Sorry - I've been a bit under the weather this week.

No real posting until I can refocus my eyes on the monitor. . .


kthanxbai!

A view of the future or a modern past?

I stumbled across an online article in the New York Times which started me thinking in a variety of directions. 

And the Pursuit of Happiness by Maira Kalman cannot appear in the print version due to its style.

It cannot be seen as a normal article as it appears to in a font similar to hand writing.

It uses both photos and paintings for a very interesting visual effect.

I'd be interested in your thoughts in the comments page....

kthanxbai!

Handguns, telemarketers and bears, oh my!

Bob Davis at The Anniston Star has a very interesting article on the NRA vs. the 'Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence' when it comes to selling their members' information to irrelevant third parties.

Bob Davis: Handguns, telemarketers and bears, oh my!

To my everlasting regret I worked in a call center for a few months and know exactly what kind of rabid fool actually makes these calls. In my later life in the Mass (not bulk) Emailing industry I made sure that no-one ever even attempted to sell our customers' data.

But I digress. The article I think, was maybe trying to show how the NRA are a responsible bunch and their opponents are out to get a buck wherever they can. To me the article was saying why you should always keep your personal data, including your phone number, secure.

kthanxbai!

Taken with "Taken"

Over at Two Cats and a Hornet, Lorimor has a great review of a film I never actually heard of!

One of my assumptions in this blog is that you and I are on the same level on most ideas. Using my Jumblerant logic I therefore  assume that you have never heard of the film either. So here is the link:

Taken with "Taken"

kthanxbai!

Coming to a slow boil

My wife and son are American. I'm not. But I know what respect an honour are. A friend of mine, currently based in the US posted this as his facebook status:

Xxxx Xxxx is remembering the fallen by shopping the sales, bar-b-q and opening up of swimming pools

What an absolute pillock! A more rude, selfish and stupid phrase I have not heard in a long time.

He then had an open conversation with his wife which concluded with him saying:

I got jeans and shorts - I will remember the vets every time I wear them....

I'm hoping he doesn't read this blog but if he does.... well my opinion is still the same.

So if you have a friend who might have forgotten that Memorial Day is to remember the fallen here are a few blogs that you might like to get them to visit:

• Knottie's niche
• Bostonmaggie
• Sippican Cottage - Do Flowers Grow on Porkchop Hill?
• From Cow Pastures to Kosovo -
• 1 West Tennessee Veteran's Cemetery Prepares for Memorial Day
• 2 In Memory
• You Served -God Speed 1LT. Roslyn L. Schulte

Hat tip to Bouhammer for the drawings

kthanxbai!

Memorial Day - Map the Fallen

Today one of Google Earth's developers is launching the results of a personal project he started in 2005.

This Memorial Day I would like to share with you a personal project of mine that uses Google Earth to honor the more than 5,700 American and Coalition servicemen and women that have lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. I have created a map for Google Earth that will connect you with each of their stories—you can see photos, learn about how they died, visit memorial websites with comments from friends and families, and explore the places they called home and where they died.

During this project, I have sought the advice and perspectives of several groups directly tied to these losses, including Gold Star families, veterans' groups, active-duty servicemen and women, and leadership in the United States Army. I've done my best to incorporate their feedback and suggestions in creating something that pays tribute to the memory and service of these fallen heroes.

Go check it out at Map the Fallen

kthanxbai!

Memorial Day - Beslan

Over at Bayou Renaissance Man, Peter has posted a very interesting Memorial Day article. Instead of going with the traditional line of 'what our soldiers do for us' - which you can find all over the 'net (if you can't find anything, write me a note and I'll send you 30 or 40 links) he is showing another side, the side of 'why our soldiers do what they do for us'.

Memorial Day: Remembering Beslan

It is a very interesting and emotional piece. I advise you have a hankie or sleeve ready for use.

kthanxbai!

Whiteflash.be on Facebook

I received 4 messages today from friends on Facebook, each of them had the title "Look at this" and the body had just one sentence 'www . whiteflash .be". Not being a complete nonce I didn't click on the link - as they obviously had!

Apparently the site whiteflash.be looks like a Facebook log-in page, and is designed to steal your credentials and use them to send similar messages to all your friends.

Which gets me to asking - why ? ? What do you get in return if you were the one who created this? Kudos from friends? A wry smile every now and then? Sorry, I don't get it.

If you do receive one of these Facebook emails, simply delete it - one of your friends is infected but not you. If you find, however, that your account is sending the mails:

1. As a precaution, go to your browser settings and clear your cookies.

2. Change your Facebook password

3. Make sure your antivirus software is up to date and run a full system scan

Just a reminder

65 years ago this week French, Canadian, British, American and other Allied soldiers, airmen and sailors were getting ready for what was going to be the beginning of the final push to Berlin.

We all understand and grasp the enormity of the events that occurred after the landings, but how many of us think of how they all felt in the weeks before June 6th 1944, D-Day?

kthanxbai!

I challenge you!!

Treppenwitz has started a walking challenge between 24th May and 24th June. I have signed up for it. I think from now on, like his good self, I will add the number of paces I did the previous day to the bottom of the blog so that you can comment on how well, or otherwise I am doing.

The goal is to walk a minimum of 10,000 paces a day according to a pedometer. I did 14,000 yesterday so I know I can do  it, I just have to do it every day. We shall see . .

I challenge you too!! Come by and sign up.

kthanxbai!

A variety of bloggage

Please accept my humblest apologies. In an attempt to upgrade my little corner of the blogworld I have been rearranging the blog layout. As a result, Mr Blogger has bestowed Jumblerant with a variety of bugs;

• Google Analytics hasn't worked in 6 days (or you're not reading this)
• Adsense ads were removed and then miraculously appeared
• The shortening of the blog to 244 words in RSS was turned off - but enacted anyway

To combat Google Analytics' desertion I have started using the Koego software which brands itself as Blog Analytics. Its interesting to use but I do miss Google Analytics' no nonsense approach. The marketing team over at Koego are (hopefully) not English speakers as their interface has a selection of subtle grammatic mistakes. But the fact that they use the stats that bloggers want to see, and big yellow smiley faces, does endear them to me.

Whilst Google Analytics decided to abandon me I decided to retry a rather unique advertising software called Project Wonderful. What a super name!!!

Quite simply Project Wonderful allows bloggers and websites to decide on the location and size of an ad, then they submit it for auction. Currently, after 24 hours of running it, I am $0.08 in the black. WOOHOO!! I have found that the HTML from Project Wonderful played merry hell with Google Analytics on the site so be warned.

Again, thanks for your patience and if you hear of any good analytics software, or can tell me the difference between atom 2.0, 2.5 and RSS .92, 2.0 just type something in the comments.


kthanxbai!

Baby Rearing Hints & Tips II

Oh, and by the way, the answer to 'did the baby pee in the bath?' is not 'no, but I'll teach him'.

kthanxbai!

Quality service

Thought I'd just send you over here to have a smile.

Enjoy - oh, and kthanxbai!

Wiggly wigglers - Website of the week

Close friends will know that I am a nature lover. When combined with my love of the interweb and the need to buy my Mum, back in the UK, her Christmas and birthday presents you get a seasoned follower of WigglyWigglers.

Yes, that is their name and they are very astute in their marketing. They have a near daily blog, a few of their employees twitter and they have an active group on FaceBook. All free advertising that they do not abuse. And for that, and a great website, they get recognition from The Guardian.



Well done that WigglyWiggler!!

kthanxbai!

Welcome to binge Britain

Bob over at The Drawn Cutlass has drawn my attention to an interesting article about drinking and drunken behavior in the UK.

I wasn't at all surprised to see the photos in the article either. I lived in a University town and saw it regularly. I even visited Cardiff once!!

(Note to Dan - down the Roxy in Bristol on a Saturday night!)

I was surprised to see that the drunkenness didn't seem to have an age limit though.



Oh what a night: This dustbin seems the perfect place to catch your breath on a rowdy night out

kthanxbai!

Yummywear

Summer has finally popped up round these parts so thoughts have begun about what to wear in the 90°F heat we have around here.



Its available over at Thoseshirts.com

And yes, I have been saving this one since November!!

kthanxbai!

Madonna's latest single

I heard Madonna's latest single yesterday whilst driving back from the supermarket (YEAH! What a life I lead!!).

Anyway, I thought the single sucked smelly sox. And then I saw this picture over at Rofl Razzi



Which kind of explains it all.

kthanxbai!

The Most Dangerous Record Ever Made

    A very interesting new record has been made - whilst making a record.....

'The Most Dangerous Record Ever Made'

An army band that spent hours in a makeshift recording studio in Iraq before heading out to patrol the streets of Basra has scooped the Best Album gong at the Classical Brit Awards.

One minute, the pipers of the Royal Scots Dragoon guards were crammed into the studio, the next they were risking their lives on the frontline.

The pipers were halfway through putting together their album when they were deployed on a six-month tour of Iraq last Autumn.

But instead of scrapping the project, they shipped their recording equipment to Basra and braved 40-degree heat and the risk of grenade attacks to finish the work.

And against all the odds, the album described as "the most dangerous record ever made" was named the year's best at a star-studded evening held at the Royal Albert Hall.

The honour was accepted to a standing ovation by Major Angus Benson-Blair, who dedicated it to all British service personnel.

He said: "The award is obviously about the album, but I know everyone in the Armed Forces will see also each vote as supporting us in everything we do.

"So on behalf of every single soldier, sailor and airman I would like to say a huge and heartfelt thank you for every vote for the pipes and drums of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards. Thank you so much."

Its nice to see that the soldiers are thinking to the future and have their "eyes on the prize" - congratulations!

Baby Rearing Hints & Tips

Just in case anyone out there had any questions....

More parenting dos and don'ts to come.

kthanxbai!

Blinking Tealeaves

WHICHENDBITES has a very humorous look at the despicable theft from the British public by Britain's Members of Parliament (MPs) via their expense claims;

I is for Ikea carrier bag:
5p, claimed by a Labour MP in his Scottish constituency.

J is for Jaffa Cakes:
£1.60 for two packs, charged by an outspoken junior minister in 2004.

K is for Kit Kat:
£2.50, bought from the minibar of the Sherlock Holmes Hotel in London by one of Labour’s best-known female MPs.

L is for loo seat:
One particularly heavyweight Labour MP bought two in the space of a year for his constituency home.

Just before you go over there just please note:

• £1 = $1.45
• An Aga is a large, wood fueled oven, normally left on 24/7 and used in country mansions
• And 'Blinking Tealeaves' is cockney slang for 'Bloody Thieves'

kthanxbai!

You saw it here first!

Warship of future revealed by US Navy

The Daily Telegraph has a lovely little piece on the 'Warship of the Future'. But you saw it here first.





kthanxbai!!

I like Gitmo. Please don't take it away

Whilst everyone is shouting about how cruel and wasteful the Guantanamo Bay 'Terrorist Detention Program' was and how we broke the Geneva Convention by locking up and torturing people who plotted to kill us, here is a nice little bit of info to make you think twice....

Because of Gitmo, the following, amongst others, were averted;

• The West Coast Airliner Plot
• The 2004 UK Urban Targets Plot
• The Heathrow Airport Plot
• The Tall Buildings Plot

For more info hop on over to The Effectiveness of Gitmo and the Terrorist Detainee Program at the In Homeland Security blog. it makes for very interesting reading.

I put Roseanne's picture up there because I don't really like her. No other reason.

kthanxbai!!

Focus people, focus

see more Funny Graphs

kthanxbai!

I am a teaspoon

I realized just the other day that my wife, child and I can be classified as The Teaspoon Family.

This photo was taken after lunch. As you can see from the contents of the washing up bowl (on its side at the back) all we had used, since early that morning, were teaspoons: formula, coffee and more coffee between the 3 of us!

Is that a bad thing?

kthanxbai!

The US's first Littoral Combat Ship

Littoral Combat Ship - relatively small surface vessels intended for operations in the littoral zone (close to shore) (thanks Mr Wikipedia)

The US launched their first LCS on 1st May, the USS Freedom, and having seen the boat's trials at sea, I am very impressed with the little tyke. It looks like any Somalian even muttering the phrase 'ooh arr me hearties' will be wiped off the face of the earth with quick dispatch!!





The LCS has 3 helicopters, a 57mm gun, a variety of missiles and a couple of .50 cal guns so it really can make a pirate's day a very unpleasant one.

LCS High Speed Trials

Good luck and godspeed!

kthanxbai!

The Drawn Cutlass: War Crime: U.S. Military Shot Muslims With Ammo Made By Jews!

With all the 'hoopla' (and you can quote me on that) that the UN has been going on about Israel being not very nice to their enemy during their last war, I was wondering how they'd react to 'kosher bullets' being used in Iraq.

Bob has the story over at The Drawn Cutlass:

War Crime: U.S. Military Shot Muslims With Ammo Made By Jews!

kthanxbai!

Why their god gave them camels!

Wow. I'm still in shock.

Over at From My Position... On The Way Chuck has a link to a marvelous story over at Nabble 'In Case You Hadn't Heard'.

My question to you is... do you think it is true?

Answers in the comments please.

kthanxbai!

Further to my Star Trek Film blog

Following on from Geek to the 3rd Power. . . .



kthanxbai!

Goodbye Corner Gas

YouTube - Corner Gas (101)- Ruby Reborn Pt.1

I've just watched the last episode of Corner Gas. It was a great comedy and will live on in re-runs forever but like the Office UK, The Young Ones and Fawlty Towers the writers decided to end the show before it started to fall from it's zenith.

Here is the first part of the first show. Enjoy!

Corner Gas (101)- Ruby Reborn Pt.1


kthanxbai!

C+ must try harder

First of all I'd like to apologize for the lack of postings but I've just been too busy with Baby Jack and trying to get my sleep pattern into some semblance of order.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

There I was, reading a blog by BlackFive about a firefight in Afghanistan. Somehow, whilst under fire, a soldier had filmed an unbelievable attack on a US base being fired upon from 6 different directions and GoogleTube had even allowed him to post it.

I watched the clip and kept GoogleTube up. just to see what else they might have of a similar ilk to watch and they decided on the following;


I can think of nothing more different, unconnected or even possibly relevant to a near death experience by machine gun fire than 'Proper Water Lily Trimming'.

Or someone at GoogleTube has one awesome sense of humor!

kthanxbai!

Sleeping on stained sheets

Of all the fun things people mention when they reminisce about their kid's infancy there is always a tale of being peed on, especially by young boys.

Funny Huggies Commercial

This happened to us after the 3 am feed, explaining how my wife and I slept on baby-pee stained sheets the other night. We also went to sleep crying with laughter at our own plight!

At least Jack's kidneys are healthy....

hat tip to EE at Backboards and Band-Aids

Our Selective Moral Outrage

I may be a bit dense, blinkered or naive but I have never really understood why so many agencies such as the UN (and all its UN derivatives), WHO and Amnesty Intl., and news services such as the BBC and CNN really push the anti-Israel perspective as much as they do.

When I lived in the UK I also never understood why eggs were thrown at Jews walking in the street, why bricks and stones were thrown at synagogues and why there existed such vile antisemitism in the daily papers at the pen of Robert Fisk and his ilk.

Thanks to Bret Stephens over at the Wall Street Journal I now have an inkling as to why this occurs:

Our Selective Moral Outrage
Why does Israel face more opprobrium than Russia?

EDIT UPDATE Hat tip to In From The Cold

As always, all comments are very welcome.


«« if this blog comes out as one complete link to the WSJ article then I apologize and insult ScribeFire through clenched teeth. If not, then please ignore this notelet »»


kthanxbai!

Holocaust Memorial Day in Israel

Just in case anyone out there didn't know about the attack in the Sudan a few weeks ago, or forgot about Osirak, Entebbe, The Yom Kippur War, The Six Day War...



Hat tip to Doubletapper

Brothers at War

There is a very interesting new film about our soldiers over in Iraq called 'Brothers at War'. Above is the Fox News interview with the star / director.

kthanxbai!

A new tv show for me - and I'm sharing

Somehow I stumbled across a new TV show, Parks and Recreation. Its a 'mockumentary', similar to the series of The Office and the film. I strongly recommend watching it as it does have a few gems of jokes in there and i really laughed out loud watching it.

Amy Poehler plays Leslie Knope, the main role in the show and she is aided and abetted by a great team including Aziz Ansari, Rashida Jones and Paul Schneider

The documentary cameras follow Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler, NBC's "Saturday Night Live," "Baby Mama") a mid-level bureaucrat in the Parks and Recreation Department of Pawnee, Indiana.

Definitely worth seeking out and watching.

kthnaxbai!