Sunday, February 29, 2004
Photos, we've got photos . . .
I've started updating my PhotoBlog with the overflow from the daily bannerFoto. Go see . . .Saturday, February 28, 2004
Interesting
TEHRAN : Iran's state radio, quoting an unnamed source, on Saturday said that Osama bin Laden was captured in Pakistan "a long time ago". The report said that US defence secretary Donald H Rumsfeld’s visit to the region this week was in connection with the arrest. The state radio said a reporter for its Pushtun service in the north-western Pakistani city of Peshawar "confirmed the news" that Bin Laden had been captured in a tribal region in Pakistan. [India Times]
Although,
THE United States denied an Iranian report yesterday that claimed Osama bin Laden had been captured. Iran's official IRNA news agency quoted a story on state radio which reported "a very reliable source" as saying the terror leader had been captured in a tribal area of Pakistan. But a US Department of Defence official said it was "another piece of stray voltage that's passing around out there". Pakistan also said the report was false. The Iranian state radio also reported bin Laden's capture a year ago. But it claimed a new source had reported on Friday he had been seized "a long time ago". [Melbourne Herald Sun ]
Like a shell game. "Wacko, wacko, who's got the wacko? Which turban hides the sociopathic murderer? Pick a winner and get free case of Turtle Wax!"
What I did on my mid-week day-trip
We went to see if the waves were as big as the radio promised. They were quite impressive. As I was messing about with my little camera, my sweetie was running with the dog and jumping from log to log -- until one raised up and looked at him . . .
What was I saying . . .?
And a Duke Medical Center study, announced in December, concluded that doses of nicotine might reduce age-associated memory impairment (“senior moments")
[shhhh -- don't tell Kate
Weird World
There are some incredibly odd spammentors visiting me. They occasionally sneak in under the radar of MTBlacklist -- the best spamment filter out there -- by changing their names/rotating URLs. I still cannot imagine who they think will see their ads on a post from summer of 2K3. Lately, they've taken to writing some little aphorism instead of the usual "buy my crap" containing URLs. For instance:You are free and that is why you are lost.
Weird . . .
Friday, February 27, 2004
More Objective Information
Today, the The Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association, the world's largest organization of anthropologists, the people who study culture, released the following statement in response to President Bush's call for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage as a threat to civilization."The results of more than a century of anthropological research on households, kinship relationships, and families, across cultures and through time, provide no support whatsoever for the view that either civilization or viable social orders depend upon marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution. Rather, anthropological research supports the conclusion that a vast array of family types, including families built upon same-sex partnerships, can contribute to stable and humane societies. The Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association strongly opposes a constitutional amendment limiting marriage to heterosexual couples."
Food Fight!
Following on the heels of an EU suspension of live poultry and egg imports from the US, USDA has banned the importation of French foie gras. [USDA says the two are not related] Which would be great news for Sonoma Foie Gras, except that they're still being hounded by the diet fascists who are in league with domestic terrorists. Senator John Burton has decided that it's a good idea to give in to these domestic terrorists and has introduced a bill to outlaw foie gras thereby putting Sonoma Foie Gras out of business by legislative fiat. With no compensation. Two bad precedents in one fell swoop. Cahleefohrneeiahns: Please write your state legislators and let them know what you think. ********* ADDENDA: Why do I call them "domestic terrorists?"Foie gras could be hazardous to your health -- especially if you are producing it, selling it or offering it on your restaurant menu. At least that's the way it looks to Laurent Manrique -- the French-born chef at San Francisco's renowned Aqua restaurant -- and his two partners in a foie gras venture, Didier Jaubert and Guillermo Gonzalez. What happened to them recently has prompted other worried Bay Area chefs to take a second look at their menus. This summer, according to Jaubert, his home and that of Manrique's were spray-painted with slogans such as "Foie gras is animal torture" and "Murderer," their cars and house windows were sprayed with etching foam, and their front-door locks were glued shut. The perpetrators, who may be animal-rights activists, also left a video that was shot from within Manrique's garden and showed his family relaxing at home. The video was followed by threatening notes stating that he and his family were being watched and warning him to stop his involvement with foie gras. [emph mine
Who the hell does sh!t like that -- Vito the Vegan ?!?
The Council Has Spoken ! ! !
This week's winners are: Doggie Weddings in Frisco by Xrlq, and Haiti, a Slow Motion Catastrophe by Fried Man Full results of the vote are over at The Watcher's, along with week's entries! Lots of good reading: Go See . . . Spambots: byte hot bits and die!! [Thanx, Watcher!]Thursday, February 26, 2004
Robber Baron Foiled, Again!!
You've heard of Linux, right? It's an operating system, like Windoze [*crash*] Unix, or Apple OSX. Stable, inexpensive, cheap. Open source, too, so there are many, many programs by independent developers available, as well as as all the standards. Their mascot is this little fellow:
Apparently the success of this system, and its spinoff, "Lindows" which runs desktops and laptops, is such a threat to certain people [yes, you, Billy Boy] that they are threatening small companies and filing lawsuits to prevent the sale and very existence of Lindows! This is a part of M$'s ongoing efforts to trademark the term "Windows" which has been in use since before Little Billy the Would-Be Robber Baron knew how to byte a bit.
The Court also ruled [2.04] that once a word is declared generic it would continue to be generic, informing Microsoft that no amount of marketing around a generic word changes the generic state of the word.
More here.
the part where she connects the dots . . .
So now I'm wonderin' just who is responsible for this little time waster --- hmmmmm?
The words on the rock are "1978 REINHOLD + YETI" Any cognoscente got the backstory there?
Lindows.com [check it out -- lots of cheap & free stuff]
Lin---s.com, the site that had to be invented for the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Swened to buy Lindows products because M$ has blocked its availability in those countries. [can you say "chickensh!t"?]
UPDATE: PC Club has apparently felt the lash of M$ -- it sells Lindows laptops but has added this little line at the bottom of the page: "PC Club recommends Microsoft® Windows® XP"
[are they being forced to be ...er, "PC" ?]
Thaaaaank Yooooou Justin and Janet
Can you say "Backlash?" Bubba the What?!? Howard Stern talks nasty?!? Who knew? That's like imagining that MTV might show *gasp* boobage!!Wednesday, February 25, 2004
RFID - Privacy Update
State Senator Debra Bowen [D-Redondo Beach] has introduced a bill [pdf] to regulate the privacy aspect of the RFID tag inventory control system. Included in the bill are provisions requiring written consent before "attaching or storing personally identifiable information with data collected via an RFID tag or before any personally identifiable information collected via an RFID system is shared with a third party,“ giving a person to access their information and correct it if necessary, requiring secure storage and transfer of data collected via RFID, and requiring that RFID tags be destroyed or removed at the check stand. ThanQ! Simson GarfinkleTuesday, February 24, 2004
The Secret Is OuT ! !
And the members of the vast underground network of a$$holes -- who play sweet, wholesome people on TV -- are coming together to support one another. First Rosie quit her show and "came out," then, well, everyone had already noticed about Martha. Now here comesGot a Favourite Post?
Link to Win! Canadian or not, The Watcher is looking for submissions for this weeks Watchers Council! Go Nominate . . .Oh. Puke.
It would gag a maggotReplicas of the nails used to hang Jesus on the cross have become the red-hot official merchandise linked to Mel Gibson's controversial new movie, "The Passion of the Christ." Pendants made from the pewter, 2 1/2-inch nails - selling for $16.99 ... Hundreds of stores across the country will be selling licensed items tied to the movie, a graphically violent depiction of the last 12 hours of Christ's life, which opens next week on Ash Wednesday. The souvenirs include a book, pins, key chains, coffee mugs and
T-shirts.
[wtf?!?] CafePress, anyone? And some said Pulp Fiction merchandise might be in bad taste . . .
But the most unusual collectibles [sure, "collectables." Like Hummel, donchanoo] are the nails, each of which hangs on a leather cord. Its side bears the inscription "Isaiah 53:5," referring to a Bible verse that begins, "He was pierced for our transgressions . . ."
I can hear the line forming outside the neighborhood tattoo and piercing parlor.
"The cross has become such a benign jewelry item . . . The shock of its original form . . . is lost to modern people," said Charles Houser, publications manager at the American Bible Society's Nida Institute for Biblical Scholarship. "Choosing the detail of the spike would be to reinvigorate the image. They're really trying to capture that this was that day's form of execution."
Xians -- the bloodthirsty religion! Oh, Mel . . . We thought we knew ye. *sigh* ThanQ! Enjoy Every Sandwich He may be Canadian, eh, but he's still on Blogsplatt.
Whose Prerogative ?
Boobie-gate ... Gay weddings ... Kerfluffle ensues and the State steps in to correct the situation. "Corrections" like the War on Drugs, gun control laws, Jim Crow Laws, smoking laws. Laws that tell us how we are allowed make love and whom we are allowed marry. On the way: food laws, weight restrictions, income limitations, travel restrictions . . . Is that what we want our State to do for us; to step in and legislate until all the loudest feathers become unruffled? It takes a lotta laws to satisfy Mrs Grundy. Is that the highest and best function of the State; to legislate societal and cultural norms? Is that what we want our State to do? Do we support the State so that it can make our decisions for us? The problem is deciding whose standards to use. Some call us a Christian, or Judeo-Christian nation. Will that come to mean that everyone must accept that Jesus is saviour? Or that everyone must take communion? Will it spell the end to BLT's and ham on rye? Or to using technology? Each of those ideas is Truth to some very respectable, decent people. And anathema to some other respectable, decent people. So if a particular religion holds as a sacred tenet that women should cover their hair and not speak about political matters, or that crab cakes are forbidden, or that no one must sing, or that everyone must sing, or that people of the same gender shouldn't be life-partners -- how do we decide which set of values the State should choose to force us all to live by? Or have we given up that prerogative?Statistics
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