The History of Christmas (Link dead) as a secular american tradition drawn from many religions.

Is it me, or does what they’re planning on using the Galileo system for a massive misuse of technology? ;)

One of the more interesting articles I’ve read through in awhile

They obviously meant… er… somewhat well when they decided to simultaneously release the Xbox360 across many markets, far earlier than it was really fully tested and before it was in large enough quantities to even match the tightly constrained PS2 launch 5 years earlier. In their eagerness to beat the PS3 to market and to get the system out before christmas they have effectively Grinched the US games market for christmas.

Slurp! It’s probably exasperation that is making them do this. The networks were given new blocks of airspace for Digital in exchange for the promise to actually develop them. The networks dragged it out long after their deadline and still haven’t really gone fully digital on their transmissions. Now the government is pulling a different motivator. If you don’t utilize these frequencies by 2009, we’ll deallocate… your old spectrum? :p There’s all kinds of arguments for and against what the government is doing, but I’m going to just tune them out on a “Don’t worry, be happy” sort of thing and look forward to the future of digital television.

The benefits of being in a powerful union

The strike in NY has yet again demonstrated some of the failures of government owned or sanctioned monopolies. The people of new york by using these forms of transportation extensively and having little competition to them has opened themselves up to a complete disruption of their entire economy. Privatizing buses and having multiple bus companies that can step in and take up the slack could help out drastically. Right now those with cars are still OK, and the Cab companies which are diverse and private are taking up the slack for the NY Government’s socialistic incompetence, but they still can’t do everything.

Part 4: US People arrested for selling modchipped Xboxes. This is kind of the same as the one I was griping about with the UK. They really got them for selling an Xbox with 77 games loaded on its hard drive. But because of the DMCA they also tossed in the charge of violating it for circumventing the copy protection. This IMO is insane. They should get them solely for pirating the games.

For all those who continue to say that the white house has no strategy in Iraq: Whitehouse Victory and Exit strategy. (Link Dead)

Has anyone tried either of them? I’m seriously debating buying one or the other of them but can’t decide on which one will have the most suitable programming. #1: Sirius has 2 Alternative stations, Regular and Classic. XM has 3, Regular, Classic, and Alternative Hits. Advantage: XM.#2: My wife likes Hair metal. XM has no dedicated hair metal station, while Sirius does. Advantage: Sirius.#3: XM has a narrower range of political talk stations, but theirs has Glenn Beck.