:: Running from the Thought Police ::

:: Wednesday, March 31, 2004 ::

Intelligent Reading

Hesiod discovers the Hitchhiker's Guide.

:: The Squire 9:54 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Future Reference

Next time I want to mess with the template for the blog, I need to use this site as a reference.

:: The Squire 8:03 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Don't Say I Never Did Anything For Ya

All three campuses of the University of Illinois are transitioning to the new UI Integrate system for class registration. Thing is, the administration hasn't told anybody what the hell is going on. As such, here's how to get yourself set up to register and find out when your first registration time is.

1. Head on over to the http://courses.uiuc.edu/cis/index.html. This is the new home for all your course registration needs. You can play later, right now click on the UI-Integrate Self-Service link.

2. If you've already gone through the trouble of setting up your Enterprise password, skip this step. Otherwise, click on the obtain your EnterpriseID and set up your Enterprise Password link. It'll boot you over to a screen to reset your password. Thing is, this isn't what you want. Instead, you need to scroll down and click over to https://webprod.admin.uillinois.edu/eas/servlet/EasBluestemReset. It'll have you give your NetID and password, then will allow you to setup your Enterprise password. There's a long list of rules for your new password, but not duplicating another password isn't one of them, so feel free to do that and make your life easier.

3. Enterprise password fresh in hand, make your way back to the UI-Integrate Self-Service page. Click on your appropriate campus. Dunno why, as it doesn't remember it, but you still have to anyway. Enter your netID and brand spanking new enterprise password.

4. If this is your first time playing with Enterprise, click the "Continue" button and you'll be ready to play. To get to the registration stuff, click "Registration and Records," then "Registration" again. This gets you to the stuff that replaces UI Direct. Click on the "Registration Elligibility" link, then select your campus (again) to see when the system'll let you register. The other links on the "Registration" page seem to be self-evident for use when you actually are allowed to register.

5. There's no Logout, only an Exit for this. On the MCB lab's macs, this Exit thing did no good as we had to completely restart the browser in order to end the session.

Hope you can get yourself registered easily. The email's at the top of the page if you have questions, or you can torture the CITES helpdesk if that's your poison.

:: The Squire 8:23 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Arg!

My internet is crawling. Since I'm on the university LAN, this shouldn't be happening.

:: The Squire 11:11 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Just Plain Odd

No, DON'T come here, kitty...

(link thanks to Dave Barry)

:: The Squire 10:40 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Turn To Your Right, Please

DailyKos lists all the current criminal investigations into the doings of high-level members of the GOP. It's a doozy, with a few that I didn't even know about.

:: The Squire 1:53 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Date Yourself

Abort, Retry, Fail?

Bad Command or File Name

General Protection Fault

dll hell

You did not properly shut down this computer. To avoid seeing this message in the future...

:: The Squire 1:48 AM :: email this post :: ::
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It's Baaaaaack

Blah3's Questionmark Series has new installments, #33 and #34. I haven't watched them yet, 'cos I'm at home and my folks don't have broadband yet, but I fully expect them to be up to the standards of the 2002 Questionmark Campaign.

:: The Squire 1:05 AM :: email this post :: ::
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Dirty Tricks Starting Up?

FBI surveilance records on Sen. Kerry have been stolen from an author's home.

The documents center on FBI surveillance of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), which Kerry represented as national spokesman. In April 1971, the decorated veteran testified in televised hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and led a large protest of veterans in the capital.

Nicosia estimated that 20 percent of his documents are missing.

"It's heartbreaking, after 11 years trying to get them," he said.

Kerry's antiwar efforts drew the attention of President Nixon, as revealed in recordings of White House conversations obtained by CNN from the National Archives, and of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI, as the documents revealed.

"I hadn't gotten a chance to review them all. I am sure there were some things about John Kerry that weren't known," Nicosia said. "These files would also cast a bad light on the ... Republican Party. This surveillance happened under the Nixon White House and Nixon FBI."

Watch for these to surface in attack ads or over the SCLM in a month or so.

:: The Squire 12:41 AM :: email this post :: ::
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Get This NOW

Microsoft is offering, for free, a CD with all pertinant updates for Win XP, Win 2000, Win ME, Win 98, and Win 98 SE through October 2003. Instead of spending hours downloading all of these updates and patches when you do a clean install (whilst exposing your machine to evil viruses) you can instead load all these patches before you connect your clean, innocent machine to the dirty and corrupting world wide web - and then sit for hours as your machine downloads all the stuff from November on. It's still better than downloading everything at once, though. So, even if you don't need it immediately, order this CD TODAY and keep it with your computer stuff - you'll never expect when you need it.

Thanks to El Reg for informing the wider world about this.

:: The Squire 12:33 AM :: email this post :: ::
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Everybody Wants To Rule The World

Even Mittens the Cute Kitten.

:: The Squire 12:32 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Attention Morons

Putting on your parking lights does NOT satisfy Illinois state law's requirement that you have your headlights on when your windshield wipers are on.

:: The Squire 12:32 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Quickie

I'm at home and bored, so there's not much to blog on. That being said, you can go read a piece by Dave Neiwert on the recent acquittal of a lesbian methodist minister.

:: The Squire 1:49 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Evidence Of The Type Of People We're Dealing With Here

CNN.com is running a story saying that the ACLU is calling for an investigation into a Louisiana middle school, whose principal had a prayer passed out with standardized exams. The ACLU, quite rightly, is making a stink over church and state issues, but the best bit is in the article's account of the prayer itself.

Green is one of dozens of failing schools which could be taken over by the state unless scores improve significantly on two tests being taken this week. Fourth- and eighth-graders take the LEAP test, which can keep them from being promoted, and students in other grades take the nationally standardized Iowa Test.

The prayer, which had errors in grammar and punctuation, states: "I receive your help faith, knowing that through you I shall do valiantly, for you are the one who treads down my enemies.(LEAP, Iowa)". [Emphasis mine]

How on earth did a woman so lacking in education become a principal?

:: The Squire 12:52 AM :: email this post :: ::
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Weekend Update

As you may have imagined, I'm on Spring Break right now. I've hidden myself at an undisclosed location. K, alright, I'm visiting my grandmother. There's not much for me to say, mainly 'cos I'm temporarily ignoring the outside world. As everyone else on campus also went home, the Chief situation has stalled for the week - probably a good thing.

On a more personal note, I got a new bike on Saturday. I haven't spent much time on it yet, but it's a great deal better than my old one. It's also maroon in color, which should not be a suprise to anyone who knows me well. I also got a new helmet, seeing as my old one's about 8 yrs old or so. Since my parents are paying thousands of dollars to have knowledge put into my head, the least I can do is wear a helmet when I go bike riding to protect their investment.

For anyone overly concerned about my lack of posting, feel free to visit any and all of the links on the left side of the page. Atrios and Kos do a good job of rounding up the liberal blogosphere, Dave Neiwert's Orcinus covers right-wing extremism in all its forms, and Dave Barry does a good job of keeping things light-hearted, as well as being the sole source of our nation's boost in productivity.

Thank you, that is all.

:: The Squire 6:42 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Listen, People, It's Not Going To Go Away

The anti-Chief side lost 31% to 69%, with 13,000 students out of an elligible 37,000. I'm not suprised, but I'm not happy either. The issue isn't going to go away anytime soon - in fact, it won't at all until the Chief is removed completely as both mascot and logo. There'll be a deluge of letters to the DI after break, I'm sure. I might even get upset enough to write one myself. We'll see how things fall.

Some attention should also be paid to a letter to the editor today, casting doubt on the methods used in a previously cited SI/Harris Group poll, AND citing a different poll to boot. This is in reference to an earlier letter in which a Chief supporter said, "Oh, look at this isolated statistic of opinions. My side must be right!" completely ignoring the ethics and morality of the issue. Yeah, I know it's a common conservative tactic, but I don't have to like it. Last I checked, numbers and might don't make right.

:: The Squire 7:23 AM :: email this post :: ::
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Me Not Happy

The pro-Chief option on the referendum won. More news and such when the Daily Illini comes out in the morning.

:: The Squire 10:08 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Woosh

Earth is going to have a near miss this afternoon.

A 100-foot diameter asteroid will pass within 26,500 miles of Earth on Thursday evening, the closest-ever brush on record by a space rock, NASA astronomers said.

The asteroid's close flyby, first spied late Monday, poses no risk, NASA astronomers stressed.

"It's a guaranteed miss," astronomer Paul Chodas, of the near-Earth object office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said Wednesday.

The asteroid, 2004 FH, was expected to make its closest approach at 5:08 p.m. EST, streaking over the southern Atlantic Ocean. It should be visible through binoculars to stargazers across the southern hemisphere, as well as throughout Asia and Europe, said astronomer Steve Chesley, also of JPL.

Yup, boys and girls, that IS closer than the moon.

:: The Squire 8:40 AM :: email this post :: ::
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Sound The Air Raid Sirens!

Geese have returned to Chambana.

:: The Squire 6:01 AM :: email this post :: ::
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Appropriate Satire

Wiley makes fun of the term "activist judge."

:: The Squire 2:54 AM :: email this post :: ::
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Tom Petty Said It Right

The waiting is the hardest part. Student elections are over, and unofficial results will be announced 5pm today in Illini Union Room A. I'm not too optimistic, but I still hope the anti-Chief side of the election came out on top.

:: The Squire 2:39 AM :: email this post :: ::
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Terrorists Endorse Bush For Pres

No, it's not an Onion article, it's the real deal. Link thanks to Kos.

:: The Squire 6:02 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Live vs. Album

I just caught Liz Phair's "Extraordinary" on the radio. I like the live version much, much better.

:: The Squire 2:42 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Yay

News-Gazette has a story on Dave Gill, my horse for the IL-15 house district.

:: The Squire 2:17 PM :: email this post :: ::
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100 Emails!

Strongbad answers his 100th email in WIDESCREEN!

Left side WOOOOOOOW
Right side WOOOOOOOW

:: The Squire 3:05 AM :: email this post :: ::
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Excrement And Flatulence

The BOFH makes great fun out of the pile of crap known as Intellectual Propery laws.

:: The Squire 10:25 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Someone's Gonna Get Their Ass Beat

Apparently someone's using an anonymous emailer system to email people Pro-Chief propaganda. I've reported it to CITES and hope that whoever did it will be fined or otherwise punnished up to whazoo.

:: The Squire 8:53 PM :: email this post :: ::
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IL Primary Results

Looks like Kerry for Pres. and Obama for Senate. With very few precincts reporting it looks like Dave Gill is winning the Dem slot for the IL-15 congressional seat, but that can change as more precincts report in.

UPDATE: 26% reporting with Gill winning 75.8% to Langenheim's 24.2%

:: The Squire 8:38 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Small World

Archpundit reports that DuPage co is seeing a small spike in Democratic voters. Amusing to think my sister and her friends showing up to the polls has such a large effect :-D .

:: The Squire 4:26 PM :: email this post :: ::
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For All Your Illinois Primary News Needs

Go visit Archpundit. He's a Missourian, but he tends to be a good barometer of Illinois Dem politics. His site's also the DailyKos designated ground-zero for news on the primary.

:: The Squire 3:24 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Primaries

Go out and vote - the County Clerk is reporting low turnout so your vote will count all the more. If you haven't decided on a senate candidate yet, side-by-side comparisons of all the candidates on some important domestic issues are over at the Trib's site.

Also, if you don't vote today you lose all right to complain about the candidate choices this fall. Since I voted this morning, I get to gripe straight through to November.

:: The Squire 3:02 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Revelation

15 hours of courses that actually matter is TOO MUCH. I either need to reduce course load of classes that matter in the future, and/or toss in classes that really don't matter when designing my schedules from here on out.

:: The Squire 3:22 AM :: email this post :: ::
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Election-Day Weather

2-4 inches of snow by morning, with more possible later. It'll hit 37°F today, though, so there's little hope of it sticking around.

It's better than sleet, though. Sleet's just icky.

:: The Squire 3:07 AM :: email this post :: ::
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I'm Gonna Bomb

There's no way in hell I'm gonna be adequately prepared for the CHEM 331 exam tomorrow (Wednesday) after focusing on the MCB 252 exam that's tonight (Tuesday). I'm not even going to get started on the paper due Thursday either.

:: The Squire 3:04 AM :: email this post :: ::
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I've Voted

Have you? Go vote in the student elections.

:: The Squire 2:31 AM :: email this post :: ::
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We've Been Noticed

Polling data for the Illinois primary over at DailyKos. If you don't like knowing about such things before you vote, don't follow the link.

:: The Squire 10:10 PM :: email this post :: ::
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I've Been Doing Too Many Quizes

That being said, here's another one:





Which Homestar Runner character are you?

:: The Squire 6:25 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Poking Around StrongBad's HTML

StrongBad catches people looking for the 100th StrongBad Email.

:: The Squire 6:15 PM :: email this post :: ::
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No Wonder I Have A Headache

One of the flourescent bulbs in the room is intermittently doing this weird flicker thing. It's driving my eyes insane.

:: The Squire 6:42 AM :: email this post :: ::
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While We're On The Subject

Campus elections start tomorrow and run for two days. Vote online at http://www2.uiuc.edu/elections/intro.html. As you might imagine, I endorse the anti-Chief position on the referrendum.

Also, don't forget that primary elections are also tomorrow. Both parties have primaries for U.S. Senate and the Dems for the House. Go out and vote, and remember to bring photo ID and a piece of official-type mail (government document/check, bill, bank statement, etc.).

:: The Squire 4:13 AM :: email this post :: ::
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Dodgy Politics

After Student Trustee Nate Allen added the Chief resolution to the agenda for the April BoT meeting, said meeting has been canceled. This comes amongst noise that Allen hasn't provided enough time for a consensus to be formed. When one remembers that a study commissioned by the BoT revealed that there's no room for compromise at all that arguement is shown to be the crap that it is. The adult members of the Board of Trustees are trying to avoid making a lose-lose vote: vote against the Chief and alienate alumni/taxpayers, vote for the Chief and have the university labeled racially insensitive. Allen's trying to force a vote because, frankly, our campus can't take much more of this. We NEED this to some to some sort of end. Myself, I'd favor that vote going against the Chief, but I'm almost to the point where I don't care how the BoT votes as long as this comes to an end.

Oh, and as far as I can tell, the proposed bylaw amendment still looks like it will effectively silence the student trustee, but I'm still not positive on that count.

:: The Squire 3:52 AM :: email this post :: ::
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George Carlin Finally Weighs In On The Superbowl

And hits the issue square-on.

The whole problem with this idea of obscenity and indecency, and all of these things -- bad language and whatever -- it's all caused by one basic thing, and that is: religious superstition. ... There's an idea that the human body is somehow evil and bad and there are parts of it that are especially evil and bad, and we should be ashamed. Fear, guilt and shame are built into the attitude toward sex and the body. ... It's reflected in these prohibitions and these taboos that we have.

...What I always remind people is, radio and television and -- as it happens -- newspapers and magazines too, are advertising media. ... When you have commercialism involved you have the kind of fear that advertisers are very afraid of offending some potential customer. They don't want to lose a sale. So they have this need to inspect and clean up and watch the content in order not to hurt their own sales. It's based on success at the cash register.

...And yet, they're very inconsistent_ on that Super Bowl broadcast of Janet Jackson's there was also a commercial about a 4-hour erection. A lot of people were saying about Janet Jackson, 'How do I explain to my kids? We're a little family, we watched it together ...' And, well, what did you say about the other thing? These are convenient targets.

:: The Squire 9:24 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Reliving The Past

Whilst listening to mid-to-late-nineties German dance music.

:: The Squire 7:09 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Pet Peeve XXVI

Multiple Exams/Papers due in one week

:: The Squire 7:05 PM :: email this post :: ::
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My Inner Child's Name: TheSquire

My inner child is sixteen years old!

Life's not fair! It's never been fair, but while
adults might just accept that, I know
something's gotta change. And it's gonna
change, just as soon as I become an adult and
get some power of my own.


How Old is Your Inner Child?
brought to you by Quizilla

:: The Squire 3:01 AM :: email this post :: ::
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Putting Things In Perspective

How small you really are.

:: The Squire 2:12 AM :: email this post :: ::
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So Called Wartime President

Stranger catches the Miserable Failure in violation of military regulations.

:: The Squire 11:52 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Pet Peeve XXV

Sitcoms

:: The Squire 11:42 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Fun At The Expense Of Your Friends

Go here and mouse over the screenshot of a recent Bush attack ad. If he treats his friends like that, it's no wonder he lets his enemies off so easy.

:: The Squire 11:36 PM :: email this post :: ::
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We Really Need To Get The State Out Of The Marriage Business

Ending a marriage is different for chuch (annulment) and state (divorce), so why shouldn't starting one be a separate process as well?

:: The Squire 11:27 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Stupid Things Republicans Have Said

Man, there's so many. Truthout has a good and particularly damning list compiled. As always, I have a few favorites:

"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." - George W. Bush, discussing Kosovo, Houston Chronicle, 04-09-99

"When you strip it all away, Jerry Garcia destroyed his life on drugs. And yet he's being honored, like some godlike figure. Our priorities are out of whack, folks." - Rush (currently under investigation for drug use) Limbaugh, on the death of Jerry Garcia, 08-20-95.

"Emotional appeals about working families trying to get by on $4.25 an hour are hard to resist. Fortunately, such families do not exist." - Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX), House Majority Whip, during a debate on increasing the minimum wage, Congressional Record, H3706, 04-23-96

"Probably nothing." - Jeb Bush, during his losing 1994 bid for Florida Governor, when asked what he would do for black people, quoted by Salon on 10-05-02

"My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building." - Ann Coulter, New York Observer, 08-26-02

"The fact of the matter is that this (increased American casualties) is a sign of the success of our operation, not its failure." - Ralph Reed, GOP strategist, on MSNBC's program 'Hardball,' 10-28-03

"Why should we hear about body bags and deaths and how many, what day it's gonna happen? It's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?" - Barbara Bush, said on 'Good Morning America' the day before the Iraq war started, New York Times, 01-13-03

"I'm the commander - see, I don't need to explain - I don't need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the President. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation." - George W. Bush, Washington Post, 11-19-02

Link via Tbogg

:: The Squire 5:52 PM :: email this post :: ::
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At Least The Student Trustee Has The Guts To Do It

Nate Allan, UIUC student trustee, will put the Chief resolution on the agenda for the next trustee meeting and will not withdraw it.

...Allen said the debate between pro- and anti-Chief groups "has slowly become more destructive on campus, on an administrative level, and (in terms of) the student body becoming more divisive."

Allen said he decided to take action after seeing protests and rallies by pro- and anti-Chief groups this week.

"What I've seen on campus, especially in the past week, is saddening and almost disgusting," he said. "I'm looking out on the Quad and you see African Americans, Latinos, Asians and whites in one pocket, and on the other, on the pro-Chief side, it's all whites. I'm not going to get into the argument if (the Chief) is racist, but it's racially divisive. [emphasis mine]

"It's just going to get worse and worse and worse," Allen said. "And so, I can't sit back anymore."

Allen said while retiring the Chief "would be in the best interests of the student body," he didn't care if the resolution had enough votes for passage or not.

"I don't see any good coming out of extending (a vote)," Allen said. "It's clear we have to retain the Chief or return it."

Needless to say, I'm really glad I voted for this guy last year.

Some trustrees are still under the delusion that there can be a compromise or consensus on the issue. Neither side will give - the Anti-Chief crowd is secure in its correctness and won't back down until the Chief is retired. The Pro-Chief crowd is too set in the past to change without a power from on high batting them down.

There's also a really offensive bit about some other trustees proposing a rule that will effectively silence the student trustee, but more on that when I'm not posting between classes.

:: The Squire 10:36 AM :: email this post :: ::
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Everything You've Been Taught Is Wrong

About female reproduction, that is.

Tilly and his colleagues measured the number of healthy and dying eggs in juvenile and adult mice. Initially, they found the eggs died at a low but steady rate.

However, once the female mice reached early adulthood, the number of dying eggs accelerated to about one-third of the estimated 3,000 or so total follicles in each ovary, and the ovaries flushed out the dead eggs every few days.

At that pace, the researchers expected to see the animals' oocytes depleted in a matter of days or weeks. Yet past work had shown that female mice remain fertile through at least one year of age.

The researchers found that as older eggs die off in juvenile and adult mice, the germ stem cells in the ovaries apparently generate new eggs -- a process that had been thought to occur only as female mammals developed in the womb.

"That's when it really struck us that the dogma must be wrong. That sort of set off the bells and whistles," Tilly said.

:: The Squire 11:03 AM :: email this post :: ::
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Just Like A Zit

Intelligent Design rears its ugly head again - this time in Ohio. I'm not going to put up a graf as these people are too stupid to merit one.

:: The Squire 10:55 AM :: email this post :: ::
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Purty

Cardinal outside my window. I'm sure Secret Squirrel wants the bird off his branch.

:: The Squire 10:21 AM :: email this post :: ::
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Interesting Site

Orwell Today tries to draw connections between 1984 and today's world. The exerpts and commentary on 1984 are pretty good, though the author's commentary on current events is a bit biased, shallow, and self-limiting.

:: The Squire 9:31 AM :: email this post :: ::
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Pet Peeve XXV

Mornings

:: The Squire 8:20 AM :: email this post :: ::
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Terrorists

...and domestic ones at that - though not in this country. This morning's train bombings in Madrid were likely to be the doings of Basque separatists. It makes one wonder why our government doesn't focus on domestic terrorist groups, such as the Christian Identity folks or the people who seem to think killing to prevent abortions is somehow justifiable. I mean, I know why it doesn't - the people in charge get more political mileage out of "scary foreign darkies" than out of crazed domestic white folk - but it still makes one wonder.

:: The Squire 7:23 AM :: email this post :: ::
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Selling Out

Nokia apparently paid for the Diamond Service package and has had El Reg's normally quite handsome red color scheme replaced with a blue/green one.

:: The Squire 3:52 AM :: email this post :: ::
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Not Again!

More construction on the Borman. Joy.

:: The Squire 3:19 AM :: email this post :: ::
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'Bout Time

People are putting up billboards demanding the Chief be retired.

The group, known as ActNow, will put up nine billboards throughout the community on Friday, said Bill Sullivan, an associate professor of landscape architecture and a member of the group. The orange and blue signs will read, "It's not a matter of if, but when ... Retire the Chief with respect — NOW."

:: The Squire 2:59 AM :: email this post :: ::
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Only In America

Can you find amusing grafs like this one:

Now Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Bill Pickle has been tasked with what The Hill rightly calls "the oddly postmodern task of investigating a Senate leak of a report on the investigation of a Senate leak."

:: The Squire 2:35 AM :: email this post :: ::
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I Am Constantly Amazed

At how freaked out Europeans get over GM corn.

:: The Squire 10:55 PM :: email this post :: ::
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We All Knew It

More proof that abstinance-only sex ed. programs don't work.

U.S. adolescents who pledge not to have sex until they are married have about the same rate of sexually transmitted diseases as other teenagers and they often fail to keep their pledge, according to a study released on Tuesday....

he study, funded largely by the National Institutes of Health, found that these teenagers were also less likely to use condoms when they did have sex because they had not paid attention to sex education.

Because of their ignorance about sexually transmitted diseases, "pledgers" were also less likely to seek medical help if they contracted one of the diseases, according to the study unveiled at a Philadelphia conference on sexually transmitted diseases, or STDs.

Dr. Peter Bearman of Columbia University in New York, who headed the study, said the pledge movement failed to recognize the realities of adolescent sexuality. "Ideological programs designed to make serious interventions in public health programs tend not to work," he said....

The study found that pledging did succeed in delaying sex, reducing the number of partners and led to earlier marriages but it did not reduce the rate of sexually transmitted diseases.

"These movements that are ignorant of social science research defeat the purpose they set out to solve," Bearman said.

The abstention-only crowd has a serious reality disconnect. The amount of rural people who are married younger than 22 because they got themselves pregnant should itself be evident of that.

:: The Squire 10:39 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Is Official Now

Kerry is the new and undisputed presidential nominee of the Democratic party.

:: The Squire 9:36 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Really Messed Up

LotR Badgers.

:: The Squire 9:28 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Read Krugman

And be edumacated about federal budget forcasts.

:: The Squire 8:34 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Tax Dollars I Didn't Pay* Being Well Spent

Chambana has an upgraded 911 system that can locate cell phones.

Greg Abbott, 911 coordinator for the Metropolitan Computer-Aided Dispatch service in Urbana, said Monday that cellphone users now have a new level of 911 access available.
"This is a major step forward," Abbott said. "Until now, we had no way to tell where a wireless 911 call was coming from."
Until the change, callers' cellphone numbers were unknown, according to METCAD Director Al Anderson. Dispatchers can now try to call back a cellphone if a 911 call is interrupted, he said.
Beginning March 1, the METCAD system allows emergency call takers to identify the caller's cellphone number, the location of the tower carrying the call and an approximate direction from the tower where the call originated, Abbott said.

*I didn't pay those taxes 'cos I don't own property here and the state gives me back all the tax money it withholds each year.

:: The Squire 2:28 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Another PSA

Don't forget to vote online a week from tomorrow. Vote anti-chief.

:: The Squire 8:45 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Get Your Vote On!

Rock the Vote will be at the Union from 5:30pm 'til 8pm tomorrow. They've got some talking heads and they'll supposedly be registering people to vote. I wonder if anyone's told them that anyone they register will be inelligible to vote in the primaries.

:: The Squire 8:32 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Can't Have Your Cake And Eat It Too

The National Council of the BSA has a rectocranial inversion. They don't seem to realise as long as they insist on being stupid and banning gays from adult leadership positions that they're gonna get screwed in the pocketbook. Seriously, the LDS units can't be bringing that much to the table that it's worth it to have all the bad press and loss of funding for the local programs.

:: The Squire 7:57 PM :: email this post :: ::
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The Monster's In A Different Box Now

Spalding Gray's body was pulled out of the East River.

A body pulled from the East River at 3 p.m. Sunday was that of actor-writer Spalding Gray, who had been missing since January 10, the New York City medical examiner's office said Monday afternoon....

Gray, 62, was known for writing and starring in the autobiographical "Swimming to Cambodia" and appearances in films such as "The Killing Fields," "Beaches," "The Paper" and "Kate & Leopold," but was most celebrated for his autobiographical monologues, including "Cambodia," "Monster in a Box" and "It's a Slippery Slope."

He had attempted suicide several times since a car accident in Ireland in June 2001 in which he sustained severe injuries. Family friend and spokeswoman Sara Vass said in January that he had never been the same since that crash and had subsequently received treatment at psychiatric hospitals.

:: The Squire 7:48 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Public Service

The university is completely reworking the course numbering system and doing some consolidation to boot. There is now a centralized course website here. Have fun confusing yourself, but don't do too good a job; UI Integrate'll do that for you when your MCB 300 registration suddenly becomes CINE 300 for no good reason.

:: The Squire 5:44 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Leggo My Eggo, Bush!

Kos has a list of Shrub's waffling on the issues.

:: The Squire 3:59 AM :: email this post :: ::
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Productivity Enhancer

New version of the Penguin Game.

:: The Squire 3:48 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Not Cool

People are stealing DVDs from my library back home. This is really vexing, as I use the library to check out movies for a whole week for just $1.

:: The Squire 1:57 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Can You Honestly Remember

...Why we invaded Iraq when we did? Honestly?

Iraq didn't do anything out of the ordinary, we just kinda built forces up and invaded. Remember that? Do You?

:: The Squire 3:29 AM :: email this post :: ::
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Dave Hits A Few Nails On The Head

Dave Neiwert posts about our incipient theocracy and fundamentalist's overall reasons for not liking public education.

Probably the real reason that public schools face such withering fire is that fundamentalists have come to what is almost certainly a correct conclusion: that their real enemy, in the battle for hearts and minds, is education. The fundamentalist approach to the world is built on faith; its thinkers begin with what the tenets of their faith as the core of what they believe, and then go about finding "facts" to support those beliefs. The educated approach -- especially the scientific approach -- is to gather facts first, with an open mind, and then to synthesize through logic a model that explains things. The two styles of thought are diametrically opposed and, ultimately, irreconcilable.

:: The Squire 3:00 PM :: email this post :: ::
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It's Not Quite Dead Yet!

Get out a second batch o' popcorn - Gov. Perry's commented on the rumours himself.

(Link via Tbogg

:: The Squire 2:38 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Pet Peeve XV, XVIII, XX, and XXII

Drunks.

:: The Squire 2:34 PM :: email this post :: ::
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For Those With Culture

Go read a flash animation.

:: The Squire 1:04 AM :: email this post :: ::
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Sad Thing Is

This will happen.

:: The Squire 11:20 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Confused

CNN.com headline: U.S. to launch 24/7 hunt for bin Laden

I thought we've been doing that since September 11th, 2001. Still, no one seems to have a reason for why we weren't doing this before instead of invading Iraq.

:: The Squire 9:04 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Skool Projects Can Be Interesting

Esp. when they're cool looking. Check out this flash animation done for an english class using the Teleplay Twelve Angry Men as its basis.

:: The Squire 9:01 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Puzzling

Why do people think that group perjury makes them able to do whatever they want?

:: The Squire 5:57 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Peek-A-Boo

My gf will be going home this morning to put down her well-loved cat of many years.

Kitty

Catfish

Infinite Kitties

Cute Zombie Kitten

Cats Sleep Anywhere.

UPDATE: Apparently my gf's kitty is eating again and has staved off the grim reaper for now. Since the cat no longer responds to medication, it's unfortunately only a matter of time before my gf will have to go through this again.

:: The Squire 2:43 AM :: email this post :: ::
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The Greatest Crime Fighter The World Has Ever Known....

CHICKENMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!

Bauk, bauk, bauk, baaaaaauk

He's everywhere! He's everywhere!


When we last left the adventures of the White-Winged Weekend Warrior in a dungeon in Gary...

:: The Squire 12:25 AM :: email this post :: ::
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I'm Amazed

The sixth copy of my home-made anti-Chief sign has been on my door a full two hours without being vandalized. I think people may have gotten the idea that I'm not going to stand having it down.

:: The Squire 11:24 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Courteousness

Just because you don't like a decoration on someone's door, you do not have permission to deface or remove said decoration.

:: The Squire 4:32 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Devil Found Some Souls In Georgia

And, apparently, they're not too organized without their stupid Confederate Battle Flag. As usual, Dave Neiwert's got this one. Like the Chief, conservatives can't let old Dixie die.

:: The Squire 10:45 PM :: email this post :: ::
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POTUSA

#44, John Kerry

Or, at least, Kos is calling it that way.

UPDATE: It's not even close; I'm not going to bother to summarise the returns here. Let the partisan smear-fest begin!

:: The Squire 10:20 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Ewww

Some Hip-Hop person ripped the intro to Pink Floyd's "Money." This is peverse.

UPDATE: Eww, it's even worse, it's apparently Shania Twain with "Ka-Ching"

:: The Squire 9:59 PM :: email this post :: ::
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The Passion Was Excessively Inaccurate

Even Christ says so.

After watching Mel Gibson's The Passion Of The Christ Monday, Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ announced that He will demand creative control over the next film based on His life.

"I never should have given Mel Gibson so much license," said Christ, the Son of God. "I don't like to criticize a member of the flock, but that close-up of the nails being pounded into My wrists - that was just bad."

Gotta love The Onion. ('Cept when they change their URL scheme to make it nearly impossible to link to stuff.)

:: The Squire 8:39 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Dean Won Vermont

Gee, I wonder why.

:: The Squire 7:12 PM :: email this post :: ::
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NASA Makes Its Big Announcement

The Red Planet was once blue.

With these findings, I'm all for giving NASA more money.

:: The Squire 5:14 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Dave's Moved

He's now here. I'll update the link at left later. Oh, and to welcome everyone to the new URL, he's got an extra-gory productivity enhancer posted.

:: The Squire 2:37 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Right, Er, Left-Thinking People

Like myself, the DI isn't thrilled about the BoT chickening out on the Chief again.

:: The Squire 1:09 AM :: email this post :: ::
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More "I Could've Told You That"

Study finds that antibacterial soaps don't do anything to prevent viral infections compared to normal soap. (Virii aren't bacteria, but i'm sure you could figure THAT one out, right? RIGHT?!?) For that matter, normal soap's just as good for preventing ANY infections compared to the antibiotic stuff. Why? Soap, by its very nature, is antibiotic. Soap is a deturgent and will lyse the cell membrane, killing ALL living cells it comes into contact with.

So, unless you REALLY, REALLY have to kill everything on your hands, normal soap'll do you just fine.

:: The Squire 12:29 AM :: email this post :: ::
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More Primaries

You thought they were gone away, didn't you? MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Kos comments on the calm before the storm. Most everyone else is silent, for now.

:: The Squire 10:59 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Mrow... ::cry::

Calpundit's ending Friday Cat Blogging, for now.

:: The Squire 9:16 PM :: email this post :: ::
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Passion-ate Phrases

Tbogg's got a link to the Guardian's list of handy Aramaic phrases to use while watching Mel's Jeebus Chainsaw Massacre. I do not endorse all (or, necessarily any) of them. However, I have my favorites.

Da'ek teleyfoon methta'naanaak, pquud. Guudaapaw!
Please turn off your mobile phone. It is blasphemous.

Demketh! Udamaa lemath mtaynan b-tash'eetha d-khashey?
I fell asleep! What station of the cross are we up to?

Ma'hed lee qalleel d-Khayey d-Breeyaan, ellaa dlaa gukhkaa.
It sort of reminds me of Life of Brian, but it's nowhere near as funny.

Lebba deel daaleq, ellaa teezaa deel daamek.
My heart is on fire, but my bum is asleep.

Peletaa kuullaah da-Qraabay Kawkbey.
It's all an allegory of Star Wars.

My absolute favorite, though, is this:

Ktaabaa taab hwaa meneyh.
It's not as good as the book.

:: The Squire 8:25 PM :: email this post :: ::
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