A nurse was on air warning that drinking too much water is dangerous. Sherrod said a DJ rebuffed the nurse, saying the contestants signed waivers.

I am so mad about this. What happens when you try to drink as much water as you can in one sitting is you get desalinated and you die. This isn't hard information to come by. Google water overdose. They might as well have placed a revolver on the table with a single bullet in it and asked the contestants to pass it around. These idiots had a nurse on air telling them that they were going to kill somebody and yet the show went on. If there ever was a poster child for massive liability this is it. Waivers should not absolve responsibility for something this stupid.

Mom dies trying to win a Nintendo

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It used to be the case that people who didn't read books on a regular basis weren't very smart, but that was back when books were all there really was to read. I don't read books on a regular basis. I seem to read the internet instead. I'm quite well informed on current events, but I tend to prefer my information in bite sized morsels. My attention span sucks. I'm not willing to make the commitment to sit down and read some 800 page tome, even if its a really, really good 800 page tome.

So I enjoy getting the odd SciFi short story off the net. All of the fun associated with reading a real sci fi story, without having to invest a lot of time. Rudy Rucker, one of my favorite Sci Fi authors has started a totally free Internet short story magazine called Flurb. This could be a good source of entertainment when I'm sick of starting at serious discussions about the power of the presidency in war time. The name of the magazine comes from the story I'm linking here, published in their first issue, which I enjoyed and I think sums up what I like about Rudy Rucker and what I like about California at the same time.

Yes, the very summer when Jory had been casting about for a topic for his physics thesis—good Lord, that was forty years ago—he’d found a ring of magic mushrooms in a glen in the woods across the creek that cut through Gunnar’s farm. Turned out Gunnar knew about the mushrooms, not that he was interested in eating them. Gunnar claimed he’d once seen tiny old men and a single beautiful elf-woman dancing around the circle in the invisible light of the new moon.

Jory hadn’t seen dancing elves; he’d seen a hailstorm of bejeweled polyhedra.  He’d begun hopping from one to the other, climbing them like stepping-stones, like moving platforms in a videogame. The name for a new science—“rhizomal subdimension theory”—came in a crystalline flash from a blazing rhombicosidodecahedron. And quickly this incantatory phrase led to a supernal white-light vision of a new quantum cosmology.

Elves of the Subdimension - Rudy Rucker & Paul Di Filippo

Image posting has been re-enabled! Post away. We've tested on IE, Firefox, Safari, SideKick and Nintendo Wii, and the feature seems to work on all of these platforms. We still have some bugs we're still tracking with the most recent update, but we should have those cleared up over the course of Sunday...

Stratfor: Geopolitical Intelligence Report - January 4, 2007

The 'Surge Strategy': Political Arguments and Military Realities

By George Friedman

U.S. President George W. Bush is preparing a new strategy for Iraq.
According to reports being leaked to the media, the primary option
being considered is a "surge strategy," in which U.S. troop levels
in Iraq would be increased, particularly in the Baghdad region. The
numbers of additional troops that would deploy -- or that would not
be rotated home -- are unclear, but appear to be in the low tens of
thousands. This "surge" strategy is interesting in that it runs
counter to general expectations after the midterm elections in
November, when it appeared that the president was tied to a phased
withdrawal plan. Instead, Bush seems to have decided to attempt to
break out of the military gridlock in which the United States finds
itself. Therefore, the questions now are why the president is
considering this strategy and whether it will work.

As we have discussed previously, the United States appears to have
four strategic options in Iraq:

1. Massively increase the number of troops in Iraq, attempting to
break the back of both the Sunni insurgents and the Shiite militias
and create room for a political settlement.

2. Begin a withdrawal process that allows the Iraqis to shape the
politics of the country as they will -- and that leaves a huge
opportunity for Iran to fill the vacuum.

3. Abandon attempts to provide security for Iraq but retain forces
there, in a redeployed posture, with the goal of blocking any
potential Iranian moves toward the Arabian Peninsula.

4. Attempt to reach a political accommodation with Tehran that
concedes Iraq to the Iranian sphere of influence, in order to
provide guarantees against Iranian expansion southward. This
diplomatic option is compatible with all others.

Each of these options has strengths and weakness. The first option,
the surge, rests on the assumption that the United States has
enough troops available to make a difference on the ground in Iraq;
it also would decrease the strategic reserve for dealing with other
crises around the world. The phased withdrawal option eliminates
the need for Iraqi Shia and Iran to engage in political discussion
-- since, given time, U.S. forces would depart from Iraq and the
Shia would be the dominant force. The blocking strategy puts the
United States in the position of protecting Saudi Arabia (a Sunni
kingdom that doesn't want to appear to be seeking such protection)
against Iran -- a Shiite state that could, in that situation,
choose the time and place for initiating conflict. In other words,
this option would put U.S. forces on a strategic defensive in
hostile areas. The fourth option, diplomacy, assumes so... [ Read More (1.6k in body) ]

Those who refuse to give this plan a chance to work have an obligation to offer an alternative that has a better chance for success.

You've got the guy who runs all of the guys who understand how to deal with problems like this demanding that legislators develop an alternative military strategy. Legislators are not military strategists. Part of taking responsibility for your mistakes involves being able to defend your proposals! There are hard questions that ought to have good answers before we escalate this conflict. As far as I can see those questions have not been answered.

1. What does domestic politics have to do with your troop levels. If more troops were all thats needed why weren't they being deployed months ago?
2. What does domestic politics have to do with sectarian barriers to entering neighborhoods? (Malaki is scared because the possibility of our leaving is on the table might be an acceptable answer.)
3. Do you actually have a way to get more troops?
4. Are those troops appropriately trained and equipped to handle the mission? How is that possible when you are deploying them on such an aggressive schedule?
5. Can that mission succeed.... To a point, is there a military solution to quelling the violence in Iraq? Will the sectarian groups back down in the face of more American military presence, or does a solution require a diplomatic agreement between the political leaders of the various factions? Is there any reason to beleive that Iran, now quite emboldened, has any interest at all in doing anything but continuing to instigate trouble? Is there any reason to beleive that operating a crackdown can have anything more than a cosmetic impact on the levels of violence if the fundamental interersts driving the conflict are not resolved?

Bush defends new Iraq strategy against strong opposition on Capitol Hill - International Herald Tribune

A 40-year-old substitute teacher faces up to 40 years in prison after being convicted of exposing children to pornography on a computer at the Connecticut middle school where she taught.

Well, this is right fucked. Even if she is guilty 40 years is nonsentical.

Boing Boing: Teacher faces 40 years for porn in classroom, blames adware

If we accept all the Star Wars films as the same canon, then a lot that happens in the original films has to be reinterpreted in the light of the prequels. As we now know, the rebel Alliance was founded by Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Bail Organa. What can readily be deduced is that their first recruit, who soon became their top field agent, was R2-D2.

OK, I have to watch all of these movies again now.

A New Sith, or Revenge of the Hope

MOST AMERICANS understand that legal representation for the accused is one of the core principles of the American way. Not, it seems, Cully Stimson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs.

In a repellent interview yesterday with Federal News Radio, Mr. Stimson brought up, unprompted, the number of major U.S. law firms that have helped represent detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

Mr. Stimson proceeded to reel off the names of these firms, adding, "I think, quite honestly, when corporate CEOs see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those CEOs are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms, and I think that is going to have major play in the next few weeks. And we want to watch that play out."

Jesus. It is wholly inappropriate for a Government employee operating in an official capacity to call publicly for private reprisals against lawyers for defending people accused of commiting crimes. These people are not trying to help terrorists. They are trying to ensure that the rule of law is protected. The administration has established a pattern of targetting these lawyers, and with them, our system of justice.

Unveiled Threats - washingtonpost.com

“You don’t want your phone to be an open platform,” meaning that anyone can write applications for it and potentially gum up the provider's network, says Jobs. “You need it to work when you need it to work. Cingular doesn’t want to see their West Coast network go down because some application messed up.”

The iphone suddenly doesn't sound half as cool as people have been saying. Furthermore, if Cingular is relying on Apple's application protection to keep their West Coast network from going down they can kiss it goodbye. Computers do things they aren't supposed to. Often by accident. Sometimes on purpose. If your infrastructure can't handle that, it won't work.

Levy Interviews Steve Jobs About iPhone - Newsweek