A Gentle Note To Apple

There are many people who truly believe that Apple computers and Apple iPods (and now iPhones) are God's gift to all of creation.

Bull.

My son has been blocked from syncing his iPod to his computer until he downloads and installs more than 60 Megs worth of updates, apparently to accommodate the new iPhone. Which he doesn't have and (if I have my way, never will).

Smooth move, Apple. That and the crashes caused by unstoppable automatic updates from Apple are rather tiresome. And the automatic install of Quicktime - even when you decline it - is sleazy.

(Incidentally, my son says he does not want a darn thing to do with the iPhone after all the fun we're having with Apple software right now. All he wanted to do was rip a couple of songs to his iPod - then this ensued. He is not amused.) 

Bush Commutes Libby Jail Sentence

President Bush today commuted the 30-month jail sentence imposed on Lewis “Scooter” Libby for his conviction for perjury, obstruction of justice and of lying to investigators.

In a written statement issued hours after that ruling, Bush called 30-month term “excessive.” But he also rejected calls for a pardon for Libby, and said the onetime adviser will still have to pay a $250,000 fine and remain on probation for two years.

“The consequences of his felony conviction on his former life as a lawyer, public servant, and private citizen will be long-lasting,” Bush said. But he said Libby was given “a harsh sentence based in part on allegations never presented to the jury.”

The left will go - already is going, according to Memeorandum - berserk over this. But consider the penalty imposed on Bill Clinton, a sitting president of the United States for perjury. He lost his law license for a period of time. This was a politically motivated prosecution - make that persecution - of a relatively low-level official. Yet he was hammered by the legal system while Clinton smiled, bit his lip and turned away laughing.

The people who pushed all this have no idea what damage they have done to the political system in the long run. Nor do they appear to care. But when one of theirs is hammered the same way, the precedent having been set, maybe they will get the picture. They opened the box with this.

UPDATE: More from CNN here. The howling from the left is unreal over at Memorandum, incidentally. Too bad they have different standards when it comes to the theft of secret national documents, a la Sandy Berger, or the much lighter penalty of a certain former President for a very similar offense.

Now It’s Serious

We here at Blue Crab Boulevard spend inordinate amounts of time finding and reporting on stories about the Animal Uprising™. But we sometimes think people don't take our calm and rational warnings about animal depravity seriously. Well, you'll have to pay attention this time.

Because it isn't every day that camels invade Sweden.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - What is a dead camel doing on the side of a highway in Sweden? That's what police are trying to find out after the unusual discovery Monday. Police thought it was a joke when they received reports early Monday that the carcass of a camel was spotted next to the E22 highway near Karlskrona, in southeastern Sweden.

"But when the patrol got there it turned out be completely true," police spokesman Lars Lindwall told news agency TT.

Judging by its injuries, police believe the camel was being transported on a trailer, but somehow fell off and was dragged behind the vehicle.

"When that was discovered they probably just dumped the body," Lindwall said.

While we can't get the Griswold family and Aunt Edna's dog Dinkins out of our heads right now, this is serious! Think of the implications: if the camels overrun Sweden, there will be a global meatball shortage! Buffets everywhere will be left with nothing but chicken drummers and potato skins. We're all doomed.

Rebel(s) Without A…….

……Convent. A court in Poland has issued an eviction notice to a group of, believe it or not, rebel nuns. The habit-ual offenders have illegally occupied their former convent for two years, rejecting the Vatican decision to replace their mother superior. Along the way, they have also ignored their expulsion from their religious order and taken up recreational stoning of reporters trying to interview them.

The 64 nuns took over the building in 2005, rejecting the Vatican's decision to replace their mother superior, who had taken decisions she said were based on religious visions and had upset other nuns.

The nuns and their superior in the southern city of Kazimierz Dolny have also ignored their expulsion from their order, the Sisters of the Family of Bethany.

But court officials said eviction notices had been sent to the nuns last week. A Franciscan friar who has been suspended for disobedience is also staying there with them.

"We will not wait any longer," Ewa Stepowicz-Lizut, the lawyer of the convent's order, told Reuters on Monday.

The building's electricity was cut off in April, but sympathisers from the town have continued to provide food and water under cover of darkness. The nuns have on occasion thrown stones at journalists trying to speak to them.

Well, we certainly concur with their opinion of the media, but their obedience could use a little work. I see real movie potential here, though! Heck, they've already staged a live version of the Jets versus Sharks rumble in a convent in Cyprus! We have a real trend in delinquent nuns.

Partisan Politics

Well, if you happen to believe politics in the US are a little too partisan, at least they haven't quite gotten to the level of Nigerian politics. The media there has done a survey and discovered that there has been a sharp decline in the price of a favorite tool used in political discussions there.

Yep, machete prices have fallen to half what they cost during campaign season.

ABUJA (Reuters) - The price of machetes has halved in parts of Nigeria since the end of general elections in April because demand from thugs sponsored by politicians has subsided, the state-owned News Agency of Nigeria reported.

NAN surveyed prices in the northeastern state of Gombe and found that a good quality machete was now selling for 400 naira ($3) compared with 800 naira before the elections, which were marred by politically motivated violence in many states.

"A price survey on machetes, which served as a popular weapon among political thugs in the state, indicated … a drop in the price of the implement," NAN reported over the weekend.

Machetes are primarily used as a tool for farming in Nigeria but they are also popular among political gangsters.

"Before the conduct of the general elections, I was selling a minimum of seven machetes daily but can hardly sell one a day now," said Usman Masi, a trader quoted by NAN.

And remember, when machetes are outlawed, only politicians will have machetes.

Giant, Amphibious Rabbits Invade Illinois

Souther Illinois is under assault by giant rabbits that can swim and enjoy climbing up on things to defecate. Honest. Swamp rabbits are on the march. Or hop, as the case may be.

Although it sounds suspiciously like a fictitious character, the swamp rabbit is alive, and apparently, doing quite well in Southern Illinois.

While critters such as the swamp rabbit's cousin, the eastern cottontail, and the bobwhite quail are hurting because of habitat destruction, the swamp rabbit is holding its own thanks in part to wetland restoration in the region.

"They are kind of a unique animal," said John Cole, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources' agricultural and grassland wildlife manager. "They have real specific habitat requirements. They're common in openings in bottomland hardwood forests."

Southern Illinois is on the northern edge of the swamp rabbits range. They are primarily found in the Cache River basin and along feeder streams near the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. Cole said they have been found as far north as St. Louis and Lawrenceville.

Although not as common as they once were, the swamp rabbit seems to be holding its own. Habitat destruction was the primary reason for the decline.

"In the late 50s and early 60s they started clearing a lot of bottomland hardwoods and putting it in farmland," Cole said. "Rabbits are not a very mobile species. They kind of survived in little patches around Southern Illinois. They're a fairly common animal in Kentucky and Tennessee.

"They just evolved to inhabit wetland areas. They're adept at swimming. Their dietary habits are fairly similar to cottontails. One of the things they use for food that is kind of restricted to these areas is great cane. It's in the bamboo family. They feed on a wide array of plant material."

Although they closely resemble their cousin, the eastern cottontail, differences are marked.

"They're larger and darker in color," said Clay Nielsen, a wildlife ecologist at the Cooperative Wildlife Research Laboratory at Southern Illinois University. "If you had the two of them sitting next to each other, which would be highly unlikely, you'd be able to tell the difference in size and color."

And they like to deposit droppings on top of fallen logs in the swamps. Scientists speculate that that behavior is due to them wanting to mark territory. We rather suspect it has more to do with them wanting to keep their bottoms dry. But we strongly advise hikers in the area not to lie down, for obvious reasons.

Time For A New War On Drugs

Not everything is peachy for the overlords of the Animal Uprising™. They are having to deal with drug problems in some of their shock troops. That's right, the drugged out deer are getting out of hand.

Swiss authorities uncovered an illegal cannabis farm after locals complained about a stoned deer.

The deer had reportedly been attacking hikers, sleeping in roads and even wandering into homes and stores.

Forest rangers in Trient, Switzerland, launched an investigation after numerous complaints.

They discovered an illegal cannabis farm set up by two locals, who were arrested as they went to harvest their crop.

Obviously, the deer had a serious case of the munchies. The article is, of course, wrong. The two humans were merely trying to steal the marijuana, which actually belonged to the deer drug cartel.

Jihad In Britain

The Opinion Journal takes a look at the events in Britain over the past few days. Hopefully, Gordon Brown is as quick a study as they believe he is on this subject.

Most Britons understand that terrorists wage war on them and their freedoms–and are not, per the fashionable left, voicing opposition to British policy in their own way. This weekend's plotters intended to kill partygoers at popular nightclubs in London's West End and school children departing Glasgow for summer holiday. These cities are thriving, cosmopolitan, tolerant and open–which is a main reason the Islamists want to bomb them.

On Thursday, his first full day in office, the Prime Minister sought to distance himself from just-retired Tony Blair's unpopular commitment to the "global war on terror" by unveiling a cabinet with prominent Blair critics. But Mr. Brown appears to be a quick study. Yesterday, in an interview with the BBC, he was nothing if not resolute: "We will not yield, we will not be intimidated, and we will not allow anyone to undermine our British way of life." Welcome to the fight.

I think that most people in the West understand that war is being waged on their way of life. It is that fashionable, leftwing, elitist view (like Michael Moore calling the terrorists "Minutemen") that are causing a lot of the problems right now. And, unfortunately, are making the violent tactics of the islamists worse. By failing to hold them accountable to the same standards the West is held to, there is no check on them at all. They get free publicity and plenty of Western apologists ready, willing and eager to blame the West for everything. If the media were howling with outrage over the terror attacks instead of quoting "spokesmen" for the terror groups as straight fact, maybe the terrorists would dial it back. That is what one study concluded at any rate.

A Bipartisan Effort

Peter Brown from the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute has a very clear analysis of why the immigration "reform" bill failed in the Senate. It should be a wake-up call for the Democrats, because it signals real trouble if the leadership continues to tilt to the left. Because it was a bipartisan effort that scuttled the bill.

Just as in recent years when Bush often could not win over GOP lawmakers who weren't sufficiently conservative, the Democrats have a problem with their members who aren't die-hard liberals.

Any notion that the Democrats' bare 51-49 Senate edge and similar percentage margin in the House translates into real control is illusionary. And, ironically, the reason is a result of the way they fashioned their new majority.

To be sure Democrats and Republicans have differing views and values, but the inability of Congress to come up with an acceptable immigration solution stems from as many intra-party divides as partisan ones.

There were both Democratic and Republican senators who thought the measure did not tilt enough toward immigrants' rights, and those who thought it unacceptably slanted in that direction. At the margins, the majority of Republicans wanted to err on the side of toughness and the Democrats wanted to make it less onerous for illegal immigrants.

Democrats took Congress last November by winning the deciding seats in conservative states where the party had suffered recently.

Many, perhaps naively, assumed that the results meant that the country was moving further left from its more conservative perch that began with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.

But, the 2006 sweep wasn't necessarily the result of a public decision that the Republican worldview was wrong. Rather it was the public's judgment about competence, reflecting popular frustration with the bogged-down war in Iraq, Republican congressional scandals and profligate spending.

Democrats who were sent to Congress from those conservative states last November did not necessarily share the views and values of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and aging liberal icon Sen. Edward Kennedy.

The $64,000 question was always whether the new members would follow the lead of their generally more liberal, senior brethren who controlled the Democratic agenda.

Freshmen Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Jon Tester of Montana and Jim Webb of Virginia voted were among the 15 Democrats who helped kill the immigration bill. It turned out their votes were not decisive. The margin of defeat was so large because a majority of senators up for re-election in 2008 decided it was in their best interests to oppose the bill.

I pointed out that it would be political suicide for anyone up for election in 2008 to support that bill. It appears that the political calculus of those Senators matched mine. But the fact that the Democrats cannot count on keeping the newly-elected members from conservative states in line should tell them that it isn't a really good idea to keep pushing left. I rather doubt the leadership will pay any attention, however. They continue down a path of confrontation instead of the oft-promised bipartisanship they used to get elected. The conventional wisdom is that the 2008 elections are the Democrat's to lose. Reid and Pelosi are working on it.

Scorpions Conquer Space

It is completely unfair. Scorpions, ants and cockroaches have made it into space before the staff at Blue Crab Boulevard. The Genesis II space station module has successfully deployed into orbit and sent back high-resolution photographs for the first time. Bigelow Aerospace launched the second module from a silo at Yasny Launch Base, an active Russian strategic missile base atop a Dnepr booster.

A day after launching into orbit, the privately-built Genesis 2 expandable module successfully relayed high-resolution images taken on June 29 during on-orbit checkout procedures.

The two pictures confirmed the operation of the inflatable module's camera system followed by download to the Mission Operations center for the Las Vegas, Nevada-based spaceflight firm Bigelow Aerospace. The testing will continue as the ground team perfects the acquisition of the Genesis 2 signal. A camera on the interior of Genesis 2 captures a test image of the expansive space created by the inflation technology. In this early stage of checkout, this image was taken without all the spacecraft interior lighting turned on. A picture on the end of one of the aft solar arrays looks toward the midsection of Genesis 2 as well as the forward solar panels.

Genesis 2 is the second inflatable module launched by Bigelow Aerospace as a prototype for future commercial space stations in Earth orbit. The U.S. firm launched its first spacecraft Genesis 1 in July 2006, which remains operational today.

An ISC Kosmotras Dnepr rocket launched Genesis 2 into space on June 28. The 15-foot (4.4-meter) module inflatable module is designed to expand to a diameter of about eight feet (2.54 meters) and carries 22 onboard cameras to relay scenes from both inside and outside the spacecraft. Personal items from paying customers, a "Biobox" with scorpions, ants and cockroaches, and a Space Bingo game are tucked inside the spacecraft as cargo.

A picture on the end of one of the aft solar arrays looks toward the midsection of Genesis 2 as well as the forward solar panels.

Genesis 2 is the second inflatable module launched by Bigelow Aerospace as a prototype for future commercial space stations in Earth orbit. The U.S. firm launched its first spacecraft Genesis 1 in July 2006, which remains operational today.

An ISC Kosmotras Dnepr rocket launched Genesis 2 into space on June 28. The 15-foot (4.4-meter) module inflatable module is designed to expand to a diameter of about eight feet (2.54 meters) and carries 22 onboard cameras to relay scenes from both inside and outside the spacecraft. Personal items from paying customers, a "Biobox" with scorpions, ants and cockroaches, and a Space Bingo game are tucked inside the spacecraft as cargo.

If they ever get a private ship up there to dock with the station, they will find that the giant, mutant spacefaring scorpions will be waiting for them. And they'll be hungry. More on the Dnepr booster system, a treaty-mandated retirement of a missile booster in a useful way instead of just cutting them up, can be found at this website.

If they ever get a private ship up there to dock with the station, they will find that the giant, mutant spacefaring scorpions will be waiting for them. And they'll be hungry. More on the Dnepr booster system, a treaty-mandated retirement of a missile booster in a useful way instead of just cutting them up, can be found at this website.

D’oh! Life Imitates (B)art

In what is being billed as a reverse product placement, 11 stores from the 7-11 chain have been temporarily converted into Kwik-E-Marts. That would be the fictional convenience store from the animated television show The Simpsons. All part of a promotional tie-in to the new Simpsons feature film, there will also be several products based on ones in the show sold in the stores and in other 7-11s as well. You'll be able to buy KrustyO's cereal. (No Duff beer, however.)

DALLAS - Over the weekend, 7-Eleven Inc. turned a dozen stores into Kwik-E-Marts, the fictional convenience stores of "The Simpsons" fame, in the latest example of marketers making life imitate art.

Those stores and most of the 6,000-plus other 7-Elevens in North America will sell items that until now existed only on television: Buzz Cola, KrustyO's cereal and Squishees, the slushy drink knockoff of Slurpees.

It's all part of a campaign to hype the July 27 opening of "The Simpsons Movie," the big-screen debut for the long-running television cartoon, which loves to lampoon 7-Eleven as a store that sells all kinds of unhealthy snacks and is run by a man with a thick Indian accent.

For 20th Century Fox Film Corp. and Homer's creators at Gracie Films, the stunt is a cheap way to call attention to their movie, since 7-Eleven is bearing all the costs, which executives of the retail chain put at somewhere in the single millions.

At 7-Eleven, they're hoping it shows the ubiquitous chain has a trait seen in few corporations — the ability to laugh at themselves.

"We thought if you really want to do something different, the idea of actually changing stores into Kwik-E-Marts was over the top but a natural," said Bobbi Merkel, an executive for of 7-Eleven's advertising agency, FreshWorks, a unit of Omnicom Group Inc. "It shows they get the joke."

The monthlong promotion has been rumored a long time — it's hard to keep a secret known by so many suppliers and franchisees — but 7-Eleven managed to keep the locations of the stores quiet until early Sunday morning. That's when the exteriors of 11 U.S. stores and one in Canada were flocked in industrial foam and given new signs to replicate the animated look of Kwik-E-Marts.

The U.S. locations where a 7-Eleven store was transformed into a Kwik-E-Mart are New York City; Chicago; Dallas; Denver; Burbank, Calif.; Los Angeles; Henderson, Nev.; Orlando, Fla.; Mountain View, Calif.; Seattle; and Bladensburg, Md.

Well, it will be interesting to see how this works out. Some people are already complaining. The Denver Post quotes one person:

But Robert Passikoff, president of Brand Keys Inc., called the campaign "'Field of Dreams' branding," saying that companies mistakenly assume attaching themselves to a popular brand will result in increased sales - if they build it, dollars will come.

"Do you remember when Oprah gave away a bunch of cars on her show?" he asked. "Do you remember what brand of cars they were? No one does."

The free cars were Pontiac G6s. Pontiac's sales dropped overall the next quarter, Passikoff said.

Passikoff also pointed out the irony of trying to promote fresh food by associating with a cartoon store known for year-old rancid hot dogs and overpriced, month-old milk.

"They would have been better off doing a tie-in with 'Ratatouille'," he said, referencing Pixar's just-released animated feature about a rodent aspiring to gourmet chef superstardom. "At least that movie deals with fine foods."

And the professionally offended haven't even started yet. But my guess is that there will be a rush to get some of the special products. Think of it as the Pet Rock for the new millennium.