Take that, Bill Gates...

No, I'm not alleging anything. But I can't help a smirk at the idea that Apple's ITunes software might cause a security vulnerability in Windows machines.

It keeps getting worse

Sony really goofed with that rootkit-based copy management software that they installed on entertainment CDs. And it's not over yet. Here's a timeline of the entire debacle from BoingBoing.

Still a dirtbag after all these years

from this

Former president Bill Clinton called Congress' impeachment of him an "egregious" abuse of the Constitution and challenged those who say history will judge him poorly because of his White House tryst with Monica Lewinsky.

That's right. There's plenty of other things to judge him poorly for. Where do I start?

Speaking at an academic conference examining his presidency here Thursday, Clinton challenged historian Douglas Brinkley's comments in a newspaper interview that Clinton would be deemed a great president were it not for his impeachment.

But for the wrong reason. This man has the brass-balled effrontery to suggest that he really was a great President. He wants to claim credit for Middle East peace initiatives (regardless of their abject failure), and "turning around the economy" (as if Reagan's policies, the end of the Cold War and Bush 41's paying the bill for the S&L fiasco had nothing to do with it). And that's not to mention the cancers that he let grow that metastasized into 9/11.

Oh yeah, the impeachment was "about a blowjob"? If it was trivial, why did our erstwhile law professor lie about it? Protecting his wife, my eye - you do that by keeping your hands to yourself. Or at least by being more selective - all those women in Washington and elsewhere and he couldn't find someone with some discretion? Hint - try someone who can abstain from showing off her thong for a meeting or two.

But oh no - he played chicken with Ken Starr, he lost, and then claimed it was Starr who lacked discretion.

The fact is that he knew his sleaziness was a big deal with the electorate, which is why he made such a big show of going to church, sending goons after his "bimbo eruptions" and otherwise being phony. His only enduring legacy will be how he and his minions cheapened public discourse just to spare his degenerate carcass from a fate better than what he deserved.

Am I the only one...

...who thinks the two main characters of "Law and Order:Criminal Intent" look like Penn and Teller?

Talking sense about abortion

Jane Galt goes on at length here and for several more posts down.

And let's get real. Repealing Roe v. Wade would not make abortion illegal. It would, however, return control of our laws to voters, and right a historic wrong. Lefties won on abortion - now let the people have the Constitution back.

Should we send troops to help France?

After a couple of weeks of riots the French might need bailing out again. Of course bloggers are on the cutting edge of analysis, pondering the ramifications and potential responses. One potential scenario is investigated here.

The Energy Webring

You'll find a link at the bottom of this page, or you can click here for a list. There's a small but diverse selection of blogs, and perhaps the seeds of yet another Carnival...

Twofer

This post is both an excellent brief statement of the case for capital punishment and an interesting example of what could be academic bias.

Those tricky Jews

A cartoon at David's Medienkritik.

Solar power from glass

Right here.

It's only half as efficient as solar panels, but supposedly 1/4 the price. Anyway, this is the kind of technology we can use.

The last word

IMO anyone who isn't blindly partisan knows that Dan Rather was working with faked documents when he tried to screw George Bush on 60 Minutes. But I can't resist pointing out this item I stumbled across looking for something else.

Save money this Christmas

I'm terrible about impulse shopping, but I'm getting smarter. This year I'm waiting for the first day after Thanksgiving - Black Friday - to see what the big retailers will be up to. I'll be sure to look over the sales flyers before I spend any serious money.

And it turns out that there's a sneak preview of many big retailers' ads here. For instance, will you really be able to get an HP desktop or laptop from Walmart for $398?

Breathalyzer cellphone

Why not?

Say it again

"With BP, Exxon-Mobil, and Shell reporting record profits, the Tax Foundation reminds us in its latest Fiscal Fact that the biggest beneficiaries of gasoline sales are federal and state governments, not the oil industry" (emphasis added).

Original link from Instapundit.

Own your own missile silo

Hey, why not? Several options are available here.

Wifi cloud covers rural Oregon

Right here.

Rosa Parks in context

No one covers the history of racial policies worldwide like Thomas Sowell. Here he covers the background of discrimination in public transportation before her famous ride. Such as this:

Far from existing from time immemorial, as many have assumed, racially segregated seating in public transportation began in the South in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Those who see government as the solution to social problems may be surprised to learn that it was government which created this problem. Many, if not most, municipal transit systems were privately owned in the 19th century and the private owners of these systems had no incentive to segregate the races.


These owners may have been racists themselves but they were in business to make a profit -- and you don't make a profit by alienating a lot of your customers. There was not enough market demand for Jim Crow seating on municipal transit to bring it about.

It was politics that segregated the races because the incentives of the political process are different from the incentives of the economic process. Both blacks and whites spent money to ride the buses but, after the disenfranchisement of black voters in the late 19th and early 20th century, only whites counted in the political process.

It was not necessary for an overwhelming majority of the white voters to demand racial segregation. If some did and the others didn't care, that was sufficient politically, because what blacks wanted did not count politically after they lost the vote.

The incentives of the economic system and the incentives of the political system were not only different, they clashed. Private owners of streetcar, bus, and railroad companies in the South lobbied against the Jim Crow laws while these laws were being written, challenged them in the courts after the laws were passed, and then dragged their feet in enforcing those laws after they were upheld by the courts.

These tactics delayed the enforcement of Jim Crow seating laws for years in some places. Then company employees began to be arrested for not enforcing such laws and at least one president of a streetcar company was threatened with jail if he didn't comply.

None of this resistance was based on a desire for civil rights for blacks. It was based on a fear of losing money if racial segregation caused black customers to use public transportation less often than they would have in the absence of this affront.

Just as it was not necessary for an overwhelming majority of whites to demand racial segregation through the political system to bring it about, so it was not necessary for an overwhelming majority of blacks to stop riding the streetcars, buses and trains in order to provide incentives for the owners of these transportation systems to feel the loss of money if some blacks used public transportation less than they would have otherwise.

People who decry the fact that businesses are in business "just to make money" seldom understand the implications of what they are saying. You make money by doing what other people want, not what you want.

No, I didn't quote *all* of it, but only out of a nod toward "fair use". Read it all, and when you're finished read every other word he's written.

A dirge from the den

Momma Bear is gone. She's one of countless bloggers I wish I could have met, and I only knew one of her personae (mainly from here).

More here and here (links courtesy of Instapundit).

Acidman's all stars...

...are manning his blog while the ornery ol' cuss dries out here. Check it out - they promise to keep the NSFW pictures below the fold now.

Hang in there, Rob.

Goodbye Rosa Parks

Too bad these things aren't negotiable. I'd gladly trade Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan, Julian Bond and the entire Congressional Black Caucus to have her back. She was the real thing.