despite hating the mr. rogers show and his "hello children" opening line, i'm still sad that he died. he was a part of my childhood. 08:18 am

The Worst Breakfast Ever. it is rather impressive that one "hungry man all day breakfast" can give you 103% of your daily calories, 98% of your fat, 104% of your saturated fat, 231% of your cholesterol, and 87% of your sodium. (based on a 2,000 calorie diet). although, that would be assuming that you could actually force yourself to eat something that looks this disgusting. 06:38 pm

US 'should quit tobacco talks'. so the US is being a bully in other areas. what i find totally hypocritical is the statement that an advertising ban "would violate constitutional principles of free speech". um, aren't there already advertising bans on cigarettes in the US? 11:44 am

U.S. Officials Say U.N. Future At Stake in Vote.

"You are not going to decide whether there is war in Iraq or not," the diplomat said U.S. officials told him. "That decision is ours, and we have already made it. It is already final. The only question now is whether the council will go along with it or not."

Bush Faces Increasingly Poor Image Overseas.

"Many people in the world increasingly think President Bush is a greater threat to world peace than Iraqi President Saddam Hussein."

"Some of it stems from personality: Bush's blunt manner and frequent references to religion appear especially grating to European ears"

we received new credit cards from bofa. along with the regular cards, they sent us mini cards. since most places now swipe your credit card, you don't actually need a full size card. a mini card on your key ring is a very cool idea. except for one major problem. do you really want to lose your credit card when you lose your keys? 10:05 am

it's not mentioned in this article, but i find it disgusting that the family of this girl refused to donate her organs. 09:57 am

Caring for Your Introvert. this is a truly wonderful article. it took me forever to try to get my extroverted family to understand that i *need* time alone. even now i think it's less of an understanding and more of an acceptance. i've said i have a low tolerance of people enough that they don't question why. thanks dori. 09:40 am

Coffee pregnancy warning. 10:58 am

President Bush's Ratings Fall Sharply. interestingly, despite the huge drop in ratings, the democrats are still doing worse. maybe they should listen to howard dean. via dangerousmeta. 09:16 am

Cooking in Danger of Becoming a Lost Art Among Generation Y. i'd say it's a lost art for generation x too. although, as we age, more of us seem to be learning. it took me 31 years before i discovered the pleasures of cooking. via dangerousmeta. 09:10 am

Sony launches 'lifestyle headphones'. i wonder how comfortable these are. i have yet to find headphones that i truly find comfortable. 08:56 am

On the campaign trail with the un-Bush. it would be refreshing to have a blunt president in the white house. but, the biggest reason, for me, to support Howard Dean would be his signing into law the rights for gay and lesbian couples to have civil unions. via dori. 08:49 am

i really wish one could buy lottery tickets online. i buy everything else online. going to the store twice a week is much too much effort. looking around the california lottery site, vainly hoping to find online purchases, i came across their SuperLotto Plus Number Frequency list. i think that next time i buy a ticket, my numbers will be 9,1,16,22,23,8. 11:39 am

here's a guide to the changes and a further explanation. 08:45 am

F1 teams challenge new rules. i had wondered if they were going to sit back and quietly accept the new rules. 08:38 am

Segway's Breakdown. gotta wonder how different this story would be if it had happened during the boom. 08:50 pm

Kurdish leaders enraged by 'undemocratic' American plan to occupy Iraq. 12:44 pm

Behind the Great Divide.

"There are two possible explanations for the great trans-Atlantic media divide. One is that European media have a pervasive anti-American bias that leads them to distort the news, even in countries like the U.K. where the leaders of both major parties are pro-Bush and support an attack on Iraq. The other is that some U.S. media outlets — operating in an environment in which anyone who questions the administration's foreign policy is accused of being unpatriotic — have taken it as their assignment to sell the war, not to present a mix of information that might call the justification for war into question."

US presses Turkey on Iraq. i find it rather amusing that turkey is holding out for more money because they know how important it is for the US to have troops in their country. until i consider the fact that i'm paying for that privilege. 11:30 am

US 'plans new nuclear weapons'. scary. 11:01 am

Black woman joins US presidential race. a black woman in the white house would be a wonderful thing to see. 10:59 am

rebecca has a really interesting view point on iraq from inside the military. 10:53 am

i've come to the conclusion that google has blacklisted my dad's site. searching for santacruz-realestate.com only brings up the directory listing from dmoz. no search results. the page is cached, but there are no pages that link to it or are related to it. and, it has no page rank. it is, however, #1 on an alltheweb.com search and #8 on teoma search. i wonder if it's because of the whole google bomb thing. 10:25 am

back in august i mentioned a multiplayer rpg for the ps2. it was supposed to be out around the end of the year, so i decided to take a look around and see if i'd missed it. from this review, the game sounds like it'll be a blast. unfortunately, it's not due out until june now. 06:28 pm

Visa, MC: 5 million accounts hacked. i heard about this on the news this morning. so when 2 of my credit card statements arrived today, i took a close look at them. turns out there was a charge back on 1/19 to a department store in london. it makes me wonder if the account was one of the ones that got lifted. if that's the case, it means the processor sat on the information for 2 weeks before it notified mastercard about the problem. closing credit card accounts is so much fun. 02:08 pm

The Unsettlers. ''The Torah says we should kill all the Arabs,'' he told me. ''Not just Arabs who maybe help terrorists. Everybody.'' 01:58 pm

i finally got my exam date for my real estate license. it's march 6 and in my current state, i will fail miserably. hopefully, this online exam preparation will help me pass. 09:21 am

Data on Epilepsy Point to Dangers of Repeated Seizures. 08:43 am

Do seizures damage the brain? 08:43 am

Botox 'may cause new wrinkles'. 09:16 am

CNN leaves 750 words out of Blix transcript. 09:09 am

i was reading through this thread over at kuro5hin and it occurred to me why today seems more scary than 20 years ago. the cold war was scary. there was a very real *constant* threat of nuclear war. the prospect of death was a scary thing, but the prospect of living through a nuclear war was even scarier. it was a generally accepted fact that the entire eastern seaboard would be completely wiped out. there were only 2 choices. either it happens and we're dead, or it doesn't happen. but, when a threat is constant you have to learn to ignore it in order to function and live your life. nowadays, there isn't any clear, constant, specific threat. there are maybes, and could bes, and might bes. but more importantly there aren't 2 equally bad choices. (actually, they're not equal, i think death would be much more preferably than trying to live through a nuclear winter.) you can get sick, you can die, or you can watch others get sick or die. the prospect of emotionally dealing with several more crises like 9/11 is much scarier on a day to day basis than the prospect of the world being completely wiped out. i think people fear their own death much less than they fear watching loved ones get sick and die. that's why the world seems a much worse place today. 05:13 pm

More than 300,000 people have such contempt for religion they listed their faith as 'Jedi'; traditional England is dying. 09:52 am

CIA 'sabotaged inspections and hid weapons details' 09:46 am

Alert Partly Based on Lies. why doesn't this surprise me? 09:42 am

Reckless Administration May Reap Disastrous Consequences. i can't say how glad i am to hear at least one person in congress talk sanely. i was beginning to wonder if congress would completely ignore the whole war thing altogether. via rebecca. 09:40 am

so i'm cruising through drugstore.com looking to buy some new tweezermans (since jason broke my other pair), and i decide to browse a little. lo-and-behold on the "medicine cabinet" page i see a top sellers link for sex essentials. not being able to pass up such an intriguing link, i discovered that there is now a whole new line of products that i never knew you could buy in a drugstore. i can't say i'm not tempted. anything that specifically says "can induce orgasm" has got to be a pretty good buy. don't you think? 09:18 pm

Baghdad Back Flip - Colin Powell's cynical reversal. i love the last line of this article. 08:56 pm

idleworm: games - gulf war 2. lol. 12:08 pm

Stars' views shouldn't be so easily written off. 11:59 am

very nicely done. flash mind reader. i couldn't figure it out myself i had to go here. even then it took me a while to realize that the icons were changing every time. 11:52 am

UK unemployment hits 27-year low. 10:28 am

Blair puts 'moral' case for war. whatever. the numbers in this article, however, show that a huge number of brits don't support this war. 10:22 am

Gaming 'is good for you'. 10:19 am

Europe's new gang resists US 'bullying'. 10:14 am

Sex drug could help women. 10:11 am

i'm glad to see that i'm not the only one who is unconvinced that iraq and saddam are in cohoots. 10:09 am

Is France right to force a split on Iraq? the comments at the bottom of the page were most interesting to read. reading through them all made me realize that i definitely need a disclaimer.

all political views expressed herein are completely biased, unsupported by facts, and written by someone who has never had the least interest in politics. if you find yourself thinking, "this person has no clue," rest assured that you are probably correct.

god some of this rhetoric is just sickening. sickening, as in, i can't believe how much these people are whinging about the "sin" of not fully surporting the US. in how dare the french forget, we are regaled with the deeds of the US when they saved france from hitler. after all the US has done for them, how could france possibly have the gall not to support the saving of the world against an equal tyrant, saddam? leaving aside the question of whether saddam is as bad as hitler, and the question of whether or not france is remotely right. i can just imagine france saying "how dare the americans forget! we saved their sorry asses from the evil tyrant of britain. without us they'd still be a backwater of the british empire. there would be no etats-unis! and when we asked their help in taking out hitler, they sat back and avoided conflict for 3 years. bah! band of brothers indeed!"

does anyone over here realize that while europe is very thankful that the US saved them from hitler, they also despise the US for not entering the war sooner. many believe that a lot of deaths would have been prevented had the help been shall we say a little more timely. 07:34 pm

Introducing 100 stories [dive into mark] 06:48 pm

you know how i mentioned cynicism. how can you expect europe not to be cynical about everything when people believe that "Bush was divinely chosen to lead the country during its trials." 04:56 pm

Greenspan undercuts GOP arguments for tax cuts. 04:38 pm

Sneers From Across the Atlantic. i think a much better explanation (although the numbers are quite good) for colin powell's speech having little impact on europeans can be summed up in one word. cynicism. western europe has spent the last thousand years developing and refining their cynicism. one must not forgot what a huge influence it has on all viewpoints. 04:31 pm

The Wimps of War 10:31 am

i find it rather disgusting that glenn reynold's can exaggerate imperialism to such a degree. conveniently leaving out great britain's empire which wasn't anywhere near as nasty as he claims the us would be if it was imperialistic. all he's doing is saying that the us could be much worse so the rest of the world should shut up and do what the us wants. by looking at the statements by the us government, it's obvious that they're just going through the motions of getting support from the rest of the world. sigh. 08:57 am

it's very good to see that prince charles is against a war on iraq. i can't understand why being against a war with iraq you must be for terrorism. last i checked iraqis weren't terrorists. 08:51 am

w00t!!! we sold our house! just when we were starting to think about lowering the price. what a relief. 10:37 pm

i just got back from getting fresh ink. i can now officially attest to the breastbone being much more painful than either the wrists or the ankles. i had the shakes by the time he was done. and that was just the outline. 2 weeks i'll get it filled in. i have decided that the next tattoo i get will be somewhere very fleshy. 04:57 pm

N Korea threatens US with first strike. the irony of this is almost hilarious. let's see. here we have a country who kicked out weapons inspectors, blatantly restarted their nuclear program and threatens to do a pre-emptive first strike against the us. not only does it seem much more dangerous than iraq right now, but the whole situation could have been avoided by *not* cutting off their oil supplies. i'm beginning to feel like i've slipped into an alternate reality. one in which everyone is insane, does insane things, while others look on and act like it's perfectly normal and understandable. 05:43 pm

North Dakota Found To Be Harboring Nuclear Missiles. sometimes, the onion is just the right thing to read. 05:25 pm

U.S. raises terrorism threat alert. more and more, i find myself seeing conspiracies in every action. does anyone else think that going to orange alert is merely a ploy to incite fear and garner more support for the war?

i *really* wish i could go back to ignoring all things political. my life was much less disturbing. i'm not sure what spurred me out of my disinterest. i'm still not a citizen and i still have absolutely no control over politics. the only thing i can think of to explain this change is i can only tolerate a certain degree of blatant manipulation. it's sort of like listening to someone fudge the truth a bit, alter the facts a bit to make themselves look better. you know they're doing it, but you let it slide because it's not worth the effort to correct them. but when a person tells a blatant outright lie, you feel obligated to correct them. that's probably not a very good analogy. it's the best i can come up with right now tho.

the truth of the saying "ignorance is bliss" is starkly clear to me now. 05:21 pm

A national state of confusion. i had noticed the gradual morphing of "evil" from bin ladin over to saddam. but it didn't even occur to me that people were being manipulated into believing that iraq was responsible for 9/11. it's funny, i've always known how much propaganda and the media is used to manipulate the public. it's so much a fact of life that i no longer think about it anymore. it's only now, when the result of that manipulation may very likely be war, that i find myself realizing how horrific it truly is. 05:11 pm

RuminateThis: "WE DECIDED NOT TO RUN IT..." i cannot say how glad i am to know that there are some *sane* people in congress. i also can't describe how disgusted i am that the media didn't bother to mention something as important as a bill to repeal the "Iraq Use of Force Resolution." although, it's just one more thing to add to the tally of media sins as far as lack of coverage goes. 04:35 pm

Downing St dossier plagiarised. ouch. someone's gonna get expelled for cheating. 03:15 pm

Disco Squirrels sing "Disco Sauna". 11:39 am

Terry Jones: I'm losing patience with my neighbours, Mr Bush. lol. it would be even funnier if it wasn't so true. 10:48 am

another addictive flash game. i'm not sure whether it tests your typing speed or your reaction time more. i certainly suck at it. my score of 692 is nothing compared to peoples' scores of 43,021. 09:31 am

i haven't talked about my epilepsy much lately. mostly because there hasn't been any real change, other than for the worse. i started keeping a spreadsheet with the number of seizures i was having each day. it turned out to be very useful. i discovered that i was getting a huge peak in seizures on mondays. the number then tapered off throughout the week. i surmised that it was my birth control pills. went in last week and got a monophasic version. i'm hoping for a huge improvement, but it'll take a while to see. next thursday i go in for my final increase in vns amperage. for 3-6 months anyway. they'll put me at 1.75 ma which is the base level they use. it'll be nice to get a break from the increases, i'm sick of choking for half a day and then getting a lump in my throat for a week after. sigh. the fact that there has been no improvement is rather depressing. i would really like to drive again. 09:15 am

PCWorld.com - 2003 and Beyond. 09:03 am

i seem to have missed it, but on monday, eatonweb turned 4. unsurprisingly, all of my first links are now dead. although, it's good to see that the bumper dumper is still around. 08:55 am

bush record budget deficit. 06:40 pm

A Caper Flick With a Lone Star 06:09 pm

S.F. man's astounding photo / Mysterious purple streak is shown hitting Columbia 7 minutes before it disintegrated. aliens. it's got to be aliens. 05:41 pm

FOX NEWS: ‘The Network America Trusts’ (to pay ‘Saddam’) 05:35 pm

Fantasy Economics - Why economists are obsessed with online role-playing games. 05:11 pm

U.S. Economy in Worst Hiring Slump in 20 Years. 04:46 pm

so i'm happily going along reading this article: Powell: Iraq hiding weapons, aiding terrorists, and hit a serious stumbling block. why exactly would the evil regime in iraq do this? "scientists were forced to sign documents that said they understood divulging information was punishable by death." last i checked, insane despots tell people they'll be killed if they do something and then kill them. they don't look down a list and say "doh. i guess we can't kill this guy, he didn't sign the document saying he understood he'd be killed." or perhaps as the scientist has a gun put to his head, he'll shout "wait! i didn't sign the document! you can't kill me!". 04:35 pm

Cannabis economy brings in £11bn. imagine how much it brings in in the u.s. 11:04 pm

The Saddam Hussein Interview 08:55 pm

Pentagon adviser: France 'no longer ally'. 08:46 pm

A Failed Mission. more on why the shuttle is not viable.

btw, all my links today seem to be coming from daypop. 07:45 pm

A bad case of DVD rot eats into movie collections "Among those worst affected are video rental stores, which buy millions of DVDs per year." that would explain why many of the dvds i get from netflix have problems. have i mentioned how much i love netflix? thanks to them i just got done watching the first season of oz. so many questions have been answered. 07:41 pm

Embrace file-sharing, or die. this was very interesting to read. unfortunately, the biggest thing i walked away from it with was the shock that prince uses numbers when he writes. "...has little 2 do with people's intrinsic respect 4 art and artists..." 07:36 pm

Saddam's bodyguard warns of secret arsenal. while it is quite probably true, you'll have to forgive me for doubting the credibility of information that happens to come out of israel at such a perfect moment. 06:59 pm

US chooses Saddam's successor . maybe this is an explanation for the delay. it would be silly to go to war without having a new constitution ready to implement. 06:54 pm

Ah, Those Principled Europeans. ah more irony for the day. while ranting about how europe is insufferable because of their opposition to the u.s., he gives the following quote. "Power corrupts, but so does weakness," said Josef Joffe, editor of Germany's Die Zeit newspaper. "And absolute weakness corrupts absolutely." i wonder if he failed to realize that the subtext of that statement? if europe is corrupted, then so too is the u.s. only the u.s. isn't corrupted by absolute weakness. 06:49 pm

To the Moon in a Space Elevator? i hope the columbia disaster does spur it on, but right now i'm not feeling very optimistic about the government giving up a highly lucrative billion dollar business. 06:43 pm

Hunter S. Thompson. "the country's spinning out of control". that is *exactly* how i feel right now every time i read another news story. what scares me is that i don't know if anyone is capable or knows how to put on the brakes. 06:32 pm

"If You Want To Win An Election, Just Control The Voting Machines". sometimes the u.s. scares me so much that i seriously wonder whether i wouldn't be better off moving back to england. and then i realize that, having left when i was 8, i know absolutely nothing about british politics. for all i know it could be much worse. the devil you know? or the devil you don't? 06:27 pm

Guernica Reproduction Covered at UN. and everywhere i look. there is irony. 06:18 pm

Cognitive Dissident. i've found john perry barlow to be a very fascinating person ever since i saw him at pop!tech several years (3? 4?) ago. 06:09 pm

International High IQ Society | Free IQ Tests. ugh. a lot of those are exceptionally difficult. 10:54 am

Just Well Mixed has a nice rant about it and a few more similar links. 07:14 pm

The Space Shuttle Must Be Stopped. i found this to be an interesting analysis. the only thing i question is whether an outside commission reporting to the president will be any more effective than one reporting to congress. he is from texas after all. 07:11 pm

ah. the joys of pet ownership. this hits a little too close to home tho. "Hunched, skittish, the sort of sad, pathetic cat someone will feel all sad and pathetic about and adopt it and take it home and it'll live under the bed like a child's monster forever." i've vowed to never do that again. i swear. i have enough monsters under the bed. 06:46 pm

sometimes i find shopping on ebay rather amusing. especially when actual companies sell their stuff. like right now i'm bidding on a fuji finepix. but the company that's auctioning it sells online. so i know that it'd be crazy to bid more than $269... 06:08 pm

i think i'm going to have to settle for buying egyptian cotton sheets instead of linen. they're just too expensive. Cuddledown has some excellent prices on some of their 100% linen sheets. unfortunately, the limited colors are mostly pink. shudder. 12:02 pm

a review of xoxide caffeinated soap. tempting, but i like the taste of my coffee in the morning. maybe it would be good for emergencies when i don't have time for coffee. 08:38 am

Shuttle Columbia lost. i'd like to cry. i'm also feeling deja vue. the mission status report is rather chilling. via dave who is compiling links. 09:09 am