With the selection of Joe Biden as his running mate, Barack Obama has set the stage for what many believe will be a ticket of the “haves” McCain (~$40M net worth) and Romney (~$200M) against the “have nots” Obama (~$1.3M) and Biden (~$100k.) Romney has not yet been confirmed as McCain’s running mate, but it’s widely believed he will be the choice. I can imagine the Ad now:

John McCain is so rich, he doesn’t even know how many houses he has and must have his staff verify the number for him. He thinks that people who earn the small sum of $4M per year are not rich. His chief economic advisor says our economic problems are all in our heads. McCain just dropped $700,000 on a home for his daughter. Not to mention his running mate Mr. Romney who is worth over $200M.

Barack Obama just has managed to pay off the loans he took to get through college, in his family, daughters get an allowance of $1 per week.

Which candidate is better equipped to understand the pain you’ve suffered over the past eight years?

You get the idea…this should be entertaining. For your reading pleasure, Democratic Candidate Net Worth || Republican Candidate Net Worth

Over the past week, we’ve been bombarded with a web-bot trying to do nefarious things like determine which sites are vulnerable and then launch a systematic attack at a later date. They were unsuccessful. The signature of the attack looks like this:

DECLARE%20@S%20CHAR(4000);SET%20@S=CAST(0x444**snip**%20CHAR(4000));EXEC(@S);

A solution to the attack is to modify your .htaccess files to include the following lines which will prevent any damage being done, but still lets the request through to serve the page. A better long term solution might be to assemble some sort of .htaccess controlled firewall.

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^(.*)CAST(.*) [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^(.*)DECLARE(.*) [NC,OR]

These hosebags make working on the net more work than it ought to be. How long will it be before a retaliation service starts up for stressed out and pissed off web site operators? If one exists, leave a comment with a pointer, I’m ready to sign up…

Should anyone be surprised that Russia would be unmoved by the words and threats from America relative to its unilateral attack and occupation of Georgia? I don’t support what the Russians have done, but I also don’t expect words from the U.S. to make a bit of difference in this situation.

Russia, in her own view, “liberated” Georgia from the yoke of oppression. And indeed, in South Ossetia at least, there seems to be some people who wanted to be liberated amidst a country at large that was occupied with their infrastructure shattered.

Furthermore, Georgia represented a clear and present danger to Russian security, and unlike other unilateral actions in the past by nations that shall remain nameless, at least this threat was right on their border.

Another striking parallel is the oil angle, Georgia has two strategic pipelines that transport the black gold and it’s a great thing to be able to “liberate” strategic assets for the benefit of the homeland, is it not?

Finally, France wouldn’t join Russia in its action either. Guess french fries in Russia will have to be свобода картофель (freedom potatoes.)

Do you think these are some unintended consequences from our actions? You bet…

On the one hand, we’ve got a candidate that is either so rich or so old he can’t remember how many houses he has…”I’ll let my staff answer that.” said Mr. McCain.

On the other hand we have a candidate who acquired his upscale house in a shady deal with a convicted felon…Way to go Barack.

Ah, it’s so nice to have choices, isn’t it?

Attribution: Mike Harding
Um, this is disturbing and disgusting. And it happened in Xenia, Ohio in a Burger King. The punch line? That’s a place I used to frequent as a teenager – eeeewwww! This is what happens when you’re young, bored, and underemployed in Ohio. Be warned.

Via MSNBC:

Burger King Corp. said Tuesday it had parted ways with an employee who was recorded taking a soapy bath in a utility sink in one of its restaurants in a video that ended up on his MySpace page.

The nearly four-minute video, which was posted online Thursday, shows the man taking the bath to celebrate his birthday. In the video, shot by another worker, the employee refers to himself only as “Mr. Unstable” and appears to be naked.

Timothy Tackett, 25, told WDTN-TV in Dayton that he is the sink-bather and that he made the video for his MySpace page. The video had been removed by Tuesday night.

Tackett said he regretted taking the bath because it led to the firing of the employee who did the recording, as well as the restaurant’s shift manager.

Burger King spokeswoman Denise Wilson said earlier Tuesday that two employees involved in the incident were fired and a third quit. She declined to identify the employees or say whether the man who took the bath quit or was fired. Tackett said he was fired.

A message left by The Associated Press for a Timothy Tackett in Centerburg was not immediately returned.

Greene County Health Commissioner Mark McDonnell said he dispatched an inspector to the restaurant, but workers had already sterilized the sink, which is used to clean large pieces of equipment.