USA-212

Know what it is?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA-212

USA-212[5][6] was the first flight of the Boeing X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle 1 (X-37B OTV-1), an American unmanned robotic spacecraft. It was launched aboard an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral on 22 April 2010, and operated in low Earth orbit. Its designation is part of the USA series.

The spacecraft is operated by the United States Air Force, which has not revealed the specific identity of the spaceship's payload. The Air Force has stated only that the spacecraft will "demonstrate various experiments and allow satellite sensors, subsystems, components, and associated technology to be transported into space and back."[7]

...

William Scott, coauthor of the techno-novel Counterspace: The Next Hours of World War III and former Rocky Mountain Bureau Chief for Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine believes that with X-37B, the Air Force might test weapon delivery from a space plane in low Earth orbit. He mentions Rods from God as a possible scenario.[31] This hypothesis aligns with speculation that the launch of USA-212 marks the beginning of military operations in space.[32]

Read more here, and here.

To quote Yoda, "Begun the Clone War has."

Daniel Ellsberg's opinion of Amazon's dumping of Wikileaks

I understand that many other regular customers feel as I do and are responding the same way. Good: the broader and more immediate the boycott, the better. I hope that these others encourage their contact lists to do likewise and to let Amazon know exactly why they’re shifting their business. I’ve asked friends today to suggest alternatives. I’ve removed all links to Amazon from my site, and I’ll be exploring service from Powell’s Books, IndieBound, Biblio and others.

I could not have said it better. This coming from the man who disclosed The Pentagon Papers.

Read more of Mr. Ellsberg's open letter to Amazon here - http://www.zcommunications.org/open-letter-to-amazon-com-by-daniel-ellsberg.

It's good to know there are still smart people in this world who conduct themselves honestly and are brave enough to fight for what they believe in.

That public destruction of society's right to the facts on their governments.

It's rather disturbing watching American government officials turn into Nixonian stormtroopers.

I suspect all the attempts to incarcerate or discredit Assange is nothing more than a blatant attempt to stop the flow of information on government activities to the American public.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/12/the-shameful-attacks-on-julian-assange/67440/

There are many implications behind what's currently going, but this is perhaps the most important one - probably the one that most governments find the most threatening -

Wikileaks is a powerful new way for reporters and human rights advocates to leverage global information technology systems to break the heavy veil of government and corporate secrecy that is slowly suffocating the American press. The likely arrest of Assange in Britain on dubious Swedish sex crimes charges has nothing to do with the importance of the system he has built, and which the US government seems intent on destroying with tactics more appropriate to the Communist Party of China -- pressuring Amazon to throw the site off their servers, and, one imagines by launching the powerful DDOS attacks that threatened to stop visitors from reading the pilfered cables.

Uh-huh - rude service.

I used to think observing behavior changes in society was just me aging and all that.

One of my major pet peeves is rude customer service. Or people who work in a service area and cannot user professional language.

Case in point yesterday morning. We drove to an IHOP restaurant for breakfast, just south of Seattle.

We ordered our food. A couple sat nearby a server took their order. Their food arrived before ours did, but that's another issue.

Anyways our server was an middle-aged woman, and instead of saying 'You're welcome' to my thank you, she said the now-standard 'Uh-huh'.

Here's a piece of advice - 'Uh-huh' is not the response to 'Thank you.'. "You're welcome' is. Going forward I think I'm going to start posting a zero tip when I hear people utter that term in restaurants.

Classic Dallas clip

Wanna see high-drama at it's over-the-top best?




"No body gives you power. Real power is something you take!" - as spat out with venom by Jock Ewing.

In case you're wondering ...

Some of you may have noticed that the number of posts on this site has increased rather dramatically. For some strange reason, I'm trying to either tie or ecllipse my number of posts from last year, which was 62.

I wonder what it is in human nature that drives us to always improve or go higher with something, anything than the time before. Even more, I wonder why I'm so concerned with wanting to have more posts this year.

Maybe I'm trying to prove something to myself. Maybe it's way of saying I accomplished something over last year.

I started blogging about five years ago. It's odd how back then, I didn't really post that many messages, but somehow it felt easier. Perhaps there's a lost innocence to it all (I'm no longer a blogging virgin ~ la!)

So anyways, bear with me. What with all that's going on, I'm sure I can find a bunch of posts to beat my 2009 record.

Yay me. We now return you to your regularly scheduled program.

Think I was kidding about calling Amazon a bunch of censors?

Guess again screamer.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/01/wikileaks-amazon-servers-_n_790652.html

Wikileaks' twitter response, said it best -

"If Amazon are so uncomfortable with the first amendment, they should get out of the business of selling books."


Seriously, people should take their business elsewhere this holiday season, and going forward.