So, the "fans" in Oakland riot when the win (last week), and they riot when they lose (this week).

I'll tell you what I think. I think they riot because they aren't smart enough to know they aren't supposed to riot. No one is telling urban young people that they aren't supposed to sell drugs; they aren't supposed to shoot each other; they aren't supposed to steal; they aren't supposed to beat up other young people.

I don't know how this is going to end. Usually, children are aghast at their parent's behavior and vow to be different when they grow up. Is that going to happen here? If rioting looks like fun, will the rioters kids grow up to be senators and CEOs, or will they move straight to the anarchist movement?

It scares me.

Here I go again, harping on George W. Bush. Now he tells us that he has EVIDENCE that Iraq still has a weapons-of-mass-destruction program, but he's not going to tell us about it.

How can he expect to have the support of the American people, much less the leaders of the world's major countries, if he won't tell us WHY he insists on this course of action? We are not idiots. We can handle the truth. This "I know a secret and I won't tell, nyah nyah nyah" stuff is just insulting.

I don't particularly doubt that he has evidence, but I also would not be surprised to learn that there isn't any evidence.

If this country goes to war unilaterally, without solid, publicly announced evidence, world opinion will turn against us in a major and unpleasant way. Even if Mr. Bush is willing to suffer that downturn, the rest of the American people are not.

Well, I managed to make it through the first week of the new contract, and although I did experience my usual stress level, I also seem to have been able to accomplish more than I feared.

My nine-year-old is coming up with more and more inventive ways of getting out of doing his homework. His favorite ploy is simply to forget to mention it until bedtime. We started making him stay up until it was done, so that strategy has outlived its usefulness. He has now learned the technique of spending hours in the bathroom. He heads off quietly, and pretty soon we realize it's been 30 minutes with no word from him.

I would never have thought of such a thing when I was growing up. I had such a terrible fear of authority that I just did what I was told. The sad thing is that, like me, school is pretty easy for my son. If he just came in off of his daydream ship and did the work, it would be done in no time and he could relax.

Ah, well, I suppose we all learn these lessons a bit too late to do us any good.

I start on a new contract tomorrow. Much to my surprise, I'm nervous about it. I shouldn't be; although it's an area that I haven't worked in for a year or two, I know that I'm perfectly capable of contributing in a major way.

I've just had to learn over the years that the first week or two on any new contract are a stressful time for me. I convince myself that I'm in over my head, that I'm not contributing, that I'm a detriment to the project, that I should be swabbing floors down at McDonald's instead. As long as I can hang on through those first two weeks, I generally do just fine.

The other problem is that this client wants work to be done at their location. It is a reasonable request, but my office is a very comfortable place. It's been more than a year since I had an off-site contract, and in that year, I've grown accustomed to where everything is located. My snacks are at arms reach, my ergonomic chair fits me, my reference books are all nearby, it's just... comfortable. Plus, I get about 150 e-mail messages a day, and clients don't like to have me answering e-mail at their location. That means I will have to make special arrangements to be at my office off-hours to take care of the e-mail flood.

Ah, well, I shouldn't complain. 2003 was starting to look like a sucky year; if we hadn't got the contract, we probably would have run out of money in the second quarter. My life is good, and I know it. That's probably why my weblog is a bit... boring...

Well, the weapons inspectors in Iraq have now given George the "W" all the justification he needs to go invade Iraq. If this were a trial in the American justice system, he wouldn't even have enough evidence for an indictment, but Bush has gone long past that, straight to the sentencing.

I don't mean to be an apologist for Saddam Hussein, but for the time being I don't see how you could argue beyond a reasonable doubt that these chemical weapons casings are other than what Iraq claims they are: leftovers from their weapons programs in the late 1980's, which are no secret.

This whole process is so ugly. Whatever the final report of the weapons inspectors are, it will be more than enough to satisfy the Bush administration, but it won't be enough to convince a majority of the U.N. Security Council.

It seems to me that the only way "W" will be able to garner the overwhelming support of the American people and the governments of Europe is if he actually shares some details of the evidence that he claims to have. Up until now, he keeps telling us that he has convincing evidence, but he has certainly never shared it. I, for one, do not trust that man.

Most of what's on television today is crap, and I have to admit to helping keep it on the air.

I'm addicted to Law & Order. I watch all 3 of them. I even watch the reruns. I like the challenge of having to guess how it will end.

I also dig CSI, although I haven't grown attached to the Miami version.

I love Dave Attell's Insomniac on Comedy Central. It's such a bizarre concept: just go explore the late night bar life in some city and record it. He's such a natural, it makes me want to go join him. I read that he has disappointed because people recognize him now, and are reacting to his celebrity. I hope it doesn't spell the end of the show...

I'm a big Letterman fan, as you can tell from my earlier entry reviewing his program. I still think he's got "it" over Leno.

Junkyard Wars was entertaining at the start, but it seems awfully staged now.

Judging Amy has great potential, but that woman and that family are so incredibly screwed up that it's hard to be sympathetic.

West Wing still enchants me. The lesson I take from that show is that I could never work in the White House.

I watch E.R. because my wife watches it, but it's hard to stay hooked. Most of the really interesting people have left the show.

That's about all. I refuse to get involved in the Survivor hype; the concept is just embarrassing, as are most of the reality shows. This new Bachelor scam is even worse. What has the world come to?

I've been in four meetings over the last two days. I don't know how managers in big companys do it.

When I was working at the "major microprocessor maker" in the area, I noticed that most of the managers posted their Outlook calendars for the week on the outside of their cubicles. I got out my calculator and figured out that one of the first-level managers was spending 35% of his week in meetings of one kind or another. Each one precious, no doubt.

It would drive me nuts. I'm so spoiled being self-employed. I will have a rude awakening if I ever have to go back to a real company.

I'd vote for Joe Lieberman. I believe he has demonstrated both compassion and good common sense in his senatorial life. He's not afraid to speak out on unpopular topics, and he certainly has the experience of a presidential campaign. I think he'd be good for the country.

And he even has a web site...

Of course, it would be great fun if he chose Al Gore as his VP...

I really enjoy Late Night with David Letterman. I must, to keep watching it when I really should be in bed. I've tried to think about what it is about him that keeps me up late. It probably isn't the guests; all of the late night shows have the same guests, often on consecutive days.

To me, Letterman is at his best when he interacts with the audience during "America's fastest growing quiz sensation, Know Your Current Events." His broad knowledge of trivia means he can almost always find an interesting question to ask of any audience member.

"Will It Float" is a very strange phenomenon. Conceptually, it is a stupid idea, but it seems to be working very well. I suspect it is just the surrounding hype that makes it fun, but fun it is. However, I think the grinder girl's 15 minutes are up.

"Is This Anything" is another segment that hits more often than it misses. It is amazing what some people will do to get on television.

On the other hand, it is long past time for both "Psychic Sandwich" and "Beat The Clock" to go. "Beat The Clock" just grates on me; it isn't funny, it isn't suspenseful, and it is downright mean to the "contestants". If there were a point to it, it would be different, but it's nothing more than existential silliness. Maybe there's a Zen aspect to it that I am missing. And perhaps someone can explain to me why "Intuitive" Debra Lynn keeps coming back for more "Psychic Sandwich" abuse. It took her three or four tries before she figured out that the object of the game was to pick the NAME of the sandwich, rather than the MAKEUP of the sandwich. So much for intuition.

I miss Biff Henderson locating the viewer mail cities on his big map.

Nathan Lane and Martin Short could liven up a mortician's convention. Wouldn't you love to be stuck in an airport for a few hours with those two?

I do wish he would introduce the band once in a while. We know Paul, of course, and we've heard Anton and Felicia mentioned a few times, but the rest of the group is anonymous. I've even sent this in to "viewer mail" once or twice.

I can't tell whether North Korea is throwing a fit because they are tired of being ignored, or because they think the Bush Administration is too busy rattling sabers in Iraq to worry about them. Either is entirely possible, in my view.

Whichever is true, this is an extremely dangerous situation. As I have said previously, I believe North Korea is more dangerous than Iraq. North Korea has nothing to lose. They have no money, their people are starving, and they have few natural resources. Desperation makes people do dangerous and irrational things, and "irrational" is a good word to describe the current course of action by North Korea. Their announcement today, in which they claim that "any military action by the United States towards North Korea will be the start of World War III," is not the kind of thing one would hear from a rational government.

We ignore them at our peril. Now is the time to take action. We can't possibly make a move in Iraq until the UNMOVIC inspectors deliver a lot more data; rather than stand around and waiting, the Bush Administration should concentrate on the real, imminent, and publicly announced threat in the Korean Peninsula before it turns nuclear.

Or "nu-kew-ler", if you are a politician from Texas.

Mother Nature is playing quite a set of tricks on herself here in the Pacific Northwest. As I mentioned below, we've had a series of rather nice days, clear and bright, with temperatures in the 50s. As a result of that, many of the trees and bushes have actually started to bud.

Today, of course, it's hovering in the low 30s, and should drop below freezing some time during the night. I think many of the trees will be getting "nipped in the bud" tonight.

"It's not nice to fool Mother Nature." How old do you have to be to remember the series of commercials that included that line, and the product it was advertising?

I'm not sure whether George "W" is pandering to his friends, or if he really (incorrectly) believes that his tax cuts will help the majority of Americans.

I'm usually pretty skeptical when politicians complain about "tax cuts only for the wealthy". The fact is that the poorest people in the country pay a rather small fraction of the overall tax burden, so it is fundamentally impossible to construct a tax cut that helps them proportionally more than the upper income levels. People who pay more tax are always going to benefit more from tax cuts, and that is exactly how it should be.

However, "W"'s latest proposal goes much further than that. It doesn't even TRY to be an across-the-board cut. The only people who can possibly benefit from the elimination of the tax on corporate dividends are people who own stock outside of their retirement funds. And, like it or not, only the wealthiest people in this country fall into that category.

If George wants to help middle-income America, he would reduce the tax on bank and savings & loan interest. If he really wants to help low-income America, he would nationalize health care, but that's a topic for another day.

I saw a great e-mail signature today:

I solved my Windows XP problems by installing Service Pack Linux

Many people complain about the weather in Oregon, but it's impossible to complain about today. After a week of relentless, driving rain, we awoke today to clear, cool, blue skies and temperatures in the 50s. I'd probably feel different if I were a surfer, but in all my travels, I've never found a place I'd rather live.

The national baseball association has apparently told the city of Portland that it is on the short list of cities being considered as the new home of the Toronto Blue Jays. All we have to do is build them a new ballpark.

What is the point? I simply do not understand the great hullaballoo about bringing a major league team to town. Does anyone really believe that a major corporation is going to base its decision on whether to locate a new office here on whether or not we have a baseball team? Get real. They look at tax incentives, and little else.

I object strongly to the use of tax dollars to subsidize anything involving the highly profitable professional sports industry. Oregon is in the top 5 states in the nation in terms of hunger. We now have the shortest school year in the country. Our tax dollars need to go to providing basic human services, not to padding the pockets of billionaire team owners and spoiled brat players.

It is difficult to think of profound things to say every day, so I will spend a couple of days saying things that aren't so profound.

The entertainment rumor sheets over the last week or so have been saying that Ian McKellan, who does such a great job as Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings juggernaut, had been signed to replace Richard Harris as Albus Dumbledore in the next Harry Potter flick, Prisoner of Azkaban. Today, the Oregonian reports that the rumor is being denied.

That's a shame, because McKellan would be perfect for the role. Gandalf is rather similar to Dumbledore in many respects; the fact that McKellan does so well in LOTR should boost his rèsumé power a bit. Further, if you saw what a good time he had hosting Saturday Night Live last year, you know that he has the sense of humor that is so critical in playing Dumbledore.

Well, the human race managed to make it through another year without exterminating itself. I hope that the warmongers in our government decide to take serious steps to insure that we at least get through THIS one.