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Art, Pure and Simple!
Randy Johnson, age 40, threw a perfecdt game last night in Atlanta, Ga. Previous to him, Cy Young threw a perfect game in 1904 at the age of 37.
See below for the details of the Big Unit's night of perfection:
Story can be found here:
Heh. I love it when people have to eat Crow. Actually, most of them will refuse to do so, but just knowing that they should is good enough:
Go here for the details:
***Still HIGH on the Lakers***
In the vein of a Picture speaking a 1,000 words.. I give you this:
What do you say? What can you say?
I was watching the game as a WebCAST via ESPN and I "saw" Duncan make his shot and the time expire to 0:00. In disgust, I closed my Browser and stomped out of my office...
A little while later, as I was browsing the Web again and sulking, I almost fell out of my chair... They won?? They fucking won?? are you KIDDING Me??? My god... you gotta have faith, I guess...
In the inmortal words of Yogi Berra, "It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over".
Now is not THAT ever the truth...
Sear THIS into your Mental Rolodex the next time you decide to protest the War or your President George Bush.
That could very easily be your Husband, Father, Brother, Uncle, or Best Friend. These animals don't differentiate. as NON-Muslims, we are all infidels and deserve what happened to Nick Berg.
Deal with it.
I am posting this here as a reminder to the Sean Penns, Michael Moores, Mike Farells, Alex Baldwins, Ted Kennedys and the rest of thier ilk of this sick, twisted and completly upside down world in which we live in.
WE ARE NOT TO BLAME.
Open your eyes and realize that the enemy is Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda and NOT George Bush.
Remeber 9-11??? Do you?? Do you really??? The very same animals that used civilian airliners to knock down the World Trade Center Towers and attempted to destroy the Pentagon, killing 3,000+ innocent people,
THOSE ARE THE SAVAGE ANIMALS (rest assured that the only human qualities they have are in their physical appearance) that sawed off the head of an american civilian contractor whose only crime was to try and help re-build the communications infrastructure of Iraq.
The rules of engagemnt with these animals have to be re-assesed. We are not playing by the same rulebook. Thye hold NOTHING Sacred. NOTHING.
Unless we come to terms with the fact that they stopped making progress towards civilized bahaviour sometime in the 13th century, then we're completely screwed.
I am depressed and truly afreaid of what the future holds. This nation may not have the stomach to "do what it takes" to erradicate the blight that is Islamic Funadmentalism from the face of this planet.
And believe you me, *we* are the ONLY ones that can and will do anything about this. And instead of being appreciated for it, we will be hated.
Hated becuase we are feared. Hated because we are resented for our liberty and freedom and success.
Weaker nations like the French, the Germans, the Spainairds, etc are terrified of these animals and they think that appeasement is the answer. They beleive that if they cower, and talk nice and tiptoe around the bully, that maybe the bully will get tired and focus on another subject...
We've never been one to cow-tow to bullies. Ever. As such, that sadly may be the eventual cause of our ultimate destruction.
___________________________
May 11, 6:09 PM (ET)
By Ghaida Ghantous
DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq beheaded an American civilian and vowed more killings in revenge for the "Satanic degradation" of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers, an Islamist Web site said on Tuesday.
A poor quality videotape on the site showed a man dressed in orange overalls sitting bound on a white plastic chair in a bare room, then knelt on the floor with five masked men behind him.
"My name is Nick Berg, my father's name is Michael... I have a brother and sister, David and Sarah," said the bound man, adding he was from Philadelphia.
One of the masked men read a statement urging Muslims to seek revenge after pictures were published of Iraqi prisoners being abused by U.S. troops at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.
"Nation of Islam, is there any excuse left to sit idly by? And how can free Muslims sleep soundly as they see Islam being slaughtered, honor bleeding, photographs of shame and reports of Satanic degradation of the people of Islam, men and women, in Abu Ghraib prison?" the statement said.
The masked men then pushed the 26-year-old American to the floor and shouted "God is greatest" above his screams as one of them sawed his head off with a large knife then held it aloft for the camera.
The ritual killing resembled the murder of U.S. reporter Daniel Pearl, beheaded by Islamist militants in Pakistan, and Berg's orange overalls were reminiscent of those worn by al Qaeda suspects held by U.S. troops at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
The Web site said Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a top ally of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, was the man who cut off Berg's head. The statement in the video was signed off with Zarqawi's name and dated May 11.
Jordanian-born Zarqawi, 37, has raised his profile and status as al Qaeda's most active operational leader with a series of suicide bombs and attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq.
A body found in Baghdad over the weekend was identified on Monday as Berg before the videotape was released.
"Berg's body was found with his hands behind his back and beheaded," said another U.S. official who declined to be identified. "The body was found along a roadside by a U.S. military patrol."
"This shows the true nature of the enemies of freedom," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters. "They have no regard for the lives of innocent men, women and children. We will pursue those responsible and bring them to justice."
MILITANT STATEMENT
Photographs shown around the world of naked Iraqi prisoners stacked in a pyramid or positioned to simulate sex acts at Abu Ghraib prison have provoked international anger and pose a serious setback to U.S. efforts to stabilize Iraq.
President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair have both apologized and pledged to punish those responsible but both governments have come under pressure for senior ministers to take the blame for the abuse.
The militants' statement, addressing families of U.S. soldiers, said Zarqawi's group had offered Washington to swap Berg for Iraqi prisoners held by U.S. troops "but they refused."
"You will only get shroud after shroud and coffin after coffin slaughtered in this manner," it said.
"As for you Bush, dog of the Christians, anticipate what will harm you... You and your soldiers will regret the day you stepped foot in Iraq and dared to violate Muslims."
The murder was condemned by the Council of American-Islamic Relations, a U.S.-based Islamic civil rights and advocacy group.
"We condemn this cold-blooded murder and repudiate all those who commit such acts of mindless violence in the name of religion," it said.
It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the tape carried on the Muntada al-Ansar Islamist Web site, but the CIA was reviewing the video for clues of who was responsible, a U.S. official said.
"He was a private American citizen not associated with a military contract," said a State Department official.
Berg had been missing for several weeks. He was last heard from on April 9 when he telephoned his parents. He said he was trying to find a safe way home after trying to find work as an independent communications contractor.
"The Berg family is devastated by this loss. They want to extend their sympathy to other families who have also suffered," said Bruce Hauser, their neighbor in the Philadelphia suburb of West Chester. Berg's murder brings to three the number of known deaths of civilians who have been kidnapped or seized in the last several months.
About 50 people have been kidnapped or gone missing, with several known to be still held by militants.
After spending the Morning and early afternoon with Mother Dearest, I went back home and started the process of re-building my son's PC, Software-wise.
He had beem complaining that it was really, really slow, and that a lot of the stuff on the Internet was just "not working right". Now mind you, my son is a prototypical 14 year old, with no patientce, full of angst and expecting everything to "just work", CORRECTLY, the FIRST TIME, ALL THE TIME!
Well, his particular box was XP Pro sitting on a P-4 2.4Ghz, with 768 MB RAM, a 60 GB Hard Drive with a 3-COM 3-905c NIC, a Creative Audigy Soundcard and an Nvidia AGP MX440 Video card with 64MB of RAM.
Considering that 99% of what he does is Browsing, Chatting and Downloading MP3's (Take THAT, RIAA), well this box was more than powerful enough for his needs. However....
There is the slight issue of INSTALLING EVERY CRAPPY TOOLBAR, POP UP STOPPER, FIX-IT UTIL, etc.
Mind you, these are tenagers who don't know any better and when they get bombarded with a million @#@*!~#) Pop ups that ask them is they would like to install this POS or that POS (piece of s***) just what do you think they do???
they merilly click away on 'Yes".
Now, How *stable* do you think your typical XP box is going ot be after a year of being unattended by a spyware killer or ad blocker? "Not very" is un understatement... Let's just say that the C: drive had just 421 (!!) MB of free disk space and was so riddled with crap that the only sane option was to WIPE DWON TO BARE METAL and start with a fresh install of XP.
I then spent the rest of the Afternoon and Evening, rebuilding the box after instaling the OS, piece by piece. I was delayed somewhat by the fact that my son had accumulated 21GB, (yes 21GB With a 'G') of various media files, including MP3's, AVI's, MPG's, JPG's, etc... All of that had to be transferresd to a PC on the network and then RESTORED to a partition on his PC before I could call it a night...
Having started around 3:00 P.M., I ended up taking the PC back to him room and plugging it in well after 11:00 P.M. whixh works out 8 hours and change, from HARD DRIVE WIPE to final cable plg-in at his desk...
The PC is humming now (for how long remains to be seen) and all it needs is an Antivirus, as my (NON ACTIVATING) copy of Norton SystemWorks 2003 is no good. Why? becuase the CD CRACKED! At some point in time, one of my 52x Cd Burners caused a little too much stress with the HIGH RPM's and the CD developed a hairline fissue, just enough to render it UNREADABLE.
Dammit! The NEWER versions of Symantec SystemWorks require ACTIVATION and are thus only good for install on 1 PC... *sigh*.
Well, I will see about getting him an Antivirus solution and just let him crank away on the PC until it's time for it to be WIPED DOWN once again, wherein the process will repeat itself....
Ah, life with computers in 2004... Such Bliss.
MOTHER'S DAY BREAKFAST: NO RESERVATIONS >>> NOT GOOD.
You know you're screwed when your sister calls you at 8:00 in the morning on Sunday, Mother's Day and *asks* you if youknow what the plan is for the morning...
I have to say, making reservations and plans for Mother's Day has always been something that my sister took care of. For some reason, this year she did nothing. Nothing.
Now those of you that live in Los Angeles are aware of the level of FUTILITY involved in trying to eat ANYWHERE on Mother's Day Morning WITHOUT a PRIOR RESERVATION of at least 2,000 years...
OK, OK, maybe not 2000 years, but you get the idea... Anywhere we decided to go was going to be a MINIMUM 2 HOUR WAIT. As hot as it was, that was very simply *NOT* going to happen.
So, at around 11:00 or so, I drove over to Mom's with her Flowers, her Card and some cash. We ended up spending a nice morning watching some cheesey 90's flicks that starrred Demi Moore and there was precious little fallout from the fact that we had SCREWED UP and not taken Mom anywhere for breakfast.
Whew! Well, I did promise her that next year we will do something EXTRA SPECIAL to make up for the fact that nothing was done this year... We'll see.
This evening I had a really pleasant Chat Session with an Old friend with whom I have worked with at two different places...
Claudio Damicelli is an Independant Computer Consultant and Unix/BSD/Linux guru whom I first met in 1996 while working for AT&T doing Technical Support for their WSS Web Site Hosting services. We did that for about 18 months and then Claudio left to go work at Toyota Motor Sales, and I quickly followed him there....
Claudio left Toyota in 2001 to strike out on his own and we kinda lost touch, speaking maybe a couple of times a year, just to touch base.
This evening we chatted for a while and I was glad to find out that everything is flowing smoothly for him. Claudio maintains a Web Site for Spanish speaking people where they can come to get programs, support, tutorials, etc. It is a great resource for people outside the U.S. who need PC Support in Spanish and don't always have someone nearby to help them...
The Site can be found here: Programas.com
I hope everything continues to go well for Claudio, as he is one of the brighter people I have ever had the pleasure of interacting with on a professional level. Go check out his site, he can use the traffic!
Kevin Mitnick, at one time the world's Most Wanted Hacker, has turned over a new leaf and now dedicates himself to helping out companies to defend themselves from the very same unsavory characters that he used to personify.
Kevin Poulsen, another former hacker and now a writer for SecurityFocus has written a story in which Kevin Mitnick was called in to help catch a Hacker who was calling in Bomb Threats.
The story can be found here:
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