William Reardon’s Blog

Netherlands Hospital Euthanizes Babies

A hospital in the Netherlands — the first nation to permit euthanasia — recently proposed guidelines for mercy killings of terminally ill newborns, and then made a startling revelation: It has already begun carrying out such procedures, which include administering a lethal dose of sedatives.

In August, the main Dutch doctors’ association KNMG urged the Health Ministry to create an independent board to review euthanasia cases for terminally ill people “with no free will,” including children, the severely mentally retarded and people left in an irreversible coma after an accident.

4:22 a.m.

32 degress.

Let the shopping begin!

UPDATE:
Got home around 8:30am and napped until around 3pm. So much for a regular sleep schedule. Here’s what I ended up getting:

• Eminem: Encore ($7.99)
  
• Crunk Juice - Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz ($7.99)
  
• Portable 7″ DVD Player ($139.99)
  
• 160 GB internal drive ($29.99)
  
• Aladdin DVD ($9.99)
  
• How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb - U2 ($7.99)
  
• Max Payne 2 - Xbox ($9.99)
  
• 16x internal Dual-layer DVD burner ($59.99)
  
• Blade Runner Director’s Cut DVD ($4.99)
  
• Simpson’s 4th Season DVD ($17.77)
  
• Family Guy Seasons 1-3 ($17.77)
  

I also disagree with what Derek said. Parking was fine for us. Sales clerks are about as helpful as the ones you find online.

There’s also a fourth category of shoppers: those just having fun. After all, what’s wrong with hanging out, playing Halo 2 until just after 4 in the morning with your brothers & old kids from the neighborhood, then heading to the electronics store? :-)

A snow-storm passed through Nothern Illinois today, dropping a couple inches of snow & bringing winds that knocked out power for a few hours.

Over the Thanksgiving week, I’ve finally gotten around to switching over to my powerbook. Much thanks to everyone who made suggestions and to Ben for suffering all my “How do I…” questions. Today at Fry’s I picked up Mac OS X for Unix Geeks and Mac OS X Pocket Guide so i’ll be better about RTFM in the future.

It’s funny, as an undergrad I used to run a lab dominated by Macs and was regarded as one of campus experts, but for the first few hours with my mac, felt like a babe in the woods. Seeing as I left the Mac world somewhere around System 7/8, I suppose some of that could be forgiven.

There are some things that are driving me crazy still:

• This dmg/disk image thing is just stupid. Stop it.
  
• Where the fuck are the proper page up/page down keys!?
  
• CTRL+DEL deletes the whole word, screw this Option B.S.
  
• Why is the Apple key in such a horrible location!?! It’s Mac software on Mac hardware, you know how much people are going to need that damn key! Put it someplace practical.
  
• Have to say, not a big fan of the new application specific menu to the left of File.
  
• I have to admit, I really miss having a two button mouse.
  

Behind the fake boss on Fox’s My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss is a “secret” boss. Despite an Apprentice-style boardroom showdown in front of the fake boss, it is the secret boss who makes the real decision as to whom is fired. The secret boss makes the selection without giving a reason, leaving the fake boss to make up whatever explanation he sees fit.

Once revealed, Fox tells us the identity of the boss is to be “shocking.” The show’s website even goes so far as to offer a poll as to who this shocking identify might be: Oprah, Hugh Hefner, Ivana Trump, and George Steinbrenner.

Here’s the thing: it’s a monkey.

Think about it.

The whole concept of the show is to show how ridiculous the business world can be, with contestants being assigned tasks that defy common sense (e.g., selling hot soup during a Chicago summer). A monkey would fit into the entire farcical nature of the whole thing.

It would explain why no reason is given when the secret boss makes his choice and haven’t you ever heard the expression “working for a monkey in a suit?”

Having arrived back home, I’m sitting in my childhood home, in one of the bedrooms I used to occupy. (Actually, all of my siblings and I have occupied all of the bedrooms at some time or another (save the Master Bedroom), as my mom would frequently come home from work and find that two had agreed to swap for whatever reason). But I digress.

It’s windy and rainy here, as Novembers often are. The wind just kicked up in such a fashion that it’s actually howling. I’m sitting here listening to it howl. I have to say it’s doing a pretty good job. It comes and go, varying in frequency, just like something you would see associated with a haunted house.

Here I am some 20-25 years and I have to admit it’s a little creepy. Doesn’t make me feel so bad for being wigged out by it when I was kid. And while, no, I won’t keep a closest light on tonight, yes, I will be listening to my iPod just the same.

Following the lead of Jeremy and my two favorite rabbits, I’ve tweaked Moveable Type in an effort to fight the flood of blog spam. I installed MT-Blacklist a while back, but grew tired of all manual work involved in keeping the various blogs here spam free.

Having poked around MT, interesting internals.

And damn, I need to find a better way to use gtags.

I tell you this, humble reader, so that you may weep in envy and that I might drink the sweet nectar of your tears.

First, with the arrival of Halo 2, I have myself a new Xbox, with extra controllers, and, of course, Halo 2.

Second, I have a Powerbook. Work-issued and sadly I haven’t had a chance to actually start using it, but still, as someone who hasn’t used a Mac since System 7, I’m stoked. With World of Warcraft coming out in a about 2 weeks it doesn’t look I’m going to have much time for sleeping for a while.

So, what are some of killer apps required for a OS X neophyte?

I’d promised myself I woudn’t write anything more about politics for a long while, but I saw the following and felt the need to pass it along:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/yesthattom/263480.html

Not surprisingly, I don’t agree with a lot of general politics there, but several excellent points. Most notably:

”How could people be so stupid as to vote for Bush?”

* I can’t tell you how much I hate that meme. People aren’t stupid for voting for Bush. celticdragonfly said it best here. I’ve heard many people say, “It only turns people off to say such things” but she is the the first person I’ve seen put it clearly into words that explain the why. The type of personality that would propagate that meme is the same personality that won’t change their behavior unless they know the “why”. Thanks to Laura for writing that article.

And that’s from a guy who did helluva a lot more to help the Democrats win than you did.

Very well said Laura. Thanks for writing it as well.

No, not another political post. But rather, the young one has made a decision regarding his future place of employment (as mentioned earlier). It appears he has decided to work there on that instead of here on this.

While it would have been neat to work at the same company with my youngest brother, I will not complain that I will once again be able to purchase MS products at an outrageously discounted price.

Speaking of MS products, seeing as Halo 2 is in stores next Tuesday, Sang & I plan to head over to Fry’s and become proud owners not just of Halo 2, but of new X-boxs. (Viva la ESPP!)

And lastly, speaking of Fry’s, it’s frightening how close it will be to the new office.