Oops

I couldn't help but laugh out loud when I heard that the relief efforts were delayed in the Indian Ocean area because a plane full of supplies hit a cow on the runway. It really is a terrible thing. No one was hurt in the accident. The plane was badly damaged and had to be drug off the runway. That took a long time and delayed efforts. I would, however, like to have seen the look on the pilot's face when the cow wandered onto the runway in front of the plane. There was no word on the condition of the cow.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/nm/20050104/wl_nm/mideast_abbas_dc

Moderate Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas called Israel "the Zionist enemy" for the first time on Tuesday after an Israeli tank killed seven Palestinian youths in a Gaza strawberry field. The words were certain to stir concerns in Israel where images of Abbas embracing fighters during the campaign for a Jan. 9 election have led some to question hopes for reviving peace talks after Yasser Arafat's death. ... Word of the incident clearly angered Abbas, widely tipped to win the presidential election, as he continued campaigning in the Gaza Strip (news - web sites) despite further fighting between militants and the Israeli army. "We are praying for the souls of our martyrs who fell today to the shells of the Zionist enemy," Abbas told a rally in the south Gaza refugee camp of Khan Younis, a hotbed of militants. It was Abbas's first known resort to the language of radicals sworn to Israel's destruction. Abbas, 69, long known as a relative moderate, has raised peace hopes since Arafat's death by condemning militant violence in favor of talks with Israel. ... MILITANTS KEEN TO CLAIM "VICTORY" Militants aim to "prove" their attacks forced Israel's decision to evacuate settlers from Gaza later this year. They vow to keep fighting until Israel abandons the larger West Bank too, something it rules out under any peace deal. Israel also demands Palestinian leaders heed a provision in an internationally sponsored "road map" peace plan for a crackdown on militants before talks begin. Palestinian leaders demand Israel obey a parallel obligation under the road map to stop expanding West Bank settlements and Abbas has balked at tackling gunmen he calls "freedom fighters" without an Israeli promise of viable Palestinian statehood. "They are freedom fighters and should live a dignified and safe life," Abbas said on Monday in a campaign tailored in part to defuse the distrust of gunmen who branded him a stooge of Israel when their revered ex-guerrilla leader Arafat was alive. Yahoo (Reuters)

Let's face it, Abbas has an election to win. The "militants" or "freedom fighters" run the place, so he has to make them happy. Israel says they will judge Abbas on his actions, not his words. That nice.
What is with this naming problem? You can tell who's side people are on by the term they use for the armed humans in the Palestinian Territories. Bloggers keep harping on the AP to call them terrorists. The bloggers forget the reporters on the ground have to deal with these guys daily. I bet no one would call these murderous villains, murderous villains to their face, on their turf.
Didn't someone say "two faced" in reference to Abbas recently? That sounds familiar.

Subject Line of Emails
For years, I've put the word "Hey" in as my email subject almost exclusively. This is due to the fact that spell checkers didn't check the subject line on most web based email systems. I kept it short because of my horrendous spelling. Now, I use FireFox with the SpellBound extension. It allows any text entry field to be checked. I've had a complaint recently about my non-descriptive email subject lines, so I will make an effort to be a bit more detailed.

Boinc (and SETI at Home)
I have stopped running SETI and BOINC. The new clients have trouble switching to other programs. I've noticed several times that other programs act "choppy" while BOINC runs in the background. I can't believe it. I've stopped running SETI. That feels weird. It was such a good idea. Now, it has become mainstream with IBM getting in on the act. It is the end of an era, to me anyway. Soon, no one will have a desktop computer any more. Everything will be mobile. You will do your taxes on your mobile phone. If those devices have any extra clock cycles, they are considered a waist and are designed out. My systems all run hot on BOINC. It won't switch nicely. You know, I never had this problem running the command line client on Linux.
There are different projects now as well.