I'm not happy about President Bush, but unless something changes with the Kerry campaign, I'll be voting for him this Fall. Glenn Reynolds managed to touch some of the reason why. He's the Anti-Bush. But that's not a policy statement. He can't do everything that Bush didn't do, and the policies that I know he wants to undo, I don't want undone. (Tax cuts, and "internationalization" of the Iraq effort. The UN is being proven again and again as a corrupt, inept, club for dictators; an...

From Ananova comes this little bit of wackiness " Childless couple told to try sex A German couple who went to a fertility clinic after eight years of marriage have found out why they are still childless - they weren't having sex. " All I can say is, did they avoid every form of media out there?

Seymour Hersh is the man who brough the prisoner abuse scandal to the front pages of most major newspapers, and the TVs of America. He is the prime mover for the scandal. But who is he? Check the linked post for more info. (I hope my readers have figured out some of my views by now...)

Via SSDB comes this gem about workplace harassment. I read it, and all I have to say is that I had better not work there - I enjoy making cryptic references (pop culture, historical, what-have-you).

USS Clueless is just about the first thing I read of a morning. It's the site that I was introduced to blogging by (via the monthly Stardock newsletter, of all things), and I spread out from there. I had read some stuff out of Mr. denBeste's Essential Library, but not his Manifesto. So today's post was the first time I saw this quote from it: I finally realized a while back that to many people the world is a magical mystical place, full of gods and spirits and ghosts, with thing...

The article I linked to tells you ain a few relatively easy steps how to convert a disposable flash-equipped camera into a rough-and ready stun-gun. Note that some of the logic behind gun-control legislation would call for a ban on flash-equipped disposable cameras as being convertible to offensive uses, and no doubt the TSA will start banning them in carry-on luggage.

So I'm reading Carnival of the Cats Link and I realize that while I am limited in my own catblogging by lack of camera, there's no reason I can't pass on other peoples' catblogs (which I guess is the point of Carnival of the Cats. Anyway, I present - The Auto-Tracking Self-Propelled Flycatcher!

As should be obvious by perusing my archives, I would rather have President Bush win in November than Senator Kerry (or Nader, for that matter). So I am immensly cheered whenever Senator Kerry makes a verbal misstep or otherwise stumbles in public (witness his recent dissembling about the ownership of the family SUV in Montana, the kerfuffle surrounding his Vietnam service etc). However, on the other hand, President Bush doesn't seem to be doing all that well himself. Admittedly, I'm spend...

I've been trying out on my laptop the past fews days an internet browser called Avantbrowser. It runs over top of IE (you have to have IE installed, etc), and has several features that IE does not. It uses the MDI interface to give tabbed browsing in IE, has a pop-up blocker, a form filler, and a search bar similar to the google bar, except that you can specify your search engine. I've been playing with it for a bit, and like it enough that it is currently my default browser. Try it out - ...

To my loyal readers (but no loyal commentors, sadly). I've been away from my computer most of this week, and plan to be away for a while more. I'm visiting with my mother this week, helping her update the home network, and adding a new server, a new domain forest, and all kinds of fun stuff. And learning how on the fly, which is really exciting! On the other hand, learning it is useful, I get to add Windows 2003 Server to my resume. Go me

I haven't been inspired to write something of my own recently, so I'll link to this Christopher Hitchens piece in Slate. Every so often I do venture to read Slate, and this one struck me as interesting.

I don't have much to add to this.

Go see it, I'll be here when you get back.

And then the world explodes. Well, maybe not, but at least you can have the bike.

So I look at this table, and I really want to know - where's the tax breaks for the rich? (Note - this is TOTAL federal tax burden, not just income tax). Looks to me like the rich pay most of the taxes (top 20% pay 65% of the taxes, and the top 40% pay over 80% (!) of total federal taxes. Even if you define the middle class as the three middle quintiles (which I doubt it actually is, most places), those quintiles on tot up to 33%. If the poor are the two lowest quintiles (lowest 40% of the...