Jeez, Enochrewt, where's the love? Yeah, I'm from there. That aside, I just never thought it would all end this way...

I Dream of Jeannie. They invite a "creative" interior decorator to give their place a makeover, which includes a table lamp with a machine-gun for a base. Major Nelson almost shoots the roof off trying to turn it off.

Well, ever since Phoebus started outsourcing, the new watchers just don't seem to, well, *care* about finding Byron. No professional pride. Blame it on globalization.

Dang kids. What're you looking at? And get the hell off my lawn!

ZAPS pounds away!

Well, someone had to say it.

And it's just a toy compared to the great, steampunk-as-f*ck (okay, Edwardian) Flip-Flap ride at the Franco-English Exhibition of 1908! (Oh, just google it.)

The YouTube video is timed to intimidate people in advance of the global L. Ron Hubbard birthday party tomorrow.

Bit late, I imagine. Amateurish, too. A pile of white powder and purported bomb threats by some digitally altered voices. If the anthrax mailout were real, Scientology would be spamming the country's news bureaus with the result, especially if there were arrests. YouTube isn't exacly the court of public opinion.

On the other side are reams of court documents on what Scientology get up to.

As for Scientology exposing those three or four people, how do we know these people match the handles, or even exist? If they really wanted to impress, they could show videos instead of stills, but the guys who did that would be letting themselves in for a lot of trouble.

If those people are targeted, Anonymous have promised to look out for them. Let's see if they deliver.

Let's get the obvious one out of the way...

All of that history aside (hahaha), I guess you all know that the Kosovan constitution was written 6 months ago. The US and EU basically told Serbia's leaders that their entry into the EU hung in the balance, so it was basically blackmail, and of course none of this was made public.

Whether Serbia deserves to keep Kosovo(a) or not, this was ham-handed at best, sleazy at worst. For a new country, it augurs as well as a field of ravens. Proclaiming independence this way left Serbia without face, and reversing it (if that's even possible) would leave everyone else without face. You'd almost think someone was deliberately baiting the Serbians.

But Condoleeza Rice has been dispatched to scold Serbia for acting so childishly, so that should solve things.

There's no limit to the number of eggs you can break if you can convince them all the omelet is worth it.

I started reading Neal Stephenson's article again and got something useful out of the first page: namely, how to explain to angry customers why a cable off the Egyptian shore and pointing to Mumbai hosed their ping times between Basel and Hong Kong.

Update: cable repair still ongoing

Ever watch "Black Books?"

A hundred years or so ago, they were a lot more cavalier about such things (PDF). That story is a big reason why we're not now.

Gelatinous cube. I bet there's at least a couple of gold pieces inside. Go ahead, reach in there. You might get lucky.

I was kinda hoping it was The Stuff.

Torture (done by the "good guys") is this century's gas warfare: of limited effectiveness against an enemy and demoralizing to one's own side. Aside from nukes and army capable of occupying at most 1-1/2 countries, all we have (sorry, had) is the soft power of moral suasion--you know, being the country of liberty and all that.

Pettifoggery over the definition of torture isn't moral suasion. Condi's beliefs to the contrary, the other guys aren't gonna think "wow! since you explain it that way, I can see now that you guys don't actually torture. Gosh, I never thought of it that way."

"Ticking time-bomb" scenarios are for people who are already know it's torture and it's being done on their behalf, so they need a magical excuse to soothe what's left of their consciences.

I saw it done in a movie once about some women's prison in the Philippines (about 44 minutes in). It sure didn't look like any fun.

Beautiful. The link doesn't say, but I'll bet it's for someone in Argentina. The engraving has a gaucho look to it. Some gauchos spent loads of their pay on elaborately-worked silver tack (bridle, saddle, stirrups, etc.) and spurs. It was their portable and ostentatious wealth. I saw stuff like that (not the gun, obviously, at least not yet) at a fine arts fair a year ago.

Did it have a "Get Out Of Colditz Free" card?

I've been living in Amsterdam a few years and I've never seen him. The A'dam video is him on the front of a trendy cafe/boutique, as part of a living ad fo RVS Life insurance. It's part of their most recent ad campaign, which has a people flying through the air with blue umbrellas, to the haunting tune (downloadable from that page), "Come Walk With Me," by Jeff Alexander.

I was given Scope-Dex for a ride on the Vomit Comet, ages ago. I had a delayed side effect about a week later--a deep sense of disappointment that the guy I gave my snapshot camera to took really crappy pictures of me--but that was about it.

I got a second chance to ride and NASA were out of Scope-Dex but had Dramamine. That worked almost as well, and a lot better than Bonine (because they shortly ran out of Dramamine too).