Given that the next version of Windows is more than two years late, you'd expect that people would be calling for Microsoft to get its act together and release it soon as possible. Not so.

nicked from Digg
and yes better to get it right than launch just to meet some arbitary deadline

Bloggers to Microsoft: Take your time with Vista | News.blog | CNET News.com

When the U.S.-led coalition invaded Afghanistan five years ago, pessimists warned that we Americans would soon find ourselves in a similar situation to what Soviet forces faced in the 1980s. They were wrong - but only about the timing.

The military operation was lean and lethal, and routed the Taliban government in a few weeks. But now, just two years after Hamid Karzai was elected as the country's first democratic leader, the coalition finds itself, like its Soviet predecessors, in control of major cities and towns, very weak in the villages, and besieged by a shadowy insurgency that uses Pakistan as its rear base.

Washington's backing of an enlightened government in Kabul should put the United States in a far stronger position than the Soviets in the fight to win back the hinterland. But it may not, and for a good reason: The involvement of America's other ally in the region, Pakistan, in aiding the Taliban war machine is deeper than is commonly thought.

Pakistan: The Taliban's silent partner - Editorials & Commentary - International Herald Tribune

...
In improvising a response to the insurgency, the U.S. forces worked hard and had some successes. Yet they frequently were led poorly by commanders unprepared for their mission by an institution that took away from the Vietnam War only the lesson that it shouldn't get involved in messy counterinsurgencies. The advice of those who had studied the American experience there was ignored.

That summer, retired Marine Col. Gary Anderson, an expert in small wars, was sent to Baghdad by the Pentagon to advise on how to better put down the emerging insurgency. He met with Bremer in early July. "Mr. Ambassador, here are some programs that worked in Vietnam," Anderson said.

It was the wrong word to put in front of Bremer. "Vietnam?" Bremer exploded, according to Anderson. "Vietnam! I don't want to talk about Vietnam. This is not Vietnam. This is Iraq!"

This was one of the early indications that U.S. officials would obstinately refuse to learn from the past as they sought to run Iraq.

One of the essential texts on counterinsurgency was written in 1964 by David Galula, a lieutenant colonel in the French army who was born in Tunisia, witnessed guerrilla warfare on three continents and died in 1967.
...

In Iraq, Military Forgot Lessons of Vietnam

At least a dozen bridges from Manhattan to the other boroughs offer pedestrian lanes — and a bit of adventure. So why do most visitors merely cross the Brooklyn Bridge, then call it a day? Here are three bridges worth the walk, especially for the (most un-Manhattan-like) neighborhoods that beckon on the other side.

i would love to visit New York

Crossing Over, Step by Step - New York Times

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The CIA has disbanded a unit set up in the 1990s to oversee the spy agency's hunt for Osama bin Laden and transferred its duties to broader operations that track Islamist militant groups, a U.S. intelligence official said on Tuesday.

what ??
but he's responsible for the greatest peace time atrocity in American history

CIA disbands bin Laden unit�|�Reuters.com

The Supreme Court today delivered a sweeping rebuke to the Bush administration, ruling that it exceeded its authority by creating tribunals for terror suspects that fell short of the legal protections that Congress has traditionally required in military courts.

As a result, the court said in a 5-to-3 ruling, the tribunals violated both American military law and the military's obligations under the Geneva Conventions.
...
Justice Stevens declared flatly that "the military commission at issue lacks the power to proceed because its structure and procedure violate" both the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which governs the American military's legal system, and the Third Geneva Convention.The majority opinion rejected the administration's claims that the tribunals were justified both by President Bush's inherent powers as commander in chief and by the resolution passed by Congress authorizing the use of force after the Sept. 11. There is nothing in the resolution's legislative history "even hinting" that such an expansion of the president's powers was considered, he wrote.
...
Cmdr. Charles Swift, the Navy lawyer assigned by the military to represent Mr. Hamdan, called today's ruling "a return to our fundamental values."

"That return marks a high-water point," Commander Swift said at a news conference outside the court. "It shows that we can't be scared out of who we are, and that's a victory, folks."

chalk one up to liberty and the rule of law

Supreme Court Blocks Guant�namo Tribunals - New York Times

Moose the dog, better known as Eddie in US sitcom Frasier, has died aged 16 in Los Angeles, his trainer has said.

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Frasier's dog Eddie dies aged 16

We've all heard of the Great Firewall of China. These guys found a clever way around it:

The Great Firewall of China is an important tool for the Chinese Government in their efforts to censor the Internet. It works, in part, by inspecting web traffic to determine whether or not particular words are present.
...
It turns out [caveat: in the specific cases we’ve closely examined, YMMV] that the keyword detection is not actually being done in large routers on the borders of the Chinese networks, but in nearby subsidiary machines. When these machines detect the keyword, they do not actually prevent the packet containing the keyword from passing through the main router (this would be horribly complicated to achieve and still allow the router to run at the necessary speed). Instead, these subsiduary machines generate a series of TCP reset packets, which are sent to each end of the connection. When the resets arrive, the end-points assume they are genuine requests from the other end to close the connection — and obey. Hence the censorship occurs.

However, because the original packets are passed through the firewall unscathed, if both of the endpoints were to completely ignore the firewall’s reset packets, then the connection will proceed unhindered! We’ve done some real experiments on this — and it works just fine!! Think of it as the Harry Potter approach to the Great Firewall — just shut your eyes and walk onto Platform 9¾.

Ignoring the Great Firewall of China

"The first step towards gravitational wave astronomy has been taken."

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Lab tuned to gravity's 'ripples'

OMG Steven Colbert is just a screaming genius. lol

This is funny.

Congressman that sponsored 10 commandments bill asked to name the 10 commandments