Swim across the Atlantic Ocean 5,572 km

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Michael found his doctor by doing a search with no parameters. Of course, Dr. Null (which is a real last name) is not set to an instance of Dr., so occasionally patients are referred to Dr. File Not Found. I got a million of ‘em!

I had the misfortune to be asked to do something on an Exchange server.

Something simple. Just add the email address “blah@domain.com” as an alias to an existing account. Now that’s simple enough that somebody who avoids all microsoft products, like me, can do it. Just open the administrator tool that lists all the users, right click on the user that needs the new alias, click the right tab, click add address, and fill in the details.

Except I got the error message that the email address in question was already in use on the system. Asking around had no results – nobody claimed the address. Right clicking every user in the system (less than 20, lucky me) found zero users with the email address.

So the nonexistent email address was already in use. Nice.

I found a way to query active directory and discovered that the email address was given to a public folder in the Exchange system. A public folder is something like a public calendar in Outlook. If somebody can tell me how to access the mailbox for a public folder, that’d be great, because I haven’t found a way.

So, how to proceed. Looking at the properties for the public folder shows a tab with all the exchange info, including email addresses. In that dialog, you can create a new email address, set that as primary, and remove the address you want to assign to a user, without any error messages. Except, when you then try to add the email address and get the same error as before, you find out that, despite the lack of error messages, none of the changes to the public folder took hold. Renaming the public folder to free up the address also won’t work.

I had to delete the public folder to get hold of the email address.

And people pay money for this?

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The late pope John Paul II has moved a step closer to sainthood with the completion of the first stage towards his beatification, Rome diocesan officials said.

A dossier containing proof of his miraculous intercession to cure a French nun of Parkinson’s disease will be submitted to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of the Saints next Monday, the second anniversary of the death of the charismatic Polish pope.

The “miracle”, if certified by the Vatican body, will qualify John Paul II for beatification, the main stepping stone to becoming a saint.

Monsignor Slawomir Oder, spearheading the process, said the Rome diocese was “spoiled for choice” among dozens of reported miracle cures attributed to John Paul II, of which about 20 warranted serious consideration.

Wanna bet there are no amputees healed among those 20?

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Shonda Aires bought a Diet Pepsi at the Walgreens on Sunday night. Then she left the store with her daughter, Simone Barnes, 13.

“Before I knew it, two cops were on the side of us demanding that we stop,” Aires said. “They had the guns pointed at us. … I didn’t even think a gun of that size existed.”

Aires and her daughter were ordered to get against the wall and be quiet. “So that’s what we did,” Aires said. “I thought they would have shot me if we hadn’t done it.”

The Pinellas Park police officers spoke into their radios and, without explaining, left Aires and Simone standing against the wall.

It turns out the officers, who had received a report about a woman with a gun, were at the wrong Walgreens.

And they should have been looking for a white woman. Aires and her daughter are black.

Agent Anthony Panucci dives in between the president and a hostile reporter.

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DC—White House Secret Service Agent Anthony Panucci is being called a hero after intercepting what could have been a critically damaging question aimed directly at President Bush during a press conference in the Rose Garden Tuesday.

According to eyewitnesses, the press conference began with Bush fielding routine questions about March Madness and the dedication of a World War II memorial near his home in Crawford, TX. However, approximately seven minutes into the event, a lone reporter somehow managed to maneuver to the front of the press corps group and fire off a loaded, highly charged question concerning Bush’s role in the controversial dismissal of eight federal attorneys last year.

“I just followed my training and did what I was supposed to do—put myself between the president and irreparable harm,” said Panucci, who is credited with safely deflecting the attack away from Bush, as well as acting before the reporter had a chance to get off a follow-up question at close range. “And let’s not forget my colleagues who rushed the president from the scene.”

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Six months after resigning from Congress, former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley remains under criminal investigation for sexually explicit Internet communications with underage boys but has not been charged, authorities said Wednesday.

“I can’t really give any more detail other than to say we’re still in the preliminary investigative stance and we are working with state authorities,” said Debra Weierman, spokeswoman for the FBI’s Washington field office.

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Weaverville – When you’re a pirate, some dangers just come with the territory: scurvy, grog hangovers, a walk down the plank at sword point.

But being kicked out of school for a day?

Bryan Killian doesn’t think that’s a fair reaction to his decision to come to North Buncombe High School wearing an eye patch and an inflatable cutlass.

The sophomore spent Wednesday at home after an administrator took issue with his accessories.

Buncombe County Schools says the eye patch was disruptive to classroom instruction. The student’s refusal to take it off after four warnings led to discipline, the district said.

“I feel like my First Amendment was violated,” Killian, 16, said. “Freedom of religion and freedom of expression. That’s what I tried to do, and I got shot down.”

Freedom of religion?

Yes, Killian says, his “pirate regalia” is part of his faith — the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

The parody religion, whose “Pastafarian” members worship a sentient, airborne clump of noodles and meatballs, originated in a letter to the Kansas school board urging it to add the religion to its plans to teach evolution and intelligent design side by side.

It became an Internet phenomenon, spawning a belief system that holds pirates to be divine beings and blames global warming on the disappearance of the buccaneers.

Satirical though it may be, Killian isn’t laughing.

“If this is what I believe in, no matter how stupid it might sound, I should be able to express myself however I want to,” he said.

An eye patch is no more disruptive than a Christian cross around one’s neck, he said.

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CNN’S JOHN ROBERTS: I wanted to talk to you about the situation in Iraq. Yesterday in an interview with Wolf Blitzer on The Situation Room. I want to play this back for you. You had this to say about the situation there.

[McCAIN CLIP]: General Petraeus goes out there almost every day in an unarmed humvee. I think you oughta catch up. You are giving the old line of three months ago. I understand it. We certainly don’t get it through the filter of some of the media.

ROBERTS: Senator, did you mean to say that, that General Petraeus goes out every day in an unarmed humvee?

SEN. JOHN McCAIN (R-AZ): I mean that there are neighborhoods safe in Iraq and he does go out into Baghdad and the fact is there has been significant progress and people are stuck in a time warp of three months ago. Of course, it’s still dangerous. Of course it’s still very dangerous. We only have two of the five brigades there and we are already seeing significant progress.

ROBERTS: Because I checked with General Petraeus’s people overnight and they said he never goes out in anything less than an up-armored humvee. You also told Bill Bennett on his radio program on Monday. You said there are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhood today yet retired General Barry McCaffrey said no Iraqi government official, coalition soldier, diplomat reporter could walk the streets of Baghdad without heavily armed protection. We’ve got two different stories here. Who’s right?

McCAIN: Well, I’m not saying they could go without protection. The President goes around America with protection. So, certainly I didn’t say that.

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Midway through the Senate debate yesterday over the “emergency” spending bill for Iraq, Barbara Boxer rose to speak in favor — of strawberries.

“There’s a song called ‘Strawberry Fields Forever,’ ” the California Democrat declared on the Senate floor, as an aide displayed a poster of an icy berry patch. “This is a strawberry field,” Boxer continued, seeking funds for frostbitten fruit farmers. “It looks like an ice rink. The strawberries are somewhere in there; they are destroyed. I also want to show you oranges. . . . Here you can see the icicles near the avocados.”

The relationship between crops and troops was lost on Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who backed an amendment that would remove spending for sugar beets and other agricultural pursuits. “I don’t see how the asparagus-spinach problem helps us win in Iraq,” he argued at a news conference. “This is a bill designed to help people that are getting shot at.”

Oh? Immediately after this righteous plea in the Senate television studio, Graham went downstairs to the Senate floor and voted in support of an amendment to the Iraq bill directing an additional $5 billion to rural schools and counties — right here in the U.S. of A.

It’s common for lawmakers to complain that a spending bill is “loaded up like a Christmas tree” with pet projects. But the Iraq Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act going through the Senate this week is unusual in that it is loaded up with Christmas trees.

Specifically, it includes $40 million for a Tree Assistance Program that provides help for Christmas trees and ornamental shrubs. Also in the Senate’s version of the Iraq bill: $24 million for sugar beets, $3 million for Hawaiian sugar cane, $13 million for the Ewe Lamb Replacement and Retention Program, $100 million in compensation for dairy losses, $165.9 million for fisheries disaster relief, and money for numerous other “emergencies.”

This offended the patriotism of a few senators, such as Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), who called on his fellow citizens to “stand up as Americans, not as spinach growers, not as milk producers, not as tree farmers.”

Most of his colleagues disagreed. They voted, 73 to 24, to keep the agricultural goodies in the Iraq package — and that doesn’t count the provisions for shrimp and peanuts in the House’s version of the legislation.

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De stichting Thuiskopie moet geïnde heffingen zo snel mogelijk verdelen onder rechthebbenden, de jaarrekening en het jaarverslag worden openbaar en de tarieven worden de komende jaren bevroren. Dat heeft minister Hirsch Ballin van Justitie besloten naar aanleiding van een kritisch rapport over de stichting.

Thuiskopie int de thuiskopieheffingen op blanco informatiedragers, zoals lege dvd’s, cd’s of cassettebanden. Het geld wordt gebruikt om artiesten te vergoeden voor de kopietjes die consumenten thuis van hun werk maken.

De stichting ligt echter al geruime tijd onder vuur. Het College van Toezicht Auteursrechten (CvTA) constateerde dat de financiële verantwoording niet in orde is, en dat veel van het geïnde geld bij de stichting op de plank blijft liggen.

Hirsch Ballin heeft de stichting opgedragen de gelden zo snel mogelijk te verdelen. Volgens het CvTA zou de stichting nog enkele tientallen miljoen euro’s aan niet verdeelde heffingen bezitten. Geld dat niet aan artiesten kan worden uitgekeerd, moet terugvloeien naar de fabrikanten van de informatiedragers, schrijft de minister.

Mooi zo. Volgende stap, als blijkt dat ze dit gewoon niet nakomen, is natuurlijk opheffen.

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Er waait een nieuwe wind door Nederland, nog steeds. De Nederlandse Publieke Omroepen, de organisatie die boven Ned 1, 2 en 3 staat, hebben een fundamentalistische christen Hoofd Programmeringen van de publieke zenders gemaakt. Ad de Boer is de machtigste man achter de christelijke schermen. Hij is voorzitter van de anti-abortusclub VBOK, hij is de baas van 93 gereformeerde kerken, als voorzitter van de NGK. Was hij moslim geweest, dan had ‘ie de titel Ayatolla gehad. Wij kennen Ad vooral als voormalig directeur van de EO, in de tijd dat hij des zondags niet-christelijken inhuurde om toch live-registraties van kerkelijke evenementen te kunnen doen. Politicus Ad de Boer heeft zeven kinderen, is raadslid namens de ChristenUnie/SGP in Nijkerk.

Hij is bevriend met Rouvoet en defensieminister Eimert. Was hoofdredacteur van het Partijblad van de RPF waarin hij ‘homofilie bestreed’. Een paar jaar geleden riep hij op tot een boycot van Fanta, omdat hij een harde paal kreeg van Xtina Aquilera’s Dirty op MTV back in 2005. Een ministers/staatssecretarispost liep hij op het laatste moment mis, dit nieuwe -voorlopig- tijdelijke directeurschap is de troostprijs. Kinders opgelet, zo iets noemen we nou een Politieke Benoeming. Oh ja, handtasjes daar op het MediaPark, Ad vind jullie tegennatuurlijk. Hoe dan ook. Tijd voor een autochtonenschotel!

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Via this blog (link in spanish) a guy, who works in the department of a Human Resources consultancy company, says they made a selection process in which, among other things, they asked for a person with ample experience in using the internet (navigation, searches, formats…).

They received 50 candidacies, from which 30 came from Hotmail-directions, all of them erased as they entered.

The reason: You can’t pretend being an internet expert and use a Hotmail account at the same time.

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“I’d long been fascinated by George Orwell’s work, but I resisted reading 1984 until I finished the manuscript for Stasiland. After that, I devoured it, and I couldn’t believe Orwell’s prescience. When I went into Mielke’s office, I saw it had the number 101, which in 1984 is the number of the torture chamber. 1984 was banned in the G.D.R. but of course, Mielke and Honecker had access to banned material. The guide told me that Mielke wanted this number so much that even though his office was on the 2nd floor, he had the entire first floor renamed the Mezzanine so that he could call his room 101.”

–Anna Funder, author of Stasiland

Letter to the Transport Authority:

Gentlemen:

I have been riding trains daily for the last two years, and the service on your line seems to be getting worse every day. I am tired of standing in the aisle all the time on a 14-mile trip. I think the transportation system is worse than that enjoyed by people 2,000 years ago.

Yours truly,
A Commuter

We received your letter with reference to the shortcomings of our service and believe you are somewhat confused in your history. The only mode of transportation 2,000 years ago was by foot.

Sincerely,
The Railroad

I am in receipt of your letter, and I think you are the ones who are confused in your history. If you will refer to the Bible, Book of David, 9th Chapter, you will find that Balaam rode to town on his ass. That, gentlemen, is something I have not been able to do on your train in the last two years.

Yours truly,
A Commuter

Just for the URL alone it should be in the wtf category, but take a look at the news marked in yellow:

http://wtfcnn.blogspot.com/

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What Apple risks here is its reputation as a hot company that can do no wrong. If it’s smart it will call the iPhone a “reference design” and pass it to some suckers to build with someone else’s marketing budget. Then it can wash its hands of any marketplace failures.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

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Californias elections chief is proposing the toughest standards for voting systems in the country, so tough that they could banish ATM-like touch-screen voting machines from the state.

For the first time, California is demanding the right to try hacking every voting machine with red teams of computer experts and to study the software inside the machines, line-by-line, for security holes.

The proposals are the first step toward fulfilling a promise that Secretary of State Debra Bowen made during her 2006 election campaign to perform a top-to-bottom review of all voting machinery used in California.

County elections officials balked at the proposed standards in a letter Monday to Bowen and hinted broadly at the same conclusion reached by several computer scientists: If enforced rigidly, the standards could send many voting machines, especially touch-screens, back for major upgrades. Local elections officials argued that there isnt enough time to fix any deficiencies before the February presidential primary.