I expect that John Ashcroft will be very vocal right up until the moment that his replacement takes over...

He gave a speech on Friday that railed against "activist" judges who have differed from the views of the executive branch concerning treatment of prisoners in our ongoing "war on terror". I'm sorry, but if the President decided that American safety would be best implemented by micro-chipping everyone, I would hope that the courts would step in (and I wouldn't play along anyway). The courts play an important role in that whole checks-and-balances thing, Ashcroft. I hope that your replacement is thoroughly grilled about matters like this during his confirmation hearings.

Is Real Genius becoming real? The "first light" of the future airborne laser was conducted on Friday. Now we just need a big tin of popcorn...

Damn, this relatively young individual known better as "Ol' Dirty Bastard" died today. Only 35... I'm not far from that. Eat, drink, and be merry! You never know when the reaper might be coming for you...

If there's one thing, we don't need right now, it's discontent and in-fighting at the CIA (free nytimes.com registration required (or use bugmenot.com)).

First and foremost, props to all the veterans out there...

Much sacrifice has been made on your part and it appears as if much more will continue to be requested. In some parts of the world, a "wardrobe malfunction" would likely be followed by at least one public beheading. In some parts of the world, an individual working for the government would not have the freedom to tell the rest of his countrymen how the government is screwing things up.

Speaking of this individual, he is resigning from the CIA. The govexec.com article doesn't mention the effective "ban" on media appearances imposed on him since by the CIA roughly August.

Yasser Arafat...

With Arafat's passing, there should be renewed hope for work towards the stalled "roadmap". I hate to sound cynical, but I'll believe it when I see it. I would love to see freedom maintained in Afghanistan, Iraq, and a Palestinian state. Unfortunately, in the first two instances, it appears as if our military might be the ones doing the maintenance for a while. We might need to change the "military oath" to something like this:

“I, [state your name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States and all other countries in the path of America's march of freedom against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”

Na-na..na-na-na-na..hey-ey-ey..go-odbye....

Hasta la vista, John Ashcroft. I meant to say this last night, but I was having a helluva time getting it posted before I had to shower and get to work. I don't blame you for all of the questionable legislation. However, we have pursued some avenues in this "war on terror" that seem highly questionable and you've seemed to want to tirelessly defend things like Patriot without openly addressing concerns by advocacy groups like the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Instead, you've remained combative and said things like, "To those who pit Americans against immigrants, and citizens against non-citizens; to those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty; my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists—for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies, and pause to America's friends. They encourage people of good will to remain silent in the face of evil." One consistent theme in your resignation is that there haven't been any attacks in this country since 9/11. Many people in the government remind us that the question about the next attack should be more of a "when, not if" kind of thing. So, when (and if) another attack occurs, does that mean that you've partially failed? Will that mean that Patriot isn't worth the paper it's written on? As far as I'm aware, law enforcement never needed more legislation to tell them they could perform probable cause searches sans a warrant. For what it's worth, I don't think the next guy will be much better...

We were discussing global warming at work last night. Considering where I work, I'm not an ultra-green activist. However, we have the technology to do better assessments of how human activities affect the environment. Someone brought up the point that nature can change the environment far more than we can. That's true. However, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to get better. Using that line of reasoning, we should club all baby seals and get as much ivory as we can because most animals will probably die off in the end anyway. Hell, the Sun will eventually consume the Earth, so we should nuke our enemies NOW, right? It won't matter in the long run. I call BS.

Suzanne was mentioning that the local Panera bread has wi-fi...

Wi-fi seems to be slowly creeping up in a lot of places. I'd personally like to see wi-fi in ALL hotels, but that's probably not going to happen any time immediately. When we're traveling, that's one of our considerations for where we'll stay.

We were at Old Chicago Pizza up in Bettendorf the other night. In addition to having good food, they have good beer and an old favorite of mine. Yeah, I suppose it's kind of geeky, but I like to play the NTN Network's trivial entertainment games. Suzanne has always told me I was geeky. I told her we should go there this Friday night. We don't normally go out to eat on Friday nights, but I discovered that the local Mensa chapter is supposed to meet there.

It's sad that 38% of teens polled didn't know the title of our country's official song. Hopefully, I can contribute to this "grassroots" effort in some small way just by getting the word out. Here's the official site for the "National Anthem Project". I say we should have an "old school" national anthem and a "new school" national anthem. Perhaps we could have a metal anthem. I don't see the little ditty from Team America: World Police as a contender. Warning: Don't click that link if you'll be offended by extreme lyrical obscenity!

While we were out and about yesterday, we were listening to what the local country station had to offer...

There's a "new-ish" song out by Tim McGraw called Back When. Just so you have some background info, I'm not a big fan of country music. This is another song that I'm not fond of. The sentiment expressed in this song hearkens back to older and simpler times. I don't like it much because this same kind of sentimentality has existed ever since mankind could record history. Life is flux. Get over it...

On at least one part of the internets...

I saw some yakking along the lines of "Art doesn't take enough pictures with the digital camera". My history of taking pictures (digital or otherwise) isn't great. I will note that I've taken more pictures with the digital camera than with any other camera that we've owned previously. I always tell Suzanne that she needs to learn to pick up the camera and take pictures herself. For some reason, she doesn't think she should. Y'all should go tell her to be part of the solution.