San Diego is #1

More rain, more raw sewage. This time 2.26 million gallons. Way to go San Diego, we are #1!

Hah: Recently, we at GeorgeWBush.org happened to notice that our mail server had a default “catch-all” mailbox, which for the past several months had been quietly gathering any and all e-mails addressed to [INSERT-ANYTHING-HERE]@georgewbush.org. We felt the need to share.

From CBC: Integrity of Florida E-Voting in Doubt

More FLA: Up to 58,000 absentee ballots may never have reached the Broward County voters who requested them more than two weeks ago, election officials said, and state police are investigating.

More on the human hobits from Wired: Lost Tribe of Little People

A look at the possiblity of Genetic Bombs

Indymedia Web Server Takedown – The case, which involves an Internet company based in Texas, photos of undercover Swiss police officers and a request from an Italian prosecutor investigating anarchists, raises questions about the circumstances under which Internet companies can be compelled to turn over data.

Interesting site: Survival Guide to Homelessness

Hobbits

Wow, this is pretty amazing stuff: Scientists have discovered a new and tiny species of human that lived in Indonesia at the same time our own ancestors were colonising the world… The 18,000-year-old specimen, known as Liang Bua 1 or LB1, has been assigned to a new species called Homo floresiensis. It was about one metre tall with long arms and a skull the size of a large grapefruit.

Ahh! The laser is in my eyes!

I had wavefront LASIK done on Friday morning. It was an interesting experience. They gave me one last check out, then I got to wear a fancy hair net and take a valium and a vicodin. My metabolism is painfully slow, that turned out to be a literally true. When I went into surgery the eye clamps hurt a lot and I got pretty nervous – so the vicodin and the valium weren’t quite doing their jobs. If I had to do it again I would ask for a double dose and wait longer to go in. Anyway, after they got me all clamped in the gave me a topical for my eyes. They waited a little bit then the knife machinery made a flap in the front of my eye. They lifted the flap, gave it a squirt, then started up the laser. Can’t really tell what is going on when the laser is working. Lot of noise, light, and a burning smell. Didn’t take long, then they gave my eye another squirt and put the flap back in place. Then repeated for the other eye.

I got to wear some funky bug eye looking things for that day and at night for this week. Eye drops 4 times a day and all that jazz. As of Sat I was almost 20/15 in my left eye, and not quite 20/20 in my right. However, the eyes go up and down while they are healing. Today my left eye is pretty blurry, my right is doing much better. So who knows. Everything bright has a slight ghosting to it, that should go away as I heal though.

Narco Corridos

From BBC: Narco Corridos. An interesting article on the music aspect of the smuggler/drug/gang culture of Mexico and the US.

It has been a bit of a culture shock down here for me in this aspect. You see guys drive by in pimped out cars with big stereos blasting music. But the music is not rap or metal, as a gringo like me would expect. To the northern ear, it sounds like a mix between speed folk and polka. Most is a bit too amped for me, but I like Virtuoso Mariachi – a sort of classical approach to mariachi music.