I have to confess to a not-so-secret dislike of Arianna Huffington. I was living in Santa Barbara when her husband, Michael--call me Mike--Huffington, tried to buy his way into Congress. He outspent his opponent by a huge amount and still lost. It's nice to know that can still happen.

As Michael faded into obscurity, his wife Arianna came to the forefront. With hindsight, it's pretty clear who was really running for office. Arianna Huffington has always been an outspoken right-wing zealot; the kind of person I really can't stand to read, listen to, or share a planet with.

But it appears that a transformation has taken place and I'm not sure in whom. I read a recent article she wrote, and I have to confess that I agree with it 100%.

I'm a little scared.

Just off the wire... I'm out in Mountain View right now, and I've stumbled onto a hot piece of Hollywood gossip. According to unnamed source--a person with whom I work--who knows Jen Siebel (niece of Tom Siebel, the founder of Siebel Systems), Jen and George Clooney (of Hollywood hunk fame) are an item.

Next month, when you're watching Entertainment Tonight or some other cheesy gossip show and you hear this story, remember that you heard it here first.

Oh happy day, there is an on-line geek test available. I took it, and I must say, the accuracy is almost scary.

First, to start the test you must click on a button labeled, "Lay on, MacDuff". Sound like anyone you know? It sure does to me.

Second, there is the text at the start of the test, "OK, monkeyboy, on with the test". Again, sound like anyone you know? To me, this is getting creepy.

And then there are the results... in my case:

You are a geek liaison, which means you go both ways. You can hang out with normal people or you can hang out with geeks which means you often have geeks as friends and/or have a job where you have to mediate between geeks and normal people. This is an important role and one of which you should be proud. In fact, you can make a good deal of money as a translator.

I'm ready to run out of the room screaming.

After giving us some of the greatest, and worst, engineers around, CMU now has another feather to stick in its cap: the "invention" of the smiley. Now that the truth is known, there can really be little doubt that this is the strongest computer science department in the country.

These guys are too cool. When I grow up, I want to be just like them. I could make some comments about just how glittery their fine jewelery is. But I'll refrain.

I big shout out to my homie Chaz-Bone for giving these guys their due props.

I took my aunt and uncle to the San Fransisco airport this morning. I was amazed at how deserted the airport was at 8 am. By the number of people around, it could have been 3 am. The number of news people and police easily outnumbered the number of travellers.

I'm free, I'm free, I'm finally free. After a summer of endless toil, the fence is done. The dogs have a greatly expanded play area, and I have a huge project checked off my list.

Now, what am I going to do with all this free time?

When I read things like this, I can hardly contain my frustration. What this tells me is that there are some parents out there that should be in vocabulary class with their children. If you're going to stop using every word that can be misconstrued or misunderstood to be an insult, you're going to have to remove a lot of words from the English language.

Okay, I know Harry Potter is for kids and all, but some of the reviews of the Harry Potter Nimbus 2000 Broom for sale at Amazon.com make me wonder if this item shouldn't be sold in an adult novelty shop. That's all I'm going to say about this. I'll let the description of the toy and the reviews speak for themselves. Really, I'm not making any comments here.

Well, the Boulder city council is at it again. If you're not familiar with the way things work in Boulder, you can't build anything unless it is some sort of high-density urban village with tons of government-mandated low-income housing. Then the city council wets their pants in excitement. Now they're taking things to a new level.

Pollard Motors is a Jeep dealership in Boulder. Sadly for them, they own 11 acres of land near the railroad tracks that cut through town; the nerve! The city council, in a rush to build a "transit village", has given the city staff authority to condem this property.

Yes, they are willing to condem the property of a profitable business to build a "transit village." This despite the fact that there is no train service on these tracks, there is no plan for train service on these tracks, and there is no money to start train service on these tracks. Yet they are still willing to condem the land, possibly killing a viable business in the process. The fact that they are considering this despite all the problems with declining tax revenue makes this so funny that it really, really hurts.

I can understand why the ultra-liberal sorts at the UN World Summit would be upset with many US policies. But heckling Colin Powell? That seems a little over the top. So far as I can tell, he's the only level-headed person in the Bush administration.

In the paper this weekend, there was an article linking terrorism and the drug trade. What I can't figure out is, which of their wars are they trying to justify? To claim that drug use is feuling terrorism--at least terrorism of the Al-Qaida variety--is ridiculous. Sure, some small amount of money may find it's what to them through the drug trade, but most of their money comes from one source: oil.

One of my favorite quotes from the article is this:

"There is increasing intelligence information from the investigation that for the first time alleged drug sales in the United States are going in part to support terrorist organizations in the Middle East," DEA administrator Asa Hutchinson said Friday.

That's right, they are just now getting proof that drug money finds its way to terrorism--and their statement of proof is about the weakest, most wishy-washy, statement you'll ever hear. Now let me refresh your memory on something; around the time of the Super Bowl, the federal government released a series of high-priced television ads claiming that drug use supports terrorism. So, it's safe to assume those ads were based on nothing other than their desire to link these two wars at the hip.

I don't doubt that some money from drugs finds its way towards uses in terrorism (but most of this drug-based terrorism takes place in Central and South America were there is no focus from the American media) but what are the numbers? I'd suspect that if the numbers were released (and truthful), they would show that this is a drop in the bucket of the terrorists bank accounts. I suspect they are trying to drum up support for the still-failing war on drugs by linking it to the far more popular war on terror.

Newbie Resident Burns Down Lyons... Almost
by Coal Seams
OPI

Last night, the beloved town of Lyons Colorado was almost torched to the ground by Newbie resident Charles (Chaz) Partee and his malfunctioning grill. Mister Partee lit the grill at approximately 6:30 pm MDT and left it to warm up. The grill was purportedly lit in an attempt to barbecue; whether the intent was to barbecue food or the beloved town of Lyons is still unknown.

After lighting the grill, Mister Partee and others in attendance remarked upon an odd whistling sound emanating from the grill. Shortly thereafter, wild flames began spewing forth from the grill, endangering the beloved town of Lyons.

Flailing wildly as he attempted to squelch the flames, Mister Partee poured beer and water on the grill. He later claimed that he was ready to use "recycled" beer if circumstances merited. While guests at Mister Partee's house were relieved that the flames were put out, they were even more thankful that events did not merit the fire-fighting techniques pioneered in Gulliver's Travels.

Some witnesses reported seeing a clearly upset feline lurking in the vicinity of the grill moments before the incident took place. Investigators questioned the cat at length but released her after they were unable to link her to the fire before their allergies started to bother them.