mental diarrhea

I'm just kind of going to link a bunch of stories/links/etc that I'm finding today that I'm too lazy to blog about individually today.

I'm not exactly a big fan of the cowboy diplomacy that will likely be the most noteworthy aspect of Bush's presidency, but I've really got to wonder what the hell Iran is thinking here.  They've been offered time and again alternative paths to a nuclear power program that don't also give them the ability to produce nuclear weapons, something the international community can all agree is practically the worst idea since filming Tammy Faye Baker living in a house with Vanilla Ice and Ron Jeremy for a month.  Russia's offered to do the enrichment for them.  The EU is all but offering blowjobs for everyone if they'll give up the idea of uranium enrichment.  I think there's even been an offer at one time for them to do their own enrichment under close supervision.  Instead, we get Halocaust denials and railings against Israel's right to exist from the Iranian president.  Honestly, sir: do you really think if you push the situation far enough we won't kick your ass?  I'm no fan of Bush, but even I will acknowledge that the US has the firepower and manpower to eliminate your ability to function as a nation in the 21st century, even if we can't control your nation as a whole.  The Republicans will likely lose control of Congress later this year, and lose the presidency in '08, but rest assured, whoever comes in behind them will still put on a pair of shitkickers and beat you senseless if you force us to.

Google's release a new version of Desktop.  I've been a big fan of this ever since they added the feature to detach applets from the sidebar to be positioned on your desktop and the ability to show or hide these applets with a double-tap of the shift key.  Now they've kicked it up another notch, with the ability to write said applets (called Gadgets now) in javascript and/or C++.  I think C# or any other .Net language might work as well, if you write and compile it as a COM component.  I'll have to investigate that more--one of my projects this summer is going to be to write a project tracker/timer with subtasks.  Hopefully I'll be able to do that completely in Javascript; I'll do a write-up on the success of the venture when I'm done.

Pavlina's got a great article for college students, along the lines of keeping you focused and motivated.  I sure could have used that one back in '96 when I started college.  Hard to believe its been 10 years... never thought of myself as "that guy".

And lastly... Kuro5hin demonstrates that there is no end to the lengths a whackjob will go to prove his whackjob street cred.