One wonders when we might expect some words of regret or condolences from Cheney about the innocent bystanders who were killed in what we understand was an assassination attempt against him. According to some reports, in addition to some 20 Pakistani workers, there was an American serviceman and a contractor. Endangering others for the sake of a photo-op is something that at least ought to be taken into consideration.

I've seen no mention from him of the lives lost due to his presence. Surely, he knows he's a "terrorist magnet". That entails some responsibility on his part, it seems to me.

I just realized my post referred to Pakistan, and not Afghanistan, where the Cheny incident occurred. Of course, the sentiment expressed still applies with equal force.

"If two or more microphones are clicked at the same instant, the transmissions cancel each other out, delivering a noisy occlusion of static or a high-pitched squeal called a 'heterodyne.'"

Another irony here was the fact that, more than a decade earlier, a group of engineers in the FAA's Frequency Management group, including my father, had proposed that the AM VHF radio system used for ATC be replaced with radios using Single-Sideband (SSB) communications. In addition to reducing bandwidth and power requirements for the radios, it would have eliminated the squeal of the heterodyne. When two SSB transmitters are keyed up at the same time, the effect is simply one of two voices speaking at once, without the squeal. I've often wondered whether that difference would have saved lives that day on Tenerife. Anyway, as often happens with such things, the proposal failed to get the support of the airlines, who didn't want to buy new radio equipment.

The comedian Blake Clark famously said that the Army is like the Boy Scouts, except for the adult supervision. This observation seems to apply to the RNC as well.

OK, I think the time has come to do the thing that is almost always considered "beyond the pale" for civil political discourse these days. I think that a comparison of Bush with Hitler should be definitely "on the table" for any freedom-loving American.

It has been my feeling for quite some time that this little unwritten rule about not comparing someone to Hitler until he's killed at least as many people as Adolf, should be scrapped. After all, if we hold to that rule, the pledge of "Never Again!!" is without meaning.

The post by "timbuktom" reminded me that I'd seen depictions of God with a triangular halo. I first saw this on a cartoon by a Spanish cartoonist I'd run across, and a little research in Wikipedia confirms that a triangular halo is sometimes used in religious iconography for God the Father himself (herself?).

Purple, of course, is also often regarded as a sacred color. But, Falwell saw Tinky Winky through his own lens, didn't he?

Even before the Bill of Rights was added to the constitution by the process of Amendment, the original Constitution had these words (Article VI, paragraph 3)

"...no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."

So you don't have to do even a slightly tortured interpretaion of the establishment clause of the first amendment to see that what the Bush Admininistration is doing in DOJ in unconstitutional. It's in the ORIGINAL language of the constitution wherein separation of church and state is first observed. Showing any preference for Regent Law School graduates, as is painfully obvious, goes againt this principle.

I was interested to see how it was that the superiority of the Dvorak layout was "debunked" in the two articles by Liebowitz and Margolis. After reading them, I found their arguments to be very weak and way too glib. The earlier one was an article in the "Journal of Law and Economics". The article was a rambling discourse which mostly showed that it was difficult to find studies proving the superiority of Dvorak once and for all. Instead, they cite statistics for typing-speed competitions that were held before the Dvorak keyboard was even invented.

The problem, of course, is that demonstrating the superiority of Dvorak to QWERTY requires a well-matched group of test subjects thoroughly trained in each of the two layouts, and it's hard to find such a set, simply because professional typists who are totally dedicated to Dvorak don't exist, and it's hard to train up a set just for the purpose of conducting a study.

What's interesting to note is the strong undercurrent of both articles... the sort one might expect from economics professors devoted to the "Law and Economics" ideology, who are desperate to debunk anything, however innocuous, that might call into question the notion that "market forces" will always sort out the "best" from the "also-rans". (In other words, "we don't need no steekin' Anti-trust laws!".)

I found, in short, that the articles revealed more about the mindset of the true believers in "Law and Economics" than it revealed about keyboards.

Some years ago, I tried the Dvorak for a while, and found it to be a vastly superior layout. But, realistically, I also found that I could not make the switch because I happen to live in a world full of QWERTY, so I reluctantly gave up the fight, like most others do. Only when all keyboards I encounter can be instantly switched to Dvorak (including the labels on the keycaps) will I be able to realistically make the switch.

Prophetic words, indeed!

As the polar ice continues to melt, we'll soon see many men (and women, and children, etc) walking on higher ground, especially those who live near the coast.

...and King Abdullah's doing his share, too.