Author: rfhurley

Official Attacks Top Law Firms Over Detainees

WASHINGTON – The senior Pentagon official in charge of military detainees suspected of terrorism said in an interview this week that he was dismayed that lawyers at many of the nation’s top firms were representing prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and that the firms’ corporate clients should consider ending their business…

By Neil A. Lewis, New York Times …

There are superficial similarities to the Spocko case discussed in a previous posting: both are responding to activities which they deem harmful to society at large. Both advocate boycotts as a method of action against the “offending” parties. Those following the tone of political discourse for the past 10+ years (and especially since 9/11) know what the obvious neocon response would be:

read more…

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal…along with these instructions.
5. Don’t search around and look for the “coolest” book you can find. Do what’s actually next to you. …

Continue reading “Page 123”

I’m spending most of my time brushing up on my web building skills. Each day I rotate lessons in PHP, javaScript, Python and CGI/Perl, and I spand another part of my day in basic web design. …

The problem with learning several different scripting languages at one time is keeping track of the different operators that do the same thing in different languages.

(for example, I was having trouble getting my javaScripts to work. finally I realized that I was using the “.” concantenate operator rather than a “+” which is the one used in javaScript– and this is the one scripting language I’ve been using for years)

the sites are all on my design web site, glassangel. The pages are:

Robinson Jeffers: An American Prophet

and the pages that follow are based on his poems, with one bio page:

The Soul’s Desert

Be Angry at the Sun

the bio page

Bear in mind, this is a work in progress. I had a similar section on a free web hosting site (tripod.com), but they killed it, first with waaayyy too many ads, and then (for some reason) they pulled everything but the cover page.

More “stuff” is arriving soon!

For the past year, Spocko as been e-mailing advertisers of KSFO-AM with audio clips from its shows and asking sponsors to examine what they’re supporting. Some sponsors have pulled their ads, after hearing clips like one of KSFO’s Lee Rodgers suggesting that a protester be “stomped to death right there. Just stomp their bleeping guts out.”

–From the San Francisco Chronicle …

Continue reading “Support Spocko!”

Not to put too fine a point on it, suffice it to say I’ve been offline for awhile …

I’m back now, and I’m currently at work on my design website, glassangel.com, and my newsblog, Media Vulture.

I’ll be posting more regularly here and on my other sites.

See ya soon.

This business of taking photographs with my phone is for the birds– and even they are complaining…

Anyway, as I was walking home last night, I was walking through *ahem* Petaluma’s Historical Theatre District– which pretty much consists of a movie theatre and– um… actually, that’s really IT…

They DO, however, have a rather nice art deco design for the otherwise pedestrian cinimaplex downtown. So as I was walking by I decided to take a couple of photographs (which appear on my photos page), one of which is the new splash page for my main site, which is kind of amusing for about two minutes, but I simply MUST come up with a more professional looking design if I’m ever going to get any paying gigs out of it.

…

I spent WAAAYYY more time today than I ever should have spent on it, trying to cobble together a natural-looking (FAILED) marquee for the middle of the photo leading into my site, including what was supposed to be a neon sign (failing again) reading “glassangel”.

Anyway, I have other work to do, so I guess it’s “Back to Work”…

when I took my SATs years ago (at the ripe old age of 16), I declared myself a journalism major, and proceeded to take a grand total of one journalism class (before changing my major for the first time, to music, which pays sooo much better than journalism). My instructor (for the Spring Quarter satire edition of the Humboldt State journalism magazine) later became famous– as a hostage in Beirut.

I guess musicians don’t make the best hostages.

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So here I am, lo these *ahem* 23 years later…

and I’m working on a satirical webzine The Paranoid Gazette, and I’m actually doing more research for each article than I would probably be doing if I were under deadline at a real journalism gig… Could explain why Comedy Central wins more Peabody Awards than Fox News. (I mean, other than the obvious fact that Fox news is to journalism what ptomaine is to egg salad…)

In other news, one of my favorite Texans (a short list) and favorite politicians (an even shorter list), the inimitable Ann Richards, died this past week of cancer at age 73. I’ve posted an excerpt from Molly Ivins column marking the event (as well as a link to the full column) in my news blog Media Vulture, including a cool picture that I found in some archive from Texas.

well, as one may suspect from this post, I’m not at work, so I have time to kill– hence this posting…

the situation isn’t dire, but I’m not holding my breath. And I have another interview for yet another place…

Anyway… in lieu of financial renumeration for my efforts, once again I turn to the masturbatory simple rewards of a blog well done: in this case, my news and media criticism blog (dedicated to the late great Turn’o’the [last] Century Austrian media critic, Karl Kraus), Media Vulture.

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This week, I present a parsing of one of George Bush’s recent addresses, in which he expresses his displeasure with the Articles of the Geneva Convention (and International Law in general), and extolls the virtues of such wholesome activities as running Secret Prisons, Torture, and Military Tribunals.

Enjoy!

Continue reading “Everything happens for the best…”

Young, bright-eyed, aspiring bloggers are always asking me: How can I too become a Beloved Blogger like you. And, of course, I tell them:

Drink LOTS and LOTS of coffee! It’s GOOD. And good For You!

You’ll ALSO need the proper tools and Work Environment.

Of course, when the MAJOR HALLUCINAGENS wear off, I find myself alone, and people are asking if I’m using the chair across the table from me

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