Linx

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1725955,00.html

"Fox News is not simply a mouthpiece for the Bush White House: it rose with Bush after 2000 and 9/11, was played on TVs in his White House and reflected the same surety and flag-lapel-pin confidence in its tone and star-spangled look. It was not just a hit; it was the network of the moment."

Can Fox "News" survive the changing times? Or has it jumped the shark, along with the rest of the right? It wouldn't be missed if it, as we know it, vanished. But I think it will do just fine. People are still stupid.

* * *

And here's hard proof that people are still dumb as ever!

http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2008/03/florida_committee_passes_id_bi.php

"The bill would allow teachers to "present scientific information relevant to the full range of views on biological and chemical origins." It might as well read "present the full range of lies and nonsense from the intelligent design movement." That is precisely what it means and everyone knows it. And as soon as that happens, we will file suit in court and prove, yet again, that all of this is just a rhetorical masquerade for science. Welcome to the Dover trap."

* * *

File under "duh".

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/03/13/alqaeda.saddam/index.html

"The U.S. military's first and only study looking into ties between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and al Qaeda showed no connection between the two, according to a military report released by the Pentagon."

It's the oil stupid, or maybe it's just the stupid, stupid. Or the
stupidly stupid stupidity...

Stupid.

* * *

Religion kills children, still...

http://www.kgw.com/news-local/stories/kgw_033008_news_faith_healing.1742971c.html

"An Oregon City couple faces manslaughter charges in the death of their 15-month-old daughter after the state medical examiner concluded she could have been saved with simple antibiotics.

"Carl and Raylene Worthingon are members of the 'Followers of Christ Church' in Oregon City. It's a church with a long history of child deaths., a history that led lawmakers to eliminate legal protections for parents who practice to faith healing."

* * *

http://www.knowing.net/PermaLink,guid,f6755acf-e8df-4f32-8d53-39b9a01992f5.aspx

"Bad programmers are not good programmers who are slow. They are actively counter-productive to the team."

It's Official - Republicans Support Turture

I don't see how this could be characterized any other way...

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN1163630920080312

"President George W. Bush's fellow Republicans in Congress on Tuesday upheld his veto of a bill to ban the CIA from subjecting enemy detainees to interrogation methods denounced by critics as torture."

America was once a country to be concidered above this sort of behavior. The great American experiment has failed, completely.

Vista Rocks!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/12/freeformdynamics_vista_downgrade/

"The machine came with Windows Vista Business Edition pre-installed and when I was playing with it in the shop, it was pretty responsive - the 1.2Gz Core2 Duo processor seemed to be up to the job. When I got the machine back to the ranch and loaded everything onto it, though, I have to admit to being a little disappointed with speed. Nevertheless, it was good enough, so I just got on with using it.

"Over the course of the next four months, however, the performance gradually degraded and the user experience became awful. It eventually got to the stage where it was talking 12 minutes to boot and about 6-7 minutes to shut down, with very sluggish performance in between and frequent hangs requiring a forced shutdown (which in itself was probably making matters worse)."

Denver

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/12/thai_karaoke_massacre/

"A Thai rubber tapper who got rather tired of his neighbours' karaoke version of John Denver's Country Roads resolved the noise pollution problem by shooting eight of them dead, the Telegraph reports."

Ya, that's one of those songs you can hear too many times...

So?

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/03/20080319-5.html

Qusetion: Let me go back to the Americans. Two-thirds of Americans say it's not worth fighting, and they're looking at the value gain versus the cost in American lives, certainly, and Iraqi lives.

Dick Cheney: So?

Google

http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/03/its-the-final-c.html

"Google will miss its quarter, mark my words," we recently overheard an exec from a competing web company say.

...

"Every single quarter over the last two years, Wall Street has either overestimated or wildly underestimated Google's earnings, which suggests that they don't really understand the company."

Exactly.
Just watch what happens over the next 12-18 months.

Dick

This is the man Americans wanted to be second in line for the Presidency.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/24/cheney-on-4000-dead-amer_n_93109.html

"Wrapping up a nine-day overseas trip to Iraq, Vice President Dick Cheney was asked, in an exclusive interview with ABC News, about the effect on the nation of today's grim milestone of at least 4,000 U.S. deaths over the five-year Iraq war.

"Noting the burden placed on military families, the Vice President said the biggest burden is carried by President Bush, and reminded ABC news that the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan volunteered for duty."

What on earth does he think he's saying?

The 4000 Dead Mark in Iraq

It's worse than all that. The worst thing they have done is permanently make the US a nation that can no longer claim to be better than all the other theocracies and other dictatorships that disappear people, ignore any concept of privacy, operate private para-militaries "off the books", torture people to death, operatate without rule of law or public accountability, and believe that "emergency" and religious righteousness conveys total power to the executive over all concept of law. The United States is permanently altered.

I really think the change is permanent, or as permanent as anything in history. For one thing, as they always do in these cases, people applaud the change. The majority of Americans want to live in an Iran-style theocratic dictatorship and will not only vote for that but will mobilize and fund campaigns for it. It took 230 years, but we've proved that government by the people is incompatible with a free society.

In addition, to be more specific, US policy under the people we put in absolute power has created a long term, well organized and well funded, enemy out of what used to be a handful of kooks. It has also created whole regions of the world where such forces thrive from what used to be some extremelylimited fringe places, mostly in very remote Afganistan. In other words, they've turned their excuse to expand a warfare and police state into a very real long term threat of global violence.

All that just means more of the same, under any President. Count on it.

Keep buying those SUVs. Keep running on credit. Keep going to church. Keep up your hate. Keep your head in the sand.

Client 9

http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSEIC16835820080311?feedType=RSS&feedName=oddlyEnoughNews

"The New York Times says it's the code name for New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer in court papers that link him to a prostitution ring, but now anyone can be "Client 9" with T-shirts available online just a day after the scandal broke."

http://www.zazzle.com/client_9_funny_eliot_spitzer_design_shirt-235591774164530519

SVN

I'm using the Subversion source control system with my Java project, in Eclipse, with a plugin to interact with the Subversion server, over on a Sun Linux box.

Subversion (SVN) includes a macro system enabled by setting properties 'on' which will fill into a string in my source code versioning info, like username, date and version number, when I file is commited. The application can of course then use this string to print out info about itself. Handy.

The macros are things like "$Rev$" which gets turned into something like "$41$". It has a macro for the author, doing the commit, the date and one or two others.

I also have a class which can walk the classpath and pull these strings, by a name I designate, out of any class file and thus collect up a complete version summary of everything in the app. There's hundreds of modules, so this is handy!

Great! All this works perfectly!

Opps!! The world is using WINDOWS!!!!
Since I went to the trouble to setup SVN to authenticate against the Windows domain (since it's OPEN software, you can do things like that), and now my "username" is now "here\username".

That's a backslash. Unescaped. And now "here\username" is an invalid string in pretty much any programming language in the universe (no doubt MSFT has broken the specs on some languages to allow this, sometimes, er, maybe, er something).

Windows, where \ and / are the same, or not, sometimes, where a space is a normal charater or not, sometimes, where case doesn't matter, or does, sometimes, where cut'n'paste always works, except where it doesn't, where a file "extension" is a magical part of the, except when it isn't...

Prius and Things

http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/02/giugiaro-builds.html

"Giugiaro says the all-wheel-drive, mid-engined car accelerates from zero to 62 mph (100 kph) in 4.05 seconds and tops out at 155 mph.

"That's Tesla Roadster and Porsche 911 GT3 kind of acceleration, from a variation of the Hybrid Synergy Drive system Toyota uses in the Prius."

* * *

http://torrentfreak.com/nin-uploads-new-album-on-torrent-sites-080303/

"Nine Inch Nails has just released the first volume of their new album 'Ghosts' on BitTorrent sites as a free download. The band encourages its fans to share the album with friends, post it on websites and play it on podcasts"

"'Ghosts' is released under a non-commercial Creative Commons license and can be shared freely, something their fans weren.t allowed to do when the band was held back by a record label."

* * *

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/03/microsoft_data_center_blowout/

"Microsoft has already been working to match Google data center-for-data center with both companies popping out $500m to $600m centers every couple of months.

...

"The new strategy will, I'm told, lay out a roadmap of moves across three major areas: the transformation of the company's portfolio of enterprise applications to a web-services architecture, the launch of web versions of its major PC applications, and the continued expansion of its data center network," Carr writes."

They'll get it wrong, just like always... It's already obvious that they will miss the whole point of web applications. There's no way MSFT will give up the idea of everything running inside their little tiny world and only inside their little tiny world.

More here:

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2008/03/03/microsoft_hosted_exchange_sharepoint/

"Microsoft yesterday attempted to allay such concerns: "By extending our enterprise software offerings as a subscription service, our partners have the ability to develop and deliver new services with little overhead but maximum revenue potential," said senior Redmond veep Chris Capossela."

* * *

Japan, again..

http://uk.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUKT30561220080303?feedType=RSS&$

"At Edelstein boarding school, the schoolboys wear lip-gloss, the headmistress has a weakness for homoerotic comic books, and there is only one subject: how to serve female visitors.

"Welcome to Tokyo's first schoolboy cafe, the latest in a flurry of eateries in Japan where customers and waiters role play themes from manga comics."

* * *

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/31481

"Congressman Dennis Kucinich's resolution to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney now has more cosponsors signed onto it than any resolution to impeach President Richard Nixon ever had. But separate resolutions to impeach Nixon, some with a handful of cosponsors, many with no cosponsors at all, were filed by the dozens. Today, Kucinich's resolution stands alone."

* * *

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120406767043794825-UOLcfJA8x9Gw9ozbCz77MiLmtaE_20080327.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top

"For decades, conventional wisdom has held that daylight-saving time, which begins March 9, reduces energy use. But a unique situation in Indiana provides evidence challenging that view: Springing forward may actually waste energy."

Daylight savings time is a stupid idea who's time has long past. Leave it to the Bush administration to actually find a way to make the problem worse.

* * *

This piece is well worth reading. It's shocking stuff. I hope John McCain doesn't start talking about a new "secret plan" to end the Iraq war.

http://www.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/16-03/ff_nuclearwar

"Nixon's madman pose and Giant Lance were based on game theory, a branch of mathematics that uses simple calculations and rigorous logic to help understand how people make choices . like whether to surge ahead in traffic or whether to respond to a military provocation with a strike of one's own. The most famous example in the field is the Prisoner's Dilemma: If two criminal suspects are held in separate cells, should they keep mum or rat each other out? (Answer: They should keep quiet, but as self-interested actors, what they will do is betray each other and both go to jail.) In the Cold War, the "games" were much more complicated simulations of war and bargaining: Would the Soviets be more likely to attack Western Europe if we kept missiles there or if we didn't?"

George W. Bush on Healthcare

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/07/11/BL2007071101146_pf.html

"I mean, people have access to health care in America. They can just go to the emergency room."

- President Bush in a 2007 White House Briefing

Harty Har Har

http://www.pacifict.com/Story/

"I was frustrated by all the wasted effort, so I decided to uncancel my small part of the project. I had been paid to do a job, and I wanted to finish it. My electronic badge still opened Apple's doors, so I just kept showing up."

Teen History

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/27/us/27history.html?ex=1361768400&en=4694f052bb6a809e&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

"The survey results, released on Tuesday, demonstrate that a significant proportion of teenagers live in .stunning ignorance. of history and literature, said the group that commissioned it, Common Core.

...

"President Bush's education law, No Child Left Behind, has impoverished public school curriculums by holding schools accountable for student scores on annual tests in reading and mathematics, but in no other subjects."

Ah, the voters of America's tomorrow...

In The News

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Democrats_wont_commit_to_ending_using_0225.html

"Democratic presidential candidates Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Barack Obama (D-IL) will not commit to ending President George W. Bush's practice of signing statements -- a tactic whereby the president adds his interpretation to laws passed by Congress, possibly allowing his office to circumvent the law -- according to a little-noticed article Monday.

"Sen. John McCain R-AZ), however, asserts he would. Asked by a Washington Post reporter, he said he'd never consider it."

* * *

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080224-getting-the-public-to-pay-attention-to-good-science.html

"Schuchat mostly discussed how personal concerns fed in to vaccination decisions. "Fifty years ago, disease was very real to parents," she stated, noting that parents put forward 1.8 million schoolchildren to take part in testing of the polio vaccine simply because polio was a concrete risk, while the risks of the vaccine were abstract and minor in comparison. Now, with most vaccine-targeted diseases existing only in the memories of older family members, the risks of vaccination.discomfort, a rare adverse reaction, even unfounded rumors of an autism link.seem more concrete than the disease itself."

People have short memories; certainly none longer than a generation. When a long term problem is solved, it's only a matter of time before the solution begins to be seen as a problem. "Reform" occurs. And the original problem returns. Over, and over, and over, and over...

* * *

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Bush_What_we_asked_telecoms_to_0225.html

"President Bush continued Monday to press for Congress to retroactively excuse alleged lawbreaking by the nation's telecommunications companies, and he repeated questionable allegations that Democrats' refusal to pass a surveillance law has endangered the country."

Er... If the Telcoms weren't doing anything wrong, then they have nothing to fear, right?

Canadians

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=261254

"The e-mail was sent in 2003 but came to light only this month as part of an unrelated controversy with his office, forcing Mr. Trent to defend himself against accusations of bigotry -- not because he offended the people of Canada, but because "Canadian" has apparently become a code word for blacks among American racists."

Even More Links

http://editorial.autos.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=457882

"Forget about fancy batteries, regenerative braking, and alternative fuels. Instead, make a car that's elegant in its minimalism and efficiency. The Loremo's German designers revisited the basics - engine efficiency, low weight, and minimal drag - to create a car that offers fuel-efficiency in the neighborhood of 130 to 150 miles per gallon."

Yes, it is possible to build a better car. But don't expect American car companies to do so, it's more cost effective for their short term mindsets to lobby the government instead.

* * *

http://jtaplin.wordpress.com/2008/02/14/its-all-about-oil-alan-greenspan/

"In March 2002, the Commerce Department turned over a few documents from the Task-force meetings to Judicial Watch, among which was the map of Iraq's Oil Fields, dated March 2001 (above) and a list of the existing 'Foreign Suitors' for Iraq Oil. Since that time, Cheney's office has fought fiercely (and so far, successfully), right up to the Supreme Court, to keep the proceeding secret and to keep any of the private industry officials from disclosing any information about the meetings. Since we all now know the Bush administration's energy policy, there can be only one explanation for the extraordinary efforts Cheney has taken to keep this secret.he was discussing the potential for a takeover of Iraq's oil with the companies that might manage the resource, even before 9/11 gave him the excuse to do it."

Is it all about oil? Yes, yes it is.

* * *

Here's the most creative thing I've seen on the internet for at least the past hour, and maybe more.

http://davidhorvitz.com/if/index.html

"Things for Sale That I Will Mail You"

Although like so many things on the internet, curiosity is fleeting.

* * *

http://www.slate.com/id/2169292/

"Under Dick Cheney, the office of the vice president has been transformed from a tiny acorn into an unprecedented giant oak. In grasping and exercising presidential powers, Cheney has dulled political accountability and concocted theories for evading the law and Constitution that would have embarrassed King George III."

* * *

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/25/thomas.silence.ap/index.html

"Two years and 142 cases have passed since Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas last spoke up at oral arguments.

...

"Leaning back in his leather chair, often looking up at the ceiling, Thomas takes it all in, but he never joins in."

Marketing

What was I thinking?
Oh, I See! I'm Completely Sold Now!

http://msdn.microsoft.com/events/hero/sfbio/

More Links

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/14/saudi_appeal/

"Campaigning group Human Rights Watch has petitioned King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to halt the execution by beheading of a "witch" who in 2006 was convicted of "witchcraft, recourse to jinn [supernatural beings], and slaughter of animals".

...

"The conviction was based on the testimony of several witnesses who said she'd bewitched them, including one who claimed she'd made him impotent."

Ha-ha-ha! Our Saudi friends and allies in the War on Terror... Those whacky nuts!

* * *

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/18/virgin_blueyonder_email_outage_microsoft/

"Virgin Media customers have been suffering email outages for several days, prompting the firm to call in Microsoft engineers to help with an urgent upgrade.

"A mysterious configuration problem was identified on one of VM's eight email server clusters last Wednesday. Microsft engineers have struggled to identify the cause, forcing several reboots."

Maybe they should get rid of the MSFT toy mail systems and switch to grown up software. Will people ever learn? Nope.

Re: Funny (not)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/2/8/155824/2111

"And then, he farted candy and rainbows."

And the magic Constitution dust - handy!

It's astounding what came out of the speeches given at that event. That pac, whatever it is, is beyond the right wing. They are truly kooky. I wouldn't have thought that it would be appropriate for serious political figures to appear there. There must be some white supremacist or Scientology group that would be more deserving.

And the media actually were actually worried over a Mormon?