Microsoft at their most transparently self serving:

] Their use could be an indicator that your teenager is
] involved in the theft of intellectual property, particularly
] licensed software.

:-o

[ Jesus christ it's like the 1950's all over again. Rock and Roll is a gateway to using alcohol and drugs, not to mention loose sexuality! Any behavior distinct from what you, as parents, think is "normal" is an indicator of dangerously deviant thinking on the part of your children. They're all thieves, and fornicators, and they're bad, bad, bad. -k]

Microsoft guide to l33t speak.

A freaking *8.9* earthquake hit yesterday, causing honest to gosh tsunami to sweep all along the coast for hundreds of miles, wiping out just about everyone in the way. Sunbathers, scuba divers, fisherman, _entire vacation parks with 200+ bungalows_, you name it, it wound up either in the ocean or back out of the ocean yesterday.

News reports are still working their way around to this side of the planet, but expect CNN to be all over this eventually.

See also http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqsww/Maps/region/Asia.gif (before it changes) to see some of the biggest shake boxes ever...

God Smites Asians, All At Once, For Not Celebrating Christmas

A little flash animation to a song from Team America.

America f*** yeah

] (CNN) -- The New York Times has endorsed Sen. John Kerry
] for president, calling the Democrat "a man with a strong
] moral core" who "has qualities that could be the basis
] for a great chief executive."
]
] The endorsement from one of the nation's largest and most
] influential newspapers, published in Sunday's editions
] and placed on The New York Times Web site Saturday night,
] was expected.

WTF?! Since when is a newspaper _expected_ to be openly biased?! Especially when it's supposedly the most respected one in the country?

CNN.com - New York Times endorses Kerry - Oct 17, 2004

"Tomorrow, I'll go back to being funny... but your show will still blow."

[ Still the man. -k]

Stewart's Post-crossfire comments..

[ Read this. it's now almost a week old, but it's long and I don't like recommending things i haven't read thoroughly. It was worth it. Certainly, it's not news to anyone who's been paying attention, but it's ever so important to understanding the philosophy that has overtaken the power structure of the Right in America.

If nothing else, scroll to the end and read the last few grafs. The Bush presidency seems really to have been nothing less than an all out attack on the very notion of rational investigation, honest and open discourse and nuanced thought. He's peddled a black and white vision desired by so many who've consumed it in droves... but the world is seldom black and white, and it's escapist to live in that binary world. -k]

The New York Times - Magazine - Without a Doubt

Acidus turns 24 on Friday. Party time!

Happy Birthday Acidus!

] X Prize officials said the privately funded craft reached
] 368,000 feet -- well into space -- Monday to win the $10
] million prize.

[ Huzzah! Congratulations to Scaled Composites, and all the other X Prize teams out there. I really do think this is an important step forward. -k]

SpaceShipOne captures X Prize - Oct 4, 2004

] 'Bring them on!" President Bush challenged the early
] Iraqi insurgency in July of last year. ... Almost
] every day, in campaign speeches, Bush speaks with
] bravado about how he is "winning" in Iraq. "Our strategy
] is succeeding," he boasted to the National Guard
] convention on Tuesday.
]
] But, according to the US military's leading strategists
] and prominent retired generals, Bush's war is already
] lost.

[ There's not even a single key quote to meme here. Every single paragraph is damning. Ret. Gen. Odom led the NSA, Ret. Gen. Hoare headed Cent. Com., Jeffrey Record and W. Andrew Terrill are professors of strategy at two US war collges.

These aren't armchair pundits like we are... they know a few things, and they bring up failures on a ton of fronts. Go read it. -k]

Guardian Unlimited | Guardian daily comment | Far graver than Vietnam

] And yet the Bush ideology is tinged with religious
] belief, I said. Not everything comes with a price tag
] attached.
]
] Gore's mouth tightened. A Southern Baptist, he, too,
] had declared himself born again, but he clearly had
] disdain for Bush's public kind of faith. It's a particular
] kind of religiosity, he said. It's the American version of
] the same fundamentalist impulse that we see in Saudi
] Arabia, in Kashmir, in religions around the world: Hindu,
] Jewish, Christian, Muslim. They all have certain features in
] common. In a world of disconcerting change, when large
] and complex forces threaten familiar and comfortable
] guideposts, the natural impulse is to grab hold of the
] tree trunk that seems to have the deepest roots and hold
] on for dear life and never question the possibility that
] it's not going to be the source of your salvation.
] And the deepest roots are in philosophical and religious
] traditions that go way back. You don't hear very
] much from them about the Sermon on the Mount, you
] don't hear very much about the teachings of Jesus on
] giving to the poor, or the beatitudes. It's the
] vengeance, the brimstone.

I haven't bothered to read this whole article. Its making the rounds because of this quote. This is something I've been thinking about for the past 2 days, and here it is.

The Fundies and the Islamists want the same basic things from a policy standpoint. The reason that the fundies seem less extreme is that in the U.S. they are marginalized. Most of their platform is illegal (which is why they want Constitutional Amendments) and so the things they can realistically get are more limited. If they were in power they'd want more. They also produce their share of terrorists.

The irony here is that Bush defending me from Islamic fundamentalism is of little value if he also props up the Christian fundamentalists. I'll end up having to live with the same laws either way. The Christians would likely stop short of requiring women to wear veils in spite of the fact that unveiled women are in direct violation of biblical edict. However, the institutionalization of religion, coupled with violent responses to "immoral" behavior, particularly sexuality, are in the cards no matter what group of religious nuts ends up running this country in the future.

Gore compares Islamists and Fundies