I don't recall being asked for permission but in this case I don't mind.  Gun Owners of America published my Just One Question post in their Opinions And Editorials section.  It's in the "Various Authors" section.

It's sort of "a dirty little secret" but I'm going to tell it anyway.  There are certain things that drive technology forward.  And, from the viewpoint of many, it's frequently for the wrong reasons. 

War is a huge push.  Think of the jet engine, electronics (RADAR, communications, computers for ballistics calculations), rockets, aircraft, ships, photography (spying), optics, satellites, etc.   All those because of wartime need.

Business of course is a bad word with some people and that "evil" concept of "profit".  Another big push for technology.  Robots, computers, mechanical and electrical power for the factories.

But did you realize what a big push sex was?  You certainly know that abstinence doesn't create a market for new technology.

The first moving image I ever saw on a computer screen was a very simple, two-color image of a woman having sex with a man.  I think I may still have that around someplace.  The timing of the image was dependent on the speed of the processor and since at the time there was only one clock speed for the IBM PC, 4.77 MHz, it would run at something approaching "Warp 8" on today's computers. 

The push for better image quality (the first color graphics screen, the CGA, only had 16 colors) on the PC was not from conventional business.  It was porn.  Programmers did some amazing tricks (for example changing the palette between scan lines) to get better pictures of naked women.

It turns out Microsoft spent a lot of time developing Net Meeting (or some such thing, I forget the exact name now) for business needs thinking that major corporations would be their biggest customers.  Well... it was "business" that first adopted it and had a lot of feedback for improving the first versions.  In fact it was a variation of the "oldest business", or should I say "oldest profession", that pushed the early development.

Photography, from the very earliest of days, until the present is technologically pushed by pornography.

And what do you think people used the early VCR's and video cameras for?  It was for porn.

And the logical next step is being worked on right now:

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - When America's top sex researchers gathered recently to discuss the next decade in their field, some envisioned a future in which artificial sex partners could cater to every fantasy.

"What is very likely to be present before 2016 would be a multi-sensual experience of virtual sex," said Julia Heiman, director of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction at Indiana University, Bloomington.

"There is a possibility of developing erotic materials for yourself that would allow you to create a partner of certain dimensions and qualities, the partner saying certain things in that interaction, certain things happening in that interaction."

A field dubbed "teledildonics" already allows people at two remote computers to manipulate electronic devices such as a vibrator at the other end for sexual purposes.

"People who use it are just blown away," said Steve Rhodes, president of Sinulate Entertainment, which has sold thousands of Internet-connected sex devices over the past three years. "This is not something that just the lunatic fringe does."

"The Iraq war...was kind of a boom for our company."

Gina Lynn, who writes the "Sex Drive" column for Wired magazine, says she has used and enjoyed the Sinulator and says there is no reason to fear the technology.

...

SEX WITH A PORN STAR

Entrepreneurs are also seeking to fuse explicit video imagery with real-life tactile sensation.

Brad Abram, president of XStream3D Multimedia, said his firm's "Virtually Jenna," an online game in which the player has sex with realistic cartoon of porn star Jenna Jameson, can link hardware devices following the action to genitalia.

"None of the big publishers will probably venture in there so we could be like the Hustler or the Playboy or whatever, the Penthouse of adult gaming," the Vancouver, Canada-based Abram said. "Sex toys is a huge business."

His service, without the hardware, costs $29.95 a month, and he said several hundred thousand people have tried the online sex game to date. He expects the hardware area of such simulations to grow rapidly.

...

ALL IN THE MIND

Going even a level further, other researchers say in decades to come advanced devices will be able to stimulate the brain to create a sexual experience without manipulating genitalia.

Marvin Minsky, a pioneer in the study of artificial intelligence dating back to 1951, said such devices could either trigger an actual physical response from the brain, or have the entire experience take place in the mind with the sensation of sex -- but without the mess or risk of sexually transmitted disease.

"It's bound to happen ... and is not as far off as some people think," Minsky, a professor emeritus at MIT, said of direct brain manipulation. "They are doing things with monkeys but it is not a big world-class industry yet, so that could take 20-30 years."

"But if the game (industry) people got involved in some underdeveloped country that didn't have any laws against it, it could all happen twice as fast."

You've already gone way past the "Thin Ice" sign.

Kim Huffman-Scott
April 16, 2006
Telling her dad to back off some on teasing her brother James about Meredith.

As Jason pointed out to me with this link the proper phrase should be "Veni, vidi, BOOM!".  Not Vini. Vidi. BOOM! as in the quote of the day from last week.  Unfortunately this wasn't pointed out to me until after there was one order for a shirt already "in production" before I got the image corrected and back up in the Boomershoot 2006 merchandise shop.  I don't know if that means the image will actually make it onto the shirt or not.  So... it's possible there will be just one shirt on the whole planet that has the wrong slogan on it.  It will be a collectors item.

That wasn't the only change I made either.  Here is the before and after:

Vini. Vidi. BOOM!
[I came.  I saw.  I blew stuff up!]

After:

Veni, vidi, BOOM!
[I came, I saw, I BLEW STUFF UP!]

Order soon if you want to have your stuff in time for the event.  There won't be shirt sales at the event.

After I put up the site about Pacific Northwest National Laboratories they blocked access of their employees to my websites.  Apparently this has changed:

 

Domain Name		pnl.gov ? (United States Government)
IP Address		130.20.177.# (Battele Pacific Northwest Laboratory)
ISP		Battele Pacific Northwest Laboratory
Location		Continent  :  North America Country  :  United States  (Facts) State  :  Washington City  :  Richland Lat/Long  :  46.282, -119.4917 (Map)
Language		English (United States) en-us
Operating System		Microsoft WinXP
Browser		Firefox Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.2) Gecko/20060308 Firefox/1.5.0.2
Javascript		version 1.5
Monitor		Resolution  :  1280 x 1024 Color Depth  :  32 bits
Time of Visit		Apr 17 2006 7:58:56 am
Last Page View		Apr 17 2006 7:58:56 am
Visit Length		0 seconds
Page Views		1
Referring URL		http://www.google.co...zilla:en-US:official
Search Engine		google.com
Search Words		pnnl email
Visit Entry Page		http://blog.joehuffm...w,category,PNNL.aspx
Visit Exit Page		http://blog.joehuffm...w,category,PNNL.aspx
Out Click
Time Zone		UTC-5:00
Visitor's Time		Apr 17 2006 10:58:56 am
Visit Number		73,506

Now if they would just turn in the evidence to Federal prosecutors for the felony some of their bigoted employees committed against me.

Xenia: We are going to be gypsies.
Sara: And maybe become lesbians.

Sara Young
Xenia Huffman-Scott
Referring to their plans for when they turn 18 years old.
April 16, 2006
[I'm always entertained by what Sara and Xenia say when they get together. It's great having such smart kids around.--Joe]

Several years ago we became good friends with this Jewish guy named Randy.  Easter came along and we were making plans for the holiday.  We sort of absent mindedly asked what he had planned and then realized it wouldn't be a Holiday he or his wife (she is Buddhist) would celebrate.  He, however, corrected us. 

"Sure!  Jews celebrate Easter." 
"You do???" 
"Yeah, sure we do."
"How do you celebrate?"
"We hold hands and dance around in a circle singing, 'We killed him!  We killed him!'"

My kind of humor.

I can understand someone having this sort of dream.  But after waking up you would think they would recognize the difference between reality and a dream.  This guy apparently doesn't and then in some sort of embarrassing public confession he tells everyone of his delusion.  And the worst part?  He's the mayor of Toronto.  The men in white coats should just quietly take him away and the people of Toronto could just pretend he never represented them.  Here are the details of his delusions.  The overview follows:

I see a yellowing front page of the Toronto Star shouting "Gun violence ends!" There are no guns on the street any more because a Toronto-led coalition of mayors from both sides of the 49th parallel stood strong against the American government on gun control.

So persuasive were Toronto's arguments that the U.S. finally enacted common-sense gun control and repealed legislation that prevented lawsuits from being launched against firearms manufacturers.

...

This helps explain why gangs aren't a problem any more. No one's drawn to the gangster life because of all the services the city can provide to all of its residents. There are childcare spaces for all parents who need them so they can work and make the money needed to nurture their children. And parks and recreation programs are available free for every child in every city neighbourhood.

Training and jobs have been made available through partnerships established among City Hall, the Toronto Board of Trade and organized labour. Youth from neighbourhoods that were once Toronto's poorest get proper training and gain the self-respect needed to move forward in life. They become carpenters. And bankers. Even journalists. Whatever they aspire to be.

No one in Toronto lives in isolation. Or on the street. Not the young. And certainly not their elders. Homelessness is a thing of the past. Because of the compassion and commitment of Torontonians, all orders of government came together as partners to provide affordable housing to anyone who needs it. There's an incredible array of services for seniors who want to remain engaged in the communities where they live and share their wisdom with other generations.

It's the kind of wisdom that has led Toronto to be recognized as a world leader in promoting peace and harmony. The city will forever be a microcosm of the world's people living together with respect and not a hint of intolerance. Our Canadian Council for Christians, Jews and Muslims is cited around the globe as an example of how to build bridges among people of different faiths. Every man woman and child can walk down every street in this city and know they are recognized as Torontonians regardless of race, colour or religion.

...

Our subway stations are astonishing. As many people enjoy the exhibits at the TTC's Museum station as visit the ROM. They come for an enlightening look at the exhibits before moving on to their chosen destinations. There's a network of streetcars crossing this city on reserved rights-of-way. The Finch Hydro Corridor is now a conduit for light rail transit. People can get from eastern Scarborough to western Etobicoke quickly and at reasonable cost. Every neighbourhood has access to rapid transit, and every able-bodied Torontonian is within a five-minute walk of a bus stop and is one bus journey away from the subway or a light rail connection. For the disabled, every bus, streetcar and subway stop is accessible.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.  Nearly all anti-gun people have mental problems.  Mix those problems with the obvious failings of socialism and the all the conditions decribed in When Prophecy Fails and you end up with what you see above--increased proselyting of a failed belief system.

Like it or not, the Zionist regime is heading toward annihilation. The Zionist regime is a rotten, dried tree that will be eliminated by one storm.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Iranian President
April 14, 2006
As quoted in the April 16, 2006 Scotland on Sunday
[With Iran enriching Uranium as fast as it can it's not hard to imagine what kind of storm he has in mind.--Joe]

The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.

Albert Einstein

A well-wrapped statistic is better than Hitler's "big Lie"; it misleads, yet it cannot be pinned on you.

Darrell Huff
How to Lie with Statistics
Copyright 1954
[I was reminded of this book when reading this from the Violence Policy Center.  The VPC ignores all the murders in Washington D.C. due to the repressive gun laws and focuses on a subset of the suicides.--Joe]

Zacarias Moussaoui has no regret and no remorse.  I have no doubts.  He should be executed and his extremist culture must be destroyed.  Read his own words and decide for yourself.

From the AP (via South of Boston):

He mocked a Navy officer who wept as she described the death of two subordinates in the attack on the Pentagon.

"I think it was disgusting for a military person" to cry, Moussaoui said of Lt. Nancy McKeown. "She is military. She should expect people at war with her to want to kill her."

Asked if he was happy to hear her sobbing, he said, "Make my day."

He noted many relatives of victims wept on the witness stand, then walked past him in the courtroom and looked his way without crying. "I find it disgusting that people come here to share their grief over the death of some other person," he said.

"I'm glad there was pain, and I wish there will be more pain," Moussaoui said. "The children in Palestine and in Chechnya will have pain. I want you to share their pain."

So, Spencer asked: "You have no regret, no remorse?"

"No regret, no remorse," Moussaoui responded.

...

In a lengthy explanation of why he hates Americans, Moussaoui said Islam requires Muslims to be the world's superpower as he flipped through a copy of the Quran searching for verses to support his assertion. He said one verse requires Muslims "to fight against all who believe not in Allah."

"We have an obligation to be the superpower. You have to be subdued," Moussaoui said. "America is a superpower and you want to eradicate Islam."

From Bangkok Post:

Zacarias Moussaoui said he wished the September 11 attacks had happened many more times over and expressed his willingness to kill Americans "any time, anywhere", in testimony at his own death sentencing trial Thursday.

"I wish it had happened not only on the 11th, but the 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th and 16th," Moussaoui said of the attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001, according to television news broadcaster CNN.

From ABC News:

Asked if he wanted to see 9/11 happen again, Moussaoui said he wished it would happen "everyday." Chuckling to himself, Moussaoui testified to prosecutors that Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh is "the greatest American."

From BBC News:

"Suicide bombing would be a high calling?" prosecutor Robert Spencer asked him. "You would do it again tomorrow?"

"Today," Moussaoui responded unhesitatingly.

...

But he launched into a diatribe that put a quick halt to the tittering, beginning with a citation from the Koran which he said meant Islam had to become a superpower in place of America, and drifting into an answer about "the Jewish state of Palestine" that ended with a threat to "exterminate" American Jews.

He said he felt no regret when he saw 11 September victims testifying in the court, enunciating every syllable of his reply: "None what-so-ever.

"We did it for this. We want to inflict pain on your country."

From The Independent:

We wanted you to have pain in your country," he said during two-and-a-half hours of testimony. I just wish it would have happened on September 12, September 13, September 14 ... there's no remorse for justice."

The French-Moroccan, a confessed member of al-Qa'ida, claimed to have enjoyed images shown in court this week of the Pentagon after it was attacked and said that reports of the deaths "make my day".

It will make my day when I see the video of his remains being excreted from the ass of a pig.

Vini. Vidi. Boom.
[I came. I saw. I blew stuff up.]

Bruce at mAss Backwards
The winning Boomershoot 2006 slogan entry.
Congratulations Bruce.

I hope this goes well:

A scholar known for his work on guns and crime filed a defamation lawsuit Monday against University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt, co-author of the best-seller "Freakonomics." John Lott Jr. of Virginia, a former U. of C. visiting professor, alleges that Levitt defamed him in the book by claiming that other scholars had tried and failed to confirm Lott's conclusion that allowing people to carry concealed weapons reduces crime.

...

The lawsuit alleges that Levitt and his publisher, HarperCollins Publishers Inc., made the statements with reckless disregard for whether they were true and that the book damaged Lott's reputation.

I don't know about the details of Lott's lawsuit but in some states there are a lot of exceptions for this sort of thing.  You can knowingly lie about someone, cause them great damage, and be untouchable by a lawsuit.  I was told by a Hindu friend those sort of people will be reincarnated as a lower life form--perhaps as manure eating flies. I confess to having urges to accelerate certain slime-balls toward their destiny.

Whenever there's a shooting, there's almost always two people who are responsible, the one with the gun and the one who sold him the gun.

David Yassky
New York City Council Member
City Gun Control Bill Would Punish Dealers
April 12, 2006
Epoch Times
[Is the same true when there is a stabbing?  Or a hit and run?  How about in a beating with a baseball bat?  David Yassky has mental problems.--Joe]

Good news on the National ID boondogle called "Real ID".  New Hampshire is considering just saying no:

Last year, Congress passed the Real ID Act in an effort to curb terrorism.

That means by May 2008 all states must issue drivers licenses and ids that meet tougher federal standards laid out by the Department of Homeland Security.

Information on a 'Real ID' would include a person's full name, date of birth, home address, physical features and arguably the most controversial aspect, some sort of bar or chip that can be read or scanned, much like a credit card.

All of that personal information would be stored on a database to be shared nationwide.

Republican Representative Neal Kurk ushered the measure to bar the state from adopting Real ID through the House last month.

He told the Senate Committee the new federal plan won't enhance national security at all.

:55 ... Remember the 9/11 terrorirsts were in this country legally and had legally obtained documents. The real id system will enhance government control and citizens will suffer. Perhaps that is why the Real ID Act is opposed by the Naitonal Governor's Association, the National Conference of State Legislatures, the National Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, the conservative Cato Institute and the liberal ACLU.

Indeed, traditional political opponents find themselves on the same side of this issue.

Whether Republican, Libertarian or Democrat much of the criticism centered on privacy.

Some, like Jennifer Coffey with the gun rights group 2nd Amendment Sisters, worry about identity theft.

12:46 it creates a beautiful database that is easy to get into. If they get into the NH Liquor Store database and stole people's names and credit cards. They got people's names and address from Fidelity and social security. And those were much smaller databases.

Democratic Senator Iris Estabrook spoke of being tracked.

2:43 it doesn't seem to me that as Americans we want to live with radio signals being omitted from our required ID cards. That doesn't sound like America to me. And it doesn't sound like something we need in order to have drivers licenses.

Opponents see Real ID as a first step to a national identification system that would require people to carry their papers even when walking their dog.

Republican Representative Steve Valincourt warned Senators similar systems haven't worked out so well in other countries.

1:10 in the 1930's we are told the Netherlands went to this type of system for national id...Of course late in the 30's, some other people goose-stepped their way into the Netherlands, and all the work on National ID had been done.

Another victim of a repressive government:

...

On Monday, L/Cpl James Piotrowski was jailed by a court martial for handling a stolen SA80.

He pleaded guilty to possessing and handling it after another soldier stole it from Wellington barracks in London in 2004.

He didn't steal it.  He didn't fire it.  He only handled it.  I can't image why the politicians that create such laws are still allowed to see the sun and breath fresh air.

In the 20th Century "gun control" is an essential pre-condition for genocide.  Until and unless a hate-driven group gets control of the government mechanism and disarms its intended targets, genocide simply cannot and does not occur.

Lethal Laws -- "Gun Control" is the Key To Genocide
Page 12
by Jay Simkin, Aaron Zelman, and Alan M. Rice
Copyright 1994
ISBN 0-96442304-0-2

There is nothing wrong with having nothing to say unless you insist on saying it.

Steven Gerri
April 10, 2006
[A frustration of mine with all politicians.--Joe]

Benjamin at reasonablenut asked this last month and I'm just now getting caught up with things enough to respond:

It's a simple question, really: What constitutes the offense where you would not rely on the authorities?

-Rape/killing of your wife/girlfriend?

-Fucking with your kid in any way?

-Untowards aggressive action against your person?

-Targeting your specific property?

At what point do you say "fuck it", and find and kill the motherfucker?

It's only a little more than a hint in his post so I will explicitly spell it out.  This is not about stopping an attack in progress.  This is about truly "taking the law into your own hands".  You are judge, jury, and executioner for someone you believe to be worthy of nothing more than pushing up daises.  What is the criteria that would cause you to disobey the law and take another human life because you thought it was the right thing to do?

Good question.  Timothy McVeigh had an answer.  I think his threshold and his execution were severely flawed however.  As he said while in prison awaiting "the needle" he should have read Unintended Consequences before, rather than after, destroying the Murrah Federal Building.

Mahatma Gandhi was faced with similar problems and used alternatives that Ben didn't really want us to consider.  It's not entirely fair to limit someone else in the solution a to particular problem but that is the way Ben has phrased it.  This is actually kind of a pet peeve of mine and Raymond has commented on this recently as well.  You really need to isolate what the problem is rather than focusing on the implementation of your solution.

If, in the cases above, the problem might be described as one of eliminating "a threat to society" it's possible this can be accomplished in ways other than to directly murder them.  For example you might be creative enough to trick him into a gun battle with the police.  Long term those always go poorly for the individuals.  The last minutes of Bonnie and Clyde are particularly illustrative.  You might be clever enough to frame the scumbag with a crime the police are particularly interested in solving or the attack on a powerful drug dealer who have their own system of "justice" that achieves the desired results.

If the problem might be described as punishment rather than elimination of the threat then you might be able to eliminate their ability to be employed.  For example child porn on the computer of a grade school teacher pretty much means the end of that career.  When they get a new job exploit another vulnerability and eliminate that line of work.  Continue as needed until MacDonald's won't hire them because they are always vomiting on the job (syrup of Ipecac does remarkable things).

I guess what I'm really going to saying here is that similar to some of the other people Ben asked this same question I'm going to wimp out.  Not because I haven't put a lot of thought into it but because I have put a lot of thought into it.  Basically we have a social contract that says we don't take the law into our own hands.  If things reach the point where that social contract isn't being fulfilled by the authorities then we have a different problem and the individual that really should be pushing up daises is probably much lower in the queue of people you need to be dealing with.  So with that in mind I would like to refer Ben to a different page of mine.  What is the threshold that you decide the social contract has been broken and needs to be "forcefully renegotiated"?

I grew up just a few miles from where Lewis and Clark went through Idaho on their way to and from the Pacific Ocean.  Lewis and Clark were a prominent feature in Idaho History taught in the eight grade.  I have listened to books on tapes about them and Barb and I have stopped at lots of historical landmarks and a few museums along the Lewis and Clark trail in Montana and Idaho.  It was an amazing journey with only one man lost, probably due to an appendicitis rupture, through hostile native American country (the Sioux in particular) as well as incredibly friendly native Americans (the Nez Perce as well as others), starvation as well as an excess of food, and dangerous animals (read about their experience with grizzly bears!).  Thomas Jefferson made an excellent choice in Meriwether Lewis for the leader of the journey but screwed up in the handling of his return.  Lewis probably should have been sent back out on another trip rather than being given a desk job as a governor.  Lewis ended up committing suicide just a couple years after returning from his historic trip.

I'm reminded of all this by the following from the Washington Post:

"What we have ahead of us represents a challenge significantly greater than when we first went to the moon," Griffin said recently in a speech.

New classes of astronauts will have to practice flying in a vehicle quite different from the shuttle and learn how to extract resources such as oxygen from the moon's soil. They will be taught to grow vegetables in lunar greenhouses and conduct geological tests on the moon's surface. Already, engineers at United Space Alliance are studying how a crew will be able to train aboard the spacecraft on a three-year trip to Mars. Eventually, Mars-bound astronauts will have to learn how to extract fuel and other resources from Mars' surface.

"The requirement to live off the land will be crucial to our future in space, just as it was to Lewis and Clark," Griffin said recently.

There will be some crucial differences in the journey to Mars versus to the Pacific Ocean via the Missouri and Columbia rivers.  In some ways we know a lot more about what is between Earth and Mars than the men of Lewis and Clark's expedition knew before their trip.  But then L&C could turn around and come back at almost any time if the going got too rough.  They never had to worry about where their next breath of fresh air was going to be found, water was never a problem, and food was only rarely a problem.  Even when they were at their most distance point from their origin, the mouth of the Columbia, they could have just waited for the next ship to stop in and pay for a ride home.  Mars explorers will face larger challenges but will probably have to do less "thinking on their feet".  The brain power of thousands of support staff on earth will be only a few minutes away as long as their radios work.

I wish them luck and wish I could go with them.  James and I, as well as other friends, have often fantasized about starting over someplace other than Earth.  If it were up to us we would create a new place to live where the rules were extraordinary few and the freedoms vast.  A place where the Bill of Rights were adhered to rather than ignored.  Where government was truly limited to the most minimal amount absolutely required.  Where free markets and free ideas were something to be celebrated rather than repressed. 

This isn't off topic, so stay with me for a moment--James sent me an email yesterday saying:

Ok, Meredith is insisting that I read some Heinlein.  Not reading him is apparently a great offense.  She's got where I should start narrowed down to The Past Through Tomorrow, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and The Cat Who Walks Through Walls.  So I'm cross-referencing them by you to see what you think I should read first.  Thanks.

I have been trying to get him to read Heinlein for about 15 years now.  I saved all my Heinlein books for my children hoping they would enjoy them as much as I did.  No luck.  None of my kids would read more than a chapter or two before getting bored.  Now James is almost 22 years old and "Meredith" has more influence over him than his father ever did.  I'm a little bit envious but I like this "Meredith" already and I have never met her or had any contact with her.  Just a few things James has told us about her.  Heinlein had a huge influence on me and my personal philosophy.   My recommendation to James from that short list of Heinlein books?  The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.  It's unlikely I will live to see the revolution as envisioned by Heinlein in this book but the dream that my children may live to see it or something similar and enjoy the fruits of it please me.  Freedom is embedded in the spirit of humans and repression of that is only a short term accomplishment.   Thank you Meredith for helping me to keep James on track.

Barb drove over to Seattle a week ago Friday, flew to Sacramento on Saturday to help her sister celebrate her birthday, then flew back to Seattle on Thursday night to spend the weekend with me. 

Friday was my last day as a contractor, Monday I start my full time employee position, so my officemates insisted we needed to go out for lunch.  I was just going to go to the cafeteria with Barb but Chandrika insisted we needed to go someplace "far away".  I suggested Sankt Gertruds Kloster (some say it is one of top restaurants in the world, it is very good).  It's far away and the type of restaurant you would go to for special occasions.  But the frown I got when I told my officemates where it was told me that wasn't what they had in mind. We settled for Todai in Redmond.  It's not Sankt Gertruds Kloster but it is very good and several thousand miles closer.  It is one of Barb's favorite restaurants and my (former) officemates, Chandrika and Eric, both gave it high marks.

Yesterday Barb and I stayed in bed most of the morning before go to meet some friends to go hiking at 2:00.  By then it had started raining and we needed an alternative activity.  We ended up getting tours through the Red Hook brewery and just across the street from it the Chateau Ste Michelle winery.  The difference in the "culture" between the two was probably the most interesting to me.  I drank more beer yesterday than in the previous 20 years combined (I haven't even had a sip of beer in the last 20 years until yesterday).  At the winery they gave us a sample of a wine we just had to have, Muscat Canelli.  "Good news, bad news" they told us after several people commented on how good it tasted (in my book there is no such thing as something too sweet).  "The good news is we make this wine right here.  The bad news is you can only buy it here.  We have such limited runs of it that we don't sell it to our distributors."  Barb bought a bottle in the gift shop as we were leaving.

After the tours we went back to our friends home for grilled burgers and stayed until about 10:30 before coming back to my place.  Barb left about 10:00 this morning for the long drive back to Moscow.  It was sad to see her go.  It was so nice to spend three consecutive night with her.  And it was especially nice not to have drive the ten hours round trip this weekend.

Israel will have no contact with the Palestinian Authority, which is a hostile entity, and will work toward preventing any entrenchment of the Hamas government's rule.

Anyone who fires a rocket and anyone who participates in terror acts will be dealt with without hesitation.

Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
April 9, 2006
Israel exerts diplomatic, military pressure on Hamas
Reuters
[With nearly all the foreign aid to Palestine cut off and Hamas unable to pay the government workers and many people about to go hungry things may get very "interesting" soon.  When people get hungry their motivation for "less than lawful" activities is dramatically increased.  With Israel ready, willing, and able to respond to these "less than lawful" activities there is likely to be significant bloodshed in the near future and most of the blood will be Palestinian.--Joe]