Link: http://www.eastbaywaldorf.org/strawbale2.html

At the East Bay Waldorf school in California...I am going to be starting research into sustainable building next year to decide what sort of sustainable house I want to build for my old age...er, active living years...

Link: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/metro/4393713.html

Sometimes you find out about a proposal from politicians that is so devoid of common sense, so unutterably stupid, that the instinct to shout "what were you thinking?" is inadequate. You really should shout "were you thinking at all?".
This latest bill in the Texas Legislature is a prime example of such a proposal. When the Texas Legislature is supposed to be a time-limited body, why should they waste legislative time on this pile of nonsense?
It is also deeply discriminatory. In order to keep alive the principle of fairness, I recommend that we all write to our Texas House representatives to demand that they amend the bill to allow people who are legally blind to drive motor vehicles and fly aircraft. If we can allow people who are legally blind to use deadly firearms, we should certainly be prepared to allow them to use other deadly devices.

P.S. I nearly assigned this to the Comedy section of the blog...

...was about as one-sided a game as I have ever seen. The only reason that the winning margin was not at least 7 points bigger was that the Saints kneeled down and turned the ball over after arriving at the Cowboys 5 yard line with 3 minutes left. I thought that was a good piece of sportsmanship by the Saints to avoid running up the score unnecessarily, since they had shown that they could score at will against the Cowboys defense.
The most interesting part of the game was watching Bill Parcells' body language in the second half. Instead of ranting and raging at the incompetence of the Cowboys, both on offense and defense, Parcells was standing on the sideline with his arms folded and his lips pursed, as if deep in contemplation, saying little on his headset. My take is that he was struggling to cope with the public display of the Cowboys' weaknesses, knowing that all future opponents would be watching the game film from Monday onwards. Most likely he was already thinking about what can possibly be done to reduce those weaknesses. Certainly, without some changes, I do not see the Cowboys advancing deep into the playoffs. They appear to be a second-tier playoff team right now.
At this point in the season, this is my team assessment:

Top Tier
========
Chargers
Bears

Second Tier
===========
Ravens
Bengals
Colts
Seahawks
Cowboys
Patriots

Third Tier
==========
Giants
Jaguars

Link: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/12/8/91928/6098

...which asks when all of the people who called Iraq invasion opponents "traitors" (and in some cases suggested some very unpleasant actions against the "traitors") are going to apologize.
Some apoloigies would be good...but I'm not holding my breath. We often prefer to listen to and elect people with an inability to publicly admit to any error or fault.

Gleen Greenwald does an excellent job of explaining why this report has little credibility. In summary, the report's main authors are people who supported the Iraq misadventure, and who in many cases have never publicly repudiated that initial support, despite the visibly sub-optimal outcome to date (I can circumlocute my language with the best of them). Russ Feingold's point stands: if you want a visionary outcome for an excercise like this, you don't exclude people who held contrary views at the beginning. As Greenwald explains, James Baker, one of the key members of the group, was a firm supporter of the invasion of Iraq, and has never publicly recanted his support.
This report is an excellent example of how to change strategy without introducing any element of public accountability for the bad decisions and strategies which led directly to the current poor situation in Iraq. In my day job in Information Technology, I refer to this as the N.O.Body syndrome - whenever something goes badly wrong, it is always nobody's fault - the problem seemed to miraculously occur without any human involvement or cause. N.O.Body is suddenly a member of the project or leadership team, so that blame can be assigned to a non-existent person.
What I find more disheartening is that the media seems to be unable to understand the lack of accountability, instead focussing on the "new beginning" meme. This is part of a broader accountability failure involving political leaders and the mainstream media, which is dotted with people whose opinions on the necessity and viability of invading Iraq have been shown in many cases to be absolutely wrong, but who are currently unable or unwilling to admit to having been misguided. In short, the political leadership and the media are collectively trying to sweep a lot of issues under the carpet, hoping that the "collective amnesia" approach will allow the whole Iraq mess to be finessed off the front pages of the news over time.

Following weeks of increasing unhappiness with the performance of Jake Plummer, the Denver Broncos decided to bench Plummer and insert Jay Cutler for last night's game against the Seattle Seahawks at Mile High stadium.
The Broncos lost the game. They lost despite the installation of a game-plan seemingly designed to minimize the impact of playing a new quarterback. The game plan, as it unfolded last night, comprised a big focus on the running game, presumably to limit the number of passes that Cutler would have to throw, and relatively few deep passing plays.
Despite this game plan, which the Broncos running backs executed well (particularly Tatum Bell, who is not 100% due to toe problems), Cutler still managed to make several classic rookie mistakes, including one horrible attempted throw as he was being sacked that was intercepted and returned for a TD by the Seahawks.
The only reason that the Seahawks did not roll over the Broncos more comprehensively was that Matt Hasselbeck seemed to be trying to match Jay Cutler in general mediocrity for the Seahawks. Playing with a broken bone in his left hand that clearly impacted his ability to grab snapped balls, and still wearing a brace to protect his recently-sprained knee, Hasselbeck looked almost as unsure of himself as Cutler.
As the Rocky Mountain News pointed out, the supreme irony of last night's game was that, in all probability, Jake Plummer could have won the game for the Broncos using that offensive game plan. As the article points out, with running yardage like that, Plummer would have been able to limit his throws too.
In a moment that would have supremely ironic were it not so comic, Plummer did get to make a play...a fake field goal on 4th and 1 towards the end of the game that seemingly resulted in Jason Elam tweaking a hamstring while running for his life to escape the swarming Seattle defense. Elam did finally kick the field goal, but he looked injured as he left the field. Not a good thing to have happen to one of your most reliable players with the final run-up to Christmas looming.
Despite the attempted talking-up of the performance afterwards from the Broncos, this was a horrible loss, one that places the Broncos on the fringe of playoff elimination.
Mike Shanahan, probably way too late, has made Jay Cutler the starter, and now the Broncos will, in addition to saving their season, have to work with a rookie quarterback who is, on the evidence of last night, clearly not the Second Coming of Tom Brady.
Another couple of games like last night, and Shanahan's "genius" tag may be recycled more in sarcasm than in admiration. He left it too late to make this kind of fundamental change to his team. 5 games ago it might have made sense. Now, with the season truly on the line, it places an enormous amount of pressure on the Broncos and a novice quarterback. Every opponent from now on will be loading up to stop the Broncos running game and daring Cutler to throw the football. The opposing defensive coordinators will be fine-tuning blitz packages and ensuring that their players know that #6 = The Target. Cutler will be a marked man for the rest of the season.
As for Jake Plummer, he is in the best possible position. He gets a front-row seat to watch the action, and, because he has essentially been fired as the team's #1 quarterback, he cannot be held accountable for any results from here on in. If Mike Shanahan inserts him in any game for any reason other than an injry to Cutler, he will be admitting that the decision to bench Plummer was, at the very least, ill-timed, and quite possibly wrong.
Next season, Jake Plummer will play elsewhere. Once again, the ghost of John Elway has dragged down another Denver Broncos quarterback.

Link: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20061127/ap_on_re_us/anti_peace_sign_1

As a victim of bullying in high school, I know that the only solution when faced with bullying is to face down the bullies and send them packing. Note this part of the story:

Kearns ordered the committee to require Jensen to remove the wreath, but members refused after concluding that it was merely a seasonal symbol that didn't say anything. Kearns fired all five committee members.

The fact that the president of the homeowners association fired the committee members when they disagreed with him tells us all we need to know about the sort of pathology we are dealing with here.

UPDATE - The peace sign supporters appear to have won the battle, according to this article...

Link: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9101.html#more-9101

...is dissected in this blog posting, with a number of explanations of why most of his assertions about the law are unsupportable.

Link: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/111806dnmetprestonhollow.31e7a33.html

...within the sometimes dysfunctional mess that passes for the Dallas Independent School District. A judge's ruling opens the lid on a story of manipulation of pupil class management, designed to insulate white children from the majority non-white school pupil population. Note the high incidence of selective "Ronald Reagan Amnesia" on the part of the Principal, who seemingly could not remember anything about the ethnic profile of the school's catchment area...

I am currently on vacation in the UK, which means that I am getting to read the UK print newspapers. While many of the afflictions that the US print media suffer from also appear to have found their way into the UK media (an excessive reliance on tittle-tattle being one issue), it is still possible to find more incisive reporting on some world issues in the UK newspapers.
One are where the UK print media are doing a much better job of explaining what is really happening is Iraq, where the mess seems to be getting worse by the week. Here is an extract from a centre page summary by Simon Jenkins from the Guardian on Tuesday:

In America last week, I was shocked at how unaware even anti-war Americans are (like many Britons) of the depth of the predicament in Iraq. They compare it with Vietnam or the Balkans – but it is not the same. It is total anarchy.
All sentences beginning “what we should do now in Iraq…” are devoid of meaning. We are in no position to “do” anything. We have no potency; that is the definition of anarchy.
From all available reports, Iraq south of Kurdistan border is beyond central authority, a patchwork of ganglands, sheikhdoms and lawlessness. Anbar province and most of the Sunni triangle is controlled by independent Sunni militias. The only safe movement for outsiders is by helicopter at night. Baghdad is like Beirut in 1983, with nightly massacres, roadblocks everywhere and mixed neighborhoods emptying into safe ones. As yesterday’s awful kidnappings show, even a uniform is a death certificate. As for the cities of the south, control depends on which Shia militia has been able to seize the local police station.
The Iraqi army, such as it is, cannot be deployed outside its local area and is therefore useless for counter-insurgency. There is no central police force. There is no public administration. The Maliki government barely rules the Green Zone in which it is entombed. American troops guard it as they might an outpost of the French Legion in the Sahara. There is no point in patrolling a landscape one cannot control. It merely alienates the population and turns soldiers into targets.
To talk of a collapse into civil war if “we leave” Iraq is to completely misread the chaos into which that country has descended under our rule. It implies a model of order wholly absent on the ground. Foreign soldiers can stay in their bases, but they will no more “prevent civil war” than they can “import democracy”. They are relevant only as target practice for insurgents and recruiting sergeants for Al-Qaida. The occupation of Iraq has passed from brutality to sheer idiocy.

A lot of current reports in the US media appear to be more like the US whistling to keep its spirits up. The sort of reporting that I am consistently reading in the USA is superficial in the extreme, and is almost devoid of facts or seriousness. It is almost as though the Iraq occupation (and let us not kid ourselves, that is what it is) cannot be reported on or discussed in detail, lest it suddenly become a bigger embarrassment than it already is. However, the net result is that the whole mess in Iraq is being glossed over on a daily basis.
Concealing or glossing over the depth and breadth of the US predicament in Iraq is not going to make the problems go away, any more than openly discussing the problems is "giving comfort to the enemy" (a slogan which is so devoid of any logic or meaning that the slogan itself needs to be interned in Guantanamo).
The idea that the subject of Iraq cannot be discussed in detail might have some validity in a true war situation, but I see no evidence on my travels that the US is at war with anybody. When I see conscription, rationing, and a forceful national focus on the conflict, I'll believe that the US is at war. Until then this conflict is a national diversion that most people would prefer to ignore, but cannot.
In the UK, every Iraq casualty is being profiled in the national media, almost to a level reminiscent of martyrdom. Tony Blair's reputation is in tatters, partly as a result of the Iraq conflict, where the prevailing view is that he is a sycophantic toadie to George W. Bush (and the British people do not like sycophants). Most people I have spoken to since I arrived in the UK want Blair to disappear from the political scene, preferably yesterday, and they want nothing more to do with the Bush administration.
Unfortunately, there is no sensible debate currently occurring in the US or the UK about what to do next in Iraq. The prevailing sentiment is "we need to get out", but that in itself is no more useful than "stay the course". Sudden withdrawal will likely ignite scenes similar to the infamous US departure from Vietnam in 1976. Continuing with the current policies and tactics is, however, unlikely to produce better results.
The regional superpowers (Iran, Syria and Egypt) have no real incentive to help the US, especially since the US has been throwing around terms like "Axis Of Evil" and occasionally threatening both Iran and Syria for more than 5 years. In addition, little or no pressure has been applied to Israel to persuade that country to modify its draconian policies towards the Palestinian enclaves.
The result is that at the moment, the US has limited leverage and little influence in the region. That is what generally happens when you abandon diplomacy in favour of macho posturing. As a work colleage of mine observed, "macho does not prove mucho".
The history of the Iraq occupation has become an object lesson in what happens when you invade and occupy a country with no clear strategy of what to do next beyond fine-sounding slogans including words like "democracy". "Importing democracy" is not like planting crops, no matter how far one stretches the agricultural analogies. Democracy is not highly-regarded in the Middle East by many people; Israel is held up in the Western world as an example of a functioning democracy, but is seen as a tyrannical occupying power, and the majority of the region's governments have no democratic legitimacy whatsoever, yet many of them have been supported in the past by the United States. In short, the prevailing "street" opinion is that democracy is a bill of goods designed to maintain US hegemony.
One of the best things that the US and Britain could do is to ban the word "democracy" from any discussion's of Iraq's future. If the future of Iraq does not initially include Western-style representative democracy, that would be unfortunate, but the priority has to be to achieve some measure of stability and order in the region, and if democracy has to take a back-seat, so be it. It is time to put away the fine-sounding aspirational phrases and become ruthlessly pragmatic. On a wider tront, there is no shame in eschewing talk of democracy, since the phrase has limited credibility when uttered by any US government representative. It takes only a cursory reading of recent world history to realize that the USA has waxed poetic about "democracy" while simultaneously working to undermine and destabilize any country where the democratic processes yielded a result that they did not like (Chile, Nicaragua, Venezuela...etc. etc.). Simple observation leads me to the conclusion that the USA's geopolitical concept of democracy is similar to the phrase "everybody is entitled to my opinion"; democracy is a fine concept until a country dares to elect a government that does not regard the USA as the Greatest Country In The World. Being told about "democracy" by the United States is like having to listen to Tony Soprano talking about law and order. One does not know whether to laugh or cry.