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The trouble with rocket-powered roller skates is that you can’t steer.

To remain on land as long as possible, we suggest you start in northern Siberia (99°1′30E 76°13′6N) and point yourself due south. That’ll take you through 4,717 miles of Russia, Mongolia, China, Burma, and Thailand before you splash into the South China Sea.

Or start at 48°24′53N 4°47′44W in northern France and head east. An unswerving course will take you through Europe, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, China, and Russia, covering 6,665 miles before you hit the Sea of Okhotsk. Good luck.

If you want to be really, really alone, head for 48°52.6′S 123°23.6′W in the South Pacific Ocean. That’s “Point Nemo,” the point in the ocean farthest from any land. You’ll be in the middle of 22,405,411 square kilometers of ocean, an area larger than the entire former Soviet Union.

The point on land farthest from any ocean is at 46°16.8′N 86°40.2′E, outside the Chinese city of Urumqi, in the Dzoosotoyn Elisen Desert. It’s 1,645 miles from the nearest coastline.

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British government officials say they are considering doing away with laws banning people labeled “idiots” and “lunatics” from running for Parliament.

Justice Minister Bridget Prentice plans to hold a meeting to discuss throwing out the laws after they prompted negative feedback from members of Parliament and mental health organizations, The Times of London reported Sunday.

The rules consider idiots as people “incapable of gaining reason” and lunatics as those “capable of periods of lucidity.”

The laws prevent lunatics from standing for Parliament in “their non-lucid intervals.” People listed under the Mental Health Act are not allowed to seek election, regardless of whether they recover.

Looking at the current batch in parliament, I’d have guessed this law was repealed long ago…

[Quote:]

“Could I mention the presence of my friend, Congressman Steve Pearce, who I believe will be joining me in the United States Senate?”

– Sen. John McCain, quoted by Politico, apparently planning to still be in the Senate next year.

[Quote:]

On the eve of Senator Barack Obama’s visit to Iraq, its prime minister tried to step back Sunday from comments in an interview in which he appeared to support Mr. Obama’s plan for troop withdrawal.

The interview with the prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, was published Saturday in the online version of Der Spiegel, a German magazine. It was widely picked up by American newspapers because it appeared to give an unexpected boost to Mr. Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, who has called for an expedited withdrawal.

The White House is leaning on Maliki:

Mr. Maliki’s interview prompted immediate concern from the Bush administration, which called to seek clarification from Mr. Maliki’s office, American officials said.

[..]

The statement, which was distributed to media organizations by the American military early on Sunday, said Mr. Maliki’s words had been “misunderstood and mistranslated,” but it failed to cite specifics.

“Unfortunately, Der Spiegel was not accurate,” Mr. Dabbagh said Sunday by telephone. “I have the recording of the voice of Mr. Maliki. We even listened to the translation.”

But the interpreter for the interview works for Mr. Maliki’s office, not the magazine. And in an audio recording of Mr. Maliki’s interview that Der Spiegel provided to The New York Times, Mr. Maliki seemed to state a clear affinity for Mr. Obama’s position, bringing it up on his own in an answer to a general question on troop presence.

The following is a direct translation from the Arabic of Mr. Maliki’s comments by The Times: “Obama’s remarks that — if he takes office — in 16 months he would withdraw the forces, we think that this period could increase or decrease a little, but that it could be suitable to end the presence of the forces in Iraq.”

He continued: “Who wants to exit in a quicker way has a better assessment of the situation in Iraq.”

[Quote:]

The march of the Big Brother state under Labour was highlighted last night as it was revealed that there are now 1,043 laws that give the authorities the power to enter a home or business.

Nearly half have been introduced since Labour came to power 11 years ago. They include the right to:

• Invade your home to see if your pot plants have pests or do not have a ‘plant passport’ (Plant Health England Order 2005).

• Survey your home and garden to see if your hedge is too high (Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003).

• Check that accommodation given to asylum seekers is not being lived in by non-asylum seekers (Immigration and Asylum Act 1999).

• Raid a house to check if unlicensed gambling is taking place (Gambling Act 2005 Inspection Regulations 2007).

• Seize fridges without the correct energy rating (Energy Information Household Refrigerators and Freezers Regulations 2004).

The rise in clipboard-wielding state inspectors flies in the face of repeated pledges by Ministers to curb the power of bureaucrats.

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Struggling mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac have been allowed to issue mortgages of up to $700,000.

This despite the fact that they guarantee $5 trillion in mortgages but only have a paltry $80 billion in capital. Or to put it another way: their total assets are only 1.6 percent of their total liabilities.

Nevertheless, says The Mogambo Guru, Dow Jones Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight director James Lockhart says Fannie and Freddie are both “adequately capitalized, and that Fannie Mae can “ride out the storm” in the housing market over “coming months.”

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A Nigerian couple who immigrated to Austin a decade ago thought they had finally made it in America. On May 7, they closed on their first home in the States, buying a $283,000 Cedar Park house that had been headed for foreclosure.

It seemed like a good deal to Bobo and Joy Dickson. They did everything right, they thought. They got a mortgage lender, signed the papers, had the title put in their name .

But on May 14, they came home from work at their janitorial services company to find that all their furniture, family heirlooms, personal photos, clothes, even their daughter’s piggybank, had disappeared.

After filing a theft report with the Cedar Park Police Department, the Dicksons were given the news. In a mix-up over whether the home was still facing foreclosure, Field Asset Services was hired to drill open the doors and seize the belongings.

[..]

Cedar Park police officials said Field Asset Services told them that it carried out orders from a mortgage firm and that the Dicksons’ belongings had been donated to area thrift shops. But a search of such shops turned up nothing.

On Friday, after hiring a lawyer and getting no apology or acknowledgment of responsibility for weeks, the Dicksons finally had a breakthrough.

EMC Mortgage Corp., the Lewisville bank that the Dicksons’ lawyer said held the first and second mortgages on the house, issued a statement saying: “There was a mix up, and we apologize to the family because they were, indeed, caught in the middle. We will make it right with the family by reimbursing them for their losses.” The statement came from Debbie Krznarich, senior vice president of communications for EMC.

The family has since filed a law-suit. More troubling is that law enforcement refuses to do something, claiming there was no “criminal intent”. Texas Penal Code Section 31.03 (theft) does not require “criminal intent” but simply “intent to deprive the owner of property.” Further, TPC Section 28.04 (reckless damage or destruction) doesn’t even include an element of intent. Management of EMC Mortgage and Field Asset Services Inc should be in jail right now.

But hey, it’s a big company, and that’s it, then.

Ze konden het niet laten. KLPD-ers op de fiets die een koe in de sloot signaleerden en de brandweer waarschuwden om het beest uit haar benarde postitie te bevrijden.

Na het telefoontje via Driebergen, was de brandweer snel ter plaatse.
De koe zou het niet lang meer uithouden en verdrinken. Vanuit de brandweerauto gezien bleek dat het zelfs om twee koeien ging, waarvan één met twee kikkers op haar rug.
Met vereende krachten zijn de koeien op het droge getrokken en liepen ze even later weer vrolijk in de wei.

Very useful.

Vanmorgen was het niet bepaald gezellig op de A27, toen een 64-jarige vrachtwagenchauffeur uit het Belgische Maarkedaal achterop een personenauto met caravan reed.

De vrachtwagenchauffeur is vermoedelijk zonder te remmen achter in de staart van de file gereden en kwam vervolgens in de berm tot stilstand. Het gezin uit Friesland (Leeuwarderadeel), op weg naar hun vakantiebestemming, kwam met de schrik vrij. De vrachtwagenchauffeur werd ter plaatse aan zijn gewonde hand behandeld.

Er vielen gelukkig verder geen gewonden bij het ongeval, maar er ontstond wel een file als gevolg van de rijbaanafsluiting. In die file probeerde een 47-jarige inwoner uit Diemen met zijn personenauto ruim voor het rode kruis in te voegen. Daarbij blokkeerde een 51-jarige vrachtwagenchauffeur hem de weg. Beiden stapten uit en bedreigden elkaar.

De vrachtwagenchauffeur pakte hierbij een ijzeren staaf van ongeveer een meter lang. De 12-jarige inzittende van de personenauto kwam zijn vader te hulp en dreigde de vrachtwagenchauffeur te steken met een autosleutel. Een particuliere beveiliger, die ook in de file stond, greep in deze escalerende situatie in en pakte het wapen af.

[Quote:]

We’ve just had an email from a shaken Stephen Strang who this morning took delivery of a very, very large box from HP:

Click the link to see what was in the box..

[Quote:]

In Orlando, Florida, David Partin pledged to name his son after local radio hosts to win a $100 gas card as part of a contest. Partin will collect the card in December, when his son is born, if he can produce a birth certificate proving the baby is named Dixon Willoughby Partin, after the hosts.

[..]

At the Shady Lady Ranch brothel in Beatty, Nevada, clients who spend $300 or more this month will receive $50 gas vouchers as part of a promotion to beat the summer slump in business.

[..]

In Mesquite, Texas, thieves drained $100 worth of gasoline from buses used by the Higher Ground Church day-care center and have hit four or five other church center fleets in the area.

“It was someone who was desperate,” said James Green, the church’s pastor. “All he had to do was come and ask us and we would have bought him a tank of gas.”

[Quote:]

Zimbabwe’s troubled central bank introduced $100 billion banknotes Saturday in a desperate bid to ease the recurrent cash shortages plaguing the inflation-ravaged economy.

The bills officially come into circulation Monday, although they were on the foreign currency dealers market Saturday.

As high as they are, though, the bills still aren’t enough to buy a loaf of bread. They can buy only four oranges.

[Quote:]

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki supports US presidential candidate Barack Obama’s plan to withdraw US troops from Iraq within 16 months. When asked in and interview with SPIEGEL when he thinks US troops should leave Iraq, Maliki responded “as soon as possible, as far as we are concerned.” He then continued: “US presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes.”

[Quote:]

This puts John McCain in an extremely precarious spot: what’s left to argue? to argue against Maliki would be to predicate that Iraqi sovereignty at this point means nothing. Obviously, our national interests aren’t equivalent to Iraq’s, but… Malik isn’t listening to the generals on the ground…but the “hasn’t been to Iraq” line doesn’t work here.

So how will the McCain campaign respond?

Via e-mail, a prominent Republican strategist who occasionally provides advice to the McCain campaign said, simply, “We’re fucked.”

[Quote:]

Last Friday, I was getting out of work. I was in a meeting so I was wearing a suit, which ended up being perfect.

I was waiting at a crosswalk, and this lady wasn’t paying attention and walked into the street. She’s about 45-50 I guess? The street was pretty empty in both directions except for a bus in the close lane that the lady didn’t see. The bus was coming in pretty fast, and I don’t know how she missed it, but to her credit there were some bus stops and parked cars and stuff that may have obstructed the view.

Anyways, just as the bus started honking and slamming breaks, I grabbed her and pulled her back. She would have probably made it anyway, but it made a pretty nice dramatic effect.

So this lady was really freaked out by the whole thing. She was sorta stuck in between thanking me, and catching her breath. So (and wtf did this come from I have no idea), I pulled out my PDA and said “This is Commander Navarrette, I saved the subject. The time is 4:39 pm.” She had no idea what was happening and kept looking at me all dumb. So I said something to the effect of, “Ma’am I need your signature to affirm that you were here and I stopped you from getting run over by the 4:39 bus.”

I didn’t know what she thought about the situation, but I decided to press it a bit further. I opened my pda’s drawing thing (ooo high tech) and asked her to sign it, which she did.

I thanked her then followed up with “Your grandson is very important,” which immediately I realized was really dumb because she didn’t look like she was old enough to have grandchildren.

“I don’t have a grandson,” is all she said. I freaked out for a second, thinking I just made a total ass of myself. But then I said “You will,” and gave her sorta a wink/smile.

The crosswalk light was green and I walked off. She stood there A few seconds later she yelled “wait!” but I was already across the street and pretended I didn’t hear and kept walking.

I have no idea what she thought of the whole thing, but even the idea of her thinking I was from the future totally made my day.

[Quote:]

State crime lab analyst Kathryn Troyer was running tests on Arizona’s DNA database when she stumbled across two felons with remarkably similar genetic profiles.

The men matched at nine of the 13 locations on chromosomes, or loci, commonly used to distinguish people.

The FBI estimated the odds of unrelated people sharing those genetic markers to be as remote as 1 in 113 billion. But the mug shots of the two felons suggested that they were not related: One was black, the other white.

In the years after her 2001 discovery, Troyer found dozens of similar matches — each seeming to defy impossible odds.

As word spread, these findings by a little-known lab worker raised questions about the accuracy of the FBI’s DNA statistics and ignited a legal fight over whether the nation’s genetic databases ought to be opened to wider scrutiny.

The FBI laboratory, which administers the national DNA database system, tried to stop distribution of Troyer’s results and began an aggressive behind-the-scenes campaign to block similar searches elsewhere, even those ordered by courts, a Times investigation found.

Apparently the FBI is more interesting in getting convictions than getting crimes solved.

[Quote:]

Here you go. [appears to be down for now, we took link down until we can revive the poor wounded server]

We’ll be releasing a more official announcement soon, but we wanted to get the tool out there. We sincerely hope you enjoy using it as much as we enjoyed making it

Update 1: Just to clear up some confusion over what this actually does: yes, it jailbreaks and unlocks older iPhones, and jailbreaks iPhone 3Gs and iPod Touches. We only support the 2.0 firmwares.

Update 2: It looks like there aren’t enough TCP ports on that server, so _BigBoss_ has generously offered to mirror it.

Update 3: If you get Error 1600 from iTunes (or if you see in your log a failure to prepare x12220000_4_Recovery.ipsw), try: mkdir “~/Library/iTunes/Device Support” ;  if that directory already exists, remove any files in it.  Then re-run PwnageTool.  

Update 4: Here’s another mirror.

[Quote:]

“Here I would like to pause to acknowledge the shame which we have all felt as a result of the sexual abuse of minors by some clergy and religious in this country.

“Indeed I am deeply sorry for the pain and suffering the victims have endured and I assure them that, as their pastor, I too share in their suffering.

“These misdeeds, which constitute so grave a betrayal of trust, deserve unequivocal condemnation. They have caused great pain and have damaged the Church’s witness.

“I ask all of you to support and assist your bishops, and to work together with them in combating this evil. Victims should receive compassion and care, and those responsible for these evils must be brought to justice.

I worry about his phrasing in the first sentence…. “in this country”…

I know this speech is a big thing, and an important step for the church, but it still gives me the impression all abused people outside Australia can just go fuck themselves…

[Quote:]

“While the ACTA itself is not public, the US Trade Representative has at least released the ACTA comments. While many of them are to be expected, such as the RIAA & co. wanting copyright filters, one item on the BSA’s wish list really stands out: ‘In a number of European countries one of the biggest impediments to efforts by rights holder to enforce their IP rights on the Internet is the overbroad interpretation of privacy laws by some European authorities.’ They want ACTA to ‘fix’ that by neutering the privacy laws. Given the BSA’s other questionable activities, it couldn’t hurt to tell their member companies what you think of their participation. After all, organizations like the BSA exist in part to shield their members from bad PR.”

[Quote:]

Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Friday that his Democratic opponent, Barack Obama, is likely to be in Iraq over the weekend.

The Obama campaign has tried to cloak the Illinois senator’s trip in some measure of secrecy for security reasons. The White House, State Department and Pentagon do not announce senior officials’ visits to Iraq in advance.

“I believe that either today or tomorrow — and I’m not privy to his schedule — Sen. Obama will be landing in Iraq with some other senators” who make up a congressional delegation, McCain told a campaign fund-raising luncheon.

[Quote:]

As a knowledgeable insider notes …

If it is true that Obama is going to Iraq this weekend, it is a very serious mistake for McCain to have disclosed it publically. Even for run-of-the-mill CODELs the military gives guidance like, “Please strongly discourage Congressional offices from issuing press releases prior to their trips which mention their intent to travel to the AOR and/or the dates of that travel or their scheduled meetings. Such releases are a serious compromise to OPSEC.” If Obama is going to Iraq this weekend, I can not begin to imagine how much this is complicating the security planning for the trip.

In fact, McCain was furious when the press reported on his son serving in Iraq — he feared the coverage would make him a target.

[Quote:]

Dan Rather, on Morning Joe, just said something a handful of minutes ago that will dominate a lot of chatter today and will have implications for the race going forward. Asked by Tiki Barber about his take on Fox News’ release of the Jesse Jackson off-camera video, Rather premised his take by noting that in today’s 24/7 news media culture, you had better be ready for anything you say to be on the front page of the newspaper tomorrow, after being all over TV the day before.

Rather then proceeded to talk about his respect for Jesse Jackson, who had certainly “paved the way for Osama bin Laden.” (Yes, the whole name.) Nobody reacted or said a word, and Rather did not notice. To drive the irony point home, he then finished by referring back to the “front page of the newspaper” a 2d time.

Remember the picture of the priests with Darth Vader behind them? Here’s the picture from another angle:

It was a spoof by the Vantrú, an associtation of agnostics here in Iceland http://www.vantru.is (Icelandic only) at the local annual priest conference.

Okay, time for some religious jokes then…
[Quote:]

[Quote:]

Het verhogen van de pensioenleeftijd naar 67 jaar is onvoldoende om de kosten van de vergrijzing op te vangen. Daarom moet worden onderzocht of jonge werknemers kunnen doorwerken tot hun zeventigste.

En nog steeds verstrekken pensioenfondsen jaarlijks overzichten waarin uitgerekend staat hoe hoog het pensioen is als je met 63 met pensioen gaat. Wordt ‘t niet ‘s tijd om de leugenaars te dwingen gewoon eerlijk te zijn?

[Quote:]

Companies that take an iron fist approach to fighting software piracy are generally best served by not lifting a pirate group’s code themselves to fix their own product.

Ubisoft, the French video game developer and publisher, was recently caught with its pants down, releasing a pirated hack as an official fix.

[Quote:]

Spoonamore is one of the most prominent cyber-security experts in the country. He has appeared on CNN’s Lou Dobbs and ABC’s World News Tonight, and has security clearances from his work with the intelligence community and other government agencies, as well as the Department of Defense, and is one of the world’s leading authorities on hacking and cyber-espionage.

[..]

Spoonamore received the Diebold patch from a whistleblower close to the office of Cathy Cox, Georgia’s then-Secretary of State. In discussions with RAW STORY, the whistleblower — who wishes to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation — said that he became suspicious of Diebold’s actions in Georgia for two reasons. The first red flag went up when the computer patch was installed in person by Diebold CEO Bob Urosevich, who flew in from Texas and applied it in just two counties, DeKalb and Fulton, both Democratic strongholds. The source states that Cox was not privy to these changes until after the election and that she became particularly concerned over the patch being installed in just those two counties.

The whistleblower said another flag went up when it became apparent that the patch installed by Urosevich had failed to fix a problem with the computer clock, which employees from Diebold and the Georgia Secretary of State’s office had been told the patch was designed specifically to address.

Some critics of electronic voting raised questions about the 2002 Georgia race even at the time. Incumbent Democratic Sen. Max Cleland, who was five percentage points ahead of Republican challenger Saxby Chambliss in polls taken a week before the vote, lost 53% to 46%. Incumbent Democratic Governor Roy Barnes, who led challenger Sonny Perdue in the polls by eleven points, lost 51% to 46%. However, because the Diebold machines used throughout the state provided no paper trail, it was impossible to ask for a recount in either case.

[..]

Individuals close to Arnebeck’s office said Spoonamore confirmed that the patch included nothing to repair a clock problem. Instead, he identified two parallel programs, both having the full software code and even the same audio instructions for the deaf. Spoonamore said he could not understand the need for a second copy of the exact same program — and without access to the machine for which the patch was designed, he could not learn more. Instead, he said he took the evidence to the Cyber-Security Division of the Department of Justice and reported the series of events to authorities. The Justice Department has not yet acted on his report.

[Quote:]

The Air Force’s top leadership sought for three years to spend counterterrorism funds on “comfort capsules” to be installed on military planes that ferry senior officers and civilian leaders around the world, with at least four top generals involved in design details such as the color of the capsules’ carpet and leather chairs, according to internal e-mails and budget documents.

[..]

Air Force documents spell out how each of the capsules is to be “aesthetically pleasing and furnished to reflect the rank of the senior leaders using the capsule,” with beds, a couch, a table, a 37-inch flat-screen monitor with stereo speakers, and a full-length mirror.

The effort has been slowed, however, by congressional resistance to using counterterrorism funds for the project and by lengthy internal deliberations about a series of demands for modifications by Air Force generals. One request was that the color of the leather for the seats and seat belts in the mobile pallets be changed from brown to Air Force blue and that seat pockets be added; another was that the color of the table’s wood be darkened.

Changing the seat color and pockets alone was estimated in a March 12 internal document to cost at least $68,240.

Isn’t terrorism great?