Looks like a coupla lucky Spaniards made good use of the remaining life on the Concorde jet. Congratulations to them!

I hate spam. Duh… so does just about everyone else. On the mail server I run the rules are extremely tight.  Just today 110 out of 175 messages are either outright rejected or tagged as spam by SpamAssassin. I run a really tight set of rules on Postfix, blocking misconfigured mail servers, running against black-hole lists, checking against sets of spam regex’s. The only rule I had to turn off was blocking mail that reverse DNS against a DSL address. And that was 99% effective, I just had a friend running his mail server on his DSL line.

Still, with all that, I still get about 1/3rd spam in my mail. Looks like the Gummint now wants in on spam regulation… I’m not sure if this is a good thing or not. Somehow I doubt it. I just can’t see it being a good thing.

Wonder if it will do any good at all.

Talk about small and effective… The Davey Crockett looks like a bazooka. But significantly more effective.

My ship was sunk over the weekend. Well, the server was at least. Both motherboard and main drive went AFU. (Thats a technical term for All F*cked Up.) So I built a new box, and restored the backups from the other drive. Had to do this about a dozen times before I had the right combination of non-broke hardware. Then, after the last restore where I got most of the data off, the drive with all my backups died also. Damn, I really hate computers…

And I’m talking the old fashioned kind… cut from a tree. Something Grandpa Simpson would be proud of. Then take it to the democrats spoiled asses! And I don’t mean their presidential candidates. Both in Texas and in the US Congress. They are acting like such children right now. Don’t like what the majority is doing? Rather than rely on reason and logic, which the Dems are always short on, the filibuster or break the law and leave the state. In Texas they won’t stop breaking the law unless they get their way and have the proposal that is supported by the majority withdrawn. Temper tantrum or extortion? Neither is an adult thing to do. And of course the democrat press, like the NYT, supports them in their efforts. Politics are a shameful thing in the first place. But they’re acting like their in some third world nation…

Editorials like this are why I watch/read Fox News. They may or may not be “fair and balanced” (Personally methinks everything is biased, but these guys are closest to the center) depending on your viewpoint, but at least they call it like it is. The liberal editorials are written/spoken with so much assumed authority that most do assume its hard news. And not just their opinions on a story. But that editorialism has crept into their hard news so its sometimes hard to tell from just looking at the stories which is editorial and which comes from reporting.

I’m only going to do one post on the entire war in Iraq.
I was there the first time we went through all this. I was in Safwan and Rahfa doing refugee flights. I remember having to hose out the back of a C-130 because the flight had been rather bumpy. And another one that stalled on the runway and couldn’t start up. We didn’t have an APU to start up the engines either. So we parked another C-130 in front of it and it spun up its propellers fast enough to start the stalled planes engines spinning, kind of like a fan blowing a fan. But mostly I remember the people that were flown out if Iraq. I remember one woman in a red dress. Not sure why she didn’t have on a burqa.
I hope the remaining refugees can finally return in peace. Its hard to believe they have been in the camps this long. But every Iraqi I had met knew the answer. Very few parts of the world are so far in the darkness that they do not know what freedom is, even if they do not have it themselves. I firmly believe Iraq is now a better place. It may be difficult, things may be chaotic, but this is their release. This is also thier “interesting times…”

This is me as Boater Romeo in Rafha, Saudi Arabia, being an Air Traffic Controller because I knew how to work the crypto gear on the radios…

Think about it.

It’s the conservative movement that is trying to protect your freedoms. The liberal movement does nothing to expand your rights, they just restrict them, with speech codes, gun laws, and neighborhood covenants.

Why is it that the closer you get into the city, the more rights you lose? Is there something special about humans not being able to get along when they’re that close together that they need ever more laws and restrictions? I listen to the sociologists who rant on and on about how suburbs are bad, and people should be staying in the city, blah blah blah. Utter crap. I’ve never heard a valid argument from them about just why we should live like that. Open country doesn’t have laws restricting speech, guns, what you do with your property, etc. Its only the closer you get to the city that suddenly you have to watch what you have, say, and do. I think that when you’re that close to everyone else, you start feeling that you have a say in what they do and how they live. Its not right. Life is too short to have someone tell you how to live.

Do something about it. The ACLU only fights for the rights that it thinks people should have. Hypocrites. Join the NRA. Donate to the EFF. Stand up to your elected representatives and tell them that you’ve had enough. That they’re not judged by how many laws they can pass in a session. That its okay for them to stand up and say No, that is a bad law, and we shouldn’t regulate more and more.

I never meant to be political. Something is just so disgusting about it. So personally distasteful. As the years go on, I learn. I think. And I decide. And I’ve decided to throw my lot in with the conservative side. Everything the left wing knows about the conservatives is wrong. They never bother to learn about their “enemy.” They just let the left biased media define it for them. Its the height of laziness.

C.K. Dexter Haven. Thats just the best name for a guy. Especially when Hepburn says it. Just something so cool about it.

I’m watching the Philadelphia Story. Such incredible dialog between everyone. A veritable swordfight of words, start to finish. I was in New Orleans on a Saturday night the first time I saw this one. Was getting ready to head out of the hotel in a few minutes and had the TV on. Couldn’t leave until it was over. James Stewart drunk is a funny thing to see.

Rent it if you’re in an interesting mood.

“This is one of those days that the pages of history suggest is best spent lying in bed…” - Uncle Willie.

All I have to say is that Comcast cable has the most jackass stupid, well, idiots is being kind, people on their anti-satellite commercials. They’re flat out incredible. The guy who doesn’t know how to turn a wrench because he has to keep re-pointing his antenna every few hours? Having a bunch of housewives on the screen saying that someone they don’t know will come install this antenna (like you know your cable company tech on a first name basis!) just to spread FUD. If that is customary for Comcast customers, man, I’m really glad I have DirecTV. Hell, when I hooked up the dish, it was something like 15 below freezing out, and I had it installed in about 15 minutes. But, the real clincher was when I got it running, Tina comes in, looks at the screen, and remarked that she has never seen a clearer picture! Its better than even people with the digital cable that I’ve seen. Gotta love it. Oh, and only if some of the women I dated went up and down as often as the cable internet does… UPDATE: Finally went back to satellite. And it was as wonderful as I remembered it. Much nicer picture, many more channels, and cheaper.

You know, looking at my credit card bills, I must spend money like a Democrat. You know, spending too much money I don’t have, on things I really don’t need, with no idea how to pay it back. Pretty scary stuff.

Helped put out an airplane fire when it crashed… made the front page, me and Kevin Rydzewski…

To be a Pirate is more than just a job. It is not something you can do on the 8-5, Monday thru Friday. It is a way of life. It takes dedication, courage and skill. Not something you would normally do as an accountant, or a mid-level manager, or working in a call center for the cable TV company listening to people complain about their bill. No, it is something so much greater than that. It is a feeling you have, a drive that takes over everything you do. Its one part Hacker, one part Bon Vivant, and one part Lunatic. Being a Pirate is doing everything you do while knowing that it could be the last thing you do, so what the hell, do it with pleasure, with spirit, and with a reckless disregard for the consequences.