Politician Carole Migden is upset that San Quentin prison officials have been quietly remodelling the death chamber, after a judge found that the death chamber didn't meet his standards. Politicians are complaining that San Quentin officials are violating some kind of trust of the people of Marin county by getting busy and quietly working to fix the death chamber. Carole Migden is calling for an investigation of why the prison officials were doing this work behind her back.

She is upset that the prison officials added two more viewing chambers, after a judge said the facility was inadequate. According to new reports running for the past two days, she says it was "underhanded and sneaky". She says the people of Marin should have been involved in the delay process (decision process, as she calls it.)

How about this possibility: The people of the State of California pay for that prison to execute the worst of our criminals. If some judge decides it isn't up to standards, why shouldn't the prison officials get busy and fix the problem? Why should they wait for Carol Migden to tell them what to do? Executing criminals is, after all, what the people are paying the prison officials to do.

More: garnet:Carole Migden Wants To Know Why Prison Officials Are Quietly Doing Their Jobs Without Asking For Her Opinion...

• garnet:Asians on pins and needles, hoping the killer was of a different minority group.

You know "the Asian" shot and killed 32 people. But some of the memorials are for 33 "victims". (Even this article you sent talks about 33 shooting victims, as if Cho was on equal footing with the people he murderd!) Many mush headed people in this country consider the murderer a victim just like the people he killed. We've really lost our will to survive in this country!

...garnet:Liberalism and Losing Our Will To Defend Ourselves...

The 2007 Pet Food Poisoning scare is shaping up into a real who-dun-it. First it's wheat of an unknown source in pet food, then it's admitted to be from China, then it's said to be a rat poison, then a chemical that can fool tests for protein content. So what are our government protectors doing while our pets are dieing?

FDA investigators were awaiting visas that would allow them to visit the Chinese plants where the vegetable protein ingredients were produced.

Why aren't the visas instant, automatic, or in place before a crisis like this? Sounds like the perpetrators are going to get plenty of extra time to hide their tracks, courtesy of the Chinese immigration officials. Hows that for protectionism? Reminds me of how Sadaam had plenty of warning to ship his WMD's to Syria before we invaded.

• garnet:China protects it's global food suppliers from prompt investigation of their poisoning of pet food ingredients...

The other day I was tracking my diet for a couple of days, and discovered some big deficits of certain vitamins.

A friend of mine, Dr. John Elloway, is a wellness doctor. I asked him for his opinion on vitamin supplements. Does he think vitamin supplements are useful, or are they a bunch of hype?

He said he feels they are very useful. The vitamins we have the most problem not getting enough of are:

• Vitamin A
• Vitamin D
• Vitamin E
• Vitamin C

I asked him what he thinks about the U.S. RDA numbers for vitamins. I've heard that they are set just above the minimum to keep you from getting diseases like scurvy, but not high enough to give real health. He agreed.

What about vitamin B-12? Dr. John said that is very important for vegetarians and vegans to supplement.

I told him I had some trouble finding a vitamin supplement without extra iron. He asked if I cook with an iron skillet. Cooking with an iron skillet is a great way to end up with extra iron in the diet!

He takes 1000 mg. a day of Vitamin C, 1000 mg. of vitamin D. He said we have a problem with having enough vitamin D because we don't get enough sunlight.

Dr. John said he had learned about the importance of vitamin supplements from watching a friend of ours, Dr, Merton Shelton who lived into his 90's and was a big believer in taking vitamin supplements.

Hmmm... Almost a year since my last blog posting in this space. That's the problem with having too many places to post things at.....

What have I been doing in the last year?

• Learning how to make beads and glasswork, lampworking, and when they don't turn out right, melting them down into marbles!
• Doing further development on the Hivewiki software. It's now running on another server also, with a more up to do date version, Webmill.us.
• Reading books:
  • Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich - Working on cliff notes and a wiki version of it
  • Journey Round My Skull - Story of survivor of one of the earliest open brain surgeries
  • Do Cats Think? - Delightful book that answers "Of course they do!"
  • Health Power - Health By Choice, Not Chance

Think I've finished some others recently too, have to come back here and update the list.

Yesterday I encounted a foolish deputy at the Napa County jail who recoiled in horror when she saw me carrying a Libretto laptop.

"Is that thing wireless?" she demanded.

Me: "Oh no, of course not..."

Dopey Deputy: "Those wireless ones interfere with our radios!"

What a moron. The odds of that happening are about -3%, that is, less than zero!

Many ts:police departments have welcomed wifi as part of their operations, they are not pretending there is an interference risk.... Michigan prosecutes man who used free cafe wifi from his car.... New York county makes it a crime for businesses to have an unsecured wifi connection

In Japan, someone is going around selling baby lambs to celebrities by convincing them that they are miniature poodles. A celebrity was embarrassed on TV when she complained that her new puppy wouldn't eat dog food, and wouldn't bark, and was informed on the air that her new "puppy" was in fact a baby goat.

What's next:

• Muscox being mistaken for Giant Saint Bernard?

In a search on Amazon using AWS or the Amazon website itself, for

    web site content

Link #13 is:

The Longing (2003) Plot Synopsis: Cyrus, Tim and Erik were high school buddies and meet again ten years later. They spend the summer together in Brazil. All of them are occupied in dealing with experiences from their past but new developments make them face their inner conflicts and their friendship with each other. Plot Keywords: Male Frontal Nud?ty | Homos??ual | Murder | Nud??y | Redemption | S?x | G?y | G?y Interest | G?y S?x | Cybers?x | Search For Parent | S?x On The Beach

What in the blazes does this have to do with website content? How did this happen?

I am very disgusted that AWS would return such an obviously out of place piece of garbage in the middle of a site about web design! What do I need to do to filter such trash out of the results I am getting from Amazon? I am trying to run sites that are family and child friendly, not sites that push this kind of stuff in people's faces when they aren't looking for it.

Even more stupid, this garbage outranks Net nanny. Here is the AWS descriptions in order for this search:

The Longing Jürgen Brüning $19.99(USD) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ready for an admittedly tawdry but s?xy melodramatic romp through sun-drenched Brazil with two h0t men? Does Saved by the Bell s A.C. and Zack locking l??? and l???? on a white-sanded beach turn you on? (Editor's note: Yes I obscured a couple of words. The actual description is about twice as long and much more graphic.) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Net Nanny 5 Web Site Filtering Blocks Adult Content $39.95(USD) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Filters allow you to block objectionable material on the Web, while enabling access to everything else. For parents, this means you can reliably manage what Web sites your children see. Kids need to be able to access much of the Web for its informational, educational and entertainment content. However, a lot of sites out there are inappropriate and potentially damaging for children, featuring illicit content or promoting hate and violence. Get a monthly updated block list of inappropriate Web sites. Know exactly what your kids can and cannot see. Fully view and edit block lists. Create a "whitelist" of certain Web sites so that only those sites, and no others, may be visited or viewed. Create keyword lists to filter out inappropriate, vulgar or sexual terms on Web pages, in chat rooms and in emails. Use pop-up blockers to keep your screen from filling up with advertisements from adult sites and other over-zealous advertisers.

Maybe someone has an idea how I can run AWS search results through Net Nanny to keep my sites from displaying this trash and getting banned.....

Jonathan Nolen quotes from an article about the iPhone and the luxury of having Cingular service to go with it. being like an offer from a mob boss that you can't refuse...

We used to call an old boss by the nickname The Codefather. If anyone we gave a demo didn't get the point of our product, or they didn't immediately tell us it was the greatest thing they'd ever do, I'd put on my New York underling accent and say....

Eh Codefather... They don't just get it.... You want me to whack em'?

Another of my contributions to marketing in that company was inspired by Cool Hand Luke Anyone who doesn't get the point of our product, or the value of our patents, will spend the night in the box.

Cool Hand Luke Cool Hand Luke Soundtrack

BTW, my cell phone carrier is Splint, the crippled cell phone carrier. I'm surprised more people don't refer to them in that way. Back when Borland had a word processor called "Sprint", all of us in QA nicknamed it "Splint, the crippled word processor".

More IPhone stuff in tech stuff space...

(Trackback on typepad seems broke tonight, so here's another linklink)

The woman in question, Ms Lina Joy, 43, was born Azlina Jailani to Malay parents and brought up a Muslim. In 1998, she converted to Christianity and changed her name.

But the National Registration Department here refused to reflect her change of religion in her identity card.

Here appeal went all the way to the Malaysian Federal Supreme Court 3 judge tribunal ruled along religious lines, 2 to 1 against her, saying that she must go to the Syariah Courts for this issue. More on malaysia:Malaysia's Civil Federal Supreme Court Hands Over Non-Muslim to the Religious Syariah Courts.... malaysia:Malaysian Lina Joy and the Malaysian Federal Supreme Court Decision and the issue of Jurisdiction...

Today a telemarketer called me from "Doctors Group", (732)242-6502, trying to schedule me for a Chiropractic screening. After having fun with the telemarketer asking her what movie was he screening, I asked her where was the doctor located, since I didn't recognize the 732 area code. I learned a lot about geography today, including new states I didn't previously know about (like Cincinnati), cities like Petaluma being moved to those new states, and more?...

New telemarket:Ideas about how to deal with telemarketers...

See how loud you can get them to talk. You have to lead them on like you want their service, then have trouble hearing them and ask them to speak a little louder. If you're really prepared, you can pretend you are adjusting your hearing aid. Do this by having a discarded hearing aid handy, and turn up the gain so it makes a feedback whistle, then place it next to the phone receiver. See how much longer you can get them to continue talking to you while they have to listen to the feedback.

Goal: Get them to talk so loud that they disturb the other telemarketing calls in their office....