Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

Today I want to go to TransVision 2004 (here's what's going on, check it out Torontonians), head up to the daVinci unveiling, and do a site update as well… Hope I can fit it all in!

While Russia denies it provided any assistance (more), according to Jane's Defense Weekly, North Korea is currently deploying a new set of missiles based on the old Soviet R-27 submarine missile with a range of 4,000 km (more, more). While the range isn't quite enough to drop nukes onto the US mainland, these missiles can be ship launched and North Korea does have a Navy of about 60,000, and could easily use them to strike at mainland US cities (more). More importantly though, while a very small arms dealer ($100 million) in comparison to the US ($33 billion; more), North Korea's “sell to anyone” policy and connections with organized crime and the drug trade make this particularly dangerous (more). Thanks a lot Bush for making every nation feel like they're about to be attacked, forcing them to arm desperately themselves.

Of course, maybe we'll see nuclear war between former Soviet states first… The Georgian government (who were just awarded a civil rights award by the US) just threatened to kill Russian tourists in Abkhazia (more), and Georgian civilians have already been opening fire on Russian groups entering the country (more). To put this into context, Russia and Georgia are now on war footing (more), and with US bases in Georgia and the US training Georgian troops (more), it once again puts Russia and America at each other's throats. High stakes dead pool deciding where the mushroom clouds are first sighted!

Other than that, back at home the US has had to admit that not only was their well timed “DNC-distracting terror alert” (more) based on information from many years ago, but now they're admitting that they don't even think that an attack is imminent from that information (more). So basically they're admitting that they're making fake terror alerts to try and influence the election… At this point, if another terrorist strike does happen in America, do you still trust the government enough to believe they didn't actually just do it themselves to swing the election?

First, this is worth reading.

Anyway, last week the Democrats put on a hell of a convention that threatened to shoot Kerry's popularity to toxic levels (toxic to Republican swing voters that is). To keep Kerry's speech and the other well-scripted charismavomit off TV, the Republicans responded by issuing an urgent terror alert on specific financial instituions in NYC. Extra security was ordered, barricades were put up, and, most importantly, the terror alert was talked about on CNN, not the DNC.

Now, to make it a little more clear that this was simplely political maneuvering than Tom Ridge's “…thanks to the President's war on Terror, the American people are safer…” spiel did, lets put the intel that caused this urgent alert into context. It was gathered in 2000 and early 2001. Long before the 9/11 attacks. It's no more urgent now than it was four years ago. (more).

Ignoring for a second the obvious attempt to psychologically manipulate the American people through fear, don't forget as well that issuing these alerts, mobilizing a ton of police and security, and so on, is expensive, and you (the American tax payer) have to foot the bill. Every time Bush gets afraid that the Democrats have made an advance, he spends millions of your dollars to try and trick you and distract you from it. And people just keep paying the bills, digging their own graves.

Other than that, Michael Moore is an idiot (more). Remember the scene in F911 where he shows a newspaper headline screaming out “Latest Florida recount shows Gore won election” as its front cover? Well, turns out that he doctored the newspaper… That “headline” was in fact only the synopsis for a letter to the editor in a different issue of the newspaper, and not on the front cover. WTF? Bush is such an easy target, that when Moore pulls stunts like this I begin to think he's on the payroll.

As you know I got tattooed yesterday — we rehit every line on my face a second time to get it perfect. Even though I did what I could to prepare for it, I think it hurt more than any tattoo I've ever had (maybe Matt freaked me out by telling me how he went into shock when he had his head done) — I was literally shaking from it, although I was able to keep my head still.

It was pretty weird since it's never happened to me before. I guess I've just been so exhausted lately that it took a harder toll than usual. I have so much more work to do than I can possibly fit into a normal day, even for me, and I just feel like I'm falling farther and farther behind, and I have so many started (neccessary) but unfinished contracts. I'm not complaining — to be real clear I chose what I do for a living, I love doing it, and I don't think I'd trade jobs with anyone — but I'm just so wiped out all the time. When you're always working, it doesn't really matter how successful you are, because you don't get to enjoy that success or even spend time with your friends and loved ones.

The photos above are literally the morning after (posted to submit to BME). It's going to look patchy like this for the next week still… At least now I can start to grow my hair again. I know my hair was pretty damn scraggly looking, but I really miss having long hair and will start growing it again now. That said, every time I've cut my hair I've wanted to regrow it — I just don't like the way the intermediate period looks so I tend to get frustrated and abort the mission.

Finally, I was watching Bush's speech in Missouri, I think the first one he gave after the DNC was finished. He was talking about how thanks to him the economy is the best it's been in twenty years, all the tax cuts he's given to the middle class, how he's cut the deficit, about how “America and the World are safer” thanks to the Iraq war, and the occasional quip about 9/11. Almost all of it was huge and obvious lies. Watching this as someone who's relatively well informed is highly disturbing because it makes you realize that the people voting for Bush are almost exclusively running blind. His lies are so obvious if you're even vaugely well-informed that to vote for him you'd either have to be profitting from it (ie. you're a multi-millionaire), or a fucking moron that believes anything he says as the Word of God.

I really hope Americans are intelligent and well-informed people and have the sense to eliminate him.

Am I hoping too much?

Anyway, I've got to go process a few thousand images, edit and render some videos, and get a totally new type of content management system written, to say nothing of the non-BME work I've got scheduled for [last month]… Lesson to all you entrepreneurs out there: if you're currently running a one-person company (or are the sole technical end of a small company), even if you don't think at the time it will ever grow large enough to require it, build everything you do with a team in mind. Designing single person projects by definition as single person could come back to haunt you if your projects become more successful (or simply larger) than you anticipated at the time.