The Papal Conclave starts today. German Cardinal Ratzinger is the front-runner.

India and Pakistan are making nice.

Bad week for cruise ships. First bedbugs, now a giant wave damages a ship.

South Dakota is giving away an official Governor's Mansion. Get yours today!

Is too much Vitamin E bad for you?

Wi-Max gets closer. Intel announces a chipset.

Firefox releases an update.

I haven't posted any stories in the Technology section yet (until this one). While this might be due to my slow recovery from a career as a network engineer and network security guy, it's probably due more to the fact that it's been a whirlwind of activity since I left corporate America at the end of March.

There are a couple of new computers (one desktop, one notebook) sitting in their boxes at the top of the stairs, waiting for me to do some pre-configuring before taking them over to my in-law's to 1) replace the father-in-law's sluggish, elderly Gateway, and 2) get my mother-in-law into the wireless/laptop generation. That should be entertaining, and I'll be posting that saga here.

Also on the Ideas list for articles is a review of my 2005 Acura RL. In short, a very nice car.

Elsewhere, I got my own notebook back from the fine folks at LinuxCertified. My motherboard fried itself earlier this year. I took it to the local MicroCenter, who tried their best, identified the motherboard itself as the toasted component, but couldn't locate a replacement. Fortunately, LinuxCertified (who I originally bought the laptop from) came through. Happy customer here.

Other topics which may find their way here may include:
Network management,
Network security,
Satellite TV,
Mobile computing,
Home automation,
and anything else which catches my fancy.

We picked up a 12-pack of the new Pepsi One last week in South Dakota, and as much as I'm a Coke guy, I have to say the Splenda and acesulfame-potassium-sweetened Pepsi product is pretty good. It had the usual yucky Pepsi Cola aftertaste, with very little artificial sweetener taste. Overall, it was very much like "real" Pepsi, in fact.

Now, I can't wait for Coca-Cola Zero to come out in June. It's supposed to taste a lot like Coke Classic. They're also planning to roll out a Splenda-sweetened Diet Coke, but retaining DC's unique taste which has legions of fans (including my very own Snookums).

It looks like it will be a tasty summer 2005 for cola lovers.

Snookums and I took a day off yesterday, going to a baseball game and fininshing off with our 6 month anniversary dinner at The Melting Pot.

Playing SimCity for real: Fire department response in most of metro Kansas City is longer than the national target of six minute response 90% of the time.

The Chinese really don't like the Japanese very much.

Biosafe cat litter? Isn't that a contradiction?

Drunk Monkeys Brawl with Humans.
BHUBANESWAR: A group of monkeys descended on an Orissa village, quaffed down pots of an intoxicating brew lying in the open and then set upon the villagers, injuring three of them.

Couple gets cruise line apology for bed bug infestation.

RV Capital of the U.S.?
Yesterday's Whip stated that two of the top five fastest growing counties in the US were in suburban Sioux Falls, SD. Not quite true. Hanson County is one county over from the Sioux Falls MSA which now includes Minnehaha, Lincoln, Turner, and McCook counties. The reason for the big percentage growth in Hanson County's population is that nomadic RV owners have to list somewhere as their residence, and use a Hanson County company to do that.

Tech News: IBM revenue and profits rise, but the company misses its targets.

Cisco buys Topspin, a "grid computing" company which makes products to cluster servers.

Is it possible to drink too much water? Well, yeah. Keep those electrolytes up, y'all.

"You're not going to file this, are you?" Listed under Things you don't want to hear from an accountant. Snookums and I got our draft tax return back from a Major Tax Return Preparation Service, and shipped it over to Snookums' sister, who works in the tax division of a Major Accounting Firm. Snookums' sister, um, recommended we file an extension. Enough said.

Hyping the number of people with diseases. Objective scientists would never do this. Would they?

UN Oil-For-Food scandal indictments. A Texas oilman, David Chalmers, a British citizen, John Irving, and a Bulgarian associate Ludmil Dionissiev are named in the just-opened indictment in New York. The first of many, we hope.

Florida is still growin' like a weed with 14 of the fastest-growing 100 counties in the U.S. Suburban Sioux Falls, S.D. has two counties in the top five - - but when one of them only has 3,700 residents, one big Catholic family moving in will skew the stats a bit.

The RIAA is going after the research/academic Internet 2 network users.

I'm not precisely sure which category this belongs in. But have you noticed how often people are using the phrase "It is what it is?" More and more, I'm hearing this phrase, which is becoming the 21st Century version of "S hit happens". (Weird formatting due to my site's content filter.)

A Google search on "It Is What It Is" finds a number of interesting sites:
Zeke runs a blog so titled.
So does Alaskagirl (sadly somewhat stale).
A set of John Barlow (Grateful Dead) lyrics has that title.
It's rapper Jay-Z's favorite saying.
A movie. Anybody seen it? Know what it's about?
A song by Usher.

More research is obviously required into the origins of "it is what it is" as a cultural meme. Anybody got some grant money laying around? I'm up for it.

Whippin' on the road again today . . .

Britany is preggers.

This Can't Be Good: 1957 pandemic influenza virus sent to thousands of labs by mistake. Oops.

John Bolton, nominee for U.S. ambassador to the U.N., is a meanie.

This month's serious Microsoft security flaws. Patch yer systems, for cryin' out loud (Windowsupdate requires Internet Explorer, sadly).

Everybody's apparently talking about I-Pod One, the President's exercise music selections.

Third-largest opening day crowd in Kauffman Stadium history sees the Kansas City Royals blown away by the Seattle Mariners. Sigh. Joe Pozanski sees a silver lining, though.

Low-fat diets may be depriving kids of necessary vitamins.

Purdue extends its Rube Goldberg Contest dynasty with its third straight championship.

There's a huge scandal brewing up north in Canada. Here's what it's aboot . . .

U.S. to start requiring American Citizens returning from Mexico and Canada to have valid passports.

Don't want genetically altered rice in your beer? That's OK, Anheuser-Busch is on your side. Don't want rice in your beer? Well . . .

Related: The St. Louis beer giant has increased its stake in China's Tsingtao brewery. Makes sense to me.

Regular readers may know that we keep half an eye on Wal-Mart, which rarely gets positive press. This Townhall editorial is an exception.

Finally in The Whip today: The Incredible Popeman?

Followup to this morning's Whip entry on the Washington State Election: What's it all about? Brian Crouch at the blog Soundpolitics has extensive coverage of the scandal. The timeline is here.

The basic gist of the story is that the Democratic candidate, Christine Gregoire, held a slight lead before the absentee ballots were counted. After the absentee ballots were in, the Republican Dino Rossi pulled ahead. Then, over the next few weeks, Washington state election authorities kept "finding" ballots until they had enough votes to "decide" the election in favor of Gregoire.

Opening Day here in Kansas City. The Royals come home for their season opener after a 3-3 road trip.

China and India make nice.

The Mother of All Generators has been delivered to Kirkuk, Iraq.

Heard about the Washington Governor's Election debacle? Maybe you should . . . something really stinks up in the Pacific Northwest.

Meanwhile, the New York Times is beating the bushes (no pun intended) to find a prominent Republican to come out against House Leader Tom Delay. Isn't it time for someone to say something about how the media should report the news, not make the news? Or how about "they all do it, move along, nothing to see here?"

Getting a slow start, which I guess is OK for a Sunday.

Asteroid Alert! Due date: Friday the 13th, April, 2029.

Dance team at San Jose State grinds it out, offends oldster, gets suspended.

Boeing is set to launch the 747 Advanced.
The 747 Advanced would have greater range, modified wings and carry 30 more passengers — 450 rather than 420 — than the existing 747. The rival A380 will carry about 550.

Editor's note: Names and some places have been redacted to protect the guilty.
The parties to this escapade are labeled:
Person Of Interest #1 (POI1) (a female)
Person Of Interest #2 (POI2) (a female)
Person Of Interest #3 (POI3) (POI4's wife)
Person Of Interest #4 (POI4) (POI3's husband)
Person Of Interest #5 (POI5) (POI6's husband)
Person Of Interest #6 (POI6) (POI5's wife, the author of this piece)
Person Of Interest #7 (POI7) (a female)
This makes the story somewhat more confusing. This is intentional.

Although POI1 (POI2's last minute replacement) insists that "What happens in Indy, stays in Indy", I thought I would share with you guys what we did.

The alleged Finger-In-The-Wendy's-Chili affair gets weirder. It seems that the supposed victim has a history of litigation, including one dismissed case where she claimed that a wheel fell off her car.

Another computer stolen, more private records compromised. This time, it's a medical office computer in San Jose. That's only the tip of a very large iceberg. Want to get sobered up real fast? Type "stolen computer" into Google News. We're just going to have to outlaw the negligent electronic storage of personal information.

Duck broods at the Treasury Department. The Secret Service is there. On a side note, did you know that the Secret Service had a uniformed division? Secret? Uniforms?

Postal rates going up to $0.39? It's Congress' Fault!

Fish prefer noise.

Spammer sentenced to nine years in prison in Virginia. One down, a million to go. They don't have Internet access in prison, do they?

Cookie Monster goes low-carb?

Hunting puma in the Black Hills.
Jonathan Jenks, a South Dakota State University wildlife and fisheries professor, is the principal investigator on the mountain lion study. For the first time last year, he said, biologists came upon cougars that were not in good condition. The presence of a couple of emaciated young lions, Jenks said, suggests the Black Hills might be supporting the maximum number of cougars it can.

Got horses? Got riders? Be like South Dakota State and thirty-some other colleges and start an equestrian program. It's Title-IX-alicious! Giddy-up!

Ultimate Electronics is goin' down. The high-end Best Buy wannabe is being liquidated. Big screen TVs at a fraction of their retail cost! Coming to an Ultimate Electronics near you!

The assault on painkillers continues. FDA bans Bextra . . . only Celebrex left from the COX-2 inhibitors.

"Current is about empowering 18-34-year-olds to engage in the dialogue of democracy and to tell the stories of their lives using the dominant medium of their time." Al, d00d, UR A N00B.

Joe Posnanski is a really good columnist. His latest: a shocking expose of why Kansas City rates as only the 10th best city for sleep. (Minneapolis is apparently #1, fyi).

Want to wander into the tallgrass? Head for Chase County, Kansas.

Tire Pressure Monitors. Not just a good idea. The Law.

Flashing Pacifiers recalled. Kids could choke on 'em. Why would anyone buy a Flashing Pacifier in the first place?

Rock Choke -- ah, the memories. Bucknell's win over the Jayhawks will re-run at 9:30 AM CDT on ESPN Classic.

It was a travel day yesterday, coming back from the Women's Final Four in Indianapolis. But the quest for interesting snippets from the Web continues . . .

The Shuttle is finally on the launch pad again.

Stupid Politician Tricks: Congress may extend daylight-saving time. Fave quote:
"The more daylight we have, the less electricity we use," said (Democrat Representative) Markey.
Somebody introduce Markey to Copernicus, OK?

What did Sandy steal?
And what could have impelled him to destroy three of the five copies, and return the other two? Surely, that the notes on those three copies made it all too clear that somebody high up in the Clinton administration had perceived a threat very much like what happened on Sept. 11, but then failed to do anything whatever about it.

The U.N.: Rot at the top
Exonerated? To quote Mark Pieth, a member of the independent commission assigned to conduct the investigation into this monumental scandal: "We did not exonerate Kofi Annan. We said he was not dishonest, but at the same time he mismanaged the inquiry. . . . We should not brush this off. A certain mea culpa would have been appropriate."

Globetrotter star slugs man in bar, police say

Colorado cracks down on slowpokes in the fast lane.

No joy in Vol-ville. Tennessee women lose a heartbreaker to Michigan State in the National basketball championship semifinals.

Thank you, Bill Clinton. Teens believe oral sex is safer, more acceptable to peers.

Four out of five rats say "mmmm, garlic!"

The Pope is dead. As disgusting as the Deathwatch was, John Paul II by any measure was a remarkable and admirable man. He will be missed.

One of my favorite columnists is Mark Steyn. His latest announces that the well-announced conservative crackup (which I cheerfully joined in on, here) may be premature.

Is the 3-point shot in college basketball too easy?

Don't eat that deer brain. Just in case, you know.

Answering a question we've had in these here parts, the real reason why we have Daylight Saving Time.