If you’ve got 15 minutes, check out this short story over at Tor.

It’s being rumored that Apple is discussing purchasing Twitter.

For what, I have no idea.

Apple doesn’t have any business that Twitter would compliment, and I don’t think that Twitter has any technology that Apple needs.

I’m throwing the flag on this one for 10 yards.

Thoughts?

I just stumbled across Private Murphy, a comic about a regular guy in the Army. For anyone who’s ever been in the military, it’ll touch a nerve. Hopefully one that makes you laugh.

Here are a few of my favorites so far:

Had a guy in my unit in Germany who could do this with his NBC mask on.

Since I used to teach a few classes at Fort Huachuca, I won’t comment on this one.

Had this happen to me once. Took almost 2 hours to get the entire platoon extricated.

Anyway, this one goes on my list of everyday links. Enjoy.

Well, the month long craziness that is the Kentucky Derby festival is finally over.

The traffic disruptions, lack of good news coverage in favor of reporting on bed races, and worrying if it will rain on a certain Friday or Saturday are all over.

I watched the Derby on Saturday, and I have to admit it was a good race. I’m not one for horse racing that much, although I enjoy going to the track with friends. But that’s more to enjoy time with my friends than it is to bet on the ponies.

A few years ago, a friend of ours got us tickets to Churchill Downs on a Sunday for brunch on Millionaires Row. For those of you who don’t live around Louisville, Millionaires Row is the area where celebrities and politicians go to watch the Derby and Oaks. We didn’t go on a special day, so it was mostly regular people who paid extra to have a great breakfast, an air conditioned table to sit at, and a great perch in a tall building to watch the races from. We had all of the kids with us, and I allowed each of them to pick a horse from one of the races, and I put a $2 bet down for them. Junior Bear suddenly turned into Jimmy the Greek. He asked about track conditions, what the records of each of the horses was, and so on. Little Bear picked a horse at random as he was more interested in the buffet. Girlie Bear picked, and I quote, “the brown one”.

Needless to say, Girlie Bear won on a 25 to 1 shot. I let her spend her $50 any way she wanted.

After the Derby this year, we went over to a friend’s house to make dinner for the crew of friends who were working security at the Derby. They are parents and teenagers who are involved in the band program at Junior Bear’s school. The money they raise working security at these events goes towards paying for the band. These poor souls had been on their feet for 14 hours a day for the past two days, so we made them a good spaghetti and salad dinner. Irish Woman went to the store and got a flat of cupcakes and an apple pie for dessert.

When the crew got in at about 9, we got to hear about all the celebrities they’d seen as some of them had worked the limousine entrance and some had worked on Millionaires Row. Apparently, Kim Kardashian is as pretty in person as she is on the Internet. Or at least she is to the eyes of an 18 year old high school senior.

So, until next year, we can get back to just being a city in the South/Midwest.

Over the weekend, while I was at home watching the Kentucky Derby, members of the Dallas Cowboys were at a rookie mini-camp. During a violent storm, the facility they were in collapsed, injuring several of them.

One of the injured will be paralyzed below the waist for the rest of his waist. Another broke his back, but has no paralysis.

My thoughts and prayers go out to these men, their families, and the Cowboys in general. During the season, on the field, they are the evil empire. When stuff like this happens we let all that go and help each other any way we can.

Looks like Jerry Jones is going to do the right thing and support these employees in any way he can. Good on him. Mr. Jones sometimes has a bad reputation, but if he’s going to do right by his people when they get hurt on the job, he goes up a notch or two in my estimation.

After my earlier discussion of the new flu scare, Roberta X linked to a great article on why this flu isn’t that panic worthy over at Atomic Nerds.

Just when you thought you were informed and eloquent, someone else does it better.

Some brainiac at the White House thought it would be neato to get some nice photos of Air Force One against the Manhattan skyline. So they fired up the jet, did a fly by, and had a grand time. Of course the Air Force had to send a chase plane or two to guard the Presidents plane.

They forgot one box in their checklist. They forgot to tell anyone else about it. Not the mayor of New York, much less the people of the Big Apple.

One shudders at the idiocy of someone thinking it would be a good freaking idea to have a 747 and some fighter jets buzz Manhattan unannounced. Kinda like parking a Ryder truck in front of the new federal building in Oklahoma City and walking away. Or having a fat girl deliver pizza to the Clinton library. These things tend to make people jumpy.

I hope they televise the butt chewings that this brought about. It would be nice to know who was responsible and watch them walk off the White House grounds with the contents of their desk in a small box on CNN.

Well, a new strain of swine flu is apparently worrying the socks off of the CDC and DHS. Secretary Napolitano has declared a preemptive state of emergency over the outbreak.

Mexico City is apparently shutting down, to include such religious things as Sunday Mass and soccer games.

So, what do we have here?

Hopefully, this is only going to be as bad as the SARS outbreak a few years ago. Yes, it’s pretty bad if you get it, but good quarantine methods contain the outbreak.

I really hope it doesn’t get as bad as the 1918 “Spanish” flu outbreak. That killed 10’s of millions. But that was just as modern medicine was starting to come out. Anti-viral medicine was a dream, a lot of the medical establishment still didn’t believe in germs, and not a lot of people had access to good medical support if they needed it. Now, even though we still don’t have magic bullets against viruses, we at least have a few widely used drugs like Tamiflu. Doctors are readily available to all Americans, and the doctors are well-trained and certified. I’m sure that work is going on already to develop a vaccine. If one is found, it could be quickly mass-produced and distributed.

BTW, for a really good read about the 1918 Pandemic, check out The Great Influenza. I picked it up a few years ago in an airport book store, and it goes into great detail on how the influenza is believed to have originated and how it spread. BTW, the 1918 flu is also believed to have originated in pigs and crossed the species barrier.

So, what’s the worst case scenario? Well, it would be a repeat of 1918. In 1918, the flu spread quickly through soldiers who took it from North America to the fighting in Europe, then spread globally when soldiers returned to every continent in the world. This flu could spread quickly through air travelers. That’s probably how it has already spread from Mexico to places like New York and New Zealand.

Doctors in the USA are saying that the cases they’ve seen so far have been pretty mild, but that follows the pattern of the 1918 influenza. The first outbreak was pretty mild, with a lot of people getting sick, but not a lot of them died. Then the subsequent waves hit later in the year and killed millions.

Things could get pretty ugly for a while, but it won’t be the end of the world. Pandemics burn themselves out eventually. Those who are going to sicken and die will do so pretty quickly. Hopefully, those who survive will have at least partial immunity. Society will change temporarily to keep from getting sick. Things like movies and sports will suffer because people will either be prevented from or voluntarily quit going to such things.

What we can do now is to just do what we do every flu season. Wash your hands, cover your mouth when you sneeze or cough, and stay home from work if you feel sick.

I hope this doesn’t get too bad. Just in case, please use the Purel at the door as you leave.

According to Fox News, a British agent in Colombia messed up their entire operation in South America by losing her purse.

How, might you ask, can losing a purse on a bus destroy an entire intelligence network?

Because the idiot was carrying around a thumb drive loaded with the identities of undercover agents and informants.

That’s right, a supposedly trained and competent agent of MI-6 was walking around her target area with an easily accessible roster of the agents her agency was using to get at the local drug lords.

My guess was it was totally unencrypted. Our allies in Her Majesty’s Secret Service were forced to move a whole bunch of people they had spent years getting in and getting to.

Here’s the deal kids: Thumb drives are really neato for carrying around your term papers and pictures of your kids, but don’t put anything you wouldn’t want put on the front page of the local newspaper on them. Like your tax return, or your checking account records. Or maybe even the identities of your SECRET AGENTS.

And if you have to do this, try using some kind of encryption to at least make it difficult for the bad guys to get to the information.

Starbuck over at Wings Over Iraq has a great post about the differences between the small outposts and the big bases in Iraq.

One thing that stuck out was his description of amenities at a Forward Operating Base or FOB:

They were isolated cities unto themselves, often boasting coffee houses, fast food restaurants, massage parlors, and massive dining facilities

Now, I’ve been deployed a couple of times, and I’ve seen some pretty posh large bases in forward areas. Never did see a massage parlor though. Is that the new Morale, Welfare, and Recreation at work, or is it contracted through KBR?

Just have to wonder.