Wow

Did he really just say what I think he said...?



Guess so. The great survivalist Joe Biden says to stay away from confined areas and not to ride subways and planes. That shouldn't incite panic with anyone.

Now if my count is correct 1 person in the US has died. ...from the flu. Isn't that the same number of people that a certain Senator has killed?

Power

Talk about a beast of a thing. This is the Mine-Eater 3. What a monster, these are anti-tank mines and this is a survivability test for it. Well, it survived ..

Just Imagine

You are a someone in NYC that has worked there before and after 9/11. The last time you heard engines from a plane over the city, your life and those of everyone you know would be changed forever. Now imagine seeing and hearing those same sights and sounds and not knowing what was going on. Welcome, Scare Force One, as the folk at Hotair.com are referring to it. To top it off, its being followed by a military fighter. Listening to the end you can really hear people getting freaked out by this very expensive Glamore Shot.

Swine Flu

So as mass hysteria is gripping some people and keeping them more anti-social than they already where. Others can laugh about it. I mean really there has been one confirmed death in the US with over 60 people infected and recovering. This is not that bad. So on a lighter not I think the Daily Show had a good skit on it. Enjoy...

War Documentaries

One of the biggest movies (in my mind) that I wanted to see this year was Brothers at War. This is a movie that has no spin, it is a documentary of the wars our soldiers are fighting. It also gives a look at what happens at home while they are away. The Producer on this film is a little known actor named Gary Senise. This documentary gives a true look at these wars away from the one-sided hollywood view. I have always been a huge fan of Mr. Senise and what he has done for our troops. Unfortunatly I would have to drive quite a ways to see this movie but I will be sure to see it.



And finally another movie/documentary called At War that I want to see. The filmmaker Scott Kesterson seems to be someone who has a story to tell. He owned his own construction company in Oregon and decided he would rather fulfill a goal of being a photojournalist. What he got was a view from the soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan. Here is one of the trailers.



To bad movies that are worth anything always end up in bigger cities and don't get wide recognition they should.

Jaunty Jackalope

I am now an avid user of my Ubuntu machine and I am liking it. Upgrading to Jaunty Jackalope was super easy and I have defiantly found some fun things for Ubuntu. One of the best articles on must haves for my new operating system, came from a Lifehacker post.

My favorites are:

Ubuntu-Tweak customizes the entire look and feel of the OS. You can tailor it to look like about anything.

Screenlets are like the widgets in Vista and are totally customizable.

Conky shows customized information on uname, uptime, CPU usage, mem usage, disk usage, network monitoring, and more.

Virtual Box Run any and all OS's virtually, its a beautiful thing.

Someone needs help

Microsoft and their commercials. If their vision of the future is going to be this dark with crappy music then I don't want Microsoft in my future.

Weekend

Friday is here

Katana

For those who cannot wait and watch the 6 minute clip on Katana's at the bottom, this one from QVC is short and far more interesting.



Today I am blogging about this because I saw the video below and just realized, there are people out there with far more useless knowledge out there than I have. Now I have a bunch of these, I use to be bigger on them when I was younger and couldn't buy guns. So I found this piece somewhat interesting on how the Katana, or Samurai Sword came about and how it was made.

Earth Day

I feel like Denis Leary.

If Only

I think the reason this is so funny, is it is so true!

How did I NOT hear about this

Must not have been big in the states but I was a fan of the Dragonball Z Cartoon as a kid. Now its in theaters and I never even knew. They obviously didn't spend any money promoting this here.

Must Be Love

Looks like a match made on eHarmony. This is revolting, Google Chavez and you will see why. I would hate to think the President of the United States would have anything to do with this thug.

Sleeping Has Just Gotten Warmer

Of all the places. ThinkGeek should know that you do not tempt a bunch of Sci-Fi fans with products on April Fools Day.

This year one such product did just that, and now may actually get considered. The Tauntaun sleeping bag, from Star Wars. If you have not seen the movie.. and I know you are out there, then go watch it and you will understand.

Behold:

No I would not buy this!

en Espanol

When he isn't taking windmill hits at Prostitutes (and getting his ass kicked), Vince takes his shots at Spanish. Notice how there are far fewer shots of his face in this commercial. It is pretty obvious he doesn't know a thing about Spanish.



I had to throw it this in.

April 15th

In a letter to Jean-Baptiste Leroy on the 13th of November 1789:

"Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."

-Benjamin Franklin

1 Trillion Dollars of Your Tax Money

Here is the best way to put it. This is only ONE Trillion dollars that our government is spending. This is what the 30% of your check you DO NOT see, looks like. And yes, Uncle Sam is burning through it like candy.

100 One hundred dollar bills, nothing too impressive.

One Million Dollars, nice but not very big.

100 Million, now we're talkin'!

One Billion Dollars! Very nice Warren Buffett.

And here it is. One Trillion U.S Dollars. This is what they are throwing around. That is a lot of coin. What is the solution, we'll just print more. Nothing bad can come of that, right!?

Bacon

mmm ... bacon.

I think Jim Gaffigan explains it the best

EASTER

According to the New Testament, Christ was crucified on the eve of Passover and shortly afterward rose from the dead. In consequence, the Easter festival commemorated Christ's resurrection. In time, a serious difference over the date of the Easter festival arose among Christians. Those of Jewish origin celebrated the resurrection immediately following the Passover festival, which, according to their Babylonian lunar calendar, fell on the evening of the full moon (the 14th day in the month of Nisan, the first month of the year); by their reckoning, Easter, from year to year, fell on different days of the week.

CrossesChristians of Gentile origin, however, wished to commemorate the resurrection on the first day of the week, Sunday; by their method, Easter occurred on the same day of the week, but from year to year it fell on different dates. An important historical result of the difference in reckoning the date of Easter was that the Christian churches in the East, which were closer to the birthplace of the new religion and in which old traditions were strong, observed Easter according to the date of the Passover festival. The churches of the West, descendants of Greco-Roman civilization, celebrated Easter on a Sunday.

Rulings of the Council of Nicaea on the Date of Easter

Constantine I, Roman emperor, convoked the Council of Nicaea in 325. The council unanimously ruled that the Easter festival should be celebrated throughout the Christian world on the first Sunday after the full moon following the vernal equinox; and that if the full moon should occur on a Sunday and thereby coincide with the Passover festival, Easter should be commemorated on the Sunday following. Coincidence of the feasts of Easter and Passover was thus avoided.

The Council of Nicaea also decided that the calendar date of Easter was to be calculated at Alexandria, then the principal astronomical center of the world. The accurate determination of the date, however, proved an impossible task in view of the limited knowledge of the 4th-century world. The principal astronomical problem involved was the discrepancy, called the epact, between the solar year and the lunar year. The chief calendric problem was a gradually increasing discrepancy between the true astronomical year and the Julian calendar then in use.

Later Dating Methods
Ways of fixing the date of the feast tried by the church proved unsatisfactory, and Easter was celebrated on different dates in different parts of the world. In 387, for example, the dates of Easter in France and Egypt were 35 days apart. About 465, the church adopted a system of calculation proposed by the astronomer Victorinus (fl. 5th cent.), who had been commissioned by Pope Hilarius (r. 461–68) to reform the calendar and fix the date of Easter. Elements of his method are still in use. Refusal of the British and Celtic Christian churches to adopt the proposed changes led to a bitter dispute between them and Rome in the 7th century.

Reform of the Julian calendar in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII, through adoption of the Gregorian calendar, eliminated much of the difficulty in fixing the date of Easter and in arranging the ecclesiastical year; since 1752, when the Gregorian calendar was also adopted in Great Britain and Ireland, Easter has been celebrated on the same day in the Western part of the Christian world. The Eastern churches, however, which did not adopt the Gregorian calendar, commemorate Easter on a Sunday either preceding or following the date observed in the West. Occasionally the dates coincide; the most recent times were in 1865 and 1963.

Because the Easter holiday affects a varied number of secular affairs in many countries, it has long been urged as a matter of convenience that the movable dates of the festival be either narrowed in range or replaced by a fixed date in the manner of Christmas. In 1923 the problem was referred to the Holy See, which has found no canonical objection to the proposed reform. In 1928 the British Parliament enacted a measure allowing the Church of England to commemorate Easter on the first Sunday after the second Saturday in April. Despite these steps toward reform, Easter continues to be a movable feast.

An article from Funk & Wagnalls® New Encyclopedia. © 2005 World Almanac Education Group, A WRC Media Company

Ubuntu

I have finally gone to the LINUX for Human Beings.

For the longest time I have used and ran Ubuntu off of a CD just to "try it out." As of last night I have fully installed it as the primary operating system for a laptop.

There are a lot of head to head comparisons but I know Windows real well. I know what it is capable of, installation, updates the works.

Apple is rising that is for sure, but it is pricey and proprietary. LINUX is wide open and there are tones of flavors.

One of the best comparisons between Apple and Ubuntu can be found at Information Week.

I Love Tofu

Apparently the Colorado DMV doesn't think so. This gal is a hippie and not afraid to show it, but for some reason they banned her license plate request for the soy based food.

Well, what do you think?

On a Lighter Note

Unbelievable!!

I saw this over the weekend and could not help but to post about it.

By change... do we mean we are going to give up our status of American. We don't kneel to anyone, nor should we. We are an independent nation. That means that we have our own protocols, our own rules, our own country, and our own beliefs. Don't believe it, look up America's Revolutionary War 1775.

Saudi Arabia kicked the Americans out of Riyadh after Desert Storm 1, because to them we are the infidels in their holy land. There is nothing we can do to gain any respect from them, they want us eradicated. This is why I cannot believe the President of the United States of America is kneeling to King Abdullah. Yes, that is a kneel news media, he didn't just drop something.

This is the same family that funds radical mosques in the United States, won't let women drive, and (my favorite) won't let us investigate the Khobar Tower bombing that killed 19 U.S. servicemen and injured 372. Abdullah is KING of his country, not mine!



US troops have become a potent symbol of Washington's role in the region, and many Saudis see them as proof of the country's subservience to America.

Saudi Arabia is home to some of Islam's holiest sites and the deployment of US forces there was seen as a historic betrayal by many Islamists, notably Osama Bin Laden. Osama Bin Laden Bin Laden used American presence to justify anti-US attacks

It is one of the main reasons given by the Saudi-born dissident - blamed by Washington for the 11 September attacks - to justify violence against the United States and its allies.
BBC News

Today

Baby MRAP

This little gem is the smaller version of the MRAP, which has been active in Iraq. The problem with the MRAP is it the size. The thing is too big in Afghanistan where the roads are narrow with steep cliffs in many locations. The video below shows what happens with this large vehicle on narrow roads.



Simply put, the Humvee hasn't been good enough. They do get stuck, but most importantly they are vulnerable. Enter the "Baby MRAP" or the MRAP All Terrain Vehicle (M-ATV). Its equipment and capabilities are many:

• IED jammers

• V-shaped blast-dispersing monocoque hull

• Significantly increased power-to-weight ratio

• The ability to ford hard-bottom fresh water to depths of up to 5 feet. (M-ATV is not amphibious)

• Generate 10 kilowatts of vehicle host power and export an additional 20 kilowatts for mission equipment

• Turbo-charged diesel V8 engine

• Shorter wheelbase for improved cross-country mobility

• Lower center of gravity for increased maneuverability and to prevent rollovers

• Ergonomic steering angle to “drive like an SUV”

• “Runflat” tire system allowing the M-ATV to safely cruise at 30 mph on up to two flat tires

To meet future challenges, a new composite “hyperplastic” material capable of absorbing enormous amounts of kinetic energy is the new frontier for armor. This new “composite armor system” has even resisted the deadly energy formed projectile (EFP) class of IED, all while weighing 37 percent less than conventional steel armor.

Another New Technology

How cool is this, Google has come out with a program called Autopilot. I have not heard of anything like this one before, but it lets your inbox automatically respond to new messages. From what I understand this is more than just an auto response like: "I'm out of the office right now, but will respond later." This thing actually takes samples of your personal writing style and incorporates a custom message to auto respond. The thing will even throw in typos if you want.

This sounds like it could be something that would get people in trouble. It is hard enough to personally respond to all the messages in a way to not get taken out of context. I can only imagine what this thing will do.

April Fool's

Today is the day you see your "tax-cut" to help "stimulate" the economy (enjoy your $13 a week, for those that pay taxes), conficker (if your unlucky), The Blackberry storm App center opens, and finally today is a day of square(2003 * 2003 = 4012009.) (The next April Fool's square date doesn't fall until April 1, 6016 (2004*2004 = 4016016.)