Monthly Archives: February 2004

Right Wing News’ favorite Rumsfeld quotes.

“Look at me! I’m sweet and lovable.”

21% of people 18-29 cite The Daily Show and SNL as their major presidential race news source. 23% watch actual news. 50% can’t spell “presidential”. Okay, I make the last one up.

Evening news producers have long recognized their audience is older; the common theory is that when people get jobs, mortgages and children, they’ll take a greater interest in their programs.

The worry is that with so many other sources of news available now, young people will become accustomed to them and not make the evening news a priority.

Artificial flavoring is artificial!

A man is fighting for the right to not have to show police officers identification.

UPDATE: RFID privacy in Utah.

For $250 you too can have a chance to win an mini iPod.

At the Apple store, Johnson failed to explain why anyone who wants an iPod mini would spend the exact purchase price on a grab bag that had a good chance of not containing one.

“Illegal Aliens” is a racist term according to the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials.

VDH.

In short, preemption is now a politicized, debased word. It is part of the anti-Bush lexicon and has lost any real meaning for the foreseeable future of its usage. The same may be true of “multilateralism” and “unilateralism.”

Blu-ray is out, HD-DVD is in. Which is fortunate because the blu-ray is not backwards compatible.

This just in, people hate pop-up ads.

While I’m not particularly concerned with what Kerry did before I was born, his recent voting record is much more interesting to me, this is an interesting story on KGB tactics.

Really old British hand grenade found.

Orson Scott Card is talking sense.

We will once again be performing a potentially devastating social experiment on ourselves without any attempt to predict the consequences and find out if the American people actually want them.

…

So either civilized people will succeed in establishing a government that protects the family; or civilized people will withdraw their allegiance from the government that won’t protect it; or the politically correct barbarians will have complete victory over the family — and, lacking the strong family structure on which civilization depends, our civilization will collapse or fade away.

…

Depriving us of any democratic voice in these sweeping changes may not lead to revolution or even resistance. But it will be just as deadly if it leads to despair. For in the crisis, few citizens will lift a finger to protect or sustain the elite that treated the things we valued — our marriages, our children, and our right to self-government — with such contempt.

via The Emperor

Iron Chef America has picked up Alton Brown to be the expert commentator. Morimoto and Sakai are going to kick everyone’s butts.

via Fark

A rather limited poll I conducted concluded that most people under 40 realize they are never going to see a penny of Social Security and would be estatic if the government would just stop taking the money from them. They can keep what they’ve taken, just leave us alone so we can fund our IRAs.

Instapundit on Milosevic. C’mon, ancient history. No one cares.

Lileks has an opinion or two. Just ask Jasper.

It’s hard here in America. The cars, they all look the same. Imagine if Henry Ford had gotten his way. Yeah, it’s black, like that one. And that one. And that one. And that one.

Edwards is feeling left out and wants Bush to pick on him too.

UPDATE: Scrappleface.

What’s happening to America? A movie about Jesus is practically the only thing being talked about, Clear Channel is cleaning up the airwaves, South Dakota is trying to ban abortions, the whole gay marriage debate is flaming (er, as in flame war) away. It’s like America woke up this week and discovered morals or something.

In the last 10 minutes I’ve been sent three copies of Netsky. And I usually don’t get massive amounts of viruses. Don’t open attachments, kids.

I think I need one of these.

Interesting.

And therein lies one of the central dilemmas of political life in developed societies: sharing and solidarity can conflict with diversity. This is an especially acute dilemma for progressives who want plenty of both solidarity (high social cohesion and generous welfare paid out of a progressive tax system) and diversity (equal respect for a wide range of peoples, values and ways of life). The tension between the two values is a reminder that serious politics is about trade-offs. It also suggests that the left’s recent love affair with diversity may come at the expense of the values and even the people that it once championed.

I have my 1040s, my Schedules A-Z and 1000-9999, my W-2s, my proof of insurance, the tags that I tore off of my mattresses, several candles lit to scare off the demons, the IRS website opened, and the Holy Grail playing in the background so I can say, “Help, help, I’m being repressed!” I shall now attempt to do my taxes.

ONE HOUR LATER: Ouch. But it’s done. Except for the actually paying them part.

I say we hold off the flame wars until something actually happens. I’m dying to find out if Kerry and Edwards would vote for or against this.

You know the chickens are still going to sneak right through the border.

We’re talking about 34 Teraflops of Computing Ability here. The next IBM supercomputer is going to peer into the past.

The FDA approves Taiyo Yuden CDs. I’ve always liked them. I think we’ve had maybe a dozen bad ones out of the thousands we have used, and now I can prepare food with them, or something.

This deserves mention just for the opening line.

via Instapundit

I’m going to be busier than usual for the next oh, month and a half. Yes, my job does occasionally entail actual work. I’m sure you’ll get by with fewer posts. I know you can do it.

Right Wing News calmly discusses the importance of speaking English when living in America.

Late, I know.

Voters, I have the same values, morals, religious beliefs, ethnic background and number of children as you. We even have the same blood type! If I am elected president, and you ever need blood, or an organ, you just come to the White House, and I will immediately hang up the Hot Line phone, and, bam, I will give you a kidney, lung, pancreas, liver segment, whatever you need, no questions asked. Name me one other candidate, besides Dennis Kucinich, who has made that promise.

Of course this is not enough for the so-called ”news media,” which as we know is dominated by left wingers; or, if you prefer, right wingers. The point is, they are wingers, and they are always nosing around, asking questions, trying to make me reveal intimate details about my personal life, such as which party do I belong to, and do I have a domestic or foreign policy.

He seems honest enough.

You know, if the government got out of the health business, it wouldn’t have to be so nosy about its constituents eating habits and lifestyles.

An argument that the US military is disengaging.

Secretary of Education calls the NEA a “terrorist orginization”.

“I don’t think the NEA is a terrorist organization,” said Rendell, who has butted heads with the group as well. “They’re not a terrorist organization any more than the National Business Organization is a terrorist organization.

We need something akin to Godwin’s Law. Maybe Bin Laden’s Law.

I’m inclined to think that the military wouldn’t announce that they have bin Laden cornered. But I hope it is true.

UPDATE: Here we go. The story is shot down. …But maybe that just what they want us to think…hmmm.

A quiz on the ships of Star Trek. It’s a toughie.

Scrappleface.

It’s funny cause it’s true.

Nader’s running again. That check from Cheney must have cleared.

UPDATE: All but the last of these thoughts occured to me, but I didn’t write them down. And now I don’t have to.

Low level magnetic fields, like what comes from appliances, are dangerous to rat’s brains. I’m not sure how to apply this to my life, but now you know.

TSA is going to start fining people for trying to carry illegal items through the airport.

Bring something you shouldn’t like a loaded gun, and that’s $1,500. A knife will cost you a minimum of $250. And explosives? A whopping $10,000 fine.

I got busted for having a crescent wrench I forgot about in my backpack. Hey, I have a VW Bug, it’s just smart to have a wrench with you at all times.

Mark Steyn on the Canada/Triumph trouble.

Some websites are ignoring the cease and desist order from EMI concerning The Grey Album, a remix of Beatles’ songs.

Why, oh, why can’t Apple drop the Mini price $100? Pleeeeease.

Victor Davis Hanson. Because it’s Friday.

No one wishes to occupy a country. But after the instability in Iraq and a cost nearing 400 combat deaths the Democrats are now not merely questioning the tactics of achieving democracy in Iraq, but the entire notion of occupation itself. But once they go down that road they will discover history is not on their side and will be hard put to offer better alternatives to the present course.

That’s what I’m interested to hear from the Democrats. It’s too late to complain about invading Iraq. What do they intend to do with the reality that we are there already? Pull out and let Iraq sink into chaos? Send the UN? Something else?

Younger conservatives are ambivalent about gay marriage. For 20 years the gay movement has been trying to mainstream itself. Those of us under, what, 35 have been fed the line that it’s none of our business, etc. for most of our lives and now it is bearing fruit. If the polygamy movement gets to work, in another 20 years or so they can be sitting pretty too. Matter of fact, the gay movement has done a lot of the groundbreaking, it might only take them five or ten years.

Russian missile tests fail. I don’t know if these are the warp capable ones or not.

via Drudge Report

Iran is having “elections” today. This could be the start of something bad which might be, ultimately, good.

Buzz Machine is the place to go to keep up with the Iranian bloggers.

The Russians say they have a Warp 5 capable missile.

Colonel Baluyevsky gave few details of the new missile which was tested on Wednesday, but said it was one that moved five times the speed of light.

Light, sound; same difference.

Jonah doesn’t want to talk about The Passion anymore. At least, not until it comes out. Hear, hear.

This list of oil vouchers (read: bribes) from Saddam’s Iraq is going to cause trouble. Very interesting names on it.

via Roger Simon via Instapundit.

The Spokesman Review is highlighting local bloggers (keep refreshing for different photos). My plans to take over the world continue. Yesterday a Right Wing News Site of the Day. Now, front page on the paper. Slowly, carefully, the momentum builds.

Nice pic, eh. Yeah, not much to work with there.

Researcher at Ft. Detrick accidentally jabs herself with Ebola. Suddenly The Stand and Outbreak come to mind.

The bad news is that marketing has already driven the stores to put out the Easter stuff out. The good news is Peeps, the real ones, are here.

The “Missing Peep” formation

Paragraphs, people. Would it kill you to string two sentences together?

Fear, uncertainty and doubt spread concerning CJD in Washington. I’m not saying that this isn’t a problem, I’m just saying that hysteria is not the way to spread the word. Well, it works, but it just doesn’t seem right.

Read what the CDC says.

The text game. So far, I’ve managed to get out of bed.

UPDATE: Dang it. The bulldozer won. A tricky one this is.

FURTHER UPDATE: If I were sensitive I could figure out what to do once I’m on the Vogon ship. Stupid Vogons, I should read them some of MY poetry.

How could Jungle Book beat out Robin Hood? C’mon Roger Miller, tax revolts, archery, elephant chase scene, it’s got it all.

What on the earth were Mexico and Chile doing hammering out secret compromises with Saddam?

Uranium enrichment equipment found in Iran. The question is did it come from France, Germany or Pakistan.

Well, I’m closing off the comments on the perennial spammer favorite Weight Loss Tips. But don’t worry, if you need Viagra or a Certified New Car, and just can’t find it anywhere else, let me know.

U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea.

Try this test.

52% Dixie. Born and raised in Southern California, I bet that’s it. There did seem to be a sad lack of distinctively Western answers. While I’m sure some would disagree, there is articulate life west of the Mississippi.

Why, oh, why don’t they ever test these things in Idaho? Then I could go back to hating blogads without any moral qualms.

I know I could live the rest of my life without hearing more about gay marriage, but I’m pretty sure that’s not going to happen.

Frankly, I hate blogads. Those of us dinosaurs that still have dialup, because there’s no DSL and Adelphia wants too much money, already had to suffer with the Amazon stuff slooowing the loading down, now there’s even more stuff I don’t read to wait for.

Of course, maybe I could get people to send me money with a blogad and then I could afford the broadband. Hmmm. I may have been hasty. I’ll look into developing a more nuanced position on the matter.

We’re going to run out of oil, the economies of the world will crash and I’ll have to start driving one of those ugly hybrid cars.

Or not.

Spirit set a Mars land record, traveling slightly over 70 feet. And Opportunity, the wimp, only went about 29 feet, and is now digging holes.

More chunks of…something are falling off the space station.

Such debris may include fragments of insulation, labels and possibly important components.

Possibly?

This is great stuff.

via IMAO

UPDATE: Apparently this has taken the blog-world by storm. Naturally Instapundit has the links.

I’ve never seen sounds. Or colors. I don’t even see people. I have friend who does though. We point at her and laugh.

I must be another Lincoln. Okay, not quite right, so sue me.

First off, why does time stop when I’m grocery shopping? As soon as I walk in the store, there is no past, there is no future, there is only the store. It’s like eternity, with a frozen food section.

Secondly, Bush ran on a “Uniter, not Divider” campaign. Well, good news. Campaign promise kept. Front page of the print edition of the Wall Street Journal has an article, “Usually Fractious, Democrats Cut Kerry Some Slack”. Subhead: United by Opposition to Bush, Host of Factions Relax Tests for Front-Runner. Can you feel the love?

Thirdly, the “you’re soaking in it” lady died. It’s been a sad day for my childhood memories.

Slashdot had an interesting article on what Indian programmers think about outsourcing.

I’m fairly bitter about the amount of money the government takes from me all the time, but since I just know I’m going to end up paying a nastily large sum this April 15th, I’m even more bitter about the IRS right now. And that’s why I like this article.

And this makes me nervous. Not because I knowingly cheat on my taxes, but I don’t know enough about taxes to know if I am cheating unknowingly. And then I’d have to give them even MORE money.

From Frank J.

They make fun of us for not knowing much about Canada without even stopping to think of our viewpoint on that issue, which is, “Why in God’s name would we ever need to know anything about Canada?”

…

Even Mexico has more influence on American culture than them; we have Mexican restaurants everywhere, but no Canadian restaurants. No one in America knows what Canadians eat, nor are they even slightly curious.

George Foreman vs. ???. And as to why, Don King elaborates:

“We’ve got all this together,” King said. “The pot of gold is waiting.”

Is upheld by the court. I’d rather they didn’t exempt politicians and charities, but I’ll take what I can get.

I thought the military was conducting the War on Terror. Apparently, John Ashcroft has been mismanaging it.

From Scrappleface.

Some group has the horrible idea to bring back the 55 speed limit.

According to a recent GHSA press release, “Since Congress repealed the national speed limit in 1995, much of the public has perceived speed limits as merely guidelines and not the law.”

No, we’ve always thought they were guidlines. They’re just not as dumb as they used to be.

Oh, and mulcting. I learn something every day.

GI Joe coming to the live-action big screen. How shall I put this delicately…I doubt it’s going to win major awards.

UPDATE: Further Hollywood news. Disney is going to buy the Muppets. Sad. Fox is remaking Mr. Ed. Sad.

Pete can be a great writer when he wants to.

Don’t tell him I said so though.

This story is so much better because it was a woman driving. You’d think she would have stopped for directions.

Darn, I wanted to steal his headline. So I’ll come as close as I can.

I agree with what they said, and have my own entirely selfish reason (I don’t want to waste my Saturday doing sound at your wedding) that I’d be happy if the Church would get out of the marriage business.

It doesn’t affect me in the least (unlike all the other stuff I post, of course), but this is interesting.

The ending seemed rather odd to me.

Opinion polls after the Hutton inquiry was published showed that many people considered its verdict a “whitewash”, and that they trusted the BBC far more than they did Blair and his ministers.

Said the media. Which leads me to this article on how the British are cynical and don’t trust the government or *gasp* the media.

Remember what your kindergarten teacher told you about sharing? Forget it.

A mistery. Cheater help here.

via Dave Barry’s Blog

I didn’t know there was a school for this sort of thing…

I’m going to practice their tips this afternoon though.

The Inland Northwest desperately needs a similar law. While I would prefer that the government didn’t have to get involved, it may be what it takes. And since were talking about the lame driving habits, when getting on the freeway, the on-ramp is there TO GET UP TO FREEWAY SPEEDS. Don’t do 45 until you’re on the freeway, try to merge, and then decide to accelerate. Similarly, OFF-RAMPS are for slowing down. Don’t slow down to 40mph on the freeway. Thank you.

Now, why would a used,er, new car salesman spam under Weight Loss Tips. While it is the favorite of the spammers, there’s better choices out there.

Very polite though.

Bush plays the race card.

Canadian is a race now, eh? Tacky, dumb, over the top, yes. Racist?

I love my Roomba. I’m vacuuming now, even as I type. You all should get one.

At my high school when we heard Jim Henson died of pnemonia, we were convinced he died of AIDS and his family didn’t want anyone to know. Another childhood memory crushed by the truth.

And in other news, man, I’m old.

I was a junior, though. I’m not that old.

Science makes another hidden-in-plain-sight discovery. Using M&Ms, that’s the important part.

The barrel full of plain M&M’s made Professor Chaikin think about how well they packed in. A series of studies have shown they pack more tightly than perfect spheres. That surprises many physicists and Professor Chaikin. “It is a startling and wonderful result,” Sidney Nagel, a physicist at the University of Chicago, said.

Good for Mr. Hunt.

Now I know why I don’t like the word “meme”. And if reality shows have taught me anything, it’s that the fittest get knocked down and dragged off, it’s the mediocre that survive.

Found on Slashdot.

r0535 @r3 r3d
v1013t5 @re b1u3
@11 |\/|y b@53
@r3 b310ng t0 y0u

Demo now available. Make sure you have a zippy video card. Current waiting time for download: 42 minutes.

UPDATE: Current download speed from FilePlanet: 38KB/s.

You might want to wait a week or so.

FURTHER UPDATE: Based on the demo, UT 2004 is everything 2003 should have been. As much fun as UT, fast paced, well balanced weapons, and a great time all around. And on my 32M GeoForce video card, at the lower settings, there was an occasional glitch, but it played fine. I can’t wait to see what it looks like at the higher settings. I’ll be picking it up soon.

Adjectives surrender. Writing just became blander.

Like every other governmental agency concerned with testing, the New York State Education Department devised its own list of taboo words. There are the usual ones that have offended feminists for a generation, like “fireman,” “authoress,” “handyman” and “hostess.” New York exercised its leadership by discovering bias in such words as “addict” (replace with “individual with a drug addiction”); “alumna, alumnae, alumni, alumnus” (replace with “graduate or graduates”); “American” (replace with “citizen of the United States or North America”); “cancer patient” (replace with “a patient with cancer”); “city fathers” (replace with “city leaders”).

And the conclusion is dead on:

Thus the great irony of bias and sensitivity reviewing. It began with the hope of encouraging diversity, ensuring that our educational materials would include people of different experiences and social backgrounds. It has evolved into a bureaucratic system that removes all evidence of diversity and reduces everyone to interchangeable beings whose differences we must not learn about–making nonsense of literature and history along the way.

via National Review

VDH: If life were like pundits say it is

That had Mr. Carter been allowed to employ his patented Nobel-Prize winning Korean model of curbing nuclear proliferation with Muammar Khaddafi, Libya would now be free of nukes.

…

That Democratic senators in anguish over zealous scrutiny of immigrants from the Middle East will soon repeal their near-unanimous prior support for the Patriot Act and demand a return to a more enlightened pre-9/11 visa policy.

And there’s much more.

For Bush, not so much. For Kerry, sure.

Oh, you want all four colors printed? Save a little money and skip the yellow. Naturally, it is seen as some sort of racism. Like a major American business wants to create bad publicity, destroy its brand name, and run the risk of Jesse Jackson showing up to declare it another Selma.

Intel has a device that can encode data on a light beam. What happens to all your data at night though?

The internet is slow today. Someone find out who’s responsible and smack them.

San Francisco’s city hall, afraid of being out-progressived by Massachusetts performs gay marriages, in violation of state law.

Yes, only nine months to go and already we’re getting dental records. It’s going to be a long summer.

From Evangelical Outpost:

Besides, we’re talking about a candidate for the Democrats. Unless the intern turns out to be a goat, an al Queda operative, or a Republican, it won’t affect his chances of being the nominee. In fact, it will probably just end up making Kerry look more Clintonesque.

NCC-1701 mistaken for a bomb. And the bad pun is at the end.

WindowsNT/Windows2000 source code leaked.

Sesame Street hasn’t been the same since Mr. Hooper died. But this is incredible.

I heard that!

Out of the frying pan, into the fire.

“We feel we have a much stronger case with Games X Copy,” said Julia Bishop-Cross, a 321 spokeswoman. “PC games are widely recognized as software, and with software there’s a legal precedence set that you can make backup copies.”

Barbie and Ken are splitting up. I hope this makes it obvious to everyone that the moral decline in this country has gone too far.

If this is what it takes to discourage suicide bombings, slather the city in pig fat. And that wall too.

This is just what America needs. Clippy in the kitchen.

New hotness: Peguin darts. Personal Best: 557.7

UPDATE: 719.9. Oh yeah!

For stem cell harvesting.

The Hearty Chicken cup of noodles is tasty stuff. Bigger noodles and there’s no nasty vegetables to get in the way.

See what happens on a slow news day. Let this be a lesson to you all.

The LobsterCam. This is the sort of thing that makes the internet a beautiful place.

I like optimists.

In American eyes (as many a bemused British visitor has noted), not to be basically optimistic is vaguely wicked and certainly pointless. Defeatism is a waste of life, a throwing away of potential and infinite possibilities. Constant self-improvement is not just a virtue: it is what life is about.

Remind me not to move to England.

What arguments there are in the US about big v small government are marginal nit-picking by our standards.

There is nothing better for governments around the world to be concentrating on than its constituents eating habits and weight.