Bloggers@large

Lewis Libby Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, resigned today after a federal grand jury indicted him on five counts of perjury over an investigation into the unmasking of a covert CIA agent. Just as I mentioned in my previous Blog today, this brings president Bush rather in a tight spot. And also his aide Karl Rove (also referred after as “the brains” behind Bush). Although Rove was not charged, the investigation has not been closed. Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has accused Mr Libby of lying about how and when he learned and disclosed to […]

Rove’s last days? A few days after Bush’ prodigy Harriet Miers withdrawn her nomination for the U.S. Supreme Court, today may deal another blow to US president Bush. Federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is expected to announce the results of his two-year probe into a CIA leak today including whether a federal grand jury will issue any indictments. Two lawyers involved in the case also have told CNN that as his investigation winds down the prosecutor is focusing on whether Karl Rove, President Bush’s top political strategist, committed perjury. Rove testified four times in front of the grand jury. CNN reports […]

Coke for money? In my previous blog I talked about the Mechior abduction. Today there is some intresting follow-up. When the police apprehended the suspected mastermind behind the abduction on the Copacabana beach in Rio de Jaineiro (Brazil), in a joint opreation with the Brazilian police, they stated afterwards that they did not rule out the possibility of “more arrests”. So far no new arrest have been made, but recent events do shed some light on the curious ransom note for 300 kilo’s of cocaine. It was leaked to the press that a friend of Claudia Melchers husband Bart V. […]

Rosa Parks, 1913-2005 Montgomery, Alabama, December 1st, 1955. A black seamstress named Rosa Parks was heading home after a long day at work. She boarded a bus and found a vacant seat. Trouble was, if there weren’t enough seats on the bus for Caucasians, African Americans were supposed to give up their seats; back then that was the law in Montgomery, Alabama. As it happened, the bus soon filled up and Rosa was expected to give up her seat. Rosa Parks refused to budge. In short order, Mrs. Parks was arrested, fingerprinted and fined for violating a city ordinance. That […]

No coke? Ok, here is a weird story. On Sept 13th some men kidnapped the 37 year old daughter of a Dutch millionaire, Claudia Melchers. Her father, Hans, owner of a Dutch chemical company is worth about 460 million Euros. There – supposedly – was no contact with the kidnappers, and a few days later, on Sept. 15th she was suddenly released again: no ransom paid. After a few day police arrested some men that were involved and today they arrested to ‘mastermind’ behind it all on the famous Copacabana beach in Brazil. Now what makes this case so interesting […]

Oh yes: 8mb! Oh yes. These are the moments I do not regret getting my 8mbit ADSL and leaving behind the shitty service of UPC cable Internet 🙂 As I have mentioned before I do experiment a lot with Linux. I find it a fascinating OS because – in general – it’s rocksolid, has hardly any pesky virii (yes, that’s spelled correctly) and the best of all: it’s FREE! To experiment with my USB 2.5″ harddisk (40gb) I needed the latest CD version of Knoppix: a Linux distribution that runs straight of the CD. So I looked up a mirror […]

Free calls? Common wisdom states that “there is no such thing as a ‘free’ lunch”. And I firmly believe that. For instance, take “Airmiles”. In essence you just pay more for whatever products you buy. That money goes into a big marketing scheme that tells you you can save for “free” products. Yeah right. You payed for them yourself. Now here is an interesting pitch: call around the world to regular landlines or mobile phones, using your PC… And it’s for free!? Sounds like a scam? Well, it seems not. This company calling itself “Voipbuster: the free calls phone company” […]

“Use the Open Source Luke!” According to C|Net, the Open Source movement is gaining momentum. Or so people were told at the Orlando Florida Gartner’s annual Symposium/ITExpo conference on monday. Personally I think that a lot of organizations are not fully using Open Source to their advantage. To me it would make a lot of sense if – especially – the many non-profit organizations would use it more! For instance: take office environments. They would benefit from using Open Office (either on Linux or Windows). If I had to run a non-profit organization, I would make sure the desktop OS […]

Love or chemistry? I stumbled upon some interesting articles about the chemistry of ‘love’. As people have struggled for years to classify and explain what love is, there now seems a scientific explanation for it. It does take away the magic a bit. But it is rather fascinating when you read it. It may even explain why some couples remain faithfull and why others don’t. (If you want to skip the rest of my excerpt, you can go straight to the whole story by following this link to the story called “I get a kick out of you”). So what’s […]

Blogcast #6 2005-10-13 19:00 approx. 20 min. show. The Apple “1 More thing” Special Today’s shownotes: Act 1: the new iMac Act 2: the new iPod line-up Act 3: the new iTunes 6.0 1 more thing… See Steve Jobs presentation in streaming video format.