Looks like my alma mater pulled a real boner. Cornell admissions workers accidentally sent out an acceptance email to 1,700 early-decision applicants, including 550 who earlier had been rejected.

"Greetings from Cornell, your future alma mater!" the e-mail letter began. "Congratulations on your acceptance into the class of 2007!"

Within a couple of hours the university followed with an "oops" letter, admitting that it had made a mistake and offering its apology "for any confusion and distress this message has caused." It said that the message was the result of a "systems coding error" and that it had fallen short of its goal of treating all applicants "with sensitivity and respect."

As funny as the thought of sending out 550 mistaken acceptance letters might be, the idea that Cornell does anything "with sensitivity and respect" is the funniest part of this article.

Routinely non-Conellians are horrified when my friends and I describe the way the administration treats students in distress. Cornell's sink or swim attitude pervades every aspect of the university in a way that graduates of friendlier, more student-centric universities often cannot believe, or understand.

"Sensitivity and respect," empty words when spoken in Ithaca, the City of Evil.

Delta to Test New Airport Security Plan

Delta Air Lines will begin testing a new government plan for air security next month that will check background information and assign a threat level to everyone who buys a ticket for a commercial flight.

The system, ordered by Congress after the Sept. 11 attacks, will gather much more information on passengers than has been done previously. Delta will try it out at three undisclosed airports, and a comprehensive system could be in place by the end of the year.

Transportation officials say a contractor will be picked soon to build the nationwide computer system, which will check such things as credit reports and bank account activity and compare passenger names with those on government watch lists.

When I first made my DeltAeroflot image I thought of it as an insult against Delta Airlines. Now, I think it might be more of an insult against Aeroflot.

Sometimes I find the most interesting stuff on the web by looking through other websites referrer logs. For example I just found this fascinating piece about stigmergy over at Bitworking from a link I found in Instapundit's referrer log.

What is it with Democrat's and their love of inaction? Note the similarities between the Estrada nomination filibuster and the desire to draft, debate and support yet another do-nothing UN resolution? What are they so afraid of?

Judge duct tapes defendant's mouth.

In Texas, remaining silent isn't just a right, it can be an obligation.

Duct tape, it isn't just for homeland security any more.

The New York Daily News has a story about Sammy "the Bull" Gravano which I found quite interesting.

He is now in the Maricopa County jail in Arizona, "where inmates must wear pink underwear under a black-and-white-striped prison jumper."
What are we trying to reform our inmates into? Transvestites?
[The jail dyes the underwear pink so that the inmates will be too embarassed to steal it. --TC]

Sammy is claiming responsibility for the same murder as Richard "Iceman" Kuklinski.
"He got his nickname after he stashed a dead body in a Mr. Softee ice cream truck."
Shouldn't he be nicknamed Mr. Softee then?

"Kuklinski, who is serving four life sentences for murder, was a notorious hit man who killed using cyanide mist, crossbows, ice picks, hand grenades and bizarre firearms."
Cyanide mist? Stand still while I mist you to death?

Tyranny wears a smile, and hands out candy.

Now, police at most airports are randomly inspecting cars and trucks that drop off or pick up passengers. They also are searching delivery trucks and other vehicles entering the airport.

Police at Harrisburg International Airport in Pennsylvania have been sweetening the inspections by passing out lollipops to targeted drivers. "It's so we don't intimidate," said Alfred Testa Jr., the airport's aviation director. "The policemen are very polite. They will have a smile on their face."

Since I come up pretty high on google for searches for Wes Dabney (and Wesley Dabney) I thought I would memorialize his closed up shop blog in this post. Wes gave up blogging on short notice and his old thedabneyfamily.net site and number10gi.us site have both shut down. Sorry folks, but there is always the google cache, and maybe the wayback machine.

Our second suggestive snow sculpture story of the day comes from the gender-battled grounds of Harvard, where even though a giant snow phallus has gone down, a campus-wide debate still rages.

Given where this happened, the women on campus must acknowledge that odds are that the snow phallus represented a gay-man's anatomy and the gender-warriors should be vigorously defending its display as an issue of sexual freedom and gay rights.

Boy I didn't see this one coming.

Which OS are You?

Proving that Houston, TX & Racine, WI don't have a monopoly on stupid cops, Police in Kent, OH stopped by to pass on a complaint about busty snow woman to its maker. Not wanting to cut off the snow-woman's breasts or knock over her creation, Crystal Lynn draped a table cloth over her creation to satisfy police officer's demands.

Goodlet said the officer didn't demand that Lynn alter her artwork, but she left the conversation thinking she would be arrested for disorderly conduct if she didn't comply.

Peachy, just peachy.

I never understood fully just why my friends who went to Mardi Gras were so crazy about the cheap plastic beads that they brought back, but the NY Times does a good job of describing the thrill, and it includes this funny bit about the real trophies of Mardi Gras.

The most prestigious throw at Carnival is not a bead at all, but a coconut, a real coconut, brightly painted and decorated, handed down from the floats by riders in the predominantly black krewe Zulu. The coconuts used to be thrown, like beads, but people were prone to miss. The outcome was, at times, unfortunate.

Oops, it looks like ATM pin codes might not be as secure as banks claimed that they were. Sadly, the banks approach to this security hole appears at this time to be to play ostrich and rely upon a court injunction against the researcher who discovered the weaknesses in the system.

[Related documents at Cryptome.]

I've made no secret on this blog of the fact that I am a fan of propaganda, I've even made a bit of propaganda myself. Bombarded by years of slick marketing that begins to hit us before we can walk, how could Americans not develop a taste for, and begin to excel at, this not so subtle form of marketing, so persuasive it is even used by the White House.

I read with great interest this NY Times story on propaganda, electronic counter measures and electronic warfare. Though most of the items discussed in the article, including the Command Solo, were deployed during the Gulf War, it would appear that some of America's ECM and electronic warfare capabilities have grown a bit since then.

In an interview, Gen. John P. Jumper, the Air Force chief of staff, declined to discuss the highly classified technical advances, except to say, "We're approaching the point where we can tell the SA-10 radar it is a Maytag washer and not a radar, and put it in the rinse cycle instead of the firing cycle."

The real question is whether or not the Iraqis will be able to use their radar to clean their soon to be soiled shorts.

[More info on the Rivet Joint and Compass Cell/Rivet Fire.]

Often when police go in and sieze an arsenal they grab up a bunch of other legal items, like knives, binoculars, books, computers and such that they just don't feel like leaving with the subject of the search.

Anyway, this behavior has now reached a perverse level in Connecticut where the police recently confiscated beer and other alcohol products as part of a drug bust.

Police raided an apartment Sunday and arrested four people when they discovered cocaine, marijuana and kegs of beer.
...
During the raid, officers seized marijuana, cocaine, steroids and drug paraphernalia, eight kegs of beer and other alcohol products, police said.

Yes, there had been reports of underage drinking at this college aged guys' apartment, but I've never heard of alcohol being seized not at the time of an active party attended by minors. Strangely, no one was charged with underage posession nor was anyone charged with providing alcohol to a minor, yet the alcohol was seized anyway.

On tonight's award show - "Shut up and sing, monkey."

The Houston Chronicle is reporting that the trial for officers in Kmart MACFU are set to start June 2.

The scene of hundreds of people being handcuffed, without warning, and lined up in the parking lot was filmed by television news crews and led to the largest internal affairs investigation in Houston Police Department history.

The in-house investigation ended with Aguirre being fired, Wenzel, who is also a lawyer, retiring and 30 other officers being disciplined.

After a brief appearance in state District Judge Carol G. Davies' court today, defense lawyers Terry Yates and Joe Bailey said they expect the trial could last two to four weeks. The men are expected to be tried together.

"We expect they'll be acquitted," Yates said. "And once the truth comes out it will be shown that they are innocent and nothing was done illegally out there."

We'll see about that, Misters Yates and Bailey.

How the heck can they argue this with a straight face? Is it possible in Texas to arrest nearly 300 people on trumped up charges, release them all, expunge their records, and have the city face massive civil liability without something having been done illegally "out there" by the folks in charge.

My cynical dictionary defines "stampede" as "This summer's shark attack."

Why Letterman is still the king of late night.

Marg Helgenberger is on talking about when she tagged along with the real Las Vegas CSI unit and happened upon a room of sex toys -- lubricants, handcuffs & [BLEEP] rings.

Without saying another word Dave reaches behind his desk, pulls out a bottle of Wild Turkey, sets out two shot glasses, pours one for himself and Marg, then they both shoot the Turkey.

Beautiful, just beautiful.

(Earlier in the night they had on the winners of the Wild Turkey-sponsored turkey calling contest, hence the easily accessible bottle.)

With all these celebrities clamoring to go over to Iraq, volunteering to be human shields, I figured that they would need something to wear to denote their "special status."

Boy, if you ever need proof of barrier between words and the physical world, here you go. "Human shields", who are they kidding? They are more like "soft targets", and after an attack they'll be just so much human-ground-chuck. These fools live in a world where they think words have real power. Should they pursue their foolish endeavor to its logical conclusion, there won't be enough of their physical bodies left to realize just how far astray their minds took them from reality.

Gephardt Insists He's Really Running for President

Tony Soprano's got nothing on these thugs.

From the same assholes that brought you a modified version of "Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide" to encourage people to pay their taxes, the New Jersey Treasury has no tolerance for people avoiding NJ's cigarette taxes by cross-border shopping.

[That] is technically illegal, state treasury spokesman Ralph Siegel said. "As far as taxation's concerned, throw it out the window" before you come back into the state, he said.

Despite rumor and legend, you can't bring in two cartons for personal use either.

"That's illegal," he said flatly.

Hell, these thugs not only act like mobsters, they (not-so) indirectly help create business opportunities for real mobsters.

New Jersey's budget proposal calls for adding 40 cents to the state's taxes on a pack of cigarettes. If enacted, that would push the state taxes to $1.90 a pack, making New Jersey cigarette taxes the highest in the nation.

Don't these schmucks ever learn? By having the highest taxes in country now, NYC has created a situation where truckloads of cigarettes are so valuable that they need to be guarded more heavily than armored cars.

A state commission investigating cigarette bootlegging documented how the situation deteriorated to the point where it was often necessary to transport cigarettes around the city in convoys: a delivery truck, which itself had someone “riding shotgun,” would be surrounded by additional vehicles with armed guards. Such conditions drove up costs and, coupled with employee fears of violence, forced many legitimate businesses to close.

[Disclaimers- I am not now, nor have I ever been a consumer of any tobacco products. I do not now nor have I ever been employed by, or connected in any way to the tobacco industry. I am simply a lover of our ever shrinking freedoms.]

More random poorly designed spam-merge verbiage.

Learn how to make money in the CityName Area!

Fantastic pictures of protest-infiltrators.

Minor local gripe

Starting in September, 2000 the State of Connecticut DMV started issuing new highly-reflective white-blue gradient license plates to replace its traditional non-reflective white on blue plates. As the plates were being phased in people holding the old style plates were sent new ones and encouraged, but not required to use the new plates. Traditionalists and lazy folk alike ran out of time to affix there plates last month when the conversion clock ran out and the DMV began requiring the use of the new plates.

My gripe? What was so important for the state to foist on all its citizens has been completely ignored by the Connecticut DOT operated bus service. Over the past week or so I have been checking every CT Transit bus that I see and not a one of them has a new-style license plate affixed. Over two years into the switchover and not one of the twenty plus buses I checked have the new plates. What is a ticketable offense for regular people seems to be standard operating procedure at ConnDOT.

Maybe its a union problem with the collective bargaining contract not having a job description tasked to change license plates. Maybe the DOT's vehicles fall under the "specialty and special interest plates" exeception to the new requirement. Perhaps the state felt it was a waste of money for it to pay what it was charging all its vehicle-registering citizens to do.

Or just maybe it is yet another case of government issuing laws, rules, regulations and requirements of citizens that it has no intention of following itself.

Wow! A Clinton appointed 9th Circuit Court of Appeals judge, in a concurring opinion, acknowledged that the second amendment to the US Constitution is designed to provide an individual right that will serve as a bulwark against tyranny.

Link to case.

Restricting the Second Amendment to “collective rights” of militias and ignoring individual rights of the people betray a key protection against the recurrent tyranny that may in each generation threaten individual liberty.12 The Silveira majority takes the position that the Framers’ concerns to check the possibility of a Federal government tyranny are sufficiently answered by reading the Second Amendment merely to ensure that the states could not be barred from funding stateorganized militia. Silveira, 312 F.3d at 1085. I disagree. The Second Amendment cannot properly be interpreted to entrust the freedom of the people to the premise that state governments would arm a self-reliant people and protect the people against a federal tyranny. The practical concept of militia contemplates an armed citizenry capable of rising up, with what arms they hold or can find, to defeat, resist or at minimum delay an invader until more organized power can be marshalled. The likelihood of broad resistance from an armed citizenry is a deterrent to any would be invader. Equally important, the practical concept of militia, embracing an armed citizenry, stands to deter risk of government degradation to tyranny. This concept is weakened by Silveira’s premise that the citizens could rely on their states to be an arsenal and repository for arms, and otherwise have no right.

The Second Amendment protects not the rights of militias but the rights “of the people.” It protects their right not only to “bear arms,” which may have a military connotation, but to “keep arms,” which has an individual one. By giving inadequate weight to the individual right to keep arms, the Silveira majority does not do justice to the language of the Second Amendment and disregards the lesson of history that an armed citizenry can deter external aggression and can help avoid the internal danger that a representative government may degenerate to tyranny. The right to “keep and bear arms” is a fundamental liberty upon which the safety of our Nation depends, and it requires for its efficacy that an individual right be recognized and honored.

I reach this conclusion despite a recognition that many may think that these ideas are outmoded, that there is no risk in modern times of our government becoming a tyranny, and that there is little threat that others would invade our shores or attack our heartland. However, the Second Amendment was designed by the Framers of our Constitution to safeguard our Nation not only in times of good government, such as we have enjoyed for generations, but also in the event, however unlikely, that our government or leaders would go bad. And it was designed to provide national security not only when our country is strong but also if it were to become weakened or otherwise subject to attack. As the people bear the risk of loss of their freedom and the pain of any attack, our Constitution provides that the people have a right to participate in defense of the Nation. The Second Amendment protects that fundamental right.

Gee, I hope nobody tells Senator Kennedy about this.

Unbelievable! Jesse "Increasingly Irrelevant" Jackson, apparently a personal friend of the owner of the site of this weekend's stampede deaths in Chicago, has declared that the city should not investigate this matter since it is a possible defendant when victims' families sue.

"The responsibility for an independent criminal investigation cannot come from the people who could themselves end up in court" .

Granted I'm no fan of the Chicago PD, but Jesse has gone 'round the bend on this one.

Reuters Posts Annual Loss, Will Cut Jobs
"Poor market conditions and a sharp drop in revenues for its electronic brokerage business, Instinet, contributed to a net loss "

"PARIS (Reuters) - Three French people in four dislike U.S. President George Bush but most of them still like Americans in general, despite a transatlantic feud over Iraq, according to an opinion poll.
Seventy-six percent of people polled by the BVA agency for Paris Match magazine they had a negative opinion of Bush"

(Ithaca, NY) Pro-Democracy demonstrators burn a PRI flag on
the Ithaca Commons. The demonstrators gathered to
protest Ithaca's resolution opposing the use of force
to free the Iraqi people. (Satire-The Comedian)

[Source Photo]

My Latest Design

I'm designing a new logo, things might look funky for a while...

UPDATE: Done. If it doesn't load properly, please let me know.

LawMeme brings to light ebay's open door policy on sharing information with law enforcement. I wonder if this includes tax collecting and assessing agencies?

I openly admit that I like watching my referrer logs to find out how people find this pitiful blog. I especially enjoy noticing search terms that remind me to follow up on old posts. Tonight such an event showed up in my referrer log in the form of this entry:

15 Feb, Sat, 02:24:33     tide83.microsoft.com     MSIE 6     Windows XP   

15 Feb, Sat, 02:24:33     http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=feussner+microsoft+kills

It appears, IMHO, that someone at Microsoft was searching the web to find out if there are any references to Microsoft having killed a man who stood accused of stealing millions from MS. The search led them to this post from December, 2002, wherein I transcribed a neighbor's bizarre reaction to Mr. Feussner.

I wonder if they are checking to make sure no one libeled MS, or if a disgruntled staffer wants to know what his/her employer is up to?

Anyway, but for the hit in my referrer log I never would have followed up on this story. Turns out Daniel "The Dude" Feussner died last week while out on $100,000.00 bail, awaiting trial on charges that allege he defrauded over 9,000,000.00 dollars from MS by ordering zero dollar copies of software for internal corporate use, then selling the stolen software on the open market.

MUCH BELATED UPDATE (APRIL 4, 2003) -

A Microsoft manager accused of stealing $9 million worth of software to buy fancy cars, diamond rings and a yacht died from drinking antifreeze, the King County Medical Examiner's Office reported.

Toxicology tests following the Feb. 7 death of Daniel Feussner, 32, showed high levels of ethylene glycol, the main ingredient in antifreeze, investigators said Monday.

At the time, Feussner was free on bail after being charged in federal court with 15 counts of mail, wire and computer fraud.

The medical examiner's office could not say whether he ingested the poison intentionally.

Curmudgeonly & Skeptical linked the other day to this CATO piece on NY's cigarette tax problem. It not only makes a strong case that NY is fighting a war that it will lose no matter what, it reads like a great crime thriller.

Beware fake internet escrow agent scams. Brian Tinney was allegedly looking to buy half a million dollars worth of Cisco hardware, if by buy you mean scam.

Strangely mixed up contents of a spam I received tonight.

Dear, Random word of mixed symbols with length 1 to 27 68Q6n86F

Maybe stick to American bubbly this Valentine's Day...

According to the NY Daily News...

"...many New Yorkers are acting out their irritation with the French with fighting words - and their wallets."
"If it's made in France, I don't want it," said Marty Laufer, a manager at Garnet Wine and Liquors on Lexington Ave. on the upper East Side."

Stardumb: John Cusack

TODAY'S FEATURED STARDUMMY, John Cusack, has also been caught yearning for proof of his own significance. The sadness of it is that a talented and deeply likable actor has now made a baffling spectacle of himself.

Half the problem is that Cusack currently plays the title role in a Weimar fantasy flick called "Max" which is outstanding for its unwitting wrong-headedness. The film's unfortunate mix of anachronism, historical romanticizing, and out-and-out crappiness makes it the accidental soulmate of "Springtime for Hitler," the intentionally bad play-within-a-play in "The Producers." The other half of Cusack's problem is that, while doing publicity for his bizarre movie, he has been mouthing off about George Bush, calling the president a kitschy warmonger devoid of moral purpose. Thus has the endearing star of such movies as "Say Anything" and "The Grifters" placed himself in the curious position of trying to humanize Adolf Hitler even while trying to Hitlerize Bush.

Damn shame, really. I've always enjoyed his movies. I think I'd enjoy movies more if I never had to find out anything about celebrities lives.

I swear it wasn't me.

Happy
Saint Valentine's
Day

I posted this over at LawMeme, but I thought it might be appreciated by my readers here. I was writing about why the government might not want "freelance patriotic hacking" against enemy computers.

Bruce Schneier touched upon parts of a decision tree that might be followed in choosing whether or not the government might launch a cyber attack in his January Crypto-Gram. Given the following passage I can see why the federales might want to hold off on issuing any cyber-Letters of Marque.

One important thing to remember here is that you only want to shut an enemy's network down if you aren't getting useful information from it. The best thing to do is to infiltrate the enemy's computers and networks, spy on them, and surreptitiously disrupt select pieces of their communications when appropriate. The next best thing is to passively eavesdrop. After that, the next best is to perform traffic analysis. Only if you can't do any of that do you consider shutting the thing down.

Strangely, his writing on this topic was prompted by an interview with an Iranian newspaper.

Click for Larger Version

This weeks Daily Probe conveniently summarizes the five Homeland Security Threat Levels.

(And belated congratulations to Travistan on its newest immigrant.)

YES!

Comedy Central renewed "Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn". Look for the relaunch of the series Monday, March 10 at 11:30 p.m..

If you didn't catch this show on its very short initial run let me merely describe it as what Bill Mahr's (usually awful) Politically Incorrect could, and should, have been. Colin surrounds himself each night with four varying standups and they proceed to say fantastically funny, biting, brutal and sometimes even insightful things about the news of the day. Colin also has some pre-recorded bits, and on a few occasions he does little live skits with one of the guests for that night. Thank you Comedy Central for renewing this show.

Fun with illusions. Stare at the circle in the center and the background should seem to move.

Click image for store.

Hmm, willfully deleting words from vocabulary to control thoughts. Where have I heard of this before?

Newspeak

'The Eleventh Edition is the definitive edition,' he said. 'We're getting the language into its final shape -- the shape it's going to have when nobody speaks anything else. When we've finished with it, people like you will have to learn it all over again. You think, I dare say, that our chief job is inventing new words. But not a bit of it! We're destroying words -- scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. We're cutting the language down to the bone. The Eleventh Edition won't contain a single word that will become obsolete before the year 2050.'

---

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

---

He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.

[I originally posted this here.]

 

The Comedian prods me into writing with that human shield comment.
I ask, “Would I ever really say anything that sarcastic?”

On a lighter note (although probably just as sarcastic), this was in the WSJ “Tastings” wine column on Friday, Jan 31, 2003. (Dorothy and John are my favorite columnists.)

You do the math:

“In Stillwater, Okla., Kelley Ann Newton-Kranzler and her husband, Glenn, will invite friends over for a party called the "Hazy Days of Winter Party.” They'll combine OTBN with a celebration of his 62nd birthday, her 40th and her just-received MBA. They'll finally open two bottles of 1975 Chateau Ste. Michelle Cabernet Sauvignon that they've been aging along with some Washington state Merlots. "Chateau Ste. Michelle Chenin Blanc was my introduction to 'non-screw-top' wines when we first started dating in 1985," Ms. Newton-Kranzler explained.”

You provide the jokes...

The topic of the column was “Open That Bottle Night.” Which Dorothy and John have slated for Feb 22.

“For those of you who are new to the concept, here's the idea: It seems that all of us have that one special bottle of wine that we can't stand to open. Whether we have a single bottle in the whole house or a huge wine cellar, there is always that bottle. Maybe it's from a wedding, or a special vacation, or a lost loved one. We save that bottle for a special occasion. But with each passing year, the occasion must be more and more special -- until we never open it at all.”

And if you don’t have a special bottle, I say go out and buy one. Have you ever had Dom Perignon? The 1995 was just released. Who deserves it more than you do? Heck, pony up the extra C-note and do a comparison tasting with the 1993.
Or be reasonable and try a nice US Sparkling like Pacific Echo.

Animated version coming soon

This came in from Tuba Boy:

So, I'm thinking....

We could attach beacons to the "human shields" and use them to guide in the first air strike.

A year to apologize. But NPR has no liberal bias, right?

Scrappleface once again proving that satire can be an extremely effective way to make a point. Bush Submits Revamped 'Constitutional' Budget.

Excellent WSJ article about a soldier's email from Afghanistan changing the way the Army does things. (Plus the email itself.)

I swear that if the term "snake oil" didn't have such negative connotations that someone, somewhere would be marketing a "Snake Oil Holistic Health" line of products. Hell, someone is already selling "Emu oil" based products.

As fashion week moves to Brazil you can clearly see the effects of the Real's decline in this years designs.

• Designer's cannot afford enough cloth for complete outfits.
• Money is so tight that some outfits don't even include leg covering material.
• Where full coverage is available, designers must use substandard material.

[Caution: May not be work safe.]

When I first heard about this I thought it was a joke, but Google proved it to be real. 'West Wing' President Endorses Candidate

Actor Martin Sheen, who portrays President Josiah Bartlet on NBC's ``The West Wing,'' endorsed Democrat Howard Dean last week when Vermont's former chief executive dropped by the set - on location, by the way, in Washington.

Sheen thinks Dean is ``the best possible hope for the Democrats because he's not afraid to lose,'' said Glennis Liberty, the actor's publicist.

Not being afraid of losing puts Dean ahead of Al Gore, but if that's why he's their best hope then things are even worse for the Dem's than I thought.

Watch for this story to break nationally soon. A Virginia State Trooper and was shot and at least one suspect was killed in a raid investigating a plot threatening to poison Virginia's water supplies.

A state trooper was shot and one person was killed during a raid Tuesday night on an Eastern Shore home where a man was sought for threatening to poison Virginia's water supplies, according to police, paramedics and court records.

The trooper, who was wounded in the arm, was not identified. A Maryland state trooper said a helicopter was called to the scene to transport the wounded officer to a hospital.
...
Mann said a shootout erupted as officers were attempting to arrest Ipolito "Polo" Campos at his home, on Kellam Drive in Accomac. He said another occupant of the house shot and wounded the trooper, and authorities returned fire, killing the shooter.

UPDATE: I missed it before but this hit the AP wire a few hours ago.

From the department of unfortunate timing

My copy of Automobile magazine showed up yesterday and it included an advertisement for the Hummer H2 that read (may not be verbatim, I forgot my copy at home):

Hummer is to SUV's what the space shuttle is to airplanes.

Another benefit that the web has over dead-tree periodicals -- less troublesome lead time.

UPDATE: The original wording of the ad is "IT'S AN SUV LIKE THE SPACE SHUTTLE'S AN AIRPLANE."

"Hank Hill" has a great post drawing an analogy between social securitiy and another system collapsing under the weight of Seniors.

Someone(s) at NASA gets it.

In order to facilitate the collection of photograhic evidence from oberservers around the nation the Johnson Space Center set up an anonymous ftp server for people to upload pictures of debris and/or observations. Instructions for using the Columbia upload FTP server.

Imagine that: a pack, not a herd.

Sorry for the big gap in blogging. I didn't feel that I had much of anything to say this weekend. I tried to avoid Columbia coverage after I quickly reached my saturation point Saturday morning. There's something about seeing a blazing funeral pyre writ large across the sky that put me off my blogging, and pretty much off media altogether.