Events

"Many of you may ask why this strategy will work when previous strategies have not." "The majority of Iraqi Sunni and Shia want to live together in peace." "We will work with the governments of Turkey and Iraq to solve problems along their border." (Like, for example, the million or so Kurds who are fed up with both.) "Even if our new strategy works exactly as planned..." "There will be no surrender ceremony on the deck of a battleship." (Well, sure; I mean, how would Terrorism sign a treaty?) "Acting...

I don't know if this qualifies as a "full-face beauty shot," but it's the best I could do on short notice: Here's a Daily Parker classic that should suffice if the ParkerCam image doesn't:

I mean, come on, is he not the cutest dog? ...And as a special bonus, here's a look at spiders on drugs, via a long-time blog reader: http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1734043.

Anne forwarded a Times article (reg.req.) about how gift cards are bad for everyone except the retailers: The financial-services research firm TowerGroup estimates that of the $80 billion spent on gift cards in 2006, roughly $8 billion will never be redeemed—a bigger impact on consumers," [financial-services research firm TowerGroup] notes, "than the combined total of both debit- and credit-card fraud." A survey by Marketing Workshop Inc. found that only 30 percent of recipients use a gift card within a...

I'm still scanning all my old photos, now up to slide #964 of 3,828 (not including the 176 rolls of negatives). In addition to the embarrassing photos of me as a gangly teenager, and embarrassing photos of my family (complete with 1980s hair and clothes), I've also found some of general interest, like these two of New York in July 1984: In the bottom picture you can just make out that the Statue of Liberty is covered in a scaffold. This was during the centennial renovation project that ended with the...

We got back from Miami late Friday. Parker, happy to have us home, wanted to keep us as close as possible Saturday and Sunday. Yesterday, for example, he kept close to Anne even while Anne was off doing other things: Also, my project start got pushed to either Thursday or next Monday (I'll find out later today). That means Parker came to the office with me this morning, and will probably come back again on Wednesday. He loves coming to the office. Of course, he seems to love just about everything in...

The New York Times picked up the ongoing story of botnets, networks of computers that spammers and other miscreants have taken over: According to the annual intelligence report of MessageLabs, a New York-based computer security firm, more than 80 percent of all spam now originates from botnets. Last month, for the first time ever, a single Internet service provider generated more than one billion spam e-mail messages in a 24-hour period, according to a ranking system maintained by Trend Micro, the...

That's the 10th St. Beach in Miami Beach, Fla. As I write this the sun is coming up over Lake Michigan. It's just 20°C (36°F) colder there, is all.

Wal-Mart will soon start scheduling employees based on predicted customer loads, requiring the employees to be more "flexible:" The move promises more productivity and consumer satisfaction, but could demand more flexibility and availability from workers in place of reliable shifts and predictable pay checks, the Journal reported. Wal-Mart started using the system for some workers, including cashiers and accounting-office personnel, last year, the paper also reported. This is an example of software...

Today's Chicago Tribune asks, "Who needs Florida?": Balmier days are forecast to continue in Illinois over the next few days, a result of warmer air masses flowing in from the west and southwest and the effects of an El Nino year. While no records are being broken—back in 1876 it was 65°F (18°C) on Jan. 2—temperatures in coming days are expected to remain mercifully above the historic average high of about 30°F (-1°C). I find this funny because I'm sitting in shorts and a polo shirt by a pool surrounded...