With the conviction of Cunningham in the news I've decided to start a project that's been on my mind for years, a list of every politician who we know committed crimes. Who, what, when, Democrat or Republican, etc.

There has been a lot of debate about whether the current incarnation of the GOP is fundamentally corrupt or if it's an attention issue. I say we have no grounds to discuss it without better data. At some point I'll be dropping in the Teapot Dome folks, the Reagan 29, and just about half the elected officials of Alabama, Louisiana, New Jersey, and Texas. But I'm starting with an itty-bitty set of the ones that first came to mind and even those are not yet filled in. That, of course, will change.

So I'm including here my very rough beginning of this list and would love to have your input.

Marion Barry
The flamboyantly and energetically corrupt former mayor of Washington, D.C.
Party: Democrat
Elected Offices:Mayor, Councilman
Crimes he committed:Soliciting a Prostitute, Drug Use (pot, crack), Obstruction of Justice, Tax Fraud, generally being a dumbass and embarassment to Washingtonians and rational black people everywhere
How strong is the case?:
Convictions: TK
Pending Cases:xxx
Positions on Crime Taken as an Elected Official:TK
Quotes on unethical behavior:

Richard (“Dick”) Cheney
A marginal player until chosen by George Bush Jr. as his vice president, Cheney was best known as the guy who lost an election to a dead man
Party: Republican
Elected Offices:Congress, Vice Presidency
Crimes he committed: Fraud
How strong is the case?:
Convictions: None (yet)
Pending Cases:xxx
Positions on Crime Taken as an Elected Official:TK
Quotes on unethical behavior:

William (“Bill”) Clinton
The grand hope of the centrists, presented as reasonable, compassionate, concerned with the little man, he will carry to his grave such idiocies and gaming as "depends on what your definition of is is" and "I did not have sex with that woman." Looks like the little man in his pants was getting way too much compassion.
Party: Democrat
Elected Offices:Governor, President
Crimes he committed: Perjury, Sexual Harassment
How strong is the case?:
Convictions: None (yet)
Pending Cases:xxx
Positions on Crime Taken as an Elected Official:TK
Quotes on unethical behavior:

Randy (“Duke”) Cunningham
Presenting himself as a moral paragon, a decorated military pilot, Cunningham took bribes to steer military contracts.
Party: Republican
Elected Offices:Congress
Crimes he committed: Bribery
How strong is the case?:
Convictions:
Pending Cases:xxx
Positions on Crime Taken as an Elected Official:TK
Quotes on unethical behavior:

Thomas (“Tom”) Delay
TK
Party: Republican
Elected Offices:Congress
Crimes he committed: Fraud
How strong is the case?:
Convictions: None (yet)
Pending Cases:xxx
Positions on Crime Taken as an Elected Official:TK
Quotes on unethical behavior:

Robert (“Bob”) Frist
The doctor who was gonna make it all better, he should spend some time diagnosing his own habits
Party: Republican
Elected Offices:Congress
Crimes he committed: Fraud
How strong is the case?:
Convictions: None (yet)
Pending Cases:xxx
Positions on Crime Taken as an Elected Official:TK
Quotes on unethical behavior:

Albert (“Al”) Gore
Those buddhist nuns. That absurd fundraising. Al, we hardly knew ya.
Party: Democrat
Elected Offices:Congress, Vice Presidency
Crimes he committed: Fraud, Perjury
How strong is the case?:
Convictions: None (yet)
Pending Cases:xxx
Positions on Crime Taken as an Elected Official:TK
Quotes on unethical behavior:

Richard (“Dick”) Nixon
Sleazy from Day one, and always presenting himself as a model of Christian rectitude, the question is not what crimes did Tricky Dick commit, it's which ones didn't he commit?
Party: Republican
Elected Offices:Congress, Vice Presidency, Presidency
Crimes he committed: Fraud, Perjury, Money Laundering, Obstruction of Justice, everydamn thing else.
How strong is the case?:
Convictions: None (yet)
Pending Cases:xxx
Positions on Crime Taken as an Elected Official:TK
Quotes on unethical behavior:

Robert (“Bob”) Packwood
Oh, he packed wood all right. Just ask any of the dozens of women asked to get to know his wood. After years of political power maintained in large part by his image as a champion of women's rights, he left office in disgrace when it came out that he damn near stripped the clothes off any woman who he liked, whether she liked it or not.
Party: Republican
Elected Offices:Congressman
Crimes he committed: Sexual Harassment, Perjury, Intimidation of Witnesses, Impeding an Investigation
How strong is the case?:
Convictions: TK (yet)
Pending Cases:xxx
Positions on Crime Taken as an Elected Official:TK
Quotes on unethical behavior:

Gerrold (“Jerry”) Springer
An up-and-comer until he did his, erm, coming, with a lady of the evening and paid with a check.
Party: Democrat
Elected Offices:Mayor
Crimes he committed: Sleeping with a prostitute
How strong is the case?:
Convictions: TK (yet)
Pending Cases:xxx
Positions on Crime Taken as an Elected Official:TK
Quotes on unethical behavior:

-Rustin

Okay, first of all, thanks to all of you for posting hellos in my JE. It's good to be back.
Missed ya guys.

But . . .
In the latest news, thought you might want to know that RPI and UCLA claim to have achieved desktop fusion.

They don't claim that it's power positive; not a fuel source, just a massively cool thing.

I've submitted it to the front page and Interrobang and I are both doing JEs but thought you all might just appreciate the quick heads up.

In other news, got an angry phone call last night from what might be a cousin of a Jersey mafia family. Only I could meet a nice old Italian lady from New Jersey, be told that her late husband was in Jersey politics and was known first and foremost for being "well connected", talk to a relative and find her quick to rage and prone to hyper aggressive "the time that you're meeting with my mother is never. Got that?" types of comments, and have it never occur to me that maybe they're not just an interesting family, maybe they're family.

Thank gawd there's Google to protect the clueless.

And for all of you who are as gormless as I am, just always remember, if you meet somebody odd, Google is just a quick few minutes away.

Lots more to tell but gotta sleep sometime,

-Rustin

Been a long fucking time, no?

As most of you know, I've had an, erm, interesting time while I've been away.
A bit of a mishap with some solvents, some high speed dispersal and restructuring of possessions, a few experiments with organ shutdown.

But I'm . . .

Aw, crudnuggets! Actually I've been meaning to come back for a while but what's forced me (forced, I say!) to return is all these chowderheaded news pieces on the /. front page.

Must comment.
But your body's a wreck and you don't have the energy to spare.
Must comment!
But you've got huge amounts of work to do and still need twelve hours of rest a day.
MUST COMMENT!

Oh.

Well then, what was that password again. . .

So, hi guys. I'm (kinda) back.

-Rustin

Oh happy day. I crossed one of my favorite thresholds today. The number and size of my various seedlings has reached the point where I no longer need filler to keep the planters looking decent. So this morning I pulled just about all of the grass I could find as well as various weeds and have left them to dry out on the rocks and marble slabs that constitute my narrow little walkway.

Ya see, grass, morning glories, and a few kinds of weed pop up every summer and I leave them alone at first simply to have things look greener and to dissuade the ever-present pigeons. Since I've now got a happier profusion of itty-bitty bean vines, lettuce/spinach/other greens, scallions, chives, parsley, cilantro, and various starts of broccoli, carrots, and cauliflower (as well as one lone ameranth returning for yet another year), I can dispose of the trash plants and make more room for the good stuff.

Of course, it's my own damn fault it takes me so long to reach this state as the late start of visible plants comes from my practice of putting seeds two or three times deeper then the instructions suggest. This pays dividends later in the year as it keeps them more drought resistant and still alive when the weather gets too cold for their shallowly-planted counterparts ("oh, your greens all died in the first frost? How sad for you. Would you like to come over for fresh salad next weekend?") but it means that they spend an ungodly amount of time making their way to the surface at the start of the year.

The beans, unlike any of the others, evidently start sprouting leaves whether they've reached the surface or not and then have to drag their incipient foliage behind them up to the sunlight. This makes them a bit weird looking at first as they become visible with several leaves each already spread to over a centimeter in size and with soil stuck in the crevices.

Of course, it also doesn't speed things any that for the same reasons I keep much of the soil covered in slate flakes (about three milimeters thick and about eight centimeters across on average), lightweight pottery balls (meant for orchid growers, these are about a centimeter thick), and various other things meant to reduce water loss and otherwise protect the soil and plants. In other words, it's a way to mulch things without having water soaked up by it.
Technically speaking, the glass "pebbles" I add to the mix and the occasional semiprecious stone or oversized swirlglass marble may not be the most "efficient" means to accomplish this but it's fun to have the place glitter a bit here and there, not to mention the reaction when somebody realizes that the stone they're moving out of the way to reach something is actually a chunk of hematite, tiger's eye, or whatever.

It feels great to now be doing my canonical approach to weeding, which consists of going outdoors first thing and pulling and eating just about anything that seems to close to another plant.
Mmmmm. Minimunchies.

My only concern is that I'm using an ungodly amount of water to keep this all going. A three gallon day is not that rare and that's *without* any significant evaporation through leaves *or* real hot weather. Partially I'm just worried that I won't always have time to carry water out by my deeply inefficient methods (ooh, an excuse to buy one of those pretty fifty foot self-winding clear hoses) but the rest of my concern is simply the sense that my "ecologically sound", "environmentally sensitive" garden is actually a profligate indulgence.

*sigh*

But it sure is nice to have fresh food within ten feet of the kitchen, it certainly is a wonderfully sane-making way to start the day, and it sure does make a nice place to sit and think through the day or chat.

Now if I could only kill all the pigeons and grind them up for fertilizer (well, and silence the little beasts and their screaming caretakers at the school downstairs), then the terrace would be perfect.

Rustin

Today one of the last people I knew and liked in my seventeen story apartment building died. I went out into the hall and found two policemen sitting in the hallway, waiting, I guess, for the coroner.

The man who died, a former art director at New York's Museum of Natural History, father of, as far as I know, a solidly academic son, stepfather of a young son, was a man who lived a solid, productive life in the not-any-too-low profile world of design and art in New York City.

So I decided to Google him, if only to write a note about him for here. Now, while he has a very hard name to search (Tom Page) he should be findable, if only in the Museum's own pages.

Nothing. Nothing at all.

It helps to be reminded sometimes that lives are lived and work is done and important things happen and yet leave on the web not even a slight ripple. As the until-today ruling party in India was just reminded, and as Howard Dean was reminded not too many months back, our millions of people on the web are still a rather small part of a very big world.

Rustin

Just in case anybody out there cares, I am indeed, as I said I would, continuing to work on the index of all my journal entries. For now it's taking up quite enough time writing each summary and doing my little bits of scripted and hand-formatting but the real goal, once the chronological version is done, is to add subject and other link sets. Then, eventually, links to my other useful posts both within and beyond /.

After all, I've put a hell of a lot of work into writing these things, more then a few of you have put in remarkable amounts of time and thought as well. It would be a shame to have all that useful information just sink further and further into obscurity.

Though yes, I will admit that part of this is my obsession with catagorizing making itself evident and another part is my desire to push the envelope on what a /. JE can be.

And hey, add up all the entries on a given subject and you've got a pretty handy overview of issues in, say, indie space travel, our political scene, off-the grid technologies, and half a dozen other geekish topics.

Of course another part of the fun is seeing, once it's all in one place, so to speak, what the obvious holes are.

Rustin

As many of you already know, I have a mound of over a hundred early 1900's doorknobs, push plates, roller sets and other paraphenalia to clean up and, hopefully, sell.

Well, quite a few of the brass-plated plates and other gear (such as the internal hardware for pocket doors) had been left to rust in a basement for, possibly, just about a hundred years. In fact, not even in the basement proper but the mostly enclosed area under the porch. So some of them are coated in the sort of "mossy" thick rust that is almost impossible to remove without harsh chemicals and/or LOTS of physical labor.

So over the past few days I have tried out one of my favorite techniques for such situations. I took a plate and put it in a takeout plastic container filled with plain old generic supermarket vinegar.

I left the takeout container, with the lid loosely sitting on top, to sit by an open window where, sure enough, bubbles drifted up little by little in the shape of the plate.

It has now been three days, I brushed it clean of loose debris once yesterday, and as of this morning the plate is just flat out pretty. I left tiny bits of rust in place, just enough to qualify as patina.

And where did I learn this handy-dandy technique? In my chemistry lab classes at Carnegie-Mellon. Fastest way to clean the rust off an old beat-up probe? Stick it in acid and watch those oxides bubble away.

Basic physical chemistry.

It is good to be a geek.

Rustin

"Military service today will corrupt any man if there's anything in him to corrupt. You know children like to play at war. During the childhood of our civilization there was a time when men roved around in bold, joyful gangs, when war was the profession of the brave and the daring, when the most reckless and cunning men were picked as chiefs and lasted until they were killed by the enemy or by their own men for incompetence. But now civilization has come of age - people join the army not in pursuit of a dangerous, exciting life, but for security. The chiefs are no longer fearless adventurers, but miserable little officials who must make their measly pay suffice. Their military dash is a blouson front, their discipline is based on the human weakness they profess to despise the most - cowardice."

Alexander Kuprin, The Duel, published 1905

Kuprin was commissioned into the Tsar's army in 1890 and left seven years later to wander Russia and pursue his writing. As an anti-Bolshevik, he had to leave Russia in 1917 and is generally agreed to never have written as well again. Other works of his include Yama, The Pit, and The Breaking Point.

Rustin

Doesn't it just speak for itself that our latest paragon of "American know-how", Brig. General Janis Karpinski, officer in command at Abu Ghraib Prison, was a business consultant? In Hilton Head, yet. Ritzy place for the office of a consulting firm, wouldn't ya say?

I wonder who her clients were.

I wonder what they're thinking now.

Rustin

Richie2000 made the reasonable comment that I should patent one of my ideas recently. Well, folks, in case I never got around to it before (I coulda sworn I did but I'm too lazy at the moment to wade through about three hundred pages of JEs), anything I disclose here is copylefted for non-commercial use. You like, go ahead and use it. What would I, in an ideal case, like in compensation? Well, some pictures of what ya built would be nice.

I mean, don't get me wrong, if somebody uses an idea I post here and feels like sending me some bucks, I'ld be more then happy to get the cash. But don't let that stop you from using something. I'ld far rather have this stuff in use then sitting around mouldering in my notebooks. I spent twenty-five years trying the conventional approach to IP and all that it left me was broke, older, and tired.

So unless you're the sort of entity that has shareholder meetings and annual reports, go ahead and use anything here. That means the mechanical/civil stuff. It means the database stuff, it means the rooftop planting stuff on my site, it means anything and everything.

I really would appreciate photos and other stuff that tells how things went and what you think of it (possible improvements would, of course, be posted here). But again, if that's too much of a pain, just go ahead and do it. And hey, if you *are* a company looking to licence, I'll licence the rights cheap. Just promise you'll sell at a decent price and be honest with your bookkeeping.

Happy days,

Rustin

I just took the What D&D Character Are You Survey and I must say that for a web survey it was remarkably well done. Kinda annoyed me that when I declared myself head of the party it didn't shift to give appropriate "head of party" options, but then, I ask a lot. Especially when *I* don't have to do the coding. Heh.

The result was remarkably on target. Back in my long-past RPG days, I actually usually *did* play a neutral-alignment thief. Chaotic rather then lawful but that was because the AD&D system made lawful characters into narrow-minded pricks.
Gnome-ranger? Pretty close. Again, if they had been more fleshed out back in the day, I could have easily seen myself playing one.

As for real life, it was funny, but my self-image hasn't caught up with my reality yet. I still think of myself as an isolated loner, the ultimate detached freelancer, but in reality I spend an awful lot of time "leading the party". Got, like, ya know, people workin' for me every week and all that. Of course some of them really are just friends who find the tidy little side-gig convenient (hi, Kim!) but no, I'm not really a loner in most of my life anymore.

Shit, man! Adulthood is catching up on me! Creepy.

Anyway, in case anybody is curious, here is the full rundown.

I Am A: Lawful Neutral GnomeRanger Thief

Alignment:
Lawful Neutral characters believe in the triumph of law and order above all else. It does not matter whether the leader is for good or evil; the leader will be followed, because the order they provide is the most important thing.

Race:
Gnomes are also short, like dwarves, but much skinnier. They have no beards, and are very inclined towards technology, although they have been known to dabble in magic, too. They tend to be fun-loving and fond of jokes and humor. Some gnomes live underground, and some live in cities and villages. They are very tolerant of other races, and are generally well-liked, though occasionally considered frivolous.

Primary Class:
Rangers are the defenders of nature and the elements. They are in tune with the Earth, and work to keep it safe and healthy.

Secondary Class:
Thieves are the most roguish of the classes. They are sneaky and nimble-fingered, and have skills with traps and locks. While not all use these skills for burglary, that is a common occupation of this class.

Deity:
Silvanus is the True Neutral god of nature. He is also known as the Patron of Druids. His followers believe in the perfect balance of nature, and believe that nature's bounty is preferable to any other 'civilizing' method. They wear leather or metallic scale mail, constructed of leaf-shaped scales. Silvanus's symbol is an oak leaf.

Find out What D&D Character Are You?, courtesy of NeppyMan (e-mail)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Detailed Results:
Alignment:
Lawful Good ----- XXX (3)
Neutral Good ---- XXXXX (5)
Chaotic Good ---- XXXX (4)
Lawful Neutral -- XXXXXX (6)
True Neutral ---- XXXXX (5)
Chaotic Neutral - (0) (I'm not so sure I agree with that one.)
Lawful Evil ----- XXX (3)
Neutral Evil ---- X (1)
Chaotic Evil ---- (-1)

Race:
Human ---- XXXX (4)
Half-Elf - XXX (3)
Elf ------ XX (2) (self-important parasites!)
Halfling - XXX (3)
Dwarf ---- XXX (3)
Half-Orc - X (1) (no, really?)
Gnome ---- XXXXXX (6)

Class:
Fighter - XX (2)
Ranger -- XXXXXXX (7)
Paladin - (-1)
Cleric -- (-3) (Duh!)
Mage ---- (-2) (*sigh* A fun fantasy, but no more realistic a choice for me then lawyer or doctor IRL)
Druid --- X (1)
Thief --- XXXX (4)
Bard ---- XX (2)
Monk ---- XXX (3) (Hey, I played a couple of monks. Did a passably good job of it too.)

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Okay, so picture this. You build an umbrella three meters tall and you stick it point down into an open field. The fabric is as light as you can make it and preferably as close to transparent as possible while still being rip-stop and UV-resistant. There is no handle. In fact, the frame is just long enough for the opening mechanism and a little half-meter cone on top, point up. The ribs are each held in tight by springs or bungees. And the whole thing can rotate on its base, though slowly, and is provided with a bit in the way of gusseting and external flaps so that it will turn into a steady wind, even leaning a bit into wind that stays strong and in one direction.

So, what happens if it rains?

If you've built the thing right, rain will spread a bit from the cone on top making a ring of water descending onto the edges of the fabric. A light or brief rain will do no more then that. But rain that is heavy or extended will pour into the "umbrella", opening and filling it. The more the umbrella opens, the more rain it collects. The more rain it collects, the more it pulls against the springs and opens even further. A downpour would give you a four meter diameter water collection device.

So let's say you've done your job well and have a tube running from the tip of the fabric down into a tank at ground level. If you're really clever you have several of these as well as a windpowered pump to, little by little, raise the water to a separate tank about five meters off the ground, giving you very acceptable water pressure for a run to your destination.

Once the rain stops, the "rainflowers" furl back up. If you've really been careful about direction of weave, use of stretchable fabric, and stuff like that, the whole thing, other then the tip, is only about ten centimeters wide when not in use. Put a bunch of these in a field, or, even better, over a parking lot, and you'll barely notice them until it rains and then you'll be glad of them.

If they were mass-produced they should cost, at most, fifteen hundred bucks a piece. A passable version could be cobbled together out of scrap and four dollar tarps. Total materials cost? Under a hundred bucks.

So, you tell me, given the rainfall where you live and the assumption that these devices are seventy percent efficient, how many would the average person need to have their own water supply?

-Rustin

Well, I just read through the first few hundred comments in the Zaurus thred from yesterday and I must say, I am impressed. Never have I seen such an appallingly complete lack of useful posts. Four screens down and not a single informative post. I think that may be a new record.

A shame since A.) the device looks to be quite interesting and perhaps even significant.
and B.) the "oh by the way" links to the plans to release more clamshell Zauri is DEFINITELY interesting.

*sigh*

Well, it's not like I should be spending that sort of money on a PDA any time soon anyway.

Rustin

So, I've got a question for you.

In what skills do you consider yourself competent?

The acid test is, if you had to make a living doing this, could you be up and running in two weeks?
Not Best Of All Comers. Not World Class. But competent.
An alternative test for those cases where local knowledge or changing data makes the above test difficult is: if you had to be the only person with this skill among a group of fifty people, would you be good enough to hack it?

Please note that I am asking about skill here, not credentials. I don't give a rat's ass what pieces of paper you've got. I'm asking could you do the job?

My not so hidden agenda here is that it is my thesis that among /., we have every single skill needed to run a society. I haven't noticed any doctors or lawyers AFAIR, nor can I offhand think of any accountants. I'm betting that they're out there.

I'll start with my list. Anything with a star is something that I've been paid to do.

*Appraiser (though I usually turn that down)
*Archivist
*Bookkeeper (though man-oh-man do I usually loath it!)
*Cook (though barely ever in a professional kitchen, usually doing meals for a couple of folks in a private kitchen somewhere)
*Document Management Consultant
*Editor (copy, not acquisition)
*Eldercare Consultant
*Film Outputter (as in film and repro for printing, not film from photographic stuff)
*Furnituremaker's Assistant (sand these, help me steam and bend that, carry the other thing. Trust me, when working under a professional furnituremaker on deadline, this is a skill.)
*Furniture Restorer
*Graphic Designer
*Healthcare Advisor (My, oh my, does that get dicey when ya ain't got a single sheepskin of any kind.)
*Help Desk Tech & Manager
*IT Director (different from help desk as IT encompasses budgets, meetings, etc.)
Industrial Designer
Intentional Community Expert & Manager (Sound like a cruise director, think like a megalomaniac, work like a dog. Yeah, I've done my time, just not for cash pay.)
*Interior Designer
M.C. (traditional version, not rap dude)
*Mac Tech (pre OS X)
*Mover
*Move/Reorg Organizer
*Party Organizer/Caterer
*Personal Shopper
*Political Analyst
*Production Designer
*Project Coordinator
*Proposal Writer (though when it comes to just about anything marketshare-related, I'm a dimwit of the first order)
Prototype Maker
Public Speaker (no star since beer and other freebies don't count)
*Publisher
*Salesman (phone & in person, mostly tech but not all)
*Software Trainer
*Workflow Analyst
*Writer

Please note that most of my computer and fiber optic stuff is not on this list. I may have been, say, a passable PC tech back in the days of 286s but I am certainly nowhere near competent now. I'm also not listing things I've done for money for which I had no discernable talent, like working in a market and doing demolition work.

So, what is your list?

Rustin

If any of you are wondering why I don't just dissolve into a puddle of bitter, loathing-soaked, muck, well, a large part of it is regular infusions of live bands in small venues.
Last night I went to see a band I like on a quadruple bill near a place I sometimes hang out. All, I might add, in a good cause.

I had a lot of fun, flirting with a cute Yoga teacher and her friends, bopping a bit to the music, looking at the freebies we all got, and downing a few beers (to accompany the three I had before I left No Rio).
Between bands I started chatting with this exotic-looking lass about the way that nobody was dancing and generally chatting about the New York music scene. To my surprise, she then climbed up on the stage and turned out to be the lead singer for the next band up, The Domestics.
I now add my voice to those complaining that they don't do enough gigs. Lots of fun, plenty of fire, and a generous helping of acid. All washed down with little bits of cute. Hell, yeah.

Alina, have my baby! We'll breed brilliant, cute, sarcastic deviants together! They'll scare the neighbors but by gawd they'll be on the beat!

Evidently, they're doing a gig in June at Siberia, where my friend Kim had her, erm, distinctive birthday party a while back. If I'm in town, I'll be there.

Rustin