The Game Ain't Over 'Til the Fat Lady Showers

Michael Medved, the film critic who's become a right-wing radio host, is spending a lot of time thinking about naked athletes taking showers together:

Tim Hardaway (and most of his former NBA teammates) wouldn't welcome openly gay players into the locker room any more than they'd welcome profoundly unattractive, morbidly obese women. I specify unattractive females because if a young lady is attractive (or, even better, downright "hot") most guys, very much including the notorious love machines of the National Basketball Association, would probably welcome her joining their showers. The ill-favored, grossly overweight female is the right counterpart to a gay male because, like the homosexual, she causes discomfort due to the fact that attraction can only operate in one direction. She might well feel drawn to the straight guys with whom she's grouped, while they feel downright repulsed at the very idea of sex with her.

I would be uncomfortable taking a shower with Michael Medved.

Nba · Gay · Hygiene · 2007/02/21 · 6 COMMENTS · Link

Iraq Poll Touted by Drudge Doesn't Add Up

There's a word curiously absent from Matt Drudge's story about a new poll of 800 Americans on the Iraq War:

In the wake of the U.S. House of Representatives passing a resolution that amounts to a vote of no confidence in the Bush administration's policies in Iraq, a new national survey by Alexandria, VA-based Public Opinion Strategies (POS) shows the American people may have some different ideas from their elected leaders on this issue. ...

The survey shows Americans want to win in Iraq, and that they understand Iraq is the central point in the war against terrorism and they can support a U.S. strategy aimed at achieving victory, said Neil Newhouse, a partner in POS. The idea of pulling back from Iraq is not where the majority of Americans are.

By a 53 percent -- 46 percent margin, respondents surveyed said that Democrats are going too far, too fast in pressing the President to withdraw troops from Iraq.

The word Republican's never used to describe Public Opinion Strategies, a polling firm whose pro-GOP sentiments are made clear on its web site, where the company responded to the November election with a press release titled "Public Opinion Strategies mourns Republican losses."

For some reason, the partisan nature of POS isn't being mentioned by Drudge, Rush Limbaugh, the New York Post and popular right-wing blogs such as Power Line, WizBang and Outside the Beltway. The last one's the most glaring omission, since Outside the Beltway blogger James Joyner is married to the company's chief operating officer.

When you examine the actual polling questions and results, POS made some interesting choices in the language for question four:

Which one of the following statements regarding the U.S. involvement in Iraq do you MOST agree with...

17 percent: The US should immediately withdraw its troops from Iraq.

32 percent: Whether Iraq is stable or not, the US should set and hold to set a strict timetable for withdrawing troops

23 percent: While I don't agree that the US should be in the war, our troops should stay there and do whatever it takes to restore order until the Iraqis can govern and provide security to their country.

27 percent: The Iraq War is the front line in the battle against terrorism and our troops should stay there and do whatever it takes to restore order until the Iraqis can govern and provide security to their country.

Even in a poll crafted by a GOP firm, only 27 percent believe Iraq's the "front line in the battle against terrorism," which is the rationale most consistently offered by President Bush over the 1,436 days of this war. Amomg the slim majority who oppose withdrawal, 23 percent wish the war hadn't been started in the first place.

Politics · Iraq · Polling · 2007/02/21 · 17 COMMENTS · Link

Defending WordPress MU from Splog Abuse

Over the weekend most of my new WordPress MU weblog servers were hit by splogs -- spam blogs created by bots and filled with links to commercial sites.

I added a WordPress hacker's unofficial patch that requires users to fill out a captcha to create a new blog. The patch modifies wp-signup.php and adds a new file, wp-valid.php that generates the captcha graphic using code from the Quick Captcha PHP script.

The first two active blogs to spring up on these servers are Political Fretwork and the Ad Whisperers.

Update: I don't like how captchas break accessibility for visually impaired people, so I'm looking for a way to prevent that.

Wordpressmu · Spam · Php · 2007/02/21 · 4 COMMENTS · Link

Hanker for a Hunk o' Cheese

Every year at DunDraCon, xomec and I go across to Whole Foods and lunch alfresco on the fruits of their prepared foods section, finishing up this exercise in yuppie Bohemia by splitting a wedge of Stilton. This year, Greg Stafford joined us, and took a tiny morsel of Stilton just to be sociable -- he didn't like blue cheese, or his doctor had given him some farcical warning about cholesterol, or whatever.

Greg eats the morsel ... "Oh. You don't often encounter something you taste quite that far up into your nose."

Greg tries another, somewhat larger morsel... "I think I can feel it behind my eyes, now. I'm going to try for my ears, next."

One delicate slab later ... "It worked! It's going up my Eustachian tubes! It'll be in the roots of my hair, next! No more ... this has to end here!

Cheese · Food · 2007/02/20 · 1 COMMENT · Link

A Comment on Robert Scoble's Lovemaking

Robert Scoble this morning:

... Kathy Sierra is one of the best bloggers out there. She makes love to us with every post.

It'll be interesting to see how his commenters respond. Techbloggers don't often attempt to channel Barry White. I know I'm being obnoxious, but I have to ask whether Scoble would whip out that metaphor for a male blogger of his affection.

In the name of science, please expose yourself to the following hypothetical Scobleizations and let me know which one makes you the most uncomfortable in your workplace.

... Eugene Volokh is one of the best bloggers out there. He makes love to us with every post.

... Jeff Jarvis is one of the best bloggers out there. He makes love to us with every post.

... Dave Winer is one of the best bloggers out there. He makes love to us with every post.

From my experimentation, I think this only sounds natural when you try it on a blogger with a French-sounding name:

... Loïc Le Meur is one of the best bloggers out there. He makes love to us with every post.

Robert Scoble · Kathy Sierra · Love · 2007/02/15 · 21 COMMENTS · Link

Launching 16 Weblog Communities with WordPress MU

I enjoyed running Buzzword.Com when it hosted 3,000 free Manila weblogs from 2004-06, but Manila couldn't handle that many blogs on a single Windows 2000 server and I found that Frontier and UserTalk were too idiosyncratic for my tastes. I couldn't be a good UserTalk programmer unless I worked in it exclusively. I do most of my work these days in Java and LAMP.

WordPress MU, which runs on LAMP, has the easiest installation process of any blogging platform I've ever seen:

1. Create a new MySQL database user with access to a new database.
2. Create the database.
3. Unpack WordPressMU in a web directory.
4. Load an installation URL in a browser.

In 10 minutes, I had the thing up and running and was working on the server's first blog.

Wordpressmu · Manila · Lamp · 2007/02/13 · 10 COMMENTS · Link

Barack Obama 1, John Howard 0

I haven't started paying much attention to the presidential race, but I was impressed with how Sen. Barack Obama handled harsh criticism from Australian Prime Minister John Howard regarding his position on Iraq.

Obama, who gave a speech opposing the war in 2002, has introduced a bill to prevent President Bush from increasing troop levels in Iraq and to remove U.S. combat forces by March 31, 2008.

On Sunday, the conservative Bush ally played the terrorists-love-Democrats card on a news program, singling out Obama in particular:

If I were running al Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008, and pray, as many times as possible, for a victory not only for Obama, but also for the Democrats

In response, Obama called his bluff:

We have close to 140,000 troops on the ground now and my understanding is that Mr. Howard has deployed 1,400. So, if he's ginned up to fight the good fight in Iraq, I would suggest he call up another 20,000 Australians and send them up to Iraq.

That puts the issue exactly where it should be, given Howard's dire prediction of catastrophe for Australia and the West if the U.S. withdraws. If the war's so important, why hasn't Australia sent more than a token commitment of troops?

Politics · Australia · Barack Obama · Iraq · 2007/02/12 · 57 COMMENTS · Link

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