[Quote:]

President Bush woke up early and rode his mountain bike along the Clara Burgess Trail to the top of Murray Hill, which affords a spectacular view of the Coachella Valley and Little San Bernardino Mountains.

The trail is considered strenuous for riding, with a 500-foot elevation gain. The total round-trip was a little more than 7 miles.

“He said it was a pretty tough terrain, but he enjoyed it,�? Press Secretary Scott McClellan said.

Jim Foote, acting manager of the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument, said the Clara Burgess trail is also among those monument managers ask people to avoid part of the year to prevent disrupting endangered Peninsular bighorn sheep.

The trail is one of about 10 in the monument under a “voluntary avoidance�? program. People are asked to stay off the Clara Burgess trail from Jan. 1 to June 30 during the sheep lambing season, he said.

It was uncertain Sunday night if White House organizers accompanying President Bush knew about the “voluntary avoidance�? program.

[Quote:]

Follow the rabbit tracks. BAM! The tracks suddenly end where the wing prints of an owl start. This picture was taken by a friend of a friend who teaches in Bethel,Alaska. Photo by Susan Barstow.

And on another site, another picture:

[Quote:]

When Bob told me he was submitting a couple of images that he took 8 years ago, I told him they would not make it in this feature because we only accepted images from this winter. I lied. The old images of a raptor print in the snow were so spectacular that I had to include them. This sort of print occurs when a raptor (hawk, eagle, owl) snatch a prey animal from the snow.

[Quote:]

Those familiar with the area just south of Mammoth Hot Springs will be able to identify the lower slope of Bunsen Peak on the left side of this image.

[Quote:]

Modern operating systems like Linux and Mac OS X operate under a security model where even administrative users don’t get full access to certain features unless they provide an in-place logon before performing any task that might harm the system. This type of security model protects users from themselves, and it is something that Microsoft should have added to Windows years and years ago.

Here’s the good news. In Windows Vista, Microsoft is indeed moving to this kind of security model. The feature is called User Account Protection (UAP) and, as you might expect, it prevents even administrative users from performing potentially dangerous tasks without first providing security credentials, thus ensuring that the user understands what they’re doing before making a critical mistake. It sounds like a good system. But this is Microsoft, we’re talking about here. They completely botched UAP.

The bad news, then, is that UAP is a sad, sad joke. It’s the most annoying feature that Microsoft has ever added to any software product, and yes, that includes that ridiculous Clippy character from older Office versions. The problem with UAP is that it throws up an unbelievable number of warning dialogs for even the simplest of tasks. That these dialogs pop up repeatedly for the same action would be comical if it weren’t so amazingly frustrating. It would be hilarious if it weren’t going to affect hundreds of millions of people in a few short months. It is, in fact, almost criminal in its insidiousness.

Let’s look a typical example. One of the first things I do whenever I install a new Windows version is download and install Mozilla Firefox. If we forget, for a moment, the number of warning dialogs we get during the download and install process (including a brazen security warning from Windows Firewall for which Microsoft should be chastised), let’s just examine one crucial, often overlooked issue. Once Firefox is installed, there are two icons on my Desktop I’d like to remove: The Setup application itself and a shortcut to Firefox. So I select both icons and drag them to the Recycle Bin. Simple, right?

Wrong. Here’s what you have to go through to actually delete those files in Windows Vista. First, you get a File Access Denied dialog explaining that you don’t, in fact, have permission to delete a … shortcut?? To an application you just installed??? Seriously?

OK, fine. You can click a Continue button to “complete this operation.” But that doesn’t complete anything. It just clears the desktop for the next dialog, which is a Windows Security window. Here, you need to give your permission to continue something opaquely called a “File Operation.” Click Allow, and you’re done. Hey, that’s not too bad, right? Just two dialogs to read, understand, and then respond correctly to. What’s the big deal?

What if you’re doing something a bit more complicated? Well, lucky you, the dialogs stack right up, one after the other, in a seemingly never-ending display of stupidity. Indeed, sometimes you’ll find yourself unable to do certain things for no good reason, and you click Allow buttons until you’re blue in the face. It will never stop bothering you, unless you agree to stop your silliness and leave that file on the desktop where it belongs. Mark my words, this will happen to you. And you will hate it.

[Quote:]

The problem with the Security Through Endless Warning Dialogs school of thought is that it doesn’t work. All those earnest warning dialogs eventually blend together into a giant “click here to get work done” button that nobody bothers to read any more. The operating system cries wolf so much that when a real wolf– in the form of a virus or malware– rolls around, you’ll mindlessly allow it access to whatever it wants, just out of habit. As Rick Strahl notes, this is the ultimate form of nagware:

Then there are the security dialogs. Ah yes, now we’re making progress: Ask users on EVERY program you launch that isn’t signed whether they want to elevate permissions. Uh huh, this is going to work REAL WELL. We know how well that worked with unsigned ActiveX controls in Internet Explorer – so well that even Microsoft isn’t signing most of its own ActiveX controls. Give too many warnings that are not quite reasonable and people will never read the dialogs and just click them anyway… I know I started doing that in the short use I’ve had on Vista.

[Quote:]

IN a certain city there lived a physician who sold yellow paint. This was of so singular a virtue that whoso was bedaubed with it from head to heel was set free from the dangers of life, and the bondage of sin, and the fear of death for ever. So the physician said in his prospectus; and so said all the citizens in the city; and there was nothing more urgent in men’s hearts than to be properly painted themselves, and nothing they took more delight in than to see others painted. There was in the same city a young man of a very good family but of a somewhat reckless life, who had reached the age of manhood, and would have nothing to say to the paint: “To-morrow was soon enough,�? said he; and when the morrow came he would still put it off. She might have continued to do until his death; only, he had a friend of about his own age and much of his own manners; and this youth, taking a walk in the public street, with not one fleck of paint upon his body, was suddenly run down by a water-cart and cut off in the heyday of his nakedness. This shook the other to the soul; so that I never beheld a man more earnest to be painted; and on the very same evening, in the presence of all his family, to appropriate music, and himself weeping aloud, he received three complete coats and a touch of varnish on the top. The physician (who was himself affected even to tears) protested he had never done a job so thorough.

Some two months afterwards, the young man was carried on a stretcher to the physician’s house.

“What is the meaning of this?�? he cried, as soon as the door was opened. “I was to be set free from all the dangers of life; and here have I been run down by that self-same water-cart, and my leg is broken.�?

“Dear me!�? said the physician. “This is very sad. But I perceive I must explain to you the action of my paint. A broken bone is a mighty small affair at the worst of it; and it belongs to a class of accident to which my paint is quite inapplicable. Sin, my dear young friend, sin is the sole calamity that a wise man should apprehend; it is against sin that I have fitted you out; and when you come to be tempted, you will give me news of my paint.�?

“Oh!�? said the young man, “I did not understand that, and it seems rather disappointing. But I have no doubt all is for the best; and in the meanwhile, I shall be obliged to you if you will set my leg.�?

“That is none of my business,�? said the physician; “but if your bearers will carry you round the corner to the surgeon’s, I feel sure he will afford relief.�?

Some three years later, the young man came running to the physician’s house in a great perturbation. “What is the meaning of this?�? he cried. “Here was I to be set free from the bondage of sin; and I have just committed forgery, arson and murder.�?

“Dear me,�? said the physician. “This is very serious. Off with your clothes at once.�? And as soon as the young man had stripped, he examined him from head to foot. “No,�? he cried with great relief, “there is not a flake broken. Cheer up, my young friend, your paint is as good as new.�?

“Good God!�? cried the young man, “and what then can be the use of it?�?

“Why,�? said the physician, “I perceive I must explain to you the nature of the action of my paint. It does not exactly prevent sin; it extenuates instead the painful consequences. It is not so much for this world, as for the next; it is not against life; in short, it is against death that I have fitted you out. And when you come to die, you will give me news of my paint.�?

“Oh!�? cried the young man, “I had not understood that, and it seems a little disappointing. But there is no doubt all is for the best: and in the meanwhile, I shall be obliged if you will help me to undo the evil I have brought on innocent persons.�?

“That is none of my business,�? said the physician; “but if you will go round the corner to the police office, I feel sure it will afford you relief to give yourself up.�?

Six weeks later, the physician was called to the town gaol.

“What is the meaning of this?�? cried the young man. “Here am I literally crusted with your paint; and I have broken my leg, and committed all the crimes in the calendar, and must be hanged to- morrow; and am in the meanwhile in a fear so extreme that I lack words to picture it.�?

“Dear me,�? said the physician. “This is really amazing. Well, well; perhaps, if you had not been painted, you would have been more frightened still.�?

[Quote:]

In 1980, the U.S. military made radical modifications to 3 C-130H Hercules so it could take off and land almost like a helicopter. The aircraft was equipped with lift rockets slanting downward, slowdown rockets facing forward, missile motors facing backward, and still more rockets to stabilize the plane as it touched down. The mission — land in a Tehran soccer stadium, 53 American hostages held captive in Iran, and get out.

Operation Credible Sport, also known as Operation Honey Badger, was a United States military operation plan in late 1980 to rescue the hostages held on American soil in Iran using C-130 cargo planes modified with rocket engines. The Credible Sport operation was to follow the dramatic failure of Operation Eagle Claw in which a C-130 Hercules and a Sea Stallion helicopter collided in the Iranian desert, killing 8 servicemen. Credible Sport was abandoned after the election of Ronald Reagan as President.

This spectacular video (mpg) shows one reason why they decided not to go through with it.

Making any statements during the screening process? I guess this must be the one place they still take ‘the right to remain silent’ seriously, huh?

[Quote:]

Former National Security Agency Director Lt. General William Odom dissected the strategic folly of the Iraq invasion and Bush Administration policies in a major policy speech at Brown University for the Watson Institute- America’s Strategic Paralysis . “The Iraq War may turn out to be the greatest strategic disaster in American history. In a mere 18 months we went from unprecedented levels of support after 9-11..to being one of the most hated countries…Turkey used to be one of strongest pro-US regimes, now we’re so unpopular, there’s a movie playing there- Metal Storm, about a war between US and Turkey. In addition to producing faulty intel and ties to Al Qaida, Bush made preposterous claim that toppling Saddam would open the way for liberal democracy in a very short time… Misunderstanding the character of American power, he dismissed the allies as a nuisance and failed to get the UN Security Council’s sanction… We must reinforce international law, not reject and ridicule it.�?

Odom, now a Yale professor and Hudson Institute senior fellow, was director of the sprawling NSA (which monitors all communications) from 1985-88 under Reagan, and previously was Zbigniew Brzezinski’s assistant under Carter. His latest 2004 book is America’s Inadvertent Empire.

Even if the invasion had gone well, Odom says it wouldn’t have mattered: “The invasion wasn’t in our interests, it was in Iran’s interest, Al Qaida’s interest. Seeing America invade must have made Iranian leaders ecstatic. Iran’s hostility to Saddam was hard to exaggerate.. Iraq is now open to Al Qaida, which it never was before- it’s easier for terrorists to kill Americans there than in the US.. Neither our leaders or the mainstream media recognize the perversity of key US policies now begetting outcomes they were designed to prevent… 3 years later the US is bogged down in Iraq, pretending a Constitution has been put in place, while the civil war rages, Iran meddles, and Al Qaida swells its ranks with new recruits.. We have lost our capacity to lead and are in a state of crisis- diplomatic and military.�?

[Quote:]

[Quote:]

Premier Balkenende heeft dit weekend met stijgende verbazing gekeken naar de berichtgeving over zijn vermeende uitspraken over ‘burgerlijkheid’ in Limburg. Hij ergert zich aan de gemakzucht waarmee de verschillende kranten te werk zijn gegaan.

‘Ik stel vast dat geen van de kranten aanwezig was in Limburg. Men schrijft klakkeloos een ANP-bericht over zonder te constateren dat in datzelfde ANP-bericht staat dat mijn opmerkingen over burgerlijkheid “gekscherend waren bedoeld”.

Balkje verbaasd dat niemand humor van ‘m verwacht?

Balk die zegt “ik ben stijfburgerlijk” is net zo “gekscherend” als Patty Brard die zegt: “ik ben een leeghoofdige doos die de televisie vervuilt”.

Models display body paint at a live exhibition of the Qi Pao, the classic Chinese Dress, to officially launch Australian Fashion Week in Sydney. (AFP/Greg Wood)

[Quote:]

The crown prince rejects a bevy of beautiful princesses, rebuffing each suitor until falling in love with a prince. The two marry, sealing the union with a kiss, and live happily ever after.

That fairy tale about gay marriage has sparked a civil rights debate in Massachusetts, the only U.S. state where gays and lesbians can legally wed, after a teacher read the story to a classroom of seven year olds without warning parents first.

A parents’ rights group said on Monday it may sue the public school in the affluent suburb of Lexington, about 12 miles west of Boston, where a teacher used the book “King & King” in a lesson about different types of weddings.

“It’s just so heinous and objectionable that they would do this,” said Brian Camenker, president of the Parents Rights Coalition, a conservative Massachusetts-based advocacy group.

Camenker said he believes the school, Joseph Estabrook Elementary, broke a 1996 Massachusetts law requiring schools to notify parents of sex-education lessons. “There is no question in my mind that the law is being abused here,” he said.

Gee, I never knew… Of course! “Snow-white and the seven dwarfs” and “Little Red Riding Hood” are actually sex-education lessons! I’m just not enough of a pervert to have realized this before…

[Quote:]

It was the battle of the hotel room for George W Bush and Rolling Stone frontman Mick Jagger, when the singer refused to give up his suite to the US President.

Jagger hired the luxury Royal Suite at the five-star Imperial Hotel in Vienna, Austria, which is rated to be among the top 100 hotel rooms in the world, where the Stones are due to perform in June.

In doing so, he beat Bush’s aides to the punch, when they tried to book it to tie in with a summit meeting.

A source said that Jagger, an out-spoken Bush critic, had refused to budge from the 3,600 a night suite when the US President’s aides came calling.

“White House officials had wanted to reserve the suite and all the other rooms on the first floor. But Mick and the Stones had already booked every one of them. Bush’s people seemed to be under the impression that they would just hand over the suites but there was no way Mick was going to do that,�? The Sun quoted the source, as saying.

And, it was Bush throwing in the towel first, for the hotel confirmed that he would no longer be staying there.

[news:]

%whois cwi.nl

Domain name:
cwi.nl

Status: active

Registrant:
Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica
Kruislaan 413
1098 SJ AMSTERDAM
Netherlands

Domain nameservers:
ns1.cwi.nl 192.16.191.8
ns2.cwi.nl 192.16.191.35

Date registered: 01-05-1986
Record last updated: 04-02-2005

Record maintained by: NL Domain Registry

[Quote:]

Sun Microsystems announced Monday that its longtime chief executive Scott McNealy is stepping down from the helm and will be succeeded by the struggling computer and software company’s No. 2 executive, Jonathan Schwartz.

[Quote:]

Bombers have struck again at a resort in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula, killing at least 23 people in three nearly simultaneous explosions in a market and restaurant area popular with foreign tourists.

The dead in the budget resort of Dahab, a beach and diving center for backpackers, included a young German boy and two other foreigners, the Egyptian Interior Ministry said.

Sixty-two people were wounded in the bombings on Monday evening, including three Danes, three Britons, two Italians, two Germans, two French people, a South Korean, a Lebanese, a Palestinian, an American, an Israeli and an Australian, it said.

I’ve made some great dives at Dahab. Somehow it’s different when you’ve been at the places that are getting hit…

This looks like a pretty good rant. And it’s only Part One!

[Quote:]

Sorry, Jerry, sorry Pat. No James, Tony, Tom – and especially not you George – you’re not going to be snatched up bodily to Heaven, nekkid as the day you were born, your shriveled grey Republican asses extracted by the Lord from your 1000-dollar suits, leaving them in a puddle on the drivers seat of your SUV or the pulpit of your mega-church.

You’re not the elect, the just or even, we suspect, the saved, who because of your incomparable virtue will be whisked out of harms way by the aforementioned Lord when he comes to wreak genocidal revenge on billions of us unelect, unjust and unsaved.

You’re the latest in a millennia-long line of money-grubbing power-hungry hypocrites and hucksters who offer the lonely, threatened, frustrated, and as always, those with a limited supply of marbles, a lovely lie. Not only are they saved but those they hate, fear, envy and blame are damned! Not only will they be snatched up to heaven way ahead of schedule, but – A Special Final Days offer! – they DON’T HAVE TO DIE!

That’s the beauty part of the Rapture, a new American twist on an old, old Euro-scam: no massive heart attack, no terminal cancer, no being crushed by a truck on I-95. You’re snatched up to heaven just the way you are.

Read the rest here.

It’s well worth reading some of the high quality comments….