Like the journeymen of old, I have packed up my tools and traveled far from home to practice my craft. Unlike the journeymen of old, I can go home every weekend.

So, I have a new cube, a new team, and a room at the nearby Extended Stay America. As I get settled, I'll write more on a few subjects familiar to the thousands of other software developers who find themselves in similar circumstances:

• Work/Life balance when your life is there, you're here, and you bill by the hour (i.e., the importance of finding a good brewpub);
• Why East Bumble pays better than Chicago or New York;
• Agile software development on two cups of coffee a day; and
• How to feel peaceful at O'Hare first thing Monday morning.

At this precise moment, however, I need to obtain a Brita pitcher and a clock with a radio (do I really want to have to futz with streaming audio just to hear Morning Edition?) from the local Target. Then, I'm off to find a brewpub.

I'm in Nashua, N.H. starting a new project tomorrow, so I'm too pooped to write about anything interesting today.

Anne reports that Heather (below), from Saturday's adoption event, is still available, though her brothers Harrison and McCartney have new homes.

We went to the PAWS adoption event in Winnetka yesterday, and came this close to stealing the puppies. McCartney would have been one of them:

The best governor we've got claims he didn't know the Daily Show interview was a spoof when he sat down:

"It was going to be an interview on contraceptives...that's all I knew about it," Blagojevich, laughingly [sic], told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in a story for Thursday's editions. "I had no idea I was going to be asked if I was 'the gay governor.'"

Interviewer Jason Jones pretended to stumble over Blagojevich's name before calling him "Gov. Smith." He later asked if Blagojevich was "the gay governor."

The Daily Show segment aired earlier this month.

In unrelated news, former Chicago Alderman Edwin Eisendrath is running in next month's Democratic primary against Gov. Smith.

Molly Ivins, on congressional reform:

Tom DeLay gets indicted, and all the Republicans can think of is a $20 gift ban. Forget the people talking about "lobby reform." The lobby does not need to be reformed, the Congress needs to be reformed. This is about congressional corruption, and it is not limited to the surface stuff like taking free meals, hotels and trips. This is about corruption that bites deep into the process of making laws in the public interest. The root of the rot is money (surprise!), and the only way to get control of the money is through public campaign financing.

You don't ask the local wolf pack to reform sheep-herding.

Josh Marshall poses this astute question:

Isn't offshoring port management and security sort of like offshoring the shore?

In its efforts to starve the Federal government out of existence, Bush cut $28 million—and 32 jobs—from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Then he mentioned, in his state of the union speech, that we need renewable energy. Forgetting for a moment that the pusher-in-chief suddenly got religion on our addiction to (foreign) oil, it's still kind of embarrassing that he cut our renewable energy budget at the same time. Or, more to the point for these clowns, embarrassing that they got caught doing it.

So the 32 got their jobs back today:

Two weeks ago, the lab workers, including eight researchers, were laid off at the lab because of a $28 million budget shortfall. Then, over the weekend, at the direction of Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, $5 million was transferred back to the lab to get the workers back on the job.

Lab officials are ecstatic about getting the positions back, although they say the remaining $23 million shortfall has forced delays in research subcontracted to universities and companies. Still, it was an untimely issue for the president, who flew to Colorado to push the energy initiatives he announced in his State of the Union address.

Quel faux pas!

The city of Eureka, Nunavut, in way-Northern Canada, has its first sunrise of the year today around 11:30 CT (17:30 UTC). Technically the sun never actually gets above the horizon, but a tiny bit of it will scrape along the southern horizon for about an hour before disappearing until tomorrow.

Eureka is typically the northernmost weather station that sends hourly reports to NOAA, and this time of year it's almost always on the world's coldest places list. For example, at this writing, Eureka is -41°C (-42°F)—but it's a dry cold, so you don't feel it as much.

Software security expert Bruce Schneier reports on a database error in nearby Porter County, Ind., that has cost the county millions of dollars, and what that means to software design:

A house erroneously valued at $400 million is being blamed for budget shortfalls and possible layoffs in municipalities and school districts in northwest Indiana.

[...]

County Treasurer Jim Murphy said the home usually carried about $1,500 in property taxes; this year, it was billed $8 million.

Some items in the news today that probably should go without comment:

• Spotsylvania County, Va., sheriff's deputies tried a novel approach to catching prostitutes: having sex with them.
• British scientists hooked a robot up to slime mold to model the mold's behavior.
• The British newspaper The Economist pointed out that hardly anyone mentioned Cheney's bird-killing as an issue in itself this week.
• The Washington Post has a lengthy analysis of the Danish cartoons and why they became the focus of such violence.
• Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke testified before Congress this week.
• And finally (and overdue), Sammy Sosa is retiring from baseball. Que lastima.

...even if she doesn't need men. In her column today (sub.req.) she pulls no punches with two men no one needs:

As the story of the weekend's bizarre hunting accident is wrenched out of the White House, the picture isn't pretty: With American soldiers dying in Iraq, Five-Deferment Dick "I Had Other Priorities in the 60's Than Military Service" Cheney gets his macho kicks gunning down little birds and the occasional old man while W. rides his bike, blissfully oblivious to any collateral damage. Shouldn't these guys work on weekends until we figure out how to fix Iraq, New Orleans, Medicare and gas prices?

Anne made me watch the Westminster Kennel Club Show yesterday and Monday. OK, she was right. I found myself rooting for Shaka the Rottweiler, but Rufus the Bull Terrier won instead.

Photo: AP

The Ohio Democratic Party has honked off Paul Hackett, because they believe another Ohio representative has a better chance of getting elected to the Senate this fall:

"It boils down to who we think can pull the most votes in November against [incumbent GOP Senator Mike] DeWine," said Chris Redfern, chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party. "And in Ohio, Brown's name is golden. It's just that simple."

They're nuts. And now we've lost exactly the kind of person we need in the party. And we look like idiots.

Actually, the ODP look like idiots, but Harry Ried and the rest of our party didn't come out too well in this one, either. Unless there's something I'm missing about Hackett, he's exactly the kind of person we want running for Senate in Ohio.

Here's Hackett's side of it.

Josh Marshall wonders about Dick Cheney's hunting accident Saturday:

At a minimum it seems a tad ungentlemanly to put out word through your media operation that the guy you just shot was at fault for getting shot.

But I don't know. Tom Lehrer wrote a song about it many years ago:

I always will remember,
'Twas a year ago November,
I went out to hunt some deer
On a mornin' bright and clear.
I went and shot the maximum the game laws would allow,
Two game wardens, seven hunters, and a cow.

Anyway, this flap about whether the guy Cheney shot was to blame or not obscures discussion of the truly culpable party. I mean, who gave that man a gun in the first place?

The Washington Post has more.

Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn makes some good points about the Jyllands-Posten cartoons in his blog today:

[S]ome of the drawings make a point in exactly the same way that any good editorial cartoon makes a point, and they have a grown-up, even sophisticated purpose: To challenge those who use intimidation to block free expression and those who find in their religious texts justification for mass murder. Specifically, Jyllands-Posten commissioned the cartoons to make a defiant statement after learning that several Danish artists had refused to illustrate a children's book about Muhammad because they feared reprisals from Muslims who consider images of their prophet blasphemous.

I think all civilized people agree that cartoons are not justification for murder. The reverse of that statement is also true: all people who agree that cartoons are justification for murder are not civilized.

Charles Darwin was born 197 years ago this Sunday.

In his honor, I proudly link to Garry Trudeau getting it just right.

First, House Majority Leader John Boehner is renting an apartment from a D.C. lobbyist:

Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), who was elected House majority leader last week, is renting his Capitol Hill apartment from a veteran lobbyist whose clients have direct stakes in legislation Boehner has co-written and that he has overseen as chairman of the Education and the Workforce Committee.

The relationship between Boehner, John D. Milne and Milne's wife, Debra R. Anderson, underscores how intertwined senior lawmakers have become with the lobbyists paid to influence legislation. Boehner's primary residence is in West Chester, Ohio, but for $1,600 a month, he rents a two-bedroom basement apartment near the House office buildings on Capitol Hill owned by Milne, Boehner spokesman Don Seymour said yesterday. Boehner's monthly rent appears to be similar to other rentals of two-bedroom English basement apartments close to the House side of the Capitol in Southeast, based on a review of apartment listings.

I mean, come on. Pretend to have a little distance.

Second, due to Administration budget cuts (part of their effort to reduce people's faith in the federal government), the National Transportation Safety Board can't do its job:

Last year, the agency's accident investigators showed up at 62 percent of all fatal plane crashes, compared with 75 percent of all fatal crashes in 2001, according to NTSB numbers. But data from the Federal Aviation Administration—which is required to send an investigator to every accident and take note of whether the NTSB is on the scene—indicate that NTSB investigators showed up less than half the time last year.

"The consequences are, you're going to miss some things," said Gene Doub, a former NTSB accident investigator who teaches at University of Southern California. "Every one of these are not just dumb pilots. Some are airspace-system or training issues or airworthiness issues."

So once again, budget cuts have real consequences. The NTSB is one of our most important federal agencies—at least, if you ever get into an airplane, car, train, or ship—and needs enough money to do its job.

What's it going to take before we undo the Republicans' gutting of our government?

George Deutsch, the suit puppy who wanted to tell NASA scientists about science, has resigned:

George C. Deutsch, the young presidential appointee at NASA who told public affairs workers to limit reporters' access to a top climate scientist and told a Web designer to add the word "theory" at every mention of the Big Bang, resigned yesterday, agency officials said. Mr. Deutsch's resignation came on the same day that officials at Texas A&M University confirmed that he did not graduate from there, as his résumé on file at the agency asserted.

Oops.

The Bush Administration (1077 days, 17 hours left) released its 2007 budget proposal today, which will cut or reduce 141 programs, including Medicare (down $36 billion), the drug-free schools initiative (axed), law-enforcement grants to help local jails house illegal immigrants after arrest (axed), Amtrak (down $300 million, or 25%), Employment and Training (down $648 million)...and on and on.

Remember, the Administration wants to cut the Federal government down to the size at which they can "drown it in the bathtub." Part of that strategy involves cutting programs, then using the resulting disaster (Katrina, anyone?) to "prove" that government programs "don't work."

Imagine if your kid gets Bs in school, then cuts studying 20%, then gets Cs, which prove studying "doesn't work." You'd ground his butt, wouldn't you?

The Administration thinks Americans are stupid. Let's prove them wrong.

From the White House Office of Management and Budget 2007 defense budget fact sheet:

Since 2001, the Administration:

• Liberated nearly 50 million people in Iraq and Afghanistan

The Administration did this? You mean, all by itself? You mean, "liberated," as in "made free" (or—certainly not!—"made liberal")?

They have no shame.

Two noteworthy stories in today's Washington Post.

First, Boehner Opposes Sweeping Changes In Lobbyist Work. There's not a lot in the article we didn't already know, but I was thinking it might have been titled "Burglar Opposes Sweeping Changes to Door Locks" without too much irony. To repeat: lobbyists are only a symptom of the much larger problem of Republican corruption. Having the guys who broke the rules in the first place propose new rules insults our intelligence.

Second, Handful of Races May Tip Control of Congress. This filled me with a momentary twinge of optimism, but then a cursory reading calmed me down:

Democrats are poised to gain seats in the House and in the Senate for the first time since 2000. The difference between modest gains (a few seats in the Senate and fewer than 10 in the House) and significant gains (half a dozen in the Senate and well more than a dozen in the House) is where the battle for control of Congress will be fought.

So, unlike in countries with fully-realized democracies (like Canada, for example), we aren't really looking at a huge swing in either direction. There is something deeply troubling about a system in which 98% of the legislature is almost completely safe from a serious election challenge. Even the Soviet Union had more turnover.

World O'Crap over at Salon has more information about George Deutcsh, the suit puppy who wants NASA scientists to think about God.

Note to WOC: Put a biographical bit on your blog to make attributions more meaningful.

From Anne: Now on Huffington Post: http://nsaseti.cf.huffingtonpost.com/, a fun replacement for your tired, old SETI@Home application.

I've been watching the weather in Torino, Italy lately, and I've noticed it's awfully warm there. The Olympic Games start one week from today, but Torino's temperatures have stayed way above freezing. Last night's minimum temperature was 6°C (43°F), for example.

Are we looking at a repeat of the St. Moritz games of 1928, in which the speed skaters swam through 25°C (77°F) weather? Maybe we're heading toward a future where the Winter Games won't be possible below 2500 meters (8000 ft) or south of the 59th parallel. Think of it: "Welcome to the 2052 Games in Beautiful Barrow!

From Paul Krugman's column (sub.req.) this morning:

This administration is all politics and no policy. It knows how to attain power, but has no idea how to govern. That's why the administration was caught unaware when Katrina hit, and why it was totally unprepared for the predictable problems with its drug plan. It's why Mr. Bush announced an energy plan with no substance behind it. And it's why the state of the union—the thing itself, not the speech—is so grim.

And this little tidbit from Poynter Online correspondent Alan D Abbey:

I ran across this brief couplet upon perusing "The Norton Book of Light Verse" with my son, who needed a short poem for something he is doing in school. It's a nice comment on the current media environment, and the explosion in volume, at least, of content and brands. It's by 17th-century physician and poet Samuel Garth, and it goes like this:

"What frenzy has of late posssess'd the brain
"Though few can write, yet fewer can refrain."

Heh.

From the Washington newspaper Roll Call earlier today:

House Republicans are taking a mulligan on the first ballot for Majority Leader. The first count showed more votes cast than Republicans present at the Conference meeting.

I wonder if Diebold counted the ballots?

I can't believe I forgot to post about the Weather Now Beta launch Tuesday evening.

I'll have more details later, including a list of why the new application is so much cooler than the current one, but right now I'm trying to figure out why a client's server keeps horking every day.

Josh Marshall has a new blog-within-a-blog: GrandOldDocket.com, which lists which Republicans have been indicted, convicted, or pled guilty to various corruption charges.

We were dark for over 6 hours today because someone at SBC did something, though no one seems to know who or what. The result was that the Inner Drive Technology World Headquarters had no phone or Internet service from 9:15 am CT/15:15 UTC until 3:30 pm CT/21:30 UTC.

Sadly, this came on the first day of our Weather Now beta launch, which shows off some of our coolest stuff ever. (At this writing it's still a few hours behind, with weather from lunchtime today, but it's catching up as fast as it can.)

One of my friends asked, "How can they do that?" Well, like I said...they're the phone company.