September 29, 2007

T' Heck With iPhones!!

I want one of these!!

No, I want lots of'm, hundreds!!!

Posted by Steve on September 29, 2007

September 28, 2007

Friday Ark #158

We'll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and....?

Visit all the boarders, Link to the Ark and check back for updates through Sunday afternoon!

You can find out how to board the Friday Ark at the Arkive page.

ALERT ~ 1:38 PM EDT:

We will be offline for 7-10 hours and will catch up boardings when we return. 11:59 PM EDT (9/28) ~ Caught up!

Cats

Dogs

Invertebrates

Birds

Other Vertebrates

In Memoriam

  • x

Didn't Make It

Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map.

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey's Musings. Also, there are more doggies at Weekend Dog Blogging hosted this weekend by Sweetnicks.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Cats which goes up every Sunday and the 183rd edition, 9/23, is up at This, That & The Other Thing . The 184th edition will be hosted on 9/30 by Life from a Cat's Perspective. There are more weekly cats at Weekend Cat Blogging #120 hosted on 9/29-30 by Madak-Masak. Do go shout out at The Catbloggers Frappr Map.

Birders: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks. The 58th edition is up and hosted by The Nightjar. The 59th edition will be hosted on 10/4 by the Naturalist Notebook.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles. The 24th edition is up and hosted by Naturalist Notebook. The 25th edition will be hosted at the end of September by The annotated budak.

For other current carnivals check out The Blog Carnival and The TTLB Uber Carnival

Note for Haloscan Users:

Over the past month or so Haloscan started (the end of July) handling of trackbacks has improved though it is still pretty broken for carnival type posts. Now, instead of rejecting every attempt to ping it accepts single pings for a while and then will start rejecting them. I will keep trying to track back to Haloscan boarders but can make no guarantees for any particular week.

Note for Typepad Users:

Typepad continues to behave similar to Haloscan for trackbacks. I been able to get trackbacks to most, if not all, Typepad based boarders. I have to do it one at a time and wait a while in between pings but Typepad does not go into semi-permanent rejection mode like Haloscan.

Posted by Steve on September 28, 2007 | Comments (7)

September 27, 2007

A Little Bit of Possible Good News

A sure way to begin holding the line on greenhouse gas emissions and oil dependency is to reduce the rate of growth in gasoline usage and eventually to start reducing total gasoline usage.

From Texas this good news:

State transportation officials announced today that rising costs, dwindling federal funds, and lawmakers' opposition to private-sector investment in toll projects have combined to force it to sharply scale back construction plans.

"The people of Texas need to understand that within a very short period of time, there will be no money for mobility projects," said Texas Transportation Commission member Ned Holmes of Houston.

The affected projects will be those designed to build new roads, or add lanes to existing roads. Projects already under contract and those designed to maintain or rehabilitate existing roads won't be affected.

Yep, stop building new roads to reduce the growth rate in fuel consumption.

Posted by Steve on September 27, 2007

September 26, 2007

Bless the High-tech churches

For they know exactly what they are doing:

Last year, churches spent $8.1 billion on audio and projection equipment, according to Texas-based TFCinfo, an audiovisual market research firm. Today, 80 percent of churches integrate elaborate video and audio systems as well as an array of online materials into their worship services, and at least a dozen magazines cater to the high-tech pious.

Like ordinary businesses we can expect cults and scam artists to try to maximize their take utilizing available tools.

Posted by Steve on September 26, 2007

September 25, 2007

Do You Love These Google Services Enough?

This fellow thinks there are at least 10 Google services that you do not love enough.

The good news: there are some excellent tools on the list. For instance, I've been using Google Alerts (#9 on the list) for a few years now with regular useful results.

The bad news: there is no mention of the criteria the list maker used. I suspect he wanted to make a list of 10 items.

Via The Presurfer.

Posted by Steve on September 25, 2007

September 23, 2007

Just Say No!

It is time for congress to just say no to the misadministration's request:

The Bush administration has earlier this year said it would need $147.5 billion for fiscal 2008, but the estimates have been raised by another $47 billion. This request is in addition to the Pentagon's nearly half-trillion annual budget, which omits war spending but covers routine costs, including training, payrolls and weapons procurement.

If congress doesn't do its job then, as we fire the congress critters, we should petition the bushies Chinese financiers to put an end to the waste.

Posted by Steve on September 23, 2007

September 21, 2007

Friday Ark #157

We'll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and....?

Visit all the boarders, Link to the Ark and check back for updates through Sunday afternoon!

You can find out how to board the Friday Ark at the Arkive page.

Cats

Invertebrates

Other Vertebrates

Birds

Dogs

In Memoriam

Didn't Make It

  • x

Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

  • x

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map.

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey's Musings. Also, there are more doggies at Weekend Dog Blogging hosted this weekend by Sweetnicks.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Cats which goes up every Sunday and the 182nd edition, 9/16, is up at The House of (Mostly) Black Cats . The 183rd edition will be hosted on 9/23 by This that and The Other Thing. There are more weekly cats at Weekend Cat Blogging #120 hosted on 9/22-23 by A Byootaful Life. Do go shout out at The Catbloggers Frappr Map.

Birders: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks. The 58th edition is up and hosted by The Nightjar. The 59th edition will be hosted on 10/4 by the Naturalist Notebook.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles. The 24th edition is up and hosted by Naturalist Notebook. The 25th edition will be hosted at the end of September by The annotated budak.

For other current carnivals check out The Blog Carnival and The TTLB Uber Carnival

Note for Haloscan Users:

Over the past month or so Haloscan started (the end of July) handling of trackbacks has improved though it is still pretty broken for carnival type posts. Now, instead of rejecting every attempt to ping it accepts single pings for a while and then will start rejecting them. I will keep trying to track back to Haloscan boarders but can make no guarantees for any particular week.

Note for Typepad Users:

Typepad continues to behave similar to Haloscan for trackbacks. I been able to get trackbacks to most, if not all, Typepad based boarders. I have to do it one at a time and wait a while in between pings but Typepad does not go into semi-permanent rejection mode like Haloscan.

Posted by Steve on September 21, 2007 | Comments (8)

September 20, 2007

Bumbersticker of the Day - 1

Sure you can trust the government!

Just ask an Indian!

--------

An intermittent series....

Seen live....not gleaned from a web or media list.

Posted by Steve on September 20, 2007

DC Kool-Aid Drinkers

Becks at

Unfogged reports:

Via Yglesias: D.C. complains about 'No Taxation Without Representation'? Heritage responds with a proposal to abolish the federal income tax for D.C.

What alternate universe do these DC folks live in thinking that having a congressional critter from their geographical area means that they have representation beyond a few bribes earmarks being tossed their way?

Posted by Steve on September 20, 2007

September 19, 2007

Brin on bush's Accomplishments

David Brin on the accomplishments of the bush administration::

Our topic is the number one accomplishment of the George W. Bush administration. Not the record deficits, or stagnant science, or rampant theft, or even a legacy of nation-dividing Culture War. Rather, it is something that until a few years ago seemed downright impossible -- bringing low the finest and most professional national military the world has ever seen.
Read the rest. It is quite good and thought provoking.

For your leisure time I highly recommend Brin's Uplift series! Read his more recent The Kiln People only if you become a Brin completist.

Via Robert Farley.

Posted by Steve on September 19, 2007

September 18, 2007

Free Again: Times Select ~ Do We Care?

Mustang Bobby alerts us to the the fact that the New York Times is mostly free again via online access and that:

So starting tomorrow, Maureen Dowd, Thomas L. Friedman, Frank Rich, Gail Collins, Paul Krugman, David Brooks, Bob Herbert and Nicholas D. Kristof and all the rest will be liberated from their purgatory and will no longer rely on the kindness of strangers for getting their word out to the electronic masses.
Frankly, I haven't missed reading these folks* and wouldn't mind if they kept them behind the wall. When one of them said something really interesting as MB notes:
...there was probably one reader or blogger who went around the gate and posted the material for free on other websites or excerpted enough of the articles for blog commenting as to render the pay site pointless.
Isn't the most important thing about this the news archives:
In addition to opening the entire site to all readers, The Times will also make available its archives from 1987 to the present without charge, as well as those from 1851 to 1922, which are in the public domain. There will be charges for some material from the period 1923 to 1986, and some will be free.
Over the past two years I've been stopped in mid-track many times by the archive wall when wanting to read something a couple weeks old.

Yea, there were workarounds but now just the news, please.

*Guilty: I read them before the wall went up and will probably read and blog them again not that the wall is down. But, as above, I have not missed them!

Posted by Steve on September 18, 2007

September 17, 2007

Fox Censorship-What Sally Said

Just in case those of you living in the land of the american taliban were wondering what the fox censors bleeped last night here is what Sally Fields said:

"If mothers ruled the world, there wouldn't be any god -" she said when the sound went dead and the camera suddenly turned away from the stage so viewers would be distracted. Chopped off were the words "god-damned wars in the first place."
Some of us think the problem is that there are rulers and ruler wanna-bes presidents in the first place not what sex they are.

I will grant that if all the councils, legislatures, parliaments and other elected, appointed and usurped government positions around the planet were 80-90% mothers that we would live in a very different worldwide culture. Perhaps one without war.

Via skippy.

Posted by Steve on September 17, 2007

September 16, 2007

It Is A Kitty Carnival

The 182nd Carnival of the Cats is up at House of the (Mostly) Black Cats.

You know the routine.

Drop in and give them each a skritch.

Posted by Steve on September 16, 2007

September 14, 2007

Friday Ark #156

We'll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and....?

Visit all the boarders, Link to the Ark and check back for updates through Sunday afternoon!

You can find out how to board the Friday Ark at the Arkive page.

Cats

Invertebrates

Dogs

Other Vertebrates

Birds

In Memoriam

Didn't Make It

  • x

Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

  • x

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map.

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey's Musings. Also, there are more doggies at Weekend Dog Blogging hosted this weekend by Sweetnicks.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Cats which goes up every Sunday and the 181st edition, 9/10, is up at Mind of Mog . The 182nd edition will be hosted on 9/16 by The House of (Mostly) Black Cats. There are more weekly cats at Weekend Cat Blogging #119 hosted on 9/15-16 by Bad Kitty Cats. Do go shout out at The Catbloggers Frappr Map.

Birders: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks. The 57th edition is up and hosted by A DC Birding Blog. The 58th edition will be hosted on 9/20 by The Nightjar.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles. The 24th edition is up and hosted by Naturalist Notebook. The 25th edition will be hosted at the end of September by The annotated budak.

For other current carnivals check out The Blog Carnival and The TTLB Uber Carnival

Note for Haloscan Users:

Over the past month or so Haloscan started (the end of July) handling of trackbacks has improved though it is still pretty broken for carnival type posts. Now, instead of rejecting every attempt to ping it accepts single pings for a while and then will start rejecting them. I will keep trying to track back to Haloscan boarders but can make no guarantees for any particular week.

Note for Typepad Users:

Typepad continues to behave similar to Haloscan for trackbacks. I been able to get trackbacks to most, if not all, Typepad based boarders. I have to do it one at a time and wait a while in between pings but Typepad does not go into semi-permanent rejection mode like Haloscan.

Posted by Steve on September 14, 2007 | Comments (3)

September 13, 2007

schwarzenegger Sends A Love Letter to bush, reid and pelosi

schwarzenegger's veto of legislation that would have allowed Californians an opportunity to vote on withdrawing the troops from Iraq is exactly wrong :

"There is no louder message Californians can send to Washington on the Iraq war than who should lead our nation," he wrote. "Placing a non-binding resolution on Iraq on the same ballot, when it carries no weight or authority, would only further divide voters and shift attention from other critical issues that must be addressed."
Excuse me but what issues can possibly be more important than Iraq?

As for messages about who should lead the nation, what bs. It should be pretty clear to one and all that the supposed end the Iraq debacle message of the last congressional election has been ignored by the republicrats.

A somewhat louder message might be a few million Californians (along with the rest of us) getting out on the street and tossing these folks out of office. Yes, including the governator.

Posted by Steve on September 13, 2007 | Comments (1)

September 12, 2007

My Daddy Is Bigger Than Your Momma

The russians continue their recent saber waving with the announcement of a new bomb:

russiasbigdaddy.jpg

THE Russian military has successfully tested what it described as the world's most powerful non-nuclear air-delivered bomb, Russia's state television reported on Tuesday.
...
"The tests have shown that the new air-delivered ordnance is comparable to a nuclear weapon in its efficiency and capability," said Colonel General Alexander Rukshin, a deputy chief of the Russian military's General Staff, in televised remarks.

Unlike a nuclear weapon, the bomb doesn't hurt the environment, he added.

Right, that little bit of show and tell in the above picture goes off and nothing happens except:
The Russian weapon's blast radius is 990 feet, twice as big as that of the US design, the report said. Like its US predecessor, first tested in 2003, the Russian bomb is a "thermobaric" weapon that explodes in an intense fireball combined with a devastating blast.

It explodes in a terrifying nuclear bomb-like mushroom cloud and wreaks destruction through a massive shock wave created by the air burst and high temperature.

But, you know, no environmental damage...

The paranoid amongst us might even think that w and p are in cahoots with the military-industrial complex to turn up the heat so that they can create even more demand for military spending.

Posted by Steve on September 12, 2007

September 7, 2007

Friday Ark #155

We'll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and....?

Visit all the boarders, Link to the Ark and check back for updates through Sunday afternoon!

You can find out how to board the Friday Ark at the Arkive page.

ALERT 8:52 CDT: We are headed up to the mountains. No net access again until Sunday afternoon. Any queued borders will ship at then.

Cats

Invertebrates

Other Vertebrates

Dogs

Birds

In Memoriam

Didn't Make It

  • x

Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

  • x

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map.

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey's Musings. Also, there are more doggies at Weekend Dog Blogging hosted this weekend by Sweetnicks.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Cats which goes up every Sunday and the 180th edition, 9/3, is up at This Blog Is Full of Crap . The 181st edition will be hosted on 9/9 by Mind of Mog. There are more weekly cats at Weekend Cat Blogging #118 hosted on 9/8-9 by What Did You Eat?. Do go shout out at The Catbloggers Frappr Map.

Birders: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks. The 57th edition is up and hosted by A DC Birding Blog. The 58th edition will be hosted on 9/20 by The Nightjar.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles. The 24th edition is up and hosted by Naturalist Notebook. The 25th edition will be hosted at the end of September by The annotated budak.

For other current carnivals check out The Blog Carnival and The TTLB Uber Carnival

Note for Haloscan Users:

Over the past month or so Haloscan started (the end of July) handling of trackbacks has improved though it is still pretty broken for carnival type posts. Now, instead of rejecting every attempt to ping it accepts single pings for a while and then will start rejecting them. I will keep trying to track back to Haloscan boarders but can make no guarantees for any particular week.

Note for Typepad Users:

Typepad continues to behave similar to Haloscan for trackbacks. I been able to get trackbacks to most, if not all, Typepad based boarders. I have to do it one at a time and wait a while in between pings but Typepad does not go into semi-permanent rejection mode like Haloscan.

Posted by Steve on September 7, 2007 | Comments (7)

September 6, 2007

Life is Good!

Aren't the internets wonderful!

Why just this evening I received an email notifying me that, well, read for yourself:

In conjunction with the ECOWAS, UNO and the EU, We are giving out a yearly donation of US$850,000.00 (Eight hundred and Fifty thousand United states dollars only) each to 100 lucky recipients. These specific Donations/Grants will be awarded to 100 lucky international recipients worldwide, in different categories.

Based on the random selection exercise of internet websites and millions of supermarket cash invoices worldwide, you were selected amongst the lucky recipients to receive the award sum of US$850,000.00 as charity donations/aid.

I'm so happy!!

Please don't tell the irs....

Posted by Steve on September 6, 2007

party Power

So, you think the various political parties have your interests at heart? Think again.

Jonathon Schwartz explains why you shouldn't

... expect too much from political parties, and certainly don't expect them to change much in less than a generation.
The Iron Law:
...the people who control institutions care first and foremost about their power within the institution rather than the power of the institution itself.
And they sure don't care about you beyond how they can use you to help maintain their power.

Schwartz does provide some thoughts on what it might take to change the democratic party* but does not explain why a changed party (pick your vision) would not still be subject to the Iron Law and all the other issues surrounding the corrosive nature of power.

Via Scats at American Coprophagia who notes:

The Iron Law also explains in part why republican government is at its core a fundamentally undemocratic sham.
All more good reasons to disintermediate coercive government as quickly as possible.

*NB: Same for those of you with utopian visions of the republican, green, libertarian, communist, etc., parties.

Posted by Steve on September 6, 2007

September 5, 2007

You're all Harper Valley Hypocrites

Dedicated all the folks out there, especially the politicians, who want to tell us how to live our lives:

Via Ron at Real Art who's a sucker for the big 60s bouffant hairspray look.

Posted by Steve on September 5, 2007

September 4, 2007

An IPOD for the Few

Here is a little something the world really doesn't need:

KopiaviDiamond2.jpg

Heyerdahl presents:

The world’s most expensive MP3 player and earplugs made of solid 18 karat white and pink gold. Hand set with 430 diamonds. Total of 4,30 carat. Value RSP = US$ 41.000, - / € 31.000,-

Via vnunet via MacRumors.

Posted by Steve on September 4, 2007