Post-Birth Babies Killed in the Netherlands

For decades, abortion foes have been making one major claim which abortion advocates have laughed off the stage: Aborting unborn babies will inevitably lead to the devaluation of life and then the killing of babies after birth. Some would say that Partial Birth abortion already proves this point, but for those who do not, let us present the first story in a long time that has nearly brought the Nomad to tears.

A hospital in the Netherlands - the first nation to permit euthanasia - recently proposed guidelines for mercy killings of terminally ill newborns, and then made a startling revelation: It has already begun carrying out such procedures, which include administering a lethal dose of sedatives...Three years ago, the Dutch parliament made it legal for doctors to inject a sedative and a lethal dose of muscle relaxant at the request of adult patients suffering great pain with no hope of relief. The Groningen Protocol, as the hospital's guidelines have come to be known, would create a legal framework for permitting doctors to actively end the life of newborns deemed to be in similar pain from incurable disease or extreme deformities. The guideline says euthanasia is acceptable when the child's medical team and independent doctors agree the pain cannot be eased and there is no prospect for improvement, and when parents think it's best.

How can this nation be from the same "Western Civilization" that spawned America and the peoples who colonized her? This is horrible beyond words, and a sign that people have lost even the most basic understandings of morality. The cessation of pain is not the only goal of a society, a people, or a moral code. Life is a value beyond all others. My father died of brain cancer. He was spared the agony that others must endure, but towards the end he was enduring a life that was at best a shadow of its former self. Yet, he regarded life itself as a beautiful gift from God. How is that those of us who are healthy feel we have the right to take it away or cast it into the garbage?

RU-486 Getting a Bad Rap?

That's what Elizabeth Cavendish of NARAL is claiming.

"I think that the characterization of it being deadly and dangerous is really anti-choice propaganda."

There you have it. The death of three women after using the drug plus other attestable side-effects and it's all just anti-choice propaganda. Remember that just like all other fundamentalists, the rabid abortionists in this country refuse to see any fault in their dogma, no matter what evidence they might be presented with.

Upside Down Flag Demonstration

Since we started Mod-Blog, I have found myself constantly on the watch for new and interesting stories that may not have hit the main-stream media yet. Usually, this just means looking at some local papers, but every once in a while it means grabbing a picture of interesting stuff in "real life." On our trip for Thanksgiving, I noticed an upside-down flag flying in Bath, NY just off of exit 38 of Route 17 (being slowly renamed to I-86). This being a universal sign of distress, I checked it out but did not see anything that appeared... well... distressing. But later on in the trip, we stopped by to read the sign that had been posted by it.



Thanks to CRChair for taking the picture. I don't agree at all with the sentiment, but it is a creative way to make a statement. However, I do find it offensive that the poster found it necesary to fly the flag upside down as well. That is like screaming "Fire" in a crowded theater, or calling 911 repeatedly to make your point. It is potentially dangerous, and at the very least making use of a tool that is supposed to be reserved for emergencies only. However, it appears that others have the same idea.

Sweet New Trailer for the ROTK Extended Edition DVDs

This is a great new trailer for the upcoming Lord of the Rings: Return of the King extended edition DVDs due out for Christmas. I can hardly wait for these things!

Narnia Artwork Online!

C.S Lewis's world of Narnia is to me what J.R.R. Tolkiens world is to many people around the globe - a story that did much to mold my view of the world while transporting me into its best fantasy moments almost effortlessly. Dark Horizons has up some of the first production art released for Disney's new up and coming film, which interestingly focusses on one of the smallest details of the original book - that it took place during the bombing of London during WW2. I guess Disney figured that the movies could not be a success unless they found some way to work in explosions.



UPDATE 12:18 PM EST: I have just be made aware that today is C.S. Lewis's birthday. He was born in 1898, so this release was probably timed to coincide with that.

Commodore 64 Flashback

I maybe only dinosaur hanging around here who remembers the old Commodore 64 series of computers. It was my first computer, and it was cheap enough that I was able to save up enough cash to buy it myself out of my 6th grade finance sources. (Actually, I bought a Commodore 128 but it was quickly slagged by a rogue cartridge and my parents helped me buy a C64 to replace it.) The C64 had some great games for it, and when I added in an old Wordperfect version or the new GEOS GUI system, it was a competitive computer for completing papers through high school.



Well, now we can relive the past and enjoy some C64 nostalgia. QVC is now selling one of those all-in-one TV Games systems which is a complete Commodore 64 in a joystick case. It includes 30 classic games. There are even rumors that some hackers are working to connect keyboards and some of the old disk drives. Interesting stuff.

Well, the Weather Outside is Frightful...

Have I mentioned yet how nice it is to have wireless broadband again? Upstate NY is great, but they seriously need to get off of the dial-up wagon and onto some real bandwidth. Anyway, it seems like it is time for a little Foxtrot mirth again.

The War On Global Warming

The sled dog teams and the surfers have teamed up against the US on the issue of global warming. Realizing that the colder areas of the planet have a lot to lose by not having all of that ice in a frozen state and that the warmer islands have to worry about not becoming modern day Atlantis, they have teamed up to stop the US from ruining the environment. Their plans range from talking about it, to law suits, to citing the US with a human rights violation for global warming.



Okay, I'm not a fan of the polar ice caps melting and wiping out Hawaii... though I could live without San Francisco. I'm not a fan of having to break out parkas in sunny California. Still, how many times has doomsday been predicted? We hear about the hole in the ozone layer every so often and everyone panics. We do nothing and people stop talking about it. Why? Because the hole in the ozone naturally grows and shrinks and can heal itself ! The U.S. is also singled out as the worst offender of polluting the environment. I can't find the map anymore, but there is/was a huge fire in coal mines in China that made China show up as worse than the U.S. for, I believe, Carbon Dioxide polution. With China switching to coal from oil (about halfway down the page) China is only going to get worse. I'm not saying that we should recklessly destroy our world, I'm just sick of hearing people talking about how bad my country is. The U.S. has many public areas that have little to no human impact. California has tons of land that is federal, state, county, or city lands. If you're having trouble thinking of unspoiled wilderness areas, think of a certain big, huge ditch in the ground or a certain state inhabitted by only 600,000 people (300,000 of which live in one city) that takes up 1/5 of the mainland United States.



Okay, I'll step off my soap box now

Iran Accepts European Compromise, For What It Is Worth

Quizwedge mentioned earlier the game of cat and mouse that Iran has been playing with Europe over its nuclear developments. Even days it says it will abide, and odd days it says it will resist to its last breath. Well, today must be an even day, because Iran has agreed to IAEA monitoring of their centrifuges. For those hazy on the details of building a nuclear bomb. After you have produced the uranium hexaflouride gas (which Iran did prior to the deadline in violation of the agreement) you have to use centrifuges to produce enriched uranium from the gas. Then you can put the enriched uranium into a proper recepticle, surround it with explosive lenses, and yada yada yada you have a nuke.



Europe is hailing this as a major diplomatic breakthru. Probably mostly because they have no choice. With the invasion of Iraq tying up U.S. and British forces, it would be impractical to invade Iran to enfore this agreement. An invasion would cause Iran to further aid Shiite insurgents in Iraq and destabilize an already powder-keg-like region. As of now, the agreement is that the IAEA will not seal the centifuges, but will monitor them with cameras. Here's hoping the IAEA puts those pictures up as a webcam, because otherwise it will be child's play to fool them and produce enriched uranium anyway.

Film Not French?

As someone who spent six months approximately 20 minutes from the French border, I have had first hand experience with figuring out the differences between European and American culture and even the differences between German and French culture. For example, in Germany, about every third song on the radio was an American hit from the 90's. If France, they actually have laws about the minimum percentage of music on the radio that must be French. They have no problem exporting their culture, as evidence by that horrid song years ago with that little kids "singing" in French, but fight tooth and nail to keep other cultures out, specifically American culture.



It seems that the issue has come up with a new film from the director of Amelie. Jean-Pierre Jeunut filmed in France using French actors and technicians, but it seems that a partial backing from Warner Bros. is enough to make it "too American". Jeunut won't even be able to participate in France's distinguished film festival because the film will be shown outside of France before the film festival's date.

Royalties Bite The Recording Industry

While I don't advocate downloading music without the owner giving permission, I'm not a huge fan of how the recording industry treats its artists or its customers. Therefore, I find it ironic when something that they've harped on so much comes back to bite them.

Will The Probe Launch?

This Thanksgiving, I had the pleasure of talking to a NASA engineer (yes, a rocket scientist) about the space program. We talked about "Faster, Better, Cheaper", the space shuttle, budgets, and the little rover that keeps on ticking on Mars. We talked about one of his projects, the Cassini Probe, which is currently circling Saturn. The project has gone well, but there is reason for concern. Europe has a probe that is piggybacking on Cassini. It has a manual release but no one is sure that it will actually release. As a fan of astronomy, I'm hoping it does, but I'm really glad that even if it doesn't, the egg is not on NASA's face.

Ukraine: Revolution and Election Fraud

This election cycle, a lot of crackpots have put out their theories for "inventive" ways to use theoretical voter fraud to explain the reelection of George W. Bush, as ably chronicled by Ward in various stories. However, if you want to see how real voter fraud is accomplished, it appears the situation in Ukraine takes the cake.

Maya Syta, a journalist working at polling station 73 in a Kiev suburb, witnessed ballot papers destroyed with acid poured into a ballot box. "The officials were taking them out of the box and they couldn't understand why they were wet," she said..."Then I saw they started to blacken and disintegrate as if they were burning. Two ballots were wrapped up into a tube with a yellow liquid inside. After a few moments they were completely eaten up."...The most common trick was "carousel" voting, in which busloads of Yanukovich supporters simply drove from one polling station to another casting multiple false absentee ballots...In another brazen fraud recorded by observers from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, voters were given pens filled with ink that disappeared, leaving ballots unmarked and invalid.

And now, it appears that at least one source feels that Ukraine is about to go through a Pro-Western (read Pro-America) revolution on the same order as the one staged by the Former Soviet Union state of Georgia last year. If so, this could be the best possible hedge against an eventual Russian devolution back into a Communist, Soviet, and/or Totalitarian state. What good, after all, is totalitarianism if you can't lord it over your neighbors and reform the former Russian Empire?

A Retrospective

It's a long story as to how I came across this article from 1998 at CNN. It's dealing with the then upcoming movie, the Siege, which as you might remember dealt with terrorists and our response to them. Of course, certain groups were upset with the portrayal of Arabs.

"When I read the screenplay, what immediately caught my attention was the fact that Arab-Muslims were blowing up New York City, killing hundreds of innocent people," says Jack Shaheen, an expert on the image of Arabs and Muslims in American popular culture. "That's an image that we see over and over again.

Now just think of those 3000 innocent people that didn't get to "read the screenplay" but were instead murdered by Muslim terrorists in the real world. And maybe we wouldn't see that image over and over if it wasn't for all the Muslim extremists killing innocent people all around the world. Liberals will never learn the lessons of history.

Do As I Say, Not as I Do

You gotta love how stupid humans can be. And how the apple rarely falls far from the tree. Consider this example

Kevin Winston, 46, called police at 2:45 a.m. Friday after his 16-year-old daughter came home drunk and unruly....The girl led officers to a crawl space above the ceiling where they found four semiautomatic guns and more than 600 vials of cocaine...Winston was charged with numerous weapons and drug charges. His five daughters were placed in the custody of a relative.

Sigh. When will parents learn that hypocrisy always backfires. Especially when it involves firearms, mind-altering chemicals, and angst-ridden teenage girls.

Yeah, I Know I SAID I Was Going to Wait...

Well, it is no big secret that when CRChair and I go away on our little "vacations" that we sometimes wind up giving in to our gadget-love. On our vacation a long time back, we bought our first DVD players - back when the entire library of available DVDs were restricted to about 25 titles. Last year, we invested in our first DVD Recorders. Well, at this Thanksgiving vacation, I gave in and bought a Nintendo DS. I had been planning on waiting to invest in my next portable system until the Sony PSP, but the coolness of the wireless multiplayer modes was too much for me. Especially when CRChair would also have one.



So I bought a Nintendo DS (not called the Gameboy DS, as I had expected) at Wal-Mart. (Amusingly, all of the Electronics Boutiques and other video game specialty stores were sold out, but good ole Wal-Mart had an overstock. Course, it also helped that we were buying in upstate New York, where there were fewer competitors for the rare commodity. Tip, if you are looking for Nintendo DS in stock, the Wal-mart in Olean, New York had about 25 of them.) I also purchased a Spider-Man 2 DS and Super Mario 64 DS game, as well as the old GBA Zelda: Advantures of Link as the DS is supposed to have backwards compatibility with the GBA systems (but not Gameboy or GameBoy Color).



Impressions so far:

• Great graphics. Mario64 looks just like it did on the big screen, and Spidey looks somewhat better than on my PS2 (though it is only a side-scroller).
• Wireless link is quite cool. But I wish it worked on GBA games as well. As of now, if you want multiplayer on a GBA game, you need to keep your old Gameboy SP.
• The GBA SP is still a better form factor. Smaller, lighter, fits the hand better. But this will do.
• The dual screen gimmick is cool, but won't be taking the world by storm. The demo that comes with the DS (Metroid: First Hunt) shows the best use in aiming your weapons. But even there is is a bit clumsy.
• Not many games yet. But the release schedule is heating up between now and Christmas... and shortly after Christmas.

I guess that is not a rave review. Still, I have no regrets about buying this thing, after having played with it for a few hours. I am enjoying the new games and enjoying keeping my collection of GBA games still playable. Now I just can't wait for MarioKart DS!!!

Best Conspiracy Theory Yet

I have found the single greatest bit of conspiracy thinking yet as to why President Bush won re-election earlier this month. This is guaranteed to blow your socks off, so I will give you a moment to gather yourself up and take a deep breath before plunging in. This bit of juicy stupidity comes to us by way of a community journal and so it's difficult to know exactly who to credit it to. So, here we go:

Magical Election Ta pering: SHUT IT DOWN!

Ok, I can understand the restlessness I've been feeling since yesterday. There's a lot riding on this election, and passions are running high on both sides, so naturally eceryone and their naked brother who has an ounce of Power and no clue about Shielding is leaking energy like a hair dryer in a bathtub. So it's Shields Up for me, but I'm still getting enough bleedover to make me jittery and a little manic if I don't concentrate. That's all to be expected.



What wasn't expected was that once I filtered out all that background noise, I started hearing a calm, resonable, and powerful head-voice saying things like "Kerry doesn't have the experience we need in these troubled times." and "Give Bush a chance to make it better."



Anyone who knows me KNOWS these are not my thoughts! And besides, I voted last week. No, there's no way in Hades these are my thoughts.



Gods-damn it! The f*cking Republicans have got Magical help pumping out a clear, unified, focused broadcast, and you can be sure, every sensitive is picking it up. These are the people most likely to vote Kerry, and I'd like to think they are resolute enough not to be swayed by telepathic subliminal advertising, but it's such a rarely-done thing, and so few people are properly trained these days, that I fear it will be more effective. Just watch and see who says "I was going to vote for Kerry, but for some reason I changed my mind at the last minute."



Who would be doing this for them? Gee, who are the Mages driving around in those black Mercedes and Lincolns with the tinted windows? The ones who live in the mansions with the hell-hounds in the yard and the 7-foot tall hairless black doormen? Every town has some, the bigger the town, the more of these "High Magi" you will find.



I have no idea what their agenda may be, but you can be damn sure the welfare of the common human on the street is not a part of it.



So shield, people, shield. And screen. And if you can shield a polling place, do it! I'm not saying to try to interfere with people's choices, but rather prevent them from being interfered with.



This is important, people, and it may be too late already.

The most ironic part of the whole post is that this person heard a "head" voice in the calm and instead of deciding that maybe it was common sense calling, he/she immediately decided that it must be mind warfare. You have to give liberals credit for one thing, they sure know how to hold onto a belief regardless of what experience, sense, or reason might tell them.

Democrats and Racism

Remember, it's only redneck conservatives that are racists. Well, until a conservative decides to fill part of his Cabinet with minorities. In that caes, it's okay to mock and deride minority accomplishments since the credit doesn't go to the Democratic party.

The Suddenly-Not-So-Open Dutch

The land of the most free people in the world seems to be re-thinking their policies in light of recent events. Already there's talk about closing borders to non-Westerners and now there are reports of Mosque burnings and beatings of Muslims. And now, an anti-Muslim documentary has won top honors at the Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival.



Mark it down as one more country that has seen the horrors of radical militant faith first-hand. And yet these countries criticize us for the way we have dealt with the radical Islamic threat. We lost 3000 people in one day and have dealt with the larger Muslim public gently, even going out of our way to not offend. The Dutch lose one film-maker and Mosques are burned, Muslims beat, and there's talk about closing the entire country down. Does that seem hypocritical to anyone else, or is it just me?

Don't Call it "Radical" Islam, We Hate that Expression!

Remember what's happened in Pakistan this week the next time you hear a liberal from Hollywood talk about how censored they are in our country. Imagine if a governor in this country tried to ban Newsweek because of something it said about the Bible. And think of what the elites in this country would say about Christianity if a Christian had murdered a film-maker for his anti-Bible work. Yet the left in this county has been virtually silent about both the censorship in Pakistan and the violent murder of Theo Van Gogh. Because after all, there is no such thing as radical violent Islam. It's just a figment of our American imagination forced on us because President Bush and Ariel Sharon hijacked four airliners and flew them into three American buildings, taking 3000 lives.

An Open Letter to Europe

I couldn't say it better myself (From the American Thinker):



Hi.  Are you nuts?



Forgive me for being so blunt, but your reaction to our reelection of President Bush has been so outrageous that I’m wondering if you have quite literally lost your minds.  One of Britain’s largest newspapers ran a headline asking “How Can 59 Million Americans Be So Dumb?”, and commentators in France all seemed to use the same word – bizarre -- to explain the election’s outcome to their readers.  In Germany the editors of Die Tageszeitung responded to our vote by writing that “Bush belongs at a war tribunal – not in the White House.”  And on a London radio talk show last week one Jeremy Hardy described our President and those of us who voted for him as “stupid, crazy, ignorant, bellicose Christian fundamentalists.”



Of course, you are entitled to whatever views about us that you care to hold.  (And lucky for you we Americans aren’t like so many of the Muslims on your own continent; as the late Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh just discovered, make one nasty crack about them and you’re likely to get six bullets pumped into your head and a knife plunged into your chest.)  But before you write us off as just a bunch of sweaty, hairy-chested, Bible-thumping morons who are more likely to break their fast by dipping a Krispy Kreme into a diet cola than a biscotti into an espresso –  and who inexplicably have won more Nobel prizes than all other countries combined, host 25 or 30 of the world’s finest universities and five or six of the world’s best symphonies, produce wines that win prizes at your own tasting competitions, have built the world’s most vibrant economy, are the world’s only military superpower and, so to speak in our spare time, have landed on the moon and sent our robots to Mars – may I suggest you stop frothing at the mouth long enough to consider just what are these ideas we hold that you find so silly and repugnant?



We believe that church and state should be separate, but that religion should remain at the center of life.  We are a Judeo-Christian culture, which means we consider those ten things on a tablet to be commandments, not suggestions. We believe that individuals are more important than groups, that families are more important than governments, that children should be raised by their parents rather than by the State, and that marriage should take place only between a man and a woman.  We believe that rights must be balanced by responsibilities, that personal freedom is a privilege we must be careful not to abuse, and that the rule of law cannot be set aside when it becomes inconvenient.  We believe in economic liberty, and in the right of purposeful and industrious entrepreneurs to run their businesses – and thus create jobs – with a minimum of government interference.  We recognize that other people see things differently, and we are tolerant of their views.  But we believe that our country is worth defending, and if anyone decides that killing us is an okay thing to do we will go after them with everything we’ve got.



If these beliefs seem strange to you, they shouldn’t.  For these are precisely the beliefs that powered Western Europe – you -- from the Middle Ages into the Renaissance, on to the Enlightenment, and forward into the modern world.  They are the beliefs that made Europe itself the glory of Western civilization and – not coincidentally – ignited the greatest outpouring of art, literature, music and scientific discovery the world has ever known including Michaelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Shakespeare, Bach, Issac Newton and Descartes.



Europe is Dying



It is your abandonment of these beliefs that has created the gap between Europe and the United States.  You have ceased to be a Judeo-Christian culture, and have become instead a secular culture.  And a secular culture quickly goes from being “un-religious” to anti-religious.  Indeed, your hostility to the basic concepts of Judaism and Christianity has literally been written into your new European Union constitution, despite the Pope’s heroic efforts to the contrary. 



Your rate of marriage is at an all-time low, and the number of abortions in Europe is at an all-time high.  Indeed, your birth rates are so far below replacement levels that in 30 years or so there will be 70 million fewer Europeans alive than are alive today.  Europe is literally dying.  And of the children you do manage to produce, all too few will be raised in stable, two-parent households. 



Your economy is stagnant because your government regulators make it just about impossible for your entrepreneurs to succeed – except by fleeing to the United States, where we welcome them and celebrate their success.  



And your armed forces are a joke.  With the notable exception of Great Britain, you no longer have the military strength to defend yourselves.  Alas, you no longer have the will to defend yourselves.



What worries me even more than all this is your willful blindness.   You refuse to see that it is you, not we Americans, who have abandoned Western Civilization.  It’s worrisome because, to tell you the truth, we need each other.  Western Civilization today is under siege, from radical Islam on the outside and from our own selfish hedonism within.  It’s going to take all of our effort, our talent, our creativity and, above all, our will to pull through.  So take a good, hard look at yourselves and see what your own future will be if you don’t change course.  And please, stop sneering at America long enough to understand it.  After all, Western Civilization was your gift to us, and you ought to be proud of what we Americans have made of it.



Herbert E. Meyer served during the Reagan Administration as Special Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence and Vice Chairman of the CIA’s National Intelligence Council.  His DVD on The Siege of Western Civilization is a nationwide best-seller.

Sluggish Economy? Strippers Might Be the Answer!

At least, that's what some in the Canadian government are saying. Apparently the adult entertainment industry is such a big money maker in the great white north that more strippers might just single-handedly save the economic system. Do strippers get taxed from their tips?

When Windows XP Upgrades Attack

Sometimes, it is hard not to gloat being a user of Apple's MacOS X. But today, I will try to restrain myself as our friends "across the pond" are reeling from perhaps the highest-profile Windows Upgrade kerflooey (technical term) in history. The Department of Work and Pensions in New Britain attempted to upgrade a few machines to Windows XP over the weekend. Somehow, the upgrade went bad and 80,000 workers were left with blue screens of death on their machines. As of this point, Microsoft is blaming the vendor who did the install, the vendor is blaming Microsoft, Trade Unions are calling upon Britain to bring back the workers who were laid off "because computers would make the job so much easier", and just about everyone has a black eye. What is worse, it appears that they had no back-out plan, so they can not simply roll back their systems to what they were prior to the upgrade.



Remember friends. Before ANY major upgrade, back up your systems completely. You always want a fall-back position. I recommend Carbon Copy Cloner for my Mac-using friends, and I am sure there are plenty of utilities for my Windows-using friends. Still, for the sake of everyone's sanity, I am hoping more of my friends decide to make the jump to an Apple-centric world in the near future.

Health Care: United States Versus Europe

There's a really good discussion going on at Daily Kos concerning health care in the US and the UK. It's a long bit to read, but it's worth the time. There's some good information to be gleaned about the condition of health care here and abroad.

Watch Them Sweat

It appears that, despite the left's best hopes, the terrorists are getting a little concerned about the situation in Iraq. This is the single most positive thing to happen in Iraq in several months and it reflects the simple truth that the left and wobbling hawks won't consider. What is that truth?



WE DON'T NEED MORE TROOPS IN IRAQ. Instead, we just need to use the troops we have to flush out and finish off the insurgents. If there's any lesson to be learned from Fallujah, it's that we have plenty of training, weapons, and people. We just need to have the political will to put them to use. We could have pacified this country a year ago if we hadn't been so scared of what the Europeans might say.

More Than What You Pay For

In yet another move aimed to remind us that entertainment is all about getting our money, TiVo has announced that starting in March, commercials will be unavoidable. Macrovision will also become more prominent, restricting how much consumers will be able to record. So even though these people pay extra money to be free of these very restrictions, they'll soon lose that freedom.



We really are in the midst of a struggle here between the industry and the forces of progress. All of these conflicts between record/movie companies and consumers are caused because the businesses don't understand that things have to change in the face of new technologies. They're stuck in the past, unwilling to see new opportunities and instead they see only dropping revenues. This battle is being waged between oil companies and alternative fuel proponents for the same reason. But you can't fight technology, history has shown us that. You can, however, harness the technology and turn it to benefit you.

Football Feast

As a 49ers fan, I've had to sit this season rejoicing only in the knowledge that tickets should be cheaper next year. They've won one game this entire season. It figures since they've gotten rid of just about every player that I could name on the team with the exception of Kevan Barlow, the backup running back from last year. I long for the glory days of Joe Montanna, Jerry Rice, Tom Rathman, Roger Craig, John Taylor, and others.



But that is in the distant past. I thought I would catch at least one of the football games yesterday, but a switch was made and movies were shown instead. All I can say looking at the stats (Indianapolis-Detroit, Chicago-Dallas)yesterday, is WOW! Julius Jones had not only his first NFL touchdown, but also rushed for 150 yards. Peyton Manning threw for an incredible 6 touchdowns With Marvin Harrison catching 3 of them with a 127 yards. Indianapolis fans rejoice. I have Harrison in one of my fantasy football leagues so since my own team is doing so poorly, I've taken pleasure in rooting for him.

Spyware

There's a really fascinating piece up about spyware and the fight against it. Spyware is a huge problem, especially for larger entities. Our school has massive resources tied up in preventing spyware from taking root in the lab computers. They even have a full-time worker dedicated specifically to dealing with it. The only option they've had that works even remotely well is to ghost the entire lab every night, and then they still have occasional issues.



I don't want to sound sanctimonious, but I'm so thankful that I have a mac so that this isn't such a problem yet. I'm sure eventually some idiot will decide that mac users should have to pay as well. But I'm hoping that the time is still long off. It's a testament to our baseness that we do these kinds of things to each other, and I view the people who perpetrate it as low as I do any common criminal.

My Thank You List for God, 2004 Edition

I guess this should have been posted yesterday, but it was still brewing in my mind. Here is my official 2004 list of things I gave thanks for yesterday. Apologies if some are semi-political, but this is my list of thankfulness and no one else's.

1. Thank you, Lord, for the healing of my back. I had a herniated and extruded disk in my back this year which was pressing directly on my spine and causing great pain. Along with this main thanks comes several other lesser ones:
   • Thank you for good doctors who were skilled and yet merciful.
   • Thank you for a good church which cared for me and sent over the elders to pray over me.
   • Thank you for modern pain medications which let me work as much as I could while the doctors figured out what was wrong.
   • Thank you for a family which was understanding.
   • Thank you for disability insurance which kept some cash coming in when I could not work.
   • Thank you for the recliner for when I could not sleep in a flat bed anymore.
   • Thank you for a job where I was not fired for missing so much work.
   • Thank you for the chance to still go on some vacations this year, despite the lost work.
2. Thank you, Lord, for the way the election worked out.
   • Thank you that there was a clear winner, despite a closely divided nation and the use of new voting systems.
   • Thank you that my candidate won.
   • Thank you that the loser graciously accepted defeat and did not attempt a repeat of 2000.
   • Thank you that the country accepts the election as legitimate and does not question the results as they do in Ukraine.
   • Thank you for the reassurance that even if the other side had won, they had the country's best at heart and simply a different vision for how to reach that best.
   • Thank you that there were no terrorist attacks in the U.S. during the election.
   • Thank you that the only way Osama Bin Laden could reach the American people was by using Freedom of Speech, a right we treasure and which he would deny his own people.
3. Thank you for a great family that loves me and accepts me for who I am, even when who I am is not the best person.
4. Thank you that I was sufficiently healed from my back injury to attend both Sean and Ward's weddings.
5. Thank you that I was invited to both weddings, and allowed to take part and help out where my talents allowed.
6. Thank you, Lord, for providing women to Sean and Ward who love them intensely, bring out the best sides of themselves, and who understand that some days they will be saying "I love you because you're so great" and some days they will be saying "I love you, anyway."
7. Thank you, Lord, for Mod-Blog where I can put up a few of my foolish thoughts to be shared with the world. And thank you for the modest success it has had in garnering readers.
8. Thank you, Lord, that the worst thing that I had to worry about this year was my health.
9. Thank you, Lord, for a job where I can use my talents and earn money. I know your provision of a job for me could have been slinging burgers or emptying trash or something else that I am capable of, but this job is one that makes use of some of my best talents and lets me give something back to the world.
10. Thank you that you lead me to your Son so early in life, so that I have known Your love for so long.
11. Thank you for the honor of leading some others to Jesus Christ in my time here on earth.
12. Thank you for a good dog, a pet to remind me what unconditional love means.
13. Thank you that even though I have not found the girl for me, yet, that either you are saving her for me or have prepared a single life for me for a reason which is to your glory.

There is so much more, but I think that hits the high points. No reason to take up the whole Blog. God knows my heart and what I am thankful for. But now so does the rest of the world... in part.

Don't Drink the Water!

And no, I'm not talking about Mexico either. Scientists are reporting that too much water can damage your kidneys. The facts aren't there to make this a slam dunk case, but the science seems consistent with what I've heard from other sources as well. And keep in mind that the study is reflecting on people who drink as much as 64 ounces of water a day. That's a lot of water. Wesley's concept of "All things in moderation" still seems the best route to me. Too much of something, even a good thing, can still be bad for you.

So What Does Our Congress Do?

An interesting inside look into the way in which bills are read (or not read) in Congress. I won't call it shocking but I will call it disturbing just the same. Our elected officials are elected for the purpose of representing us in Congress through their votes on various measures. But it's a little bit difficult to vote appropriately if they haven't even read them.

Black Friday

Enjoy the sales, if you can get to them. And try not to get run over or otherwise injured by the hysterical crowds. As for me, I'll be staying in and relaxing...There's almost no sale worth all the trouble for me. No, I'll hang around and enjoy the snow from the warmth of home.

Thank You Lord, For Our Lives and our Forefathers

Thank you, Lord, that our forefathers braved the horrors of the wilds on the New World, so that we can live in a land of freedom and security. And that you that we no longer have to worry about horrors like those George Will talks about today.

That day was unseasonably balmy, by prairie standards -- some temperatures were in the 20s -- and many children scampered to school without coats or gloves. Then, at about the time schools were adjourning, death, in the shape of a soot-gray cloud, appeared on the horizon of Dakota Territory and Nebraska...In three minutes the temperature plunged 18 degrees. The next morning hundreds of people, more than 100 of them children, were dead beneath the snow drifts...In four and a half hours the temperature at Helena, Mont., fell 50 degrees. The prairie air tingled with the electricity of a horizontal thunderstorm....``The fear came first,'' Laskin writes, ``but the cold followed so hard on its heels that it was impossible to tell the difference.'' In minutes nostrils were clogged by ice. Eyelids were torn by repeated attempts to prevent them from freezing shut. Unable to see their hands in front of their faces, people died wandering a few yards from their houses, unable to hear, over the keening wind, pots being pounded a few yards away to tell them the way to safety.

Thank you so very much, our Lord and God. A-men.

Thanksgiving Day Angst

Tom Friedman appears to have decided Thanksgiving Day is the day he can be thankful for the American right to blow your top and breath fire in your righteous anger. I don't agree with everything he says, but he captures my own disgust with the recent GOP move to protect Tom DeLay in one part of his screed.

If I can't be Tom DeLay, then I want to be one of the gutless Republican House members who voted to twist the rules for DeLay out of fear that "the Hammer," as they call him, might retaliate by taking away a coveted committee position or maybe a parking place...Yes, I want to be a Republican House member. At a time when 180 of the 211 members of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit in Iraq who have been wounded in combat have insisted on returning to duty, I want to look my constituents and my kids in the eye and tell them that I voted to empty the House ethics rules because I was afraid of Tom DeLay.

It appears that the House Republicans have gotten away with this move with little to no public outcry, but it is just wrong. Especially for a party that alleges it won the election on "values issues." I am a values voter people, and this disgusts me.

A TV Legend Versus A Wanna-Be

With the release of the Seinfeld DVDs, there's been a lot focus on the show. It was certainly one of the great TV shows of our time. It was consistently offbeat and witty, and all those other things that film critics like to label shows. But I think it was more important than that because of the fact that it could actually reach a wide audience. Consider someone like Woody Allen who is considered a comedy genius only among a certain subset of urbanites. Contrast that to Seinfeld which is in syndication all across this country with a viewership that transcends cultural lines.



There was a time when I thought that most of the humor from the show came because of the writing and the situations. Now they certainly added to it, but I've recently come to appreciate the actors themselves much more. As time has removed us from the show, I've come to see that it was as much the actors as it was the writing that made Seinfeld such a hit. What has made me come this realization?



Unfortunately, it's because I finally had the chance to see another show very similar to Seinfeld. But try as it might, it failed miserably in my book. Curb Your Enthusiasm is written by Larry David and he stars in it as well. I used to think that he was the creative genius behind Seinfeld, now I see that he actually offered relatively little. With as many awards as it's received and as much as it is hyped at award's shows, I had expected to see one of the best shows of all time. But I finally saw an episode thanks to the in-law's digital cable, and how I wish I hadn't. Not only was the writing poor, the set up for various "jokes" was non-present and the acting, by far the worst aspect of the show, was just plain awful. In the course of an hour, I lost all respect for Larry David. He should be ashamed for creating such a piece of garbage and the establishment should be ashamed for mindlessly worshiping this crap. David has made a cheap imitation of a great show and Hollywood is worshipping him for it.

Chemical Weapons Find

A report is out today that forces in Fallujah have discovered chemical weapons labs in Iraq. Can there be any doubt that, wherever they came from, these men would use the weapons if they have the chance to devolp them? And if that's the case, can there be any doubt about what course of action we must take in dealing with them? Only if you're convinced that Americans are the evil ones.

When "Horrifying" Doesn't BEGIN To Cover It

This is among the most horrible, despicable, words-beyond-sadness story that I have read in a long time that was not war-related. Essentially, the people of one town in Mexico saw some strangers staking out a local school. After the Russian school kidnapping, and in light of the utter incompetence of the local police, they took action. Without alerting the local authorities, they called together the neighborhood and decided to dish out mob justice on the apparent terrorists. But there was one little problem.

One after another, residents set off dozens of crude, rooftop bullhorn alarms that serve as a backup security measure in some poor districts. Neighbors poured into the streets, where they cornered and then beat the men. Onlookers cheered and shouted obscenities as they were splattered with the officers' blood...Reporters arrived, and the assailants pushed the victims before TV cameras so they could be interviewed. Barely conscious and struggling to talk, they nodded and gave one-word answers when asked if they were federal agents.As television helicopters hovered overhead, police began to arrive. One agent was rescued, carried away unconscious by his arms and legs. But the other two were soaked with gasoline and set ablaze, their charred bodies left bleeding in the street as dozens of people milled around.

One was saved and for that we should express thanks. But it is apparent that Mexico is a much more alien country than we would have expected, and is in need of pressure from the U.S. to improve local conditions. This can NEVER be allowed to happenh again.

Iran Switching Positions

The scene: The International Political Arena



UN: Stop trying to develop anything involving nuclear elements or you'll have to answer to our security council and we might even put economic sanctions on you.



Iran: Okay, we'll stop on Monday, November 22.



**Iran starts mass producing uranium hexafluoride (a key component to nuclear weapons and nuclear power)



UN: Hey, you're mass producing uranium hexafluoride!

Iran: No we're not

UN: Are too

Iran: Am not



**Cut to this week

Iran: Uh, yeah, we've got all of this uranium hexafluoride... can we still play with centrifuges and do more reasearch and development since we have all of this uranium hexafluoride?

UN: No

Iran: This is so unfair. We've never used nuclear weapons in war like the US has! We will never dismantle our nuclear program. That is completely absurd.



(Never mind that Iran has, to our knowledge, never had a nuclear weapon to use in war)



Reuters has the story these scenes were adapted from.

ALERT: Target Responds - Salvation Army Still Out

Target has responded to my note regarding my intent to boycott Target for its boycott of the Salvation Army. Only seems fair to post it here.

Dear [Nomad],



Like many nationwide retailers, Target Corporation has a long-standing "no solicitation" policy that it consistently applies to all organizations across all of its stores.



We receive an increasing number of solicitation inquiries from non-profit organizations and other groups each year and determined that if we continue to allow the Salvation Army to solicit then it opens the door to any other groups that wish to solicit our guests. While some of our guests may welcome the opportunity to support their favorite charity or cause, allowing these organizations to solicit means that Target would also have to permit solicitation by organizations whose cause or behavior may be unacceptable to our guests.



We notified the Salvation Army of our decision in January 2004, well in advance of the holiday season, so the organization would have time to find alternative fundraising sources. Target also asked the Salvation Army to look at other ways that we could support their organization under our corporate giving guidelines. To this date they have not provided a proposal

that fits those guidelines.



Local Salvation Army chapters can apply for grants through their local Target stores. For decades, many non-profit organizations across the country have successfully worked with Target in this manner. We are asking the Salvation Army to work with us in the same exact manner as the other groups and organizations who ask to solicit our guests.



This decision in noway diminishes Target Corporation's commitment to its communities. Target has one of the largest corporate philanthropy programs in America, donating more than $2 million per week and hundreds of thousands of volunteer hours each year to the communitiesin which it does business.



Sincerely,



[Name Withheld], Target Executive Offices

Doesn't change my mind. But again, it only seemed fair to let them tell their side of the story.

Updates May Be Light the Next Few Days

The family is heading up to Upstate New York for our annual Thanksgiving pilgrimage back to where I went to college, where we can escape the pressures of work and real life for a while. If I can't get internet access up there (I should be able to) then updates may be a bit light the next four days or so. Just in case I don't get another chance to, I wanted to wish our loyal Mod-Bloggers:



Of course, Ward and Quizwedge may be able to hold up things while I am away, anyway. But still, you never know.



Yes, I moved up the story. Seemed more appropriate now.

Ohio Recount Can Wait

In a strange twist, the third pary candidates who want a recount in Ohio are now demanding that the recount start even before the official count is complete. But luckily a sane judge has declared that the recount can wait. He admitted that it is the right of candidates to demand a recount, but said that they have no right to advance the case before the legal deadlines in place. So America is spared a replay of Florida until at least December 6.



Or maybe we could consider skipping this pointless political sideshow that the liberal side of the world is cooking up to damage President Bush? Maybe? No. Okay.

Culture Wars

Never satisfied to take a breath and consider the danger of their policies, liberals continue their attack on all things American. Once again, there is no evil more vile to the left then anything remotely Christian. Now even the Founding Fathers are becoming "dangerous" to our children.

The Science Behind The Sandwich

Slate has an article following the sale of that grilled cheese sandwich I mentioned earlier. It went for $28,000 to an online casino. The fact that the sandwich had no mold... science or supernatural? As I suspected, there's a perfectly logical reason for why it could have no mold. Odds are not likely it would go ten years without mold, but it is possible. (Note: I believe there are supernatural events. I just don't think this was one of them.)

Kofi's Meltdown

The growing calls for serious reform in the UN continue to mount. It's painfully clear that the kinds of changes necessary won't happen as long as Kofi is leading the Stupid Brigade. His own staff doesn't have confidence in him anymore either, there's no stronger a condemnation than that.

Context and History

Orson Scott Card is a favorite essayist of mine on the web. He's just written a new essay about context that's worth the five minutes it will take to read. For example, he says this about the media's fixation with calling Fallujah anything but a victory for us,

In short, we gave every advantage to the enemy, in order to avoid wanton destruction and civilian losses -- and still we advanced inexorably toward victory, inflicting far more casualties than we sustained.



In context, what we were seeing was not balance, it was overwhelming superiority in training, morale, equipment, and, of course, numbers.

And concerning the reporting on the Cabinet and the "revolving door" that the media is portraying the administration to have,

Reporters and commentators with any sense of history would quit their jobs before they'd be caught saying "revolving door" in the context of the Bush cabinet. All but two of Bush's original cabinet stayed the entire four years of his first term. The last time that little turnover happened was FDR's first term, which ended in 1937.

If only we had a sense of perspective. But that seems to be a real problem, we can't see past our own short memory span. How else to explain so many blatent lies that the commentators and spinsters have gotten away with?

SmartPhone "Virus" Hits Symbian

This is one those stories that probably affects none of our readers, but it is still an interesting development in the world of SmartPhones. A new "virus" (trojan horse, really) has been release into the wild for Symbian Series-60 SmartPhones called "Skulls" (link is to a story, NOT to the malware). The new virus must be installed manually onto a SmartPhone and only affects SmartPhones running the Symbian operating system (in this country, mostly Sony Ericsson and Nokia). Beware if you are running on the T-Mobile or ATT Wireless/Cingular networks which support these phones, but don't bewaere too much. This is one of those cases where this virus itself is not big news, but it may be the precusor to a STORM of new virii on the mobile platforms.

Reaching the Bottom of the Gene Pool

Well, I've already posted Fun With DU once today so I'm not going to go through the trouble of doing it again for a new thread running over there. Thankfully, another blogger already has. Just to prepare you for what you will read if you click through, it's a thread dealing with the fact that the tragic crash of the plane slated to pick up the former President Bush was most likly planned by none other than the current President. Brilliant. You can't make this stuff up.

Interesting Proposed Form of Protest

This is an interesting development among the anti-Bushites. They have tried loud protests. They have tried semi-violent protests. They have tried John Kerry. They have tried breaking into Bush/Cheney campaign offices. They have tried riots outside of Bush/Cheney campaign offices. Nothing has worked, and actually a new poll out today shows George W Bush's approval ratings are up. So finally, the Left has decided to return to a form of peaceful protest. This site is calling for Anti-Bush activists to make their way into the Inauguration and simply turn their backs on the president during the swearing-in and any speech that follows.



I don't like it, but I think it is a good sign that the Anti-Bush forces are finally returning to sane tactics, and reasonable protests.

The View From NY

A good read about one prominent New York Times writer's views about America. Remember that this is the voice of the "non-biased truth providers."

Murder's Answer for Crime: They Started It!

You may have heard of the hunting tragedy in Wisconsin where a lone hunter killed six others in a dispute over a stand on private property. What you may not have heard was the hunter's excuse for the crime: "They shot first." At first glance, it may appear to be a reasonable response - self defense and all. Until you reflect that it was not one man who was killed - but six. And then you may take a chance to read the rest of the details of the story.

He said that he was told to get off the property, and as he started walking away, he turned back and saw Willers point a gun at him from about 100 feet away. He told investigators he immediately dropped to a crouch, and Willers shot at him, the bullet hitting the ground 30 to 40 feet behind Vang...Vang said he removed the scope from his rifle and began firing, continuing to shoot as the group scattered. He said one of the victims, Joey Crotteau, tried to run away, but Vang chased him, got within 20 feet and shot him in the back. Crotteau, 20, was killed. Willers was wounded and was listed in fair condition Tuesday...Vang said as he began to run, an ATV with two people drove past and he fired three or four times, causing both people to fall off the machine. He said that he looked up the trail, saw that one of the men was standing, yelled, "You're not dead yet?" and fired one more shot in the man's direction.

The added emphasis (bold) is mine. These are not the actions of a man acting in self defense. They are the actions of a man taking revenge in the heat of passion, in the anger of his adrenaline. That is not called self defense. It is called Second Degree Murder. It is really for a jury to decide, but the facts in evidence at the moment seem pretty much incontrovertible.

Fun With Assasination

It's amazing the things that capture our attention, especially when they're "entertainment." We've had over fifteen hits from Goggle looking for the game mentioned by Quizwedge where your task is to kill JFK. And we're just a tiny little blog, imagine how many people must be out there trying to find a copy of the game. So, is it morbid curiousity or are we just so hungry to shoot stuff that we'll even play games where the target is the President? I play plenty of FPS types and enjoy them. But it's hard to imagine playing a game where you kill an innocent person. Consider this quote taken from Plugged In a while back.

"I didn't plan for people in Fable to massacre entire villages, acquire all the vacant property at knockdown prices, and then make a fortune renting out to newcomers. I didn't plan for one player to use his wife as a human shield, and when we first introduced children into the world, I didn't expect the testers to do unspeakable things to them—which is why players now don't have weapons when they're in a village or town."



—Lionhead Studios president Peter Molyneux, on some of the unexpectedly depraved choices video game testers made during the development of the company's popular new Xbox game, Fable [Electronic Gaming Monthly, 12/04]

Fun With DU!

Oh, our fun friends over at Lunatic Left HQ. This time, they're responding to claims that the Bush administration will bring about Armageddon through their economic policies. As usual, I've compiled some of the best reponseses below. I'll comment on why they're especially ironic in this case after you've had the pleasure of reading for yourself.

Remember that movie about the child, son of Satan, who was taken in and raised by the US VP, Gregory Peck. That was the end of the movie to show how Satan would rise in America. It's time to stop associating Satan with the Bush/GOP Family in fun. It's time to start taking a serious look at this! These people are here to destroy America.



Bush Admin wants to destory America. The movie was the Omen and it must have been somewhat based on Biblical prophesies. Dubya certainly fits the bill, now doesn't he?



Does that mean the fundies are in league with the AntiChrist and they know it.



Not to sound like a complete nut job, but I must agree. I really think there is some scary and possibly supernatural **** going down out there right now. I'm *honestly* not the kind of person who generally puts a lot of faith in prophecy or crazy religious stuff, but some things have really creeped me out lately.



Making money from armaggedon...The collapse of America will be good for the environment, good for human rights, good for society.



Your are [sic] absolutely right

Now stop and consider that these people consider those with religious views to be very nearly sub-human. We're all paranoid nutjobs on most days. But now, our "myths" might just be true...If you're willing to consider that President Bush is the Anti-Christ or at least in league with him. Maybe we should see this as a new ministry technique. This has "outreach" written all over it. For the next four years, we can use all of the cheesy, two bit Christian pop-culture garbage to evangelize the lunatic left! Woohoo! Pull out the Bibles, it's time for the 3rd Great Awakening.

Rather Quits...Sort Of

He's finally leaving as anchor but he'll stay on with 60 Minutes II. Of course, he claims it has nothing to do with the fiasco that was Memo-Gate. Sure. He and Cronkite can have fun together in retirement and Jennings should be going soon too.



This brings up the larger issue of accounatability in general. We've seen time and time again in the past four years examples of so-called news coorespondants being caught in open lies. They rarely face consequences. The entire CEO-gate series of events showed us how corrupt the business world is. But it isn't only the media and business. This administration has modeled the exact same style of leadership. Now the Republicans in the House are taking measures to undermine their own original rules and let Delay stay in power despite his situation. It's virtually impossible in either the media or the political realm to actually be fired these days (unless you're a medicore governor that people just don't like.) If our "leaders" and our media (who claim to be the defenders of truth) can't even be honest then what hope is there for our nation's future? Will we just continue to become a nation that takes less and less responsiblity for our mistakes? There's not much of a future in that, and it can't bode well for our country.

British 9/11 Attempt Foiled!

We have heard it said that many potential 9/11 follow-ups have been averted here in the U.S., but now we have confirmation of a foiled attempt to stage suicide airplanes in Britain

The plot is said to have involved pilots being trained to fly into target buildings including London's famous financial centre and the world's busiest airport...It is one of four or five al-Qaeda planned attacks, since 9/11, that have come to nothing, after the authorities intervened, reports claim.

Anytime anyone says that the War on Terror is producing no fruit, point back to this kind of news and remind them that sometimes no news is good news!

Hitchens and Dumb Repubicans

I'm shocked the that Mirror would even be open enough to run it, but Christopher Hitchens has written a worthy piece rebutting Europes coverage of and reaction to the recent election. (Hat tip to Below Street Level)

Kevin Sites tells his side of the story

Kevin Sites kicked off a media firestorm this last week when he released tape of a U.S. Marine in Fallujah shooting an unarmed and apparently unconscious insurgent in an Iraqi mosque. Liberals are calling him a hero for reporting a "war crime." Conservatives are calling him a "traitor" for releasing the tape without placing it in context - including the regular habit of Iraqi terrorists of booby-trapping the dead and dying. Well, now Mr. Sites is taking a chance and telling his side of the story in a very interesting BLog entry.

For a moment, I'm paralyzed still taping with the old man in the foreground. I get up after a beat and tell the Marines again, what I had told the lieutenant -- that this man -- all of these wounded men -- were the same ones from yesterday. That they had been disarmed treated and left here.



At that point the Marine who fired the shot became aware that I was in the room. He came up to me and said, "I didn't know sir-I didn't know." The anger that seemed present just moments before turned to fear and dread...



Making sure you know the basis for my choices after the incident is as important to me as knowing how the incident went down. I did not in any way feel like I had captured some kind of "prize" video. In fact, I was heartsick. Immediately after the mosque incident, I told the unit's commanding officer what had happened. I shared the video with him, and its impact rippled all the way up the chain of command. Marine commanders immediately pledged their cooperation...



So here, ultimately, is how it all plays out: when the Iraqi man in the mosque posed a threat, he was your enemy; when he was subdued he was your responsibility; when he was killed in front of my eyes and my camera -- the story of his death became my responsibility.

I don't care what side of the story you fall on, this is must read posting. A true case of the marines doing what they thought was right, a reporter who respects the marines doing what he thought was right, and of a media spin machine which is determined to make them enemies. Kudos to the men on the ground for not falling into the trap that the spin-doctors are setting for them.

Nintendo DS Breakdown and Tearapart

Lik-sang.Com has up one of the first reviews of the Nintenso DS which is hands-on.... and hands-IN since they got the device, played with it for a few minutes, and then promptly voided the warranty by opening it up and checking out the guts.

The Wireless mode of the Nintendo DS is really impressive. Whether you play VS mode with Mario 64 DS, or if you send messages to each other using Pictochat, the range goes as far as 10 to 30 meters, even passing through walls and doors. We expect kids to go wild with it during boring school sessions in the next couple of months. Not to mention the cheating tool it can become... Nintendo just opened itself another niche market. The technology used for wireless connectivity is IEEE 802.11b, which some of you might already know from Wireless home or office networks.

I am still waiting for the Sony PSP, myself. But the built-in wireless game-sharing is too cool for words. It sounds like it is going to be a must-have for all future portable releases.

Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs

And I have to say, what a joke it is. Look, there are certainly some good songs on the list but there's something missing. With the exception of Al Green (all songs are duing this "secular" era), there's not one Christian artists on the list. I hate to be a "circle the wagons" type, but that is highly offensive. You can't tell me that of the 500 greatest songs of all time, not one was written and performed by a Christian artist. Even a casual listen to Rich Mullins would earn him a slot somewhere in the top 100 if not higher.

The Problem With the Far Left Mind

Andrew, for all his recent faults, still understands the true nature of our country. It's a lesson that liberals could learn from, if they were wiling to admit that they have at least as many problems as the red voters that they hate. Sullivan hits the nail on the head with his consideration of what went wrong for the left in this election:

This is what the left has lost sight of. Americans tend to believe that talent needs no apology; that action is often better than complaint; that their own country, despite its many faults, is still a force for great good in the world. The left tends to view things a little differently. The most shocking manifestation was the way in which the far left saw 9/11 as an indictment of America, rather than of Jihadist nihilism. A more anodyne version was the way in which the Kerry campaign tried to reassure Americans of Kerry's commitment to national defense by playing up his Vietnam record, rather than unleashing him to rage against the evil of terror. The legitimate criticisms of the Iraq war seemed at times to emanate from a welter of whining, rather than from a determined attempt to win in Iraq, and from righteous, well-deserved anger that Bush had botched it. Facing a world of unprecedented danger, the Democrats still offered little in the way of a constructive message about what they would do proactively to defeat the enemy. For all his faults, Bush did.

The piece is fairly short and I recommend it for reading, I couldn't have said most of it better myself.

Wondering what life in Iraq is like?

Check out this report from a blogger in Baghdad.

Fierce fighting has been going on in several areas of Baghdad for the last 4 hours. I was supposed to leave for Basrah this morning, as soon as I walked out of the front door I was face to face with ten or so hooded men dressed in black carrying Ak-47's and RPG's. They had set up a checkpoint right in front of our door...Someone barked at me to go inside. Nabil was also about to leave for his school. His driver had just called him and said that he was turned back at the street entrance by another checkpoint. We looked at the main intersection and it was swarming with armed men running about and motioning drivers and pedestrians to leave the area...We watched them from behind the door with my mother frantically trying to get us inside. There was an exchange of fire and someone was bellowing "Where are the National traitors? (referring to the National Guards) Let them come and taste this." More shooting followed.

You can bet I will be thanking God for our freedoms and freedom from thugs here in America. Part is the government, part is the culture, and part is the people. But I am blassed on all counts.

R.I.P. NASA? Private Spaceflight A.O.K.

Townhall.Com has up a piece which lauds the achievement of SpaceShipOne - the first privately-financed space vehicle to reliably go to the edge of space and return with all pieces intact. It then goes onto say that this kind of development proves there is no need for NASA, which has become an agency incapable of fiscal restraint.



While I think the future of space exploration is in the private sector, I think NASA has a strong place as well. However, it may require a rethinking of its place. First, I would start by reconsidering the place of the International Space Station in the future of space. Let's open it up to potential private investment, with two important moves: (1) any private presence on the space station must have a public good to it (i.e. medical experimentation, astronomical observations, etc.) and (2) in return for restricting the use of the I.S.S. no taxes will be levied for the use of the station (just rent, etc.) Imagine how quickly industry could grow on the station without worry about paying taxes to a given country for its use. Second (on the overall point), recognize that NASA is fundamentally a military organization. Consider making this a little more explicit, and consider NASA's place as an international law enforcement organization over interstellar trade.

JFK Assassination Video Game

It appears that the game makers might have honorable intentions, but this is just sick. For $9.99 you can download JFK Reloaded and practice taking the famous shots made by Lee Harvey Oswald. They even have a contest with a prize of somewhere between $10,000 and $100,000 for the person who can most closely match the shots as reported in the Warren Commission Report. They claim they are trying to prove that there was no conspiracy. While I am all for first person shooters such as Halo and America's Army, I think creating a video game in which you are trying to assassinate an actual president of the U.S., especially one who was assassinated, is in very poor taste.

Another Soldier Killed

While I don't plan on mentioning on Mod-Blog every soldier that passes, it has been brought to my mind to not get lost in the reports of those who are killed and to remember that each of these soldiers who died had a family and friends. This point was brought home recently in the death of Army 1st Lt. Luke C. Wullenwaber. While I did not know 1st Lt. Wullenwaber personally, I know someone who does. I have friends and acquaintances in the armed forces (some of whom are in Iraq right now last I heard). I hope that this is the closest that news of this type ever hits home. (Photo taken from RockBridgeWeekly.com)

Congress wants to read your Tax Return

It was caught and dumped, but some enterprising congressman attempred to insert into a spending bill a law that "would have allowed two committee chairmen to view the tax returns of any American." Good-bye privacy, hello Big Brother. This is inexcusable and probably makes the anti-Ashcroft nuts suspect the worst from the Bush Administration.

ALERT: Target Freezes Out Salvation Army

THIS IS HORRIBLE!!! According to multiple reports, the retailer giant Target has forbidden the Salvation Army from ringing bells and collecting money outside of its stores. Target stated, "If we continue to allow the Salvation Army to solicit, then it opens the door to other groups that wish to solicit our guests." But this is just disingenuous. The Salvation Army is an American charitable institution with a special place in the hearts of everyone. While a devoutly Christian organization, they do not use their bell-ringers to proselytize and do not seek big media outlets for their work. They work quietly behind the scenes to help out those among us most in need. And I believe it is among the best organizations in terms of getting every penny donated directly to those whom they help.



Click here to Donate Online and make up those moneys lost to Target's greed. Normally, I am a big Target booster, but this makes me incredibly angry.



Use this link to express your ire to Target thru their online e-mail form. As for me, I think I will be boycotting Target this year, unless this is corrected.

Pacers Psycho Fighter Suspended for the Year

After the horrifying run-into-the-stands assault on fans, the NBA commissioner has suspended him for the remainder of the year. The other players in the brawl were given lesser but significant suspensions, including all players who left the bench for any reason. This is an excellent move and reaction to this obscene incident. CRChair reminds us also that a suspended NBA player is not paid while on suspension. So not only do these thugs lose the chance to perform, but they also lose the cash that lets them live the high life. Let's hope this is enough to cut off any future incidents like this.

More on EA's Labor Practices

The New York Times has up a piece on the unconsciounable work practices enforced by EA in the production of their games for consoles and computer systems. It is somewhat more balanced than the earlier employee-side-only posts that Mod-Blog linked to. But not by much. Management basically just said "This is normal in our industry," and then admitted they were hiring younger and younger people, who are less and ess aware that they can complain about this kind of thing.



From Word Spy: Geeksploitation: The act of taking advantage of twentysomething digital workers who are flushed with pioneer enthusiasm and willing to work very long hours if bolstered by junk food, flexible work schedules, and no dress code.

The Hypocritical Left and Religion

There's an excellent piece up at the Washington Times dealing with the lunatic left's elitist bigotry. Here's the money quote,

This is all passing strange. First our tutors lecture us that Islam is a religion of peace, that only bigots think otherwise. Now they're telling us that the faith of red-state Christians is so vile that it can only be compared to the beliefs of Muslims in Saudi Arabia and Iraq — that red-state Christians are as bad as the red-hots of al Qaeda in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, where only yesterday we were told there was no al Qaeda.

There's no evil in the eyes of the left unless it concerns Christians.

Locusts Return to the Holy Land

For those nostalgic for the days of yore when God sent plagues of locusts upon Egypt to express his ire, now may be a good time to vist Israel. The extreme south of Israel right now is suffering from the worst locust swarms in a long time, and everything green is being eaten.

Millions of locusts swarmed through Israel's Red Sea resort town of Eilat on Sunday, devouring crops and flowers in the country's south...Israeli agriculture officials sent crop dusters into the air to spray against the locusts that swept in from North Africa in the first such invasion since 1959. Eilat residents reported clouds of locusts eating palm trees bare and wiping out entire gardens....In the Bible, locusts were the eighth of 10 plagues that God inflicted on the ancient Egyptians before Pharaoh, their leader, let the Israelites go...Locusts ventured across the Negev desert as far north as the Dead Sea where farmers worried that larger numbers of insects said to be heading their way might eat through their crops.

On the upside, locusts are the only insects which are kosher, so Israeli and Thai workers are snatching up the little critters from the ground and eating them. They are considered a delicacy, and many are eating them raw.

Happy Birthday, CRChair!

November 21 is my brother CRChair's birthday! Let's all take a chance to wish the more politically and economically astute of the two of us a very happy day and an even happier year!!!



Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday to you....

Happy birthday dear CRChair.....

Hapy birthday to you!

Please post your birthday wishes for CRChair below.



Update 1:44 PM: Oops. Had a little keyboard dyslexia there and originally put down the birth date as the 12. It is the 21st.

What Happened to the Credit Cookies?!

I went with with the family yesterday to see the new Pixar film THE INCREDIBLES. Great film. Well written, well animated, well acted, etc. And probably the first Pixar film which really leaves the childrens film genre to be a full-fledged, fully formed action film. However, at the end, something was missing. "What?" You may ask. Well, at the end of just about every Pixar film since TOY STORY has been a series of "outtakes" to amuse the audience. You know, playing that the animated "actors" bump into mikes, misspeak lines, etc. Very cute and very funny and very much missed this time around. This coincides with my ire about the newest Jackie Chan film AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS which leave out their obligatory outtakes of Jackie hurting himself while filming his own stunts. This is one of the reasons to see a Jackie Chan film, and it was left out for no apparent reason.



Roger Ebert calls this "during the credits" extras credit cookies, bonuses for viewers who stay in the theater for the whole run of the credits, whether outtakes, extra scenes, or the creepy breathing at the end of the new Star Wars movies. The late 90s and early 80s were a bonanza of credit cookies, and they were loved and appreciated. But now, it appears budget-cutting is removing these beloved bits of extra mirth. This is shameful.



C'Mon Hollywood! C'Mon Pixar! Bring back the credit cookies!

House Cleaning

I've changed up a couple of things around the blog including some minor font changes and cleaning up the blogroll a bit. Electoral Vote's banner is gone but the link is still in the roll and there's still plenty of useful info over there, including info about state elections and so on. In addition, if anyone knows of any really good sites out there, email or mention them in the comments section so that I can add them to the roll.

Berkeley: Bush Wins, Electronic Voting Loses

Some Berkeley researches got together to analyze the results of the 2004 Florida election. After the 2000 election with its scads of hanging, pregnant, and missing chads, the Florida election commission replaced hundreds of old optical scan ballot-readers with new touchscreen voting machines. Security experts cautioned that the Diebold machines were insecure and open to potential hackers of many kinds. So, when Bush won Florida in 2004, a group of Berkeley scientists went to work to question the results. After all, there is no way Bush could have actually won, right? Actually, the analaysis shows that while Bush probably won by fewer votes than the official tally, at worst he still won the state by over 100,000 votes.

More Evidence of Why Kerry Lost

He seems to think that it's the OBL tape. Other Democrats are supporting him on this claim. But the fact that he believes this is just more evidence of why Kerry really lost the election. It's because he, like most Democrats, has ceased to live in reality.



The OBL tape was supposed to hurt Bush, not Kerry. It was supposed to remind the country that the number one terrorist was still alive. This was the dream that the Democrats hoped for and yet polling shows that the tape did nothing, in either direction. But it's much more convienent to blame OBL or any number of other factors for lossing the election. That way you don't have to take credit for the poorest run campaign in modern history, for four years of the worst performance by a political party in decades, and for not being able to oust the supposedly worst, most vile, and dumbest President ever. It's much easier to place blame on OBL rather than admit that your message was weak, inconsistent, and inferior. It's a shame that the Democratic party in this country has truly lost any sense of purpose other than to hate President Bush. Maybe they'll decide to actually find their agenda again, one of these days. Until then, I wouldn't count on winning many elections.

Bipartisanship or Sneaky Senate Move?

CNN is reporting that the job of Secretary of Agriculture has been offered to Democratic Senator Bob Nelson of Nebraska. This would be the second Democrat to join uber-Republican George W. Bush's cabinet after Treasury Secretary Norm Mineta. Obviously, a move to show the fact that the president can embrace a spirit of bipartisanship, right? A reaching out, across the aisle, for the betterment of the nation, right? Well, maybe so, or maybe not. Senator Nelson's seat is in a state with a Republican governor. So if he left to become Mr. Top Aggy, the Senate split would suddenly have 56 republican senators which would put them a lot closer to the 60-person filibuster-proof majority.



File this under "Things that make you go hmmmmmmmm..."

Turkey Tech for Thanksgiving?

It has become so common that it is not even a joke anymore. Family holidays used to be pretty much made for 3 things: good food, good conversation, and the same old argument with Uncle Earl over some obscure political or sports-related topic. But now, for thousands of Gen X and Yers, family holidays are all about bailing out relatives from bad technology which has taken ober their lives. Whether saving grandma from the Blue Screen of Death, or explaining to dad why his digital camera won't talk to the mainframe at work, the technology divide has never been bigger. Newsweek has a great article on this development.

Forget the generational tags you’ve already heard, like Gen X and Gen Y. We are the Tech-Support Generation. Our job is to troubleshoot the complex but imperfect technology that befuddle mom and dad, veterans of the rotary phone, the record player and the black-and-white cabinet television set. Next week, on our annual pilgrimage home, we’ll turn our Web-trained minds and joystick-conditioned fingers to the task of rescuing our parents from bleeding-edge technology on the blink.

CRChair and I make sure Mom has the easiest possible setup at home: an iBook for her computing needs, an Apple Airport for her wireless networking, an HP USB printer that works with the iBook with no additional drivers, and a digital camera that seamless works with iPhoto and which I used for year before handing over to her, to ensure it was fool-proof. But still she has regular problems with AOL software, her older Mac which sits in a corner of the dining room after a messy crash, and other stuff, which she wait for her boys to come over and fix. And with both boys working very intense 50+ hour weeks right now, it ain't happening easily.



And no, I am not the "Simple Nomad" mentioned in the article, mores the pity.

Frog Watch: It's Raining Frogs!

That's about how much of a plague the Frog is these days. I was going to link to another idiotic speech but I just don't think he's worth linking too. How much longer do we have to take it before we officially stop listing France as a "friend" when it's clear that they don't see themselves that way. If they really think that they are called to stand up to the "big bad US" and they think that they have the power (continue reading after you've finished laughing) then let them. France hasn't exactly contribued much to the world in this past century anyway, I honestly don't think we'd be missing that much without them "on our side."

Chomsky and Anti-Semitism

I'm not a big fan of the man for many reasons. The latest is outlined here. Noam represents everything wrong with the "intellectual" left in our age. Ignorance and hate masqurade as openess and enlightenment, and if we don't like it then we're obviously just red state hicks.

Iran Plays Poker with Nuclear Weapon Development

Oh, those wacky Iranians. According to diplomats the government of Iran are going to abide by the letter of the agreement they made with the European Union - they will make no more enriched Unarium precursors for nuclear weapons after Monday. However, apparently the agreement allows them to work with whatever enriched Uranium precurors they already have. So, the Iranian government has gone into overdrive in making the uranium precursors over this weekend. According to some reports, they may have more than enough enriched uranium from this weekend alone to build 5 nuclear weapons. And of course, that doesn't count anything else they have made up until now. I'll bet the Israeli and American militaries will be laughing about this too.

Kofi Takes Another Hit

So, you're the leader of an organization dedicated to ruling the world. Not in a Dr. Evil or Pinky-and-the-Brain sort of way. More like in a we-know-whats-best-for-you-little-children-of-the-world sort of way. Bind the world in your own personal red tape, and no bad things can every happen because it would require too much paperwork and speechmaking. Secure in your position and happy with your many accomplishments (like Rwanda, for example), you decide that you might as well store up a little cash for when you are out of office. A sort of golden parachute for a trusted employee. You notice that the Iraqi Oil-for-Food program is doing precious little good anyway. So why not skim a little off the top. The stuff that no one needs anyway. The works of your underlings on similar scams - including your son - are found out. But somehow you are left untouched. Happy day!



But then, one of our favorite associates at the UN is charged with "harrassing staff" and violating UN rules of hiring and promotion. The union of those who run the UN demand the dismissal of this associate. Well, you survived the major scandal, so you can survive this little mosquito-bite, right?



Oops! Maybe not. Now suddenly the UN President is facing a no-confidence vote from his own staff. And what is the President of the UN without any staffers to do his bidding? Well, pretty much just a guy in a nice suit in an office... without any coffee... or anyone to place his calls.

UN Fails Again

When will we learn that saying, "Stop that. You shouldn't be doing that. Play Nice" to a country is about as effective as saying it to a two year old and then leaving the room? The UN won't even put sanctions on Sudan when there are several testimonies about the military raids there. It reminds me of the time after WWI that we tried to outlaw war (though this would have been the League of Nations and not the UN). How do you enforce that without going to war against the aggressor? Probably the biggest irony was when Libya was in charge of Human Rights.



Apparantly, a peace agreement has been reached. I still wonder if it is only diplomacy in the sense of Mark Twain's comment, "Diplomacy is the art of saying nice doggy until you can find a big rock."

Lincoln Bedroom Found In Clinton Library

If you haven't heard of the Borowitz Report, you really ought to check it out. This guy takes equal time bashing both sides. From today's headline:

While admission to the Clinton library is seven dollars, tourists will be allowed to spend a night in the newly reconstituted Lincoln Bedroom for an additional ten thousand dollars, Mr. Clinton said.

--------

But in a press conference in Washington, reporters grilled White House spokesman Scott McClellan about why the administration had not noticed that the bedroom was missing in the first place.



“Come on, guys,” Mr. McClellan pleaded. “We’re having a hard enough time trying to find bin Laden.”

20 Questions - Computer Style

I was browsing around Think Geek and came across a hand-held 20 Questions computer game where the computer asks you the questions. This led me to a website in which you can play 20 Questions. Having taken an artificial intelligence course in college, I was intrigued and attempted a game. My object was a zebra. The computer didn't guess it, but to its credit, my answers to its questions did not coincide with the answers in its database. I later tried the country Andorra. It didn't even have that as a possible answer. My final test was a bowling ball. While the computer did not guess it, it was on the first page of possible answers after it had taken all of its guesses. We also disagreed on some of the answers. I was disappointed that it was so easy to beat the computer, but knowing the amount of work it takes to make a decent AI system and knowing how the good systems are rare, I shouldn't have been surprised.

The Dollar Continues To Drop

The dollar has sunk to a new low against the Euro. While this is good for our exports, it means that interest rates will continue to stay low so that bank account has become even more worthless from an investment perspective. It also hurts the missionaries living in Europe as their already small salary buys them even less. When I spent six months in Europe, a bad dollar has a conversion rate of 1 euro = $1.21. It is now up to 1 euro = $1.3074! This has hurt European exports to the point that the European bank is considering a joint effort with the Japanese bank to purchase dollars to boost the value. President Bush blames it on the lack of economic growth in Europe due to government restrictions. Europe blames trade and budget deficits. I wonder if all of the media about the war and the economy are to blame. I thought that war was supposed to bring about an economic boom as it did in World War II. Then again, as posted previously, jobs are on the rise so maybe we'll see a stronger dollar in the future.