bogen.org

So, the Useless Department of Harassing American Citizens will finish its
jog through Congress in the next few days, huh?  Well, isn’t that just
wonderful.Of course, the original idea for the Homeland Security
Department (let’s pretend this argument is worth something for a moment) was
that intelligence and resources were not being intelligently shared between
various agencies, including the FBI, the CIA, and various other
law-enforcement arms of the federal government.  Now, let’s look at
which agencies have been united under the Homeland Security banner. 
Coast Guard?  Check.  Secret Service?  Check. 

Nope.  Customs?  Check.  Plum Island Animal Disease Center
(whatever…)?  Check.  INS?  Check.  Animal and Plant
Health Inspection Service?  Check.  FEMA?  Check. 

ATF?  Nope.  FBI?  Nope.  CIA?  Nope. 
DEA?  Nope.  So what does this agency do again?  Was it a
failure of the Plum Island Animal Disease Center that allowed terrorists to
attack the World Trade Center?  Maybe we should point the finger at the
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.  Hey, it isn’t like people
inside the FBI had suspicions about the people who destroyed the WTC. 

So, the original problem was that the FBI couldn’t disseminate information
within itself.  The INS couldn’t be bothered to keep up with their own
internal procedures.  The CIA was generally clueless.  How does
the formation of a large government agency help to solve these
problems?  Oh yeah, it doesn’t.  But it does give the illusion
of action which is all most anyone seems to care about.

Tonight, I’m off to my second curling league game.  Last week we
lost in the eighth end after forcing a tie in seven ends.  I fell down
on my back no less than three times during that game, which wasn’t too
fun.  My neck (which worked overtime keeping my head from slamming into
the ice) and back were so sore the next day I decided to take the bus to
work instead of biking.  It wasn’t until Tuesday of this week that my
neck finally stopped aching.  Tonight I’m going to try some different
shoes that hopefully won’t slip on the ice as much.

Last weekend, Sarah and I took a day trip to Milwaukee.  We stopped
at the Milwaukee Art
Museum because we wanted to see their new wing and also the
“Splendor of Poland” exhibit.  Unfortunately, several
hundred other people all had the same idea.  We weren’t able to get in
to the Poland exhibit because all the tickets were sold, but we were able to
get tickets to see the other exhibits.  Overall, the museum’s
collection was interesting, but hardly overwhelming.  In fact, it was
almost as if the museum was trying too hard to have a little bit of
everything, and as a result, they didn’t have a particularly good collection
of anything.  Oh well.  After the museum, we tried to have dinner
at the Safe
House, which is a really interesting Milwaukee restaurant with an
espionage theme.  We got there at 17:00 CST.  The matre’d told us
that we couldn’t get a table until 20:00 CST even though there was a
veritable sea of empty tables surrounding us.  So, rather than sit
around drinking for three hours (which is what they, of course, wanted us to
do), we voted with our feet and took our business elsewhere.  Perhaps
someday in the future, when my general bitterness has faded somewhat and my
memory has dulled even more, we will go back there (with a reservation this
time).  Post-Safe-House-snubbing, we walked over to a German restaurant we had seen.  This place was one of
those stuck-up, overpriced, “scene” restaurants for those older
members of society with too much money and too little idea of what to do
with it.  We asked the matre’d if he had a table for two.  So, the
guy begins an extended survey of the piece of paper at his podium and the
room.  This took approximately one hour.  Finally, the

says, “Is this for dinner
tonight?”  My natural response was to blurt out, “No, this is
for lunch tomorrow, we just like to be early.  Of course for dinner
tonight!”  Sarah, however, sensing my, how shall I put it, growing
rage towards this guy’s pompous airs, cut me off half-way through, and said,
“Yes, for dinner tonight, but we want to see a menu first.” 
After seeing the menu, we decided that it was time to beat-feet and hit the
sidewalks again.  We finally ended up at a restaurant serving Middle
Eastern cuisine, which wasn’t great, but didn’t completely suck.  Post
dinner, we went to a coffeehouse built in an old sewage pumping station for
dessert.  I’d been hearing about this place for a few months and was
eager to see it.  Half of the building is a regular coffeeshop. 

The other half is still a functioning, though rarely used, water and sewage
pumping station.  It was a very interesting urban reuse project.

We got our first real snow this morning, but it is already gone. 
Regardless, it was a nice reminder of the coming winter to see the white
stuff coming down and actually sticking around on the grass for a while.

If anyone has any doubt about the fact that this country is going to war
with Iraq, they ought to stop living in a dream.  It is clear that our
utterly embarrassing President/Vice President combo is going to push this
moronic war until it happens.  In the past, I was 85% joking when
I said I was considering moving to Canada.  Now, I’m only 40%
joking.  There seem to be some clear advantages to moving to
Canada:

• Free health care.
• More hockey.
• More curling.
• Less invasive government intelligence gathering of private citizens for
  no good reason.
• Less embarrassing political leadership.

Well, now that the soul-sucking Republican party is in nearly complete
control of the US Government, they can get busy making America safe for
their upper-class, SUV-driving, CEO crony, friends.  First item on the
agenda is making it more difficult for Americans to buy
generic drugs.The GOP wants to extend the patents of drug
companies which means that Americans will pay more, for a longer period of
time, for prescription drugs as generics are forbidden from coming to market
by extended patents.  Of course, this makes perfect sense in the
twisted reality in which we live.  In 2000, the Republicans *expletive deleted*ed and
moaned about how the US needed prescription drug reform because Americans
were routinely raked over the financial coals by large drug companies and
the high prices they charged for prescription drugs.  Insurance
companies were complaining about the cost of providing prescription drug
coverage to those whose health they insured.  Part of a logical
solution to this crisis would be to lower the price that people and
insurance companies pay for prescription drugs by increasing the number of
generic drugs on the market.  Generic drugs are cheaper than
name-brand, highly-profitable prescription drugs.  Since it would
almost make sense and might prevent drug-company executives from buying
condos for their mistresses in Vail this year, Republicans decided that
providing more, cheap prescription drugs wasn’t the answer to the
prescription drug problem in America.  Rather, the solution was to
protect the profits of large drug companies by first extending patents
granted to drug companies and then using tax dollars to pay for this drug
company profit-insurance plan.

Who, exactly, is voting Republican?  I know exactly five
Republicans.  One of them even cast a Democratic ballot or two in the
last election.  Those GOP members are scattered through no less than
five states, so they aren’t exactly voting as a bloc.  I can understand
why some people would vote Republican.  That is, when Republican values
are examined in a vacuum, I understand why some people find them
appealing.  However, the GOP most certainly does not exist in a
vacuum and the core ideals of the Republican party were lost long

ago.  Why can’t I find anyone who will own up to voting for the hideous
crony-capitalism, war-mongering, reactionary, right-wing, imperialistic,
power-hungry government with which we are currently saddled?  Where are
the millions of these people hiding?  Trailer parks?  Health
clubs?  The Florida Keys?  Houston, TX?  Santa Barbara,
CA?  Behind the really big jar of peanut butter in my kitchen
cabinet?

The postal service called:  they want their boxes back.

It’s embarrassing to report that even the Detroit Lions have a
better record than the Vikings at this point.  The only team with a
worse record is the Bungles.  Even the expansion Texans have managed to
match the Vikings embarrassingly low win total.

We the movie Comedian over the weekend.  It isn’t exactly the
funniest movie made, nor is it even close.  However, it is an
interesting behind the scenes look at the life of a big-name stand-up
comic.  Sarah and I decided that we would really like to see the
following comics sometime:

• Robin Williams
• Bill Cosby
• Jerry Seinfeld

We both agreed that these comics are probably better in person than they
are on television or in movies.  Having heard some of Bill Cosby’s
recordings I can safely say that he is just as funny today as when many of
those recordings were made twenty and thirty years ago.

Last night I went to a “local” bookstore (Borders) to see the
author of American Ground, William Langewiesche, talk
about his book and the experiences that he wrote about.  Langewieshe is
probably a really fun guy to be friends with as he has no time for
pretension, pretentious people, ulterior motives, unnecessary politics and
the like.More from our “Yes, Banks Really Don’t Do Much” file:

From:  David Bogen
To:  Wells Fargo Online

On 18 Sep 02, I requested a PIN to access information about my Wells Fargo
student loans. According to an e-mail that I received from Wells Fargo on
18 Sep 02:

"If you have not already received your password, it should arrive in the
mail soon."

It has been 34 working days since 18 Sep 02, and I have not yet received my
PIN number. In fact, I'm beginning to doubt whether or not such a PIN
number was ever generated and sent.

Can you tell me the approximate number of months that it takes a
multi-billion dollar organization like Wells Fargo to send a letter to
Wisconsin? Will I receive my PIN number before my loans are paid off(in
approximately five years?)

Oops.  Turns out that the perl script I wrote yesterday to automate
putting photos online produced HTML that caused certain browsers (Internet
Explorer) to not display photos.  Anyway, the problem has been
fixed.  If you tried to view the photos yesterday or the day before and they didn’t work
for you, try them again.Exactly two trick-or-treaters came to our house last night. 
In Alameda, a seemingly endless wave of trick-or-treaters came to our
door.  As such, I had nine bags of candy on hand for Halloween
this year.  I guess we’ll just have plenty of candy to tide us over
until Easter.

Wednesday night, Sarah and I went to a local bar to see the St. Louis
roots rock band, The Bottle Rockets.  We have a couple of the band’s
albums and we’d never gotten to see them play live before.  The $10
cover charge seemed reasonable, so it was an easy decision to go. 

Since the band tours all over and has put out several CD’s, I expected to
see quite a crowd on hand.  Instead, just over fifty people were there
to hear the band play (in a venue that could hold three times that
many).  Well, it wasn’t crowded and the folks that weren’t there missed
a good show.

If you missed it, William H. Webster was appointed to lead the new SEC
board charged with overseeing the corporate accounting industry. 
Oops.  It turns out that not only does Mr. Webster know jacksh*t about
accounting (so he isn’t part of the solution), Mr. Webster is part of the
problem.  See, Webster was the head of the auditing committee for a
company named U.S. Technologies.  U.S. Technologies is now insolvent
and being sued by investors who claim the company defrauded them. 

Seems that the external auditors hired by the company thought there were
several irregularities in the company’s books.  So, the audit
committee, under Webster’s leadership, fired the external auditors. 
Webster told this sordid tale to Bush/Cheney’s flunky at the SEC, Harvey
Pitt, the day before the election to make Webster the new board’s
chairman.  Pitt, like all good Bush/Cheney flunkies, sat on the
information and didn’t disclose this little mishap of Webster’s to the other
members of the committee until after Webster had been elected.. 
So, the committee elects Webster, someone with very recent experience
in corporate accounting fraud (having been intimately involved in creating
fraud), to oversee
a committee designed to eliminate corporate accounting fraud.  Would
everyone who still believes that the Bush/Cheney administration is actually
acting in anyone’s best interest other than those of big business, please stand up? 

Hmm…that’s a mighty sparse crowd.  What was the official response of
the White House to these revelations:

“Chairman Pitt has done a
good job in cracking down on corporate wrongdoing and the SEC has a very
strong record under his leadership,” said Bush spokeswoman Claire Buchan.
“We support him.”