..And the Commodore Hotel. I linked a video of Paul Barrere and Fred Tackett of Little Feat performing Dixie Chicken. One commenter noted that it wasn't quite the same without Lowell George. (Maybe different, but still good, mind you.) Well, I just found this clip while rooting around amongst the interwebby tubes. Enjoy.
Music, Video | Gaius February 9, 2008 | 
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Local government councils in Britain have just been told to lay off the heavy frosting of jargon they layer on every official communication to the people they purport to serve. They have, in fact, been warned off by the official body that represents them all.
Councils have been ordered to stop using incomprehensible jargon when communicating with the public.
Town hall bureaucrats have been provided with a list of 100 top words or terms to avoid.
The plain-speaking edict has been issued by the Local Government Association, which represents the interests of councils throughout England and Wales.
Sir Simon Milton, the association's chairman, explained: "Why do we have to have 'coterminous stakeholder engagement' when we could just 'talk to people' instead?"
He points out that councils not only have a duty to provide value for money, but also to inform people of what they get for their taxes and how to use services.
"Without explaining what a council does in proper English then local people will fail to understand its relevance to them or why they should bother to turn out and vote.
"Unless information is given to people to explain why their councils matter then local democracy will be threatened with extinction." Peter Griffiths, the secretary of the Plain English Campaign, said: "Their idea is excellent because a lot of terms used by local authorities just baffle people.
"A jargon has been created in the world of local government which is fine for the people who work there, but when it escapes into the outside world it can be bewildering. We should all use simple, understandable language."
Banned terms include "multi-agency", "revenue streams", "seedbed", "improvement lever", and "community engagement".
Having worked in an industry that lapses into fluent jargon and acronymese at every opportunity, I feel their pain. (The nuclear industry actually has acronyms embedding into acronyms in some cases – ATWS, for example, stands for Anticipated Transient Without SCRAM – and SCRAM is another acronym.) I did find a handy generator of interesting word combinations that I suspect might reside on every bureaucrat's desk, however. I used to have one of these on my Palm Pilot, in fact. It did boffo art reviews…..
Well, I'm off to embrace cutting-edge functionalities to deliver intuitive supply-chains to coterminous stakeholders.
(I'm available to write business plans…)
When the British army commanded by Lord Cornwallis marched out to surrender to the Continental Army commanded by George Washington at Yorktown, the regimental bands reportedly played a song that was old even then, The World Turned Upside Down. That story has been disputed by a number of historians, but the legend has a certain charm to it and has been repeated many times. One wonders if the folks who live in Hillaryland hear that that old air playing these days in the new wind that is buffeting them.
Barack Obama has won in Washington and in Nebraska. And the Nebraska voting went 70% for Obama in that red state and 67% in Washington.
WASHINGTON – Sen. Barack Obama won caucuses in Nebraska and Washington state and battled Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Louisiana primary Saturday night in a bid to chip away at her slender delegate lead in their historic race for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Obama was winning nearly 70 percent support in Nebraska, compared with 31 percent for Clinton, in caucuses with 24 delegates at stake.
He also had 67 percent support in Washington state caucuses, compared with 32 percent for Clinton with returns tallied from about one-half of the state's precincts. There were 78 delegates at stake, the largest single prize of the night.
Those are not a couple of victories. Those are a couple of blowouts. Better than two to one in both states. Hillary Clinton is in serious trouble. John McCain also now has a real problem on his hands.
The Telegraph is reporting that Hillary Clinton advisors are in a state of panic because they anticipate that Barack Obama will win today's primary contests.
Hillary Clinton’s most senior advisers are in a state of “panic” about her presidential prospects and are plotting to enlist Democrat leaders in Congress to thwart her rival Barack Obama’s ambitions.
The Clinton camp is braced for Mr Obama to win a series of primary elections over the next three weeks, which they fear could hand the Illinois senator unstoppable momentum in the race for the White House.
Mr Obama has begun calling those “super delegates” – 795 congressmen and senior party officials who could break a dead heat – who are committed to Mrs Clinton, asking them to change their minds and help him wrap up the nomination.
As of tonight, the two candidates were neck and neck but Mr Obama appeared to be gaining momentum.
“He’s saying: 'Hey, I won your state and I won your congressional district, why are you supporting her?’” a Democrat strategist revealed.
The Clinton camp hopes to stop the Obama bandwagon by winning Texas and Ohio primaries on March 4, after which Mrs Clinton is planning to call on party grandees including Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives and Harry Reid, the party’s leader in the Senate, to persuade Mr Obama to stand down.
It's all about the insider politics at this point. This is going to get really ugly if Clinton "wins" by getting the party establishment to back her and kick the popular upstart that is blocking her. Frankly, Obama would be crazy to tie himself to her as a VP at this point – if she loses the general election he will be the John Edwards of 2008 – politically damaged and unable to make a comeback. If Obama is ahead, Hillary will never agree to being his understudy – and Obama would be crazy to have the political Bobbsey Twins looking over his shoulder and maneuvering behind him the whole time.
This is getting interesting, indeed.
The Indian administered Kashmir has been cut off for five days now, with heavy snows blocking the road. At least 20 people are dead with 10 more missing. The heavy snowfall has caused avalanches in many areas, adding to the chaos.
At least 20 people have been killed and 10 are missing after heavy snowfall in Indian-administered Kashmir, police in the state say.
The road link between the valley of Kashmir and the rest of India has also been cut for the last five days.
Avalanches triggered by the heavy snow hit several homes.
Police and the army have rescued more than 30 people in a village south of the summer capital, Srinagar, where eight houses were hit by an avalanche.
The dead include two entire families, each comprising six members.
The authorities have evacuated several villages as more avalanches are feared after an improvement in the weather.
The sun shone in the valley briefly on Friday afternoon.
The 300km highway linking Srinagar with the winter capital, Jammu, has been closed for the past five days.
Sounds pretty bad over there right now.
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The Archbishop of Canterbury is attempting to back away from the controversy he started with his comments that Sharia law in Britain seemed "unavoidable." At this point, he appears to be trying to head off the people who are demanding he resign – or be removed from his position.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has hit back at calls for his resignation over his comments on sharia law.
Dr Rowan Williams insisted he "certainly did not call for its introduction as some kind of parallel jurisdiction to the civil law".
In a statement on his website, the Archbishop said he made no proposals for sharia but was simply "exploring ways in which reasonable accommodation might be made within existing arrangements for religious conscience".
He said his aim was to tease out some of the broader issues around the rights of religious groups within a secular state, using "sharia as an example".
His statement comes after he faced calls for his resignation from members of the General Synod, the Church of England's "parliament".
Unfortunately for Williams, those calls are becoming increasingly strident:
One of those calling for the Archbishop's resignation, Colonel Edward Armitstead, a Synod member from the diocese of Bath and Wells, said: "I don't think he is the man for the job. One wants to be charitable, but I sense that he would be far happier in a university where he can kick around these sorts of ideas."
Alison Ruoff, a Synod member from London, said: "He is a disaster for the Church of England. He vacillates, he is a weak leader and he does not stand up for the Church."
At this point, I am not at all sure how this will play out. Williams is completely in over his head in the job and is not provoking dialog or "teasing issues out." He is infuriating people and damaging the Church of England.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office ha, apparently, settled a long-running battle by awarding the title of "Icebox of the Nation" to International Falls, Minnesota. That may finally end the counterclaim by Fraser, Colorado.
INTERNATIONAL FALLS, Minn. – International Falls is officially the "Icebox of the Nation."
The city on the Canadian border had been fighting the ski town of Fraser, Colo., for the legal right to the trademark. International Falls claimed victory this week when the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office sent the city attorney a certificate granting the community Reg. No. 3,375,139.
"I ran over to the attorney's office and kissed the certificate," Mayor Shawn Mason said Friday. "Fraser's actions had sent a chill down my spine."
Mason said more was at stake than bragging rights. She said International Falls has used the icebox title to market itself to industry as the nation's premier site for cold-weather testing.
"We're just thrilled the title has been confirmed," City Administrator Rod Otterness said. "We'll wait until next week to notify them of their copyright infringement. If Fraser wants to call itself the Icebox of Colorado, we have no problem."
The article indicates that Fraser has not been exactly behaving honorably in all of this. They were paid $2,000 in 1989 to drop their claim to the name, but reasserted it when International Falls failed to renew the trademark. No matter, it does appear to be settled.
But where does this leave Frostbite Falls, Minnesota? We expect a scathing editorial from the Frostbite Falls Far-Flung Flyer in the near future.
(Side note: The forecast for International Falls predicts temperatures of -20° F with wind by Sunday.)
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The Chicago Tribune notes that the extremely harsh winter that has gripped Iran this year should cause Iran's rulers real trouble in the upcoming elections – if only the elections were free and fair. Unfortunately, the elections are neither and the mullahs have stripped reform-minded candidates from the ballots. Nonetheless, Iran is starting to feel the pressure of monumental mismanagement – and a brutal winter.
If the upcoming parliamentary elections in Iran were open and democratic, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the ruling mullahs would have a lot to worry about. How would you like your allies to face an electorate when, in one of the coldest winters in recent memory, the government has left thousands of people for days or even weeks with no natural gas for heat? When even those in Tehran have suffered rolling blackouts every night for a month, robbing people of electricity and heat for hours at a time? And all this while the country's major export — oil — is at nearly $100 a barrel?
That kind of breathtaking economic blundering usually costs politicians their jobs. But probably not in Iran. Not in a place where the mullahs can easily toss most reform-minded candidates off the ballot, as they have again this year.
If anything, the state is tightening its grip. One sign: In the midst of an icy winter, women reportedly have been arrested for straying from the edicts of the Islamic fashion police — wearing hats over head scarves, for example, or boots over pants.
Whatever the vote this spring, it is clear that Iran's economy is faltering. It is failing despite billions upon billions in oil revenues. It is floundering because of a sclerotic, command-and-control system. It is failing, thanks to a hard nudge from two rounds of UN Security Council sanctions and an array of U.S.-led economic measures that have dried up foreign investment and shooed away international banks. A third round of sanctions is in the works and could be passed soon. And after that, we hope, a fourth and a fifth, if the Iranians continue to refuse to suspend their nuclear-enrichment program.
The best the west can hope for, at least for now, is increasing internal pressure on the mullahs to finally force some changes. The sanctions are too weak and are not forcing change quickly enough. But old man winter might accomplish what the UN cannot. We can hope.
Dan Balz at the Washington Post points out just how bad a problem the Democrats have because of the sanctions imposed by the DNC on Michigan and Florida. Stripping the two states of their delegates when they moved their primaries up has handed the party a nightmare scenario.
The clever people in Michigan who decided to get into a game of chicken with New Hampshire last fall over the timing of their Democratic primary should be having second thoughts this weekend.
Had Michigan Democrats not engaged in gamesmanship over the shape of the nomination calendar, they would be holding the premier contest on today's slate, by far the biggest and most influential of the events between Super Tuesday and next week's Potomac primaries, rather than the nonbinding event that was held Jan. 15.
Michigan Democrats long argued that the party needed a major industrial state playing an early and influential role in the nominating process. Instead, Michigan Democrats — and those in Florida — have left their party with a monumental problem: what to do about their delegations to the national convention in Denver in August.
There is a growing sense of urgency about the need to deal with the Michigan-Florida issue, but no easy resolution. What happens could decide whether Hillary Rodham Clinton or Barack Obama becomes the party's presidential nominee.
The Democratic National Committee sanctioned Michigan and Florida for moving up their nominating contests in violation of party rules; it declared their primaries unofficial and denied them the right to seat their delegations in Denver. At the time of the sanctions, there was a widespread assumption that the eventual nominee would relent and allow both states full participation at the convention.
That was when it was also assumed that there would be an early outcome to the Clinton-Obama contest and that the winner could appear magnanimous toward two states with pivotal roles in the general election. That was when it was assumed the delegates wouldn't matter in the nomination battle. Today, it's clear they could.
Clinton won both Michigan and Florida handily. She won Michigan in part because Obama and other Democrats took their names off the ballot in solidarity with the DNC and as part of a pledge to Iowa, New Hampshire and other early-voting states not to participate in unsanctioned contests.
Obama and John Edwards were on the ballot in Florida because there was no way to remove their names, but none of the candidates campaigned there. Clinton flew in the night of the primary for a victory party in an effort to blunt Obama's momentum after his win in South Carolina.
"The Florida and Michigan situation is untenable in its current form and unacceptable to go into a nominating convention [where Clinton and Obama] could be separated by the number of delegates in those states," said Tad Devine, a Democratic strategist and veteran of presidential delegate wars. "If you go into the convention with that kind of cloud hanging over your head, it's a very dangerous situation."
Anything they do will reek of selecting the winner. They are thinking of running caucuses in both states – which will surely bring howls of outrage from Clinton supporters. The Clinton camp has already demanded that the delegates that she "won" (by skirting the agreements) be seated as is. There will be a lot of nastiness and acrimony over this.
Get the popcorn ready.
On February 21, 1947 Edwin Land demonstrated his Polaroid Land Camera which produced almost instant photos. Now, just shy of the 60 year mark, Polaroid has announced the end of the technology and is closing the last factories that were still producing the products.
When Polaroid users pulled a picture out of their cameras, an image would slowly appear before their eyes. Now, like the process in reverse, the image of the Polaroid instant camera — dimming for years — has finally gone black.
Polaroid, based in Waltham, Mass., is shutting down factories in the United States and abroad as the company abandons the technology that made the instant photo possible, the Boston Globe reported yesterday. The company will cease production of its film by next year.
The artsy, instantly gratifying Polaroid images, reeking of processing chemicals, have finally been done in by endless Flickr Web pages full of digital images, flawlessly produced by cameras that do not require film, emulsion or anything bigger than a shirt pocket to carry them around.
Polaroid introduced its instant camera in 1948, perfect timing to catch the mad tricycle rides of the first baby boomers, zipping around the new American suburbia. With its finely machined stainless steel body and black bellows, the Polaroid Land Camera looked anything but modern. Its instant film came in roll.
Polaroid moved to cartridge film in 1963 with its 100-series camera, which became a staple of professional photographers. They used the rugged Polaroid to take test photos, instantly checking lighting and composition before committing an image to negative.
Here's the Wikipedia entry on the Polaroid Land camera. Somewhere around here I have an old model 800 camera and another one from the 1980s – I think it is a Time Zero. I havent looked at either of them in years now. Not many people have, hence the end of production.
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