Musings of the Great Eric

FBI Investigated 3,501 People Without Warrants:
The FBI secretly sought information last year on 3,501 U.S. citizens and legal residents from their banks and credit card, telephone and Internet companies without a court’s approval, the Justice Department said Friday.
It was the first time the Bush administration has publicly disclosed how often it uses the administrative subpoena […]

Just awesome.
Technorati Tags: Funny, Humor, Stephen Colbert, The Colbert Report, Videos

Reporter asks to watch CNN on Air Force One:
During a briefing led by White House spokesman Scott McClellan as President Bush was traveling to New Orleans, Louisiana, the Washington Post’s Jim VandeHei asked why the White House televisions always seemed to be tuned to Fox News and if it was possible to have them tuned […]

The Nintendo Revolution has been officially named the Nintendo Wii (pronounced “We”).
What. The. Fuck. Nintendo needs to find the person who came up with this, and shoot them.
How in the hell you can you take a cool (if overused) name like Revolution and wind up with a lame-ass name that invokes images of… well, I […]

According to this great visualization, a 14 meter rise in sea level would result in my house becoming beachfrount property. Sweet!
More seriously - the interesting thing to note about this is that if the ice caps do melt, we’re not looking at a “Waterworld” scenario. It’s primarily the coastlines that will get flooded (Think New […]

The Ten Worst Corporations of 2005:
2005 was a good year for bad corporations.
There were no U.S. elections to worry about, with their troubling possibility of politicians running on the popular platform of curbing corporate power.
There were corporate scandals and corporate crime and violence […]

Washington Post:
The cost of the war in Iraq will reach $320 billion after the expected passage next month of an emergency spending bill currently before the Senate, and that total is likely to more than double before the war ends, the Congressional Research Service estimated this week.

There were three major things told to the American […]

Calif. Woman Spanked at Work Sues for $1.2M:
Lawyers for a woman who was spanked in front of her co-workers as part of what her employer said was a camaraderie-building exercise asked a jury Wednesday for at least $1.2 million for the humiliation she claimed to have suffered.
Remember kids, spanking might be a good idea in […]

Popular Mechanics takes a look at the state, pros, and cons of some of the alternative fuel options we currently have available to power our cars and trucks.
The take home message is that things are looking pretty bleak. None of the technologies profiled are really knock the ball out of the park superior to petroleum, […]

Lightning kills 5 Mexican children in prayer:
Five Mexican children were killed when a large metal cross they were praying at was struck by lightning in central Mexico, local media reported Monday.
Alright, so it’s pretty morbid, I know. But the worst part is that this sort of thing happens a lot. People, innocents, children are killed […]

Airlines ponder how to pack ‘em in

The airlines have come up with a new answer to an old question: How many passengers can be squeezed into economy class?
A lot more, it turns out, especially if an idea still in the early stage should catch on: standing-room-only “seats.”

Why not just stop beating around the bush here, […]

The price of gas is inching close to a psychologically jarring $3.00 a gallon here in NJ, and is well passed that point elsewhere. It’s bad for the poor, bad for consumers, and bad for the economy on the whole. Naturally, congresscritters are all over this, looking to score political points by alleviating the pinching […]

US intel report: Major increase in terrorist incidents
In a report to be released next week, US government figures will show that the number of terrorist attacks in the world jumped sharply in 2005, totalling more than 10,000 for the first time. That is almost triple the number of terrorist attacks in 2004 — 3,194. Knight […]

Now you know. Most interesting.
Technorati Tags: Breakfast, Cereal, Rice Krispies

According to Jeffrey Tucker of Lew Rockwell, anyway. I rarely agree with what’s written on there, but in this case I most certainly do.
Shaving cream a perfect example of corporate marketing inventing a problem so they can sell the solution. Shaving cream is a relatively recent invention, coming about only in the 20th century. That […]

How Lara Croft Steals Hearts:

She’s a piece of cheesecake, all right. And among cultural pundits, this is the prevailing wisdom about why young men so loved Tomb Raider when it debuted in 1996. Teenage boys are horny; teenage boys like to ogle hot women; Tomb Raider allowed them to drool over Croft for hours on […]

These are absolutely stunning images, all available in high resolution. It’s amazing how beautiful the cosmos truly is.
Technorati Tags: Astronomy, NASA, space, photos, wallpapers, beautiful

Congress readies new digital copyright bill:
The draft legislation, created by the Bush administration and backed by Rep. Lamar Smith, already enjoys the support of large copyright holders such as the Recording Industry Association of America. Smith is the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee that oversees intellectual-property law.
Smith’s press secretary, Terry Shawn, said […]

Bush has admitted a mistake:
President Bush today said mistakes were made in planning for the Iraq invasion, but he defended the troop level he ordered in the initial strike, saying he would have committed the same number if given a second chance.

Or as close as he’ll ever get to admitting one, anyway. Astute observers will […]

Two down, forty-eight to go:
Joining Illinois, California has become the second state in which a proposal to impeach President Bush has been introduced in the state legislature. And this one includes Cheney as well.
The resolution, in the words of Koretz’s press release, “bases the call for impeachment upon the Bush Administration intentionally misleading the Congress […]