lollardfish

I met Coleen Rowley tonight at a small function in Northfield (mostly for St. Olaf people). Rowley was the FBI agent/legal advisor who wrote a memo on Moussaoui discussing the governmental failures that kept higher ups from being aware of the 9/11 plot. Among the most telling features, an agent said to her, in August, that "this is a guy who would fly a plane into the World Trade Center." Washington ignored it. She was featured on the cover of Time Magazine, and now is running for congress in Minnesota's second district. You can learn more about her campaign at:

Coleen Rowley for U.S. Congress..

She was very compelling in person. Her best line was about the NSA wiretapping and the massive collection of data. She says that "when you are looking for a needle in a haystack, the last thing you need to do is add more hay." She believes in the power of our criminal justice system, does not believe in most of the Patriot Act (barring a few streamlining features), and certainly not ignoring the FISA court.

She told a good joke about Bush. She linked oil, health care, jobs, immigration, and other issues to national security. And otherwise was very interesting to meet.

Now she was talking to a group of academics, so we're a tough audience. And she didn't need to sell us, but she did need to fire us up. She's not really a great speaker to a group, although she is in a small group. She not a career politician, and that's great. She can beat Klein, who is radically conservative, by convincing titular, educated, swing voters in Lakeville and Burnsville to vote for her. But she needs to work on her pitch.

Every sentence needs to begin, "Well, when I was in the FBI ..."
She needs to link Klein to the culture of corruption, to say frequently and clearly that Klein took $30,000 from Delay's PAC, and so is part of the whole Ney-Abramoff-Delay corrupt system and needs to go.

It'll be interesting to watch.

Off to talk to a guy. then maybe make some squid ink pasta. Or some red wine pasta. But I lack red wine to use.

While it's no surprise that Bush doesn't "get" the whole separation of powers thing, it is interesting (in the usual tear your hair out sort of way) to watch the nomination of a military officer for the head of the C.I.A. The whole point is to have a civilian intelligence agency to match up with the military intelligence branch.

I am looking for a copy of the game Credo. It's cheap, by Chaosium, and from '93. No copies to be found on the internet as far as I can see. If you find or have a copy, I will buy it off you.

Amazon link the game.
A random review.

And then I'm gonna have to find someone to make a new version that doesn't suck (in terms of quality).

eGullet Knife Tutorial. Neat stuff!

My favorite line:

"Finally, your knife is not a can opener, a screwdriver, a pry bar, box cutter or hammer. There’s a special place in Hell reserved for people who abuse their knives this way."

So all of my auto-logins on Firefox (including annoying ones for newspapers or ezboard or even LJ and such) have ceased to work. Any of you tech folks have a clue what settings I might have messed up? I click the "remember me" boxes, but no dice. Next session have to log in again.

My favorite sports (sort-of) author had a long email interview with the writers of Rounders, the best poker movie ever. I imagine a number of you would really enjoy it:

Interview pt. 1
Interview pt. 2

Salman Rushdie is at Northrop tomorrow. I can't go. You should! It's free and stuff.

Details

I hate smoke. It is this invasive, toxic, stinking, vile, substance that rips into the back of my throat, makes my eyes water, and hurts my head.

Far more importantly - it divides me from my friends. Far too many of the people I most enjoy being around, playing music with, either smoke or hang out with the smokers. I tried, last night, and am paying for it. I won't do it again, but it's a sucky choice to have to make.

On the other hand, I had a lot of fun this weekend.

Next year, it's the return of the S.E.M.P. Now with more pie.