Not So Fast

Linus says it wasn’t him.

OK, I admit it. I was just a front man for the real fathers of Linux: the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. They (for obvious reasons) couldn’t step forward to admit that they had gotten bitten by the computer bug and had been developing a series of operating systems on their own during the off-season.

And it gets better.

A butt-kicking machine. Yes, straight from Nampa, Idaho. (They’re down south, it’s like a whole nother state down there.)

My friend Josh!

Oddly enough, he talks like he types.

Cosby in da house, yo. (scroll down a little, yo)

Fidel is doing great.

Test your Schoolhouse Rock history knowledge.

12/13

But I like cheap thrills.

This dude is in Bonners Ferry, just 3 hours (going the speed limit) north of me. Somehow, I’m not really surprised.

Here’s the local paper’s take on it. (scroll down)

via Fark

This just in: diets only work if you stay on them.

Rats, why did it have to be rats? (reg. req.)

Enterprise is renewed for a fourth season. My life, such as it is, can continue. But Friday won’t work for me, they’ll have to leave it on Wednesday.

The reserves are for emergencies. Like when Saudia Arabia gets mad at us because we want to stop Al Queda and says they won’t ship us any more oil. Then you release the reserves. Oh, and it was 2.14/gallon yesterday to fill up, not the 2.10 I previously reported.

Stratfor makes some good points.

Intelligence organizations should not give policy suggestions. First, the craft of intelligence and state-craft are very different things. Second, and far more important, intelligence professionals should always resist the temptation to become policy advocates because, being mostly human, intelligence analysts want to be right — and when they are advocates of a strategy, they will be tempted to find evidence that proves that policy to be correct and ignore evidence that might prove the policy in error. Advocating policies impairs the critical faculties.

But just this once they bend. And they make good points.

The key to al Qaeda is in Riyadh and in Islamabad. The invasion
of Iraq was a stepping-stone toward policy change in Riyadh, and
it worked. The pressure must be maintained and now extended to
Islamabad. However, the war was never about Baghdad, and
certainly never about Al Fallujah and An Najaf.

Here is the proof. I’d argue with it, but you can’t argue with mathmatical proofs.

Well, you can, but you lose every time.

This article on subway ettiquette has this little gem in it.

This is the paradox of daily life in the capital of the free world, where every second counts. The people who live and work here take themselves seriously, striding purposefully with their written testimony, task force recommendations and briefing books.

And may I say, too seriously. Plus, if you’re cutting it so close that walking up or down the escalators matters, try padding your schedule a little. Or move to Idaho, no subway, no buses, no public transportation at all.

I thought everybody knew this already, but I guess not. It still doesn’t keep me from complaining that I’m about to go pay $2.10/gallon to fill up.

Oh, there they are. It’s a shame we have to find them the hard way.

Syria and North Korea.

The technicians were from the Syrian technical research center called Centre d’Etudes et de Recherche Scientific (CERS). Although CERS was established to promote science and technology development, it has been viewed as a major player in Syria’s weapons of mass destruction development program.

Did the French rule Syria at some point? (Yes, I am a graduate of California public schools. It probably isn’t even French.)

I picked up a used compilation CD, Just Say Mao, from 1989. I love how they explain how great CDs are at the back of the booklet.

The Compact Disc Digital Audio System offers the best possible sound reproduction—on a small, convenient disc. Its remarkable performance is the result of a unique combination of digital storage and laser optics.

Ah, 1989, good times. I remember how happy I was the first time I heard a CD, somewhere right around 1989. No tape hiss! Modern technology rocks! And here I am today ripping the music off the CD in order to put it on my MP3 player. Cause postmodern technology rocks too.

I also wonder why Ice-T, Depeche Mode, Lou Reed, and k.d. lang were on the same label.

VDH

Have we any memory of a man in a suit and tie, nearly three years ago wading through the din and panic amid the morning rubble, assuring millions of stunned Americans that the national headquarters of their armed forces was still intact and capable of defending us after the mass murder of 3,000? And have we no shame in recognizing that should some congressional critics and Washington harpies get their way, Americans will accomplish what bin Laden’s suicide bombers could not on September 11: remove America’s finest Secretary of Defense in a half century?

Send this guy and the rest of the illegals on death row back to Mexico. Warn them if they are found in the US they will immediately receive their death sentence. And tell Fox to shut up and fix his own legal system before complaining about ours.

How come every city or place we attack is a holy city or holy ground or the third most revered mosque?

Contrary to what your mother said, you can get a job from playing video games. Since I’m better at the real time strategy games than first person shooters, I think that means I get to be an officer.

Private rocket on the edge of space.

A great quote from his The Wars for the West:

For those who embrace these values, our miracle of security, affluence, and freedom is entirely logical, and of course allows people a level of decency and civility not found elsewhere in the world—whether in the commonplace that means water that doesn’t make you sick, toilet paper in public restrooms, cars that halt at stop signs, and lines that queue up rather than mobs that rush, or in the exalted sense a Bill of Rights, media that are free, and officials who are accountable.

This classically liberal vision is always under assault on the left by utopian totalitarians, devils who demand coercive government powers to force us to be angels, and on the right by autocratic romantics who believe in the superiority of a pure religion, race, or nationality.

I heard about this on the radio driving in to work this morning. Vedy interesting.

I’m all for politicians blogging, but I doubt they’ll do much actual blogging. More like press releases. A live blog of a session would be great though. It would probably work better at the local or state level, since they tend to have stronger opinions and be willing to stick with them.

Mypetfat, the next dieting craze.

Instapundit on the media.

The national news does basketball.

It seems they like earning their rewards.

Those wacky Swedes have built a stealth ship and it runs NT. I hope they are careful downloading stuff. You wouldn’t want to install spyware.

via Slashdot

Don’t Panic. The website is up.

He should have done something while he was in office, but better late than never.

Germany’s outgoing president used his farewell speech yesterday to urge the nation to “buck up” and “stop whingeing”, saying that a widespread malaise was dragging it to its knees.

The USS Jimmy Carter is almost ready for sea. Jimmy Carter? Doesn’t exactly inspire awe, unless you’re attacking the Peace Corp.

The was some smoking fertilizer of some sort that fell off a truck at the stateline scale in Washington. Apparently it wasn’t nitrate fertilizer. It ought to be on the news soon. They had a train stopped across Maguire for a long time, I’d guess about an hour or so, to keep it away in case it went boom.

You know all that healthy eating you’re doing to avoid heart disease? Waste of time.

Which is not to say that healthy eating is a bad idea.

Sonny Landham is running for office.

via Fark

Hybrid cars are not getting the gas milage they are supposed to. Just buy a Geo.

via Slashdot

Would a repeal lead to a smaller federal government? Then do it.

And we should all see Day After Tomorrow, go out and buy hybrid cars. Yeah, that’ll stop global warming. Never mind China, Russia, and the developing countries that are doing nothing about pollution, if I drive a hybrid THE WORLD WILL BE SAVED. Huzzah.

And what, does Gore drive? And to avoid giving him weasel room, what does his wife drive?

Heh, check this out: CNN.

It could happen. And the world would be a better place for it.

Hey, Lileks has something to say about it too.

The Mexican Air Force, apparently they have one, has caught some UFOs on tape. El tiempo del sombrero de la hojuela del estaño.

“What comes after 75?”

“76.”

“That’s the spirit.”

Er, post number 1776 just went by.

And for those playing the home game, Roger’s Ice Cream is open. w00t! I just had a lovely hamburger and onion rings for dinner. You may now look on with envy.

Wow, a stunningly minimal day of posting. More to come later? It’s not inconceivable.

The East Coast is being overrun by bugs.

According to Kritsky, the best time to eat a cicada is just after they break open their youthful skin. “When you eat them when they’re soft and mushy, when they come out of their skin, they taste like cold, canned asparagus,” he said.

Ewww.

This Iraqi official has an interesting spin on the prison abuse.

“I don’t know what those soldiers have been through as individuals, but they need to be examined, psychologically examined,” Amin said.

I think this pretty much sums up the gay marriage situation in America today.

The world’s environmental scientists are slowly getting dumber. Or the sun is going out.

Call before you dig.

BT is looking to recoup more than £25,000 [$45,670] from a Cambridgeshire man after he severed a fibre optic cable while putting up a new fence in his garden.

Doctors reattach this kids head to his spine. Unbelievable.

Having been driven out of England by the Industrial Revolution, faires have settled in Nambia. It’s a dry heat.

“At this stage I suppose we could say that fairies are as good an explanation as any,” Gretel van Rooyen, professor of botany at Pretoria, told The Telegraph.

Reynold’s rules! (not for the bandwidthly challenged)

Rock, Rock On!

The LA Times has been making noises lately like it’s positioning itself to be a leader in actually reporting news instead of the more common reporting of opinion. And they’re doing it again.

Now if they’d just get rid of the freaking registration on their website.

Hurl the truck as far as you can. I’m not good at it.

Oh, wait, I got the hang of it. 309.03 Yeah!

In an effort to get more people to buy music legally online the RIAA wants to hike its prices. It seems the /.ers are upset over this

Somewhere between 67 and 600 have died in a recent outbreak of Christian vs. Muslim fighting in Nigeria.

What a beautiful analogy.

Recently we were within hours of smashing the resistance in Fallujah once we accepted war anew. But when the mujahedeen, Gollum-like, decided to slither out in the open, then in terror scampered to safety, then remerged on all fours defiant and barking when we stopped firing, our forbearance and fear of global-televised condemnation handed them a victory they did not earn. In short, we should have listened to Sam and strangled the creep on the spot.

This sounds freaking awesome. Naturally, they have to put a stop to it.

Chief Chris Wallace said the department “pretty much has a zero-tolerance policy” for Dart Wars. Boone said his officers have been told since the beginning that they have discretion to file charges against Dart Wars players if they think the incident warrants it. They also are cautioned never to let their guard down on any run. So, they are justified in pulling their pistols.

I would think that the bright neon nerf guns and ammo would be a giveaway, but maybe not.

It was all a big publicity stunt and Michael Moore is a liar.

Realizing they made a poor decision, Major League Baseball has decided to nix the Spiderman ads.

Geez, it was an accident. True, it wreaked havoc, but fine the guy or something, don’t throw him in jail. Or maybe ten days would be better than having to pay for the mess he caused. Hmm, I think I’d still rather have the fine.

Rumsfeld is the one politician that I can stand to watch on TV. Yeah, CSPAN is a waste of time for me. But a Rumsfeld press conference is solid entertainment. So, I hope this whole Rumsfeld must resign thing goes away quickly.

Why Pakistan would not be a good place to vacation. Think of trying to get through the security at the airport.

I’m not sure how helpful this (reg. req.) will be. Unless you just can’t find a running shoe that works for you, which I find hard to believe. I found the right running shoe 6 or so years ago and just stick with that shoe. Why pay 2.5 times the price for the shoe to adjust to the same thing.

via Slashdot

Star Trek TOS is available in a boxed set.

Elephant herd main suspect in antelope escape.

Golkar would be a great name for a villian in a cartoon.

Golkar: You haven’t seen the last of me yet, Suharto! *shakes his fist and limps away*

I don’t know exactly how this impacts anything, but I do know that mayo causes negative normal stress if I find it on my sandwich.

Microsoft is licensing Hotmail spam.

What I’m getting from this story is that it is hopeless to expect NASA to send me to Mars.

After changing the stadium names to things that roll off the tongue like “Qualcom Stadium” it naturally follows that things like this are coming.

Gore says his new network is not going to be biased to the liberal or democrat side. I hope he’s right, but I’ve yet to see a youth or younger people oriented network that’s not. Of course, as today’s kids are more conservative than previous generations, maybe Gore is ahead of the curve on this one.

How Bias has changed the way the media presents itself. And how the media hasn’t changed.

via Instapundit

I actually saw a John Kerry bumper sticker this morning. It’s the first one I’ve seen in Idaho. It was on a Jetta with a couple of bikes on the top and a couple of old hippies in it. The only thing I can figure out is that they must have been visiting from Sandpoint.

As many as 600 people were evacuated as a 9,000-acre fire in Riverside County between Corona and Lake Elsinore approached their homes.

I drove right through there yesterday morning.

Interesting article from Reason on Earth Day 1970 and its predictions.

Three decades later, of course, the world hasn’t come to an end; if anything, the planet’s ecological future has never looked so promising.

It’s all a matter of perspective.

Weta Digital and their computers.

Now it runs the third largest supercomputer on the planet if you count the number of processors, 3300, it can call on, says Scott Houston, chief technical officer at Weta.

The Techno-cosmic Mass. I have read some of Original Blessings, and Fox is nutty. Or if you prefer, Fox is a New-Ager that calls himself a Christian. Why anyone else would consider him a Christian is beyond me.

Some math major has kept his gas receipts for the last 25 years and plotted them and adjusted for inflation for you. Nifty, but it doesn’t make me feel better about paying $1.95/gallon.

And yes, it’s all about making me feel better.

via Instapundit

Sorry kids, I had to visit California. Regular posting to start tomorrow morning, or possibly afternoon.

While I hesitate to say I Am Always Right is always right, he’s awfully level-headed and amusing. And he’s a fellow north Idahoan Idahoian, he lives in Idaho.

There’s nothing more entertaining than Slashdot discussing nerds.

Okay, Abbott and Costello are more entertaining.

Bonus Link: Klingon Google page

protein wisdom “interviews” Ted Koppel.

protein wisdom: “– so duration, then? Interesting. …And you expect most Americans will believe that?”

Ted Koppel: “Well, I do have a very deep voice.”

via Instapundit

Today two jets have left contrails coming from the northeast toward Geiger. That’s two more than normal. Is there a airshow or something or is Canada invading?

So, I meet one of the qualifications.

via Instapundit

Walmart has started using RFIDs.

Someone, somewhere is doing their job. And while it’s government statistics, it can’t be total lies, can it?

The invisible car. I assume it’s Invisible Jim’s.

Dull today, wasn’t it? Maybe something will come up tonight. In the meantime, I’ll throw this link out.

You gotta love the classics.

Grocery shopping just became hard work.

Andrew Stuttaford is clearly confused. He doesn’t like Dr. Pepper AND he doesn’t like McDonald’s fries. What is wrong with this guy?

Anyway, here’s his interview/article about the lady eating nothing but McDonald’s for a month to prove that SuperSize Me is a bunch of hype.

The British think NASA is a bunch of prudes.

But that denial may hide a reluctance, in a nation where the showing of a nipple on national television provokes a religious outcry, to discuss the rather delicate subject of sex in space.

via Drudge Report

I’ve often (okay, a couple of times) wondered what would happen if states started picking, er, voting for senators again.

Oh, and the RIAA is still suing people. Or more correctly perhaps, the RIAA is suing IP addresses.

Yellowstone should be safe for a while.

Here’s a reason to breathe easier: Civilization probably won’t be crippled anytime soon by a pulverizing volcanic eruption at Yellowstone National Park.

allofmp3.com is back in the news, and Apple has changed iTunes DRM.

The government has learned that blogs exist and are a handy way to get information.

Who could have seen this one coming?

China yesterday ruled out full and free elections in Hong Kong for the foreseeable future.

Captain Jean Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise.

That pretty much sums up the site.

If the weathermen in Irkutsk (whick I vaguely remember as being in the northeast of Russia on the Risk map) get the weather wrong, they pay for it.

via Fark

Stuttaford on Ireland’s health police.

A wedding dress. Freaking hilarious.

via Fark, naturally

No more Oldsmobiles? Gosh, what am I going to drive when I get old?

Barely a week after the American CEO of McDonald’s dies, the founder of Japanese McDonald’s dies too. What’s going on here folks?

Tomorrow we’ll have night and morning low clouds, clearing to sunny and 70 and the anthrax is holding just offshore.

via Fark

Social conservatism is becoming cool. Old hippies are sure to freak out at what their children have become.

Scientist fired for saying so.

“I am advocating common sense, something often in short supply in America’s approach to health. Our society doesn’t seem to believe in a happy medium, only in extremes. The notion that we have to protect ourselves from the sun all the time is misguided and unhealthy.”

I think I’ll go outside this afternoon for a few minutes and try this so-called sunshine. Doctor’s orders.
via Instapundit.

The UN at work.

via Instapundit

Hey, there’s a new beta Opera version out. Hurry, hurry, hurry. I’ll let you know how it works after I’ve taken it for a test drive.

I don’t get these, so I appreciate the Register keeping me informed on the latest trends.

Vander Waals force and its application in office supplies. Soon to be a major motion picture.

Kids that don’t drink as much Coke are less likely to be obese. Duh.

I love how they call it “fizzy drink”.

I have been wondering exactly what Kerry proposes to do about Iraq. It’s too late for the old “Bush lied” thing. We’re in Iraq, we’re in the middle of building a government, now what? Send in the UN, which has done so well in all their other nation-building activities? Brilliant.

Tons of fun games with such relaxing music.

Interesting comments on Jesus t-shirts between Ambra and Joe over at Evangelical Outpost. After the others jumped in it peters out though.

The Webby nominees are out and they seem rather left-leaning. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe right-leaning websites all suck. Could be. Either way, you should go vote for your favorites.

I got ten bucks that says this never happens.

The report, Future Flooding, looks forward to 2080 but says that the threat is already growing and most of the worst of its predictions will have happened by 2050.

Happy Earth Day!

Darn thing froze up. You missed some great stuff. Now I have to go back and find it. Geez.