Not So Fast

Coolest video of the Mars rover you’ll see today.

via Fark

That’s right, salty.

Victor Davis Hanson on Hugh Hewitt’s show.

Maybe if the kids just sat around on the grass? That seems fairly safe.

They may be annoying thieves, but you have to admit they have style.

Well, well, well. How interesting that someone finally brought this up.

Vice Premier Shimon Peres said Monday that “the president of Iran should remember that Iran can also be wiped off the map.”

photos lifted from the Daily

Use a geranium leaf. More effort than it’s worth, but seriously cool.

Here’s more thoughts about donkeys than I thought possible.

I should get pictures of Uganda and the people thereof up starting this weekend. And that whole new theme thing is still in my big plans.

UPDATE: I also plan to weed and feed and mow my lawn this weekend, in case you’re reading this, my rather forbearing neighbors.

FURTHER UPDATE: I also need to fix my torn mudflap. I’m contemplating trading my Pathfinder in for something more fuelly economic, but then I would have to replace my cracked windshield. So upfront cost versus nickeled-and-dimed to death. Not to mention that it’s just a economic cycle and in 10 years the prices will be comparatively low again and I’ll want something I can fit stuff into. On the other hand, I’ll want to beat the rush to smaller vehicles that will drive the price of them up. Tough choice.

I love that board

Look how serious I am about it. The girls, they aren’t loud enough.

photo by Stephen Granat.

Terrorists are modding video games. Now you know.

A transparent toaster.

Idaho’s senators did fairly well in the anti-pork report card. Remember, the less you spend, the more I like you. Cause I’m shallow like that.

If you’re a climatologist the goverment wants to hear from you.

Christopher Hitchens replies to Juan Cole.

Death rays. That’s no moon!

Protesting in front of abortion clinics is unconstitutional, protesting in front of churches and cemetaries is a God-given right.

Those wacky Japanese. Pink teddy bears, guns, weddings, I don’t know.

Silly teachers, you can’t force students to pay attention. Why back in my day, when a TRS-80 was a svelte little machine, we still didn’t pay attention, and the TRS-80’s weren’t even on!

The fine line between genius and insanity is finally explained.

Google Calendar.

Google: Taking over the world one helpful program at a time.

The blogosphere, that is.

I leave and the country goes to heck.

I’m an idiot. Instead of transfering to the account I transfered from it. FAN-tastic.

Daylight Savings is still messing me up. I hates it, tricksy sun!

This will be my last post, well, from Idaho. I’ll probably get bored in the airport and post something this weekend, but anyway, I’ll be gone for the next three weeks to Uganda. Posting will be extremely sporadic to non-existant. I should probably go change those settings that control how long stuff is on the front page right now before I forget. Okay, good idea, I’ll go do that.

The sun causes global warming. Who knew?

Need to know things like this. It’s good to plan ahead.

Our power’s from Bonneville, right? Cause I’d like more than 24 hours, given a choice. Well, it seems Avista generates its own electricity. Interesting. Still I think that bodes well, should the worst occur.

Hugh Hewitt had a fantastic day with Mark Steyn, Christopher Hitchens, and James Lileks. Just keep scrolling.

Welcome to hell, here’s your accordion.

Dan Simmons, of Hyperion fame, on the future. Hopefully it remain fiction.

via Inoperable Terran

Regarding the NBC set up of Muslims at the NASCAR. Nothing happened.

No film at 11.

What records to keep and for how long. Finally I know it’s safe to throw away my Avista bills from 1997.

I just found a significant (to me) amount of money. Not enough that the cops should be called or anything. I know who it belongs to, but they would never know if I didn’t tell them and just for a second I thought, “I could keep this, and it sure would come in handy right now”.

I’m not going to keep it, but I sure thought about it. Those people who turn in thousands of dollars are super-cool. Hopefully someday I’ll be a better person.

Coolest website I’ve seen today. And I saw this one today, so that’s saying something.

Why are they attempting to improve on perfection?

I so hope, and am inclined to think, that nothing will happen.

Britian is the place to commit burglary, arson, vandalism, and the like. You can get off with a warning now.

UPDATE: Singing punk songs, however, is never a good idea. Hey, ho, let’s go

Google Romance.

Late, I know, but hey, I just found it.

68% of American workers think they’re doing okay saving for retirement.

At the same time, more than half of all workers say they’ve saved less than $25,000 toward retirement, according to the Washington, D.C., based research group. Even among workers 55 and older, more than four in 10 have retirement savings under $25,000.

It blows my mind.

As would be expected, older workers generally have more set aside than younger workers, with 12 percent of those 55 and older reporting account balances of $100,000 to $249,999, and 26 percent with accounts of $250,000 and up.

No one is going to be retiring anytime soon.

Apophis may decimate the Earth in 2036.

Aren’t robots supposed to do chores, freeing us up to entertain ourselves? Why would I want a robot that sits around quoting poetry? Get to work, slacker, and clean up that mess. Uppity robots. Soon their going to be wanting rights and time off and unions.

I hate the time change. I miss my sleep. And don’t tell me to go to bed earlier, I’m NOT TIRED SINCE IT’S AN HOUR EARLIER THAN THE CLOCK SAYS. Ahem.

My little point and shoot digital camera has caused some bad habits when I switch back to my film SLR. Like blowing through a roll of film on basically random shots that probably won’t turn out and even if they do turn out I probably won’t want the pictures anyway. Eh, well.

Ha ha ha. I get to teach Sin, Salvation and Repentance, and Food Handling to those poor (because they have to listen to me, not poor as in poor, although I guess they are that too) Ugandans. Food handling is going to rawk. I hope they can get me three plucked chickens to juggle.
Never, ever, ever do this to a badger.

AOL is now officially AOL. And seriously, if you’re still using AOL, time to lose the training wheels. It’s a big internet out there.

My, my, don’t they think highly of their movies. A little too highly, perhaps.

Mark Steyn knocks it out of the park. A couple quality quotes for you:

We all “respect” Islam; presidents and prime ministers and foreign ministers, lapsing so routinely into the deep-respect-for-the-religion-of-peace routine they forget that cumulatively it begins to sound less like “Let’s roll!” and too often like “Let’s roll over!”

You don’t say. Which is the point: Most Western government leaders don’t say, and their silence is correctly read by a resurgent Islam as timidity. I also appreciated this pithy summation by my favorite foreigner minister, Alexander Downer: “Multilateralism is a synonym for an ineffective and unfocused policy involving internationalism of the lowest common denominator.”

The Hamas says no to Israel’s concessions.

“Can you really call this an independent, viable state? Of course not.”

He said that until the Palestinians had such a home there would be no possibility of reining in the various armed factions responsible for attacks on Israel.

Luckily, the Democratic party never exploits current events or racial politics for political gain.

Pot, kettle. Kettle, pot.

I understand why they want to prove spiritual things scientifically. Today, a word from science is as weighty and important as the word of the Church was in the Middle Ages, but really, I don’t think this is going to work like they want it to work.

“The problem with studying religion scientifically is that you do violence to the phenomenon by reducing it to basic elements that can be quantified, and that makes for bad science and bad religion,” said Dr. Richard Sloan, a professor of behavioral medicine at Columbia and author of a forthcoming book, “Blind Faith: The Unholy Alliance of Religion and Medicine.”

Scrappleface puts it well.

I’m not against science, btw, I’m all for science. I love science. Some of my best friends have read science books*. It’s just that people take the latest study as carved in stone when we all know that scientific knowledge is constantly growing and changing.

*no they haven’t. they’re barely literate troglodytes. but the joke works better that way.

Okay, the Diner has some fabulous music this week.

Bush != Hitler, contrary to popular opinion.

We’ve seen what American bookstores and publications and universities do when confronted with real fascists: they knuckle under. You might not be able to find those Danish cartoons anyplace respectable, but you’ll sure find lots of anti-Bush stuff.

Cause drinking all that coffee is such a waste of time.

Next time Border’s hosts a banned books week, they can include the ones they ban. Handy.

Maryland wants mandatory goggles and facemasks for Little Leaguers.

Maybe it was the perfect time to buy gold.

Scientists have just discovered that energy drinks contain high levels of caffiene.

Energy drinks that promise to boost performance and rev up metabolism can contain three to four times as much caffeine as a typical soda, a new study shows.

This is hilarious.

Total eclipses are rare because they require the tilted orbits of the sun, moon and earth to line up exactly so that the moon obscures the sun completely. The next total eclipse will occur in 2008.

For future reference, things that happen every 18 months should not be considered rare.

Not allowed to use Google? Doesn’t that qualify as some sort of child abuse?

Then there’s a questionable get-well card with a big happy face on the front. On the inside, it reads, “Hi! Welcome back from your coma!”

Well, no doubt someone needs a card that says that. I’d open this up as a competition but whenever I solicit comments I don’t get any and then you guys comment on the strangest stuff. I just don’t understand you (cover). I’m still working on the inside.

Nickelodeon has a “new” idea. Cartoon opera. Finally, this country is getting a little culture.

The global economy gets tricky sometimes.

Remember the old days when God wanted to give a sign to his people and he would do stuff like the plagues, or making the sun stand still, or sending his Son? Whatever happened to those days?

In a surprising twist, this time it’s the Muslims not the Catholics. Soon to be available on Ebay.

How’s your Final Four bracket going? Poorly, I would guess.

More than 1.5 million people participated and of the more than 3 million entries submitted only four — that’s right, four — picked a Final Four including Florida, George Mason, LSU and UCLA before the tournament started.

This whole Myspace thing has gotten out of hand. Does everyone in the entire freaking country have a Myspace site?

Archive of geeks arguing over which superhero would beat which.

Celebrate Shatnermas with Lileks.

Fun and exercise for the whole family. The music reminds me horribly of It’s a Small World.

The next big extinction is upon us.

“In effect, we are currently responsible for the sixth major extinction event in the history of earth, and the greatest since the dinosaurs disappeared, 65 million years ago,” said the 92-page Global Biodiversity Outlook 2 report.

So what? If they can’t survive, better let them die and decrease the surplus population. Let’s see what new species pop up to take their place.

Universal will let you download movies. For FORTY BUCKS EACH [Apparently that’s Canadian. Still, it’s like 34.95 EACH]. Um, it’s supposed to be cheaper when there’s no physical media, kids. I guess you have to give them credit for trying.

“Consumers are becoming more and more demanding. This service offers instant access and flexibility for consumers to watch films wherever they like,� said Eddie Cunningham, chair of Universal Pictures UK.

Cursed consumers demanding stuff. I say ignore them and maybe they’ll go away.

It’s William Shatner’s birthday today. Everybody bake a cake. who’s gabe?

Defector says North Koreans regularly kill disabled newborns. We all but do that in Western society, so they’re not that different really.

I want prosthetic arms made of these muscles.

And high-speed internets in space. Oh yeah.

Australian education goes Outcome Based. Reactions are mixed.

All three samples state students should not be penalised for “poor spelling, punctuation, grammar or handwriting”. Students are also permitted to draw answers or write them in dot form.

“If you’re not going to learn how to write English with correct grammar, spelling and continuous prose, where the hell are you going to learn it?” Mr Williams said.

Cat jumps out of tree. Film goes to eleven.

via Fark

The local paper (subscription only–bleh!) is sponsering a “Peeps as Art” contest (pssst, S-R, photoshop contest next year, kthx). Since I consider art to have reached it’s zenith in the Baroque period and pretty much disappeared around the turn of the last century, and I’m not about to recreate Rembrant with peeps, I’ll just show you guys some of my more favorite Peep action shots.

Rock on, my peep brotha’

Doing my work for me

Kristin’s office, may I ask who’s calling?

Okay, Michelle Malkin says this UN poster is a slam against Denmark. Which it could be, but I find the entire thing confusing. It seems to be saying that the evil here is being different. If only the red Lego were a dull grey puzzle piece everything would be fine. Wouldn’t it be the grey puzzle pieces that are racist for not letting the red Lego fit in?

Frank J. on the proper running of a fascist state.

Boil ’em, mash ’em, stick ’em in a stew.

Should anything funky happen, it’s because I’m upgrading WordPress. Your patience is appreciated.

I’m also contemplating a theme change. And naturally I need to add sites to my blogroll, namely, Matt and Kelsey.

Okay, so here’s my problem. The themes that aren’t incredibly dull require a bunch of tweaking to make look like I want to. Why hasn’t someone read my mind and catered to my whims? It’s so hard to be me with my refined sensibilities laziness and all. You get green for the weekend, cause, you know, St. Patrick’s Day and all. Yes, it’s heinous.
Okay, how do I make this WYSIWYG posting stuff go away? Also, I feel I should have some Flickr action going. If only I had the superfantastic DSLR I want instead of a bunch of film I have to scan using my non-existant scanner. Here we go into the chorus…It’s a hard-knock life for us..it’s a hard-knock life for us…no one cares a smidge…when you’re in an orphanage…

Yeah, and my allergy to spring just started this afternoon. stuffed up and sneezing, woo!…Santa Claus we never see…Santa Claus, what’s that? Who’s he?…It’s a hard-knock life for us…

On top of all the other problems with it, DRM is bad for battery life.

You know, maybe they should just give up on the apples and switch to something else.

All you ever needed to know about baby seals and lawyers.

Blogger comedy.

Scientists with the ability to manipulate spectacularly small things cure cancer make smileys and maps of the Americas.

via Fark

Nintendo as a diabetes managment tool. Probably a good idea as the kids today get chubby and diabetical.

I managed to edit a .conf file using vi. I am now teh l33t haX0r!

Also, completely unrelated, I will be gone from April 8th-29th to sunny Kitgum, Uganda and the surrounding area (where apparently the resolution isn’t so good). I will be bringing l33tness to the n00b kids there.

I’ve really been enjoying (and benefiting from) doing a highly-modified (cause I’m a weakling) version of Crossfit’s Workout of the Day lately.

Further bulletins as events warrant.

Among which are an increased minimum wage and broadband access.

There’s an agenda I can get behind. Oh wait. Minimum wage doesn’t affect me or anyone else I think, since around here even McDonalds is paying $1.50 over minimum wage to start, and I already have broadband. Never mind.

So far. Useless, too.

Everything the kids don’t pick up could be yours.

Starbucks will be offering free coffee tomorrow from 10-noon. I’m not a fan of most of Starbucks’ roasts, but hey, free coffee. You have to give them credit for that.

Can we give up on the whole Affirmative Action thing yet?

Southern Illinois University reached a consent decree last month with the Justice Department to allow nonminorities and men access to graduate fellowships originally created for minorities and women.

In January, the State University of New York made white students eligible for $6.8 million of aid in two scholarship programs also previously available just for minorities. Pepperdine University is negotiating with the Education Department over its use of race as a criterion in its programs.

Check out this sandwich. It’s on wonder bread, for pete’s sake. What kind of country would allow sandwiches made with wonder bread to be purchased? Barbarians.

All the cuteness you’ll need. Ever.

The US might be pulling back some of its imperialist projection forces.

I’m just pointing this quote out because it’s the only thing on the entire internets that has made me laugh today.

I just bought this one and this one has never been used. I’d like to have a chance to use it.

Track your friends as you drive.

Lileks goes off on the whole crunchy-con movement.

Food is nothing without you. There are no carrots in the fields yearning to make your life complete.

Confusing lifestyle and politics is a silly waste of time. They may inform one another, but they aren’t an all-or-nothing package. Paul said something along these lines. And Jesus.

We’ll have to take a wait-and-see approach to this “problem”.

Cocaine and coffee, a natural combination!

loosely via Pete

Orbital Mind Control

Michael Jackson is trying to build muscles to get away from the high weirdness quotient. The fact that he’s doing it in Bahrain, not helping so much.

Ben Stein on the Oscars.

The brave guy in Hollywood will be the one who says that this is a fabulously great country where we treat gays, blacks, and everyone else as equal. The courageous writer in Hollywood will be the one who says the oil companies do their best in a very hostile world to bring us energy cheaply and efficiently and with a minimum of corruption. The producer who really has guts will be the one who says that Wall Street, despite its flaws, has done the best job of democratizing wealth ever in the history of mankind.

This would seem more like a sincere effort at reform if Bush had vetoed anything, ever.

“Time warp” family unable to walk upright. That’s odd.

Flying Space Monkey will be the next The Manolo. Just with a southern accent, and perhaps a little gravy on his cravat.

Okay, so the Zaurus isn’t bricked, I found a super-secret menu that let me clear the corrupted ROM, but now the flipping SD card isn’t working right, so that’s where I am today. I am getting good practice with a few of the Linux commands that I never use, so I have that going for me.

Infant euthanasia in Holland. It’s a nice bookend for the adult euthanasia there.

via Pete

So, I was updating my Zaurus and I think I bricked it. I’m spending quality time searching forums so no posts for you. Come back, one year.

And then, somehow, I managed to erase most of the important parts of this post. I’m just going to step away from the computer, slowly, and not touch anything else.

Microsoft claims they will introduce a better search engine than Google in six months.

Translated: at least a year away and it will be not that great.

A lament.

Where’s the game where we play a salty Southern lawyer who has to piece together evidence to exonerate a black man falsely accused of murder, breaking down witnesses and spotting inconsistencies in testimony?

Where are the games for the old-timers? Where’s the game where we get to play as Dr. House and diagnose mysterious illnesses while crushing the patient’s spirit with cruel insults? Where’s the game where we’re a pre-op transsexual where the object of the game is to gather enough money to complete the operation?

Apparently the US is hoping to build stealth sharks.

We’re all living in a 5D black hole. Mathmatically speaking. Maybe.

Europe understands Islam better now.

The realization has come that you have to respect Islam, and the prophet. Now Europe is more aware of this aspect. There is positive thinking in this respect…and people will now be more careful (about hurting others’ feelings).

Darn doctors, helping people and all that, bomb them.