Pulled From Elsewhere

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Christopher Walken makes my world go 'round

Christopher Walken is, I'm confident in saying, the most terrifying person on the planet. Luckily for us all, he may also be the most hilarious. And I have found the definitive impersonation. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you... Jay Mohr.

Kills me every time.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Sandwich!

This captures how I feel so perfectly...

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Why hasn't Al-Qaeda attacked the US again?

Slate's Timothy Noah published an absolutely incredible article trying to reason out exactly why we haven't been attacked again by Al-Qaeda. In it, he smartly avoids trying to pinpoint the exact reason, rather preferring to lay out each of seven competing theories, and arranging them on a scale of most comforting to most worrying. My favorite is the "Flypaper Theory." FTA (taken from an interview by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez)

This is what I would call a terrorist magnet, where America, being present here in Iraq, creates a target of opportunity, if you will. But this is exactly where we want to fight them. We want to fight them here. We prepared for them, and this will prevent the American people from having to go through their attacks back in the United States [italics mine].

While perhaps less plausible than some of the others, the idea really intrigues me. He's spot on in his arrangement- terrorists-are-dumb really is much more comforting than they just haven't gotten around to it yet.

This article is really long, but absolutely worth a read. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Link for those who missed it earlier- via Slate

Goverment fiber-optics cables annoy construction workers

Bruce Schneier quotes a really interesting story from the Washington Post about the construction going on at Tyson's Corner for the mall expansion and metro extension- apparently the government's got miles of black fiber laid across the region. This makes sense, seeing as NoVA's got an inordinate amount of governmental agencies dotting its landscape, but the funny part is that the fiber-optic cable isn't marked on any maps or plans.

These poor contractors are digging merrily away and then all of a sudden they hit a cable. Minutes later, men in suits pour out of black SUVs. FTA:

"Yeah, we heard about the black SUVs," said Paul Goguen, the engineer in charge of relocating electric, gas, water, sewer, cable, telephone and other communications lines to make way for Metro through Tysons. "We were warned that if they were hit, the company responsible would show up before you even had a chance to make a phone call."

One of the funnier stories quoted in the article is that of a company which happened to run afoul of these "men in black SUVs". Apparently, they showed up within seconds, refused to identify themselves, and then within hours an AT&T crew came to repair the wire. AT&T tried to bill them for the repairs. FTA:

Georgelas, the developer whose company was overseeing the work in 2000 when the Chevrolet Suburbans drove up to the Greensboro Corporate Center, said he figured that the government was involved when an AT&T crew arrived the same day to fix the line, rather than waiting days. His opinion didn't change when AT&T tried to bill his company for the work but immediately backed down when his company balked.
"These lines are not cheap to move," Georgelas said. "They said, 'You owe us $300,000.' We said, 'Are you nuts?' "

Well done, sir. Well done.