Kuma:War News: "'What we did was get on-the-ground photos, satellite images and so on to model the building exactly. You put that all together, provide all the info for the user to consider the alternatives, to see the place as the soldiers there did, and then you perhaps understand why they didn't storm the building, how it could have meant a lot of troops getting shot...


'We live between being the news and being a game,' adds Halper. 'We wanted to put people in the middle of situations they read about or see on TV so as to better understand them. People submerge themselves in games, so they're important in terms of the emotional perspective they can offer. And to win them you need a grasp of the strategic detail that is often hard to grasp when presented through normal news channels. This is a potentially very powerful adjunct to traditional media.'"

.NET starts to hit stride with developer community

At VSLive! 2004 Microsoft Lures Developers with Productivity: "Finally, despite the recent pushback of Whidbey's release until 2005, (based on the number of crashes during demos, that's a good thing), it's apparent that Visual Studio, the .NET framework, Microsoft's major languages (C# and VB.NET), and a host of ancillary tools are making rapid strides that will result in more productive development and more stable applications. The overarching theme of both Bill Gates' keynote and the subsequent presenters is that one of Whidbey's main goals is to reduce the amount of code that developers are required to write. If the sample apps shown in the presentations are an accurate guide, they've succeeded"

Macromedia flexes Flash muscle | CNET News.com: "Macromedia released on Monday a new server product intended to expand the use of its Flash format for presenting Web applications.
Flex, formerly code-named Royale, allows developers to create scripts in common languages such as Java and .Net and to run them on top of Web applications. Flex breaks them down into a Macromedia dialect of extensible markup language (XML) that can be read by the Flash Player, the widespread Flash client commonly used to spice up Web pages.
Jeff Whatcott, a vice president of product management and marketing for Macromedia, said the main use for Flex will be to create compelling and attractive interfaces for Web applications, an area that often gets overlooked by developers. "

Yeah baby: Mach 7
Making History: NASA's X-43A Scramjet Streaks Across Sky: "While tests results are still being analyzed, the X-43A was expected to fly under its own power at seven times the speed of sound -- nearly 5,000 miles per hour. The X-43A fell into Pacific Ocean waters within a restricted test zone"

Ballroom Blitz
Sweet:

Are you ready, Steve? Aha.
Andy? Yeah! Mick? OK.
Alright, fellas, let's go!
Oh it's been getting so hard
Livin' with the things you do to me, aha
Oh my dreams are getting so strange
I'd like to tell you everything I see
Oh, I see a man at the back
As a matter of fact his eyes are red as the sun
And a girl in the corner let no one ignore her
'Cause she thinks she's the passionate one
Oh, yeah, it was like lightning, everybody was frightening
And the music was soothing, and they all started grooving
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah
And the man at the back said
Everyone attack and it turned into a ballroom blitz
And the girl in the corner said
Boy, I wanna warn ya, it'll turn into a ballroom blitz
Ballroom blitz, ballroom blitz, ballroom blitz
Ballroom blitz
I'm reaching out for something
Touching nothing's all I ever do
Oh, I softly call you over
When you appear there's nothing left of you, aha
Now the man in the back
Is ready to crack as he raises his hands to the sky
And the girl in the corner is ev'ryone's mourner
She could kill you with a wink of her eye
Oh yeah, it was electric, so frightfully hectic
And the band started leaving, 'cause they all stopped breathing
Refrain
Oh yeah, it was like lightning, everybody was frightening
And the music was soothing, and they all started grooving
Refrain
It's it's a ballroom blitz, it's it's a ballroom blitz
It's it's a ballroom blitz, yeah, it's a ballroom blitz"

Microsoft's aggressive search plans revealed | CNET News.com: "Yusuf Medhi, MSN's corporate vice president of information and merchant services, spoke about the company's 'big investment' in search. He highlighted MSN's recent release of a search toolbar for the browser and its new News Search, which aims to deliver more relevant results using personalization. "

The Epoch Times :: The High Cost of China's Laogai: "Free and Endless Supply of Workers
China?s booming economy continues to increase through its use of slave labor or Laogai camps. Laogai means ?reform through labor.? It?s a system of prison factories and detention centers set up by former Chinese leader Mao Zedong during the 1950?s as a means to re-educate through labor and increase economic gain for the People?s Republic of China. As of 1979, there were apparently only several thousand people being forced to work in the Laogai system. Today it has become an enormous source of free labor and financial profit for the Chinese government. According to estimates from the Laogai Research Foundation, there are 6.8 million people incarcerated in China?s 1,100 labor institutions."

NASA - Latest Update: X-43A Flight: "The unpiloted 12-foot-long X-43A vehicle, part aircraft and part spacecraft, will be dropped from the wing of a B-52 aircraft, lofted to nearly 100,000 feet by a booster rocket and released over the Pacific Ocean to briefly fly under its own power at seven times the speed of sound (almost 5,000 mph).

The flight is part of the Hyper-X program, a research effort designed to demonstrate alternate propulsion technologies for access to space and high-speed flight within the atmosphere.

Hyper-X is inherently a high-risk program. No vehicle has ever flown at hypersonic speeds powered by an air-breathing scramjet engine. In addition, the rocket boost and subsequent separation from the rocket to get to the scramjet test condition have complex elements that must work properly for the mission to be successful."

Ok, these guys are ppretty good satirists, for Candians:

The Iconoclast: "In his homily yesterday during a memorial service for Palestinian suicide bombers, the Right Reverend Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, denounced Mel Gibson's film 'The Passion of the Christ' as being 'overtly pro-Christian.'

'This film is going to have a devastating effect on Anglicanism worldwide,' said Reverend Williams. 'Impressionable persons may be unduly influenced and actually begin attending church. And it would be a great tragedy if the Church had to divert its precious resources away from protesting against capitalism and democracy and use them instead for religious purposes.' The Archbishop became angry at this point and interjected,' I didn't enter the ministry to promote the so-called Gospel of someone who allegedly lived 2000 years ago. I became a priest in order to empower gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transsexuals, heathens and persons with a fondness for sheep!'

In related news, the Right reverend Percy Bigglesworth, Bishop Co-Adjutor for the Diocese of Provincetown and Fire Island, yesterday denounced Gibson's film for having no clearly identifiable gay or lesbian characters and for showing Mary Magdalene's former profession as sex worker in a negative light.

William Grim for Iconoclast"

This blog post and its attendant reader commnets will give you a whole month's worth of military updates to ponder:

Winds of Change.NET: The Networked Force: "'Second, the key variable in future American military operations aren't platforms or precision guided munitions, but network bandwidth connecting intelligent people. The bigger and faster the sensor/shooter/C3I network, the nastier and deadlier it becomes. The really interesting thing to see is what happens when the 4th Mechanized (Mech.) Infantry Division's land combat data system comes into use and we then add 'Land Warrior' infantry to it. We are talking a half an order of magnitude increase in combat network size compared to the heavily touted theater air power networks of the Iraq war from the 4th Mech's combat vehicles alone. Combat infantry added to that bumps it up to a full order of magnitude larger."

Learn where not to go by going here:

TCS: Tech Central Station - Red Sox Technologies: "This essay is about technologies, like micropayments, that perennially let down their diehard fans. Technologies that always seem so promising, but never live up to their potential. Technologies whose advocates say only need to be a little cheaper, a little easier to use, or to add a few more features, but they always seem to fall just short. In making their pre-season predictions, pundits will say this could be their year, but in the end there is disappointment. Woulda, coulda, shoulda. Red Sox Technologies.

The List

Here is a list of some well-known Red Sox technologies.

Micropayments
E-books
Speech Recognition
Video Conferencing
Social Networking Software
Virtual Classrooms

All of these seem to represent outstanding opportunities. Initial attempts to solve the problems go back years, even decades. "

Embrace and extend... indeed!

Microsoft looks to unite PC, Xbox games | CNET News.com: "Microsoft announced a new set of development standards and tools Wednesday intended to cover both PC games and titles for the company's Xbox console.
Speaking at the Game Developers Conference here, Microsoft executives said the new XNA platform would make it easier for game developers to handle the technical aspects of creating games and would allow them to begin working now with the tools they'll use for next-generation titles"

Onfolio Web Tool Fine-Tunes Old Idea: "The purpose of Onfolio is to gather information for research, capture Web sites as links or in MHT format and get other elements, such as document files and graphics, in their native format.
The Professional version has an authoring tool, which I used to compile information in a report that I could distribute via e-mail or publish on the Web. The publishing options include posting to a Web site via FTP, publishing to a shared folder or sending to an RSS feed. "

GUIOlympics: The International XP Visual Styles skinning competition!: "The GUI Olympics is an inter-website contest in which top graphics designers from around the world compete for $15,000 in cash and prizes. This year's contest focuses on WindowBlinds visual styles, IconPackager Icons, and Winamp 5 skin. Anyone can participate as an individual or part of a team."

Ah, spring is in the air, and the classic Weber charcoal range beckon me to find a good cut, some seasonings and the starter fluid. It's all part of the good and ancient rite of grilling-- and older habit than I would've guessed:

Telegraph | News | The roast that's 1.5m years old: "Scientists have confirmed that our primitive ancestors were roasting meat up to 1.5 million years ago, marking the oldest evidence of the controlled use of fire."

He shoots,...he scores! day after day, I don't know how the guy does it... Witness the Cheney metaphor, then read the rest when you have time read and enjoy:

LILEKS (James)::The Bleat:
"I heard four speeches this week ? one by Carville before some firefighters, screaming like cat that had been dipped in turpentine; one from Kerry about something or other (it?s hard to stick with it; he sounds like a 45 RPM record played at 33 1/, and you keep making revolving-hand motions in the hopes you can somehow, like a butterfly that flutters its wings in Brazil and causes typhoons in Tahiti, cause him to pick up the pace a little); one from Dick Cheney, and one from Bush. Cheney?s speech was tailor-made for his speaking style, which consists of pressing the point of the sword into the opponant?s arguments and slowly pushing the entire blade in with steady force. Bush?s speech had many thick sheets of boilerplate, but it had economy and optimism. "

MiG-23 Flogger: "From the 1970s to the 1980s, the MiG-23 was the Soviet Union's most capable tactical fighter."

Derb rants on the Congress as only a new American can. "(Love those capitalized substantives!)" indeed.. Refreshing Stuff:

John Derbyshire: On Congress: National Review Online:
"Now, I know, of course, what the Congress is supposed to be for. Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution spells it out. 'To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States... etc., etc., etc.' The problem is, Congress either isn't doing the things it's supposed to do, or is doing them so excruciatingly badly it would be better they were not done at all. Take a look.
'To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water.'

I confess I am not sure about the Letters of Marque and Reprisal � possibly the assembled Senators and Representatives granted a few while I was busy providing for the day that was passing over me; but when was the last time they plucked up the courage to declare War? (Love those capitalized substantives!)"

Damned if you do, damned if you don't... it's enough to want to make me go back to my more nihilistic days in the 80s. In this earthly life, we all sense the futility of being buff, pious or both:

The New Atlantis:Restless Souls:Peter A. Lawler:
"Indeed, we already see that as high technology increasingly makes our lives longer and more secure we become in many ways more anxious and risk-averse than ever. We live in a time when well-educated and prosperous Americans are nonjudgmental about everything but health and safety?bout these we are increasingly paranoid, prohibitionist, and puritanical.

If perfect or more perfect bodies will not make us happy, we might as well try to perfect our souls. According to Aristotle, we do that through the practice of moral virtue. But one of the downsides of living in an increasingly high-tech society is that both virtue and opportunities to act virtuously seem to be in short supply. So, for us, perfecting our soul has come to mean employing psychotherapy of various kinds to feel good without having to be good. We can now hope to use biotechnology to bring our memories and moods under our conscious control. And mood control is more fundamental than memory control: we need not fear our memories if we can keep them from making us feel bad."

Peggy Noonan interviews James Caviezel:

OpinionJournal - Peggy Noonan: "'Did you ever read the pope's Letter to the Artists of the World? I read it several times when I was a young actor. It was very important to me. It came out and I remember what he said is that part of the truth, right, is accepting--you can't just write about darkness and say 'This is the way it is,' because light always comes through. It must. If you went into a 40,000-foot warehouse, even if you just light a match the match pierces the darkness. It pierces even in the vast amount of darkness. As I see it, the movie is a light, it is a match. "

More documentation of the North Korean madness:

William C. Triplett on North Korea on National Review Online: "Was it necessary for the North Koreans to seek international aid? A high-ranking North Korean defector reported that the Dear Leader spent almost a billion dollars on a Memorial Hall glorifying his dead father. These sorts of projects continued unabated throughout the worst of the famine. In 1996, the Agency for International Development, an arm of the State Department, hired an experienced researcher, Sue Lautze, to examine the food situation in North Korea. She traveled over much of the country including the border region. When her draft report concluded that the Kim regime had the foreign currency reserves to pay for its own food imports but that these financial reserves had been spent on weapons instead, the State Department, then headed by Secretary Albright, ordered a revision of the report before releasing it."

A Biological Dig for the Roots of Language: "The age of proto-Indo-European bears on a longstanding archaeological dispute. Some researchers, following the lead of Dr. Marija Gimbutas, who died in 1994, believe that the Indo-European languages were spread by warriors moving from their homeland in the Russian steppes, north of the Black and Caspian Seas, some time after 6,000 years ago.
A rival theory, proposed by Dr. Colin Renfrew of the University of Cambridge, holds that the Indo-Europeans were the first farmers who lived in ancient Turkey and that their language expanded not by conquest but with the spread of agriculture some 10,000 to 8,000 years ago.
Dr. Gray's date, if accepted, would support the Renfrew position."

Doing something about it

This organization is actively seeking change in North Korea. Link below is to their homepage:

to U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea: "Political Penal Labor Colonies kwan-li-so
In political penal-labor colonies known as kwan-li-so, tens of thousands of political prisoners are banished and work as slaves in mining, logging and farming enterprises. Along with the political prisoners, up to three generations of their families also are banished without trial?usually for lifetime sentences. This practice can be explained by a 1972 statement by ?Great Leader? Kim Il Sung, who said, ?Factionalists or enemies of class, whoever they are, their seed must be eliminated through three generations.?"

North Korean depravity, from part 3 in the weekly series:

William C. Triplett on North Korea on National Review Online: "North Korea also has such a gulag system. North Korea built on the Chinese model and added a new depravity ? child political prisoners. Neither the Soviets nor the Chinese sent children to the concentration camps but the Dear Leader sends the entire family. One of the best accounts of the North Korean gulag is written by someone who was sent to the camps at the age of nine, because his grandfather had offended the system. His sister was only seven; she was also sent to prison."

Dissecting Leftism: "Che Guevara is still worshipped by the young Leftists of Western universities but as a Cuban writes of him: 'He did not have any business in Cuba but he went there to kill Cubans. He did not have any business in Africa but he went there to kill Africans. He did not have any business in Bolivia, but he went there to kill Bolivians, where he eventually died on his own sword.... As far as I am concerned, Ernesto Guevara was the Bin Laden of his time.... It will be very insulting for millions of people if, 30 years from now, they were to see in the streets people wearing Bin Laden T-shirts, as it is now for us to see people using Che Guevara's T-shirts.'"

Randal Robinson: Kerry Campaign Poster of the Day

MetaCarta, Inc. - Geographical Text Searching - Editorials: "MetaCarta, a company based in Boston, uses a text search algorithm that retrieves content based on geographic keywords. Its flagship product, the Geographic Text Search (GTS), has the ability to confine searches by geography and retrieve information that it detects using the keywords, and then displays this information geographically on a map interface."

Imaginary Foreign Leader Endorsement:
"Have you ever been caught in a lie while running for President of the United States? If you want to make a current president jealous, look better in front of your political buddies who have real foreign relations experience, or if you are just a liar who got called out on your bogus campaign lies, this is the auction for you!!! I�ll pretend that I am the leader of a foreign nation that supports your candidacy for President of the United States until the elections in November."

I can see for miles and miles
A movie or a game on that screen? They're getting very close to blurring the line, at long last.

Forbes.com: Graphics Chips Get More Graphic:
"'It will be a kind of convergence between the tools of movie rendering and game rendering,' says John Carmack, technical director of ID Software in Mesquite, Tex., which created the software used to design Doom 3.

A graphics chip displays not only two-dimensional images like digital photos, but also video and 3-D graphics, which are now standard in high-end computer games. "

The Ladies Home Journal, too? A review of interesting book on the inside of modern women's magazines and their agends:

New York Post Online Edition: postopinion: "Blyth writes with verve about her former colleagues and their steady servings of the 'Female Fear Factor' to America's women - mostly about possible hazards: Deadly manicures, killer plastic wrap on the kids' lunch sandwiches, Mr. Clean attacks.
And the specialty of women's mags, says Blyth - who knows too well, having assigned some of them - is 'stories that make you afraid to cross the threshold of a hospital, trust your doctor or take your medicine.' "

Must-read article series this week at NRO on the dictatorship in North Korea. Sttart at the beginning:

William C. Triplett on North Korea on National Review Online: "North Korean children are taught that Kim Jung Il, the Dear Leader, was born at a secret military base at the foot of a sacred mountain in North Korea and that double rainbows appeared at his birth. In fact, there never was such a secret military base; he was born at a dismal military post in Siberia where his father was then serving in the Soviet army. In order to make the father into a war hero, the Soviets produced a series of faked documents and even a legend of his exploits. The North Korean propagandists have expanded and extrapolated these lies to give the Great Leader the aura of a god."

A long year on from the liberation of Iraq, VDH explores the ironies:

Victor Davis Hanson on Iraq National Review Online:
"The truth is that almost everybody in the world believes that the war had something to do with WMDs and nothing to do with Halliburton ? except Western leftists. By going into Iraq we probably will find more dangerous weapons in Libya than were stockpiled in Baghdad. The president argued that we must depose Saddam Hussein to prevent scary weapons from being used by rogue regimes. He did so, and suddenly Dr. Khan, Khaddafi, and even a few mullahs seemed to wish to come clean."

A Small Victory shares some excellent insights on the Left's words and actions these days. The exhaustion of their sad ideology seems to me to be complete. (Thx to Instapundit):

A Small Victory: Winds of Black Hate: "The left no longer have causes. They have anti-causes."

The End Game? Let's all hope so.

FOXNews.com - strong>U.S. Launches New Afghanistan Operation: "The U.S. military on Saturday announced a sweeping new operation across troubled southern and eastern Afghanistan, with the aim of destroying Al Qaeda and the Taliban and ultimately reeling in Usama bin Laden (search).
The offensive comes as Americans step up their hunt for the Al Qaeda leader and his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri (search), who are believed to be hiding out in the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
'We believe this will help bring the heads of the terrorist organizations to justice, by continuing placing pressure on them,' said Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty (search), a U.S. military spokesman.
The operation, however, was 'about more than one person,' he said. Hilferty said American forces were confident they will eventually catch the Al Qaeda leadership as well as Taliban chief Mullah Mohammed Omar, but not necessarily during the new operation.
Hilferty also said U.S. forces are involved in what he described as a 'small scale air assault' in southern Afghanistan, but would not give details about the location or the target.
A senior Afghan army commander in southern Kandahar province, Haji Granai, told The Associated Press that U.S. aircraft attacked a pickup truck carrying 12 suspected Taliban in Kandahar province on Thursday, killing them all. Granai said the American planes swooped down on the truck near Sami Ghar in Maruf district, some 160 miles east of Kandahar city. Suspected Taliban militants killed seven Afghan soldiers in a raid on a border post in Maruf on Mar. 3.
The U.S. military had no immediate comment.
The overall operation, dubbed 'Mountain Storm,' officially began Sunday and was open-ended, Hilferty said. He said the entire 13,500-strong U.S.-led coalition was involved.
While bin Laden's whereabouts have been the subject of intens"

Ah, my early role model:

Captain Kangaroo / Tom Terrific: "If you remember Tom you'll remember that he had a funnel on top of his head, and when he was upset steam came out of the top of his head/funnel. I think that is where all my memory has gone, up out of an imaginary funnel on top of my head! Thanks for any info you can provide.' "

Obit of the Week, from James Taranto's "Best of the Web," Opinion Journal Online:

George Pake, Computer Pioneer, Dies at 79: "George E. Pake, a physicist who assembled a team of extraordinary computer researchers while serving as the first director of the Palo Alto Research Center of the Xerox Corporation, died last Thursday at his home in Tucson. He was 79.

The cause was multiple system failure, said his daughter, Catherine Pake."

Peggy Noonan has some timely advice in today's WSJ/OpinionJournal (no link, registration required):

"The one thing cable TV can't resist, and can't ignore even if it comes from a Republican, is wit. Wit brightens their copy. They love humor and joy. They will use a pithy putdown over and over. That's why Mr. Bush got so much mileage out of even a wan joke about Mr. Kerry having been in Washington long enough to take two sides on every issue.

Mr. President, keep it up but do it better.

Don't make the country mad at John Kerry, make them laugh at John Kerry. And use wit not only for wit's sake but to make political and philosophical points.

This year comedy's a cannon. It's the only thing right now that will break through the media wall."

Hmmm... looks like a clash of cultures is about to take place between the RSS and the Digital Rights Management camps. Bumped into the latter camp at www. forges.com, trying to search for an old article. Hmmm...

RSiCopyright.com - Instant Clearance Service:
"PUBLISHERS:
We help you protect, license and track who is using your content."

Uh-oh... dropped out in September 2003....

William Gibson:
"Time for me to get back to my day job, which means that it?s time for me to stop blogging.

I?ve found blogging to be a low-impact activity, mildly narcotic and mostly quite convivial, but the thing I?ve most enjoyed about it is how it never fails to underline the fact that if I?m doing this I?m definitely not writing a novel ? that is, if I?m still blogging, I?m definitely still on vacation. I?ve always known, somehow, that it would get in the way of"

Salon.com deserves to be what Salon.com is, but this classic by Heather Cochran from 2002 makes me pop back in there once in a while:

Salon.com Technology
I come to bury IAmCarbonatedMilk.com, not to praise it:
"At the height of the dot-com boom, the promise of Internet riches was so pervasive that otherwise rational people got caught in the frenzy, grabbing domain names with little consideration for the niggling details of the business beneath -- details such as potential market, competition, and branding. Can there be any other explanation for HugsAndHeartstrings.com?

We can see now that predictions of vast hordes emptying their wallets online were slightly overzealous. In truth, even spotty profitability was too optimistic for many of these ill-conceived businesses, and some were doomed from the get-go. Certain problems were ingrained in the very choice of domain name. Was Edwardswine.com registered by a vintner or a pig farmer? What service was going to be offered at Thepenismightier.com?"

Daniel Casse reviews Rise of the Vulcans in today's WSJ OpinionJournal:

OpinionJournal - Leisure & Arts:
"At a time when political reporting seems intent on shrinking every story about foreign affairs into a battle of hawks and doves, 'Rise of the Vulcans' is a much-needed antidote: a work of serious intellectual history and a nuanced analysis of the debates that will continue to shape American foreign policy long after the Vulcans themselves have left the stage.
Mr. Casse, a senior director of the White House Writers Group, served as a special assistant for cabinet affairs to President George H.W. Bush. You can buy 'Rise of the Vulcans' at the OpinionJournal bookstore."

An Englishman in D.C. discovers some old truths to be be self-evident:

Crisis Magazine:
"On a political level, America has struck me as a nation founded on a simple but profound belief in human life, liberty, and dignity. The Declaration of Independence clearly states that the source of all our rights is ?our Creator.? It has not always lived up to this in practice but?at least in its rhetoric?it?s willing consistently to champion the cause of freedom."

Whoa.. high design at a very cool website (check out the little thumbnails for demo effects):

Screampoint LLC -
5D Systems For Real Estate

OK, this is the qualitative stuff that us non-quantitative people can handle. Just fascinating:

Wired News:
Red, Blue, Green and Other Sounds:
"Scientists may know an encyclopedia's worth about the mechanics of vision but they still can't explain how all those neurons firing give people their qualitative sense of sight. They can't even describe 'red' to someone who hasn't experienced it before."

There she goes (there she goes again)!
HUMAN EVENTS ONLINE :: The Passion of the Liberal by Ann Coulter:
"...Jesus' distinctive message was: People are sinful and need to be redeemed, and this is your lucky day because I'm here to redeem you even though you don't deserve it, and I have to get the crap kicked out of me to do it. That is the reason He is called 'Christ the Redeemer' rather than 'Christ the Moron Driving Around in a Volvo With a 'Be Nice to People' Bumper Sticker on It.' "

The Right Direction
George Weigel on Catholic Church & Clerical Abuse Report on National Review Online:
"George Weigel thinks the U.S. bishops' National Review Board has turned out a report that is a 'real service to the Church' as Catholics face the question of genuinely Catholic reform "

Steyn for all time:
: "That's my basic rule: whatever the problem, the government's a bigger one. Those cultists at Waco may have been a bit kooky (whoops), but they didn't deserve to get immolated by Janet Reno's stooges. If she'd opened fire on a gay bathhouse instead of a Branch Davidian compound, you'd never have heard the end of it from the media Lefties."

A little more Michael Novak after Sunday's post of his recent "Catholic article:
Amazon.com: Books: On Two Wings: Humble Faith and Common Sense at the American Founding: "Michael Novak points out in this brilliant book about the birth of the American idea that the very first act of the Continental Congress in September, 1774, was to pray to Divine Providence for insight on how to respond to news of the British bombardment of Boston. In setting a course for republican self-government, the founders not only believed that they were acting reasonably but that they were carrying out God's commandment. As Benjamin Franklin said, 'Rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God.'"

Fire & Brimstone makes a comeback: DAVID BROOKS
Op-Ed Columnist: Hooked on Heaven Lite

Never forget 9/11? Some would rather we forget. Lee Harris is spot on as he describes the derangement of the Left:

"... I am referring back to the 9/11 that occurred on a beautiful morning over two and a half years ago. And our most urgent question today is: What should we as a nation do with our collective memory from that day?

Increasingly the answer that is being given to this question by liberal Democrats is simple, Repress it. Push it out of our mind. Pretend that it never happened; or if you absolutely must refer to 9/11, pretend it was something along the lines of an earthquake or a freakish tidal wave -- a natural disaster without the slightest political implications. A tragedy, of course, but something we should all put behind us and move on."

Read on: TCS: Tech Central Station - Repressing 9-11

Michael Novak writes an article ostensibly about politics, but not really. I have yet to find a better concise recognition of Catholic values in the US. So many things resonated for me as a Catholic, it was really a pleasant shock of self-recognition.

Sample this:

"Ronald Reagan... had an unerring instinct for the way Catholics talk about life, a way that is significantly (if subtly) different from the mainstream Protestant way. Protestants seem to like to talk about the "individual," preferably a little rugged, disciplined, enterprising, and responsible � and such talk is true to life, and all well and good, and Catholics, too, can get the hang of it. But the Catholic preoccupation is the "family," for when things have gone well in the family during the past thousand years, everyone has been happier and better off, and when things have gone badly, nothing tastes as good, not even success. For a thousand years, most Catholics, wherever their ancestors were then, learned to trust the family as the most reliable of all institutions, and thought it much better than sheer loneliness and isolation as an individual. "

Now read this:
Michael Novak on Catholics & Voting on National Review Online: "Catholic"

FSACNIATNIG, according to a reader of Jonah Goldberg of NRO:

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

This is still not excuse for not spell-checking your emails.

See NRO See The Corner at National Review Online

And here is the result of that search:
X1 Search - from Download.com - Free downloads, shareware, and more.

Here's the thing: your hard drive is a mess, no matter how had you try to tame all those files and folders with your obscure personal taxonomy. Need help as bad as I do?

From a tip from John Battelle's SearchBlog, sending me to Joho the Blog, sending me to Google for the sourch of this wonderful desktop search utility called X1:
Joho the Blog: X1 gears up

So if Billy Crystal can do it every year at the Oscars, why can't the rest of us?
FOXNews.com

More visual puzzles
American Scientist Online - Bouncing Out of Bounds

Now, here's a tardy admission from the scientific community, and much more to to the point of this blog experiement: how do we leverage all this new knowledge, and how do we integrate idata into a coherent model accessible to and available to all?

Read on:
American Scientist Online - Visualizing Data

Here's the offical voting record for our favored son from Mass:
Voting history for Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts

THIS guy is the best the Dems can muster from their ranks? For President? Of the US? John Kerry's Waffles - If you don't like the Democratic nominee's views, just wait a week. By Michael�Grunwald

Another reason to focus our attention on this putrid little regime in North Korea:
The Seattle Times: Nation & World: Effects of famine: Short stature evident in North Korean generation