Secret Trials

Injustice, in Secret

A citizen held 20 months with no charges filed. A trial where the legal arguments are National Secrets. Where the defendant, his lawyer, and the public do not get to hear the arguments -- or even a summary of what they where. Where the evidence is secret. Where ? Perhaps a particularly brutal african dictatorship ? Or and Eastern Block country of a few decades ago ?

Of course not. It's today, in the good old US of A, Home of the Free. Well I guess we're going to have to find a new slogan. The obvious - 'Home of Totalitarianism' doesn't sounds so good, though.

Why is it that this happens -- that it gets no coverage? That its gone this far, this long ? That at the very very least heads aren't rolling as we speak? This isn't some rogue state prosecutor, this the DOJ. And really does this kind of thing happens without the Attorney General's (Alberto Gonzales - these days, but this started under Ashcroft) say so. This is Evil and it's sanctioned.

What the hell has happened to this country - where have it's values, it's morals gone ?

I am leaving the room to scream now - see you tomorrow, if the freaking black helicopters haven't taken me away.

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Driving to ABQ

This morning I got up bright and early (5.30am) and drove Rachel to the airport as she is off for a week to visit her fam, on S.J.I. . This sucked a bit in it's own right, but the drive back. Man that was supremely unfun. I simply can not believe I did that every day. The road sucks, the drivers suck, and are rude. Gads.

On the upside it turns out New Mexico is a pretty amazingly pretty place. So it was a pretty drive at least. And I made it to Ta Lin, so now I have lots of coconut milk, and the makings of Nasi Lemak. That is good, very good :)

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NetFlix Movie Review: Shaolin Soccer

This movie has only the most rudimentary plot, and rambles around it quite a bit. The acting is often stilted. The effects where often quite unbelievable. And none of this hurts the movie in the least. As a matter of fact it gives the movie its charm. Quirky, funny, with dance sequences thrown amidst the kung foo, and with the soccer being a complete side show. But who could dislike a movie where the chief bad guys are 'Team Evil' and the good guys a bunch of down on their luck ex-monks ?

Thumbs Up!

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Comment Spam!

I got my first blog comment spam today, proving that custom coding with lots of idiosyncrasies doesn't protect you from guys being paid minimum wage (in 3rd world countries) to spam, spam, spam!

Still very cool, it's like we're a real blog now :)

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Amores perros

Last night we watched a NetFlix 'Amores Perros', which in spite of good acting (Gael García Bernal had a leading part), fine direction and writing by the guys who did '21 Grams', I can not recommend.And I can no recommend it for a reason that rarely comes up for me -- content.

The movies primary subject matter of infidelity and killing dogs was simply too disturbing. While the movie broke little new ground in the realm of documenting infidelity, it broke huge amounts of new ground when it comes to killing dogs. It killed many many more dogs than perhaps any movie made --- certainly more than any move I've ever watched. And it killed them in gruesome ways. And somewhat on a whimsy. On the whole it was very disturbing, and an unfun experience, which did not have enough artistic merit to make up for the depths of the subject matters emotional content.

Thumbs Down.

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Ski-10 Picnic

Yesterday's lunch was good, and fun.

Rachel's group had a picnic - maybe 10 group people, with me and Laura and her 11 month old kid filling in the Family contingent. The picnic was held up a snowy trail at Paharito, and near the end there where a couple of local skiers dropped in. They where getting on in years but still hauling, and apparently they where well known amongst the ski crowd crowd. They where a rather cool addition

Rachel and Chuck also manager to get a ski in while the rest of use where heating up Green Chile Stew, Burgers and Sausages on the fire. Afterwards there were tons of deserts, our brownies being a fav. On the whole a great picnic, and probably the most fun lunch I've had in years.

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Snow! Also Taos ski clinic

So it was another snowy Sunday, with a mountain full of powder. And it was fabulous. But we nearly missed it because it got bitterly cold just before it started to snow, and we decided to blow the class. Luckily as we where grabbing our skis to head out to the car we bumped into Liz our instructor -- and she convinced us to try a bit. And we did and as the snow started to come down the temperatures when up. It was absolutely perfect. Another great weekends ski. The only downside was that we missed Nana's (one of Rachel's co-workers) Super bowl party cause we where to wiped out by the end of the day to do anything. Still a fabulous day, and a fun weekend.

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Target

Finally, Finally Finally. The Target card Arrived. And we went shopping.

Rachel's Visa earns points for every dollar spent :) And those points can be spent on target cards. So lately we have. Last month we ordered a 100$ card -- which after much processing ? mailing ? shipping and handling ? Arrived.

So today after work we came home had a quick dinner and popped down to Santa Fe and did some shopping. Cats got food, we got tomato soup, Dwell, and granola bars. And 100$ worth of mainly food. Which is good. A 100$ shopping spree is rather fun. And eating for free is suprememly cool in a Uncle Scrooge/cheap-assed way.

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Perl Books

So yesterday I started surfing my London.PM subscription back log, and found the Damian Conway has written an new book and a year ago he said it was to published by O'Reilly in the first half of next year though it isn't on the upcoming books list

I also took the time to take a look at MJD's the status of Higher Order Perl , which seems to be coming along. Setbacks but maybe at the presses next month -- and it's on preorder at B&N.com already

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