Yes, I know that the situation is much more complicated but ponder this anyway...

$35,000,000 to six countries thus far and the southeast Asia region in general. I'm sure that will grow and we already put out a great deal of foreign aid as it is. The disparity just strikes me as ironic. Awwww hell, what does it matter? We're borrowing much of the money that we spend anyway.

In happier news, I'm going to Chicago next week to see VNV Nation.

Sometimes I'm too greedy for my own good. Our scheduler was asking about overtime this morning and I agreed without hesitating (or thinking about it). I agreed to work Friday night (11-7). When I got home this evening, I told Suzanne. There are two things about those hours. Yes, it's New Year's Eve. That sucks but we're both normally asleep before midnight anyway. The worst part of it is that I'm already working the day shift on Friday. Love of money?

Blawhg humbug....

No, I don't really mean that! I suppose it might look like I'm slacking here. Yep! I'm slacking...

I haven't lost my skeptical/cynical view of the powers that be. In fact, I'm more down on Shrubbie and company than ever before. Rummy needs to go. The arguments of people like John Warner and Richard Lugar that ousting Rummy would be "too disruptive" can be rebutted by reminding them that the position would be changing hands if John Kerry had been victorious in November. Our system is supposed to be able to deal with change. Want another reason for my continued skepticism? Dan Senor was yapping on one of those Fox News prime-time shows the other night. He reiterated the recurrent mantra of how freedom and democracy in the Middle East should lead to a drop in terrorism. And here I thought that the terrorists (and perhaps the base of people from which they are recruited) hated our freedom...

I think I might be growing slightly cynical of my cynicism. There's more where that came from and I'm sure that I'll have plenty to bitch about in the coming years.

One other reason for my temporary disappearance was that I wasn't feeling absolutely well for the past week. I am feeling much better now. Now I just have to work three more shifts over the next couple of days.

On to other things...

There are some big things in the works for my company.

Looking for some unique music?

The Neshama Alma Band, with Zzaj

Jesters of Yestermorrow

Hello again, world!

I suppose it's been a little while since I've blogged. Oh well, there's other stuff to take care of.

What have I missed? I didn't say happy birthday to Suzanne online the other day (the 11th). Don't worry, I told her happy birthday in real life. I also missed sending a birthday "Wazzup?" to Debbie. Happy birthday (late)! Since it's the 14th, I can also send a birthday greeting on to my grandmother. Happy Birthday!

It's also good to see Rummy being forced to defend himself.

Speaking of cool Google tools...

Google announced their "Google Suggest" tool the other day. I hadn't heard about it, but it's fairly interesting. I like the most recent thing that Google announced. Google will soon become a repository for some books. I love the innovation that Google is showing.

I suppose that it was inevitable...

One of the drug companies that markets a treatment for influenza has made a "Desktop Flu Tracker" available. You could always visit here but the flu tracker is a nice centralized tool with somewhat of a spiffy (if not a bit cutesy) interface.

Art's not here man! Yeah, you might think I'm here, but between work and sleep and spending the little bit of time I have left (between those two alternatives) with Suzanne today and tomorrow I don't really have time to answer any e-mails or anything. Sorry!

I did renew my childrenofacid.com membership last night. I've been on there for a long time. Suzanne thinks I'm crazy. She may be right!

With a lot of attention focused directly on the current UN Secretary General...

I figured I'd look a little more into the post. Is it strange that there hasn't been a North American Secretary General? I'm not necessarily very supportive of the UN anyway. Here are five reasons.

We were talking about a number of topics at work the other day. Iraq, Vietnam, the French, Shrubbie, etc...

One topic that arose was the Vietnamese language. Following my usual surfing habits, I followed a link of interest from that page to this page. I enjoy language studies but don't follow up too much. One other thing I discovered a few months ago was a web-based trainer called the "Basics of Iraqi Arabic". Back when I first joined the Navy, I was given the choice between being a nuke and a language specialist. I'm happy with the choice I made. To that end, I should probably be getting ready for the civilian continuation of nine years as a Navy nuke. Yep, more vamp hours tonight...

Sometimes I'm forgetful and I don't remember if I put this link up...

Press the assorted buttons to hear a variety of Dubya phrases. Here's another Dubya soundboard.

Speaking of entertaining online Shrubbie stuff, view the Quick Time video here.

As Suzanne mentioned, we did end up hitting this place tonight. I had a damn flavorful filet mignon and a couple of glasses of their locally brewed stout beer. Damn fine food!

I find it amusing that this assclown calls for Kofi Annan to step down from his position at the UN partially because Annan was in charge while activities were going on during Annan's period of leadership that could have fueled and funded the current Iraqi insurgency. Does that mean that Donald Rumsfeld should step down, Norm? Some insurgency-fueling/support-stirring activities have occurred within the DoD under Rummy's watch. "But, but, but... that's different!" If this guy wrote an editorial asking for Rummy's two-week notice, I'd be satisfied and apologize for being a skeptical ass. Until then... For the record, Coleman voted "Yea" on the pork-filled $388 billion appropriations measure and "Yea" on the bill to raise the deficit ceiling from $7,384,000,000,000 to $8,184,000,000,000. I thank you and your Congressional pals for using American taxpayer money wisely.

The DoD sent an early Christmas/New Year's message to a number of troops very recently. "Four more years... four more years..." I hope the electorate majority is satisfied with their ballot choice by 2008. The Senator from Massachusetts wouldn't have been much different.

We were going to go out to eat tonight...

However, our driveway looked like this:



We're hoping that tomorrow night will be a better night to go out. I'm not too worried about driving in the tiny amount of snow that we received, but the conditions are too much like those from two years ago right around this time. That's when we were hit on the I-74 bridge and the woman (the one who inspired my "Art giving the net the bird" picture) who did the hitting took off from the scene.

Our kitty sat at the door checking out the weird white stuff falling out of the sky for much of the night. See?



Check out my myspace.com profile. Just another diversion...

The word of the day is free...

Here are the numerous definitions of free from the Yahoo! education reference pages. When talking about the "free market", I think I like the fourth or fifth definition. Demoncrats and neo-Republicons seem to support the principles of organizations like the UN and WTO and other international bodies. Just today, Dubya talked about attempting to create more compliance (through Congress) with the WTO regulations. This is the same Republicon majority Congress that is supposed to be helping the Shrub lower the deficit. And yet they still find plenty of pork to throw into the mix. Back to free trade and the WTO, I don't see a chance for free trade to work when many thousands of pages of documents bind it. Check out the WTO "panel reports" for trade issues against the United States. The market should regulate the market. Instead, we have a plethora of committees that believe that they can outsmart all of the forces that go into making goods flow equitably to and from all of the countries of the world. Free my ass...

This Ukraine thing...

George, one of the best ways to lead is by example. Our elections should have been 100% transparent. I know that 100% can't be achieved, but we can and should aim high. Hell, the Air Force does. I'm sure that our elections were fairer than the ones stirring up so much crap. However, let the people there sort it out. Why are we so interested in seeing the opposition win? Are we driving a dangerous wedge between potentially strong allies like Putin and America by being so adamant about the outcome and possible fixes? Is the desired Ukrainian leadership worth that possible rift? I'm sure (as sure as John Kerry was about an $87,000,000,000 vote) that our brilliant leaders are asking these questions of themselves. Maybe we should let the natural forces of freedom work for once. We might not have as much "support" in the short term, but we wouldn't be viewed as attempting to meddle in the affairs of other countries. Before we go and "fix" any more countries, we need to rewire that "beacon light" that "guides freedom-loving people everywhere". Fix this place first.

Is Martha Stewart so damn out of touch with real people that she failed to consider the fallout (and double entendre) that would accompany revelation of her choice of smuggling methods?

I was glancing at John C. Dvorak's blog this evening.

It's old news by now, but he posted about a website where people are apologizing to the world for Shrubbie's victory. I found that mildly funny. In fact, I find that almost as funny as the people who vowed to leave the country for four years. I wonder if the one-way airline ticket sales to foreign countries reflect the many vows that were being made. I doubt it.

There was a nice, short speech given in the House last week about moral values and the morality of allowing the national debt to grow to 69% of the GDP of the United States. The speech is in the center column of this .pdf file from the GPO. Democrat solution = tax more. Republican solution = tax less, spend more and we'll just make more money or something. Something is wrong with both of those.

Check out the latest issue of Secrecy News from the Federation of American Scientists. The large version of the satellite picture of Fallujah is amazing.

Anyway, back to the sorryeverybody.com thing... I won't apologize but I will vow to fight the dumbest legislation/policy that comes out of our government over the next four years through all civil methods available. Unless things get totally out of hand, there won't be any revolutions or anything. Sorry!

Attempt #3...

I started contemplating this post at around 8:30 P.M. Central Standard Time. In the meantime, my laptop spontaneously rebooted and then blogger.com decided to be a beeeyaatch. It's a totally slow night and I'm sitting around veggin' with a piña colada. Yeah, so it' smy fourth one...

It all started while we were kickin' back watching the 1986 movie version of Little Shop of Horrors. An hour into that, Suzanne went back to watch one of her daily soaps. I'm not the soapy type so I sat in the living room watching the umpteenth repeat of The Matrix on one of the movie channels. That was only until something else came on.

As much time as I spend using the computer (right beside Suzy), you might find it odd that I haven't checked my main e-mail account for close to a week. When I logged on this evening, there was an invite to join myspace.com from my dad that was close to a week old. I had seen MySpace before so I figured "What the hell?" I went on over and signed up. We'll see how that works out...

Where in the hell is this dude? One would think that his incarceration would stay in the news. Instead, we are force-fed the elections, the Peterson case, and last week's basketbrawl. Speaking of old news, what in the hell ever happened to the case of the bomb-collared pizza guy?

One of the movies I glanced at after growing slightly bored with The Matrix was 8 Mile. One interesting thing came to mind... 8 Mile has overtones of a young individual trying to find himself. One of my favorite recent sci-fi flicks is Star Trek: Nemesis. The thing that came to mind is the question of what Marshall Mathers would have turned out to be if he had been an average suburban white kid. We frequently have discussions at work about morality and upbringing and genetics and environment. Very few things are certain. Somehow, the discussion always degrades to a "God's about to call us back" vs. "alien teenager is about to press Ctrl-Alt-Del on his Universe Sims game" match. That's a certainty.

SO is piña colada number five...

At work the other night, one of the control room operators said he had visited this blog...

He said, "You're an angry young man." The link he used to get here had the following picture...





He followed the link from Achim's site. I took that picture after being on the receiving end of a hit-and-run.

I tried to reason that I wasn't really so angry. Thinking more about it, I realized that I probably am angry. I received a publication from the union I belong to the other day. They presented their editorial view of how they wished that the election results had been different. Of course, they were coming from a "labor-friendly" angle. John Kerry, friend of labor, one of the senators who voted yea on NAFTA. The union presents a grandiose vision of an attempt to figure out why 33% of its membership voted for Dubya. If they haven't figured that out yet...

I'm often pissed at the people who won the election, too. I won't dredge up all that negativity right now. I'll have four more years that should provide ample opportunity to present my jaded view of the world's power brokers. I will bring this up, though. If the administration wants to do something about Iran, our "street cred" has been damaged in the eyes of many of those who are in a position to bring diplomatic power to bear.

Additionally, this was quite a sickening report... More par for the course I suppose.

During the campaign, my candidate was on a Faux News daytime television show. Linda Vester asked Michael Badnarik about his view on Iraq. He provided his answer and she asked him, "Have you been there?" Hey, I don't think she's been there either so she has to rely on Fox News for info... I can tell you I haven't been there. There ARE good things going on there. There are bad things going on as well. Bad things also happened when the megalomaniac was in charge. One thing that I'll continue to find funny is that we deemed those actions not war-worthy when the megalomaniac was fighting against the Iranians. One of several future dangers that I see is that we are providing a training and breeding ground for future jihadists. For a decidedly non-Faux News view of events in Iraq, click here. I'm rambling... Sorry!

Anger isn't always a bad thing. If you utilize anger to attempt to bring change through the peaceful channels we have in place in this country, you've done a damn fine thing. I don't think I'm there yet, but I've got four more years.

Suzanne and I just returned from Coralville, IA.

I wanted to check out the membership of Mensa's local chapter. We tried to see if they were going to be at Old Chicago last week, but that didn't materialize. No biggie! Some of my cohorts from work were there and Suzanne and I had great pizza and great beer (I had the beer and Suzanne refrained) and I got to be my usual geeky self. The restaurant we met at this evening was called Saigon to Bangkok. It was a fairly small place but it had a pleasant atmosphere and great food. We don't frequently drive an hour to dine out but I'm glad we did. I've been telling Suzanne (probably since we got married) that I was going to join Mensa.

The "phishing" spam craze must be growing insanely out of control. The local Iowa NBC affiliate ran segments about phishing yesterday. When the local media in the corn wilds of Iowa/Illinois starts doing phishing scam stories, you know that something's out of control. I always go one step further with phishing scams. I report them to the Internet Fraud Complaint Center and the bank that is being targeted. Ignoring this crap won't make it stop. Fighting it probably won't make it stop either, but the odds of someone being hammered for fraud perpetration are better if people report it.

I just noticed a link to a new Google feature I haven't seen before.... See the Google Scholar. I'll have to see what that's all about later.

Why later? Well, unfortunately (or fortunately considering the monetary value), I signed up to do some overtime this evening. See y'all tomorrow! Suzanne is about to crash and I'm not far from heading out the door.

I forgot to talk about the daily phish...

One BIG HINT that the suspicious e-mail you've received might be a phishing scam...

When you hold your mouse pointer over the link/graphic that points you to a web site and the address that displays in your status bar isn't that which you would visit to access your bank, you've probably received a scam. The common thing I've seen in the "phishing" e-mails lately is an address like this (the series of four numbers (218, 158, 230, and 101) commonly called the dotted quad and the page and directory will likely be different):

http://218.158.230.101:87/b/index.htm

I received one e-mail today (the web site was closed down by the time I started checking) that had an address that looked like this:

http://%32%31%38%2e%31%35%38%2e%32%33%30%2e%31%30%31:%38%37/%62/%69%6E%64%65%78%2E%68%74%6D

If you wanted to figure out what in the hell that URL would actually point to (the easy way), visit here and enter the URL in the form.

Banks don't send out e-mails that have links like that. Plus, a bank shouldn't be sending you e-mails asking you for your personal info. It just doesn't work like that...

So, there we were...

When Suzanne got home from work this afternoon, she didn't feel like making dinner. Hey, that was cool. The question we had was what we should do about it. We ended up going to Steak 'n Shake. Not bad... It had been a while since we visited there.

Afterwards, I got a wild hair up my arse and wanted to run by Best Buy. I haven't had any problems with Best Buy, but I know some people who really hate that place. Unfortunately, it's the only electronics-store-in-a-box around these parts. Suzanne and I both wanted a new cable modem. We figured that the rental from the cable company seems like it's old and possibly, well, "busted". Besides, why pay more money to the cable company? Oh yeah, I broke down and did something I never figured I would do. I bought Eminem's new release.

I hooked the modem up as soon as we returned home. It took the usual fifteen minutes (probably a little more because I wasn't really counting) waiting on the phone to talk to a customer service rep just to answer a very simple question about our account. Beyond that, there were NO problems. I was a little surprised because our modem wasn't on the list of approved or compatible hardware. Hey, what the hell, it works. Hopefully it will solve a little problem we've been having.

I really should be in the arms of Morpheus, but damn it all, I'm just not tired enough and the last of the Star Trek: The Next Generation vintage of movies is on one of the movie channels.

And then there were six....

Six people who have decided to vacate their positions in Dubya's administration. How many more people will Dubya drive away (OK, maybe it's not that bad)? The dynamics of Powell's resignation have appeared especially interesting. Hey, maybe I'm reading more into the situation than there really is. It'll be interesting to see how Condoleezza Rice (assuming she's confirmed) makes the transition from National Security Advisor to Secretary of State. It'll also be interesting to see who is picked as the National Security Advisor. What we really need are more hawks in the halls of power....

We just finished watching this show on the Discovery Times channel. Truthfully, I only half-heartedly watched it and Suzanne barely glanced up from her laptop. What I did see of it seemed like a brief but informative synopsis of U.S.-Saudi relations before and after 9/11.

Back when I started this blog, I had just discovered the CIA World Factbook and started linking "a country a day" for a while. While surfing through the State Department's website tonight, I found this. From there, I moved on to the various country studies available from the Library of Congress. Hey, I may not always like our government, but I'll always love this country. Besides, our tax money is funding this stuff so we might as well access it.

It's immensely sad (Advance warning: This post contains profanity. If you don't like that, contact the FCC and/or read no further.)...

That Saving Private Ryan has fallen prey to the "values war" that started coming to its height after the Super Bowl this year. Nearly 30% of ABC's 225 affiliate stations wouldn't air the movie for fear of indecency accusations. I didn't watch Saving Private Ryan when it aired several nights ago. However, I have seen it and I thought very highly of it. Yes, there was graphic violence. There was also profanity. From what I understand, ABC went to great pains to remind the viewers of that fact. Reminiscing on the "wardrobe malfunction", there were no such warnings. I'm not bothered by profanity OR nipple-shielded breasts. If I had children and I wasn't warned beforehand (e.g. the Super Bowl halftime show), I might be slightly miffed but the world wouldn't be at an end. However, the uproar about Saving Private Ryan is uproariously sickening to me.

I've never been in the thick of battle. However, I happen to believe that even the saintliest of individuals might find a swear word or two escaping from their lips when they were taking fire. Hell, we should test that theory. Let's strap up Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and Franklin Graham with M-16s to go defend Iraqi freedom and record every second of their encounters. I'm sure that the only words leaving their mouths would invoke G-d and Jesus and how wonderful the two figures are. Falwell would probably condemn the yellow Teletubby as a jihadist at the same time.

Pardon me in advance for saying this, but you people need to LIGHTEN THE FUCK UP! Go watch Sky Angel or something...

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!