Bus passenger shoots 4 at NY bus terminal yesterday. No deaths or life-threatening injuries, and the shooter (whose name has not been released) was captured, and the gun recovered. Apparently this idiot couldn't shoot straight and was jerking the trigger badly, only one back wound recorded, the others injured were two with leg wounds, and a fourth shot in the foot.

You say tomato... Hooters waitress sues restaurant for misleading her and the rest of the employees after a beer-sales contest promised the winner (among the staff) a new Toyota. Jodee Berry won the contest, and when it was time to get the Big Prize, she was blindfolded, led outside to the parking lot, and got her winnings - a little toy Yoda. Meanwhile the manager was laughing himself to death inside the restaurant. It's not known if the prize rules and winnings were actually written down, or if it was all verbal, but Berry is suing for breach of contract and fraudulent misrepresentation. I'd think she'd learn something from the doll. Greed, power, a Jedi craves not these things.

We all remember the Y2K bug fears, yes? Doesn't take a millenium to screw things up with computers. Toronto coffee shop billed 2.4 billion dollars Canadian (1.6 American) by Canuck Post Office for shipments of coffee beans. It's not a very big shop, and to be honest they only ship for a few hundred dollars in actual postage costs per month, but apparently the billing cores took a collective dump and started charging between 90 million and 120 million C-dollars per month, for quite some time. I'd love to have been there when this guy called in to make payment arrangements by phone, and the poor agent saw that come up on her screen...ah, I so love computers.

"It's a great book. It teaches life lessons," said Principal Terry Saul. But the book contains racially charged language and innuendoes and "we didn't want to put any kids in an uncomfortable situation."

I might point out that To Kill A Mockingbird's racism isn't embraced and loved, like a Klan pamphlet, it's examined and rejected by the main character and her father as foolish, several times. Take the scene with the old hobo, outside the courthouse. The girl (I forget all names right now except Atticus and Jeremy Finch, sorry) finds out that he's not an old drunk, the bottle he drinks from has soda instead of alcohol like everyone says, but he just puts on airs and lets the rest of the town believe what they like - even when it's not true. And, in his own way, laughs along with the girl at the prejudiced, racist, townspeople who don't bother to look past the skin and simply assume what they see is truth; at those who are too afraid to look further at something and examine it for Truth.

Maybe it's the modern teachers/educational bureaucrats (educrats?) now who aren't getting the message of the book, and are the ones who are too foolish, emotionally unstable, and violently offended by racist words that they don't follow their own rules and explore the work and its message, but like the townspeople simply sees the bag holding a bottle and assumes what they will. I for one encourage ANYONE who has not read this book to go to the library (any library in America had better have a copy of it) and read it. Not terribly long as novels go, most of you can finish it in a night or so. And while you read, remember this - it may not be a pretty history this country has, it may have some damned ugly moments, but by God it's who we are and where we came from, and I for one will NOT let some damned hypocrite try to wipe it out with a whitewashed, "Politically Correct" past that ignores the Truth in favor of good feelings.

Damn, I'm on a roll today.

Ragabash, noone cares anymore. And I heard about the bull that they pulled with FIE, Gundam Fanboy told me what happened to him. OI. Yes, discuss later. Happosai^2 is working on chara and concept, told him to pick a good one.

More rules for tech support. When you call, listen to what we tell you. Please don't just hear one or two words and make up your own interpretation of our request or command. And do not tell us your life story, we do not care. Just answer the questions and you'll be on your merry way. Thank you, the management.

We have invented a new game at work, called Three Table. Take 3 cement tables about six feet apart in a line, make a ball out of rubber bands and try to bounce the ball along the tops of all three tables, without touching the seats or the ground. It's actually more difficult than you think, because the ball has a bit of backspin when it hits the first bounce, so when it takes off for the second hop, it's spinning forwards fast. Once it hits the second table, this spin makes it go far and it's real easy to overshoot the third table. Plus, the rubber bands make an uneven surface, so it's possible it'll bounce elsewhere. Results from the games will be posted.

And now, the insanity for the week. Thanks to the NRA's Freedom First for the article I rant on.

Winnacunnet High School, Hampton, N.H. - Some members of the school board want to pull the ROTC program. Why? Because it has an air-rifle range that students in ROTC can practice shooting skills. Some members of the school board, in emotional hysteria, have decided that this absolutely has to go, because it sends a "mixed message" to the children - that air-rifles (or other guns) aren't allowed in school, but these kids can use air-rifles because they're in the ROTC program. And it makes the other children "uneasy" that the ROTC cadets drill with ceremonial, nonfunctional weapons, according to one parent. Fortunately, saner heads prevailed, and the ROTC program will continue. Quoth board member Paul Kelley:

"Where should we draw the line? How about getting rid of our archery program too, because a bow and arrow is a very dangerous weapon? What about baseball bats? They can be a weapon. Maybe we should use badminton rackets out there. I think you have to use some common sense and I think these people have myopic vision on this issue, and they don't see ROTC as a good program."

Three cheers for the state of Texas - they passed an bill dealing with REAL school safety. Namely, once a year the schools hold an assembly to offer the Eddie Eagle program of gun safety for kids, run by the NRA.

From the articles on the Zero Tolerance...

Part of the insanity is fallout from the idiocy over the Columbine shooting - specifically, the idea that the teachers should have forseen Klebold and Harris's assault, and acted ahead of time. The school was sued for allowing "behavior" like theirs, and so the other schools across the nation decided to "suitproof" themselves by censoring all kinds of "violent acts" - even thoughts, drawings, and dreams! In this lawsuit-happy land, I guess we reap our crop now. Draconian overlegislation and good ideas carried to absurdity, to keep from being protected. Common sense is no more...as such. Now the list of Horrible Child Offenders:

Hunter Marner, sophomore in highschool in Eufaula, Alabama. Good kid, his father is a family-practice doctor, the boy is a member of the National Honor Society, and will be applying to the Naval Academy after he graduates. Well, that was the plan anyways. Dr. Marner, his father, removed the broken mirror I mentioned earlier and accidentally left the scraper and pocketknife in the car. During a "routine" drug search of the boy's car, the scraper and knife were discovered. Hunter Marner, good kid, honor society student, and future US Navy officer, was suspended from school, will be forced to take 45 days of "alternative school" this next semester, was barred from all extracurricular activities at school, has been thrown out of the National Honor Society with no possibility of readmittance, and now will not have a chance to get accepted at the Academy. Oh, and, no drugs were found in the car.

Again, the search and seizure laws may apply to this case. Yes, the boy was a minor, and his car was parked on school property. However, how many SOPHOMORES in highschool (either not quite or just barely 16) can get their own insurance and car loan? The parents often have to sign on the car as well - making it partially theirs. This extends constitutional protection to the vehicle, which could theoretically jeopardize the school's whole "drug search" program. And how would the police react? The father of the son admitted a moment of carelessness in leaving the knife and scraper in the car, and it was not the son's doing. The father's a well-known member of the community, a doctor, and the son is not a kid with any kind of record or bad past. At best, the cop would rub the dad's nose in it a bit and chide him for leaving the knife in the car, then let them both go without anything. Not throw the kid out on his @$$ and destroy his future.

The other one I mentioned earlier - Lindsay Brown, a graduating senior honor student with scholarship to college currently attending Estro High School in Ft. Meyers, FL, had a kitchen knife fall out of a box into the back of her car while moving. When a search came to her car and found the knife, she was kicked out of school, arrested for felony posession of a weapon, kicked out of the honor roll, was not allowed to graduate with her class, and will lose her scholarship to college.

Let's not forget the treatment of the unnamed third grader in Monroe, LA who drew a picture of a soldier (quite possibly his uncle in the army) with a knife and canteen, and a fort in the background with a list of all the different weapons there. Poor kid was suspended for the drawing, because the principal was frightened by it. This weak-kneed pansy told the local newspaper the following:

"It had hand grenades, knives, and guns. We have zero tolerance for drawings with guns. We can't tolerate anything that has to do wtih guns or knives."

Once this story hit the major news, there was an angry nationwide response. The school never apologized, and the Director of Child Welfare and Attendance for Ouachita Parish School System told the newspaper that he was concerned about copycat drawings of armed soldiers! He went on:

We have some other students doing the same thing, if you put one in in-house suspension for doing it, you have to put all. It's only fair. You can't be inconsistent."

And also, go look for a little research paper called "The Dark Side of Zero Tolerance: Can Punishment Lead to Safe Schools?" Authored by Russ Skiba and Reece Peterson for Phi Delta Kappa, international teacher association. Some quotes follow.

"Indeed, the popularity of zero tolerance may have less to do with its actual effects than with the image it portrays.... Writing in the Harvard Educational Review, Pedro Noguera argues that the primary function of harsh punishment is not to change the behavior of the recipient, but to reassert the power of authority."

"Virtually no data suggest that zero tolerance policies reduce school violence, and some data suggest that certain strategies, such as strip searches or undercover agents in schoo, may create emotional harm or encourage students to drop out."

"Whether such policies work or how they affect the lives of students may be less important than providing harsh punishment for offenders as a form of generalized retribution for a generalized evil."

And have these zero-tolerance policies had any effect? None whatsoever. Zero Tolerance didn't keep the recently-sentenced Brazil boy from shooting and killing his teacher, nor did any of the federal laws about a) youths posessing firearms, b) firearms within 1000 feet of schools, c) concealed carry, d) assault with a deadly weapon, e) murder. Didn't stop that 13 year old catholic schoolgirl from doing the same to her classmate last year. Damn well didn't stop the two shootings in my old hometown at the two highschools I (fortunately) didn't go to. So, three cheers for the Zero Tolerance program, as effective as a corpse in a football game - just getting in the way and causing a horrendous stink.

What did we do before Zero Tolerance? We had kids that carried guns to school, daily. And learned how to shoot them and operate them safely. Ever hear of any mass school slayings from students back in your parents day? The nation was safe. Our kids were safe. They were smart. Howdy Doody, Roy Rogers, and John Wayne were heroes of this nation. NOW who do we have for heroes? Who do we have to look up to? The generation of the hippies and peaceniks and flower-power have taken their reality-denying ideas and grown, now attaining places of leadership where they can influence the next generation to hate the military, hate violence, all of us getting along in happy enforced peace, while they - the ones who spoke out against an authoritarian government a generation ago - stare at us and try to control all last aspects of life to keep their fantasy vision of a Safe World on track. Ignore history. Ignore our past, for violence is a bad thing and this country had a violent history. Vilify the founding fathers as warmongering fools. Deny the evils and horrors of war, even if the last of those great wars truly reshaped the world to what it is today. Deny HISTORY. A generation conditioned in their youth to accept an overbearing government striving for more power. And then what happens to their children? George Orwell might have been a little off in his date, but still might end up being proved right.

So, what is it they want to keep kids safe from? Let's examine the school shootings, the true lie behind it all, and find out just how prevalaent this "siege against our schools" is. On average, there's 52 million students in school any given year. Assuming they all go 4 years, this would estimate 74.5 million students since 1996. Since 1996, 20 of them have snapped and begun school shootings. Since 1996, only 40 people have been killed, including some of the 20 shooters. This total of 40 includes all adults shot and killed as well, the number of students is lower. Where did the NRA get this figure from? A pair of Justice Policy Institute papers titled "School House Hype". In the rampages in Pearl, MS, West Paducah, KY, Jonesboro, AR, Edinboro, PE, and Springfield, OR, all copycat sites after Columbine, at a grand total of 11. Out of nearly 75 million. Lightning claims more than twice as many as that a year, do we have Zero Tolerance against thunderstorms? And yet, with those microscopic numbers, 40% of parents believe that another one WILL happen to their kids - because of the media hype these killings - and their copycats, from other people who want all the attention - gather.

What about the victims of Z-T? Do the math. Hunter Warren, Lindsay Brown, the third grader in Florida, the fifth grader in Oldsmar Elementary led off in handcuffs after he was found drawing guns and was later apparently expelled from the school, a boy who carried a steel ruler to shop class and was thrown out of school, the girl expelled for using the 1" nail file on a fingernail clipper, the tiny keychain toy that got a Michigan youth suspended, the infamous illegal chicken-finger gun that got a Jonesboro, AR elementary school student suspended, a Virginia girl expelled for carrying scissors to class. Plus a host of other kids for "finger guns" - pointing their finger and saying bang, paper guns, all of which had no criminal intent. All of them with an expulsion for "violent/criminal activity" on their permanent school record. How about THIS for a mixed message, hmm? It's good to watch this sort of stuff on TV and movies, but simple play is bad and wrong? Or anything that might resemble famous murders - trenchcoats are popular, and always have been. Yet they were banned from many schools after the "Trenchcoat Mafia" bit was run across the media. Anything vaguely reminiscent of a shooting - anything that poses a threat of a lawsuit because of "unsafe conditions" - is crushed.

MAKE SURE you know where your children are going. Make sure you know what they're learning. Get involved in their lives, and show them the truth. For it is who we are - wars and peace alike, violence and passiveness alike. Your children are the future, and so are their successive generations - defend sanity, defend freedom, and fight back against the lunacy going on in this nation. Those schools are PUBLIC - their money comes from your taxes. They are responsible to you, the citizen, as an organ of a government that is also ultimately responsible to you. Do not believe the lie. FIGHT IT!

Sgt. Stedenko passes on an excellent quote to remember about respecting your armed forces who put their lives on the line for you. "There will always be an army in your country. Either your army or some other country's army. Which would you prefer?" - Unknown

Will be doing some cleaning up and adding batch of new links soon, and adding some more notable entries to the UN Gun Control rant, namely the What Are Guns beginner stuff, and anything else I feel like adding.

Ragabash, my sympathies regarding paychecks...let's just say it's not been pleasant on Cellblock D - our sup was promised we'd get "5" pay, until the very morning we were to get our raises - then we get "3" pay. Which is the same as starting newbies out on the floor and other Cellblocks. Our sup is not happy because he was played for a fool, and we are not happy because we get slapped in the face for our raises. Now, 1.29 is just all well and good for me, I'm happy with that - but the buck newbie on the floor gets the same pay I do now, and they support 1/3 the number of products I do, don't have 3 new ones getting added to the list (for a total of...near 20), actually have documentation on their software (I'm creating a technical manual, from scratch, with no documentation except the calls we've had), and have different lines of support. For our "specialty" products, we're it - no matter what happens. Noone else to escalate things up to. And we're not compensated any more for this, and they took away our other benefits and fun. I really hope FIE gets the big happy joy joy contract. Cellblock D is already formulating a mass-escape plan.

Enough b*tching about how little I get paid. I don't feel like doing more Zero-Tolerance today (though it will be here tomorrow), instead I feel like screaming at the Russians for a while.

Article on the future of Russian combat aviation - it looks like they're working the Air Forces into a closer relationship with the rest of the military, instead of letting them act autonomously, and having little coordination. The Russians admit (with a wry comment) that they are broke - and so will be upgrading their existing hardware. Tacking "low-observable" nuclear-equipped cruise missiles onto Backfire bombers and such, namely. Fortunately, development of 5th and 6th generation fighters is still some ways off, again due to the lack of money. Here's one little line early on in the article that worries me. Deeply.

Of numerous factors that should be taken into consideration in choosing a strategy for developing combat aviation, three are of special importance. These are the establishment of a multipolar world order instead of the bipolar one; economic situation in the country; and achievements in high technologies.

So, what's Russia going to do to accomplish its Multi-Polar World Order, hmm? Start chumming up to Europe, asian countries, and start setting up sides with all kinds of neat military hardware on the cheap? Play alliances left and right to break US control of the world, and damn the consequences?

More about the future of the Russian aviation industry (Military Parade seems to be doing an air-issue this month) shows an interesting trend - the Russians are waking up to what works and what doesn't.

For 70 years, two different markets coexisted — the international and the one in the U.S.S.R. They developed to different rules and principles. The Soviet market knew no competition or funding problems, and prices there were much lower. With the collapse of the Iron Curtain this market disappeared too. Russia was offered basically new terms for production and sale of its products. It took Russia almost 10 years to understand it and get used to the new rules.

The Russians seem to be waking up to modern capitalism. Let's hope they use it well.

And one more rant our our Red neighbors - "Missile and Space Defense System as Guarantor of National Security". Those lying, hypocritical b@stards. Come down on the US and rag on us for developing something so horrible as a missile defense, and threaten an arms race, and tell us that we're bad for doing it and that the world's destabilization is our fault - and have a sizeable chunk of our government spout the same line - and all the time, apparently, be working on your own system. I say apparently because I can't get the article itself - it's subscription-based. Which is what I have applied for, and will come back to soon.

Whee. Okay, I have other stuff to do now, so I leave you with the Russia Report. Happy trails to all.

A new escalation in the pirated/copied music war? New CDs come with a new anti-copy system - the Cactus Data Shield. Basically, it adds digital noise amongst the CD data, carefully tuned to a) not be heard (this remains to be seen, though they promise it doesn't affect the music), and b) screw up the error-correction in a burner program. Apparently, the specific harmonics made when the burned pirate disc is played just happen to be the same ones that speaker circuitry is sensitive to. Play a burned CD too loud, blow up your speakers from electronic resonance. Fun, yes?

The queen is dead, long live the queen! Apparently somebody caught a rumor, tried to be the first with the scooped story, and then found out...well, golly! Queen Elizabeth AIN'T dead afterall! But she got a nice obituary, at least.

On the other side of the Lesser Puddle, ever wanted to see an amputation? How about online? How about home-done? No joke, apparently, this guy has been paralyzed for many years, but can't afford the surgery cost for amputation to get replacement limbs. So he's going to charge 20 bucks a pop to anyone who wants to watch, and will do the deed himself. He claims he is going to hve doctors on-hand, just in case, but odds are that he either a) bleeds to death or b) dies from the shock, or c) (highest odds) quits or scams it.

Oh no...incoming. Internet Explorer 6.0 releases August 15. Beta testing is now over, and it's officially on the way to the stores. Working for tech support for an internet page that does not yet support IE 6...we're in for it. New Features - automatic picture resizing (god, no, please no), the famed integrated media playback (I wonder, is IE going to mutate into the do-everything-program? hell, it's even a word processor now, no joke), and a third-party-cookie-blocker. Third Party as in not-you-or-Microsoft. Oh yay. FORTUNATELY - Smart Tags have been pulled. But wait, there's more!

At least, there is with Windows XP - namely the list of applications that are "blocked" by the new "operating" system. Let's see. Got a cable modem? XP won't let you install Zone Alarm or BlackIce. There will be updates, but no word when. And the big fun - Windows XP blocks the install - of America Online. Oh yes, boys and girls, MS has put a serious solid hit with the brewing computer war. I wonder...with the browser-cookies, the smart-tags that keep referring you back to MS Network pages, and now the enforced blocking on "non-compliant" software, the attempted murder of Bluetooth, the true corporate war with AOL, the renege on the promise to open the desktop to other than MS standard...is MS eventually going to block installatoin all non-MS software for Windows? There's a fun thought... HAH! Proof homeschooling works - there are some 850,000 estimated homeschoolers now, and, y'know what? They do better than the average kid - and busting a major myth, are not coming from rich families.

Parents of homeschoolers are, on average, better-educated than other parents -- a greater percentage have college degrees -- though their incomes are about the same. Like most parents, the vast majority of those who homeschool their children earn less than $50,000, and many earn less than $25,000.

P.S., Ragabash, Happosai^2 wants to get in on the CP game, and that'll give us a 4th. That should be enough for a good group. I went over some of the basics last night with him, and will finish up this morning. Let me know if a 4th would be too big though (not like we don't have enough physical room, look at Waliel's living room). Yes I bring props again.

And yes, folks, that means I did not get the raise I was told I was getting. It's a long story.

Boys and girls, we have a warning to stay away from http://log.manifest-hype.org/ - there appears to be an html virus called Happytime infecting the page. It's SIGNIFICANTLY not fun, and there's already several people with damaged systems because of it.

This probably isn't malicious, but virii are virii and it's a general warning to stay clear. And, Gaile, if you see this - get your virus scanner updated, and take care of that. Good luck.

VIRUS WARNING

So, I'll paraphrase. You know about the wonderful Zero Tolerance policy for weapons on schools. Let's go over some of the victims - the 6 year olds who drew a picture of their relative in the army with a knife and canteen and the one who pointed a chicken finger at someone else and said bang. Both kids were suspended, the first one for the rest of the year. Now let's add some more.

A young man's father replaced the broken inner mirror in his son's car, and had to use a knife and scraper to remove the old glue that held it on. He forgot to take them out of his son's car when he was done. They were found at the school in his car, and he was suspended for bringing weapons on campus. Or the highschool senior who was on the honor roll and scholarshipped to get into a college (not mentioned)...who just recently finished moving 2 weeks before graduation. Someone looked in her car, saw a kitchen knife in the backseat that was used while moving (probably to open the boxes while unpacking), and reported it. She was hauled away in handcuffs and charged with felony posession of a weapon, kicked out of school, and will lose her scholarship.

Now, that last case, if she was a graduating senior, odds are she was 18. What happened to search and seizure laws? If she's getting arrested for felony posession of a weapon...then hell yes it becomes a legal matter. If the knife is not IN HER POSESSION, then how can she be put up on charges for it?

Back in 1994, Bill Clinton put through a safety act that put the Zero-Tolerance rules in place. No weapons, or nothing that can be defined as a weapon, in any school. Okay. A laudable goal, peace and safety for children, but this is going WAY too far. Being suspended for having a nail clipper in school? Come on. Can't happen, you say? It already has. This foolishness over what constitutes a threat and what does not has gone far enough, and is becoming destructive to our children.

Imagine what would happen, in, say 30 years when these kids - who grew up in a Zero-Tolerance environment, accepting of things like sudden searches, extreme penalties for nonexistent "crimes", automatic acceptance of authority, and a very paranoid environment where a tattle-tale has as much if not more acceptance than a student coming forward to report a valid threat...and they get into society? And become accepting of a dominating, overseeing government that is just as intrusive into their lives?

Last time I checked, that society fell apart in 1991.

So, yes, Bill Clinton has left his mark on the Tree of Liberty, quite in the fashion of the dog he is. And has done this nation a fine turn. The old Soviet Union turns capitalist, while America straddles the socialist path and steps to the top of the slide.

"You might not like oil companies at home, but it's a lot better if we have it instead of getting it from Saddam Hussein," said Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-Louisiana.

Critics claimed the measure would damage one of the last great wilderness areas on the continent, while providing only six months' supply of oil -- and that would not be available for nearly 10 years.

And let's see - would you say that the Teamsters Union, long-time Democrats, would oppose Bush any chance they get? They don't. They've been buying time and running ads that drilling in ANWR will be of huge benefit to the country, and that the environmentalists are lying and misrepresenting things to you.

And let's look at the environemntal angle. Way back with the Alaska Pipeline, they claimed that the construction and drilling would wipe out the caribou. Well, the population of caribou in the area went from 3,000 to well over 20,000. Apparently it's actually warm enough under the pipeline that more and more caribou young are surviving. Hardly the extinction of a species a few radical lunatics were claiming, yes?

Microsoft loses its appeal in the federal appeals court when the court denied a rehearing for whether or not MS acted illegally by tying the IE browser program into the computer OS. The case is going to be remanded back to the US District Court on the 12th, so the fight continues. The appeals court did agree with the first case that Microsoft does have a monopoly on computer systems and gained that monopoly illegally, part of which was the "commingling" of the IE browser into the Windows OS. MS has not yet decided whether to appeal all the way to the Supreme Court or not.

Serbian general Radislav Krstic sentenced to 46 years in prison for the crime of genocide. He's the one who ordered the murder of eight thousand muslims in "the killing fields of Srebrenica", after assaulting a "safe haven" with 30,000 muslim refugees. Many of the others, namely women and children, were dispersed to other areas. He's 53, so if he lives in prison until he is 99, then he'll see the light of day - NOT terribly likely. Goodbye, sick f*ck. Justice comes to all.

NnM, your dad is cool, and I want a copy of that mp3. I have really horrible, horrible ideas about a Ranma 1/2 - Shampoo music video to that song...

In an amusing move, the Windows Disgusting advertisements will be featured with David Byrne's "Like Humans Do". Seeing as how Byrne was with a band named "Talking Heads"...and we never really get much more from MS than that...it makes a kind of sense.

Microsoft seems to still be continuing their monopolistic tactics, this time going after the wireless protocols - namely, Bluetooth. MS never wanted Bluetooth, and finally got dragged into the whole thing kicking and screaming - and still refused to put anything for it into the new XP OS. Palm has a working Bluetooth system, and it's most definitely a solid standard, but MS won't endorse it. Now, MS is out claiming that Bluetooth is dead, because of lack of industry support!

Well, this begs an obvious question - why would Microsoft turn down such a good hardware system? Perhaps because they didn't develop it themselves, and because other companies want to use it for PDA/cellphone interfaces. So if MS can kill Bluetooth, the way is open for MS to use its Outlook and PC data to keep trying to come up with its own system.

Right about now, if I were AOL and AT&T, and Compaq, I'd thoroughly jump behind Bluetooth. It's a damn good system out there, and MS doesn't want it to succeed because it's a threat - from AOL's point of view, a fine reason to support and develop it.

And a touch of China before I go - human rights group begs IT firms to help Chinese citizens during the Olympics. The group wants the IT companies to use their sponsorship to try to force China to open up its controls over the internet, or else they will be "abetting repression". Which is true, but I strongly doubt that the Chinese are going to do so. After all, downloading political material that doesn't agree with the Communist government is a prison offense - and people think that they can change the minds of the Chinese Communist government to "open up and be free"? Not going to happen, short of removing those leaders from power...perhaps even in Mao's old, famous tradition.

I thought this was going to be a short update...

Saddam has been stepping things up over there - in 2000, there were only 211 "provocations" against US/NATO aircraft, in the 7 months since the New Year there's been 370. Provocations are apparently defined as either locking on a fire-control radar, or outright firing on US/NATO a/c, and he's been trying hard to bring down something. Hell, the Bosnians seem to have brought down an F-117 stealth fighter, yet Saddam can't even bag a cheap@$$ converted airliner. So, he's apparently pushing on the US military, testing Bush, and apparently doesn't like the taste of the response - specifically, Big E and Connie showing up in the area.

Poor baby.

More info on Enterprise and Constellation(Kitty Hawk class).

I'll say this about Ragabash's "big post" - wow, the eggplant is back. ^_^

Japan Report:

Okay. China is increasing the frisky count too, they successfully launched and deployed a spysat to watch American bases in Japan and the rest of Asia. So now they can watch our military, study things, and learn all kinds of patterns, layouts, what's where, all sorts of things. Satellite intelligence won't tell you everything - but it will tell you where it is. And as the adage in the military says, if you can see it - you can hit it, if you can hit it - you can kill it. China can see us far far better now.

Oh, yes, America has had these satellites for quite some time, and used them to great effect in the Gulf war. But, we're not going around threatening to invade and take over sovereign countries with their own government, now are we?

In the biosciences, the first calf born to a cloned animal is alive and well today, having been born at Rakuno Gakuen in Hokkaido. The calf appears to be well and has all the requisite parts, and appears to be ready for a normal life as a milk cow.

Social evolution in Japan seeming to pick up the heat, with supposed increases in "juvenile delinquency". Sam-kun, resident Japan expert, marks it off to social progression - the older generation pushing its lifestyle on the younger and denying change, and the younger generation pushing out from under the old generation and embracing the change. I'd rate this a little odd in Japan, though, with a very long history of a single society, without change...like a pendulum, hanging freely and not moving, until it was struck by the rest of the world when Commodore Perry opened Japan.

Since then, the culture seems to be suffering a varying sort of future shock, the pendulum swinging back and forth hard. After WWII, society changed again with the American influence, and now appears to be swinging again to something new. And not too terribly pleasant, looking at the way the US is going.

And a quick apology - tomorrow morning, there won't be much news early on, since I need to get to work 2 hours early. (part of why I'm getting a massive raise Monday) So I'll be on for a very little bit in the morning, but will make up with a lot of stuff tomorrow night.

Well, lately Microsoft has actually started making concessions in the recent computer war going on with AOL. A week or so back, it decided to actually open up its desktops to the manufacturers, so that the OEMs (original equiment manufacturer) could put on any programs and services they wanted. Basically, MS is relaxing its controls over the browsers in accordance with the Justice Department's ruling on the anti-trust laws.

Well, Friday Compaq (part of a growing in size and strength anti-MS alliance) decided that IE would actually be able to be de-installed, and would not put any of its own restrictions on the desktop or startup. Compaq also agreed to give AOL exclusive position on its systems, as the Compaq brand ISP of choice. Microsoft has decided not to allow this latest move, and has backtracked on its promise to open up the desktops.

All this fight started some time back when Windows XP was primarily going to connect users via the Microsoft Network and through IE, and would not come shipped with America OnLine. AOL went ballistic over this, and internal memos that found the light of day listed battle plans going from cozying up to MS and trying to wheedle AOL back onto the Windows XP desktop, all the way to finding partners and establishing a new OS war with the "Beast of Redmond". So far, AOL has leaned far closer to the second idea, hooking up tight with Compaq and seriously combating Microsoft's domination of the system.

Hewlett Packard is also considering doing the same - MS has also strongly restricted the various OEMs from customizing their own interface, forcing them to use the MS standard and not have any real ability to brand or otherwise name their own systems. Depending on what MS does, this recent renege on the suddenly-open MS system may cause a further war and turn more makers against MS. The best part is, Microsoft claims it needs to have the OEM restrictions because with Compaq's arrangement (the changes to the browser and AOL's primacy) - and I quote - "reduced choice for the customer".

And this ought to be a damn classic, now. Charleton Heston supposedly tricked into anti-gun lines in Planet Of The Apes. No joke, this is an MSNBC "Scoop" taken right off their top stories. Must be a slow news day. The fight goes back and forth over the interpretations of the line, so I'll post it directly here.

Here are Heston’s exact words. In explaining what happened to human civilization, Heston’s character pulls a gun out of a collection of human artifacts, gives it to his son and says: What you hold in your hand is proof of their [man’s] power - against which our strength means nothing. It has the force of 100 spears. I warn you their [man’s] ingenuity goes hand in hand with their cruelty. No creature is as devious or violent.

The National Post printed an article that Charleton Heston, leader of the NRA, played a character who told his son that guns will destroy civilzation. On the flip side, the Buffalo News chided Tim Burton with letting Heston turn PotA into an NRA propaganda film about the "eternal proof of the superiorty of human technology".

Ah, the media. Oh, there will be yet more anti-stupidity rants later, I just got the most recent First Freedom magazine, so look for some choice bits over the next few days.

Tay, be a dear and do send that Ann Landers column over, I would much enjoy tearing it apart, and writing her back. And a very happy (belated) birthday to you.

Twig...
...
okay. Clicky the linky and get faceful of ultrasweet chobits. Not something to stick your eyeballs into right after waking up. Disturbingly cute, though, and a neat new layout.

Actually sat back and watched the MS Gundam 08th MS Team that's been on Toonami's Midnight Run lately. I am impressed. Not only did they actually find voice ACTORS instead of line readers, and people who actually fit the characters' ages, but...they KEPT THE ORIGINAL MUSIC. Even the vocals, like Eledore's song (that that rat requests from his hospital bed) and the ending theme. Didn't tune in in time to see if they kept Arashi no naka de as the opening, but they had the original Japanese ending, which was nice. (10 years after is a good song.) And I caught part of Outlaw Star before passing out, and was suitably impressed. (Yes, boys and girls, they got a kid to do Jim's voice.) My big complaint was horribly, repeatedly mispronouncing Suzuka's name. SueZOOKA! But not bad otherwise. Still, 08th MS Team was fun to watch, even if it was toned down a bit. Ah well.

I have seen one of the more humorous television ads I have ever seen last night as well, while watching the middle of Blade Runner. An elderly woman sits in a park bench, and a trained monkey (hat and suit) comes up to her, and hands her money. The monkey admits to being the reincarnated soul of her husband, and tells her to be here every tuesday for some extra cash. The monkey then proceeds to pet her leg, and ask the old woman to please wear that little red number that he liked so much the next time, and then runs off, leaving the poor old woman with a classic WTFO look on her face. Cue the life insurance logo and ad. Is much amusing, and worth a laugh.

And, from Japan, proof that draconic gun laws will not stop firearms from being owned by criminals. Russian Makarov pistols are being imported into Japan, and seizures are way up. Between January and April of this year, there were 69 of these guns confiscated - compared to a total of 5 up through 1999. Police fear as many as a thousand of them may be circulating the country, and they expect the smuggling to continue.

The Makarov is a pretty small pistol, the standard sidearm for the Russians for quite some time. It fires a 9x18mm cartridge (9mm bullet in a case 18mm long), not the .38 listed in the story. It's a little smaller than the 9mm parabellum (9x19) that is for all intents and purposes a worldwide standard. The Maks are pretty good guns - not terribly accurate, but more than enough for anything but serious competition. Pretty reliable, and pretty cheap too. Figure about 200-300 for them, since they get imported in large quantities, and there's not too large a demand for them. In Japan, with the gun laws out there, you can pay as high as 600,000 yen - five thousand American dollars for one. Sure, this horrendous price for what amounts to a VW Bug of handguns will keep them out of the hands of the normal mundane citizens...but the yaks, gangs, and others will be able to afford them. And, since those organizations are already on the other side of the law quite notably, what does it matter if they illegally smuggle firearms in?

On the phone last night with friends in California, I find out more amusing news. A friend of the guy I was talking to recently had a break-in in his home. The homeowner is an active-duty military police soldier, and is armed. They scuffle, and the robber eventually gave up after a short chase. The wife calls 911, the police are on their way. The would-be robber scuffles again, then escapes - and intercepts the police. And claims that the homeowner robbed him with a gun and stole his wallet. So now, after defending his wife and home legally from someone who broke into their house, he ends up in jail. Five THOUSAND dollars later, he's out on bail - which he'll never see again. And his Glock was confiscated, and he won't have it back for a year. AND he's got to pay a lawyer to bring the first guy up on charges of attempted B&E. God I love that state.

And, not long after the first bans on human cloning, comes the first opening and embracing of a new science. Two bills lie before the House today, one totally banning human cloning, the other allowing it for "research" purposes. The White house is solidy all for a complete ban on human cloning, and supports the bill that offers a 10-year sentence and a 1 million dollar fine on true human cloning. And again, we come down to the big "ethics debate" on it.

What is the difference between a cloned human and a born human? Would the cloned human have the legal rights of a born human? If so, would it then be legal to use the cloned human for medical research? What civil rights would cloned humans have at all? This whole PLANET definitely has problems with people who just look different - slavery being the greatest of them. What if a nation somewhere decided to grow its own clones as a laborer class? Sure, not Great America, but say somewhere in Asia or Africa. What then? Is it slavery? Are they really human, or just autonomous biological machines? Fun things to think about. And this question's NOT going to go away - it's just going to loom closer and closer, until the issue gets forced.

Ahh...I do love my second amendment rights. Friday morning, I picked up my New Baby - specifically, a SPAS-12 combat shotgun. This is a lovely, lovely little toy that's not legal in California, because it's an evil icky assault weapon - yet, in Hollywood, it's one of the favorite guns and is used in darn near every movie possible. Ah, such hypocrisy. Anyways. What makes the SPAS so neat and fun, compared to a good, sturdy, 1/4-the-price Mossberg 500? Well, let's see.

Top-folding stock: check.
Pistol grip: check.
Magazine cutoff switch (for fast ammo changes): check.
Arm support hook for one-handed operation: check.
Shift-on-the-fly pump and semiautomatic gas-op: check.
Ghost-ring rifle-type sights: check.
Extended eight-round capacity: check.
Threaded barrel for flash or sound suppressors: check.
Heat shield for extended operation: check.
Ammunition sidesaddle: very soon.
Sling: very soon.
Tactical light with pressure switch: soon.
Bayonet mount: later.

Words to live by. Goodnight, folks.

In Israel, IDF helos launched a missile attack against what they claim was an installation to produce mortars, bombs, and other weapons. The Pallies claim it's the headquarters for the Blue Police, the local civilian police force. I'd lay even money they're both right - the Pallies have had a long history of sacrificial stupidity (civilians armed with sticks and rocks charging machinegun nests) to win points with the international community. I'd bet that WAS their police headquarters, and a primary munitions factory as well - who is going to go invade a police station to go find out? And it makes a great "you-blew-up-a-civilian-target" story to feed the news media.

Remember what I occasionally harp on about truth, media, and government control of such? Well, the ChiComm government had their cheerful little meeting with Colin Powell and promised to show the whole thing, in the interests of freedom and democracy (neither concept they believe in). You guessed it, the Communist government reneged on the promise and will be deleting certain portions of the tape - specifically, those that cover discussions about Taiwan (which China still claims is a part of its own country) and about human rights (NOT something high on Chinese importance). I guess when you have around a billion slaves-er, sorry, a billion proletariat workers all striving for the country as a whole, what's a couple hundred who die in a mine a few weeks ago? (mentioned in subtext on HN channel) So, it's not a wonder that China doesn't want to touch on the "human rights" subtext, it's the old adage of ignoring a problem and it'll go away. Especially if none of the Chinese sla-citizens, sorry, never hear about it. Isn't mind control wonderful? Simply block what you don't want going in, and you'll never have to worry.

The Taiwan situation concerns me. Why would the Chinese want to hide just what was said there? Did they promise not to invade? Were there threats made on either side? Concessions? If Powell gave in to Chinese demands (...HAH!) then they'd be trumpeting that every half hour, no joke. So it must not have been pleasant. Also, looking at the recent JSDF plans for evacuating Japanese citizens in a free-fire zone...plus many long-winded threats from the Chinese...I wonder.

Sam..."when I say goat jousting, I mean goat jousting. We joust while riding ghosts." So you ride full-tilt at each other upon the backs of deceased farm animals. Okay.

Four killed at a fair in Medina, OH, when antique steam engine explodes after pulling into its parking place. It looks like some sort of horseless carriage design, and it blew quite vigorously - burned oil was found as far away as 75 feet from the car. 18 others in hospital for various injuries, hopefully the death toll won't rise higher.

Bill Clinton, America's first black president, moves into his new Harlem apartment Monday. This from the man who claimed that he feels at home among the Harlem community and really wants this site, after first trying to get put up in a Manhattan penthouse apartment for $800,000 a year base rent, all at taxpayer expense(which, I might add, is more than Carter, Reagan, and Bush 1's presidential libraries combined). And, he also claimed he felt at home because he back when he was going to university in England (around the same time, as, oh, the VIETNAM WAR), he would fly home to "Lagwadia" airport, and walk right down 125th street into Harlem. All well and good, until you consider that there are no transatlantic flights into LaGuardia...and that it's physically impossible to walk down 125th street from LaGuardia to Harlem - Central Park is in the way. Remember just who Slick Willie is, boys and girls...

US embassy in Israel orders travel ban to Jerusalem in light of recent violence and attacks in the Old City, and also because of the current holiday. Several days ago, an Israeli religious group tried to lay one of the cornerstones for the Third Temple in Jerusalem, and the Palestinians (as many as a thousand) attacked them, and hundreds more Pallies also started throwing rocks at the Israelis praying at the Western Wall. Police went in, evacuated the Israelis, and "confronted the stone-throwers".

Yassir Arafat's Fatah (terrorist) organization called for a "day of rage" against the Israelis trying to lay down the temple mount stone, even after police prevented them from doing so. A day of rage, from Arafat? The man who wanted peace and did not want to fight the Israelis anymore, back when they were significantly kicking his @$$? Sure, the Israelis have been hunting Pallie terrorists - and the Pallies have been blowing up Israelis in relatively large number, and Arafat did not do a thing.

Arafat has been lying. He has not wanted peace with the Israelis, and never will. Arafat will be happy once the Arabs push west and quite literally push the Israelis into the sea, and exterminate them. And so would the rest of the Arab world. Another car bomb exploded in Tel Aviv today, and a second bomb was found on a bus - inside a WATERMELON. It was safely destroyed, however it could have caused more than a few deaths had it gone off inside the bus. And a third was found, 1 pound of explosive packed with nails and such, outside a pub in the city. Peaceful place.

And, with all the troubles, last week the Israelis began preparing recruitment stations worldwide in case they need to call up citizens abroad for military service. In the event of "a real emergency", stations in Johannesburg, Frankfurt, Bombay, Bangkok, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Los Angeles and New York will be open to accept recruits into the IDF reserves. The Israelis say they are only there to call up their people currently on holiday or such, though I would not doubt it at all if they accept foreigners who are veterans into the ranks. This is a major step forward though, for Israel's part in the Palestinian violence. Could a new war, a REAL war, be not long in the making?

Speaking of recruiting...anyone looking for a really cool job? How about one that has Kicking Ewoks as a side benefit? (thanks to Guy for this one)

Sakura - BUY NORTON ANTIVIRUS! Not Symantec, because it doesn't stop that d@mned Sircam virus. Whoever invented it must be laughing his or her head off at the foolishness of users everywhere. PEOPLE - if you get a file, and you do not know what it is, DO NOT DOUBLE-CLICK ON IT!