Comet Holmes

This comet has become visible to the naked eye (barely) near the constellation Perseus.

Get out a pair of binoculars and it becomes much more clear.  Well, as clear as a fuzzy blob.

Here's a skymap.

Did Jesus ever ride a dinosaur?

Probably!

I doubt someone would put this in a coloring book.  Probably a fraud but still quite funny.

Good article

How to Get the World to Like Us –The Case for Isolationism

Oh man. Iraq is doomed.

Some fisherman caught a shark in the Euphrates river.

But then we have this...

Locals blamed the U.S. military for the shark's presence.

Tahseen Ali, a teacher, said there was a "75 percent chance" Americans had put the shark in the water.

"This is very frightening for us. Our children always swim in the river and I believe that there are more sharks. I believe that America is behind this matter," said fisherman Hatim Karim.

If the Iraqi people are this stupid, God help them.

Get your DailyKos er Dose of stupid

A Simple Way to End the War on Terror - Convert to Islam!

And we give these fools the right to vote...

Software Development

Five Easy Ways To Fail

Having trouble figuring out what to have for dinner tonight?

Maybe this will give you some ideas...

Crazies taking over

When a group goes this far, something needs to be done...

The woman from CodePink got right in the Secretary of State's face said she was responsible for millions of Iraqi deaths.

Condi should have given her an elbow to the face.

Gateway pundit has more...

Here's more info on the Code Pink NeoComm (neo commie) above.  Her husband's name is Mohammed... go figure.

Some of these, not so much...

But the rest are pretty good.

25 Skills Every Man Should Know: Your Ultimate DIY Guide

The lighting a campfire tip is the best.  Use a Vaseline soaked cotton ball.

Geez Louise!

Get a haircut Larry!  Or wear a hat!

Bad Hair Day for Larry King

Next Step for Chavez: Convert to Islam

Some Catholic Bishops in Venezuela have criticized Hugo so now they are targets, deemed "morally unacceptable" by the tyrant.

This gives him an opportunity to align with Iran even more by denouncing Catholicism and embracing Islam.

You heard it here first.

StarCraft 2 update

Information on the Protos Carrier and Terran Battle Cruiser units is now online.

Not much different than in the original except in looks.  I was hoping for a more formidable Carrier.  The Terran BC looks like it has a different weapon in the little game play trailer they have available.  Its shooting out lots of lasers at some infantry.

A message to Blizzard:  HURRY UP ALREADY!

Today in History

October 22nd:

• 4004 BC - The universe is created. This is according to the 17th-century chronology of the history of the world formulated by James Ussher the Anglican Archbishop of Armagh. (This one kind of overshadows everything else, dontcha think?)
• 1692 - Last hanging for witchcraft in the United States.  (But certainly not the last witch.)
• 1784 - Russia founds a colony on Kodiak Island, Alaska.  (All colonists were subsequently eaten by grizzly bears.  Just kidding.)
• 1836 - Sam Houston is inaugurated as the first President of the Republic of Texas.
• 1844 - The Great Anticipation: Millerites, followers of William Miller, anticipated the end of the world in conjunction with the Second Advent of Christ. The following day became known as the Great Disappointment.  (That's kind of funny.)
• 1949 - Soviet Union detonates its first nuclear bomb.
• 1957 - Vietnam War: First United States casualties in Vietnam.
• 1962 - Cuban Missile Crisis: US President John F. Kennedy announces that American spy planes have discovered Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba, and that he has ordered a naval "quarantine" of the island nation.
• 1968 - Apollo program: Apollo 7 safely splashes down in the Atlantic Ocean after orbiting the Earth 163 times.
• 1983 - Two correctional officers are killed by inmates in Marion, Illinois. The incident inspired the Supermax model of prisons.  (Illinois in history.  Ain't it grand?)
• 1986 - U.S. President Ronald Reagan signs the Tax Reform Act of 1986 into law.

Bigfoot Film is 40 tomorrow

http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/bfpg-40/

I would think that with all the cameras about anymore we would be seeing Bigfoot and UFOs all the time on the news.

Filed under HOAX.

Today in History

October 19th:

• 202 BC - The Battle of Zama results in the defeat of Carthage and Hannibal.
• 1469 - Ferdinand II of Aragon marries Isabella I of Castile, a marriage that paves the way to the unification of Aragon and Castile into a single country, Spain.
• 1512 - Martin Luther becomes a doctor of theology (Doctor in Biblia).
• 1781 - At Yorktown, Virginia, British commander Lord Cornwallis surrendered to a Franco-American force led by George Washington and the comte de Rochambeau, paving the way for the end of the American Revolutionary War.
• 1789 - Chief Justice John Jay is sworn in as the first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
• 1812 - Napoleon I of France retreats from Moscow.  (And the French have been retreating ever since!  Buhdump bum!  Thanks, I'll be here all night.)
• 1864 - Battle of Cedar Creek - Union Army under Philip Sheridan destroys Confederate Army under Jubal Early.
• 1864 - Confederate raiders launch an attack on Saint Albans, Vermont from Canada.
• 1873 - Yale, Princeton, Columbia, and Rutgers universities draft the first code of American football rules.
• 1935 - The League of Nations places economic sanctions on fascist Italy for its invasion of Ethiopia.  (Let's see, did that work?... NOPE)
• 1960 - The United States government decides to place an embargo on Communist Cuba.  (Has this done any good???)
• 2005 - The last Major League Baseball game is played at Busch Memorial Stadium.

Is it Christmas?

Well?

Labeled under Mischief

You can actually change the ready message on HP printers through some Perl script.

I may have to save this for April 1st.

LOGO is 40

Forward 40: What Became of the LOGO Programming Language?

I remember using LOGO in high school.  I might have to get my kids started on it.  MSWLogo is a free windows version.

Another use for taters besides eatin'

Its SpudWare!  Cutlery made from potato starch and soy oil.

Its freakin' expensive though.

Today in History

Yesterday wasn't all that interesting, but today (October 16th) has some good ones.

• 1781 - George Washington captures Yorktown, Virginia after the Siege of Yorktown.  (We won!)
• 1793 - Marie Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI is guillotined at the height of the French Revolution.
• 1859 - John Brown leads raid on Harper's Ferry, West Virginia
• 1916 - Margaret Sanger founds Planned Parenthood by opening the first U.S. birth control clinic.  (Read up on how Ms. Sanger was a socialist and atheist, and of her influence over Planned Parenthood.  She was also a racist and believed in eugenics.)
• 1923 - The Walt Disney Company is founded by Walt Disney and his brother, Roy Disney.
• 1939 - World War II: First attack on British territory by German Luftwaffe.
• 1940 - Benjamin O. Davis Sr. named first African American general in the United States Army.
• 1940 - Warsaw Ghetto established.
• 1946 - Ten war criminals of the Second World War, condemned in the Nuremberg trials are hanged.
• 1962 - Cuban Missile Crisis between the United States and Cuba began.
• 1964 - People's Republic of China detonates its first nuclear weapon.
• 1995 - The Million Man March occurs in Washington, DC.  (Not quite a million.)
• 2002 - Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002, was signed into law by President George W. Bush.

And away we go...

Posting was light last week as predicted, in fact it was non-existent.

It was good to get away from the grind for a while.

Programming is an enjoyable profession, but like any other profession its still work.  Any time you can spend with your wife and kids and not be concerned about work (I don't think I thought about it at all really) is very good.

Today in History

October 4th:

• 1537 - The first complete English-language Bible (the Matthew Bible) is printed, with translations by William Tyndale and Miles Coverdale.  (WHAT?!  Didn't the Apostle Paul read the KJV?)
• 1777 - Battle of Germantown: Troops under George Washington are repelled by British troops under Sir William Howe
• 1927 - Gutzon Borglum begins sculpting Mt. Rushmore.
• 1943 - World War II: U.S. captures Solomon Islands.
• 1957 - Launch of Sputnik I, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth.  (I wonder how many former Nazis they had working for them?)
• 1957 - The CBS television show Leave it to Beaver debuts, starring Jerry Mathers as Beaver.
• 1960 - Eastern Air Lines Flight 375, a Lockheed L-188 Electra, crashes on takeoff from Boston's Logan International Airport, killing 62 of 72 on board after a bird strike.
• 1975 - A Cessna 310Q airplane crashes over Wilmington, North Carolina, killing the pilot and severely injuring several pro wrestlers affiliated with the NWA's Mid-Atlantic promotion. One of the survivors is the legendary Ric Flair.  (Legendary?)
• 1988 - U.S. televangelist Jim Bakker indicted for fraud.
• 1992 - El Al Flight 1862: an El Al Boeing 747-258F crashes into two apartment buildings in Amsterdam, killing 43 including 39 on the ground.
• 1993 - Russian Constitutional Crisis: In Moscow, tanks bombarded the White House, a government building that housed the Russian parliament, while demonstrators against President Boris Yeltsin rallied outside.
• 2001 - A Sibir Airlines Tupolev TU-154 crashes into the Black Sea after being struck by an errant Ukrainian S-200 missile. 78 people are killed.
• 2004 - SpaceShipOne wins Ansari X Prize for private spaceflight.

Wow!  Four plane crashes!  Not a good time of the year to fly I guess.

Posting will be light next week since I'll be on vacation, but since nobody reads this blog it doesn't really matter.

Iraq violence drops below pre-Golden Mosque bombing levels

Gateway Pundit has some more good news from Iraq.

I'm not going to get too worked up about it though.  I've gotten excited about progress in the past and it just evaporated.  Let's wait and see.

There's no place I can be since I found Serenity...

For all of you Browncoats (or Purple-bellies), rumors of a sequel to Serenity have been swirling around for a while.  Now Alan Tudyk ("Wash") says there may be another movie in the works.

Since he died in the first movie, maybe they will make a prequel so he can have a part.

Go back to England

Richard Dawkins.

Somebody revoke his visa or something cause I'm sick of him.

The guy is quite literally the most hateful person I have ever seen.  I've watch quite a few videos of him speaking and he just comes off as a sanctimonious, holier-than-thou (is that possible for an atheist?, jackarse.  Pardon my French.

He's trying to drum up support for his new atheist movement which is now saying that all religion must be destroyed.

It ain't happening.

Today in History

October 3rd:

• 1795 - General Napoleon Bonaparte first rises to national prominence being named to defend the French National Convention against armed counter-revolutionary rioters threatening the three year old revolutionary government.
• 1849 - American author Edgar Allan Poe is found delirious in a gutter in Baltimore, Maryland under mysterious circumstances; it is the last time he is seen in public before his death.
• 1863 - Thanksgiving Day declared as the fourth Thursday in November by President Abraham Lincoln.
• 1932 - Iraq gains independence from Britain.
• 1942 - Spaceflight: First successful launch of a V-2 /A4-rocket from Test Stand VII at Peenemünde, Germany: the first man-made object to reach space.
• 1952 - United Kingdom successfully tests a nuclear weapon.
• 1955 - Captain Kangaroo debuts on CBS.
• 1990 - Re-unification of Germany. The German Democratic Republic ceased to exist and its territory became part of the Federal Republic of Germany. East German citizens became part of the European Community, which later became the European Union. Now celebrated as German Unity Day.
• 1993 - Battle of Mogadishu: In an attempt to capture officials of warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid's organization in Mogadishu, Somalia, 18 US Soldiers and about 1,000 Somalis are killed in heavy fighting.  (18 U.S. deaths compared to 1,000 for the other side.  And we lost?)
• 1995 - O.J. Simpson found not guilty of the murders of his ex-wife Nicole and her friend Ronald Goldman.  (I remember watching the O.J. verdict in the EIU union and all the black people cheered and the whites just left in silence.)

Today in History

October 2nd:

• 1187 - Siege of Jerusalem: Saladin captures Jerusalem after 88 years of Crusader rule.
• 1789 - George Washington transmits the proposed Constitutional amendments (The United States Bill of Rights) to the States for ratification.  (Look over the last several ToH posts I've made.  These people worked fast.  Too bad Congress can't do this today.)
• 1835 - The Texas Revolution begins with the Battle of Gonzales: Mexican soldiers attempt to disarm the people of Gonzales, Texas, but encounter stiff resistance from a hastily assembled militia.
• 1924 - The Geneva Protocol is adopted as a means to strengthen the League of Nations.  (Oh that worked well.)
• 1938 - Tiberias massacre: Arabs murder 20 Jews.  (This crap has been going on for a long time.)
• 1967 - Thurgood Marshall is sworn in as the first African-American justice of United States Supreme Court.
• 1970 - A plane carrying the Wichita State University football team, administrators, and supporters crashes in Colorado killing 31 people.
• 1990 - A Chinese airline Boeing 737-247 is hijacked; after landing at Guangzhou, it crashes into two airliners on the ground, killing 132 people.
• 1996 - An AeroPerú Boeing 757 crashes in Pacific Ocean shortly after takeoff from Lima, Peru, killing 70.
• 2002 - The Beltway sniper attacks begin, extending over three weeks.  (When is this guy going to fry?)
• 2006 - Five school girls are murdered by Charles Carl Roberts in a shooting at an Amish school in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania before Roberts commits suicide.

Wow, three airline crashes.

So this is what passes for television these days?

CBS’s entertainment division portrays devout teens as murderers and hypocrites and their youth pastor as a pervert, while taking cheap shots at abstinence education.

Cold Case Smears Christian Kids

I'm glad I don't watch network TV anymore.  I might hit the evening news every now and then, but its mainly the Science channel, HNN (Glenn Beck only), FXNWS, and PBS (Only since "The War" is on.  Did I say it was very good?).

Al Queda in Iraq is "desperate"

This isn't something you will find in the main stream media.

Last letter from doomed Al Qaida chief: 'We are so desperate for your help'

Keep hittin'em boys.

Today in History

October 1st:

• 331 BC - Alexander the Great defeats Darius III of Persia in the Battle of Gaugamela.  (Decisive battle against Persia.)
• 1800 - Spain cedes Louisiana to France via the Treaty of San Ildefonso.
• 1811 - The first steamboat to sail the Mississippi River arrives in New Orléans, Louisiana.
• 1880 - John Philip Sousa becomes leader of the United States Marine Corps Band.  (Some of the best patriotic music.)
• 1880 - First electric lamp factory opened by Thomas Edison.
• 1890 - The Yosemite National Park is established by the U.S. Congress.
• 1908 - Ford introduces the Model T car.
• 1928 - The Soviet Union introduces its First Five-Year Plan.
• 1940 - The Pennsylvania Turnpike, often considered the first superhighway in the United States, opens to traffic.  (I've driven on it a few times, but wouldn't call it super.)
• 1943 - World War II: Naples falls to Allied soldiers.
• 1946 - Nazi leaders sentenced at Nuremberg Trials.
• 1949 - The People's Republic of China is declared by Mao Zedong.
• 1958 - NASA created to replace NACA.  (Time for another replacement?)
• 1979 - The United States returns sovereignty of the Panama canal to Panama.