Not So Fast

Sometime today there should be more moose of Coeur d’Alene. Assuming no more emergency radioendectmies happen.

In case you were wondering here is the music from Reagan’s funeral.

Remind me not to complain about how long the funerals around here take. Oy, that’s a lot of music.

I need one of these rooms. Not that I have trouble sleeping. Just reading the article almost put me to sleep. I mean that in the nicest possible way, of course. Man, I could use a nap.

One of the better known VRWC member, the United Nations, says Saddam was shipping WMDs out of the country before and during the invasion in 2003.

Aww, we’re all one happy world family now.

“We accommodated them; they accommodated us,” a senior administration official said. “We had a very happy outcome. This is known as diplomacy, an art so forgotten as to be exotic and even radical.”

Apparently fit enough to survive. There will be governmental panels on the subject though.

A massive sinkhole empties a lake. Lakeshore property values plummet.

“These things happen,” Powers said.

They do? Are you sure?

Scientists to test space-time fabric. What if it’s like nylon and just keeps unraveling?

Here’s how not to win people to your side.

First of all, you’re disadvantaged because you are racist Nazi scum. But then using a virus to mass mail spam is like a trifecta of things people hate. But I’m sure everyone is against you because you’re misunderstood.

North Korea has missles capable of hitting Alaska. If I were Kim Jung-il I’d just give up now. Take the money in the Swiss bank accounts and retire to a tropical island. But I’m rather risk adverse.

This is teh funney. I really did laugh aloud. You may now think less of me.

Qaddafi denies he planned to assasinate the crown prince of Saudi Arabia last year. Here’s the original NY Times article (reg.req).

Ray Charles singing America the Beautiful always brings a tear to my eye.

Coming soon to a license plate near you (if you live in Britian).

How computer-generated people become more odd-looking the more human-like they become. I think they should keep trying though. Sooner or later someone will nail it and they will be indistinguishable from humans and therefore video games will be better, or something like that.

Roomba, one of those Frisbee-shaped vacuum robots, and it doesn’t look even vaguely human. Yet as it zips around my living room, it seems amazingly alive, and I can’t help but feel warmly toward it.

I love my little roomba. He does all that work for me.

via Slashdot

Orson Scott Card and Evangelical Outpost

People are getting ruder in Britian.

Of course, just as a seasoned air-rager will have a plausible excuse for their behaviour, so does the office lout. The reason office workers are rude and bad-mannered, ignore their colleagues and swear their heads off is because of the pressure of work, say two-thirds of those surveyed by Office Angels.

Keep a weather eye out though. The next Ice Age is coming.

Federal employees get a tax-payer paid vacation because of Reagan’s death. Reagan should have shut down those departments he wanted to when he had the chance.

via Joyful Christian

Running through my bookmarks, here’s some stuff you should go look at.

Cheese Racing

The Twinkie Project

Make Enterprise out of a floppy disk

Satirewire

The Book of Ratings

Zombo

Evangelical Outpost is right.

But the most infuriating part — my hands are shaking with rage just typing this — is that the Iraqis are getting gas at five cents a gallon! Five cents! You can’t buy raw sewage in America for five cents a gallon! And why do the Iraqis need such cheap gas anyway? For heaven’s sakes, they don’t even drive SUVs! What, is it for the long daily commute to Fallujah where their job is to fight the infidels?

Check out Slashdot’s poll, that’s just funny.

The white bread recipe in this book makes amazing bread. I’ll try the bread again tomorrow after it’s had time to sit, just to double check.

UPDATE: Oh yeah, it’s amazing.

So the recipe is (shh! don’t tell anyone I told you. And I’m doing it off the top of my head, you might want to wait until I double check this):

1 package yeast
1/4 cup of warm water

2 cups whole milk
2 TBSP butter
2 TBSP sugar
1 TBSP salt

5 or so cups of flour

activate the yeast in the warm water

warm the milk and butter till the butter melts, add the sugar, stir. Let the mixture cool down to lukewarm.

add the yeast water, stir.

add 2 cups of flour, stir.

add the salt, stir.

add more flour until you have a soft dough, knead 10 minutes or so.

let it rise, covered, in a greased bowl till doubled in volume.

gently punch down, cut in half, let it rest 10 minutes.

roll each half out, roll it up, and put it in the bread pan.

let it rise again, till doubled in volume or it’s oozing out of the pan.

bake in preheated oven at 400. Watch out that the top doesn’t burn.

Why did Fanta make a Quinine Water flavored drink? Did they think the malaria-conscious consumer was a big, untapped market?

The Patriot Act has its pluses and its minuses, but it’s nice to see local government checking the power of the central government.

The current president, Reagan’s vice president, and various world leaders are speaking, but Clinton feels partisanly shunned because he doesn’t get to speak at Reagan’s funeral. What sort of relationship did Clinton and Reagan have?

“It is a state funeral, using tax dollars,” the top Clinton insider explained.

So what? Does that mean no crosses can be displayed or the ACLU will have a fit?

Clearly, Gatorade’s new Chinese spokesman has been chosen.

How Reagan affects the election. Sure, the Democratic Underground was all over this yesterday, but I expected it to take a while longer to hit the mainstream. And Bush is going to “capture” Osama in October too, you know.

Letter to the Editor. (scroll down)

You got to skip school for the inaguration? No fair.

I do remember that carpet.

I’m sure customers are going to be lining the blocks to get these players.

Coeur d’Alene makes it onto Slashdot. And there’s a surprising number of /.ers from CdA, three, by my count.

Tough times in Saudi Arabia. Al Qaeda attacking, and you can’t crack down too hard, after all the general populace tends to agree with them. What to do, what to do?

If you care what I think about Iraq and WMD, I wrote more than usual in these comments. Not much more, but hey.

Mark Twain is the only American “literature” I can stand. And great literature stands the test of time.

Would it be such a bad thing if Europe had to provide for its own defense? I thought they didn’t like us anyway. Shouldn’t they be glad to see us go?

Wanna see 3D Transformers breakdancing? I knew you would.

Kerryopoly. Of course I suck at Monopoly, but maybe I’ll do better at this.

Food myths debunked by Pravda.

via Fark

PS. I never could get the hang of those “In Soviet Russia” jokes. But did you hear the one where a priest, a rabbi, and a minister all walk into a bar and the bartender looks up and says, “What is this, a joke?”

Is that legal? Cause it certainly isn’t right.

CNN narrows down the likely choices of the Democratic VP to nearly every democrat whose name is known by the general public.

Quotes:

Precisely because it was costly, idealistic, and dangerous, we should expect a lot of killing and bombing in the next few months as an array of opponents tries to derail the upcoming transition and elections. Anyone who thinks thousands of Islamic fascists and out-of-work Baathists won’t want to stop the region’s first consensual government is unhinged.

…

If this caring world is worried about the injustice of a fence or Islamaphobia, then start slurring nuclear India for its $1 billion fence, which shuts off the entire (impoverished Muslim) country of Bangladesh — a far harsher blow to far more millions than Israel’s so-called “Wall” aimed at stopping suicide killing.

…

Our Real Dilemma. We do have a grave problem in this country, but it is not the plan for Iraq, the neoconservatives, or targeting Saddam. Face it: This present generation of leaders at home would never have made it to Normandy Beach. They would instead have called off the advance to hold hearings on Pearl Harbor, cast around blame for the Japanese internment, sued over the light armor and guns of Sherman tanks, apologized for bombing German civilians, and recalled General Eisenhower to Washington to explain the rough treatment of Axis prisoners.

Something or other happened over in Washington. Or maybe not.

Sorry kids, work is interfering with the blogging. Hopefully this afternoon will be calmer.

I particularly like the shade of blue crack.

David Hasselhoff is putting out a rap album. Iced-T is producing it. I’m speechless.

An article on blogging, but I really liked this quote:

Last weekend I organized and moderated an evening of double panels here in L.A. for the American Cinema Foundation, which promotes free speech and liberal democracy around the world through filmmaking. These days that means the ACF is a right-of-center organization; or, as many on the left would see it, a far-right fascist entity filled with neocon crazies.

Heh.

An long article on how Microsoft is missing the boat.

Except Microsoft has always been slow to adapt to the internet. When they do, however, they come in, smash everything in the way, and take over.

As you turn onto Sherman and look to your left this is the first moose you see:

In this group is my favorite of the moose I have found so far.

So, there we are on 2nd and Sherman and just across the street is this thing.

This one was the first I saw. It was late at night, I was tired, a cop with his lights flashing had someone pulled over, and I thought, “Is that a moose? How long has that been there? And why is it so weird looking?” I thought it was due to the circumstances, but no, it’s just as weird looking during the day.

So we continue on our merry way up to 3rd Street.

That’s nice, children dancing in a field. Colors aren’t too obnoxious, it’s one of the better ones.

But then, we come to 5th Street

The infamous Tolouse-LauMoose. A moose, with a beard, dressed in clothes and decorated like a walking billboard for Moulin Rouge. Yes, brought to you buy the art teachers of the Coeur d’Alene School District. I fear for the future of arts in Coeur d’Alene.

Just halfway up the block is this one:

“Sacred Walk,” which apparently should be taken in your Old Skool Vans or possibly Converse to blend in with the background.

That concludes the Shermon Avenue moose walk. Not to worry though, there’s more.

Scrappleface is back.

Due to temporary technical difficulties the moose of Sherman will not be seen until tomorrow.

Sorry kids.

In unrelated news, my first run of Tubbs hill this year was 6 minutes faster than my first run last year. Which says more about my poor running skills last year, but still, it’s improvement. Yay me.

New concerns about childhood obesity. It causes health problems. No kidding, Sherlock.

“I’ve been in the field for 20 years. What I’m seeing now, I’ve never seen before,” said Caprio, adding that it is not uncommon for a teen to weigh 200 or 300 pounds.

Losing weight through diet and increased activity should help reverse or reduce the conditions and ward off complications, she said.

This is tacky.

“If these people were able to read and write with a simplified spelling system, they would be able to fill out a job application, stay employed, and stay out of prison,” said Sanford Silverman, 86. The retired accountant from Cleveland was handing out copies of his book, “Spelling for the 21st Century: The case for spelling reform.”

And if you got the job without being able to read, how would being illiterate keep you from staying employed? Also, why would illiteracy cause you to go to jail? “Back when I couldn’t spell I was forced to rob 7-11s”?

I don’t know what they have to say, it doesn’t matter anyway, whatever it is, I’m against it.

A guy recorded his trip from L.A. to Beaverton and compressed it into 6 minutes. Ah, the beauty of the 5. Not for the faint of bandwidth.

When, oh when will this stupidity stop?

Sure the idea is old and tired, but so is Kerry. Die hippies, die.

Back in my day the Berlin Wall coming down was current events, but we still only spent a week on everything after World War I too.

Coming tomorrow. The mooses of Sherman Ave. And as a teaser I have one, er, two, uh, one hyphenated word for you: Toulouse-LauMoose.

UPDATE: I’m trying to figure out a way I can qualify for part of this. I definitely need to improve my skills as an art critic. Maybe the moose could be considered theatre.

I didn’t know anyone in the US knew how to play cricket. Now I find out they are trying to form a professional league.

You too can download part of the second Star Trek pilot. Which would be the first one with Kirk and Spock.

via Trekweb

From Frank J.

* When helping the Iraqis with elections, make sure the ballots are clear so they don’t come under rule of Pat Buchanan.

* Remember to take your car keys off the key ring before handing the keys to government buildings over.

* Though security should mainly be handled by the Iraqis now, do leave a few Marines to help out… and maybe Aquaman.

Yeah, you go ahead and snooze.

Some of the more radical French thinkers describe sleep as a revolutionary activity that should be used as a weapon against the evils of capitalism.

…

Paradoxically, the French have more opportunities to sleep than almost any other nation. With a maximum 35-hour working week imposed by law, they have time to spare.

Alton Brown has a Wired article. They are shockingly behind the times here. More links are here.

I broke the brush coupler on my roomba, through my own fault. I didn’t clean it out enough. I contacted customer support to buy a new one, but they are sending me one for free. See, that’s all it takes to build customer loyalty.

I’m willing to bet money that their ancestors would give them a swift kick in the butt and tell them to get on with their lives.

DeGruy-Leary testified this month in Washington County Circuit Court that African Americans today are affected by past centuries of U.S. slavery because the original slaves were never treated for the trauma of losing their homes; seeing relatives whipped, raped and killed; and being subjugated by whites.

Also,

“He had a traditional, Southern, small-town, working-class upbringing where ‘whuppin’ was accepted,” Vogt said. “Whether that was abusive or not, that is in the eye of the beholder. He was raised differently than your typical kid in Beaverton.”

A “whuppin'” does not kill children. Regardless of whether they are in Mississipi or Beaverton. Otherwise there would be scores of cases of traditional, Southern, small-town, working-class kids being killed by their parents. This guy is whacked.

If this is the heart and soul of the Republican party, there’s a problem.

“It is a fight for the heart and soul of the Republican Party: Is it a party about deficit reduction or a party about tax cuts?” said Stanley Collender, a budget expert at Financial Dynamics, a business communications firm in Washington.

And the correct answer, by the way, is “cut spending”.

UPDATE: Oh, look! Jonah agrees with me. He says it better, naturally.

Okay, let’s start with the ugly. Someone at North Idaho Title must have ticked someone off to get stuck with this monstrosity in front of their building.

And now the good. This one looks odd from a distance, but close up you can see what they are doing and it’s pretty cool. This one’s in front of the Spokesman-Review building, because you don’t want to irritate the press with an ugly moose outside their building and get bad reviews, obviously.

Stay tuned, there’s lots more to come. And by the way, I didn’t do this.

Coming soon: The meese of Coeur d’Alene. Join me as I track down and photograph some of the ugliest moose sculptures you will ever see. And some that aren’t so bad.

I ask you: The Longest Day, greatest war movie ever, or just the greatest in the last 100 years?

Egypt is pressuring Arafat? And siding with the US and Sharon? Something is going on behind the scenes here.

Read this first.

Cheat Commando’s O’s

NASA is looking at developing shields for their spacecraft.

via Slashdot

This caption made me laugh out loud. You all probably think less of me now. Meh.

I knew I read about the whole Chabli and Iran thing a long time ago, but I couldn’t remember where. Now I know.

I heard that!

Dear Alton,

I would buy your book if I could afford it. As it is, I borrow a friend’s copy. And even if I could afford it, I wouldn’t buy Dr. Phil’s. That’s almost like having another sale. Right?

Sincerely,
Kristin Hoppe

Hoffa’s resting place.

The admitted killer, who said he shot Hoffa in the back of the head, led to a Fox News investigation of a home in northwest Detroit, which may have traces of Hoffa’s blood in the foyer of the home.

If you’ve bought makeup at a department store in the last 10 years some lawyers would like your mailing address so they can send you a check.

Making rare old books available to the rest of us. Nifty!

VDH on doing the right thing, even if no one cares.

Instead, stay true to our values — but also realize that we are judged by those who think reptilian and will thus join us for the pragmatically wrong, rather than the morally right, reasons. Or as the sometimes vulgar and crass Al Davis put it far better, “Just win baby.”

No review of the Enterprise finale yet, but Lileks does have some scathing examples of why countries in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

Big Brother.

When your address is linked to databases like those used by Yahoo! People Search, your phone number may be readily accessible. Your county government’s Web site probably displays your home’s floor plan and assessed value, letting nosy neighbors chuckle over Alice’s quaint split-level or Bob’s lack of elbow room when the in-laws visit. Pay-as-you-go databases like Lexis-Nexis’ P-TRAK, P-FIND, and P-SEEK tie together mortgage records, vehicle registrations, court judgments, bankruptcy histories, and any other public information they can gather. Google and Yahoo! can record every search you’ve ever made and link it to whatever computer you used at the time. Credit card companies know what you buy, frequent shopper programs know what you eat, and your insurance company knows what medical procedures you’ve undergone.

A peace agreement in Sudan. I hope it sticks.

The map of Springfield. Someone has way too much time on their hands to watch the Simpsons this much.

Yeah, yeah, use games to teach history (reg. req). Brilliant. Oregon Trail taught me tons of stuff. Like don’t shoot at the first rabbit you see and a deer will probably come along. And people die of cholera at the most inopertune time. And always take the rapids.

via Slashdot

How to make it into the big time from your blog. I’m here for my own entertainment, and hopefully yours. Please, stop throwing your money at me.

And quite frankly, I’m surprised that we have degree mills in Idaho. Lumber mills, sure, I drive past them every day; rumor mills, of course, I work at a church, I see them all the time. Maybe the degree mills are down south.

On why to live in Coeur d’Alene, unless you are a Democrat.

County Clerk Dan English pored over results Wednesday to find a common theme. English, the only elected Democrat in Kootenai County government, could only point out that there were more Republican candidates competing with each other for fewer votes than in previous elections.

Oh, here’s another quote from an editorial:

Granted, a Democrat would face a daunting task to be elected to the commission in November. In the most Republican county in this Republican state, we can understand why nobody would relish that likely political beating.

Bush is actually going to cut spending. Possibly. It’s a miracle! And by cut spending they mean not spend any more than they already do.

“Assume accounts are funded at the 2006 level specified in the 2005 Budget database,” the memo informs federal program associate directors and their deputies. “If you propose to increase funding above that level for any account, it must be offset within your agency by proposing to decrease funding below that level in other accounts.”

by Frank J.

* His programming was specifically for him to be a politician. Now that he no longer is one, he’s gone rogue.

* Some say that Al Gore is an emotionless, killer cyborg, while other say he is more of an android.

* If you turn on a microwave while Al Gore is near, he’ll suddenly start singing showtunes.

What the heck was up with the finale of Enterprise. Nazi pig-dogs? Sort of a Mirror, Mirror City on the Edge of Forever kind of thing. I blame that Andorian. Crewman Daniels is going to be soooo upset over this wrinkle in the timeline.

I can’t wait to hear Lilek’s take on it.

I’m going to go with “does not understand”.

From VDH Q&A:

Is there any one event that, had the outcome been different, would have ensured a vigorous Roman Empire for additional centuries?

Hanson: I don’t think a single defeat like an Adrianople was responsible or a dramatic new idea like Christianity made the difference. Instead there was a gradual sense of Balkanization as regional culture, regional languages, and regional politics trumped the central government that no longer was able to unify a diverse empire and convince an affluent and leisured citizenry that Rome was far better than the alternative—a lesson that we ought to keep in mind.

Watch out for wedgies!

Cilantro kills samonella. Too bad it tastes so nasty it’s inedible.

Kerry says he could wage the War on Terror better than Bush. Unfortunately, the article doesn’t include what his plan was.

The average US worker works 34 hours per week. Hmm.

WiFi for everyone. It’s only a matter of time till one of them starts a blog.

I didn’t know, but it’s Towel Day. Luckily I carry a towel with me every day.

People are odd.

It’s just like the Vorlons and the Shadows. The humans aren’t particularly important, except as pawns.

This is so horribly wrong, I can’t express its wrongness in words.

The ebola-like outbreak in Sudan may be a new, less deadly variant. Which is smart of the virus, because killing off almost all your hosts doesn’t help you spread.

Medical experts say the Berg beheading was staged. There’s been rumblings of this all around the internet since the video got loose.

How come we didn’t hear about Kerry’s tumble earlier this month?

The moral of the story is, you don’t want to end up on death row if you are an intravenous drug user.

Always say you aren’t doing much, or won’t be doing much blogging. Not blogging much my eye. 13 posts and 26 links. It’s like a written guarantee that much high quality stuff will be posted.

A Loyal Citizen fisks Ken Burn’s speech at Yale. And does a fine job of it too.

also via Inoperable Terran

The latest tactic in the “We Hate Bush” war. I know I was looking at the election from a more geopolitical frame of mind, this changes everything.

via Inoperable Terran

It’s funny and sad at the same time.

Ebola-like virus outbreak in southern Sudan.

What? In Spokane? Tornados scare me. I’m moving.

It’s all his fault.

LaShawn Barber’s take on Cosby’s speech.

The Robots are revolting.

Blog reader demographics.

Warblogger Magazine, vol. 1

I’m setting up stage lights today. So that’s why there hasn’t been a multitude of amusing and witty posts for you today.

Sure, a tshirt with a monitor built in is cool, but who would want to walk around like that.

via Slashdot

Matches recalled because they light on fire.