Go Sox (?)
Very mixed feelings about the World Series as more information comes out about the Boston Police Department policies (or lack thereof) that lead to the killing of Victoria Snelgrove. At first it sounded like an innocent mistake, but now it's hard for me not to associate the Red Sox' amazing, inspirational comeback with the BPD ineptness that cost this young woman her life. Given the Sox' role in Boston life, being stuck with that association stinks. The BPD damn well better come up with a way to deter or arrest the jerks who use sporting events as an excuse to go crazy in the streets, and they need to put away their allegedly non-lethal weapons at least until they understand how lethal they really are, and which situations are and are not appropriate for their use.

Having said that, this tragic event is hardly the fault of the Red Sox organization or its worldwide following, and I'd still love to see them beat the Cardinals.
[/general]

POSTing unicode data from python
This took me an inordinate amount of time to get right, but now that I have it makes a lot of sense and is quite simple. Say you have some unicode data in your python program, such that type(yourdata) == type(u''), and you'd like to POST it somewhere. Simply encode to the expected encoding (yourdata.encode('utf-8') for example) and then escape it for POSTing normally - say, via urllib.quote_plus(yourdata).
[/code]

Chaos in the streets
From my perch here in Jamaica Plain, it sounds like every car in Boston is sounding its horn, and a good portion of the available emergency vehicles are blipping their sirens in what I can only assume to be a futile attempt to get through the streets.

Maybe it's related to the Sox beating the Yankees in the ALCS for the first time this millenium?
[/general]

The Bald Mr. Cheney
Based on my granddad's pool cue, I've got a good risk of losing my own hair one of these days, so let me first say that I have absolutely no problem with the fact that the VP is a little short on the stuff. It's the bald faced lies that stick in my craw. My favorite so far from last night's debate was his claim that, due to Edwards' supposedly poor attendance in the Senate, he and Cheney had never met before. When, in fact, there are pictures of the two at a prayer breakfast in February 2001... (from Kos).
[/politics]

2004 US Presidential Debate Litmus Test
Media reactions to Thursday's debate between Kerry and Bush provide a great way to judge the reactors, since the truth of the matter -- that Bush stunk and Kerry delivered -- was so painfully obvious. The following reactions are not direct quotes, they are paraphrases based on memory.

Media outlet	reaction	meaning
Boston Globe	The debate happened	We would hate to appear biased by pointing out that Bush stunk, so let's stick to the obvious on the front page
BBC radio	it was a draw	We are so terrified of appearing partisan that we will assert that both performances were equal.
Boston Herald	Bush stands his ground	We back Republicans regardless of their merit

As partisans go, I'm not that dedicated; I agree with Kerry on 50% of the issues, and Bush 0%. But it was clear to me that only one of the guys looked and acted like a president, and it wasn't the one who Gore beat four years ago. The Globe's suspension of judgement on its front-page is a reasonable stance; its editorial judgements can be found within the paper. The BBC's assertion of equivalence, on the other hand, is a real shame.

In its defense, the Herald has no reputation left to damage with its partisan nonsense.
[/media]