5/15    I'm involved with a mod of the EA Battlefield series ("involved" =
        agreed to do some poking around.)  They're looking for help with
        voice acting.  Unfortunately, being a mod and a free effort, they
        have no money to spend and are not allowed to ask for donations (EA
        license.)  They need voice clips of all the major WWII combatants, but
        having no money, have no access to good sound recording equipment.  I
        had the idea to ask around acting & broadcasting schools, as maybe
        students would be willing to trade some work and access to facilities
        for screen credit.  I have no idea how these things usually work,
        though.  Can someone give me some pointers of where to ask?  -John
        \_ No clue but how the hell did you get contacted? I'm jealous
           \_ I play it a lot and asked if I could help...why?  -John

5/15    http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40075000/jpg/_40075969_gaddafi_b203_ap.jpg (Look I'm serious!)
        http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2006/US/05/15/libya/newt1.gadafhi3.gi.jpg (Look I'm jolly!)

5/15    http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/more/05/15/duke.lacrosse.ap
        Third Duke jock indicted. Let's all celebrate!!! May all the jocks
        and frat boys go to hell. Justice has been served.      -nerd
        \_ Uhm, I think there has to be a conviction before your revenge
           for all those wedgies in highschool is complete.
           \_ Ok I'll pray for that to happen. By the way do you want to hear
              my side of the story in high school and why I hate them?  -nerd
              \_ You'll pray for that to happen?  ...And if they're innocent
                 of this crime?  Does that even matter to you?
        \_ Much as I like to think of all athletes as borderline criminal
           types at best, this is a really confusing case.  DNA evidence
           indicates no involvement, the guy passed a lie detector test...
           Victim says it'd be Evans "if he had a mustache", but he says
           he has never had one.
           \_ 'all athletes as borderline criminal types at best'?  That's
              kind of bizarre.
              \_ C'mon, half of them are on steroids to try to cheat their
                 way into success, and the rest are getting arrested for
                 violence, rape, or illegal drug use.  Just read the news.
                 \_ We're talking about *lacrosse players*.  -tom
                        \_ It will be at least 20 years until they are
                           pillaging the assets of major corporations ...
           \_ Don't forget that everyone she was shown in the lineup was
              on the team.

5/15    http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/15/real_estate/NAR_firstQ2005_home_prices
        Real estate cools down, prices in the first quarter fell 3%
        though are still up more than 10% from a year ago. Gosh, I can
        hardly wait.            -bitter young guy who missed the dot-com boat
                                 and didn't get a chance to buy 3 investment
                                 homes like everyone else

5/15    http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/05/15/britain.chavez
        Chavez says "capitalism is extreme individualism, which is using up
         the world's non-renewable energy reserves at an alarming pace...
         the fact that 90 percent of vehicles carry no more than one person
         is a stupid thing... Our planet will not put up with this... We're
         all in peril... Bush has committed genocide and should be
         imprisoned by an international criminal court."
        Many people in Berkeley, including me, agree with everything this
        dillusional crook has said up to this point, which is quite
        disturbing. Are we considered unpatriotic liberals who should be put
        into secret jails?
        \_ Almost everyone in Berkeley is a communist. Just look at their
           hippie shirts, tie die VW, bicycles, and stinking BO from a
           feeble attempt to save water and the environment.
        \_ Look up genocide, and yeah, individualism = bad.  -John
        \_ "A broken clock is right twice a day"
        \_ Messenger != the message.  No politician in their right mind and
           in a position of power in the US can get away with saying stuff
           like that, no matter if it's true or not.  He also said
           that the twin towers used more energy than "some African nations"
           which is an interesting statement, and might be true.  Anyone know?
           As for Bush being the "worst genocider" or whatever, that's clearly
           not true (Darfur?), although he's definitely in the top 3.
           \_ Definitely in the top 3?  Wow.  Do they even teach grade-school
              level history any more?  Clearly critical thinking skills are
              out the window.  You might be confused -- "genocide" != "politics
              I don't agree with".
           \_ Well the entire Venezuela consumes more energy than the twin
              towers, so we should send suicide hijackers to demolish it.
           \_ How has Bush committed genocide?  Or do you just not know
              what the work means?
                \_ Well killing thousands of people definitely helps, although
                   technically it's not genocide since Bush doesn't give a
                   shit what race/ethniticity they are, they are parked on his
                   shit what race/ethnicity they are, they are parked on his
                   oil.
                   \_ Uhm, I think the dictionary definition part of genocide
                      has more to do with it being "not genocide".
                   \_ Then why did he/you say it is genocide? It isn't.
        \_ Genocide's hard to prove in this case, but watch The Dimming Sun
           and, taking into account the US's refusal to sign Kyoto, say we won't
           end up being responsible for a lot of death and destruction.
        \_ There are no true enviromentalists. They are all hypocrites.
           The fact is you want to breed. And breed you will. Until you dig
           a hole in the ground and off yourself (no coffin allowed!) then
           you can't be a true enviromentalist. No recycling drives, hybrid
           cars and other delusional, half-hearted attempts will change this.
           The only way to 'save the earth' is to eliminate humanity.
           \_ You conclusion is, to put it mildly, pretty fucking stupid.  Work
              your troll skillz, young grasshopper.
              \_ How is it stupid? How is it wrong?
           \_ Unless you're living this life, your words are hollow. Kibbitzing
              on how people you don't like should live the lives you don't
              like is lame.

5/15    http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060515/od_nm/germany_scooter_dc
        Dude, these Germans are funny!

5/15    What's the best way to deal with the fat you get from cooking
        bacon? Do you dump them into the sink or toilet? Or do you use
        them for cooking?
        \_ Put a wick in it and burn it for a bacon-scent candle.
        \_ I generally put it in a container I'm throwing away anyway.
           \_ same here, I let it solidify first. Although recently
              I saw a friend fry up a single piece of bacon and then
              use the grease to fry up some pork tenderloins. Tasted
              Great. Mmm, pork fat.
        \_ I pour it into a jar and toss it in the fridge and use it to cook
           cornbread, green beans, zucchini.. all manner of things.  Mmm. bacon
           grease.  I don't have bacon that often so it works out.  Otherwise,
           yes, jar and toss.  --dbushong
           \- you cook hashbrowns and/or eggs in the fat. i have also been
              known to fry cheese in bacon fat, but that is quite advanced.
              It was the Right Thing to do. We had no Choice.
              We are, after all, Bacon Professionals. --dr gonzo.
           \_ Sautee greens seconded.  High heat and very fast.
              \- for greens i recommend: cook berkeley bowl linguica along
                 with berkeley bowl collard greens or mustard greens. oktnx.
                 \_ It's all about the salt pork and kale.
        \_ If you keep dumping bacon grease down your pipes, they will
           eventually become clogged.
           \_ I remember in Hawaii all the buses had billboards were
              trying to raise grease awareness.

5/15    MS Excel question: I have a moderately large sheet with one column
        filled with entries that are in this form: "num; stuff", meaning
        it's a number followed by a semicolon followed by anything. Is there
        a way to split up this column into 2, with the first containing
        the number and the second containing everything after the semicolon?
        Thanks.
        \_ Save as CSV, one line of perl, import from CSV
           \_ very clever.  Hope you didn't have any formulas.
              Try =RIGHT(), =LEFT().  -tom
                \_ The =LEFT() works perfectly; unfortunately, what's after
                   the semicolon is usually several letters or words long.
                   \_ Search Excel help for "Text Functions"; LEN may help.
                       -tom
        \_ tools->text to columns
                \_ Perfect, thank you! thanks to everyone else, too.
                   (btw in macs, it's data->text to columns) -op

5/15    I'm naive and don't know all the issues there, but it seems to me
        that the root of the Iraq Civil War stems from the fact that three
        major ethnic groups hate each other and don't like to run the
        government together. Why can't they be split up into
        three separate Emirates, each governing its own affairs while
        having common Federal government-like structures like utilities
        and the military?
        \_ Short answer: the Turks (our allies) are violently opposed to an
           independent Kurdistan, because they think that would inspire
           further separatism among their own native Kurds; Iran would most
           likely annex (or at least welcome under their protection) an
           independent Shiite nation; and the Sunnis and Shia have wildly
           different ideas of what's Shiite territory and what's Sunni.
           That said, we may be heading in that direction anyway.
        \_ I'm just waiting for the headline "Bush meets secretly with Saddam
           for tips on running Iraq"
        \_ All the oil is in the Shiite and Kurdish areas.  Sunnis would love
           to have a share of that distributed through a federal apparatus.
           Shiites and Kurds would love to keep it, based on their people
           sitting on it.  How do you come to an agreement?
           With Saddam it was easy:  It all goes to Sunnis, and if you're
           unhappy with that, you go into the woodchipper, feet-first.
        \_ Did I miss something?  Iraq Civil War?  Anyway, the above already
           answered your core question, but most of the problems in the
           Middle East and Africa date back to European nations intentionally
           carving up tribal groups, drawing artificial lines, and generally
           creating such a huge mess of things that untangling them now is not
           as simple as just drawing new lines.  You'd just be making a new
           mess to replace the old one.  There's also this very new concept
           of "international stability" which is all about everyone shutting
           the hell up and dealing with whatever mess they've got.  Wars of
           conquest are no longer allowed.  Wars to fix the broken European
           lines are not allowed.  Nothing is allowed.  Buy Mcdonald's is
           allowed.  Those intentionally messed up artificial borders are the
           root cause of things like the Hutu and Tutsi killing each other,
           several famines, and a lot of other ugliness in that large part of
           the world.
           \_ So why doesn't Europe do more to fix these messes they've made?
              \_ why would they?  it was done intentionally and sometimes
                 through ignorance, apathy and/or expediency.  what do you
                 think has changed that suddenly the european powers would
                 feel the desire to fix their previous messes?  and where do
                 you come up with the idea that a) they have the power to do
                 so and b) the right?  why don't the locals fix their own
                 messes and redraw their own borders in a more sensible and
                 equitable way?
                 \_ Where do you come up with the idea that I came up with
                    the idea that Europe can or should do anything you stupid
                    motherfucker. I merely asked why don't they.
                    \_ First, they weren't asked; if the UN had decided to
                       invade Iraq, it would have attempted to draw equitable
                       borders, but the UN was ignored so now it's our mess.
                       And second, there's no reason to believe that
                       Europe (or America for that matter) can draw borders
                       any better than the people living there.  -tom
                       \_ They weren't asked to ruin these places by making
                          fucked up borders in the first place and that didn't
                          stop them.
                          \_ Therefore they should go in and make more
                             fucked up borders?  Do you have a point?  -tom
                       \_ Why are you limiting this discussion to Iraq?
                          Europe messed up Sudan, Kashmir, Rwanda also.
                          There's no shortage of other places to fix.
          \_ When sectarian violence is killing hundreds, if not thousands,
              of people every week, I don't know what you can call it but a
              civil war.
              \_ business as usual for that area.
                 \_ bushshit.
                    \_ its public info.  go look up the death tolls for iraq.
                       \_ How 'bout you provide the info.  This is a specious
                          claim.
                          \_ i don't know what you guys are arguing about, but
                             the Iraqi president said "1,091 people were killed
                             between April 1 and 30".  About 260 per week.
                             In Baghdad only.  Only bodies which got to the
                             morgue.

5/15    http://www.nysun.com/article/32727
        "The story is a complete fabrication," the spokesman for Mr. Rove, Mark
        Corallo, told The New York Sun. "It is both malicious and disgraceful."
        [Rove reportedly served with an indictment]
        http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/051306W.shtml

5/15    http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/05/fbi_acknowledge.html
        "The FBI acknowledged late Monday that it is increasingly seeking
        reporters phone records in leak investigations."
        \_ No seeking needed anymore, just a quick NSA database query ...
           Does anyone honestly not believe the final destination for all these
           programs is a police state the PTB in communist East Germany could
           be proud of?
           \_ National security letters were only supposed to be used for
              terror suspects and spies.  The FBI does not need to consult a
              judge to obtain an NSL.  With the Patriot Act, NSLs may be issued
              for anyone, not just terror suspects and spies.  With the Patriot
              Act, NSLs may be issued by FBI field offices, not just FBI senior
              officials.
              What can be obtained from an NSL?  Issued primarily to
              businesses (like phone companies, ISPs, and e-commerce sites)
              and government entities (like libraries), the entity is
              compelled to provide phone records, financial data, Internet
              access history, etc., although wiretaps are not included.
              The entity is also forbidden from disclosing the fact that you
              have been probed.
              So, if there were an investigation into the leak on CIA secret
              prisons in Europe, an FBI field office could issue an NSL to
              SBC to provide phone records on who the NY Times and Washington
              Post reporters have been talking to.  There is no explicit
              restriction on what the data can be used for, once obtained.
              In late 2003, the Bush administration reversed a long-standing
              policy requiring agents to destroy their files on innocent
              U.S. citizens once an investigation closed, permitting entry into
              a permanent database.
                \_ My point was that with the new NSA domestic "keep track of
                   every call ever made" spying database, the extra step of
                   going to the phone company is no longer necessary. -pp
                   \_ I'm not disagreeing with you, just adding info.  fyi,
                      the total-information-awareness phone record dumps were
                      not via NSL or FISA -- it was just the NSA asking
                      "nicely".
                        \_ Yes they are all different mechanism, but there is
                           no denying that everything is moving towards more
                           surveillance and less court oversight.

5/15    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPu19jOcJF4 (from http://drudgereport.com)
        CNN confused that Dubya had already started his immigration speech and
        switches to his feed, when in fact Dubya was only rehearsing.  Or, the
        official story that an NBC guy told Dubya to start and someone else
        told him to stop.
        \_ What gets me about the whole address -- has Bush never been to Socal?
           \_ what about it?