Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The willow is too close to the house.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

In my day, never was longer.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

“woke” is the new caravan.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

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  3. 3.

    Myrtle Parker

    December 4th, 2006: Senator John McCain says he knew all along that the Iraq war would be tough:

    We’ve made mistakes in Iraq, we all know that we have. The result of our withdrawal will be chaos. Do we have to do a lot better? Yes. Does the Iraqi government have to be better and the economy better? Yes. But unless you establish security, you cannot have political and economic development. That’s a lesson of history that’s — there are abundant examples. And so, I believe we need to win this. When I voted to support this war, I knew it was probably going to be long and hard and tough, and those that voted for it and thought that somehow it was going to be some kind of an easy task, then I’m sorry they were mistaken. Maybe they didn’t know what they were voting for.

    Immediately, people in the blogosphere note the contradiction with statements Saint McCain made during the run up to the Iraq war:

    “Because I know that as successful as I believe we will be, and I believe that the success will be fairly easy, we will still lose some American young men or women.” [CNN, 9/24/02]

    “We’re not going to get into house-to-house fighting in Baghdad. We may have to take out buildings, but we’re not going to have a bloodletting of trading American bodies for Iraqi bodies.” [CNN, 9/29/02]

    “But the point is that, one, we will win this conflict. We will win it easily.” [MSNBC, 1/22/03]

    Now, on the eve before President Bush’s stupid speech, Senator McCain says Iraq war WAS EASY:

    RUSSERT: Go back, Senator, to 2002. The administration saying we would be greeted as liberators. John McCain saying you thought success would be fairly easy.

    MCCAIN: It was.

    RUSSERT: In all honesty…

    MCCAIN: It was easy, it was easy. I said the military operation would be easy. It was easy. We were greeting as liberators. Look at the films of when we rolled into Baghdad.

    Thanks for the Straight Flippity Floppity Talk Saint McCain!!

    Make sure you click through to the links to see video of McCain saying all of this with his bald face hanging out.

  5. 5.

    Dug Jay

    James Wolcott to appear in movie version of popular HBO hit, “Sex and the City.” Jonah Goldberg confirms that Wolcott will play a new, fifth girl in the movie version of the series.

  7. 7.

    Paddy O'Shea

    The Ancient McCain thought is was easy before he thought it was hard.

    Shrubbie’s speech tonight? Here today, gone tomorrow. Nobody will be talking about it a week from now.

    Unless, of course, he does something really bizarre. Like eat one of the maps, or give his mom an open-mouthed kiss.
    That is, if she shows up.

  10. 10.

    TenguPhule

    Walgreens is going to sell tobacco hand gel to help smokers get over their cravings….

    Okay then.

  12. 12.

    Grrr

    Redstate is feeling lonely.

    “I promise I won’t hit you anymore…I really want to work things out…What?…No I haven’t been drinking.”

    Junior’s speech will follow similar lines.

  13. 13.

    Krista

    Like eat one of the maps, or give his mom an open-mouthed kiss.

    Paddy, there’s wrong, there’s very wrong, there’s “oh my god, that’s SO wrong”, and then…there’s what you just said.

  14. 14.

    Paddy O'Shea

    Krista – Well, look at it this way: If he breathes in while giving her some open-mouth pleasuring, her whole face will follow.

    Then he could chew it like gum.

  16. 16.

    Krista

    This is Babs we’re talking about. If anybody survives that encounter, it’ll be her. Pure evil is hard to kill.

  19. 19.

    Louise

    I want an iPhone. I *like* that it’s big. I’m old and my eyesight is failing and my fingers are stubby and I *like* big. I like heavy, too — those tiny light things they call phones make me feel like I’m talking into a paper clip.

    So there.

  20. 20.

    Dave

    From the Red State link above…

    No one likes an echo chamber. Nothing is more debilitating to creativity of thought than a post which is answered by a string of “me, too.”

    BWAHAHAHAHA! Long before I stumbled upon this place, I tried posting at Red State. It went about as well as trying to reason with Darrell or Paul L.

    But, I think I’ve figured it out. I’ve figured out what the problem is with the remaining Bush supporters:

    On the other hand, we agreed, there is little to be gained by tolerating our soapbox being used to promote another, and decidedly inferior, product.

    It’s a product! Their brand of “debate” is a product. It’s not about ideas or the exchange of them. It’s about promoting a “superior product”

    As for what I’m doing, tuning in CSPAN to watch the speech and cleaning out my vomit bucket, I have a feeling I’ll need it.

  21. 21.

    jake

    As for what I’m doing, tuning in CSPAN to watch the speech and cleaning out my vomit bucket, I have a feeling I’ll need it.

    Three minutes to go and I’m still undecided:

    Stick my ass in a woodchipper.
    Watch the speechifying.

  22. 22.

    demimondian

    Louise, there’s big, and then there’s iPhone. Here: go get a sheet of notebook paper. I’ll wait; I’m not going anywhere.

    [whistles Mozart to self]

    OK, you back? Good. Now, take that sheet of paper, and fold it in half the long way. That’s 4.25 by 11. Now, take that paper and fold it in half twice. That’s 4.25 by 2.75. Now, imagine a pack of cards that size.

    That image — that’s the size and weight of an iPhone. It’s huge, clunky, and heavy.

    Oh, and it costs $499 *with a two year contract*. Or $599 if you want the 8Gb verson. And it runs Mac OS X, which it slow on the best of systems. Big, heavy, slow, and poor battery life — you could use it as soap in a sock to defend yourself, but, other than that…

  24. 24.

    Dave

    And it runs Mac OS X, which it slow on the best of systems

    What machine do you run OS X on? I’ve never had speed problems on anything but the slowest of G4s.

  26. 26.

    Dave

    Well so far all I’m heading is stay the course, with some “bonus people” to help out.

    Oh yeah and the requisite mention of 9/11.

  27. 27.

    demimondian

    I run 10.4 on a top-of-the-line MacBook Pro (dual core Intel, lots of RAM).

    I know how fast Windows or Linux would be on that hardware, and, by comparison, Mac OS X is slow.

  28. 28.

    Richard 23

    Well, that was a stupid speech. Thanks Wolf and Paula for an inspid and asskissing intro to more of the same bullshit. Thanks a lot.

  29. 29.

    jake

    In a switch from the current course of action, these U.S. forces will be housed in the very neighborhoods they patrol.

    Egads.

  30. 30.

    demimondian

    In a switch from the current course of action, these U.S. forces will be -housed- lynched in the very neighborhoods they patrol.

    Fixed.

    He didn’t *really* say that, did he?

  31. 31.

    Dave

    I know how fast Windows or Linux would be on that hardware, and, by comparison, Mac OS X is slow.

    Ah, I refuse to run Windows, and Linux on a PPC (Which is what I have is slow). So I guess my expectations are low :).

  34. 34.

    demimondian

    Yes, well, as something of an expert on Windows perf, I know from bad design. (Take that as you like; the ambiguity is intentional. :) ) I did not believe that it was possible to do worse than Windows…until I changed companies, and had to work with Linux on a high-end HP desktop and Mac OS X on a laptop.

    Man, I never ever thought I would miss the stability, responsiveness, and predictability of the Windows environment. In fact, I’m not even sure about the security benefits any more!

  35. 35.

    Krista

    So is the speech wonderful and inspiring and all that jazz? I decided to forgo it. I can’t watch Bush for more than three seconds without wanting to change the channel, Elvis-style. And I don’t have a gun, so I’d be reduced to throwing my beer at the tv, which is a waste of perfectly good beer. Either way, I’d be stuck with cleanup, which would just make me angrier. So, it’s Iron Chef instead.

    Besides, it’s not like that asshat’s going to deviate from his usual script anyway.

  36. 36.

    Andrew

    I know how fast Windows or Linux would be on that hardware, and, by comparison, Mac OS X is slow.

    Shorter demi: I want reverse-internet cred so I bitch about Macs being so last year but I really need a shiny object to attract the eager eyes of hip young trendstters. My dream scenario is being confronted by a Japanese schoolgirl who says “Macintosh lame! You install NetBSD to make me so horny!” at the Starbucks I go to every morning for the express purpose of not making eye contact with the 24 year olds (“He must be writing a novel because Mac users are artistic!”) right before yelling “This coffee is burnt! I’m going to Peets!”

    Just a guess. I may be projecting, though.

  38. 38.

    demimondian

    Andrew, you have that so wrong.

    I *don’t* run NetBSD. The server across the room runs FreeBSD, Thank You Very Much.

    And, yes, Emacs is God’s true editor. Perl is an abomination, Python is the Proper -Scripting- dynamically-bound RAD language, and (what other flammable claims can I make…oh, yeah) Michael Moore is FAT!

    Anything else you want to know?

  39. 39.

    demimondian

    jake — worse, he didn’t even do it thoroughly. “Where mistakes have been made, there is responsibility that rests with me.” Sheesh! Look, George, if you’re going to do something, do it thoroughly, please?

  40. 40.

    Andrew

    Heretic. Vi is the one true editor. Praise be upon modal editing. “:” makes me horny.

    Let the holy wars commence.

  41. 41.

    canuckistani

    vi is just so quick and easy. As long as you remember what mode you’re in. :wq :q! ^C :qqqq! ^d^x^c exit stop bye

  42. 42.

    demimondian

    Now, now, canuck, vi isn’t entirely useless. In fact, I’ve found a use for it (or, at least, its command line version, ex) Ex is a great tool for changing the first eight characters of the 459923-rd line of a 2+ Mline file.

  43. 43.

    Dave

    Praise be on VI. I use it even over GUI editors.

    Ah Demi…you must have the one windows machine that works. At MY new job, we test on Mac & Windows. Macs work, windows…eh not so much. Not to mention I have to use Windows as my admin machine in which I encounter no end of problems. Hanging, lagging, oh and not to mention and utterly un-useable GUI (to restart the computer you go to the START menu?).

    %uptime on my mac is approaching 22 days; the last time I installed an update.

    …and here I will leave the platform wars, and go back to politics.

  44. 44.

    jake

    Look, George, if you’re going to do something, do it thoroughly, please?

    A thorough fuck up isn’t good enough for you? Picky.

  47. 47.

    RSA

    And, yes, Emacs is God’s true editor.

    Ah, demimondian, as much as I am tempted to slag you for daring to profane any Apple product, I see we are brothers at heart.

    I currently carry around a heavy old cell phone that I use maybe once a day, at most. I’m mainly interested in the iPhone not as a phone per se, but as a generic mobile computing device (assuming that Apple will allow third-party software to run on it). I’ve been doing research in human-computer interaction for a while, and I’ve recently become interested in mobile devices. Here’s what I wrote about the iPhone earlier today in a different forum:

    The iPhone is interesting, I think, at least partly because of its potential flexibility. (Unintuitively, this makes it significantly different from the iPod, to which it’s often compared, in that the latter is a dedicated device that isn’t used for very much aside from music and video.) If we look at the evolution of desktop applications, we see that people find new uses for them, opportunistic and often unexpected uses. Excel, for example, was developed for manipulating spreadsheets, but people started to use it for presentation graphics, databases, and more exotic applications. Ditto Word: how many times have you needed to create a quick picture, and done it using Word’s primitive drawing facilities? They’re not perfect (in fact they’re pretty bad compared with more specialized software applications), but they’re still used in ways their original designers hadn’t foreseen.

    I think that the iPhone may occupy a similar position. It’ll take a year or so for people to figure out what it’s possible to do with it, which no one will have predicted, and its development will move in a new direction.

  48. 48.

    Richard 23

    Perl is an abomination

    I’ve ignored your transgressions before, but you’re wholly wrong here. [[scowl]]

  50. 50.

    ThymeZone

    Vi is the one true editor.

    Nothing more fun than the editor wars. Except maybe watching maple syrup run.

    Here’s the deal. I used vi for years to do basically one thing, and that is to sling code. And I always said, and still believe, that you put me next somebody using anything but vi and ask us to sling code, I will sling more code in less time than he will because nothing is faster than vi for slinging code.

    For any other purpose, can’t say, but codeslinging often requires certain kinds of line and text operations that are peculiar to codeslinging, and for those, vi is the fastest thing on two wheels.

    For all other types of text operations, my favorite is the Secretary. I have no real desire to do that other stuff, popularly known as Word Processing, and I find that a Secretary is the best way to get it done.

  51. 51.

    demimondian

    Common Lisp? Look, man, could you at least list the one TRUE language, Scheme? What, after all, is life without call/cc?

    Seriously, if you want to see where that world goes, look at the PocketPC Phone Edition or Nokia series 90 worlds, which have had this form factor and functionality for five+ years. You’ll find…a lot of dreadful games. It’s incredibly hard to build applications which run stably in a small form factor environment, and every bit as hard to build an effective UI in a small portable space.

    App designers often don’t consider issues like character size — the text on these devices is Just Really Small, and even then, there isn’t space for much of it. The user interface has to be much more dynamic than its desktop version; much more data needs to be suppressed, or only selectively presented. More than that, since the processors are really slow (typically ARM-9 derivatives, to save power), extremely tight coding becomes paramount. And then there’s all the stuff necessary to keep from draining the battery in no time flat.

    I think that you’ll find that the iPhone doesn’t turn into a very interesting UI experience; it’s just too freaking hard to write for mobile devices.

  52. 52.

    CaseyL

    Fuckwit wants soldiers to live in the neighborhood? He can’t even make sure they all have armored Humvees and he wants them to live right where the militias are?

    What, does he have a pool going on when the US body count hits 5000?

    Bush is the fuckwittiest fuckwit of every fuckwit that’s ever fuckwitted.

  53. 53.

    demimondian

    I liked the way TZ put it, paraphrased as:

    I lived through LBJ, and I thought, it can’t get worse than this. But then came Nixon, and I thought, OK, I was wrong, but, really, it can’t get worse than *this*.

    I was wrong a second time.

  54. 54.

    ThymeZone

    Meanwhile, on an interesting note ….

    CNN, Anderson Cooper, and three talking heads in the shape of Sullivan, Gergen and Klein …. all basically bashing Bush.

    I can’t find anybody on tv tonite that isn’t bashing Bush. I haven’t tried Fox News … let me flip that on for a second ….

    Heh. The Duke rape case. Blah blah blah. Wow, that’s surreal, given the gravity of the Iraq situation. So maybe that’s telling. Fox is talking about Duke and Nifong.

  55. 55.

    demimondian

    Yeah, it’s utterly inane. I mean, gosh, I’m glad that the MSM is taking the left’s talking points for once — but it really, really makes me nervous.

  56. 56.

    ThymeZone

    Maybe all the Bushmonkey talking heads have been raptured?

    Or, as someone suggested, ruptured. Either way ….

    Weird. It’s like they all went to smoke a bong.

  58. 58.

    ThymeZone

    John Warner is saying he’ll “study” Bush’s proposal.

    Ouch. War talk by a republican, without Warner’s support?

    Bush is in deep, deep trouble here.

  60. 60.

    AkaDad

    Did Bush just give away our war plans to the “terrorists”?

    If this was the NY Times some might call it treasonous.

  61. 61.

    ThymeZone

    I guess elections do have consequences. I’m just not sure exactly what they are.

    Just ask Jon Kyl, our own beloved rubber-stamp Republican senator here.

    The people voted in November, said Kyl, and said they wanted a new direction in Iraq. So, tonight the president gave them the finger a new direction.

    Or something.

  62. 62.

    Jonathan

    Fuckwit wants soldiers to live in the neighborhood? He can’t even make sure they all have armored Humvees and he wants them to live right where the militias are?

    Actually the living among the civilians part is General Petraeus’ idea, he is, I think rightly, considered brilliant and has just revised the Army manual on counter insurgency warfare in light of the lessons learned in Iraq.

    The lack of adequate troop levels is going to make this a failure. The population of Bahgdad is six million and counter insurgency doctrine calls for a 20/1000 troop to civilian ratio. Six million divided by 1000 equals six thousand, multiply that by 20 and you get 120,000 troops needed just for Baghdad.

    The Iraqi security forces are mostly useless since they have been thoroughly infiltrated by insurgents of one stripe or another, so most of the heavy lifting is going to have to be done by US troops.

  63. 63.

    Mike

    Gen. Petraeus would have been a great choice 3 years ago, he did great hings in the North but was mostly ignored by the senior generals. Now it is too late unless we put in millions of guys and trillions of dollars. And I just don’t see that happening.

  64. 64.

    TenguPhule

    I guess elections do have consequences. I’m just not sure exactly what they are.

    Imperial President for Life Pelosi in 2007, bitches!

    Ho ho ho! /Zombie Santa

  66. 66.

    jake

    Actually the living among the civilians part is General Petraeus’ idea,

    It sounded way too creative for Bush and the “cop on the block” is a great idea. In this case it’s just a great idea along the lines of “Hey wouldn’t it be great if cars had some sort of belt to hold you in during accidents?” right before your head hits the windshield.

    Post-Abu Gharib, post-Haiditha, post raping a girl and killing her and her entire family…Again, egads!

  68. 68.

    RSA

    Seriously, if you want to see where that world goes, look at the PocketPC Phone Edition or Nokia series 90 worlds, which have had this form factor and functionality for five+ years.

    You’re right about that; we’ll have to see if Apple is creative enough with their UI for the iPhone to be different.

  69. 69.

    The Other Steve

    What’s interesting about the iPhone is how unusable it is going to be as a result of the touch screen.

    Don’t believe me? Try to make a phone call while not looking at the phone.

  70. 70.

    CJ

    Don’t believe me? Try to make a phone call while not looking at the phone.

    Like when you’re driving? Forget reality for a moment and think about the way it is SUPPOSED to work. In this alternate universe, how many situations are there where one NEEDS to dial without looking?

    Just sayin’. . .

    CJ

  71. 71.

    RSA

    What’s interesting about the iPhone is how unusable it is going to be as a result of the touch screen.

    For some things, yeah, soft keyboards totally suck, including any kind of extended typing. No tactile feedback (with the exception of some cool experimental stuff going on in research labs).

    On the other hand, it is a bit ridiculous, if you think about it, that we’ve become accustomed to have to refer to a 7- or 10-digit numerical encoding of the identity of people we want to reach by phone. A list of a dozen frequent contacts might be enough for most people to get by with most of the time. One or two key presses. (Not that my current cell phone is that easy to use.)

  73. 73.

    ThymeZone

    i edit on a commodore 64.

    Trying to think of a good analogy. How about running a taxi service using a Big Wheel?

    Mowing the lawn with a nail clipper?

    Doing the Burning Man with a paper doll and a can of Sterno?

    Painting the Golden Gate Bridge with a Q-Tip?

  75. 75.

    p.lukasiak

    Holy Shit. Bush is now officially INSANE….

    US forces storm Iranian consulate

    That’s it. The guy needs to be impeached immediately — he’s attacked a FREAKING CONSULATE — this isn’t an angry mob of fundamentalist Iranians (egged on by their revolutionary government) who haven’t been “housebroken” as members of the international community….this is far wrose.

  76. 76.

    John D.

    I can’t remember the last time I saw Steve Jobs screw the pooch like he has here

    I can’t decide if he is insane, or merely stupid.

  77. 77.

    Bombadil

    Real programmers don’t need languages. We code in binary. And we do it with a stylus, directly onto the disk.

  78. 78.

    Zifnab

    That’s it. The guy needs to be impeached immediately—he’s attacked a FREAKING CONSULATE —- this isn’t an angry mob of fundamentalist Iranians (egged on by their revolutionary government) who haven’t been “housebroken” as members of the international community….this is far wrose.

    Remember that time the revolutionaries stormed the US Embassy in Iran? Yeah, like that but in reverse.

    One Iranian news agency with a correspondent in Irbil says five US helicopters were used to land troops on the roof of the Iranian consulate.

    It reports that a number of vehicles cordoned off the streets around the building, while US soldiers warned the occupants in three different languages that they should surrender or be killed.

    Thursday’s raid came as US President George W Bush unveiled his new strategy in Iraq, which included increasing troop numbers and a commitment to stop Iranian support for “our enemies in Iraq”.

    I’m sure this will go over really well with our allies in the Kurdish region of Iraq, where we just pissed all over their own diplomatic efforts with Iran.

    Way to win those hearts and minds.

  79. 79.

    demimondian

    Actually, Bombadil, I have coded a CAMAC crate using patch cords. On that system, a typo can mean causing a $100K machine to, quite literally, catch fire. Not to mention the equipment connected to it.

    You want to see intense code review? Um, yeah…

  80. 80.

    ThymeZone

    a typo can mean causing a $100K machine to, quite literally, catch fire. Not to mention the equipment connected to it.

    Obviously you are not a true hardware guy. That’s just an ordinary smoke test.

    In smoke testing, the cost of the equipment is really not one of the relevant parameters. We used to focus mainly on the safety of the people in the lab or shop. How far can the exploding capacitors and other components throw debris, that sort of thing.

    Cost? Not our problem.

  81. 81.

    Andrew

    Wow, so much to respond to…

    Real programmers don’t need languages. We code in binary. And we do it with a stylus, directly onto the disk.

    What kind of new fangled crap is this? In my day we rewired the vacuum tubes and we liked it.

    For some things, yeah, soft keyboards totally suck, including any kind of extended typing. No tactile feedback (with the exception of some cool experimental stuff going on in research labs).

    Tee hee. I wrote a little paper that might one day serve as prior art to shoot down all of the patents on using tactile buttons for phone dialing that have been registered in the last few years. Multi-touch devices (patented by apple — ha! — they’ve been around for years) may be different enough for their own patents, but I doubt it. My hope is to one day be deposed in a massive patent battle.

  82. 82.

    Andrew

    In smoke testing, the cost of the equipment is really not one of the relevant parameters. We used to focus mainly on the safety of the people in the lab or shop. How far can the exploding capacitors and other components throw debris, that sort of thing.

    I feel you.

    It’s a real bummer that computers aren’t exciting like this anymore. These days you get a current spike and you blow a $8000 ADC or something and you’re lucky if you get a little pop. I guess you have to go into power generation or something for the fun lab disasters.

    The last Big Time Fun Device that I used was a sarcos remote manipulator that looked like the arm of the heavy load exouit in Aliens. Hydraulically driven, it could rip your arm off in a second or smash you through the ceiling or floor. Sleep deprived grad students were programming it. And no one was quite sure if it was radioactive or not.

    /geek BSing

  83. 83.

    Pb

    This just in:

    U.S. official: No al-Qaeda suspects killed in Somalia airstrikes

    Maybe they were really hiding in that Iranian embassy? After all…

    three senior al-Qaeda members believed responsible for bombing U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998

    Yeah, attacking embassies is serious business…

  84. 84.

    Punchy

    Bush is the fuckwittiest fuckwit of every fuckwit that’s ever fuckwitted.

    Put this on a bumper sticker, pronto. Then send me one.

    I haven’t tried Fox News

    This morning, they had that Texas Fuck, Cornyrn (sp?) on. Just eviscerated the Dems for “not supporting the troops”. Lost ANOTHER tv remote (true story) to the unyielding strength of my apartment drywall. Well worth it, IMO.

  85. 85.

    Zifnab

    Tee hee. I wrote a little paper that might one day serve as prior art to shoot down all of the patents on using tactile buttons for phone dialing that have been registered in the last few years. Multi-touch devices (patented by apple—ha!—they’ve been around for years) may be different enough for their own patents, but I doubt it. My hope is to one day be deposed in a massive patent battle.

    Generally speaking, patent law is a total crock. I understand if Disney really wants to keep the Mickey Mouse logo for all eternity, and I can understand that. But I’m sick of seeing Amazon patent “One click shopping” or Microsoft’s patent of “IsNot” operator, which compares two pointers to see if they relate to the same memory location.

    Then you’ve got the lame genome patenting frenzy right after the Human Genome Project was completed, when Big Pharm tried to stake claim to half the genetic structure of the human body (or at least all the processes of reading said genetic structure). I remember a few friends in Bio majors swearing up and down because their professors were getting gunshy about being sued for doing University research. Such lame-itude.

  86. 86.

    Jake

    You know those air strikes in Somalia that were supposed to take out a member of Al-Quaida?

    Whoopsie, they missed!

    They got some of their “associates” though so I guess that is the new democracy. Talk to a suspected bad guy. Die. Live near a bad guy. Die. In fact, just die. And Iran, fuck you.

    How’s Bush doing in the 500 Mile Fubar Rally ThymeZone?

  87. 87.

    Punchy

    You know those air strikes in Somalia that were supposed to take out a member of Al-Quaida?

    Question to all you Johnny Cochrans or Kissingers out there (Tim?)–can we really just bomb whoever the fuck we want, sovereign country be dammed, all under the guise of “suspected Al-Q”??

    Can we just dump a bunker-buster in some northwest suburb of Helsinki all under the banner of “War on Terror”??? I fail to see how this can be legal…

  88. 88.

    RSA

    Multi-touch devices (patented by apple—ha!—they’ve been around for years) may be different enough for their own patents, but I doubt it.

    I published a paper a few years ago on a reduced-size keyboard that behaves similarly to cell phone keypads that support T9 input, but has better efficiency. A company approached me and we developed a working physical prototype while their patent lawyers looked at the issues. It turns out that RIM (of Blackberry fame) has some incredibly over-general patent on keys that map to multiple outputs. So we (i.e. mobile device users) were screwed.

  89. 89.

    Jake

    This report is from the Iranian Embassy in London:

    “Earlier, two Iranian diplomats were also detained illegally and with no explanation, upon arrival in Baghdad, while visiting Iraq in response to the invitation of the country’s president.”

    We need a new swear word. Fuck just doesn’t cover it.

    And how are things going in Afghanistan?

  90. 90.

    Andrew

    RSA, I conservatively estimate that there are hundreds of mostly overlapping patents on text entry for mobile devices, both for keyboards and touch screens. The only relevant questions are: who owns them (and is looking to sue) and who can you sell them to?

    RIM has a big and active legal department, so you were right to check on them. Microsoft, Sony and the cell phone companies are the other big players.

  91. 91.

    demimondian

    You know, Jake, I don’t really think that the Iranian Government will get a really warm reception over detained diplomats from the United States. And you know what? I don’t think they should — there’s this nation which held a large crowd of American diplomats hostage for many hundreds of days. It’s called “Iran”.

    Diplomatic immunity has always been a reciprocal thing, and the Iranian government clearly doesn’t respect it. That means that they, uniquely, are not protected by it.

  92. 92.

    demimondian

    I remember during one battle with my former employer, the question of whether Lawsuits in Motion had prior art or not turned on the shape of a certain key.

  94. 94.

    Pb

    Generally speaking, patent law is a total crock.

    Yeppers–and the Patent Office is freakin’ incompetent. It could definitely benefit from a peer review component, i.e., “you think you’re patenting what?”–aka. the laugh test. I’d like to see someone patent something along these lines…

    Claimed: the business practice of constructing a trademark by prepending a vowel to a pre-existing word or trademark.

    Now of course there’s prior art for that, (but who knows what might slip through anyhow) so as I said, something along those lines–patenting patents to deny the patent(n., 2., Webster Dictionary, 1913) to patent patently absurd patents.

  95. 95.

    RSA

    RSA, I conservatively estimate that there are hundreds of mostly overlapping patents on text entry for mobile devices, both for keyboards and touch screens.

    I’m completely unsurprised. I don’t know much about computer patents, hardware or software, but the system seems pretty much broken.

  96. 96.

    BobJones

    A good measure of how badly a certain event has gone for the Bush Administration is the coverage said event receives on the Drudge Report. I know its unpleasant to go there, but its a nice window into the psyche of a certain sub-set of conservatives. The top two story right now is, I shit you not, David Beckham signing a deal to play soccer in America. Similarly, Fox News cut to a discussion on Rosie v. Donald within 20 minutes of the speech.

    I believe this is called the “Just close your eyes and pretend none of this is happening” mindset.

  97. 97.

    Jake

    …there’s this nation which held a large crowd of American diplomats hostage for many hundreds of days. It’s called “Iran”.

    Oh boy! Does that mean we can detain German citizens? Bomb Berlin? Can we infect Christian Caucasian males of western European descent with virulent viruses? What about clapping them in chains, forcing them to work and beating them if they won’t?

    Sure, you’ll argue that the people who did all of those things are dead or no longer in power or whatever and Ahmadinejad is a dick and you’d be right. But hey, if we’re going to go into another country and detain people who are there just because some of the people from that country were dicks, why the fuck not?

    In fact, an international dick detention program might solve a lot of our problems, starting right here at home…

  99. 99.

    Andrew

    Software patents are mostly a crock, given that companies also want copyright protection on code (and copyright is how code was historically protected). Business process patents are even worse.

    Ironically, mobile device interface patents are a lot more legitimate than most computer user interface patents because they often involve novel hardware. However, where most of these fail is the “non-obvious” clause, because the great majority of them are obvious to any middle school kid who has ever used a cell phone.

    Don’t get me started on drug patents.

  101. 101.

    ThymeZone

    Lead story on both MSNBC and CNN at this hour:

    Beckham Comes to US!

    That’s right, the future of civilization, according the Meathead, is on the line in Iraq, but the big news this morning is a soccer player’s wife house hunting in LA.

  102. 102.

    Zifnab

    Diplomatic immunity has always been a reciprocal thing, and the Iranian government clearly doesn’t respect it. That means that they, uniquely, are not protected by it.

    Revoking diplomatic immunity because the Iranians stormed an embassy 30 years ago would be like invading a foreign country because they had WMDs 20 years ago. Ridiculous, but par for the course.

    And even then, you typically have to state that you are revoking diplomatic immunity before you start throwing people in jail. The US hasn’t offically stated it no longer respects Iranian soveriegnty or diplomatic status, its just started grabbing guys and tossing them in the back of trucks. At this point, the term “extra-legal” almost loses meaning. We’re approaching outright anarchy – or at least autocracy.

  103. 103.

    capelza

    Agreed Zinfab. 1953 was not one of our more “freedom” or “democracy” moments. And the Iranians never forgot it.

    The Iranian embassy hostages were cusght up in a revolution. Students invaded the embassy and the revolutionary “government allowed it to continue. This was bad.

    This is different. We are not the governing authority (on paper anyway) in Iraq, we are a third party hijacling another countryy’s consulate. I wonder what Maliki will say.

    Also there’s that whole becoming like our enemies thing. To justify it by a “they did it too” (especially for an event almost 30 years ago) is just another sign that we are becoming more like those we claim to fight against. Plus, the precedent set…how can we EVER complain if another of our embassies is raided and more hostages held. We just shot that to shit.

    Bush is really jonesing for an war with Iran.

  104. 104.

    Andrew

    Well, Hagel told Condi to her face that she works for a dumbass. She looks completely lost. Good for him.

  106. 106.

    Punchy

    In fact, an international dick detention program might solve a lot of our problems, starting right here at home…

    PoTD.

  107. 107.

    demimondian

    capelza, to say that the government in Iran did not detain the hostages is completely disingenuous. Of course they did; the Revolutionary guards were an extension of the governments irregular forces.

  108. 108.

    capelza

    Demi, I was not being disingenuous. I was going on the memory, perhaps incorrect that the group that invaded the embassy was a student led thing originally.

    However that does not negate my point that this happened 28 years ago. And 26 years before that we helped overthrow the democratically elected governemnt of Iran.

    The other point I mada that because of something that happened years ago, we take it upon oursleves to do the exact same thing. Will we have ANY room to talk when our next embassy is over run? ANY?

  109. 109.

    Andrew

    Andrew, did he say quote Dumbass end quote?

    Hagel spelled dumbass like:

    I think this speech given last night by this president represents the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam if it’s carried out.

  110. 110.

    demimondian

    Will we have ANY room to talk when our next embassy is over run? ANY?

    By Iran? Of course not. That cuts both ways: they have no ground to stand on now, until and unless we grant it to them. (As, by the way, we did to Germany, Jake. When we hadn’t, we bombed Dresden, killing 150,000 people. We firebombed portions of Berlin. We sank ferries with innocent civilians on them, because we thought they might be carrying heavy water. We drowned whole river valleys by blowing up dams, killing the people downstream in floods from which there was no escaping.)

  111. 111.

    Jake

    So we

    can

    keep kicking the shit out of people now because they (or their governments) did it to us or other people in the past?

    Cool. First into the international dick detention camps…
    Gee, so many dicks, it’s hard to know where to start.

  112. 112.

    capelza

    I wasn’t just talking about Iran, Demi. Any nation or third party army that successfully raids and hauls off diplomats can use our own actions as a precedent.

  113. 113.

    demimondian

    Yes, but I was. Iran having violated our diplomatic immunity, we no longer recognize theirs. If you haven’t violated our diplomatic privilege, then we won’t violate yours.

    Reciprocity cuts two ways.

  114. 114.

    Zifnab

    Yes, but I was. Iran having violated our diplomatic immunity, we no longer recognize theirs. If you haven’t violated our diplomatic privilege, then we won’t violate yours.

    Reciprocity cuts two ways.

    But Reciprocity has a clock on it. If we’d raided the Iranian Embassy a day after they overran the US Embassy, that would make sense. If we raid them 28 years later, that would be like nuking Hiroshima in ’84 because of Pearl Harbor.

    Diplomatic relations don’t function if you hold grudges that long.

    What if our embassy got overwhelmed in Cuba because of the Bay of Pigs invasion? Would that be all cool?

  115. 115.

    Krista

    Yes, but I was. Iran having violated our diplomatic immunity, we no longer recognize theirs. If you haven’t violated our diplomatic privilege, then we won’t violate yours.

    Reciprocity cuts two ways.

    There’s got to be a time limit on those things, though! It’s one thing if this had just been last week, but it was an entire generation ago. What on earth is accomplished by engaging in decades-later tit-for-tat?

  116. 116.

    Jake

    What on earth is accomplished by engaging in decades-later tit-for-tat?

    For the answer to that question I refer you to the Underpants Gnomes.

    War + More War = ???

  117. 117.

    capelza

    As everyone above me noted, there has to be some rational time limit. Elsewise, we might have to accept that Iran was justified in overrunning our embassy because we helped overthrow their legal government before that. Really, who has the bigger gripe here?

    Note..this is not a defense of the Iranian government, just making the observation.

    The Bay of Pigs analogy is perfect.

  118. 118.

    demimondian

    In this case, I’m going to offer as a thesis for consideration that Iran has never come close to taking the necessary steps to start any such clock and has, in fact, continued with activities which actively create barriers.

    It’s really not unreasonable to require that Iran stop funding terror groups around the world (and don’t pretend that they don’t). It’s not unreasonable to ask to not be referred to as the Great Satan. (Notice that I’m not talking about uranium enrichment. By itself, enrichment has never barred us from diplomatic relationships, and indeed close alliances, with countries that build, say, CANDU reactors. :))

  119. 119.

    Jake

    It’s really not unreasonable to require that Iran stop funding terror groups around the world (and don’t pretend that they don’t).

    Shorter Demi: Next stop, the Saudi Arabian embassy!

  120. 120.

    demimondian

    Jake, don’t get me started on the House of Saud, OK? If I had a say in the matter, some President would have said “We can’t support those thugs any more, and I am asking the American people to make a real sacrifice by accepting a higher price for oil.” before helping the government in Riyad fall.

  121. 121.

    TenguPhule

    It’s really not unreasonable to require that Iran stop funding terror groups around the world (and don’t pretend that they don’t). It’s not unreasonable to ask to not be referred to as the Great Satan.

    It might help if the US government stopped funding Iranian groups trying to overthrow the government and constantly labeling Iran as Axis of Evil, too.

    Reason is not with this admin, It’s “put out or prepare to be raped, ho”.

  122. 122.

    demimondian

    It might help if the US government stopped funding Iranian groups trying to overthrow the government and constantly labeling Iran as Axis of Evil, too.

    No question about it. It certainly would.

    However, all that said, the question I was being asked was whether there was some “sell by date” for diplomatic issues. If the clock never starts on either side of the street, then it doesn’t really matter, does it?

  123. 123.

    capelza

    Another thing to consider SINCE the 1979 hostage crisis is that we can talk all we want about Iranians funding terrorists groupd abroad, but who backed that charming 8 years of carnage when Iraq attacked Iran?

  124. 124.

    Jake

    Yeah, fuck this diplomacy shit. To hell with being better than the bad guy. Let’s just have a full on world-wide death cage match. Everyone who has ever done (or represents someone who has done) something nasty to any one against everyone who has been a victim (or represents a victim). In addition to all of the countries that need to start going at it like knives we’ll have Women v. Men, Gays v. Hets, Jews v. Christians, American Tourists v. The French and so on.

    Could be fun and the last one standing gets bragging rights.

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