Alisa has posted some great reasons 
why the proposed charter is a bad idea.
- I watch the unfolding news with foreboding and resignation. It's inconcievable to me that in little more than a year the leadership of the United States has made the Iraqi statements look sane and reasoned by comparison. The Iraqi spokesman says today
- [Bush] should go away from the presidency and let the Americans lead an ordinary life with other nations, not a life of aggression, a policy of aggression against other nations. This policy has brought about disasters to the U.S. So for the U.S. to live properly with the world and for the world nations to live in peace, this crazy man should go. (from CNN)
I sure am glad I ended up not going overseas for a sabbatical this year. And it looks like I'd better start looking for a sabbatical somewhere in the US because it looks like it won't be safe for Americans to travel overseas for years.
Later this week, Tom and Randy and I are planning to have a mini writing retreat. We really need to produce an article from the course redesign work we've done. I wish we could go over to the Library to work, but the wireless network over there uses a stupid VPN. We installed the Cisco VPN software for MacOS X once and tried to make it work, but it didn't. Since then, Cisco has come out with a new version of the software, but it isn't public and the technology staff hadn't made the new software available to us. I hate installing software like that because it requires a kernel module and tampers with the OS IP stack. I have tried repeatedly to get them to consider authentication gateway or nocat or something similar -- anything that doesn't require everyone installing proprietary software, but they just don't get it. They just produce a one size fits all model. "Oh! That mumu doesn't work for you? Too bad. Maybe you should put on a few pounds." Of course, next year it will be a girdle.