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Monday, August 19, 2002 |
New Orleans Hookers
Cool! Go to Yahoo, and do a search for "where to find hookers in New Orleans" and as of today, at any rate, this blog is #19 on the list! Heck, I've never even been to New Orleans, let alone being an expert on hookers there (or, I hasten to add, anywhere else). No, this is a googleization of my several remarks about John Ashcroft's pre-9/11 priority of busting hookers and their clients in the Crescent City rather than chasing terrorists.
One of the joys of looking at one's referer logs is that you find out what sort of weird stuff people have used to get to your site. One day someone will find this post using that very search.
9:04:19 PM Permalink
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When Justice Is Mocked. Robert Keahey is the prosecutor who brought capital murder charges against three retarded individuals for the murder of an infant who was never proved to have existed, much less been killed. By Bob Herbert. [New York Times: Opinion]
8:36:20 PM Permalink
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The Axis of Medieval. Bush vs. Women The Bush administration is also undercutting international efforts to use conferences to bolster support for rural health care for poor women. For example, the Bushies tied up negotiations for this month's Earth Summit in Johannesburg by insisting that documents be purged of phrases like "reproductive health services" that they think connote abortion.... [Moon Farmer]
This bunch just keeps on doing the right thing. Not. Isn't this the same Bush administration that said during the 2000 campaign that W stood for "woman," and that used woman's rights as one of its reasons for going into Afghanistan?
8:28:21 PM Permalink
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The Real Thing. There is an inexorably growing gap between the image and the reality of the Bush administration's policies. By Paul Krugman. [New York Times: Opinion]
Or what about the trapped coal miners? After their rescue, Mr. Bush made a point of congratulating them in person — and Michael Novak, writing in National Review Online, declared Somerset, Pa., the "conservative capital of the world."
But Mr. Novak didn't mention the crucial assistance provided by the federal government's Mine Safety and Health Administration. That would have raised some awkward questions: although the Bush administration's energy plans call for major increases in coal mining, its spending plans cut funds for mine safety. More conservative budget guidance.
Last week Dubya bragged about not spending $5 billion that congress had allocated. But " to offset the revenue losses from his tax cut, Mr. Bush would have to veto a $5 billion spending proposal every working day for the next year."
8:00:15 PM Permalink
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Everybody Loves Me, Baby
This piece in Slate argues that it's clear by the arguments they're making that Bush is losing the argument on war with Iraq.
Condoleezza Rice, a staunch unilateralist, said the case for ousting Saddam is "very stunning" and "very powerful." She warned of what might happen "if he gets weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them." But as anyone who has ever worked in marketing knows, "stunning" and "powerful" are words you apply to your product when reviewers and customers won't apply them for you. If the case for invading Iraq were stunning, Rice wouldn't have to say so. She wouldn't have to add a bunch of ifs. And she wouldn't have to make this case to a growing list of open Republican dissenters—including Armey, Kissinger, Secretary of State Colin Powell, anonymous "senior administration officials," and the men who ran the State Department and National Security Council under Bush's father—who see no evidence of an Iraqi role in Sept. 11, no proof that Iraq is close to acquiring nuclear weapons, and no sense in jeopardizing the global war against terror by attacking Iraq against the will of our allies.
The idea that we could wage this war unilaterally, with virtually no support anywhere in the world outside Israel is crazy. But the truth is, they haven't made the case for invasion. Yes, this guy is a bad guy, as bad as they get; he's used terrible weapons (not that we complained too much at the time), is probably generating the capacity for building more terrible weapons, and wants to make his place in history by destroying Israel, or attempting to. But it doesn't look like he had much to do with 9/11 (a much, much better case can be made against the Saudis) nor has he attacked any of his neighbors or his own people recently. There's no proximate reason to do this.
But I'm afraid Bush has talked himself into a corner. After all the saber-rattling and chest thumping that's gone on, how can they not invade Iraq? Isn't the administration going to be afraid of what it will look like if it lets this guy stay in power? But George H. W. Bush compared him to Hitler, and let him remain in power.
But I wouldn't be surprised if we don't get a 2004 surprise; the kind of thing that will let this adminsitration assert that anyone who votes against it is disloyal.
6:42:51 PM Permalink
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WiFi or not?
Cringely decides Wi-Fi isn't hip because of some anecdotal experiences: Oh, it's rough being fickle, but Cringely uses first-person reasoning to decide that Wi-Fi won't be the big thing. He's so bloody wrong because he's relying on his eyes and fingers instead of talking to the millions of people who are actually using this technology in their homes and offices. It's clear he's off base because he writes things like: [80211b News]
But the point that Cringley makes well is that WiFi has some serious problems. Namely the lack of security and the problem with walls. I have serious outage problems at different spots in my house and my back yard. On the other hand, I don't plug my laptop in when I'm at home, or at least more than about a quarter of the time. When I'm reading, web pages or doing some work, I can get a good couple hours out of my ThinkPad X21. Sometimes I do plug it in when I'm working, but like I say, my guess is that I work less than a quarter of the time I use it plugged in.
1:04:23 PM Permalink
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© Copyright 2004 Steve Michel.
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