Eee! They’re Coming Out Of The Woodwork!

Dwarf laptops, that is. The Asus Eee is a tiny, full service laptop computer, called an ultra-portable PC. True, it has a tiny screen and painfully small keyboard, but it can do most of the things a larger, heavier laptop can do for less than $400.

Didn't Asus know notebook computers need hard drives? Or that they're supposed to run Windows — and the pre-loaded software must bloat the boot-up process to the length of a long weekend? Don't they know you don't just go selling laptops for less than $750 — let alone $400 — unless the hardware has been aged like whisky?

Asustek Computers Inc. went ahead and broke the rules with the Eee PC. And we should all be thankful.

A scrappy, aggressively priced two-pound notebook with a surprisingly broad set of features, Eee is a no-brainer purchase for tech-savvy travelers who want to downsize their luggage at low cost. It also makes a great gift, at least as practical as Apple Inc.'s iPhone and about the same price.

In the month I've owned an Eee, I've used it to watch movies on an airplane, read my favorite blogs and news articles — archived automatically — and update my online calendar while on the road. Its quick boot-up has made it perfect for writing quick e-mails (and this review) whenever I had a moment of inspiration.

Competition for the Asus Eee has just arrived - or will - at a Wal-Mart near you later this month. The Everex CloudBook - which comes with a 30 GB hard drive instead of the minuscule 4 GB flash drive of the Eee will be in Wal-Mart stores on the 25th of this month. It is very close to the same size.

LAS VEGAS, Jan. 8 /PRNewswire/ — Everex, a world leader in the design and production of personal computers, today launched their much anticipated Ultra-Mobile PC featuring the latest Open Source operating system from gOS. Measuring 9" in length and 2 pounds in weight, the Everex CloudBook caters to users seeking the latest in mobile computing.  With its 1.2GHz VIA C7-M ULV mobile processor, the laptop averages 5 hours of battery life on a 4-cell, lithium-ion battery.  Unlike many of its competitors, the CloudBook also features 30GB of internal storage, digital video output (DVI-I), 4-in-1 card reader and 1.3MP webcam.

With its size, specification and energy efficient design, customers will now find the performance and features of much larger laptops in one of the most mobile computer designs on the market.

My personal laptop is a Dell Latitude D400 with a 12.1-inch display. It is about as small as I can comfortably handle, keyboard-wise, due to my relatively large hands. Used (the only way to get them these days, they are long out of production) they run about $350. It isn't bleeding edge, but it runs like a tank. It also runs Ubuntu Linux perfectly, although I have not tied a real install, just ran it off a live CD.

Political Hit Jobs

There is something particularly pathetic about what is going on right now over on the left. All the horrible, nasty things they accused Republicans of are being played out, Democrat on Democrat. This is going to be a very long, very ugly, very bitter primary on the Democratic side. Whoever stumbles out of the train wreckage of it at the end of it all may be too wounded by it to be effective in the general election. It isn't pretty when the Clinton machine turns on their own.

I  suppose there could be lots of tea leaf reading in this one, but now its AG Andrew Cuomo on Talk 1300, minutes after the governor came on. Cuomo, to be fair, has been on the radio show a few times, if memory serves me, but his take on Hillary’s win in NH is that that small-state primary with its retail politics is a good thing.

”It’s not a TV crazed race. Frankly you can’t buy your way into it,” Cuomo said. “You can’t shuck and jive at a press conference,” he added. “All those moves you can make with the press don’t work when you’re in someone’s living room.”

The immediate spin from Cuomo was that, of course he didn't mean Obama. (Note, if a Republican had used the words "shuck and jive" they would already be under nonstop assault by the media and the left.) The nutroots are going ballistic (as they did yesterday when they began charging that the New Hampshire vote was rigged.) Meanwhile, the Obama surrogates are also playing just as nasty back with Jesse Jackson deriding Clinton's tears in New Hampshire saying she never cried for Katrina victims.

Like I said, long, ugly bitter and self-destructive as well. Others: Classical Values, Dan Riehl.

A Burra Sahib Passes

Known in Nepal as "burra sahib' or 'big man' due to his towering 6' 2" height, Sir Edmond Hillary has passed away at the age of 88. The modest Sir Edmund, who insisted that people just all him Ed, spent decades raising funds, building schools, hospitals, health clinics and airfields in Nepal.

Oh, and he climbed a mountain once.

Hillary remains the only non-political person outside Britain honored as a member of the Britain's Order of the Garter, bestowed by Queen Elizabeth II on just 24 knights and ladies living worldwide at any time.

He reached the summit of Everest four days before Elizabeth was crowned Queen of Britain and the Empire on June 2, 1953. She immediately knighted the angular, self-deprecating Hillary, who was just 33.

Throughout his 88 years, he was always the atypical "typical New Zealander" who spoke his mind.

In his 1999 book "View from the Summit," Hillary finally broke his long public silence about whether it was he or Norgay who was the first man to step atop Everest.

"We drew closer together as Tenzing brought in the slack on the rope. I continued cutting a line of steps upwards. Next moment I had moved onto a flattish exposed area of snow with nothing by space in every direction," Hillary wrote.

"Tenzing quickly joined me and we looked round in wonder. To our immense satisfaction we realized with had reached the top of the world."

Before Norgay's death in 1986, Hillary consistently refused to confirm he was first, saying he and the Sherpa had climbed as a team to the top. It was a measure of his personal modesty, and of his commitment to his colleagues.

He later recalled his surprise at the huge international interest in their feat. "I was a bit taken aback to tell you the truth. I was absolutely astonished that everyone should be so interested in us just climbing a mountain."

Hillary never forgot the small mountainous country that propelled him to worldwide fame. He revisited Nepal constantly over the next 54 years.

Without fanfare and without compensation, Hillary spend decades pouring energy and resources from his own fund-raising efforts into Nepal through the Himalayan Trust he founded in 1962.

Known as "burra sahib" — "big man," for his 6 feet 2 inches — by the Nepalese, Hillary funded and helped build hospitals, health clinics, airfields and schools.

He raised funds for higher education for Sherpa families, and helped set up reforestation programs in the impoverished country. About $250,000 a year was raised by the charity for projects in Nepal.

A big man, indeed, and one who will be missed in Nepal and in the rest of the world. New Zealand has lost a giant. Rest in peace, Burra Sahib.

Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia

One who displays “a persistent, abnormal, and unwarranted fear of long words” suffers from hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia. It used to be that you heard about claustrophobia (close places) or agoraphobia (open places) and more recently Coulrophobia (clowns), but now you can sort through a handy dandy list of things to be phobic about.

It is enough to give someone an irrational fear of long and faintly improbable-sounding words.

In fact according to an exhaustive list of unusual phobias the fear of long words already exists and has a name.

A catalogue of fears unearthed by New Scientist magazine, claims sufferers have hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia, or sesquippedaliophobia for short, which describes “a persistent, abnormal, and unwarranted fear of long words”.

The list of hundreds of unlikely irrational fears, which can leave their sufferers with shortness of breath, rapid breathing, an irregular heartbeat, sweating, nausea, and overall feelings of dread was taken from a US counselling website.

Among the bizarre crippling dreads listed on changethatsrightnow.com are the ridiculous sounding zemmiphobia, or fear of the great mole rat, and alektorophobia, or a fear of chickens.

We would just point out that the "exhaustive" list is far from complete. It does not list the most important fear: Kabourophobia. Or the even more frightening Cyanokabourophobia.

(Side note, my youngest boy simply piped up at the dinner table one night with the word Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia - and then spelled it correctly. He's going to be a riot at parties.)

UPDATE: My son, and commenter clifto, caught a typo, direct from the MSM article! (I had my son check it. In fact, when I told him I had posted about this he specifically asked if they had spelled it correctly, pointing out that the extra 'p' is a common misspelling.)

Hell’s Tadpoles

The Daily Mail has pictures and video of Nong Oui, a member of the notorious Thai biker gang, the Hell's Tadpoles. The biker frog has been hanging out with Tongsai Bamroongtai, who the report names as the 'owner' of the amphibian. Oh, please do look at the video.

(The funniest thing in the video is the kid with the laundry basket on his head.)

Bizarre News Juxtaposition

References to the Book of Revelations and to the "Mark of the Beast" are fairly common, of course. But it is kind of unusual to have them pop up in three wildly different news contexts in a single day. Yet that is exactly the situation. First, an Idaho man cut off his own hand with a circular saw, then microwaved the detached portion of his anatomy, reportedly because he was convinced he bore the Mark of the Beast.

HAYDEN, Idaho - A man who believed he bore the "mark of the beast" used a circular saw to cut off one hand, then he cooked it in the microwave and called 911, authorities said.

The man, in his mid-20s, was calm when Kootenai County sheriff's deputies arrived Saturday in this northern Idaho town. He was in protective custody in the mental health unit of Kootenai Medical Center.

"It had been somewhat cooked by the time the deputy arrived," sheriff's Capt. Ben Wolfinger said. "He put a tourniquet on his arm before, so he didn't bleed to death. That kind of mental illness is just sad."

It was not immediately clear whether the man has a history of mental illness. Hospital spokeswoman Lisa Johnson would not say whether an attempt was made to reattach the hand, citing patient confidentiality.

Wolfinger is exactly right, it is very sad. In fact it is a tragedy. Now on a somewhat less tragic, but possibly even more odd story, some backbenchers in the British Parliament introduced a bill to disestablish the Church of England as the official church of Britain. By some odd coincidence, the bill just happened to be assigned the sequential number of 666 - the very number of the beast.

LONDON (AFP) - Eyebrows were raised in the House of Commons on Thursday when a motion calling for the Church of England to be disestablished was listed with the number 666, symbol of the AntiChrist.

"This number is supposed to be the mark of the Devil. It looks as though God or the Devil have been moving in mysterious ways," said Bob Russell, a Liberal Democrat MP among those proposing the motion for debate.

"What is even stranger is that this motion was tabled last night when MPs were debating blasphemy," he added.

The motion calls for an end to the formal link between Church and State in England — embodied in the monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, who is both head of state and head of the Church of England.

And to end the trifecta on a happier note, the small Louisiana town of Reeves is actually, finally getting rid of the number of the beast. They can change their telephone numbers - which have started with 666 for 40 years or so.

A small village in southwest Louisiana is finally getting its wish: to rid itself of a telephone prefix often associated with the devil or the Antichrist.

Starting this month, residents and businesses can change the first three digits of their phone numbers from 666 to 749. Mayor Scott Walker said he has made the change on his phone.

"It's been a 40-year battle" he said, counting at least four failed attempts.

Reeves has three churches - two Bible and one Baptist - and fewer than 450 homes. "This boils down to, this is a very, very religious community," Walker said.

Weird to see all those in such a short time frame.

Obama Gets Waffles

John Kerry is set to endorse Barack Obama at a campaign event in North Carolina. The Politico waxes poetic about Kerry as a "popular figure" in the Democratic party, but also admits that such an endorsement rarely brings votes. What it does bring, however, is access to Kerry's fundraising contact list.

But Obama needs to show donors, voters and activists that he can attract more traditional support and win over the decision-makers in the party.

Thus far, he has succeeded mostly at bringing young voters and independents into the fold.

Moreover, Kerry maintains a pretty strong fundraising network and impressive e-mail list of potential donors.

Kerry is putting an e-mail list with millions of addresses at Obama's disposal, according to party sources. 

The e-mail list will be very helpful for fundraising as well as organizing. 

However, endorsements — even one like this, which will get huge news coverage — rarely transform a campaign.

They provide good momentary buzz, and a surrogate with star power for campaign stops. But it is rarely the reason a voter chooses a candidate.

I dunno if this is much of a coup for Obama. Kerry is not a popular figure, he is more like a popular punching bag - even for the Democrats. The Waffle boy has taken more than a little abuse from his own party faithful for losing in 2004. This far into the election cycle, it is also somewhat doubtful that Kerry's old donors have not already chosen sides, so I'm not sure that even that syrup is worth the waffles.

(If only the campaign event were being held at a Waffle House. That would be perfection.)

Obambi Versus Clintzilla

Robert Tracinski uses that as the title for his column that is up over at Real Clear Politics. Comparing Obama's dewy-eyed, vague message of change to the brutal, hard-nosed, bare-knuckle politics of the Clintons, makes that comparison rather apt. As he says, you have to decide which is worse.

But something odd is happening. Obambi is arguably beating Clintzilla.

The reason is not hard to discern: it is Obama's fresh, earnest idealism. The root of his appeal is that the damned fool actually means it: he puts forth every liberal bromide as if it were still 1960. He has inspired many comparison to JFK, with some dubbing his campaign "Obamalot," after the conventional view of the first years of the Kennedy administration as an idealized "Camelot." As I put it earlier this year, when Obama first emerged as a major candidate: "The left has always longed for a young, charismatic leader who will present the illusion of the left as a realm of bright-eyed, progressive idealists–an illusion that hides the tired, corrupt old ideas at the movement's core. They want JFK as they remember him–not the portrait of Dorian Gray represented by his brother Teddy. Obama restores that illusion for them."

But the problem of Obama's naiveté isn't just a smear thrown out by the Clinton machine; it is real and substantial. He demonstrated that when, in the early Democratic debates, he promised to solve the world's problems by inviting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez for tea at the White House–and then, in a hasty bid to make himself look like he could still be a tough guy–clumsily followed up with a proposal to unilaterally invade the lawless tribal regions of Pakistan. It was a policy that was incoherent at best…..

….This, alas, is the style of Senator Clinton's superior sophistication: the art of embracing two opposite policies at once. She is, of course, either lying to the far left when she tells them that she intends to withdraw from Iraq–or she's lying to the center when she assures them that she will be responsible about protecting America's assets and allies there. Or she's lying to both.

It is no surprise that many Democrats–particularly younger ones–have chosen the plain-spoken idealist over the calculating, triangulating pragmatist. But Obama's naivete and his idealism are inseparably intertwined–as is Clinton's experience and cynicism. They are flip sides of the basic dilemma of the contemporary Democratic Party.

Jack Wakeland hit the essential issue in 2004 when he commented in TIA Daily on the eve of Barack Obama's speech Democratic convention, the moment that launched Obama as a nation figure: "He speaks without a shadow a moral doubt, as if the moral ideal of socialism had never been put on trial, found guilty, and destroyed as the system of government for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. He speaks as if the socialist ideal were a new and untested plan that promises a bright future for the world."

Cynical versus clueless? Not a lot of real choice there. But Obama is really about to find out just how ugly the Clintons play politics, I rather suspect. Hillary pulling off a narrow victory in New Hampshire was enough to ensure she will not get out early. It also guarantees that Clinton will go increasingly negative - then try to lay the blame for that on the right. But it will be coming from Camp Clinton. You can take that to the bank. Perhaps a short instructional film would be in order here.

Getting It Right In Iraq

John McCain and Joe Lieberman publish an op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal that details just how wrong the opponents of the surge strategy in Iraq have been. They caution that the changes in Iraq are not yet permanent, nor is ultimate victory yet assured. But unlike the Democrats running for president, they are able to acknowledge real progress. They offer some things we must do to keep making progress in Iraq:

First, it is unknown whether the security gains we have achieved with the surge can be sustained — and deepened — after we have drawn down to 15 brigades. Until we know with certainty that we can keep al Qaeda on the run with 15 brigades, it would be a mistake to commit ourselves preemptively to a drawdown below that number.

As the surge should have taught us by now, troop numbers matter in Iraq. We should adjust those numbers based on conditions on the ground and the recommendations of our commanders in Iraq — first and foremost, Gen. Petraeus, who above all others has proven that he knows how to steer this war to a successful outcome.

Every American should feel a debt of gratitude to Gen. Petraeus and the great American troops fighting under him for us. This gratitude is due not simply for the extraordinary progress they have accomplished in Iraq, but for what they have taught us about ourselves.

If the mismanagement of the Iraq war from 2003 to 2006 exposed our government's capacity for incompetence, Gen. Petraeus' leadership this past year, and the conduct of the troops under his command, have reminded us of our capacity for the wisdom, the courage and the leadership that has always rallied our nation to greatness.

As Americans, we have repeatedly done what others said was impossible. Gen. Petraeus and his troops are doing that again in Iraq today.

I have pointed out, over and over again, that a precipitous withdrawal would be a defeat for this country and a disaster for both the United States and for the Iraqi people. McCain and Lieberman have been two stalwarts on this issue who realize the disaster running away would be. Al Qaeda is being badly beaten right now in Iraq. That is good for America and for the world. It is especially good for the Iraqi people.

Bloomberg Studies Running

The Washington Post carries an AP report that Michale Bloomberg is thinking of running for president despite the continuous denials. Michael Bloomberg has been spending gobs and gobs of money to study just that possibility. The article says that the amount of research he has been doing is enormous.

The scope of the research, details of which were revealed to The Associated Press, demonstrates how seriously Bloomberg is considering running for president despite his almost-daily denials that he isn't entering the race. The extensive coast-to-coast research effort shows that Bloomberg is willing to dig deep into his wallet simply to gauge his chances of winning and lining up the proper support network.

"They want a hard-headed sense of their chances," said Doug Schoen, who spearheaded Bloomberg's voter database efforts, known as microtargeting, for his two mayoral campaigns.

Bloomberg's spokesman Stu Loeser declined to comment.

Schoen says he is not working for Bloomberg now, but he is part of the mayor's inner circle and makes a convincing and well-researched case in his new book, "Declaring Independence," about how a third-party candidate such as Bloomberg could run for president and upset the election this year.

Schoen was widely recognized for his microtargeting work in Bloomberg's first campaign. It was considered a groundbreaking concept in 2001 to gather and use information on individual voters, rather than voting blocs, to tailor and tweak the campaign message, advertisements and overall theme.

The Bloomberg database being created nationally would also be used in those same ways if he were to run, Schoen said. But for now, it will serve as the basis of gauging potential support for a bid.

Using the microtargeting model, research firms working for Bloomberg are gathering comprehensive information on voters throughout the country, such has who owns a home, has children in college, where they vacation, type of car or computer and past political support. All the puzzle pieces will then be arranged to create a picture of each individual.

What is disturbing is that he is collecting an enormous amount of personal data about voters - which he is buying from private companies that collect it. That should concern people. If he decides against running, what will he do with all that? He won't just throw it away, will he?

No Quarter

Robert Novak writes about the way Clinton managed to pull out a win in New Hampshire. His explanation for the victory is rather simple: politically-speaking, the Clintons give no quarter. That is something Obama will have to learn to deal with. But Novak does not think he will be able to.

Late on Tuesday afternoon, when exit polls indicated Sen. Barack Obama would defeat Sen. Hillary Clinton in the New Hampshire primary, there was palpable relief from many Democrats — including some avowed supporters of Clinton's presidential candidacy — that the country soon would be finished with not only the Bushes but also the Clintons. Four hours later came evidence of the political folly in underestimating the former president and his wife.

Those exit polls were so wrong because they grossly understated the female vote in New Hampshire. Had the turnout of women there, which constituted an unprecedented 57 percent of the Democratic vote, been plugged in to exit results, a two-percentage-point Clinton victory would have been forecast. The unexpected female support in turn can be attributed to the Clinton style, which may not be pretty but is effective. Hillary Clinton's tears evoked sympathy for her, and Bill Clinton's sneers generated contempt for Obama….

…The lesson of New Hampshire for Obama's campaign should be that rock-star popularity is not sufficient to take on the Clintons, who for a decade have given no quarter to their political foes. When it seemed that Obama would win in New Hampshire, the Clinton camp prepared an attack strategy against him. Since Obama is favored in the next big primary test, in South Carolina on Jan. 26, he can expect more of the same ahead.

As Novak points out, most people, including longtime Democratic insiders, thought a weepy Hillary and a press-bashing Clinton were both breathtaking mistakes. (I certainly did.) That turned out to be completely missing the point of their antics. Obama is in for a rough ride from the Clinton roller coaster.

Once Upon A Time

Ann Telnaes over at the Washington Post tells a fairy tale.