I’ve been a little busy watching news about the fires.  I also learned that it’s impossible to get news from TV until after it happens.  They were about ten to fifteen miles off on the fire location.  Surprise!  It’s in your backyard!

Well, not quite, but you get the idea.  There are also lots of other “I’ve been busy” things to put here, but I know that’s boring reading.  So I’ll skip that part.

Which brings us to the smoke.  Lots of it.  In some really cool pictures of the Simi Incident, as it’s now called.  If the specific link doesn’t work, try MODIS Fire Imagery

See what I’ve been putting up with?  All the smoke seems to be backed up before it goes over the Santa Monica Mountains.  That explains why I couldn’t breath or see the sun at all on both Sunday and most of today.  For some reason, most of it stayed higher in the air Saturday, which provided some nice pictures and kept it clear enough that I could see the flames in spite of what the TV news was telling me about how far away it was.

Thanks for the link, Terry.  Inspired to blog again!

Three days after a Princeton graduate student posted a paper on his Web site detailing how to defeat the copy-protection software on a new music CD by pressing a single computer key, the maker of the software said on Thursday it would sue him.

Links:  Yahoo, Washington Post, Forbes, CNN

The DMCA is at it again.  The instructions consisted of holding down the ‘shift’ key.

A pioneering elementary school district outside Chicago has been sued for installing a wireless computer network by parents worried that exposure to the network’s radio waves could harm their children.

Links:  Yahoo, MSNBC

What a great way to spend school funds.  Later, the parents will complain that their school isn’t providing internet access and that their children are receiving a substandard education.

British Pathe Film Archive has 12 million still images online that cover news, sport, social history and entertainment from 1896 to 1970.  The still images were scanned from the entire 3500 hour archive of the British Pathe newsreel, a movie theater news service that pre-dated television. 

It must be overused, because it’s very slow.

Spelling is easy, right?  At least it was until I started use a spell checker and forgot all the weird rules.  Or is that wierd?  I before E except…  But this is an exception to that rule.

This handy chart is a reminder of just how easy it is to spell correctly by sounding-it-out.

“A twenty dollar bill can be folded to show the Trade Center and the Pentagon in flames. The twenty dollar bill was changed in nineteen nintyfive. The designers and engravers of the Federal Treasury Department are certainly comprised of many Mason or others with Masonic connections.”

They even have a picture here.

The US seems to think that it’s a violation of NAFTA for Mexico to bottle it’s own tequila.  But that’s not really what I’m writing about.

Before I post something here, I try to find a permanent link.  That means I can’t use Yahoo or the LA Times links, but I do a search for the item to see who else is running it.

The results looking for the Tequila story just struck me as funny.  None of the major news publications are running it, but it’s big news in Montana, Taipei and Kansas City.  According to a Yahoo News search, the following are the only places that seem to be running this news:

Mexico seeks control over tequila bottling
Billings Gazette, MT – Sep 26, 2003
… Coleman said US bottling plants for tequila were operating in four states – California, Arkansas, Missouri and Kentucky. Cuervo, the …
       US, Mexico Tussling Over Tequila Bottles – Yahoo News
       Mexico attempting to block foreign bottling of tequila – Kansas City Star
       Mexico starts tequila battle as US makes margaritas – Taipei Times

Why is this news in Kansas or Montana, or especially in Taipei?

Part II

I ran across the definitions of some of the terms on Tequila labels that I should know, but wasn’t sure about.

• Anejo – Yeah, it should have a tilde.  It means “aged, but only for one year in oak barrels.
• Blanco – White, of course.  Fancy for “fresh from the still.
• Resposado – This translates to “rested”, but it means not quite aged.  It’s stored in wooden casks for two months to one year.

Somebody get me a lime.