Why I Hate Windows

I've been posting a lot less today than usual. The reason is that I have been doing battle with a new (to me) laptop. This is actually the first laptop I have ever owned. It's not new, but everything appeared to work properly, the price was right and it would be handy to have one. It came with a copy of Windows XP installed on it. I am also sure it was not a legal copy of the program and wanted nothing to do with it.

So, I zeroed the drive and installed a legal version I happened to have. And have been fighting ever since. Oh, it activated instantly because it is legal, bought and paid for. No, it is the security updates that are killing me. 66 critical updates in the very first pass. And there will be more still after those are finished.

Maybe I should have carried through with my earlier threat and gone Linux this time……

The Perils Of Driving In New York

All you folks in New York City have to be extra careful these days. Be careful and look both ways before you enter an intersection. After all, a rowboat might run the red light.

WESTTOWN, N.Y. - According to New York City's traffic office, Russell Falkena ran a red light on Manhattan's West Side, in his rowboat.

Falkena, 46, of Westtown in upstate Orange County, recently received a $50 traffic ticket in the mail for running a light in December. The notice included photographs of the vehicle and its license plate captured by traffic cameras that monitor Manhattan's intersections.

It turns out the plate number on the ticket matches those on the registration for Falkena's aluminum rowboat, which he says hadn't left his yard in years.

Actually, this says rather a lot more about the automated ticketing system, doesn't it? Falkena's ticket will be dismissed.

It’s Official!

The British are completely, utterly, 100%, certifiably insane. As a group, of course, individuals may still retain their sanity. We reported yesterday about the plague of seagulls that threaten to overrun the city of Truro. Current projections show the population to grow from 22,000 to 218,000 in the next seven years. And the council there is working on ways to stop that from happening. Others, however, are not exactly helping.

For example, there's the fire company that spent 2 hours performing an air-sea rescue of a gull.

SIX firemen took TWO hours to rescue a seagull dangling from a tree.

The bird was tangled in a fishing line hanging over a river.

The crew first tried unhooking the bird with a long pole. When that didn’t work they got in a raft to try a river rescue.

Finally one firefighter cut the gull free but it dropped into the water. A crowd of onlookers gasped as the exhausted bird floated away.

It was then plucked to safety at the River Welland in Stamford, Lincs, and taken to a sanctuary.

Um. We're speechless.

Um. We're speechless.

Do NOT Visit Poland

Oh, we know they're a good friend to the US in general, but frankly, it is getting entirely too dangerous in that country. It's not the crime or anything like that. It's the things falling that are out of hand. First, it was the rain of falling St. Bernards. Having 110 pounds of large, furry animal hurtling at your head can be disconcerting. That's pretty bad, mind you, but it pales in comparison to the latest road hazard.

Falling, nearly naked Ukrainians.

WARSAW (AFP) - A drunken Ukrainian trucker wearing nothing but his underpants had a lucky escape after falling from his cabin while driving on a main road in central Poland, local police said.

The 43-year-old landed directly in front of a car which was trying to overtake his truck, but the vehicle's driver successfully swerved to avoid him, said Mariusz Gierula, spokesman for Plock police.

Now we could ask why the truck driver was driving around wearing only his underpants. But after we thought about it for a moment we decided we really didn't want to know.

Bravery

The Daily Mail is reporting that two British Muslim soldiers who were targets of a terror plot to kidnap and kill one of them knew of the plot and helped the police by allowing themselves to be used as bait. Even though the authorities kept them under surveillance at all times, it was a very brave act.

Two British Muslim soldiers targeted by the alleged beheading gang were used in an extraordinary "sting" operation to snare their assassins, it has emerged.

The courageous pair agreed to act like "tethered goats" in an attempt to catch the extremists plotting to kidnap them.

The soldiers - who are not thought to have told their families that they were potential targets - were placed under unprecedented surveillance for weeks as officers waited for the terrorists to strike.

And as they tried to carry out their ordinary duties, the pair were aware that if the gang attempted to stage their abduction they could be attacked and bundled into a waiting vehicle at any time.

To prevent this, the security forces mounted a sophisticated surveillance operation.

In an operation reminiscent of a spy drama, their every move was monitored by a team of crack MI5 agents - linked to the soldiers by the latest in modern technology.

Details of the astonishing operation emerged last night as police were granted permission to carry on questioning nine men arrested on Wednesday in raids across Birmingham.

Good for them. The plot against these men was, according to earlier reports, sponsored by al Qaeda. If more people stand up against the terrorists, they will lose in the long run.

The Eagle Has Tangled

We here at Blue Crab Boulevard are, of course, the foremost clearinghouse for information about the Animal Uprising™. Our timely, calm and completely sane coverage of this vitally important subject should be must-read material for everyone in the world (we could use the hits). But sadly, some people continue to ignore our thoughtful warnings. And so we read today, with a certain amount of dismay, that our revelations that Australia has surrendered to the animals have gone unheeded. People are still traveling to that poor, benighted continent not realizing that the animals have won. We really aren't surprised then to learn that a pair of eagles decided they were a bit peckish.

And that a nice, fresh British paraglider was just the thing to peck.

Nicky Moss, 38, watched terrified as two huge birds began tearing into her parachute canopy, one becoming tangled in her lines and clawing at her head 2,500 meters (8,200ft) in the air.

"I heard screeching behind me and a eagle flew down and attacked me, swooping down and bouncing into the side of my wing with its claws," Moss told Reuters on Friday.

"Then another one appeared and together they launched a sustained attack on my glider, tearing at the wing."

The encounter happened on Monday while Moss — a member of the British paragliding team — was preparing for world titles this month at Manilla in northern New South Wales state.

One of the giant wedge-tailed eagles became wrapped in the canopy lines and slid down toward Moss, lashing at her face with its talons as her paraglider plummeted toward the ground.

"It swooped in and hit me on the back of the head, then got tangled in the glider which collapsed it. So I had a very, very large bird wrapped up screeching beside me as I screamed back," Moss said.

Moss survived and cheated the eagles of their snack. But there is a whole raft of other contestants to nosh on, so we probably have not heard the last of this. (Makes you want to run right out and start paragliding, doesn't it?)

Here's the official Nicky Moss website.

Principles

Kimberley Strassel has a very interesting op-ed in today's Opinion Journal. In it, she actually praises Russ Feingold for at least having some principles about his anti-war position. She also points out that that principled stand has turned over the rock that a lot of the other Senators have been hiding under.

Mr. Feingold's reward for honesty was to preside over what might have been the least-attended hearing so far in the Iraq debate. And those of his Senate colleagues who did bother to show up looked like they couldn't wait to hit an exit door. "If Congress doesn't stop this war, it's not because it doesn't have the power. It's because it doesn't have the will," declared Mr. Feingold. Ted Kennedy–one of two Democrats who put in an appearance–could be seen shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

That's because Sen. Feingold is coming uncomfortably close to unmasking the political charade playing on the Senate stage. Critics of President Bush want an unhappy public to see them taking action on the war. So we have the Biden-Warner compromise resolution condemning the plan to increase the forces. There is also talk of capping troops, of requiring redeployments to Afghanistan, of benchmarks and progress reports.

All these proposals have one overriding thing in common: While they may hurt the war effort, none are significant enough for Congress to take responsibility when Iraq is irrevocably lost. This is President Bush's war, and his critics won't take any step that puts them on the hook as well. Sen. Feingold's sin is to suggest that Congress do something more than play politics.

It's a delicate high-wire act, made more complex by the opponents' need to reassure the public that their actions, which will surely encourage the enemy and deflate troop morale, won't, in fact, encourage the enemy or deflate troop morale. This has led to the spectacle of the Senate one day unanimously voting to confirm Gen. David Petraeus, and the next taking up resolutions that would kneecap his plan for success. John Warner and Chuck Hagel are all for the troops, just not for letting them win. Very courageous indeed.

Please read the rest, it is pretty scathing toward the bad political theater that is going on in the Senate right now. I am no more a fan of Feingold than I am of John McCain, but at least both of those Senators are standing on their principles on the war. They are not wavering about trying to gauge public opinion and provide themselves political cover no matter what the cost is to the troops or to the long-range interests of this nation.

The Senate, rather than trying to play duck and cover, should instead be seriously considering the long range implications of a defeat in Iraq. And a "redeployment" is a defeat no matter how much lipstick is plastered onto it. The sin of Russ Feingold, as Strassel points out, is that he has made it harder for the people in the Senate who prefer theater to actually having to stand by their decisions and lead rather than follow the mood of the public.

Teeth

McQ at QandO points to a very good development in the command structure for the troops surge in Iraq. General Petraeus is putting some outstanding resources on his leadership team.

I've been a fan of McMaster's since he was a CPT in the Gulf War and his troop (from the 2nd ACR) of armored cavalry destroyed an Iraqi Republican Guard armored battalion (3 times the size of his unit) in the Battle of 73 Easting. He's been a squadron commander and a regimental commander of armored cavalry units. His most recent command was the 3rd ACR at Tal Afar where he implemented the new COIN doctrine successfully and actually did win the hearts and minds of the locals. McMaster also holds a PhD from UNC, a scholar-soldier who will bring to the effort in Baghdad both experience and success. He is an excellent choice by Petraeus and my guess is he'll be in the field constantly - and that's really where he belongs. I've been saying since 1991 this guy will be wearing 4 stars someday.

While the politicians wander aimlessly about in Washington, the man who says he can accomplish the mission simply goes on doing his job and putting together a team that will implement the new course of action. The folks in the Senate should be supporting that effort, not seeing who can undermine it the fastest.

Living With It

The increasingly hysterical warnings about global warning continue to take on an almost surreal air. Global warming being blamed for gingerbread houses collapsing in Sweden; grim warnings of enormously overweight moose, the list of dire predictions becomes sillier with each passing day.  With the release of the latest news that man is "likely" involved in the warming trend and that the trend cannot be stopped, it is about time to take a look at the reality of the situation instead of the extremist positions. Patrick Michaels, in today's USA Today, does just that.

However, actually "doing something" about warming is a daunting endeavor. The journal Geophysical Research Letters estimated in 1997 that if every nation on Earth lived up to the United Nations' Kyoto Protocol on global warming, it would prevent no more than 0.126 degrees F of warming every 50 years. Global temperature varies by more than that from year to year, so that's not even enough to measure. Climatically, Kyoto would do nothing.

In the past four years, the Senate has voted twice against "cap-and-trade" legislation — sponsored by New Mexico senators Jeff Bingaman, a Democrat, and Pete Domenici, a Republican — that would set quotas on carbon emissions and let companies buy and sell them. If adopted, their cap-and-trade law would reduce emissions by less than the Kyoto Protocol specifies. In other words, the Senate has been loath to even adopt something that does less than nothing.

The stark reality is that if we really want to alter the warming trajectory of the planet significantly, we have to cut emissions by an extremely large amount, and — a truth that everyone must know — we simply do not have the technology to do so. We would fritter away billions in precious investment capital in a futile attempt to curtail warming.

Consequently, the best policy is to live with some modest climate change now and encourage economic development, which will generate the capital necessary for investment in the more efficient technologies of the future.

Despite what many people insist, the evidence of how much of global warming is tied to human activity is marginal at best. There are strong arguments that a lot of the warming trend is natural and has nothing to do with man at all. But even if we start with a presumption that this trend will continue no matter what we do in the short run, then it is time to look at dealing with the changes intelligently. Not by throwing money away. Please read all of what Michaels wrote, it is short and to the point.

Groundhog Day

Well, Punxsutawney Phil, star of the Movie Groundhog Day, did not see his shadow, thereby predicting and early spring.

The groundhog did not see his shadow Friday which, according to German folklore, means folks can expect an early spring instead of six more weeks of winter.

Since 1886, Phil has seen his shadow 96 times, hasn't seen it 14 times, and there are no records for nine years, according to the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club. The last time Phil failed to see his shadow was in 1999.

More than 15,000 revelers danced or milled about in a misty snow waiting for the prediction, as fireworks exploded overhead and the "Pennsylvania Polka" and other music blared in the background.

The old groundhog weather forecasting system, which bears a strange resemblance to the newest US Weather Service super computer, isn't exactly high tech, but it gives an excellent excuse for an obscure little town in Pennsylvania to throw a party. As the old saying goes, if the groundhog sees it's shadow, it will be six more weeks of winter; if he doesn't, it will be a month and a half.

Palestinian Ceasefire Claims Still More Lives

And this time at least one of the dead happens to be an Iranian who committed suicide rather than allowing himself to be captured. The Gaza strip is erupting again into repeated acts of violence. And guess who is stirring the pot? Palestinian fighters loyal to Fatah have captured several Iranians.

Palestinian security officers arrested at least five Iranian citizens during a raid at the Islamic University, a Hamas stronghold in Gaza City, a security official said. One of the Iranians committed suicide during the raid. Six to nine Palestinians were killed in the raid, sources said.

Early Friday, two Fatah-affiliated security men died in clashes in northern Gaza, hospital officials said. Eight people have died since Thursday, when violence erupted after a brief truce between Fatah and Hamas.

Hamas fighters blew up a pro-Fatah radio station in Gaza, ambulances were caught in the crossfire and gunmen exhanged machine gun fire in deserted streets as factional battles refused to let up in the chaotic coastal territory.

 The raid on the Hamas-linked university in Gaza was carried out by national security forces affiliated with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Hundreds of weapons and a lathe for the production of Qassam rockets were seized in the raid. 

A Hamas official denied the claim and said there were no Iranian citizens at the university.

The security official also said that during the raid a Hamas commander believed to have orchestrated the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier near the Gaza Strip in June last year suffered serious-to-moderate wounds.

If the people captured are, indeed, Iranians, then the government of Iran has even more explaining to do, doesn't it? It is about time they started being held accountable for the violence they appear to be promoting all through the region.