[Microsoftie David] Gainer said Excel makes mistakes multiplying 77.1 by 850, 10.2 by 6,425 and 20.4 by 3,212.5, but the program appears to be able to handle 16,383.75 times 4.
(MyWay)
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran's parliament on Saturday approved a nonbinding resolution labeling the CIA and the U.S. Army "terrorist organizations," in apparent response to a Senate resolution seeking to give a similar designation to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
A senior European diplomat attending the conference, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the meeting confirmed European suspicions that it had been intended by Mr Bush as a spoiler for a major UN conference on climate change in Bali in December.
"It was a total charade and has been exposed as a charade," the diplomat said. "I have never heard a more humiliating speech by a major leader. He [Mr Bush] was trying to present himself as a leader while showing no sign of leadership. It was a total failure."
John Ashton, Britain's special envoy on climate change, who attended the conference, said: "It is striking here how isolated the US has become on this issue. There is no support among the industrialised countries for the proposition that we should proceed on the basis of voluntary commitments.
(Guardian Unlimited)
CINCINNATI — After four months of clawing out, crawling back and maybe even fighting off a little history near the end, the Cubs finally popped their cork Friday night in Cincinnati.
Yeah, track that sucker! Sure sounds like a recreational waterborne illness to me. Not that it sounds recreational much.PHOENIX - It sounds like science fiction but it's true: A killer amoeba living in lakes enters the body through the nose and attacks the brain where it feeds until you die....
"This is definitely something we need to track," said Michael Beach, a specialist in recreational waterborne illnesses for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
People who are infected tend to complain of a stiff neck, headaches and fevers.
BEIJING (Reuters) - Days after banning "sexually provocative sounds" on television, China has now stopped networks showing "saucy" adverts for push-up bras and figure-hugging underwear ahead of a major Communist Party meeting next month.
In the US, of the ten most frequently challenged books of 2006, according to the American Library Association, nine were cited for sexuality and/or homosexuality.
The Republicans don't have as much power as the Commies yet, but they're working on it.
The US administration on Friday slapped visa bans on more than 30 members of the Myanmar junta and their families, the State Department said.
"In response to the Burmese regime's continued crackdown, the State Department has designated more than three dozen additional government and military officials and their families as ineligible to receive visas to travel to the United States," department spokesman Tom Casey said in a statement.
Those guys really play tough, don't they?
"I'm pretty sure there will be duck hunting in heaven and I can't wait."
Local officials in Indiana are having a tough time explaining how federal dollars designated for counter-terrorism could be used to buy a hovercraft designed for all-weather rescue missions (short answer: It won't, unless you're expecting terrorists on water skiis).
This is a mowing machine of some kind. It balances on a single axle, has a cutting blade at the front, a metal seat at the rear, and a hand brake. You can see the hand brake, vertical, at the left of the picture.
UMass to seek strong leader
(Springfield Republican)
After the meeting, Wilson [that'd be Jack Wilson, the university president] said he is looking for a leader for the flagship, but does not see the leadership limited to the Amherst campus [UMass has a campus in Boston too].
"The flagship is not a solo act," he said. "The flagship leads a fleet; it's part of a team."
So somebody else can lead the university - you get to lead the fleet! That's what I call a good deal, Bunky. Maybe you ought to call Jack.
Verizon Wireless made a ripple recently by refusing to carry text messages from Naral, an abortion rights group, even in answer to requests from subscribers. It appears now the company has "reversed course," as the Times delicately puts it. Why?
"[The decision] was an incorrect interpretation of a dusty internal policy," Mr. [Jeffrey] Nelson [a company spokesman] said.Way to go, Jeff!
WASHINGTON - A government video shows the potential destruction caused by hackers seizing control of a crucial part of the U.S. electrical grid: an industrial turbine spinning wildly out of control until it becomes a smoking hulk and power shuts down.
But Bunky, why is this stuff connected up to the network the way it is? (Notice I'm not asking what company in Redmond, WA, made the software. It never entered my mind. But, now that you mention it, "experts said the affected systems were not developed with security in mind.")
Oh well. We will thwart the evil hackers with...wait for it...
In July the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission proposed a set of standards to help protect the country's bulk electric power supply system from cyber attacks. These standards would require certain users, owners and operators of power grids to establish plans and controls.
...plans and controls!
So I don't know about you but I'm going back to bed.
Using only one hand, Germany's Thomas Vogel unfastened 56 bras in 60 seconds.
(Stuff from the Guiness Book of Records via Yahoo! News)
HILLSBORO, Ohio - A man angry that he wasn't going to be sold a house is accused of using a power saw to turn the abode into a convertible. Rodney Rogers apparently thought an acquaintance was going to build a house and sell it to him, and he was living in it while it was being completed, Highland County Sheriff Ronald Ward said Wednesday.
After the acquaintance refused to complete the sale, Rogers used a power saw last week to make a lateral cut through the walls and siding at about chest level, authorities said.
He cut all the way around the house, Ward said.
(AP via Yahoo! News)
Saying it had the right to block "controversial or unsavory" text messages, Verizon Wireless has rejected a request from Naral Pro-Choice America, the abortion rights group, to make Verizon's mobile network available for a text-message program.
The other leading wireless carriers have accepted the program, which allows people to sign up for text messages from Naral by sending a message to a five-digit number known as a short code.
(emphasis mine)
Messages urging political action are generally thought to be at the heart of what the First Amendment protects. But the First Amendment limits government power, not that of private companies like Verizon.
He believes that diplomacy and economic pressure, such as the divestment bill that he has proposed, is the right way to pressure the Iranian regime. Accordingly, he would have opposed the Kyl-Lieberman amendment had he been able to vote today."
And Whatever It Is, I'm Against It plucks one of them out of Bush's recent UN speech:
"If you're mercilessly killed by roaming bands, you know it's genocide."
According to Reuters and a spanish newspaper called El Pais, Commander Guy thought Saddam was ready to get out of Dodge if he could take some money and a few secrets along.
"The Egyptians are speaking to Saddam Hussein. It seems he's indicated he would be prepared to go into exile if he's allowed to take $1 billion and all the information he wants about weapons of mass destruction," Bush was quoted as saying at the meeting one month before the U.S.-led invasion.
Asked by Aznar whether Saddam could really leave, Bush replied: "Yes, that possibility exists. Or he might even be assassinated."
So yeah, get assassinated too, maybe. But does this mean we could have avoided the whole Iraq mess by buying the guy a ticket to Dubuque?
Seen hanging around a tourist information center just off the Interstate.
Just surfing around, I'm reminded by a History of Computing web site that when the first IBM PC was introduced it "came with a 16,000 character memory, keyboard from an IBM electric typewriter, and a connection for tape cassette player for $1265." There's no mention of a display and as I recall it didn't come with one. A typical display of the era, included or not, would have been monochrome with a 15" diagonal or smaller.
For just a little less money - $1,199 - today you can buy an iMac with a 20" color display, a billion characters of memory and a 250GB hard drive, not to mention such goodies as Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and a webcam.
OK, so it's not a lot cheaper, but it's a whole lot more.
Congress passes a law governing communications surveillance and then holds a hearing to ask the spooks what the law says - is that what's going on here?
On Tuesday, Sen. Russ Feingold pressed McConnell on whether recent updates to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act authorized "bulk collection" on calls from abroad into America.
"It would be authorized, if it were physically possible to do so," McConnell said. "But the purpose of the authorization is for foreign intelligence."
Feingold pressed, "So there is no language actually prohibiting this?"
The [Oregon] DMV denies requests for any combination of letters and numbers that may be viewed as objectionable, in any language, by use of phonetic, numeric or reverse spelling, or when viewed as a mirror image, or that would alarm or offend a reasonable person.
Intimate body parts or sexual or bodily functions are taboo, as are offensive references to race, color, gender, ethnic heritage, or national origin or to alcohol or drugs or paraphernalia.
And Yvonne Bell, a member of the DMV panel that approves plates, knows several naughty meanings of the word, DINK. That Yvonne, she gets around.
So it's tough luck for Mike Udink and his wife, Sally, and their son. No UDINK plates for them.
"Since when can a panel dictate whether your name's offensive or not?" asked Udink, a lineman for Pacific Power.
Since about now, I guess.
The "T" Toaster
Can we get an instant re-play on this? Maybe he had his fingers crossed. I mean, what other explanation could there be? Commander Guy went to the UN today to praise the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights...
Sixty years ago, representatives from 16 nations gathered to begin deliberations on a new international bill of rights. The document they produced is called the Universal Declaration of Human Rights -- and it stands as a landmark achievement in the history of human liberty. It opens by recognizing "the inherent dignity" and the "equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family" as "the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world." And as we gather for this 62nd General Assembly, the standards of the Declaration must guide our work in this world.
...which says, in part...
Article 3.
- Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
Article 5.
- No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Article 8.
- Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.
Article 18.
- Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
Article 19.
- Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Article 18.
- Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
Article 19.
- Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
I'm flaming—you're flaming, we're all flaming liberals. My God, I was just sitting down in my "Impeach Cheney" cap on watching CNN, when when the hat caught fire.
(More from Crooks and Liars)
Jake Wark, spokesman for Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley, yesterday said prosecutors will "follow the evidence and apply the law" in the case of Star Anna Simpson, who was charged after she walked up to an information booth wearing a piece of "art" authorities feared might be a bomb.
"Like it or not, we live in a world in which a person might target an airport," Wark said. "There's a reason why police patrol that area with canines and machine guns. This wasn't a cartoon character she was wearing."
As you sit with your eHarmony spouse watching the movies Netflix prescribes, you might as well be an avatar in Second Life. You have been absorbed into the operating system.
(An Oracle for Our Time, Part Man, Part Machine - NYTimes)
So, in theory, letting cellular companies accommodate new spectrum or technologies by doing software upgrades could expand coverage and services while possibly reducing what we pay for them.
If nothing else comes from this mis-adventure in Iraq it ought to at least put down fears of martial law. We have 160,000 troops in Iraq and we still can't keep order without hiring mercs.BAGHDAD - An Iraqi official conceded Sunday that Blackwater USA's exit would create a "security vacuum" in Baghdad and said the U.S. and Iraq were instead working on revamping regulations governing private security companies after a deadly shooting of civilians.
