Very soon Suddam Hussien shall know the way of conflict, the way of war, the way of Optimus Prime!

U.S. Army Ohio National Guard 5694TH Tactical Crash Rescue Unit
On the battlefield I have no equal! I am unstoppable, indestructible! If you face me, then like all those who have come before... you will fall! For I am Optimus Prime, an American Soldier!

Hello. My legal name is Optimus Prime. I have been a Transformers fanatic since 1984. This site will let you get to know a little about me, my family, and my love for toys that are more than meets the eye.

Autobots, transform and roll out!

Optimus Prime's Home Page!

] In spite of recording artist Sheryl Crow's strong
] protestations, including the wearing of a "No War" guitar
] strap, the U.S. went to war with Iraq last week. "Making
] the decision to go to war is never easy, but it's that
] much harder when you know Sheryl Crow disapproves," White
] House press secretary Ari Fleischer said at a press
] conference Monday.

I'm recommending this weeks whole onion issue... High Quality Journalism.

The Onion | Operation Piss off the Planet

Any time travellers who wish to make their fortune by tampering with the past should contact me immediately (if not sooner). I charge 10% of profits after taxes, in contemporary currency, and discretion is assured. Everything else (returns, nature of markets, use of numbered swiss accounts) negotiable.

Insider Info Wanted

Paul Berman writes for the New York Times Magazine on Sayyid Qutb.

This is an absolute must read.

The Philosopher of Islamic Terror

] You can add the Iraq Satellite Channel to your
] 500-channel universe with a little tinkering.

The Saddam Show - How to watch Iraqi TV on the Web.

Hijexx wrote:
] The footage was the most disturbing thing on television in
] some time. There was US President George W Bush, being prepped
] for his televised declaration of war. It was not the combing
] of his hair, the only aspect of the coverage reported by any
] American media outlet (the Washington Post in this case),
] which was cause for embarrassment; everyone expects that.
] Rather, it was the demeanour — I would say antics — of the
] president himself.
]
] Like some class clown trying to get attention from the back of
] the room, he started mugging for his handlers. His eyes darted
] back and forth impishly as he cracked faces at others around
] him. He pumped a fist and self-consciously muttered, "feel
] good," which was interestingly sanitised into the more mature
] and assertive, "I'm feeling good" by the same Washington Post.
]
] He was goofing around, and there's only one way to interpret
] that kind of behaviour just seconds before announcing war on
] Iraq: the man is an idiot.
]
] ...
]
] I've seen the footage they're talking about. It's not the
] hair combing, it's the antics. I watched as he sat there
] trying to practice his serious face and asking if it was good
] or not. It was pretty sickening.

The Washington Post article is here, btw:
 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1027-2003Mar20.html

Now, I haven't seen the footage itself (if anyone has a link to it, let me know), but I would like to offer an alternative view, especially because I've been doing a lot of public speaking myself lately.

Basically, it's *scary* to get up on stage. Even when I'm giving a talk that I've given literally dozens of times before, I get nervous right before I speak. My palms sweat, I fidget, I run through the script in my head, I worry about how the audience is going to receive what I say, I worry whether I'll communicate the emotional impact that I intend to communicate, and I do all kinds of absurd little things to try and calm myself down and/or psych myself up. Then, once I'm actually on stage, I usually go on autopilot and I'm fine, though I may not even be consciously aware sometimes that I'm speaking. Indeed, on a couple very stressful occasions where I was speaking to enormous audiences, I'd have people coming up to me after a talk and telling me what a great job I did, and how moved they were by some of what I'd said, but I would have absolutely no memory of some of the parts of the talk that I'd just given, because I was so nervous while I was speaking!

When I watch Bush speak (and also sometimes when I watch Colin Powell or Tony Blair speak), perhaps because I'm identifying so strongly with the *process* of public speaking, I can picture what's going on behind the scenes. Like during Bush's "State of the Union" speech, while I was seeing ... [ Read More (0.3k in body) ]

George's little antics

Enjoy.

Why the Blues will never make the Stanley Cup finals

] This simulated government official is taking questions in
] conformance with the Official Simulation Act of 2002. All
] quotes are authentic. No government official was harmed
] in the making of this simulation.

Ask Don Rumsfeld!

“I have challenged regulators, business professionals and utility companies in Iowa to work toward achieving 1,000 megawatts of renewable energy by 2010, which will require the addition of more than 500 megawatts of renewable energy facilities,” Vilsack said. “I am pleased that MidAmerican is taking a leadership role in that effort.”

Now that just plain rocks. It's nice to see some good news these days.

MidAmerican to build Largest Wind Farm in the World

The Sound of Things to Come
By MARSHALL SELLA

No one ever notices what's going on at a Radio Shack. Outside a lonely branch of the electronics store, on a government-issue San Diego day in a strip mall where no one is noticing much of anything, a bluff man with thinning, ginger hair and preternaturally white teeth is standing on the pavement, slowly waving a square metal plate toward people strolling in the distance. ''Watch that lady over there,'' he says, unable to conceal his boyish pride for the gadget in his giant hand. ''This is really cool.''

Woody Norris aims the silvery plate at his quarry. A burly brunette 200 feet away stops dead in her tracks and peers around, befuddled. She has walked straight into the noise of a Brazilian rain forest -- then out again. Even in her shopping reverie, here among the haircutters and storefront tax-preparers and dubious Middle Eastern bistros, her senses inform her that she has just stepped through a discrete column of sound, a sharply demarcated beam of unexpected sound. ''Look at that,'' Norris mutters, chuckling as the lady turns around. ''She doesn't know what hit her.''

Norris is demonstrating something called HyperSonic Sound (HSS). The aluminum plate is connected to a CD player and an odd amplifier -- actually, a very odd and very new amplifier -- that directs sound much as a laser beam directs light. Over the past few years, mainly in secret, he has shown the device to more than 300 major companies, and it has slackened a lot of jaws. In December, the editors of Popular Science magazine bestowed upon HSS its grand prize for new inventions of 2002, choosing it over the ferociously hyped Segway scooter. It is no exaggeration to say that HSS represents the first revolution in acoustics since the loudspeaker was invented 78 years ago -- and perhaps only the second since pilgrims used ''whispering tubes'' to convey their dour messages.

The Sound of Things to Come