http://www.meehawl.com/Blogfiles all that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned Sun, 04 May 2008 18:54:42 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Microsoft is vacuuming up way too many programmers. Between Microsoft, with their shady recruiters making unethical exploding offers to unsuspecting college students, and Google (you're on my radar) paying untenable salaries to kids with more ultimate frisbee experience than Python, whose main job will be to play foosball in the ... http://www.meehawl.com/Blogfiles/2008/05/04/10/54/architecture-astronomy/ Diamorphine, also known as heroin, was first synthesized for commercial use in 1897. The men who discovered it, Felix Hoffman and Arthur Eichengrun, had also, a couple of weeks earlier, invented aspirin; for some years, heroin could be bought over the counter and aspirin required a prescription. Irony is intense here, ... http://www.meehawl.com/Blogfiles/2008/05/03/16/01/serendipitous-germans/ [Brazil] already churns out what many consider to be the world's cheapest and most efficient mass-produced biofuel ... In the United States, a 54 cent-per-gallon tax blocks most Brazilian ethanol from reaching U.S. consumers. Similar tariffs also block access to Europe, China and other major energy markets ... the United ... http://www.meehawl.com/Blogfiles/2008/05/03/08/28/corn-welfare/ "I can confirm that we conducted a strike in Sadr City this morning," a US military spokesman told AFP. "The targets were known criminal elements. Battle damage assessment is currently ongoing." However, witnesses and an AFP reporter at the scene said the main Al-Sadr hospital had been badly damaged and ... http://www.meehawl.com/Blogfiles/2008/05/03/08/17/military-targetting/ "Why are we talking about this in the White House?" John Ashcroft nervously asked his fellow members of the National Security Council's Principals Committee. (The Principals were Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet ... http://www.meehawl.com/Blogfiles/2008/05/02/07/23/washington-dc-crime-wave/ A 2004 U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) study found that 61% of American corporations, including 39% of large companies, paid no corporate income taxes between 1996 and 2000. Last year, corporations shouldered just 14.4% of the total U.S. tax burden, compared with about 50% in 1940. http://www.meehawl.com/Blogfiles/2008/04/19/09/52/usas-deuxieme-etat/ "We did all kinds of experiments to see who could do the best split in Abu Snena. We would put [Palestinians] against the wall, make like we were checking them, and ask them to spread their legs. Spread, spread, spread, it was a game to see who could do it ... http://www.meehawl.com/Blogfiles/2008/04/19/09/41/shovrim-shtika/ Apparently also for Doctor Who. I noticed, in passing, this 200+ GB torrent download of seasons 1-26 of Doctor Who. At that size that's got to be some kind of record. A few years ago it was a big deal to download a single 6 MB MP3. http://www.meehawl.com/Blogfiles/2008/04/15/19/28/the-internet-not-just-for-porn/ Quantum Sleeper http://www.meehawl.com/Blogfiles/2008/04/13/08/33/toilet-sadly-not-included/ The Americans say the militias have been using trained pigeons to signal the presence of American and Iraqi troops. The Iraqis wanted to know if they could fire on the pigeon keepers as American troops have done during the bitter fighting here. As long as the Iraqis determined that the ... http://www.meehawl.com/Blogfiles/2008/04/11/07/39/pigeon-fanciers-join-axis-of-evil/