"'In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.'"

--Yogi Berra

Challenging the Qur’an:

Still, Luxenberg may be ushering in a whole new era of Qur’anic study. “Luxenberg’s findings are very relevant and convincing,” says Mondher Sfar, a Tunisian specialist on the historic origins of the Qur’an in exile in Paris. “They make possible a new interpretation of the Qur’an.” In the West, questioning the literal veracity of the Bible was a crucial step in breaking the church’s grip on power—and in developing a modern, secular society. That experience, as much as the questioning itself, is no doubt what concerns conservative Muslims as they struggle over the meaning and influence of Islam in the 21st century. But if Luxenberg’s work is any indication, the questioning is just getting underway.

Raisins... not virgins?

Interesting.

Leonard's Legal Barn:

" A 'dance mixtape' that Leonard made which consists of 68 solid minutes of sounds from Leonard's washing machine trying to clean a car battery."

Read www.somethingawful.com.

BBC - h2g2 - How To Understand Statistics:

"Think about how stupid the average person is; now realise half of them are dumber than that.
- George Carlin"

Dumbass!

Yeah in case you're wondering, that is George W. Bush desecrating a flag.

Romancing the Rosetta Stone

Badass idea of the week (and it's only Monday!). This guy wrote software that allows you to feed it some translations of books in different languages, and then the software trains itself to translate /anything/ between said languages. What's particularly cool is that the software knows nothing of grammar and doesn't use dictionaries. It uses "experience" from previous translations to make the current translation. His software recently won a translation contest among 23 competing products.

Best Thing Ever^TM

Yahoo! News - Pro-Bush Group Uses Carrier Photo to Raise Funds

Is this supposed to be even remotely suprising?

Yahoo! News - Cubans make freedom bid in floating Chevy truck

Top of Yahoo! a day after I blogged it. About time;)

And not so good to be Wil Wheaton today.

Herald.com - Cubans try to 'drive' over Florida Straits More on the truck from the last post. The Coast Guard sank the truck:(

Yahoo! News - Top Stories Photos - AP
12 guys try to cross the Florida Straights in a boat made of 55 gallon plastic drums and 1951 Chevy truck. It looks very much like they're driving across the water. Unfortunately about halfway across they were picked up by the Coast Guard and returned to Cuba. I understand the policy, but shouldn't there be a prize for novelty? Come on! I bet GM would like to have that truck.

It's good to be Wil Wheaton these days.

Pop icon Michael Jackson comes out against locking up music pirates

I was just thinking yesterday about getting the artists involved in the coming lawsuits. Interesting...

Yahoo! News - Researchers: Hackers to Abuse Cisco Flaw

SAN JOSE, Calif. - A day after Cisco Systems Inc. warned of a serious software flaw in networking gear that routes Internet traffic, researchers said hackers had figured how to cripple the equipment.

There were no immediate reports of outages, but that was expected to change, the Computer Emergency Response Team, a taxpayer-funded group at Carnegie Mellon University, said Friday in an advisory.

"This exploit allows an attacker to interrupt the normal operation of a vulnerable device," the CERT advisory said. "We believe it is likely that intruders will begin using this or other exploits to cause service outages."

No shit? I bet they report the Pope will wear a funny hat next.

Yahoo! News - Found Body May Be British Weapons Adviser

Kelly, a 59-year-old former U.N. weapons inspector, was at the center of a political storm over allegations that Blair's office altered intelligence on Iraq's alleged weapons programs to support the decision to join the U.S.-led war in Iraq. The government denies the claim.

Ready, set, develop conspiracy theory.

Yahoo! News - Democrat Eyes Potential Grounds for Bush Impeachment

Without getting political in this post, I predicted during the 1998 Clinton/Lewinsky brouhaha that politicians were setting the bar for presidential impeachment so low that three of the next five presidents would face impeachment precedings. I don't think this will go anywhere, but it's always the cover up that gets ya. Ain't that right Slick Willy? Wouldn't you say so Tricky Dick? How about you Ronnie?

Tangentially, thinking of the Iran/Contra affair reminded of a great sketch I saw on an SNL repeat the other day. In it Reagan is doing the doting grandpa thing on some girl scout, and then as soon as the cameras are gone he turns around pulls down all these maps and starts minutely detailing Iran/Contra to his befuddled advisors. Between Phil Hartman's incredible Reagan impression and the complete switch in personality every time a "civilian" enters the room, it's a hilarious sketch.

Frankie Mayo's 300th MP Donation Page

Frankie Mayo is sending air condtioners to the troops in Iraq. Short of a ticket home, I can't think of a much better thing to send the guys and gals over there.

The Army in its immortal wisdom says that AC's are nice, but what the troops really need is moist towelettes(sic) (frickin' baby wipes!). I think KFC really needs to step up here.

Yahoo! Sports: "Juan Antonio Flecha of Spain won Stage 11 of the Tour de France
on Thursday. The following are the top 20 overall cyclists:

1. Lance Armstrong (USA) 49 hours, 16 minutes 37 seconds
2. Alexandre Vinokourov (Kazakhstan) 21 seconds behind
3. Iban Mayo (Spain) 1:02
4. Francisco Mancebo (Spain) 1:37
5. Tyler Hamilton (USA) 1:52
6. Jan Ullrich (Germany) 2:10
7. Ivan Basso (Italy) 2:25
8. Roberto Heras (Spain) 2:28
9. Haimar Zubeldia (Spain) 3:25
10. Denis Menchov (Russia) 3:45

2003 Results of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest

Bad writing done well. Hint: There's a specific category for stories that start with, "It was a dark and stormy night."

My favorite, from the "Vile Pun" section:

Sarah felt bored and unsatisfied, even though her job as a nurse's aide included helping patients and keeping track of the billiards equipment in the recreation room at the Venereal Disease Treatment Center, and she wondered what her mother had been thinking all those years when she repeatedly told her that a young lady should mind herpes and cues.

Brad Jolly
Longmont, CO

Yahoo! News - Masturbating Lowers Prostate Cancer Risk -Study: "
Australian scientists have shown that the more men masturbate between the ages of 20 and 50, the less likely they are to develop the disease that kills more than half a million men each year. "

Wow! I must be in 0% risk category!

NEWS.com.au | Shocks await coma victim (July 16, 2003): "SLOWLY but surely, Terry Wallis is rediscovering his world. After 19 years in a coma he has a lot of catching up to do.

But now the crash victim's family are steeling themselves to break the news that during those lost years his wife had three children by another man.
They will also have to tell him the daughter he remembers as a six-week-old baby is now working as a stripper. "

It's enough to make a guy want to go back to sleep for a little while.

Augusta Chronicle - Reserves wanting to leave Mideast 07/12/03:

About 130 men and women from the 319th remain in Kuwait. Most of the soldiers arrived in mid-February, and a forward team of 20 soldiers has been there since November.
During the first two weeks of the war, the 319th hauled all the bulk fuel for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force in its drive to Baghdad, a job that took them through hostile territory and into ambushes and firefights.
The 319th is now working for the Army's 260th Quartermaster Battalion. It is stationed at Camp Arifjan, south of Kuwait City.
Soldiers say most of their work involves civilian contractor Kellogg Brown and Root, a subsidiary of Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, Halliburton Corp. The company has contracts to haul fuel, and 319th members are riding along as armed escorts.
'The main reason we're still here is to support Brown and Root,' said Sgt. 1st Class David Uthe, 45, of Augusta.

Interesting.

Defense labels flashing charge physically impossible

The old little dick defense... sweet. A woman claims to see a "semi-erect penis" protruding three inches from her locksmith's shorts. Locksmith says "That's not possible. My dick is only four inches long fully erect!" Funny story.

I've been reading far too much Slate recently. I probably feel like a lot of Republicans did during the leadup to the Clinton impeachment debacle. I just cannot believe that people aren't more pissed about the whole "White House lies about the war" thing. Back then GOP members were going apeshit over Clinton's blow-job and his on the stand equivocations, and the rest of the country yawned and threw them out of office in 1998 midterm elections (bye-bye Newt).

Now Bush lies to the Congress and the Nation during his constitutionally mandated report the Congress, then equivocates about whether or not it was lie, admits it was a lie -- but not his lie (It was the Brits! The CIA got it wrong!), claims it was a short lie so it doesn't really count, and I get the feeling the country doesn't really care. Oh well...

Yahoo! News - Red Planet never closer than now: "Close passages occur every few years as Earth, which runs a faster inside track around the sun, laps its planetary peer. For sky watchers, the excitement arises from the fact that on Aug. 27, the two planets pass as close as they ever get -- about 35 million miles apart instead of the usual distance of about 60 million miles. This will allow a particularly nice view of Mars."

Yahoo! News - Malaysian man severs, cooks and eats own penis

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - A 34-year-old Malaysian man, believed to have been high on drugs, severed, cooked and ate his own penis, local media reported.

The man, who was previously diagnosed as mentally unstable, is said to have done so after having taken drugs and awoke in the middle of the night hearing voices telling him to do so.

"The man then wrapped his penis in a piece of cloth, burnt and ate it," a police spokesman was quoted as saying by the Bernama news agency.

He didn't even cook it properly!

Yahoo! Sports:
1. Lance Armstrong (USA) 40 hours, 15 minutes 26 seconds
2. Alexandre Vinokourov (Kazakhstan) 21 seconds behind
3. Iban Mayo (Spain) 1:02
4. Francisco Mancebo (Spain) 1:37
5. Tyler Hamilton (USA) 1:52
6. Jan Ullrich (Germany) 2:10
7. Ivan Basso (Italy) 2:25
8. Roberto Heras (Spain) 2:28
9. Haimar Zubeldia (Spain) 3:25
10. Denis Menchov (Russia) 3:45
11. Roberto Laiseka (Spain) 4:03"

Cool

Slate -- Bush's Data Dump The administration is hiding bad economic news. Here's how.

More lies, equivocations, and obfuscations from the White House. Good article that's heavy on examples.

Yahoo! News - Bush says CIA Cleared Iraq Uranium Claim

Buck = Passed

Or as a witty farker pointed out that headline should read, "CIA ordered to fall on own sword."

Bush Defends U.S. Justification for Iraq War (washingtonpost.com): "Asked for the first time about the uranium issue, Bush said: 'There's going to be a lot of attempts to rewrite history.'"

You know like the White House did when they made things up and called them true and then used them as reasons for going to war. Imagine what would have happened to Clinton in the same situation. Republicans would be calling for his execution! If lying about a blow job under oath = grounds for impeachment then lying about another country so you can send more than 200 Americans (and 4-7K Iraqi civilians) to their deaths = ?

If I had to answer, I'd say grounds for war crimes charges at least.

I've been listening to Youngblood Brass Band for a while now, and I recently found a song I had a while ago called Acousticon Theme. That is one slammin horn line I tell ya.

Bush Defends Pre-War Intelligence on Iraq << Headline on Drudge...

And I'm thinking Bush should be defending his intelligence on any number of issues;)

U.S. Newswire - Vietnam Veteran Files Constitutional Challenge to 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' and Federal Sodomy Statute

Steve Loomis, Purple Heart recipient and Vietnam combat veteran, is seeking to end the Army's "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy with a lawsuit. Good for him, but the most galling part of the story is near the end.

The Army discharged LTC Loomis, a former engineer war plans officer, for being gay eight days prior to his twenty year retirement date. As a result, LTC Loomis forfeited his retirement pension worth an estimated one million dollars. Each of the Army officers sitting on the discharge board that determined LTC Loomis' fate called homosexuality "a sickness" or said they had "no tolerance" for homosexuality. Efforts to remove those officers from the discharge board for bias failed.

The Army based its discharge on a videotape seized during an arson investigation. An arsonist set fire to LTC Loomis' home in 1996. Civilian authorities investigating the arson found the videotape, which depicts LTC Loomis in private adult consensual sexual conduct, and handed it over to Army officials. The Army used the videotape as the basis for discharge, ending the decorated veteran's distinguished career. The Army provided LTC Loomis no assistance in responding to the tragedy of losing his home or possessions.

First of all they kicked him out 8 days prior to his retirement. Lie about your service record or allow your troops to rape their female counterparts and you're quietly given your retirement. Have an arsonist burn most of your house down, and civilian authorities will turn over a tape they find to the Army cops? That's disgusting! First of all what were "civilian authorites" doing viewing a videotape found at the scene of the fire? Did they think the arsonist filmed himself and left the tape? Second they had no right to turn over the tape to military authorities. I'd be suing the hell out of said civilian authorities. Third after receiving the tape, isn't the military "asking" about his sexuality by viewing it? Were they not at that point conducting an investigation (investigation is inquiry, inquiry requires questions, for if you had the answer why would you be inquiring) into Loomis' sexuality?

Also its nice to see that conflict of interest is not a problem in military courts. I can see the ad now "Haven't joined the 21st (or even 20th) century yet? Do you think, despite the mountain of scientific evidence to the contrary, that homosexuality is a sickness? Do you have 'no tolerance' for 10% of the population? Well Uncle Sam has a job for you!" Perhaps we'll let fundementalist Christians who think all Muslims will and should burn in hell run the military tribunals on Guantanamo Bay.

Good luck LTC Loomis. Go be a hero... again.

Injured dog finds way to hospital

Good dog. Good dog.

Hastert truck hit by water balloon
Man faces a felony charge after he threw a water balloon that hit a truck that Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert was driving. Hastert was a little wet but unharmed.

And justice for all,
But more justice for some.

Yahoo! News - Many Doctors Withhold Info From Managed Care Patients

No shit. Really? You mean if the doc knows my insurance won't pay for something shem won't tell me about it? 23% of doctors said they "sometimes" with hold information from patients on managed care while 8% said "often".

From the story, "The study found that doctors whose own salaries are closely tied to controlling costs were more likely than other doctors to report withholding information."

I'm shocked! /cringe/

Willamette Week Online | News INTERVIEW | High Priest

Paul Krassner -- who is this cat, and where do I find his work? Well, off to the /gasp/ library (it's like a World Wide Web, but it's in a building and full of books (bleached dead trees bound between other pieces of dead tree))

Oh BTW the google search that turned up this page is "Jackie Kennedy gets high". Have you ever heard the woman speak? Snoop Dogg got nothing on this chicks speech pattern. What the hell is that accent? New England stoner drawl?

I love Tiger Woods. Loved him since he destroyed the Masters in 1997. He's better at what he does for fun and profit than I am at anything... fapping included, and lemme tell ya I can rub one out.

Check this out. It's called Tiger Trap, and it's a phrackin Buick commercial. How can you not like this guy?

I love the way he introduces himself. He's on a golf course and he walks up to people and says, "Hi I'm Tiger Woods". These people are golfing for God's sake! There isn't a man, woman or child on the planet that's been on a golf course in the last ten years who doesn't know who Tiger fucking Woods is! The best analogy I can come up with is that your Catholic, you die, you go to the pearly gates, and the guy behind the counter says, "Hi I'm Saint Peter." The problem with that analogy is that there are more golfers who know who Tiger is than there are Catholics who know who Saint Peter is.

http://www.preventcancer.org/colossalcolon/
It's a colon. It's colossal.

Happy Birthday Wes!!!!!

http://www.700club.com/CBNNews/News/030626a.asp << HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

To save you three minutes of your life, Pat Robertson's CBN says that the recent rash of tornadoes in the US is caused by our attempts to negotiate peace in the Middle East. What an asshat.

Stevie Ray Vaughn and Double Trouble playing "All Your Love I Miss Lovin'". The switch from the minor blues to the minor 7th blues is silly scary good. He comes with a dunna dunna dun da blues riff... aw fuck it... here

From Yahoo! News -
White House Won't Release Medicare Memo

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration's top Medicare accountant has calculated how millions of senior citizens would be affected by bringing private managed care into the program, but the administration won't release the information.



An earlier analysis suggested that a Republican plan to inject market forces into Medicare could increase premiums for those who stay in traditional programs by as much as 25 percent. If that's still the case, it could help Democrats who argue that the GOP plan is risky for those who want to stay in traditional Medicare, where they can pick any doctor, rather than move to a managed care plan.


The administration's Medicare chief threatened to fire his top actuary, Rick Foster, if Foster released his calculations to Capitol Hill Democrats who requested the analysis, officials said.


Medicare chief Tom Scully said in an interview Wednesday that Democrats had no right to request the information from Foster in the first place.


"They don't have the right on the Hill to call up my actuary and demand things," said Scully, chief of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. "These people work for the executive branch, period."


Scully said he would release the analysis "if I feel like it."

Ah the true test of checks and balances... whether or not a member of the executive branch (you know us the peoples' employees) feels like telling us. I love the government!

http://www.senate.gov/~hatch/index.cfm?FuseAction=Statements.Detail&PressRelease_id=205148&Month=6&Year=2003

When I get around to it, please remind me to blow this shit up. What a fucking joke. This from the man that advocates destroying his constituents computers without trial! Thanks Orrin! Good to know you're watching out for us.* Also its good to know that you feel that the "rapid dissemenation of ideas" is a threat to national security. Those unwashed masses aren't fit to know, are they Orrin?


*us meaning approximately his rich friends...

Kerry Wood's slider makes men look foolish. Fernando Vina is batting about .310 this year. Wood struck him out on a slider that hit him. Vina swung at a pitch that hit him in the leg! Nice pitch.

Yahoo! News - Murder Trial Begins in 'Windshield' Death

FORT WORTH, Texas - Jurors saw pictures of the twisted, bruised and bloody body of a homeless man Monday as a former nurse's aide went on trial on charges she hit him with her car, drove home with his body lodged grotesquely in the windshield and left him to die in her garage.

Remember this one? Touching isn't it?

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=68273&cid=6249951

Another +5 Slashdot comment.

Orrin Hatch says "ARGH! A pirate I be."

Serious question: Is a "non-combat related weapons discharge" the military's parlance for a suicide in Iraq?

White House edits Report by the E.P.A. -- Leaves Out Data on Climate Change

In the end, E.P.A. staff members, after discussions with administration officials, said they decided to delete the entire discussion to avoid criticism that they were selectively filtering science to suit policy.

The White House cut out paragraphs from studies that found human contributions to global warming, while adding quotes from a study that disputes that claim. The study that disputes that claim received funding from the American Petroleum Institute. Now I don't know jackshit about global warming and its causes, but I do know bullshit when I see it.

From the story:

"Political staff are becoming increasingly bold in forcing agency officials to endorse junk science," said Jeremy Symons, a climate policy expert at the National Wildlife Federation. "This is like the White House directing the secretary of labor to alter unemployment data to paint a rosy economic picture."

You know, it's like lying.

Zambrano just doubled to start the fifth! Good to see your pitchers hit. Stupid DH rule. Some NL manager called interleague games in AL parks "the closest thing to a day off you can have at the ballpark". My Mom could manage an AL team.

Corey Patterson just doubled home Zambrano. Patterson to the All-Star game. Sammy stays home.

You know what. I hate this idea.

Steve Stone to Chp "You're at your best during the drop-ins."

Translation: You broadcast best when reading a cue-card ad.

One of the better left-handed compliments I've heard in a while.

Bottom 4 - 2 out - 0-0 - Runner on second. 0-2 count on Adam Dunn

Mark Belhorn has been a huge disapointment this year. Where's the bat? Heh, he just watched a 1-2 pitch bounce in the dirt about 5 feet in front of him and go wild. It'd be funny if someone consistently swung at that pitch with two strikes and no one on to try and "steal first".

Nice play Reds 3B Aaron Boone... two steps back and toward third base, leap, make and over-the-shoulder grab on a high hopping grounder, plant on the 3rd baseline, and fire to first to get the guy by two steps. Highlight quality.

A wiki with friends would be a cool way to do this.


Game is in the top of the fourth, no outs, no score.

I'm going to start blogging while watching Chicago Cubs games, and I'm going to start now. Tonight's game is on WGN and the Cubs are playing the Reds. It's the bottom of the second, and no one's out. Score: 0-0.

Zambrano is on the mound tonight. He's been pitching well this year despite the 5-6 record. He's got 11 decisions all ready this year. He pitches well enough even when he loses to stick around for the decision.

Inmates' long wait for justice

Bill White spent five years in Cook County Jail awaiting trial for murder. But it took a judge only 15 minutes to rule the state's key witness "worthless" and set White free.
One week later, White's co-defendants, Otis English, 32, and Roland Gray, 50, walked out of the jail when the state dropped their cases, too.
The men--who call themselves the "Wrigleyville Three" because they were charged with the murder of a young couple near the Cubs' ballpark in 1997--were caught in a legal system that moves far too slowly, Cook County Sheriff Michael Sheahan said.
"In a murder case, a reasonable time in jail would be 1-1/2 or two years," he said. "Anything over two years is ludicrous."

Sweet Jesus, and they want us to give these people more power?

Yahoo! News - Microsoft to Quit Web Browsers for Mac

Sommers said Apple is in a better position to create a browser with more features and that offers a smoother experience because "Apple has access to functionality in the (operating system) that Microsoft doesn't."
"They can do things because they're developing on their own (operating system) that we as a third party programmer can't do," she said.

Well duh! Microsoft must not feel like they have any corporate competition in the software market if they let quotes like that out of the office. Hundreds of companies have leveled that same complaint at ol' M$ over the years.

Our Leader.

If Lincoln had PowerPoint at Gettysburg...

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Lost from the Baghdad museum: truth

So, there's the picture: 100,000-plus priceless items looted either under the very noses of the Yanks, or by the Yanks themselves. And the only problem with it is that it's nonsense. It isn't true. It's made up. It's bollocks.

Iraqi national museum /not/ looted. Most of the items were put in storage before the war. Few items actually missing!

Yahoo! News - Attacks in Jerusalem, Gaza Kill 23, Injure Scores

Attacks in Jerusalem, Gaza Kill 23, Injure Scores

Wow... Reuters covering events in the Middle East for what they are: terrorist attacks by both sides. The language in the story still refers to Palestinian "militants", but the headline is still the most neutral I have read.

Boston Globe Online / Business / WorldCom culture called 'poisonous'

In one incident cited by the investigators, accounting executive Buford Yates told an underling who questioned the company's books: ''Show those numbers to the [expletive] auditors and I'll throw you out the [expletive] window.''

(I'm assuming) Former Worldcom Executive Buford Yates according to an internal investigation conducted by WorldCom.

A quick poll: Was the expletive: A) Fucking B) Goddamn C) Asshat?

NEWS.com.au | Saddam 'source of Iraqi unrest' (June 10, 2003)

En route to Europe, Rumsfeld suggested the missing Saddam was still inspiring remnants of his regime to resist the US-led occupation.

"To the extent it's not proven
That he is not alive,
There are people who might fear
He could come back.
If they fear he could come back
They might be somewhat slower
In an interrogation to say what they know

It might give heart
To the Baathists
Who may want to hope
They can take back that country,
Which they are not going to succeed in doing.
So I think to some extent that is a fair comment."

Ah the power of cheese! Or wait no... That's the Poetry of Rumsfeld... right, or from the Right at least.

CMT.com: 100 Greatest Songs

CMT's 100 Greatest Songs of Country Music

lgf: Another British Attack on Wolfowitz

Look, the primary difference -- to put it a little too simply -- between North Korea and Iraq is that we had virtually no economic options with Iraq because the country floats on a sea of oil.

From the Department of Defense transcript of the Wolfolwitz Q&A session that the Guardian used to make the er... creative quote below.

Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | Wolfowitz: Iraq war was about oil

Asked why a nuclear power such as North Korea was being treated differently from Iraq, where hardly any weapons of mass destruction had been found, the deputy defence minister said: "Let's look at it simply. The most important difference between North Korea and Iraq is that economically, we just had no choice in Iraq. The country swims on a sea of oil."

US deputy defense secretary, Paul Wolfowitz

Duh.

I was watching a documentary that speculated that a space sail could propel a space ship at "millions of miles an hour". The documentary hypothesized that this technology could allow humans to colonize habital planets around distant stars by reducing travel time to "generations". To wit I say better move a little faster. Feeling arbitrary, I picked 5 million miles an hour. Here's the distance in miles to the nearest star Alpha Centauri which is galactically speaking "right next door" a mere four light years away -- 23462784000000 (23.4 trillion). It takes somewhere around 535 years to get to Alpha Centauri at 5,000,000 mph. That's about 20 generations, or about an eighth of recorded human history.

186000 << miles/second speed of light
31536000 << seconds in a year
5865696000000 << Miles in a light year
23462784000000 << miles to alpha centauri (4C) 23.4 Trillion Miles
4692556.8 << hours to alpha centauri at 5,000,000 mph
195523.2 << days to alpha centauri
535.68 << Years to alpha centauri

I don't which is scarier... that Bush speaks with cynical self-interest for himself and his oil cronies or that he actually believes the stupid crap that he spews.

Via email and my brother:
Isn't this great looking at it in hindsite?

http://www.theonion.com/onion3701/bush_nightmare.html

hmm, were they on to something back then?
--

Damn that's eerie...

Hey I got a email reply from television's Wil Wheaton! For those of you with some modicum of dignity Wil was Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation. He was by far the most reviled character in Star Trek history as proven by the existence of not one but two full newsgroups (alt.ensign.wesley.die.die.die and alt.wesley.crusher.die.die.die) dedicated to his demise. Wil was also the lead in the movie Stand By Me.

Wil himself was personally vilified at conventions and the like. He currently blogs at wilwheaton.net, and has rehabilitated himself in the geek community with his good writing, fan friendliness, and quick wit.

Wil was recently referenced in a "Statshot" from The Onion, which led to my question and this exchange:

Thus Spake goon@mchsi.com:

: Quick question:

:

: With your recent appearance in "The Onion" you've completed one of my three

: pop life goals -- namely to be referenced in "The Onion".

:

: The other two goals are being the question to a Jeopardy! answer and being

: referenced on The Simpsons.  How are you doing on those two?

:

Getting on the simpsons is the hardest thing in the WORLD. I've been trying 

for almost 10 years.



But I *was* a Jeopardy answer. I think they used my picture, or something like 

that. :)



Wil



-------------------------------------------

 WIL WHEATON DOT NET

May Peace Prevail On Earth

This is almost as good as the time Bruce Campbell wrote me back!

Overheard:

If Florida is America's wang, does that Texas our nut-sack?
If so, I guess that means we're tea-bagging Mexico.

I had a +5 /. comment today. Well, bully for me!

Digital Video (realistic) Dream Machine:

I've been fleshing out plans for a new machine lately. I've moved away from gaming, which used to drive my hardware purchasing. Unfortunately, I've replaced it with a pastime that's nearly as cash intensive -- video production. Video production requires speed -- raw processor speed, hard drive speed, RAM speed etc... What it does not require is 3D processing power, which as a gamer was my main focus. To wit, I've wasted a lot of money on 3Dfx and GeForce boards, but now I need to start again from scratch.

Keeping this realistic (within my buying power), requires quite a few compromises, but in the end I should have a "rip and flip" video machine that will do near realtime or better video conversions and merciless capture and video I/O features.

• 400W Black Full Tower Case -- $100 -- Tons of bays, big power supply, and cool Alienware ripoff case design make this a winner.
  
• Asus A7N8X Deluxe motherboard -- $160 -- Nforce2 based mobo from a solid company, solid specs, includes USB 2.0/Firewire/Serial ATA for room to grow
  
• Athlon XP 2000 -- $100 -- The sweet spot in the AMD processor line right now. I might bump this up a little when I actually get around to buying, but I want to keep the amount spent on a processor around $100. Besides when the 2800 XP is $100 I can always pop in a replacement.
  
• 512 MB PC-2700 RAM -- $130 -- Fast RAM and enough of it.
  
• 120 GB Western Digital Caviar WD1200JB hard drive -- $150 -- Tons of storage space, though not the fastest hard drive around. A later addition would be a pair of smaller (40 GB for another $150) drives to run in a striped configuration for video conversions.
  
• ATI All In Wonder 7500 -- $125 -- The "Swiss Army knife" of video cards. Like most AiW cards the 3D performance of this card isn't great, but the TV tuner, video in and video out features, along with the remote control and good software make this card too much of a value to pass up.
  
• Lite-On 40/12/48 CD-RW -- $65 -- Good performance, good reviews, and good price. I'd like a Plextor, but hey $35 extra is $35 extra.
  
• Creative 52X CD-ROM -- $35 -- Cheap and reliable... mmm cheap.
  
• Teac Floppy Drive -- $15 -- Eh... It's a floppy.
  
• Keyboard ? -- $20 -- A keyboard, non-ergo, non-crappy.
  
• Intellimouse Explorer 5 button optical mouse -- $35 -- I love this mouse. Something that M$ got right.
  
• Samsung 19" SyncMaster 950B monitor -- $190 -- Nice 19" monitor for a good price.
  
• Altec Lansing 251 5.1 Speakers -- $75 -- 5.1 speakers for under a $100? Yep. Klipsch sound quality? Nope. Then again Klipsch 5.1's check in at about $500.
  

Grand total -- $1200.

I can cut some bucks by not getting a monitor and the speakers to get it below $1000, but this is a dream so let's keep 'em and figure out a way to get $1200:)

One of my favorite sports quotes of all time:

The hapless 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers had started the season 0-12. Going into their 13th game against the AFC powerhouse Pittsburg Steelers, things didn't look to improve much. They didn't. The Bucs got drubbed 42-0 to fall to 0-13 on their way to a winless season. After the game a reporter asked Tampa Bay coach John McKay, "What do you think about your team's execution today ?".

"I'm in favor of it," McKay replied.

Brilliant.

mcSey's Ten favorite bands

1. The Sound of Urchin
   
2. The Youngblood Brass Band
   
3. The Beastie Boys
   
4. The Meters
   
5. James Brown
   
6. Gene Ammons
   
7. Vinyl
   
8. Toots and the Maytals
   
9. Calypso King and the Soul Investigators
   
10. Tenacious D <<-- Laugh its funny

From MSNBC News

Scott Ritter of Delmar is well known internationally as an outspoken, former U.N. weapons inspector. Now more information is coming to light about Ritter's past and a disturbing arrest. His attorney confirms he was arrested in 2001, but neither she nor police will discuss the details.

It turns out that Ritter, who has been very critical of Bush's warmongering, may or may not have been arrested in 2001 for one of my "favorite" online crimes -- soliciting sex from a person it's completely legal to solicit sex from. It turns out he was probably arrested for attempting to solicit sex in an Internet (probably AOL) chatroom from someone he may (or may not) have thought was a 16 year old girl. Of course he did no such thing in reality. Instead he solicited sex from a definetly legal (probably 30-40 something, probably male) person posing as a 16 year old girl in an Internet (probably AOL) chatroom. Ritter was never charged. Forgetting the shaky, though precedent covered, legality of the arrest, this is the kind of thing that gets conspiracies started.

An outspoken critic of administration policy charged with an indefensible crime... My best guess is this is the last we ever hear from Mr. Ritter. He will get the message, "Be quiet and this will go away, but if you keep talking we keep alledging." This is the kind of crime that government can use to destroy someone without the slightest bit of proof. The accusation itself is enough to sully his reputation with the majority of media sheep. Those who will not look past the entrapping nature of the crime he's charged with. Those who will not look for real evidence of guilt or innocence if one assumes this is actually a crime. Check the lead of the MSNBC story above. His arrest is "disturbing" even though no charges were ever filed. When no charges are filed, I assume that the arrest was in error. MSNBC obviously assumes he was guilty of something if they feel his mere arrest was disturbing. Do you think that if he'd have been arrested for accounting fraud but no charges were ever filed that they would either label the arrest "distrubing" or cover it at all?

Just watched a great basketball game, and it was a pro game! I don't usually watch the NBA, but Yao vs. Shaq was too much to pass up.

John Le Carre's brilliant analysis of the current situation in regards to Bush's warmongering. Certainly passes the Seamus Heaney "Damn, I wish I wrote that" test.

A better economic stimulus plan. Laugh. It's funny.

Letter from Sullivan Ballou to his wife Sarah written July 14, 1862

My very dear Sarah:

The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days -- perhaps tomorrow. Lest I should not be able to write you again, I feel impelled to write lines that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more.

Our movement may be one of a few days duration and full of pleasure -- and it may be one of severe conflict and death to me. Not my will, but thine O God, be done. If it is necessary that I should fall on the battlefield for my country, I am ready. I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in, the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how strongly American Civilization now leans upon the triumph of the Government, and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and suffering of the Revolution. And I am willing -- perfectly willing -- to lay down all my joys in this life, to help maintain this Government, and to pay that debt.

But, my dear wife, when I know that with my own joys I lay down nearly all of yours, and replace them in this life with cares and sorrows -- when, after having eaten for long years the bitter fruit of orphanage myself, I must offer it as their only sustenance to my dear little children -- is it weak or dishonorable, while the banner of my purpose floats calmly and proudly in the breeze, that my unbounded love for you, my darling wife and children, should struggle in fierce, though useless, contest with my love of country?

I cannot describe to you my feelings on this calm summer night, when two thousand men are sleeping around me, many of them enjoying the last, perhaps, before that of death -- and I, suspicious that Death is creeping behind me with his fatal dart, am communing with God, my country, and thee.

I have sought most closely and diligently, and often in my breast, for a wrong motive in thus hazarding the happiness of those I loved and I could not find one. A pure love of my country and of the principles I have often advocated before the people and "the name of honor that I love more than I fear death" have called upon me, and I have obeyed.

Sarah, my love for you is deathless, it seems to bind me to you with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence could break; and yet my love of Country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly on with all these chains to the battlefield.

The memories of the blissful moments I have spent with you come creeping over me, and I feel most gratified to God and to you that I have enjoyed them so long. And hard it is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes of future years, when God willing, we might still have lived and loved together, and seen our sons grow up to honorable manhood around us. I have, I know, but few and small claims upon Divine Providence, but something whispers to me -- perhaps it is the wafted prayer of my little Edgar -- that I shall return to my loved ones unharmed. If I do not, my dear Sarah, never forget how much I love you, and when my last breath escapes me on the battlefield, it will whisper your name.

Forgive my many faults, and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless and foolish I have oftentimes been! How gladly would I wash out with my tears every little spot upon your happiness, and struggle with all the misfortune of this world, to shield you and my children from harm. But I cannot. I must watch you from the spirit land and hover near you, while you buffet the storms with your precious little freight, and wait with sad patience till we meet to part no more.

But, O Sarah! If the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you; in the garish day and in the darkest night -- amidst your happiest scenes and gloomiest hours -- always, always; and if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath; or the cool air fans your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by.

Sarah, do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for thee, for we shall meet again.

As for my little boys, they will grow as I have done, and never know a father's love and care. Little Willie is too young to remember me long, and my blue-eyed Edgar will keep my frolics with him among the dimmest memories of his childhood. Sarah, I have unlimited confidence in your maternal care and your development of their characters. Tell my two mothers his and hers I call God's blessing upon them. O Sarah, I wait for you there! Come to me, and lead thither my children.

Sullivan

Ballou died at the First Battle of Bull Run on July 21, 1862.

Events I'm glad I missed

• Rape of Nanking
  
• Bataan Death March
  
• World War One gas attacks
  
• Hiroshima 08/06/1945
  
• The Khmer Rouge Killing Fields
  

Events I wish I'd seen

• The Liberation of Paris
  
• The Apollo 11 Moon Landing
  
• The first public demonstration in 1972 of ARPANET (later called the Internet)
  
• Woodstock
  
• 50th Reunion of the soldiers who fought at Gettysburg
  

Bush's approval rating sits at a solid 58% according to the latest Gallup poll. My question is simple, who the hell are they polling? Have you ever met anyone who has been polled on the president's approval rating? Have you ever met anyone who has been polled in any survey that you have heard about in the news?

I didn't think so.

Yahoo! News - The Who's Townshend Says 'I'm Not a Pedophile'

LONDON (Reuters) - British rock star Pete Townshend, guitarist with legendary band The Who, on Saturday admitted paying to view Internet child pornography but denied he was a pedophile and said it was for research purposes.

Talk about a no win situation...

TV Ads Say S.U.V. Owners Support Terrorists

But some local affiliates say they will not run them. At the ABC affiliate in New York, Art Moore, director of programming, said, "There were a lot of statements being made that were not backed up, and they're talking about hot-button issues."

Reformed convservative Arianna Huffington is running ads throughout the country claiming that gas guzzling SUV's owners support terrorism through the increased profits that go to oil producing states. Some of these countries then supposedly use this money to pay terrorists...

Iffy connection at best but I love her technique for one reason. It undermines those stupid-ass drug money support terrorism commercials. I don't buy a word of it, but I'm especially scared that Art Moore got a conscience about this. Since when does advertising have to be truthful?

In the grand tradition of Slashback, some quickies from today's web journeys.

• Talg's Blog -- Interesting "man on the street" Israeli blog. I'm still looking for a corresponding Palestinian blog.
  
• No I will not fix your computer. -- Good rant on the free tech support hackers are asked to give so often.
  
• A great T-shirt from wilwheaton.net.
  

Web Log Action from blogger truthlaidbear. A fine idea -- actual activism combined with blogging (as opposed to pissing and moaning like I do).

It's snowing here. Light lilting cold snow that blows and drifts. It's too cold for it to be snowing, but no one told the weather that apparently. The frozen tundra outside has my daughter and I cooped up in the house. We're working on her webpage. I'll let you know when it's done. I'm sure that you'll want to see it;)

I watched the Ohio State/Miami football "championship" game last night. Ohio State won 31-24 in double OT. One of the greatest football games that I've seen I tell ya. Double overtime for the national championship, an upset winner and disgusting grevious injuries (Willis McGahee's knee was bent into a /very/ unnatural position) -- what more can I guy ask for in a football game. After the Iowa/USC debacle the other night, the Fiesta Bowl was a great consolation prize.

DPRK Official News Agency: Past news

The U.S. is stepping up the preparations for a war against the DPRK, persistently turning aside the latter's constructive proposal for concluding a non-aggression treaty. The U.S. has frequently committed aerial espionage against the DPRK. All this is reminiscent of alarming moves on the eve of a war.
But the U.S. should properly know who is its rival.
If the enemy invades even an inch of the inviolable territory of the DPRK, the people's army and people of the DPRK will wipe out the aggressors to the last man.

North Korea's official "news" agency. Iraq's site has some fun stuff on it. Send email to Saddam!

I will REMOVE the fucking toilet seat if you don't shut up (idea)

I will REMOVE the fucking toilet seat if you don't shut up

From everything2.com, this is the definitive statement on the man/woman toilet seat controversy. And of course it's hilarious.

Yahoo! News Full Coverage - Health - Study: Random Drug Testing Is Effective at Slowing Student Drug Use

Study: Random Drug Testing Is Effective
(AP) - Student-athletes subject to random drug testing at an Oregon high school were almost four times less likely to use drugs than their counterparts at a similar school who were not tested, a study shows. The one-year pilot study by researchers at Oregon Health & Sciences University compared Wahtonka High School in The Dalles, where all student-athletes were subject to random testing, and Warrenton High School, a demographically similar school near Astoria, where they were not

This is the "no shit Sherlock" story of the year. If you randomly piss test high school students, they are less likely to do drugs than students that are not randomly drug tested. My complaint here is simple -- the headline. "Study: Random Drug Testing Is Effective" is the header. Unfortunately the study has very little to do with random drug testing. The study researched the numbers at one Oregon high school that did random testing and demographically similar school that did not. Guess what, fewer kids used drugs at the school that tested. Well, surprise surpise! The headline overreaches and claims that random drug testing is "effective" without stating "at what" or under "what condition".

An aside: The study was to be a pilot program for a 13 high school three year study that was suspended after the Office of Human Research Policy "expressed concerns about some of the methodology used in the study's latter two years" that included financial incentives for participating schools and not obtaining consent from the children studied.

Regular Season Standings 

Rank Team Name W-L-T Win % PTS Streak 

1  Bunguls 12-2-0 .857 1062.00 W-2 

2  D-Boys 11-3-0 .786 954.00 L-1 

3  GameCocks 11-3-0 .786 944.00 W-4 

4  Hey Man 9-5-0 .643 903.00 L-2 

5  Nashville Sounds 6-8-0 .429 858.00 L-1 

6  Gladiators 6-8-0 .429 741.00 W-1 

7  McSey and the Macks 5-9-0 .357 772.00 W-2 

8  Extreme Ryders 5-9-0 .357 746.00 W-1 

9  whiteboyz 3-11-0 .214 720.00 L-4 

10  the muff men #2 2-12-0 .143 649.00 L-5 

I got railed all season in fantasy football on Yahoo. That's me in seventh. Man I sucked. Every move I made worked against me. Terrible year, especially considering I've finished in the top two of my league every year since I started playing (98). To top it all off I finished last in the playoffs. I got eighth of eight!

Well it seems the worst thing that anyone can think of to say about Bill Frist is that his family made its money buying up non-profit hospitals, kicking out the dead weight (read poor people), and defrauding Medicare to the tune of a couple billion dollars. The company recently settled with the government for a fine of about $700 million making the total fines for the company since 1997 somewhere near 1.7 billion. As is often the case when companies steal billions, not one individual was jailed in this huge defrauding of the American people, and only two executives were ever charged with crime. Surpisingly those two executives, Jay Jarrell and Robert Whiteside, were convicted of conspiring to defraud the government and making false statements in Medicare reimbursement cost reports. Not suprisingly their convictions were overturned on appeal.

Frist's brother Thomas is CEO of Columbia/HCA. HCA (Hospital Corporation of America) was founded by the Frists' father Thomas Sr. in 1968. Bill Frist's personal stake in the company's stock is in the tens of millions of dollars. 3.4 million of that dirty money is what he used to get himself elected to the Senate as an unknown doctor from Tennessee in 1994. He is in line to head the Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committees, and is the ranking member on the Subcommittee on Public Health... Well of course he is.

The Onion | Horoscopes

Virgo: (Aug. 23—Sept. 22)
Certain shortcomings in your education and upbringing cause you to read meaning into the relationships among various celestial bodies.

My horoscope from The Onion. Brilliant.

Yahoo! News - AOL May Strike Gold with Instant Messaging Patent

The patent, issued in September, grants AOL's instant messaging subsidiary ICQ broad ownership rights to the technology, which enables users to chat quickly and cheaply across the Internet.
The broad wording of the patent means AOL could get an important legal leg up on rivals Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo, the other players in the potentially lucrative instant messaging (IM) arena that have their own proprietary technologies.

I always wondered why AOL bought ICQ after they'd all ready had AOL Messenger out for a while. This explains it. Did you know that AOL also owns the patents for cookies and SSL (used in most secure online transactions such as shopping)? Currently AOL doesn't enforce these patents. It doesn't mean they can't though. The WWW could become a very different place if they decide to.

Trent Lott's favorite meal at the Sonic in Pascagoula, MI is a "Number 2" cheeseburger, onion rings, and a vanilla shake. What? You thought it would be chocolate?

Cuz every job I get is cruel and demeanin

Sick of takin trash out and toilet bowl cleanin

But I'm also sick and tired of strugglin

I never ever thought I'd have resort to drug smugglin

Naw, that ain't what I'm about

Cee-lo will just continue travelin this route

Without any doubt or fear

I know the Lord ain't brought me this far so he could drop me off here

Did I make myself clear?

Cee-Lo from Outkast and Goodie Mob's Git Up Get Out

That's about right.

Washington, DC Race Riot of 1919

"They had caught a Negro and deliberately held him as one would a beef for slaughter," he recalled, "and when they had conveniently adjusted him for lynching, they shot him. I heard him groaning in his struggle as I hurried away as fast as I could without running, expecting every moment to be lynched myself."

Carter G. Woodson's description of the lynching of a black man in Washington D.C. during the 1919 race riots. Woodson was the dean of Howard University

I bring this up to jog Pat Buchanan's memory. He just called the Democratic response to Senator Trent Lott's recent racist comments, "The worst lynching I can remember in Washington D.C." on the NBC Nightly News (12/12/02). Great choice of words Pat! Right up there with Dubya's "crusade" against terrorists.

Ah statistics, as Homer Simpson once said, "Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything. 14% of people know that." To which I add, 37% of all statistics are ironic commentaries on the deceptive use of statistics. All of this of course is leading up to... some economic statistics (from Time Magazine 12/16/02 pgs 36-37).

• Unemployment 6% -- Up 33% since George Bush took office.
  
• GDP Growth Rate down %45 in the seven quarters since Bush took office.
  
• Federal deficit up 167% -- tax cuts and the "war on terrorism" turned a $236 billion surplus into a $158 billion dollar deficit. Ken Lay would be proud.
  

But now that Bush has replaced the Treasury Secretary with John Snow I'm sure things will get better. After all who better than a railroad executive and Augusta National Golf Club member to turn the economy around? His railroad isn't doing so well, but then again, who's is? To be fair Snow will resign his Augusta membership before he takes office, but isn't joining Augusta such a "rich white man good ole boy" thing to do?

Speaking of Augusta, I'm reminded of a letter to the editor of Newsweek this week. The author's point was simple. When they let a rich privileged white woman into Augusta won't that be a huge victory for the rights of women worldwide? I'm sure a Nigerian woman facing death by stoning for adultery will feel much better knowing that a snobby company owning woman gets to place golf with a bunch of snobby company owning men. If I find that copy of Newsweek(12/16/02), I'll copy the letter.

In an attempt to actually use this thing, I will now keep a blog of things that interest me. Furthermore, I'll attempt to update it now and then with, er, you know stuff. Stuff like the very cool Audacity audio editor I found today via Slashdot. Know the GPL. Love the GPL.

The Black World Today - Content Articles "I have never covered a president who actually wanted to go to war. Bush's policy of pre-emptive war is immoral - such a policy would legitimize Pearl Harbor. It's as if they learned none of the lessons from Vietnam," she said to enthusiastic applause. -- Helen Thomas

Amen sister... For those of you who've never watched a presedential press conference, Helen Thomas was the UPI White House correspondent for about two hundred thirty years. She's covered more presidents than the White House sheets. That is to say, she's been around.