Humor - Kansas Technology

After having dug to a depth of 10 yards last year, New York scientists found traces of copper wire dating back 100 years and came to the conclusion that their New York ancestors already had a telephone network more than 100 years ago.

Not to be outdone by the New Yorkers, in the weeks that followed, California scientists dug to a depth of 20 yards, and shortly after, headlines in the LA Times newspaper read: 'California archaeologists have found traces of 200 year old copper wire and have concluded that their ancestors already had an advanced high-tech communications network a hundred years earlier than the New Yorkers.'

One week later, the 'Ness County News,' a local news paper in Ness City, Ks., reported the following: 'After digging as deep as 30 yards in wheat fields near Beeler, KS, Larry Guy, a self-taught archaeologist and dyed-in-the-wool Jayhawk fan, reported that he found absolutely nothing. Larry has therefore concluded that 300 years ago, Kansas had already gone wireless.'

Personal - Holiday Road

Ahhh, the holidays....

Odd observation of the day: my Firefox is set up at home so I almost NEVER see an add on a website. When I travel and am forced to use IE, I realize how the rest of the world sees the web. As one large bilboard.

No sir, I don't like it.

Politics - Performance based pay?

Last week, the House of Reps voted themselves a big pay raise. Three of our Kansas house members (Nancy Boyda, Dennis Moore both dems and Jerry Moran a 'pub) voted no but 'publican Todd Tiahrt voted yes. It would take a miracle and twelve gallons of Guinness to get me to vote for Tiahrt anyway, but you can bet I'll be making sure all of my friends in the Wichita area know how this vote went.

The Senate has yet to vote on their pay raise, but I suspect Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts (both 'pubs, natch) will be lining their pockets a little deeper soon.

Fiscal responsibility, my ass.

Politics - Sebelius the latest to be attacked by Dubya

I seriously fucking hate Dubya and every one of his spineless little cronies.

Now he's blaming my girl, Kathleen Sebelius, of dragging HER feet to help the residents of Greensburg. No person, let alone the President of the United States of America should be allowed to lie as often and as voraciously as this sorry excuse for a human and his cock-smoking administration.

It's never their fault! Ever!

He's a prick and anyone associated with him is a prick.

Personal - Tuesday data dump

How the hell did I ever mow the lawn without an mp3 player?
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I really, really want a nice stand mixer. (For to make cookies!) Jeeze they are expensive.
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I used to drive through Greensburg, Kansas a lot when I was going to school. It was a quiet little town on highway 54 where even the gas station was closed on Sundays. I remember once my buddy's Mustang broke down in Greensburg and we had to wait almost two hours for the guy who worked at the service station to "finish his supper" and "drive back in to town."
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Boston was cool. The mate and offspring had fun. I did get lost trying to find Salem, Mass.. Turns out there's a Salem, New Hampshire, too. Who knew?

Politics - Pat Roberts... flip-flopper?

Via Think Progress

Today, Senate Coverup Committee chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS) attacked the media for writing about the SWIFT bank records tracking program, and he called for a “formal damage assessment” to be done by Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte. (Dan Froomkin today explained how the “existence of SWIFT itself has not exactly been a secret.”)

Roberts began his attack on the media yesterday:

If another attack occurs because of this information going out…the people who have written these stories and the people who have made their decisions should look in the mirror.

But Roberts is the one who needs to “look in the mirror” about the effects leaks have on national security. The National Journal’s Murray Waas reported in April that during the start of the Iraq war, Roberts disclosed sensitive intelligence in a speech he delivered (ironically enough) to the National Newspaper Association:
[T]hree years ago on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, Roberts himself was involved in disclosing sensitive intelligence information that, according to four former senior intelligence officers, impaired efforts to capture Saddam Hussein and potentially threatened the lives of Iraqis who were spying for the United States.

On March 20, 2003, at the onset of military hostilities between U.S. and Iraqi forces, Roberts said in a speech to the National Newspaper Association that he had “been in touch with our intelligence community” and that the CIA had informed President Bush and the National Security Council “of intelligence information from what we call human intelligence that indicated the location of Saddam Hussein and his leadership in a bunker in the suburbs of Baghdad.”

The former intelligence officials said in interviews that Roberts was never held accountable for his comments, which bore directly on the issue of intelligence-gathering sources and methods, and revealed that Iraqis close to Hussein were probably talking to the United States.

As former intelligence officials told Waas, the incident showed “how rank and file intelligence professionals now have much to fear from legitimate and even inadvertent contacts with journalists, while senior executive branch officials and members of Congress are almost never held accountable when they seriously breach national security through leaks of information.

Sounds like a flip-flop to me.

Politics - Kansas Pubs go Dem

Via KC Buzz Blog

The ol' switcheroo continues.

With the 2006 filing deadline just hours away, Kansas Democrats today claimed a total of eight Republicans who have switched to the Democratic Party to run for office this year.

That list, of course, is headed by Mark Parkinson, the former GOP chair who is running as Gov. Kathleen Sebelius' running mate, and Paul Morrison, the Johnson County district attorney running for attorney general.

The other six:
Steve Lukert, seeking re-election in the 62nd House District.
Cindy Neighbor, former GOP lawmaker running to again represent the 18th House District Shawnee area.
Duane Mathes, current Edwards County Commissioner, in the 117th House District.
Judy Leyerzapf, current Abilene City Commissioner, in the 68th House District.
Kent Goyen in the 114th House District.
Walt Chappell in the 91st House District.

Maybe it's my inherent lack of faith in anything humans do, but I wonder how progressive (or even moderate) you can expect a former Kansas GOPer to be. I keep thinking it's a ploy to get the free publicity and if the Dems start sliding in the polls these fair-weather 'crats will change back.

Why not just run as an independent moderate and be done with it?