Critical Exponent

Massachusetts news: The Judiciary Committee meets tomorrow to begin the process of considering placing on the ballot a referendum to take away marriage rights in Massachusetts. Contact your legislators today!

I stopped by my friendly neighborhood bookstore today and spotted a book by the Center for Constitutional Rights called Articles of Impeachment against George W. Bush. I did a web search for “articles of impeachment bush” and found quite a few hits about bringing Bush to justice, and justice to the public. There are activist sites such as ImpeachBush.org and ImpeachPAC and informational sites such as the Wikipedia entry.

Have you had enough of the lying, the abuse of power, the deaths, the lack of privacy, the decline of government accountability, the disregard for the environment, the hubris of the prepotent, tha cozy deals for the well-connected, the shafting of the underprivileged, the distortion of science, the censoring of public health information, and the theocratic dogma spewing from the halls of power?

Get involved! Stay informed! Show your dissatisfaction this Novermber! And call for the impeachment of the man accountable.

Read about abortion in El Salvador, which has been completely criminalized (no exceptions!) and is actively prosecuted. This has turned El Salvador into a police state where everyone is an informer, there is effectively no doctor-patient confidentiality, prosecutors can conduct forensic investigations of the “crime scene” (the woman’s vagina), and doctors cannot intervene in ectopic pregnancies until the fetus dies or the fallopian tube ruptures.

There are some in the US who cherish this vision for our future. Let us hope– and educate– that this does not come to pass. Already, South Dakota has passed a law criminalizing abortion, in an attempt to challenge Roe v. Wade. Already, the US is touting “abstinence-only” programs as effective brith-control education. This is a recipe for disaster.

Please support NARAL, Planned Parenthood, and similar groups fighting for the rights of your mothers, your sisters, your daughters, and all of us.

I just watched Good night, and good luck. Great movie depicting CBS journalist Edward Murrow’s challenge of Joe McCarthy in the 1950s. Very much applicable to current events. I recommend this movie.

I just upgraded to WordPress 2.0.2 and reactivated the plugins. It went without a hitch. I hope to explore the new features and spend some time on the website this weekend.

I fixed the rim, patched the inner tubes, and reassembled the front tire. I’m very happy with my tires: not a single puncture yet… but they sure are a pain to get on and off!

I also investigated the headset issue. I disassembled the headset, which meant a lot of little parts everywhere (note to self: next time, support the fork before loosening the headset, or do it with somebody else helping). It turns out (grr!) that the noise was not coming from the headset at all but from the plastic-on-plastic stretching of the rear brake cable casing on the top brazon of the downtube as I turn the handlebars and stretch the casing. Why that should be happening now, I don’t know. Maybe the cable got stretched during transport. And of course, my little headset dissection, with the handlebar hanging by the cables, did not help.

I had a hard time getting the headset back together by myself, but I figured it out. I think it’s fine.

Next up: fixing the seat post (I broke a screw on Sunday) and realigning the rear tires.

During the SoCal trip, my front tire went flat in the middle of the desert. I repaired it and all seemed fine.

After reassembling the bike at home this past Sunday, as I was in the kitchen making dinner, I once again heard the ominous “pfffft” sound: the front tire went flat again. I just got around to looking at it, and sure enough, the (big!) hole is in the same location, almost opposite the valve but on the inner side of the inner tube toroid. I checked the rim, and, yep, the rim tape (sometimes erroneously called tire liner) did not cover one of the spoke holes.

The ultimate fix will be to get new rim tape. I’ll try to do that this week. For now, electrical tape over the spoke holes should do the trick. I always carry electrical tape on my bike. I use it to waterproof the top of my seat post and to repair my handlebar tape, which, come to think of it, I’ll need to replace soon as well.

I’m also having some problems with the rear wheel alignment and brakes, so I have to fiddle with that as well. And on top of everything, the headset is making a weird vibration/noise when I turn it, so I’m wary about commuting on the bike until that gets fixed. I think it may be time to get the bike into the shop. It’s been not quite a year since I got it and it’s seen good use. Time for a check-up.

“Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), a prospective 2008 presidential candidate, said yesterday that he thinks bans on same-sex marriages have no place in the nation’s laws.”

Here’s his official statement.

Massachusetts is the first state in the union to require universal health insurance, pending expected gubernatorial approval of a bipartisan bill. Kudos!