No, Virginia, we can’t arrest illegal aliens

From the You’ve-Got-To-Be-Kidding-Me Department, if you’re an illegal alien, get thee to Virginia!
Apparently, so long as you’re not commiting a felony, you won’t get detained and possibly deported. No state law “to make arrests solely on the basis of a person’s immigration status”? Is this a Twilight Zone episode? Is Alan Funt hiding in the bushes somewhere with the camera? Do not law enforcement officers make arrests based on federal law as well as state law? The state of Virginia may not do the prosecuting and deporting, but surely they should be doing the arresting, no?
“I’m sorry for the delay, Mr. Atta. Despite your expired visa, your paperwork for your radiation-materials transport van appears to be in order. Drive safely, and have a nice day.”
Why don’t we just give up right now and hand over the nuclear bomb the jihadists want to wipe us out with, complete with AAA road maps so they can miss the construction on their way to the District?

Reason #37 to Avoid Internet Explorer

Per Paul Stamatio, as if you needed thirty-six other reasons.

Miscellany

It’s not a full-scale semi truck, or even a VW Beetle, but it is a real-life Transformer.
[Via Firewheel Design.]

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Brent informs us that Mississippi is very dog-friendly at its rest stops.

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As Lee said when he pinged me via IM, “What a waste of a Countach.”

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For some reason, I can’t believe John blogged iStache.

World Cup wussies?

So I’m sitting here watching Spain play Saudi Arabia in the World Cup, and we’re having more and more of the pathetic overacting by the players when they get tackled/kicked/knocked down. Can we stop this sad display, manly football men of the world?
Look, I know it hurts like hell when you get kicked in the shin, but I thought that was the point of wearing those pads inside the socks that pull up to your jock strap. Yet these guys get tapped on the shin, they go down like a load of bricks, and writhe around as if their opponent just sliced off their lower leg with a sword. Razor’s right; enough already. I’ve watched the team of thirteen year-olds my friend Gary’s stepson plays on, and they whack at one another more than these “top players in the world”, with less faked agony.
If you want soccer to catch on more in the U.S., show us you all can act like men and take your licks.
This goes double for the eliminated U.S. team.

Miscellany

I must have a Gnome-be-Gone. Must.
[Via Uncrate.]

* * *

Why is it I’m learning about Pete’s Famous from Brent, rather than my parents, who have lived in the Birmingham metroplex for a decade? (I can actually answer this one; my parents bring their lunch to work, and don’t go out.) I wonder how far Gus’s place is from their respective offices?

* * *

Eric Blair:

Of course, I could see this eating into the PowerMate’s market. I mean, who needs a flashing knob to notify you of email when you can have a flashing keyboard?
One reason I turned off that particular functionality of my PowerMate was the distraction of the blinking light…

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Presenting the iCarta. iDon’t think so.
[Via Firewheel Design.]

Happy Father’s Day

So, fellow dads, how’s your day going? A pretty quiet one for us here at the Phisch Bowl. It was nice to sleep in a little, then off to church, and Mi Cocina for lunch (Sunset Fajitas!). Both the little phisch and the missus crashed for a nap, and in addition to doing some online reading, I’ve enjoyed one of my Father’s Day gifts: the fifth season DVD set of Seinfeld. Season five is notable because it includes my favorite Seinfeld episode, “The Marine Biologist”, which I watched, along with the episode’s extras, a few minutes ago.
A pair of homemade gifts from the little phisch: a framed handprint he made at school, and a pocket-protector card he colored in Sunday School this morning. As usual, these will take prominent spots on the refrigerator and study whiteboard.
I’m usually the one who gets our little guy down for his naps, and today was no exception. As he drifted off, and I looked at his peaceful face, it was one of those Hallmark moments where your heart feels like it’s about to burst. Since becoming a father, I have learned more about how much my own dad loves me than I ever thought I knew.
Likewise, having had those thoughts parents have, since becoming a dad my relationship with God has deepened, as I understand more how wrenching it was for Him to give up His only Son for the world.
My fellow dads, I hope you all have a great day.
Dad, I love you. Thanks for always being there, and setting the example you did.

Killing .Mac, part 1

I renewed my .Mac subscription last year, though I did so with reservations. That was the last time I will renew, and come October, I will be .Mac-less for the first time since the service was the original, free iTools. With every feature “update”, I am finding less and less value in the service for myself. I am not alone in my feelings, and Khoi Vinh sums up a lot of how I feel. Your own mileage may vary.
I thought I would begin the process of replacing the features I use with .Mac, keeping in mind the sum total of the replacements not exceed .Mac’s annual price tag of $99.95. Steven Frank offers alternatives, and I will likely touch on many of those as well.
Anti-Virus
To begin the replacement process, I started with virus protection. When McAfee began to have issues with Virex 7.5, before and after the introduction of Mac OS X Tiger, I went looking for another anti-virus solution. Granted, we have yet to have a serious virus infection of the OS X community, but it never hurts to be prepared.
I now use ClamXav to fend off the nasties. The only downside to ClamXav is a lack of protection from Visual Basic-based macro viruses, which infect Microsoft Office documents. Personally, though I own Office, I use its components rarely, so this isn’t a showstopper for me. If the applications of Office are some of your mainstays, however, you might want to investigate Norton AntiVirus or VirusBarrier.
It should be noted that Apple no longer includes any anti-virus package with .Mac, so even if I were to pay for NAV or VirusBarrier, it wouldn’t be counted against the $99.95 cost of .Mac.
E-mail
Besides the former use of Virex, another feature I’m using with .Mac is the @mac.com e-mail address. At the last revision of the .Mac feature set, Apple increased the default storage limit to one gigabyte. This is shared space; it is utilized by your .Mac e-mail, as well as any files you upload to your account.
Contrast this with Google’s Gmail, which gives you, currently, 2.7 GB of space, and counting. (Google slowly increases the storage amount each day.) My Gmail account has become my main e-mail account, with my account on my own domain coming in second. The Gmail web interface is much faster, for me at least, than the .Mac web interface, though with both accounts I use the POP protocol to route the mail to my local e-mail client.
So for now, I’ve replaced the anti-virus software Apple no longer offers, and I’ve replaced the e-mail service with one that offers more storage and a faster user interface, both at no cost. More on my personal quest to rid myself of .Mac in a future post.

Pong Vader

My Ping Pong Vader shirt arrived today. Me so happy.

Jajah

Guy mentions the web telephony service Jajah, which looks interesting, especially when compared to Skype. Unlike the latter, Jajah doesn’t require you to download any software, and you use your own phone.
This is just about as dead-simple telephony as you can get. You enter your phone number, then the number you’re calling, then hit the Call button. Your phone rings, you answer, then it rings the number you’re calling. That’s it.
So, like Skype, you can call internationally really cheap. Unlike Skype, you can dial Guadalajara, then chat on your mobile with the golf pro who took three strokes off your game, all while you drive to your local course.
Personally, I’ve never had much use for Skype. I haven’t called internationally in ten years, easy. Calls within the borders of the U.S. are covered adequately by my mobile phone plan. And if I were calling internationally, I may not want to be tied to the computer when doing so. Should I have the need, I can certainly see myself favoring Jajah.

Miscellany

You know, I find it quite amusing, given Al Gore’s connection to Steve Jobs (Gore serves on Apple’s board of directors, in case you didn’t know), that at the same time An Inconvenient Truth is released, so is Cars.

* * *

Since Textpander has become TextExpander, and now comes with a thirty-dollar price tag, all of its little quirks may send me back to TypeIt4Me, of which I am a registered user already.
The biggest quirk? If I misstype an abbreviation with Textpander, but backspace and fix the abbreviation’s spelling, it won’t trigger the full text. TypeIt4Me does. With Textpander, I have to delete whatever part of the abbreviation I’ve typed, and start over.

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I really like the FIFA World Cup smiley-faced logo. It’s just so cheery.
When you see “Fédération Internationale de Football Association“, does Monty Python and the “Department of Redundancy Department” come to mind, or is it just me?