Don't hold your breath kofi

From Business Week concerning the UN's desire to take control of the internet:

One proposal that countries have been discussing would wrest control of domain names from the U.S.-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, and place it with an intergovernmental group, possibly under the United Nations.

Gross [our rep from State Dept.] dismissed it as unacceptable.

Yeah, we want Libya and China to vote on internet policy.

Some countries have been frustrated that the United States and European countries that got on the Internet first gobbled up most of the available addresses required for computers to connect, leaving developing nations with a limited supply to share.

They also want greater assurance that as they come to rely on the Internet more for governmental and other services, their plans won't get derailed by some future U.S. policy.

Very good point. That's why we, who already rely on the internet for governmental,
business, and financial services, don't want to, and won't ever, cede control.

And from Yahoo:

BEIJING (Reuters) - China set new regulations on Internet news content on Sunday, widening a campaign of controls it has imposed on other Web sites, such as discussion groups.

"The state bans the spreading of any news with content that is against national security and public interest," the official Xinhua news agency said in announcing the new rules, which took effect immediately.

The news agency did not detail the rules, but said Internet news sites must "be directed toward serving the people and socialism and insist on correct guidance of public opinion for maintaining national and public interests."

Suuuuurre, give *them* a say in how the www is run.

I know what I'm going as

It's almost October. You know what that means.

Look at that smile. The next-year-you-get-someone-else smile.
The suit comes in kid sizes too, you know, if you're too busy or
tired to beat up your kid yourself and you want the neighbor
kids to do it for you.

No caption needed

From Yahoo, at a Red Sox game:

Haven't watched much ball since the Orioles did their self-destruct thing.
Leaves more time for Lost at least. Though I'm not sure I'm up to
speed on it yet.

giraffekiss

giraffekiss, originally uploaded by lumberjack.

OK, one more cup of coffee, another
giraffe kiss, then I'm gone.

Yawnapalooza

For the last year or so I've refused to do the overnight odd jobs
that my customers come up with. The money is good, but work the
next day can just be miserable. Well, yawnfull at least.
So I don't why I said yes to working last night. I guess they
caught me at a crazy moment. Anyway, so I did do a night shift
last night, and yeah, I'm too old for this.

But what a hoot driving home was. I had forgotten that this guy
could be so entertaining. Not so entertaining that I'd get up at 3:00 AM
to listen, but if you're already up in the middle of the night you'd be hard
pressed to find a funnier group of crazy people. I guess the fun part is trying
to figure out who's nuts and who's just goofing.

So, yawn, I better go chop trees. Have a fine one.

This Can't Be, Right?

From Yahoo:

PARIS, (AFP) - Terror suspects detained in France had been eyeing up the Parisian metro network, an airport and the headquarters of the domestic intelligence service as possible targets, sources close to the investigation said.

The suspicions were based on an intelligence tip-off from Algeria and from telephone surveillance, although there is no hard evidence they had settled on a particular target, they said.

But France isn't *in* Iraq. What gives?

Remember Ted?

No, Koppel, not the other one:

I’ve heard you say during the course of a number of interviews that you found out about the convention center today. Don't you guys watch television? Don't you guys listen to the radio? Our reporters have been reporting on it for more than just today. . . .

Sure, there were glitches in the federal response. But is response by TV
really the the way to go? "Get more water trucks on the road, Larry King says
the convention center has run out." or "Oprah says we need snipers on the
roof tops. (and also more glazed hams)" From the LA Times:

BATON ROUGE, La. — Maj. Ed Bush recalled how he stood in the bed of a pickup truck in the days after Hurricane Katrina, struggling to help the crowd outside the Louisiana Superdome separate fact from fiction. Armed only with a megaphone and scant information, he might have been shouting into, well, a hurricane.

The National Guard spokesman's accounts about rescue efforts, water supplies and first aid all but disappeared amid the roar of a 24-hour rumor mill at New Orleans' main evacuation shelter. Then a frenzied media recycled and amplified many of the unverified reports.

"It just morphed into this mythical place where the most unthinkable deeds were being done," Bush said Monday of the Superdome.

His assessment is one of several in recent days to conclude that newspapers and television exaggerated criminal behavior in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, particularly at the overcrowded Superdome and Convention Center.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune on Monday described inflated body counts, unverified "rapes," and unconfirmed sniper attacks as among examples of "scores of myths about the dome and Convention Center treated as fact by evacuees, the media and even some of New Orleans' top officials."

Sheehan glut

Seems like the only thing there's more of on TV than Cindy Sheehan is those
No Limit Hold-Um tournaments. Cindy even beats out the Bicker While You Build
Motorcycles Shows.
Anyway:

Police warned them three times that they were breaking the law by failing to move along, then began making arrests. One man climbed over the White House fence and was quickly subdued by Secret Service agents.

Sheehan, 48, was the first taken into custody. She smiled as she was carried to the curb, then stood up and walked to a police vehicle while protesters chanted, "The whole world is watching."

No they're not.

Story

Here's a heartwarming story. It's about a puppy-dog
who had a bowl of ice cream. Well, sorta. If by "puppy-dog" you mean, "a bunch of
Norwegians." And if by "bowl of ice cream" you mean, "got into a street fight with
those annoying Swedes."

From the trunks

odp01, originally uploaded by lumberjack.

One of the best dogs that ever was. (on the right)
He could sit like that forever, and he could talk.