PhotoDude.com

Sun. Jan 02, 2005

Best of 2004

There’s been the Best of 2001, Best of 2002, and Best of 2003. I do the “Best of” thing mostly for myself, because it forces me to look back at what I’ve written on this site over the year, and hopefully get some insights. You won’t get those, you just get the results: my subjective list, “Best of 2004.”

The Coaching Carousel [01.09.04] “In a recent column in the AJC, Steve Hummer said, ‘College football is that much more real, that much more an object of true ardor. College football is your first love. Pro football is your mistress.’ And that just gave me another reason to think I’m weird. I never hit it off with that ‘first love,’ but boy-howdy I like that mistress … in alternate years.”

Football Karma Report [01.10.04] “Can it be a mere three months since the disparate physical specimens of Donovan McNabb and Rush Limbaugh squared off on the sports stage? My, how things have changed in such a short time.”

Blind Into Baghdad [01.15.04] “This lengthy article details what I mean by ‘unconscionable malpractice’ in an excruciating manner. It wasn’t a ‘moment,’ it was a year of deliberate actions. And in my opinion, history will judge that the ‘unconscionable malpractice’ was orchestrated and performed by Rumsfeld.”

Disrespecting Democracy [01.18.04] “I probably should stop following a lot of links I come across. At least until November. Otherwise, it’s easy to be inundated with talk of ‘enemies,’ those ‘stupid sheeple’ on The Other Side, arguments that ‘You can’t say you’re a Libra when everyone knows you’re a Virgo’ (‘but, but, I’m on the cusp!’), and other fractious means of rousting the faithful in order to ‘win at any cost.’”

Primary Darwinism [01.20.04] “It’s been quite interesting today to read the words of those who feel they must explain (or rationalize) the fact Howard Dean failed to meet expectations. Or even half the expectations. And a lot of them don’t seem to be doing too well adapting to the reality of this harshly altered environment. In the next week or so, some may fall victim to one of Darwin’s basic laws: adapt, or die.”

Georgia, Now Evolution Free! [02.01.04] “In the perversely ongoing battle for the title of ‘Worst PR of the Year,’ Georgia has moved into the lead, courtesy of a woman by the name of Kathy Cox: ‘The state’s school superintendent has proposed striking the word evolution from Georgia’s science curriculum and replacing it with the phrase ‘biological changes over time.’”

Steroidal Stupid Bowl [02.02.04] “Question: How much stupidity can form around one simple football game? Answer: In America, stupidity knows no boundaries.”

Actives and Passives [02.02.04] “There’s a lot of post-mortems being made on a campaign that isn’t quite dead yet. But the Dean Phenomenon’s sudden diversion has a lot of people trying to figure out if this was because of, or the fault of, the Internet and ‘social software.’”

Revelations at the Capitol [03.01.04] “I made a trip to the Georgia State Capitol today, essentially to people watch. Boy, am I depressed. From the AJC: ‘Political foes gathered Monday morning for a show of force at the state Capitol, where legislators will vote on whether to reconsider a constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage.’ I went to take pictures of protesters, something I used to do a lot more. And you’ll find about 20 I took today at the end of this entry…”

And Then There Was One [03.03.04] “You need to remember these things as we proceed. Look at the track record so far. Pundits? Mostly clueless. Polls? Mostly wrong. People? Voting in ways the polls and pundits never dreamed. So when you hear the polls that say Kerry would beat Bush today by 4 points, file it and forget it. If the election was held today, the truth is, most people would be very confused, because it’s not suppose to happen until November.”

We’re Number One! [03.05.04] Our kitty conquers Google, and shows us what he thinks of it.

Dead Man Talking, And Talking, And Talking [03.07.04] More words than anyone should ever expend on Howard Stern.

Proving We Were Less Wrong [03.23.04] “Like a sudden swelling boil, the intelligence issue has grabbed the focus of the news lately. The beginning of scheduled testimony before the 9/11 Commission would have been enough on its own, but we’ve also been treated to the spectacle of Richard Clarke’s charges and the spontaneous eruption of the undead it caused, as Zombies took over Washington and broadcast news.”

Have You Seen My Camera? [03.27.04] My search for my missing Nikon 990 led me to my own sister, as revealed in the comments (yes, I finally got it back).

Domains, Responsibility, and Conversation [04.14.04] “There are two sites which shall remain unnamed (because they seem to be taking this very personally, and without bending, so I’m sure my words are pretty irrelevant to them), one on the left, and one on the right, where the site owner has been taken to task for content placed on their site by others. They are just two examples of a much wider trend.”

The Lynching Of Objectivity [04.22.04] “But come November, one side or the other is going to be saying, ‘you know, we didn’t convert enough people to our side.’ And looking back, all that ‘preaching’ isn’t going to seem like as much fun as it does today. So enjoy it while you can. Because you may pay later.”

More Hell from Zell [04.29.04] “And with his latest, he again makes me ask a question I’ve pondered before: what did they do to Zell up there in DC?”

Crushed Metal and Morals [05.01.04] My May Day collision with a red-light-running chunk of iron.

“Frankly, We Have Other Priorities” [05.05.04] “If you’re someone who puts your faith in the UN, and the ‘international approach’ it represents, it’s in your best interest (and the world’s, in your view) that the UN remain healthy, well respected, and without even the perception of taint. Or of shady profits being made at the cost of the lives they’re supposed to improve. But it’s becoming more and more clear, that’s exactly what happened. On a massive multi-billion dollar scale.”

Every Picture Tells A Story [05.09.04] A look at the controversy over the photos of torture at Abu Ghraib.

A Big Mug of STFU [05.10.04] “The Vice President would like for you to shut up and let Rummy quietly go back to doing his job. I would suggest, as politely as I can under the circumstances, that Vice President Cheney is the one who needs to shut the f*ck up, and stop trying to chill free speech in this country on a strategically important topic.”

Losing Our Way [05.12.04] “In the wake of the horrible execution of Nick Berg, the frantic finger pointing over Abu Ghraib has escalated. Now some are actually asking who deserves the blame for Berg’s death; the soldiers who committed the abuses, the idiots who took the pictures, the as yet unknown officials who ordered these acts, the family members who leaked the pictures to 60 Minutes II, or CBS for broadcasting them and inciting the Islamists to such horrors? This is the society of blame and victimhood we’ve become, and I spit upon it.”

My Essential Software [05.17.04] “I thought I’d make my own list of ‘Essential Tools,’ chosen over the course of 8 years of computer ownership.”

A Day of Decoration and Remembrance [05.30.04] “Today is a day to remember just how many good Americans have fallen fighting for their country. Not just the hundreds we count today, but hundreds of thousands. Your freedom today came on the backs of over a million American soldiers who gave their lives so we could keep it a few generations longer.”

TextDrive, or How To Raise $40,000 In 4 Days [06.01.04] “200 people paid $200 in about 75 hours, an average rate of over $500 per hour. Dean ends up with $40,000 to start his business, and 200 ‘mini-VCs’ (now known as the ‘VC200’) get web hosting for the life of TextDrive.”

Operation Halve Traffic [06.22.04] “It’s been a long battle on multiple fronts, but Operation Halve Traffic is now complete, and can be revealed in detail.”

Imminent Danger Tour [06.30.04] “An Al Qaeda threat for the 4th of July weekend? Oh, my! Do you mean like the one in July, 2002? Or like the one in July, 2003? Any additional details would be helpful, so I know exactly how I should dress for this year’s masquerade.”

3 Days in July [07.03.04] “I hope you are having an enjoyable and relaxing Fourth of July weekend. But once upon a time, during this three day span in early July, 6,334 Americans were killed, another 28,209 wounded, and 20,264 were reported missing or captured.”

Trashing the Field [07.08.04] “Political discourse in this country is fractured, non-functional, filled with hatred and simple meanness, and has escalated to a nearly continual angry roar with no shape or meaning.”

Institutionalizing Olympic Shame [08.29.04] “Cheaters. These Olympics were sadly littered with egregious offenders. I think it’s time to get medieval on them, and restore another ancient Olympic tradition.”

Efharisto, Greece! [08.29.04] “If the Games could have a permanent location, this is where they truly belong.”

The Child Killers, and The Gates of Hell [09.05.04] “When you slaughter children and claim the act as some perverse ‘political statement,’ whatever shred of honor or authenticity your grievances may contain become cinders on that gymnasium floor. Your cause lies dead, bloody and battered beyond recognition, alongside the bodies of over 150 children, and you cannot revive it any more than those slaughtered innocents.”

An Alien in the Twilight Zone [09.12.04] “I’m pretty certain that I’m the only one who has looked around the Blogosphere during this episode and seen something in addition to the exposition of evidence and opinion about these alleged forgeries. I see the first symptoms of an infection of self-importance.”

Good War, Bad Occupation [09.16.04] “For the rest of America (yes, you, Sparky), it is way past time for us to rub our eyes clear of these election year politics and admit, we’ve got a ‘bad occupation.’”

A Day for Accounting, 2004 [09.20.04] “Anyone who really knows me also knows that lists, statistics, and ‘counting’ are Things Reid Likes. The following is a continuation of a now one year old tradition, ‘A Day for Accounting.’”

One Day or One Trial [10.14.04] “It was like some bad flashback from the early 1980’s. There I was, standing with a group of people around a long table, with 5 kilos of cocaine spread out on it. $250,000-$400,000 of cocaine that had arrived in DeKalb County concealed in the false bottom of a car battery. How did I get here?”

Tora Bora Revisionism [10.26.04] “The President said something about Tora Bora in a speech yesterday that I simply must rebut.”

Not Quite Dead Yet [10.30.04] “I guess we got our October Surprise, neatly slow pitched right into the Friday news cycle on the final weekend before the election, arriving a little over an hour before the East Coast evening newscasts. And it didn’t take a high priced political PR team to make it happen, just a new bin Laden videotape hand delivered in an envelope.”

God Sent Her Home [11.03.04] “Welcome to the private sector, Denise. If you have any problems with the way things are going, contact your elected representative … Cynthia McKinney.”

TV Morals [11.19.04] “In a case of cultural auto-cannibalism, in one week our society’s ‘moral values’ were under attack by an Oscar Award winning movie about the sacrifices made in World War II, and the very next week they were assaulted by Monday Night Football.”

A Two-fer on the Pistons Pacers basketbrawl: Cuff ‘Em On The Court and Earning Disrespect

MT Plus Comment Spam Equals Dead Site [12.12.04] I include this not because it’s a scintillating read, but because it got more links than anything else I wrote this year, and actually did some good (in the form of both discussion, and prodding the release of a patch)