BillSaysThis

The CIA publicly confirms that North Korea now has The Bomb, Al Quaeda is strong enough to strike in the heart of Saudi Arabia, and Liverpool FC lost at home to Manchester United.

Windows XP “SP2 will include an update to IE that adds pop-up blocking,” a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed to BetaNews. Apparently will ship sometime in the first half of 2004.

So does sleep beckon to you

In the middle of an afternoon,

Waving arms, wriggling fingers?

Almost jumping up and down to

Get your attention when Sleep

Realizes that so much action

Would simply drive you away.

What it wants is your REM cycles,

Energy from your dreams powered

By all that tossing and turning.

When you do wake up, still

Tired and the aches embedded

Deeper in your shoulders, chalk

It up to the demands of Sleep.

Politics is a great spur to new words though I doubt many of these will end up in the OED.

What are DataKnobs?

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! Though maybe if these Republicans would smoke a little pot, they’d relax enough to get the sticks out of their asses.

This mousey looking man admits he killed 48 women, so you made a bad choice Bucky.

Perhaps I can save you the price of a ticket with this interpretation.

I realize that Sun’s best path to profitability is selling as much hardware as possible, but the fact that they’d do a press release with Oracle exclaiming that Oracle’s application set a performance record still strikes me as odd since Sun has its own application server. And from what my contacts inside Sun tell me, the managers of that product put no pressure on the developers to deliver performance, or even quality. Just release new versions on some picked from thin air schedule, or close to it, and upper levels are happy. One is tempted to agree with Merrill Lynch’s Steve Milunivich that SUNW still has about 20% too many employees.

Later: Just to add to the amusement over management at Sun regarding their expertise with software: the brand name for the enterprise software line is changing. Again. SunONE was only unveiled last year but in a flash of brilliance TPTB have decided to throw out that investment, just like they threw out the iPlanet brand the year before. Not sure exactly how the renaming will play out but Java System Web Server is the new name of the web server, so one would think that Java System Application Server will follow soon.

Coming to a home near yours soon: Design of a Primitive Nanofactory

One of my good friends and I disagree about the intentions and aspirations (that seems like a fair way to express it) of the Bush Administration and its allies. I see creeping fascism–and I use that word after careful consideration, something my friend challenged me on–almost everywhere I look. But sometimes The Powers That Be don’t even attempt to hide their actions and we get a good look, as can be seen in the decision by media conglomerate Viacom to move The Reagans from CBS to Showtime.

The government can’t revoke the license of Showtime, since a pay cable network doesn’t need one, nor can advertisers pull their money away (ditto). Executives claim that the two networks have different broadcast standards but that seems like a load of hooey to this observer–we’re not talking about nudity (yeccch! Ronnie and Nancy naked?!?!?!) or foul language but the alleged historical accuracy of a program that is not advertised as a documentary.

The dictionary.com definition of fascism includes this aspect: “suppression of the opposition through … censorship.” Where, one might ask, is the pressure coming from that’s causing this decision by Viacom? “The chairman of the Republican National Committee also told CBS President Leslie Moonves that historians should review the miniseries for historical accuracy, or that a disclaimer should be run declaring the program fiction.” So look closely, because we rarely get to see the mechanisms exposed so clearly.

No, I’m not stalking Scoble. But happy first anniversary, dude!

Scoble traces the MSFT wants to buy Google rumors back to a dinner he had a couple of weeks ago with Brin and Page at O’Reilly’s Foo Camp. I mean, of course a huge company like Microsoft would choose a guy who can barely keep his mouth shut (though in a good way) to approach such a visible company on M&A business. Of course they would use someone whose job is to get information out to do this. Of course the highly experience executives would have him do it in a meeting where there were 200 or so other people present. Talk about your ROFLs!

Scoble is standing in front of my Lotto car!

I noticed several lines on either side of my eyes in the mirror after showering today. They go nice with the first grey hairs I’m getting. Fortunately I can barely see this with my poor eyesight.

Assuming Francisco Goldman isn’t stretching the truth beyond all connection with reality, and I doubt he is, we now have a completely criminal state just south of our border in Guatemala. Some smart and ruthless characters have taken over the army and government, pretty much killing and torturing anyone who stands in their way, giving drug traffickers and, potentially, terrorists a protected haven a short plane ride away from America. So where is President CheneyBush on this tragedy, where certainly American security is at stake?

Thomas Friedman wrote a column titled “The End of the West” the other day (interesting MeFi discussion) and I’m beginning to wonder if modern technology should have more of an impact on politics, specifically in terms of international alliances, then tradition or geography. France seems to match up better with China, on numerous levels, than it does with America, while we match better (current Administration twits aside) with countries like Poland, Taiwan and Argentina than France.

A local (that is, in high cost Silicon Valley) company is posting their webmaster job on Craig’s List with a stated salary of $32,500. PhillW goes into more detail but none of it is very encouraging for me.

Good: Liverpool beat Fulham, at Fulham, 2-1 on a late penalty kick into the back of the net by the renewed Danny Murphy and an early swat by Emile Heskey. The Reds wasted a lot of the match with poor keepaway in their own half, allowing the Cottagers (gotta love that nickname, you’d never see it on an American team in any sport) to hang around and nearly win.

Not as nice was the performance of Michael Owen, whose name was only heard during the broadcast being called for offside and who is the subject of transfer rumors which have him going to Real Madrid in the January window for over US$40 million. As if the Spanish side needed another striker when they have Raul and Ronaldo plus a buttload of world class attacking midfielders.

Good: BCS doesn’t come until tomorrow but both AP and ESPN/USA Today have USC at Number Two! Good things come when you score so many points and the other team doesn’t. Oklahoma, not surprisingly, got all the first place votes in both polls.

Shocking: The 49ers’ Cedric Wilson took the opening kickoff 95 yards for a touchdown, then the Rams answered with a field goal. Tim Rattay drove the Niners 72 yards ending with a short touchdown pass to Terrell Owens and later threw a bit long but rookie receiver Brandon Lloyd was able to lay out and grab it for another TD. Todd Peterson made all three PATs and a 44 yard FG, putting some equilibrium in the kicking game after the mess that was Pochman. Niners defense was stellar as well as Marc Bulger was under strong pressure most pass plays, finally resulting in a Tony Parrish interception. Halftime score: 49ers 24, Rams 3.

How does the second half start? More of the same as Bulger holds onto the ball too long and Bryant Young strips it from him. A Garrison Hearst rush and two Rattay passes put another six on the board (Peterson’s PAT was blocked), with Tai Streets making a terrific grab in tight coverage. San Francisco has certainly gotten the better of the officiating up to this point but St. Louis got a little makeup with two unearned penalties that combined gave them first and goal at the one on their next drive. Mike Martz then blew it by challenging an obvious incomplete pass and wasting a timeout, after which Bulger had another pass batted down by the DLine on fourth down. Seventh straight time a 49er QB won their debut start.

Really makes me wonder how the fuck the 49ers lost to Arizona last week.

Amusing: The Raiders never even led at Detroit and lost 23-13. They also lost their backup QB Marques Tuiasosopo who was starting today due to Rich Gannon’s injured shoulder but the Raiders were already losing 10-0 on points scored off turnovers at the time. Career failure Rick Mirer finished up.

Contrary view: Why do employers pay for health insurance?