To read the tribute to SFC Marcus Muralles, please click here
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
Will someone give a speech or something?
No fisking this morning... just a tour around the news.
A judge in Yemen sentenced two men to death for the attack on the USS Cole. Four other men were sentenced to prision terms as well. Nice to know someone over there is on our side.
Two Italian charity workers were released by their captors in Iraq and have returned to Italy. There is still speculation about whether or not a ransom was paid. The women said that they were treated well and that their captors were teaching them about Islam. Conversion at gunpoint?
John Walker Lindh wants President Bush to commute his 20 year sentence. He thinks that because the US released Hamdi that they should release him, too. But I don't see Lindh's family agreeing to the whole "go away, denounce Al Qaeda and never come back" deal Hamdi struck. I could be wrong, but...
Now for the lightning round... Election coverage in a nutshell... Fasten your seatbelts...
Kerry needs to win the "persuadable" vote. (I can't help but think that if you don't know by now, you're not going to figure it out in the next month. One in five voters are persuadable? Yikes!) John Edwards tries to appeal to Security Moms (any takers besides the Moms on a Mission? Didn't think so.) Veterans for Kerry tried to deliver a letter to Mrs. Bush at a rally in Oregon, but were turned away (oh, yeah... the Secret Service is just gonna hand something over to Mrs. Bush... they're not the USPS, folks!) Kerry is giving up on Missouri (woohoo!). George Soros is on a mission, a mission from... well, not God. Networks are not happy with some of the debate rules, and they have no intention of obeying them (while I can see their point, I can also see why those rules are a good idea... we'll see what happens). Al Gore offers some advice on debating the President (Great idea! Getting debate advice from a tree!)(good luck accessing the article with BugMeNot- ed). This on the other hand is a great op-ed on the debate (funny, and I agree with it. Can you get any better than that?) Psychic dogs have predicted a Bush victory by 15% (don't laugh [much]! They've got it right before...) Cox & Forkum takes on the draft and the election (and hits it dead on, as usual.)The Bush/Cheney campaign is going to make bloggers' jobs a little easier Thursday night (makes me wish I could live blog the debate!) Florida officials call former President Jimmah Carter a liar because of his accusations ( I don't know that I'd call them "paranoid fantasies"- I think delusional mental wanderings is a bit kinder.) Soldiers on the ground in Iraq are "terrified of a Kerry presidency" (them and us, both). And, finally, MadTV has its take on the debates (ok, I really dislike them making Bush out to be a dunce... but it was REALLY funny...)
OK... back to the stuff I need a little more room to comment on...
Kerry tried to explain his "I voted for it before I voted against it" statement. If I understand him (yeah, right!), his "no" vote was a protest. He knew it would pass, so he felt safe to vote "no" to show his displeasure with the funding. So... he was making a statement and it came back to bite him in the rump. OK. (For the record, this is another reason I could never be a politician. I would vote my conviction, no matter what. Guess I'm not nuanced enough.
)
One last election item... a candidate for Congress from Illinois is taking a stand. Not only does he believe that Islam is the enemy, he's actually saying it out loud. He probably won't win, but cudos to him for having the guts to say what many people feel.
Now... for everything else...
The Barenaked Ladies are going to do a variety show. This could either be terribly funny or terribly horrible. I'm leaning toward the latter rather than the former.
IBM's latest supercomputer, Blue Gene, has broken the speed record with a brain-straining 36 terraflops. [As a reference, the laptop I'm using right now is probably doing 600 million flops- "floating point operations" per second. This blue beast of a machine can maintain 36 TRILLION (36,000,000,000,000) flops. In comparison, the human brain handles (a rough estimate here) over 10 quadrillion flops (add 3 more zeros)] Hubby plans on having one just as fast on his desktop within 20 years. I doubt it will take that long.
A laser injured a pilot on approach to SLC International Airport. At first, I thought this was a "black helicopter/ aliens are coming to get us" kind of article, but it's real. Evidently, pilots can get zapped from laser light shows and stuff like that. Or aliens are conducting experiments on the poor guy.
A five foot tall statue of Jesus washed up on a sandbar in the Rio Grande is being called "miraculous." People are calling the statue "The Christ of the Undocumented." If it really was the "Christ of the Undocumented" it wouldn't be sitting in a police department- the police never would have picked him up. (was that bad? can't say I'm sorry.)
A town in Mexico is advertising for an army... of cats.
Marge Simpson will be giving a Christmas message on BBC Channel 4 at the same time that the Queen will give her Christmas address. I can't make stuff like this up, people.
Where's the coffee? I need a refill...
A judge in Yemen sentenced two men to death for the attack on the USS Cole. Four other men were sentenced to prision terms as well. Nice to know someone over there is on our side.
Two Italian charity workers were released by their captors in Iraq and have returned to Italy. There is still speculation about whether or not a ransom was paid. The women said that they were treated well and that their captors were teaching them about Islam. Conversion at gunpoint?
John Walker Lindh wants President Bush to commute his 20 year sentence. He thinks that because the US released Hamdi that they should release him, too. But I don't see Lindh's family agreeing to the whole "go away, denounce Al Qaeda and never come back" deal Hamdi struck. I could be wrong, but...
Now for the lightning round... Election coverage in a nutshell... Fasten your seatbelts...
Kerry needs to win the "persuadable" vote. (I can't help but think that if you don't know by now, you're not going to figure it out in the next month. One in five voters are persuadable? Yikes!) John Edwards tries to appeal to Security Moms (any takers besides the Moms on a Mission? Didn't think so.) Veterans for Kerry tried to deliver a letter to Mrs. Bush at a rally in Oregon, but were turned away (oh, yeah... the Secret Service is just gonna hand something over to Mrs. Bush... they're not the USPS, folks!) Kerry is giving up on Missouri (woohoo!). George Soros is on a mission, a mission from... well, not God. Networks are not happy with some of the debate rules, and they have no intention of obeying them (while I can see their point, I can also see why those rules are a good idea... we'll see what happens). Al Gore offers some advice on debating the President (Great idea! Getting debate advice from a tree!)(good luck accessing the article with BugMeNot- ed). This on the other hand is a great op-ed on the debate (funny, and I agree with it. Can you get any better than that?) Psychic dogs have predicted a Bush victory by 15% (don't laugh [much]! They've got it right before...) Cox & Forkum takes on the draft and the election (and hits it dead on, as usual.)The Bush/Cheney campaign is going to make bloggers' jobs a little easier Thursday night (makes me wish I could live blog the debate!) Florida officials call former President Jimmah Carter a liar because of his accusations ( I don't know that I'd call them "paranoid fantasies"- I think delusional mental wanderings is a bit kinder.) Soldiers on the ground in Iraq are "terrified of a Kerry presidency" (them and us, both). And, finally, MadTV has its take on the debates (ok, I really dislike them making Bush out to be a dunce... but it was REALLY funny...)
OK... back to the stuff I need a little more room to comment on...
Kerry tried to explain his "I voted for it before I voted against it" statement. If I understand him (yeah, right!), his "no" vote was a protest. He knew it would pass, so he felt safe to vote "no" to show his displeasure with the funding. So... he was making a statement and it came back to bite him in the rump. OK. (For the record, this is another reason I could never be a politician. I would vote my conviction, no matter what. Guess I'm not nuanced enough.
)
One last election item... a candidate for Congress from Illinois is taking a stand. Not only does he believe that Islam is the enemy, he's actually saying it out loud. He probably won't win, but cudos to him for having the guts to say what many people feel.
Now... for everything else...
The Barenaked Ladies are going to do a variety show. This could either be terribly funny or terribly horrible. I'm leaning toward the latter rather than the former.
IBM's latest supercomputer, Blue Gene, has broken the speed record with a brain-straining 36 terraflops. [As a reference, the laptop I'm using right now is probably doing 600 million flops- "floating point operations" per second. This blue beast of a machine can maintain 36 TRILLION (36,000,000,000,000) flops. In comparison, the human brain handles (a rough estimate here) over 10 quadrillion flops (add 3 more zeros)] Hubby plans on having one just as fast on his desktop within 20 years. I doubt it will take that long.
A laser injured a pilot on approach to SLC International Airport. At first, I thought this was a "black helicopter/ aliens are coming to get us" kind of article, but it's real. Evidently, pilots can get zapped from laser light shows and stuff like that. Or aliens are conducting experiments on the poor guy.
A five foot tall statue of Jesus washed up on a sandbar in the Rio Grande is being called "miraculous." People are calling the statue "The Christ of the Undocumented." If it really was the "Christ of the Undocumented" it wouldn't be sitting in a police department- the police never would have picked him up. (was that bad? can't say I'm sorry.)
A town in Mexico is advertising for an army... of cats.
Marge Simpson will be giving a Christmas message on BBC Channel 4 at the same time that the Queen will give her Christmas address. I can't make stuff like this up, people.
Where's the coffee? I need a refill...
