Found this bit of Microsoft-related hilarity on Ars Technica today:

Nevertheless, it’s far from perfect, and not only on the security front. While many tests show that Vista outperforms XP on some high-end computers, the average computer system does not run Windows Vista as well as it does Windows XP. This will of course change as the average computer becomes more powerful and as Microsoft tweaks the operating system (SP1 already offers some help), but the fact of the matter is that Vista is recognized as a slow operating system.

Many have therefore turned their hopes to Windows 7. Maybe, just maybe, Microsoft will not increase the minimum requirements as it did from Windows XP to Windows Vista. Considering that Microsoft hopes to get Windows 7 out the door faster than it did with Vista (which came out six years after XP, compared to the typical three) this is entirely possible, and Bill Gates has all but confirmed that Windows 7 will focus on performance improvements:

We’re hard at work, I would say, on the next version, which we call Windows 7. I’m very excited about the work being done there. The ability to be lower power, take less memory, be more efficient, and have lots more connections up to the mobile phone, so those scenarios connect up well to make it a great platform for the best gaming that can be done, to connect up to the thing being done out on the Internet, so that, for example, if you have two personal computers, that your files automatically are synchronized between them, and so you don’t have a lot of work to move that data back and forth.

Uh huh.  Sure it will.  Will it also have a relational database-driven filesystem that will make searches richer and faster, just like Vista (to say nothing of previous versions of Windows - hi, Cairo!) was supposed to have?  What other fun and interesting features will Microsoft promise this time around and completely fail to deliver?

Oh, I can’t wait to find out…

If US News is right, the Republican Party is in some seriously deep shit (H/T Ace):

Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas and defeated contender for the GOP presidential nomination, is currently at the top of John McCain’s short list for a running mate. At least that’s the word from a top McCain fundraiser and longtime Republican moneyman who has spoken to McCain’s inner circle. The fundraiser is less than thrilled with the idea of Huckabee as the vice presidential nominee, and many economic conservatives—turned off by the populist tone of Huckabee’s campaign and his tax record as governor—are likely to share that marked lack of enthusiasm.

The article then goes on to explain some of the “logic” behind picking the Huckster, with this little gem near the end:

3) Economic conservatives and supply-siders may balk, but the threat of four years of Obamanomics and higher investment, income, and corporate taxes might be enough to keep them on board.

Yes, because, when given a choice between four years of Obamanomics and the untimely demise of a 71 year old man leading to Huckanomics, believe me, the choice is clear. I mean, you can either have higher taxes from a politician with a messianic complex, charisma and a rather funny relationship with God, or you can have higher taxes from Obama. Great!

The one bit of good news in all of this is that, if Huckabee is chosen as the VP candidate, assuming that McCain loses (which, by the way, he almost certainly will if he tries to embrace the same “compassionate Christian” crowd that led to Bush’s rise), this will pretty much mean the end of any serious relevance for the Moral Majority crowd in Republican politics. Reagan did a wonderful job of creating a coalition between conservative Christian groups and small-government conservatives; unfortunately, the conservative Christian crowd has effectively usurped the small-government types and taken the Republican Party hostage. Consequently, instead of focusing on smaller government, we’ve instead had to deal with such wonderful diversions as the Defense of Marriage Act.

I’ll be honest - even with Army of Dog’s metaphor regarding poker and politics, assuming that the Huckster is, indeed, going to be the Republican’s VP candidate, it’s going to make it extremely hard for me to vote for anyone this time around. Yes, it’s true that McCain, by himself, would be a better President than Obama or Hillary - I’m certain of that. I’m not anywhere near certain enough, however, that, were the unthinkable to happen to McCain, that Huckabee wouldn’t just give us the exact same government that Obama would give us, only with religious undertones on top of it.

How does everyone else feel about this? Does Huckabee as the VP change the calculus for anyone?

Update: Awww crap…

John McCain, who as the Republican candidate for president has spent the past two months trying to consolidate right-wing support, has a problem of disputed dimensions with a vital component of the conservative coalition: evangelicals. The biggest question is whether Mike Huckabee is part of the problem or the solution for McCain.

Some U.S. Christians are not reconciled to McCain’s candidacy but instead regard the prospective presidency of Barack Obama in the nature of a biblical plague visited upon a sinful people. These militants look at former Baptist preacher Huckabee as “God’s candidate” for president in 2012. Whether they can be written off as merely a troublesome fringe group depends on Huckabee’s course.

[…]

Nevertheless, the word is that some evangelicals dispute Huckabee’s support. One experienced, credible activist in Christian politics who would not let his name be used told me that Huckabee, in personal conversation with him, had embraced the concept that an Obama presidency might be what the American people deserve. That fits what has largely been a fringe position among evangelicals: that the pain of an Obama presidency is in keeping with the Bible’s prophecy.

Okay, granted, this is Robert Novak writing this, so I’m not entirely sure how credible this is.  That said, it would be really, really nice if we could finally get away from the Nutbar Fundie crowd that seriously believes that American politics are best viewed through the lens of prophesy.  Seriously, these people are the Republican equivalent of Code Pink, and, in much the same way and for many of the same reasons that I would laugh a little if a meteor wiped out all of the washed out former Boomer grannies that make up Code Pink, there is little that would thrill me more than for the same meteor to jump out of Berkeley and rebound into whatever backwater part of Alabassippigiasas the fundies hail from.

Oh goodie - Bob Barr is running for President as a Libertarian (LA Times):

WASHINGTON — Bob Barr, a former congressman from Georgia and a former Republican, today announced his candidacy for president as a Libertarian who would rein in federal spending and foreign wars.

“The government has run amok fiscally,” he said at a press conference. Saying that during the first quarter of this year the private sector was losing millions of jobs while the federal government was “hiring with enthusiasm,” Barr added, “As the American people see their standard of living falling, the standard of government keeps going up.”

So far so good…

“There’s not a great deal of substance there in terms of a commitment to cutting the size of government,” Barr said He said no one who had authored the McCain-Feingold campaign reforms that cap individual donations could call himself a conservative, “at least with a straight face.”

Fair enough, though, according to Army of Dog, some liberals are still afraid of what McCain wants to do to the government.

Barr also lashed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton for saying that if Iran threatens Israel’s existence, the United States should “obliterate Iran.” Calling the New York senator’s statement “tremendously dire,” Barr called the possibility of Iran possessing nuclear weapons “remote” and said he has seen “no evidence that indicates that is an imminent likelihood.”

Saying both the Republican and Democratic Parties have “bought into a system of running a charity called the United States of America,” Barr blasted programs that use public funds to educate the children of illegal immigrants and maintain foreign military bases “that have no more efficacy in the 21st century.“

And there’s why nobody takes the Libertarian Party seriously.  The Libertarian Party’s idea of foreign policy can be best summed up as, “Take our toys, go home, get out of any and all alliances, and pretend we can just chill out in the Western Hemisphere for the rest of all eternity without anyone messing with us.”  I wish I was kidding - here’s the official LP foreign policy plank:

American foreign policy should seek an America at peace with the world and the defense — against attack from abroad — of the lives, liberty, and property of the American people on American soil. Provision of such defense must respect the individual rights of people everywhere.

The principle of non-intervention should guide relationships between governments. The United States government should return to the historic libertarian tradition of avoiding entangling alliances, abstaining totally from foreign quarrels and imperialist adventures, and recognizing the right to unrestricted trade, travel, and immigration.

Keep in mind here that the United States government hasn’t used the “historic libertarian tradition” outlined above since, oh, the First Barbary War in 1801 and the Monroe Doctrine.  Also keep in mind that, in many cases, many of the governments we deal with on a day by day basis don’t respect the individual rights of their citizens, which means it’s a little difficult to find a Libertarian way of dealing with those governments without, y’know, not respecting the individual rights of the people “represented” by that government.  Fortunately, according to the Libertarian Party, it is quite possible for us to exercise a right to unrestricted trade, travel, and immigration when we keep to ourselves and avoid foreign entanglements - this has plenty of historic fact behind it, if you ignore impressment, piracy, the Lusitania, Pearl Harbor, and any other issue this country has had while pursuing an isolationist foreign policy.

Look, I’m all for Libertarianism - I love the idea of a small domestic government and low taxes.  It sounds great.  However, if the Libertarian Party ever wants to be taken seriously in this country, they need to realize that, for better or worse, the past 200 years of American history did, in fact, happen, and there were some very valuable lessons to learn from that time period.  Trying to roll back the clock and pretend nothing happened between now and then while also pretending that, if we just magically wave our Constitutional wands, nobody will ever mess with us again is pure lunacy.  We have a strong foreign policy for a reason - every single time we’ve tried to not have a strong foreign policy, we’ve received the shaft each and every time without fail.  Until the LP comes to grips with that, I just can’t bring myself to vote for them in good conscience anymore.

Amendment II

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

I’ve been following what’s going on in Lebanon at a few places, notably Michael Totten along with Google News.  What I find interesting about this situation is less the geopolitical effects of Hezbollah successfully making their point regarding their strength in relation to the strength of the Lebanese government - this is neither the first, nor, I am sure, will it be the last time that Lebanon is completely and totally screwed - but how a situation like this might be handled in our own society.

Many hard-core Libertarians and gun rights advocates will be more than happy to tell you that, yes, indeed, American citizens have the right to purchase any weapon they want (nuclear, biological, whatever), a right that’s protected by the 2nd Amendment.  According to this argument, the 2nd amendment isn’t about maintaining a militia, recreational hunting, or anything of that sort - it’s about providing people with the means they need to defend themselves against an unjust government.  To a point, I agree with this - I believe that American citizens have the right to self-defense, albeit not necessarily the right to mutually assured destruction (guns=okay, nuclear/biological/missile weapons=nyet).  It’s true that, with our military’s current hardware, it would be nearly impossible to fight it without using something more powerful than an automatic rifle, but, at the same time, I’m not exactly comfortable with the idea of my neighbor being able to wipe out an entire neighborhood with a careless push of a button.  The government is at least halfway accountable; my neighbor isn’t.  Besides, if our government was truly that unjust, I doubt it would matter what the 2nd Amendment said or what is considered an acceptable exercise of that right; the government would undoubtedly pretend it didn’t exist and the people would hopefully drive home the point that they have other ideas.

That said, think about Lebanon in this context.  It is living the Libertarian gun control dream - non-government agents have the right (whether de facto or de jure) to whatever weapons they can afford, and they’re using them against, for various reasons, they believe to be an unjust government.  Granted, “unjust” in this instance relates to “not letting us kill the Jews and turn Lebanon into an Iranian-Syrian proxy state”, but the point still stands - Hezbollah is, for better or worse, exercising its right to bear arms quite effectively against the Lebanese government.

Here’s the question, then:  How do we balance our right to bear arms with the right to not have an exceedingly well armed minority effectively take over our country against the consent of the majority?

There are a number of possible answers to this question, of course:

1. Arm the majority.  Sounds great on paper until you’re dealing with a minority, like Hezbollah or the old CSA, that thinks they have a realistic chance of attaining their goals through force of arms.  Generally speaking, any solution where plan A is “Wait for the country to devolve into civil war and hope everybody’s ready” is not a viable solution.
2. Seize the guns!  Sounds great on paper until you remember that Hezbollah isn’t supposed to have any of the weapons it has.  They’re a very nice and powerful example illustrating the fact that a government can ban whatever it wants, but there always people willing to break the law.
3. Realize it’s not a policy problem, it’s a philosophy problem.

What many people forget is that our rights are predicated on a single assumption - that a vast majority of American citizens will all share some basic common values (liberty and justice for all), and the rest will either learn to deal with that or leave.  If that ever fails, it won’t matter what’s on paper - if a large, well-armed political minority chooses to seize control of the government through force of arms, we’re not going to handle it much better than Lebanon.  The best we could do is hope our opponents haven’t completely corrupted the military and make a go of it.  That said, because the vast majority of our citizens believe in the basic principles on which the United States is founded (or, at least, enough of the basic principles to get along - one nation under God or otherwise), it will hopefully be a long, long time before we even have to think seriously about something like this happening to us.

There are times when insomnia pays off… like this, via Instapundit:

That’s right - 57.  Now, one of two things are at play here.  Either he’s really, really tired and is actually forgetting how many states there are in the Union, or he has the driest sense of humor of any politician in history.  I mean, we’re bumping into Calvin Coolidge territory here, Mr. Bet money that he’ll say three words and he replies with “You lose,” Mr. Teapot Dome himself.  That’s pretty dry.

Whichever way it goes - I’m laughing.  Hard.

Ah, the joys of zero-tolerance in the schools, as illustrated by the latest in the Reno Gazette-Journal:

A third-grader who was shot Thursday with a pellet gun at Grace Warner Elementary School underscores the danger of the nonlethal guns among teens and adolescents, officials said.

Two students were taken into custody after the incident between 8:30 and 9 a.m. before classes at the northwest Reno campus, Washoe County School District spokesman Steve Mulvenon said.

A boy brought the Airsoft pistol to school and he and a female classmate were playing with it on the school grounds, Mulvenon said. The girl accidentally pulled the trigger, and the round pellet struck a third-grader, Mulvenon said.

“Fortunately, she was not injured,” Mulvenon said. “It raised a welt, as those things do.”

The girl’s mother came to school, looked at the injury, decided the girl was fine and the student was returned to the classroom, Mulvenon said.

School police took the two arrested to the Jan Evans Juvenile Justice Center. Mulvenon did not know what charges they might be facing.

That’s right - a child brings a pellet gun, accidentally shoots another child, leaves a welt that doesn’t even concern the parent, and the two children involved get arrested.  Why?  Well, it’s a pellet gun, after all, so it’s vitally important that we suspend all reason and thought, ignore the true severity of the issue, and call the police, who, in turn, shall similarly suspend all reason and thought and lock the children up.  Why?  Oh, that’s easy - two words:

Zero tolerance.

I remember when a “zero tolerance” platform was put into my high school - this was around 1996, I believe, which seems to coincide with when most other school districts jumped on this bandwagon.  The idea, as most everyone is aware by now, was that, since drugs, violence, and weapons were serious problems in some schools, it was vitally important that all schools escalate these issues to law enforcement so that they could be nipped in the bud.  Since the “zero tolerance” policies were written by educators and politicians, two groups that are well-versed in the needs of children in a school environment and how to meet them through legislation, the resulting policies were both fair and flexible, providing school administrators with the support they needed to reclaim their schools.

Who am I kidding?

Like any “zero tolerance” policy in any other school district, the end result was neither fair nor flexible - more than anything, it gave administrators and teachers the legal cover they needed to abdicate all responsibility and thought from their jobs.  Suddenly, instead of taking into account things like context and circumstance, it was far more important to make sure that teenage girls were locked up for bringing ibuprofen to school (it’s a drug!), teenage boys were locked up for getting in fights (violence!), and so on.  Then, someone got the bright idea that these policies should apply across the entire school district - after all, everybody knows that rules designed to scare the living shit out of high school kids are completely and totally appropriate in an elementary school setting.  In short, in the name of security, we’ve effectively banished our children to prison from the ages of 5 to 18… but, at least we’ll feel safe, knowing that, so long as these policies are in place, we’ll never have to worry about pellet guns or OTC painkillers getting near our precious little snowflakes.

I couldn’t make this up if I wanted to…

TALLINN, May 8 (RIA Novosti) - Estonian farmers have received tax notices for methane emissions from their cattle, the country’s opposition party, the People’s Union of Estonia, said on Thursday.

Ruminants produce large quantities of methane gas through belching and flatulence when they digest grass, which accounts for about 15-25% of overall gas emissions, according to different estimates.

[…]

A year after joining the Kyoto protocol, authorities in New Zealand proposed introducing a flatulence tax saying that New Zealand cattle are responsible for 90% of the country’s methane emissions and 43% of greenhouse gas emissions.

We have met the enemy… and it is cow gas. I’m mostly curious about what they hope to accomplish with a tax such as this, other than making gobs of money and applying it towards… cleaner farting cows? Hybrid cows? Hydrogen fuel cows? Of course, we know better - this has nothing to do with global warming or cow gas. It has everything to do with Kyoto providing a certain segment of politicians the cover they need to come up with innovative ways to seize their citizens’ money without having to justify what they’re going to spend it on.

Thank goodness we said no…

From the BBC:  Europeans Get Drunk To ‘Have Sex’

Young adults in Europe deliberately binge on drink and drugs to improve their sex lives, research suggests.

The UK has one of the worst reputations for binge drinking and underage sex but there are striking similarities between countries, a study found.

A third of 16 to 35-year-old men and 23% of women questioned said they drank to increase their chance of sex.

[…]

Young people were also more at risk of unsafe sex while under the influence of alcohol or drugs, the study found.

The researchers said although it was well known that use of alcohol and drugs was linked to risky sexual behaviour, this study showed many young people were “strategically” binge drinking or abusing drugs to improve their sex lives.

Wait… so people are binge drinking and abusing drugs to intentionally improve their sex lives?  That… that can’t be!  That’s impossible!

In other news, the sky is blue, the sun is yellow, and Captain Obvious has left the building.  I mean, c’mon… why else would anybody put their bodies through most of that crap?  Let’s see here… I could stay sober, retaining the ability to walk, stand, and carry out a conversation, or I could get blitz-ass drunk and lose all of those things.  Sounds like fun!  Wait, no… no it doesn’t.  But, hey, if that girl over there does it too… that just might make it worth it… y’know, in a “she’s legally unable to consent and you stand a greater than zero chance of ending the week in jail” sort of way.  But, hey, at least I’ll get some!  Cool!

One thing that cracks me up is that the UK has one of the worst reputations for such things.  This might seem surprising at first, at least until you remember what the average Brit looks like:

Boy…

Meets girl…

Yeah, I’m going to need some gin & tonics right about now.

According to Slashdot, we are about to pass two momentous milestones:

1. The estimated population of the planet will reach 6,666,666,666.
2. The number of used IP addresses will reach 666,666,666.

Both will probably happen today… so, y’know, if the four elephants of the Apocalypse show up at your front door, this is probably why.

One of my favorite left-leaning blogs is Firedoglake for one reason, and one reason only:  Unlike a lot of progressive-leaning blogs that try to be semi-moderate, Firedoglake is more than willing to be completely and totally up front about what their ideology is all about.  In fact, I kind of think of Firedoglake as the Michael Savage of the liberal blogosphere - he’s just a bit farther out there than most of his competition.  As I’m sure you can imagine, I don’t agree with him much.  There was one thing he said, though, that I did agree with…

At the EPI talk, Bernstein made a scary prediction:  The first thing McCain would do after taking office is to go after Social Security and Medicare.  Privatizing either or both would be a disaster for working people in this nation.

(Note:  Yes, I know the link is bad.  I don’t know what’s going on over there.  It does show up in my RSS reader, though.)

Now, I know what some of you are thinking - why on the FSM’s Green Earth am I suggesting that privatization is bad?  What the heck am I thinking?  Well… the title of this blog entry should give it away:

It’s not a free market if you’re not allowed to leave.

The reason free markets work is because you have the option to participate or not.  If you don’t want to buy a car, you don’t have to - you can find an alternative (ride a bike, buy a truck, etc.).  Similarly, car manufacturers have an option to participate or not - will they sell you the car you want at the price you’re asking for?  What kind of support will they give you after the purchase?  There is some risk in all of this - you may not be able to pay, the car might not be all it’s cracked up to be, the manufacturer may go out of business and no longer be able to support your car - but there’s also plenty of reward for everyone involved, too.  Even so, if you can’t afford the risk, you don’t have to participate in the market.

Simple enough, right?

Herein lies the problem with privatizing government programs while still requiring people to pay into them - the people that are being supported by government programs are, hopefully, the people least capable of affording risk.  If something goes wrong (market failure in Social Security accounts, a set of piss-poor medical providers in Medicaid), the people who will bear the brunt of the risk will be the people least capable of assuming the risk.  Worse yet, since it’s a government program, we’re demanding that everyone assume the risk whether they would receive any reward from it or not.

That’s not right.

So, what’s the solution?  From where I’m sitting, there are two possibilities:

1. If the government must provide something (and I have my doubts on this), the government should focus on minimizing risk while providing the desired benefit.  The end result won’t be a lot of fun, mind you, but it beats relying on a program that goes insolvent due to a set of bad risks (or, for that matter, paying into an insolvent program).
2. The government should not provide that service and should not require its citizens to pay for that service by legislative mandate.  Period.

Since it’s almost 11:30 at night, and since my vision is starting to blur, I’m going to stop here… but I’ll be back.  Oh yes, I’ll be back…

From the BBC:  Great Tits Cope Well With Warming

They sure do, especially on a cold winter day.  That said, running a small cube of ice on them from time to time can be fun under an appropriate set of circumstances…

We who commit sacrilege salute you, Ms. Lucas…

A little back story, since I’m sure that’s necessary:

It all began with me exercising my unique wit and wisdom upon Rachel’s comment section.  She beheld this piece of work and was well pleased.  This led to others jumping upon the bandwagon to hell (or, as we call it here in Reno, UNLV), which led to someone asking that somebody create a compendium of such works, so that future generations may enjoy it and be enriched by the wisdom and wit of the Internet.  So… behold… in the upper right hand corner of this very blog is a new feature.  It is the Online Sunny Prayer Book (OSPB).  It’s just called the Sunny Prayer Book here for, you see, since this blog is already online, calling it the Online Sunny Prayer Book here would be rather redundant, and I hate redundant things.  Needless redundancy is wasteful and hateful in the eyes of Dog.  So, we do not employ it here.  Instead, I shall assume that, if you’re reading the OSPB, that you are already aware that the OSPB is, in fact, online, and not printed.  Besides, if you were to print the OSPB, it would just be the SPB, for, you see, it’s hard for a piece of paper to be online.  In fact, what with the paper being matter and the Internet being energy, it would take some serious work to turn that matter into pure online-compatible energy… more work, I suspect, than most of you are willing to make.  Besides, some of us prefer to not spontaneously unleash thermonuclear energy through our network equipment.

So, read to it, add to it, and if you have anything you wish to commit to it or notice something that was committed to it on Her blog, let me know and I’ll get it in there.

So it is written… so shall it be done.

Saw this all over the place:

Well, another Pasco County substitute teacher’s job is on the line, but this time it’s because of a magic trick.

The charge from the school district — Wizardry!

Substitute teacher Jim Piculas does a 30-second magic trick where a toothpick disappears then reappears.

But after performing it in front of a classroom at Rushe Middle School in Land ‘O Lakes, Piculas said his job did a disappearing act of its own.

“I get a call the middle of the day from the supervisor of substitute teachers.  He says, ‘Jim, we have a huge issue.  You can’t take any more assignments.  You need to come in right away,’” he said.

When Piculas went in, he learned his little magic trick cast a spell that went much farther than he’d hoped.

“I said, ‘Well Pat, can you explain this to me?’  ‘You’ve been accused of wizardry,’ [he said]. Wizardry?” he asked.

Yep.  Wizardry. You read that right.

Yesterday, Rachel wrote a post describing how, after reading ‘Mere Christianity’ by C.S. Lewis, she finally understood how it was possible for an intelligent, rational person to also be a practicing Christian.  Naturally, this led to a troll showing up in her comment section, who decided that it was time to bash Christianity, labeling all Christians as “stupid”.  Since I know a fair number of honest, intelligent, rational Christians, I want to be perfectly clear about something - I know that Christianity isn’t stupid.  It’s not my milieu, it’s not what forms the basis of my morals or my approach to life, but I respect those that choose to practice it.  Even so, it’s stories like this, or when a small sub-sect of Christianity decides to rewrite school curriculum to inject theology into science classes, that make a lot of normally intelligent, rational people flip their lids about Christianity and religious people in general.  Don’t get me wrong, I know there are plenty of atheist asshole wackos out there, too; that guy who was using his daughter to sue the school district because they “made” her say the Pledge of Allegiance (it has ‘God’ in it!) a few years back would be my first example.  However, if you’re finding that atheists are a little testy and defensive about religion and Christianity, if not openly hostile, well… it’s because of stories like this.  It’s because, somewhere in the United States - not Iran, not Iraq, not Pakistan, not Kyrgyzuzbekiturkmenichechenyastan, but the actual bona-fide land of freedom and opportunity, the one country on the entire Earth that was founded with modern Enlightenment principles in mind, it is still possible to get fired for wizardry.  C’mon… really?  Didn’t we get past this in the late 17th century after some teenagers figured out they could convince all of the adults to kill each other if they pretended they were bewitched?  How did they figure out he was a wizard in the first place?  Because he could put a toothpick through his nose?  You mean to tell me they didn’t check his weight against a duck?  Y’know, to see if he could float?  Can I riddle this paragraph with more questions?  Yes?  Of course I can?  Are you sure?  How about now?

Ignorant asshats piss me off.

There are terrible, terrible things that lurk on the Internet… terrible things like… the LOLCatz Bible. Let’s quote from the “good” book, shall we?

1 Oh hai. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez An da Urfs, but he did not eated dem.

2 Da Urfs no had shapez An haded dark face, An Ceiling Cat rode invisible bike over teh waterz.

3 At start, no has lyte. An Ceiling Cat sayz, i can haz lite? An lite wuz.4 An Ceiling Cat sawed teh lite, to seez stuffs, An splitted teh lite from dark but taht wuz ok cuz kittehs can see in teh dark An not tripz over nethin.5 An Ceiling Cat sayed light Day An dark no Day. It were FURST!!!1

6 An Ceiling Cat sayed, im in ur waterz makin a ceiling. But he no yet make a ur. An he maded a hole in teh Ceiling.7 An Ceiling Cat doed teh skiez with waterz down An waterz up. It happen.8 An Ceiling Cat sayed, i can has teh firmmint wich iz funny bibel naim 4 ceiling, so wuz teh twoth day.

9 An Ceiling Cat gotted all teh waterz in ur base, An Ceiling Cat hadz dry placez cuz kittehs DO NOT WANT get wet.10 An Ceiling Cat called no waterz urth and waters oshun. Iz good.

11 An Ceiling Cat sayed, DO WANT grass! so tehr wuz seedz An stufs, An fruitzors An vegbatels. An a Corm. It happen.12 An Ceiling Cat sawed that weedz ish good, so, letz there be weedz.13 An so teh threeth day jazzhands.

I… wha… um…

16 So liek teh Ceiling Cat lieks teh ppl lots and he sez ‘Oh hai I givez u me only kitteh and ifs u beleevs in him u wont evr diez no moar, k?’

That, folks, was John 3:16… and, with that, there was me running for the frakking hills.

UPDATE: But wait! It gets horrifically mind-bendingly worse! That’s right… I also discovered LOLCode! An example:

HAI
CAN HAS STDIO?
VISIBLE "HAI WORLD!"
KTHXBYE

What… the… make… it… stop…

Okay, okay… between everybody at Rachel’s site and Gary badgering me about it, I decided it was high time to start watching some Firefly. Besides, the site I was trying to watch BSG Season 3 on was not only highly pirated but also highly unreliable - half the time, it would crash my browser, while the other half of the time it just wouldn’t download. So… Hulu, there I came…

Some initial thoughts after seeing the pilot:

1. The commercial breaks were placed in much better places in the Firefly episodes than they were in the original BSG episodes I tried watching there about a week ago. I’m feeling much better about Hulu as a consequence.
2. Okay, I’m probably a little disturbed for this, and there’s probably something seriously wrong with me, but there is just something absolutely irresistible about Kaylee, the engineer girl. She had me sold the instant I saw her sitting in front of the Firefly holding that parasol with that ridiculous look on her face, talking about her ship with that almost insane singsong voice… I don’t know what it is or why I’m so excited about her, but I like the kind of crazy she’s serving, and I need to get me another slice. I’m serious about this, and I know it doesn’t make any sense, but she has this crazy-cute thing going that, for whatever reason, just really gets me going at full burn. Don’t get me wrong, the companion is rather attractive as well, but, given a choice between the companion and Kaylee… sorry, companion. You can just stay home. I have me some port intake stabilizers that need some attention, like right now! (God, I need help.)
3. I like it! The captain has a dystopian Captain Kirk thing going (yeah, he gets the ladies, too), everything looks like my backyard, and the whole universe seems kind of messed up, but not quite messed up enough to just call it quits. Besides, there’s something about watching space ships with TV western music in the background that just kind of gets this sweet & sour thing going… it works. It doesn’t sound like it should, but it does work.

Needless to say, I’ll be catching the rest of the episodes as time permits. Besides, I need something to do while I wait for Season 3 of BSG to show up. In short, I approve of this message. That is all.

UPDATE: I’m not alone. Rachel enjoys Kaylee as well. So, apparently, my taste in women is the same as a heterosexual woman’s taste in women. Outstanding. This will come in handy if my penis ever falls off and I become a lesbian. If that happens, though, I’m moving to Beaverton. I mean, how can you be a lesbian and not live in a town called Beaverton? Unfortunately, unlike Rachel, I haven’t downed the entire season yet, so, alas, there is much for me to learn… that said, yeah, I’m not going to be able to look at a strawberry the same way again.

Well, over 1700 words, actually, courtesy of Art Levine:

As voters go to the polls today to choose between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in the Indiana and North Carolina primaries, there’s an overlooked peril facing all voters this year: a failing election system and GOP-led vote suppression. All these obstacles undermine fair and accurate voting, leading to potential meltdowns and the disenfranchisement of voters, especially African-Americans, the elderly and students.

Indeed, the Election Protection coalition is already reporting some disturbing accounts from the Indiana and North Carolina primaries from early callers to their 1-866-Our-Vote hotline. As Election Protection reported earlier today:

This morning, in South Bend, Indiana, a freshman student at St. Mary’s College, excited to vote for the first time, left the polling place in tears because she only possessed a private college ID and was unable to vote. The poll workers, nuns at a local convent, were trying to help the young student through her problem. While they were helping her, they realized that some of their fellow nuns, who had just arrived at the polling place, also could not vote because of the photo ID law. Not only was this group of nuns disenfranchised, but so would be four floors of retired nuns in their convent. “The situation this morning in South Bend is a glaring example of why Indiana’s onerous photo ID law erects an unnecessary barrier to the ballot box and disenfranchises legitimate voters,” said John Borkowski, Esquire, a partner at law firm Hogan & Hartson and Lawyers’ Committee board member who witnessed this incident firsthand.

Is it really that hard to get a picture ID?  Perhaps my opinion is skewed due to my parents hooking me up with a state-issued identification card when I was seven, but it doesn’t seem to be all that hard to walk into a DMV, fill out a little paperwork, and get an ID card.  Heck, how does a college student operate with only a campus ID?  I mean, in order to get my campus ID, I had to show them my driver’s license, so… how does this work?

The best quote, of course, was at the end:

As Robert Fitrakis, an Ohio voting rights attorney and editor of the Free Press alternative paper, told me for the Altnernet article, “The system is still broken and instead of voting being a universally guaranteed federal right, it lingers under the shadow of Jim Crow and states’ rights.”

Sadly, I get the fuzzy logic at play here.  The crux of the “problem”, as defined by “progressives” like this guy, is that, since minorities, the elderly, and students are less likely to have photo ID, they will bear the brunt of regulations that require a photo ID in order to vote.  Consequently, photo ID requirements disenfranchise minorities, the elderly, and students more than other groups, and, since those are groups that predominately vote “progressive”, this must be construed as a “GOP dirty trick” or something similar, in the vein of Jim Crow laws.  To be fair, this might all be true - it might be a clever little conspiracy to keep poor old black students from voting, which might disenfranchise them.  Alternatively, it might be a way to make sure that only people that are supposed to vote (i.e. non-felonious citizens of the United States) are the ones that actually vote.

Here’s what I could use some help with:  In order to open a bank account, you need to provide ID.  It’s not enough to just show up with some money - the bank will want to know who you are, using government-issued documents.  In order to drive a car, you need to provide ID.  In order to engage in any meaningful non-cash financial transaction, in fact, you need to provide ID, or at least have provided ID at some point to someone so you can use their ID.  In fact, almost anything worth doing in this country requires a government issued ID of some sort - buying alcohol, tobacco, joining the military, and so on.  How is it that all of this is okay but requiring an ID for the most important responsibility of an American citizen is “disturbing”?  Maybe it’s because I’m white, maybe it’s because I have an ID, or maybe it’s because I’m a rationally thinking human being, but something doesn’t seem right here.

Arstechnica reported today that the iMac has turned 10.

It’s hard to believe that it’s already been 10 years.  My first Mac was a Mac Classic, which, surprisingly, lasted me through my freshman year of college… in 1998.  Printing reports was always fun with it - anything that involved superscripts or subscripts would cause the old LaserWriter attached to it to slow to a crawl.  This wasn’t much of a problem in high school, but it didn’t take long during college to discover that my chemistry and physics reports were taking anywhere between half an hour and an hour to print.  Seeing as they were in the 4-6 page range, and seeing as I had the rather nasty habit of doing the reports about half an hour to an hour before class, this was increasingly becoming a problem.  Even worse, I didn’t have a modem for the Mac, which meant that Internet access was completely out.  Of course, the university had a nice enough computer lab to keep me from being too disappointed about this, but it was still annoying.

Then, one day in 1999, my grandma surprised me with something - she bought me an iMac.  It was a Rev. D iMac, Bondi Blue in color, and it was a huge upgrade over what I had previously.  Finally, I had a computer that could get on the Internet!  Even better than that, it displayed things in color!  Even better than that, it could actually print out my reports in under five minutes!  This was a truly glorious machine, as far as my pitifully low standards were concerned.

Fast forward to 2005 - it was my senior year of college.  I took a couple of years off so I could properly learn the value of a college education (or, more accurately, properly learn the value of the job skills I had by that point - about $7.50/hour at Radio Shack), and, unfortunately, my finances were none the better for it.  So, I milked that iMac for everything it was worth.  By this point, I had upgraded the pitiful 6 GB hard drive with a much faster and much more spacious 80 GB hard drive.  I had also installed OS X on it (10.1), then upgraded it to 10.3.  I also had put in a RAM upgrade by this point - it had 160 MB of RAM instead of the 32 MB it originally came equipped with; this gave it just enough to run NeoOffice.  Being a computer science major, I certainly was not above using the UNIX underpinnings of the OS to compile and run my homework assignments.  To enable me to do my assembly programming homework at home, I had installed Bochs on it, which gave me just enough to compile the code into Intel-native machine code. My senior project, which involved a little physics simulator that a couple of guys in my class wrote and which they tasked me with the documentation of (a task which I didn’t approach with quite as much enthusiasm as I probably should have, in retrospect), still compiled somehow, and, yes, it did run… very, very slowly.  While most of my classmates and friends were playing with 2+ GHz machines, I was plodding along with my G3/333 MHz iMac, barely keeping pace.  By this point, Flash animations were becoming increasingly sophisticated; it didn’t take long for me to learn that my computer didn’t have the horsepower to deal with YouTube.

I didn’t get a better computer until 2006, when a customer of mine told me to dispose of a perfectly good machine… and dispose of it I did.  I still kept that iMac around for another year until it was replaced with a slightly newer iMac that another customer handed to me.  By this point, the ESO had begun to enforce a strict “one computer in, one computer out” policy to keep me from accumulating a large horde of computers, so, though that old iMac had a certain sentimental place in my heart, it was time for it to go.

That iMac, I am certain, is still running somewhere.  I gave it to the receptionist at my current employer, who, as I understand it, gave it to her brother.  Like so many Apple products I’ve had the pleasure of dealing with, it’s running far longer than anyone would ever want it to, which is the opposite effect I’ve seen from most other manufacturers.  Some day, I hope to get another Mac, once I’m flush enough to buy one.  Until then, I’ll always have fond memories of that old Bondi Blue iMac (”Bondi Blue” apparently being code for “teal”, by the way) and how it somehow got me through my seven year journey through college.

Found this via Fazed:

We have a ton of those geese in Reno. Canada may be nice and peaceful most of the time, but their geese are cruel and vicious vermin.

It’s not very often that someone not named Rachel Lucas links to me, and even rarer still when I disagree with that somebody, but here it is… courtesy of Gary Micander:

There has been an uproar lately about Hillary’s comments regarding Iran, and her promise to “obliterate” them if they were to attack Israel. At face value that comment makes me really mad. The idea that we, as United States Citizens, feel the need to preemptively destroy things that are not currently direct threats to us is ridiculous. I’m not advocating that we wait until the nuke has been launched to do something either. I’m just saying that in and of itself, Iran attacking Israel does not directly threaten us. It does not give us the right to “obliterate” a country because they have attacked another country and thus proven they have the ability.

What he misses is this:

CHRIS CUOMO: You said if Iran were to strike Israel, there would be ‘massive retaliation.” Scary words. Does ‘massive retaliation” mean you’d go into Iran? You would bomb Iran? Is that what that’s supposed to suggest?

CLINTON: Well, the question was, if Iran were to launch a nuclear attack on Israel, what would our response be? And I want the Iranians to know that if I am president, we will attack Iran. And I want them to understand that. Because it does mean that they have to look very carefully at their society. Because whatever stage of development they might be in their nuclear weapons program, in the next 10 years during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them. That’s a terrible thing to say, but those people who run Iran need to understand that. Because that, perhaps, will deter them from doing something that would be reckless, foolish, and tragic.

Here’s the deal - there’s a big difference between Iran attacking Israel and Iran nuking Israel.  To be perfectly honest, Israel is perfectly capable of defending itself from pretty much any conventional attack that could come its way from its neighbors.  It’s proven this time and again.  Israel, however, isn’t very big - as this rather handy simulator illustrates, a 4 megaton nuclear bomb would wipe Reno and Sparks combined off the map.  To put this into perspective, the distance between the western edge of Reno and the eastern edge of Sparks is about 11 miles across.  Israel, by comparison, is about 20 miles across at its thinnest near Tel Aviv.  The largest nuclear bomb ever detonated, Tsar Bomba, weighed in at 100 megatons.  Now, it goes without saying that Iran isn’t going to be throwing around any Tsar Bomba-sized bombs anytime soon, but one strategically placed atomic or nuclear device would effectively split Israel in half.  That would be a little difficult to recover from without permanently appropriating the West Bank to serve as a nuclear bypass.

That said, it’s not because of Israel’s strategic position that we should have an issue if Iran nukes Israel.  It’s because there is only one country in the entire history of the world that has ever used nuclear weapons against another nation, and, as that nation, we’d kind of like to keep it that way.  Interestingly, so would the recipient of that nuclear assault, which brings up a very important point - nuclear war is a very, very bad thing.  It is not merely regional - nuclear fallout knows no boundaries.  Furthermore, if it’s okay for Iran to nuke Israel if the mood strikes them, what’s to stop Pakistan and India from getting fresh, or China from nuking, say, Taiwan?  Is that really a world we want to live in?

The answer, of course, is no - nuclear war must never be acceptable.  Ever. It’s way too destructive at even its most “benign” to be tolerated.  We just can’t afford to treat nuclear war any other way.  The best way that we’ve come up with to prevent just that has been deterrence - if you nuke us or any of our friends, we’ll nuke you and your friends, and vice-versa.  Thankfully, Iran doesn’t need friends to keep us from nuking them - our society and culture actually values human life, so we’re not going to unilaterally nuke them.  Even so, though, Iran, along with every other country, needs to realize that the next country to use nuclear weapons in an offensive capacity against another country will be the last… because, by the time we’re through with that country, nobody else will ever dare to do something like that again.

I don’t, and won’t, praise Hillary for much on this blog, but on this one issue, I’m in certain agreement with her.  A nuclear attack against anyone, whether it’s the United States, Israel, or even lowly Liechtenstein, must never be tolerated.  Until someone comes up with a better way than deterrence to convince even the worst tyrants that nuclear war is not an option, that’s what we will have to use, and the only way that works is if we threaten anybody who thinks about nuclear war with complete annihilation - and mean it.

If somebody has a better idea… I’m listening.

Found this on the official IEBlog - long story short, your ability to uninstall your current version of Internet Explorer is entirely dependent on what version you have going into SP3.  So…

IE6: No problem.  You couldn’t uninstall this even if you wanted to.  SP3 will give you all of the latest patches and security updates.

IE7: Though you can uninstall IE7 now, you will not be able to uninstall IE7 once you get SP3 on your system unless you install IE7 after you install SP3.

IE8 Beta: Though you can uninstall IE8 now, you will not be able to uninstall IE8 once you get SP3 on your system unless you install IE8 after you install SP3.

What this means is that, if you ever want to get rid of IE7 or IE8 from your machine after you install SP3, your best bet is to uninstall them immediately before applying the service pack, installing the service pack, then reinstalling your preferred version of Internet Explorer.

To be honest, this isn’t going to be a big deal for most users, but it’s still good to be aware of.  If you like your current version of Internet Explorer, don’t worry about it.  Simple as that.

I hate you, Ace.  I really do.

Finally: Colleges Allowing Coed Dorm Rooms

What’s the worst that can happen?

The answer?  This.

Sweet Zombie Jesus… the ugly just doesn’t stop, does it?  It’s seriously a postmodern mobius strip of ugly.  I can’t take it.  Sure, it answers the question that nobody was asking about whether an emasculated gay man and a raving feminist can live together, but, damn it, some questions just shouldn’t be answered.