More Fun With Pictures.

The Periodic Table of Criminal Elements

Click for higher res picture. Courtesy of The Horse You Rode In ON.

JSF Fan Failure on Test Stand.

May indicate trouble for Lockheeds concept with the lift fan. There is a lot of power going down a very small shaft.

Pratt Whitney Joint Strike Fighter engine damaged in ground test-31/05/2007-Flightglobal.com

Pratt & Whitney Joint Strike Fighter engine damaged in ground test
By Graham Warwick

Pratt & Whitney is rebuilding an F135 Joint Strike Fighter engine that was damaged earlier this month during ground testing of the short take-off and landing propulsion system.

The F135 was damaged when a deliberate “hard stall” of the shaft-driven lift fan caused the driveshaft to break and debris was ingested by the engine, says Bill Gostic, P&W vice-president, F135 programmes.

The propulsion system was being tested with a mock-up of the lift-fan inlet planned for the STOVL version of the Lockheed Martin F-35, to check the airflow around the open inlet door while in the hover.

During the testing on an outdoor stand at P&W’s site in West Palm
Beach, Florida, the Rolls-Royce lift fan was stalled deliberately to
test inlet performance. This was achieved by closing the variable-area
vanebox nozzle below the fan.

It's the Game Play Stupid

Interesting article on the run away success of the Nintendo WII.

How does a game system that under performs its rivals kick their butts?

Simple. Game play.

The idea that you can swing a tennis racquet, or bowl just by swinging your hands, as opposed to up-stick, a button, b button twice, just plain works better.

Wii will rock you
Fortune's Jeffrey M. O'Brien explains how Nintendo's new game machine won over the world - and beat the pants off Sony and Microsoft.
FORTUNE Magazine
By Jeffrey M. O'Brien, Fortune senior editor
May 31 2007: 12:02 PM EDT

(Fortune Magazine) --
......

Videogame controllers generally feature a bewildering array of buttons, and watching an avid gamer work the device, thumbs pattering across plastic, can be intimidating. By contrast the Wii's wireless, motion-sensitive remote, which Miyamoto had been dreaming of for years, often requires no button manipulation whatsoever.

Bingo.

Consequences of Being a Bully

So now, Putin is testing a new ICBM. It might have something to do with the provocative placing of ABM systems in Europe, or the Bush admin's pulling out of the ABM treaty, or the fact that even with no army available, talk of attacking Iran, Syria, and Mexico.

Yes, Cheney aide Mark Hanna was talking up a war with Mexico a few months back.

Putin says test missile is signal to U.S.

MOSCOW, Russia (Reuters) -- Russia's test firing of an intercontinental ballistic missile this week was in response to U.S. steps that have sparked an arms race and undermined world security, Russian President Vladimir Putin says.

"Our American partners have left the ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) Treaty. We have warned them then that we will come out with a response to maintain the strategic balance in the world," Putin told a news conference Thursday.

"We conducted a test of a new strategic ballistic missile with multiple warheads, and of a new cruise missile, and will continue to improve our resources."

"We are not the initiators of this new round of the arms race," said Putin. "(Our partners) are stuffing eastern Europe with new weapons. A new base in Bulgaria, another in Romania, a site in Poland, radar in the Czech Republic . . . what are we supposed to do? We cannot just observe all this."

Russia test-fired a new intercontinental ballistic missile on Tuesday featuring multiple warheads that senior officials said could pierce any missile defense system, including the planned U.S. shield in Europe.

Russia says the U.S. missile defence shield is a threat to its security and will change the strategic balance in Europe, but Washington dismisses such fears, saying the shield is intended to counter "rogue states."

The Rule of Law for Thee and Not For Me.

Any person not a child of a supreme court justice would have spent somewhere between 7 and 90 days in the slam.

Scalia's daughter gets probation for DUI

WHEATON, Illinois (AP) -- The daughter of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was sentenced to 18 months of court supervision after pleading guilty to drunken driving.

Ann S. Banaszewski, 45, of Wheaton, Illinois, on Wednesday accepted a plea agreement under which prosecutors dropped four other charges including endangering the life of a child and failure to secure a child younger than eight in a child-restraint system.

She was arrested February 12 while driving away from a fast-food restaurant in Wheaton, 20 miles west of Chicago. Three of her children were inside her 1996 Ford van when someone called police to report a suspected intoxicated driver, authorities have said.

This woman is a menace to her children and other drivers on the road. Where is that good cloth Republican coat of accountability now?

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

No clue as to the context of this picture, anyone have a clue?

I'm Disappointed In AdAware (Lavasoft)

Some background. When Microflaccid^™ released Windows XP SP2, they crippled the operating system, billing it as a "security upgrade":

The Windows XP SP2 connection limit. (Event ID: 4226)
Written by GregorK
Tuesday, 24 May 2005

If you are using Windows XP, you must have noticed all the fuss about Service Pack 2. It introduced an array of security "enhancements": dual direction firewall, several long overdue IE improvements, memory protection and the crippling of the TCP/IP stack.

Hang on, how is crippling of the TCP/IP stack a security enhancement?

Windows XP SP2 limits half-open connections (SYN) to a maximum of 10 (the previous limit was over 65,000). This is supposed to slow down certain viruses because their spreading strategy is to try to connect to a high amount of random IP numbers.

The drawback with this connection limit is that other legitimate network intensive applications can be slowed down as well. Applications like security network scanners, peer-to-peer (P2P) applications or a combination of network applications that a power user may be using (VPN, FTP, p2p, RDP, SSH, "Firefox on steroids" and more).

To me it sounds awfully lot like treating the symptoms instead of the cause which would have been to tighten up Windows security to prevent virus infections in the first place.

....

The second case means that SP2 is stalling your work. An unofficial patch will modify the locked tcpip.sys and let you set the limit to whatever you wish. 50 half-open connections is a reasonable limit or you can set the limit back to 65,535 which it was before the SP2. The patch is called EventID 4226 Patcher and can be found on LVL Lord's web site: LVLlord downloads.

Emphasis mine.

It's kind of like going to your car mechanic, and being told that your brakes are defective, and his "fix" is to attach an anchor from the RMS Queen Mary to your rear bumper.

So, how did Lavasoft handle this fix for an operating system that was broken:

QUOTE(Adware)

Name:Win32.Hacktool.ToolEvId
Category:Misc
Object Type:File
Size:2817230 Bytes
Location:C:\WebSites\Optimize XP.zip
Last Activity:9-14-2006 10:13:55 AM
Relevance:Low
TAC index:3
Comment:Object "EvID4226Patch.exe" found in this archive.
Description:Win32.Hacktool.ToolEvId is a tool that allows to change the amount of simultanious half-open connections allowed by XP. Could potentially harm the system and even result in boot failure.

This is crap.

In fact their response on their message boards is basically telling the users to "Go Cheney Themselves".

A quick google reveals that a windows CD key recovery software is flagged the same way.

This is neat, and I'm not surprised that Piasecki is behind it.

I'm not sure how they do counter-torque, maybe vanes in the tail fan.

Additionally, if the rotor system is modified, speeds could be higher.

Looks a lot better than V-22.

High speed helicopter set for first flight in June
By Graham Warwick
Trials to start using Piasecki-modified Sikorsky H-60 helicopter planned to achieve speeds of up to 200kt.

Piasecki Aircraft is preparing its X-49 experimental compound helicopter for a first flight before the end of June.

The modified Sikorsky H-60, with wings and tail-mounted variable-thrust ducted propeller (VTDP), has been moved to Boeing's Wilmington, Delaware facility for ground and flight testing.

© Piasecki
SpeedHawk has wings and tail-mounted variable-thrust ducted propeller

Dubbed the SpeedHawk by Piasecki, the X-49 is being developed with incremental funding from the US Army's Aviation Applied Technology Division to demonstrate the ability to increase the speed of existing helicopters to 200kt (360km/h).

The VTDP replaces the tail rotor and provides thrust for forward flight, while the wing unloads the rotor and allows the helicopter to fly faster.

...

The third engine, called a secondary power unit, will replace the existing auxiliary power unit and provide another 600-700shp to the ducted propeller to push the compound helicopter to higher speed.

Does this Invoke Godwin's Law

When the Bush Crime Family^™ and it's evil minions use a term first drafted by Nazis, I believe that mentioning this fact is not a consequence of Godwin's Law, but rather a unavoidable end product of such behavior.

Today's term: Enhanced Interrogation Techniques

BTW, I cannot believe that I'm quoting that bigot Andrew "I love the Bell Cure" Sullivan.

"Verschärfte Vernehmung" 29 May 2007 12:36 pm


Translationofmuellermemo The phrase "Verschärfte Vernehmung" is German for "enhanced interrogation". Other translations include "intensified interrogation" or "sharpened interrogation". It's a phrase that appears to have been concocted in 1937, to describe a form of torture that would leave no marks, and hence save the embarrassment pre-war Nazi officials were experiencing as their wounded torture victims ended up in court. The methods, as you can see above, are indistinguishable from those described as "enhanced interrogation techniques" by the president. As you can see from the Gestapo memo, moreover, the Nazis were adamant that their "enhanced interrogation techniques" would be carefully restricted and controlled, monitored by an elite professional staff, of the kind recommended by Charles Krauthammer, and strictly reserved for certain categories of prisoner. At least, that was the original plan.

Also: the use of hypothermia, authorized by Bush and Rumsfeld, was initially forbidden. 'Waterboarding" was forbidden too, unlike that authorized by Bush......

Housing Prices Not Rebounding

This comes under the heading, well duh!!!!

With a spring sales looking like this,
And a lot of that dismal record happening before subprime mortgages started to implode, it's nice to see the the "experts" can see the blatantly obvious.

Prospects dim for quick home-price recovery
Investors appear to be betting against any rapid rebound in home prices.
By Les Christie, CNNMoney.com staff writer
May 29 2007: 1:34 PM EDT

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Home prices fell over the last 12 months for the first time in 16 years, according to a survey released Tuesday, and investors seem to believe that prospects for a quick recovery are poor.

The S&P/Case-Shiller national home price index revealed that in 13 of 20 metro areas surveyed, home prices fell an average of 1.4 percent in the 12 months ended March 31, with half of that decline, 0.7 percent, coming in the first quarter.

The national index sank over a 12-month period for only the second time in its history and the first time since 1991. The drop is in stark contrast to a year ago, when home prices jumped 11.5 percent over the prior 12 months, according to the index.

Investors seem to believe the downturn will continue. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange trades contracts based on the Case-Shiller indexes that enable investors to bet on future housing price trends.

...

Cannot Sleep

I can't sleep, so here are some pictures:

Queer Eye for the Jedi?

That's no moon, that's an iSpace Station!

Ahhh! Photoshop!

The cigarette really makes this pic.

This is About Military Assassinations

The article seems fairly benign (Subscription required for full acticle):

Slow USAF Bomber Requires Faster Bombs
Aviation Week & Space Technology
05/28/2007, page 50

Douglas Barrie and Andy Nativi
Washington and St. Louis

Time-to-target issues propel U.S. interest in fast missiles for future bomber

The emphasis is back on high-speed weapons to deal with time-critical targets as a result of the U.S. Air Force's choice of a subsonic platform for its next-generation bomber.

The Pentagon is funding research--much of it classified--into options for future long-range cruise missiles, including subsonic, supersonic and hypersonic designs.

George Muellner, president of advanced systems at Boeing's Integrated Defense unit, believes the choice of a subsonic bomber concept to meet a 2018 in-service date bolsters the need for high-speed weapons. Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon are examining a variety of future cruise missile concepts.

.....

Imagine, if you will a typical tactical air sortee.

The aircraft is airborn, and 20 miles behind the edge of battle. Sensors pick up a troop/resupply movement around 20 miles behind the battle, and the plane is sent to bomb it.

At 400 miles an hour, it would take 6 minutes to get there.

Even the rather slow A-10 could get there in less than 10 minutes.

An attack helicopter could be there in less than 20 minutes.

This is not enough time for the targets to set up meaningful defense or camouflage.

The scenario in which you need a mach 2+ aircraft, or a mach 3+ missile is as follows:

Grand Ayatollah Sistani, or perhaps Muqtada al-Sadr is spotted giving a sermon at a mosque.

You need to hit him RIGHT NOW, or he may leave the area.

These are assassination weapons.

Internet Explorer Sucks

I just cleaned up my previous post.

Turns out that IE does not understand properly formatted HTML.

Bleah.

On edit: It might be MS Word at fault. It was the source of the original table.

Memorial Day Barbecue Recipe

I have a couple of recipes, and one spice formula.

I've done this with Lamb (version with Rosemary), but I'm using veal (uses Tarragon instead of Rosemary) today:

First, I bought a small (4-5 pound) veal breast. I cut it into ribs, and took the extra flap of meat (it's a Jewish butcher thing, people stuff the breast under this flap).

I then apply the rub to everything, and let it sit in the fridge and sit for 1-2 hours.

I get the fire started in my (charcoal) smoker, and fill up the water pan. I am looking for a target temp or 200

Then I put on my rub, and while it was cooking, I made my plum (nectarine) barbecue sauce.

At the very end, I will take the veal from the smoker, and put it on a hot grill, and caramelize the sauce.

So far, so good with everything. The barbecue sauce is almost ready, and the ribs have been in the smoker since 2:00 pm.

My Rub

Amount	Measure	Ingredient	Notes
		Lamb	I'm using Veal today
8	TBSP	Brown Sugar	I prefer dark
3	TBSP	Kosher Salt	If using table salt, reduce to 2 TBSB, but Kosher Salt works better.
1	TBSP	Chile Powder	I use Trader Joe's Chili Powder.
1	TBSP	Curry	See below for my (curry based) spice recipe.
About 2	TBSP	Fresh Rosemary or Taragon (3 TBSP)	Chopped

Get smoker (I'm using apple wood and the Rosemary/Tarragon stems for the smoke) to somewhere around 200°-225°.

Heat oven to 200°-225°, or get smoker going to that temperature.

Apply spice mix to meat, lightly patting, and allow to sit 20+ minutes (I generally go for 1-2 hours). You should have a significant amount of spices left over. Save for later use.

Sprinkle fresh Rosemary/Tarragon on lamb (save the stems) after the rub has sat, and put in or smoker, and cook until internal temperature is 140ºF degrees (thermal carryover should take it to about 140ºF

When using a smoker, use wood (I am using apple, and I get it damp first before placing it in a covered pie tin on top of the coals) with some fresh Rosemary/Tarragon to produced a flavored smoke. The stems of the fresh Rosemary/Tarragon work well for this purpose.

My Curry Recipe

Amount	Measure	Ingredient	Notes
2½	Tsp	Fenugreek Seeds
1	Tsp	Cardamom Seeds	Measure once out of pods
3	TBSP	Coriander Seeds
1	TBSP	Cumin Seeds
1	TBSP	Mustard Seeds	I used yellow mustard
6	Whole	Cloves
1	3" Stick	Cinnamon	Thin stick
¼	Tsp	Ground Nutmeg
¼	Tsp	Ground Mace
2	TBSP	Turmeric
1	Pinch	Red Pepper Flakes

Preheat oven to 225, then put Fenugreek, Cardamom, Coriander, Cumin, Mustard, Cloves, and Cinnamon Stick (break in 3-5 pieces first) for 15 minutes. Give the pan a little shake every 5 minutes or so.

Add rest of spices, then grind.

This is a home made Curry.

My Plum Barbecue Sauce

Note: I could not find plums last night, so I am using Nectarines.

Amount	Measure	Ingredient	Notes
1½	Cups	Plums	Finely chopped
¾	Cups	White Onion	Finely Chopped
4	TBSP	Garlic	Minced
1	TBSP	Yellow Mustard Seed	Ground
1	TBSP	Brown Mustard Seed	Ground
8	Tsp	Apple Cider Vinegar
8	TBSP	Dark Brown Sugar
4	TBSP	Molasses	I use black strap molasses
2	TBSP	Rosemary or Tarragon (3 TBSP)	Chopped, fresh. When used with lamb.
¼	Tsp	White Pepper	More if you want it hotter
1	Tsp	Ground Paprika	Introduced to Hungary by Turks circa 1585
		Vegetable Oil	As needed, can use olive
	Pinch	Salt	Kosher Salt, enhances flavor

Take the 1½ C of chopped plums and put in pot and just cover with water. Bring to boil, then turn down to medium simmer.

Add sugar, and simmer, stirring occasionally until the plums have become the consistency of apple sauce (you could blend now, or not).

While plums are cooking, lightly oil a pan, and place the Onions, Garlic, and Rosemary to the pan, and cook until soft and aromatic.

Once the plums are reduced to sauce, add onions, garlic, rosemary, vinegar, mustard, Paprika, and pepper to pot.

Simmer until all onions soften and reach consistency of apple sauce, and most of the sharpness of the vinegar has gone away.

Taste it. If you want more hot, add white pepper or other hots; more sweet, sugar; more "coffee" overtones more molasses; more tartness, more vinegar.

Brush on meat during cooking, or keep separate for use after cooking.

Musical Axis of Evil

Celine Dion - You Shook Me All Night Long (AC/DC)


Paul Anka Smells Like Teen Spirit

What Cats Really Think of You

When I come Home From Work, there he is, my cat Tudza staring out the bay window at me.

Being stared at a cat is disconcerting because you don't know what is going on in their walnut sized brain.

I think that the picture is close though.

F#$% Iraq and Terrorism, Here is an IMPORTANT Story

Well it looks like everyone can stop worrying about the war, terrorism, the systematic elimination of the rule of law at the Department of Justice, and the president's mispronunciation of the word Nuclear.

A rich white girl is facing gaol time over being terminally stupid.

Break out the online petitions folks!

Lindsay Lohan cited on suspicion of DUI

Sat May 26, 7:46 PM ET

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -
Lindsay Lohan was cited for investigation of driving under the influence Saturday and was slightly injured when the troubled actress' convertible struck a curb, police said.

Lohan, 20, and two other people were in her 2005 Mercedes SL-65 when it crashed on Sunset Boulevard around 5:30 a.m., Sgt. Mike Foxen said.

.....

Two Great Foods That Go Great Together

NO, I'm Not Pregnant

About 25 years ago a bunch of us went to a Friendly's type restaurant called McManus of a late night snack.
It was college, it's what college students do.
Ben ordered a strawberry shake (it was called a frappe on the menu...It's a New England name for a shake), and a side of dill pickle chips.
Eventually, I tried it, it's actually pretty good, so it wasn't that he was pregnant or something.
My daughter likes dipping French fries in shakes.

Friday Cat Blogging

OOPS...Me Bad. Those Aren't Cats.

Candle lighting is coming up, so I will be off for the next 24 hours.

Have fun.

Dell is In A Pickle

Put a Fork In It, Dell Computer is Done.

They are going to be selling their PCs at WalMart.

They are going to get done anally, with a sandpaper dildo, just like Vlasic Pickle was.

Ever lower, and eventually negative margins, while the WalMart sales cannibalize their profitable sales.

Dell sees salvation on Wal-Mart aisles
MARKET SHARE LOSSES PROMPT SHIFT TO RETAIL
By Therese Poletti
Mercury News
San Jose Mercury News
Article Launched:05/25/2007 01:35:46 AM PDT

Responding to the drubbing it has received from rival Hewlett-Packard in the consumer personal computer market, Dell announced a major shift in its strategy with plans to begin selling desktop PCs in Wal-Mart stores.

For more than a decade, the Round Rock, Texas, computer maker has been the world's leading PC maker through its cost-efficient strategy of selling PCs directly to consumers and businesses through its Web site or through phone sales, a system referred to as build-to-order direct sales. But in the past two years, Dell has lost steam and market share amid a series of problems, including a rejuvenated HP.

On Thursday, Dell said it will begin selling two types of desktop computers in 3,000 Wal-Mart stores in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico, at prices below $700 each. Analysts said it represents Dell's first big move back into retail since the early 1990s. Dell said it will also maintain its ongoing partnership with Costco, which sells Dell PCs in stores and online. But the deal with Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, is seen as the beginning of a major new strategy.

"One of the growth drivers for HP's PC business is the consumer business, and consumer will continue to be a growth driver," said Charles Smulders, an analyst with Gartner. "So Dell pushing into retail is a response and a strategy to capitalize on some of that growth."

...

The Bottom Really Has Dropped out of the Housing Market

Go to this article from the View from Silicon Valley blog.

Basically, the square footage of houses in Silicon Valley is going up quickly, because the smaller houses (you know, the ones around Santa Cruz that cost less than 700 Grand) are simply not moving.

Good Graphs too.

It Just Gets Better and Better, Doesn't It.

Looks like those folks lovable but zany folks at Pyonyang are at it again.

Yet another case where the Bush HW crazies are publicly calling for regime change, and breaking agreements (the money freeze) does not help.

North Korea test-fires missiles

North Korea has test-fired several missiles towards the Sea of Japan.

South Korea's defence ministry said the launches appeared to be part of a routine military exercise by the secretive communist state.

Reports from Japan and South Korea said that the tests involved a number of short-range anti-ship missiles.

The US envoy to North Korea played down the significance of the tests, but added that Pyongyang should concentrate its efforts on nuclear disarmament.

Christopher Hill said: "We're not surprised. It's something they have done on several occasions."

He added: "What North Korea needs to do is focus on its future, and its future is getting out of the nuclear weapons business."

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe described the action as "extremely regrettable", and said it undermined international trust in Pyongyang.

Some commentators said the tests were a response to Friday's launch by South Korea of its first destroyer equipped with US-supplied high-tech Aegis radar.

...

Could one of the Goyim Explain This to A Yid?

Goyim is a term coming from the Hebrew for foreigner or stranger.

I'm just not equipped to explain the spiritual/theological implications to all this.

Lightning damages Jesus statue
A bolt broke off an arm and a hand and damaged a foot at the Mother Cabrini Shrine in Golden. The sisters hope the 22-foot piece can be repaired.
By Jennifer Brown
Denver Post Staff Writer
The Denver Post
Article Last Updated:05/21/2007 05:03:43 PM MDT

Don't look for any religious symbolism here - it was only a freak act of Mother Nature, says Sister Ilaria.

The nuns at Mother Cabrini Shrine in Golden were thanking God on Sunday that no one was hurt when a bolt of lightning shot out of the sky and struck their 33-foot statue of Jesus.

The lightning bolt broke off one of Jesus' arms and a hand and damaged one of his feet, sending marble plummeting to the ground during a Saturday afternoon storm.

"There were pilgrims up there on the hill," Sister Ilaria said. "The biggest miracle is no one got hit with the falling debris."

The statue of Jesus, which had one hand pointing to his "sacred heart" and the other outstretched, sits atop a mountain near the shrine in the foothills of Golden. Drivers on Interstate 70 can see the statue in the hills, and at night, light illuminates the white marble.

Jesus, wearing a robe and glancing down, is 22 feet tall with an 11-foot base.

Sister Bernadette was doing paperwork in her office when she heard the crackle of lightning.

"We did hear a bang, but we didn't realize it was the statue," she said.

The statue, damaged Saturday, was sent from Italy in sections in 1954. No one was hurt by the falling pieces. (Post / Brian Brainerd)

...

Wanker of the Day

Well, here's some news from my old High School (Woodrow Wilson High, 1980).

I award the principal my wanker of the day.

They are refusing to allow the student(s) or parent(s) to remove the flowers, and they are demanding that they pay $1000.00 for a landscaper to remove the flowers.

Where the hell did they find a landscaper who would charge $1000 to remove a few flowers, the Pentagon?

For that, they could weed my yard for the season.

Whose loser brother-in-law owns the landscaping service?

This is a symptom of the criminalization of ordinary juvenile behavior. I would have been thrown in gaol as a senior when I got into a fight under the current dysfunctional policies that are American public education.

I'm sending an email to the Principal's (Sue Brent) office (sbrent@pps.k12.or.us)
Edited to correct email addy

Update: Wilson will take into account nature of prank in any discipline
Posted by The Oregonian May 24, 2007 11:58AM
Portland school administrators are sanctioning one Wilson High School senior for her role in an outdoor peace display -- $600 worth of marigolds planted in the shape of a peace sign -- and have told her she can participate in the June 1 graduation ceremony but will not receive a diploma until she pays up to $1,000 to remove the flowers.

Maggie Collins, a University of Oregon-bound 18-year-old, is being held solely responsible for the display after she discussed her role in planting it on a local television newscast, according to her older sister, Caity Collins. Caity Collins, a student at Whitman College, said district administrators asked Maggie to name the others who took part in the senior prank and told her she must foot the bill to return the landscaping to its original state.

Caity and Maggie's mom, Alyson Breathed, is meeting with the Wilson principal Sue Brent this morning to discuss the situation, Caity Collins said.

The principal's office said it could not comment on any disciplinary action. But a statement did say, "We do understand that these students could have acted in a more destructive way, and will certainly take that into account in any consequences that might be imposed."

A call to Superintendent Vicki Phillips was not immediately returned.

Collins said her sister doesn't want to hand over the names of her classmates who took part in the prank. She doesn't want others to get in trouble for a display that many want to remain, Caity Collins said.

As word of the sanctions spread this week, many parents came forward to offer their help in removing the flowers, but the district insisted on having professionals work on the project instead, Caity Collins said. She said officials told her mother it would cost between $600 and $1,000 to complete the job.

"A lot of parents and teachers have said they like the way it looks and they want it to stay because a call for peace is something a lot of people agree with," Caity Collins said. "The people who did this thought of it as a plea for peace. That, I think, is a really great thing."

Here's a clip about the peace display:

OH MY GOD

Is there no level to which Dick Cheney will sink to get his pet war?

Impeach Dick Cheney. Impeach him now (Shrub is tomorrow).

Cheney Attempting to Constrain Bush's Choices on Iran Conflict: Staff Engaged in Insubordination Against President Bush

May 24, 2007
Cheney Attempting to Constrain Bush's Choices on Iran Conflict: Staff Engaged in Insubordination Against President Bush

There is a race currently underway between different flanks of the administration to determine the future course of US-Iran policy.

On one flank are the diplomats, and on the other is Vice President Cheney's team and acolytes -- who populate quite a wide swath throughout the American national security bureaucracy.

...

Multiple sources have reported that a senior aide on Vice President Cheney's national security team has been meeting with policy hands of the American Enterprise Institute, one other think tank, and more than one national security consulting house and explicitly stating that Vice President Cheney does not support President Bush's tack towards Condoleezza Rice's diplomatic efforts and fears that the President is taking diplomacy with Iran too seriously.

This White House official has stated to several Washington insiders that Cheney is planning to deploy an "end run strategy" around the President if he and his team lose the policy argument.

The thinking on Cheney's team is to collude with Israel, nudging Israel at some key moment in the ongoing standoff between Iran's nuclear activities and international frustration over this to mount a small-scale conventional strike against Natanz using cruise missiles (i.e., not ballistic missiles).

This strategy would sidestep controversies over bomber aircraft and overflight rights over other Middle East nations and could be expected to trigger a sufficient Iranian counter-strike against US forces in the Gulf -- which just became significantly larger -- as to compel Bush to forgo the diplomatic track that the administration realists are advocating and engage in another war.

...

Quote of the Day

This is from an Aviation Week interview with Walter P. Havenstein (Subscription Required), president and CEO of BAE Systems Inc.

I worked with representatives of an LSI, a joint venture of Boeing and SAIC, while I was at BAE systems, and I find them as useless as Mr. Havenstein does.

My view is we have not been well served by the LSI concept. I equate companies that want to become LSIs to a five-year-old with a pencil. They say, "We connect the dots." The world is not that simple. If you're going to be effective as a mission capability integrator, you'd better own some of the dots.

Emphasis, and appreciative laughter, mine.

In the Department of the Glaringly Obvious, The Chinese Tested ASAT Because They Think That We are Nuts.

Seriously.

We pull out of the ABM treaty, we state our intention to place weapons in orbit, and we're SURPRISED when they decide to do so?

It's common sense. China see itself as our rival, and wants to make sure that it has the means to make any possible American hegemony in its reason uncertain and expensive.

All in all, that's how we kept the peace through 45 years of the cold war.

(Link requires subscription)

Chinese ASAT Prompts Space Awareness Push

Michael Bruno/Aerospace Daily and Defense Report

U.S. diplomatic and military officials remain perplexed and unsatisfied with China's nonexplanatory responses to international protests regarding the Asian giant's January anti-satellite (ASAT) ballistic missile test.

But they appear to be pushing Congress to support increased situational awareness efforts for U.S. space assets first over developing offensive, defensive or even so-called operationally responsive space capabilities, according to several remarks made May 23 on Capitol Hill.

....

You know, saber rattling about weaponizing space is what got us to this place, so now MORE will make it BETTER?

What a bunch of F^%$ing maroons.

New Israeli Large Drone, Unauthorized Pic Released

The people in the photo provide scale.

(Subscription Required for Link)

Unauthorized Photos of IAF's New UAV Come Out
Aviation Week & Space Technology
05/21/2007, page 32

David A. Fulghum
Washington

Unauthorized pictures of IAI's new, weapons-carrying UAV finally surface

Printed headline: Israel's Secret UAV

Israel has taken another significant step toward fielding a long-range surveillance and ballistic missile defense network of sensors, missiles and unmanned aircraft that it has been developing since 2000. Now, first photos of the initial flight last summer of Israel's secret, large-payload, unmanned aircraft--capable of carrying air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles for at least a day--have leaked.

Up until the recent turmoil among the defense ministry's senior officials over the results of last summer's Lebanon conflict, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) had been considering plans to pull the wraps off its very large (wingspan of at least 85-ft.) long-range, unmanned aircraft. Those plans were put on hold by the defense ministry. But four images taken from a video, reportedly recorded during its clandestine first flight last July, are out. The UAV--called the Heron II, Eitan and Machatz II--has since been flown several times, with no publicity, and it may make its first official appearance at the Paris air show in June.



...

AIM-120 AMRAAM Modified for Missile Intercept

Add a Two Stage motor, and a Modified AIM-9X (Sidwinder) imaging infra red seeker.

Considering the response to the US ignoring the possibility of arms control is escalation (see the Chinese ASAT launch) it would be better simply not to be so damn bellicose in the first place.

Kicking someone in the balls, and then calling them a c%$#sucker is not a good way to convince people that you want peace.

(Subscription required for link)

AIM-120 Recast As Ballistic Missile Interceptor
Aviation Week & Space Technology
05/21/2007, page 31

David A. Fulghum
Washington

Veteran AIM-120 dogfight missile is recast as a ballistic missile interceptor

Printed headline: Space-RAAM

Raytheon is trying to win the international race to develop an air-launched weapon that can shoot down ballistic missiles within tens of seconds after launch. Its entry is a new, longer-range version of the AIM-120 Amraam that could be carried by manned fighters or unmanned surveillance or combat aircraft.

Raytheon's new boost-phase intercept missile, based on Amraam, adds a second-stage motor and an infrared seeker.Credit: RAYTHEON

The missile's new second-stage, liquid-rocket motor was tested in December, and its seeker will be demonstrated this summer, says Mike Booen, vice president of advanced missile defense and directed energy weapons for Raytheon Missile Systems. The size, center of gravity and aerodynamic shape of the hit-to-kill interceptor are the same as for the AIM-120.

The concept is that long-endurance UAVs the size of the Predator B could carry adequate missiles and fly high enough to set up "launch area denial spheres," Booen says. That area of denial would be big enough to cover the missile launch complex in eastern North Korea from an orbit over international waters in the Sea of Japan. In fact, the missile could be launched from any platform that has the electrical interface for Amraam, including the F-22 Raptor or F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

If you don't want somebody to launch missiles, "you can deny those launches with a UAV combat air patrol well offshore and out of the way," Booen says. The UAV would be positioned in the "launch tube" between the missile's firing point and the target.

...

Embrarer Working on C-130 Class Transport

They first came to my attention in the 1980s with the AMX attack aircraft. They now appear to be tearing up the small commuter jet market, and this looks rather promising too.

Embraer Eyes Tactical Airlifter Go-ahead by Year's End
Aviation Week & Space Technology
05/21/2007, page 42

Michael A. Taverna
Villepinte, France

After regional and business jets, military transport sector could be next Embraer target

Printed headline: New Tactics

Embraer hopes to decide by year-end whether to add a military airlifter to its portfolio as part of a drive to boost its defense business.

The Brazilian airframer recently confirmed it's defining a 19-metric-ton transport, designated the C-390, which could replace C-130s, C-160s, An-12s and other aging tactical airlifters (AW&ST Apr. 9, p. 41). Intended for cargo, inflight refueling or medevac applications, the C-390 would feature turbojet propulsion, a high-mounted raked wing, conventional tailplane and an upswung fuselage with rear ramp sized to carry commonly used light fighting vehicles.

...

Although the contours of the airlifter are still preliminary, the C-390 will feature an all-new fuselage but reuse the wing, tail and major systems employed on the Embraer 190.Credit: EMBRAER CONCEPT

If You Treat Pilots Like $%#@, They Will Stop Being Pilots

Put this under the category of glaringly obvious.

The regionals have always had poor pay and benefits, in some of the smaller ones a pilot could earn less than $25k/year, but there was always the prospect that it could be a route to the majors.

These days, a job at the majors means that they declare bankruptcy, take your pension away, and lay out off.

And they are surprised that there is a pilot shortage?

(Subscription Required for Link)

Regionals Plagued by Pilot Attrition in First Quarter
Aviation Week & Space Technology
05/21/2007, page 58

Lori Ranson
Washington


Printed headline: Pilot Attrition Hits Regionals

An unexpected exodus of pilots from regional airlines during the last few months has spurred penalties in the first quarter and slowed growth at some of those carriers, but management at most of the companies remains optimistic about a fast recovery.

Pinnacle Airlines' attrition rates hit almost 20 per month during the quarter, close to double typical monthly stats of 9-10 pilots. The carrier ramped up its pilot pool during the last half of 2006 to entice Northwest to award its regional partner additional aircraft as the two carriers renegotiated their airline services agreement (ASA). At one point it looked highly unlikely Pinnacle would get the aircraft, and the airline stopped its pilot recruitment. Ultimately, Pinnacle did get the airplanes. But the timing of the negotiations, coupled with high attrition rates, slashed pilot counts. A stipulation in the ASA with Northwest was Pinnacle reaching a pilot deal by Mar. 31, which didn't happen. As a result Northwest has told Pinnacle it's removing 15 Bombardier CRJ200s from its fleet starting in September. Mesaba will fly those airplanes.

...

Could one of the Goyim Explain This to A Yid?

Goyim means non-Jew, it comes from the Hebrew for foreigner.

There has to be some spiritual significance to this, but I'm not Christian, so I'm not equipped to find the meaning.

Lightning damages Jesus statue

A bolt broke off an arm and a hand and damaged a foot at the Mother Cabrini Shrine in Golden. The sisters hope the 22-foot piece can be repaired.
By Jennifer Brown
Denver Post Staff Writer
The Denver Post
Article Last Updated:05/21/2007 05:03:43 PM MDT

Don't look for any religious symbolism here - it was only a freak act of Mother Nature, says Sister Ilaria.

The nuns at Mother Cabrini Shrine in Golden were thanking God on Sunday that no one was hurt when a bolt of lightning shot out of the sky and struck their 33-foot statue of Jesus.

The lightning bolt broke off one of Jesus' arms and a hand and damaged one of his feet, sending marble plummeting to the ground during a Saturday afternoon storm.

"There were pilgrims up there on the hill," Sister Ilaria said. "The biggest miracle is no one got hit with the falling debris."

The statue of Jesus, which had one hand pointing to his "sacred heart" and the other outstretched, sits atop a mountain near the shrine in the foothills of Golden. Drivers on Interstate 70 can see the statue in the hills, and at night, light illuminates the white marble.

Jesus, wearing a robe and glancing down, is 22 feet tall with an 11-foot base.

Sister Bernadette was doing paperwork in her office when she heard the crackle of lightning.

"We did hear a bang, but we didn't realize it was the statue," she said.
...

The statue, damaged Saturday, was sent from Italy in sections in 1954. No one was hurt by the falling pieces. (Post / Brian Brainerd)

Do You Suffer From Republican Memory Loss Syndrome?

YouTube of the day.

Bird Poops On Bush

For some reason, I'm humming the song Close to You, you know, the one that goes, "Why do birds suddenly appear..."

Seriously Georgie, everyone hates you except for the dead-enders, and now nature is lining up against you.

Give it up.



Hat tip to Crooks and Liars for the original vid.

Ifunny. I Laughed My IAss off.

It appears that the folks at Apple have no sense of humor.

They have sent a cease and desist letter to sex toy maker Ann Summers over her IGasm.

They don't like this poster.

POD IT AWAY!

By Polly Graham

COMPUTER giants Apple are really worked up—over an Ann Summers sex toy that hooks up to your iPod.

Women all over Britain are saying yes, yes, yes to the £30 iGasm that plugs into a music player and delivers good vibrations that pulse to the beat.

But shocked iPod bosses are iRate—demanding stores take down all posters for the gadget or risk a fight in the iCourt.

....

If This is Winning, I'd Hate To See Losing.

Juan Cole got a memorandum leaked to him.

Basically, it's saying that we cannot get food to our the green zone. The Iraqi resistance is too good at interdicting the logistics traffic.

The theater-wide comment means that we are unable to do so for our troops too.

This is a prelude to something awful. Classic military strategy is, first you cut it off, then you starve it, then you kill it.

'Due to a theater-wide delay in food delivery, menu selections will be limited for the near future. While every effort will be made to provide balanced meals, it may not be possible to offer the dishes you are used to seeing at each meal. Fresh fruits and salad bar items will also be severely limited or unavailable.

House Prices Drop 11% YoY

Of course, the hed is that sales went up, but the real news is an ELEVEN PERCENT DROP YEAR OVER YEAR

The media is dependent on real-estate ads for much of its revenue, so they always take the most rosy view of these stories.

New-Home Sales in April Jump by the Most in 14 Years (Update2)

By Bob Willis

May 24 (Bloomberg) -- Purchases of new homes in the U.S. unexpectedly surged in April by the most in 14 years, ignited by the biggest decline in median prices since 1970.

See lead paragraph says that everything is rosy.

Falling prices and incentives offered by builders such as Centex Corp. are stirring demand for new homes after two years of falling sales. Still, a glut of unsold properties suggests homebuilding is likely to remain a drag on growth throughout this year and into 2008.

That's the 3rd paragraph, and it's pretty mild.

Biggest Drop in Four Decades

The median price of a new home dropped 11 percent last month, the biggest decline since 1970, to $229,100 from $257,000 a year earlier, today's report showed.

That's the 9th paragraph, that there is BLOOD in the real estate street.

This Sounds Like a 6 Astronaut Portable Stove

I like hypergolics for rockets, they simplify fuel handling a lot, but shipping the module to NASA already fueled?

Color me a bit dubious.

NASA faces battle over toxic fuel plan for Orion
By Rob Coppinger
Decision to load hypergolic propellants off-line expected to pose safety challenges

NASA has decided to load the Orion crew launch vehicle with its hypergolic fuels before it reaches the pad and before it reaches the Kennedy Space Center's vehicle assembly building for stacking on to the Ares I crew launch vehicle. The decision could pose safety challenges during ground processing.

Hypergolics are fuels and oxidisers that remain liquid at room temperatures and pressures and ignite on contact, requiring no ignition source. But they are toxic and require special handling. Common hypergolic fuels are hydrazine, monomethyl hydrazine and unsymmetrical dimethyl hydrazine. The oxidiser is usually nitrogen tetroxide or inhibited red-fuming nitric acid.

...

5 YEARS??? In the Air?

I'm wondering if this is a result of the Chinese test of their Anti-Satellite device a few months back, or just the normal DARPA offbeat projects.

US military plans for new UAV to stay airborne for five years

Persistent surveillance is becoming a pressing requirement for US forces, spawning a number of programmes aimed at demonstrating unmanned air vehicles with endurance capabilities ranging from weeks to years.

The latest of these is the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) VULTURE programme to demonstrate the ability to keep a heavier-than-air UAV on station for more than five years.

...

Keith Olbermann's Special Comment

I originally heard this on Crooks and Liars, but here is the YouTube.
Update: He's JUSTIFIABLY cutting the Dems a new one over their Iraq war sellout.

An Update on Supernotes.

Watching America has a VERY good rundown as to why the indicators point toward these being manufactured by some official entity in the US.
Some headings from that article:

MADE WITH COTTON FROM THE AMERICAN SOUTH

FIRST COUNTERFEITS WITH INTAGLIO (RAISED) PRINT

SECURITY INKS FROM HIGHLY SECURE FACTORIES

Washington's thesis of a "Pyongyang Connection" and "economic warfare against America" are not widely believed. Strangely, although the counterfeiters have mastered the technology of the infrared sensitive security inks used on the new Supernotes, the notes are produced in such way that automated currency test systems recognize them immediately as forgeries. In America, the Supernotes have little chance of going undetected. Also suspicious is the fact that the 50-Dollar Supernote, which is even more finely crafted that the 100-Dollar Supernote, is not being circulated by the forgers, even though this denomination is far more widely used by the general public and often goes untested.

I'm convinced, the DPRK HAS to be behind this. They do this to give themselves plausible deniability.

And the DC Madame was not running a prostitution service.

It's the dotcom bust all over atain

Uh oh. The individual investor is back
If everyone is already in stocks, where will money come from to push shares higher still?
By Alexandra Twin, CNNMoney.com senior writer
May 23 2007: 11:09 AM EDT

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Yep, it's official. Even your grandma is getting bullish about the stock market. And that's as good a reason as any to be prepared for a pullback.

Basically, we've now got the naive small investor coming. After him/her, there is no more money to be had.

Over the past 25 years, Depression era regulations have been gutted. They did not prevent the business cycle, but they did reduce the amplitude of the swings.

Is The US Counterfeiting It's Own Money?

The Swiss, who print the paper money of many nations around the world, have a report out on the so called "supernotes", the VERY high quality counterfeit bills that are seen around the world.

It could be argued that outside of the US bureau of Engraving and Printing, they are the world's foremost experts.

Supernotes are relatively rare, but can only be detected by very sophisticated equipment. The quality of their printing meets, and in some cases exceeds, that of real bills.

Here is the money quote (pardon the pun):

Swiss authorities question U.S. counterfeiting charges against North Korea

By Kevin G. Hall
...
For years, analysts have wondered why the supernotes - which are detectable only with sophisticated, expensive technology - appear to have been produced in quantities less than it would cost to acquire the sophisticated machinery needed to make them. The paper and ink used to make U.S. currency are made through exclusive contract and aren't available on the open marketplace. The machinery involved is highly regulated.

In theory, if North Korea were producing the notes, it could print $50 million worth of them within a few hours - as much as has been seized in nearly two decades, the report said.

So who ever is counterfeiting the money is LOSING money doing this.

It's always the enemy du jour who is accused of producing this, and under international law, it justifies going to war, so maybe, just maybe, someone in Northern Virginia *cough* Langley *cough* has been doing this for years on a small scale to provide a patsy at the appropriate time.

Wolfowitz Gossip

Courtesy of Murdock's NY Post, Page Six:

GAL PAL SPLIT UP

May 23, 2007 -- PAUL Wolfowitz has really had a bad couple of weeks. He not only lost his job, he lost his girlfriend, too.

Wolfowitz, one of the architects of the Iraq war, was pushed out as president of the World Bank over a controversial pay and promotion package he arranged for his brunette girlfriend, Shaha Ali Riza.

Sources say Riza, a brilliant feminist with a promising diplomatic career, was upset by all the publicity and the implication that she was getting ahead with the help of a powerful man. "She was furious about the embarrassment," said one source.

...

Gee our boys are dieing in Iraq and she's embarrassed. Boo f^%$ing hoo.

Truth be told, she has been favored by Wolfie for some time now, and was fine about it until it hit the news.

Gas Prices

In an Occasional Series of You Tube Vids.

Yeah...Migets!

The Republican Party Is By Nature Terrorists.

Case in point.

Report: Student arrested with bombs at Falwell funeral

ABC News is reporting that a 19-year-old Liberty University student has been arrested for having "several gasoline-based bombs in his car," which he allegedly planned to use to stop protesters from disrupting the funeral of the Rev. Jerry Falwell.

Police arrested Mark Ewell of Amissville, Va., and were seeking three other suspects, including a soldier from Fort Benning, Ga., and a high school student.

This is what we are dealing with.

They are no different from the Taliban and the House of Saud, except that they are ALREADY here.

Here's hoping that the next president goes full Patriot act on their lilly white asses.

Bush Administration Tantrum To Tear Apart WTO

This little tantrum, largely a political sop to the TaliBaptist wing of the 'Phant base may very well tear the WTO apart.

It looks like Antigua may very well stop observing US IT registrations as a result.

I think that this is a good thing (I see the WTO regs as being written by and for rich bankers), but it is a classic Bush Disaster.

Antigua threatens to target U.S. interests as WTO adopts decision on Internet gambling
Associated Press
San Jose Mercury News
Article Launched:05/22/2007 12:48:27 PM PDT
GENEVA - The tiny Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda seeks compensation from the U.S. over its illegal restrictions on Internet gambling sites based overseas and on Tuesday asked other countries to join in as it targets Washington over its failure to comply with global trade rules.

Antigua, the smallest country to successfully litigate a case in the World Trade Organization's 12-year-history, also threatened to target American trademarks, copyrights and telecommunications companies after the WTO on Tuesday formally adopted a landmark decision reached in March that the United States' restrictions on online gambling were illegal.

"Not only do we think that members should press claims for compensatory adjustments as a matter of economic self-interest, but we also believe it is important that the process is made as difficult as possible for the United States," Ambassador John Ashe of Antigua told the WTO's dispute settlement body.

...

There is real pain in Antigua over this:

The former British colony in the Caribbean had been promoting electronic commerce as a way to end the country's reliance on tourism, which was hurt by a series of hurricanes in the late 1990s. There are 32 licensed online casinos in Antigua, employing 1,000 people and generating a yearly revenue of about $130 million. Seven years ago, its casinos had an annual income closer to $1 billion.

Tesla Motors Has a Great Sense of Humor Too.

Yep, the maker of the employees the world's highest performance electric car, also make the world's highest performance electric couch and electric bunny slippers.

NASA's Sense of Humor

Mars Opportunity Rover Launch Patch

Mars Spirit Rover Launch Patch

Hat tip to JollyReaper of the Stellar Parthenon web BBS for the catch.

45 Year Old Copyright Stupidity.

Here is an Atlantic Monthly Article dated April 1962, claiming that the Jukebox industry was destroying the music industry.

Welcome to the American Gulag Archipelago

Descriptions are from this ABC News Story.
What can I say, but that these folks belong on the dock in the Hague.

The CIA sources described a list of six "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" instituted in mid-March 2002 and used, they said, on a dozen top al Qaeda targets incarcerated in isolation at secret locations on military bases in regions from Asia to Eastern Europe. According to the sources, only a handful of CIA interrogators are trained and authorized to use the techniques:

1. The Attention Grab: The interrogator forcefully grabs the shirt front of the prisoner and shakes him.

2. Attention Slap: An open-handed slap aimed at causing pain and triggering fear.

3. The Belly Slap: A hard open-handed slap to the stomach. The aim is to cause pain, but not internal injury. Doctors consulted advised against using a punch, which could cause lasting internal damage.

4. Long Time Standing: This technique is described as among the most effective. Prisoners are forced to stand, handcuffed and with their feet shackled to an eye bolt in the floor for more than 40 hours. Exhaustion and sleep deprivation are effective in yielding confessions.

5. The Cold Cell: The prisoner is left to stand naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees. Throughout the time in the cell the prisoner is doused with cold water.

6. Water Boarding: The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.

According to the sources, CIA officers who subjected themselves to the water boarding technique lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in. They said al Qaeda's toughest prisoner, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, won the admiration of interrogators when he was able to last between two and two-and-a-half minutes before begging to confess.

This will happen to American personnel, because we are doing it to everyone else.

A Nice Primer on Republithug Voter Suppression

Basically, it's a brief history of the "American Center for Voting Rights". Short version. It's a 'Phant (Republican) front group which generates bogus reports about vote fraud in minority (Democratic voting) areas, so as to attempt to criminalize get out the vote operations, and to justify poll taxes masquerading as voter ID schemes.

Good read with lots of links.

The Fraudulent Fraud Squad
The incredible, disappearing American Center for Voting Rights.
By Richard L. Hasen
Posted Friday, May 18, 2007, at 1:41 PM ET

Imagine the National Rifle Association's Web site suddenly disappeared, along with all the data and reports the group had ever posted on gun issues. Imagine Planned Parenthood inexplicably closed its doors one day, without comment from its former leaders. The scenarios are unthinkable, given how established these organizations have become. But even if something did happen to the NRA or Planned Parenthood, no doubt other gun or abortion groups would quickly fill the vacuum and push the ideas they'd pushed for years.

Not so for the American Center for Voting Rights, a group that has literally just disappeared as an organization, and for which it seems no replacement group will rise up. With no notice and little comment, ACVR—the only prominent nongovernmental organization claiming that voter fraud is a major problem, a problem warranting strict rules such as voter-ID laws—simply stopped appearing at government panels and conferences. Its Web domain name has suddenly expired, its reports are all gone (except where they have been preserved by its opponents), and its general counsel, Mark "Thor" Hearne, has cleansed his résumé of affiliation with the group. Hearne won't speak to the press about ACVR's demise. No other group has taken up the "voter fraud" mantra.

The death of ACVR says a lot about the Republican strategy of raising voter fraud as a crisis in American elections. Presidential adviser Karl Rove and his allies, who have been ghostbusting illusory dead and fictional voters since the contested 2000 election, apparently mounted a two-pronged attack. One part of that attack, at the heart of the current Justice Department scandals, involved getting the DoJ and various U.S. attorneys in battleground states to vigorously prosecute cases of voter fraud. That prong has failed. After exhaustive effort, the Department of Justice discovered virtually no polling-place voter fraud, and its efforts to fire the U.S. attorneys in battleground states who did not push the voter-fraud line enough has backfired. Even if Attorney General Gonzales declines to resign his position, his reputation has been irreparably damaged.

But the second prong of this attack may have proven more successful. This involved using ACVR to give "think tank" academic cachet to the unproven idea that voter fraud is a major problem in elections. That cachet would be used to support the passage of onerous voter-identification laws that depress turnout among the poor, minorities, and the elderly—groups more likely to vote Democratic. Where the Bush administration may have failed to nail illegal voters, the effort to suppress minority voting has borne more fruit, as more states pass these laws, and courts begin to uphold them in the name of beating back waves of largely imaginary voter fraud.

...

If you want more details, check out Bradblog as a first stop.

Atrios Calls These Folks "Wankers of the Day"

It seems that some school officials object to parents when their children's names are read out.

My guess, they think that African-Americans and Hispanic Immigrants are too enthusiastic about their kids being college bound.

This won't be enforced on white folk, you just know it.

BTW, these asshats also exposed their students and staff to identity theft a while back.

Maybe people should contact the school board, or chief wanker Eugene White.

Pipe down or leave graduation, IPS warns
Some parents are leery of edict that urges cheering as grads enter and exit but not as names are read
By Brendan O'Shaughnessy
brendan.oshaughnessy@indystar.com
May 21, 2007

Hold your applause or you'll be thrown off the property.
That's the message Superintendent Eugene White is sending to the families of Indianapolis Public School graduates who will attend this year's commencement ceremonies.

White sent letters to graduates earlier this month informing them and their families about the new policy forbidding cheering during the reading of the graduates' names. The goal is to restore decorum to the ceremonies and make certain that every name can be heard.

White's letter reminds students that attending a graduation ceremony is a privilege, not a right. A spokeswoman for IPS said 30 school police officers will be on hand to enforce the rules.

"The graduation commencement is the completion of a 12-year program of study," White wrote in a list of guidelines. "It is a joyous time, a proud time and a formal time. It is not a party. It is not a pep rally."

...

Hat tip to Atrios for coining the term, "Wanker of the Day".

It's OK if You Suck on Her Breast?

Let me make this absolutely clear. This is not a religious thing. This is a stupid academic thing.
In academic circles, there is frequently a push to publish papers where one shows how clever one is by proving that day is night.

Islamic theology center to discipline cleric who allows adult breast-feeding

The Associated Press
Monday, May 21, 2007

CAIRO, Egypt: Al-Azhar University, one of Sunni Islam's most prestigious institutions, ordered one of its clerics Monday to face a disciplinary panel after he issued a controversial decree allowing adults to breast-feed.

Ezzat Attiya had issued a fatwa, or religious edict, saying adult men could breast-feed from female work colleagues as a way to avoid breaking Islamic rules that forbid men and women from being alone together.

In Islamic tradition, breast-feeding establishes a degree of maternal relation, even if a woman nurses a child who is not biologically hers. It means the child could not marry the nursing woman's biological children.

Attiya — the head of Al-Azhar's Department of Hadith, or teachings of the Prophet Muhammad — insisted the same would apply with adults. He argued that if a man nursed from a co-worker, it would establish a family bond between them and allow the two to work side-by-side without raising suspicion of an illicit sexual relation.

His fatwa raised a widespread outcry in Egypt, with religious authorities rejecting the edit and several newspapers deriding Attiya for issuing it. Several lawmakers called for Attiya to be punished.

...

I dunno, if a man tried to breast feed on my wife, he'd get a good old Yid knuckle sandwich from me.

This reminds me of the dialog between man and God in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy:

God: "I refuse to prove I exist, for proof denies faith and without faith I am nothing." "Ahhh," says Man, "but look at the Bable Fish. Something so insanely useful could not possibly have evolved by chance. Therefore, you created it, thereby proving your existence, thereby denying yourself." "Oh, my," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. Man then goes on to prove that Black is White and gets run over at the next zebra crossing.

Crap.

Bush is as popular as hemorrhoids. The war is as popular as breast cancer.

Caving is stupid.

Dems set war bill without Iraq timeline

By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent 29 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - In grudging concessions to
President Bush, Democrats intend to draft an
Iraq war-funding bill without a timeline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops and shorn of billions of dollars in spending on domestic programs, officials said Monday.
ADVERTISEMENT

The legislation would include the first federal minimum wage increase in more than a decade, a top priority for the Democrats who took control of Congress in January, the officials added.

While details remain subject to change, the measure is designed to close the books by Friday on a bruising veto fight between Bush and the Democratic-controlled Congress over the war. It would provide funds for military operations in Iraq through Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

It appears that under drooling moron's Fred Hyatt's tenure at the Washington Post, Andrew Sullivan is a liberal.

Ashcroft's Complex Tenure At Justice

By Peter Baker and Susan Schmidt

...

Ashcroft's public statements and actions prompted some liberals at the time to call him a "zealot" and accuse him of "shredding the Constitution." Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, urged voters to "end the era of John Ashcroft." But the account of a nighttime hospital confrontation between Ashcroft and Bush aides -- provided Tuesday by Thompson's successor, James B. Comey, to the Senate Judiciary Committee -- prompted something of a reappraisal of Ashcroft by some on the left last week.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) praised his "fidelity to the rule of law." The Wonkette Web site posted the headline: "Ashcroft Takes Heroic Stand." Under a similar headline, "John Ashcroft, American Hero," Andrew Sullivan expressed astonishment on his Atlantic magazine blog that "John Ashcroft was way too moderate for these people. John Ashcroft."

Emphasis is mine.

My first reaction is...well...Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Andrew Sullivan, the man who still supports the war, and is still the biggest cheerleader around for the racist and innacurate book, The Bell Curve is "some on the left".

Then I notice the byline. It's Steno Sue Schmidt (link 1, link 2), she's been a media whore since the days when she was Ken Starr's steno pad.

Brad Delong calls this Journamalism.

This Makes You Want to Cry.

In Better Days

Those old clippers were things of beauty. I hope that they can restore the ship.

Fire consumes historic London ship

LONDON, England (CNN) -- The Cutty Sark, thought to be the world's only surviving 19th century tea clipper and a prime relic of the golden age of sail, was engulfed by flames Monday, causing extensive damage to one of London's most popular tourist attractions.

Police say the blaze, which began before dawn and took 40 firefighters several hours to extinguish, is being treated as "suspicious." The fire is expected to drastically increase the cost of a $50 million three-year restoration that began in 2006.

...

Gas at An All Time High

Inflation is worse than the official stats, and as the dollar drops, gas will go even higher.

Gas prices: Worse than '81 oil shock
Gas now at highest level, even adjusted for inflation; AAA's reading of nearly $3.20 a gallon marks ninth straight record high in current dollars.
May 21 2007: 8:31 AM EDT

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Gasoline prices soared to levels never seen before as even the inflation-adjusted price for a gallon of unleaded topped the 1981 record spike in price that had stood for 26 years.

...

The Chinese are About to Get Schooled

Here are the Chinese, coming VERY late to this game, and deciding that they need more return on the mountain of US cash they hold.

This is like the end of the dotcom boom, when huge sums of money flowed in late, only to get burnt.

China grabbing $3B of Blackstone

The deal will help China improve returns on the $1 trillion it holds in foreign exchange reserves.

May 21 2007: 7:32 AM EDT

NEW YORK, (Reuters) -- China's new state investment agency is taking a $3 billion stake in U.S. private equity firm The Blackstone Group, a sign of Beijing's eagerness to get a higher return on its hoard of currency reserves.

The agreement gives China's government a stake in the private equity boom sweeping the world and seals a key alliance for Blackstone at a time when foreign investors are struggling to gain support from Beijing to buy domestic assets.

China is taking a non-voting stake of just under 10 percent in Blackstone, leaving it under the radar screen from U.S. government scrutiny and providing a template for future deals....

Tax Policies Restricting Interstate Trade

This sort of tax policy is more common than one can think. Massachusetts, for example has double the tax rate on out of state capital gains and taxes as instate, or at least it did in 1992, when I last did taxes there,

US Supreme Court Grants Review Of Kentucky Muni Bond Case

May 21, 2007: 10:31 AM EST

By Mark H. Anderson and Michael A. Pollock

Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday it will review whether Kentucky can offer tax breaks on in-state municipal bonds while continuing to require residents to pay taxes on out-of-state bonds.

And in the It Should Surprise No One Department

Dr. Laura's Son is alleged to run a blog chock full of racist, sexist, and sexually violent material.

If I had a mom like Dr. Laura Schlessinger, I'd be cutting myself and mainlining bat guano.

http://www.sltrib.com/ci_5934072

The MySpace page, publicly available until Friday when it disappeared from the Internet, included cartoon depictions of rape, murder, torture and child molestation; photographs of soldiers with guns in their mouths; a photograph of a bound and blindfolded detainee captioned "My Sweet Little Habib"; accounts of illicit drug use; and a blog entry headlined by a series of obscenities and racial epithets.

Business Does Not Want the Immigration Deal, So Why Bother With Guest Workers at All?

Seriously, it looks like big business is opposing this deal.

The only reason to add slaves guest workers to the program is to bring them on board.

But they are NOT on board.

So drop the slave guest worker provisions.

After Aiding Bill on Immigration, Employers Balk
By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON, May 20 — Employers, who helped shape a major immigration bill over the last three months, said on Sunday that they were unhappy with the result because it would not cure the severe labor shortages they foresee in the coming decade.

In addition, employers expressed alarm as they learned that the Senate bill would require them to check a government database to verify that all current and former employees — aliens and citizens alike — were eligible to work in the United States.

The Senate begins debating the bill on Monday. Supporters, including the White House, had hoped that senators would finish work on it this week, before the Memorial Day recess. But leading members of Congress said Sunday that the bill would take more time and could face significant hurdles.

...

Yes Virginia, Guest Worker Programs are Slavery

Any visa in which firing requires an immigrant to leave the country is slavery.
The employer has too much leverage

Here is the Suothern Poverty Law Center's take on this:

Close to Slavery

Guestworker Programs in the United States

In his 2007 State of the Union Address, President Bush called for legislation creating a "legal and orderly path for foreign workers to enter our country to work on a temporary basis." Doing so, the president said, would mean "they won't have to try to sneak in." Such a program has been central to Bush's past immigration reform proposals. Similarly, recent congressional proposals have included provisions that would bring potentially millions of new "guest" workers to the United States.

What Bush did not say was that the United States already has a guestworker program for unskilled laborers — one that is largely hidden from view because the workers are typically socially and geographically isolated. Before we expand this system in the name of immigration reform, we should carefully examine how it operates.

Under the current system, called the H-2 program, employers brought about 121,000 guestworkers into the United States in 2005 — approximately 32,000 for agricultural work and another 89,000 for jobs in forestry, seafood processing, landscaping, construction and other non-agricultural industries.

These workers, though, are not treated like "guests." Rather, they are systematically exploited and abused. Unlike U.S. citizens, guestworkers do not enjoy the most fundamental protection of a competitive labor market — the ability to change jobs if they are mistreated. Instead, they are bound to the employers who "import" them. If guestworkers complain about abuses, they face deportation, blacklisting or other retaliation.

Federal law and U.S. Department of Labor regulations provide some basic protections to H-2 guestworkers — but they exist mainly on paper. Government enforcement of their rights is almost non-existent. Private attorneys typically won't take up their cause.

Bound to a single employer and without access to legal resources, guestworkers are:

• routinely cheated out of wages;


• forced to mortgage their futures to obtain low-wage, temporary jobs;


• held virtually captive by employers or labor brokers who seize their documents;


• forced to live in squalid conditions; and,


• denied medical benefits for on-the-job injuries.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel recently put it this way: "This guestworker program's the closest thing I've ever seen to slavery."

Congressman Rangel's conclusion is not mere hyperbole — and not the first time such a comparison has been made. Former Department of Labor official Lee G. Williams described the old "bracero" program — the guestworker program that brought thousands of Mexican nationals to work in the United States during and after World War II — as a system of "legalized slavery." In practice, there is little difference between the bracero program and the current H-2 guestworker program.

The H-2 guestworker system also can be viewed as a modern-day system of indentured servitude. But unlike European indentured servants of old, today's guestworkers have no prospect of becoming U.S. citizens. When their work visas expire, they must leave the United States. They are, in effect, the disposable workers of the U.S. economy.

This report is based on interviews with thousands of guestworkers, a review of the research on guestworker programs, scores of legal cases and the experiences of legal experts from around the country. The abuses described here are too common to blame on a few "bad apple" employers. They are the foreseeable outcomes of a system that treats foreign workers as commodities to be imported as needed without affording them adequate legal safeguards or the protections of the free market.

The H-2 guestworker program is inherently abusive and should not be expanded in the name of immigration reform. If the current program is allowed to continue at all, it should be completely overhauled. Recommendations for doing so appear at the end of this report.

Yes, Sturgeon's Law Applies to This Blog.

Matthew Yglesias writes on Sturgeon's law.

I've known it for years. Hell, what I write has been proof of it. I've always had trouble remembering the exact percent (I've said 90% and 99%, which are both wrong, a lot).

Here is the Ted Sturgeon quote, care of big media Matt.

All of this reminds me of Sturgeon's Law, named for the great SF writer Theodore Sturgeon, who was supposedly accosted at a Greenwich Village literary party by someone who said to him (I'm quoting from memory), "Sturgeon, how can you stand to publish in those science fiction magazines? Ninety-five percent of the stuff in them is crap." To which Sturgeon calmly replied, "Ninety-five percent of everything is crap."

The Bush Admin Is Going to Have Harry Reid Whacked

Seriously, he's too good for them to handle any other way.
Thank God Daschle lost his seat and Reid took over.
This guy is the Jim Thorpe of Senate Majority Leaders.

Bush's Summer Hires Targeted

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has a little trick up his sleeve that could spell an end to President Bush's devilish recess appointments of controversial figures like former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton. We hear that over the long August vacation, when those types of summer hires are made, Reid will call the Senate into session just long enough to force the prez to send his nominees who need confirmation to the chamber. The talk is he will hold a quickie "pro forma" session every 10 days, tapping a local senator to run the hall. Senate workers and Republicans are miffed, but Reid is proving that he's the new sheriff in town.

Been There, Done that, Got the &%$@ing T-Shirt

I feel your pain, Tom Slee. I'm impressed enough that I'm considering buying your book, No One Makes You Shop At Wal-Mart.

Packaging
I bought a pair of heavy duty kitchen scissors.
They are secured to a cardboard backing panel by two thick translucent plastic bands, one around the blade and one around the handles.
I need to cut these plastic bands.
I need a pair of heavy duty kitchen scissors.

From the Department of the Blindingly Obvious

Gee, some folks at the G8 think that the highly leveraged speculative hedge funds might cause problems later.
No %$#@ Sherlock.

G8 strives for greater hedge fund controls

Finance ministers also said that while the global economy remains strong, volatile energy prices continue to be a risk.

...

Heat on hedge funds

Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty summed up how far the Germans were from garnering critical support for their push for closer supervision of hedge funds, steps they say are needed to ensure the highly-leveraged investment vehicles do not threaten the stability of the financial system in general.

They do, and it's getting worse, Mr. Flaherty.

The Definitive Word on Fallwell

Great Article by Max Blumenthal on this.
Basically, it comes down to Fallwell, and the rest of the Talibaptists being motivated by Racism, not religion or prudery.
A choice quote from Fallwell:

"If Chief Justice Warren and his associates had known God's word and had desired to do the Lord's will, I am quite confident that the 1954 decision would never have been made," Falwell boomed from above his congregation in Lynchburg. "The facilities should be separate. When God has drawn a line of distinction, we should not attempt to cross that line."

Here is a quote from Mr. Blumenthal:

While abortion clinics sprung up across the United States during the early 1970s, evangelicals did little. No pastors invoked the Dred Scott decision to undermine the legal justification for abortion. There were no clinic blockades, no passionate cries to liberate the "pre-born." For Falwell and his allies, the true impetus for political action came when the Supreme Court ruled in Green v. Connally to revoke the tax-exempt status of racially discriminatory private schools in 1971. At about the same time, the Internal Revenue Service moved to revoke the tax-exempt status of Bob Jones University, which forbade interracial dating. (Blacks were denied entry until 1971.) Falwell was furious, complaining, "In some states it's easier to open a massage parlor than to open a Christian school."

Read the reat at the link.

Rumored that Abu Gonzalez Will Be Resigning Tonite

Posted on Americablog.
This just the DC area buzz.
I'm signing off for Shabbos (the Jewish Sabbath) now.
Have fun.

On edit:
Wonkette has the rumor too.

As of Sunday, May 20, the rat bastard is still the chief law enforcement officer in the US.

**Blarf**

Political Cartoon of the Day

I love kiwi humor, it's from stuff.co.nz.

Updates on Patent Law. Copyright Politics, and Microsoft's Assault on Open Source

Your update on what's going on in IP Related stuff

Backers of stronger copyright laws form lobby group

By Anne Broache

Story last modified Fri May 18 07:12:50 PDT 2007


WASHINGTON--Some of the staunchest advocates for stricter copyright laws have formed a new alliance designed to pressure Congress into preserving stronger intellectual property rights.

The Copyright Alliance--which launched, complete with electric-green and white T-shirts displaying its logo at a morning Capitol Hill event here--consists of 29 national organizations and companies that purport to represent 11 million workers in copyright-related industries. Those members include the Recording Industry Association of America, the Association of American Publishers, the Motion Picture Association of America, Microsoft, Viacom and Walt Disney.

...

Satan is missing from the above list.

Experts say Microsoft's patent quest won't go far

By Stephen Shankland


Story last modified Wed May 16 09:47:10 PDT 2007


Microsoft's accusation that the open-source software industry has infringed 235 Microsoft patents has spotlighted a difficult issue: how aggressively should a company police itself for patent violations?

Microsoft said it released the tally--though not the 235 specific patents--in an effort to bring open-source companies to the table to hammer out intellectual property licensing deals similar to the one struck by Linux seller Novell in 2006. But industry experts said the declaration's implicit demand--that companies with open-source software should figure out what Microsoft patents they're infringing and come to the negotiating table--is unrealistic at best.

...

There's a wide gap between being accused of infringing a patent and being found in a civil lawsuit to actually infringe. And a recent Supreme Court decision means the gap likely will be getting wider.

In a unanimous April decision, the court sought to set a higher standard for weeding out patents for obvious technology. "Granting patent protection to advances that would occur in the ordinary course without real innovation retards progress and may, in the case of patents combining previously known elements, deprive prior inventions of their value or utility," the court said in its opinion, a decision that could make it easier to challenge patents' validity or harder to obtain them in the first place.

...

Torvalds was more direct. "The bulk of all patents are crap," he said. "Spending time reading them is stupid. It's up to the patent owner to do so, and to enforce them."

This is not a patent case, it's just Microflaccid's attempt to spread FUD to slow down open source.


This is some better news:

House takes small step toward revising patent law

By Anne Broache

Story last modified Thu May 17 05:20:26 PDT 2007


WASHINGTON--The U.S. Congress took a small step on Wednesday toward revising what many large computer industry companies charge is a broken patent system.

A House of Representatives subcommittee overseeing intellectual property law approved by voice vote the so-called Patent Reform Act. The bill's sponsors and the Silicon Valley set have hailed the measure as an effective pathway to reducing excessive litigation, improving patent quality, and discouraging inflated licensing agreements.

The relatively speedy action on the bill, which was introduced in identical form in both the House and the Senate less than a month ago, reflects Congress' drive to move ahead changes that have lagged for years, said Judiciary subcommittee chairman Howard Berman (D-Calif.).

This really is pretty good news. The details are below.

But those two provisions in particular have consistently drawn staunch resistance. A group called the Innovation Alliance, composed of venture capital firms and academic institutions, and a number of corporate heavyweights aligned under a group called the Coalition for 21st Century Patent Reform, including 3M, Caterpillar, General Electric, Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly and Procter & Gamble, have taken issue with several components that they argue will water down protections for patent holders.

One such section would establish a special review board within the Patent Office allowing for issued patents to be challenged without initiating expensive and time-consuming litigation. But critics say that in its current draft, the bill offers an unlimited "second window" for people to challenge issued patents, thus creating more uncertainty about their value.

Anything that makes it cheaper to challenge patent trolls is a good thing™.

Another contentious piece of the bill dictates that courts may generally only award damages to holders of infringed patents based on a patent's "specific contribution over the prior art"--that is, the extent to which the patent at issue improves on previous inventions.

That's intended to be a response to critics--particularly high-tech companies whose products generally rely on many thousands of components--who argue that the current system allows for winners of patent infringement suits to obtain disproportionate damage awards and, outside of court, fuels inflated settlements and royalty agreements. But opponents suggest that's unfair to patent holders.

I could patent the hair on my ass right now. The patent system is broken, and needs to be fixed.

Bloody Hell, Not This Ballocks Wanker!

Looks like Tony Blair is on the short list for World Bank president.

Just when you thought that we were done with the smiler, he's back.

'Blair in frame at World Bank'

Press Association
Friday May 18, 2007 8:43 AM

Outgoing Prime Minister Tony Blair is a contender for the job of president of the World Bank, according to one of America's most respected economists.

The news comes after the board of the World Bank announced its president Paul Wolfowitz would resign at the end of next month.

If he does for the world bank what he did for the Labour party, the third world is screwed.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?????

So I log in to do a post, and I check the layout, as I just fiddled a bit (added a working check box), and I see a Google AdSense ad.

It's for an options investment strategy for Halliburton.

It appears that the bots running AdSense decided that since wrote a post calling Halliburton rats leaving a sinking ship, that this would be a ripe location for finding people who want to profit from said rats.

I guess that there are a still a few bugs left in the system.

Ferrets for Freedom

Rudy Giuliani on ferrets, and ferrets on Rudy Giuliani.

His campaign will end when he throwsbatshit crazy on national TV

Aaah Sweet Decadence

My wife and I were sitting on a couch waiting for our kids to finish with an appointment.

I was slouching, and my wife was feeding me her yellow M&Ms because she is allergic to the dye Yellow #5.

It was a wonderful moment, though tradition calls for the food to be grapes, and for her to wear a belly dance outfit.

Wolfowitz is out.

Wolfowitz to resign as World Bank chief

Everyone knows that you're being fired for corruption and incompetence.

Btw, take your damn chippie with you too.

Housing Prices Dropping More Than Stats Indicate

Basically, the few people who are buying right now are buying more house, and this is artifact is boosting the median.

This is gonna get very ugly.

Remember, this is not Youngstown, Ohio that we are talking about, this is Las Vegas, which is one of the fastest growing cities in the nation.

Home slump in LV persists
Latest sales report shows big declines
By HUBBLE SMITH
REVIEW-JOURNAL

Home Builders Research reported another dismal month for housing in Las Vegas, with new and existing home sales falling by double-digit percentages in April, home building analyst Dennis Smith said Wednesday.

He counted 1,568 recorded new home sales in April, a 40.7 percent decline from the same month a year ago. Existing home sales fell 36.6 percent to 2,353, the second-lowest monthly total in the past six years.

"This correction or slump or slide or dip or whatever you want to call it is deeper and longer than most expected," Smith said. "It will get better, but until sales and permits improve, it will continue to be very painful for a lot of folks and businesses."

There were 1,804 new home permits pulled in April, bringing the year-to-date total to 6,210, down 38.3 percent from a year ago.

...

"Our research does show that the number of homes listed on the MLS for less than $270,000 has increased substantially in the past year," she said. "This indicates that prices are falling, though people are actually still paying the same but getting more for their money."

Camacho said she can spot when prices are rising or falling earlier than most analysts with her up-to-the-minute data, but she hesitates to give exact figures as she uses a different indicator.

"It is very accurate in terms of direction, sort of like a compass in that I can see the general direction we are traveling," she said. "And what I definitely see is that houses are dropping in value at a steeper decline than the median price indicates."

...

Emphasis mine.

We've had a phony recovery, based on ultra low interest rates driven by bogus inflation figures (Google hedonics, I'll post on it later) and an insanely large money supply, deficit, and international balance of payments deficit.

Finally!!! Someone is competing on Printer Ink Prices

Looks like Kodak is doing something smart...for a change.

Paying More for a Printer, but Less for Ink
By DAVID POGUE

In some ways, the world of electronics is a great big game of Us vs. Them, filled with imbalances of power that the little people can’t do anything about. Through learned helplessness, we’ve come to accept that the gadget we buy today will be passé in a year — period. Calling technical support is going to be a nightmare — tough rocks. Buying cartridges for an inkjet printer will cost twice as much as the printer itself — each year.

But a couple of weeks ago, a funny thing happened: Kodak decided to get into the inkjet printer business for the first time (not counting a joint venture with Lexmark a few years ago). And to drive the point home, Kodak decided to turn the razor-blades model of printers and cartridges on its head. Kodak’s printers cost a little more — but the ink, according to Kodak, costs half as much as Hewlett-Packard’s.

The first three Kodak models are all-in-one machines — that is, combination printer/scanner/copiers. They’re good-looking, cleanly designed machines that work with both Mac and Windows.

The base model is called the 5100 ($150); the 5300 ($200) adds a color screen and memory-card slots, so you can print your camera photos without a computer. And the 5500 ($300) adds faxing, a document feeder and double-sided printing. All of these machines contain the same printing guts and accept the same cartridges.

...

A Cure for Baldness!!!!

You know that picture? You know...the one over to the right....with the really REALLY REALLY REALLY bad hair?

I wish I still had that hair. The picture was taken in 1979.
But I have hope now:

Wounded mice offer hair loss hope

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Mice with deep skin wounds can grow new hair, scientists said on Wednesday in a finding that offers hope for a baldness remedy for humans.

The mice regenerated hair at the site of the wound via molecular processes similar to those used in embryonic development, according to the research, published in the journal Nature.

The findings show mammals possess greater regenerative abilities than commonly believed. While some amphibians can regenerate limbs and some reptiles can regenerate tails, regeneration in mammals is far more limited.

Dr. George Cotsarelis, a dermatology professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia who led the study, said the findings dispel the dogma that hair loss is permanent in people and other mammals, and that once they are lost new hair follicles cannot grow.

...

Sign me up.

The depressing thing is that, if this works, it will end any opposition to embryonic stem cell research.

Parkinsons? ALS? It's a human life.

Baldness, it's just a bunch of cells.

That's how public opinon works in the USA.

Leading Leading Economic Indicators Down, Other Economic News.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/05/17/markets/markets_0945/index.htm

Morning economic reports were mixed. Weekly jobless claims posted a surprise drop, a positive for the economic outlook.

But less positive was the April index of leading economic indicators, which fell 0.5 percent, versus forecasts for an unchanged reading. LEI rose 0.1 percent in the previous month.

I think that we've been a recession for ordinary people for the past 6 years, but YMMV.

Congress eyes new tax on private equity

It's not really a new tax, just a clarification so that private equity firms can't claim the bogus lower capital gains rate on profits on what is called "carry".

BTW, Ben Bernanke is saying that everything will be fine with mortgages. I guess that makes me the father of Anna Nicole Smith's child.

Report that Wolfowitz to Resign

From ABC.

Will update when I hear more.

UPDATE:
As of this minute, Wolfowitz still has a job, but here is an interesting twist.

Wolfowitz not welcome at German meeting
Development minister says current president would do World Bank and himself 'great service' if he resigned and says Wolfowitz is also not welcome at a Berlin meeting.
May 16 2007: 9:08 AM EDT

BERLIN (Reuters) -- Germany's development minister said Wednesday that World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz would be doing his organization a favor if he resigned and said he would not be welcome at a forum the bank is holding in Berlin next week.

...

People just plain don't want to be around him. Be nice on the way up, or people will go postal on you on the way down.

BTW, word is that Dick Cheney is the main source of White House support.

UPDATE 2

Wolfowitz refuses to quit Bank, wants name cleared

He's holding out for a golden parachute.

Rats (Halliburton) Leaving Sinking Ship

I missed it when Halliburton spun off KBR, but their move to Dubai was clearly an attempt to do what GW Bush did with Ken Lay.

Halliburton cuts ties KBR
Global oil services firm relocates CEO to Dubai;distances itself from criticism of its former engineering and construction unit.
May 16 2007: 5:12 PM EDT

HOUSTON (Reuters) -- Halliburton Co. on Wednesday distanced itself from its former KBR Inc. unit, as the global oil services firm's chief executive told shareholders it was inappropriate for him to talk about the recently split-off engineering and construction company.

...

Pretty clear what's going on here.

Some Meta Via an Email Post

Doing some Meta, and checking out the email posting feature of blogspot.com.
Some notes on how I typically write, and what I choose to post.

How I write:
* I typically write far more than I need to in an almost unreadable
stream-of-consciousness free form. I then go and edit what I do until it
becomes readable and concise enough for public consumption. For my
newsletter, this means that I put all my text for a 4 page (10 point
Times-Roman) document in 3-4 hours, and then spend 40-80 hours fine tuning
the writing and layout.
* I do not edit alone these days, my wife, a English and Special Ed
teacher by training who now does Spec Ed consulting and advocacy, helps me
with editing.
* I find it far easier to edit my work with a printout and a pen than I do
on screen.

What I write:
Currently, I'm all over the place. It's an artifact of the two things, I
tend to be a master of the non-sequiteur, and I'm not sure how this all
will shake out.
As stated in "About 40 Years", one of the primary purposes of this blog is
to get me to generate content on a regular basis that I can use for my
annual printed-on-paper newsletter

I'm Impressed

I'm thinking that given the politics of Berkeley, this is the only way to do something about the problem, and it's certainly more gentle than something like Portland Oregon's camping ban, where they threw the homeless in gaol in 1979.

Berkeley's homeless plan: a new smoking law

Phillip Matier, Andrew Ross

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Berkeley figures it's found a way to get homeless people off the streets. Keep them from smoking there.

As Mayor Tom Bates sees it, the alcoholics, meth addicts and the like who make up a good portion of the homeless population on Shattuck Avenue downtown and Telegraph Avenue on the south side of the UC Berkeley campus "almost always smoke." And because smoking bans are the hot ticket these days for California cities, why not meld the two as part of a "comprehensive package" for dealing with the street problem that Bates says "has gone over the top"?

...

American Firearm Insanity.

Let's be clear, guns are tools. They are used to get food, and to protect one's self.

But in America, they also have an iconic value that a strict Freudian would describe in terms involving male Genitalia.

Here we have a blind man wanting a concealed carry permit.

It's not about self-protection. It's some sort of psycho-sexual thing, where the gun stands in for his penis.

Blind man finds bias in denial of gun permit

A North Dakota man who says he would only use the gun for self-defense at close range couldn't get a permit in Moorhead.

By David Peterson, Star Tribune

Last update: May 15, 2007 – 9:52 PM
A North Dakota man who is styling himself as "America's first sightless gunslinger" is claiming to be the victim of discrimination because Minnesota won't give a blind man a permit to carry a gun in public.

...

This is just insane.

Some Copyright Sanity.

Of course Google's thumbnails are fair use. If they Pr0n sites don't want to be indexed, they just need to edit their robots.txt file, and it will not show up on Google.

Google OK'd to display sex thumbnails
Appeals court reverses ruling to allow the Web search leader to display small photos from an adult site.
May 16 2007: 2:36 PM EDT

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -- A U.S. appeals court ended a preliminary injunction Wednesday against Google Inc.'s. image-search service from displaying thumbnail-sized photos from a sexually explicit site.

....

Intellectual product (IP) restrictions are not there to be a lottery. It's there to encourage the "useful arts and sciences".

Things I Never Thought I Would Ever Say, But for the Bush Admin

#8347
I'm impressed with John Ashcroft's principled behavior over the Bush illegal wiretap program.

President Intervened in Dispute Over Eavesdropping
By DAVID JOHNSTON

WASHINGTON, May 15 — President Bush intervened in March 2004 to avert a crisis over the National Security Agency’s domestic eavesdropping program after Attorney General John Ashcroft, Director Robert S. Mueller III of the F.B.I. and other senior Justice Department aides all threatened to resign, a former deputy attorney general testified Tuesday.

Mr. Bush quelled the revolt over the program’s legality by allowing it to continue without Justice Department approval, also directing department officials to take the necessary steps to bring it into compliance with the law, according to Congressional testimony by the former deputy attorney general, James B. Comey.

Read the entire thing. Ashcroft was very VERY sick when he told Bush to go pound sand.

Also, it was Bush who sent Andy Card and Abu Gonzalez to browbeat Ashcroft in his hospital bed in the first place, and his "quelling of the revolt" was in fact a capitulation on the Avignon President's part.

Herod's Tomb Discovered

A general view of Herodian. The discovered burial place is located in the center of the image and, below, fragments so far found from King Herod's sarcophagus.

More at http://www.cjnews.com/viewarticle.asp?id=11792

Caption this Photo

H/T to Americablog for the catch.

The Ultimate Comfort Food

Yum!

This is my baked spaghetti and cheese dish. It's been in my family since my childhood. It is the ultimate comfort food. The Recipe Follows

This is not haute cuisine. It is also high in fat and cholesterol. On the plus side, most people like it, particularly children. It can be prepared in one pot, and it keeps a long time in the refrigerator, and it reheats well. You need the following:
2-½ lbs. Spaghetti
2 lbs. American Cheese or Velveeta^®
16 oz. Cottage Cheese
8 oz. Cheddar or what ever cheese floats your boat. (optional)
Take the spaghetti and cook until al dente, preferably in a pot with a Teflon^® or similar coating. Drain and set to the side, and give a quick rinse in cold water to stop the cooking. Give the pot a rinse to get all the starch out.
Over a low to medium heat, add the cottage cheese to the pot and add the American cheese slowly, allowing the first amount to melt into the mixture before adding more cheese. Stir frequently. You should add about 6 slices at a time. If you are using a flavoring cheese, add it last, as it is more prone to scorching than American Cheese.
As an alternative to making the sauce, you can simply add the cheeses to the hot spaghetti and mix it up in the pot, but I think you get better and easier results with the cheese pre melted in the pot.
When the cheese is done, add the spaghetti to the pot, and stir everything together. Place in an oven preheated at 450° degrees F. for 45 minutes covered, then remove cover, and take oven up to 550° for 15-30 minutes (the top should look like the picture). Serve plain or with spaghetti sauce.
Notes: You can use about 8 oz Cheddar, Munster, Monterey Jack, or Mozzarella for flavoring. I would avoid using more than that, because these cheeses, particularly Cheddar, have a lot of oil in them.
Velveeta^® works a bit better than American Cheese, but until Kraft^® cheeses get a hechsher , it doesn’t get used in Sharon’s1 Kitchen.
Your kids will love it, as will the kid in you.

Osama Take Me Now!!!!

Osama, Take Me Now

My ISP is dumping shell access, so it looks like I'm dumping my ISP.
It looks to me like getting Verizon FIOS for phone, internet, and Cable, along with using Panix for my shell/email, is my best option.
So I'm going through the options, and I find this on the "a la carte" options for the cable service:

Karaoke - Unlimited access to over 300 hits songs and karaoke standards

$7.99

Our society is doomed.

The IPO Bubble is Back!!!!

Meet the New Bubble, Same As the Old Bubble

The housing bubble appears to be so last week. We're back to the IPO bubble, only this time as opposed to Dotbombs, we've got Orbitz...Damn...We're back to Dotbombs!

My theory is that a lot of the private equity firms borrowed in Yen at the very low Japanese interest rates, and now that the dollar is down, there is a squeeze.

Risk abounds in hot IPO market
Companies are heading to the public markets to make their fortune; investors quick to follow could feel the pain.
By Grace Wong, CNNMoney.com staff writer
May 15 2007: 12:11 PM EDT

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Companies are marching toward the public markets, leaving a trail of prospectuses detailing some risky investments for everyday investors.

Twenty-seven companies already have filed to go public halfway into the month of May. That compares with 30 filings for all of April, the busiest month for IPOs this year, according to Greenwich, Conn.-based Renaissance Capital.

The flurry of filings come amid a broad market rally that has boosted the Dow Jones industrials to record highs and the Nasdaq to its highest level in six years.

....

It's time to fleece the folks late to this particular bubble.

WTF, Windows Vista Sells 40M Licenses in 100 Days???

They have to have pictures of a number of large IT department heads engaged with unnatural acts with a goat.

Why on earth is anyone buying that bloated crippled pig?

Windows Vista sells 40M licenses in 100 days
Microsoft credits consumers shift to the digital lifestyle with creating the fastest selling operating system in history.
May 15 2007: 1:36 PM EDT

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -- Microsoft has sold nearly 40 million Windows Vista licenses in the first 100 days that the latest version of the operating system has been available, Chairman Bill Gates said Tuesday.

Something is weird. I'm wondering if Microflaccid is goosing the numbers somehow.

This Just In, Jerry Falwell is Still Dead.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/05/15/jerry.falwell.ap/index.html

He was a bad man. The only good he ever did to the world was to leave it, which he did today.

Perhaps most depressing is that compared to the rest of the lot, Pat Robertson, Oral Roberts, Jim Bakker, and the rest of those preening, greedy, oleaginous snake oil salesmen, he's the class act.

You will not be missed.

He will be spending eternity with this guy.

DU Asshatery

I don't tend to do Democratic Underground.

The primary reason is that I don't like the interface.

A secondary reason is that the community, and the mods, suffer from a very bad case of offensensitivity.

Case in point, a friend posted a filk of the Kinks song "Lola" about Ann Coulter, and the mods took it down.

One of the claims that the right makes about the left is that we are a bunch of hysterical, untra-PC assholes.

Thank-you, DU community for helping to prove them right.

Malice in Wonderland

Turns out that there is a serious spy gap, which forces various spy agencies to rely on contractors to perform basic functions (torture prisoner interrogation, analysis, run of the mill spying, etc.)
The primary cause of this?
The demand for contractors.

The federal intelligence community has become a place where the millennials learn spying tradecraft, obtain a coveted top-level security clearance and then bolt to contractors for heftier paychecks. This has become so common that intelligence observers now fear it could become the career path of choice - break into the private sector via the government.

H/T Big Media Matt for finding this bit of Lewis Carrollesque inanity.

FINALLY!!! The Press is Getting Outsourced to India

Shoe's on the Other Foot Now, Huh?

It appears that the press has finally found a case of outsourcing that isn't inevitable.

I'm going to start lobbying my state legislators to do the same with tenure track economics faculty, and then maybe THEY will stop describing outsourcing as a "rising tide that lifts all boats.

California: Covering Local News From Where?

A small California publication is outsourcing its local news coverage—to India. How it plans to cover city-council meetings from afar, and why local journalists are unimpressed.

WEB-EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

By Andrew Murr

Newsweek

Updated: 7:25 p.m. ET May 11, 2007

May 11, 2007 - Offshoring work to India is hardly new. But PasadenaNow.com, until this week an obscure California online community magazine, has made news by taking the concept a step further. Editor and publisher James Macpherson has announced that he’d hired two reporters to cover Pasadena city government—from Mumbai and Bangalore. Starting Tuesday, the pair, including a University of California, Berkeley, journalism grad, will begin cranking out more than 28 stories a week between them. In exchange, one reporter will make $12,000 a year, the other $7,200, for covering budget battles and zoning meetings in a city of 146,000 best known for the Rose Bowl and Caltech.

For what it's worth, this guy just got publicity that money can't buy.

I'm an engineer, though as a mechanical engineer I'm a bit less vulnerable to outsourcing, the problem with slave H1b and L1 visa workers is out there too.

Thoughts on Sarkosy

Here is something unexpected.

Sarkozy chooses Socialist as Foreign Minister
By John Lichfield in Paris
Published: 15 May 2007

In a conciliatory gesture to left-wing voters, France's president-elect, Nicolas Sarkozy, has offered the high-profile post of Foreign Minister to the popular Socialist politician, Bernard Kouchner.

M. Kouchner, 67, one of the founders of Médécins sans Frontières, is likely to be named as part of the first government of the Sarkozy era at the end of this week.

The choice is somewhat surprising. As a former UN administrator in Kosovo, M. Kouchner is reasonably experienced in foreign affairs.

He was, however, one of the leaders of the May 1968 left-wing, student revolt, whose "moral legacy" was savaged by M. Sarkozy during the recent presidential campaign.

...

I'm not quite sure what to think of this. This could be an attempt at PR, or it could be a (very) small "Nixon going to China" moment.

It could also be that Sarkosy's tough guy image is more electioneering than anything else.

I will note to those people who are not students of France that the French conservatives have always been more confrontational towards the US than the Socialists.

While his UMP is not the party of Charles de Gaulle, one of its precursor parties is.

The right has always been more concerned about France's role on the world stage, in no small part because of the history behind France's loss of empire, while the Socialists have always been post or anti-colonial in outlook.

I don't claim to fully understand French culture, though I have an inkling of why they like Jerry Lewis. In the late 1800s/early 1900s, a performer known as Le Pétomane was the most popular performer in France. His gift was that he was able to fart at will in many pitches and timbres.

Testing Youtube Post

The internet is very very good.

FOR PORN

Regulatory Protectionism?

It appears that Diamond Aircraft has lost its largest customer for its VLJ, the D-Jet, Point2Point, an air taxi company (when I was in Alaska, we called them bush pilots).

According to Flight International, P2P had ordered 100 Diamond DA42 Twin Stars and D-Jets

The companies are now engaged in a pissing contest, with P2P claiming that Diamond did not get a US certification for flight into known icing, and Diamond saying that this was moot as P2P had not gotten a Part 135 (airlines carrying less than 9 people) approval for the DA42.

Seeing as how Diamond already has European approval of flight into icing conditions, this seems a bit suspect to me.

I'm wondering if the FAA is footdragging to give US VLJ manufacturers (Eclipse, Cessna, etc.) a bit of an advantage. Diamond is one of the larger non-US GA manufacturers.

Flying Saucer is Back

Seriously, I thought that this was dead when AV Roe Canada couldn't get it to work in the late 1950s.

There are claims of the ability to hover, and good payload/range performance using the Coandă effect.

The company is GFS Projects, with GFS standing for Geoff's Flying Saucers.

It appears that the US Army is funding a study with GFS, so it sounds like there is some real science here.

Here is a video (of the 12 pound demonstration vehicle). It appears to be well out of ground effect and to remain stable.

Here is a basic sketch of the concept:

Here are plans for a whole family of flying saucers.

Some Interesting Aviation Links for Today

An-124 Seen With Chevrons for Noise Reduction

Eurofighter flys with active electronically-scanned array (AESA)

Union Victory for Card Dealers in Vegas

Card dealers at the Wynn Las Vegas resort voted to unionize.

They unionized over a management policy of tip sharing with pit bosses that reduced their tip income by 15+ percent.

This is the first time ever that a group of dealers have unionized, so it's a big deal for that reason, but it's a bigger deal for another reason, that the tactic taken by management was to admit error, and to agree to change the policy.

None of the hardball tactics you normally see, and this is because Vegas is one of the more thoroughly unionized towns in the nation. Steve Wynn knows that if he were to go Wal-Mart on this effort, he would have problems from more than just the dealers.

This is why union penetration of localities and industries are important, even if you are not personally represented by a union.

FWIW, the source of the conflict was that pit bosses make less than the dealers, but are the more senior position. It seems to me that the solution is to give the former raises without giving the latter pay cuts.

Chrysler to Be Taken Private

The New Face of Chrysler

It appears that Daimler Benz has finally thrown in the towel to the money pit that is Chrysler.

It is being done for the equivalent of a few magic beans. Here is the money quote from the Herald Trib:

Chrysler Group to be sold for $7.4 billion
By Mark Landler and Micheline Maynard

....

Of the $7.4 billion, Cerberus agreed to invest $5 billion in the new Chrysler and $1.05 billion in Chrysler's financial arm. The remaining $1.35 billion will go to DaimlerChrysler.

DaimlerChrysler's share of the capital represents a remarkable comedown for a company that paid $36 billion to acquire Chrysler in 1998, in a landmark deal that was initially hailed as a blueprint for the future of the global auto industry.

As part of the complicated sale today, DaimlerChrysler has agreed to lend Chrysler Holding $400 million and will absorb $1.6 billion in costs, related to the ongoing restructuring program at Chrysler. All told, the company said, it will have a net cash outflow of $650 million from the transaction.

Emphasis mine. Originally, I thought that Cerberus picked up Chrysler for some "magic beans", but upon closer examination, it appears that they are actually paying to get rid of the firm.
The question is whether the strategy is flip and flee, or chop shop for Cerberus.

I Have Some Scary Kids

This actually happened about a year and a half ago.
My son was 6, and had just started 1st grade.
I was putting him to bed, and I was playing This Little Piggy as I was putting him to bed.
Charlie said, "Again!", so I did another round of piggy with him.
When he asked for another time, I said, "No, I don't want to wear out the batteries."
He looked me squarely in the eyes, and said, "Enough with the metaphor, Dad!"
This kid is going to be able to think rings around me.
My only advantage is that, because of his Aspergers, he's one of the world's worst (i.e. it's transparent when he lies) liars.

Aircraft Diesel Engines, Neat Tech

Nice to See Some Technical Innovation

I saw an article in Flight International about Thielert diesel aircraft engines, and it mentioned that Diamond Aircraft, the Austrian aircraft manufacturer was including the engines as original aircraft equipment on their DA-40 single, and DA42 light twin aircraft.
I believe that this is the first since before the 2nd World War that a diesel has been original equipment on an airplane (they've always found more use on blimps).
Their bread and butter engine right now is their 1.7-liter (104 cubic inch) Centurion engine, which is close to a drop in replacement for the Lycoming O-320 (5.2 liter) engine. (To be fair, the Lycoming is a 50 year old design, and they are conservative by choice.)
It appears to be significantly more complex than the Lycoming, being liquid cooled, having reduction gearing between prop and engine, and being turbocharged, but the better fuel economy, and the ability to operate using AvJet as opposed to AvGas makes it look like a winner.

Giving My Doctor SERIOUS Heebie Jeebies

Horse Pills

Ruler for Scale

One of the joys of the Saroff genetic inheritance is high cholesterol and high tri-glycerides.

My doctor is not fond of going straight to the statins, so he prescribed me a timed released Niacin (the white pills), and some Omega-3 Fatty Acid pills (the Gel Caps).

When he last talked with me, he thought that my tri-glycerides were a wee bit high, and in the course of further discussions, it was discovered that I was taking only two gel caps every night, instead of four.

He offered to write me a prescription for Omacor, basically the prescription strength version of the gel-caps, so that I would not have to deal with so many pills.

I said, "It's not a problem. I'm pretty good with pills. I can dry swallow them, and the prescription is more expensive."

He flinched and gave a shudder. You would have thought that I dragged my fingernails against a chalk board the size of a Buick.

I found it funny.

BTW, those 6 pills in the Pic? I dry swallowed them while typing this out.

Blow Jobs Cause Cancer????

This is what I'd call a bad news day.

Seriously folks, everyone needs to get the HPV Vaccine.

Hat tip vonbeks temper for the article.

Oral sex may increase risk of throat cancer: study

CHICAGO (AFP) - A common virus, believed to be transmitted during oral sex, is the cause of a rare throat cancer in both men and women, US researchers said Wednesday.

The study is the first to prove the link between the human papillomavirus or HPV -- the leading cause of cervical cancer -- and oropharyngeal cancer, according to the paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University, Maryland, who studied 100 men and women newly diagnosed with the rare malignancy and 200 healthy people found that a common strain of HPV -- HPV 16 -- was present in 72 percent of tumours.

It appears from the full article that this applies to cunnilingus and fellatio.

The Coming Economic Problems

This is the exchange rate between the US Dollar ($) and the Euro(€) over the past 5 years.

The Euro was introduced in January of 1999 at an exchange rate of about $1.17:€. It dropped down to the the mid to low 80 cent range:€ over the year and a half, and slowly recovered back to initial exchange rate over the next 4 years.

This graph above is significant primarily after late 2003, where it once again passed its original exhchange rate.

On April 25, the Euro hit an all time high, $1.3649:€.

The question is why this has happened (fairly simple, the US is going deeper and deeper into debt, both its economy and government), and what it means in the long run (increasing inflation and interest rates, severe recession, and a real-estate crash.

I'll be returning to this regularly, but let me sign off by saying that Alan Greenspan is the second most overrated man in America, after Colin Powell.

My Doctor Was On The Radio Today

I was listening to Dr. T. Berry Brazelton being interviewed to day on NPR's Morning edition, and thought, "Hey, he's my old pediatrician!"

I was born in Boston, and spent a my first few months there, and T. Berry Brazelton one of my pediatricians (I believe that we dealt more with his partner), though I have no recollection of this.

It's one of two connections with superstars of pediatrics, the other being that I spent a year at Hampshire College with Peter Spock, Dr. Benjamin Spock's grandson.

He was a nice sweet fellow with a history of mental illness who later took his own life. He was comfortable with his heritage, though he hated the Vulcan jokes

Those who choose to use this tragedy as a weapon against Dr. Spock, and his mythical "permissiveness" should strung up by their tongues horsewhipped in public.

Frist!!!

Yes, it's stupid and childish, but WTF, I gotta be me.
This blog is a place to put my stream of consciousness thoughts about life, politics, technology, and cats.
It's a posting ground for my more-or-less annual personal newsletter, 40 Years in the Desert.(PDF's available at link)
I find that if I wait until year's end I miss stuff from earlier in the year.
40 Years is put out the old fashioned way, it's printed out and mailed to people, total circulation of about 100. It started out Xerox^®ed, and then went to typesetting, but now it's printed out on a laser printer, which is cheaper, and almost as good on photos on a short print run.
I'm just not the holiday card kind of guy.
A warning, if you comment here, I may use it in my paper publication.
You will get credit, and if I can find you you will get at least the issue where you are quoted (probably a lot more, I rarely trim my list).
If someone actually wants to pay for an issue...I don't know, I guess a buck.
I'd recommend that you get your head examined first though.

This is a Test of Footnoting. Nothing to See Here

Trying to create footnotes.

Dr. Seuss^[1]

Saki ^[2]

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

^[1]Theodore Seuss Geisel

^[2]H.H. Munro