Why Huckabee will win the GOP nomination

Adel Hamad is free

Got this email yesterday afternoon. I am very happy for Adel, and so damned angry at my government.

We finally have some great news to report. Adel Hamad is back in Sudan. Over two years after being cleared for transfer, Adel Hamad has finally arrived in Khartoum and was immediately released and allowed to reunite with his family. Earlier this week the U.S. government had announced the transfer of 15 Guantanamo detainees, two of them Sudanese. The Sudanese government believed that one of those detainees would be Adel Hamad but we had no confirmation that indeed he was on that plane until this morning. William Teesdale, his legal counsel from the Federal Public Defenders Office of Oregon, should be talking to him within the next hour or two.

We at Project Hamad want to thank everyone for your efforts and for keeping hope alive.

We will post again soon about the implications of Hamad's release. His lawyers hope to press the U.S. government to still give Adel Hamad his new CSRT hearing so he can truly clear his name. And we must remember that Adel is only one of many detainees cleared for transfer long ago, but who remain in legal limbo at Guantanamo. Adel Hamad's downstairs neighbor in Pakistan, Ameur Mammar, detainee #939, is just one of many examples. Lets keep them in our hearts while we celebrate Hamad's release.

We will write again soon. In the meantime, follow the progress on our blog.

Thanks,

David, Ben and Laura
Project Hamad
http://projecthamad.org

RetroMacCast

Visit RetroMacCast

Daily Drew

The new face of Covergirl makeup.

Sean's Reunion.

With an assist from The Sound of Urchin...

Daily Drew

LST-325

Landing Ship Tank 325:


LST's were designed to deliver tanks and other large vehicles directly to the beaches of Europe during WWII. Derided as "Large Slow Targets" for their top speed of 12 knots, LST's proved essential in moving heavy material onto the beaches of Normandy.

It Works on My Machine

New Application Certification Program - "It Works on My Machine"

It's a developer axiom, and now its an official Application Certification Program. "Works on my machine.

mcsey-cast 001

My first go at a podcast. Not modem friendly!

11MB direct download. Right (option) click, save as.

Daily Drew

Both sides of the story from the set of the remake of Grey Gardens...

Nvidia PPC drivers for Linux!

Now damnit... oops, crap, I'm real late to this fight;)

And we're back.

Thanks sven.

Well crap

Server's down.

Freeroll!

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 1058147

Ian MacKaye

Still not dead yet.

Good. Childhood hero of mine and whatnot.

Daily Drew

Rockin' the bells...

Daily Drew

My cousin Sean

Dude, I love you man.

More friends and family here.

Daily Drew (sick to my stomach edition)

She's making out with the Apple Guy.


Darnit, I'm the Apple Guy!

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Justice Denied in Massachusetts (1927)

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Justice Denied in Massachusetts (1927)

Let us abandon then our gardens and go home
And sit in the sitting-room.
Shall the larkspur blossom or the corn grow under the cloud?
Sour to the fruitful seed
Is the cold earth under this cloud,
Fostering quack and weed, we have marched upon but cannot conquer;
We have bent the blades of our hoes against the stalks of them.

Let us go home, and sit in the sitting-room.
Not in our day
Shall the cloud go over and the sun rise as before,
Beneficent upon us
Out of the glittering bay,
And the warm winds be blown inward from the sea
Moving the blades of corn
With a peaceful sound.
Forlorn, forlorn,
Stands the blue hay-rack by the empty mow.
And the petals drop to the ground,
Leaving the tree unfruited.
The sun that warmed our stooping backs and withered the weed uprooted -
We shall not feel it again.
We shall die in darkness, and be buried in the rain.

What from the splendid dead
We have inherited -
Furrows sweet to the grain, and the weed subdued -
See now the slug and the mildew plunder.
Evil does not overwhelm
The larkspur and the corn;
We have seen them go under.

Let us sit here, sit still,
Here in the sitting-room until we die;
At the step of Death on the walk, rise and go;
Leaving to our children's children this beautiful doorway,
And this elm,
And a blighted earth to till
With a broken hoe.

Labor dabor

(What the heck is that from?)

Ok, time to get back at this thing. New database at work installed at the same time we were doing new wiring. Lovely idea, managed to mostly pull it off though. The database seems to work and the staff mostly get how to do things, so that's nice. The extra cabling is useful. We got to put drops in some places that were formerly wireless only. Gives me a few more options on what goes where computer wise.

I've been playing Tiger '07 on Xbox Live. Played with some Brit the other night. Don't remember his gamertag but his name was Cecil. So Cecil from Brighton, big ups. He beat me by a couple skins, but he was good company. Completely pissed (in the Brit jargon, Carlsburg Export!) and hilarious. Had me laughing hard enough that it was tough to beat a 40 second shot clock. 35 seconds of laughing, and "Oh crap hit the ball."

That's from Strong Bad, isn't it? Puppets, eh?

I wonder who's on Tiger '07 at 3:45 in the morning.

Look at the sky.

Look up at the dotted sky
Every single night.
Stars, not answers.

Because I can

Being a badass in 1958

Life in Hell

Where the Cubs have been at the All-Star Break in previous playoff seasons. Looks good actually, but being a Cubs fan is still hell... except when its heaven. It's all got to do with whether or not they hang a certain flag from a certain post.

Cool Idea, Terrible Website

This passive speaker turns your headphones into 55db speakers. That's not LOUD, but its "TV volume".

On vacation

That is all. See you in early July!

Monty Python explains "enhanced interrogations"

via boingboing

Daily Drew

Go Henri!

Sorry for the shaky video. My little Elph digicam is good for a lot of things. Holding it completely still is not one of them.

Stealing songs from youtube with free Apple software

Step 1... Firefox + Greasemonkey + YouTube to Me script
Step 2... iSquint. Since you followed the directions for the above script you now have a "Save Video As" link at the top of every youtube page. Choose your video, right click, "Save As" on the link at the top of the page. Drag the saved file to iSquint. Leave the defaults alone and click start. iSquint will convert the movie to an iPod compatible mp4.
Step 3... Open up iMovie, drag the mp4 into a new project. Once the movie is imported drag it onto the timeline and go to the Advanced >> Extract Audio from Clip. This separates the audio and the video. Drag the audio clip onto the desktop and you will have a file called "Extracted Audio 01.aiff" on your desktop that contains the audio of the former youtube clip.

It's a long way to go, but using this method you can, for free, extract just about any song you can think of from youtube.

Presented without comment

Daily Drew

LolCat Builder

Web based LolCat builder.

Wonkette makes a funny

They Didn't Save Lincoln's Brain - Wonkette:

"According to medical experts at the University of Maryland, Abraham Lincoln could’ve survived his disastrous trip to Ford’s Theater - had he merely traveled forward through time 140 years. It wouldn’t have been an easy recovery, though.

If he had lived, he would at the very least have been partially blind, unsteady on his feet, numb in certain regions of his body and inarticulate. Nevertheless, he might have been able to think and, after much rehabilitation, communicate.

In other words, thanks to the many stunning advances in medical science, a gunshot wound to the head merely turns Abraham Lincoln into George W. Bush."

Daily Drew

I need a Daily Drew after that depressing Cutty Sark post. Here's Drew leaving a restaurant in L.A.

Cutty Sark Burns

Damn.

By Peter Griffiths

LONDON (Reuters) - The Cutty Sark, the world's last surviving 19th century tea clipper, was severely damaged in a blaze on Monday.

Flames and thick black smoke shot high into the sky above the dry dock on the banks of the Thames where the boat has stood as a major tourist attraction for more than 50 years.
Photo

Forty firefighters brought the blaze under control. Aerial television pictures showed a mass of charred timbers that was once one of the world's fastest ships.

What she looks like today:


What she looked like yesterday:

(click to embiggun)

Life in Hell

Dear Ryan Dempster,

Blake from the downtown office would like a word:



Because (say it with me) coffee is for closers Ryan Dempster. Closers.

Daily Drew

The guy that runs one of the best Drew sites on the 'Net requested a high quality version of Drew on Jeopardy! Having stolen countless pics from him in the past, I can't help but oblige.

Here (right click save as) is a 96MB DVD image I threw together. You should be able to burn it with just about any burning software like Nero or Toast.

This is a 42MB 720x480 full quality .mov It's the same as the above, but it looks better on a computer and doesn't have the "padding" that comes with the DVD.

Daily Drew

Jeopardy! and Drew Barrymore! that's just hawt.

Captain of Old Ironsides canned

Navy fires commander of USS Constitution - The Boston Globe


(click to embiggun)

The commander of the famed USS Constitution was fired from his post yesterday, two months before his two-year term expired, because the Navy lost confidence in his ability to command the 210-year-old ship, officials said.

Thomas A. Graves took command of "Old Ironsides" in July 2005 in a ceremony before hundreds of spectators who gathered at the Charlestown Navy Yard to watch the ship set sail.

Yesterday, a Navy spokesman said that Graves, who lives in Marblehead, was relieved from the post because the department had lost "trust and confidence" in him.

"This was due to an administrative matter," said Commander Jeff Davis , a Navy spokesman at the Pentagon. "We're not able to discuss the details of that. This is not something that is accompanying a disciplinary action. This was based solely upon the senior officers' assessment of his ability to command effectively."

As Robert at Lawyers, Guns, and Money says, "Dude, it just sits there."

The photo above was taken during the Constitution's 200th birthday celebration in 1997. It was the first time she had been alone under sail in 116 years. She has just fired a salute from her starboard battery. She is escorted by the Blue Angels, the frigate USS Halyburton, and the destroyer USS Ramage.

On the whole Poe thing

Ed Felten is clever

Freedom to Tinker � Blog Archive � You Can Own an Integer Too — Get Yours Here

E7 37 A3 D1 D7 0B 0B D3 E6 6D 9D 01 5B CA F5 5A that's my number.
Do you think I would take such an integer with me
And give it to the movie policeman? I wouldn't that.

Bruce Willis -- Forum Warrior

A forum poster over at Ain't It Cool started defending Die Hard 4's PG-13 rating. The AICN crowd thought that meant the movie would suck. Poster "Walter B" said essentially "No I worked on the movie it doesn't suck." Eventually "Walter B" revealed himself to be none other Walter Bruce Willis -- John Mafuckin'Clane. (Note the intelligent use of Apple hardware;)

Link to the thread. Scroll about halfway down "Walter B's" posts are white on black like an admin.

Daily Drew

Drew at the premiere of Lucky You at the Tribeca Film Festival

Online Communities

xkcd - A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language - By Randall Munroe

Oh Diego...

From this:


To this:


20 years can be hell on a guy.

Happy Mission Accomplished Day

Think Progress � ‘Mission Accomplished’ By The Numbers

edit: Here's one from Wonkette too.

Daily Drew

Drew at Coachella

Scans of the People 100 Most Beautiful pics to come.

Remember people

Youtube is cool.

Mutiny

Mutiny by American artist and writer Howard Pyle.

I can't find much about this illustration, but I dig Howard Pyle, so there ya go.

Wow.

Barcelona 2-0 Getafe Messi Goal
Uploaded by chalermwech

It takes a brave (stupid) man...

to let his ex-wife shave his head.


end result:

Daily Drew

Looks like Drew is going to be Cover Girls latest model


From the press release:

"Drew is a wonderful addition to the CoverGirl family and her role-both in front of the camera and behind the scenes as co-creative director-is new and different for the cosmetics industry," Esi Eggleston Bracey, vp, gm at CoverGirl Cosmetics North America, said. "We wanted to honor Drew's passions as a filmmaker and are thrilled she is not only lending her beautiful face to CoverGirl but also lending her artistic talents as the co-creative director of the ad campaign."

Geek Porn

I count 72 90* Xserves and 40 Xserve RAIDs "managing all video/demonstration on Apple's booth" at the National Association of Broadcasters convention where Apple also debuted Final Cut Studio 2 and Final Cut Server.

via Hard Mac

*I still only see 72, but Apple's press release says 90.

35 years in solitary in Angola

Not the country. Louisiana

Life in Hell

Tongue in cheek

I am against concealed carry laws, but for open carry laws. Six-guns around the waist for everyone that wants one, but no hidden guns*. Concealed carry does nothing to dissuade the criminal in the first place. I want to "not be attack in the first place" as opposed to "dealing with the bullshit that comes with shooting someone even if its justified".

I am also against anti-dueling laws.

*Hey how about this concealed carry is fine /if/ you also openly carry?

Please stop shooting people.

That is all.

Daily Drew

The More You Know

iMovie's H.264 Share >> iPod encoding from a DV source looks great on Youtube. For iSight encoding use iMovie's Share >> Quicktime >> CD-ROM for decent results. The iSight video ain't that good to begin with, and its usually just a HEADSHOT!

Happy Birthday Jencap

Jennifer Capriati - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Man oh man did I have a crush on her as a kid.

I wonder why...

The Daily Dish: Your Mom and Your Sperm Count

The Daily Dish: Your Mom and Your Sperm Count:

"She needs to lay off the beef, apparently."

Yeah but then how would she conceive to begin with.

/rimshot

Thank you George

Summary of Findings: Trends in Political Values and Core Attitudes: 1987-2007

Daily Drew

BOSOM BUDDIES By KEITH J. KELLY - Business - New York Post Online Edition

(Jane) Pratt, who has been a frequent guest on Howard Stern's show, says, "One of my dreams is to return to Howard's show and tell him the truth about Drew Barrymore and me."



She said years ago, when Stern was on his terrestrial station, he had asked her if she had ever had sex with a woman. She answered "yes" but then demurred when he asked if it was someone people have heard of.



She said she would like to go back and tell him the truth. "It was someone famous. I did have sex with Drew Barrymore," she said.



Barrymore, who had graced the first cover of the debut issue of Jane back in 1997, could not be reached for comment.

Here's Pratt:

Here's the cover in question:

Sully on the captured Brits

The Daily Dish: Captured Brits:

"The news reports put that word in quotation marks. I wonder if it emerges that they are being subject to George W. Bush's preferred euphemism 'coercive interrogations.' And if that turns out to be the case, and we have to pray it isn't, then what will the United States and its ally Great Britain say in complaint? After all, Iran is only doing to Western soldiers in captivity what the U.S. has been doing to 'enemy combatants' since the war began. Then there's a question of what kind of trial they might face. One in which their defense gets a chance to see all the evidence against them? Oh, wait ... we don't do that either. "

Yep. It's not like we can bitch about that sort of thing anymore. Thanks George.

Tales of the Sea

Lawyers, Guns and Money

Robert Farley has a nice series of posts on the sinking of the light cruiser HMAS Sydney by the German armed merchant cruiser Kormoran.

Don't call it a comeback

Er... actually do:

How's that working out for you?

Americans For Bayh

Americans For Bayh is a grass roots effort dedicated to the candidacy of Indiana Senator Evan Bayh as the next president of the United States. There is no official Americans For Bayh (AFB) organization or group at this point in time. So what are we about? Basically we are trying to provide those interested in the Senator with a portal where any news or events can be accessed easily. We publish a regular email-linked newsletter. Furthermore, some are involved as contributors on the Blogging for Bayh weblog which provides up to the minute Bayh commentary and news. All content reflects the opinions of the individual identified and are not associated with Evan Bayh's official capacities and is never in any way coordinated with the Senator or any of his staff.

Another Shot With ScribeFire

Is this thing on?

Blogroll Executions

Black Velvet Bruce Li -- Rampant homophobia from a supposed libertarian. If I need homophobia I can read any one of a thousand right-wing blogs, I sure as hell don't need it from a guy that claims to be a libertarian.

Magellan Rounding the Cape

Magellan's ships fight their way around the Cape Horn.

Getting RSS feeds from Youtube

I wanted to setup an RSS feed of my youtube posts, but it isn't immediately obvious how to do that on youtube's site. Enter Unit Structures: YouTube RSS Feeds post. Easy peasy.

And apparently Blogthis works again. Woohoo!

Best Show on Television

The Standing Rigging

(click to embiggun)

Poker After Dark

I hate this show. Not because its bad, but because it wakes me up at 2AM. Matusow, Hellmuth, Ivey, Farha, Bloch, and Tony G at the same table? Just silly.

Masts and Yards

This should've been posted before "Square Sails".

(click to embiggun)

Square sails

(click to embiggun)

Level 1 Human

Daily Drew

As mentioned I hate Spike Jonze. Sure its envy and jealousy, but I'm embracing it;)

250 years ago today

Was a bad day to be Admiral John Byng. Byng was the last British admiral to be shot on his own quarterdeck. Ordered to relieve the island of Minorca at the beginning of the Seven Year's War, Byng's squadron met a French squadron outside Port Mahon on that island. Despite having the weather gage Byng's squadron took heavy damage while, due to a tactical decision by Byng, the French squadron escaped virtually undamaged. After four days Byng returned to Gibraltar and was subsequently brought before a court-martial for "failure to do his utmost". Undoubtedly he had failed to do his utmost to pursue the enemy and he was found guilty. Unfortunately for Byng a 1749 update to the Articles of War left only one punishment for this crime as stated in Article 13:

"Every person in the fleet, who though cowardice, negligence, or disaffection, shall forbear to pursue the chase of any enemy, pirate or rebel, beaten or flying; or shall not relieve or assist a known friend in view to the utmost of his power; being convicted of any such offense by the sentence of a court martial, shall suffer death."

The Execution of Admiral John Byng (Click image to embiggun, link to the left for more info on painting)

The Sound of Urchin

I've been rocking out with The Sound of Urchin since around late '98. Back then they had released a jazzy triphop EP called "All That and a Brandy Alexander" that I found on mp3.com. I immediately bought a bunch of live shows off their website and have drive five hours to see them more than once. They are great performers and thoroughly cool dudes. They opened for Tenacious D in Chicago in '01, and pulled my buddies and I backstage to meet Jack Black and Kyle Gass. I stole Jack Black's Bass Ale (ok it was in his abandoned dressing room, but still).

Over the years TSOU has changed styles radically. The first EP was a sample driven collaboration between Barbie Smooth and Tomato-11 (don't ask;). Barbie left when he got an offer he couldn't refuse (MTV was calling asking him to be a producer for some unpopular show called TRL). Tomato hooked up with a live band and started rocking. Now they are a guitar driven band with an eclectic array of styles that defies generic classifiction. Anyway here's a live performance of song off that first EP called "Green Green Gold" (and this is about double the tempo of the original track).

Minor NSFW language:

Too cool. This dude hacked a MAME cabinet into his TARDIS. He wins an Internets.

Daily Drew

Drew's modeling for some apparently famous English fashion designer named Giles Deacon.

"Carnage and Shops" my remix

Meet Stephen Scott Lowe:

You can see he probably hasn't had the best day. He really doesn't look to bad though for a guy that's driven his SUV through a mall and then been beaten up (with justification) by the cops. Well it is a mall, and they do have security cameras. I added the appropriate music to the silent mall videos.

Reconsidering Hagel

Chelsea in comments writes:

I'm sorry to say but I have to disagree with you. Giuliani, Romney, Gingrich and others are the ones that will have difficulty winning the primaries. I think Hagel has a great opportunity to appeal to primary voters because of his conservative voting record.

Sure, he is the only outspoken critic on the Iraq war; but, he has never flipped his position on abortion (a la Romney), he doesn't have a muddled personal history (see Giuliani, Gingrich), and he hasn't ever sold out like the other "maverick" (McCain).

None of the "Big 3" are really standing out for the Republicans right now. Chuck Hagel has the propensity to garner large support...especially considering that he's already the media's baby.

Don't be sorry, you've got a good point;) Hagel is the most appealing GOP candidate to me. Of course coming from me that's essentially saying, "I detest Hagel's politics the least". You may well be correct in Hagel being able to garner a large group of supporters; however, whether he can or not his entry is a plus for every GOP candidate except McCain.

Now if Hagel manages to go ahead and win the primaries, I don't suppose its a plus for the other candidates;)

Update: Hagel held the presser to announce... that he has nothing to announce yet.

Brilliant political move by Chuck Hagel

Chuck Hagel, anti-war GOP senator, is holding a press conference on Monday, and the money is on him announcing he is entering the presidential campaign. This is a major win for almost all Republican candidates as it allows all of them to move off the "Anti-war == terrorism supporter" rhetoric that failed them so miserably in 2006. McCain is still using the "fight them over there so we don't have to fight them there" variant and his poll numbers have gone to shit. Where he was once the front-runner he nows occasionally polls third behind Romney and consistently behind Guliani.

With Hagel's entry the "allowed to waver" candidates, Romney, Guliani, Gingrich and Huckabee can start to moderate their positions to appeal to independents that they need to win a general election. They won't be "as crazy as Hagel" when they say something like "we need to begin the process of a long term staged withdrawl" or some other vague reference to end the war that appeals to Independents without alienating the base. McCain is so tied to the current surge that John Edwards' pejorative reference to it as "the McCain strategy" stuck, and he becomes the other bookend of the GOP war debate. Hagel's entry allows for an actual debate on the war during the GOP primaries and doesn't restrict GOP candidates to the two current options of "total" or "complete" support for the war. McCain is "stay the course" and Hagel is "cut and run". The rest of the candidates can pick a moderate position in between. Hagel cannot win the primaries, but I don't think that's the point. An actual debate amongst the GOP on how to end the war can only help the GOP's candidate in the general election.

Good move Chuck.

Bad sight gag of the day

Daily Drew (I hate Spike Jonze edition)

In my "pre-blogging" days over at everything2 I once wrote:

Sat May 13 2000 at 16:32:30
Somebody look up Spike's family tree. He's a rich kid who's been handed a bunch of media tasks by his oh so wealthy family (Rockefeller or Getty I can't remember which). ed note: it's actually the Spiegel family, and his branch wasn't all that wealthy apparently

Am I bitter... a tad. See Spike's my rich kid alter ego.

When I was 13 I was into journalism and freestyle bike riding and BMX. Spike edited my favorite bike rag. I got a Redline -- not bad but not a freestyle mag.

When I was 18, I was into music and journalism. My favorite band... the Beastie Boys and Spike edited their magazine (Grand Royal) and made their videos. I saw them in concert at Lollapalooza -- clearly the decline has started.

Now I'm 25 and I'm into movies, computers, and music. Spike gets to make and star in movies and music videos, meet other stars, and generally be considered cool. I get to slag him on everything2. I win!

Now via Defamer I get this little nugget:

Drew Barrymore sucking face with a scrawny-looking guy who looked familiar but I had to be told was Spike Jonze at Golden Gopher downtown Fri night (3/2). She looked great actually, definitely skinnier than when she dated that drummer.They were pretty annoying, giggling and touching and making out. Then they started slow-dancing to Patsy Cline even though no one else was, but the song switched to Arcade Fire so they sat down and kissed more. A fast Beck song came on and they danced again (still no one joined) but were gone next time I passed on the way to the pisser.

DAMN YOU SPIKE JONZE! What makes this worse is that I really really like Spike Jonze's work. Being John Malkovich and Adaptation are both great movies. Plus look at that list of music videos. Cannonball, Sabotage, Buddy Holly, Praise You, and Wonderboy to name just a few of his good videos. Sigh... Opulens adepto opulentia

Tip of the Iceberg

Project Hamad update

Some seemingly good news:

Adel Hamad’s lawyers have been notified that Hamad and his landlord, Mammar, have been approved to leave Guantanamo. Some internet articles have already begun speculating about the effect that the YouTube video, Guantanamo Unclassified, may have had in securing his release. Of course, we hope that Project Hamad and Guantanamo Unclassified have helped expedite Hamad’s release, as these articles suggest, yet we believe it is premature to declare victory for a number of reasons.

Read the rest for a cautionary note.

New to the Blogroll

An old friend's new myspace page. Nice stuff Pearl.

Daily Drew

From Defamer:

Hello Drew Barrymore!

My name Henrik [Redacted], I come from Sweden, I am 20 years old

You are my world favourite actress!! I have seen 16 filmen as you with in the filmen but 10 off the filmen have I DVD-filmen...

You are good actress! I think to you beautiful.

I love collect celebrity picture and celebrity birthday and I are interest contact with celebrity but I know to celebrity and you have not time to answer but hope answer beautiful day

So I are interest contact with you Drew.

I Love You! Hope you answer so soon near you have time...

I Love You! Hoppas du svar så snart när du har tiden!!

Greeting Henrik.

Good luck Henrik.

Freeroll for iPods

I’m registered in the free BloggerPods poker tournament on Online poker Mac

Daily Drew

I might need some alone time.

More here.