Why the Bridge Collapsed

Rescuers on the I35W Bridge
(Update:  More photos of the crisis in the galleries.)

The drive into work today was surreal.  Hell, the past 24 hours can be described as no less than surreal.  To avoid potential highway congestion, I took the normal side streets from my home to work.  As I passed over interstate 35W on the north, I could se no more than five cars south-bound on the highway beneath.  Others who follow a similar commute described it best.  "The speed limit on the highway today was seventy-five."

 

Read more ...

Saddam's Execution

As you already know, Saddam Hussein was executed at 10:00PM ET today. I will not argue the merits of Saddam's life. Was he an evil man? Was he good for Iraq? What would either matter to me? What matters to me is man imposing his will above that of God.

Of course, I am always grabbed by the heart strings when someone is accused and proven guilty of mass murder. In the United States, I have always been in support of the death penalty for a variety of reasons - The family deserves justice. It is less expensive than housing a monster for twenty years. in America, we seem closer to the crime and closer to the victim. Our mass media intentionally tries to grab us and show us the evil nature of the worst of criminals. We buy into it readily and are satisfied when someone such as Timothy McVeigh is removed from the face of this earth. We feel safer somehow.

Read more ...

PC Mag Writers Smoking the Microsoft/Symantec Pipe

Paul F. Roberts at PC Magazine needs to check his water supply for hexavalent chromium.  He claims that "The recent move by Apple Computer to begin shipping Macintosh computers that use microprocessors from Intel could open the door to more attacks against computers running the company's OS X operating system."  [http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1915923,00.asp, eWeek, January 26, 2006]  What?  Just because Microsoft can't write secure code in its own OS for Intel doesn't mean that Apple is going to inherit its problems.  The security issues are with the operating system and not with the processor.

Read more ...