite 24 Commentary

He still writes the occasional article and updates his blog regularly. In fact, he's already blogged about it: http://blogs.herald.com/dave_barrys_blog/2008/02/powers-out.html

Good Idea

Hmmm... I've seen several lists in which Dave Barry's Blog has been recognized as one of the best (it's worth it just for the "24" synopsis) and he's not mentioned in any of the three lists.

Looking through the names, I see a number I'd never consider and I can come up with a few more I would have liked to see. Like any "best of" list, this one is just somebody's personal opinion.

myke

Heh. I really think that I should send an apology to him for mentioning his site on /.

Actually, the problem is probably even worse than just /., since I've found a similar link on Dave Barry's blog (registration required). I wonder how many readers Dave has, compared to /.? I have seen comments on his blog about how they've "slashdotted" some poor server. I wonder if the Miami Herald has the bandwidth to withstand the onslaught ... ;-)

It's no secret that lots of businesses like to unfairly take advantage of employees by calling them "independent contractors." I've worked for several bosses who have done just that.

The problem is that unless you're a principal or spend ridiculous amounts of money on work expenses, it's almost impossible to ever come up with enough dough to cover the 40% of your salary that you're going to lose in self-employment tax, let alone surpass the standard deduction.

The IRS has a pretty good outline of how to properly differentiate between employees and contractors (under the IRC) here.

Also, take a look at this PDF form from the IRS. It has the same series of questions, and can be filed with the IRS for a determination (even after the fact) if you should have been counted as an IC or employee for tax purposes. They can then demand that an employer pay the proper amount of your taxes, and give you a refund for what you've (improperly) paid.

There's a three year statute of limitations on filing the SS-8 form with the IRS, though, so just be aware. It's all on the 4th and 5th pages of the form.

Disclaimer: None of this is legal advice. Tax laws are weird and very fact-specific. If you need a solid answer, ask a qualified attorney or accountant or something. You could even ask Dave Barry. He has a blog.

I use Dave barry's blog as my start page.

...Attack of the Killer Tomato's".

1. Remember, periods go inside the quotes.
2. The apostrophe, despite 'conventional illiteracy' indicates possessiveness, not plurality.

...we just want it's title to do the same.

• "It's" does not mean it possessive. It means "it is" -- a contraction.
• Judging from the context of your sentence, I assume you mean the movie's title, not the title of the movie is "title."
• In this case, you need to use "its" -- the proper form of it possessive.

The only differance is Linux isn't attaining global domination with massive marketing tie in's, illegal monopoly leveraging, and an airtight legal disclaimer wrapped around a shoddy rip-off implementation of other people's creations.

Other Msft bashes include last Sunday's Dave Barry column about his BSOD'ing pc, and this morning ABCNews has this blurb about "If Msft can be hacked is anybody safe". Hahahaha, silly mass media. That's like asking, if McDonalds food isn't so good, can ANY restaurant make a good meal? I mean, they're the largest restaurant chain in existance! They MUST have the best food. Duuuuh. Public opinion will turn eventually, and no $200,000,000 advertising campaign can keep their grand self delusion going forever.

And the vast majority of the world's population would have their kitchen lights blinking --12:00--12:00--12:00.
http://www.herald.com/content/archive/living/barry /1999/docs/feb27.htm

It's alredy been stated by many other posters in more words that Dave Barry is a satirist and not a mindless consumer. But this isn't the first time he's spoken out on rampant consumerism, even rampant consumerism based on a religious observance. Check out Barry's take on Halloween

Dave Barry section of the Miami Herald Web site

If you're having a problem because your network has a firewall (and a sysadmin with no sense of fun), use this link. It's to the article on the Miami Herald site.

Here are the facts:

Buchanan received 16,962 votes statewide in Tuesday's election, but 3,407 of that -- about one-fifth -- came from Palm Beach County alone. By comparison, Buchanan received 561 votes in Miami-Dade and 789 in Broward County.
from the Miami Herald

A good picture (not just a diagram) can be found here.

As well as dubious voting forms (Sun sen tinel (florida local)), you have to remember that Florida has always been notoriously corrupt when it comes to elections. Xavier Suarez, a Hispanic Independent, managed to get dead people voting for him. In 1990, Bush (senior) appointed him to serve on the board of Legal Services. Also bear in mind that George Bush senior (who was CIA chief before president) was involved in the rigging of various foreign elections (Panama, Nicaraua, Haiti etc). Good practice no doubt. I'm sure it helps that Jeb runs Florida..... You can see how much power the Bush family has by the way it crushed the story about W forcing his girlfriend to have an abortion in the 70s and covering it up (source 1 .. source 2 )

Oswald Defense Lawyer

Warning: I'm by no means an expert on election law, which varies from state to state. However, I'm pretty sure that some of the "crimes" you're citing aren't actually illegal at all. For example, voting absentee while away at college is not only not illegal, but it was actually encouraged while I was in school. It merely depends on in which state/district you've declared residency.

Second, you have to remember that Florida has a really ugly history of absentee ballot fraud. A lot of the signs that you're seeing now are a reflection of the legislature and judiciary's efforts to combat this.

And finally: in instances where voting fraud is systematic and intentional, I absolutely believe that severe punishment is in order, comparable with that for battery of a police officer. Voting is serious business, and deliberately rigging an election is a crime in the same vein (although not as severe) as treason, in my view.

http://www. her ald.com/content/archive/news/click/clickdocs/08415 8.htm

The article by Dave Barry is available here, Miami Herald

(Bonus! He's alive!)

Dave Barry. The Falwell piece was especially amusing, but he covered the Republican convention and has plans to cover the Democrat convention the same way shortly. He tends to do a better job on the conventions than some of the "serious" journalists, and all of his recent convention columns are at that URL.

For more about his libertarian politics (which tend to match mine) see:this interview. BTW, Dave Barry isn't just right & Paulina Borsook's wrong (although that's so, IMO) he's also a FAR better writer. I find Paulina downright tedious in her partisan, repetitive zeal to paint libertarians as all-one-thing. Wrong.

Mr. Barry also won't blow his own horn about it (and he has a right not to tell Paulina what he does with HIS! money) but I happen to know that he's a generous person, too -- as if that matters to this "debate." In fact, I find the spectacle of pre-announced, feted, giving (like Ted Turner's immense gift to the UN) to be distasteful for a number of reasons, and certainly every bit as political & ideological as a gift to the Boy Scouts or the NRA, whether or not the news media choose to paint it as such. I refuse to disclose or defend, to Paulina or anyone else who can't mind her own business, my charitable activities.
JMR

Or would this still apply to online purchases, even if the manufacturers are across the border?

If not, I'll make this deal. Canadians, I will give you cheaper media. You give me a 3.5-gallon-per-flush toilet.

A recent Miami Herald article talked about the use of an IBM RS/6000SP to process weather data. It's close to 30 times as fast as the previous machine. Though I'm curious as to how this machine compares to the NOAA supercomputer, I'm really interested in how much better predictions can get with systems like the one at NOAA. How much (statistical) confidence is in current weather prediction over 1 month? 3 months? 1 year? How much will the NOAA system expect to improve weather forecasting.
BTW, As a Florida resident, accurate forecasting of hurricane paths could save millions of dollars. Thanks for your time. Kwan

Link to Miami Herald article from May 21, 2000

Someone posted this on a local discussion board (that would crumple under the ./ effect;) a couple of days after the Elian liberation. I don't know to whom or to which institution to give credit... I guess "Copyright © Alan Diaz, Associated Press" (eek!) since it is written in first-person. I could not find a link.

How a photographer got 'the photo'

As the government operation unfolded, Alan Diaz, 43-year-old freelance photographer on assignment for The Associated Press, was inside the house with his camera.

AP shooter tells the story behind gripping image Elian Gonzalez, held by Donato Dalrymple, is taken from his Miami relatives early Saturday in a pre-dawn raid by federal agents.

By Alan Diaz
ASSOCIATED PRESS

MIAMI, April 23 -- "They're here! They're here!" a cameraman shouted in the darkness. Then, suddenly, all was chaos.

SOMEHOW, before a team of federal agents went in, I hopped a fence and ran inside the modest home where Elian Gonzalez had lived since he was rescued from the ocean on Thanksgiving Day.

Inside, family members screamed. I heard the door slam shut behind me. "Go to the room -- go to the room," someone said, directing me to the bedroom Elian shared with his cousin Marisleysis. I rushed in and fumbled for a light switch. Elian wasn't there.

I banged on the bedroom door of Elian's great-uncle Lazaro. Angela Gonzalez, his wife, opened the door. Elian was in a closet, cradled by Donato Dalrymple, one of the two fishermen who had rescued him. Dalrymple clutched Elian in his arms. The boy was crying, asking adults, "Que esta pasando" -- "What's happening?"

"Nothing's happening, baby. Everything's going to be all right," I said. What else could I say to the child whose saga I had chronicled for almost five months?

As a 43-year-old free-lance photographer of Cuban descent, I had developed an unusual relationship with the Gonzalez family and the 6-year-old child whose life I had been capturing on film for The Associated Press. Before Saturday, I had taken hundreds of photos of Elian: dragging his bookbag as he walked to school; playing in the yard; at the circus. Nothing compared to the intensity of the raid.

When it began, I did what I always do: I started shooting photos. And I worried what the agents might do if they saw me, camera focused, ready to capture their every move.

We waited. Angela watched the locked bedroom door. Thirty seconds passed. Agents banged on the door, then broke it down and burst into the room, guns raised.

"What's happening?" Elian asked again, through tears.

I was nearby. "Back off," the agents told me.

A U.S. Border Patrol agent, wearing green riot gear and goggles and holding an automatic rifle, confronted Dalrymple, who was clutching the frightened boy. I stood, back against the wall, shooting photographs as agents grabbed the boy. As they left the room, I started to follow. "Back off!" an agent screamed. I stopped.

In the living room, agents had pinned Lazaro on the couch. He was in a rage, crying, wanting to go after the child.

A Spanish-speaking female agent picked up Elian and rushed from the house, placing him in a waiting white van. The doors slammed shut and the van sped down the street with Elian inside.

As Dave Barry said...

Do you want appliances that are smarter than you? Of course not. Your appliances should be DUMBER than you, just like your furniture, your pets and your representatives in Congress.

I love technology and gadgets and machines that if they don't make life easier, are at least fun to use. But I also love camping without all those gadgets and machines, because it reminds me that humans have gotten along just fine for millenia without all that crap. So whenever I hear these stories about the wonderful new machines that will be making our lives better, my question is "things weren't good enough already?"

Sure, computers, touch-tone phones, cable television, programmable climate control, quartz watches... all wonderful and useful inventions that have, for the most part, been beneficial to our lives. But how many people in the world would be able to live without these? How many people know how to find clean water without it being in a plastic bottle with a Safe-T-Seal to guarantee freshness? Or cook a meal that hasn't been freeze-dried? Because those are the kinds of things you need to be able to do when you don't have the benefit of all those toys. And in the end, all they are are toys, and toys can (and will) break.

So to answer the previous question, "So what? They could be better!" There's no reason to halt the march of progress just 'cause a bunch of corporate types are throwing useless techno-hype in our faces. But we should be sure that we don't become too dependant on all these gadgets. Or else we'll end up like the Roman citizens who, having been bathed in luxury all their lives, were lost when all the comforts of society were gone.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to microwave my dinner, and I'm afraid I lost the remote...

(Speaking only for myself, here.) I'd want /. to consider writing in: Dave Barry. I'm serious, we could prevent the "debate" from becoming the usual snooze-fest, and Dave has the advantage of already running anyway. I'd rather hear what Dave Barry asks "W." than what Sam Donaldson asks, and I think most here would concur.

I'm also serious when I say that much "campaign finance reform" is censorship, with a historical record of minimal value (albeit increasing regulatory control) since Watergate. As long as there's disclosure (something those who take money from suspiciously-rich Buddhists don't like talking about) I don't care WHAT a candidate spends on some silly "advance auction of stolen goods."

The people seem to feel the same way (witness Michael Huffington's $30 million or so down the drain). I am aware that others disagree, and they tend to (somehow) trust the news media to be fair and impartial. I can't share that faith. Try running for something (I have) and THEN say that money isn't important to spread your political speech. The answer isn't limits, it's disclosure, along with swift, credible, IMPARTIAL (that's "no more favoring the 2 major parties over other parties") punishment for violators. Another answer is just not to vote, since it only encourages them.

(Again, speaking only for myself, YMMV, moderate me down as flamebait, etc.)
JMR

Here is Dave's article which goes far beyond the gravitational effects... Off-topic rant follows:

I am still mildly annoyed that the Herald took down his take on Miami-style corruption, wherein he suggests that government be turned over to the mob, who are at least efficient at being crooks. Like the comic strip "Shoe," it may have "hit a bit too close to home" for the Herald.
JMR

...technology was neither good nor evil, but inherently tragic.
Why tragic? There can be no doubt that technology is neither good nor evil, but to describe it as 'tragic' is the ultimate glass-is-half-empty sort of outlook.
For a start, what is technology? As far as I'm concerned, it's the use of any tool to help in a task. That tool can be a stick, a rock, a (shudder) NT box or an ICBM. All of these can be used for evil, but consider that we wouldn't have made it to the moon without technology that was first used to blow the shit out of people.
A better question to ask, imho, would be 'why do so many (ie most) people, if pushed, view technology as tyrranical? Would these people change their minds if they were shown that everything (everything) they do is a result of technology or involves its use.

I also spent a few minutes wondering how Disneyland fit into this. Then it hit me... tax breaks. Jon's been reading Dave Barry

Ah, dang it.
Just go read it yourself.
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He's been reading too much Dave Barry, and wants to take over his job now ;)

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