Mark Shuttleworth is my new hero.

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JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (Reuters) -- South African magnate MarkShuttleworth has already conquered space. Now he's set his sights oncyberspace where he hopes to challenge Microsoft.

Shuttleworthmade his fortune by selling an Internet company he started in his CapeTown garage. He then spent $20 million on becoming the world's secondspace tourist in 2002, and the first African in orbit.

Now, he istaking on U.S. technology behemoth Microsoft by pioneering freecomputer software that he hopes will revolutionize the way computersare used, and make the Internet accessible to millions in Africa andother emerging markets.

" more at http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/09/11/space.tourist.microsoft.reut/index.html

Scared...

I've always had very very dark brown eyes... always. I was washing my face just now and when I looked into the mirror as I was rinsing my face I jumped back and about fell into the bathtub... because as-green-as-green-can-get eyes were staring back at me... as part of my face... I know some peoples eye color fluctuates a little... but... not from a dark dark brown to an emerald green, it just doesn't happen... it's very creepy.

American al Qaeda: U.S. should convert to Islam

"Lieutenant Gary E. Dudley of the Indiana State Police was killed in theline-of-duty in a traffic crash in Vermillion County, on Indiana StateRoad 63 two miles south of I-74 on Tuesday, August 22, 2006. The crashoccurred as Gary was riding his bicycle in a fundraising event heorganized for the Indiana Chapter of Concerns of Police Survivors(COPS) which is part of a national organization dedicated to assistingsurviving family members of police officers killed in the line-of-duty."

Taken directly from http://www.in.gov/isp/ .

It was NOT line of duty... it was a charity event... if THAT was line of duty, then my father in a hospital bed, surrounded by a wall of uniformed officers sobbing is line-of-duty too.

From Doug Garrison of WISH-tv

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Ryan- my sincerest condolences on the passing of your father. I understand your questions and am sympathetic to the circumstances that raised them. There are surely answers to those questions, and perhaps the answers are not entirely adequate. Gary Dudley is not necessarily a better man than your father, but he died in circumstances different than your father….raising money for the survivors of police officers who died in the line of duty; a cause that your father certainly would have appreciated. And it is those circumstances that caused the greater public attention. I too lost my father at an early age, and while his passing was not well noted, to me that did not diminish my love for him, nor my great memories of him, nor detract from the importance of his life to me and his many his loved ones. Neither do I think that the attention paid to the passing of Dudley should in any way diminish the importance of your father’s life to you and your mother and others whose lives he touched. Remember him well. Doug Garrison

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