According to San Diego’s 10News: “Kenneth Starr says he never should have led the investigation that resulted in the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton.”
(Via Salon.com.)
Tarnished silver bird
As I noted, I flew on Friday night from BOS to LHR. The trip was probably the most uncomfortable I’ve done across the pond. First we got away 90 minutes late, because of a faulty spoiler indicator that had to be replaced. Then the seats proved to be too short in the leg, and the placement of the IFE [in-flight entertainment] equipment meant that even though the nominal pitch was reasonable it was imposible to get comfortable. And then the meal service was slow, and things were pretty bumpy from about 20W to the Irish coast. Bottom line: I got less than an hour’s sleep. Not surprisingly I slept like I log on Saturday night – from about 6pm to 8am!
I’m posting this from the Sun office at 55 King William Street in the City of London, a few yards from The Monument (see right).
I out-eek Alec Muffett
alec muffett :: dropsafe :: articles : life : I have worked 1/3rd of my life for Sun Microsystems (12 out of 36 years). For me, the numbers are 19 and 54, meaning that I’ve worked here for 35% of my life. “eek”, indeed. I’m still having fun, though….
Silver bird
I’m off to England this evening for a week: AA108, BOS-LHR, 777-200. Here’s a nice image from Airliners.net.
(I think this is the first time I’ve included third-party Javascript in a blog entry – I wonder how the RSS aggregators will handle it. UPDATE: It doesn’t validate properly according to the W3C tools.)
First racism, now censorship
Not content with preserving the racist language in their state constitution, those wacky Alabamians are at it again. State Representative Gerald Allen is proposing to burn (OK, ban from libraries) all books that include homosexual characters. Neil Gaiman has blogged about it, as has Sully. So much for Tennessee Williams’ southern classic “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof”, Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple” and Evelyn Waugh’s “Brideshead Revisited”. (And Dave Thompson’s book on “Last Tango in Paris” would also be excluded: the proposed ban would also cover books containing heterosexual “actions prohibited by the sodomy and sexual misconduct laws of Alabama”.)
Among the sage
Another photo from Monday. Yes, I know that the closest blossoms are out of focus: I turned on macro and thrust the camera deep into the bush….
Searching for the perfect Linux laptop
Quite a few of my friends and colleagues are running Linux on their laptops, but it seems that each of them reports that something doesn’t work quite right – WiFi, or sleep mode, or power management. (And the Web seems to be filled with horror stories, hacks, and half-baked solutions.) I’m curious if this is a universal truth, or whether someone has managed to achieve The Perfect Linux Laptop configuration. I’m thinking of things like:
- sleep to RAM works
- everything works correctly after waking from sleep (even if you’ve unplugged a USB or FireWire device while sleeping)
- WiFi automatically connects to known and public networks, and reconnects after sleep
- power settings (screen brightness, CPU speed) automatically adjust when you unplug from the mains
- able to play, read and write CDs and DVDs
- automatically switch to mirrored or multiple screens if an external monitor or projector is plugged in
- etc.
I can’t believe it’s really that hard – is it? (And does the Tecra M2 on CAMS fit the bill?)
50 years after Rosa Parks….
The Guardian reports that a ballot initiative in Alabama has failed (despite a recount), which means that the state constitution will still contain language such as: “Separate schools shall be provided for white and coloured children, and no child of either race shall be permitted to attend a school of the other race.” Since this racist claptrap has already been declared unconstitutional, why would Alabamians want to retain it? The mind boggles. But when I saw that former Alabama Chief Justice Roy “Ten Commandments” Moore was involved….
(Via Salon.)
"Play something sad"
The Guardian reports that an incident in which soldiers forced a violinist to play at a roadblock is causing an uproar within Israel. Recent IDF abuses such as the shooting of a young girl and the mutilation of corpses generated less angst than this: “If we allow Jewish soldiers to put an Arab violinist at a roadblock and laugh at him, we have succeeded in arriving at the lowest moral point possible. Our entire existence in this Arab region was justified, and is still justified, by our suffering; by Jewish violinists in the camps.”
(Via Juan Cole.)
Carmel Valley at dawn
Monday morning, just after dawn, click for 1600×1200 version.