John Lennon

Global War on Terror

There has been a major raid in Kenya where more than 25 key Al Queda suspects have been detained.

U.S. authorities believe there are hundreds of terror suspects in eastern Africa sought by authorities around the world, Marine Brig. Gen. Mastin Robeson, the commander of a U.S.-led anti-terrorism task force in the region, said earlier this month.

I bet you didn't know that we had an anti-terrorism task force in Africa. Never forget that this is a global war and we are fighting it in many places that you don't hear about as often as Iraq.

And we are winning.

Cheating the Ecosystem

NZ Bear has put 6 weblogs on notice that they will be suspended from the ecosystem for posting mulitple sitemeters on their site that point to other sites.

The ecosystem is a fun thing that Bear came up with and no pays that much attention to it except as a fun thing, or so I thought.

These weblogs, which are all liberal, thing that they must inflate their numbers to compete. It is really sad but it is reflective of what the entire liberal establishment has become. It is ok to lie, to cheat, to misrepresent facts, to attack people instead of their arguments, to ignore laws when they stand in your way all because you are so convinced in the rightness of your cause.

Get a clue guys, if your cause was so right it could stand by itself in the bright light of the day with being propped up like a sick tree.

New Intel Wireless Chipset

Intel plans to build a chipset that allows any desktop computer to act as a wireless access point.

This is good news but it seems to me that is misses the point entirely.
If I have 3 computers in my home (ok I have more but I am not normal) my need for an access point is not as great as my need for a wireless nic.

What I would like to see is built in wireless the same way most new computers have ethernet ports built in today. Since this is pretty much what they have done to laptops with their centrino series I expect be will see it in all computers before too long.

This is not good news for Cisco, Netgear and the others who now make money selling these products as add ons.

George W. Bush

President's Speech

I have seen his speech twice now and I have to say the first time I saw it he looked very moved and so was I.
This is an historic day and it will be a big boost for the troops that the president is willing to put his ass on the line too.

The second time I saw it it was still pretty amazing.

Surprise Surprise

News Flash!!!

The President has made a surprise visit to Baghdad.

No Links yet.

I bet this pisses Hillary off, BIG TIME.

Update : Here is the first link I could find.

Carnival

The latest Carnival of the Vanities is at Setting The World to Rights.

I have not looked through the Carnival for a while but it is a good way to find new bloggers so give it a look.

Baby's Blanket

This is what Jackson and Perkins calls a ground cover rose.
We picked up a bunch a few years ago during a sale they had and they have proved their worth.
They are own root roses and even though they are called ground covers they are actually about 3 foot high. they don't have much of a fragrance but make up for that by having lots of blooms all year long as this picture, which is only a few days old shows.

Gearing up for Return of the King

I was really hoping for Elf but ....

Rohirrim


To which race of Middle Earth do you belong?
brought to you by Quizilla

Climbing Pinkie

Talking about things that are still blooming I noticed that this climber in the back had some blooms on it (eat your heart out Ted).

This is growing on the side of the playhouse I got for my daugther when we moved down here that she hardly ever uses anymore. She was the one who picked it.

This picture does not really do it justice and I didn't have a full shot so I went back through my picture directory and realized I had taken something over 800 pictures of various things since the spring.
It is amazing what you can get done while you are unemployed and here I thought I had nothing to show for the last eight months.

It is also amazing how fast things grow. This is what the Pinkie looked like back in March.

In September it looked like this.

I almost forgot. Here is what it looked like in full bloom back in April. It blooms all through the summer but the spring bloom is the best.

Santayana

Link from Glenn who has been posting up a storm today.

Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim.

More Rose Pictures

Ted over at Rocket Jones liked the picture I posted of my Arizona yesterday that he posted one of his own roses from the spring.
It is a beauty but I am not sure what it is and he either doesn't know or just hasn't said yet.

This has had a bad outcome in that it got me thinking of spring and I have started a list of roses I would like to buy next year. So far there are two mini's and two climbers on the list but that won't last.

I, The Jury

I sometimes read books in spurts and I am in one now. I guess because I need something to balance all the other stuff I am doing.
I picked up this volume the other day at B&N.

I have never been big on mystery books but I am starting to read more. I like Spillane and some of the older authors.

I also noticed that fellow blogger Roger Simon also writes private detective fiction and I intend to check him out once I catch up.

Master and Commander

I have been reading Master and Commander, which I picked up last week, between working on my certification.
I became aware of it because of the movie and was surprised that I had never read any of O'Brian's novels before since I am a big fan of Horatio Hornblower.

I came across this article today that states that though O'Brian wrote about sailors he was not one himself and in fact had very little knowledge about the actual operation of a sailboat.

Arizona

I think I may have posted this rose already but I was so surprised to see this bloom yesterday (yes I said yesterday) that I had to snap this picture. It is a little late in the year for this to bloom but it has really come back well from the pruning we gave it in Feb.
The Arizona is a Grandiflora rose which means among other things that it is tall.
This bloom was about six feet off the ground which is probably why the deer didn't get to it.

Nose to the Grindstone

I have to get back to my studies and since the kid is now on Thanksgiving break I have to make sure she finishes her outstanding projects in addition to having fun.

In other words light to no blogging till much later in the day.

More UAV's needed

This story about using UAVs in greater numbers should come as no surprise to those of use who read Sci-Fi.

Most of us wonder what is taking so long since Doc Smith wrote about it in books like this

long before I was born.

In Smith's books it is not all that unusual for tens of thousands of robot guided craft to fight and 'die' before any live person is injured.

I have already posted that I think we should be using Predators and Global Hawks massively in the mid east.
At least the Predators since they have not gotten around to arming the hawks, yet.

Update/Aside: After posting this I decided to check my copy of the Gray Lensmen to see how much I paid for it, $2.50. Isn't inflation grand?

Reverse Outsourcing

In 1994 I left the large insurance company where I had worked for the last six years. One week after I cleaned out my desk all the IT people were called into a meeting and told that almost all IT was being outsourced and that they would be let go within 90 days.
I can't count how many people called me and wanted to know how I knew this was going to happen and when I knew it.
In truth I knew nothing and had been planning to leave, actually had a contingent offer for about 3 months.

In time however the company thought better of it and brought some of those jobs back in house.

Dell seems to be doing the same thing at least for the corporate accounts that have pull. I expect that this trend will continue as word gets around to even the retail customer who buys one machine that the tech support isn't worth the trouble when you can't understand the person on the other end of the line who is speaking a dialect of english that in not understandable. It may take a little longer but everytime someone like me has a bad tech support experience the word gets around. This is one of the areas where users groups can still have an impact.

Paris Hilton

It just occured to me (ok maybe I am slow) that maybe all this hype has been all about getting a big audience for Paris Hilton's new reality TV show.

Of course I wouldn't think that Paris would release nude movies of herself just to hype a TV show or wouldn't she.

Listening To:Who are You - Justin Hayward and John Lodge

Salam smackdown

There has been some reaction in the Blogosphere over the letter that Salam wrote to President Bush which was smacked down by Lileks and joined by Roger Simon.

Today they are joined by N.Z. Bear and I agree with all three of them.

Salam should go back to Iraq and try to make a difference there instead of throwing shit from the safety of London.

On another item I have meant to add Roger to my blogroll for a while which I will do tonight.

Listening To: Power and the Glory - Phil Ochs

Update: Andrea has something to say about this also.

Aldous Huxley

End of a Dream

Ohio State 21
U. of M. 35.

This has not been a good year for my teams. First the Yankees come up short and now the Bucks fold to hated Michigan. I thought that they had a chance after the interception but I guess it was just not fated to be.

Oh well I will get to the Sugar Bowl someday.

Mr. Lincoln

This is another one of the new roses. Actually it is a replacement for a Mr. Lincoln I used to have that died. These are great roses, very fragrant and winners of lots of awards.
They are one of the older Hybrid Teas.

Air Potato

I have no idea where this comes from. My wife thinks that our local nursery handed her some seeds once, she planted them and forgot about them.

Then suddenly this thing starts growing on oneof our trees and she couldn't figure out what it was. It kept growing and now as you can see it is quite large.

Un-Handy Man

I don't know if I have ever mentioned it before but I am probably the most un handy man there ever was with do it yourself stuff.

I have been trying the mount the two Lord of Rings Swords I got on either side of my fireplace.

I went to Lowes got a masonry drill bit no problem.
The first problem was that my cordless drill wouldn't cut it. One battery won't hold a charge anymore and the other would hold a charge long enough to drill through the brick.

Today I finally got to Home Depot and bought a drill with a cord and managed to get the holes drilled. Now however the mounting board won't fit over the screws and I don't want to force it because I might (probably will) break it.

(SIGH)

Religion of Peace

Follow this link I found at the Mrs to a story in FrontPage on how the publishing of a translation of a book on the Religion of Peace was shut down because of death threats made against everyone involved.
The french, who as we have seen time and time again lack the backbone present in most humans, just rolled over.
It is a chilling story.
The Mrs. thinks that if she had any relatives in France or even Germany she would advise them to leave and she is not even Jewish.
I would love to see Paris at some time in the future but the way things are now I don't think I would feel safe unless I had a bigger handgun then I now own and lots of bullets.

New Blog Showcase

It looks like I have climbing the heights of the Ecosystem again into a spot with the Flappy Birds (a very low spot, in fact the last Flappy bird on the list).

That being the case the least I can do is make my votes for the New Blog Showcase, which are:

The Congressional Drug of Choice on the New American Revolution,
Fair Game on Indirect Proof and 5ive years in reverse on Pepper of the Earth just because I have a soft spot for anyone still stuck in NYC during the Bloomberg years.

Attack Iran?

In a very interesting segment on Brit Hume's show on Fox last night Mansoor Ijaz had some new and startling information.

Both Bin Laden and his chief deputy are now in Iran planning attacks on US interests in Iraq and Afganistan.

They are getting together with an Afgani warlord and will plan attacks to overthrow the Afgan regime this winter powered with Iranian Revolutionary guards.

If this is true, any part of it, Iran should become an active target.
About time if you ask me.

Which Bush Admin

Now this one surprised me.

You are George Walker Bush! You are the most
powerful man in the world, which leaves you
little time to think for yourself. Fortunately,
you have your friends to think for you!


Which member of the Bush Administration are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

George W. Bush

More on the WTC Memorials

Jeff Jarvis submitted one of the designs not chosen.
You can read about his design here.

For more info about the proposals you can go here or here.

Finalist Revealed

The eight finalists for the WTC memorial have been revealed today.

Susanna looked through them already and has some feedback including this.

As a side note, it's very poor taste that the NY Times is advertising sex aids on the slideshow for the WTC memorials. Advertise if you must, but show some respect and couth.

I will have to look them over a while and will comment later.

HoloCaust Museum Firebombed

I read this post on Kesher Talk which led me to this post on Lgf.

A Holocaust Museum in Terre Haute Indiana has been firebombed.
Did I say Terre Haute? You bet I did.
That's right folks it can happen right here in the good old USA.

The story is here.

Reading Lists

The Accidental Jedi, who stumbled over here from Kelley's Cul-de-sac has a pretty good reading list of his own.

National Ammo Day

In case you forgot, today is National Ammo Day.

Go out and buy some ammo.

I picked up 100 rounds of Velocitor 22LR on my way home from the Library since I didn't have any.

When my Father-in-law died I inherited a 9 shot .22LR revolver that I have not tried yet but I do intend to in the near future.

Wifi at the Houston Library

Based on a post over a Rocket Jones I decided to go to my local library to pick up a copy of Master and Commander which of course they didn't have at my branch.
However as long as I knew I was going there I brought along my laptop to see if the Wifi they said they had it worked.
It did.
It worked fine as a matter of fact.
Win XP picked it up as soon as I opened the laptop and asked me if I wanted to connect to a non-secure network.
I was able to go to this site, check my yahoo mail and hit a couple of site off of Drudge.

What didn't work so well was the library's computer directory. I went to request a copy of Master and Commander and it asked me for my pin which I forgot (of course) but they had that covered with a link that said "Forgot your pin"?
I clicked on that and got a "404 Page not found" (of course).
Still some work needed there.

More Rocketing

Rocket Jones has another Rocketing Around the Blogosphere which is wierd because it seems like he just did this a day or so ago.

It is full of different links, even one for me though he does manage to hide it pretty well.

So go over to RJ and see if you can find the link to Freedom Lives and if you do I will give you a free link to the blog of your choice.
Yeah I know it not like being linked by Glenn but its all I have.

The Wizard of OZ

National Ammo Week

Don't forget that this is National Ammo Week and the 19th is National Ammo Day. Go out and buy some ammo.

I bought 800 rounds of .22LR today and I will get more later in the week. I may get some from Cheaper than Dirt Ammo since I have never gotten ammo over the internet before.

School Show

Not bad, not bad at all.
It wasn't professional but if was much better than I was expecting. The school auditorium is fairly new and very well equiped. They had a cast of over 40 and since this was the last performance they should have been at their best.

It was a little funny that the munchkins were all taller than Dorothy.

Life in the Suburbs

It was pouring here today. We even had a tornado warning, which I hate.
This is the third day in a row that it has rained here but only 15 miles north at the Ren Fair we were as dry as could be. That's Texas weather for you.

I have to take the kid to a show at the High School tonight. She is in drama and part of the course is seeing plays and reporting on them. It doesn't have to be the school productions but it does make it easier. I was hoping to take her to the production I had auditioned for but since I didn't get the part I figured, why bother.

We might get up to NYC around Christmas and we will probably see a play while there but I wonder how a report on a broadway show would come across in suburban Houston. I guess that like anything else there will be some who think its neat and others who be jealous. I guess she doesn't have to report on it but I want her to see the show anyway. One of the few things I miss about NYC is being able to see broadway shows.

For the above mentioned reasons I will not be posting till much later if at all.

The show by the way is The Wizard of OZ. That is pretty challenging for a high school, it should be interesting to see how they do.

All entries to be Displayed

All 5201 entries for the WTC memorial may be put on display for the public viewing after the finalists are chosen.

Given the effort that these people put into making these proposals this is a good idea. I just hope it does not lead to endless second guessing of the judges picks.

Listening To: Long May You Run - Neil Young

Something in the Air

Michelle has a foreboding of things to come which doesn't sit well with me since I have been having the same feelings.
The last few days my dreams have been odder than usual and I have had trouble sleeping. As my wife will testify, if there is anything I don't have trouble doing it is going to sleep.

Being Pro-American

I can usually find a lot to disagree with Jeff Jarvis about but this post on his being Pro-American I agree with 100%.

New Cul de Sac

Kelley is getting back into groove after all her travels and meeting of bloggers in the flesh.
Her new Cul de Sac is great.

If you think I am saying that just because I am one of the featured blogs you would only be part right. I would be saying it anyway but I am certainly saying it sooner.

Update: Kelley's blogroll is messed up too. This seems to be spreading.

OSU Number 2 in BCS

It looks like my friend was right because today OSU moved into second place in the BCS.

We still have to beat Michigan next week and that will not be easy.

Blogroll problem

There seems to be a major problem in my blogroll.
Blogrolling has been notified.

The Alamo

Last day of Ren Fair

As I said in the previous post I am beat and will probably go to bed real soon.
The Ren Fair was great as always but the reason they hold when they do is to avoid days like today where the temperature was over 80.
There is nothing like walking around, in costume, in 80+ weather for 7 hours to tire you out and two days in a row is a killer.
We did have a great time, bought some things.
These fairs are all about shopping and don't let anyone tell you different.
Since money is tight I managed to not spend $70 on a new fair shirt (on sale because of last day and in leather(sigh)) but I did spend another $20 to buy a Kitana on sale (pictures later in the week) , another dagger and a very nice coin pouch, plus one for the wife.
We saw lots of stuff we would have bought had we money, the wife saw a dress for $200+.
We saw several street theaters and met some old friends.
We had a good time despite the heat.
No more Ren Fair for 11 months so I have a little time to recover.

John fisks Kim

I got home from the last day of the Ren Fair just in time to follow Meryl's link to this piece that is an attempt to fisk Kim's post on the Pussyfication of the American male (get the link at Kim's I am too tired).

Aside from the fact that the guy comes across as a raving far left Queen I have trouble taking someone seriously when they try to compare Texas to South Africa. This is someone who doesn't seem to have ever been in Texas, to say the least.

He also doesn't seem to know much history since he doesn't know the difference between the Mex. American war and Texas' war for independence.

You can read it yourself if you need your blood boiled, I don't think I will be able to finish it. I am just too tired.

Traffic Increase

According to Alexa, Freedom Lives has improved its rank to 2,667,524.

That is an increase of almost a million places.

Thanks to all of you, a lot.

OSU win in OT, again

This is becoming too much for my old heart.
OSU 16
Purdue 13 in OT.

My friend Dick say that it we win today (we did, barely) and win next week in Ann Arbor (always risky) that under the BCS point system we will move into 2ad place and be able to defend our title against the sooners, which is how it should be.

I hope he is right and if he is able to get tickets it will be the first time I have ever seen a game in the Sugar Bowl.
I sure hope it is not like last years's title game, 3 OT's is to much excitement for me.

Another Ren Fair day

We got up early got to the fair early.
By noon the temp. was about 80 and the humidity around 90.
We made a smart choise and I went back to the car and ditched our cloaks.
Much too hot for those though they do look good.
Aside from the hot weather it was an ok day.

I added to my sword collection by buying another Glamdring. Why do I need another you ask? Well the one I got previously is a display piece. It is made of stainless steel. Looks great and it will hold an edge if I put one on it. If I try to use it as a sword however it is likely to shatter.

The one I got today is made of carbon steel. It is a little higher maintenance but it is a real sword.

We also picked up a pair of daggers for $10 a piece and a dagger for the kid for a little more.

Ren Fair Pictures

Well I finally got all 45 pictures loaded from our trip to the Ren Fair and just in time because we are going back this weekend which is the last weekend of the fair for 2003.

My Ren Fair album is here.

I don't know how long I will kep them up because I have some issues with the way SBC/Yahoo has implimented these albums. It seems that once I make the album public anyone can order prints or them or even mousepads which to my mind is usurping my copyrighted material.

This is picture is of your humble host in his Fair costume. In case you are wondering I am a wizard.

Update: By the way that is a real wedding that took place during a break in the rainstorm.

The Late Show

Reading list

Rocket Jones has a new post up on his Rocketing around the Blogosphere series.
Somehow I didn't get mentioned this week but that is not that important since I have been in an unemployment funk for most of this week.

It is hard just posting some days and my study for my Microsoft certification exam is not going that well either.

Kelley can't seem to get back into the Cul de sac mood so until you like surfing aimlessly through blogs you better go read Rocket.

Senate Debate

One interesting think about this senate debate is that if you watch Cspan2 ( I am only glancing at it from time to time) you get to see senators that you would never see otherwise. There are a lot of them that never go on the talking head shows or Meet the Press.

Another curious thing is that it is not on Drudge or on Google News front page. I guess they don't think it is important.

They are not alone since it is also not on the web front page of the NY Times.

Art Carney

Another Web Quiz

Robert Heinlein wrote you - your stranger in a
strange land, you.


Which Author's Fiction are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Link from susanna

Number Portability

A new study by Ernst and Young says that 50% of consumers would consider dropping their landlines and going completely wireless once number portability gets signed into law on Nov. 24.

I have a gut feel that something is wrong over at E&Y. No way that many people are going to drop their landlines.

There will however be a major kick to the cell phone business as fickle cell customers will now be able to keep their numbers when they move. My current cell contract is up in April and while I have no problems with my current Verizon service I may just go month to month and see what develops rather than signing on for another 2 years.

Rush Returning

Rush Limbaugh will return to broadcasting next Monday Nov. 17.
He will start where he left off broadcasting for 3 hours a day, five days a week.

I predict this will be one of the largest audiences in his career.