I have been distraught over this Spitzer business. Another grotesque hypocracy, a pure unadulterated travesty. There simply aren’t any heroic men left, if ever there were.

A painful week - the New York Times reports US funds for Pakistan are misdirected, used for armaments aimed at conflict with India instead of fighting Al Qaeda. A few days later Bhutto is murdered, allegedly by Al Qaeda/Taliban operatives. In harmonious counterpoint at the start of the week, the butcher Modi is re-elected to head the state of Gujurat. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

US begins draw-down in Iraq

The first major pullout of American forces has begun —- a 5,000-troop brigade that will take overall numbers to 157,000 by mid-December. This is a page 8 story in the Times , and maybe I missed whatever fanfare surrounded this during the week, but it seems significant to me.

A fine counterpoint to this has been the waffling rhetoric from all corners about the “improved” situation in Iraq, and as such this withdrawal (at long last) of First Cavalry Division’s Third Brigade Combat Team is a difficult item for parties to digest, with the White House and its opponents trying to find the right tone to take with their frightened and exhausted constituencies.

Timothy Ferriss: former ‘food supplements’ purveyor, and now a ‘motivational speaker’ who gets his world news ‘from waiters’. Why are people listening to anything he says?

mr swaggert, mr haggard … and now maybe mr boone?

It does make me sad to hear San Francisco disparaged; let alone our fabulous history of tolerance and cultural diversity, and it remains a grand, albeit fairly tiny, city. But let *that* alone, and I am proud to live in a place that stands for values that hateful, hypocritical people like mr. boone deplore.

even tonight there is still ash falling out of the southern california sky; the chatter around town is the need to have underground power lines.

In all the years we’ve had big fires —- owing to forest mismanagment, rapid development, or whatever —- there has never been much improvement in planning or response. I don’t think we’ll see much come out of this either, even with 1,000 homes destroyed.

watching with familiar frustration as the chargers give minnesota “more rushing yards than they have ever made”

jumping on the tumblr bandwagon, which is one slick UI bandwagon I must say