Category: Uncategorized

useless parks

The city government here wants to build a new shiny city hall. The residents are skeptical. To avoid a vote on the subject, the government first tried funding the new city hall without a bond issue. This was noticed. Then, there was an election.

The new city council has three times shot down a proposal to build the new city hall on land previously designated as “open land, future park.” The last news was that they directed the city government specifically to finalize plans for theh park.

After the angry meeting that resulted in this decision, our Mayor, who supports the new city hall, made a career suicide statement:

“Personally, I don’t think it’s the end of this. I think there are people who are committed to … not building useless parks,” Mayor Steve Rosansky said at the end of a lengthy, impassioned speech in which he accused fellow council members of caving to “political expediency.”

SPALMON (de Santiago, Chile)

Boy do they have the wrong number. Caught fresh in the wild by my spamchecker, some native Chilean spawning spalmon:

From: “FILETE DE SALMON A DOMICILIO”
Date: February 25, 2007 8:45:11 PM PST
To: “3”
Subject: FILETE DE SALMON A DOMICILIO

DISFRUTE DE EL MEJOR FILETE DE SALMON ENTREGADO EN SU DOMICILIO SIN RECARGO PARA USTED.(solo en la ciudad de santiago)

NUESTROS PRECIOS SON LOS SIGUIENTES:

FILETE DE SALMON FRESCO Y CONGELADO SELLADO AL VACIO 3.800.- POR KILO
FILETE DE SALMON AHUMADO SELLADO AL VACIO 5.000.- POR KILO

HAGA SU PEDIDO AL CORREO salmonchile@chile.com O LLAME AL FONO 09-7424993

si desea ser removido de nuestra lista por favor disculpe y devuelva este correo con la palabra “remover”

Edie Sedgwick, slight return

The Los Angeles Times Magazine has been in decline at least since 1986.

They have tried to recast themselves as the New York Times Magazine, as a Southern California Lifestyle Thing like Sunset Magazine, as maybe four other things. Nothing works.

This week they managed to hit a new low with a feature article on a young woman named Cory Kennedy.

Cory has been internet famous since she was 15, which was in 2005. Someone took pictures of her and posted them, and the phenomenon grew as those things can. She is a pretty girl, and her prettiness is of the gamine waif variety. She will look 15 until she’s 25.

The Times Magazine article is the typical deploring/promoting titillation piece. They at once portray her as the “grew up too fast” pop culture victim and as a high-flying teen hottie. They play this game very well. They also made sure to post forty-four pictures of her to accompany the article on the Net.

Ephebophilic disasters like this aren’t new. The current crop probably started with the Guess? ads in the 1980s. The “new” men’s magazines are all over it. It’s creepy. The way this article presented it was particularly damaging, though. She’s presented as someone who did this of her own initiative and was in charge all along. It started when she was 15. This appears to confirm predators’ belief that their young victims are behaving as adults and not being manipulated.

Edie Sedgwick died in her 20s. I wonder how long Cory will make it?

your future, yard donkey

I haven’t had time or energy to blodge much. Haven’t been keeping up on other people, either.

My life is a blur of medical bullshit, entertainment news, unix sysadmin tasks, spyware, and spam. Lots and lots of spyware and spam. In lieu of telling you lots of boring details about this I will paste a typical reading item for me lately below.

Content analysis details: (28.0 points, 5.0 required)

pts rule name description
—- ———————- ————————————————–
1.1 EXTRA_MPART_TYPE Header has extraneous Content-type:…type= entry
0.1 FORGED_RCVD_HELO Received: contains a forged HELO
0.0 DK_POLICY_SIGNSOME Domain Keys: policy says domain signs some mails
2.1 TVD_FW_GRAPHIC_ID1 BODY: TVD_FW_GRAPHIC_ID1
0.4 HTML_30_40 BODY: Message is 30% to 40% HTML
1.8 HTML_IMAGE_ONLY_24 BODY: HTML: images with 2000-2400 bytes of words
0.0 HTML_MESSAGE BODY: HTML included in message
3.5 BAYES_99 BODY: Bayesian spam probability is 99 to 100%
[score: 1.0000]
1.5 RAZOR2_CF_RANGE_E8_51_100 Razor2 gives engine 8 confidence level
above 50%
[cf: 100]
0.5 RAZOR2_CHECK Listed in Razor2 (http://razor.sf.net/)
0.5 RAZOR2_CF_RANGE_51_100 Razor2 gives confidence level above 50%
[cf: 100]
4.0 RCVD_IN_BL_SPAMCOP_NET RBL: Received via a relay in bl.spamcop.net
[Blocked – see ]
1.6 URIBL_SBL Contains an URL listed in the SBL blocklist
[URIs: uaikq.hk]
3.0 URIBL_BLACK Contains an URL listed in the URIBL blacklist
[URIs: uaikq.hk]
3.8 URIBL_AB_SURBL Contains an URL listed in the AB SURBL blocklist
[URIs: uaikq.hk]
1.0 PART_CID_STOCK Has a spammy image attachment (by Content-ID)
1.0 PART_CID_STOCK_LESS Has a spammy image attachment (by Content-ID,
more specific)
1.0 STOCK_IMG_HTML Stock spam image part, with distinctive HTML
1.0 STOCK_IMG_HDR_FROM Stock spam image part, with distinctive From line

NOW HEAR THIS

The following is a fatwa or blogular bull about the word “tribal.”

The word may still be used. However, the following rules apply:

  • It may not be used as a noun (“Justin has a tribal on his left thigh.”)
  • When used as an adjective, the word must refer to specific tribes or groups of tribes, as in: “Each of the chiefs heads his own tribal council” or “It is a tribal custom here to leave a little grain outside thet door for the spirits.” Useage of the form “I guess they’re really tribal there” or “I saw a show about some tribal people who ate yams” is forbidden. The word does not refer to brown-skinned people with insufficient pants who live in rural areas.
  • There is no style of art or music that can or should be called “tribal.” Each tribe within each culture has particular styles in the arts and they are all different from each other. The word does not refer to vaguely African or Native American patterns in art or rhythmic music. The music of the Israelite tribes, for example, is notably different from that of the Zulu. Useage such as “These tribal beat loops are gonna be great in my epic techno song” or “They’re having a sale at Target on those tribal pattern shower curtains” is forbidden.

Those who break these rules will be forced to pronounce the word as “tribble” for one year and live on fufu.