tfl: The Flatiron Life

It is usually not a good sign when the Federal government tells people to not use your product. However, if you are Microsoft and the products is the most popular web browser, it is probably like telling people to stop breathing.

ICANN is international body that pick what top level domains exist on the internet and who has control of them. These domains are things like .com, .us, and .de. Every country has a top level domain assigned to it by ICANN. We do not use ours much in the US, but most countries use it for every think. Other countries often have sub domains that mimic the top domains we use. So .gov in here might become .gov.uk.

Iraq has lost control of its .iq domain though and now it is trying to get it back. The snag is that the company that now controls it is in trouble with the law for funding Hamas.

Saddam will be charged with several counts of crimes against humanity. I was a little surprised to find out there is not a statute of limitation for invading your neighbor. I would have thought if you were not charged within 10 years you might get away with it. Looks like I need to revise my plans for when I am Governor of Illinois. Iowa you are soooo lucky I found this out.

I have been drawn to the story of the Cassini probe reaching Saturn this week. This story about the event has a major flaw though. The opening paragraph says Cassini “will reach probably the most beautiful planet in the Solar System.” Despite a very good use of the proper name for our group of planets, I have no doubt the author is wrong. I have seen many images of every planet through the years, photos, art work, and scientific images. However, the most beautiful planet has to be our own. Earth is the magnificent glowing blue planet. The way our water and atmosphere reflect the light of the Sun is amazing. Proof: West Side and East Side

We have even made her sparkle at night!

Last week I told you about the low-carb potato. Idaho says heck no!

What happens when you kill your children?

They cannot grow up to be voters for one thing. This article has a lot of number, but is interesting.

This is what the folks at Al-Jazeera are saying about the hand over of power in Iraq. Honestly, it ain’t that bad.

Not as bad as what the Indians are saying, but I think they are still a little mad at the ‘Britishers’.

Jonah Goldberg has a really good article on Michael Moore’s work and followers.

Sovereignty has been formally passed back to the Iraqi people, two days early. This is an important step. I think it is good that it happened a little early. It shows our confidence in Iraqis to lead themselves, something they have not done in 35 years. It also throws al-Queda off guard.

I am very interested to see how the attacks go. More and more they have been killing more Iraqis and less Coalition forces. Now every attack will be directly against Iraq. If Coalition forces are attacked it is against Iraq because we are their temporary military force. Also, the ultimatums of “withdraw all your troops or we will behead your citizen”, which are already not very effective, should decrease in effectiveness. Our troops would leave when ever the Iraqi government asked them too.

I think I might be applying way too much logic to the actions and thought of the terrorists. I have been trying to figure out exactly what they want in Iraq. If they want use to hand over power to the Iraqis, why would they attack more as we get to the time of hand over?

Then I remember terrorism is the method of losers. No one wins through terrorism. The man who straps a bomb to his back or flies an airplane into a building is not winning. There is only one thing I know that they want to do. At any cost, they want to kill every single one of us only because we are Americans. There is nothing we could change about our policies that would change the fact that they want to kill all of us.

Bob Bemer has died. He was the creator of ASCII code which converts characters to numeric values. Co-creator of COBOL, the first major programming languages used by corporations and still used today in mainframe applications. He also established the standard of grouping 8 bits into a byte.