"I can modify code, but I'm an idiot! Please arrest me!" --Message found in latest virus.

] Parson apparently took few steps to disguise his
] identity. As a byproduct of each infection, every
] victim's computer sent signals back to the "t33kid.com"
] Web site that Parson had registered in his own name,
] listing his home address. The computer bug also included
] an infecting file called "teekids.exe" that experts
] quickly associated with Parson's Web site: Hackers
] routinely substitute "3" for the letter "e" in their
] online aliases.

Also of note in this article, this guy may have cost Microsoft 5-10 million. Well, good. Maybe their next OS won't ship with SEVENTY-EIGHT THOUSAND KNOWN HOLES SO FAR. Jerk offs.

Yahoo! News - Accused Web Attacker Under House Arrest

Cool! The EPA isn't doing "Protection" part of it's title. Can we rename them the "Fuck the Environment Agency" or is that acronym already in use?

] In a major new revision to its air pollution rules, the
] Environmental Protection Agency (news - web sites) will
] allow up to 20 percent of the costs of replacing each
] plant's production system to be considered "routine
] maintenance" that doesn't require costly antipollution
] controls

Yahoo! News - EPA Exempts Plants From Clean-Air Rule

This is one of the signs of the Apocalypse right?

I'm doing it for... ummm...

] Fox News Network is suing humor writer Al Franken for
] trademark infringement over the phrase "fair and
] balanced"

I had no idea you could trademark a cliche. Can I trademark, "It's the last place you look," and then sue anyone else who prints it?

Yahoo! News - Fox Sues Humor Writer for Using 'Signature' Slogan

] The White House has acknowledged that it was a mistake to
] have included the uranium allegation in the State of the
] Union address. But an examination of how it originated,
] how it was repeated in January and by whom suggests that
] the administration was determined to keep the idea before
] the public as it built its case for war, even though the
] claim had been excised from a presidential speech the
] previous October through the direct intervention of CIA
] Director George J. Tenet.

I do so love the fact that these guys think it is ok to lie so we can send a few hundred of our guys halfway around the planet to get killed. One more reason Shrub isn't fit to carry his dad's jockstrap.

Yahoo! News - Bush Team Kept Airing Iraq Allegation

This is too funny. The guy makes a political statement (like we haven't been slamming the frogs for the last year) and these people have the balls to call him a hypoocrite? I especially love the hate mail he's been getting.

Axis of Weasels

] "MIT recently received a subpoena from the Recording
] Industry Association of America that was issued under the
] terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The
] subpoena requests the name and address of the individual
] whose computer was, according to the RIAA, sending out
] copyrighted songs on the Internet.
]
] "A different federal law, the Family Education Rights and
] Privacy Act, prohibits colleges and universities from
] disclosing information about students except in certain
] situations.

In a related move RIAA responded by issuing the statement "My kid can kick your honor student's ass."

MIT responds to RIAA subpoena

] President Bush (news - web sites) ordered U.S. troops
] into position off the coast of Liberia (news - web sites)
] Friday to support the arrival of a West African
] peacekeeping force, as renewed violence in the capital
] brought despairing pleas for American help.

So we've sent ships there that may or may not have troops. What are they going to do? Sail in little circles taunting these people? And these people (unlike the Iraqis) really DO want us there!

Yahoo! News - American Troops Sent to Liberia's Coast

Phonebooth - Well acted, nice cast, stupid movie.

Shanghai Knights - Fun with Jackie Chan. Lots of bad jokes and screwy historical references. Watchable.

Gangs of New York - Daniel Day Lewis is amazing. Even Leo and Cameron Diaz can't ruin this movie. Watch it.

Basic - Travolta and Jackson doing an odd version of Rashomon. Watched it twice because it was realy weird. Watch this too.

The Recruit - More Colin Farrell with the exception that this one is good unlike Phonebooth. Worth watching but see the other two first.

More to come later!

Well the White House finally released their budget numbers today and confirmed what everyone else had been saying all along. King George the Second managed to foul up the budget to an even greater level than King George the First.

In all fairness to George the first, much of that disaster he inherited from the Reagan administration and putting that house in order was a task of Herculean proportions. George the First was not afraid to call what Reagan wanted to do "Voodoo Economics," and while he wasn't entirely sucessful in making things better, at least he managed to not make things much worse.

People can rail at Bill Clinton for being a lecherous philanderer all they want, but when it came to the actual job of making the government run, it came in under budget. That's quite an achievement. In fact, if you look at the federal budget since there was a deficit, you'll find something startling.

The deficit was formally created by FDR. Acting like a good Keynesian economist, he was of the opinion that doing something was better than doing nothing, and so created the CCC, WPA, funded the TVA (this is the acronym potion of the story) and then went on to fight WWII. These are good reasons to run a deficit.

Harry Truman steps in, starts the Cold War, fights an active war in Korea, and the defecit remains largely unchaged during his tenure.

Ike becomes president, and the deficit spikes. Why is not something very clear, he's still fighting the cold war, but doesn't have a hot war to contend with except maybe the civil rights one, so why the deficit goes up in this period is odd, but points to something later on.

Kennedy is next up and in his 1000 days, the deficits run at roughly the same level as Ike's before him. With LBJ we see that same pattern, and not only is the cold war still in full swing, it's gone hot in Vietnam, and he's bankrolling Apollo, one of the most expensive programs in the history of the planet, and does all of that without making the deficit jump all that much.

Nixon is next, and like the man, his budgets are all over the place. One year he's running double LBJ's defecits, the next he's in the black, then he's back up in the red again. Nixon was a bit paranoid and schizophrenic and his budgets reflect that.

Gerry Ford, nice guy, but lets face it, he IS the accidental president.

Carter comes in, looking at a 50 billion dollar deficit and walks out looking at a 50 billion dollar deficit. Unchanged.

Reagan comes in and here is where the disaster begins. Hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars flushed away.

That takes us full circle. What can we take from this? Far from being the party of fiscal responsibilty, the Republican party has been running the country like an 18 year old spoiled child with Daddy's credit card on sale day at the mall.

When Jimmy Carter left office in January of 1981, the national debt was roughly a TRILLION dollars. That's a lot of money. That's now about 1/7th of the total. And no blaming Clinton for this one, he was actually running the country in the black with the deficit decreasing every year he was in office until it went into the black, and then the surplus increasing every year as well!

With that bit of history in mind, who do you trust with your money? Those "tax and spend liberals," or the "hey, my lunch is free because I'm going to make your kids pay for it" conservatives?