With permission from the author who is a student at South- Doyle High School in Knoxville, TN. This was a class writing assignment. Content has not been altered in any way. These are his words. What are your thoughts?

Peace of Nations

What does it take to bring forth peace of nations? Loyalty from the people and from one nation to another is a necessity. Confidence, a nation needs confidence and pride in itself, to not back down to a stronger nation, for peace of nations to work, one nation can not push another around. Humanism, people must remember that though we may look different and sound different, everyone is a human, all the same.

A following of the people is necessary in order to maintain a stable nation and a healthy time of peace.

People who are loyal to their nation not only strengthen it, but also provide a safe melting pot for other nations. Loyalty is not only a thing for followers to show to the nation, it shows an allied nation that it can be trusted as well as supported in future efforts. A collaborated effort united by loyalty is one of the most influential groups of people around the globe. This virtue is one of the most important for any man or nation, having this virtue is a most for global peace.

Faith in a nation’s power or people is needed for a sense of belonging among other things. As a nation progresses forward to make itself more predominant in a growing world. Confidence brings forth a feeling of strength and power, yet for a smaller country of the world give it a sense of pride to project to a larger country that may be trying to break a world peace of sorts.

Without the confidence to stand up for a nation you believe in it may secretly fall from the inside. A virtue that many aspire to have, confidence is that which would prove difficult to a nation.

Humans, all humans are just that, humans, yet many wish to believe that all humans are different. In a world without violence, a peace among nations, there would, above all no racism. A world without racism, in itself would make all peaceful. Racism is the heart of all violence in humans, but at heart a human is just the same as another human. As a nation without racism all things violent would become shut out, from the nation.

Peace within nations is possible, but only with a few select qualities. Virtues such as confidence and loyalty make a nation strong, yet compassionate. Without racism, the world itself, all the world, would be free from the grip that is violence. Peace among the nations of the world is a possible feat, yet only at the will of the people throughout the world.

Note: I am proud to be a part of this young leaders life. He inspires me daily. The gene pool doesn't fall from the tree. Thank you for the forum to express young American's thoughts and dreams.

I haven't done any heavy number-crunching, but it appears to me that the Knoxville News-Sentinel's website gets more comments than The Tennessean's website.

Does anyone have an explanation for this, given that the latter has a larger circulation and market?

The Knoxville News Sentinel reports that officials are rethinking the Technology Corridor, which has not been as successful as hoped and is not being actively promoted and marketed. There's discussion of opening it up for mixed use development that allows for residential, retail, and general office space.

There's no mention of the root problem. High tech companies aren't going to move to an area that doesn't support education and only graduates people qualified to work in call centers.

More drama surfaced yesterday for bloggers using sitemeter.com to track visits and statistics.

Site Meter broke sometime over the past couple of days, causing the message "Internet Explorer cannot open the Internet site [site url]. Operation aborted" for anyone visiting the site using Internet Explorer. Mozilla Firefox users are not affected.

We don't use it on our *Views sites so we weren't affected, but lots of popular sites do. The only fix at the moment appears to be removing the Site Meter code from all pages/templates that include it. It will be a bunch of javascript between tags that look something like:

<!– Site Meter –>
(javascript)
<!– Copyright (c)2008 Site Meter –>

Get rid of all that and you should be good to go. Wonder how many people will put it back once Site Meter gets it fixed? Either way, it's a pretty bad PR disaster for Site Meter.

If you don't have built-in statistics tracking in your blogging software or web server, you might consider alternatives such as pMetrics (free for under 1000 daily page views) or Google Analytics (free, but not real time).

Short review: This thing rocks!

I'm setting up a new notebook PC (more on that later) and thought I'd try out some of the remote home/office computer access services. I tried WebEx PCNow and GoToMyPC. My report follows...

Back to back commercials on MSNBC Countdown Monday evening, unedited except to trim for length. Be sure to watch the last 10 seconds.

YouTube video...

The 2009 edition NAVTEQ map updates for Garmin GPS devices are now available at the Garmin website.

Also, Garmin has added some new models to the Nuvi lineup. The Nuvi 255W has a lot of features for a reasonable price. The higher end 700 and 800 models have been updated to provide route planning and trip logging of up to 10,000 visited points.

A new MSN Direct option is available on some units for automatic, real time updates on local traffic, weather, gas prices and more (plug-in receiver and subscription required). There's also a new feature* on some models that lets you download addresses from Google Maps and Mapquest.

UPDATE: *The Google and Mapquest point of interest download feature works with any Garmin USB attached GPS. I just tried it out with my Nuvi 650 and it works great. First you install the Garmin Commmunicator browser plugin from here. (Have your GPS hooked up via USB so it can verify correct installation.) Then when looking at a Google map, you can click "send", select GPS, select "Garmin", add an optional note (and title if there isn't one) and click "send". The Garmin Communicator screen opens for confirmation, click "send to gps" and you're done. It adds the address entry to the "Favorites" folder on my Nuvi 650.

Video-sharing gets local twist

Dane Baker is the creator of knoxtube.com, a video-sharing Web site that works something like YouTube. Users can post their own videos or view, rank and comment on videos posted by others.

Knoxtube recently hit 700 videos uploaded to the site, clips as diverse as performances by local bands and video of County Commission meetings.

Trust me, this is the funniest thing you will see today.

(By way of fortsanders.net)

Denver Post/AP Headline 6/29/2008:

Microsoft to stop selling Windows XP on Monday

Just a tad bit misleading.

Apparently you can still get XP by purchasing Windows Vista and then "legally "downgrade" to XP". Or, you can go to "smaller mom-and-pop PC builder shops to buy XP for resale through the end of January".

From iRobot, the makers of Roomba and Scooba, it's the Looj Gutter Cleaning Robot. Be sure to check out the video.
(By way of Instapundit.)

Putting together my "backpack journalism" kit for Denver, I figured I ought to have some kind of video camera. I don't care much for video, but I expect there will be some "YouTube moments" at the convention so I thought I should be prepared. I ended up getting a Sanyo Xacti VPC-CG9 pocket digi-camcorder. My initial review after the jump...

From a Verizon press release:

Verizon Wireless finds Tennessee customers as the 'textiest' customers for sending and receiving the most text messages per month, according to results from the company's "Big City Wireless Use Study."

The study revealed that Verizon Wireless customers in Nashville earned the number one spot as the states 'textiest city' with customers sending and receiving 819 million text messages from January to April 2008. Knoxville landed the number two position with over 420 million text messages during that same time period, while neighboring Chattanooga earned third place with 408 million text messages.

The "Big City Wireless Use Study" was initially developed by Verizon Wireless to compare the growth in text messaging from April 2006 to April 2008 in the Southeastern states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. The study revealed an increase in text messaging among the company's Tennessee customers by 520% in 24 months (April 2006 to April 2008).

Must be all that twittering. Verizon should pay Jack Lail a commission.

I have never figured out just what it is about the Internet that turns smart people dumb. There is a wonderful book from 1970 called Body Language by Julius Fast. This book discusses this behavior with regard to driving. Drivers feel a particular anonymity in their cars which allow them to act out (road rage) in ways that we just would not do face to face; the Internet provides that same assumed anonymity relaxing people enough to lash out in ways that would otherwise be sociably unacceptable.

I can appreciate your passion for a subject and the ire for someone else's opposing view. However, when you title or begin a message or comment with "you're an idiot", "stfu", "moron" or any of a number of other degrading, inflammatory, subjective remarks, you damage your argument no matter house sound, logical, or fact based. You damage your self image.

Personally, when I see a comment with such language, I immediately assume you are 12 years old and not worthy of an intellectual debate. I have to assume this because only a hormonal, irrational teen would use such an approach in an agrument. Certainly, you would not expect to stand in a crowd of people and sway their opinion to yours through name calling? That's the stuff of high schoolers and middle schoolers.

"Its better to let someone think your an idiot, rather than to open your mouth and prove them right." --when it doubt, attribute all quotes to Ben Franklin

My advice, if you can't say anything nice, don't...well, just stfu.

Here's a list of some handy open source and other free software that I use or have recommended...

Firefox 3.0 just became available today. It's faster to start and looks great. According to Mozilla, it's safer and more stable too.

They are hoping to break a record for the most downloads in a day so I expected a slow process, but I got mine pretty fast.

If you're prone to use Firefox, get you one. They got plenty of 'em and they're free.

Ford Motor Co. EVP Mark Fields discussed Ford's hybrid and plug-in electric plans at a recent industry conference. He noted that Ford is launching hybrid versions of its Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan autos later this year and discussed some of the challenges in bringing a PEHV to market.

Expected to land within the hour, 11:15AM.

Nasa gives Discovery a go for landing.

The TNGOP has put out a hit piece blaming Democrats for high gas prices.

As I type this, Rep. Jimmy Duncan is holding a press conference with Jim Haslam at the Pilot Travel Center on I-40 at Strawberry Plains Pike to talk about the problem. (Irony alert!) No doubt they will be singing from the same hymnal.

Bill Clinton! Democrats! Enviro-weenies! No mention of Bush's Saudi pals and the oil cartels, sending troops off to war to protect our oil supplies, obscene oil company profits, or our failure to enact a rational, forward-looking energy policy, or even more realistic and attainable CAFE standards.

Their brilliant plan is to drill our way to energy independence. They're like a bunch of crack addicts, combing the shag carpet looking for another rock. Not sure what they're going to do when all the crack oil is gone. Drill on Mars?

As I said over at TennViews the other day, the real price of gas is $10 per gallon or more. You're just not paying it at the pump. You're paying it with an IOU for damage to the environment and oil company tax breaks and defense spending and trillions in budget and foreign trade deficits that are costing us jobs and piling up massive debt for somebody to pay off someday.

And every time the oil companies raise the price of gas, the Average American worker gets a pay cut and a tax increase, with the proceeds going directly into the pockets of oil companies and their enablers in Congress. How's that stimulus check working out for you?

(And have you heard the latest excuse for tight supplies and high gas prices? Fog. Seriously, I'm not making that up. Fog along the U.S. Gulf Coast prevented offloading oil from tankers, which were drifting aimlessly at sea while we suffered.)

Anyway, these gas prices, as disruptive as they are to our economy and the wellbeing of working class families, are just the first minor symptoms of the onset of a major disease. We've had opportunity after opportunity to do something about it. Unfortunately, it may already be too late. See you in the Thunderdome!

Here's a good article that gives hope that large scale solar power is quickly taking root due to the high cost of fossil fuels and the rapidly decreasing costs of generating solar power. Excerpts:

It's pure economics, not a green dream anymore.
...
The industry likes to point out that between 1996 and 2005, U.S. utilities built 250 gigawatts of natural-gas-fired plants, now producing a quarter of the nation's total. There's now nothing standing in the way of building another 250 gigawatts of power using pollution-free solar thermal.

And we didn't have to wait for Cheney to leave office or a Congress with backbone to mandate anything. This is faster and cheaper than new fossil fuel or newkular plants.

Imagine how much wider the difference in costs will be by the time the older, dirtier technology plants would get on line, many years in the future.

Space Shuttle Discovery STS-124 is scheduled to launch today at 5:02 PM EDT. They are on loading fuel as I type. Here's the latest update from NASA:

The loading of space shuttle Discovery's external tank with 500,000 gallons of liquid oxygen and hydrogen began at 7:38 a.m. EDT, and the "topping off" of the tank's propellants will continue until launch time. All systems onboard Discovery are functioning normally.

The weather is looking promising for launch day, according to Shuttle Weather Officer Kathy Winters. Isolated coastal showers may be in the area during the morning hours, but a sea breeze will develop in the afternoon, clearing the coast and causing any showers to move inland. There is an 80 percent chance of favorable weather at launch time.

This mission will carry the largest payload so far to the station and includes three spacewalks. It is the second of three missions that will launch components to complete the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Kibo ["Hope"] laboratory. The crew will install Kibo's large Japanese Pressurized Module and Kibo's robotic arm system. Discovery also will deliver new station crew member Greg Chamitoff and bring back Flight Engineer Garrett Reisman, who will end a three-month stay aboard the outpost.

Perhaps the most important task, however, is a plumbing job to fix the toilet on the International Space Station. (Someone will presumably check their union cards before boarding.)

In other space related news, the Phoenix Mars Lander made a successful and spectacular landing Sunday and is sending back some amazing images of the Arctic Plain of Mars.

Blog coverage from earlier in the week:

Steve at WhitesCreek: Way to go, Scientists and Engineers, and their teachers back in 5th grade who showed them how to make a battery out of a potato...

Russ McBee: I'm frankly astounded at the technical skill necessary to make a landing mission like this work at all, but I'm left speechless and awestruck by the fact that NASA's engineers could direct a satellite, orbiting a planet millions of miles away, to capture a fleeting image of a second craft traveling thousands of miles an hour through its field of vision.

(All photos courtesy of NASA)

UPDATE: Mission underway after a perfect launch at 5:02, right on time. Nine minutes later Shuttle Discovery is in orbit, chasing down the International Space Station for rendezvous on Monday.

The latest twist in the Nigerian email scam is a meta-scam email saying you are a party to a class action lawsuit against Nigerian email scammers and the settlement entitles you to hundreds of thousands in damages. What will they think of next?

P.S. If you believe you have been the victim of a fake Nigerian email scam class action lawsuit scam, please leave your contact info and social security number and credit card numbers and bank account informations and mother's maiden name in the comments and someone will contact you regarding your options which are numerous.[/snark]

According to a Prius Chat newsletter, the "Next Generation Prius will be unveiled at the 2009 Detroit Auto Show in January. The rumor around Toyota dealerships is that the Gen III Prius will be on sale in April 2009."

Edmunds Auto Observer speculates on updates which include 50 more horsepower and improved gas mileage. They suggest plug-in and Li-Ion options won't be available until Gen 3.1 in 2010.

A couple of editorials this week debate anonymity on the internet and the declining standards of public discourse. Excerpts and commentary after the jump...

Internet Fraud Loss For 2007 Tops $239 Million

Sounds low to me. I would have guessed ten times that.

Along with all the other new features we have at the redesigned WBIR.com is an online community discussion forum (Which will soon have its own name. Suggestions welcome!).

I am your intrepid moderator for this new community, and I'd like to invite you to visit, to join the discussion, and to share your ideas and suggestions for getting the conversation underway.

Check us out at: Link...

Cheers-

Katie

"Janice Velva"

This is one of the better spam e-mail names I've seen lately. "Janice" is selling fake diplomas.

I have a homegrown spam filter for our business account and the top four hits are "viagra" (yes, they still use the correct spelling), "save" + ".com", "penis", and "rolex" + "watches" in that order.

They all had hits as recently as today, and combined they have filtered approx. 80,000 emails since I wrote the program and added the terms to the filter list a while back.

The next Blogfest is this weekend at VS a new business downtown. Meet other bloggers face to face and play video games! They have 2 Wiis, 2 xboxes, and 2 playstation 3s as well as Rockband and many many games for each system. There are 5 iMacs and wifi so you can blog. Downstairs is a congregating area away from the games with a stage which can feature live performances. Games are free to bloggers from 7pm to 9pm Saturday, May 10. VS is located just two doors down from the old Harold's. See you there!

As a side note, the wifi is free ALL the time so if you are ever downtown, needing a connection and a comfortable place to sit, slip into VS!