Co-Shah of Haberdashers

Quick Thoughts * News * Interesting * Funny * Quote of the Day * Closing

The Butterfly Effect, and what it means to all of us : I recently saw this movie (while giving blood, by the way) and while the movie was pretty decent it got me thinking ... let's skip over the whole memory-shapes-the-past / time-travel thing (i.e. - the plot) for a moment, so I can make my point. The real moral, if you will, that I "took home" from the movie was the tremendous impact each person has on their surroundings and fellow people. If you haven't seen the movie, the main character (Ashton Kutcher) has the ability to effectively go back into the past (or his memory thereof) and to thus change his present. Right. As I said, skip over all that. The key thing was that he tried out several different things to shape his present; wandering the gamut from being an amputee to a felon to a preppie-college-frat-boy ... and his ex-girlfriend (and sometime current girlfriend) ending up dead, as a crack whore or as a preppie-college-sorority-girl. Anyway, the point is this : these dramatic changes result from sometimes minor interactions.
So, in conclusion (finally?!), you should make sure you effect other peoples' lives in a positive fashion ... and don't turn them into crack whores.

NIF : More template & posting mods ... you like? Too much 'space'? - nevermind :) - Hey, should hit 40k today!!

ME : Limited afternoon / evening NIF as I should be goin' wheelin' ... w00t! (so just go to TMG's daily link fest :P )

Quick Thoughts News * Interesting * Funny * Quote of the Day * Closing

Iraq : Suicide bomber kills 10 in Baghdad ... condolences

India : Suicide bomber kills 6 ... condolences (and he blew up a Jeep too, that just ain't right)

Heat / Arizona : ~7 heat-related deaths ... UPDATE - hear it is 13 now ... condolences

Hurricane / Mexico : Emily approaching land, Cat 3 and growing ... batten the hatches

UNOCAL : Chevron beating CNOOC ... Good, and glad it wasn't a forced-by-govt thing!

Israel : Cracking down and tightening up ... found via EFSI

Iran : One breath away from a revolution? ... Akbar Ganji's health fading

RIP : James "Scotty" Doohan

MSM : LAT -1 Editor ... John Carroll quits, Baquet in ("first African-American editor to run the newsroom in the paper's history")

Saudi Arabia : Prince Bandar, Ambassador to the US, quits

Yemen : Gas-price riots, 12 dead ... condolences ... found via AIR

Kodak : Axing 10k more ... above and beyond the 12-15k already planned

Money : Greenspan talks ... more rate cuts

Oil : Drops by $1 ...still $21.35 too high!

Quick Thoughts * News Interesting * Funny * Quote of the Day * Closing

Islamofascism :

... In praise of 9/11/01 and 07/07/05 and Father wants $5k per interview, to pay for another attack!
... 'Fazel Abolishes Britain: Multiculturalists Rejoice' :

So it’s taken - what? - 13 days for ‘moderate’ Muslims in Britain to forget"

... CBS joins the Dhimmi crowd, "Throws a Block for Islamic Terror"
... Unintentional-suicide bombings? ... found via Goomba
... 'al-Qaradawi: Fatwa On Jews' ... and "Qaradawi is something of a moderate in the context of leading Islamic scholars"
... India forcibly nullifies your marriage if your father-in-law rapes you ... and make you marry the rapist!
... Clash unavoidable? ... comments on Samuel Huntington's book; go read the article ... then the book! :

Far from regarding Muslims as oppressed they have a “supremacy complex — and that’s dangerous”. This, she contends, is true even among moderates. “Literalists” who consider the Koran the “perfect manifesto of God” have taken over the mainstream; and far from misreading Islam, as Tony Blair and the Muslim Council of Britain insist, terrorists can find encouragement for murder in the Koran ...The underlying problem with Islam, observes Manji, is that far from spiritualising Arabia, it has been infected with the reactionary prejudices of the Middle East: “Colonialism is not the preserve of people with pink skin. What about Islamic imperialism? Eighty per cent of Muslims live outside the Arab world yet all Muslims must bow to Mecca ...

... Next terrorist target : Saudi Arabia?

Cali : Ebonics formally recognized in schools? ... I agree (with the immediate termination part, that is)

Neato : Augmented reality, living maps?

Politicians :

... "We, the govt" vs "We, the people"
... "The New New Left" ... "taxeaters who live off government"

US Armed Forces : +8 Base closures ... some in my area

NASA :

... 'Shuttle fueling test may become new launch date' ... July 26^th
... Happy 36^t, Moonwalk!

SCOTUS :

... More thoughts on Roberts' nomination ... he looks OK to me, so far
... Naturally, the ACLU objects
... Thoughts on Roberts ... and specifically that the ACLU " really earn the title Atheists, Communists, and Leftists Union"
... more here ... the system is broke, but Roberts' nomination is a "welcome surprise"
... Dems nervous about Roe v Wade ... and not in the way I would've guessed!
... Coulter not to happy ... "Stealth nominees have never turned out to be a pleasant surprise for conservatives"
... Capn Ed responds to Ann
... Malkin has an extensive link farm on this already
... Kerry speaks ... CHT responds
... Roberts making the rounds
... CFRA and TMLC think Roberts is A-OK

Antarctic Research : This base can ski

Linux Everywhere : More "Linux on Linksys" action

Health :

... A peek inside bones ... "atomic force microscopy" - that just sounds cool!
... Should the FDA be less cautious?
... Malnourished people "get" the ethics of GM
... We learn to tell "White Lies" very early on

Nadagate :

... 'Outing CIA Agents For Dummies' ... "half of the reports on this subject could in fact be erroneous"
... there is a scandal here, but regarding Wilson - not Rove

Social inSecurity : Do-able reform ... includes solvency and personal accounts!

Iraq / MSM :

... "Guerrilla Media" stepping up to do what MSM won't ... truthful coverage
... 'About that 500 tons of yellowcake' ... but remember, Saddam was (cough) no threat to the US

DARPA : Grand Challenge to be Grand, Challenge this time? ... cuz the last one sux0r3d!

Google : Maps the moon ... or, atleast the Apollo-relevant parts thereof

Cool : Light bulb that lasts 10 years

HowTo : Lots of misc DIY electronics stuffage

Robots : Meet HR-2 ... human-like movement, stereoscopic vision, facial recognition

Education : When is a failure not a failure? ... when it is a "deferred success"

Awesome : ePaper ... Flexible, powerless-memory

Lebanon : "facing a growing economic crisis thanks to Syrian in large part"

Child Safety : Chip 'em ... you train them like dogs, now chip 'em that way as well!

Lefties : Aaron found some, um, enlightening products

Quick Thoughts * News * Interesting Funny * Quote of the Day * Closing

OOTS : #205 ... Haley is mad, but gets a free trip

SCOTUS :

... 'Bush aborts McCain/Byrd love child without parental consent'
... Kennedy preemptively denounces choice ... sad but true'ish
... W names Ms. Anonymous Sources
... 'Roberts vows to be most generic white male in history'
... Kennedy wanted nominee with a "more suitable" last name

WTW : (cough) Pictures from Basils vacation

Pottermania : Destroying rain forests

True : Something to waste time ... Phin = Google's #1 link, + he's Mr Fantastic, see pic below (found via the Basil)

True : 'Questionable $178B loss: Employees' fault?' ... today's secret phrase : Conflict of Interest!

Apple : All of their commercials ... but this one is better :P

Nadagate : Rove leaks more info ... surprise party blown

Saudi Arabia : A (cough) transcript of Bandar quitting ... found via that guy who is 18 years older than this girl

Quick Thoughts * News * Interesting * Funny Quote(s) of the Day * Closing

Lawyers :So, you know: You can't judge a book by its cover, but if your attorney takes his fashion cues from Degrassi Junior High, you might want to seek alternative representation.
--thanks Ace!

Kerry : Didn't John Kerry have "loser" written all over him? After all, he was not only a Massachusetts Democrat but Michael Dukakis's former lieutenant governor. He was as liberal as Dukakis but lacked the inspiring immigrant background: a man who married another man's fortune, from a state where a man can marry another man.
--thanks Wall Street Journal's James Taranto, via NOfP

Quick Thoughts * News * Interesting * Funny * Quote of the Day Closing


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