The answer is SEVEN:
One to deny that a lightbulb needs to be replaced.
One to attack and question the patriotism of
anyone who asks questions about the lightbulb.
One to blame the previous administration for the
need of a new lightbulb.
One to arrange the invasion of a country rumored
to have a secret stockpile of lightbulbs.
One to get together with Vice President Cheney and
award a one million dollar no-bid contract to
Halliburton Industries for supplying a lightbulb.
One to arrange a photo-op session showing Dubya
changing the lightbulb while dressed in a flight suit
and wrapped in an American flag.
And finally one to explain to Dubya the difference
between screwing a lightbulb and screwing the country.
Source: monochrom bagasch
[ published on Mon 31.05.2004 22:43
| filed in
interests/humour
|
]
Apparently something died somewhere in the kitchen walls or the space
behind the oven; whatever it is, it smells. Badly. And with the Aussie
tradition of tiling shoddily (only the visible surfaces, abutting to
the kitchen cabinets), I can't remove the plinth even if I
wanted to find out more about the stink. FSCK. Guess I'll be
moving the kitchen renovation plans forward a little bit :-(
[ published on Sun 30.05.2004 21:35
| filed in
brainfarts
|
]
now with (still) zero net access at home, i'm again caught in one of my
addictions: reading. currently i'm mostly reading some e-pulp,
baen e-books on the palm.
reading stuff on the palm, with my trusty folding keyboard attached,
all that on a comic book on my lap and me lounging in a comfy chair,
and life's good - or fair at least.
[ published on Sun 30.05.2004 21:26
| filed in
interests
|
]
...not that i'd need any, but independent scientific support
is nice to have.
"The researchers, at the New York Hospital Medical Centre of Queens
led by Dr Steven Nurkin, looked at ties worn by doctors, their
assistants and medical students at a teaching hospital in New York and
compared them with ties worn by the hospital security staff.
Almost half the ties (47.6%) worn by clinicians were found to harbour
potential disease-causing bacteria. "Studies such as this remind us
about what we may bring to our patients' bedside," Dr Nurkin said.
"By increasing our awareness and making simple behavioural changes we
may be able to provide a better quality of healthcare."
The researcher said their study questioned whether wearing a tie was in the best interests of patients.
Link to the story
[ published on Sun 30.05.2004 21:11
| filed in
brainfarts
|
]
I travel a lot and one of my favorite destinations leads
North from Kiev, towards so called Chernobyl "dead zone", which is
130kms from my home. Why my favorite? Because one can take long rides
there on empty roads.
The people there all left and nature is blooming. There are beautiful
woods and lakes.
In places where roads have not been travelled by trucks or army
vehicles, they are in the same condition they were 20 years ago -
except for an occasional blade of grass that discovered a crack to
spring through. Time does not ruin roads, so they may stay this way
until they can be opened to normal traffic again........ a few
centuries from now.
Elena's story
Update (Thu 27.05.2004 11:13):
Seems her story is a little bit, ahem...embellished. Anyway.
Link to boingboing posting
[ published on Tue 27.04.2004 22:12
| filed in
brainfarts
|
]
Now who is surprised by the indications that the beheading of that american
was staged and likely not committed by the all-encompassing "terrorists" but
by fatso murkins? Inquiring minds want to know...
Link to the story
[ published on Tue 18.05.2004 22:43
| filed in
brainfarts
|
]
Recently read K.W.
Jeter's "Noir" - apart from his views about IP and copyright a very
interesting book.
Baen makes a lot of their SF books available
as ebooks for free, and they occasionally do anthology/theme CDs. Thanks, Baen!
(I'm not buying their webscription stuff, because the free material is good
enough for my palm pilot and otherwise I mostly prefer dead-tree books,
so I'm still a supporting customer.)
This guy here offers most Baen CDs
via Bittorrent, and the stuff works great :-)
[ published on Fri 14.05.2004 16:16
| filed in
brainfarts
|
]
no net: the dial up @ work has finally been scrapped; i can only hope that
the guys at telstra/dart get my adsl connection setup RSN....
been sick all day long, slept until 15:30, fewerish and gifted with a
great headache.
[ published on Fri 14.05.2004 01:50
| filed in
still-not-king
|
]
"And now the weather: Gold Coast 23° with a low of 6°."
Winter's here, indeed. And together with the Gold Coasters' preference for
glorified shacks^W^Wbungalows the next some weeks are going to be chilly.
I've pulled the space heater from the cupboard this evening.
[ published on Wed 12.05.2004 23:55
| filed in
interests/au
|
]
But since 1.5. I've got no net (almost; dialup works intermittent
and unreliably) because I'm switching adsl providers. Grrrrrrrr,
doesn't exactly make me want to update things. Anyway.
The weekend before this (ie. 1.-3.5.) we spent at Killarney, cutting a new launch site into the forest.
Saturday and sunday was chainsaw-time, with the wind being strong and westerly
anyway. lesson learned: work up, not down the slope. Crawling across fallen
trees to get to the ones that are still to cut was Not Fun. Next time we know.
Monday was a public holiday (worker's day or somesuch) and we flew
from the new launch. It was quite cold, so I landed a bit earlier
than necessary; only Ivan got "away" - he landed just beyond town.
The hardware gremlins are still around: two pairs of shoes are about dead,
and I hate buying clothes.
The stupid cows at Killarney licked all my car (bonnet, windows, everything -
now it's really dirty) and they also broke the antenna. So I wedged the broken antenna rod back in for the drive home, but then a flock of birds hit the car @90km/h: the flock scores 1, antenna 0, but they've got one player out dead.
Since then
I've replaced the antenna with a mangled indoor tv rod, works. Ah yes, and I've
cleaned some windows; not the whole car as it's not worth my time.
That was the weekend, the week was soso with some work getting done but me
getting more and more cold and sickish. Yes, winter is here: nights go down
to +16°. Saturday I bought a couple of SF books, a toaster and triggered the
cold, finally. Sunday and monday I spent in bed, feverish and feeling lousy.
[ published on Tue 11.05.2004 01:57
| filed in
still-not-king
|
]
Somewhere in the privacy news, a couple of days ago:
The American Civil Liberties Union disclosed yesterday that it filed a lawsuit three weeks ago challenging the FBI's methods of obtaining many business records, but the group was barred from revealing even the existence of the case until now.
The lawsuit was filed April 6 in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, but the case was kept under seal to avoid violating secrecy rules contained in the USA Patriot Act, the ACLU said. The group was allowed to release a redacted version of the lawsuit after weeks of negotiations with the government.
"It is remarkable that a gag provision in the Patriot Act kept the public in the dark about the mere fact that a constitutional challenge had been filed in court," Ann Beeson, the ACLU's associate legal director, said in a statement. "President Bush can talk about extending the life of the Patriot Act, but the ACLU is still gagged from discussing details of our challenge to it."
Disgusting.
Link to the news article
[ published on Sat 08.05.2004 13:47
| filed in
interests/anti
|
]