Trump signs an Executive Order (EO) to bar entry to anyone from one of seven nations (Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Somalia, and Sudan.)
Federal Judge Issued Stay Against Trump’s Seven Country Ban.
Department of Homeland Security Refuses to Follow Judge’s Stay.

The Invisible Line.

Trump signed an EO stating that no refugees would be allowed into the country from anywhere for 120 days, no one would be allowed in from Syria permanently, and that for 90 days NO ONE would be allowed into the country from any of seven countries (Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Syria, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen). No matter who they are. Whether they had green cards, permanent visas, were dual-citizens, or otherwise,

If you don’t already know, this last one violates the Fifth Amendment of our Constitution (also known as Habeus Corpus). Trump didn’t care. Lawyers from the ACLU, NIR, and others spent the night writing up a brief to challenge this, and managed to get a Federal Judge to issue a “stay”. This stay prevented the DHS from sending anyone from those seven countries who were in-transit or already here back.

The Invisible Line.

Or it was supposed to. As you can read, the DHS said that nothing the judge did prevented them from following through on Trump’s EO. And one person has already been sent back despite the stay. It really took thousands of people in major cities to flood their airports last night and block this from happening. These protests were quiet, peaceful, and in some places still ongoing.

Imagine, if you will, having been born in Iran, and then your family moving to America when you were 1 yr old. You know NOTHING about anything to do with Iran other than what the grandparents tell you…you are an AMERICAN.

The Invisible Line.

And now Trump is telling you that you are not allowed to come back to your home country after visiting the relatives. That is a violation of the 5th AND 1st Amendment. Punishing you for something that you have nothing to do with, simply because some of your relatives are Muslim (you may not even follow Islam!).

We have crossed that Invisible Line.

And we must hope that it will not conclude with Civil War.

[EDIT: So, all of the comments online about California being a winnter-take-all primary...only for the Republicans. Turns out that no one wants to talk about how the Democrat Primary is a proportional system by Congressional district. No statement on the California Secretary of State website, no statement on the California Democrats website. THAT'S not good. However, it also doesn't change the importance of California...just makes it a little more flexible. Oh, and New Jersey is a combo...propotional for some of their delegates, state-wide "winnter-take-all" (in a weird way) for the others. But, hey, it's Jwersee, right?]

The 2016 Democratic Primary has been incredibly confusing, not the least because of the media itself. As much as we try to remember that the media provides us with information to help us make our decisions, each piece is written by human beings, and many of those individuals aren’t interested in facts…they are interested in getting their opinions accepted.

A great example is the headline I read today by some online blog called Common Dreams (never heard of it before). “Clinton to Californians: Your Votes Will Not Affect the Democratic Primary Whatsoever”. The site is VERY one-sided in their language. However they are absolutely correct this time that “Chris Cuomo had the temerity to use conditional language in speaking of Hillary Clinton’s chances of becoming the Democratic nominee for President.”

Because the California Primary is THE KEY to the Democratic Nomination.

Certainly Hillary Clinton knows this. Certainly Bernie Sanders knows this. But unfortunately a lot of Democratic voters don’t, because of the way that the media constantly talks about the Delegate counts between the two. So I’m going to make it very clear.

If Hillary Clinton wins the California Primary, a take-all delegate Primary, the game is over, and Sanders has lost.

Here is where Clinton and Sanders stand right now. Clinton has a total of 1768 Pledged Delegates; Sanders has a total of 1494. The difference is only 274 Pledged Delegates. So, why don’t I include the Superdelegates? Because, at this time, they don’t have ANY importance to the race…or at least, they shouldn’t.

At the King County Convention in Washington State, Democratic Senator Patty Murray stated that there has been NO Democratic National Convention where the Superdelegates did not vote for the candidate with the majority of support (she did not say whether the support came from Pledged Delegates or the popular vote, but I think it would be rare that they wouldn’t be the same). And she is correct, simply because it’s so rare that there has been a contested election at the Democratic National Convention.

If one does the research (and I have) one finds that the last time a contested elected occurred was in 1992. Bill Clinton’s first run for president resulted in a contest at the Democratic National Convention against Former California Governor Jerry Brown, Massachusetts Senator Paul Tsongas, and four others (receiving 1% of the vote each). Bill Clinton was the clear majority winner of the Pledged Delegates, with over 1000 entering the convention, while his nearest competitor had only around 500 (I couldn’t get exact figures because they are not easily available online). Bill Clinton swept the convention, taking all (or most all) of the Superdelegates with over 3300.

Since then, all contenders have withdrawn before the National Convention occurred, including in 2008 when Hillary Clinton withdrew in early June, after the last of the primary/caucuses had completed, know that with 102 pledged delegates between her and Obama, the Superdelegates would STILL vote for him. Because he was the clear majority winner.

So, back to the current race. What’s left? A handful of states and colonies (did I just say that?) that total 781 Pledged delegates. California is the key, because it will give 475 to the winner.

IF Clinton wins California, she has won the primary race, and the nomination. The remaining Pledged delegates, 306, will not be enough for Sanders to overcome that number AND her current lead. And the Superdelegates will vote for her.

IF Sanders wins California [EDIT: or a large part of California], he MIGHT still lose, but the chance will be small. With that 475, his lead will be 201. She will have to get almost all of the remaining states/colonies to beat him. And the race will end up being so close that we might, for the first time, in a quarter century, find out just what the Superdelegates will do when the race is not so clear.

IF Sanders wins [Edit: the majority of] California and New Jersey, the race is over and Sanders has won. Again, the majority will be clear, and Clinton will not be able to overcome the Superdelegate support of Sanders.

THIS is why California is so important. This is why California is key. And this is why Hillary Clinton doesn’t want anyone to think that the California Primary will not affect the Democratic Primary whatsoever. Because it will. And she’s afraid she’ll lose.

I should have known my adventuring days were over. I mean, I went flying out of my home without a pocket handkerchief to go see The Fellowship of the Ring. And though I had some reservations, I decided to continue my journey with The Two Towers. Devastated, I realized my grave error, but it was too late…the journey was well under way and I couldn't turn back. I finished The Return of the King, feeling only slightly better and realizing I was clearly not cut out for this adventuring.

So, what caused me to take those fateful steps towards The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey? I'm not really certain, to be sure. Everything that I had heard about it so far gave me hope that this adventure would be worth taking the journey.

And so I did.

And I have to say that having dome so, I have a great deal of hope for the further travels to come…and some trepidation.


To be blunt, Peter Jackson seems to be trying his very best to get his own vision of what The Hobbit plays out in his own mind every time he reads it, and especially the first time he ever read it, onto the big screen so he can share. Which ignores the most important thing about film, television, and stage when it comes to fictional book translation: you can never truly translate what plays out in your own mind using our current technology, or indeed any technology that will ever be created.

Because what plays out in our minds when we read a book includes an element of wonder, fear, dread, glory, honor, shame, guilt, love, hate, etc that is entirely visceral in our own minds and can never be seen through mere eyes, touched through mere fingers, smelled through mere nostrils, etc.

However, I have to say he's done a pretty fine job of it with the tech he's got. I just wish that he didn't feel the need to hit every major and minor scene in the process.

I was really surprised that the film ended with the dwarven company having been rescued by the eagles. I mean, how is Jackson going to make three movies when he's already gone pretty far through the book in the first one.

Never fear, Jackson has a plan. Not only does he really play out every major scene in excruciating (I don't use that word lightly) detail, but he also pads it out with stuff that isn't even in the book at all.

Most of that padding is actually both relevant and about actions that took place during that time, but you don't really find out about until the time of The Lord of the Rings (if you read the books, you'll know). Basically, stuff you learn later on in The Fellowship of the Ring that Gandalf did during this time is actually played out in the movie.

I'm not disappointed, either. But then I'm a major fan of Tolkien, have every single fiction book he's written, some nonfiction, stuff that his son has put together from his universe, art, music…even a first American Edition of The Hobbit (and yes, Gollum does just give Bilbo the ring for winning the riddle contest in this version). So canon is a big deal for me. But I can't help wondering how many others will get bored by this plot thread.

A plot thread in the movie that I'm actually not happy about is Bilbo having to prove himself to Thorin by fighting so soon. Bilbo was a burglar, a thief. Thorin didn't think he could do the job, but Bilbo was able to show it by being sneaky and clever more and more. Jackson has actually taken a number of scenes that show that and not only removed Bilbo's ability to show it, but replaced it with the dwarves fighting to survive.

This also points to another disappointment. For the most part, this party of 13 dwarves survived by luck and knowing important people in high places (mostly Gandalf). Yes, they could fight, but they were in no shape to do the kinds of things that Jackson is having them do successfully. Worse, they come off (to me at least) as foolishly brave all the time, rather than strategic and clever, knowing when's the right time to strike and when's not to.

Last complaint before I talk about what I liked, and that was the introduction of a plot thread that is wholly original and totally unnecessary: the white orc, enemy of Thorin. This got boring really fast, to the point where I actually found myself looking at my phone for the time, wondering when we'd get back to the movie. It was tedious and, worse, the only thread that introduced violence for violence's sake.

For all of the other aspects of violence that is seen in the film there is an element of whimsy, luck, or just plain Monty Python "run away!" feel that stood between you and the real violence that could be happening. This didn't have any of this, and was almost like a different film that was invading this movie. Thorin didn't need a single focus for his hatred of the Orcs. The fact that they killed his grandfather was more than enough.

Despite all of this, the film really did tie well together, stick to canon without going too far astray, and provide a great feeling of "being there". The opening scene with Gandalf was well done, the evening dinner scene with the dwarves was hilarious and great fun, and the goblin king conversation with Gandalf was a hoot (though the chase could have been cut back A LOT).

But the best scene of all was when Bilbo found the ring and encountered Gollum. This was beautifully done and both captured Gollum's character and the interaction between Gollum and Bilbo perfectly.

The scenery, as one would expect, was gorgeous. As was all the computer graphics that had to be done to allow 13 dwarves and 1 hobbit to fly away on eagles, for example. The music was lovely and I'm really happy with how the song of the dwarves came out. I was never able to envision that song in my head (I've still got the Rankin and Bass version stuck there, which isn't wholly bad).


All in all, I enjoyed this adventure. I am looking forward to more adventuring with some trepidation; after all, the last time I looked forward I got The Two Towers. But this one feels…different. I might even revisit this adventure again sometime.

If I can find my pocket handkerchief.

This week, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a ban on political ads for public television and radio stations by a vote of 2-1. The reason given was that "the ban was too broad" and they felt that lifting it would "not threaten to undermine the educational nature of public broadcast stations." Interestingly, the court upheld the ban on ads for goods and services on behalf of for-profit companies.

This is going to have huge ramifications for NPR and PBS, should they allow these ads on their radio/television stations. Because, of course, striking down the ban only means that they are not prevented from accepting the ad...not that they are required to accept them.

But the real problem I have is with the reasoning that the court used, that the decision would not threaten to undermine the educational nature of the stations. Education requires honesty. You can't have a teacher lie to their students about science, math, etc and expect those students to be educated...only confused. And there's a difference between different points of view and outright lying...lying is about knowingly representing the facts wrong.

But political ads can outright lie to you. It's actually ensconced in the law through the Federal Communications Act (US Code: Title 47, Sec 315 - Candidates for public office) and upheld by the courts. So how can the educational nature of these stations not be undermined by promoting advertising that will outright lie to the people who hear and/or see them?

Worse, this will also require that the hosts of various programs on these stations will need to fact check the ads on their own stations, in fact challenging their truthfulness. The result will be stations that may be reticent to do so because they might lose funding from these advertisements because they exposed the lies in the ads.

Please contact your local PBS and NPR stations and tell them that you don't want political ads aired on their stations. For most of them, they are either in Spring Pledge-drive time or have just finished them. If you haven't pledged an amount, pledge now, and tell them it's because they DON'T place political ads. Support them, so that they don't start supporting the political machine.

It's not their job.

Early Tuesday morning, I woke out of a deep sleep to a pain in my chest. The first thought that came to my mind was that I had spent too much time with my shower massager the night before and pulled a muscle. I tried to ignore it, but it wouldn't go away, no matter what position I lay in. Finally, I got out of bed and downed some ibuprofen and tried to go back to sleep.

But the pain wouldn't go away...it just stayed there, annoying me, then worrying me. I finally sat up in bed and grabbed my iPad and started surfing. You know for what...for what anyone would have surfed for. Heart attack symptoms. I looked at them all for a bit, then finally thought "I'm going to feel really stupid, but I'll call the nurse's hotline anyway just in case." While I was waiting for the nurse, I started to feel dizzy, then nauseated. That was enough for me.

elfs , who was already awakened by my talking on the nurse's line, leapt out of bed and dragged on some clothes. I told the nurse when she came on the details, and she agreed that the hospital was the place to go. She was interested in transferring me to 911 right there, but I told her that I had a ride and we were 5 minutes away from the nearest hospital. I'm afraid that I told our housemate, lisakit , who was walking up the stairs to see what was going on at the time, "I think I'm having a heart attack, we're going to the hospital, see ya." Poor girl!

The ER staff was great. They did the required EKG, gave me nitroglycerin tablets, hooked me up to every contraption that pings, and determined that other than my chest pain, they couldn't find anything wrong. I was convinced that it was just a muscle pull at that time, but the doctor wanted to do a chest x-ray and blood work just to be sure.

Time passed, nothing happened. It was almost 5 am, and I wanted to get some sleep before the kids had to get up. I was ready to just skip the blood work and x-ray and go home. Just then, the nurse to do the blood work arrived. I mentioned how I really didn't see that this was necessary. I gave me a brief talk about why the blood work could show something even if the EKG didn't, and at the same time the guy with the x-ray showed up. I decided to go for it. I found out later that he almost didn't even talk to me about it...I was so stoic and laid back about the whole thing, and there was absolutely nothing in my history to account for a heart attack, that he was ready to just say, "yeah, if you don't want it, no problem" and walk out.

Good thing he didn't, cause the blood work showed I had a "myocardial event". And what the hell is a "myocardial event"? It seems to be a catch-all phrase for "your heart did something weird but we can't pin it down." In the end, even the cardiologist couldn't tell me what happened, whether I had a minor heart attack or not. But he wanted to do an angiogram to see what my heart and vessels were like. So they admitted me and I spent most of the next day in the hospital being probed, eating bland food, and sleeping.

They still don't know what happened. But I know I have wonderfully clear blood vessels. I also have the coolest looking heart on a live monitor.

( TMI here... )

Now I get to take three different kinds of medication on top of the meds I already take. Joy. The prevailing theory of what happened is that the nasty cold I had all week, that was so debilitating that I got exhausted just reading my email, may have actually caused some damage to my heart. I'm not sure if it is permanent, though. I've got a followup coming in about a week to find out.

And, yes, I was supposed to rest today. All I did was laundry. And I had a meeting tonight. It wasn't much. Most of my time was spent in bed playing games, writing notes, and writing reviews.

Dear Wells Fargo,

I appreciate that with the number of clients that you have that you may not have, for some reason, received a copy of my most recent renewal to my homeowners insurance from the insurance company. Being a good mortgage company, you chose to inform me and give me a couple of options to update you about it. I chose to use the online method...nice touch for you to offer it.

Or so I thought.

See, I figured that you would be asking me for information that I could provide about my current homeowners policy. But everything you are asking for is information that one could simply provide to you from the previous one. I could simply lie to you and tell you it was current. Unless you were planning on calling them to verify. But, then, if you were, WHY DIDN'T YOU ALREADY DO THAT?

Okay, I'll accept that you're only willing to check up on those who actually provide you with this information in the first place. Hell, who cares about those who might not have gotten the notice from you in the mail, moved recently, don't read English, can't navigate that absurd set of input fields in your website, or don't have access to a fax machine?

But then I chose to look at your FAQ in order to get a couple of questions answered about entering information in these fields. I'm not sure who you hired for website design, or what they told you a FAQ is, but Frequently Asked Questions lists do not mean you just list down the most frequently asked questions people have. YOU MUST ALSO WRITE DOWN THE ANSWERS! Do keep that in mind for your next redesign.

--Omaha Sternberg

Yamaarashi-chan: (chopping tomatoes for tacos) I think these tomatoes have nice skin.

Elf: I think little girls have nice skin.

Me: Yeah, but you usually don't chop up little girls.

And that, folks, is a summary of our household.

Found this link via Fark.com. Apparently, Playmobil thought it was a good idea to come up with the Playmobil Security Check Point for kids. Yes, now you too can teach your kids how to obey the TSA when going through security check points and rushing to their planes, only to miss them in the end.

But, don't take my word for it. Read the reviews. They are AWESOME. Practically every one of them is a snarky comment to Playmobil and the whole concept.

The hashtags are equally funny. My favorites are police state, fascism, and 1984.

I note that the set has not been available since middle 2008. I wonder why. LOL.

The past two days I have been unable to get access to my Eskimo North account. As fellow Eskimo-er Wendor did, I also did not think too much of it until this afternoon, which felt like way too long to me to be a server issue.

So I did some research tonight, and discovered to my dismay that it looks like Eskimo North, an ISP in existence for 20+ years, of which I have had an email address for 15, has gone under. Worse are the circumstances that may be the cause. While I'm not sure that I believe it, there is no disbelieving the fact that the server doesn't respond, the IP address isn't directed at the domain name anymore, and no one is answering the phones.

Worse, now I have to try and remember everyone whom I communicate with and get them my new address (I have changed it in my LJ profile, so you can find it there.) Not nearly as bad, though, as those who have business accounts with Eskimo and must now try to rebuild those accounts, quickly, with someone else.

And the subject heading? On the front page of Eskimo.com was a graphic with the heading "Why there are no penguins at the North Pole", with a picture of a penguin standing right on top of a sleeping polar bear. The penguin is holding a set of giant cymbals in his flippers, ready to bang them together right over the sleeping polar bear's head.

I believe the polar bear woke up. :(