To photograph or not to photograph...

This seems to me (me being most definitely NOT a lawyer) to be similar to not being able to require or compel people to say the Pledge of Allegiance. If I have the right to say or NOT say something, why would I not also have the right to create or NOT create something as I saw fit? Taking photographs is creating something. It was not as if this photographer had the only camera in existence and was the sole source of any photographic records. Also, as I see it, this is a private business and as such is permitted to supply (or not supply) their services to anyone they choose.

Pencil educates on lead danger

Interesting "point" and all but the "Lead Poison Prevention Project of Saginaw" should have done a little more research before selecting their new mascot. Lead has not been used in pencils for quite a number of years now. Instead graphite is used and you can not get lead poisoning from graphite...

NAACP in Detroit to have Rev. Jeremiah Wright speak at Freedom Fund dinner

Well unless he is planning to apologize to "God Damn America" and to white devils like me, I really don't see how he can advance race relations much but then again, that might not be the point...

Cell phones on airplains

Having been on a fair number of flights, I always though (or was lead to believe by the flight crew speech) that the reason you could not use cell phone on airplanes was due to worries about interference with the planes electronics/avionics. It appears the real reason is worries that your use of a cell phone on the plane will interfere with ground based cell phone use.

The agency had long opposed cellphones on planes because of potential interference with ground-based networks, until new tech solved the problem.

I am not quite sure if the ability to use a cell phone on a plane is a good thing or not. People in general are quite rude when on their phones in public. I dread being stuck on a 4 hour flight, sitting next to a loud talker on his or her cell phone...

Barack Obama’s Typical Awful White Grandmother

Too true to be a HEH

Cartoons are funny because they expose the truth in a humorous way. In my opinion, this particular cartoon is just a little too close to the truth.

What kind of research is that?

Why modern, PC driven research of course. The same type of research that refuses to accept a correlation between an increase in right-to-carry laws and a reduction in crime or the correlation between stiff gun laws and higher crime, but fully supports the "man made global warming" research while shouting down anyone that dares to produce research in opposition, but I think you already knew that.

eMail Joke: Eyewithness

A man with a gun went into a bank and demanded their money.

Once he was given the money, he turned to a customer and asked, 'Did you see me rob this bank?'

The customer replied, 'Yes sir, I did.'

The robber then shot him in the temple, killing him instantly.

He then turned to a couple standing next to him and asked the woman, 'Did you see me rob this bank?'

The woman replied, 'No sir, I didn't, but my husband did.'

Who would have thought?

Don't light zombies on fire? I would have thought that under the right circumstances and at the right distances, blazing zombies could be quite the sight...

As everyone knows, regardless of what to do with zombies for fun, a gun shot to the head is the most effective way to end the threat.

That pretty well sums it up now doesn't it?

It depends on what your definition of Voluntary is...

Oh my goodness! I can not believe he actually said this and said it on tape!

Your 'Right" to health care

What he said and it goes for all of these other "rights" that people are constantly prattling on about. I hate to break it to you but you have no "right" to affordable anything, whatever affordable means. You also have no right to air travel, a cell phone, cable, a seat in any restaurant or to shout your opinion to anyone else and not have them shout right back at you.

Murtha's Money

At least that is what he thinks!

What do you do with an old 3G 40 Gig IPod?

Well you could turn it into a USB drive like I did.
It was rather simple and easy. You start with one of these...



A 3rd generation IPod with a dead battery and a live 40 Gig hard drive.

Then you add one of these, a 1.8" drive kit. A number are available on the Internet, just Google for "USB drive case".

This USB drive case comes as a kit with; the aluminum case, a case cover, instructions (though not really needed), a software driver disk (also not really needed), a USB cable, a small screw driver and some foam pads.

You next have to open your iPod. I was able to get my thumb nail into the seam between the two case halves and open it up enough to insert a thin-bladed screw driver (not the one included in the package). After sliding it up and down the side of the case while quarter twisting the blade, the case halved popped open.

I would suggest starting on the right side as there is a thin ribbon cable inside the iPod on the left side that connects the two halves together. Once open, you can see the hard drive, connected to the front half of the iPod.

It simply pulls out and there you go, one no longer needed iPod case.

Use the included screw driver open up the USB case. Take off the end that has the USB cable connector on it. Once open, you will see the connector for the hard drive.

Plug the drive into the connector. Do not force it. This connector is such that it will not plug together if you have the drive up side down.

Slide the drive and connector back into the drive case and secure with the screws.

And there you go. All done.

Post Script:

I did not need to use any of the included foam bits and in fact, had to remove the other end of this case to take out the foam spacer that was pre-installed. The drive would not fit otherwise.

I also had some difficulty getting my computers to recognize the drive when I first tried using it. I got it worked out but only after I temporarily put the hard drive back into the iPod and connected the iPod to my computer without running iTunes. I was then able to repartition and format the drive. After that, the USB kit worked perfectly.

Update: 6/30/08

I have been using the drive since this entry was posted with no issues at all. The drive does take a few seconds to come up and be recognized by the PC but it powered completely off of the laptop even when the laptop is running off of battery. I was a little concerned about power when I was ordering the enclosure unit and could have ordered one with a dual USB cable that is designed to supply extra power to the USB device but that fear was ill founded. The drive works good and I have plenty of USB storage.

State of news today

Here is a story from today's Times Online. It is the incomplete story and nothing but the incomplete story. The story centers on a woman that was killed by a train after her foot got caught in the tracks while she was trying to cross. She was crossing illegally when the incident occurred. Two passer-by-ers tried to save her a failed. Her boyfriend is being charged with manslaughter. Why? Did he "scare" her onto the tracks? Did he drag her onto the tracks? Who knows, the story never says. This is the Times for crying out loud and they managed to mess up a 300 or so word story. What ever happened to the basic who, what, when, where and why rules of journalism? Was this story so critical that the reporter did not have time to call the police and inquire as to why the boyfriend was being charged? Again, who knows, the story does not say and as with most news reports now a days, we are just left in the dark.

Oh and the story title is a bit wanked up too, is this even proper English; "Boyfriend of Ugg boot train death woman charged"?

And the MSM has the nerve to talk about sloppy blog reporting...

Finding a good plumber

[T]ry to find, you know, a plumber, a carpenter ‑‑ we have so devalued and disrespected the work that a lot of people don't go into it, and these are not only good jobs, these are really important jobs, and the more we look at how we're going to have to retool the economy and move towards clean renewable energy, we're going need a lot of people who are installing solar panels and putting up the wind turbines and doing the work that's going to make us energy independent. Those will be good jobs that can't be outsourced. So we've got to talk about it and then act on it.

Why is it that liberals always seem to need to tell everyone else that the rest of us need to value honest laborers? We already do. When I find an honest plumber or car mechanic, they have a customer for life. Conservatives value an honest days work no matter what the task. We just don't think we have to go around all the time telling everyone else they have to appreciate it to.

Me thinks this is a bit of projection and it goes something like, liberals think they are far better at tackling the big problems of society than everyone else because, well they just care more and "know" more. As such, they are BIG IDEA people. Little ideas like how a car engine works, how to change a tire, or how to fix or install a garbage disposal are just so beneath them and tasks more suited for "commoners". As a result, to not feel like such a snob, they go around reminding everyone else how honorable manual labor can be without having either much experience with it or understanding that everyone else already gets it.

Teachers union facts

I want a grown-up attitude...

I want you to have a grown-up attitude too. I truly would have expected more sense from a 64 year old woman and what I get instead is more like this:

I want a grown-up attitude to Cuba, for instance, a country and people I love. I want an end to the war immediately, and I want the soldiers to be encouraged to destroy their weapons and drive themselves out of Iraq. I want the Israeli government to be made accountable for its behaviour to the Palestinians, and I want the people of the US to cease acting as if they don't understand what is going on. But most of all I want someone with the confidence to talk to anyone, "enemy" or "friend", and this Obama has shown he can do.

Where to start?

We have a grown up attitude to Cuba. If we had a childish attitude, we would not have stopped at but one failed attempt to dispose of a tyrant that has plagued the country and people you love for too many years.

You want to end the war immediately? And if doing so results in the thousands of Iraqi dead that most knowledgeable people predict, that is just the cost of getting out and GWB's fault too?

You want the Israeli government to be made accountable for its behaviour to the Palestinians, well I want the Palestinians and the rest of the Arab world held accountable for their behaviour toward Israel. You believe they have not acted in good faith? I beg to differ. I believe that they have been far more restrained than I would be if I were not only surrounded by people that want to eliminate me from the face of the earth but constantly show me that their attitudes have not recently changed by lobbing rocket bombs at me on a daily basis.

You also want the people of the US to cease acting as if they don't understand what is going on. From my vantage point it is mostly those of the "community based reality" that insist on acting like they don't know what is going on and instead act like they are on a grade school play ground and some adult will show up at any moment and set it all right.

Last but not least you want someone with the confidence to talk to anyone, "enemy" or "friend". There is a big difference between talking to someone and wasting your breath while those you talk to use that time to plan and prepare for your destruction. Ask the citizens of North Korea how well all the talking has been going lately. I am quite sure none of them are starving any more since we have all spent so much time talking. Ask the people in Dufar how well talking is working on not getting them wiped out.

It is one thing to have hope and it is another to completely forget that you live in the real world where there are people that are not only just not nice but people that so truly hate other people that they will do all in their power to crush and/or kill them, people that are so drunk with power that everyone else's life is worth the price for them to hang on to that power. I hate to say this to a 64 year old woman but please grow up.

“We have policy against carrying weapons. We prohibit employees from carrying guns because we believe that that is the safest for everybody.”

So Pizza Hut believes that you are far safer to have a gun held to your head while being robbed if you DON'T also have a gun of your own. Really?

Sunnyland Annual Boat Show

Was able to get to the Sunnyland Annual Boat Show in Wooton Park, Tavares, Florida this weekend and had a blast. There were a good number of wooden boats (old and new) in attendance. I was able to make some use of our Nikon D40X and took a few picture.

The Next Generation of Tires?

These look really cool from both a technology and aesthetics perspective. I wonder how long (if ever) it will take to see these in the tire stores. I can see a shift in the industry by the mass production of these tires. One, the tire service industry would shift entirely to installation and replacement. No more repair. Second, the use or retread industry will cease to exist. It does not look like there is anything to retread once you wear down the tire. That also raises a safety issue, how does the tire react when the tread is gone? How much of a riding base is left? It looks fairly substantial from the photos but I can see some could be concerned.

It also looks like the design takes some of the strain off of the suspension system by acting as shock-absorbers. I would be interested in how much the help smooth out the ride over conventional tires.

It is all about respect

Respect for free speech.

Where are all of the people that jumped to defend the artists that produced works such as Christ as an AIDS victim, a portrait of the Madonna made of feces and the Christian cross in a bucket of urine? When "protest" art is done against Christianity it is viewed as courageous and inspired but when it is done against Islam it is viewed as slanderous and disrespectful. Mostly, I suspect because the followers of Christianity have not beheaded anyone in a few hundred years or so.

Free speech is free speech and either Islam will be able to join this millennium or it will not. If it wishes to be a part of the future then as a religion and a group it is going to have to learn that not everyone is 1) a fan, 2) a follower, and 3) a cheerleader. Islam is going to have to learn that the standards of Islam do not apply to non-believers/followers and trying to impose the Islam world view on the rest of us is not a viable long term survival strategy.

On the other hand, this current incident and the Mohammad cartoons fiasco have shown that in the near term, their strategy is (unfortunately) working just fine, thank you very much.

Update: Here is a link to the Fitna video that is causing the latest ruckus.

Exclusive footage of Hillary Clinton dodging sniper fire

Exclusive footage of Hillary Clinton dodging sniper fire as she enters Bosnia in 1996.

Nuanced...

Deputy Attacked by Mob

At least two men were taken into custody. Authorities say the two who were apprehended have been identified as illegal immigrants.

Ultra small, ultra bright bulb

It is about twice as efficient per watt as LED lights and produces a brighter, more natural light. It is about the size of a quarter and at 250 watts can replace street light bulbs 10 times larger running at over 400 watts. Cool. Now it just needs to cost $.10.

Who is helping to fund La Raza?

Who indeed, it would appear that La Raza gets funding from:

- Aetna Foundation
- Allstate Foundation
- Annie E. Casey Foundation
- American Express Foundation
- AT&T Foundation
- Bank of America Foundation
- Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
- Carnegie Corporation of New York
- ChevronTexaco Foundation
- David and Lucile Packard Foundation
- Fannie Mae Foundation
- Ford Foundation
- Freddie Mac Foundation
- John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
- Joyce Foundation
- Mertz Gilmore Foundation
- Open Society Institute
- Rockefeller Foundation
- Target Foundation
- Verizon Foundation
- W. K. Kellogg Foundation

Do these companies and foundation founders (and our own government) actually know what La Raza is (and even care) and what this "organization" promotes? I was quite shocked by some of the names on this list and will have to adjust my purchasing habits accordingly.

An 'inconvenient truth.'

Received via email and verified via Snopes...

A prime example of ' do as I say, not as I do'

A Tale of Two Houses

House #1

House #1, a 20 room mansion ( not including 8 bathrooms ) heated by natural gas. Add on a pool ( and a pool house) and a separate guest house, all heated by gas. In one month this residence consumes more energy than the average American household does in a year. The average bill for electricity and natural gas runs over $2400. In natural gas alone, this property consumes more than 20 times the national average for an American home. This house is not situated in a Northern or Midwestern 'snow belt' area. It's in the South.

House #2

House #2, designed by an architecture professor at a leading national university. This house incorporates every 'green' feature current home construction can provide. The house is 4,000 square feet ( 4 bedrooms ) and is nestled on a high prairie in the American southwest. A central closet in the house holds geothermal heat-pumps drawing ground water through pipes sunk 300 feet into the ground. The water (usually 67 degrees F.) heats the house in the winter and cools it in the summer. The system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or natural gas and it consumes one-quarter the electricity required for a conventional heating/cooling system. Rainwater from the roof is collected and funneled into a 25,000 gallon underground cistern. Wastewater from showers, sinks and toilets goes into underground purifying tanks and then into the cistern. The collected water then irrigates the land surrounding the house. Surrounding flowers and shrubs native to the area enable the property to blend into the surrounding rural landscape.

HOUSE #1 is outside of Nashville, Tennessee; it is the abode of the 'environmentalist ' Al Gore. HOUSE #2 is on a ranch near Crawford,Texas; it is the residence the of the President of the United States, George W. Bush.

So much for conventional wisdom...

And another falls into irrelevancy

The Southern Poverty Law Center goes out of its way to show why it is now irrelevant. Shame, that is. At one time they did quite a lot of good. Now they are just another meaningless, liberal, partisan organization that has turned into a parody of its self and are ignored by those that matter.

William F. Buckley once observed, "Liberals say they want to give opposing views a fair hearing. Then they are surprised and shocked to learn that there are opposing views."

Jet Skis

What fun!

Holes leak faster than first thought

Sorry, could not help myself with the title...

I am glad that the article was complete enough to reference Hawking's original work. I kind of expected a more extensive article from Scientific American though...

Airborne Laser Cannon

Real Genius (1985)

Pink Pistols: Can Guns Protect Gays?

Well sure, guns can not only help protect gays but they can also help protect people that are not gay.

Code Pinkos

This should be shown on the nightly news to highlight what the left has become but it will not.

I love the part (at about 3:25) "If only there was a organization sworn to protect free speech".

Welcome aboard (there is yet hope)!

"I took the liberal view for many decades, but I believe I have changed my mind. As a child of the '60s, I accepted as an article of faith that government is corrupt, that business is exploitative, and that people are generally good at heart.... [Now I] question my hatred for 'the Corporations' -- the hatred of which, I found, was but the flip side of my hunger for those goods and services they provide and without which we could not live. And I began to question my distrust of the 'Bad, Bad Military' of my youth, which, I saw, was then and is now made up of those men and women who actually risk their lives to protect the rest of us from a very hostile world.... I began reading not only the economics of Thomas Sowell (our greatest contemporary philosopher) but Milton Friedman, Paul Johnson, and Shelby Steele, and a host of conservative writers, and found that I agreed with them: a free-market understanding of the world meshes more perfectly with my experience than that idealistic vision I called liberalism" -- Playwright David Mamet, writing in the Village Voice on why he is no longer a "brain-dead liberal."

BBC Fabricates Home Demolition Report

It is not enough that the BBC wages a propaganda war against Israel and for Palestine, it is not enough that they willingly carry Palestine propaganda as news without a hint of fairness but now they feel it necessary to fabricate stories.

The BBC showed a home being demolished and claimed that it was the home of child murderer Alaa Abu Dheim, when in fact the home of this killer as well as a shrine erected by the Palestines to honor this human trash still stand as shown by a number of AP photos taken days after the BBC story.

That the home and shrine still stand should be sufficient proof to anyone with an open mind, who the decent participants in this conflict are. Could anyone imagine a shrine to fallen Israeli solders lasting even 5 minutes in Palestine? Me thinks not.

More "House Democrats violated house rules"

House Democrats have failed the American People. They can’t even pass an “ethics” bill without violating the rules.

And I thought they were different and were going to change the atmosphere of corruption in Washington, I am so disillusioned (redux)...

Seems a bit too similar to this incident.

Do Palestinians deserve their own state?

A valid question, I think and based on this action by the Palestinian Authority, the short answer would appear to be no, not yet.

Mahmoud Abbas's official Palestinian Authority daily newspaper has honored the terrorist who gunned down eight high school students at point blank range with the status of shahid, or holy Islamic martyr.

The official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida prominently placed a picture of the point-blank child killer on the front page, with the caption, "The Shahid Alaa Abu Dheim." In a page one article on the massacre at the Mercaz HaRav Kook yeshiva, his crime was again defined as an act of martyrdom (shahada).

A cold-blooded murderer of children is a person to be vilified not honored. No matter where you stand on the Israel/Palestine issue, I would have hoped that we could all agree that someone that murders children is a monster that should be condemned by one and all. Apparently not in Palestine when the murdered children are Israelis. Do the Palestines deserve a state? At this time they are certainly not doing anything to show they have earned one and for the US to continue to push Israel forward with the "road map for peace" while Palestine continues to act like this way and to condone these acts is even more unforgivable.

A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face With Modern-Day Slavery

There are more slaves in the world today than at any point in human history...

Thanks to his efforts, the Bush Administration can boast of the most aggressive antislavery record since Lincoln.

Global abolition is part of the UN mandate. But the UN Human Rights Commission cottoned to genocidal regimes like Khartoum that demanded it expunge the word "slavery" from its lexicon, and certain UN peacekeepers actually participated in the slave trade in countries like Eritrea and Cambodia.

Archbishop taken to task...

and quite well I might add...

First slowed light now squeezed vacuum

Found this on Slashdot.org and I have have previously noted where scientist have slowed and stopped light.

Don't completely understand what they are doing here but those involved seem pretty excited about it and seem to think that it will have practical uses in communications and encryption.

Anti-war judge rejects foster teen's bid to join military

So, a 17 year old can't get a judge's permission to early enlist in the Marines. Funny, if HE were instead a SHE and only 13 instead of 17, an abortion would have been no problem for the judge to approve.

The audacity of hype

Well, can't you say the same about "global warming"? A "consensus" of scientists, Hollywood stars and politicians all believe that global warming is a MAJOR issue that we need to solve NOW but at the same time do all that they can to silence any opposing views and/or information. Some advocate firing any weather(wo)men that dare to not believe. Others want to defund any scientists that refuse to submit.

Home made etch-a-sketch clock

This has to rate at least an 8 on the "geek cool factor" scale. I agree with one of the commenters to the original post. There is no reason why the numbers can be smooth as a program is controlling the knobs.

The project is based on Arduino, an open-source electronics prototyping platform.

All I can say is, sweet!

Ernesto "Che" Guevara

He must have been a real hoot at parties.

"To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary, these procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution! And a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate. We must create the pedagogy of the paredon (TheWall)!"

The man was a ruthless killer and young people walk around with his face on their shirts like he was a super-star. Pathetic.

Shedding light on today's health insurance

Well sure, the Democrats are pandering to the lowest common denominator here and are trying to build a social security system for health care. Just as social security is a required system that I can not op-out of, both of the democratic candidates for president have their own version of "social health care security" and as Charlie Martin points out, my costs will have to be higher to ensure that everyone is covered. So, I will be charged more to cover the extra costs associated with the very old, very sick and/or very pregnant and some of my other tax dollars will be used to pay the premiums of those that can't afford the premiums on their own.

You can also rest assured (cause it is already going on) this insurance will cover all kinds of cosmetic and elective procedures as well as real life saving procedures. I will be able to get a break on the cost of Viagra though, if that is any comfort in the years ahead...

Archivists block Clinton-papers release

Now isn't that convenient! It is now he said he said as to when and what will be released with everyone involved saying it is someone else's call on what to release. The world may never know who was paid what by whom to pardon who and other political hijinks. At least not until Hillary gets her chance to get into the White house.

Small comfort

It is small comfort to see that liberal hypocrisy is not limited to the American variety but that those of Canadian sup-type are pron to the condition as well.

Infrastructure technology

It is not often I get to highlight some technology and take a swipe at Unions, well with this post, I get to do both!

The reference article is about a automated pot hole patching system that allows most pot holes to be repaired quickly and efficiently by a single driver/operator that will not be allowed to be used in some municipalities because of the local government unions. Instead crews (with an 's' meaning more than one) are paid in the neighbourhood of $28 an hour to repair pot holes with hand tools.

Warning: Raisins and grapes can be harmful to dogs!

Validated at Snopes.com, raisins and grapes can cause death in dogs. Evan small amounts can cause severe illness. Read the article, it could save your best friend.