Brother Bob

My brother Bob (not his real name) finally pushed his luck too far. He was told by doctors to ease up and stop leading such a stressful life (he owns his own business) or within six months he'll take a heart attack and die.

A day or two ago he took a mild heart attack.

I met him at the bus stop today while he was on the way to the hospital for tests. He looked ok , but complained he could only walk a short distance and then had to sit down , and couldn't stand for long periods of time ( just like me)

I'm jealous. I'm the only one supposed to be sick here, but now there are two of us.

Next in line is my wife, I think. You should see how her face turns red sometimes, and she eats way too much salt and is getting stress headaches already. My Mantra to her is "No salt for you , lady" but she never listens.

No one ever listens. They all think they're invincible and the rules don't apply to them.

I hate that.

(edit) Note to family members : he brought his cell phone with him , you know the number. He thinks he'll be out tonight, but I told him he's probably in for a few days.

11 Days of Ubuntu

Started the mp3 player going on my Ubuntu box. I figured I'd see how long until it crashes.

That was 11 days ago. It's still playing.

I flip to ubuntu now and then to do some writing. I have all the applications and notes and everything open and right there, ready to go, always on. Always open.

11 days. Still open. Still works. Still playing. Still able to edit the story I'm writing.

So...I'm gonna confirm all these stories about Linux and Unix systems that just keep on trucking forever ... getting walled up because no one ever goes in there until it's time to move and then someone says "Hey ,where's the print server , we gotta move it ?" "Duh ..I don't know ... I just push the button and it prints ... See ? Still printing ... " "Nvm we'll trace the wires...hey ...they just go into the wall here ! "

Finally got the ftp server working in linux. Access control will kill you if you're not careful. Now to move some real music over and let it play that for ever and a day.

Iranian conservatives, reformers denounce president's words on nuclear program

Article

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad faced a new round of sharp criticism at home Monday after he said Iran's nuclear program is an unstoppable train without brakes. Reformers and conservatives said such tough talk only inflames the West as it considers further sanctions.

*Boom*

One american war plan overflew your reactor. Dropped a single bomb. Blew all your nuclear ambitions all to heck.

What do you do ?

Send an army into Iraq ?

You did that once before. I read about it in the news. I beleive it was a million man army , but only every third soldier actually had a gun , and the gun only had three or four bullets. The idea was the army charges forth , when the guy holding the gun dies one of the other two unarmed soldiers picks it up and continues on.

Of course these so called soldiers have never actually fired the gun for real , bullets are expensive you know.

But I digress.

You're going to send a million soldiers into Iraq. Presumably on foot since you dn't have that much transportation. And the americans , with their planes and helicopters and well trained troops with unlimited ammo who have fired their guns many many times ...

*Boom*. One million Iranian corpses on the ground. Couple of thousand american casualties.

Now what do you do ?

Ubuntu Update (Linux)

This is a screenie (screen pic) of my desk top on Ubuntu , that is , the screen you see when you've finished logging in. The top left are some menues (applications, Places , System) and some icons for common applications.

Rather like the start menu on windows, but they moved it up there instead.

Bottom are currently running applications ( such as a music player and the firefox web browser) top left , is your date and time , and the exit.

So , what do I think of ubuntu ? After having it a few days.

If you're just a simple user, doing some word processing or spreadsheeting or what not , it's great. The stuff works "out of the box" with no modifications required. Under the applications menu, at the bottom , is add/remove programs, and this lists a large number of applications out on the internet that you can install just by pushing a button and typing in your password. (The list has obviously been vetted so you're safe from virus's, and nothing happens unless you enter your password, so there is no such thing as a automatic install , or a drive-by install, such as what plagues windows so badly. )

Once you get past the standard user packages however (if you ever do , what I've described is enough for half the users out there ) and start trying to get cute, then you run into problems.

You are sitting on Linux, after all, despite the nice friendly desktop environment (It's called Gnome) , and you try to run an FTP server or share files or anything like that , you're now in a world of hurt. There's forums to go to for help , but you're going to need technical knolwedlge to partake in that. I'm still struggling with my FTP server , access rights problems are preventing me from uploading / downloading to it.

I remember my old school days, and one job, where we had to telnet into a Linux or Unix server ... guess what ? Terminal , off the Applications >> accessories menu, does exactly that. If you're a student (or are raising a student) who's using unix / linux routinely, throwing ubuntu down on a $300 refurbished computer is probably a wise investment. (ps : was out and about a few days back ... went to a computer store to get my kvm switch , best investment I ever made ... saw the price on some refurbushed computers. A system with the same stats as my old clunker thats running ubuntu runs 239$ Canadian, no monitor)

My opinion on ubuntu ?

The actual operating system is quite stable on my old clunker. The free packages , some of them are great , some of them are dogs that should have been shot, totally useless. Well, they are free, what can I tell you ? Uninstall it and move on to the next one.

Would I go back to windows ?

Thats a toughie.

My answer is that my current set up is probably the best you can get in the modern world. Two computers sitting side by side on your desk , and a kvm switch to switch the keyboard / video / mouse back and forth. The windows machine runs your store bought applications (like World of Warcraft) that no one puts out on linux. And the linux machine is for getting real work done. In my case , trying to write a novel.

what was that I said ? Why the linux machine for work ?

Bottom right , see those three squares ? Those are "work area's" , screens with applications open. You can open two or three text files in one, a browser or two in the second , two or three more text files in the third , and at the click of a mouse switch between them. One for writing , three or four for notes, a browser or two for looking things up , and everything can copy and paste back and forth. The "work areas" are a (currently) Linux only feature that renders this hobbiest machine into something that serious work gets done on.

That and the total immunity to virii.

My Home Network

I no longer have a home computer.

Now I have a home network. Two computers with a kvm switch (keyboard video mouse, to switch your keyboard, monitor, and mouse back and forth between the two at the touch of a button. ) One is a winXP machine with a gig of ram and 80 gig hd and 2.5ghz speed, one is running Ubuntu Linux with half a gig of ram , 40gig hd , and 1gig hz on the clock. Both are connected to my wireless router (through wires)

So I can switch back and forth between the two at the touch of a button. Winxp runs my world of warcraft, and ubuntu I do my writing and blogging on.

I have ambitions of getting an old laplink cable to get my old win3.1 laptop into the loop , and picking up a wireless lap top and connecting wirelessly to the network as well.

Why ?

Because I'm a computer techie. Because it's my job. Because if I'm looking for work and I can say I run a home network with three wildly different operating systems (or maybe four) and several different ways of connecting to each other and I got it all working ... I'm more or less guarenteed to be hired on the first interview.

As for what work the network usefully performs ... none really.

such is the life of a techie. Get your really cool high end computer running ... and then all you do is play games on it all day. Ah well....

Linux Vs Vista : How Does Security Stack Up ?

Article


However, some computer security experts contend that Windows Vista
offers little to make computing more secure. They suggest that rather
than wait for a half-baked new Windows operating system, consumer and
enterprise users would have far better security with Linux.



..
Let me explain Linux security, as a ubuntu user.

1- I went to the applications menu, I selected add/remove, I got a
huge list of programs. I picked one, I hit install.

It asked me for my user id and password for performing an adminstrator
task , then it installed the program.

If I'm a system administrator , and I don't want my users installing
software , guess what password I DON'T give them ?

Then there's the chmod utility (Change Mode)

If you dump a file on a linux machine, it automatically gets an owner
, and it gets read write privilidges. That means someone owns it
(typically the user logged in at the moment who dumped it in there)
and it can be read and written to.

Execution privilidges, the privilidge to be run as a program , are not
granted by default. The user must manualy go in and use the chmod
utility to grant the file execution rights.

So , for example (this happened to me on windows) the browser (it was
internet explorer of course) goes to a web page, and without so much
as a by your leave or a say so , downloads an executable program and
runs it. On windows, if you're lucky , your fire wall catches it
trying to access the internet , and you start screaming "where did
this file1.exe program come from ? And why is it sitting in the
internet temporary files folder ? " At which point you swear off ever using the internet explorer again , because while your firewall caught it red handed, it self erased after it did it's little deed.

On Linux, such a downloaded file doesn't have execution privilidges.
It cannot run , unless you open up a terminal window and use the chmod command to give it execution privilidges.

Ok , lets talk about a virus on linux. First off, how do you catch a virus ?

Someone inserts a floppy and runs a program.
- sorry , you're not a system administrator. Not allowed to install new programs. Not allowed to run anything but programs already existing on the disk.

Someone emails you a cool program and demands you run it.
- sorry , but the chmod command acts as a filter to stop that. Either you're technically savvy and therefore quite suspicious when someone says "run this program now " and thus you know better, or you're technologically illiterate in which case you havn't a clue as to the existance of the chmod command and you won\'t be able to do it without calling a system administrator, who's first words are going to be "thats a virus. don't run it"

How does security stack up on linux vs windows ?

With no virus scanner , you must be the system administrator , and you must be blind stinking drunk and deliberately looking for trouble , before you can catch a virus in Linux.

With full fire walls and virus scanners and spam protection and what not , on windows , you have to click on one email sent by a friend that says "look at this cool site I found !" and you've just infected the entire office network.(assuming it's all windows)

Copyright group seeks to boost MP3 player prices with new levy

Article

Canadian music industry representatives are reopening an old debate about MP3 players that could see the average price of the devices climb by as much as $75.


Rip off !

An MP3 player ...is a player, not a recorder. It plays tunes. If I hook it up to a speaker and hit record, it records at the lowest crappiest audio resolution so that it just sucks and no one wants to listen to it.

The fact that I can copy files to it is irrelevant. Why ? Because I cannot keep those copies. They get deleted when i get tired of those songs, and replaced by new ones.

As far as usability goes, it's the equivilant of a cd player. Only with the record companies demanding they get paid every time you change the cd .

The complaint that you could transfer the files to another computer ...well I could carry the original cd over to another computer and play it there too. And they could make a copy of that cd ?
(edit)

Besides. Hard Drives crash eventually , and you lose all the data on them, all the songs. The only way to keep them is to burn them to a cd. And guess what ? We in canada pay a premium on our cd's to be permitted to do that , a premium that goes straight to the big record labels.

In the end... the mp3 files are ethereal vapourous things..easily lost and destroyed. The only way to hang onto them for long periods of time is to burn them to cd's , and the record companies are already getting paid for that. To get paid for anything else is double dipping.

"Digital copyright under the past few years has always been dictated by the big labels, which adopt the perspective that fans are thieves and that the lock 'em up and sue em strategy is the only way to go."


It is the only way to go.

You have to understand. The big lables are hard on new artists. They usualy make them sign contracts whereby they wind up getting nothing on a per cd basis and the company keeps every dime, except perhaps some retainer they pay the artist. So , you see it on TV all the time, new artists are encouraged to get their own record label as quick as possible or they'll never see a dime.

Where does this leave the big record labels ?

It leaves them with very old songs, a scribbling of new songs from new artists before the artist break off to their own labels, and not uch else. And let me tell you , I already bought up a nice library of CD's of all the oldies I need , and I listen to them any time I want.

So anything these record labels can get from internet and mp3 products is found money.

Lets face it. How many times to you want to pay for Theme From Mahogany ?

My theory is that Digital Rights Management must fulfill three functions.

1. you pay for the song once , and once only. In your life time.

2. You listen to it any time you like , on any device you happen to own, as long as it's for private viewing / listening only.

3. None of this having to buy your songs again whenever a new medium comes out (record lp's to cassette tapes to cd's to mp3's )

These rules, however, are ant-ethical to a business that has a vast library of old songs everyone has a copy of already and few to no new songs coming in. So it's sue sue sue , for them, it's really their only income.

Do You Ubuntu ?

Finally got off my lazy butt and decided to install a version of Linux on my old computer. Not my good machine, or The Dell (sometimes with scorn ) as I call it , but the old second hand box I purchased way ...way ... back at the beginning of this blog that gave me issues. PROBLEMCHILD is what I named it.

So I downloaded the ISO , thats a disk image , and some special software to burn it to a cd, and discovered I was out of cd's. Sigh.... off to work the next day , pick up some cd's on the way in , work all day , go home..forget it go to bed.
get up , ,play a little world of warcraft...ah ..might as well get something useful accomplished today , burn the iso to the cd ( I used a really slow setting to make sure there would be no data corruption) and then switched all the wires over to my old computer. (I'm using the same monitor and mouse, and internet connection, so only one comptuer goes at a time)
Why did I choose the Ubuntu version of Linux ? Pure chance really , I just picked one at random from a list and it claimed to be reasonably friendly.
First problem came during the installation. The software switched me to 800 by 600 for my screen resolution , and you could just see the tips of some buttons at the bottom right. Presumably the very last , very right most button was the next button , and I could just barely click on it... so I did manage to install Ubuntu, but this bit about screens too large for my screen resolution would continue to plague me throughout the day.
Since I'd long planned on installing linux , I'd used ProblemChild as a kind of test bed , and downloaded limeware and sharebear and all sorts of programs I knew would infect my computer with trojens and virii, so I chose the install option to completely wipe out the system and install Ubuntu fresh.
The installation went off without a hitch, and after a reboot I was looking at ... some kind of windowed environment strange to me. Apparently it was called the Gnome Desktop, you clicked on menu's and double clicked on icons much like in windows, except that everything was laid out a lot differently.

Bonus #1 : It comes with an office suite : A word processor , a spread sheet , a database, a power point look alike. And these arn't the 30 day trials have your credit card ready that came with my dell, these ones you keep forever , keep your money in your pocket.
Bonus #2 : It can install other applications from the internet. The list is extensive and all you do is double click on one. I tested it out with a second spread sheet program called gnumeric, and it installed all by it's self without me having to know anything or do much at all.
So we're talking tons of clean ,non virus infected software free of charge
Bonus #3 : I'm writing this blog entry on firefox 2 , which came with Ubuntu , and seems to be working fine.

Note to self : get a video box to switch the monitor back and forth at the flip of a switch , I already have two keyboards and two mice ....

Drawback #1 : World of Warcraft doesn't run on Linux. :(

Looks like I'm going to be running two systems...now to just make switching between them easy.

Internet Explorer 7

Ok , I work in tech support, and IE7 (internet explorer 7) has been forced down everyones throat. The complaints are ...

1) No menu

2) Cannot surf at all at all at all

3) problems with active x especially flash.

Knowing how wrong i was about the google toolbar , i decided to d/l and install IE7 before actually comlpaining how terrible it is.

1 - no menues.

This beef is correct. If you look at the pic I put up at the top of this article, however , you can see that some tiny menu's have been added at the top right , including a tools option that can turn the menu's back on, and you're off to the races wth the same options as before.

2) Cannot surf at all at all at all

I'm writing this post on ie7 . Seems to work great. Tried a number of web sites, no problems.

3) problems with active x

Went to www.flash.com , and ran the flash demonstration for flash 8 , it's still running in the back ground in another tab while I type this.

Other

- yah gotta know when I next go to work everyone is swiping that screen shot , and maybe putting it up on the tech pages. :)

(edit)

Oh yes, the control key bypasses the pop up blocker just fine on this thing.

and I had to remove my google toolbar, because it's got one installed by default and REFUSES to ditch it, and thats just redundant.

WOW: Letter to Auberdine

Wow = an online multiplayer game that apparently 8 million people in the world play

cool, I can upload a pic of my charactar. I do hope face tenticles arn't a detriment to me finding a guild to join . :)

So I got this letter to deliver to Auberdine, which is across the sea. So I run back to Azuremyste, the beginning area , and meet a hunter at the docks who says oh yes, just catch the boat it takes you right there. Catch the boat , get off at the other end , turn the letter in end of quest.

While I'm there anyways ....
There's a griffen point in Auberdine, so go talk with the Griffen master. Then go back to the dock ,which has three ships not one, and take the boat to Darnassus , which is the capital city of the elves. Fish for a while waiting for the point ... humm...need to buy up my fishing I"m almost at the level cap for it.
Catch the boat to Darnasuss, catch the griffen point there. Now I have two griffen points so I can fly between them without waiting for boats. Fly back to Auberdine , and now there's no griffen between auberdine and Exodar , so I have to catch the boat. Oh well, started in on catching flight points. It's a big world and you can't run around everywhere.
Catch the boat back ... oh yes , fishing.
The fishing trainer is way way WAY back at the newbie area , when you first come out of the little vally where brand new charactars level from first to sixth level. And there are no griffen points there.
Hike it all the way back there , stopping three times to mine copper. I'm about ten levels to high for this area so I can practically reach out and touch the hostile monsters here and they wont attack me, a design feature to a) keep from annoying me when I have to cross a newbie area, and b) keep from annoying the newbies whenever a high level goes through and is forced to depopulate the area because everything keeps attacking him. Nothing attacks nothing, and the newbies now complain I'm robbing their copper mines because they have to fight the monsters to get there and I don't !
*sigh*
You just can't win no matter what you do.
Get to the fisherman , buy up my fishing , and then use the heathstone to teleport home.

Oh yes, screen shots, I can take a pic of my charactar and put it on my blog now. Cool.
Zoom the camera around a bit until I get a good shot , take the pic. Copy and paste it into windows media , which interestingly enough shows it upside down. Do another screen shot of windows media showing the image , and paste it into Paint. Do a cut on that because I just want my charactar , not the whole screen , copy and paste (again !) into paint. Then use the rotate function because it's still upside down ! Then save as a jpeg, and export it to my blog.
Whew ! What a complicated process !
And so thats' what I look like at level 15 with some ok dokey but not too impressive level 15 equipment.
I think I took longer to mess with the screen shot than do the actual quest, fishing side trip and all. :)

I hate the Google Toolbar !

Ok. I do tech support all day , and I keep getting this same problem over and over. Customer has the google toolbar, the menu option "manage add ons" is gone (useful for removing tool bars) And the address bar is gone so they can't surf properly , they're forced to go through google for everything.

I hate that , so I go to my rarely used internet explorer 6 , install the google toolbar.

My home page is my streaming music page, the only web page I ever use IE on. Other than that I'm a firefox kind of guy.

First , open and close internet explorer (IE) ten times. Does the home page change ?

No.

Does the address bar change ?

No.

Does the Tools Menu change and manage add ons disapear ?

No.

Hmmm...... might have to get more aggressive here.

start surfing about with the address bar , deliberately mispelling things , daring google to interfer with me when I'm not using it.

Works great. Google leaves me alone when I don't use it, the address bar is still fully functional.

Hmmmm.....

Those callers have spyware or something. It's gotta be. The tool bar aint doing nothing to my browser.

But just in case, I'll leave it on for a while and see how it goes.. just for testing purposes.

*sigh*

Blogspot Update

NONONO I don't want to update ! I like my blog just the way it is ! What do you mean you're forcing me to update ?


Whats this button over here ? Hmmm... pictures , I can now do pictures on my blog (I stole this one from google, who presumably stole it from nasa).

Interesting ... maybe this upgrade isn't that bad after all...

I hate You Tube

www.youtube.com

Click on link for "Rock Me Amadeus"

"This video has been removed due to terms of use violation."

What ? but thats my fave ! Try another , and another !

Half my book marked You Tube tunes give the same message.

I'm seriously beginning to hate this site, I really am. Especially with no way to download a video and keep it to yourself. Thats just annoying.

Free Audio Books

Project Gutenberg is a project set up to put out of date books in electronic format, so those old tarzen novels
that the author died and no one really owns the copy rigths any more never die kind of deal. The advent of the
mp3 player that hangs around your neck and has massive storage capacity brigns us to the part where you actually
get audio books ...read aloud by someone so you can listen to them while you go to work or do the laundry or
such.

And who records these books ? Who sits there and over the course of a month reads a whole freaking novel into
a recorder for the benifit of their fellow man.

Well, yes, there are a number of volinteers that do exactly that. But there is also a new age alternative.
Computer speach. A computer reads the text out loud.

Tarzan of the Apes

The above link leads to a free copy of Tarzen of the Apes. Read by a computer, in mp3 format. My first impression was that the computer voice was incomprehensable , but after about 2 min I was effortlessly makeing out the words, and it was just like listening to someone with a weird accent. Once you got the accent down pat it was no problem at all. After about 20 minutes I stopped noticing the flat droning computer voice and instead closed my eyes and had a picture in my mind of what was happening in the story, I didn't even hear the computer voice anymore.

The ear adapts, and darn quickly if my experiance is any indication. And a computer generated narrative is going to be a lot cheaper to deal with than an army of volinteers that have to constantly cross check each others work. I think this whole computer reading text thing is going to take off like a rocket personally.

The Great Hero

WoW = World of Warcraft, an online game I play with , apparently, 8 million other people in the world.

Get back to town after finishing a few quests, and I look around for more quest givers. Questing is an art form. Some people want to do quests as efficiently as possible , wtih as little running around as possible. I've always considered that to be a mistake. The more running around you do , the more copper veins you run into to mine. Also the more random monsters you wind up killing and thus getting more experiance. Oh I don't take it to extremes, if ther'es three quests all in the same cave I'm not running back and forth three times, but I been known to decide I'm only carrying two or three quests at a time and ignore quest givers until I'm done.

Quest giver wants me to go all the way back to Silvermyste island to visit the fisherman there. I was just there and escorted his daughter to him. Didn't feel like going again . Skip that quest.

Some Draenie wants me to learn the language of the Stillpines, hairy owl headed humanoids who inhabit this area. What the hey. Why not. Read the book , click on the totem... some ancient Stillpine spirt apears and gestures for me to follow him. Oops...off and running , not quite quite what I expected. Up the hill... to another totem planted in the ground. click on this totem , and another Still pine ancestor apears, slaps some kind of ghostly wings on my shoulder , and jumps off a cliff. Well..wings, maybe I can fly..Jump off and gently float to the ground ..careful to go in exactly the directino he went in ..and across the river to another totem. This ancestor grants me water breathing and tells me to head down river, and I do , finding yet another totem , this one buried under the water at the mouth of the river.

The last totem was the coolest , since that ancestor transforms you into a big panther, and you get to run across the island at speed, with all your vision blurred as if your in the spirit world. Actually I think you were because there were no monsters or cats or whatnot to ambush you the way they usually were. All the way west... to the bristlepine owlkin. Who, it is now explained to me, are actually evil. They're capturing the weak little stillpine children and putting them in cages and committing horrible acts against them. Go forth and slay !

Well, not that bad a quest. Kill the evil ones, they drop keys, keys open the locked cages of prisoners, you got a quota of eight prisoners. It was a little disturbing when I got to the end to see the first cages respawning fresh prisoners...it was quickly obvious I would never free them all no matter how long I stayed, but hey , This is a multi player server with like 2000 players.. quests like this have to respawn rapidly. I'll just put in my required eight rescues and pretend I rescued the lot of them. it's called Role Play. Heh heh heh ...

I wonder if they're ticked at me for stopping to mine copper half way through the quest ?

Get my bag limit , and race home , from whence this quest had begun to the quest giver, a still pine owlkin in town. He directs me north along the road to the Still pine hold (seen it before and ignored it) , and so I trudge down there.

Copper vein just off the road. Go mine it , a cat attacks me. Kill the cat, and some blood elf assassin sneaks up in stealth and tries to kill me. Beat him off , and ANOTHER cat tries to have me for lunch. Just as I'm beating it to death with my club... a guard on patrol along the road steps in and kills the almost dead cat, basically robbing me of my victory rather than actually rescuing me.

I hate guards.

But now I think I know why the price of copper is so high . :)

down the road to the Stillpine Hold and talk to old cheify. Yes, you are the prophisized hero ! Now don't bother me just look around town for people to help. *Sigh*
Some skinner believes that THE BEASTS OF THE APOCOLYPSE have arrived and if I really am the hero I should easily be able to go kill them. Off to the east to their nest, which turns out to be a piece of crashed ship with cages everywhere and these crab like really vicious aliens that look like someone swiped their general design from the aliens movies. Start in on killing them. How many do I have to kill ?

oops... I need 10 hides... and they don't drop a hide every time...its random.
Almost 12th level , 20 of these guys will definately put me over the mark and I'll run back to town for new spells and a run at jewelcrafting and stuff.

I think this one quest a night biz when I get home from work is working out ok.

WoW : Snapdragon Quest

WoW = World of Warcraft, an online game I play with , apparently, 5 million other people in the world.

Log in , pull up my quest list. What do I need here ? Four more Infected NightStalkers, one more snap dragon. The snap dragon is a flower. Sheesh , I'm reduced to gathering flowers for people. Oh well. Start on the south side of Azuremyste Island and work my way around. It's actually the long way but you encounter a lot of mountainous territory that way. Which means you encounter a lot of copper veins, and I mine copper and turn it into rings and stuff.

Ah , the peace of fishing. After a fairly extended search , find copper, battle various wild monsters that seem to have mistaken me for lunch, I reach a quiet spot and cast my fishing rod in the water. It's pretty relaxing because you don't have to look at the screen , you can just close your eyes, and when a fish yanks on the line it makes an odd splash I've leanred to listen for, so you can actually fish with your eyes closed.

enough fishing , time to move on ...there's a barrel over there washed ashore , walk over and click on it, and get some "refreshing spring water". More importantly , some text comes up on the screen showing I have just discovered a new area, so I get a few experiance points for that.

Huh ?
Wait a minute. I'm behind Exodar, the city at the edge of the island, there isn't anything behind it. I check my map. Yup, big picture of Exodar at the corner of the map , no room for anything else.
Hmmm.....
Walk deeper into this new area. Find a mountain path and start going up. Then I get more xp for discovering "Wildwind Path" or somesuch. Definately had somethign to do with winds.
Well, maybe there's a snapdragon up here somewhere, it's a plant , it coudl grow anywhere, right ? I only need one more.
Up , and up , and up I go on this path. Mostly empty , i swear it must be an unfinished part of the game. No creatures no plants , nothing.
Then I start seeing torches lining the path. Maybe it's an impotant quest for some warrior or paladin or something ? Only they come up here ? Spot motion up ahead. A Wind Elemental, level 44, which is bad because I'm only 11th and can only take out things , maybe , 14th or so tops. But I can see it's all green (friendly) so It's safe to continue. Start seeing lots of wind elementals. And a big stone with symbols marked on it.

At this point I figure it out. I'd seen that stone before. When I tried out a shaman on the Hoarde Side , the shaman had quests to come to such stones , talk with some super elemental , and learn a few more spells. This wildwind path must be the Shaman's Air totem quest area.

Which was hilarious to me , since I in fact was a shaman. And the Air totem quest I wouldn't see until I was like 30th level. Guess I wouldn't be hunting around much to find it. It's right there , hidden behind exodar on a winding mountain path.

A little farther I find a girl in a cave , (Draenei) and a super elemental. Both talk to me, but don't say much beyond hello , meaning they have quests hidden up but I don't qualify to hear them. I loot the copper vein near by while watching all these air elementals... floating on the air ...actually way out away from the mountain floating on the air. Looks pretty, but prettiness only buys you a minute or two of me being impressed and then I decide it's time to wander off , kill more monsters, complete more quests, and generally get on with leveling my shaman.

All the way back down the path. By this time the water barrel washed ashore has re-apeared (respawned we call it) and I loot it again for more water. Walk three steps farther , and freeze in terror.

No no nooooooooahhhhhhh nooooo ! Murlocs.

Murlocs are the Dark Side of Artificial Intelligence. They're not just computer monsters you have to fight and kill, they're SMART computer monsters. Someone put a lot of effort into the artificial intelligence that runs them. If they're badly injured they'll run away. Usually into a pack of other murlocs, and then they , and the whole pack , will run back at you , and suddenly you're fighting five murlocs , not one. Or... they'll pull out a healing potion just when you think you're going to finish them off , and suddenly be back at full health , and you gotta start all over on them.
And they always apear in groups , usually villages, on the shore of a sea or lake , and there's always a wandering patrol, so while you're busy fighting one murloc, another one , or even a patrol of two , will come up behind you, and suddenly you're swarmed under again !

I really can't express how much I despise murlocs.
Truely I admire the work of the programmer who designed their intelligence... but the murlocs themselves i could do without the first hand experiance of that programming.

Back track a bit and find a way up the mountain and around the murlocs, I'm not going along that beach if I dont' half to.

Further inland find the road and follow it along the north end of the island, to some more mountainous area where I mined a little more copper. Fought a few Infected cats and got my bag limit on that. Along the road and it turned south , and I wandered off the road away from the mountains and it's copper and into the woods. Finally located the last snapdragon plant, hiding under a tree. Truck it back to the road avoiding the cats that think I'm lunchmeat , and finally make it home to turn in my quests.

I figure I'll use half the copper to raise my jewelry skill , and half I'll sell on the Auction House for simple cash. I need some equipment and the stuff I want is pricy. At least I don't have to go hunting for flowers anymore. End of snapdragon quest.

Premediatated Bundling : A Microsoft Tirade

Article = no article , this is my personal opinion.

The people at microsoft like to say that the Internet Explorer is part of the operating system, there's no way to remove it. This is why they push it on everyone , and you need to inconveniently download Netscape (or any other alternative browser) if you want to get away from it.

This is crud.

The operating system , windows, is not a rock that fell from the sky and you take it or leave it, it is a made thing , a manufactured item. If you manufactured the OS such that the browser is part of it and cannot be removed, then it is the same thing as saying you committed bundling with years of premediation. (it takes years to make an operating system).

Think of it in non computer terms.

lets say someone got a lock on the Television Market, and his brand of TV is the only brand out there. There are no competiters you have to go to him , or nothing. Lets say that there are a dozen or so video game consols, game machines you plug into a TV and play, and each game machine has a different library of games.

Lets say our Tv manufacturer wants in on the action , and so the latest TV he produces has a built in game consol, and suddenly lacks the usual jacks where you would plug in another manufcturer's game console.

He has now used his monopoly on TV's to get a monopoly on game consoles. Not because his product is any better, but because of foul play , deliberately locking out the competition rather than competing with them. I'm sure you can see how totally unfair this is , mostly to the consumer who's games wont run on the new TV and when the old tv breaks they're out of luck.
And the TV makers excuse for all of this ? The Game Console is Part of the TV , it cannot be seperated. Nonsense, this is a made item , that just means you planned this stunt years ahead of time.

The catch is , what do you do about it ? They're the only TV producer around ?

What do we do about Microsoft, they're the only OS around ?

Well, they're not.
Get off the microsoft wagon. Get an old junker of a computer, and get Linux, the "hobbiests" operating system. And we start all over again.

Oh , why do we care about browsers ? Netscape lost that war a long time ago ?
Because Microsoft just put out a fire wall as part of the opeating system, muscling out many security companies. And now they're working on an anti-trojen program called Windows Defender, same deal. These programs are inheritently inferior, often vastly inferior, to the ones they replace. But they are being rammed down our throats with little choice in the matter, much to the detriment of the consumer.
And now Windows Vista comes with Internet Explorer 7 , which will not show half the web pages in the world, and there's no way to put an older browser on Vista , so it's forced on you and now the whole flipping world must pay to rewrite their web pages because Microsoft can't be bothered to follow standard HTML coding practices.

I'm not moving to Vista.
I'm moving to Linux.

Vista : Now we've broken everything

More Windows Vista Problems for Korean Firms


Some MP3 players are experiencing glitches with computers on which Microsoft’s new operating system Windows Vista has been installed. MP3 players acquire music files by connecting to the computer, but the new operating system fails to recognize some players


Ok... so ... xp would work on these mp3 players but not vista ? so ... backwards compatability was simply thrown in the trash and instead you made up a hit list of people who pay you to make their stuff work and people who don't ? Have you considered putting out a simple "standard" way of connecting to any mp3 device ? Noo.... can't do that. No money to be made there ....


Meanwhile, some financial institutions and Internet portals are working on their websites to make them compatible with the new OS, as Internet banking and electronic payment services were found to be unavailable on computers that operate Windows Vista.


So... standardization is completely out the window here, you just make any changes you like to the new OS and it's up to the whole wide world to adapt to your lead.

Any other industry would be sued on the spot for sabatage. Especially since you forced your new browser down everyones throat and it doesnt' work on half the computers out there. What is this business about a 2am security patch not just patching security , but deciding to toss the old internet explorer and install a brand spaking new broken and non-working right out of the box internet explorer 7 ? Sheesh ! I'd sue you but I turned that stuff off long ago and was never victomized.

Ottawa Boy

N.Y. scanners spark union cries of "geoslavery"

The Artical reports on "geometric" slavery , watching employee's as they go about their work day through various bio-scannrrs scattered through the work place, and is responded that credit cards and cell phones are more likely avenues.


Well...it's so easy , isn't it ? You can't get a credit card ? Well...maybe the company will lend you one for your use as long as you pay it back. No cell phone, borrow the company one.

But now the company can review the records. Wow, you go to the beer store a lot don't you ? And look at all these calls to Afghanistan ? Arn't we at war with the Afghans right now ? Man I hate those rag heads (just an example lol ) I think I'll fire you.

The fiction is , the company doesn't care what you do in your own time. The fact is , oh yes they do. Drunkards not welcome. Bosses can be racist as all get out and if they think you're a member of some group they hate , bye bye. surf the net on the company computer, they'll watch. Check your email , they'll save copies. Borrow the company phone, the list of numbers you called is theirs to do wtih as they want (man you use a lot of call girls, you and the wife not getting it on lately ? ) Borrow the company credit card, the list of transactions is theirs to examine, paying every penny back on time or early does not change this. Use a company provided phone ... again company property. Company vehical , same deal.

Company phone with gps ... oh look you went carousing down town to every bar on main street ... three times a week , do we really want such a drunk on our payroll in any kind of important position ... ?

Get your own cell phone . Pay cash for that beer. Get your own credit card and use the company one for company business only. Leave the company cell phone in the office, not in your car (if it has gps the company can see everywhere you drove while it's in it).

If you publish anything on the internet , don't do it in your name unless it's bland boring "these are my skills please hire me I'm a nice guy" , otherwise you're likely writing your own "please fire me" sign.

Danny's Scam Review

Article - warning : scam site

Note : This ad apeared in the ad's they make you look at while checking my gmail..so this stuff apears even on legitimate web sites.... an interesting point.

IF YOU DO NOT READ THIS PAGE YOU WILL GET SCAMMED!

Aha...well it was on my gmail it's gotta be legit ,right ?

Hello my name is Danny I'm from your country..

Umm...what country did you say again ?

I spent the next 3 months trying almost every business opportunity online and off. I was scammed by 37 different "get rich quick schemes" and I lost over $4800 in 3 months...

Nice to hear the voice of experiance.


Out of 37 programs 35 were complete scams that just took my money. Only 2 of the programs actually worked. I am going to give you an honest review of the 2 programs that did work for me...

Oh oh ! Scam alert. And you can't go any farther without submitting your email and name (and thus getting your email spammed by junk)

I vote we rename the site DANNY'S SCAM SITE : READ ON TO BE SCAMMED

Who's danny , by the way ? Does he have a last name ?

Newspapers : Speaking of Doomed Industry's

While we are listing off the number of industries that the internet is killing (television and movie theatres top the list) It occurs to me that I havn't actually bought a newspaper in a number of years.

Oh , I have my news websites that I go to , every day in fact. But actually purchase a newspaper ? Nope. Been at least two years now, maybe longer. And I'm a news junkie , it's the only thing I read.

Kiss it goodbye and add it to the pile.

Credit Card Fraud

Be vigilant against credit card fraud, consumer group urges

Article


The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada on Friday urged all
credit-card holders to be vigilant and carefully monitor their credit
card statements for any unusual activity in light of two high-profile
security breaches revealed this week



Mentions the Winners , and Home Sense , shopping chains. And the Bank CIBC.


Let me help you with your credit card security.

Today is Jan 20. Phone your credit card company and tell them that ,
for reasons you would prefer not to reveil , you suspect your credit
card has been compromised and could they please change the number on
it and give you a new one ?

Feb 20 do the same. And mar 20. and every 20th.

In an age of increaseing credit card fraud, they're not going to
complain a witt. They know whats going on out there. They'd much
rather eat the cost of you changing your credit card number every
month than having it racked up and you pointing out "that wasnt me . I
won't pay. I CAN'T pay , I'm poor. And I can't return the 5,000 $ of
merchandise because I didn't buy it in the first place so I don't have
it on hand to be returned. "

Trust me. Do it today. Just for your peace of mind.

ottawaboy story : card readers

Article

Tampered card readers used to rob 350 Gatineau shoppers: police


Thieves have swiped money from the bank accounts of at least 350
shoppers in Gatineau, Que., and may have stolen sensitive banking
information of up to 1,600 people using tampered debit card readers,
police say.


Ah ..the latest cyber crime.


He would not identify the stores or say how much money was stolen.


Umm...ok ...gatineau somewhere... If I go there I don't dare spend
money on anything for fear of having my bank account emptied.


LeMay added that the scam is probably carried out by several organized
groups of criminals who work in teams to distract store clerks and
steal the original card readers while store clerks aren't looking.

"They modify it and they go back and put the modified PIN pad," said
LeMay. "And from there they get the information they need to clone
cards."

The modified card readers store the card numbers and PINs so the
criminals can later download the information, make copies of the cards
and use them to withdraw money from bank machines.


Charming people...very technical our criminal element in this country.


Gatineau Chamber of Commerce spokesman Antoine Normand said he feared
business will be hurt if customers lose confidence in the popular
payment method


The Customers themselves you don't give a rats behind about of course,
you're with the chamber of commerce ,thats not your problem. Let those
foolish people lose every single dime of their life savings ! As long
as they keep spending and your business's do well your job is done !



Police released information about the Gatineau debit card fraud just
one day after the owner of the Winners and Home Sense retail chains
confirmed hackers had broken into a company computer system that
stored information about credit and debit card transactions, cheques
and merchandise returns.



Ok , don't buy at Winners (a grocery chain) or Home Sense (furnature
chain) on anythign except cash...

scratch that. Pay cash only for everything and only use bank machines
... from a bank. Not a corner store.

Welcome to the new century.

MY Space = Please fire me now

www.myspace.com


My space is the online popular socializing site of the web. You put up your pic and a profile, talk about yourself , meet people, sounds great !

Go for a job interview , the interviewer looks up your name , see's that picture of you getting stinking drunk last summer that you've been passing around to all your friend s.... you don't get the job.


Anonymoty people ! It's important ! the police and the government are required to leave you alone (in the western world) ... but any yahoo with a computer waving a job under your nose is under no such restriction.

And with sites like myspace being so increadably popular , they don't even bother asking , they just run your name into the search engine anyways and you never know why the interview seemed to go so well , but later on they dropp kicked you out the door in a hurry....

Stupid anti-IT ads

Saw another stupid ad today. Buy our computer and you can fire your IT department !

Aha.

I get phone calls all day at work. do you want to know the most common problems ? Where do I plug this wire in? What is that ? This instruction manual is all gobbily gook , how do I turn this on ?

You need to know how to operate the equipment in front of you , people ! Failing that , you need somone on staff all the time who knows how to operate it , even if you skip the repair part and contract that part out.

If you cannot operate your own tools, you are totally doomed. Contracting that part out is like contracting your accounting department out. The first time the paychecks bounce, the good people leave and only the so called "lemons" stick around , knowning they'll find no better....

A proposal for internet age television

Article - no reference, this is my own idea.

podcasting has inspired me. If you can make an mp3 file with say , a BBC broadcast, and bury the commericals in it , why can't you make MPG's (movie format files) and imbed a few commercials here and there, and voila ! internet television.

play it when you want, free to the users , no way to avoid the ad's so the advertisers are happy to pay our Simpsons Addiction , and easy to market too. (50,000 downloads of this episode this week , only 5 thousand of that ... guess we charge higher for this show than that ... )

No guessing with what channel the consumer is watching (put a bug in THEIR television ? Their private equipment ? To see what they watch ? Illegal immoral , and you can hear the activits screaming all ready... but count how many times a file was downloaded , no need to keep track of who downloaded it... that works much better)

I give it a much better chance of surviving than regular television , because even the commercial hating testimonial despising ME will put up with such things for one or two good shows , though definately not for most of the rot out there.

DVD's Doomed

Doomsayers say DVDs are dinosaurs, but they're dead wrong. These discs will not only make it through the digital age - they'll thrive in it.

Article

Agreed.

*I look back at massive selection of DVD's filling an entire bookcase behind myself*

I certainly have no plans on giving up my DVD collection :) . For me , they replace Television. That is to say , I don't watch the usual 11 min of highly watered down and censored show and 22 min of commercials that mostly contain testimonials (testimonials are the "legitimat , legal" way for a company to lie their butt off to you about whatever product they want to sell ) . I like my commercial free stop it anytime you need a biobreak then come back later DVD collection. And it doesn't cost me a hundred bucks a month either , I pick up a new dvd only when I have some cash in my pocket , no long term commitment , no "watch it all you want in three days and then it self destructs too bad if the download messes up by the way regular DVD's are dead trust us and buy our product" )

:)

iPod Sucks on Video Games

Article


EA, the world's largest video game maker, and other companies have built a stable of 11 iPod games since September that are available for $4.99 each on Apple's iTunes online store. Five of the games are from EA.

Lasky joined Redwood City, California-based EA when it bought Jamdat Mobile Inc. for $684 million last year in a bid to boost its status in the mobile market and expand beyond its core console gaming business.


Do you know how small the screen is on an iPod ? It's a major source of eye strain these tiny gadgets (and one of the primary reasons why the Microsoft gadget with it's new much larger screen will likely take off). You seriously damage your eyes if you deal with the things for more than a minute or two at a time.

And now you want to put games on the things.

These manufacturers have absolutely no concearn for the health of their customers. None at all.

scumbag scumbag scumbags !

Latest Advertising Ploy

Article


A mysterious online countdown. USB drives containing cipher keys. Notes and videos from a woman who calls herself Loki. Bloggers' reports of extravagant gifts, marked with a return address for Microsoft's headquarters.


And the reason is ?
It's an advertising ploy by microsoft to sell Vista, their new operating system.

Of course they don't tell you that until much later, you find the clues first and try to unravel the puzzel ...

High marks for creativity.
Low marks for ethics.
Totally wasting people's time like this and then in the end trying to sell them your crud.

Scumbag scumbag scumbag !!!!

Latest Email Scam : The Hitman

Article

Hit man to Pittsburgh professionals: Pay up or die

Gimme money , or I kill you , sayeth the email.

Simple , brutal , to the point... the first one to receive the email and doesn't ahve 80 000 dollars american is turning it over to the cops ... now you're a wanted fugative commiting an act recognized as a crime in every country in the world.

stupid stupid...should ahve stuck with the "bank lost all your records and is closing your account unless you fill out this form " scam...

Iraq Troop Surge

I know I know , I promised to stay off the middle east, but I just ahve to say this.

Bush is a genius. Or has genius advisors or something.

How would you feel , being an Islamic fundy , trying to conquer Iraq, and the USA goes on for months and months about how they're thinking about pulling out , if you can push them just a little more ....

then zing ! Nope ...we're not pulling out , we're doubling the number of troops.

Kiss their moral goodbye. And it was already pretty bad to begin with.

it is good that they are willing to die for their religion. Because they have to be looking at a trip to Iraq as precisely that particular fate.

www.youtube.com

Where do you go to my lovely ?

looking for tunes to play ? This site has a huge collection of video's. You cannot copy them to your hardrive, that is prevented, but you can book mark them and listen to them anytime you like... at home, on your main (connected to the internet) machine.

The above song I've been looking for for ages, i'm impressed they have it.

There's a search bar , top right , to help you look for tunes, keep in mind these tunes are uploaded by users, and they upload a lot of home videos as well, so you often wade through three dozen versions of some guy on a mike messing with a stuffed animal or some silly thing, before you find the real stuff.

podcasts.yahoo.com

Site requires registration (a yahoo id) which is free.

lesson 65

I think it's the way my browser is set up , I click on download and it starts to play the file. But thats ok , you simply to to file > save as on your browser and you can save the file anyways.

This yahoo site has huge wacks of podcasts, including french (the above podcast is a french lesson) where as podcast.com has very few french lessons, so I thought I'd revisit this and post the site.

the yahoo has huge quantities of podcasts, must be thousands , pages on pages on any particular subject, you're better off to decide what you want first and then search for it rather than browse the directory listings, they're simply too long , too many broadcasters.

Spotted a few get rich quick schemers, so be reminded that a lot of these broadcasts are from private individuals. If you're just looking for comedy that's ok, but if you're looking for real advice , watch your pocket book or they might empty it !

Podcasting

www.podcast.com

I have this mp3 player. That is to say , a small device that hangs around my neck and plays music. Mostly I rip the music from my own collection of cd's. Rip means to convert them from the cd to a special computer file called an mp3 file (thus why the device is called an mp3 player).
Then I wander off to work and listen to the tunes.

It seems they've been putting out mp3's on the web that contain more than just music. The BBC for example does broadcasts , you download the mp3 file to your computer , copy it to your player , and wander off. It took me 2 min to download a 25 min broadcast, so you can get an idea of the savings of time.
I tried out the above site, podcast.com , and you click on the link and it plays the podcast as it is called. But if you look carefully , the link is to an mp3 file , so you can right click and "save target to disk" and save the file to your computer .

Now , it is true that listening to the BBC news may not thrill anyone, but I also spotted french lessons there , among other things. so imagine downloading french lessons and listening to them whilest travelling too and from work. And maybe even all day at work if you have some kind of mindless repetiative job (janitor or some such). Now you're seeing the potential.

This is called "pod casting" after the apple mp3 player which is called an ipod. And the mp3 files they're sporting they're giving away for free. And yes, the podcasts come with commericals included (at elast the BBC news one did )

Well , not a bad deal still. Certainly the french will come in handy for me. I have a cheap no name brand mp3 player that cost me a hundred bucks and takes a triple A battery , by the way , I think it's called Iriver ? Works great. No need to buy an expensive apple ipod and deal with their games.

ANNOYING IPOD GAMES
The only annoying ipod game that comes to mind is the battery game. Thats where your ipod has a built in battery thats only good for a few months , and then the manufacturer (apple is notorious for this) expects you to throw away the device and buy another. Needless to say , picking up an mp3 player or a palmtop computer or what not that uses standard batteries makes you immune to this particular evil stunt, and has always been my preference.

Note to others : My iRiver mp3 player requires windows XP , nothing less , to load / unload mp3 files from it. A deliberate limitation that annoys me since my other computer is win2000 and it wont do spit on that thing. If you are shopping for an mp3 player watch for such stunts and avoid them. I deeply regret having to maintain an xp machine just to listen to my tunes at work, but I'm too cheap to shell out a hundred bucks for an alternate player.

Anti-Vending machine Diet

Enough about Iraq and the middle east.

I hear by vow to swear off that middle east stuff. There's not much I can do but rant anyways.

I have personally invented a brand new diet, at the behest of my doctor. Actually he didnt' say "invent a new diet" he said "lose 10-15kg before I operate on your belly" (20-30 lbs )

I call it the Anti-vending machine diet , in honor of all those vending machines we have at work with all those wonderful tasting sweets. How it works is surprisingly simple.

1. Bring real food to work for lunch.
2. Bring coffee to work, the instant stuff as well as a thermos. Can't run without coffee (I can't)
3. Leave all money and plastic at home. I mean ALL money , ALL plastic money too.

Three simple steps.

This diet was invented on the spot after the tuesday fiasco. What was the tuesday fiasco ? That whas were I brought money and no food to work with me. And pigged out on the vending machines. mostly sweets. Desgusting , dubious natured, truely delicious...never mind !

Note to self : never bring money to work again.

The numbers , pure and simple, in Iraq

U.S. deaths in Iraq reach 3,000


The identity of the 3,000th military death could not be precisely determined as the exact times of deaths late last week were not immediately available.

.
.
More than 22,000 other U.S. troops have been wounded in Iraq since the war began nearly four years ago


It took the enemey 4 years to kill 3000 enemey troops.
Thats 750 per year.
More importantly , troops are only stationed in Iraq for 6 months at a time, so thats 375 casualties per rotation.

The US has a standing force of at least 100 000 troops (in Iraq), sometimes as high as 150 000 troops. But we'll use the lower number.

375 / 100 000 = 0.00375= 0.375% chance of you dying during your rotation to Iraq. Thats one third of one percent chance of death , over a six month rotation.

This begs the question , are these casualties of war numbers ? Or are these traffic fatality numbers ? these number are rediculously low for enemey activity.

And Bush had to confess to "losing" the war in Iraq.

yeah , right.

Hussein was symbol of autocracy, cruelty in Iraq

Article

Oh no ! He's gone ! How will we ever cope ? Who will we have to laugh at and ridicule ? Oh right , we still have George Bush ... never mind !


BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Saddam Hussein, the former dictator of Iraq who spent his last years in captivity after his ruthless Baathist regime was toppled from power by the U.S.-led coalition in 2003, has been executed -- hanged for crimes during a brutal crackdown during his reign.

DING DONG THE WITCH IS DEAD ! (oops..wrong tune)

Having moved to Baghdad as a teenager, Hussein joined the Arab Baath Socialist Party while a secondary school student. In 1958 he spent six months in prison for his political activities.

Loser ! Looooooser ! In jail aready are we ?


The next year Hussein and several others attempted to assassinate Gen. Abdul Karim Kassem, who came to power in 1958 in a military coup. Hussein was shot in the leg during the botched attempt, but he escaped and fled to Iraq. He was sentenced to death in absentia February 25, 1960, for his role in the plot.

Is this a list of his acheivements or his failures ?


After studying in Egypt, Hussein returned to Iraq in February 1963 following the Ramadan Revolution, in which Baath Party members overthrew Kassem. The following months of political turmoil culminated in another coup, and Hussein was arrested again on October 14, 1964.

He was elected deputy secretary-general of the Baath Party while in prison.


Another round in jail ! Another assassination attempt ! A twice failed assassin now elected leader of the Baath...what a joke.


According to the prewar Iraqi News Agency's resume of Hussein, he escaped from jail in 1967. In July 1968 he played a leading role in a coup that led to the ascension of Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, a fellow Baath member and Hussein's cousin, as Iraq's new ruler.


What does "played a leading role" mean ? For someone who's your leader who wants his claim to fame even if he did nothing ... loser ! You stole someone elses thunder , didn't you ?


"Saddam accumulated power over a period of 10 to 12 years," said Mark Bowden, a best-selling author who profiled Hussein's daily life in a May 2002 Atlantic Monthly article. "When you have evidenced considerable charm [and] an ability to get things done, even very idealistic and ambitious people begin to side with you."


There we go. The failed assassin turns out to be great at the talk talk thing , lousy at the assassin - assassin thing. heh heh heh


With a camera recording the event, Hussein told a room full of top officials that he had uncovered a conspiracy to overthrow the government. One by one he named the alleged traitors. Sixty-eight men were taken away, and 21 were executed.

"He essentially betrayed many of those people who had relied on him," Bowden said.


And what a charming talker he turned out to be ! My but he was skilled at it !


In 1980 Hussein entered a war with Iran that would last eight years and, according to some estimates, cost more than a million lives, before ending in a stalemate.


loser ! Again !


Two years later he ordered troops and tanks to invade Kuwait, Iraq's oil-rich neighbor to the south. A U.N.-backed, U.S.-led coalition routed Iraq's forces and forced them out of Kuwait in early 1991.


And again !


Hussein and his associates tried to lobby Middle Eastern nations to end the U.N.-imposed sanctions and support his policies, in particular his fervent opposition to the United States and Israel.


After you just finished stupidly invading one of those neibours ? Even YOUR legendary talk talk was not enough for the job, it seemed.


But under mounting pressure after Bush's speech, Iraq re-admitted U.N. weapons inspectors, who returned to Iraq in November 2002 with the prospect of war or peace hanging in the balance.

Inspectors found illegal Samoud missiles and destroyed them in February 2003.

The inspectors departed again in March 2003 after the United States advised the United Nations to remove its weapons inspectors from Iraq ahead of an expected U.S.-led attack.


The final loss.

Here is a man who tried assassination , twice it seemed, didn't work out for him. Then the old talk talk lie lie business, and discovered how gullable people can be. Odd...everytime he talked, he got away with it mostly . Every time he acted , he lost.

You'd think he'd stop acting. Stop invading his neibours stop rattleing his sabre. Being a dictator is a sweet set up , you simply point and your guards pluck any young lady you like off the street for you to enjoy , and if anyone complains you shoot them. It's a great set up , but I guess it wasn't enough , always have to push for more.


Eventually, the Bush administration conceded that there were no weapons of mass destruction, the primary reason it had cited for the invasion. It has since said that it launched the invasion to get rid of Hussein and spread democracy.

Even though some in the administration advanced the idea that there may have been a working relationship between the Hussein regime and al Qaeda, that theory was firmly refuted by the 9/11 commission report.


This is a different issue.

First off , Al Qaeda means "The list" , and it's just a list of names of people who passed through some safe houses Osama Bin Laden was running , in case a relative called and wanted to know if their brother had made it safely , etc etc. It wasn't any kind of organization per say , and it had no command structure, it was just people passing through those houses.

I suppose, philosophically , you could say Saddam Hussain was on the list in spirit at least because all those people were terrorists on their way to terrorist training camps (thus the sudden importance of such a list) and he supported that and even donated money , payed 25 000$ for every succesful suicide bomber that killed at least one jew , etc etc ... but no , he did not pass through the houses.

Second there were minimal weapons of mass destruction. That is to say , I recall articles where a nuclear reactor had simply been abandonned, and the americans had to actually buy back some barrels that used to hold radioactives, because they were poisoning the people now using them to hold rain water. The radioactive powerder it held had been simply dumed on the ground and the barrels stolen. (smart move, guys...)
Take some of that powder , stick it in a bomb , fire it off at Isreal like they do a few times a day now for the last couple of years. It won't go nuclear , thus technically it's not a weapon of mass destruction, but spraying radioactive dust over a civilian population is definately going to terrorize someone , I guarentee you that much. Even if there are no "mass deaths" to qualify as mass destruction.
Those crazy buggers are lucky they live in a desert or they would have bio-weaponed each other to death long ago.

Anyways, the evil witch of our time is dead, and I think he derserved it , and I think Bush was right to invade.

Were there weapons of mass destruction ? Technically no. Was he part of Al Quaeda ? Technically No. But the word Technically is occuring way too many times in those answers.

Gone, but not forgotten. Just like Hitler !

Merry Xmas to the world

I've been thinking about a number of things, and I suppose I should sum them up. Some of them concearn the whole world, and some of them just me... :)

North Korea will never have nukes.
Their laundry list of demands , as it is called , includes the west giving them a nuclear reactor. Thought they were building a nuclear reactor ? Oops, they're a communist regime. Every see the beginning part of that move K12 ? The russian sub with a nuke weapon ? How they had to build it with substandard and even wrong parts. The most telling moment of the movie was the second officer reading the instructions in case of an accdient. "And then it goes on to describe how to operate the saftey equipment , which was never installed because we didn't have the parts..."
If these idiots build a reactor it will do the Chernoblye thing , and they'll only burn themselves.

2.. Iran is building a nuclear reactor. Unlike north korea, they don't have a problem spending money and paying people what they're worth. These people will not do the self destruct thing, and are a serioius threat.

3.. the notion of "colonizing" the west with islamics who are busy running away from the middle east in terror and hatred is dubious at best. There have been what ? One, two terrorist attacks in six years ? Phht ! Forget it. These islamics over here want nothing to do with those gangsters in the middle east. And in the end , thats exactly what they are. Gangsters dressed up in preist robes and not hesitating to shoot anyone who gets in their way.

4..I should stop pushing myself. Most physiotheropy recovery from major injuries is a year or more. I don't know why I keep thinking I'll be back to normal this time next month if I just keep pushing myself and ignoreing the pain ... gotta stop that.

5.. gotta stop ranting on the middle east and go back to computers. Those guys are pretty much set on their course and not much is going to change it. And that course is right into a brick wall at high speed with a lot of spattering going on after they hit it.

6.. Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 is being force downloaded to all the good little people of the world by way of that 2 am update windows function. It usually doesn't work , and I spend half my day at work helping people uninsall it. :) Our first post-bill gates disaster for microsoft. I hope the company sinks, but billy boy wont care , he's retired. took the money and ran.

7.. note to self : Convert your spare computer to linux , it's the next os to replace windows when it sinks.

8... radio is dead. I've been listening to my mp3 player for a year and a bit now , dont' even know what the new tunes out there are, havn't listenned to a radio in at least that long. such a quiet death , I never noticed....

9 .. tv is dying. That move to high definition TV means nothing, and any delay it gives to the TV's death will be slight. I say this because I play online games and enver watch tv , as do half my coworkers at work.

10.. DVD's are doing great and likely to get better. I'm always buying one to add to my library.

11... movie theatres are already dead, they just don't know it. Home entertainment killed them.

12.. downloading music / video is nothing but a flash in the plan. "You've got to get used to a pay per view or per listen cost structure !" no we don't. Disks that self distruct after three vewings, or after a certain date, songs that can only be copied three times... these are all temporary construts. The music industry is getting too greedy and it's gonna cost them. Try to honestly solve the problem and you might get somewhere , but honesty and big business are opposites ..thats a pipe dream I won't waste time on.

13...Internet Explorer, that cess pool of programming that attracts every virus and trojen out there needs to die. needs to die bad. DIE DIE DIE ! YOU SCUM BAG SACK OF POOR ILL THOUGHT OUT MAKE A BUCK QUICK PROGRAMING DIE !!!!!
But it probably wont.


MERRY XMAS TO ALL AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT...

Al Qaeda's No. 2 opposes Palestinian elections

Article


"And it is not a ... formula, the one which Bush says, 'We hit the terrorists in their land so they don't strike in our land.' On the contrary, if we are hit in our lands, then we will not stop striking in your land, God willing.


God willing....
It has now been 6 years since 9/11. There has been One (1 - count it ... ONE) successful terrorist attack in all of the western nations carried out by Al Quaeda. A train in spain.

It would seem that god is not willing.

It would seem that these unelected idiots who think they know how to rule the world and shoot anyone who disagree's with them are not the right hand of god, at least not any god that has any power in this world.


Al-Zawahiri also warned the United States, "You are not negotiating with the real power in the Islamic world ... those whom you are negotiating with to secure your departure from Iraq, they will not be useful to you."

It was not clear which countries he was referring to.

He's refering to Iran and it's attempt to make nukes. It is unclear to him that that factory will be bombed into dust the moment the US beleives the first nuke is under construction. It is unclear to our religously blinded Iranian President also , who continues to rattle a nuclear sabre with weapons he has not yet produced and cannot possibly defend.

As many middle easterner's have remarked. "It is interesting holding a conversation with someone who still lives in the 16th century."

In other words ... I have a toy, god will not let you take it away from me.

ha ha , oh yes he will !

Libya to execute HIV medics

Article


TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) -- A court convicted five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor Tuesday of deliberately infecting 400 children with HIV and sentenced them to death, despite scientific evidence the youngsters had the virus before the medical workers came to Libya.

Once you understand one or two basic facts of the matter, this makes perfect sense.

One : You're in a muslim nation. Any muslim accuses you of something , and you're not a muslim , you're found guilty. Evidence , testimony , etc, it doesn't matter. It is a religious requirement that you are punished for being a non muslim , and this is one of the favorite ways they do it. The Non-Muslim is ALWAYS guilty. And if the international press gets annoyed, you don't care. You hold your trial , you let them show overwhelming evidence that these people couldn't possibly have done the crime , maybe even that they were victems of a crime , and then you find them guilty anyways. because they're infidels.

two : The people these non-muslim infidels are helping could , potentially , convert to that non muslim religion , this causing more infidels to apear in your land. Better to let them all die. So the threat of removing all aid workers that these people are starving to death without their help is no threat at all. The so called government of these people would happily see them all dead rather than let some foriener feed them and possibly convert them.

Once you understand these two rules, that Infidels are always guilty and refugees are better off dead than saved, it all falls together and makes perfect sense.




The nurses and doctor have been in jail since 1999 on charges that they intentionally spread the HIV virus to more than 400 children at a hospital in the city of Benghazi during what Libya claims was a botched experiment to find a cure for AIDS. Fifty of the children have died, and the rest have been treated in Europe.

Bulgaria and European officials have blamed the infections on unhygienic practices at the hospital and accuse Libya of making the medical workers scapegoats.



Gadhafi has tried to reach a deal by which Bulgaria would pay compensation to the victims, a proposal Sofia has rejected, saying it would imply the nurses' guilt. The defendants have claimed they were tortured in their detention, and two of the nurses -- who are all women -- said they were raped. A Libyan court acquitted several Libyan prison officials of the charge.


Luc Montagnier -- the French doctor who was a co-discoverer of HIV -- testified in the first trial that the deadly virus was active in the hospital before the Bulgarian nurses began their contracts there in 1998.

More evidence for that argument surfaced on Dec. 6 -- too late to be submitted in court -- when Nature magazine published the analysis of HIV and hepatitis virus samples from the children.

Using changes in the genetic information of HIV over time as a "molecular clock," the analysts concluded the virus was contracted as much as three years before the defendants arrived at the hospital..


Prediction :
They'll be executed. In front of the whole world. And the whole world will know they're innocent of the charges, but that simply demonstrates the Infidels Are Always Guilty rule rather than making any muslim feel in any way ashamed of these events. Muslims will cheer and dance in the streets.

The executions must come soon , because if they're already accusing of rape and being shushed, you can figure half of them are pregnent from the rapes and the government doesn't want to deal with that, execution is the only way out.

Christmas Money

Got a xmas card from my new found aunt. I was quite happy to simply stick it under our rather empty looking xmas tree , but my wife insisted we open it.

It's just a card !
$50 bill falls out.

I have to admit. My wife has fast reflexes. The money never touched the floor. I'v never seen her move that fast in my life. "Christmas money !" she called out.

"Errmm... doesn't that card have MY name on it , not yours ?" I asked.

"Well ! " she said. "Oh look , there's another card inside, with my name on it. Rapidly openned it up . "More xmas money !" 25$

"I think some of that is mine at least. " I pointed out.
"You're right. " and she gives me the 25$ "Money money money .. we should send your aunt some cards by way of thank you. "

I look down at the 25$ , not quite sure what has happened.

Later my brother phones about me fixing his computer, and confirms he got his xmas card from our aunt as well. Only since he's single he gets to keep the whole 75$ and not share it with anyone.

*sigh* T'is the season for giving. And it looks like I just unexpectedly gave.

Spy on yourself online

Article


Strange as it may sound, though, soon you may be spying on yourself. Why would anyone want to do that? Entrepreneur Seth Goldstein, whose startup Root Markets aims to create a financial market for consumer data, offers a compelling reason.

"Everybody else is spying on me," he says, "so I want to spy on myself."

But Goldstein wants a better copy of his online behavior than anyone else has, and he wants to have complete control over who gets to see it. Instead of spyware, he calls the software that will let him do this "myware."


You want to spy on yourself, and keep a copy of it all...why ?

Companies like Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo are trying to collect as much information about you as possible. Whenever you sign up with them for a service that requires a password (such as e-mail, My Yahoo, or personalized search), you are laying the groundwork for them to one day track your behavior across different parts of the Web through your online identity. If this information is so valuable, why not collect it yourself?


Ok... so you're collecting it yourself ... to do what ? Sell to advertisers ?


With these principles in mind, Goldstein hopes to bring advertisers and publishers into the mix and create a market for consumer data.


Yup. To sell it to spammers.

Lemme get this stragiht. Your brilliant idea is for me to keep track of my own movements, with your special software (that I doubt you're giving away for free) so that I can sell it for a few pennies (one persons tracked info isn't worth much , but 10 000 peoples info is... it's all in the numbers) to some yahoo's who will fill my email inbox with spam and make my life miserable ?

The hole in this system is, as I mentioned, numbers. On person's "click stream" as you call it , is worth almost nothing. Only when you have tens of thousands of them and you can play a numbers game with them , then do they become worth something. Thus me selling you my information is a waste of time. I'll get what , 5 cents per month , maybe less ? Forget it. Not worth the time I will spend clearing out the extra spam in my in box.

Commentary: Bush must act now on Iraq report

Article


I would begin to send a few combat troops home immediately as a message and embed at least a platoon with every Iraqi battalion, perhaps more. I would make our mission simply to train the Iraqi troops, not combat. I would participate in combat only with the Iraqis -- not on our own -- with some exceptions for Special Forces targeting key "wanted" figures.


You are an idiot.

The iraqi troops are infiltrated to a fair thee well with Sunni's and Shiites who hate each other. The cops stop random people on the street and demand bribes, and soldiers are regularily robbed of their paychecks, when they're not setting up false check points and robbing whoever comes by.

These are the people you want to turn the country over to TODAy ? As in tommorow morning ?


I would not take on Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army, nor Abdul Aziz Hakim's Badr Brigades, but insist that the Iraqi government do so in the political arena and make reconciliation with the Sunnis the priority


Translation : You would stop attacking the terroists with american troops, who always win , and start attacking them with ill trained ill equipped iraqi militia , who always lose. Ooohhh..bright idea there ! That one rings my bell real good !


I would withdraw combat forces slowly over time to Kuwait and the Kurdish area, but begin some immediately.


Dont forget the part where you put ear plugs in your ears to silence the noise of every terroist in the middle east declaring victory over the US infidel.


I would construct the regional group as suggested by the Iraq Study Group and talk to Syria and Iran without pre-conditions while bringing in Jordan, the Gulf oil states, Egypt and Turkey.


Translation : You would talk to a bunch of middle east nations with a long LOOONG track record of being talked to to death and nothing every being accomplished, and probably continue to accomplish nothing.


I would work tirelessly to find a solution to the Iranian nuclear programs -- the "Sword of Damocles" hanging over the region.


Translation : I have no idea what to do about Iran ...let me think about it a while ....


would reinvigorate our diplomacy, a total reversal, directing our State Department to immediately begin talks with all our enemies, as well as our friends, and demand that wherever possible we seek cooperation and alliances rather than engage in unilateral action.


We should umm...talk...yes..talk . I'd like to say talk more, but mostly we've been just talking at the moment to begin with anyways....we'll keep on talking anyway.


Here's why I would do this: We are not winning this war in Iraq and have no possibility of doing so.


You ARE winning the war. Idiot. When the terrorist kill 10 civilians and declare it a victory , and you kill 20 SOLDIERS the next day, and spend all your time mourning that one american died ... well.. you're an idiot. You're a winning idiot , but you're still an idiot.


Though some do not believe it, we went to war because we thought Saddam had weapons of mass destruction


You went to war because the middle east is one big nation that hates you, and the responsibility for 9/11 lies with all of them, not just the afghanistani's.

You invaded afghanistan because they attacked you. The middle east countered by sending terrorists (unsuccessfully) at america to boot you out of Afghanistan , in effect declaring themselves to have the right to attack you anytime they pleased and you to not have the right to even basic self defence.


Our diplomacy has been a disaster. Despite being viciously attacked on 9/11, we are diplomatically isolated, the world's laughing stock and are blamed for everyone's ills.


You're diplomacy has been a disaster from day one. You have half wits demanding countries like India open their borders to tobbaco sales , and using state department people to do it in the obvious name of profit of certain american corperations. Pulling out of iraq isn't going to stop the laughing , but maybe seperating big business and official government offices will.


We need a new course in every dimension. We need to start talking directly and continually to our enemies without pre-conditions: Iran, Syria, North Korea and many others; even the disgusting and vile must be engaged.


You keep saying "we need to start talking.." as if the US hasn't been talking to anyone. From what I read on CNN , they havn't stopped talking to anyone , not even Iran , not even for a moment. Oh they might lack an official ambassadore or two if some nation like Iran ticked them off, but there's always someone to send messages to and the US gets them.


This commission report will not solve the problems in Iraq. It is not a plan. It is imperfect, even vastly flawed and overly simplistic


You're backing a plan you know won't work ? Your idiocy is aproaching epic levels.

Let me tell you something.

If america leaves iraq, it will fall to the Islamics.
They will then attack America itself (they're already
trying ) , and instead of reading in the news once
every few days how a single or maybe two american
soldiers died, you'll be reading about how 20 or 30
american civilians died in a terrorist attack , every day.

The Islamics want you dead. They want all us westerners dead. You can keep the war over there and let them continue to piss off and kill their own civilians , or you can let it come here , and let them start killing western civilians.

There isn't a third option.

CNN instigates revolution in Lebanon

Article

Huge protest pressures Lebanese government

BEIRUT, Lebanon (Reuters) -- Hundreds of thousands of flag-waving protesters flooded central Beirut on Sunday after a call by the Hezbollah-led opposition to step up their 10-day campaign to topple Lebanon's Western-backed government.

Insert pic of proper muslim woman holding a sign , in ENGLISH , reading "3 2 1 Nasrallah the best 1"


"Siniora out," the crowds shouted. "Beirut is free," others yelled as one of the biggest rallies in Lebanon's history kicked off in bright sunshine.


In English too. Almost like they could see the cnn camera man and were putting on a show , just for him. And the Writer of this article seems very happy to cooperte in this mater.


"We will stay for days, weeks or months. Whatever it takes to bring down the government," said Nader Hafez, a 21-year-old Shiite from Beirut.

Again in english. In a country with poor education , high poverty , where only the terrorists who are heading out to other lands speak english.

So how long is CNN going to keep up this nonsense ? How long will they inist on being the propaganda wing of every terrorist group to wander across their path , in the name of increased ratings ?

When are they going to mention that the Hezbollah who organized this is a Terrorist organization , and that they most likely got their protesters by pointing guns at them , and maybe shooting a few as examples, and telling them "I'm gonna shoot your little brother back home if you don't make it look good for the cnn camera's ? "

Nope...that part never gets mentioned. Ever.

So when do we get to sue CNN for crimes against humanity ?

Site Institute

Their URL

This site keeps track of terrorists , you can actually read online publications that the terrorists put out. IT's an eye opening experiance.


Human targets: “We must target and kill the Jews and the Christians, as we say to each combatant of God, his prophet and the believers: We come to slaughter you. Nowadays, we must not be limited by boundaries, or be separated by geography, as each Muslim home is our home, and their territories are our territories. We must transform the Blasphemers’ homes into hell as they did to the Muslim countries. (If you punish, do it the same way you were punished). Therefore, all active entities in the whole world should discard the geographic boundaries set by the enemies. They need to persevere in turning the Blasphemers’ countries into war zones, and keep the blaspheming countries and their agents busy with their issues, as they turned the Muslim countries into experimental fields for their weapons and inventions. Transforming their territories into hell and destruction is a must. With God’s permission, the sons of the Muslim nation are capable of accomplishing that.


I don't think they like us very much. And being christian instead of jewish doesn't help much , they seem to hate christians too.

some of the articles are pretty scary. How to use a rocket propelled grenade , with full diagrams , for example. Exhorting them to kill any fellow muslims that may side with the Infidels (us !) , and so one and so forth.

LOL ! they banned the terrorist web sites. Which I can understand of course. But it's pretty funny to see "popular catagories" and see "Al-qassam Brigades" right next to "Sexy Singles" and "Casino Game" and "Sex Dating". It's obviously an online search engine of some kind capitalizing on mistyped (or banned) entries, but it's funny just the same. (http://www.alqassam.info/) pulled it up)

My opinion :

these guys rule by the sword. Democracy is not a possiblity for them. And so they are doomed. People fear you for only so long, then they get sick of it and decide to do something. For this simple reason , the terrorists are , eventually , doomed.

Oh they will have their day , they will frighten a few people into silence, for a time. but the moment they show any weakness the noise of the silence breaking will be overwhelming. They are reaching out and grabbing someting by brute force, and if their hand slips for even an instant , and it always slips eventually , you lose everything. The people don't want them. The people are tired of being lined up against the wall and shot. (who wouldn't be ? ) The people are tired of a bunch of priests (Imans) telling them what to do and killing anyone who disagree's.

Brute strength is great. But it has no endurance at all. And sooner or later , your hand fails. And then you die. An Islamic Terrorized state is an amazingly brittle thing.