DoYouDig

Thanks to TiVo I just watched a new cartoon from Spike TV that features the thoughts and rants of a funny conservative blogger: Brian Newport

The world changes every day, and This Just In's resident conservative Brian Newport isn't happy about it one damn bit.
The kind of guy who says what everybody's thinking, Newport has no filter. If it's in his head, it's out of his mouth and there's absolutely no stopping him -- no matter what how much his friends are going to have to duck and cover. And whether it's a visit from Ted Kennedy, losing his favorite bar to women, or throwing a "Warfare" to raise money for the military still in Iraq, one thing is for sure: If it's in the news, and on your minds, it's on "This Just In."

and he actually has a real blog here

When I first heard about the concept I thought for sure they would screw it up and end up painting the guy as a jerk. Surprise Surprise I ended up really liking the show. The shows got wit and while it makes fun of both sides (great bit on FoxNews using hot women to lure men -- hey it works for me) it seems to take a genuine conservative perspective. Here Here!

Tune in Sundays at 10:30PM E/P

"Because the Earth is not a homogeneous sphere, the force of gravitational acceleration 'g' varies significantly from place to place on the surface of the planet. This irregular gravity field shapes a virtual surface at mean sea level called the 'geoid"

Now that does look wired. I found more info at JPL on how the map is created:

The actual shape of the Earth is not a perfect sphere--it's not even a perfect ellipsoid (which would account for the effect of its rotation). If you measure the strength of the gravity field across the Earth's surface, you will find local variations caused by irregularities in the crust, which produce an irregular figure called the geoid--the actual shape of the Earth. To find the surface caused by ocean circulation, we mathematically remove the sea height caused by gravity (the geoid) and create maps of ocean topography. We then calculate the speed and direction of ocean currents similar to how meteorologists use atmospheric pressure maps to calculate winds.

Nuff said...

While looking for an image for the Hal 9000 I came across --- Hal 9000 vs. WOPR ("Joshua")

Do some searching around! Sure its a complete waste of time but its does bring a smile to your face. Here are a few matches:

Red-Shirted Ensigns vs. Stormtroopers



Khan vs. Lex Luthor

The French Army vs. English Soccer Hooligans

Drudge is all over this but I had to add it:



"the men’s room in the newly-designed Virgin Airways Clubhouse in New York’s John F. Kennedy airport, terminal 4: Urinals shaped like a woman’s mouth, dolled up with red lipstick, wide open and ready for business."

Want to get one?

This place must be way cool
For an airline that has open mouths in the bathrooms, one would expect unconventional designs in the lounge areas. Instead of walls (who needs them?) there’s a free standing waterfall that pours out of the ceiling. It drains into a 100-foot pool that doubles as the wall of the lounge (why not?). The result: one exterior wall is the reflecting pool; the other is a triple height ceiling out on to the terminal. VIPs don’t have to mingle with the riff-raff (who would no doubt be milling by the urinals anyway), the Red Room is their special space. Like the cigar girls of the 1940’s, Virgin staff roam the clubhouse, weaving between pearlescent screens with the Hewlett Packard PC’s in hand to access anything for passengers at any time like reservations or ordering a meal within the clubhouse. And if Paris Hilton brings her laptop in her Louis Vuitton book bag, she can hang out in the WiFi zone to chat about The Simple Life with Nicole Richie. :

and this comment should be good for the economy:

Who’s using the clubhouse the most these days?
“With the exchange rate so attractive to Europeans we are jam-packed with Londoners flying over here for bargains,” said John Riordan.

Internet: VoiceXML 2.0
and here I didnt know there was a 1.0 -- The W3C just approved a couple of standards for building Internet-based communications between humans and computers.



VoiceXML 2.0 and Speech Recognition Grammar Specification are ready to become industry standards for the Web.

".....With VoiceXML, developers can build web applications that enable people to interact with a computer using a telephone.
For example, a person could dial into a voice server and ask for stock prices of several companies. The server would then carry the request to an application running on a different computer, retrieve the information and deliver it back to the person as an audio message. All the communications between machines and the caller is handled via VoiceXML and over an Internet-based infrastructure.
SRGS, on the other hand, is the voice recognition technology that converts a human voice into computer language"

I went looking on the w3 web site for more info and found a good overview of the concept:

VoiceXML's main goal is to bring the full power of Web development and content delivery to voice response applications, and to free the authors of such applications from low-level programming and resource management. It enables integration of voice services with data services using the familiar client-server paradigm. A voice service is viewed as a sequence of interaction dialogs between a user and an implementation platform. The dialogs are provided by document servers, which may be external to the implementation platform. Document servers maintain overall service logic, perform database and legacy system operations, and produce dialogs. A VoiceXML document specifies each interaction dialog to be conducted by a VoiceXML interpreter. User input affects dialog interpretation and is collected into requests submitted to a document server. The document server replies with another VoiceXML document to continue the user's session with other dialogs.



and we are worried about outsourcing of Callcenters to other countries!

Iraq:
Blogger Killed in Iraq
BOB ZANGAS was killed last Wednesday in an ambush south of Baghdad. He was a Marine Corps Reservist working in a civilian capacity for the Coalition Provisional Authority. From reading his blog you really get a sense how nice and decent this guy was.



Go read the final entry in his weblog, and pay your respects.

Its somewhat chilling reading his last post -- if you scroll down to the middle you see a mention and pic on the Iraq police force:
"I did slow down at a check-point to get a shot of these brave guys. They are more of a target than the Americans are these days. Friendly to a “T.” Of course we have outfitted them, given them decent salaries, weapons, training, cool equipment and fast cars with loud sirens. They have no problem waving to us!"

It was a group of corrupt policemen who shot and killed him

Science: Space

This picture is amazing yet there seems little interests in it.... Yes that little dot is earth as seen from Mars!



Update:
Just went looking at JPL and found some really cool new pics -- its seems Nasa went dune bugging...



In its 49th sol on Mars, NASA's Opportunity had nearly concluded its scientific examination of the extreme southwestern end of the outcrop in Meridiani Planum. In the “Shark’s Cage” area of the neighborhood called “Shoemaker’s Patio,” featured in this image from the front hazard avoidance camera, Opportunity deployed its arm to study the features called “Shark’s Tooth,” “Shark Pellets,” and “Lamination.” “Shark’s Tooth” is a piece of the unusual red rind that appears to fill cracks in the outcrop. This rind may be some kind of chemical alteration of the rocks. “Shark Pellets” is an area of soil that was under investigation as part of the crater soil survey. “Lamination” is a target with very thin layers that resemble uniform pages in a book, an indication of how the sediments were deposited. A final experiment in this area will be attempted on sol 51. Opportunity’s front left wheel will “scuff” the rock called “Carousel.” “Scuffing” involves scraping the rock with one wheel while holding all the others still. This experiment essentially turns the rover wheels into tools, to try and determine the hardness of the target rock

I have yet to see this movie but know in my heart of hearts it will be a fantastic experience. All bow and behold



Who out there after having seen Campbell's Ash in Army of Darkness cant see him playing the best Elvis in history...
Sure you actually cant see the film anywhere since they cant find a distributor. I just preordered the DVD at Amazon



For more info go to the official website

Heres a brief review:
Based on the Bram Stoker Award nominee short story by acclaimed author Joe R. Lansdale, Bubba Ho-tep tells the “true” story of what really did become of Elvis.

We find the King (Bruce Campbell) as an elderly resident in an East Texas rest home, who switched identities with an Elvis impersonator years before his “death”, then missed his chance to switch back. Elvis teams up with Jack (Ossie Davis), a fellow nursing home resident who thinks that he is actually President John F. Kennedy, and the two valiant old codgers sally forth to battle an evil Egyptian entity who has chosen their long-term care facility as his happy hunting grounds…

“Mind-blowing in its originality, Bubba Ho-tep transcends the “late-night cult” genre by virtue of captivating performances by Campbell and Davis, and the assured direction of Don Coscarelli. Coscarelli handles the bizarre material with such precision that you actually believe that Elvis and JFK are alive and not quite well. He treats the characters, and old age for that matter, with such respect that no matter how absurd things become, you are completely with him. Bubba Ho-tep, with its cinematic flash and terrifically offbeat humor, is a fantastic story of redemption, courage and friendship.”

- CineVegas International Film Festival -


IMDB RATES BUBBA #12 TOP HORROR FILM OF ALL TIME
The Internet Movie Database has Bubba Ho-tep rated number 12 on their list of the Top 50 Horror films of all time. Among some of the most illustrious genre films of all time, BHT is currently wedged between King Kong and Frankenstein!

NOMINATED FOR BEST SCREENPLAY
The Online Film Critics Society has nominated Don Coscarelli's screenplay adaptation for their Best Screenplay Award.

BUBBA NOMINATED FOR FOUR CHAINSAWS!!
Including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor and Best Screenplay, Bubba Ho-tep has received four nominations for the celebrated "Chainsaw Awards" by Fangoria Magazine!!!

BUBBA HO-TEP IN YAHOO! TOP TEN OF 2003!!!
Greg Dean Schmitz of Yahoo movies rates BH-T with the best!

Politics -- Kerry Watch:
Kerry's gets fire from NYPost for ignoring strong repeated warnings on Logan's crappy security pre 911.

"Rewind to May 6, 2001. That night, a Boston TV station (Fox-25) aired reporter Deborah Sherman's story on an undercover investigation at Logan that Sullivan and another retired agent helped set up. In nine of 10 tries, a crew got knives and other weapons through security checkpoints - including the very ones the 9/11 hijackers would later exploit.

The next day, Sullivan fired off a two-page letter to Kerry highlighting the systemic failures.

At that point, Steve Elson, the other agent who'd teamed up on the TV sting, decided to take a crack at the junior senator.

A fiery ex-Navy Seal, Elson spent three years as part of an elite FAA unit called the Red Team, which did covert testing of airport security across the country, before retiring as a field agent in Houston. He offered to fly to Washington at his own expense to give Kerry a document-backed presentation about the "facade of security" at Logan and other major airports.

But a Kerry aide said not to bother. "You're not a constituent," Elson was told just a few weeks before the hijackings. He went ballistic, warning that if Kerry didn't act soon he'd risk the lives of planeloads of his actual constituents. That warning now looks like prophecy: At least 82 Kerry constituents were murdered aboard American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175."

Politics / Economy:
Its apparent that Kerry is using Outsourcing as a key campaign issue to beat Bush. Michael M. Phillips at the WSJ has some interesting info (may need registration) on the subject. If only the Bush campaign would get aggressive on this issue.....

"Despite the political outcry over the outsourcing of white-collar jobs to such places as India and Ghana, the latest U.S. government data suggest that foreigners outsource far more office work to the U.S. than American companies send abroad."

"The value of U.S. exports of legal work, computer programming, telecommunications, banking, engineering, management consulting and other private services jumped to $131.01 billion in 2003, up $8.42 billion from the previous year, the Commerce Department reported Friday."

"Politicians have largely ignored the jobs created in the U.S. when Americans sell white-collar services to foreign customers.

"I can understand why members of Congress are responding to what a lot of constituents feel, and I can understand why their constituents feel that way because there has been so much publicity about the potential loss of jobs," said J. Robert Vastine, president of the Coalition of Service Industries. But, he said, "a lot of it is hype, and one of the big problems in this debate is there hasn't been enough analysis."

This is the kind of info you often dont see on this debate. America can compete in the world market! As countries like India grow their cost advantage goes down. Besides everyone benefits from outsourcing. Inflation has been in check due in large part to this phenomenon.

Politics:
Kerry Update over at Insta...

"This sort of thing would look like old news, of course, if Kerry hadn't spent so much time telling us how relevant his Vietnam experience is to his likely behavior as President."

Millitary:
Darpa is putting its brain power behind the Urban warfare problem.

..."Our forces must now operate in buildings and on streets and alleyways that expose them to multiple attacks and provide ready refuge to the enemy."

..."By developing airborne sensor systems we will be able to find and target these facilities and provide urban war fighters with the information they need to greatly simplify their searches. Technologies are being pursued by DARPA/SPO to provide a picture of all people and vehicles moving on the ground and apply this information to track people emerging from buildings of interest and follow them as they move to new locations."


Wired's got a good overview of Darpa's new (renewed) focus on the foot solider.

Update -- I just reread the wired article and the link to the Swarm project caught my interest...

"At the heart of the swarm project is the ISIS communication system. This proprietary hardware lets robots communicate with their neighbors using infra-red light. The system also allows a robot to determine the relative bearing, orientation, and range of all its neighboring robots. The communication network formed by these local interactions allows information to propagate throughout the entire group of robots."

hhhmmmm first thought that to comes to mind:


but its still cool shit. and thank God we are thinking of it first!

Economy:
Interesting article on the social toll India is paying for being the US's outsourcer

World:
Looks like a revolt in Iran!



"Interestingly the BBC/Muir set are reporting that the people are taking the sham elections well, and they don't care. But then again thats what the western correspondents were filing from Moscow in the last days too, all is well This is probably the exact opposite of what I heard from recent travellers who report very open and bold opposition to the regime is evident everywhere in the form of people defying the regime's rules, more anti regime grafitti evident everywhere than ever before in the last 25 years (the regime can't keep up with the nighttime graffitti operations anymore), people openly criticising the govt. everywhere, and people talking about another "enghelab" for the first time in 25 years!"

I wish them luck!

Well is it morning in America? What in the hell is going to happen this election year? The world wonders....
Well I might as well lay my cards on the table. I like GWB! The man is not perfect mind you but hes a real fucking guy with a honest heart and clear convictions. Basically to sum -- he is the right man for these troubled times

Now on to other things...
Entertainment:
First, no shit its been 20 years! I remember sitting at home Friday nights (yep I was a nerd) in 84 waiting for the start of this cool new show. MIAMI VICE

Politics:
I saw this over at Insta and had to add it...

''I'm pretty tough on Castro, because I think he's running one of the last vestiges of a Stalinist secret police government in the world,'' Kerry told WPLG-ABC 10 reporter Michael Putney in an interview to be aired at 11:30 this morning.

Then, reaching back eight years to one of the more significant efforts to toughen sanctions on the communist island, Kerry volunteered: ``And I voted for the Helms-Burton legislation to be tough on companies that deal with him.''

It seemed the correct answer in a year in which Democratic strategists think they can make a play for at least a portion of the important Cuban-American vote -- as they did in 1996 when more than three in 10 backed President Clinton's reelection after he signed the sanctions measure written by Sen. Jesse Helms and Rep. Dan Burton.

There is only one problem: Kerry voted against it.

what a jerk!
I bet the big media ignore this story (read the whole thing)-- They are so pro Kerry it makes me want to.....create my own blog!