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ABOUT zwarg.blog CATEGORIES MAIN ARCHIVES 1999(14) [+] 2000(3) [+] 2001(4) [+] 2002(18) [+] 2003(159) [+] 2004(108) [+] 2005(129) [+] 2006(38) [+] 2007(23) [+] 2008(8) [+] 2009(3) [+]United States vs. Iraq
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Friday, December 22 2006
openkapow makes the world your programmable API. Oh, yeah. Wednesday, November 01 2006 "It was a very young crowd ... with some menacing elements." That about describes the night, doesn't it? Wednesday, October 25 2006 From The Morning News: Six word stories. My favorites:
Friday, October 20 2006 Thought I'd share this little find. It's a little disturbing, as family often is:
Monday, August 28 2006 Bikes At Work Today to escape the madness of demolition at my office, I took a break for lunch at Reading Terminal Market. On the way there, I saw a group of Police Officers practicing tricks on their bicycles. They occupied one of the halls of the convention center, and had parked their big police vans in the middle, and set up a ramp and stairs in the middle of the big flat floor. They were riding up the ramps, turning 90 degrees, then heading down. They were riding up the ramps and down the stairs. They were lazily riding in circles. It looked like warmup at a freestyle festival. Philly's finest. Look out suckas. Wednesday, August 09 2006  That's the sound a transformer makes when it explodes. (not an actual photograph of what happened outside our front window, but it sure looked like it this morning) It didn't explode like a substation, just one of those transformers that sit on powerline poles. Apparently, it burst into flames around 11 pm, and we thought someone was taking flash photographs of our house. Then we though the streetlight next to our house was popping and blowing out or power cycling. We went to bed, and woke to the exploding transformer around 1:30. Knocked the power out for our block. Sweet. On the hottest night of the year, our AC was now useless. Thursday, June 15 2006 Returning to Philadelphia from a two week stint in Egypt triggers a slow, constant reflection of my travels. First observation: the traffic in this country is sedated compared to Egypt. Taking a taxi home from the airport made me think: "Damn, everyone's just so placated." It's hard to explain, but a 'crazy' driver here in the States is just plain square compared to the average Egyptian automobile pilot. Also, where are all the people? Cairo was throbbing with human life, exuding from sidewalks and crossing the streets at odd angles. People were everywhere. On the taxi ride home, we were hard pressed to find pedestrians anywhere. I say, a whole nuther world. Saturday, May 27 2006
Multifarious Adventures.
I might as well start a new category, called something like 'creepy old guys' (COGs), because I'm getting some good material from them. And you got it, this post is about the COGs that go to the gym that I frequent (or infrequent, as the case may be). Today's episode involves one attractive woman and a locker room full of COGs. Get your head out of the gutter. First, there are seldom any attractive women that work out in the morning at this gym. Well, at least none that I have noticed. The other morning, however, there was a woman working out with free weights (unusual) who was objectively very attractive (very unusual). I can say that as I have already found the only woman I'll ever want to be with. Second, after my workout, I go into the locker room to do my routine before heading to work, and the same woman was on the super-fancy-workout-arama device that is quite close to the Men's locker room entrance. Keep in mind that at this particular gym, there are no doors on the locker rooms, just a hallway that bends out of eyesight. Enter locker room. I am in the rear of the locker room, taking care of my own business (and minding it, too), and I heard the COGs. They start having their boisterous conversation and carrying on. At one point, one COG is standing at the rear of the locker room, and trying to maintain a conversation with a COG at the front of the locker room (right near the entrance ... which BTW doesn't have anything to stop sound from propagating out into the gym). The contents of the conversation went along the lines of: "did you get a look at that woman?" and "How about 'white shorts'?" (the woman is wearing white shorts at the time) and "I tell ya, that broad has got one hell of a body," and rapidly degraded in quality and discreteness. I almost didn't want to walk out of that locker room, for fear of someone seeing me. I was actually ashamed by this conversation, imagining that they are scarring this woman permanently with their locker room behavior. Talk about mortifying. On the way out, she was still there, working out right next to the entry to the Men's locker room. Did she hear all that carrying on a minute ago? I have no idea, but I wasn't about to check in and ask. Friday, May 19 2006 An extensive episode of revolting misogyny occurred this morning. Where you may ask, why in the men's locker room, of course. Today's episode comes about through mention of travel to Morocco. The first response is "don't eat any of that Moroccan pussy." This is followed by "hit it and quit it," "hit and run," "put a prophylactic on your tongue," and more. There was even an older man, who decided to demonstrated how belly dancers move. I can tell you honestly that there is nothing less attractive than a large, balding old man pretending to be a belly dancer. His point? Keep your eye on the belly button. WTF? I realize that my typical routine has me bumping into these men on a regular basis. I wonder how long I can keep them at arm's distance before someone tries to lure me into their rowdy conversations on, well, old nasty man-ness. Tuesday, May 16 2006 For some reason, when homophobic men gather together and start lifting weights, they decide to open their mouths and spew out a slew of derogations. I go to the gym regularly before work, and I usually see the same older men in there when I go. There's some kind of camaraderie that I am not clear on, I just know they keep referring to their group's 'training' and something about 'boot camp'. Usually it's a lot of "man, stop whining and being such a pussy," and things of that nature. But the other day, their topic was homosexuality. And they ran with it. I don't know if they are aware at how disgusting it makes them sound. Then again, maybe it's part of their machismo. The thing that gets me is how vocal they are about it. And in the gym, which is a common space for any different people [ that can afford it ]! It's as if they are slapping their flabby ownership all over that space. I wouldn't want to work out there if I was gay, I know that much. At least not when they were in the same building. Well, I feel that way now. I guess it's just a universal disgust for disrespectful people. Saturday, April 29 2006 I'm reading this book, Guns, Germs, and Steel, and it's very good. It covers the advance of civilization, and attempts to determine why one civilization was able to conquer/subject/eliminate another. Lots of useful information about prehistory and how we got to the place where we are now. One of the things the book covers is languages and alphabets. The development of written language was something that was coveted by very few elite scribes, with very difficult symbols. A grandfather to the alphabets that we use today. These scribes did not want to share. Literacy was something like 0% at this time, and people were living and surviving, like they had for thousands of years. As more and more scribes started ... well, scribing, more and more language components became useful and more easily structured. The father of our alphabets came on the scene. The explosion of languages, literacy, etc, was something that took the power away from these scribes and put them in the hands of the people. To learn a language, you no longer needed to be some court-selected scribe who apprenticed for years and years to record the Duke's bowel movements and his stock of sheep. This made it accessible to everyone, and today (it seems as though) there is a movement to make all people literate. My contemplation follows these lines: doesn't this sound like the propagation of any technology? It comes out, is very specialized, and there are a few highly trained individuals who know how to do it. The technology goes through a few iterations, and eventually becomes something that everyone can use. Something that may not have the same form as the original technology, but enables a far larger number of people to use it. I'm looking forward to the day when the technology I'm using becomes accessible for everyone, because I just think the creative juices will be running through the streets. Imagine the analogy of a novel written today to the hieroglyphs written thousands of years ago. Now imagine that same leap with mobile computing. AWESOMENESS! Where do I sign up?
Hiking To Seawall, and The Drive Home
After lunch (in Maine), we tootled our way back towards the mainland, and headed out toward Seawall Beach. The hike to Seawall Beach starts on a crumbling paved road, and rolls up and over a few hills before turning into a broad path. We had to duck under a blockade, but the rest of the hike was unimpeded. We came down to some marshes, I'm thinking by the Sprague river. It was really beautiful, as the day was still foggy and the landscape all faded away into this mysterious haze. The marsh was surrounded by tall woods on either side, and the image of the woods vanishing into the fog next to the marsh was incredible. We stopped to take a bunch of pictures. We continued on, up and over and around a few more rolling hills, then down to the beach itself. There appeared a large cadre of individuals, trying to take a group photograph (or some kind of group behavior which appears identical), so we wandered up the beach. We looked for some sand dollars, and moseyed up to some rocks nearby. We napped. Oh, it was delicious. After napping, we slowly meandered back the way we came. It's about 4 miles I suppose, I didn't record it. A nice hike in the Maine pre-spring weather. I look forward to doing it again, maybe when the trees are lush or else covered in snow. The Drive Home We toodled back to the mainland (the fog was lifting slightly), and headed back the way we came. The Maine countryside is becoming somewhat indelible in my brain. I can't say that it's not welcome. It was a meandering way back to the house, and we took our time. By the time we got close, the fog had lifted significantly, and the sun was warming the day. Just in time for another nap when we got home.
 Sunday, April 23 2006 This past weekend was my birthday, and I was treated to something special. We went to Maine for some seafood and family, although not necessarily in that order. We arrived late on Friday and went straight to bed. On Saturday, we enjoyed the day, even though it was foggy and gray. We started by driving out to get some Lobster Rolls at this really good place, called 'Cooks Lobster House'. One word: YUM. This is the route we took, and it was absolutely fabulous. The gray sky and fogs made everything vanish into the distance, and it made the ocean look mystical and powerful, as you could hear it, but it just faded into an empty nothingness that filled your imagination will all things awesome and huge.
Friday, April 14 2006 Oh yeah. Spring is in full effect. I walked to work today, a nice, lazy, early walk. Everybody is out, the flowers are on the sidewalks, and the blossoms on the trees are everywhere. I picked up some flowers on the way, a little office decoration. Tiny little yellow daffodils, called Tete-a-Tete. Never heard of them, but they sure look nifty. Especially next to my pencil holder. I am overwhelmed by happiness today, and I can't explain why. Perhaps it's best left unexplained. Wednesday, April 12 2006 I was walking down the street, and I saw this sign. It's an advertisement, first of all. It looks amateur, second of all. And when I say amateur, I mean it was professionally made to LOOK amateur. It appears to be two posters, the first of which says something like "RELEASE THE TWO". This is supposed to make you think of political prisoners, or hostages, or something equally unpleasant. The second poster is immediately on top of (but conveniently occluding the message of) the first poster. It says something to the effect of "Such and such released!". This is supposed to make you feel good, like a giant burden has been lifted off your shoulders. Now, does this agency have the audacity to think that exploiting something like a prisoner of war/hostage/political prisoner motif is going to SELL AUTOMOBILES? First of all, I ask: "Who the fuck are you? That's sick." Second of all, "Did you know your marketing is SO effective that it makes me NEVER want to ride in one of your automobiles EVER?" Well, until I hear back from them, I'll leave it as an open issue. Monday, April 10 2006 So I'm not a big religious nut or anything, but there are sometimes limits as to what I think are reasonable. I notice that now when I turn on my Nokia cell phone (the free one that Sprint gives away to the cheap mo-fos that don't shell out for the fancy camera-phone-jetpack-hovercraft model), I see this picture. It's a picture of two hands. Not just two hands, but THOSE two hands. The hands that are painted on the cieling of the Sistine Chapel, the hands of God creating Adam. Oh, I get it. Nokia is now god, and I'm supposed to BOW DOWN AND OBEY? It's been said before, and I'll say it again: "suck my clutch." Thursday, March 30 2006What a beautiful day. Today was the second day I rode to work in shorts. I even omitted my green fuzz, as I didn't deem it necessary. It's starting to feel a lot like spring. My trees are budding and leafing, and when I watered them this morning, I could leave the back door open and not worry about letting in all that cold air. Riding to work this morning was sunny, clear, and awesome. I'm loving this commute. It's indescribably wonderful to see the seasons change again. Saturday, March 25 2006 I don't know where that saying comes from, and I don't think anyone REALLY knows. It's just one of those pop culture anomaly's that haunt our existence. Then again, Wikipedia to the rescue, it seems to have originated from late '90s rappers verbalizing "their pleasure at sighting the posterior of a voluptuous woman." Well, now that I know that, it makes me feel much, much better. That's a great ice breaker, no? "Why, I was just commenting on my pleasure at the sighting of your..." Then again, it may be just another bad idea. Wednesday, March 15 2006 A playful twist on that (shoddy) song: It's hard out there for a pimp indeed. (emphasis added) Just imagine the instrumental playing along while you bounce in your office chair. Wednesday, March 08 2006 I was thinking about that Rage Against The Machine song, Know Your Enemy this morning. Why? Dunno. It posits that 'elite' is an American Dream. Elitism has always been socially desirable, and is not particularly American. I thought that maybe elitism is a way of broadcasting one's differences using the medium of wealth. Whereas another avenue would be to use the medium of creativity, in which case you would be an artist. But no, that doesn't work out when I think of it more deeply. You've been subjected to another non-thought, thanks for playing. Tuesday, March 07 2006 Well, your favorite megolith is at it again, this time conscripting egocentric bloggers. You won't see their plugs (or anyone else's) here. So you just keep reading this feed, you'll be safe. Monday, March 06 2006 Another hike while North of Yonkers: Poet's Walk starts out on the side of a little wooded road that is bordered by stone walls (my favorite) on both sides. You head out of the parking lot, up a hill and into the woods. The trail alternates between wooded path and meadow path, and was full of traffic the day we went. We walked past families and children and old grandparents, and old couples sitting on benches, and dogs. We walked out toward the Hudson, and came to a lookout, where a hut-like structure was built. It overlooked the Hudson and the Kingston-Rhinecliff bridge. We stopped, oohed and aahed at the sight of the (dare I say it) mountains on the horizon. No! Stop! Don't throw that rotten fruit at your monitor! I'm sorry! They're hills, okay, hills! Just put down the stinky tomatoes! Whew. that was close. We walked down the path from the lookout, and closer to the river's edge. As we got the the edge of the park, there was a path down to a little pedestrian bridge over the railroad tracks (which are right on the river's edge). The bridge was closed, and we just poked our heads around, and headed back up. We walked around and down to the 'Summer House', which turned out to be another hut-like structure at the end of a path in the woods. We turned around and walked back, this time through a great deal of mud. Not so much that our shoes made that vacuuming sound, but still enough to be slippery and sticky. Mind you, during this whole walk, we ended up following (what appeared to be) a father and son walking around the park. The little boy would talk to his father as he walked, and they were having the most wonderful conversations. Like about cookies. We all like cookies, right? Hmmm. Finally, we walked out of the park and stopped at the park information sign. There I learned that Foxes are not native to North America, they were brought over from Europe as objects of sport hunting. Kind of makes me ill. But happy, for some of them survived, and now they are all over. Hooray! Take that you dead white guys! And that was Poet's Walk Romantic Landscape Park. Summary: A nice little hike in the ice and snow. I drove up to upstate New York (past Yonkers) to go see one of my dear friends from college. We hung out and did some walking (romping sounds vaguely inappropriate in this context) around in the woods near the Hudson River. This little hike was tucked back in the mountains to the West of the Hudson. I know, I know. They're not really mountains, but it's the closest thing they've got. I even started to call them mountains after a few days. Especially living in Philly, you start noticing every little mole hill. The moral of the story: DON'T TAKE YOUR MOUNTAINS FOR GRANTED. But wait, I didn't even get started. We drove up this windy little road that goes right past these large cliffs. Since we're in Winter, all these cliffs have HUGE icicles hanging off of them. Across the surface of these cliffs were a handful of ice climbers scaling the cliff's facade. It was a daunting sight. Resolving to never do anything that crazy, my and my companions drove to the trail head, and started hiking up the hillside. The path was half trampled, and half frozen, and in some places, a solid sheet of ice. It made trekking a challenge, to say the least. We slipped and stumbled and (one of us) froze our feet. But when we finally came around the last bend (only about 20 minutes later), we could see a huge crust of ice hanging onto a pair of cliffs that stair stepped down the gorge that we were in. They say it's the largest waterfall in New York, the state of waterfalls. I was thinking about the number of waterfalls that I knew of in the state, and it seems like it's way up there in the rankings. Anyone care to debate? We oohed and aahed the waterfall, and even walked right up to the base, and listened to the water trickling down through the ice. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful waterfall. When it is not frozen, it must be a sight to see. We trekked back, and (one of us) nearly slid down the gorge into the frozen river. But luckily (all of us) survived safely. Just wet toes. Nothing some hot cocoa couldn't handle. Sunday, March 05 2006 Driving back from upstate, I took the scenic route. It was also after sunset, so the scenery was quite dark. I enjoyed the roads, however. And as I drove into the Delaware Water Gap, I could see the shadows of mountains moving across the stars. I bet this would be a good place to hang out.  Friday, March 03 2006 Had an interesting conversation last night with work folks about the concept of using blogging in a corporate environment. Interesting conversation. It's kind of along the lines of the conversation this guy has with himself. Blogging in the corporate environment, and how that message can be used. But isn't that just selling out? Thursday, March 02 2006 Well, how do you like this interpretation of thorough (versus the definition):
thor - ough
I guess someone guiding United States Foreign Policy thinks that's
correct, because it's not
getting any better over there.
Tuesday, February 28 2006 I have been working with the Philly Independent Media Center for a few months now, and we've been working like dogs (tonight especially) to roll it out. Check it out when you've got a second: http://www.phillyimc.org/ Oh, liberty never tasted so good. Thursday, February 23 2006 Just defended myself from a hack attack today. AWESOME. Are you ready for the play-by-play? Here we go: I noticed my CVS was sooooo slow. I kept getting some kind of error that wouldn't let me log in via ssh. 'Odd', I thought. Indeed. I finally got in on ssh, and saw 'top' was running perl and eating up all the processor. Also, netstat showed some irc connections. I don't have irc, so this was a problem. Whoah. [ around this time, I started getting sweaty palms and increased heartbeat ] I found some interesting scripts that were being run by perl and nobody in /tmp (bad news #1 -- anything can run out of /tmp). I looked at the processed, and perl is kind enough to show me the command line arguments that it was running with. All those hidden files in /tmp. Ohhhh...you bastards. I went into top, and started killing them mercilessly. They eventually died. Somehow, though, they managed to start the default installation of apache httpd. Whoops. What was that doing there? (bad news #2) I started searching on the files that I found in /tmp, and got to a link that said something about phpbb. Step #1, disable that motherfucker. So it's down. I look back through the apache logs, and see a bunch of gobbledigook in the forums. I took that out, converted the characters back to ascii so I could read them, and started seeing things like: system( chr(...),chr(...),chr(...)... ). That's just bad. I piped the chr() crap through php, and looky here! Presents! That's where all the files in /tmp came from! Sweet. I moved all of them away and saved them for later, and read through them. Nifty little tricks, ya bastards. And then, well, it was all over! I removed the default apache (wtf was it doing there) and fixed anything that I mentioned here (of course), and hooray! Back to bones. I have to admit, I'm no sysadmin, but you've got to be a lot meaner. (You know that's not a challenge, right? I gotta start my dayjob, so just relax all you hackettes). Saturday, February 18 2006After much ado about being unemployed, I've decided to go back into the working masses. I've been freelancing for about seven months now, and while it pays the bills, I have to say it's an isolating environment. And am I learning much? No. Boring. So I'm going to be working as a GIS Software Developer. Making some cool geographic applications, like you've seen on angermann2, zip decoder, among others. Sunday, January 22 2006Okay, so this is not a hike in the strict sense, but it is an urban tromp that covered decent mileage. I started out with Mary walking down to One Parkway to pick up a PhillyCarShare car for a shopping trip. We walked through the cool morning from her house down to Mugshots. Got a bagel to go, and I got a strawberry "Recovery Shake". Basically a smoothie. And a cold one. The day was supposed to be warm, but the morning was brisk. More than a few times, a large slurp off the recovery shake left my head aching from 'brain freeze'. It was okay...I walked it off. We got to the car, ran our errands, and I returned the car a few hours later. I walked from the parkway to the evil company that administers my cellular telephone plan, to fix my malfunctioning telephone. They then gave the me the standardized response (I have come to discover) of "see you in one hour." Considering this is the second time for the same problem in less than a week, I was just TIRED, because it's just such a lousy response. I'm sure it takes less than an hour for someone to look at it and say, "the display is totally screwed up and cannot be repaired." The same way I made that decision when I first saw the phone on the fritz. But I suppose not everyone is as enlightened as I am. So I walked out of the store, down to South, and headed toward Old City. I walked down to 10th, and found a nice park behind a row of condominiums. I have walked past this park before, but never entered. I walked on in (took of my sweater because I was sweating just from walking), and sat down. I knitted some more of a scarf, and put back on my sweater. I knitted some more. I listened to children playing on the equipment, and playing odd games of hide and go seek and races of various forms. By the time I left, the slides and swings were empty and quiet. I walked back up to Market, and back toward the cell phone store. I walked up Market, and through City Hall, all the way to the store. Picked up my phone, got a confirmation that "Yup, it's screwed." And a, "come back later." Lousy, bogus monkeys. Heading out of the store, I walked farther up Market, all the way to the Schuylkyll, and down off the bridge to the river walk. I strolled up the walk next to the river, and made it to the Art Museum before turning off and heading toward my house. I arrived at my house about 6 hours after starting out to the car. Not bad for a little city stroll. Friday, January 20 2006 So there's this jerk out there, I'll just capitalize it for effect: Jerk. Jerk thinks that bicycles are for fools and for idiots and people who are too stupid to get their own Expidalicious. So Jerk thinks he doesn't have to give any cyclists any leeway. So he cuts them off, zips right by them and doesn't give them any wiggle room. He doesn't allow them time to clear the intersection before he drives DIRECTLY AT THEM. So I say this to you, Jerk: When it comes time to pay your insurance on your Expidalicious, and you have to fix the framistat when it's cracked or broken, or somebody accidentally bumps your BIG ASS in the parking lot, or you have to fill it up for the sixth time this week, or you have to pay the STATE to DRIVE your heap o'shit, you will hear NO SOBBING FROM ME, because I'll just hop on my bike and ride circles around your ass while you whine for someone to come pick you up. Tuesday, January 10 2006This morning the sun was scorching the frozen sky and the tufts of clouds on the horizon. The crimson, orange, and fire quickly progressed over the clouds as the morning wore on, and the plane taxied out to the runway. We took off directly into the East, and as we climbed the sun finally rose and illuminated the front edge of the wing and the tiny portal into the atmosphere. A new day has begun. Saturday, January 07 2006I figured I should start documenting the places I go. Here's the first one for Aught Six: Castlewood Canyon, south of Denver, Colorado, close to Castle Rock. I drove East on Colorado Highway 86, then turned south on Castlewood Canyon road. I stopped at the second trail head, and started out. Now, the thing about today was this: it's January 7th, and it's 71 degrees Fahrenheit. That's ... somewhat strange. Anyway, I take off down the trail, heading toward the creek. I reached Creek Bottom Trail after about 50 meters or so, and then started up the creek. When I looked at the map, I had assumed that the creek ran from North to South. Not so. I didn't realize this until I had bounced up the creek about a quarter mile. There is a small waterfall at this point, and I stopped to figure out that the creek was indeed heading opposite to my intuition. Oh well. On I go. When I had looked at the map of Castlewood Canyon, there was a feature on the map called "Dam Ruins". To my premature dismay, I thought the waterfall was the remnants of the dam. "This," I thought, "is a total let-down." Not so. After a short while, I came to the remnants of the dam for real. FOR REAL. This thing is huge, and sticks out of the ground, as the soil has been eroded underneath the tallest edge (what would have been the center of the dam). It looks like a gigantic wedge that was dropped into the edge of the canyon. It towers over Creek Bottom Trail, and Dam Trail heads up and over the remaining wall of rocks. There's no information regarding the demise of the dam, so one is left to ponder the question while wandering around the trails. As I headed down from the top of Dam Trail, I asked a passing couple if they knew anything about the dam. The rumor is that the dam collapsed and flooded the valley below. Sometime after 1890 (the masonry in the damn notes the date and the Chief Engineer), I'm assuming, but I haven't found out anything about it yet. I kept on going, looping over the creek, and heading up Rim Rock Trail. This trail heads up out of the canyon and over the rocky ledges that stand guard over the eastern edge of the canyon. The trail snakes up to the rim, and looking back one can see the valley below, which was the reservoir at one point, and the low hills beyond. Looking the other way, one sees the rocky mountains and Long's Peak standing tall and white on the horizon. The trail snaked along the rim, and I passed many people sitting and enjoying the view. There are places where the trail kind of fades away (since it goes over bare stone), and there are tiny piles of stones to follow. Sometimes. I got lost a couple times, but not seriously. The wind on the Rim was gusty, and would sometimes whip over the rocks and jostle the trees around. It felt good, as I was nice and warm at this point. After the Rim Rock Trail wound down along the northern side of the canyon, I crossed the creek again, and headed back up the creek to my entry point. I looked East at one point, and saw the blue blue sky and the moon rising over the edge of the canyon. Now that I was back on Creek Bottom Trail, I just kept climbing until I got to the Westside Trail Head. All in all, a nice walk in the woods.
If you couldn't tell, this post refers to the current site design. I didn't do it, and I like it. I hope you do, too.
One thing I have heard on NPR this morning that caught my ear (I'm paraphrasing, since I don't remember the words exactly): Is it worth it to
purchase items in the United States that were manufactured in China,
where the number of workers injured or killed during the course of
their work is about many, many times of their United States
counterpart? Is it worth the 'savings'?
Along with the fact that China has has about 4,153 coal miner
deaths, and the United States has 15+4.
The following information, however, is copied verbatim, as I found it on english.people.china.cn: In 2003, the average
coal miner in China produced 321 tons of coal a year, only 2.2 percent
of that of the United States and 8.1 percent that of South Africa. The
death rate for every 100 tons of coal, however, is 100 times of that of
the US and 30 times that of South Africa.
Friday, January 06 2006 Warm today, almost hot sun on my face as I flew kites with my brother and nephew. Bizarre, for sure. I'm not complaining. I do miss the amount of sunshine in Colorado, now that I'm living in Pennsylvania. A different kind of winter.
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