Do it right the first time or...
No second chances.
This makes aircraft carriers look huge.
SPIIDERWEB™ Rulz!
Via Jonco.
Labels: take off
Rojak posts, mostly political.
"A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people." -- Thomas Mann
If so, I must be a writer.
Labels: take off
Labels: magic
Labels: oh shit
Labels: relax
Labels: relax
Global incident map.
Labels: gloom and doom
Labels: great name, Murfreesboro
Hadil bled to death in her mother’s arms. Three men were detained, two were later released. The U.S. military said the man detained is an Al Qaida in Iraq member. There were no reports of Hadil's death, they said.
Labels: iraq
It is a miracle substance - lighter than feathers, stronger than steel, one of the toughest fibres found in nature. Now scientists in Japan have found a way of harnessing the remarkable power of spiders’ webs to make anything from tights and fishing nets to bulletproof vests.
Researchers at Shinshu University have succeeded in injecting spider genes into silkworms to create a thread that is stronger, softer and more durable than conventional silk. A Japanese manufacturer is already experimenting with the thread, and spider socks, stockings and even fishing lines are expected to appear on the market within a few years.
The team, based in the city of Nagano and led by Masao Nakagaki, a professor of insect genetics, has beaten rival scientists from around the world in devising a way of mass-producing spider silk.
One of the last justifications for continuing the U.S. occupation of Iraq despite overwhelming opposition from Iraqis, Americans and the rest of humanity has come down to this: U.S. forces must remain in order to battle "al Qaeda in Iraq."
Like so many of the arguments presented in the United States, the idea is not only intellectually bankrupt, it's also the 180-degree opposite of reality. The truth of the matter is that only the presence of U.S. forces allows the group called "al Qaeda in Iraq" (AQI) to survive and function, and setting a timetable for the occupation to end is the best way to beat them. You won't hear that perspective in Washington, but according to Iraqis with whom we spoke, it is the conventional wisdom in much of the country.
The Bush administration has made much of what it calls "progress" in the Sunni-dominated provinces of central Iraq. But when we spoke to leaders there, the message we got was very different from what supporters of a long-term occupation claim: Many Sunnis are, indeed, lined up against groups like AQI, but that doesn't mean they are "joining" with coalition forces or throwing their support behind the Iraqi government.
Several sources we reached in the Sunni community agreed that AQI, a predominantly Sunni insurgent group that did not exist prior to the U.S. invasion -- it started in 2005 -- will not exist for long after coalition forces depart. AQI is universally detested by large majorities of Iraqis of all ethnic and sectarian backgrounds because of its fundamentalist interpretation of religious law and efforts to set up a separate Sunni state, and its only support -- and it obviously does enjoy some support -- is based solely on its opposition to the deeply unpopular U.S.-led occupation of Iraq. [emphasis mine]
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, is not the first name that comes to mind when thinking of net surfers and instant messages. Yet, it turns out, the man is a blogger.
Equally surprising for a leader known for a kind of thundering public presence, his blog is not especially tough. He condemns Washington's policies, but writes infrequently and more ponderously than in his famously confrontational speeches.
The reader comments posted alongside his own seem far less censored and harsher than one might expect.
"I think you are an evil leader," one comment posted by an American reader said. "Freedom and tolerance are necessities in this day and age, and the fact that your country kills intellectuals, journalists, minorities is horrible and deeply disturbing."
Another reader said Ahmadinejad's claim at Columbia University in September that there were no gays in Iran was absurd and called his domestic policies "brutish." Still another wrote, "Shut up please, would you? I get headaches reading your nonsense stuff."
In the Name of Almighty God, the All-Knowing, the Most Lovingly Compassionate
One's perspective regarding government and governance determines the way one should cooperate with the people. If one recognizes government as a privilege and prey of the governors, then the period of governance can be counted as an opportunity to fulfill the expectations of certain individuals and groups or the ostentation and hedonism of the governors.
But if in our view, "government" would be a responsibility before God for establishing justice and a duty to ensure the rights of common people, serving the servants of God and helping the oppressed- then the most important issue will be the people's concerns. If this is the case, governors would not view themselves as better than other people and they wouldn't put themselves in any other position except serving the people. [spacing edited slightly, but not content - ed]
Labels: blogging, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Manhattan grocer advertises hams as "Delicious for Chanukah."
Labels: Chanukah
On her blog, Cassandra Devine balks at the prospect of paying for the baby boomers' Social Security benefits.
Her "modest proposal" for sparing the younger generation that expense: Pay retirees to commit suicide.
Also Online
Play the game: The American Academy of Actuaries has created an interactive Social Security Game that lets you see the effects of your decisions to cut Social Security benefits and/or raise taxes.
"Our parents, the boomers, dodged the draft, snorted cocaine and made self-indulgence a virtue. I call them the Ungreatest Generation. Here's their chance, finally, to give something back," she writes to her fellow twentysomethings.
Unbelievable?
Yes. The long-predicted generational conflict over Social Security's solvency hasn't escalated that far. The incendiary Ms. Devine lives only in the pages of satirist Christopher Buckley's latest novel, Boomsday .
Still, Mr. Buckley's work of fiction feeds off some people's fears that the government's retirement program will soon fall apart.
...
But most experts agree that any suggestion the system will collapse and leave younger workers unprotected is as nonsensical as Mr. Buckley's bitter blogger.
"To say, as some politicians have, that Social Security is going broke is not just wrong but also counterproductive," said Thomas Saving, a Social Security trustee and director of the Private Enterprise Research Center at Texas A&M University. "It needlessly scares people."
As the oldest boomers apply for benefits over the next couple of months, a number of policy analysts are using the milestone to offer solutions and ease fears about Social Security.
Labels: Social Security
My blog is worth $18,629.82.
How much is your blog worth?
Labels: blog worth
In 1659, just a few decades after they had arrived in the New World, the Puritans banned the celebration of Christmas (as well as gambling and congregation for non-religious purposes). The holiday reminded them of Old World customs from England (the nation from which they’d fled to escape religious persecution). In fact, they refused to consider December 25th a holy day at all - the Catholic Church had selected the date as the day to celebrate Christ’s birthday because it coincided with an ancient, popular pagan festival. Anybody in Boston caught singing, drinking, playing games, or having a feast on Christmas was fined five shillings. The bans were later revoked, but it wouldn’t be the last time a moral outcry deprived Bostonians of diversions that seem relatively harmless today.
Labels: War on Christmas™
How is it possible that humans have developed an economic and social system that ends up destroying our entire planet?
Labels: climate change
Labels: 2008 elections, Whack-a-Mole
A letter by a Virginia-based U.S. attorney to a federal appeals court appears to contradict CIA Director Michael Hayden's public statements on the destruction of hundreds of hours of video footage of "extreme" interrogations of suspected al-Qaida operatives by strongly indicating that at least two of the videos still exist, The 'Skeeter Bites Report has learned.
Charles Rosenberg, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, wrote that his office viewed two videotapes of CIA interrogations of al-Qaida suspects as recently as September 19 and October 18 of this year -- contrary to Hayden's statement that the tapes were destroyed in 2005.
Labels: CIA, interrogation tapes
Morgan Stanley has issued a full recession alert for the US economy, warning of a sharp slowdown in business investment and a "perfect storm" for consumers as the housing slump spreads. Federal Reserve chairman Ben BernankeFed chairman Ben Bernanke[duplication in original - ed] will be hoping he can keep the US economy from recession In a report "Recession Coming" released today, the bank's US team said the credit crunch had started to inflict serious damage on US companies. [emphasis mine]
Labels: Ben Bernanke, Morgan Stanley, recession
The European Union took a veiled swipe at the United States at climate talks in Bali on Tuesday over Washington's efforts to remove tough 2020 emissions guidelines for rich nations from a draft text.
Labels: climate change
Iraq will never allow the United States to keep permanent military bases on its soil, the government's national security adviser has said.
Labels: Bush, iraq, permanent military bases
Science fiction writers have suggested a future Earth populated by a blend of all races into a common human form. In real life, the reverse seems to be happening. People are evolving more rapidly than in the distant past, with residents of various continents becoming increasingly different from one another, researchers say.
"I was raised with the belief that modern humans showed up 40,000 to 50,000 years ago and haven't changed," explained Henry C. Harpending, an anthropologist at the University of Utah. "The opposite seems to be true."
"Our species is not static," Harpending added in a telephone interview.
That doesn't mean we should expect major changes in a few generations, though, evolution occurs over thousands of years.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have the answer! Incredible as it might seem, I have stumbled across the single technology which will save us from runaway climate change! From the goodness of my heart I offer it to you for free. No patents, no small print, no hidden clauses. Already this technology, a radical new kind of carbon capture and storage, is causing a stir among scientists. It is cheap, it is efficient and it can be deployed straight away. It is called … leaving fossil fuels in the ground.
On a filthy day last week, as governments gathered in Bali to prevaricate about climate change, a group of us tried to put this policy into effect. We swarmed into the opencast coal mine being dug at Ffos-y-fran in South Wales and occupied the excavators, shutting down the works for the day. We were motivated by a fact which the wise heads in Bali have somehow missed: if fossil fuels are extracted, they will be used.
Most of the governments of the rich world now exhort their citizens to use less carbon. They encourage us to change our lightbulbs, insulate our lofts, turn our TVs off at the wall. In other words, they have a demand-side policy for tackling climate change. But as far as I can determine not one of them has a supply-side policy. None seeks to reduce the supply of fossil fuel. So the demand-side policy will fail. Every barrel of oil and tonne of coal that comes to the surface will be burnt.
Labels: biofuels, climate change
Congress summoned CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden to Capitol Hill to explain his agency's destruction of interrogation videotapes, as multiple investigations began into who knew about and approved the decision.
Labels: torture
Labels: War on Christmas™
Labels: boating
Labels: blogging