I just visited the Drudge Report, and I tried to open a link in a new window (in Firefox) by holding shift and left-clicking, as is my idiom.

Stupid thing wouldn't open, because of the Javascript DOM mangler that Drudge's advertisers use to create those horrid popups/popunders.
Then I realized something - this Javascript is being inserted in the page as a SRC'd element, meaning that I can use Adblock to filter it. Sure enough, something from a "js.eproof.com" was being included.
(Quick aside - I must give credit to slothdog for pointing out a fabulous Adblock filterset in his journal.)

Bam! I added "*.eproof.com/*" to my blacklist, and I can open windows with full confidence and comfort.

Huzzah!

Oh, and I didn't mention the little modification I made to Adblock to allow me to block things on the fly... a little control-shift-doubleclick and they're blacklisted and removed immejitlee. It's great for when Britney Spears (or poptart du jour, or any scantily clad someone that I don't need to see) shows up on Yahoo News' "Most Popular" page. No thanks.

Teehee. I'm such a hax0r. ;-*

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/02/22/bush.iran.ap/index.html

Bush: Attack on Iran 'ridiculous'

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- U.S. President George W. Bush said Tuesday that it is "simply ridiculous" to assume that the United States has plans to attack Iran over its alleged nuclear weapons program after discussing the issue with European allies.

"This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous. Having said that, all options are on the table," Bush said.

Note how CNN's first paragraph summary is not corroborated by anything Bush says in the second.

Of course the U.S. has plans to attack Iran. We have plans to attack Mexico, too, and maybe even Canada (those'd be a hoot to read through) - but you can have plans without acting on them.
Note Bush's words - we're not "getting ready to attack Iran," but "all options are on the table." He never said anything about not having plans.

CNN can go take a flying leap and hopefully get a clue.

Hi, turbogoat!

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/02/03/mideast/index.html

Check out Ariel Sharon's glasses - the man's EMO!

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=769&e=20&u=/nm/life_spongebob_dc

U.S. Christians Issue Gay Warning Over Kid Video

Thu Jan 20, 7:39 PM ET

By Jill Serjeant

All U.S. Christians?
Wow. That's pretty impressive.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Christian Conservative groups have issued a gay alert warning over a children's video starring SpongeBob SquarePants, Barney and a host of other cartoon favorites.

Oh, just Christian Conservative groups. Reading further, it's the American Family Association and James Dobson.

When I first read a headline of this sort on CNN, I thought it was just a poor choice on their part to try to squeeze it into their famously short frontpage taglines.
Now I see that the direct Reuters feed has a misleading headline.

Now, let's put the shoe on the other foot. If U.S. Muslim groups put together a warning or some such, and it was reported as "Muslims decry such-and-so", it would be a terrible simplification of the Muslim community that is an affront to that peaceful faith, and an attempt at disparaging Americans that just want to live in peace, and why are you such a bigot!

But hey, when it's time to put together a headline about Christian groups, feel free to label and associate all Christians with it.

In this case, it doesn't bother me, because I agree with their concerns, as near as I can tell from the article, but I'm concerned that this tactic would be applied when some group endorses a lunatic shooting up an abortion clinic or something.

Go Go Gadget Journalistic Objectivity! *sputter* *pop* *gasp*
Hmm, seems to be broken.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&u=/ap/20050115/ap_on_re_us/anti_bush_bracelets_3&printer=1

After spending 10 days in London with friends who were outspoken about their disdain for President Bush's policies, Berns Rothchild came home wishing she had a way to show the world she didn't vote for him.

"I sort of felt ashamed, and didn't really want to be associated with being an American," said Rothchild, who lives in New York City and voted for John Kerry.

I know that fair-weather fans exist in all areas of life, but I also know they aren't tolerated well in the realm of sports.

It would be funny to see citizenship treated the same way.

Update (2005-01-15, 01:27 GMT): Obviously, I was overzealous in my condemnation of whining; free speech and petition are never to be infringed, but making snide (fashion) statements to make yourself feel better INSTEAD of petitioning the government with real concerns is what really drives me batty.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2027&e=20&u=/chitribts/mysteriousjettiedtotortureflights

How much red tape does it take to cover up entire CIA operations? Apparently a lot.

I suppose it helps that I just watched the Bourne Supremacy two nights ago... (Bourne Identity was better, IMO.)
Not that I expect Hollywood's rendition to be anywhere near the truth, but my mind is relatively pleased to have been fed something from reality that has hints of that fantasy... kinda like the poisoning of Viktor Yushchenko.

Okay, I saw the Orange Bowl video replayed on the Jimmy Kimmel show. It was pretty bad.
But that merely set the stage for the most bizarre and frighteningly entertaining piece of reporting I've seen in a while.

http://www.local10.com/entertainment/4048912/detail.html

Click on the "Watch Our Slideshow Of What Happened" link.
Are my standards for reporting too high, or am I misunderstanding this "slideshow" format... ?

"See Ashlee.
See Ashley gyrate.
See crowd.
Crowd unhappy.
Camera zooms in."

Everything past the first slide is childish, and even that first caption has an odd tone - "It was a big show at Pro Player Stadium Tuesday night for the Orange Bowl halftime extravaganza." How about "Tuesday night's Orange Bowl halftime extravaganza at Pro Player Stadium was a grand epic." Well, okay, maybe I can't do much better.
Anyway, it would've seemed more professional without the captions. "Sang her heart out"?

Dude, that's some rockin' journalism right there.

Public Service Announcement:

Roger Moe of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party of Minnesota (DFL), sounds almost EXACTLY like Frank Oz.

That is all.

I was driving out of the parking lot of the grocery store tonight and noticed a pickup's license plate:

DYX 668

Now, being endowed with a razor-sharp intellect and some spare cycles, my brain decided to entertain itself by looking for patterns, mnemonics, and hidden meanings.
Well, my 15 seconds of contemplation produced these items:

1. 668 is the neighbor of the Beast.
   • (houses are even on one side, odd on the other - 667 would be across the street, 664 and 668 are the next-door neighbors to 666.)
2. DYX is like STYX, but in a QWERTY typo kind of way. D is next to S.
3. Styx is related to Hell, which is related to the Devil, whose number is 666.
4. So... this car's license plate refers to the river next to Styx, whichever that one is.
   And probably the one just a touch north (streets and addresses normally increase from south to north).

I laughed, and decided I had to write a JE about it.

Impressed? Scared? Nonplussed?
Tell me.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=541&e=1&u=/ap/wristband_safety

Hospitals Cover Up LiveStrong Bracelets

TAMPA, Fla. - A hospital chain is taping over patients' LiveStrong wristbands because they are yellow -- the same color as the "do not resuscitate" bands it puts on patients who do not want to be saved if their heart stops.

Heh, whoops.

I wonder if my neighbors heard me laughing just now...

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041206/ap_on_el_pr/ohio_vote

Ohio has certified the results - President Bush has officially won by nearly 119,000 votes.

We have a reasonably active "Unofficial Political Mailing List" here at work. A few conservative viewpoints, a few liberal viewpoints, and the fun begins.
Anwyay, Coworker A sent this out yesterday:

The media has not covered the Bin Laden tape much. Some interesting stuff
here, especially what the Iraq citizen had to say.
http://www.truthlaidbear.com/archives/2004/11/01/bin_laden_or_alaa.php#001542

This is one of the responses from Coworker B:

<rant>
I think it will be interesting what people will say about liberal cowardice if Kerry manages to undo the unilateral actions of the current administration and gets a bunch of larger countries (one's with real armies) to toss their troops into Iraq with us and we can get Iraqis to work.

I have a general question that I put to a friend the other day.
Everyone seems to think that the people shooting at our troops in Iraq are 'terrorists'. Why?
Consider what we're doing...
1) We are driving around their cities in armour, with guns, having whipped their army twice now.
2) We are acting nearly alone.
3) We're protecting and rebuilding the oil-fields to the near exclusion of the things that make life normal to the average citizen, so it sure looks like we're there for our own gain.
4) We claim that we're going to give them the best government (Democracy) that exists.

Now, just think about it. If France or someone invaded northern Minnesota with the 'intention' of saving us from our insane form of government, just how long would it take before you had a gun in your hand? Me (a liberal)?... 'bout 10 seconds.
So if I'm willing to kill people trying to change my country/give me something I didn't ask for/ruling me, why would I think the average Iraqi would not do the same.
I agree that the world is a better place without Saddam, but we could have isolated him for the rest of time at almost no cost or just tiny military injunctions. We don't belong there and have only our own interests driving us.
</rant>

Well, after my period of relative silence over the past few weeks, I deemed it suitable to respond:

The main difference is that the US has not violated militarily-enforcable U.N. resolutions. Iraq agreed to all of this by joining the UN. Saddam's government schemed to deceive weapons inspectors and fired on coalition (not just US) planes for the last 12 years. The war was never over. Until Saddam would have fulfilled the terms of the resolutions ending the '91 war, it wasn't a done deal. He just reopened the can of worms.
        http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/01fs/14906.htm
It wasn't just the US that thought measures were necessary - the entire UN Security Council passed resolution 1441 - even though that wasn't needed, he'd never fulfilled the terms of the others, primarily Resolution 715.
Regardless, what would you do if a "bunch of larger countries" invaded Minnesota? Would you specifically attack other Americans in the process? Is there a scenario in which you would accept and welcome "invaders"?

I take exception to point #3. All services are increasing - but that's not exciting, Fallujah is. So guess what gets reported? It's not the additional ~1 GW of capacity the Iraqi power grid has. It's not the rebuilt wastewater treatment center that now serves Baghdad. It's not the improvements in healthcare. Very little good gets reported. "No news is good news"? Apparently the converse is true, at least. Good news is no news.
Here's some info about the Iraqi reconstruction:
        http://www.usaid.gov/iraq/updates/oct04/iraq_fs04_102804.pdf
with a table of contents at
        http://www.usaid.gov/iraq/updates/
Also, as I understand it, the US isn't seeing any proceeds from the oil - the Iraqis are.
        http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-06/01/content_335435.htm
Besides, from the conspiracy-theory point of view, wouldn't Bush want to isolate the Iraqi oil fields to ensure that his Texas oil buddies got higher prices?
But anyway. Even if the media was reporting good things and humanitarian progress with as much fervor as they were reporting the MDKs, it's still apparently a bad bad thing because the US has too much of the burden.
Our GDP is 10-11 trillion, compared to Russia's 1.2 and France's 1.5, and Germany's 2 trillion. So would it be fair when we share an equal monetary share, or only when we have a share equal to our relative GDP? Or maybe as a percentage of our total foreign aid? Who knows.
China (6 trillion), Japan (3-4 trillion), and India (2-3 trillion) have the highest GDPs after the US (then follows Germany and France) - but I can't see China footing a third of the bill at the moment.

Point #4, as I understand it, is something that the Iraqis agree with. No one is clamoring for a new sadistic dictatorship - nor are they being denied that, if they want to elect officials that will reenact a despotic leadership via legislation as opposed to civil war or a coup.
Of course, feel free to postulate about the likelihood of the US going back in if Mr. Unpopular gets elected. We don't have anywhere near enough cynicism going on yet.

Isolating Saddam was impossible. It was not possible to seal his borders - we can't even seal the US-Mexican border or the US-Canada border. That's not a sign of incompetence, it's a reality. The biggest thing controlling large-scale support of terrorist groups are a terrorist-friendly governments providing shelter and funding.
If we hadn't fulfilled the obligations of the Security Council, Saddam would've not only gone on unilaterally killing anyone he pleased, he would be able to continue sheltering, training, and funding terrorist groups.

I was going to send this in a seperate email, but it seems appropriate here:
        http://www.voicesofiraq.com/
I heard about this on NPR - I'm kinda interested to see it.

No responses yet. I don't know if it needs any, or if it'd get to be a wild, sprawling debate that no one has time for. In any case, I was pleased with most of it, and I wanted it preserved here.

I just got this emailed to me by a coworker... I love it.

I must've missed it when it hit the front page, so here it is for all of you that missed it as well.

So far this is one of the most useful things I have ever found that works with a cell phone. For example, I put in Subway 55427 and got back the address and phone number of the one just off 55. Definitely adding 46645 to my permanent directory...

Read about how to use it here.
http://www.google.com/sms/

From: ComputerZen.com - Scott Hanselman's Weblog
Posted At: Thursday, October 07, 2004 7:16 PM
Posted To: ComputerZen.com - Scott Hanselman's Weblog
Conversation: Google SMS launches
Subject: Google SMS launches

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/PermaLink.aspx?guid=addec052-da9c-4eac-8f4e-a919ec305366 | Comments
Wow...on a Blackberry this is WAY faster and more useful than the WAP browser. I did a Google 97229 and found my local Target. :)

How cool is this: With the new Google SMS service, you can do basic Google queries from any SMS-capable phone (which is darn near all of them) by sending text messages to 46645 (GOOGL). Results usually come within a minute, and are text-based only - no links or other craziness that could screw up an SMS. So far, you can get local business listings, product prices and comparisons, dictionary definitions, and more is planned soon (or already there and they just haven't told us about it yet). So, for instance, enter something like "Starbucks 10016" and you'll get a response with nearest place to get burnt-tasting, overpriced coffee. Well, near us, anyway, unless you change the "10016." Give it a go and let us know how it works for you. So far our results have been positive.
[Engadget]

CAMERON DIAZ ELECTION SCARE: 'IF YOU THINK RAPE SHOULD BE LEGAL, THEN DON'T VOTE'
Thu Sep 30 2004 12:12:11 ET

On Oprah's Wednesday 'voting party' show featuring important celebrities like P. Diddy (Vote or Die!), Drew Barrymore and Christina Aguilera, svelte suffragette Cameron Diaz took to shock tactics to get the female vote out.

After a discussion on lynching and the vote with Oprah, Diaz spoke of the dire consequences for women if they sit out this election:

Ms. DIAZ: We have a voice now, and we're not using it, and women have so much to lose. I mean, we could lose the right to our bodies. We could lo--if you think that rape should be legal, then don't vote. But if you think that you have a right to your body, and you have a right to say what happens to you and fight off that danger of losing that, then you should vote, and those are the...

WINFREY: It's your voice.

Ms. DIAZ: It's your voice. It's your voice, that's your right.

I'm continually amazed by the lack of cognitive dissonance regarding the ~50 percent of developing humans that are female, and thereby deserve those same highly-vaunted women's rights.

Rape is uninvited violation of one's body... and that's what abortion is to the unseen human.