Well, I think it’s fresh news. Tried to run a search on some feeds in Bloglines, and got back the following:
There is a problem with the database. Please try again later
This happens both when searching only on the feeds I’m subscribed to, and when running a general search. I do hope they’ll sort it out soon, they provide an excellent service, and it’s a pity that they have such problems.
Good luck on sorting it out.
Another fine example of American law at it’s best, this guy is required to pay child support for a kid that DNA tests prove are not his.
They said Geoffrey Fisher owes about $11,000 in child support to cover the time from the child’s birth until paternity tests proved that Fisher was not the father.
So from the moment it was proven he’s not the father, he’s off the hook. But for all the time until then, he should still pay. Because… hmm… the test is inconclusive about the past duration, and it’s possible he was the kid’s father, and only stopped being so before the test?
Hat tip to Derek, who summed it up very succinctly – Stupid.This is fun, seeing how consistent press releases from the TV world are.
Take for example, the star of Joan of Arcadia, Amber Tamblyn. Less than a week ago, when it’s unclear if the show will go on for another season, or will be cancelled, she expresses her preferences quite clearly:
“We deserve a chance for one more season,” Tamblyn says. “I want it so bad I can taste it.”
Not too many different ways to read this. She likes the show, and really wants the show to go on, and to keep playing Joan. Right?
Flash back three months, and you’ll see that Tamblyn again expresses her opinion about the show quite clearly. This time when the season is still in full swing:
“Joan of Arcadia” star Amber Tamblyn is so bored with the CBS series that she’s threatening to quit. “I like to be challenged,” she tells TV Guide’s Mary Murphy. “If I am not challenged, I get bored. I am here today and I could be gone tomorrow. That could be my choice.”
Gotta love that consistency.
BTW, I do think she’s an excellent actor, and does a wonderful job there. And she’s not the only one of that show’s cast who does. Not the kind of series I normally see, but it’s very well made, and well acted, so I do.
It brought back some amusing (now) memories, to read this, about a patient who came to the doctor complaining that he’s hungry before he eats. Yes, serious brain power there, probably.
I recalled similar incidents from my dad’s clinic (He works as an ophthalmologist, and there were a few years when I worked with him, part secretary and part just dealing with the terrible new computer programs that he was forced to use). We had quite a few people (I distinctly remember at least three totally separate cases, and there were probably more) coming in complaining that “my eyes hurt when I do this”…
With doing this being looking upward very strongly. Try that, look up, now look more up, now try looking even more up… See? Hurts! So they came to the doctor to get examined.
One of them didn’t just say “do this” and demonstrated, but actually said “when I’m looking all the way up, or all the way to the side, for at least several seconds… “. So my father gave him the wonderful bit of medical advice “Don’t do that”.
Amazingly, the guy was a bit fazed. Usually my father’s bedside-manners are very good, though, so he didn’t leave it at that, but gave an overly polite and detailed explanation about the physiological range of movement of the eye, and what not…
I seriously think it’s a pity doctors aren’t allowed to treat patients like the imaginary Dr. House does on TV. There were quite a number of times I know I really wanted to. And I pity all the actual doctors, who have to go through these things all the time
We had another one who complained that her eyes started to water if she looked in the direction of the sun. I kid you not.
A website I was going through put a large banner ad for Godiva chocolates, with a part of the large image even dedicated to inform me (or anyone else reading the ad) that the Godiva site in now secured by VeriSign, and is safe to purchase from. I assume it doesn’t mean anything beyond the fact that they got an SSL certificate from them, or are using them to verify credit card transactions…
Out of curiosity I decided to click the ad, and see what exactly are they selling. And I got back a 404 page, an error page telling me that “A problem was encountered during processing: Sorry, the file you are looking for does not exist.”
Wonderful, isn’t it? If they get paid by click-through, this is one ad that they show everyone, and will never see a dime from. And while it’s clearly the fault of the site showing the ad (The error page was on their own site, not Godiva’s), it reflects badly on the ad content. When you click on a banner of a site informing you how secure and well done it is, only to not be able to get there, well…
Oh, and of course the error page itself contains more ads. But this time for other sites.
A friend of mine is now in the process of passing a security clearance procedure for some company he is applying for a job at. As part of the process they require details of some friends, and he called me, which reminded me of the security clearance I had to go through myself before joining my army unit in the past.
So one quick comment about my friend’s forms, and then I’ll go on to my own story. As part of the friends’ details, they also ask the name of the father, and of the grandfather on the father’s side. That’s it. They don’t care about the mother, they don’t care about grandmothers, and they don’t care about the grandfather on the mother’s side. Don’t ask me why.
OK, back to my story. First, no, telling a few minor things about the procedure is not a security breach, and does not include revealing classified info. Everything there, after all, is shown to people who don’t yet have any clearance. So as long as I talk about impressions, and thought I had at the actual time, there isn’t possibly any problem. I will of course not mention any further things that may, or may not, have been done during the service.
Now, like any good bureaucratic and public (i.e. government managed) organization does, the forms that I was given to fill out needed to be submitted in multiple copies. Except that the usual method of putting copy paper between the pages was not allowed. I had to fill all copies by hand. And my memory is a bit vague on this, but I think it wasn’t in triplicates, but seven copies. By hand, with a pen, repeating the same info.
Worse, every field without an answer (Like the long table for family members, of which I have far less than the table had rows) had to be filled in, not left empty. And just striking it out wasn’t good enough, I had to write something. Don’t remember what it was by now, but it was the equivalent of "N/A", or "Nothing".
Multiply the several copies by the many many different fields. For example, on each of these rows on the family members table, the first name, surname, date of birth, and so on and so forth, were all different fields and needed separate N/A. That took a lot of time, and that’s just on the parts where I didn’t have anything to write.
One of the parts was educational history. There was room for university, but I didn’t have that at this point. But they also wanted a listing of all of my schools, all the way from kindergarten. And they wanted the names of the teachers. The way lower schools work, beside the "professional" teachers for specific aspects, each class had an "educator" doing general stuff and trying to instil some general values. So they wanted the names of them all.
No, I did not remember the names of the teachers from my first, or second, or third (…) grades. This will come up later.
Another very important aspect is recommendations. People who are not direct friends, and who can recommend you and say what a wonderful and reliable person you really are. Anyone want to guess how they are picked? Simple enough, you just go over all the people your parents know, that have seen you a little bit, and call the ones who held the highest ranks in the military among the lot, or who have a solid position in the public sector. Can’t see what this gives anyone, but that’s the requirement, and that’s what everyone does with it.
And they wanted a list of friends, with all this personal info about them as well. Felt silly asking my friends for their date of birth, or the exact dates their parents may or may not have immigrated to the country. Plus, are they really going to get any info from that? This only helps them if I name a well known communist activist, or an Arab person, or something which is on the short list of disqualifies. But what sane person wanting to get a clearance would do that? Unless they’re so unpopular that they can’t even find the required 3-5 friends…
After all the forms has been filled, I had to come to an interview. The interviewer spent some time going through the forms, and started with the hard questions.
For starters, he scolded me that I didn’t mention the name of my first grade teacher. To which I of course replied that I don’t remember it. He was surprised as to how can I possibly not remember it. The facts that I was 5-6 years old at the time didn’t seem like good enough a reason, and neither did the fact that I haven’t see her in over 10 years. I should have remembered. He made me sit there for several minutes trying to dredge up the name. As if.
More interesting was the questions about drug usage. When asked if I was using drugs, I answered (totally truthfully) that I wasn’t. So he started to explain that he doesn’t mean just hard drugs, but also things like marijuana, and do I want to change my answer in light of that? I didn’t. He then proceeded to try and make it clear to me that in this particular case they’re also not only asking if I’m a general user, but want to know of any single use. Did I take drugs only once? Maybe at a party? Driven for a one time experiment by peer pressure, and never tried it again? I didn’t and that’s what I told him.
He went on to assure me (An assurance that could only have worked if I was on drugs at the time, and maybe even then not) that I can admit it. Because it doesn’t matter. They won’t disqualify me for it. They don’t really care. They just want to know. If I’m a light user, or used in the past, or even using now but it’s nothing critical, then it’s no problem with them… Riiiight. In any case, I stuck to my denial.
After the interview came the long part, where they have their own people doing background checks. This could take months.
During that time they also interview some of the people listed on those forms, like our friends, and tell them not to tell us about it. Which works great, since 18 years old kids are just terrific at being grilled about a friend by big guys with sunglasses, and then not telling about it to anyone.
In any case, they didn’t mess up too badly in this case, since I passed. Even though one of the friends got confused, and gave them a different answer than I did, about how long have we known each other and when did we first meet (Yes, that was on the form as well. Those things are thorough).
This thing really makes me sorry I’m not a Catholic.
I mean, look at the guy, what a perfect picture…
And it’s not just the white collar of the priest behind him, that got captured in just the right position. It’s also the look on his face, which I suppose was meant to be an endearing and benevolent smile. Except that it’s, well, not. Heck, if someone would have asked him to put on a scheming evil smile, and if he did his best to comply, he still might have failed to do it so perfectly.
You just gotta admire the sheer amazing timing of this photo. It must have been an act of God. At least, most Catholics should think so. Because there’s no way a good Catholic God should have allowed this to happen if it wasn’t intentional. Heck, I know exactly what fanatic Muslim insurgents are going to use from now on in order to scare away little children.
Can’t you just picture it? Anyone and everyone that opposed the Church is going to love that. It’s scary if you aren’t familiar with the relevant horny-Satan image, and downright evil and nefarious if you do.
Poor Pope.
taken from Amy’s Robot.
