I don't know if this video is real or fake but it is horrific. The "Born Free" theme music at the end sort of leads me to believe that it's a fake.

Posted by: Open Blog at 09:13 PM | Comments (17)
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I guess this won't be appearing in any Al Gore presentations any time soon.

A team of NASA and university scientists has detected an ongoing reversal in Arctic Ocean circulation triggered by atmospheric circulation changes that vary on decade-long time scales. The results suggest not all the large changes seen in Arctic climate in recent years are a result of long-term trends associated with global warming...

H/T Duane

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 06:06 PM | Comments (28)
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Check out this video of some dork who invented an anatomically correct 18 year old female robot. He claims that he built her so that she could help the elderly read newspapers and remove the stomachs of blowfish or whatever tasks old Japanese want done but can no longer do for themselves. more...

Posted by: Open Blog at 05:02 PM | Comments (30)
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A rebuilt World War II code-cracking computer developed to intercept Nazi messages lost to a desktop computer Friday in a contest to decipher an encrypted radio message.

The challenge marked the first time the Colossus machine had been used since former Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered models of the top secret computer destroyed, according to Britain's National Museum of Computing, which organized the contest.

The victorious PC? A Kraut.

Posted by: Open Blog at 04:20 PM | Comments (10)
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Is this old? Probably. But new to me, and a good way to pass the time while I wait on a flight.

Probably not safe for work, although no bad graphics that I'm seeing. Just some questionable content.

The titular example:

Kid 1: "You can't do that. You can't compare Jerry Garcia to Hitler."
Kid 2: "Why not?"
Kid 1: "Well, Jerry Garcia didn't have millions of people killed, for
one."
Kid 2: "You don't know that."

More below the fold.

more...

Posted by: Open Blog at 03:49 PM | Comments (16)
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Sorry, should have said something sooner. Traveling again to finally get some digs. Will be around barely for the next few days.

Happy weekend.

UPDATE [Gabe]: Rosetta brings the funny with this metaphor in the comments :

This blog is like Ace's kid. Early on when we were an infant, he was like a doting, ewok-shaped new daddy. Caring for our every need. Not letting anyone else babysit us. Staying up late with us. Giving us special attention and love.

Then after a few years, when we could walk and use the big-person toilet, he felt comfortable leaving us with other people - initially for very brief periods of time and then for longer stretches. Sometimes days at a time.

Then, when we started grade school, he hires this stupid live-in nanny, Gabriel. Oh look who it is....it's Gabriel Malor!! Oh!! SO SMART!! Oh!! Gabriel likes trying to boss everyone around but he can kiss it! YOU'RE NOT OUR REAL DAD!!!! WE HATE YOU!!!!

In a few years, when this blog is in high school and we start partying with our friends and getting arrested, Ace will wonder what he did wrong. Where he fucked up.

And then when we'll go away to college, probably someplace far away because of the ever-present Goddamn technical problems. Then he'll be here all alone. An empty nester.

Late one Saturday night, he'll be sitting in his chair, alone, drinking himself into a blind stuper, playing bad air-guitar to Motorhead. Then he'll start sobbing. Thinking how he should have been there more. How HE should have been the one that showed us the Olympia Events Calendar. How so many times he phoned it in....posting 3 year old shit.

It's sad really.

Posted by: Ace at 02:08 PM | Comments (63)
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The kicker? It was the ultra-liberal, often overturned 9th Circuit that issued the ruling.

A federal appeals court dealt a near-fatal blow Friday to an Islamic charity's lawsuit alleging federal investigators illegally wiretapped it, saying a key piece of evidence the charity planned to use is a protected state secret.

A top secret call log that the Treasury Department accidentally turned over to the now-defunct U.S. arm of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation's lawyers can't be used as evidence, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled.

Al-Haramain, which the U.S. government labeled a terrorist organization, alleged it had been wiretapped by the Bush administration without a warrant. But without the call log, the court said, the foundation has little proof it was wiretapped.

Technically, the case is still alive but this apparently was a big win for the governement.

More on the decision and what it means over at Patterico’s.

Posted by: DrewM. at 01:31 PM | Comments (6)
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The kicker? It was the ultra-liberal, often overturned 9th Circuit that issued the ruling.

A federal appeals court dealt a near-fatal blow Friday to an Islamic charity's lawsuit alleging federal investigators illegally wiretapped it, saying a key piece of evidence the charity planned to use is a protected state secret.

A top secret call log that the Treasury Department accidentally turned over to the now-defunct U.S. arm of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation's lawyers can't be used as evidence, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled.

Al-Haramain, which the U.S. government labeled a terrorist organization, alleged it had been wiretapped by the Bush administration without a warrant. But without the call log, the court said, the foundation has little proof it was wiretapped.

Technically, the case is still alive but this apparently was a big win for the governement.

More on the decision and what it means over at PattericoÂ’s.

Posted by: DrewM at 01:31 PM | Comments (7)
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Wow.

I put up a headline on this yesterday, which just seemed to me to be yet another example of the brutality and backward nature of this regime.

Apparently the media coverage took the Saudis by surprise. The background is a woman was raped by six men, who all received brief sentences that were increased later (2 to 9 years), AND the woman was sentenced to 90 lashes for "being in the car of an unrelated male at the time of the rape"

Let the sickness of that sink in for a moment. Because it gets worse.

Judges decided she was trying to "aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media", and they increased the punishment to 200 lashes. And six months in jail.

Remarkably, lavish state dinners and guided tours of industrial facilities have not been able to convince visitors that the Saudi system of justice is a bit out of sorts with the rest of the "civilized" world.

Posted by: Dave In Texas at 10:55 AM | Comments (41)
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Via Drudge:

A rival campaign insider charges: 'Wolf turned into a lamb. No follow-up question on Clinton's huge flip on drivers licenses?'

I didn't catch that as I hadn't seen the whole exchange and so I didn't know what had come before.

Really? No follow up?

I guess Blitzer is taking his orders from Media Matters, eh?

Posted by: Ace at 10:14 AM | Comments (46)
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