Today’s postings mark six straight months of posting without missing a day! The way things are going, the reasons why I may miss a day of posting boil down to the following: if I’m out of town for vacation; on a business trip, or moving (whenever that may be). Maybe that’s why I would very much like to get a laptop so I can take care of those reasons too. Stay tuned.

Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci may be dying, but she will go down fighting all the way. Not just her cancer, mind you, but also the Muslim tsumani which begins to overwhelm Europe. Margaret Talbot of the New Yorker writes about an interview Fallaci conducted in October 1979 with the Ayatollah Khomeini. One paragraph struck me as ominous:

Upon leaving Khomeini’s house after her first interview, Fallaci was besieged by Iranians who wanted to touch her because she’d been in the Ayatollah’s presence. “The sleeves of my shirt were all torn off, my slacks, too,” she recalled. “My arms were full of bruises, and hands, too. Do believe me: everything started with Khomeini. Without Khomeini, we would not be where we are. What a pity that, when pregnant with him, his mother did not choose to have an abortion.”

Strange that these Iranians practice the very idolatry they purport themselves to be totally against as Muslims. It should not come as a surprise, then, that Khomeini’s corpse fell from its casket (and almost hit the ground) because thousands upon thousands of Iranians wanted to touch the guy after he died. Anyway, I digress.
Ms. Fallaci is absolutely correct; ALL of the world’s current troubles started with the Ayatollah Khomeini. It is his depiction of the United States as the “Great Satan” that amplifies hatred of all things Western (not to mention anything Judeo-Christian) in all Islamofascists engaged in jihad. No wonder the Muslims have an ax to grind with Ms. Fallaci. Her fighting spirit cannot be silenced by the MSM, and must continue to speak out. Only one thing will silence her, and that will be her death.

Gee, I guess it isn’t a slow news day after all.
Perhaps George Michael isn’t getting a lot of airplay lately, but he has been splashed all over the news instead, lauding him over his driving skills! Now he’s asking his old bandmate Andrew Ridgeley to team up once again as WHAM!:

“I’m going to ask him to perform Last Christmas with me. We played the song at the end of the gigs together in Wembley. It will be lovely to do the same thing twenty years later.”

After that, George need only walk off stage and step into his car while his newly appointed designated driver takes him home…how lovely indeed.

Even though Katie Couric leaves the “Today” show for the SeeBS Evening News, it’s still a slow news day. That doesn’t happen very often for me, so I will be grateful and leave it at that.
What I wrote a couple of months ago for Ms. Couric still stands: don’t let the door hit you on your way out. Now that she’s gone, perhaps I can tune in to NBC’s morning show once again. I predict it won’t be long until continuing ratings at the bottom of the heap will prompt Katie to whine, bitch, and moan in the SeeBS News Department.

In May 2004, the European Union agreed to provide to the United States 34 information items on its passengers bound for US airports, including name, address, all forms of payment and contact telephone numbers, and the data has been a significant tool in helping reduce terrorism on airline flights. The EU Parliament challenged the agreement, citing no legal basis and lacking protection of “fundamental rights.”
Today, the European Court of Justice sided with the EU Parliament:

“Consequently, the court annulled the council decision approving the conclusion of the agreement and did not consider it necessary to consider the other pleas relied on by parliament,” a court statement said.
It gave the European Commission and member states four months to find a solution by maintaining the legality of the decision to sign the agreement until September 30 “for reasons of legal certainty”.

This result isn’t surprising. But it’s not like there will be a gaping hole there either. At least the European airlines are willing to play ball:

“What we understand is that it has been ruled out on a technicality and the Commission has been given the opportunity to find another legal basis to satisfy the court,” said David Henderson, a spokesman for the Association of European Airlines.

But the terrorists won’t be giving up either; after all, the EU Court sided with them. That is why both sides of the Atlantic must be even more vigilant while they figure out the legal parameters so this agreement can go forward. If not, well, we could start to see European airlines such as Air Chance being denied landing rights in the US; would we really miss these guys? I say NON!

Attendees of the Hay Festival in Wales got to see the former Vice President rant and rave:

In his first UK speech on the subject, Mr Gore promised to devote himself to the task of warning people about the impending “planetary emergency”.
He appealed to the audience to act to halt the growing crisis.
“I will own up to shortcomings in my ability to communicate,” said Mr Gore, who ran against President Bush in 2000.
“But I’m not through with this yet and I am devoting myself to it”.

Planetary Emergency? Does Algore know something the rest of us don’t? What does he mean by that…like, are aliens invading the Earth?
Sadly, no, he’s back to the tired old subject of global warming. This was ranted and raved about back in the 1970s, right after the Arab Oil Embargo, that we’re too dependent on fossil fuels, etc., blah blah blah yadda yadda yadda. Yes, we are too dependent on fossil fuels, especially since those fossil fuels are more or less under the control of those who use the revenues to bankroll more terrorism.
But that’s nothing, really. Get this:

He said he was “carbon neutral” himself and he tried to offset any plane flight or car journey by “purchasing verifiable reductions in CO2 elsewhere”.

I’m guessing he actually invests in the World Bank Carbon Finance Unit. All fine and dandy if you got money, but not for the little folk, who are expected to sacrifice, Sacrifice, SACRIFICE at the Kyoto altar! And of course, all this for pushing his new film.
I’ll bet he couldn’t present any concrete proposals to reduce consumption without sacrificing jobs. If Algore kept his mouth shut, he’d reduce his carbon emissions alright!

Earlier today, before President Bush honored the nation’s war dead at Arlington National Cemetery, he signed into law an Act of Congress:

At the White House, Bush signed the Respect for America’s Fallen Heroes Act,” passed by Congress largely in response to the activities of a Kansas church group that has staged protests at military funerals around the country, claiming the deaths symbolized God’s anger at U.S. tolerance of homosexuals.
The new law bars protests within 300 feet of the entrance of a national cemetery and within 150 feet of a road into the cemetery. This restriction applies an hour before until an hour after a funeral. Those violating the act would face up to a $100,000 fine and up to a year in prison.

This law is targeted specifically at Fred Phelps and his ilk. He says he’s going to abide by the law, but we’ll see how fast he gets the ACLU into this one; after all, politics make strange bedfellows.

Yep, I’m still up. Remember, it’s a holiday weekend.
If you’ve ever played any of the Sim games such as The Sims or SimCity4 (Hey PC’ers, y’all know where to find your version!), that is where I got the inspiration to do this tune. In fact, I just may mix an entire SimCity album! If you don’t play that game, well, cruise around town and play this while you’re at it. I believe you’ll find it most appropriate.

On the same day there was an exciting finish at the Indy 500 (I know Harleygirl won’t let me live that down for awhile!), another “milestone” is reached in the national pastime (click on the thumbnail):

He hit the milestone home run with a two-run shot to center Sunday, moving past Babe Ruth into sole possession of second place on the career list behind Hank Aaron.

BULL-S**T! Barry Bonds may have hit 715 home runs as of today, but he will NEVER earn this tally honestly, because the cloud of steroid use will always hang over his head. That is why I place an asterisk next to all his home runs. I hope you’re happy, Giants Fans.

Yesterday, the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps began construction of a fence along the border with Mexico, on private land. The MCDC obviously has enough donations to begin construction.
Now we’ll see what the Feds do about this.

THEY FIGHT FOR US.

From Cox and Forkum Editorial Cartoons.

The original mix of the “Save Yourself” parody ad I did for Cox and Forkum was somewhat mono in flavor, so I wanted to remix it into full stereo, using GarageBand of course. Result: a resounding success!

...or because it’s For The Money?
A major debate has erupted over the commercialization of Mount Everest, as an engineer who was not properly equipped for the climb died during his descent from the summit. What makes this death worse is that some forty climbers passed the man and did not help him…because they did not want to endanger their already-paid-for ascent!
Whiskey! Tango! Foxtrot! People, climbing peaks such as Mount Everest is extremely dangerous! When a person climbs such a place, they join a special band of brothers and sisters who have conquered their fears and advanced the human spirit. They have to watch out for each other, and they know that people are going to die sometimes. But you cannot just boil it down to numbers on a spreadsheet and make some bucks on it, not for something like Mount Everest. It ain’t no damn Disneyland in Nepal.
To those people who passed David Sharp by…I hope you are haunted by his spirit for the rest of your lives.

No company is perfect. Not even Apple.
Now that you’re done cleaning up your keyboard after spitting out your liquid beverage of choice, Apple lost a decision regarding whether bloggers should be afforded the same protection as MSM journalists.
The short answer is YES, and this means Apple cannot force online news sources to divulge its sources for a story they ran about a product prior to its release:

“In no relevant respect do they appear to differ from a reporter or editor for a traditional business-oriented periodical who solicits or otherwise comes into possession of confidential internal information about a company,” Justice Conrad Rushing of the 6th District Court of Appeal wrote in a unanimous 69-page ruling.
“We decline the implicit invitation to embroil ourselves in questions of what constitutes ‘legitimate journalism,” he wrote. “The shield law is intended to protect the gathering and dissemination of news, and that is what petitioners did here.”

It is not yet clear whether Apple will appeal to the Supreme Court of California; nevertheless, this is a major victory for bloggers all over the world who have taken up the mantle of journalism into the 21st century.

The Macker extends his most gracious thanks to Jonathan Connor-Foertsch, technical advisor for HF, for the new banner! Cool, eh!