Update....

Just got promoted to Support Analyst....First day of full time is tomorrow. The job will be better (more diverse), and I have a lot of opportunities to learn - I just have to make sure I take advantage of them. Commute still sucks though...Turns my weeks into 60 hour work weeks...

Education Management Corporation (wikipedia)

on another note...I have discovered Stumble Upon, a cool time wasting idea. It's found me things from webcomics to sweet flash games, jumping christmas bunnies and horse quartets. I recommend it.

Oh, and how big of a Pixar geek am I? This big (links to an excel spreadsheet).

(Redbox is sweet!)

a bit misleading....

"We find that in periods immediately after a spike in anti-resolve
statements, the level of insurgent attacks increases," the study says. In Iraqi
provinces that were broadly comparable in social and economic terms, attacks
increased between 7 percent and 10 percent.
The study also found that attacks increased more in parts of Iraq where
there is greater access to international news media, which its authors say
increases the credibility of their findings.

(site) (actual paper)

I heard about this on the radio this morning, and started to get worked up. Then when I got to work I started researching it a bit, and found this in the same article from above:

"The researchers conclude that the increases in attacks are a necessary cost of the way democratic societies fight wars and say they are concerned that the research may be seized upon by the Iraq war's supporters to try and silence its critics."

We are a little bit worried about that," Jonathan Monten of the Belfer Center at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government told United Press International in an interview. "Our data suggests that there is a small, but measurable cost" to "anything that provides information about attitudes towards the war."

But he added the cost was outweighed by the benefits of vigorous debate about military undertakings."There's a body of research, which we cite … that suggests that public debate about strategy helps the military to fight wars more effectively," he said."

I know the talk radio program is really right wing, but I at least thought they wouldn't turn to blatent misleadings such as this. It's really irritating when people take things out of context and use them as the authors did not intend.

nice.

"I say a lot of things -- millions of words a day -- so if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement,"

~Hillary Clinton, about her exxageration of landing under [the threat of] sniper fire in Bosnia.

New(ish) Job

I started here in December, but haven't updated this thing in a while.

Education Management Corporation

I pretty much reset passwords and unlock accounts.

Racial tension?

Just finished watching Obama's speech on a More Perfect Union. I was pretty impressed, although towards the end of it I started not agreeing so much with his stances on several issues. Thanks to Chris for finding the you tube video of it. It's almost 40 minutes, but it's pretty good. I esp. like starting around the 19:30 mark, going for prob. 5 minutes or so. I don't agree with him about most of the issues, but on this whole issue of race this election year, I do.

"By January 2009, nearly everyone responsible for launching and directing the war in Iraq will have left office. Sorting out who did what will then become a job for historians. In choosing successors, however, Americans should insist on leaders who will foster debate and welcome disciplined dissent. These leaders should be surrounded by advisers chosen primarily for their relevant experience and demonstrated competence, not their ideological purity and partisan loyalty."

Foreign Affairs Magazine, Sept/Oct issue

screen shot from today...

I guess I should be impressed that it at least made it to the front page; right along with the couple who got married at Wal-Mart. At least it was bumped down for something more important - like a painting getting a 10 centimeter tear in it by vandals.