ICE/FBI gets 1 of the 11 rogue Egyptians in Minneapolis. Still searching…

OK, so 1 down, 10 to go.

An Egyptian exchange student, among the 11 who entered the United States but failed to report for their college program, was arrested Wednesday in Minneapolis, the FBI said.

Eslam Ibrahim Mohamed El-Dessouki, 21, was arrested “without incident” by FBI and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko said.

There’s some immediate questions that need to be asked and the answers thereto broadcast to the American public. They are:

1. Was this “student” sightseeing, as was suggested earlier, before reporting to the school? Or is he not claiming this as a defense?
2. What are the names of the other students currently missing?
3. What cities or localities did this captured “student” visit when he was supposed to be at MSU/Bozeman.

I think until these questions can get answered that this program of letting students coming in-country and then make their own way, unsupervised, to their schools should be suspended. I also stand by my earlier suggestions.

Failure is a public event; perfect only happens alone

For the past month or two I’ve embarked on an effort I’d avoided for years. I’m learning to golf. How I came to this juncture is a long story for another day but suffice it to say I’ve found myself in need of enough skill on the links to avoid seriously embarrassing myself or certain organizations I represent on occasion. I have no illusions about being the best golfer at my office, for example. I just don’t want to be the worst.

I’ve gotten myself a bag load of decent clubs and a set of shoes that I can now stand on the side of a bunker without slipping in. I’ve even played a couple of rounds so far but, for the most part, I’ve been practicing. In terms of golf, practice means you’re at the driving range smacking golfballs out into a field somewhere. To say I’ve improved is an understatement. Where my first shot at this sport saw me hitting the ball no further than 50 yards and with no tighter accuracy than a 120° arc generally centered in front of me, I’ve managed to reliably drive off the tee to around 180 yards and I can now hit a ball with my irons to land within 20-30 yards of my intended spot, so long as it’s not more than about 100 yards distant. I’m pretty happy with that and I’m looking forward to playing the next round of golf in about a week or so.

Staying in practice being necessary, I hit up all the normal golf fiends at the office yesterday to see if anyone wanted to hit a bucket of balls downrange at lunch. Normally, I can get at least 1 to come with me. Not so yesterday. For various reasons, everyone was booked up tightly enough that they couldn’t hit the range with me and still make it back for their meetings. I might not have gone yesterday but the weather here was so good (temps and humidity way below normal!) that I decided to just go alone. I got to the range, bought my bucket, and grabbed a spot near the center of the firing line.

My practice regimen starts out with a 9-iron hitting for accuracy to a flag near the center of the range. The first hit put the ball within 5 feet of that flag. So did the second. And the third. The fourth landed so close to where my 1st had landed that I doubt there was so much as a club-length between them. I did equally well with the 7-iron and the 5 after that. Still amazed, I switched over to my driver to go for the distance.

I have a mean slice. That means I can usually count on my drives bending at least a little to the right. Not yesterday. Five drives right off the tee flew out like they were on laser-guidance straight out away from my position. I hit a total of 20 drives and every single one of them went out past 200 yards. On 2 of them, the ball reached the fence at 230 yards, right at the base of the fence. Every one of those drives went straight out and hit the ground within a 10° arc of my centerline.

To finish off, I usually pull out the pitching wedge or the sand wedge and work on the short game. Both of these clubs are designed to give you lots of altitude and short distance. You use these clubs when you want to place the ball precisely and have it stick where it lands. Properly done, the ball is almost falling straight down when it hits. To give you a target to shoot for, this range has a couple of baskets that look like giant basketball hoops angled so the top opening is almost facing you directly. The object is to put the ball into the net hanging from the baskets. I’ve only done it once before.

Yesterday, I managed it 3 times. And I came really, really close at least a dozen more. The upshot?

No. One. Was. There. To. See. It.

Oh, yeah. God’s got a sense of humor. And it’s a dry, burning sense of humor, at that. I can’t even tell my co-workers about it, either. They’d never believe it. Perfect, it seems, only happens alone. Ah, well. Back to the clubs…

McKinney stays true to form: petty, paranoid, and perpetually off-target

Last night – past midnight, I might add – primary loser Cynthia McKinney finally showed her face for what was supposed to be a concession speech. Not that she’d ever have the class and civility to actually concede, of course, and concede she didn’t. She sang along to an anti-Bush song, she made vague allegations of voting irregularities, she continued to protest the Iraq war and she was catty enough to “wish the new representative for the Fourth Congressional district well,” but she absolutely refused to mention Hank Johnson by name.

If last night’s childish extended tantrum wasn’t proof enough that the Democrats of Georgia’s 4th District had chosen correctly, I don’t know what else would be required. Watching Fox News this morning, one of the on-air personalities, commenting on McKinney’s allegations of irregularities with the voting machines, wondered how many voters had selected their choice in the voting booths by smacking the machine with their cell phones. Good question. I’ll bet a few who heard that were wishing they’d thought of it at the time.

McKinney’s attempt at casting doubt on the results of the primary focused pretty strongly on the electronic voting machines in use. In her “concession” speech, she called electronic voting machines a threat to our democracy. Ridiculous. They’re a threat to people who’s like to cast doubt on elections, nothing more. I wonder if McKinney uses ATM’s or checks banks and credit card records on-line or via the phone. Is she calling those technologies threats to our democracy? I doubt it. I’ve written before on this matter and I continue to think that what’s keeping these systems from becoming secure – as defined by those of us in the computing/networking industry – is the political motivation of people in elected office. Commentary like McKinney’s is what’s keeping the American public afraid of electronic voting machines, not the performance of those machines today.

True to her form, McKinney can’t just go out with ethical professionalism. She’s got to be petty, off the mark, and paranoid to the very end. Good riddance.