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USA Today ran this story in November, and Planet Family Guy, a large fansite, just 5 days ago posted a link to a video interview (RealPlayer required) with the creator, Seth MacFarlane. I had a text transcription of it somewhere, but I can't find the link.

It isn't 100% certain yet, but things seem to be looking up. I really hope it happens, Family Guy is such an awsome show.

You say that jokingly, but the Bush administration said almost this exact same thing to the United Nations:

"The (U.S. government) favors dietary guidance that focuses on the total diet, promotes the view that all foods can be part of a healthy and balanced diet"

Do you know what's the biggest cause of cancer in humans due to chemicals? Salt.

You forgot to mention the most dangerous chemical of all, dihydro monoxide. Why worry about mercury, when you have all that H2O around ...

No, the biggest environmental threat to humans isn't either radiation or chemicals, it's ignorance, stupidity, and paranoia.

It is a good thing then that we have Bush in the White House, to fight for more arsenic and lead in the water and more mercury in the air. These stupid environmental laws are just in the way when fighting against ignorance and stupidity.

Well, let's see...

• DaimlerChrysler is testing the Nokia Communicator, which "runs on an operating system from Nokia-controlled Symbian, a rival to Microsoft's Windows Mobile" ... " also promoting it as an alternative for companies that do not want to use only Microsoft software."
• DaimlerChrysler Corp. is working on a Linux-based management and navigation system for its cars.
• Related company: DaimlerChrysler Services used Unix and IBM software to merge its financial systems.
• Reporters say that DaimlerChrysler did not like Microsoft's annuity licensing plan and was examining Linux.
• DC using IBM Linux for car crash simulations.
• DC is a German/US merger, as is Novell/SuSe. Affecting DC may affect SuSe in its home market
• "IBM and the German government are getting together to implement Linux as the government's computing platform of choice."
• June 17, 1999, the Financial Post, Canada, Business Group Makes Push for Software Competition (pdf)

  The Canada Europe Round Table, launched yesterday, wants governments to take the lead in using operating systems such as Linux instead of Microsoft's proprietary Windows. The group of 28 companies -- which includes Bombardier Inc., Nortel Networks Corp., Corel Corp., DaimlerChrysler AG and Ericsson AG of Sweden -- suggests "competitive systems" such as Linux should be endorsed at the next round of World Trade Organization (WTO) talks. ... "CERT member Corel" ...

• "Ferrari, Volvo and DaimlerChrysler's Chrysler Group are among the companies that have turned to IBM for systems built around Linux."
• DaimlerChrysler Services Management Awarded 'Best Service' for Progress-Based Application With SonicMQ Integration: Award-winner Uses Progress(R) OpenEdge(TM) (Both Progress and SonicMQ can run on Unix/Linux)
• MySQL has acquired full commercial rights to develop and market future releases of SAP DB, of which there are roughly 5,000 customer installations. SAP DB users include Intel, DaimlerChrysler, Braun, Bayer, Colgate, Yamaha and Toyota South Africa. MySQL and SAP are also developing a future MySQL enterprise database that uses both MySQL and MaxDB.
• DC has been a user of MS products (2003)

AutoZone...

• SCO had claimed that IBM interfered with a contract (which SCO has not provided) and helped AutoZone migrate from SCO software to Linux. But there already is evidence that AutoZone used no SCO software after the change and its own employees did the change. The same statement also indicates that SCO drove AutoZone away, not that IBM interfered. The Red Hat distribution and support was chosen.
• AutoZone is using Wincor Nixdorf Linux store/POS tools.
  Wincor Nixdorf customers:

  * AutoZone * Books-

A quick google search for Diebold Bush will return more than 3,200 results.

Among the most noteworthy ones are:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-12-05-diebo ld-money-to-bush_x.htm.

As such, it's no suprise that Microsoft is one of the top "contributors" to the Bush war machine.

It makes sense then, that Bush's mandate for electronic voting machines (based on Microsoft technology) would follow shortly thereafter.

But I digress, a quick google search will provide much more research data than I could ever provide here.

On the bright side, Sen. Edwards (my candidate of choice) is now openly supported by Howard Dean (which is a very good thing). However, I can't help but think that it's a little too late for integrity and values.

They've been bought and sold out right out from under us. Our responsibility to our democracy is to make sure the same thing doesn't happen in November 2004.

The questions are:
Are we done discussing it?
Are we willing to do something about it?

2000 was cakewalk compared to what's going to happen this year. We've had 4 years to bitch and moan about our rights.

Talk is cheap.

Are you guys ready to defend our rights?

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin

Cooling is an issue. NASA couldn't use the high-gain transmitter on the Spirit rover at first because it generated too much heat. They had to wait until they touched soil to have the additional heat sink (the soil) where they could safely use the transmitter. See:

• Cooling Spirit off. Temperatures atop the metallic lander are warmer than expected, so the scientists on Earth are working to keep the probe cooler. Limiting the use of one antenna cooled Spirit slightly.

...taken from the bottom of this article on USAToday. During a summer day Mars is room temperature, so any equipment that would run hot on earth would run hot there as well. Also, you have less ability to lose heat to air, because of the thinner atmosphere.

photo 1

photo 2

More on the Great Salt Lake Brine Shrimp ecology can be found here:

Link 1

Link 2

Soil Crust Analogs on Earth???
Likewise a USA Today article Imprint shows Mars craft landed in 'weird stuff' describes "The soil was stripped up and folded in an interesting way," said Jim Bell, who designed the panoramic camera that Spirit used to photograph the "mud-like" patch. "It has quite alien textures."

Might this soil crust on Mars be same/similar to the biological soil crust found at Arches National Park (Moab, Utah)?

Additional details regarding biological soil crusts maybe are to found here:

intermediate details

advanced details

According to the article, the only person saying that Linux is more costly is Steve Ballmer, so it's not a statement being made by Munich government itself.

Actually, the SuSE proposal that Munich accepted was the most expensive proposal, at $35.7 million. The Microsoft proposal started at $36.6 million, but when Balmer arrived it dropped to $31.9 million, and then to $23.7 million. And Munich still accepted the more expensive Linux proposal.

So Balmer wasn't lying - technically. What Balmer doesn't admit is that it is only the immediate costs that made Linux the more expensive solution. Munich knew the initial cost for Linux would be more. But they also knew that the savings down the road would be more than adequate justification.

Blackboxes which provide data about what might have happened already exist for cars. There have been numerous court cases regarding the privacy issues surrounding it's uses, mostly because drivers have no clue they exist in their cars. Apparently Ford and GM have been doing this since the 90s. So Ford is probably just taking their technology a step further.

mSFT recognizes that they are a slowly sinking ship

Have you seen the latest polls? Bush is on the run, and it's only February. Expect his dirtiest of tricks shortly.

Is the UN really much of a controlling body anymore. The more time goes on the more it is shown to be ineffective. Does anyone really listen to them anymore?

If the UN is so irrelevant and ineffective, why is the Bush administration begging the UN to clean up the election mess of the administration in Iraq? It is not like it is much at stake for them, just the re-election chances of chimp.

photo 1

photo 2

More on the Great Salt Lake Brine Shrimp ecology can be found here:

Link 1

Link 2

Soil Crust Analogs on Earth???
Likewise a USA Today article Imprint shows Mars craft landed in 'weird stuff' describes "The soil was stripped up and folded in an interesting way," said Jim Bell, who designed the panoramic camera that Spirit used to photograph the "mud-like" patch. "It has quite alien textures."

Might this soil crust on Mars be same/similar to the biological soil crust found at Arches National Park (Moab, Utah)?

Additional details regarding biological soil crusts maybe are to found here:

intermediate details

advanced details

You are talking about pissing the WHOLE World for only 200 people (according to FBI).

On #3: My bad... it was the CIA they invited in:

NYTimes article excerpt:
FOREIGN DESK | November 6, 2003, Thursday
THE STRUGGLE FOR IRAQ: DIPLOMACY; Iraq Said to Have Tried to Reach Last-Minute Deal to Avert War

By JAMES RISEN (NYT) 2649 words Late Edition - Final , Section A , Page 1 , Column 1 DISPLAYING FIRST 50 OF 2649 WORDS - As American soldiers massed on the Iraqi border in March and diplomats argued about war, an influential adviser to the Pentagon received a secret message from a Lebanese-American businessman: Saddam Hussein wanted to make a ... Iraqi officials, including the chief of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, had told the businessman...

The Modern Tribune Article
Salon Coverage
USA Today Coverage
Google Search to more information

Feh, had I just googled a bit before posting, I wouldn't be replying to my own post and risking being modded down...

Carriers focus on keeping existing customers

Beginning Monday, three new TV ads by BBDO's New York and Atlanta offices add a "keep your number" message to Cingular's current "Keep Your Minutes" ads. Cingular (Parents: BLS & SBC) lets customers carry over unused minutes month-to-month. One ad features the 1980s Tommy Tutone hit 867-5309: Jenny. The Cingular deal: 500 bonus rollover minutes. "We've got a solid reason to keep customers and ask new ones to join us," says Daryl Evans, vice president of advertising and marketing communications.

Wonder if "Tommy" is still around to collect royalties from this and the candy-bar ads (Snickers or Milky-way?)

Communist China pays YOUR bills

After all, Microsoft wants to ease the minds of consumers and investors.

It's just as possible that the leak is part of an intentional PR stunt, just like large government bureaucracies do. There's a lot of ego involved and you can't just close up shop overnight without softening up some of the bigger egos. I can think of several reasons why it would make economic sense to leak.

• Free publicity at a time where F/OSS, especially Linux, is gaining lots of positive attention.
• MS is failing to force NT and 2000 users into the unfavorable prices and licenses surrounding XP and 2003. Publicity of a leak can help scare those currently on the fence into signing before they finish evaluating Linux, OS X or BSD.
• MS just suffered the loss of the trademark lawsuit. Windows is a generic term like post or door or lintel. This prevents coverage
• MS would rather no one notice that they now have appointed one of their own lawyers to chair the U.S. Bar Association's anti-trust section.
• There is yet another set of serious exploits loose for NT+2000+XP+2003.
• MS needs to keep the press from covering more secure OS's and tools.

To answer your question, according to this article, the Earth gains 40,000 metric tons of mass each year from dust, meteors and whatnot. Have no fear about us feeble humans actually making a dent in mass of the Earth unless somebody hits the big red button.

It does seem like a step in the right direction. It's mind-boggling to me how America, being as "enlightened" as it is, seems hesitant to respect privacy rights. In Europe employee monitoring laws are being tightened while in America this report says the trend is increasing. Even in California when a protective bill was passed it was vetoed by the (formed) Gov. Grey Davis. And I think that the argument is frivolous that if you have nothing to hide then it shouldn't be a problem. Then, surely, you wouldn't object to a full body search every morning coming into work?

It just demonstrates how strongly America loves its businesses and corporations (and subsequently, its money). These corporate/business-friendly policies that put so much pressure on American employees are just like outsourcing in that they alienate the apparently "not-worthwhile" American employee. While America may keep their corporations and their corporate revenue, they might lose a comparable amount in salaries and income taxes. Perhaps.

I like these progressive-non-Big-Brother (i.e. not China, Saudi Arabia, evidently) countries that respect the people and their lives rather than corporations.

You do raise a good point about govenment monitoring and the like. It does seem like small consolation to have your privacy rights from your employer, but still allow the government to monitor every aspect of your existence.

Still, this is a good thing.

Unfortunately, you're right. For example, in a survey last year, 70% of Americans thought there was a link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11.

I have a bad feeling I'm feeding a troll here, but...

1) MANY other countries have ratified the Kyoto protocol. See the story at USAtoday or the BBC.

2) First, I've never heard anyone defend Saddam Hussein as a nice guy, but the fact is that U.N. sanctions and weapons inspections were making progress in Iraq. But this is all beside the point. The war was pitched to the American public and to the U.N. as pre-emptive self-defense against an enemy that was poised to launch a deadly attack against the U.S. Most of the world's countries were skeptical of those claims, yet the U.S. invaded Iraq anyway. Now that the smoke has cleared, Bush is telling the U.N. that they should pitch in and help clean the place up again. Which they have agreed to do, of course, since it's the only humanitarian response. But can you blame everyone for being a little pissed off about it?

Look, most of the globe doesn't hate the U.S., and they don't hate Americans. What they do hate is the foregn policy of the current administration, which I can hardly blame them for.

Well, camera phones have been more of a hit in Europe and Japan. And they don't even have a built in laser!

Find the article on USAToday HERE.

Oh yes it IS!

Free energy as in speech already exists, if you know where to look for it. :)

Generator Joe has quite a few.

Bowers Power has some as well.

Google knows all

Propane generators can usually be powered by natural gas as well. They have lower emissions than gas or diesel generators, are generally quieter, and can also be a lot cheaper in operating costs. I don't know if that makes your TCO lower than just hooking into the power grid, but free energy as in speech is here and now. But it's not free as in beer, and the cost to set it up is much higher than just getting an account with your utility guys.

Now for ways to reduce your costs. Most homes already have natural gas powered heaters, so we'll ignore heating this time.

These guys sell propane-powered replacement for appliances that are typically electric these days. Replace your fridge, dryer, and washer, and that knocks out 90% of your electric bill (except for air conditioning).

For air conditioning, I didn't find anything outside just replacing the source of electricity to the air conditioner.

Of course, if you live in a dry climate, swamp coolers are pretty nice.

According to this AP item in USA Today, the ABA has already been opposing increased oversight of antitrust settlements by the courts. The appointment of a Microsoft lawyer as Chair of the Antitrust Section may not be so much a matter of the fox guarding the chicken coop as the recruitment of an experienced and committed anti-anti-trust lawyer to help the ABA pursue its agenda. It would be interesting to know whether the ABA is actually soft on anti-trust enforcement or whether it perhaps regards judicial oversight as improper interference with the relationship between the two parties.

USA Today

Quote: By no stretch does Lambeth, or any other area in Britain, remotely approach what most Americans would consider murderously crime-ridden. Less than 1% of crime in this country is committed with a gun. And in all of Britain in 1999-2000, there were only 62 firearm-related murders. By comparison, in the USA, 7,950 homicides were committed with guns in 1999. (The U.S. population is about 4 1/2 times Britain's.) Forty-two of the British murders were committed with handguns obtained illegally. Armed robberies, also with handguns, have increased dramatically.


regardless of any increase (interpreted as skyrocketing or not) - we still have a very long way to go to reach US levels ...

To further the analogy, then, we should bomb SCO headquarters with Fentanyl, just like the Russians did.

That "sizzle" is called St. Elmo's Fire and it is present in anything that has high voltage running through it. In wet weather the effect becomes amplified, and thats why its easier to hear that sizzle sound. Regardless, it is present whether or not you hear it, and a shielded and insulated line will make the same noise as a bare wire as electric insulation does not mean noise insulation.

On top of that, standing under high-voltage lines during dry weather is not significantly less dangerous than standing under it in wet weather. Unless the conditions are severe enough to risk a line breaking, a wet 'sizzling' power line is really no different than a dry quiet one.

That is not to say you should stand under power lines nor work or play near them unless necessary, but your emphasis is quite unecessary.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/science/wonderquest/2 001-02-07-wquest-power-line.htm
-- a brief article on St. Elmo's Fire.

Rather than bring earthlings to Mars, bring Mars to earthlings instead. It just takes longer, that's all......oh, and we might lose our moon in the process.

MATRIX is the product of the drug-running covert actors who brought us the Iran-Contra connection. Seisint is the data warehouse in Florida for these Matrix apps, started by Hank Asher. He also founded DataBase Technologies, which purged the 2000 Presidential election rolls of 57,000 voters, 95% in error, the majority of them Democrats. Prior to that, Asher flew drugs off Florida through the Bahamas for Iran-Contra. His boss was John Poindexter, director of the "doomed" federal TIA, the mother of all Matrices. A French webpage has the Seisint/DBT (translated to English) connection: Hank Asher. For extra points, Diebold's eVoting division has been run by another convicted Iran-Contra cocaine dealer.

Now the Matrix, after being rejected by Georgia for its unwarranted invasions of privacy, is making the rounds of the rest of the states which owe Bush Jr favors. Idaho governor Leavitt succeeds Governor Kempthorne, just named the previous Idaho governor, to head the EPA, as it abandons the penalty financing of SuperFund. Check your own state government for the favors it owes Bush Corp., before they sell you to the Bush cronies. Drug dealers, vote fixers, Big Brothers: these are the people we have given the power of the US government. Take a stand now, before you have nothing left to defend.

MATRIX is the product of the drug-running covert actors who brought us the Iran-Contra connection. Seisint is the data warehouse in Florida for these Matrix apps, started by Hank Asher. He also founded DataBase Technologies, which purged the 2000 Presidential election rolls of 57,000 voters, 95% in error, the majority of them Democrats. Prior to that, Asher flew drugs off Florida through the Bahamas for Iran-Contra. His boss was John Poindexter, director of the "doomed" federal TIA, the mother of all Matrices. A French webpage has the Seisint/DBT (translated to English) connection: Hank Asher. For extra points, Diebold's eVoting division has been run by another convicted Iran-Contra cocaine dealer.

Now the Matrix, after being rejected by Georgia for its unwarranted invasions of privacy, is making the rounds of the rest of the states which owe Bush Jr favors. Idaho governor Leavitt succeeds Governor Kempthorne, just named the previous Idaho governor, to head the EPA, as it abandons the penalty financing of SuperFund. Check your own state government for the favors it owes Bush Corp., before they sell you to the Bush cronies. Drug dealers, vote fixers, Big Brothers: these are the people we have given the power of the US government. Take a stand now, before you have nothing left to defend.

Depends. Is your name Andrew Gilligan?

Interesting read on the Chinese Revolution, The Soong Dynasty, but Sterling Seagrave. Paints a pretty hideous picture of Chiang kai-Shek. I'm half-way through it, but I'm getting an understanding of why China closed itself off from the world, screwed even by Stalin, and cautiously invites in the international community 50 years later. The PRC seems oppressive, but China has always been repressed. Doesn't make censorship right, but it's worth understanding how far back the memory goes to the great humiliations. A bit insightful the writings of Ching-ling Soong (Madam Sun yat-Sen) on revolution and how it's inevitable. Seems the current regime is trying to hold back another revolution, which is futile.

...when LEGO had laid offs recently.

Linus WMD, my ass. This particular incident is trivial, but marks the beginning of the real war of words that will be followed by more repressive deeds.

"We shipped a lot of crap in 1980; by 1985, it was much better."

... I was distracted by the sidebar link about the Lingerie Bowl.

By the way, you can email Theresa Howard at thoward@usatoday.com to educate her so she stops spreading lies.

Speaking of space - it appears as though the mars rover has died. There's a brief article up on USA Today:

"NASA last heard from Spirit early Wednesday. Since then, it has returned just random, meaningless radio noise -- and only then sporadically, scientists said."

Might this soil crust on Mars be same/similar to the LIVING biological soil crust found at Arches National Park (Moab, Utah)?

Additional details regarding biological soil crusts maybe are to found here:

intermediate details

advanced details

Hello NASA JPL ... Hello? ... Hello? Have you considered that you have perhaps seen evidence of life on Mars? Hello? Hello?

Earth-to-NASA JPL

Hello?

Andrew Fastow, Enron's CFO and chief crook, is finally going to jail. He just pled guilty and got a 10 year sentence and a $24 million fine. That's just the beginning. He has more charges hanging over him (over a thousand years worth), and he has to fully cooperate with prosecutors or face even more jail time. (So Fastow gives up Skilling and Lay. The big question is whether they give up Bush.)

ok, here it is: http://www.usatoday.com/money/advertising/sb01/200 1-01-27-favorite-ads.htm

I'll be sure to mention it on my way to talk to the attack helicopter pilot who shot these missiles or maybe those, or the sharpshooter in this bullseye.

Point is, it's two sides killing the other side. Using suicide bombing is not more horrible than using high-tech weapons and vehicles. It's just harder to have those handy when you're not receiving BILLIONS every year to buy to toys to murder your adversaries.

I haven't checked the tally yet, but last time I checked, Israel had a confortable lead in kills. They'll probably make the playoffs.

Anti-theft devices in stores, same thing. Security cameras, ditto. Also I particularly dont care for my neighbors having locks on their doors, they trying to say I'm a thief and am going to steal their stuff as soon as their backs are turned?

These are measures that stores and people take in high crime areas. Is cheating a big problem in colleges? According to this article, it seems so. There's a part in the article that says:

'In a 1998 survey by Who's Who Among American High School Students, 80% of college-bound high schoolers admitted they'd cheated at least once. According to an ongoing survey of college students by McCabe, three out of four confess to having cheated at least once. His new survey of 4,500 high school students suggests cheating is even more significant there: 9th- through 12th-graders told McCabe that teachers are "clueless" about how easy cheating has become with new technologies, and 97% of high schoolers admit to "questionable" activities, with more than half having copied from the Net without citing the source.'

Eighty percent seems a bit high but let's say for argument sake that we chop off a zero and say it's eight percent. If eight percent of your customers shoplifted, wouldn't you be compelled to put security cameras in your store?

I'm graduate student and I've been a TA/instructor in the past. My experience is that University faculty tend to be VERY liberal when it comes to prosecuting cheaters. Many fall in the position: "I'm not going to bring them up unless it's really really obvious." There was this one case where a student copied an abstract verbatim out of a scientific journal. The student claimed he did not know that it was plagarism and was absent on the day of the plagarism talk. (Every writing class has a plagarism talk). The judicial commitee found him NOT guilty which is bullshit in my opinion.

Cheating is rampant in college. If you've gone to college, you've met people who've cheated. If you are going to college, you will find people who will cheat.

A Hyperlink patent?

D'oh!

That's weird - simoniker slightly different headline but the rest of it is identical to the submitted post.

2004-01-14 21:33:38 It's Official: USA to the Moon and Mars by 2015 (articles,space) (rejected)

This afternoon George Bush announced space exploration plans for the USA to return to the Moon by 2015, the design and construction of a new space vehicle fleet by 2014 (called the Crew Exploration Vehicle) to replace the aging space shuttles which will be retired in 2010, and the construction of a permanent Moon base, followed by manned missions to Mars. The initiative begins with a $1 billion increase to NASA's budget and $12 billion in new space exploration money over next five years. However Congress is concerned about how to pay for the new space policy, initiative in the face of a $500 billion national budget deficit. AP via Yahoo has a Moon/Mars/space policy FAQ. NASA Chief Scientist/Astronaut Dr. John Grunsfeld will discuss U.S. Space Policy today at 5pm (ET) in an online chat. They want questions. More at NASA and the New York Times among others.

I know this comment may be somewhat OT but I had to add a comment. Anyone know what's going on with this? Maybe related to the many 500-class errors I've been getting lately?

It was on the AP wire a while back.

• USA Today
• Contra Costa Times [presumably the rest of the Knight-Ridder chain has it]

I've never seen Aliens but I remembered reading about these robots a while back(10/30/2003). Its a USA Today story about the Israeli's using remote control Caterpillar bulldozers to destroy Palesinian homes.