scottsimpson.net

Scary pic of the day:

“God, I and he knows what he did,” [Paula] Jones [of Clinton-impeachment fame] told CNN on Tuesday. (read more)

Good. I don’t think anyone else needs to know. And I’m pretty sure God’s kicking himself for peeking. (And check your grammar next time!)

“Bill Clinton pretends to be contrite, but he continues to bear false witness against his neighbor. He is a national disgrace.”

…and you thought people in the *current* administration were religious.

“He talked about it as though I had laid it all out there for the taking. I was the buffet, and he just couldn’t resist the dessert.

Ew. Just … ew.

Alright, the man was the most powerful person in the world for a time, and he’s human. Jeez, do people seriously not have enough going on in their own lives that they have to pry into the private details of someone else’s life? Oh, and he’s acknowledged that what he did is ‘wrong’ according to the majority moral opinion (snicker). And he apologized. The case is closed, except for the emotion-starved losers that try to live vicariously by latching on to stupid stuff like this.

I was driving to lunch today, and I saw a license plate frame with little smiley faces that said “Jesus loves you!”. I sort of wanted to bump them with my car and yell “Thanks for sharing, Mr. Crazy!”, but my insurance rates just went down, so that would be unwise. So I began thinking of fun snarky ways to deal with people that put “Jesus loves you!” stuff on their cars. Obvious solution — other license plate frames:

So, the Coffee’s kicked in (Starbucks Kenya Blend — yum) and I’ve gotten over the minor disappointment that Starbucks ran out of Summer Fruit Cobbler (WARNING: Addictive), and I’ve trawled the news sites and I’m ready to go.

Item One: The Justice Department decreed that it would not comply with a Freedom of Information Act request for information on foreign lobbyists because copying information from their database could destroy it. Yes, these people run your government. There are a few explanations for this, according to sense and slashdot:

The Supreme Court on Tuesday blocked enforcement of a law intended to protect children from pornography on the Internet, saying the law probably violates free-speech guarantees. (read more)

Porn is speech. It’s made of little movies that glaringly lack a plot, but it’s still speech. Kudos to the Court. It’s interesting to note that the decision was 5/4 (R/R/R/R/D and R/R/R/D) … about as even a split as you can get.

ABC is looking to spin off its fall reality series “Wife Swap.”
(read more)

Am I the only one that thinks this is a bad idea? In an era when the Right is pushing for a ‘defense of marriage’ and some of the Left and Middle are pushing for a broadened definition of marriage based on love instead of gender, how does ABC think that a show that mocks marriage would be worth anything? But obviously the sixty million or so slugs that tune in weekly to experience other people’s problems because they’re too lazy to deal with their own seem to find it interesting. Just don’t come running to me when they start televising executions and the like … by watching this drivel now, America opens its living rooms for more serious abuses of decency and taste.

Internet Storm Center reports that another (ANOTHER) exploit for Internet Explorer would allow evil nasties to steal banking passwords before they even get encrypted by the industry-standard SSL system. The solution: Install Firefox. Or Mozilla. Or Opera. Or Netscape. Or anything but Internet Explorer. Please. For the love of God.

Cool Finnish Grammy-winning Band of the Day: The Rasmus

Riding to the mall one Saturday, Joanne Ikeda’s younger sister turned to her and asked, out of nowhere, “Do you know that I am now overweight?” (read more)

She joins Arnold Schwarzenegger and Scott Simpson in the ranks of the Terminally Overweight. Yeah, apparently I’m edging toward obese as well, though my 33-inch waist hasn’t been notified yet. The kicker? I weigh about the same as when I wore a size 38. Call me dense. Must be all that Starbucks.

Speaking of things that have made me just disgustingly obese, it made my day this morning when I noticed a “Coming soon: Quizno’s” sign next to Starbucks. So hopefully that will open soon. I’ve got a month-and-a-week until I go back to San Diego.

And, in the words of Margaret Cho, us fat [folks] gotta stick together…

OK, this isn’t a private broadcast network doing nice things for the community, but here goes with an announcement I think is worthwhile:

A major attack on several web servers has left them infected, and the can infect your computer if you’re running Internet Explorer under Windows.

If you want to read nerds talking about it, visit slashdot.org.

How do you protect yourself? Don’t walk in dark alleys alone at night. Or, do the following:

1. Visit Windows Update post haste and download the critical security updates.

2. Strongly consider changing browsers — there are a number of very fine web browsers out there that don’t have the security issues that Internet Explorer does. (Mozilla is a favorite in the tech community, and it runs much faster than IE.)
3. Make sure your virus software (you do have some, right?) is updated. It’s the best $30 (?) you’ll ever spend. Or, if you’re cheap or don’t trust big companies, put on your tinfoil hat and download AVG Antivirus. (It’s free)
4. For the long run, consider whether Windows is indeed what you need. Sure, I’m an Apple Zealot (Macevangelist, thank you…) but it’s starting to look like Microsoft is going to be having issues with security for the forseeable future. Consider an Apple when you buy a new computer. Consider putting Linux (don’t be afraid — it’s fun!) on your current computer. With both, you can do pretty much whatever you need to get done (word processing, spreadsheet, email, internet, etc.) The only real difference is that some of the latest, cutting-edge shootem-til-they-bleed video games don’t work on them. But that’s probably a good thing. And I’ve gone off-topic.
5. If you notice weird behavior (popup ads when you’re not browsing, pornographic links appearing on your desktop, $20,000 charges on your credit cards, smoke issuing from the disk drive), DON’T ‘JUST DEAL WITH IT’… call your tech-in-residence.

Now I just need to hire an actor and put that little flying star thing over his head with that ‘da DA da DAAAAA’ music…

If you haven’t noticed the stylistic facelift, you’re blind. Blind as a bat. Blind as a bat with serious glaucoma driving at night. After drinking. I’ll be entertaining comments about the new site, just put in a comment or something down further.

I’m seriously starting to wonder about some people these days — I took off to the Bank, gas station and In-N-Out for lunch, and on the way, I got honked at because I didn’t jump off the starting line fast enough when a light turned green. It was ridiculous. No one should be in such a hurry. There ought to be signs or something about it, that you can stick in the back window of your car — they should say “Freakin’ chill out, man!” or something rasta-ish like that. But then someone would complain that it’s sexist, or culture-ist, or able-ist because it’s printed and blind or illiterate people can’t understand it. Argh. In that vein, I’ve decided to become non-politically correct. Not ‘politically incorrect’, like that Bill Maher putz, because I don’t really have the energy or desire to go out of my way to offend people that are going about their thing. Rather, I’m going to do like generations have before me, such as using ‘him/his’ as a gender-neutral pronoun. Offended? Too bad! It’s my journal and my webpage. The door is over there if you want to leave.

In happier news, I went out with my aunt for Thai food last night, at a little place on North Main Street in Walnut Creek. Apparently, there are two Thai places on neighboring blocks of that street. We went to Plearn Thai. I’m not sure what Plearn means, but it kind of sounds like a command in an artificial intelligence programming language:

plearn {
Data.Lesson (Source, Output);
}

Yeah, that fictional language looks a lot like CSS, doesn’t it? Guess what I’ve been doing all day. Guess what inspired me to change the style of the blog? Yep.

So I’m loving Gmail, the email service offered by internet search giant google.com. It’s still in the beta, or testing phase, and accounts are by invitation only. So I have a few to give out… email me if you’re interested.

And finally, I came across an outstanding site last night that kept me entertained for hours — Rum and Monkey. It’s a satirical news magazine that actually agrees with my weird political views.

So I haven’t been in a blogging mood today, and I’m not quite sure why. Hm.

From CNN.com:

…or I could be a virus, or I could be unwelcome email… no one really knows…

That’s the problem with spell checkers — It’s spelled properly, but it’s the wrong word.

The leader of an anti-discrimination group called for tolerance after a sign reading “Stamp out Islam” was posted in the hometown of an American contractor murdered in Saudi Arabia. (read more)

As a person in possession of a rational mind, I must question the fervor with which certain luddites attack the existence of Islam. I am neither Muslim nor a scholar of Islamic history, but I find the anti-Islamic attitude patently offensive.

The nature of my disgust for this attitude stems from my contempt for the popular opinion that all Muslims are terrorists. I’d like to think that I live in a country where people have some semblance of rationality, but nearly every day I’m convinced otherwise. America as a whole needs to seriously get over itself.

Instead of casting all Muslims as horrible people that hate America, why not stop for a minute and consider the plight of mainstream Islam, which is similarly under siege around the world? Al-Qaeda and the like are aberrations. Islam, like Christianity purports to be, is a religion of peace and tolerance. Only in the hands of misinformed radical fundamentalists do the teachings of Mohammed (and on domestic shores, Christ) become perverted into the drivel that emanates from terrorist groups.

What we are fighting is a war of ideology. The antagonists are not, as some would portray it, Islam and Christianity, but rather the antagonists are Fundamentalism and, for lack of a better word, Normalcy. Fundamentalism, of any strain, is as dangerous as any weapon conceived by man and should be regarded as such. By and large, the US Armed Forces recognize this — a vast majority of the undertakings in Iraq are shows of good faith (rebuilding, security, etc.) until a local government can raise itself from the ashes of tyrrany. And the supporters of our troops in Iraq should realize that their hatred of all things Muslim or Iraqi in the long run make things more difficult for everyone helping to rebuild Iraq. Iraq is not the enemy. Islam is not the enemy. ‘Irresponsible use of force’ and ‘baseless war’ are not the enemy. The enemy of our age is Fundamentalism and it must be regarded as a fire. Opportunistic commerce fuels the fire. Misunderstanding fuels the fire. Baseless hate fuels the fire. Poverty fuels the fire. What happens when you remove the fuel from a fire? It goes out.

And just as a clarifier, some positions that I stand by:

Islam: support
Fundamentalism: oppose
War: oppose
Troops in Iraq: support, probably more than most [and no, for the last time, it’s not a damn contradiction]
Invading Iraq: oppose
High-tailing out of Iraq: oppose
UN in Iraq: support
Troops in Afghanistan: support
Bush: oppose
Kerry: marginally oppose

And let’s all take a minute or two to consider what Fundamentalism is about to do to the family of one unfortunate South Korean man. Did he or his government have any kind of gripe with anyone? No. Dammit, Al-Qaeda, this thing is between you and the people of the world, don’t bring individuals into it.

A teacher’s aide who forgot to put away her marshmallows and hot chocolate at Yellowstone National Park last year was taken from her cruise ship cabin in handcuffs and hauled before a judge, accused of failing to pay the year-old fine. (read more)

Talk about over-reacting… Freaking bill her or something. The article continues, noting that the fine was paid previously though the woman spent nine hours in prison before they figured that one out. Clever, folks.

Ray Bradbury is demanding an apology from filmmaker Michael Moore for lifting the title from his classic science-fiction novel “Fahrenheit 451″ without permission and wants the new documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11″ to be renamed. (read more)

I’m gonna have to go with Ray on this one. There are very few things that production companies take care of that matter and legality is one of them. Surely someone at Lions Gate noticed a little similarity in the titles. I don’t know how many working documents I’ve had that I titled like great works because I was feeling particularly clever at the time … but I changed the names when I published them or turned them in. I’d call this one about 30% Moore’s fault and 70% the fault of the production company. Shame on their lawyers.

A Northwest Airlines flight that was headed to Rapid City, South Dakota, landed a few miles off course at Ellsworth Air Force Base, and passengers had to wait in the plane for more than three hours while their crew was interrogated. (read more)

Now, I ain’t no pilot, but I reckon I could tell the difference from the air between a civilian airport and a military airbase. One’s got, you know, 747’s and the other has F-18’s. They look a little different. And with that new-fangled G-P-S system up there in space, it’s hard to miss on distances more than about a meter.

Some of the world’s largest record companies are testing a new music format in Europe known as the pocket CD to spin new life into faltering music singles. (read more)

Yeah, just knock it off already. Who’s going to carry a CD around with them? It’s 300MB, tops, which fits on a large usb drive. And like hell I’m carrying around ringtones on a CD. That’s exactly what the internet is for. Digital music is here, it comes through the internet, the CD is dead. Deal with it. Get a helmet.

The exodus of soldiers like Muller continues even as concerns grow about military troop strength, according to a new study. Some 770 people were discharged for homosexuality last year under the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

The figure, however, is significantly lower than the record 1,227 discharges in 2001 — just before the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Since “don’t ask, don’t tell” was adopted in 1994, nearly 10,000 military personnel have been discharged — including linguists, nuclear warfare experts and other key specialists.
…
Hundreds of those discharged held high-level job specialties that required years of training and expertise, including 90 nuclear power engineers, 150 rocket and missile specialists and 49 nuclear, chemical, and biological warfare specialists.

Eighty-eight linguists were discharged, including at least seven Arab language specialists. (read more)

Yeah, who needs linguists and nuclear warfare experts, especially now? Let’s get rid of ‘em just because they don’t like the same stuff as everyone else. Talk about childish. Jesus Christ. Maybe we should divide the ranks into coffee-drinkers and tea-drinkers, just in case a caffeine issue comes up. But they won’t be allowed to talk about it. Note to pro-freedom people (read: every thinking person) — if we can’t get over petty constructed barriers here we’ll never get over serious real barriers anywhere else.

…and from the Wired.com sidebar:

Syria Strikes Back
Better grab your wallets, America: Syria is getting ready to slap the United States with trade sanctions. Syrian lawmakers drafted the America Accountability Act in response to a 2003 U.S. law that calls for sanctions against the Middle Eastern country for its alleged support of terrorism. “We are not simple-minded to the degree that we imagine we can affect the great American economy,” said a Syrian lawmaker who backs the proposal. “But we are able to maintain our dignity and slap the Americans so they know that if they continue with their arrogant policies, people everywhere around the globe will spit at them.” Ouch.
— Lewis Wallace