Update from the Northwest

My first class upgrades were nice, but not that useful. The seats were slightly wider I had a touch more legroom than I would have gotten in economy plus, but other than that, not much to write home about. 1st class on 777s and 747s would be worth it, though.
The landing into San Fran was interesting as it travels low enough over the SF Bay so that you can see things distinctly. We buzzed base that used to be Alameda and I could see a deserted airfield abd a bunch of mothballed ships, including an aircraft carrier, USS Hornet (CV-12). This Hornet is not the one that was sunk during WW2 (that one was CV-8). Info on the "new" Hornet here

My flight into Seattle from San Fran was delayed about 30min because the co-pilot was stuck in traffic (or so they said).

We went out last night with Noreen's grandparents (her paternal set). Her dad served 30 years in the Coast Guard and they've lived in the Seattle area (well, at least owned the house) since the 50s. We had a great time with them and I immediately hit it off with both of them.

Today, not much going on, I expect. Noreen is still in training and I'm not sure what we'll be doing after that. But, at least we are getting to hang out together for a while.

And of course, the Navy hasn't figured out yet how they are going to get all of the people that are here at Ft Lewis down to Gitmo by 14April.

That's the news from here. Posting right now at an internet cafe on Ft Lewis....

Aw man

Either my video card or monitor in my desktop has croaked. All of the video is crammed into a single, tiny line running down the center of the monitor. I guess I'll deal with it when I get back from Seattle.

Yet another No Shit Sherlock

This time, the UN gets a "no shitter" in the form of a report that says that the Syrians and their Lebanese lapdogs were in on Hariri's assasination.

A 2-fer

2 of my favorite headlines in one story:
No Shit Sherlock
We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture

and....

The American Taliban
Both contained in this story about teaching Darwinism vs. creationism vs "intelligent design"

LA in 1947

I'm not talking about Louisiana, either. Los Angeles in 1947, one of the roughest and craziest years in LA, just after WW2. Read their sidebar and all of their stories.
1947project

American Taliban spanking

The American Taliban get spanked by Scientific American.

The Russians invade Ukraine

This story tells of the Russians doing drills that included an amphibious landing on Ukranian soil.

MS-13 declares war on the Minuteman Project

The Minuteman Project, a group (called vigilantes by Pres. Bush and others) that is going to the Arizona border for 30 days to help the Border Patrol secure the leaky border had war declared against them by MS-13. This story is from some whiney left-wingers, but if the Minuteman Project is pissing off MS-13, they must be doing something right.

Noreen flies out tomorrow

She flies out at 9am tomorrow (Friday) to Ft Lewis on a C-130.

The law of unintended consequences

The anti-gay-marriage crowd is now seeing the results of their definition of "marriage" - a guy in Ohio had his domestic violence charges dropped because he wasn't married to his gf when he smacked her around. He's still charged with plain-old battery.

Are the DUI checkpoints working?

Probably not, says Radley Balko in a piece on Tech Central Station

Radley is "The Agitator" in my links section.

DiFi gets the door slammed in her face

The arrogant Sen Feinstein (D-CA) get slammed hard by a female med student. Killer story

Michael Buble

This guy sings standards and some new stuff. I just got his CD from Amazon and it's friggin amazing. This guy can sing. Check out his website for clips and stuff.

His album has David Foster as producer (and David arranged or co-arranged) all of the tracks, so this has an excellent pedigree. Paul Anka also was listed as Executive Producer.

A cool story on his climb up from the bottom.

Stupid dog, mess with a biker

Biker 1, Doggie Zero

When all you have is a hammer...

...everything looks like a nail.

In this case, the hammer is another stupid law.

American Taliban in Utah

At least this stupidity is confined to Utah.

I'd kick down $2000 to do this

An executive level "game" based on Thomas PM Barnett's book. wesbite here

Fat guy killed on airplane

This guy got unruly, had to be restrained, and he croaked.
NY Post story.

The Fox version of this story described him as a "very large man."

The NY Post has this juicy bit though:
Lee, who had told the Boeing 767 cabin crew he was despondent over a breakup with his girlfriend

and
"He was never a big drinker," Lee's wife, Meena, told The Post about her church going husband.

What's wrong with that picture?

MS-13

Yet another story on MS-13. Nevermind the fact that they don't mention the Al Qaeda link.

Aren't we glad we have the UN?

It's doing so well at keeping nations "United" like when the Aussies and Jordanians almost have a shootout after the Aussies accuse a Jordanian "peace keeper" of molesting kids.

Darwin Awards

Do monkeys get Darwin Awards? If they do, here's one monkey that's trying his best to win one.

The tolerant left isn't so tolerant

The editor of Playgirl was fired after coming out as a Republican.

I wouldn't have hired you if I knew you were a Republican.

More American Taliban

Man, the right wing nutjobs just keep coming up with material. Now they want to censor *ALL* cable channels. story

Maybe I should run a blog just covering these wackos.

More American Taliban stupidity

Now, IMAX is under the gun for being too scientific for these idiots. NY Times story here.

This is why you have broadband

A very slick computer-animated "Lego" Batman movie.

More Tom Ridge crookedness

First Home Depot, now this story about a microscopic college in his home town getting a no-bid contract to train the DHS.

Why are homes so damn expensive in San Diego?

Maybe it's the $24,000 proposed "park impact fee" per new house. Story.

The American Taliban

2 Stories about the American Taliban (err...Religious Right) flipping out over naughty girls.

Cheerleaders in Texas

Bikinis in Utah

Just wow

This story is about some criminal masterminds in Florida. Kidnapping for $50 ransom!

More on MS-13

This article has more info on MS-13.

What's really going on in Iraq

Good stuff from NRO from a guy in 1ST CAV in Iraq.

Then again, maybe not

According to this website

Coup in Syria?

So says this website

Do they check signatures for credit cards?

Nope!

Read the whole thing!

Noreen update

Noreen arrived in jacksonville

This guy gets no sympathy

A sailor here in San Diego failed a drug test after drinking tea made from coca - that's right, the same plant that is the source for cocaine. Heck, when I was in the Navy, we made jokes about avoiding bagels with poppy seeds. We'd have never been stupid enough to drink tea made from coca.
story

Noreen at O'hare

Noreen is at O'Hare, everything went well. She leaves Jacksonville on the 17th.

Noreen called

Noreen called to say she was on her way, I'll her from her around 9:30ish PST when she lands at O'Hare.

Coverup in the assasination of Hariri?

No, really? You mean that the Syrians and their Lebanese lapdogs covered up the assasination of the former PM of Lebanon?

Next thing the UN will report that the sky is blue and water is wet.

Honduran Gang busted in the US

MS-13, a Honduran gang had 113 of their number busted here in the US. The story barely mentions that it is well known in the intelligence community that MS-13 is working with Al-Qaeda.

We'll show them what we're made of

I'm made of a metal called afradium, it's yellow and tastes like chicken.

- from the movie Robots. This was a killer flick. Lots of fun and enough adult gags to keep you interested. The graphics were stunning and as a computer guy I was astounded at the amount of power that this project required. The plot isn't much to write home about, but that's ok. Oh...and find a theater that actually knows what "focus" is all about.

I'm crackers for cheese

Wallace and Gromit have a movie coming out in October. This is the crew that did Chicken Run. Wallace and Gromit have "starred" in tons of shorts and even won a couple of Oscars!

"Ex-Marine" made up the story that the Saddam capture was fake

Top article here

Damn sniper cats

Cat shoots owner story.

That'll teach the bastard to give the cat crappy catfood.

The War on Caffeine

March is "Caffeine Awareness Month." It was started by a person named "Marina Kushner" who is the founder of the Caffeine Awareness Alliance. A quick google shows that she's also the founder of SoyCoffee, LLC (see story here. And of course, government busy bodies are falling all over themselves to support this, like the mayor of Ormond Beach, FL

What a surprise!

6 Million Euros and a "kidnapped" journalist

What better way to get 6 million euros into the hands of forces fighting the Americans in Iraq than to be "kidnapped" and to have the Italian government pay ransom (which she knew would be paid)? That's what it looks like the Italian journalist did, and why the Italians kept the whole deal quiet. She works for the Italian Communist paper "Il Manifesto" and was working on stories sympathetic to the insurgency (she's also VERY VERY anti-American).
Washington Post story

Damn Welsh can't speak English

Plastic chrusher could revolutionise kerbside recycling

Full story

Stick your finger in there!

Watch stuff get destroyed by a monster shredder, like a washing machine....

Japanese wackiness

After I rip this off, I am going to rip you to shreds and crap on your steaming remains

More goodness here

Buying a stupid rainjacket

It shouldn't be so friggin hard to buy a rain jacket. I decided I wanted one by Columbia since my winter parka is a Columbia and I really like it. I told Noreen of my quest for a new jacket and she made the smartass/prescient comment that by the time I found one, the rain would stop. I have the misfortune of using Firefox as my browser and Columbia's website doesn't know what to do with Firefox, so I got a mishmash of 30 pages of crap to wade through. I tried Internet Explorer for laughs and that wasn't much more help as they don't know diddly about making stuff easy to find on their website. So, I've sent a few cranky emails to them to no avail. I checked about 6 stores around SD that were listed as selling Columbia stuff, but none had rain jackets.

So, finally, today, I go to LL Bean and find one I like in no time and order it.

Lego and the Bible

Various bits and stories from the Bible done in Lego

Cats and the US troops in Iraq

What is with all of the stories that come out of Iraq about our troops adopting stray cats? Story.

I'm not bagging on them, I just find it unusual that there are seeming so many of them.

New Definition of Drinker

MSNBC reports that the new definition of a drinker is someone that has 12 or more drinks PER YEAR