Screw the coffee, what about some sex?

The iPhone is definitely way cool, and getting even cooler, according to this report by Katie Marsal from the AppleInsider:

Before a future version of Apple's iPhone wakes you up in the morning, it will have downloaded the morning's news feeds and sent a message to your coffee maker to begin brewing a fresh pot, says AT&T Mobile chief Ralph de la Vega. Those are just two examples from a list of future capabilities rattled off by the executive at the Web 2.0 Summit Thursday during his interview with TechCrunch's Michael Arrington -- the same conversation that brought word of an application under development at AT&T that will soon give way to an official iPhone 3G tethering solution.
If you'd rather read the morning news on your TV while you sip your fresh brewed cup of Joe, you'll be able to simply wave the handset towards the TV to throw the day's feeds up on the big screen, de la Vega added.
"Some of this sounds pretty far-flung to me, and if this were some start-up company talking about these 'exciting new plans,' I'd probably take it with a grain of salt," wrote PC World's Mark Sullivan. "But in my experience, AT&T plays it pretty close to the vest on its future plans, and usually does what it says it will do, eventually." De la Vega's vision for future iPhone features isn't confined to the home. He told Arrington that you'll be able to use the handset to lock your doors on the way out each morning, then start your car. There will also be little need to fiddle with your car radio while battling morning rush hour traffic, because the iPhone will start reading the remainder of the day's news to you using its text-to-speech capabilities.
While at work, he continued, the iPhone will orchestrate a conference call with two potential clients in the Far East. You speak English, they speak Japanese. That's not a problem, however, because the iPhone will handle the automatic translations in real time. De la Vega also noted that AT&T is performing extensive testing within its labs regarding previously announced plans to integrate the handset with U-Verse, its suite of Internet television and VoIP services. The goal is to allow customers to listen to their voice mails on their TV, and download shows from their digital video recorders onto their iPhones. A new application for the handset would reportedly serve as a television remote that will let users search the Web and TV listings via the iPhone's virtual keyboard.
In addition to its normal network upgrade process, the AT&T chief also revealed during the interview that his firm plans to begin using a new swath of 850 MHz spectrum to improve its 3G signal quality in densely populated areas such as New York City.

Rico says he doesn't care about those poor 3G bastards in NYC, but it'd be nice to get better signal out here in the sticks... (And while he had to go look it up on IMDB.com, Rico did remember that Diego de la Vega was Zorro's father, played by Anthony Hopkins.

Ugh

Rico says he remembers this shit (and not fondly at that). Given that weather moves inexorably from West to East, the snow reported in South Dakota is headed, like death and taxes, this way:

As snowfall neared four feet in the Black Hills and winds gusting higher than fifty mph continued to howl, state officials had a simple message for anyone thinking of trying to drive in western South Dakota's blizzard: Don't. And they stressed that the storm, which stranded an unknown numbers of motorists and knocked out power to thousands, would keep causing problems as it moves eastward Friday. "This is a dangerous storm," Governor Mike Rounds told reporters in a telephone conference call Thursday evening. "Western South Dakota is basically under a no-travel advisory."
Officials closed a long stretch of Interstate 90, where dozens of vehicles were trapped. Some motorists have been stranded for more than 24 hours, Rounds said, noting that search teams can't get to them because of zero visibility. "We cannot see a thing in many areas where we're out actually searching for people," said Tom Dravland, state Public Safety secretary, adding that the top speed for some rescue crews was as little as a half-mile per hour. Dravland said he did not know how many people were stranded. The Highway Patrol has responded to more than 400 calls for assistance, including ten crashes. No fatalities were reported by late Thursday afternoon.
The storm already has dropped 45.7 inches of snow near Deadwood, in the northern Black Hills. Reports of ten inches to two feet of snow were received from many West River counties. In some towns, residents reported drifts were blocking their doorways, and in the southwestern corner of the state, 20-foot snowdrifts were reported on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
Dozens of schools, agencies, businesses, and attractions, including Mount Rushmore National Memorial, were closed because of the snow, which started Wednesday afternoon.
Greg Harmon of the Sioux Falls National Weather Service office said winds should subside in the west early Friday and in the east later in the day. Blizzard warnings, winter storm warnings and winter weather advisories were issued for most of the Dakotas. The wind and heavy snow caused many power failures, but repair crews can't get to the downed lines because of the blizzard, Rounds said. More than 10,000 customers lost power at some point in Nebraska and South Dakota. According to the South Dakota Rural Electric Association, eight cooperatives reported outages and damage to their systems. Some people will be without power for several days, the governor said.
Eight inches of snow was reported in Richardton, North Dakota, southwest of Bismarck, and in Rushville, Nebraska, in the northwestern corner of the state, according to the weather service. "The wind is blowing so hard it's hard to tell how much snow we got," said Terry Sarlsland, street superintendent in Bowman, North Dakota. "We got four-foot drifts in some places."
Sharon Gjermundson, a postmaster in Taylor, North Dakota, said about a foot of snow kept her from punching in at work Thursday, and that she and her husband were worried about their livestock. "We hope all the cattle are okay," she said.

Rico says he hopes their cattle are okay, too, but even more he hopes Pennsylvania doesn't get four feet of snow...

It is good to be the prince

In an article by Dan Frommer, the Silicon Alley Insider reveals the details of the retirement of yet another lucky guy in the Valley:

Departing Apple exec Tony Fadell, who reportedly came up with the idea for the iPod, gets a nice retirement package for his new role as advisor to CEO Steve Jobs: He'll get a $300,000 annual salary -- 60% of his previous, $500,000 annual salary -- and potentially millions of dollars of stock. Specifically, he'll get 77,500 restricted stock units that vest in 2010. At today's price, that's worth $8.4 million. That's chump change to keep Fadell away from any of Apple's competitors.

From an Apple SEC filing:

On November 3, 2008, Tony Fadell, Senior Vice President, iPod Division of the Company became Special Advisor to the Company’s Chief Executive Officer. In this new position, Mr. Fadell no longer will be an executive officer of the Company. In connection therewith, Mr. Fadell and the Company have entered into a Transition Agreement and a Settlement Agreement and Release (the “Transition Agreement” and the “Settlement Agreement,” respectively), under which Mr. Fadell will receive a salary of three hundred thousand dollars annually, and will be entitled to bonus and other health and welfare benefits generally available to other senior managers for the duration of the Transition Agreement, which remains in effect until March 24, 2010. The Transition Agreement also provides for the cancellation of outstanding and unvested 155,000 restricted stock units held by Mr. Fadell. Upon approval by the Compensation Committee of the Company’s Board of Directors, Mr. Fadell will be granted 77,500 restricted stock units that will vest in full on March 24, 2010, subject to his continued employment with the Company through the vesting date and further subject to accelerated vesting if the Company terminates his employment without cause. The restricted stock units are payable upon vesting in shares of the Company’s common stock on a one-for-one basis. The Settlement Agreement includes Mr. Fadell’s release of claims against the Company and agreement not to solicit the Company’s employees for one year following the termination of his employment.

Rico says see what happens if you're smart in the right place at the right time? He came up with the handheld computer back at CMU in the mid-70s, and look what it got him: bupkis.

Hope you sold your Yahoo stock

The story by Kenneth Corbin is about the troubles at Yahoo, now that Google left them holding an empty bag:

With Yahoo's planned advertising partnership with Google now in tatters, industry observers are left wondering what happened -- and what's next for the embattled Web pioneer.
The agreement would have seen Google sell ads against underperforming keywords on Yahoo's (NASDAQ: YHOO) search pages.
Yahoo struck the deal as it was seeking to reverse its slipping fortunes and facing intense pressure from shareholders frustrated with the stop-start acquisition talks with Microsoft. Hours after announcing that negotiations with Microsoft had formally ended, the Web portal had come forward with details about the Google deal, touting the partnership as a path to an additional $800 million in annual revenue.
Yesterday, however, Yahoo expressed dismay that its newest partner had also withdrawn its hand, bowing to the threat of legal action from federal antitrust authorities. "Yahoo continues to believe in the benefits of the agreement and is disappointed that Google has elected to withdraw from the agreement rather than defend it in court," the company said.
Officials from the Department of Justice telephoned the companies yesterday morning and informed them that it planned to file an antitrust lawsuit to block the deal. Google responded that it would terminate the agreement, and immediately notified Yahoo of its plan. The DoJ had been reviewing the deal since it was signed in June, investigating the anticompetitive implications of an alliance between the top two companies in search advertising. The department hired a top antitrust litigator to shore up its case, and the companies twice delayed their planned implementation date.
Because they were not merging, the companies did not need formal approval to move ahead with the deal. However, they agreed to the voluntary delay to accommodate the review, which was joined by 15 states' attorneys general. In its investigation, the DoJ determined that search advertising and search syndication are both relevant antitrust markets. Regulators worried that the tie-up would have led Yahoo to gradually cede its search business to Google as it became accustomed to the increased revenue from imported ads. "The primary concern was that Yahoo would become almost overly reliant on Google's ads," the source told InternetNews.com.
Yahoo insisted that it would use the additional revenue to invest in its own search technology, and that it would continue to compete vigorously with its larger rival, but regulators were unconvinced.
"The arrangement likely would have denied consumers the benefits of competition -- lower prices, better service and greater innovation," Thomas Barnett, the assistant attorney general in charge of the DoJ's antitrust division, said in a statement.
Google and Yahoo had proposed modifications to the arrangement to make it more palatable to regulators, but ultimately they reached an impasse. After several iterations, they offered to cap the portion of Yahoo's search revenue that came from Google ads at 25 percent. They also proposed shortening the term of the agreement from 10 years to two, with no renewal clause, but neither of those two concessions satisfied the DoJ.
The agreement also had sparked fierce opposition from many advertisers who feared that the net effect would be higher prices and a less competitive market. Google cited this as a key reason for dropping out.
Last month, as it became clear that the government's objections to the Google-Yahoo deal were significant, rumors began circulating that Microsoft might be interested in renewing talks with Yahoo, prompting the software giant to issue this statement: "Our position hasn't changed. Microsoft has no interest in acquiring Yahoo; there are no discussions between the companies."

Rico says Yahoo! is doomed, and won't be missed...

9? 17? 22? Depends on who you ask

CNN says nine Waziris were killed by a US missile strike in northwestern Pakistan:

The strike happened about 12:10 p.m. in a village in North Waziristan, a region near the Afghan border that is rife with Islamic extremism.

Rico says 'rife with Islamic extremism'; that's a good one. Is there any part of that part of the world that isn't?

The Times says it's 17 dead, with the killing done by Pakistani aircraft:

Pakistani helicopters and jets have killed 17 suspected insurgents overnight as violence raged in Taliban strongholds near the Afghan border. Ten other militants were wounded in the airstrikes on rebel hide-outs in the Bajur region late Thursday, said Jamil Khan, a government official in the semiautonomous area.

The AFP says it's 22 dead in a suicide bombing:

The death toll from a suicide bombing against government-backed tribal elders fighting al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in northwest Pakistan has risen to 22, officials said Friday. A suicide attacker blew himself up on Thursday as the elders met in Batmalai, about 40 kilometres (25 miles) northeast of Khar, the main town in the semi-autonomous Bajaur district bordering Afghanistan.

Rico says it's not a good time to be in that part of the world...

Weasels wouldn't even stand up for their dubious beliefs

The New York Daily News has an AP article about the two clowns arrested for plotting to kill Obama:

Two white supremacists pleaded not guilty Thursday to federal charges in what authorities say was a plot to kill President-elect Barack Obama and dozens of other black people.
Daniel Cowart, 20, of rural West Tennessee and Paul Schlesselman, 18, of Helena-West Helena, Arkansas, were indicted Wednesday on charges of threatening a presidential candidate, possessing a sawed-off shotgun, taking firearms across state lines to commit crimes, and planning to rob a licensed gun dealer. The two were arrested late last month and are being held in federal custody without bond. Their arrests were made public on 27 October. No trial date has been set.
Wearing black-and-white striped prison uniforms and with chains around their wrists, waists and ankles, Cowart and Schlesselman spoke only to say "not guilty" during a brief hearing before a federal magistrate in Memphis. The charges in the seven-count indictment carry a maximum punishment of 50 years in prison and fines of $540,000. Court records say Cowart and Schlesselman, whom authorities say are white supremacist skinheads, told investigators they planned to conduct a national crime spree that would include a string of armed robberies and the murders of 88 black people.
The number has significance for white supremacists. "H" is the eighth letter of the alphabet and 88 is skinhead code for "Heil Hitler," authorities say. The killing spree, the records say, was to culminate with a suicide attack on Obama, which Cowart and Schlesselman would launch from a speeding car while wearing top hats and white tuxedoes.
Joe H. Byrd, Cowart's lawyer, refused to talk about the charges, but when asked if the alleged threats were real, he told reporters, "White top hats and tuxedoes? You tell me." Prosecutors and Schlesselman's public defender have declined comment.
Schlesselman and Cowart were arrested about 70 miles north of Memphis after an acquaintance told sheriff's deputies they had shot out a window of a rural black church. After questioning Cowart and Schlesselman, local authorities notified federal investigators.

Rico says the whole thing sounds like a bullshit session among stoned yahoos, but he does like the 'top hats and white tuxedoes' thing; these boys were playing to the crowd...

You'd think they'd buy bigger vehicles

The New York Daily News has an article by James Meek about the start of the Obama presidency:

President-elect Barack Obama was briefed Thursday on America's deepest, darkest secrets, just as the Bush White House warned that the U.S. faces a "heightened period" of danger during the transition.
The outgoing President's spokeswoman, Dana Perino, said there are no specific plots, but officials remain "very concerned. We do know that this is just a heightened period of concern," she said.
Obama was whisked into the FBI's Chicago field office to get an 'expanded access' briefing by Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, sources said.
FBI field offices are equipped with eavesdropping-proof chambers called SCIFs, or Sensitive Compartmentalized Information Facilities, where Obama can get the same secret briefing President Bush receives every day. While Obama probably won't be given nuclear missile launch codes until 20 January, when he's sworn into office, McConnell and his team from the nation's spy agencies gave him a laundry list of foreign threats and details about the National Security Agency's secret surveillance programs.
"He'll get a rundown on countries around the world," said a counterterrorism official who has helped prepare the 'crown jewel' of American intelligence: the President's Daily Briefing book, known as the PDB.
"It's overwhelming what he'll be hit with," the source added, referring to the daily "threat matrix".
It's a sure bet he'll learn where Osama Bin Laden may be hiding and what is being done to kill him and other Al Qaeda leaders. But Iraq and Afghanistan will top the agenda. Nuclear counterproliferation in Russia, China, North Korea and Iran will also be explained to Obama. He'll hear about classified operations in those countries and against terrorists in hot spots like Syria, North Africa and Pakistan - where at least 20 CIA missile strikes by unmanned drones have targeted the Taliban and al-Qaeda in a covert offensive since August.
Bush's briefings typically begin with "an overnight news report" on events public and clandestine, another official said. Craig Schmall, a CIA officer who briefed Vice President Cheney six days a week during 2003, testified last year the briefing book consists of a "series of analytic reports", and that items of special interest are tabbed. Cheney would keep the book for one day before placing it in a "burn bag" and returning it to the briefer, Schmall testified.
U.S. intelligence officials say every "customer" tailors their daily briefing, which "is a dialogue". Bush, for example, likes to see maps of countries he's briefed on and photos of people he's told about, one source said. Cheney likes detailed answers to questions he poses and goes "deep in the weeds", sources say.

Rico says this is when the grey hair starts...

Smarmy Joe blows that gig

The New York Daily News has a column by Kenneth Bazinet about the self-destruction of Joe Lieberman:

Senator Joe Lieberman pleaded with Democratic bosses Thursday to keep his job as chairman of the Homeland Security Committee after stumping ceaselessly for John McCain.
It may be too late for Lieberman, a former Democrat and now an Independent from Connecticut, whose non-stop campaigning for McCain angered President-elect Barack Obama, insiders confirmed.
"You don't run around the country campaigning for McCain and saying you're afraid the Democrats will get a 60-seat majority, and then beg to keep your chairmanship," said a senior Democratic source.
Another key Democrat called Lieberman's behavior during the campaign, including an appearance at the Republican National Convention, "overly partisan and very insulting".
Although an independent since he ran under his own banner after losing a Democratic primary race in 2006, Lieberman has caucused with Senate Democrats, giving the party a one-seat majority in the chamber. But that dynamic changed on Election Day, when Democrats increased their majority and they no longer needed an alliance with Lieberman to retain power.
Lieberman groveled at a meeting with Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada, begging to retain his lofty post, sources said. Reid said Lieberman's "comments and actions have raised serious concerns among many in our caucus," and floated the prospect of some type of deal being struck over the next two weeks.
Lieberman tried to make an appeal to Obama - who had irked his party's left by supporting Lieberman in the 2006 primary - saying, "I completely agree with President-elect Obama that we must now unite to get our economy going again and to keep the American people safe."

Rico says he never liked Lieberman, and is happy to see him get his richly-deserved comeuppance...

Lost that job already

The New York Daily News has a column by Shallon Lester about the future of certain Saturday Night Live stars now that the election's over; Tina Fey, of course, will go back to her 'real' job on 30 Rock.
Rico says that he, for one, will miss her; it wouldn't have been enough reason to elect McCain, but damn close...

N-SSA and the Blues

The Delaware Blues 'A' team on the line at Fort Shenandoah; Barker and Benson are at the right of the line.

Spitzer skates

Rico says some guys are luckier than others:

Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer will not face criminal charges for his role in the prostitution scandal that drove him from office this year, prosecutors announced this afternoon. Spitzer, a hard-driving scion of a Manhattan real estate family, was exposed in March as a customer of the Emperors Club VIP, a pricey call girl ring busted by federal authorities. He used the ring's services repeatedly, sometimes traveling to Washington's Mayflower Hotel and other locations for liaisons with women that cost as much as $4,000.
The uproar over the payments prompted a crisis in New York state government that ultimately chased Spitzer out of the governor's seat. While Spitzer retired from public life, joining his father's real estate investment company, the investigation by the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service, and the U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York continued.
Manhattan US Attorney Michael Garcia said today that his office had uncovered no evidence that Spitzer used public or campaign funds in a series of payments to a shell company, QAT Consulting."We have determined that there is insufficient evidence to bring charges against Mr. Spitzer for any offense relating to the withdrawal of funds for, and his payments to, the Emperors Club VIP," Garcia said in a prepared statement.
Justice Department policy generally discourages bringing criminal charges against customers who purchase the services of prostitutes or transport them across state lines. Lawyers for Spitzer had argued that prosecutors would need to indict all of the services' clients, not just Spitzer, to prove they were not singling out the controversial New York Democrat.
Spitzer released a statement saying that "I understand the Office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York has decided that it will not bring criminal charges against me. I appreciate the impartiality and thoroughness of the investigation by the US Attorney's Office and I acknowledge and accept responsibility for the conduct it disclosed. I resigned my position as Governor because I recognized that conduct was unworthy of an elected official. I once again apologize for my actions, and for the pain and disappointment those actions caused my family and the many people who supported me during my career in public life."

Rico says sex with any woman (no, not even her) is not worth four grand, sorry...

Henry the Ninth

Rico says Ray Bradbury was one of his all-time-favorite authors, and he rereads his stuff just for the glorious language. This, from Henry the Ninth in I Sing the Body Electric:

"Traitors! Come back!" You can't leave old England, can't leave Pip and Humbug, Iron Duke and Trafalgar, the Horse Guard in the rain, London burning, buzz bombs and sirens, the new babe held high on the palace balcony, Churchill's funeral cortegé still in the street, man, still in the street! and Cæsar not gone to his Senate, and strange happenings this night at Stonehenge! Leave all this, this, this?
Upon his knees, at the cliff's edge, the last and final king of England, Harry Smith wept alone.
...
The old man turned to see the countryside and thought, why, this is how it was one hundred thousand years ago. a great silence and a great wilderness and now, quite late, the empty shell towns and King Henry, Old Harry, the Ninth.
He rummaged half blindly about in the grass and found his lost book bag and chocolate bits in a sack and hoisted his Bible, and Shakespeare, and much-thumbed Johnson, and much-tongued Dickens and Dryden and Pope, and stood out on the road that led all round England.
Tomorrow: Christmas. He wished the world well. Its people had gifted themselves already with sun, all over the globe. Sweden lay empty. Norway had flown. None lived any longer in God's cold climes. All basked upon the continental hearths of His best lands in fair winds under mild skies. No more fights just to survive.
...
Buttoning his coat, carrying his books, Old Harry Ebenezer Scrooge Julius Cæsar Pickwick Pip and half a thousand others marched off along the road in winter weather. The road was long and beautiful. The waves were gunfire on the coast. The wind was bagpipes in the north...

Rico says if you wonder where he got his love of the warm places of the planet, look no further...

There's some research worth doing

Courtesy of his friend Tex, a school project that Rico would've been proud to assist with when he was in high school (that caveat is due to the problem with the statutory rape issue now, of course; one of the curses of getting older and, hopefully, wiser).

A parade Rico wishes he could have seen

The First Church of the Last Laugh held its 29th Annual St. Stupid's Day Parade on 1 April (aka April Fools' Day), following its weekend route thru North Beach (weekday parades go thru the financial district). The parade ended up at Washington Square Park at Union and Columbus for a staged two-minute talent show (open to all), music by Somebody you never heard of and the performance of the Rituals, including the Leap of Faith, the Sock Exchange, and the induction ceremony.
Attendees were encouraged to wear whatever they think was appropriate to this event, which has its roots in the thousand-year-old Feast of Fools tradition. Noise makers, musical instruments, flags, and silly signage were also called for at this unique San Francisco event.
Saint Stupid is the little-known, 4'2", Patron Saint of civilizations and parking meters, and is famous for saying, "I know, I know, but ya know, ya never know", "So far, so what", and "The closer you are, the nearer you get." Rain or Shine. Free.

Rico says an only-in-San-Francisco event; he's sorry he missed it.

Three Americas

Courtesy of my ladyfriend, this from the Fallen Monk blog:

John Kerry and John Edwards are wrong.
There aren't 'Two Americas'. There are actually three Americas.
There's the sane, rational, informed, and normal America, which properly and overwhelmingly supports Kerry and Edwards.
There's the crazed, insane, wingnut America which, unbelieveably, supports George Bush or the even crazier Ralph Nader.
Then there's the uninformed or ignorant America which, for the moment, supports Bush because it easier than thinking.
The real problem John Kerry faces is that George Bush is practically the patron saint of "shit for brains" America.

Rico says he wouldn't support the Two Johns with a gun to his head, nor George Bush or Ralph Nader. Fortunately, yesterday Americans spoke at the polls, and it's None Of The Above...

Now they don't like her

Kate Snow at ABCNews.com has the story of the infighting after the fact:

Now that the defeated team of Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin have gone their separate ways, the knives are out and Palin is the one who is getting filleted. Revelations from anonymous critics from within the McCain-Palin campaign suggest a number of complaints about the Alaskan governor:
•Fox News reports that Palin didn't know Africa was a continent and did not know the member nations of the North American Free Trade Agreement -- the United States, Mexico and Canada -- when she was picked for vice president.
•The New York Times reports that McCain aides were outraged when Palin staffers scheduled her to speak with French President Nicholas Sarkozy, a conversation that turned out to be a radio station prank.
•Newsweek reports that Palin spent far more than the previously reported $150,000 on clothes for herself and her family.
•Several publications say she irked the McCain campaign by asking to make her own concession speech on election night.
The tension is likely to continue or get worse. Lawyers for the Republican National Committee are heading to Alaska to try to account for all the money that was spent on clothing, jewelry and luggage, according to The New York Times.

Rico says how they didn't know they'd picked Tina Fey for vice president, he doesn't know, but aren't these guys paid a lot of money to do this stuff? (And don't you just love those 'anonymous critics'?)

Rico doesn't know whether to cry or laugh

From Newsmax.com:

A slugfest for nearly two years, Minnesota's Senate race headed into a new round Wednesday as the campaigns girded for an automatic statewide recount to determine whether Republican Sen. Norm Coleman's bare lead over Democratic challenger Al Franken would stand.
Coleman declared himself the winner of Tuesday's election, but Franken said he would let the recount play out, hoping it would erase the incumbent's 475-vote lead out of nearly 2.9 million ballots. State officials said the recount wouldn't start until mid-November and would probably take weeks. If he hangs on, Coleman would be among the few Republicans who survived Democratic gains in Senate races nationwide. Democrats ousted two Republican incumbents and picked up three seats held by retiring GOP incumbents. Three other Republicans besides Coleman were trying to hang on in races too close to call.
"Yesterday the voters spoke. We prevailed," Coleman said Wednesday at a news conference. He noted Franken could opt to waive the recount. "It's up to him whether such a step is worth the tax dollars it will take to conduct," Coleman said, telling reporters he would "step back" if he were in Franken's position. Secretary of State Mark Ritchie said the recount would cost 3 cents per ballot, or almost $90,000.
As counties and Ritchie's office reconciled their unofficial vote totals Wednesday, Coleman's margin fluctuated but was at 475 votes Wednesday afternoon: Coleman had 1,211,642 votes, or 41.99 percent of the total votes cast, while Franken had 1,211,167 votes, or 41.98 percent.
Dean Barkley of the Independence Party was third with 15.16 percent. State law provides for automatic recounts in races decided by a half-percentage point or less.
"We won't know for a little while who won the race, but at the end of the day we will know the voice of the electorate is clearly heard," Franken said Wednesday. "This has been a long campaign, but it is going to be a little longer before we have a winner." Franken said his campaign was looking into reports of irregularities in Minneapolis, where some voters had trouble registering, though he didn't elaborate.
"We'll all have to be vigilant and work together to complete this recount successfully," his attorney, David Lillehaug, said. Coleman said he had hoped that "the healing process would begin today" but indicated he would nonetheless begin preparations for a second term. "My focus from here on out is giving Minnesotans the leadership they deserve in these challenging times," Coleman said.
Ritchie, a Democrat, said a recount wouldn't begin until 19 November and could stretch into December. It would involve hand counts by local election officials from around the state, and lawyers from both campaigns would be allowed to observe. "No matter how fast people would like it, the emphasis is on accuracy," Ritchie said. Ritchie's office ran a speedy recount in September of a close primary race for a Supreme Court seat. That took just three days, but Ritchie said the Senate race is different. "Having a ton of lawyers and other partisans injected into the process, that will change the dynamics of it," Ritchie said.
Each ballot will be inspected manually. Ballots with improper or stray marks could be analyzed to determine voter intent, but partisan observers can challenge those they deem questionable. The five-member state canvassing board votes later on the challenged ballots.
Election experts said that recounts, even on a large scale, don't often reverse the initial vote count. "They sometimes get closer," said Bob Stein, a political scientist at Rice University in Houston who studies elections and voting. "They just don't flip very much." But it's not unheard of. In the 2004 governor's race in Washington state, the initial vote count put Republican Dino Rossi 261 votes ahead of Democrat Christine Gregoire. A machine recount narrowed that margin further, finding a 42-vote Rossi win. After that, the state undertook a second, hand recount of ballots that gave the win to Gregoire by 129 votes. She was inaugurated soon after, but Republicans sued to overturn the results. The case dragged on until June, when a judge rejected Rossi's legal efforts. Minnesota and Washington both use optical-scan ballots that voters mark by hand.
The photo finish in this year's Senate race came after nearly two years of intense, sometimes bitter competition between Coleman, one of the state's most durable politicians, and Franken, who made his name as a writer and performer on Saturday Night Live. The candidates spent $30 million attacking each other on the airwaves. Millions more poured into the race from national parties and outside groups, leaving both men with high negatives in voters' eyes. An analysis of exit poll data showed Franken wasn't able to win over independent voters at the same rate as fellow Democrat Barack Obama, providing a clue as to why his race ended with such a tight margin.

The other side of the story

Things go better with Coke and the cops

Rico says only in Japan...

An innovative new soda vending machine from Coca-Cola Japan offers passersby much more than a refreshing cooler. An onboard emergency phone provides instant communication with local police while a top-mounted security camera records the street scene below. Yes, it's the real thing! Coca-Cola Japan's pilot project in the central Japanese city of Toyohashi involves setting out radical new drink vending machines that address people's top two reactions to emergency situations: "I need the police!" and "I need a drink!"
The Help Vending Machine - which somewhat surprisingly does not have a smiling face - is a joint venture of Coca-Cola Japan and the Aichi prefecture police department. Here's how it works: the telephone in the machine's front door is no ordinary phone. Instead, it automatically dials the police emergency number (110 in Japan) when either the handset is picked up, the front door of the coke machine is opened, or if somebody pushes the button that turns on the flashing light on top of the otherwise standard beverage vending machine.
Just so there's no confusion, a warning buzzer goes off and the red light begins rotating anytime the out of the ordinary soda machine's door is opened. By this time, the video camera has begun recording, having been activated by a built-in motion sensor. Best of all, you can enjoy a refreshingly chilled Coca-Cola beverage while you wait for the squad car to arrive. Unless you've been mugged, that is.
The Help Vending Machine is located in the Iwata Athletic Park in Toyohashi, a smallish Japanese city located about 250 kilometers south of Nagoya... well, it was - just a couple of days after it made its debut, Coke's galvanized crime-fighter was vandalized by unknown hoodlums calling themselves the "Surveillance Society". That's what they painted onto the side of the vending machine.
Obviously peeved at the red & white robocop, the assailants cut the security camera's wiring and left the blinded cam hanging over the front of the now sad soda machine.

Rico says we need these here, but obviously with better armor...

Nice to see Stallone all dressed up, too

Rico says Stallone's new movie, Expendables, starring Jason Statham and (maybe; he hasn't signed yet) Jet Li, is one he'll go see. Sylvester may not act very well, but he's a pretty good director, and Statham and Li... Well, some things you just know in advance you're going to see.

Black Camelot. Damn, should'a thought of that one...

The Daily Trust out of Nigeria has a story with the greatest headline: Barack Obama - the Black Camelot
Too perfect.
Their columnist sums it up:

Camelot in Arthurian legend was the seat of King Arthur's court. It was a term used for John Kennedy when he won the American Presidency in 1961 which was seen then as the renewal of America and the promise of all possibilities and great things to come.
I am investing Barack Obama with the same legend. For what he has wrought in American politics, he is a black Camelot with all its glittering magical enchantments. Obama is Arthur who having conquered all opposition drew Excalibur, the sword from the stone in which it is buried for centuries and thereafter mounted his stallion and galloped off to make a date with History. And what a history!
Barack Obama as president -elect has given expressions to many time-worn notions. His achievement is nothing if not an exquisite dramatization of the idea of "from the log cabin to the White House". White House, symbolizing power and privilege that can be attained if worked hard for. In Barack's case it holds a greater resonance because it is the first time an African American would be achieving such a feat and boy, it did not come easily. Surely, on inauguration day the ghosts of Rev. Martin Luther King along with other Black dignitaries now gone, would be standing a little away from the gathering, they will wear a smile on their faces and chuckle to themselves that thank God we have got there at last. They can now say a final good bye.
arack personifies America as the melting pot, a mélange of all nationalities gathered in one place, a fact noticeable always from the ever surging multi-racial crowd that gather to listen to him speak. Anyone who can do this, who can appeal to and win the allegiance of people from multi-racial backgrounds and ride on the wave they provide to power must have an innate quality special only to him. He has given expression to the quest of this motley crowd of peoples to forge a nation out of the cleavages of race, privilege and the bigotry and brutalities they spurned in the days of yore. His victory signals the defeat of the stubborn attempt to maintain and sustain them.
President-elect Barack Obama as a citizen of America and the world holds so much goodwill and prospect, we are waiting with bated breath for them to bear fruits.

Rico says he wishes he'd written that damned headline...

Rico better get on the stick

The BBC has the story:
One of the five remaining veterans of World War I has died at the age of 108, it has been announced. Sydney Maurice Lucas was born in Leicester on 21 September 1900. He was among the last batch of conscripts to be called up in 1918. The Armistice meant he escaped the horror of the trenches but went on to serve in World War II. He died on 4 November in his home town near Melbourne in Australia where he moved in 1928. He was just 17 when he was drafted into the Sherwood Foresters in August 1918.
He was trained in Derby and then Catterick in Yorkshire, but when the war ended he was sent home before he had to leave for France. In 1928 he, like many other Britons, emigrated to Australia in search of a better life. In June 1940 he volunteered for the Australian army and was posted to a machine gun company. He sailed to Palestine where Australian forces were being prepared to travel to Greece, which had been invaded by German and Italian troops. But he was again destined not to see active service, after an attack of appendicitis prevented him travelling with his battalion, which left without him in April 1941. He returned to Australia on board the liner Queen Mary, as part of an operation guarding Italian and German prisoners of war, and was discharged from the army in November 1941, on the grounds of ill health. For many years he led the local Anzac Day parade in his home town on the Mornington Peninsula near Melbourne. He attributed his long life to a moderate consumption of alcohol.

Rico says he has a great book (unfinished, though started) called Next-to-Last Tsar about another WW1 vet, this one connected with the story of the Romanovs, but he better write it soon or it'll really be historical fiction...

Test number one, right on schedule

The BBC has the story of Russia's announcement that they're going to deploy their own missiles in Central Europe:

The US has described as "disappointing" Russia's plans to deploy new missiles in the Baltic region to counter a US defence shield in central Europe. The State Department stressed the planned shield in the Czech Republic and Poland was "not aimed at Russia", but NATO voiced "serious concerns" about Moscow's intentions.
President Dmitry Medvedev said putting short-range Iskander missiles near NATO members Poland and Lithuania would "neutralise" the US missile shield. In his state-of-the nation address on Wednesday, Mr. Medvedev said Russia had been forced to respond to the US plans by deploying missiles in its Kaliningrad enclave, between Poland and Lithuania.
The US has repeatedly stated that its shield is a defence against missiles from 'rogue' nations, but Russia sees it as a direct threat, correspondents say. "The steps that the Russian government announced... are disappointing," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

Rico says he guesses that makes Russia a rogue nation (no surprise there). But, in a related BBC story, as if the Russians weren't hinky enough already, now we're going in on their other side:

Standing beneath the dramatic Caucasus mountain range in northern Azerbaijan, the Qabala radar station is a stark concrete block which dominates the rural landscape. This former Soviet installation is now at the centre of discussions between Moscow and Washington. Russian president Vladimir Putin suggested it could be used for a joint missile defence project as an alternative to the United States' plan to build a missile shield in Europe to guard against attacks from what it describes as "rogue states". The US sees Iran - bordering on Azerbaijan - as a potential threat. Qabala is an integral part of Russia's defence system, leased from the Azeri government and used since the 1980s for monitoring missile launches, with an estimated range of 6,000 kilometres (3,720 miles). It provides work for hundreds of Azeris, as well as the many Russians who are based here. It remains top-secret, and is protected by checkpoints and electrified fences.
There was local scepticism about any possible US involvement in the radar station, which once tracked American military activity. "I do not think the Americans will bring anything good here," said Mustafa, a local teacher. "They haven't ever done anything for Azerbaijan and they only act in their own interests."
President Putin's proposal came as a surprise in Azerbaijan, as it did in the West. But Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev responded positively, saying it would serve the country's "long-term strategic interests".
President Bush has described Mr Putin's idea as 'interesting", and it will be discussed when the two leaders meet in July. But the Russian military analyst Alexander Goltz suspects that Mr Putin's offer was simply a political ploy to upset US plans, and questions whether using the Azeri installation would be technically viable. "If you take this seriously, Qabala at least needs to be modernised because it has a totally different purpose at the moment. It cannot guide interceptor missiles," Mr Goltz told the BBC. "The question is whether the US will agree to use Qabala to show it has a close partnership with Russia. It's about political strategy, not military strategy."
Concerns have also been raised that the proposed missile defence project could damage Azerbaijan's relations with neighbouring Iran. The US believes Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons. An Iranian foreign ministry spokesman has warned that US involvement at Qabala could cause "instability and insecurity" in the region.

How come they get our guys and we don't get them?

Bloomberg.com has a story by James Rupert about a suicide bombing in Pakistan that took out ten anti-Taliban tribal leaders.
Rico says oh, yeah, that suicide thing...

Desperation is an ugly thing

ComputerWorld has an article by Eric Lai about Microsoft's attempts to salvage its OS:

Tackling customer complaints that the Windows Vista operating system is sluggish and power-hungry, Microsoft Corp. today promised that Vista's successor, Windows 7, will use less memory and power than its predecessor, and will start up and shut down more quickly, among other improvements.
Windows 7 will also recognize connected devices more quickly and accurately than Vista does, and it will run nimbly on low-cost netbook PCs, said senior executives during a keynote speech kicking off Microsoft's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC).
Despite being built on the same code base as Vista, Windows 7 should be able to boot up several seconds faster than Vista does because it loads device drivers in parallel rather than one by one, and it cuts the number of services that are started when the PC is turned on, said Jon DeVaan, senior vice president for Microsoft's Windows Core Operating System division. Windows 7 will use less memory than Vista as more application windows are opened up by "letting the video card do its job so we don't have to manage" the windows, DeVaan said. Vista also "didn't do a good job of letting the CPU get to idle and stay idle," DeVaan said. Windows 7 has improvements in the kernel so that the CPU runs at a lower frequency and stays idle longer. The net result is that Windows 7 will offer an improvement in battery life of up to 11% over Vista, he said.
Reminiscent of the tone of last week's keynote at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference, DeVaan sounded an apologetic tone in his presentation to the thousands of attendees, who are mostly engineers at or other employees of Windows PC and device manufacturers. "When we shipped Vista, we immediately started getting quite a lot of feedback from customers, bloggers and yes, even some TV commercials, about reliability and performance improvements in Vista. Their concerns were quite real," DeVaan said.
To fix this, Microsoft plans to "give you reliable pre-release builds, so that you can do the dirty work and also have the confidence that when we say we will ship Windows 7 on a certain date, you'll believe us," DeVaan said. That should "make Windows 7's first day a lot smoother from an ecosystem standpoint."
Microsoft plans to broadly release a feature-complete beta of Windows 7 early next year, according to Steven Sinofsky, senior vice president of Windows and Windows Live engineering. Sinofsky and Mike Angiulo, general manager of the Windows PC planning and PC ecosystem team, demonstrated an Asus Eee netbook that ran Windows 7 even though it had just 1GB of RAM and a 16GB solid-state drive for storage.
"Yes, we expect Windows 7 to run well on netbooks," said Mike Nash, corporate vice president for Windows product management, in a separate interview. They also showed how connecting a device to a Windows 7 PC results in a thumbnail of the exact product popping up instantly.
Clicking on the device pops up a small window that Microsoft calls DeviceStage. DeviceStage can be used by the device manufacturer to offer customer service aids, such as how-to documents or links to live customer service chat sessions, or to sell subscriptions or add-on products.
Microsoft executives emphasized that the improvements to Windows 7 will only come to fruition if hardware makers -- both PC vendors and device makers -- certify and test their products for Windows 7 compatibility.
Though poor software and driver compatibility were major problems for Vista, Nash evinced no fear that hardware partners may skimp on testing and certification because of recession-related cutbacks. "Most of our partners, though not all, are managing for the long term," he said. Microsoft executives said they are well aware that improvements in areas such as laptop battery life can be undercut by third-party devices that inadvertently drain the hardware. But they have no plans to offer stronger carrots or sticks to encourage or force device makers to comply with Windows 7 requirements. "Force is a strong word," Nash said. "We are simplifying our programs to make it easier for them to partake. It's not so much about using incentives or penalties to get companies on board."

Rico says he's laughing all the way to OS XI, and fervently hopes he never has to use a Gates machine ever again...

Googling Yahoo, you get Microsoft

Rico says he cares not, since he doesn't use Yahoo anyway:

By most accounts, the status quo will leave Google an even more dominant force in the search ad market. Without the additional hundreds of millions of dollars, Yahoo—whose search market share has fallen in the past year—presents even less of a competitive foil to Google. And Microsoft has been losing ground to Google even faster.

But the failed Google:Yahoo merger now looks to be leading to a Microsoft:Yahoo merger:

Jerry Yang believes Microsoft should buy Yahoo!, despite being blamed by many for apparently rejecting a $33-a-share offer from the software giant just a few months ago. Yang told the audience at the Web2.0 love-in in San Francisco that he and the board remained open to possible talks with Microsoft, but that nothing was going on at the moment. Minority shareholder and Yahoo! board member Carl Icahn has also appeared to try and resurrect the deal - he is again suggesting selling Yahoo!'s search business to Microsoft.
For its part Microsoft, in the form of Steve Ballmer, has remained quiet - although earlier this month he did allow for the possibility of a deal.
Yang also said he was disappointed that Google was not prepared to fight to defend their advertising pact, which was abandoned yesterday because of worries from regulators and advertisers.
The collapse of the agreement with Google does leave Yahoo! with a problem. But going back to a deal, rejected in July, at either $33 or $37 a share when Yahoo shares are now less than $14 will be difficult. Throughout the long-running takeover battle Yang insisted that Microsoft was undervaluing Yahoo!.
But Google's slice of the advertising pie shows no sign of narrowing - revenues for the last quarter grew 31 per cent to $5.54bn. Meanwhile, Yahoo profits fell 64 per cent in the last quarter and it announced 1,400 layoffs - one in ten workers.
Asked if Yahoo! was in talks to buy AOL, Yang said he could not talk about it.

Rico says a merger between Microsoft and Yahoo? There's a company from Hell...

Another great one gone

Whether you liked his stuff (The Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park, and a slew of other books, many of which became movies) or not, Michael Crichton was the writer of the 80s and 90s. Cancer, they say; bummer.
The New York Times, among many others, has an obituary:

Mr. Crichton’s fast-paced narratives often involved the arcana of medical technology, computer science, chaos theory or genetic engineering. But by combining old-fashioned storytelling with up-to-date, gee-whiz science, the books made for a compelling formula that was adapted easily by Hollywood. His books sold in the tens of millions and almost routinely became movies, many of them blockbusters like Jurassic Park and the sequel, The Lost World, as well as Rising Sun (good book, great movie starring Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes). Reviewers often complained that Mr. Crichton’s characters were wooden, that his ear for dialogue was tin and that his science was suspect. Environmentalists raged against his skeptical views on climate change, first expressed in the 2004 novel State of Fear, and subsequently in various public forums. Even his severest critics, however, confessed to being seduced by his plots and unable to resist turning the pages, rapidly.

Rico says there's a bunch of stuff he didn't know about Crichton; he was six foot seven, he graduated from Harvard (no great surprise there), he lived in La Jolla (so does Rico's dad) and went to the Salk Institute, and he wrote and directed Westworld (which was pretty terrible, truth be told). But he did write The Great Train Robbery, which became a delightful film starring Sean Connery. He was also married five times.

Delaware Blues at Gettysburg

The 140th of Remembrance Day.

The dream (or nightmare) team, your call

Courtesy of the Peripatetic Engineer, the ticket for 2012.

Ford commercial

Courtesy of my friend Tex, another Ford ad you'll never see.

Another historic election

While apparently it's still too close to call (they're expecting an automatic recount), the race is tight: the incumbent leads the challenger by only 571 votes out of almost three million.
Which race? The Minnesota Senate seat.
The incumbent? Republican Norm Coleman.
The challenger? Democrat Al Franken.
Yes, that Al Franken, the wooly-haired wacko from Saturday Night Live.
Rico says that, based on this photo alone, Franken is not who he'd pick to represent him in Congress...

One war is over

143 years after Appomattox, the Civil War is finally over.
40 years after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis and the passage of the Voting Rights Act in Washington, the other civil war goes on.
Rico says it is a good first step, but we have far to go...

Magnanimous, even in victory

Rico says it's going to be an interesting time in America...

Technological illiteracy

Rico says everyone is touting the 'hologram' technology supposedly used by CNN to insert distant people into the scene with Anderson Cooper. Bogus. Sure, they're imitating the Princess Leia schtick from Star Wars, but that wasn't a hologram either. It is a 3D image, in the sense that the relative angle of the cameras match, but the person didn't magically appear in the air in front of Mr. Cooper, just in the broadcast image we all saw on our televisions. Actually, the touch-screen technology used on several channels was cooler... (And the Guardian from the UK put it down in that terribly understated English way: "...this was one of the most gleefully pointless election-night gimmicks of them all.")

An odd division

Rico says he's never seen the country divided quite so neatly before, but then this was an unusual election... (And what's up with Missouri, Georgia, and North Carolina?)

It was a choice

Rico says you could've voted for the nice colored gentleman, or the slightly crazed old white guy. But it doesn't matter who you voted for now, because Obama's gonna be president.
Though Rico suspects the Secret Service is going to be working overtime from now on...

Fuck that

The Los Angeles Times has an article by David Savage about the current controversy in the Supreme Court:

The Supreme Court justices talked about indecency and foul language today, but they did so without using any of the actual words that federal regulators hope to ban from television and radio broadcasts.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia made clear that they strongly support the drive to keep the F-word and the S-word off broadcasts during the hours when children and families are likely to be watching.

Rico says that would be fuck and shit, from the context.

Roberts, who has two young children, said families who watch a Hollywood awards program should not have to hear foul words. It is different, he said, if a live sports broadcast picks up a foul word in the background. "The context makes all the difference in the world," the chief justice said. Under its policy, the FCC could fine the broadcasters who aired the awards program but spare the sports broadcaster.
Scalia blamed the broadcasters in general for the "coarsening" of society. "I'm not persuaded by the argument that people are more accustomed to hearing these words than they were in the past," he said.
At issue before the court today was a crackdown on broadcast expletives announced by the FCC four years ago. Broadcasters can face fines of more than $325,000 for airing an expletive, but they won a lower-court ruling that blocked the policy from being enforced.
Solicitor General Gregory Garre, defending the FCC, urged the court to allow the new policy to go into effect. The rules against broadcast indecency create a "safety zone" for families, he said. Cable TV channels have edgier programs, but "broadcast TV is the one place where Americans can turn on the TV at 8 o'clock and not expect to be bombarded by indecent language," he said.
Chief Justice Roberts, agreeing, said that "all sorts of other media are available" for those who are not bothered by more open use of profanity, sex or violence.
But a lawyer for the Fox TV network said the FCC's abrupt shift in policy left broadcasters susceptible to being hit with huge fines, even when they inadvertently air an expletive during a live show.
"At the end of the day, you are regulating the content of speech," said Washington lawyer Carter Phillips. He said the court should block the FCC's new policy, either because it is arbitrary or because it violates the 1st Amendment.
Roberts and Scalia said it was neither. "Why do you think the F-word has shock value? Because it's associated with sexual activity. That's what gives it its force," Roberts said, defending the FCC's policy as reasonable and not arbitrary.
But Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg took the opposite tack. The FCC's policy has "no rhyme or reason," she said. Although the agency took no action against the TV broadcast of the movie Saving Private Ryan, which includes loud cursing on the D-day beaches, it objected to a TV broadcast of a documentary The Blues, in which musicians use curse words. Ginsburg also said the court needed to consider the free-speech issue. That is "the big elephant in the room," she said.
The outcome was especially hard to forecast, however, because several justices said little or nothing. They include Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Anthony M. Kennedy.
Fox TV took the lead in challenging the FCC's policy because it had broadcast several of the awards programs that figured in the crackdown. The government's policy will remain on hold until the high court rules in the case.

Rico says it's a hard thing to slice, this public indecency thing. But it's ludicrious on the face of it that Saving Private Ryan has decency 'issues' because of people cursing (as if D-Day wouldn't make anyone curse), but showing the same kids who stayed up to watch it graphic images of people getting their limbs blown off and bleeding to death in the surf is fine...

Antiques, still flying

Courtesy of my friend Rob, the Fairey Firefly at the Nellis Air Show.

War? Sure, why not, we've got two already

The International Herald Tribune has an article by Carol Giacomo about what we might look forward to, given the lame duck who's in office now:

It is a frightening notion, but it is not just the Bush administration discussing, if only theoretically, the possibility of military action to stop Iran's nuclear weapons program.
Of course, no president or would-be president ever takes the option of using the military off the table, and Barack Obama and John McCain are no exceptions.
What is significant is that inside Washington's policy circles these days - in studies, commentaries, meetings, congressional hearings and conferences - reasonable people from both parties are seriously examining the so-called military option, along with new diplomatic initiatives.
One of the most thorough discussions is in a report by the Washington-based Bipartisan Policy Center, founded by four former senators - Republicans Robert Dole and Howard Baker and Democrats Tom Daschle and George Mitchell - to devise policy solutions both parties might embrace.
The report warns that the next administration "might have little time and fewer options to deal with this threat." It explores such strategies as blockading Iran's gasoline imports, but it also says that "a military strike is a feasible option and must remain a last resort." Its authors include Dennis Ross, top Mideast adviser to Obama, and former Senator Dan Coats, a McCain adviser.
Ashton Carter, a senior Pentagon official in the Clinton administration, wrote a paper for the Center for a New American Security, a prestigious bipartisan think tank, that asserts military action must be seen as only one component of a comprehensive strategy "but it is an element of any true option".
At a conference in September in Virginia sponsored by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 'surrogates' for McCain and Obama insisted America must focus on preventing Iran from developing a bomb, not on allowing Iran to produce one and then deterring its use. "John McCain won't wait until after the fact," declared the columnist Max Boot, from the McCain team. The Arizona senator has previously said risking military action may be better than living with an Iranian nuclear weapon (and, to his regret, jokingly sang a song about bomb, bomb, bombing Iran).

Rico says set to the tune of "Barbara Ann"... (Which Rico, for years, thought was titled 'Bob Buran', but it wasn't.)

Hefe-weissen

Rico says we all need to remember that, using traditional naming conventions like the ones his family used, the middle name of the new President of the United States (okay, okay, premature election) Barack Obama should be Dunham, for his mother's family. (The grandmother just died, before she found out who won the election.)
Because, lest we forget, the guy's half-white, making him a latte.
Hell, his wife is blacker (technically) than he is.

You want a black candidate? How about Yaphet Kotto? Now, he's black...

Or how about Jesse Jackson? He's black. Nah, too black...

Cutting edge

The San Francisco Chronicle has an on-line article by Deborah Gage about 'cloud computing':

Leaping onstage with characteristic showmanship, Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff used his keynote address to outline a series of alliances between his San Francisco "cloud computing" company and some of the biggest brands in the country - Starbucks, Amazon, Facebook, Harrah's casinos in Las Vegas. Salesforce.com has specialized in software that runs corporate sales and marketing programs over the Internet, but it's branching out. According to Benioff, it's now possible for any developer to write software for Salesforce.com that also runs on the public Web. "It's time for you to change how you think of our company and what we can do for you," Benioff said.
Cloud computing, as the software delivery method is known, isn't as seamless as Benioff makes it out to be, though. Startups are springing up to help solve various technical problems that need to be worked out, and cloud computing has big implications for privacy, security, pricing of software, and many other issues.
"We're better positioned than most companies to understand these issues, but it's not for the faint of heart or for those not able to invest," said Dan'l Lewin, a corporate vice president at Microsoft, which announced its own cloud computing strategy in Los Angeles last week. "We don't have all the answers."

Rico says he bought into the MobileMe 'cloud' that Apple is running, and thinks it's a hell of an idea; he gets cross-fertilization between his iPhone and his desktop Mac, and if he ever gets a laptop, that, too. (And what is blogging itself, if not cloud computing?)

Vote or shut the fuck up

(Fortunately, the line was shorter when Rico went to vote.)

From of the Los Angeles Times, commentary by James Rainey on the election:

The charged coffeehouse conversations. The constant punching of states on computerized electoral college maps. The mesmerizing hours in front of Fox, CNN, and YouTube.
It's time for this to end.
Across time zones and political persuasions, from north to south, anxious and exhausted Americans said Monday that they couldn't wait for the interminable, contentious presidential campaign finally to be over. It's time for them, and their country, to move on.
With America in the midst of two wars and an economic crisis worse than most people can remember, it was hard to find the kind of voters Monday who in past years would say the outcome didn't matter.
The swelling emotion could be found in microcosm in an apartment in New York's East Village, where two college roommates -- one a Democrat, the other a Republican -- hid behind their bedroom doors to avoid a last-minute political discussion.
David Laska, a 21-year-old student at New York University, felt sadness that the race seemed to be slipping away from McCain, who he said "really had the capacity to be a great American president. But the political climate right now is so bad I think he doesn't have a prayer." Still, Laska planned to drive to Pennsylvania to help with last-minute get-out-the-vote efforts.
One might expect Laska's roommate, Obama supporter Bryan Fellbusch, to be more upbeat. But the 21-year-old reported an affliction common to many of his fellow Democrats -- post-traumatic stress from losses in 2000 and 2004. "I've been freaking out all day. I keep having these horrible flashbacks to . . . four years ago, when Bush was reelected. It was the most devastating day of my life," said Fellbusch, who had worked for Democrat John F. Kerry when the Massachusetts senator came within 118,000 votes in Ohio of claiming the presidency in 2004.
As if the endless campaign and the economic malaise didn't provide enough anxiety, many voters found themselves fretting about the very integrity of the democratic process. Perhaps that's not surprising, given the constant news reports in recent weeks: Republicans protesting fraudulent voter registrations. Democrats charging that legitimate voters were being purged from the rolls. Election officials across the country issued rounds of assurances in recent days about their registration lists, their voting machines, and their contingency plans. But many voters weren't ready to have faith.

Rico says he's damned sure glad this one's over. (And he asked his voting place captain if the electronic machines printed out any confirming paper ballots, just in case. "Nope," was the answer. "If we get hacked, we get hacked." That was comforting...) As a registered Republican, Rico is sure everyone wonders who he voted for, but he ain't gonna tell you. If you want to know, go buy one of his books and email him that you did and thus bought news of his vote. Otherwise, hide and watch. We'll all know tonight if we voted for the guy who's in or the guy who's out...

He could be wrong, but he's not

Courtesy of my friend Rob (who lives in a country that doesn't have any), some country & western ideology.

Ah, but Moneybookers now...

Rico says he hasn't wreaked any illusory havoc with Moneybookers in a couple of days, so this will have to make up for it until he can coordinate the real thing, or a simulacra anyway...

No thanks to the Grumpy Old Fart

Well, the whole PayPal mess seems to have calmed down; at least Rico got his money out, in spite of the best efforts of the GOF. (May he burn somewhere for a few million years.) It'll be more of a nuisance to do business on the internet now, but Rico will survive. So will the GOF, mostly because the internet insulates you and your actions from appropriate retribution...

What you see when you don't have a gub

Courtesy of my friend Doug, this:

This e-mail is from Frank Cole, son of a developer here in Cheyenne, Wyoming and a guide at Cabelas.
Many of you know that my brother-in-law (Bridgett's husband), Ron, was attacked by a grizzly bear last weekend while bow hunting elk with his dad. Ron amazingly came through with non-life-threatening injuries.
Ron, who is an experienced hunter and used to be a guide, was calling an elk for his dad, who was downhill forty yards. The elk suddenly spooked and then Ron heard a noise behind him. He turned and a grizzly was fifteen feet behind him. He tried to shoo it away but it proceeded toward him. He went behind a tree and the bear kept coming, so he took off on a 'death run' downhill towards his dad.
With the grizzly just feet behind his son, and running full speed, Ron's dad shot one arrow. Ron saw the arrow fly by his leg, unsure of whether it hit the bear, and within a few more steps, Ron was on his back with the grizzly on top of him. With his arms shielding his head, Ron kicked and punched the bear with all he had. Ron said it all went too fast and he was so full of adrenaline, he could not feel any pain at the time of the attack.
When the bear continued to attack, Ron's dad could see that the bear was bleeding badly from the arrow, and he went over and started beating on the bear with his bow. (You can not carry guns during bow hunting season, so he had nothing to shoot it).
The bear continued to attack Ron, biting clear through his left hand and glove, and down to the bone of his right arm just below the elbow. Then the bear, stopped, looking at Ron's dad, walked away several yards, and rolled over dead.
The bear was autopsied and showed that it was well over 500 pounds (the grizzlies in that area average 350lbs) and was eleven years old (which is in its prime). Following the path of the arrow, the autopsy showed that the arrow went in, hit a main artery, then bent, and hit the heart! A one in a thousand shot they said.

Rico says the law be damned, if there's grizzly in the area, he's carrying a .44 magnum, because he'll take a citation over a hospitalization (or worse) any day... (But he'd always heard that bears couldn't run downhill because of their small foreleg size, so that myth's dead.)

They're confused, as usual

Slate reports the varied 'truths' about the election:

USA Today and the Wall Street Journal lead with new weekend polls that continue to show Barack Obama with a commanding lead. USA Today gives Obama an eleven-percentage-point advantage and says his lead is widening while the Wall Street Journal puts the Democrat ahead by eight-percentage points and says his lead is tightening.

Rico says hmmm, lessee, Obama's eleven points ahead and gaining, or eight points ahead and losing ground...

Samar, twice

The Peripatetic Engineer has a blog post (click the post title to read it) about a nice Italian boy killing Japanese off Samar; it's poignant, but doubly so because one of Rico's favorite stories is about another warrior, this one a Marine who fought in the Philippines during the Insurrection. He got the Congressional Medal of Honor, and when he would enter a hall ever after, the cry would go up: "Stand, gentlemen! He fought at Samar!"
Things were simpler then...

Downhome politics

Courtesy of the Peripatetic Engineer, a little zydeco campaign music...