As if the massacre of Sept 16 wasn’t horrifying enough, more stories of Blackwater have surfaced.

“We would careen around corners, jump road dividers, reach speeds in excess of 100 mph and often cross over to the wrong side of the street, oncoming traffic be damned,” she writes. “I began to wonder whether my meetings, intended to further U.S. policy goals and improve the lives of Iraqis, were doing more harm than good. With our drivers honking at, cutting off, pelting with water bottles (a favorite tactic) and menacing with weapons anyone in their way, how many enemies were we creating?”

Gans describes a particularly “infuriating” incident where the lead Chevy Suburban in her convoy allegedly crashed into a sedan ferrying an older man, a young woman and three children.

“As we approached at typical breakneck speed, the Blackwater driver honked furiously and motioned to the side, as if they should pull over,” she pens. “The kids in the back seat looked back in horror, mouths agape at the sight of the heavily armored Suburbans driven by large, armed men in dark sunglasses. The poor Iraqi driver frantically searched for a means of escape, but there was none. So the lead Blackwater vehicle smashed heedlessly into the car, pushing it into the barrier. We zoomed by too quickly to notice if anyone was hurt.”

“Why does the world hate America?”  is starting to lose its innocence.

Full Story [Raw Story] 

The massive U.S. embassy under construction in Baghdad could cost $144 million more than projected $592 million and will open months behind schedule because of poor planning, shoddy workmanship, internal disputes and last-minute changes sought by State Department officials.  Thats about $2.45 from every man woman and child in the US. thats for ONE project.

Photos of new embassy. 

In a country without reliable water, food, security, etc…   should this REALLY be such a high priority and bill?

Story Here [Washington Post] 

Taking ownership of system files or folders in Windows Vista is not a simple task. Whether you use the GUI or the command line, it takes far too many steps.

Thankfully somebody created a registry hack that will give you a menu item for “Take Ownership” that will handle all the steps for you.

Simply follow the link and make sure to thank.

Add “Take Ownership” to Explorer Right-Click Menu in Vista

A horrible trajedy.  Way too many video game related jokes available (extra lives, power-ups, fall damage).  A sad story.  A 10 year old boy jumped from the 19th floor of his apartment building in Moscow because his parents had banned him from playing any video games “due to bad conduct in school and a poor performance in studies.”

I feel for his family and at the same time am worried about the fear-mongering “video games are killing our kids!!!”  that is sure to be sparked by this.

News Article 

When buying a computer the past year or so, one of the main components to look at hasn’t been just the speed of the CPU, but how many cores it has.  This article shows what a core is, why it’s good, and whether you need the extra cores for your computer purposes.

Parallel Processing, Part 1: CPU Cores