Over at Chad's Running Commentary there's some wry discussion about what happened at my old hometown newspaper this past week that got national attention. Seems that two cub reporters there were caught making up people and quotations for the paper's daily "man on the street" feature. In this case they were found taking mugshots from TheFaceBook.com website and attributing fake quotes to them. The two reporters should have been fired immediately....
Monday, August 01, 2005
Sunday, July 31, 2005
CAFTA: How to make an elected representative prostitute his principles
You need to register (for free) with the New York Times website to read this, but there's a fascinating (and disturbing) article about what happened behind the scenes that made CAFTA pass by two votes this past week. If just one Representative had voted against it, the measure would have been tied and thus no passage. As it turns out the pro-CAFTA cabal found their needed vote in North Carolina's own Robin Hayes, who had previously been rabidly...
Friday, July 29, 2005
Did a Clinton-era mandate doom Columbia?
I've been reading about this during the past few days since the Discovery launched: that because of regulations that Clinton pushed when he was President that severely limited the use of freon, that the foam material on the outside of the space shuttle's external fuel tank became pretty lousy and that's why that piece of foam hit and doomed Columbia two and a half years ago. Pardon My English has a good post about it that's well worth a read. Personally,...
Good pro-homeschooling essay at Sierra Times
Nancy Levant writing at Sierra Times about homeschooling versus public education. Her piece's opener is damn depressing, but accurate...I have very little hope for this nation. The bulk of the populace is still clueless as to the Executive Orders, Acts, and partnership bureaucracy system that have turned our Constitutional Republic into a new banana republic. The ongoing ignorance of the masses is beyond all comprehension and reason.The Southwestern...
Thursday, July 28, 2005
Army of Darkness on Sci-Fi Channel right now
I swear this must be one of the most funny torn-up movies ever ma...
CAFTA passes House 217-215
If I were to post the things the darker half of my nature is tempting me to say right now, Blogger.com would not only suspend this blog indefinitely, they would track me down, drag me out and have me shot, burn down my apartment, and sow the ground with salt.This is a dark night for America. It was horrible over ten years ago when NAFTA passed, and it just got a lot worse.The 217 that voted for this are traitors. The President of the United States...
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Her love is real... but she is not
If there's ever a major jump in artificial intelligence, we are in serious bat guano if it gets coupled to this new technology. From the BBC:Japanese develop 'female' androidBy David WhitehouseScience editor, BBC News websiteJapanese scientists have unveiled the most human-looking robot yet devised - a "female" android called Repliee Q1.She has flexible silicone for skin...
CAFTA vote in House coming today?
Am hearing that the vote on the Central American Free Trade Agreement in the House of Representatives might be coming as soon as today.Any member of the House who signs onto this is a traitor worthy of putting against the wall. Ditto for everyone in the Senate who did (guess who that was from North Carolina) and anyone else for that matter.Our "representatives" no longer represent their constituents. They only screw them. For however much money...
This is where and how America's next civil war begins
From the Associated Press via the Monterey Herald:Tensions rise along San Diego Border between Minutemen, protestersSAN DIEGO - Clashes between California Minutemen and protesters are heating up along the Mexican border with reports of shots fired and an alleged scuffle between a state senator's aide and a university professor.The confrontation between University of California, Riverside, ethnic studies professor Armando Navarro and Mark Belgen,...
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
We are so DOOMed
The first time I heard about this it was 1994 and Ivan Reitman was supposed to direct it. Eleven years later and the movie version of Doom is finally coming out. Over at IGN.com they have an exclusive trailer for Doom. Wonder if the movie includes that legendary wonderful "Barney the Dinosaur" WAD that we all enjoyed back in the day...
Enough time has passed that I can comment on this
Do not do not DO NOT click on this link if you haven't read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince yet. My wife is reading it now and I've had to be VERY careful not to let any spoiler-ish material slip my lips. Suffice it to say: I just wanted to make note that in regards to a certain "something" regarding this book, that I made a perfect call on it well before it had been released.I'm pretty good at that. Sometimes. ...
Oops, guess we can't say "Roll out!" just yet :-(
In light of that last post about the live-action Transformers movie in '07, Ain't It Cool News is now reporting that the project is getting torn apart by its producers. At issue is whether or not to use the original cartoon's cast of voice actors.My take on that is this: get an entirely new crew of voices. The cartoon was good for its day but it's now time to re-introduce the Transformers for a new generation... and redefine it for another that...
Sunday, July 24, 2005
July 4th of 2007 will never get here fast enough...
Ooh-boy, just got back into town after a coupl'a days and found a real treat over at Ain't It Cool News.In the name of all that's good and holy... was that Devastator?!??Click here to see what I'm talking about. When you go to the video, the good stuff starts about 2:00 into it.Spielberg. Bay. The Transformers. As of this moment my future offspring now has a legend for their own generation. And sonuvagun, it's one of mine's too :-)(P.S.: there's...
Saturday, July 23, 2005
Another deep essay by Kyle Williams
If you want to wrap your brain around something really meaty read the newest piece by Kyle Williams over at WorldNetDai...
V for Vendetta trailer hits the net
No, this ain't a big-screen movie about the man-eating alien lizards that NBC shocked us with back in the mid-80s...I will be there opening day to see this, even if I can barely explain it to anyone else I know. I borrowed this graphic novel from a friend in college about ten years ago. It's... interesting, to put it mildly. V for Vendetta by Alan Moore is something like...
Open the Windoze and look at the Vista
It's been almost four years already, and Bill Gates thinks that's long enough to go without a new operating system: Windows Vista will be arriving late in 2006. 'Course they announced Windows 95 a few times and it kept getting pushed back more and more, so it may yet be '07-'08 before this sees shrink-wrapping.Sobering thought that until very recently there were only three things that people would line up for at midnight to pay money for: a new...
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
Scotty has read his last technical journal...
James Doohan - better known as that most lovable of Starfleet engineers Montgomery Scott or just simply "Scotty" - has died at the age of 85.I met him once, very briefly. Super nice guy, Doohan was. I just read that he was a veteran of D-Day, even lost part of a finger on one hand during the fighting.He beams up to the good company of fellow Enterprise crewmember DeForrest...
