evolution

This month, I managed to beat back the unwelcome advances of spammers, and got a nice assortment of readers and interlopers. Ever since I moved off of Blogspot, my traffic and readership has steadily increased, and I am ever grateful for it.

This month I had 2,438 unique visitors who made 6,462 visits and viewed 15,183 pages. That brings the all-time totals to:

• 9,954 unique visitors
• 24,790 visits
• 100,929 page views

Quite a few of the visitors this month came here through Google, which indexes my site for its search engine often. A great many of them came looking for BTK information.

Top five referrers:

1. Wizbang
2. Neil
3. Overtaken by Events
4. Politburo Diktat
5. The Moderate Voice

Strange search terms:

• happy face under wear — No, but can I interest you in an Ubuntu Linux thong?
• detained in nogales jail in february 2005 — Jose Cuervo will do that to you.
• how can i be a forensic photos — I think the quickest way is to be murdered gruesomely.
• ethically wrong companies — Well, who isn’t?
• how much would a gravedigger get paid by a medical institute — I’m afraid to ask what the payment might be for.

Thanks for taking the next step with me.

With all the BTK-related news to come out of Kansas in the last few days, here’s one Kansas-related story that got blown off the map: Millionaire Fossett launches around-the-world bid (CNN).

Steve Fossett took off from Salina Municipal Airport in Salina (about 120 miles west of Topeka) this morning. He’s attempting a non-stop circumnavigation of the globe in about two-and-a-half days.

SALINA, Kansas (AP) — Millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett launched his Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer aircraft on Monday evening at Salina Municipal Airport and hopes to land there again in about 65 hours. He is attempting to make the trip in a single-engine airplane without stopping — an aviation first.

The 23,000-mile (37,000 kilometer) flight had already been postponed several times because of shifting jet stream patterns or weather at Salina.

“I will be the ultimate test pilot. I have a lot to worry about. It’s a major endeavor,” Fossett, 60, said hours before take-off.

Aviation pioneer Wiley Post made the first solo around-the-world trip in 1933, taking more than seven days and stopping numerous times along the way. The first nonstop global flight without refueling by a duo was made in 1986 by Jeana Yeager and Dick Rutan, brother of Burt Rutan, designer of the GlobalFlyer.

Besides the nonstop record, Fossett will attempt to break seven other aviation records, including the longest flight by a jet aircraft. The current record is more than 12,000 miles (19,300 kilometers), set by a B-52 bomber in 1962.

Mission control director Kevin Stass said Fossett would fly east over Chicago and Canada before heading across the Atlantic late Monday night. The route would then take him over Africa, the Middle East, India, China and the Pacific Ocean.

Stass said many countries had opened up their airspace for the record attempt, including Libya and China, that refused to do so during Fossett’s ballooning attempts.

Fossett planned to fly at an average speed of 287.5 mph (462.5 kph) and rely on the jet stream to stretch his 18,000 pounds (8,100 kilograms) of fuel. The GlobalFlyer will have about 15 percent extra fuel to allow for weather conditions or other changes to the flight plan, said Jon Karkow, chief engineer for the flight.

There was a risk the fuel could freeze from flying in the cold at altitudes of 52,000 feet (15,600 meters) for such a long time.

Fossett will survive on diet milkshakes. “I just picked a bunch of flavors off the shelf at the store,” he said.

The project is financed by Virgin Atlantic and its founder Sir Richard Branson.

Branson planned to follow Fossett in a chase plane for the first day of the flight and on the last leg. He gave Fossett his wristwatch, complete with emergency beacon device, to wear for the flight.

“We want you and (the watch) back in one piece at the end,” Branson quipped.

Fossett became the first to fly a hot air balloon solo around the world in 2002 after nearly dying twice in six attempts to set the record. He has also tried to break the world gliding altitude record for the past four years in New Zealand but has failed because of poor conditions.

I decided to relax this evening after my first day back at school following the long weekend, so I decided to enjoy the protein wisdom artichoke and spinach dip and redesign my brother Neil’s blog.

I started with the evolution template as a base and then worked in a wonderful picture Neil took of a really corporate-looking sushi place in Tokyo. The colors were picked with the GIMP’s eyedropper tool to match colors in the picture.

LGF has more perspective on the Dean love-in I wrote about a couple of days ago in Lawrence.

UPDATE [02.28 18:50]: Power Line has analysis too.

From the AP.

Two Louisiana men have appeared in U.S. District Court on the first terrorist charges filed in Mississippi.

Lamont Ranson and Cedric Carpenter, both of New Orleans, were arrested Feb. 18 and charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, conspiracy to defraud the United States and an attempt to provide material support to terrorists.

Carpenter faces an additional charge of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, conspiracy to possess a controlled substance with intent to distribute and criminal forfeiture.

The two men made their initial court appearance Thursday in federal court in Jackson.

A Jackson television station reported that the two men bragged they had contacts at the Mississippi Highway Patrol and could obtain material to produce false driver’s licenses and other forms of identification.

Court records indicate they agreed to do so in exchange for cash and heroin from Abu Sayyaf, a radical Islamic separatist group based in the Philippines, WLBT-TV reported.

“The information alleges they could obtain Mississippi drivers licenses, false documents that could be used by terrorists to enter the country, remain in the country, travel in the country,” U.S. Attorney Dunn Lampton said.

“That is a very disturbing aspect and we’ve looked into it as thoroughly as we can.”

Lampton says more court proceedings could come Monday.

If convicted, Ranson faces up to 85 years in prison and a $3 million fine, and Carpenter faces up to 35 years in prison and a fine of $750,000.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the FBI are involved in the probe.

Recall that Abu Sayyaf is the al-Qaeda-linked group that perpetrated the kidnapping of Kansan missionaries Martin and Gracia Burnham, resulting in Martin’s death.

If it turns out there is a terrorist attack on US soil and that Abu Sayyaf is responsible, I hope that these two clowns are not forgotten about.

[inherited from: Jihad Watch.]

Wizbang has a piece up that questions whether or not the AP is peddling political bias against the Scouts or just engaging in a bit of sensationalism by giving its BTK story the headline Cub Scout leader arrested in BTK killings, when there were other facets of his life to focus on.

I say it’s the latter - the “Cub Scout leader” as serial killer makes a better villain and attention-grabber. I don’t think it’s going to be used as media justification to, for example, run the Scouts out of San Diego.

The AP has since put up another BTK story, one with a less sensationalistic headline.

The Kansas City Star’s mercurial columnist Jason Whitlock is reporting that former New England Patriot superstar and CB Ty Law, fresh into free agency, is interested in coming to Kansas City to play for the Chiefs.

Needless to say, this is a welcome development. I think the Chiefs are one stalwart defensive tackle or linebacker and one shut-down cornerback away from making a serious run in the playoffs next season, especially if QB Trent Green and RB Priest Holmes shred defenses the way they have the last couple of years.

The Chiefs are going to have to make a move on defense: The Broncos always run well, and WR Rod Smith always shreds the Chiefs; San Diego features superstar RB LaDainian Tomlinson, and Oakland is working out a trade for former Vikings WR Randy Moss. GM Carl Peterson is understandably afraid of running afoul of the league salary cap (after all, look what happened to the awful 49ers, wandering in the wilderness still after a decade of dominance), but the Chiefs are okay there. It’s been 20 years since the city’s last title, and it’s been 35 years for the Chiefs.

Let’s hope that Peterson does the right thing here and signs Law to a two- or three-year deal so that the Chiefs can make a run before Holmes or Green or TE Tony Gonzalez breaks down.

This is one of the reasons I ditched Windows: no more expensive upgrades when my copy of Windows becomes obsolete. With Ubuntu (and many other distributions of Linux), I can update my operating system with a quick, free download.

Strangely, Linux is not even mentioned in the Washington Post article referenced above. Surely its various distributions have more users worldwide than the Mac OS lineup does.

In a positive Middle East development today, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has permitted candidates to run against him in the next presidential election.

ROME, Feb. 26 — Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, under pressure at home and abroad to democratize, said Saturday that he would ask his country’s parliament to change the constitution and permit multiparty popular elections.

“The election of a president will be through direct, secret balloting, giving the chance for political parties to run for the presidential elections and providing guarantees that allow more than one candidate for the people to choose among them with their own will,” Mubarak said in a televised speech at Menoufia University in the Nile Delta.

Mubarak, 76, said the decision was rooted in his “full conviction of the need to consolidate efforts for more freedom and democracy.”

The surprise move could result in a historic shift for Egypt, which Mubarak has ruled for 24 years. He is nearing the end of his fourth term, and observers had expected him to seek another under Egypt’s system, in which citizens vote “yes” or “no” on a single presidential candidate proposed by a parliament that is dominated by Mubarak’s National Democratic Party.

Opposition demands for a competitive election have been building for months, while President Bush has made democratic reform in the Middle East one of his stated policy priorities.

Mubarak’s speech followed a decision this week by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to cancel a visit to Egypt, a move attributed to the lack of reform initiatives there. Egypt had also jailed Ayman Nour, leader of a newly authorized political party and proponent of multi-candidate elections. The State Department criticized Nour’s Jan. 29 arrest and suggested that Mubarak had no intention of loosening his hold on power.

The United States provides Egypt with about $2 billion in annual foreign aid. Bush has singled out Egypt along with Saudi Arabia as ripe for reform. In his State of the Union address, Bush said that “Egypt, which showed the way toward peace in the Middle East, can now show the way toward democracy in the Middle East.”

It appears that President Bush and his advisers are not the stupid chimpy rednecks they (and I) are often made out to be. Pro-democracy protests in Lebanon, elections in Iraq, elections in Egypt, hints of peace in Israel, mumblings in Iran… the tide of freedom is turning.

CNN reports as of an hour ago that Dennis Rader, the man Wichita police believe is the notorious BTK killer, may have been turned in by his own daughter.

WICHITA, Kansas (CNN) — The daughter of the man whom Wichita authorities arrested in the notorious BTK serial killings approached police with her suspicions and voluntarily gave them a blood sample, Wichita television station KAKE-TV reported Saturday night.

KAKE quoted sources as saying the blood of 26-year-old Kerri Rader, whose father, Dennis, was arrested Friday, came back as a 90-percent DNA match to the BTK killer, though the sources did not elaborate.

The sources told KAKE that police began surveillance on Dennis Rader after the results were determined.

Police did not comment on reports about the daughter, the station said.

CNN could not immediately confirm the sources’ information.

Rader, 59, was arrested without incident shortly after noon Friday during a traffic stop in Park City, just north of Wichita, police said.

According to the Wichita Eagle newspaper, Rader had worked as a compliance supervisor for Park City in charge of animal control, nuisances, inoperable vehicles and general code compliance since about 1990. He was a one-time president of a Lutheran church and is a father of two, KAKE reported.

Police plan to file 10 counts against Rader in connection with the killings between 1974 and 1991 — eight counts of first-degree murder and two other homicide charges — Lt. Ken Landwehr, commander of the task force investigating the case, and Sedgwick County Sheriff Gary Steed said Saturday.

Hopefully this young woman can find some peace after this traumatic event.