Today my family and I are traveling to St. Louis to celebrate the 4th of July. I don't like that title as much as Independence Day, and as we think about independence, let's remember two major countries that we are involved in right now, Iraq and Afghanistan. These countries have experienced a change in governments during the past five years, but they are not independent. I truly hope they become so within the next year. I also wish every US soldier over there will come home safe, and soon. Support an independent Iraq and Afghanistan, not two more countries supported and controlled by the United States.

Excellent, airport quick chargers for your every electronic accessory.

You've got to be kidding, Japan wants to pump CO2 into the ground instead of releasing it into the air. In the ground, the chemical will not be filtered or used by plants to create more oxygen, instead, it will await an earthquake or some other major geological transformation, to explode into the atmosohere all at once. I've heard that it's rather hard to breathe Carbon Dioxide. If it all vented into the air at once, it would cover a huge area with unlivable conditions, am I right?

You can expect your automobile costs to go up if this measure gets through our wonderful government. Pave the rainforest.

I'm at the PCA General Assembly this week. PCA stand for Presbyterian Church in America, my denomination. The General Assembly is always a big conference every year, and I am helping with the computer networking. There is a live video feed of the proceedings available here, if you're interested. The Assembly will convene until Friday morning.

Here's a somewhat thought provoking article on Al-Zarqawi and the war in Iraq.

The world's biggest photo? This is pretty cool.

Here's a hilarious video of Will Ferrell impersonating our wonderful President. Honestly this is especially for Jacob Singer. Here you go.

I've just got to pimp Microsoft real fast. Since I got a '360, I've been really amazed at their efforts at Next-gen hardware and software. Honestly, they have blown Sony and Nintendo out of the water for the last six months. They have really put an emphasis to community development and ingenuity with the XBL Marketplace and things like it. So Microsoft, w00t.

Two good friends of mine gave me an Xbox 360 Premium package on Saturday, the gift was for a favor a couple of weeks ago, when I drove one of the guys to the hospital for some stitches. Jacob Singer 45, often posts in the comments as anonymous, and the other guy just reads. I owe you guys big time, many thanks. I seriously can't say thank you enough. I never thought you guys owed me anything for driving you up there. As you might imagine my days have been a blur of Xbox goodness, by the way wireless controllers are the bomb.

Wired news had an exciting article on laser projection instead of LCD or normal bulb projection, as an alternative to small screens in devices like ipods, PSPs, and such. Also as a much easier way to get an excellent picture for your home TV. Think of booting your handheld device and shining a screen onto a wall, in a dark room, the screen could be as big as ten feet. In a brightly lit room it could still achieve great picture with about ten inches of screen. Lasers make smaller projectors, so they could easily fit into a handheld device, they make better a clearer and better picture that doesn't require focusing. Plus they're awesome.

Here's an incredible article about engineered screw-ups. The 10 biggest and most costly mistakes ever built.

A Marine was attacked on his walk home from work this past week, the former Marine, Thomas Autry, saw his assailants approaching with a shotgun, and immediately prepared to defend himself. There were five attackers, one was killed, another seriously wounded, the rest fled. After he kicked the shotgun away, another thug tried to shoot Mr. Autry with a .380 handgun, but it misfired. More about this here.

Wow, flying Aston Martin.

I do not agree with all that this article says, but Tony Long wrote a great piece on the state of America. The complacent, static, self-blinded state of America's people, particularly her youth.

This is an interesting article on the pains of people these days trying to open modern packaging.

Feeling tired? Buy some oxygen at your local Seven-Eleven! (only available to our readers located in Japan)

I've been dead lately, sorry.


Halo 3 trailer is live!!! That's right, Bungie and Microsoft finally gave us a trailer, at the end of the Microsoft E3 press conference.

Ever wonder if satellites can really see what you are doing to a 4 foot level? Apparently, they can, and are.

The only reason I point out this article is to show that governments do things that they keep secret from their citizens, allies, and even themselves. We now know that England conducted a perfectly serious and totally confidential study to prove or disprove the existence of UFOs. Take a look at this article from Wired.news.

Sorry about the vague post below. I am not totally convinced in the theory that the movie below suggests. The film is very well done, but as a friend told me the other day, "anybody can put a movie together." Honestly, it horrifies me that this theory can be proved so thoroughly, but on the other hand, I'm not ready to accept that our government is that corrupt and brutal. I am open to dicussion, and I'll certainly be more cautious in the future when it comes to blindly trusting in our wonderful democracy.