Tuesday, May 26, 2009

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.

[us_thumb.jpg]


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.


[spiral_thumb.jpg]


Go check it out at Map the Fallen

kthanxbai!

Monday, May 25, 2009

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!

Sunday, May 24, 2009

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!
goldbase.be
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

Saturday, May 23, 2009

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!

Friday, May 22, 2009

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!

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

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!

Sunday, May 17, 2009

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

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

kthanxbai!

Friday, May 15, 2009

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!

Monday, May 11, 2009

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!!


Sunday, May 10, 2009

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!!


Friday, May 8, 2009

Focus people, focus

song chart memes
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!

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

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!!


File:USS Freedom (LCS-1) - speed run - 080804-N-0000X-006.jpg


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!

Thursday, April 30, 2009

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!


Wednesday, April 29, 2009

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!

Thursday, April 23, 2009

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

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

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

Monday, April 20, 2009

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!

Sunday, April 19, 2009

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!

Geek to the 3rd power

Just to prove to you that I can be as geeky as anyone else, here is the latest, extended, trailer for the new Star Trek film. Looks good, eh?



Star Trek (2009) Forth and Final Full Length Theatrical Trailer HD 1080p


kthanxbai!

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Stressful holiday

What a week! My parents have just departed our sweet and sunny country to return to England after a week of indulgence at a hotel 'up North'.

Sadly it wasn't exactly as relaxing as we had planned. Baby Jack, at 5 weeks, is beginning to settle down to needing a bottle every 3 - 5 hours. Which is fine. Except I feel exceptionally guilty whenever I sleep through a feeding so I make sure to make every bottle, 24/7!

We arrived at the hotel already tired, our room was perfect, large and roomy and far enough from the open area lobby to be very quiet. Or so we thought. Sadly our neighbors were exceptionally loud.

And rude.

Have you ever had to tell a 40 year old woman to not talk on her mobile phone in a hotel corridor at 10pm? I have. Ever had to tell kids to stop running up and down a corridor doing their own Olympics, presided over by their 16 year old sister? You are missing out!!

I wasn't the only one to complain. By the 2nd night of the package deal they had been moved to their own dining hall as they were so loud.

Anyway, they are long gone now and I intend to forget them very quickly. Or, if I see them again, give them a wide berth.

UPDATE: Dad just phoned from the airport an told me that Mum was laughing so hard she was crying. This is what she was watching;




Susan Boyle - Singer - Britains Got Talent 2009 (With Lyrics)

kthanxbai!

Monday, April 6, 2009

Wherefore art thou 'Hallelujah'?

After my Hallelujah ramblings on Sunday night I was astonished to be pointed, by Movin' Meat, in the direction of Clapclap.org and their article "It Doesn't Matter Which You Heard": the Curious Cultural Journey of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" from April 2007.

They have a wealth of information on the classic song including when it has been on TV:




The popularity of remaking the original song:




So where did I hear the song last night that started off the musical musings? I haven't the foggiest!!

of mule dung and ash has a very interesting blog regarding religious music, and mentions Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah in his blog 'Hallelujah' But I'm a HUGE Elvis fan and would have listened to his YouTube clip and gone on from there. So where I learnt about Buckley's cover will remain a mystery...

Here's Elvis to make you feel better about yourself. Now go grab a  peanut butter sandwich and a deep fat fryer.

Happy listening anyway.




Elvis Presley - An American Trilogy (Live 1973)

kthanxbai!

Lack of work can be fatal

Over at Marooned, Jay G talks about the 53 deaths in the USA in March in mass shootings.

This is very sad as each life taken was completely avoidable. Jay G speaks along the lines of "guns don't kill people, but people kill people" and I agree 111%.

In the stats that Jay gives something else caught my eye; 29 of the 53 lives taken were attributed to someone having worries about employment. Those numbers are from the few incidents where we know the reasons for it all.

That is just insane - can we really believe that these murders would not have happened if there wasn't the Worldwide Depression©®? There is something very fishy going here.

Cable TV - what you pay for v. what you watch

The graph below, obviously scientifically calculated, explains just why I canceled my cable TV yesterday. Its only $55 a month but thats still money...

Cable TV - what you pay for v. what you watch



Hallelujah

I've been feeling a bit down recently, what with the world going into a Depression, my inability to find a job and my sleep pattern being obliterated by my 4 week old son.

And yes, I know I should be happy with him, and I am, its just that the 'big picture' sucks.

Once Wifey and Son were asleep this evening I decided to listen to some of my favorite music and just chill. I found one of my favorite songs on the Tube o' You and listened, then found a few more versions in the 'Related Views' section and thought I'd share them with you.


The version loved by musicians the world over:


Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah



The song's latest popular reincarnation, as used in the film 'Shrek':



"Hallelujah" by Rufus Wainwright (Central Park)


Bob Dylan's version:




Bob Dylan - Hallelujah



And the original:




Leonard Cohen Hallelujah Live



A very nice Norwegian version, in English - Espen Lind (on guitar), Askil Holm, Alejandro Fuentes, Kurt Nilsen



Hallelujah Best version!


Well, I feel better now, do you? No? Just be happy I left the Il Divo version out!!


kthanxbai!!


Thursday, April 2, 2009

Her Morning Elegance / Oren Lavie

i saw this video on TV this week and then a friend posted it on Facebook. I thought I'd take the opportunity to share it with you. It really is quite marvelous.

Enjoy!


Her Morning Elegance / Oren Lavie

kthanxbai!

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

The Red Bullog is now closed

I'm a huge fan of the motor racing series 'Formula 1'. I love fast cars and being a confirmed geek, I love the engineering aspect too. I worked in and around some of the manufacturers way back when and so was a bit surprised when I read that the Red Bull team were coming down a bit hard on one of their fan's blogs.

The Red Bullog had not been around for too long, and was obviously made by fans, in fact there was a disclaimer at the top of the now defunct blog, and in their opening spiel included the following;


The Red Bullog is a fan-based blog which aims to provide you with up-to-date news and views on the least po-faced Formula One team of recent times: Red Bull Racing.

As a fan of both the sport and the team, I hope to be able to provide you with the sort of articles I think you would like to read. From the rather serious world of F1 to the more satirical, irreverent news related stories. If it happens in Red Bull Racing land you can bet The Red Bullog will be covering it.


I was surprised, yesterday afternoon, to find out that the site was closing down. It wasn't for lack of funding or time or even a lack of enthusiasm, it was because Red Bull, the team that the blog was talking about, had sent the blogger a nasty letter telling him to toe the Red Bull line, or they'd sue.

I didn't realize what an impact this blog had on the F1 blogging community until later on in the afternoon when the blog 'BlogF1' wrote an article about it.

In retrospect I think that the main point that rankled me was the fact that 'the men in suits' had decided how the blog was to be depicted. No free speech here! I wonder if they have heard of the phrase 'any advertising is good advertising'?

kthanxbai!