So the city of Houston has this crazy idea: as long as they’re adding WiFi to the city’s parking meters for verifiying credit card info (yes, that means no more fishing for quarters), why not open up the WiFi network so that the general public can get online, too?

[ I can think of one or two reasons that wifi parking meters beaming credit card data back and forth may be, well, not a *great* idea. -k]

Houston thinking about using WiFi parking meters for citywide wireless network - Engadget - www.engadget.com

Want to know more about a specific location? Dive right in -- Google Earth combines satellite imagery, maps and the power of Google Search to put the world’s geographic information at your fingertips.

[ GOOGLE OWNS YOU! -k]

Google Earth - Home

p to 1,000 teenage boys have been separated from their parents and thrown out of their communities by a polygamous sect to make more young women available for older men, Utah officials claim. Many of these "Lost Boys", some as young as 13, have simply been dumped on the side of the road in Arizona and Utah, by the leaders of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS), and told they will never see their families again or go to heaven.

[ Ugh. Seriously. I wish Jesus would take a more active role in disavowing fools who claim to do hateful, vicious shit in his name. I know he's about turning the other cheek, but couldn't he at least be like "Seriously, guys, you crazy. I mean, I'm not gonna kill ya, but for real, I didn't say any of that stuff. Just saying, you know?" -k]

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | The lost boys, thrown out of US sect so that older men can marry more wives

Thirteen Kutztown Area High School students are facing felony charges for tampering with district-issued laptop computers.

According to parent testimony and confirmed by an otherwise vaguely-worded letter from the Kutztown Police Department, students got hold of the system's secret administrative password and reconfigured their computers to achieve greater Internet and network access.

[ Yeah, that'll show 'em! Downloading pr0n will RUIN YOUR LIFE, and if it doesn't WE WILL!

Totally fucking asinine. Take the computers away and suspend the kids for a week or 2. Simultaneously, have a drink and fucking relax. If it comes out that they were h4x0ring the actual school server to change grades or whatever, then fine, that's more serious, but this is some penny-ante shit.

And also, that's a fucking retarded password. It's a little better than HACK_ME, but not much. -k]

Berks-Mont Newspapers - Kutztown Area Patriot - 13 teens face felonies

Rattle wrote:

Two things that have been said often apply here. First, Chinese foreign policy consists of one word: oil. Second, its likely that any conflicts with China would be fought out on an economic battlefield.

So what does everything think? Should we be concerned about this?

There is a book that talks about China's energy grabs. This book was written before 9/11, with half the book talking about oil, and half talking about water.

The South China sea has the 3rd largest proven oil reserves in the world. The 1st is of course the Middle East (inside which the largest is on the "border" between Omar, Yeman, and Saudi Arabia. The 2nd largest in the gulf is in Iraq). The 2nd largest proven reserve in the world is the Caspian Sea. The book (remember, pre-9/11) mentions Hamid Karzai, and attempts by the US to build an oil pipeline across Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, including our deals with the Taliban.

I'll come back to that, on to China. The UN has resolutions stating countries have mineral rights for 200 miles off their coasts. Lets look at that map here

China has been claiming all these islands in the middle of the SCS, because they desire all this oil. These "islands" are covered by the tides for 3 months of the year! China basically claims the whole SCS. The author lists something like 13 or so military conflicts through 2000 between naval ships of the countries bordering the SCS. China has even invaded and controls some islands that belong to the Philippines. The author suggests that China isn't building its navy to invade Taiwan, but to control the SCS.

Now, frame this in world politics. China is our largest enemy right now. They are advanced rapidly both technologically and economically. They have a huge standing army and their needs for oil are increasing at a very large rate, and their engery demands will surpass the US in 30 years. It is clear what the Iraq war is about: securing vital oil resources that we need to remain a super power. Human rights and "democracy" are just as worthless of an excuse as Germany saying it invaded Poland because of Polish saboteurs.

RE: CNOOC: Unocal Bid Not About Politics - Yahoo! News

We did not expect Mr. Bush would apologize for the misinformation that helped lead us into this war, or for the catastrophic mistakes his team made in running the military operation. But we had hoped he would resist the temptation to raise the bloody flag of 9/11 over and over again to justify a war in a country that had nothing whatsoever to do with the terrorist attacks. We had hoped that he would seize the moment to tell the nation how he will define victory, and to give Americans a specific sense of how he intends to reach that goal - beyond repeating the same wishful scenario that he has been describing since the invasion.

Sadly, Mr. Bush wasted his opportunity last night, giving a speech that only answered questions no one was asking. He told the nation, again and again, that a stable and democratic Iraq would be worth American sacrifices, while the nation was wondering whether American sacrifices could actually produce a stable and democratic Iraq.

President Bush's Speech About Iraq - New York Times

Whodathunk Wimbledon — with its sober traditions, dutiful curtseys, and annual Tiger Tim emotional drubbing — would be the latest showcase for high tech gadgetry? ... Shot Tracker (or Hawkeye) provides a three-dimensional animated image of every rally not just to commentators, players or coaches but now to punters and yobs alike on the wimbledon.org site.

[ That's rad. -k]

Wimbledon goes hi-tech with Shot Tracker - Engadget - www.engadget.com

France was chosen to host the world's first nuclear-fusion reactor, ending a deadlock with Japan over a location of the 4.6 billion euro ($5.6 billion) experiment involving the European Union, Japan, the U.S., Russia, China and South Korea.

The six members of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, or ITER, which means ``the way'' in Latin, agreed in Moscow today to build the facility in the southern French city of Cadarache, rather than Rokkasho-Mura, the Japanese location favored by the U.S. and South Korea.

Bloomberg.com: Japan

Looking for work is an exercise in selling yourself. You write cover letter after cover letter, listing the parts of you that you respect the least, listing the selling points that make you valuable in a buyer's market. You leave out the little details that you tell yourself in the morning to make things okay. You don't mention the way your heart flutters when you meet your lover's eyes across the table, the way your feet felt like lead at your aunt's funeral. You write cover letter after cover letter, listing the same store bought traits in the same wording, day after day, hoping to find another job.

And then maybe one day you just snap a little. You sit down to write a cover letter, and something entirely new comes out.

And you send it anyway.

[ Excellent. -k]

Overqualified

Internet file-sharing services will be held responsible if they intend for their customers to use software primarily to swap songs and movies illegally, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, rejecting warnings that the lawsuits will stunt growth of cool tech gadgets such as the next iPod.

The unanimous decision sends the case back to lower court, which had ruled in favor of file-sharing services Grokster Ltd. and StreamCast Networks Inc. on the grounds that the companies couldn't be sued. The justices said there was enough evidence of unlawful intent for the case to go to tria

Fuck!

[ That is EXACTLY the reaction Ryan had. I agreed then and will now do so again. -k]

CNN.com - Court: File-sharing services can be liable for music theft - Jun 27, 2005