Those bloody cartoons.

Excellent piece on the whole Danish Muhammad cartoons mess from the SFGate.

As for me, I've tried to be a good, understanding person. I've actually read the Koran (in translation), and have studied the history of the religion and culture. But the current level of insanity in Islam is pushing me into the "nuke Mecca" camp. The problem is that the bulk of the world's Muslims, while not radicals, refuse to do anything to stop the excesses of the extremists. Hell, from what I've seen, there seems to be almost an acceptance of the actions of terrorists and rabid mullahs in some quarters.

The base intolerance of the extremists pisses me off. I am not Muslim. If I decide to draw the Prophet, I have no bar to doing so. I am not an observant Jew, so I can eat pepperoni pizza with glee. Nor am I Catholic, so I am free to use birth control, etc.. The religious fanatics of the world are going to have to learn that they cannot impose their religious laws on others.

It must be mine!

The Tomorrow Show - Punk & New Wave

"May I say, Kim," Tom Snyder says to a heavily made-up Kim Fowley, "You look ridiculous tonight." So begins one of late night television's more bizarre interviews. Spanning the musically volatile years from1977-1981, these eight Tomorrow Showepisodes all focus on the burgeoning punk/new wave movement. To his credit, Snyder doesn't pretend to like or even understand it, but nor does he criticize (although he does chuckle on occasion). Mostly, he lets the musicians speak for themselves and play a few tunes. All the while, he looks thoroughly bemused, comfortably enveloped in a nimbus cloud of cigarette smoke--along with a few of his guests, like a soft-spoken Paul Weller (the Jam) and surly John Lydon (Public Image Limited). Other participants include Elvis Costello, Iggy Pop, the Plasmatics, the Ramones, Patti Smith, and Joan Jett (circa the Runaways, who were produced by Fowley). Smith, Jett, and Lydon, joined by PiL band mate Keith Levene, do not perform. The rest do. The Plasmatics make the most of the opportunity with "Master Plan," during which Wendy O. Williams spray-paints, smashes the windows, and then blows up a car. Other notable numbers include Pop's "Five Foot One" and the Jam's "Pretty Green." Because these programs are shown in their entirety, several non-musical guests, like Frank Capra and Ricky Schroeder, also put in appearances (and to Joey Ramone's chagrin, Kelly Lang is the fill-in for Snyder during the Ramones segment).

Wendy O blows up a car. Damn, I miss old-school punk.

Science on the march!

George C. Deutsch, the young presidential appointee at NASA who told public affairs workers to limit reporters' access to a top climate scientist and told a Web designer to add the word "theory" at every mention of the Big Bang, resigned yesterday, agency officials said. Mr. Deutsch's resignation came on the same day that officials at Texas A&M University confirmed that he did not graduate from there,as his résumé on file at the agency asserted.

A 24 year old college dropout was directing the tone of NASA's science releases. Bastard should have been fired for cause, IMHO. Lying on your application is good enough reason to me!

In cooler science news, we had a meeting yesterday with our President and Founder, Pete Warhurst. Pete is a cool dude, very down to Earth and approachable. He makes semi-annual trips around the country to meet with the drivers and hear our concerns and suggestions. And he really listens to us. But yesterday, he brought a new toy.

Ever since I was hired, we've been hearing about the ongoing process in getting a GPS unit. Well, we're getting one. It's also a phone, camera, bar code scanner, and paperless office. This is going to revolutionize the way we do business. The easiest way to explain all the changes is to tell two stories..

( A Day In The Life Of A PODS Driver 1: Currently )

( A Day In The Life Of A PODS Driver 2: The Future! )

As you can see, this will be far more efficient since jobs will be assigned in real-time. Last minute changes won't screw up routes beyond all repair. The one stumbling point I can see is going to be when an Initial Drop comes up with an order for numerous moving blankets. Those things take up massive amounts of space, and I tend to carry no more than ten in my storage locker. So that might cause some unscheduled runs back to the warehouse. But we're all really happy about the change to a paperless office. That is the biggest freaking bottleneck in our dealings with customers. At minimum, I need to explain three pages and get two signatures and four sets of initials before I can drop a pod. Getting rid of that will shave ten minutes off a drop. During the busiest months, we'll be doing ten or more jobs a day. So those time savings will be the difference between working ten hours and working twelve.

In non-geek work news, I also found out that if I take college courses that are work related (and they have a very liberal definition of work related) they'll pay the tuition! This will have to wait until I can afford a motorcycle; but taking some business/computer classes at DeAnza would really help me in my quest to move up in the company. (As would a basic course in auto mechanics and Spanish.)

mmmm... eggs...

Beats me what's going to happen, but I'm a Lemming.