From the BBC — the fine print in the new version of Windows grants Microsoft the right to delete whatever it wants to from your computer, and there’s nothing you can do about it:

Sweet deal.  (Disclosure, umpteenth time: I’m an Apple shareholder.)

A friend of mine called from Boston this morning. Says there’s a giant Mooninite billboard not far from where the first device was found. And nobody put it together. Yeesh.

And what’s the deal with the media still calling this a "bomb hoax?"  It was nothing of the kind.  Ever.  According to Google News, over 1300 news stories come up currently apply that phrase to this event.  But the guys clearly had no intention of anyone thinking these were bombs, and they certainly never made any such claim.  So how do the words "bomb hoax" remotely apply to their actions?  Those things were up for weeks before the cops in Boston freaked out.  The only "bomb hoax" here is on the part of panicky public officials who scared the bejeebus out of thousands of people with their own pronouncements, which they’re still repeating, as if they’ll magically come true:

These things had been up for three weeks in cities all over the country, and nobody freaked out. Except the officials in Boston.  And yet the AG claims there was "clear intent" to scare people?  Bullshit.  That’s who’s pretending there’s any bomb story here.  There’s your bomb hoax right there.  Compare and contrast to the rest of the country:

But the bigshots of Boston now have to pretend it’s someone else’s fault — the alternative would be a public admission of their own panicky incompetence, and we sure as hell know that’s not coming.  So instead, they’re now gonna waste even more of the public’s time and resources by angrily trying to cover their own asses.

How about trying a mirror?

Don’t let the terrorists win!  Vote Ignignokt/Err in ’08!

A fine writer, someone I’ve looked up to for most of my adult life, is gone.

Molly was the first person who would tell you she wasn’t perfect — after all, she only believed in practicing prudence "every two or three years" — but she wrote some of the sharpest lines ever.  She was, for example, the one who said Pat Buchanan’s 1992 "culture war" speech "probably sounded better in the original German."

If Molly can’t go to heaven for some reason, maybe her soul will haunt the Texas Legislature forever.  That might be close enough to heaven for her.

Sigh. Too many grown-ups not watching enough cartoons.

In an echo of the kind of paranoia that thought rock music was a communist plot, and which led some people to duct-tape their entire houses against an exaggerated anthrax threat… today, Boston called out the bomb squad to handle the Mooninite invasion.

Which consisted of — prepare to be very, very frightened now — small blinking lights in shape of cartoon characters. AAAAIIIEEEEE!

Jeebus. I mean, I’m as big a coward as there is on the planet, but there’s a bigass billboard of a Mooninite giving people the finger, right down the street from where I’m sitting, over on Pico Boulevard in Venice. And somehow nobody calls Homeland Security.

Is Al-Qaeda really going to attack by decorating its bombs with blinking lights, specifically calling attention to the bomb?

Wow. America really has to start watching Adult Swim. Anybody who doesn’t already faithfully watch Aqua Teen Hunger Force frankly deserves to panic blindly.

UPDATE: While we’re at it, here’s the trailer for the upcoming Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie, plus a clip, because I like you and want you to be happy.

I am counting the days.

Laura Bush announced yesterday that the White House has a new pastry chef named Bill Yosses.

Read closely, and you’ll notice Laura’s official release mentions pretty much every credit the guy has… except this one:

Nice to see that at least one person in the White House knows where they’re coming from.

Maybe Laura can talk her husband into hiring the authors of, I dunno, Iraq For Dummies, The Constitution For Dummies, International Law For Dummies, or Paying The Slightest Attention To The Will Of The American People For Dummies.

Hat tip: On Deadline.