Supersonic Jet Takes Slow Boat to New Home. The supersonic jet Concorde came to a halt today as part of a floating museum on a New York river. By Christine Hauser. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

The Concorde keeps showing up at all sorts of parties, just like that annoying programmer who retired back in '98 when his startup got bought by Micro$oft.

The supersonic jet Concorde came to a halt today as part of a floating museum on a New York river, its last stop after a high-altitude career flying celebrities and other passengers at twice the speed of sound across the Atlantic Ocean.

Where it once took wing, the 204-foot-long, 88-ton jet was now tied down, after being hauled onto a barge that plied New York City's waters past the Statue of Liberty and up to the Hudson River pier where the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum is located.

4:20:07 PM    

Random: Hit and Run in San Francisco. Ordinarily a hit and run in the San Francisco Bay area isn't exactly headline-generating if nobody gets seriously hurt, but we live in interesting times... [Morons Dot Org]

I have an idea who the perp might just be....

There was a bizarre hit and run that took place in San Francisco on Tuesday between a 3-year-old girl and a Segway. It may be the first accident of it's kind locally involving the motorized scooter which happens to be banned on city sidewalks.

2:18:38 PM    

I'm so angry about all I can do is link and quote.

    Bursey did not pose a threat to the president, nor was he located in an area restricted to official personnel. Bursey wasn't blocking a corridor the Secret Service needed to keep clear for security reasons. He was standing among citizens who were enthusiastically greeting Bush. Bursey, however, was the only one holding an anti-Bush sign.

    He was ordered to put down his sign or move to a designated protest site more than half a mile away, outside the sight and hearing of the president. Bursey refused. He was then arrested and charged with trespassing by the South Carolina police.     However, those charges were dropped. Understandably, courts across the nation have upheld the right to protest on public property.

    Instead, Bursey was indicted by the federal government for violation of a federal law that allows the Secret Service to restrict access to areas visited by the president. Bursey faces up to six months in prison and a $5,000 fine.

    Members of the U.S. House, including those on the House Judiciary Committee and the House Select Committee on Homeland Security, sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft urging him to drop the federal criminal prosecution of Bursey.

    The letter signed by 11 members of the House, including Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., and Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, states, in part: "As we read the First Amendment to the Constitution, the United States is a 'free speech zone.' In the United States, free speech is the rule, not the exception, and citizens' rights to express it do not depend on their doing it in a way that the president finds politically amenable. . . . We ask that you make it clear that we have no interest as a government in 'zoning' Constitutional freedoms, and that being politically annoying to the president of the United States is not a criminal offense. This prosecution smacks of the use of the Sedition Acts two hundred years ago to protect the president from political discomfort. It was wrong then and it is wrong now."

There's more. Click the link.

2:06:34 PM     leave/read comments []

Just down the road from Bright Eyes Plumbing and Heating.

11:35:59 AM     leave/read comments []

This might be a regular feature.

I Told You So!

11:17:41 AM     leave/read comments []

Um....EEK!?!?!

Terrorism Warning.

Sources in Asia monitoring al Qaeda internet traffic (bulletin boards, e-mail and little-known Arabic language web sites) say the terrorist organization marked Eid al Fitr, the festival has just issued  a new attack warning. The traffic indicates that a major attack will soon be attempted in the United States. ? The big blow will come down very shortly. It will be a series of surprise attacks that will sever America from communication with its armies in Muslim countries.? Muslims living in the United States are urged to ?take advantage of what little time is left? to leave America.

The threats are deemed credible and appear linked to the same sources which last week sent e-mail to Arabic newspapers in London warning that the heart of Tokyo will be attacked if Japan dispatches SDF troops to Iraq.[Nippon Goro Goro]

You heard it here first. Though I'm really not sure what it is exactly you heard.

You can bet whatever it is, it won't involve hijacking airlines. That's about the only thing I'm sure of out of all of this.

1:06:45 AM     leave/read comments []

The Slat Rat catches the latest bit of nastiness our government has snuck into a spending bill:

Congress expands FBI Spying Power. Buried in an intelligence spending bill that Congress passed on Friday, are provisions that were originally included in the ill-fated Patriot Act II. From Wired:

Under the Patriot Act, the FBI can acquire bank records and Internet or phone logs simply by issuing itself a so-called national security letter saying the records are relevant to an investigation into terrorism. The FBI doesn't need to show probable cause or consult a judge. What's more, the target institution is issued a gag order and kept from revealing the subpoena's existence to anyone, including the subject of the investigation.

The new provision in the spending bill redefines the meaning of "financial institution" and "financial transaction." The wider definition explicitly includes insurance companies, real estate agents, the U.S. Postal Service , travel agencies, casinos, pawn shops, ISPs, car dealers and any other business whose "cash transactions have a high degree of usefulness in criminal, tax or regulatory matters."

I have got to join the ACLU and the EFF. Our current political leadership has NO concept of what freedom is really all about. They'll take the easy way out every time and restrict freedom in the name of freedom. [The Slat Rat Chronicles]

That's just NASTY.

12:37:56 AM     leave/read comments []

Cosplay= "Costume Play" I think. Ah, the mysterious East.

Weird, weird cosplay Japorn. Sort of. I can't explain..

I have no idea what this is, but it's totally freaking me out. Like a Philip K. Dick stripshow. All I can tell you is that this link takes you to a Windows Media video clip in which a (male) human dressed in (female) animated child character drag performs a sort of webcam erotic tease. Shemale hentai cosplay? Something like that. Please, someone, explain. Keep watching, eventually Sabrina strips. No actual nudity, just oddity. Link (Thanks, Warren, thanks Matt) [Boing Boing Blog]

12:18:29 AM