Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

First, today is a snow day… Lots of idiots in their pretend four by fours sliding through intersections… If I hadn't been driving a car built using proper all wheel drive technology, I'd have gotten in a couple accidents (although I'm not really sure how much damage a Tracker can do to a brick like the TT).

That reminds me, I'm far enough along on it now that I can talk about it publicly… Those of you who've read my pages over the past years know about my company that built 355 replicas — I'd always fiddled with my parent's Beetle, and at about age eighteen I built my first prototype car. Not that either of these projects got anywhere, but I've started a new car company. It's aim is to market a full car that prices at under $3000 and gets 100 mpg. More later.

Now some bad news. William at Lazarus hasn't had any luck getting our drive back, even using the bits from the new drive… We've fallen through that 1% crack. He's sending me the complete report on the damage, when it gets here I'll share it… Otherwise I have to keep putting up with accusations that I just made the whole thing up…

This also means that the data in BME/risks is scrapped… So… I'm going to make a few changes in the software, and then I'll be writing a handful of the professionals that I know both on and off IAM to help. (It will be a small handful, so if a week passes and you don't hear from me, please don't be offended). I'll post more on this soon of course.

I'm sure a lot of you have seen this story already, but for those that have not, let me summarize. At a recent Bush speach (including telling kids at a school how important prayer is), a few blocks away at the perpetual protest that follows him there were a bunch of jokers with pretzels throwing them up in the air and pretending to choke on them, making fun of Bush. They were of course arrested. When asked what the charge was, the police chief told them, “attempted murder”.

Nice. Obviously they're going to get released from this bogus charge, but does making fun of the president really deserve an afternoon in the back of a truck with your arms behind your back, followed up by a night in prison?

A few other links:

• Preparing for perpetual war – I understand why the office of disinformation and the shadow government are important. What boggles my mind is WHY was the public told about it? This article proposes the answer that it's because the US public is being prepped for a 1984-esque “perpetual war”. Scary notion.
• Americans must stand firm against 'war' – Convincingly asks the question, “are we living in a democratic republic, or are we living under a system of corporate fascism?”
• Bush's policies give allies reason to worry – The part of this article that interested specifically is the US/Saudi double standard.

As you know, the US is building a huge oil pipeline for the Alaskan reserve drilling. Now, all the geological evidence suggests that there is simply not that much oil in Alaska. Most of that oil deposit is in Northern Canada. Simple geological fact. So why does the US want to build a huge pipeline for oil they don't even have? There is only one logical answer: It is for Canada's oil.

Middle East relations are deteriorating. America is a resource-poor country and can not produce enough of it's own energy or water to supply itself. Thus they buy it from places like Saudi Arabia… But… If that falls apart, the pipeline is already in place to just take over that part of Canada and steal our oil. Given that now the US is pushing itself into a trade war with Europe over these steel tariffs, I really think it's getting more likely every day that a hostile invasion of Canada is coming…

Oh, and today is the 118th anniversary of Susan B. Anthony and about a hundred other suffragists came to President Arthur demanding to vote.