You know what’s wrong with being computer literate and tech savvy?

All your friends need your help.

Yeah, I know, I could tell them it will cost them, but I never do. Instead, I spent nearly an hour setting up my friend’s Vonage phone router and system, making sure it worked with the cable modem and computer, instead of, oh, writing my podcast for this week.

Well, that’s okay. Margo told me already that she likes to do housework when she’s stressed. Guess who’s going to help me with my big late spring cleaning project? Quid pro quo, baby.

Ward Churchill, professor of indefinite studies, the self-appointed Native American, he of the “little Eichmanns” fame, was found guilty of the worst offences a tenured professor cum scientist could possibly be guilty of (aside of raping his students). It appears that he plagiarized material and committed other types of academic violations.

Based on the investigation of those allegations, the committee unanimously found, by a preponderance of the evidence, that Professor Churchill committed several forms of academic misconduct as defined in the policy statements of the University of Colorado at Boulder and the university of Colorado system.

If you are so hot for seeing more proof, look here.

Couldn’t have happened to a better person…

Checking the headlines…

REUTERS: Rival Palestinian forces parade through Gaza

AKA: “Big Touble In Little Gaza”

Bearded young men armed with AK-47s and dressed in military fatigues, part of a new 3,000-strong Hamas-allied force, held ground on many streets, while a bolstered police force loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas paraded nearby.

For residents of Gaza City, there was a mix of confusion and concern, with some unsure exactly which armed men were loyal to which faction, and whether the extra presence would mean greater security or an inevitable showdown between the groups.

“I wonder when the zero hour will come,” one passerby said as he watched the two forces manoeuvre in Gaza City.

Mind sharing some of that popcorn, Meryl?

The program, not karma for spammers.

I’ve been getting slammed with trackback spam the last two days, and only one has managed to make it through the SK2 filters. It was held in moderation for me to delete.

Before Jay put in SK2 for me, there was an incident where I had 80-some odd trackbacks from spammers that had to be manually marked as spam, as well as those 80-some odd emails wasting space telling me that a spammer had found my trackbacks. I’ve been hit with over 500 trackback spams since yesterday, and let’s see, another 7 in the last minute or so have popped up. I’m setting SK2 to delete spam over a minute old, so if your post accidentally disappears out of moderation, I apologize ahead of time. I simply don’t want my resources clogged up with hundreds of spams awaiting deletion, and sometimes real comments show as false positives.

Try not to mention gambling, insurance, or variations on viagra, and you’ll do fine.

The AIPAC case is being used as an excuse by the Pentagon to remove security clearances from Jews who have dual Israeli and American citizenship — or who have relatives in Israel.

The Pentagon is invoking the prosecution of two pro-Israel lobbyists and a Defense Department analyst for illegal use of classified information as a basis for stripping security clearances from government contractor employees who have dual citizenship in America and Israel or family members living in the Jewish state.

In at least three instances, Defense Department attorneys have used or attempted to use the case involving the former staffers of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to justify withdrawing a security clearance or denying one in the first place, according to a Virginia lawyer who closely tracks such disputes, Sheldon Cohen.

“In my personal experience, I know of at least three cases,” Mr. Cohen told The New York Sun yesterday. “I assume they’re raising it in every Israel case.”

(more…)

I think my cats are a lot dumber than I thought. This evening, Gracie was sitting in the picture window, looking something like this:

Tig was outside. All of a sudden, Gracie leaped through the blinds and out of the window, hissing. I ran to look, saw that she was okay, and opened the door to see what I could see. And saw Tig, standing on his hind legs, looking really pissed into the window. I called him, he came inside, and he and Gracie went nose to nose and then turned to go grab something to eat after this extremely trying ordeal.

So I think what happened was this: Tig looked inside his apartment and saw Gracie, but did not recognize her. Gracie, on her part, saw Tig, and may have recognized him or not, but she wasn’t going to stand around and wait to be attacked by a much bigger, angry kitty. So she ran.

Sarah says they’re not stupid, that they just couldn’t smell each other to tell if they were pals or not. I dunno. They have been together for eight years. You’d figure they know each other by sight by now.

As if inspired by the example of his Palestinian brethren, a citizen of Turkey decided to express his dissatisfaction with his country justice system services in a similar way.

Five judges were wounded, two seriously, when a gunman shouting “Allah is great” opened fire during a session here of the Council of State, Turkey’s highest administrative court, Ankara governor Kemal Onal said. Earlier media reports Wednesday said one judge had died in the attack by a man TV channels identified as lawyer Aslan Alpaslan, who was immediately arrested in possession of a handgun. Alpaslan broke into the room where the 2nd Chamber of the Council was in session on the eighth floor of the building and unloaded two clips from his automatic pistol, shouting “Allahu Akbar” — God is Great — the NTV and CNN-Turk news channels reported.

The sequence of events and the consequences show clearly that Allahu Akbar. First, the gun is miraculously provided to a lawyer, of all people, for crying out loud. Then the divine guidance allows our hero to pass the security undetected and undeterred. As a final act of compassion, the deity patiently lets the lawyer to empty two clips at the judges. To kill one of them and to maim another five.

Here the limits of the divine good will were reached. After all, in the grand scheme of things lawyers are not supposed to be expert marksmen to boot. Which shows how great and all around considerate Allah is.

Oh, and the reason for the lawyer’s ire is clear:

One of the badly injured judges, 2nd Chamber president Mustafa Birden, was known for his rulings confirming a ban on women’s Islamic headscarves in the public institutions and universities of Turkey, an overwhelmingly Muslim country with a strictly secular political system.

Obviously the story will make the judges sit up and listen to the voice of reason now. Or would it?

Cross-posted on SimplyJews