The real Threat Matrix

Despite ABC’s upcoming fall show of the same name, the real Threat Matrix is a document the President reads each morning.

The crux of their briefings is the document formally titled “Terrorist Threats to U.S. Interests Worldwide,” or more informally, the “Daily Threat Matrix.”

[…]

The document is “a list of every threat directed at the United States in the past 24 hours,” Mueller said.

Government officials familiar with the Matrix, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described it as a daily compendium of a few pages to 30 or more. Each threat is entered in tabular format, with those considered the most severe listed first.

How many times do we have to go through this?

Yet again, in light of all the whining coming from the Demobrats over the just-passed federal tax cut:
* unconstitutional spending causes deficits
* unconstitutional spending causes deficits
* unconstitutional spending causes deficits
Did I happen to mention that unconstitutional spending causes deficits? Putting money back in to the pockets of those actually paying taxes, i.e., the top 50% of all those collecting a paycheck, does not constitute a deficit problem.
Speaking of those actually paying taxes, yes, these tax cuts favor “the rich,” if you consider a dual-income married couple with two kids bringing in around $125,00 a year “rich.” Those are the people actually paying taxes; a single-income married couple with two kids bringing in only $18,000 a year is paying very little, if any, income tax.
Stop your whining, your leftist sociocrats, and work toward cutting out those programs and departments that the federal government is unconstitutionally funding. And this goes for several members of the Republican party as well. Cut the pork, and the deficit will go down.
Speaking of bringing down the deficit, riddle me this: what was the Clinton administration doing to lead the country to better fiscal management? Clinton supporters have long pointed to how, during the Clinton administration, our federal government ran a “surplus.” Government should never have a surplus–it says either the government doesn’t have its fiscal priorities in order, or the citizenry is over-taxed, or both. Why wasn’t this surplus going toward paying down the national debt? That would have shown good financial sense.

TypePad screenshots

There are now some screenshots of the TypePad interface up at the main site, including the photo albums feature. Having just recently moved over some of my own photos, this is interesting. I may hold off on any more conversion/moving until after TypePad pricing is announced and/or it goes live.

This Friday’s Five

1. What brand of toothpaste do you use?
Colgate Total.
2. What brand of toilet paper do you prefer?
Angel Soft.
3. What brand(s) of shoes do you wear?
Rockport boots and casual shoes; Reebok or K-Swiss sneakers.
4. What brand of soda do you drink?
Trying to cut out soda from my diet, but when I do, I prefer Cherry Coke.
5. What brand of gum do you chew?
Don’t chew gum.

Last Friday’s Five

The questions, with my answers, from last Friday’s Five (which I only saw yesterday):
1. What drinking water do you prefer — tap, bottle, purifier, etc.?
Honestly, it depends on where I am. Most of the time, especially at home, I’m fine with the tap, unpurified. When I travel, even to other parts of the metroplex, unless I’ve been there before and have tried the tap, it’s from a bottle.
2. What are your favorite flavor of chips?
Tough one; I’d have to say Cool Ranch Doritos (now in a low-fat baked variety!).
3. Of all the things you can cook, what dish do you like the most?
Red beans and rice.
4. How do you have your eggs?
Scrambled.
5. Who was the last person who cooked you a meal? How did it turn out?
The Morrisses and Leaumonts; great grilled burgers and baked fries for a Sunday afternoon pool-side get-together.

PNG petition

IE/Win doesn’t fully support the PNG graphics format, and Zeldman points to an online petition that is now just shy of 7,000 signatures. (Yours truly is #6977.) Every modern web browser with the exception of IE/Win has full PNG support built in, including beta browsers Safari and Camino. Please sign the petition and let’s hope Microsoft will listen; they’ve only been promising this since IE 4.

Photos, Colophon

So I had put off two minor projects for the site for a while: a colophon, and moving all my photos from my .Mac account over to this domain. As of now, those two projects have been finished. More photos will be forthcoming, as I will likely move the photo albums from my old domain over to this one, so that everything is in one place. Permanent links to both are in the new Navigate tabbed menu at the top sub-menu to the right. Enjoy!

Quote of the moment

“Following someone’s blog is like doing a TiVo season pass for a person.” —Rael Dornfest

LSU SEC baseball champs (again)

The LSU baseball team has won the regular season Southeastern Conference championship (again) for 2003, its first since 1997. LSU’s head coach has been named SEC Coach of the Year (again, though a first for current head coach Smoke Laval). Junior shortstop Aaron Hill has been named the conference’s Position Player of the Year. The Fighting Tigers finished the regular season 37-18-1, and begin play against Arkansas in Hoover, Alabama, tomorrow, in the SEC Tournament. (I wish I could come out for it, Dad!)
Looking for another SEC Tournament championship, and a berth in the College World Series, LSU has rebounded from several major injuries throughout the season to clinch the SEC championship. Geaux Tigers!

Master the Services Menu

My favorite n3rdling has a great primer on MacMerc about getting the most out of OS X’s Services menu. I’ve recently begun relying on the Services menu more myself, and Jon’s article showed me a couple of items I hadn’t thought about using yet. Check it out.