…there’s a Democratic majority in the House and Senate… Who could have predicted such a thing?!? :) Seriously, when I — who grew up Republican and liked Reagan in the Eighties — think the best news I’ve heard all week is that the Democrats won and Rumsfeld is out…well, you know you probably aren’t energizing the base to come out and vote for your party. I don’t expect too much of my government, I don’t think, but here’s what I hope happens the next two years that didn’t happen in the last six: ...

I just upgraded to the “Ronan” release of WordPress, which is probably a good thing, since I had skipped the previous couple of upgrades. Went pretty smoothly. I haven’t heard much about bugs yet, so I’m hoping I’m hitting this one at the right time. :)

Yep, I’m looking at you, Quicktime Player and EA Link. You aren’t the only offenders, but you’re today’s offenders. Seriously, why does Quicktime end up in my system tray every time I upgrade iTunes? The checkbox to remove it is in exactly the same place with each new version, using the same language, so I think it wouldn’t be too hard to keep that setting through the upgrade. I really don’t have any occasion to need to open Quicktime faster than it already does. ...

A selection of DPRK press releases, brought to us by NK News. June 15 Association of Persons of National Literature Formed KCNA Blasts Pro-U.S. Japanese Charlatans’ Shameless Anti-DPRK Moves Kim Jong Il’s Work Off Press in Finland U.S. and S. Korean Warmongers Flayed for Increasing Tension Samjiyon County Undergoes Facelift Sports Tournament of Artistes Held Title of ‘Prize of Honor for Twice Model Machine No. 26’ Instituted

Oh good, IBM apparently has patents covering Internet interactivity and e-commerce. I was getting tired of this whole Internet thing anyway. :| Link courtesy of ongoing

When I was in college, I used Eudora for email and actually carried around a disk to store it all. I still have some of those disks, and going into the mail files with a text editor brings back memories. Until I started using Gmail for most mail, I was using Mozilla Thunderbird at home, which felt like the logical free extension of Eudora. So, my surprise at this announcement came not from the fact that Qualcomm was giving Eudora to the Mozilla Foundation, but that Eudora still existed. It’ll be interesting to see what results. ...

Steve Yegge writes about the Google Way. Interesting stuff. At Google, projects launch because it’s the least-energy state for the system. Link courtesy of Joel on Software

I guess I’m too sheltered. I didn’t even realize there was such a thing as a library cat, much less that they had their own map. Link courtesy of Too Many Topics, Too Little Time.

My Dead Celebrity Soulmate? Mata Hari. Choices 2 and 3? Cleopatra and Annie Oakley. :) Link courtesy of TV Squad

I subscribe to a feed that supplies one page from The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci each day. At that rate, they’ll have the entire work done in about four years. I was struck by today’s selection: I reveal to men the origin of the first, or perhaps second cause of their existence. Fascinating. :)