Today is System Administrator Appreciation Day
If you can read this, thank your sysadmin
By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer 27 minutes ago
WASHINGTON – Congress would pass an increase in the minimum wage before leaving Washington for vacation, but only as part of a package rolling back taxes on the heirs of multimillionaires, a Senate leadership aide said Friday.
Yahoo News
Are you kidding me? What a load of crap. Could you live 30 days on just $5 an hour? For millions of people, this is reality. No credit, no savings…life on minimum wage.
Republicans: the party of dead millionaires, and frozen blastocysts.
Had Enough?
By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 7 minutes ago
WASHINGTON – President Bush on Thursday signed legislation extending for 25 years the Voting Rights Act, the historic 1965 law which opened polls to millions of black Americans by outlawing racist voting practices in the South. “Congress has reaffirmed its belief that all men are created equal,” he declared.
All men, except gay men, that is…
Yahoo News
Wash. court upholds gay marriage ban
By CURT WOODWARD, Associated Press Writer Wed Jul 26, 9:07 PM ET
OLYMPIA, Wash. – The Washington Supreme Court upheld the state’s ban on gay marriage Wednesday, dealing the gay rights movement its second major defeat in less than a month in another liberal-leaning state that had been regarded as a promising battleground.
Massachusetts is still the only state that allows same-sex couples to wed.
Justice Mary Fairhurst said the majority improperly bowed to public opinion. “Unfortunately, the (majority) are willing to turn a blind eye to DOMA’s discrimination because a popular majority still favors that discrimination,” she wrote.
Yahoo News
Horse’s head dumped in official’s pool
Authorities investigating possible ‘Godfather’-style threat
MIDDLETOWN, N.Y. – A councilwoman found a severed horse’s head in her swimming pool Tuesday, state police said.
“We’re looking at a threat as a possible angle,” Lt. Pierce Gallagher said. “Certainly, we can’t rule that out.”
There have been some prior instances of harassment directed toward Wawayanda Councilwoman Gail Soro, Gallagher said.
One of the most famous scenes in “The Godfather” showed a movie mogul waking up with a horse head in his bed after he refused to bow to the will of the title character, played by Marlon Brando.
Wawayanda is located 106 miles southwest of Albany.
MSNBC
Embarassing.
By Guy Faulconbridge 26 minutes ago
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez hailed Russia on Wednesday for defying a U.S. arms blockade by agreeing to sell fighter aircraft to his country.
Chavez will sign a $1 billion deal to buy at least 24 Russian Sukhoi-30 jets to replace oil-rich Venezuela’s U.S. F-16s.
“I would like to thank Russia, the producer of armaments, because Russia has helped to sever the blockade that was tied by the United States around Venezuela,” Chavez said in the city of Izhevsk in remarks reported in Russian by Interfax news agency.
“American imperialism wants to hold the world in its fist, but it will not succeed in this …,” he said, according to Itar-Tass news agency, during an earlier stop in Volgograd.
Chavez, who says he is preparing his armed forces to fend off a U.S. invasion, is set to cement growing ties with President
Vladimir Putin at a Kremlin meeting on Thursday.
Washington has banned U.S. arms manufacturers from selling to Chavez. The U.S. says the populist leader, who proclaims socialist ideals to unite South America against U.S. influence, is destabilizing the region.
U.S. officials hoped to talk Russia out of the arms deals, but relations between Moscow and Washington are cool. Senior Kremlin officials say they see no reason to take advice from the United States.
Reuters via Yahoo News
Rice meets with Lebanon PM in Beirut
By KATHERINE SHRADER, Associated Press Writer 9 minutes ago
WASHINGTON – In a surprise visit to Beirut, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice praised the beleaguered prime minister of Lebanon on Monday for his courage in struggling to contain the fighting between the Hezbollah militia and Israel.
Rice met with Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora, who greeted her with a kiss on both cheeks. Rice told him, “Thank you for your courage and steadfastness.”
Saniora told Rice he was glad to have her in Lebanon, adding that his government is looking to “put an end to the war that is being inflicted on Lebanon.” The two shook hands across a conference table on which there were two flags, one Lebanese and one American. Half a dozen other diplomats sat around the table.
Saniora and other Lebanese officials are expected to push Rice to call for an immediate cease-fire, something the Bush administration has resisted.
Yahoo
U.S. won’t push for immediate cease-fire
By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 10 minutes ago
WASHINGTON – White House officials said President Bush remains opposed to an immediate cease-fire to stop violence in the Middle East, despite personal pleas from ally Saudi Arabia that he help stop the bloodshed.
Yahoo
So, she’s there to be seen with the Lebanese prime minister, take a few photos, but not to negotiate a cease fire? Um, next time, just stay home. 
FINALIST
Austin, TX
Best big cities rank: 2
Population: 690,300
It claims to have more music venues and restaurants per capita than any other U.S. city and is nicknamed Silicon Hills due to its large number of tech employers.
Did you know? The city’s unofficial motto: “Keep Austin weird.”
I’ve been mentoring a distributed Extreme Blue team this summer, and they were all in Austin this week to work together face-to-face on their project. So, that gave them an opportunity to actually meet their mentors and each other in person. It’s been a fun week, Nhut and I had the guys over for dinner one night, and the whole team went out to Korea House another night for dinner.
Bill posted a couple of pictures to the Extreme Blue blog, and there are a few more pics in my gallery.
It’s been a fun busy week with the whole team in town, and will probably seem really quiet here after they head back to San Jose and Raleigh…
Ralph Reed concedes defeat in Georgia’s GOP primary for Lt. Gov
Ralph Reed concedes defeat in Ga. primary
Ex-Christian Coalition leader ends GOP bid for lieutenant governor
ATLANTA – Former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed, unable to overcome his ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, conceded defeat Tuesday in Georgia’s Republican race for lieutenant governor.
MSNBC
Thanks to Doro for pointing me to this news item:
House rejects gay marriage ban amendment
By JIM ABRAMS, Associated Press Writer 45 minutes ago
WASHINGTON – The House rejected a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage on Tuesday…
Yahoo News
Bush to address NAACP
White House sees ‘moment of opportunity’ in first appearance as president
WASHINGTON – After rebuffing the NAACP for five years, President Bush will speak at the annual convention of the oldest U.S. civil rights organization for the first time since taking office because he sees “a moment of opportunity,” the White House said Tuesday.
Bush was the first sitting president in decades not to address the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
His decision to appear before the group Thursday comes as the Republican Party tries to court black voters ahead of crucial congressional elections in November.
MSNBC
Bush blocked eavesdropping program probe
By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer 12 minutes ago
WASHINGTON – President Bush personally blocked a Justice Department investigation of the anti-terror eavesdropping program that intercepts Americans’ international calls and e-mails, administration officials said Tuesday.
Bush refused to grant security clearances for department investigators who were looking into the role Justice lawyers played in crafting the program, under which the National Security Agency listens in on telephone calls and reads e-mail without court approval, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Without access to the sensitive program, the department’s Office of Professional Responsibility closed its investigation in April.
“It was highly classified, very important and many other lawyers had access. Why not OPR?” Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the committee chairman, asked Gonzales.
“The president of the United States makes the decision,” Gonzales replied.
Yahoo News
(He’s the decider.)
President groper…
Crooks and Liars has the video… At the G-8 summit, President Bush grabs German Chancellor Angela Merkel from behind and gives her a quick massage before rushing off. Chancellor Merkel is apparently not amused.
Unplugged Bush, Blair speak frankly on Mideast, G8
22 minutes ago
ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) – A microphone picked up an unaware President Bush saying on Monday Syria should press Hizbollah to “stop doing this shit” and that his secretary of state may go to the Middle East soon.
Bush was talking privately to British Prime Minister Tony Blair during a lunch at the Group of Eight summit in St Petersburg about an upsurge of violence in the Middle East.
Neither immediately realized a microphone was transmitting their candid thoughts on that and other issues.
Yahoo!
By DONNA CASSATA, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 28 minutes ago
WASHINGTON – Republicans are in jeopardy of losing their grip on Congress in November. With less than four months to the midterm elections, the latest Associated Press-Ipsos poll found that Americans by an almost 3-to-1 margin hold the GOP-controlled Congress in low regard and profess a desire to see Democrats wrest control after a dozen years of Republican rule.
Further complicating the GOP outlook to turn things around is a solid percentage of liberals, moderates and even conservatives who say they’ll vote Democratic. The party out of power also holds the edge among persuadable voters, a prospect that doesn’t bode well for the Republicans.
Yahoo!
By TONI LOCY, Associated Press Writer 10 minutes ago
WASHINGTON – The CIA officer whose identity was leaked to reporters sued Vice President
Dick Cheney, his former top aide and presidential adviser Karl Rove on Thursday, accusing them and other White House officials of conspiring to destroy her career.
Yahoo!
Efforts to amend the act easily defeated.
WASHINGTON – After rejecting an effort by Southern Republicans to relax restrictions on their states in the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the U.S. House of representatives easily voted to extend portions of the act for another 25 years, by a vote of 390-33. Ten representatives did not vote.
The debate over amending the act was also easily defeated, but not before serious debate.
MSNBC News
“When does civil rights get put on the ballot for everyone to vote on?” said Jim Singletary, 44, of Salem, who married his longtime partner, Jim Maynard, last year.
Boston.com
UPDATE:
By Brooke Donald, Associated Press Writer | July 12, 2006
BOSTON –Massachusetts lawmakers ended debate on proposed constitutional amendments Wednesday before dealing with the most volatile issue on their agenda: a proposal to outlaw gay marriage in the only state where it is legal.
The move to recess until Nov. 9 put off the decision on the politically charged issue until after the general election.
Senate President Robert Travaglini had said he intended to bring all 20 proposed amendments to a vote, but had warned lawmakers might not be able to get to every proposed amendment on Wednesday.
The House gallery erupted in applause after the vote to recess was announced.
Yay.
Even with as little traffic as my blog gets, there’s been a good amount of comment spam getting generated. At first it was mostly trackback spam, and I installed Bad Behavior. And things quited down considerably, in fact, I don’t get any trackback spam now at all.
But over the last couple of weeks, the regular comment spam has ratcheted up considerably, bypassing my WP-Blacklist plugin with new IP addresses and author names, so I had to consider another solution. Honestly, I don’t need Viagra. 
Anyway, I installed Spam Karma2 a couple days ago, and it’s a much cleaner solution than WPBlacklist. We’ll see how it goes, but so far, so good. The combination of the two plugins for WordPress seems to provide pretty comprehensive protection from spambots.
