And running unsecured wi-fi networks.
I’m all about wireless, and will beg, borrow, or steal bandwidth while I’m traveling, but the stats here (less than 1/3 of wifi networks are secured) speak volumes of the laziness of us here in the US. Granted, I know that WEP can be hacked (pretty decent tech paper on such from big blue breaking down the vulnerabilities) pretty easily, but it’s at least worth some effort to make it difficult.
This is one of my paranoias, too – that someone driving by hacks my router, then uses my IP to wreak havoc and destruction on the world’s economy.
Without a doubt this will be the finest film released during this summer season. Only a high-action movie founded on such hard science could attract the quality of writers and drive the actors to such fine performances as was seen on screens this weekend. I hate to give away the ending, but George Bush ends up freezing to death because he acquiesced to bah-humbuging-science Dick Cheney for too long, but in the end Cheney has a change of heart — and I’m not talking about his pacemaker.
It has finally happened. Becky II was retired today and has been placed on eBay. (Anyone in the Austin area need a widescreen high-def-ready TV for cheap?) Filling the old girl’s place is a brand new Sony KDF-60XBR950 along with some new Target furniture.
Today’s reason: abandoning state’s rights.
In this administration’s continuing effort to destroy the signposts of a conservative adminstration, John Aschcroft was doing his best to decrease the power of individual state’s rights by instructing Oregon doctors to ingnore state laws regarding assisted suicide. Luckily the check’s and blances of our great nation stepped in to set him straight and ruled his directive unlawful and unenforceable.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision said U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft overstepped his authority when he ordered Oregon doctors to ignore a state law that allowed them to prescribe lethal doses of medication to terminally ill patients who wished to die.
“We hold that the Ashcroft Directive is unlawful and unenforceable because it violates the plain language of the Controlled Substances Act, contravenes Congress’ express legislative intent and oversteps the bounds of the Attorney General’s statutory authority,” the court said in a 2-1 opinion.
FAIR [sarcasm](Freaky And Intellectually Repellent)[/sarcasm], a left-wing media “Watchdog” group, is positing that NPR is a outlet for right-wing sources.
NPR’s ombudsman vociferously denies that NPR is anything but unbiased, FAIR’s study seems to reinforce the notion that what constitutes the center in American journalism is rapidly becoming an endangered species. For the left, NPR is never quite left enough. For the right of course, NPR remains a paragon of liberal bias.
He also makes a pretty decent point about the orientation of “think tanks”, stating “conservative organizations tend in my experience to be unabashedly open about their ideology. Liberals and liberal organizations are less so, possibly because they are so often put on the defensive by a more aggressive and militant conservatism. I think it would have been slightly more accurate if he’d attributed the secrecy to being out of touch with the public and not wanting to frighten them, but hey, it’s a start.
Looking for a geek project? maybe something to keep you busy for the next week? month? year? or maybe just some inspiration to do something “cool”? The guys at GeekDIY have proects listed from “Build Your Own Mac” to “How to Build a Catapult”.
It’s time to brush up on your Assembly skills and take this tutorial which walks you through the steps of setting up your dev environment and programming your very own Atari 2600 game. O’Reilly is also running an interesting article about the Atari homebrew community with an interview with a number of homebrew authors.
Today’s reason: making bad friends, it’s a lifelong effort.
Remember those pictures of Rummy and SH taken back when W’s daddy was vice-president? Does it really seem that surprising that Rummy made such good friends with Ahmad Chalabi? Making friends with bad company is a recurring long-term theme for this adminstration.
Chalabi was the head of the Iraqi National Congress, a dissident group organized for the purpose of overthrowing the regime of Saddam Hussein. Chalabi was a beloved ally of Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney before they came to power with this administration; Chalabi and his group were the impetus behind the passage of the Iraqi Liberation Act in 1998, legislation advocated loudly by Rumsfeld, Cheney and the neo-conservatives who now occupy this government.
Rumsfeld personally groomed Chalabi to take control of Iraq once Hussein was removed. …
The CIA is in possession today of “rock-solid” evidence that Ahmad Chalabi is an agent of the Iranian government, that he used his position with the Bush administration to push false data upon the gullible hawks in Washington. According to a report by Julian Borger in the UK Guardian, “The CIA has hard evidence that Mr. Chalabi and his intelligence chief, Aras Karim Habib, passed US secrets to Tehran, and that Mr Habib has been a paid Iranian agent for several years, involved in passing intelligence in both directions.”
Aggressively taking sides in the Middle-East is proving to be a poor decision. It only makes us look bad. When will the hawks recognize that pacification is not simply an avoidance of conflict, but a recognition that everyone in the Middle East has dirty hands?
It’s Friday and time for your fort-yearly update on how Tonya Harding’s doing. How is she? She’s great! Her new career in female boxing has given her a new lease on life. She’s wants enough money to retire, “and every once in a while put on a really pretty dress and go to dinner at a place like Applebee’s or something.”
Like Applebee’s. Oh, Tonya.
Specifically crashed
It was bound to happen: Folks have realized that hybrids have big batteries, and that electricity and chemicals can be awful hazardous and unpredictable. I think I touched on this a couple of months ago, but am too lazy to look it up.
As opposed to free software
Pretty decent list here There’s some pretty good suggestions in the comments.
for suggesting that America become energy independent
I’m worried, though, when I check out his point paper on the issue. He hangs his hat on increasing CAFE standards by 2015, or sometime in Hilary’s second term (which I support – CAFE, not HRC, but which don’t address the issue in the near term), on the mythical “hydrogen economy” without addressing the source of the hydrogen (or more specifically the source of the energy to break water into 2H’s and an O), and on burning more coal.
He’s got a good bit on increasing natural gas use (Is Sen. John Breaux (D-LA) on Kerry’s team?), but even that counts on increasing our dependence on Mexican and Canadian supplies. And, he includes GWB’s provisions for swapping pollution credits, letting clean energy sources sell pollution rights to fossil fuel plants.
Read more![ spoken like a teenager: ]
All the teen starlet fans are agog over pictures of Lindsay Lohan’s recent nip slip (which eventually revealed itself as a full-on breast baring) which always leads to the most popular discussion of when she’ll be 18 — July 2nd, just 5 weeks away — which is totally irrelevant since the age of consent in Texas is 17 anyway, but after her most recent paprazzi pictures I’m not talking about her breasts or her age anymore.
If you know me well, you know that one of my biggest dislikes is fecal humor. I am thoroughly grossed-out by all things bum-originated. So, sharing a story about a tape worm is difficult for me, but I think this story will warm everyone’s heart bowels.
… I thought hard how I could have become impregnated. Oh yeah. When I first came to Belgium way back when, I had sat in a restaurant looking at a menu in French and Flemish, neither of which was very enlightening. I spotted something on the menu that read, “Filet Americain.” I was American, it said a filet; this was made for me. I assumed it had to be a hamburger, or a steak; I didn’t want to reveal myself as a typical American abroad and demand explanations in slow, half-shouted English; I was a hopeful sophisticate. I ordered my filet, sat back and waited to be served something recognizable with a little American flag stuck in it.
They returned with a platter of raw hamburger; an equally raw egg lay in a mini-crevice they had pushed into the top of the mound. They showed it to me. I thought, This is special. As though this lump of meat was some exotic fresh fish or an expensive piece of sirloin they were displaying to me before cooking. I nodded, thinking, Great, go cook it, put it in a bun and bury it in ketchup and yellow mustard and onions and bring it back. Instead, my nod was taken as agreement and they placed the dish in front of me. …
Oh, yeah. May be NSFW and it’s definitely disgusting in parts.
As if we’re surprised, the White House has now put federal agencies on notice that there will be spending cuts for virtually all agencies in charge of domestic programs in 2006 should Bush win the election.
Read more!