Rick Rescorla
"When you have a hammer, everything looks like a firing pin."
KOMO TV - Bouncing Bear - 1.8 meg mpeg video from Missoula Montana. Shows someone shooting a bear from a fire truck basket with a dart gun. The bear falls out of the tree he's been in all day, bounces once on a trampoline, and hits the grass. A man carries him away. The narrator says that he is OK and was released in the woods. [root]
Midville Gazette - 911 Remembered: Rick Rescorla was a soldier - The real-life hero of the novel We Were Soldiers Once, And Young, now a Mel Gibson movie, was also a hero on 9/11/2001. He was instrumental in ensuring that all but six Morgan Stanley employees made it safely out of the building. He was one of the lost six. [kimdutoit]
Claire Wolfe - INNOCENTS BETRAYED was released this week - I got it wrong on Wednesday. The "Operation Jump Start" version, $29.95 with no shipping charge, is available to everyone until October 15. On-line ordering links are in the middle of this page. [claire]
Brian Briggs at BBspot - Open Source Community Developing Their Own Viruses - satire. Hehe. [leor]
Helsinki, Finland - Open source developers plan to challenge Microsoft's dominance in the world of viruses by developing their own through the Open Virus Project (OVP), and unlike proprietary Microsoft viruses, the open source versions will infect across all platforms.Heading the development of the OVP is Jukka Koskelin. He explained, "We took a look at the virus marketspace and realized that Microsoft has over a 95% share of all viruses developed. I don't think the Linux community can be taken seriously if we don't increase our share in that area."
John Ross - AIDS: The Non-Issue, or Yes, It IS Somebody Else's Problem - why you should worry more about being struck by lightning than getting AIDS if you're a heterosexual who doesn't engage in extremely kinky sex.
To get AIDS, either infected blood or infected semen must be admitted into an uninfected person's bloodstream. AIDS has ravaged the male gay community because A) actively gay men have lots of partners (over 100 new ones a year is common) and B) the sexual activities that many gay men practice (such as fisting, and the simultaneous use of amyl nitrate) often cause tiny breaks in the soft tissue inside the rectum. This provides a sure path for infected semen to enter the healthy partner's bloodstream during the next anal sex session.
Charley Reese - Truth Is Scarce - after showing why none of the Democrat presidential candidates are worthy of the office, Mr. Reese says why he would never vote for a second Bushnev term. So who's a freedom-loving America to vote for? I wish we could elect "None of the above". [lew]
The only certainty at this time, as far as I'm concerned, is that I will not vote for George W. Bush. He's proven to be reckless, dangerously uninformed, terrible at choosing advisers, far too easily influenced by his bad advisers and, without a script, virtually unable to articulate. He has gotten us into deep trouble not only in the Middle East but here at home, and the scary part is, I don't think he has a clue that he has done so.
Rather than devise policies to solve the problems of America's men and women, he's spent his term paying back his big corporate contributors. I will genuinely fear for the future of the country if he is re-elected.
Eric Auchard and Peter Henderson at Reuters via Yahoo - No Joy at Sun Micro as Co-Founder Leaves - Bill Joy has left Sun Microsystems. [cafe]
Joy said in an interview that he might start up a company of his own but had no specific plans and was eager to work on his own.
"I want to write some software," he said. "I've just done what I wanted to do at Sun," he said.
Chief Executive and Chairman Scott McNealy, who co-founded the Silicon Valley icon along with Joy and two others, said the breakup was amicable.
"Bill and I are best buddies," he said at a conference.
Greg Papadopoulos, Sun's chief technology officer, will take over Joy's position.
Walter Williams at World Net Daily - 'Click it or ticket' - if you believe in seat belt laws, then you shouldn't have any problem with a cop coming into your yard and ticketing you for not removing the skin from your barbecued chicken. [smith2004]
"Click It or Ticket" represents another bold step along the road to serfdom. History knows of no totalitarian agenda where noble goals weren't used as justification. Nazis used "for the good of the German Volk" and the Soviets used "for the good of the proletariat" as their justification. Health and safety have become the American justification for attacks on liberty.
In a free society, each person owns himself. As such, he has the broad discretion to make his own choices regardless of what others think of the wisdom of his choices. He has the right to take chances with his own health and safety. However, if an American doesn't own himself, and it's Congress that owns him, he doesn't have those rights. Thus, the "Click It or Ticket" program is simply Congress' way of caring for its property, the American people.
Michael Gaddy at Sierra Times - Defending Anarchy - Mr. Gaddy wonders why people like being slaves. I don't know. I sure don't. But then, I'm an anarchist. [smith2004]
Like almost everything else in our present day society, government has distorted and subverted the meaning of our language. The word anarchy is a perfect example. The literal translation means "without rulers." Our present government, which by its very actions believes itself to be omnipotent, defines anarchism as "chaos."
Naturally, they would like for all to believe that without government the only thing that would ensue would be chaos. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Mrs. du Toit - The "A" Word - Connie's son, David, was diagnosed with "autism". She has learned that that label has no useful meaning unless you're a Special Ed department looking for funding.
David was a round peg and public school was square hole.
As soon as we took him out of school most of his problems disappeared. Now he could learn at his pace. He could focus on many of the things he liked and was good at and accomplishment and pride developed.
