One morning, Dick Cheney and George W. Bush were having brunch at a restaurant. The attractive waitress asks VP Cheney what he would like, and he replies, “I’ll have a bowl of oatmeal and some fruit.”

And what may I get for you, sir?” she asks George W. He replies, “How about a quickie?” “Why, Mr. President,” the waitress says, “how rude. You’re starting to act like former President Clinton!!”

As the waitress storms away, VP Cheney leans over to President Bush and whispers, “It’s pronounced ‘quiche’.”

A guy took his blonde girl friend to her first football game. They had great seats right behind their team’s bench. After the game, he asked her how she liked the experience. “Oh, I really liked it,” she replied. “Especially the tight pants and all the big muscles, but I just couldn’t understand why they were killing each other over 25 cents.” Dumbfounded, her date asked, “What do you mean?” “Well, I saw them flip a coin and one team got it, and then for the rest of the game, all they kept screaming was: ‘Get the quarterback! Get the quarterback! Hel-LLLO! It’s only 25 cents!”

[Quote:]

De afgetreden D66-minister De Graaf (Bestuurlijke Vernieuwing) is dinsdag door de PvdA-senatoren in het debat over de gekozen burgemeester “grotelijks belazerd”. CDA-fractieleider Verhagen zei dat woensdagavond in een spoeddebat over deze kwestie.

Verhagen gebruikte daarmee dezelfde woorden als PvdA-leider Bos na het mislukken van de kabinetsformatie met het CDA in 2003. Ook Bos achtte zich toen “grotelijks belazerd”.

Volgens Verhagen hebben de PvdA-senatoren zich dinsdag schuldig gemaakt aan opportunisme en spelletjes “met als doel De Graaf en de coalitie te beschadigen”. “Als het er om gaat de kiezer vertrouwen te schenken geeft de PvdA niet thuis.”

Eh…. de PvdA (niet echt mijn favoriete partij, maar goed) zit niet in de regering. De regering probeert een wet aan te nemen waarvoor in de eerste en tweede kamer, en in het land, geen draagvlak is. De PvdA stemt niet voor de wet. En dan krijgt de PvdA de schuld van iedereen.

Hmmm… volgens mij is iedereen al weer gewoon met de verkiezingen bezig die er nu natuurlijk moeten komen.

Ik kondig alvast aan mijn stem te laten bepalen door het standpunt van de partij betreffende Europa (en daarbij onder andere de uitleg die de partij geeft aan het patenten-debacle). Ik ben benieuwd…

My internet provider sends out a newsletter. In it, they have a ‘suggestions’ email address. However, I don’t think they ever read anything you send them there, Here’s what happens if you do try to send mail to it:

From: MAILER-DAEMON@wanadoo.nl
Subject: Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender
Date: March 24, 2005 7:03:09 CET
To: john@sinteur.com

This is the SMTP Server program at host wanadoo.nl.

I’m sorry to have to inform you that the message returned
below could not be delivered to one or more destinations.

For further assistance, please send mail to <postmaster>

If you do so, please include this problem report. You can
delete your own text from the message returned below.

The SMTP Server program
<suggesties @wanadoo.nl>: wanadoo.nl platform: said: 552 5.2.2 Over quota
Reporting-MTA: dns; wanadoo.nl
Arrival-Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 07:03:09 +0100 (CET)

Final-Recipient: rfc822; suggesties@wanadoo.nl
Action: failed
Status: 5.0.0
Diagnostic-Code: X-Postfix; wanadoo.nl platform: said: 552 5.2.2 Over quota

[Quote:]

The software giant has come under fire for ‘yet another example of how patents can kill or inhibit standards’

An anti-patent organisation criticised Microsoft on Wednesday for filing a patent with a claimed similarity to IPv6, the next-generation Internet protocol.

The Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT), an organisation that works to protect the public from damage caused by the patent system, claims that a patent that Microsoft filed a few years ago is invalid as it failed to disclose prior work done by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).

The US patent, number 6101499 – titled “Method and computer program product for automatically generating an Internet Protocol (IP) address” – was issued to Microsoft in 2000 after being filed in 1998.

Daniel Ravicher, the executive director of PUBPAT, told ZDNet UK that although he is not worried that Microsoft will assert its right over the patent, this may stop companies from using IPv6.

“Microsoft won’t ever assert this patent – they know it’s worthless,” said Ravicher. “But there will still be people who are afraid of it – if someone has a gun and promises not to shoot it, it’s still scary.”

“This is yet another example of how patents can kill or inhibit standards,” he said.

PUBPAT was made aware of this patent when it was contacted by a “few large companies” which had been told about the patent by Microsoft.

Ravicher claims that a “significant number” of prior art references were not disclosed to the US patent office when Microsoft applied for the patent. These include documents from the IPv6 committee of the IETF, known as RFCs. The Microsoft employees named as the inventors of the patent were on the IPv6 committee, according to Ravicher.

[Quote:]

In it’s ongoing battle with Microsoft, the European Commission is investigating the possibility that the Vole has sneakily sabotaged the Media Player-free versions of Windows it is obliged to ship to the EU.

The Commission decided last year that Microsoft was abusing its monopoly position by including its Media Player software in its Windows XP ‘operating system’.

It told the software maker to ship a stripped-down version of Windows XP to countries in the European Union and slapped a mighty fine on the monopolist.

Microsoft is still appealing against the decision but has begun shipping Media Player-free versions of XP to the EU, as instructed.

A report in today’s Wall Street Journal suggests Microsoft has fiddled with the registry in its stripped-down Windows offerings and the result is that video clips embedded into Microsoft Word documents don’t run properly, for example.

The Journal quotes Jonathan Todd, a spokesman for European antitrust chief Neelie Kroes, as saying: “The commission is still in the process of assessing … whether Microsoft is complying properly with the requirement to offer a fully functioning version of Windows without Media Player.”

“You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.”

�- Mark Twain (1835 – 1910)