Year: 2007

Sheesh…blog on blog violence. So unfortunate. So unnecessary.

This why I quit being a link whore.

75 Taliban militants made an attempt to overrun a U.S. -led coalition base in southern Afghanistan today and 20 died.

20 Taliban, actually.

“The inability of the insurgent forces to inflict any severe damage on Firebase Anaconda, while being simultaneously decimated in the process, should be a clear indication of the ineffectiveness of their fighters,” said Army Capt. Vanessa R. Bowman, a coalition spokeswoman.

Word.

Here’s some pictures from the recent blogger meet-up hosted by KOMO TV in Seattle, the local ABC affiliate. In a rather uncharacteristically proactive move, KOMO decided they needed to meet local bloggers. After all, you need to know who your future stringers are, right? Good on them, as far as I’m concerned. The other two TV stations in town will probably respond in kind, soon.

Every now and then, I reflect on the utter cool-ness of the Internet. I don’t know what it is, but lately I’ve been finding some neat stuff, neat people and great conversation. For example…

Veronica Belmont

Evan Williams

Twitter

Facebook

Mashable

Justine

John Gruber

…and too many more to mention in this post. Now, if only a new Web 2.0 technology could come along and add a few more hours to each day. That’d be really cool.

Remember the man who drove an explosive-laden Jeep into the Glasgow Airport a little more than a month ago? He died today from his injuries.

Good riddance.

Way back in 1990, Minnesota officials were warned that the bridge that collapsed yesterday was “structurally deficient”. But, instead of replacing the span, they relied on a series of patchwork fixes and frequent inspections.

“We thought we had done all we could,” state bridge engineer Dan Dorgan told reporters not far from the mangled remains of the span. “Obviously something went terribly wrong.”

Now, consider for a moment how many other bridges in the U.S. are in the exact same condition as the I-35 bridge was yesterday before it broke apart. Federal officials called today for nationwide inspections on all bridges in hopes that another tragedy could be averted.

Here’s the latest…

— Dozens still missing

— Schoolchildren struggled to escape

— Engineers see danger in aging infrastructure

— Recent bridge and highway collapses

By now you’ve no doubt heard about the collapse of the I-35W bridge which crosses the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. The television video I’ve seen so far shows nothing short of a complete catastrophe. There are reports of over 50 cars in the river water. A freight train was crushed underneath the bridge. At least one 18-wheeler truck is submerged. There’s no telling how many deaths will result from the tragedy. As of now (8:30 PM PDT), 7 are confirmed dead. Early reports have ruled out terrorism.

Rolling updates from WCCO.COM

MORE | Minneapolis Star Tribune | KCCW-TV | CNN | KARE-TV | Reuters | FOX News | NY Times | AP |

Elton John…

“I do think it would be an incredible experiment to shut down the whole internet for five years and see what sort of art is produced over that span.”

What a dope.

Did you say it this morning?

“Rabbit rabbit white rabbit” is a common superstition, held particularly among children. The most common modern version states that a person should say “rabbit, rabbit, white rabbit” upon waking on the first day of each new month, and on doing so will receive good luck for the remainder of that month.

What a load of crap.

Ah, the naivete.

“I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges,” Obama said. “But let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.”

I admit this is hard, but I’m going to try to think like a Democrat right now…

Playing into Obama’s hypothetical moment of manliness, wouldn’t most Dems want to know what would happen when the Pakistanis instantly decide to stop being an ally of the US and instead, defend their homeland against the unauthorized invasion, soliciting the help of the Taliban? Would Pakistan become Obama’s Iraq? Wouldn’t one little conversation in the Oval Office between Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack stop this silly idea in its tracks? Me thinks so.

Of course, the Obama lovers in this country will hail this blatant example of voter pandering as pure blue steel toughness. Too bad it’s all smoke and mirrors.