Google Search: yasser weasel

I'm the #3 result.

In a First, Medicare Coverage Is Authorized for Alzheimer's

This is good news for Alzheimer's patients and their families. But... Can Medicare afford this? Long-term, especially as the boomers age? We already don't know how we're going to keep Medicare and Social Security afloat, and now we're going to add this expense?

[LIBERAL PARANOIA]Maybe that's the idea! Bush is trying to bankrupt Medicare for secret right-wing reasons! And he won't get blamed for it! When will the first boomers reach retirement age? Not until 2011, when -- even if he's re-elected -- his administration will be a fading memory.[/LIBERAL PARANOIA]

[Once again, I just made a really bad pun -- entirely unintentionally, I assure you. But I'm going to keep it in, while apologizing to all Alzheimer's patients and their families. I feel really bad about it, I promise.]

Hee Hee.

March 30, 2002 - The Daily Prospectus: NL, v20.02

NL East
Atlanta Braves
Florida Marlins
Philadelphia Phillies
Montreal Expos
New York Mets

I could see the Mets finishing fourth, if everything goes wrong; no way they finish last. But it's kinda fun to contemplate.

Sex Abuse Crisis: Nebraska prelate rebukes Catholics for critical letters to newspaper

Well, look at from his side -- who wants to be the prelate of frickin' Nebraska? No wonder he's bitter.

Okay, this guy is a jackass. Assigning penance for critical letters in the newspaper? Letters critical of him? I think the Church needs some conflict-of-interest rules.

CNN.com - Pakistan may hold senior al Qaeda leader - March 30, 2002

Jeez, where have we heard that before? Oh, right, from the same sources several other times before. I hope it's true, but I believe it when he have proof.

CNN.com - Terror attack at Tel Aviv cafe, 29 wounded - March 30, 2002

Great Moments In Link Writing

Mar. 30, 2002: A CNN.com writer hits alt+shift+F7 on his keyboard, activating the macro that produces "Mideast in chaos"

What does it say about present conditions that when I hear that a suicide bomber blew himself up at a cafe in Tel Aviv and 29 were wounded, I thought, "That's not so bad, at least nobody was killed." Well, nobody but the bomber, small loss there. But it's almost a good day compared to the last few.

GAO Says Clintons Probe Cost $70M (washingtonpost.com)

But hey, it was money well spent, right? I mean, it accomplished so damn much, right?

Someone to watch over me

Gary at Amygdala has taken up the Blogwatch baton, and I'm one of the blogs watched. I feel faint.

Palestinian Goal of Statehood vs. Israeli Aim for Cease-Fire

Liars.

The Palestinians were well on their way to statehood, and it wasn't enough. They needed "right of return", and really, they wanted to wipe out Israel. If they'd accepted the Clinton-Barak peace offering, they would have had everything this article says they want. But they want more.

Britian's Queen Mother Dies at 101 (washingtonpost.com)

Great Moments In Headline Writing

Mar. 30, 2002: The Washington Post mispells "Britain".

Anyway, that's four dead famous people since Wednesday. So much for that theory. But I know that somebody's going to claim that one of the dead people -- probably Billy Wilder -- wasn't really famous enough to count. They always do.

Pentagon Seeks Exemption From Environmental Laws

Of course it does. First off, they want to test the new generation of SAM on spotted owls. And the Navy has some new torpedoes they really think need to be tried out on whales first.

But I wax sarcastic. The way I see it, the Pentagon is just trying to take advantage of the present crisis to get rid of regulations that are inconvenient but can be worked around. It's easy to say that it's necessary for national security, but it's not. Maybe the military has to go a little out of its way, but it can still get things done.

Alan Sepinwall on TV: Does 'Survivor' cast black men in a bad light?

I like "Survivor", but the answer is "definitely, yes."

There have been four series of "Survivor" thus far. Each one has had one black male and one black female -- which in itself is a bit of a warning sign. (Three of the four times, the two African-Americans have been on the same team.) All of the black men have been young and muscular. In the first two "Survivors", the black man was portrayed as lazy; this was certainly a case of editing in the second series. Nick Brown, a military officer and a Harvard Law student, was in the background most of the time, getting face time only when he got sick and was unable to work -- so he could be shown as lazy. In the third series, they broke with the burgeoning tradition by showing the black male as not lazy but a thief -- hardly an upgrade. And the fourth series has moved back into laziness, with the addition of seemingly spurious claims of racism.

OBLIGATORY HIT COUNTER POST

I just hit 5000 on the site counter (set up in late February), nearly 1000 since Sunday. Wow. I never thought I'd get this much traffic.

European Leaders Are Alarmed By Rising Turmoil in Mideast

Oh, dear. Maybe they'll use harsh language. Even threats of sanctions. (Sarcastic diminutive nicknames of weasel French diplomats added for effect.)

"It is not by asphyxiating Arafat that a solution will be found," said Hubert Védrine, the French foreign minister. He said he "understood how Israelis felt faced with the terrifying pressure of terrorist attacks," but he cautioned them not to act against Mr. Arafat based on "a kind of obsession that he is responsible for all that."

Uh, Hubie... He is responsible for all that. He's the Palestinian leader, and Palestinians are blowing up Israeli civilians. At Passover. If he's not responsible, who is? Like the Arabs -- who at least have the excuse of being tyrants -- the Euros are acting all concerned that Yasser might take a bullet.

A French foreign ministry spokesman, François Rivasseau, said, "We are calling on the Israeli authorities to respect the physical safety of Yasir Arafat." He also called on Washington to step in more forcefully than it has. "We continue to plead for the Americans to commit themselves further," he said. "It is they who have the most means to reason with the opposing parties."

"Because the Israelis won't listen to us, because we are basically untrustworthy and too many of us are anti-Semites, and the six million Jews who got killed in the Holocaust were just the last in a long line of European attacks on the very existance of Jews and Judaism," he didn't add but very well could have. What more are we supposed to do, Frankie? Huh? We sat them down at a table in the freaking White House, we negotiated a settlement where the Israelis gave up basically everything they could and still have any chance of survival... And Yasser turned it down.

And if you don't like Sharon, how'd you like to have Bibi Netanyahu back, huh? Because that's what's going to happen if Sharon doesn't do something, and now.

Arabs Rally to Protect Arafat, Promote Peace Plan (washingtonpost.com)

Says a lot about these guys that they seem more concerned about the safety of one old man than of many, many Israels and Palestinians. But then, they're all tyrants.

It's disingenuous even for these guys to act all concerned. They bear a lot of the blame for this. They're the ones who won't take in Palestinian refugees, or when they do reduce them to third-class status. They're the ones who stir up anti-Semitism at every turn. The Saudis are spewing Wahabiism. The Egyptians pushed Arafat to reject the Clinton-Barak plan. The Kuwaitis expelled their Palestinian population -- though they were admittedly provoked.

They got what they wanted -- a war in Canaan. They should be happy, a lot of Jews are going to get killed. As for the Palestinians, hey, they get to go to Paradise, right? It's a win-win situation.

HoustonChronicle.com - Librarian makes case for filtering software

Traitor.

He told the judges that a review of his patrons' Web habits found that 95 percent of the denied sites were blocked correctly and in accordance to the library's policy prohibiting online pornographic images. The library also can easily override the software's decision when a visitor or staff has discovered a site was wrongly blocked, he said.

95% is way too high. I'm familiar with this whole issue; my big paper in library school was on filtering software. That was four years ago, but from what I can tell, nothing has changed. The software is still lousy and too dependent upon cutting corners. I'll give you an example from a non-porn-related area. A school I know well had been having trouble with students overloading the Internet connection downloading MP3s. They decided to block popular music-downloading sites. But some people use Geocities as an MP3 clearinghouse, and the software blocked all of Geocities.

I'll throw in some horror stories I've heard about... At least one of the filtering services routinely blocked sites critical of filtering services. Many used keywords to determine blocks, leading to such things as blocking breastfeeding instructions as porn. And some filtering services will slap a block on a site for one complaint, making it way too easy for someone with a bone to pick to block a site.

HoustonChronicle.com - Fans suffer from Speedy withdrawal

The Speedy Gonzales-banning controversy grows! I'll admit I'm not comfortable being on the same side as Rush Limbaugh. (Via Ginger Stampley.)

A Turn From Tolerance (washingtonpost.com)

This article is primarily about the rise of hard-right nativist parties in Europe, and the allied rise of anti-Muslim sentiment. And while some people here might not mind a little more anti-Muslim sentiment in Europe, everyone should remember that it's tied up in European nationalism. And European nationalism is a different, and often much uglier, thing than American nationalism. While American nationalism is primarily cultural and linguistic -- so that in one or two generations, someone from anywhere in the world can be an American -- the European version is heavily ethnic and even biological. Someone whose family has lived in the same place for dozens of generations can easily be considered the Other, as we found out too well in the last century.

Hitler, of course, is the prime example of European nationalism run amok, but he's hardly the only one. Take the troubles in Yugoslavia as another example. Outsiders can't even reliably tell the difference between Serbs and Croats, but that didn't keep them from killing each other.

The recent Western European ideologies can certainly be annoying; the moral relativism, the silly pan-European dreaming, the socialism. But it's provided the world a certain amount of comfort. As long as the Europeans are determined to see the whole continent (continent, feh, it's a peninsula of Asia, but we'll play along) as a unit -- even if it isn't -- and not get too worked up over things like borders, we don't have to worry about them getting into one of their interminable ethnic and irredentalist wars.

Extended Operation Set in West Bank After Terror Bombing

Israel has declared Yasser Arafat "an enemy". Imagine.

"They want me under arrest or in exile or dead, but I am telling them, I prefer to be martyred," Mr. Arafat said in a telephone interview broadcast by Al-Jazeera, the Arab satellite television channel. "May God make us martyrs."

Liar. If you wanted to be a martyr, you've had every opportunity. You're a power-hungry, greedy little weasel who doesn't care about anything beyond himself, not even killing Jews. And the sooner you're a martyr, the better.

Meanwhile, the ever-progressive Palestinians have come up with another female suicide bomber. Do the Saudis really want to encourage this? Not that they seem to have any problems with women dying.

Andersen Plans a Split, as U.S. Signals Continued Prosecution

This is in accordance with a Paul Volcker recommendation, but it was pretty inevitable. They plan to spin off the consulting and other businesses and "recast itself as an auditing firm". In other words, they will let anything that has a chance for survival go on its merry way and let a profitless, assetless shell of an auditing firm take the lawsuits. Good luck with that.

Dan Quayle, Mafioso

OK, I finally found something to cheer me up. David Lange, former PM of New Zealand, says that Dan Quayle told the Australian cabinet in 1989 that Lange would "have to be liquidated". Dan Quayle!

OK, Mr. Lange, let's walk you through this.

A) Danny often said things he didn't mean; he wasn't quite bright. (All the low-IQ jokes about GW Bush were first told of Quayle. In his case, they had the bonus of being true.)

B) Danny had absolutely no power to do anything, even if he wanted to. The Vice-Presidency, prior to 1993 at any rate, has usually been a joke. This was never more true than in the first Bush administration.

C) If we wanted you dead, you'd be dead. Here it is, 12-13 years later, and you're still alive.

Among those who expressed shock at the events was the mayor of Nanterre, Jacqueline Fraysse, who survived Mr. Durn's shooting rampage.
"We would really like to know how, how this could have happened at police headquarters," she said.

Uh, Jackie... Why don't you ask how the guy managed to kill eight and wound 19? That seems like a more sound question to me. As for how his death happened... In some countries, I'd assume the cops decided that if the guy wanted to jump to his death, more power to him. But that would never happen in civilized France.

Saudi Prince Is Hospitalized After Stroke (washingtonpost.com)

Good.

Man, am I mad today.

Journalist Arrested in Zimbabwe (washingtonpost.com)

This is a Zimbabwean citizen who works for the Telegraph in Britain and for two South African journals. They better let her go or they'll face some really harsh words from the Commonwealth.

Lyle Lovett trampled by bull, hospitalized

Thankfully, this wasn't celebrity #3. Lovett was trying to help his uncle (the unfortunately named Calvin Klein) who had been "flipped" by the bull on his farm.

Arafat Says He's Ready to Work Toward Cease-Fire (washingtonpost.com)

Let me see... I have a response here somewhere. Oh, here it is:

Yasser, stick your ceasefire where the sun doesn't shine. I don't believe you. Nobody with a lick of sense does. I don't think you can grant a cease fire, and even if you can you're only doing it because you're about to get slammed, and whenever it's convenient you'll go back to your usual ways. You had your chance with the Barak plan, and you wouldn't accept it, and you've sponsored terror that yesterday reached a high point by even your standards. You're too chicken to even let your patsies on Palestinian TV carry your statements live; how can we believe that you can actually get them to stop? Die already.

Study: Watching TV Increases Teen, Adult Aggression (washingtonpost.com)

Blah blah blah, TV sucks, yada yada.

You want my guess? You sit around on your ass drinking Cokes all day, you're going to be pretty aggressive.

News Analysis: After a Dire Day, Trying to See Beyond Revenge

But there were also those who thought the bombing might just provide the vicious jolt needed finally to call a halt to the bloodshed.

These are known as "clueless people". This isn't going to stop until one side or the other -- or both -- is beaten. I hate it, but it's true. And asking the Israelis to sit there and take it while they get blown up and shot is ridiculous. It's time that the Palestinians learn just how forebearing Israel has been all this time.

Metro area heads for a million

Technically, the Birmingham area will reach the million-person mark. But it's a bookkeeping thing. The Census Bureau will add a couple of semi-rural counties to the metro area and that puts us over the top. Some of those areas are a two-hour commute from Birmingham; that may not seem like a big deal in some parts of the country but around here that's a lot. As one local DJ puts it:

"I'm up at 2, on the road by 3 and at the station by 4, pending an accident or deer strike," Budrik said.

Prosecutors Will Seek Death Penalty Against Moussaoui (washingtonpost.com)

While personally I like the idea of putting him in the general population at Attica or Sing Sing and seeing what happens, if anyone deserves the death penalty, it's someone who conspires to commit mass murder.

Re: The French... They're opposed to capital punishment, and Moussaoui is a French citizen. So they're trying to keep him from getting killed. While it's a knee-jerk reaction to attack the French, they really aren't behaving any different than most countries would under the circumstances.

The Possumblog Poll Place

Please vote, early and often, for the first resipient of the Croix de Grits.

CNN.com - Brent Sadler: Palestinians still dream of home - March 27, 2002

I feel sorry for the Palestinians, really I do. But I no longer have any sympathy for people who believe that they "will return only through the intifada". Fuck them and their dreams.

Aaron Sorkin, blogger

TOBY ZIEGLER: Saudi Arabia, bad.

Later...

BARTLET: Saudi Arabia, bad?

ZIEGLER: Saudi Arabia, very bad.

Not exactly sparkling dialogue, I'll admit...

Comedian Milton Berle Dies at 93

[insensitive]He was still alive? Frankly, I don't think he was ever funny, he was just the only thing on... Worst part of this is that combined with Dudley Moore, someone will bring out the old "Famous People Die in Threes" chestnut whenever the next remotely famous person kicks it.[/insensitive]

VodkaPundit - Chill Before Serving

Your Attention Please
At least 16 are dead in another suicide bombing attack, this time at a hotel Passover Seder...

Mostly, I'm just sick to death of the senseless, bloody idiocy.

Damn straight.

Drummond says assassination suit effort to destroy Colombian jobs

Here's a fun one. The Drummond Co., a mining concern, operates a mine in Colombia. They've been sued on the grounds that they hired a paramilitary group to kill union leaders. I do not know the truth of this, but I doubt the company's officers signed off on an actual assassination. It wouldn't surprise me if a manager in Colombia did, however.

Presumably, the jobs they say the plaintiffs (which include, for some reason, the United Steelworkers of America) are out to destroy are not the ever-important paramilitary assassin jobs.

Environmentalists to test water, warn swimmers

"You might want to stay away from this part, Bob. Found a warm spot."

Top Ten Things Best Supporting Actor Jim Broadbent Did Today

I think someone on the Letterman writing staff is one disgruntled Lord of the Rings fan.

On the other hand, I find I have no problem with Uma Thurman's dress.

Hunters at one-shot event target turkeys through wind, rain

That would be the Governor's Own One-Shot Turkey Hunt. This is not the sort of thing that say, George Pataki would sponsor.

Guerrilla Attacks May Rise in Warmer Days, U.S. Says

The brutal Afghan spring is just beginning.

Supreme Court Rules Against Death Row Inmate

Honestly, the current Supreme Court is so stacked, you might as well not bother filing an appeal; just sit back, get your thoughts together, think about what you want for your last meal. Scalia, Rehnquist, and Thomas are going to vote against any convict's appeal no matter what. In this case, the defendant's lawyer had previously represented the victim; I think that's pretty good grounds for a new trial, but not those guys. I wonder what could actually get them to agree to overturn?

The judge was the victim's brother? No, I doubt it.

The defense attorney was the victim's pet iguana? Nah.

The jury actually came back "Not Guilty", but the judge ignored them? Probably not.

The victim is actually still alive? Maybe. I wouldn't bet on it.

Bush Signs Reform Law; Multiple Lawsuits Filed (washingtonpost.com)

Well, if Mitch McConnell and the NRA are against it, you know it's bad.

Bomb Explodes at Israeli Hotel in Netanya (washingtonpost.com)

Okay. Fuck this. Mr. Sharon, it's over; break the Palestinians. Do to them as the Kuwaitis did, if you have to, but this is it. Anyone who finds this morally justifiable is not worthy of the term "human being".

Documents Reveal Energy Head Met No Environmentalists

Lots of energy execs, though. Is anyone, anywhere, surprised by this?

I'd like to see a reasoned defense, anyway. I can't think of one myself, but I'm biased.

Ridiculous, Borderline-Offensive Use of the Crisis of the Day

So, I get home early, check my messages, and there's a telemarketer who left a message. That's bad enough, but he says that he called "because of the troubles with the mail recently."

Arafat Will Not Attend Arab Summit in Beirut (washingtonpost.com)

Looks like Yasser knew he wasn't coming back... I don't know. He's basically a prisoner, with no real power. If I were him -- thank God I'm not -- I'd probably jump at the chance to be a leader-in-exile. (The acronym for which, I just realized, is LIE. Suitable, no?) Really, leaders-in-exile have all the advantages. Currently, Arafat is huddled in an office in Ramallah. Wouldn't he rather be sunning on the beach in the French Riviera? Skiing in Switzerland? Visiting various non-Islamic places in Amsterdam?

A sidebar to the article reports that two Norwegian observers near Hebron have been shot. And while I'm terribly sorry for their deaths, the whole idea of dropping unarmed observers into a war zone and expecting them to not be targets has always struck me as more than a little nuts.

Report ties Clinton's brother to airport bid

First, let me say that an international airport in Birmingham always struck me as a dumb idea.

Second, I wouldn't hire Roger Clinton to mow my lawn, if I had a lawn... but as bribes go, a $35,000/year job doesn't seem that high. Once again, the most disheartening element is not that everyone has his price, but that the price is so low.

OOPS: Terry corrects me, the job was for $35K a month, not a year. That's not an insignificant sum, and the cabinet officer's price was more than high enough.

I still think that the airport idea is kinda silly.

Speedy Gonzales: Banned in the USA

I personally have never cared for Speedy Gonzales. But I care even less for this sort of silly self-censorship. Currently, the Cartoon Network -- directed by Ted Turner -- doesn't show Speedy.

“The problem with [Speedy cartoons] is the references to drinking, laziness, drug use, and womanizing (‘Speedy knows my sister, Speedy knows EVERYBODY’s sister…’),” according to Daniel Wineman, of the Cartoon Network Programming department, in a recent e-mail posted by Jon Cooke on his site.

“This isn’t worse than most any other WB character. However, since Speedy is Mexican, we’ve shied away from these ‘toons. Turner Broadcasting has always been super-careful not to promulgate any of these stereotypes and this case is no different.”

In other words, it's okay to show cartoon characters with American accents acting silly, but not those with Mexican accents. So even though Speedy is basically in the Warner Brothers tradition of heroes attacked by larger, stronger foes (who want to eat them) but who wins out largely by intelligence and skill, he's a negative stereotype and must be kept away from the tender minds of children.

But wait, Daffy Duck is black! Oh, dear. I smell another ban. At least we're still allowed to make fun of the French.

"Hi, I'm Gwyneth Paltrow, and I need your support."

Oh, that's not very good, is it? I feel I have to comment on... those, but I'm still a little punchy from the first time I saw that dress.

Anybody got any better ideas?

Sharon Is Ready to Let Arafat Visit Beirut (washingtonpost.com)

Israeli officials said that, if Arafat does attend the summit, the decision on permitting him to return would depend on his "good behavior."

Doesn't sound like Yasser is coming back, does it?

U.S. Orders Checks for Corrosion at Nuclear Reactors

Nuclear reactor operators have been ordered to check their reactor vessels after the discovery that acid in cooling water had eaten a hole nearly all the way through the six-inch-thick lid of a reactor at a plant in Ohio. The corrosion left only a stainless-steel liner less than a half-inch thick to hold in cooling water under more than 2,200 pounds of pressure per square inch.

A plant spokesman said, "D'oh!"

It probably wouldn't have led to a major problem, unless you count the lawsuits. Well, it would have been a problem for anyone inside the plant. The water is only slightly radioactive, but it's very hot. They say a meltdown would have been possible, but I get the idea that's only a distant one. The real concern is that this is a common design; dozens of plants could have the same problem.

Hundreds Feared Dead in Afghan Earthquakes

OK, God, that's enough. I don't know what the Afghans did, but it's time to cut them a break.

"Hi, I'm John Cleese, and in my efforts to eclipse Terry Jones as the most embarrassing Python, I'm a regular on the new ABC sitcom Wednesday 9:30 (8:30 Central). Yes, that's the name of the series. Yes, it's the time slot, too. Yes, I'm a hack. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. [pause] Size 11."

makura no soshi

Added under the NIT section. This is not a judgment, it's just that I'm out of space... but if some people don't start posting, space will open up.

Ministers Sign Off on '.eu' Domain

EUUUUUUUU.

European Union ministers signed off Monday on a plan to establish ``.eu'' as an Internet domain name, hoping a pan-European address will spur electronic commerce in Europe... EU Commissioner Erkki Liikanen said the new .eu name would create ``a truly European identity.''

Yeah, that's it. Forget the fact that your economies are bound in red tape, that really there's no reason for political union among people that don't have much in common, and that you let the French and the Belgians boss you around. The real problem is that you didn't have a domain name of your own. That'll get the economy hopping in no time.

Arabs Weigh Peace Plan

Mene, Mene, Tekel, Parsin.

Clinton worm eats files

A destructive new worm continued to spread Monday in the guise of an e-mail message containing a caricature of former President Bill Clinton.

LIBERAL RESPONSE: See, this is what anti-Clintonism leads to.

CONSERVATIVE RESPONSE: This marks the millionth use of "Clinton" and "eats" in the same sentence.

Get ready for your closeup
Some cameras will focus on drivers' faces

Maybe we should all start wearing masks when we drive.

Ct. Center Treats Pedophile Priests

``This isn't something that goes away, any more than you can change the sexual desire of a heterosexual or homosexual person,'' said Heidi McCloskey, who directs the treatment program. ``What we have to do is figure out how to manage it.''

Let's start by keeping the bastards out of jobs where they have authority over children.

Google Time Bomb - Will Weblogs ruin Google's search engine? By John Hiler

I don't know about "ruin". I think we're improving on it, personally.

This story is unreadable on my computer at the normal text size, thanks to the ad down the right side; I had to set the size down to small. And people complain about my old setup.

R.I. Mayor Fights Critic's Web Site

The Rhode Island Citizens for Ethical Government, a small group of local residents, posted a Web site last week calling for Cianci's resignation at www.BuddyCianci.com. The site was created by Harold Meyer III.
``I respect his freedom of speech. I don't care what he says about me,'' Cianci said. ``But one thing he can't use is my name. He'll hear from lawyers.''

Stuff it, Buddy.

Ketchup Packet Bear

Uh... OK.

If you're going to put together a giant ketchup-packet bear to shoot at, the least you can do is get a real gun. I mean, a BB gun? That's just sad.

(Via Pop Culture Junk Mail, again.)

Survey: 44% of College Students Are Binge Drinkers (washingtonpost.com)

I am shocked, shocked to find that college students are drinking alcohol.

Italy Withdraws From Paris Book Fair

The French have now moved to pissing off the Italians. Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi said last September that Western culture is superior to Islamic culture. Thing is, that's true, in any objective sense. I mean, Western culture has been beating up on Islamic culture pretty steadily for about three centuries now.

Anyway, this annoyed certain French people so much that they decided to protest, and now the Italian government has dropped out the Paris Book Fair -- which is honoring Italy. Such fun.

Show wasn't good enough to last that long

I have one simple question about the Oscar telecast: Does anybody actually like Whoopi Goldberg? I don't know anyone who does. Either they can't stand her, or they don't mind her. She doesn't seem to have actual fans.

Chris Rock really should be the host, but I can't imagine the Oscars doing that. Failing that, they should either bring Steve Martin back or get Conan O'Brien.

Extending Life, Defibrillators Can Prolong Misery

Life is misery. Therefore, by definition any extension of life extends misery.

I don't really believe that, but sometimes it's fun to play the spiritualist-antimaterialist-defeatist. (Or SAD.)

In this case, we're talking about the little defibrillators implanted into the heart, like what Vice President Cheney has. They can be quite literally a lifesaver. And some doctors are bitching because the end for people with these devices can be ugly. I'm sorry, but this is the whole history of modern medicine wrapped in a nutshell. In the end, everybody dies. And doctors have done a great job of making sure that end is a long way off for most people. But by doing that, they've sometimes made deaths nastier than they might have been. But trade me five years for a bad ending anytime.

Vacuum - Cleaning Robot Unveiled

Cool. I'm not sure how much they'll come in handy in tiny little Japanese apartments.

Of course, I never vacuum anyway, but if I did, and I had several thousand dollars to spend... Wasn't this the plot of The Door Into Summer?

Terry Oglesby is looking for nominations for what we're calling (for now) the Croix de Grits for Alabamian contributions to the world. So I'm thinking, what do I know about? Well, baseball, for one.

The list of baseball players from Alabama is probably the most impressive of any state, per capita. Birmingham produced Willie Mays, but Mobile... Wow. Hank Aaron, Satchel Paige, Willie McCovey, Billy Williams, Tommie Agee, Cleon Jones, Amos Otis, and Ozzie Smith. Early Wynn was from Hartford, Don Sutton from Clio -- I don't even know where that is!

Arab League Spokeswoman Ashrawi Quits

And really, who can blame her?

I don't really have anything against Hanan Ashrawi, except that she enables Palestinian apologists in the West. They can point to her and say, "Look, this is the face of the Palestinian movement." And she may be their public face, but that's only a mask.

Talmadge lies in state

This serves as a tribute to all the other times when he was in the state and he lied.

ajc.com | Opinion | Legislators persecuting state's illegal immigrants

I asked state Sen. Bob Guhl (R-Social Circle), "Should illegal immigrants get driver's licenses?"
He responded with a question of his own. "People in the state penitentiary should be issued a driver's license?"
He described being illegally in the country as an "assault" on the United States.
"If a person commits a crime in the United States, that is an assault," he said.
Isn't there obviously xenophobia in these comments?

Um... No.

I'm in favor of increased legal immigration, but we are talking about illegal immigrants. Is there something you don't understand about the word "illegal"? If someone is breaking the law, it's hardly persecution to try to get them to stop.

The bills are only one aspect of this "persecution" against the undocumented. In Hall County, you need a driver's license to buy a car.

Imagine.

Another legislator, state Sen. Phillip Gingrey (R-Marietta), said about letting undocumented immigrants drive legally: "If our country decides to go in that direction, we are going to destroy our country. We have limited resources, we have people that are native born and that are citizens of this country every day who are homeless, who are starving, who can not help themselves and they need the limited resources that we have."

Okay, now that's xenophobic.

A Test for Antitrust Laws

Microsoft really should be broken up; it's leveraged its (natural) monopoly in operating systems to dominate the productivity and browser markets. That's not generally considered a good thing. On the other hand, all of MS's opponents are monopolists or wannabe monopolists too.

The law hasn't really gotten itself together on computers yet. The network effect there is so powerful that monopolies are probably inevitable; I'd prefer, however, that one company not have quite so many of them.

North and South Korea to Resume Dialogue

NK: I'm hungry. Give me some food.

SK: I don't know. I think I'm just enabling you.

NK: Really, come on. It'll be "constructive".

SK: You think? I mean, I keep giving you food, and all you do is be more oppressive and sell weapons to the bad guys.

NK: Give me some food, or I'll invade you.

SK: Okay.

11-year-old asleep on couch didn't know he was shot

You'd think he'd notice that.

Patio Pundit
Jesse Helms argues for money to combat AIDS in Africa

Martin Devon wants to leave the sarcastic comments on this to me, but I'm going to pass, too. If Helms is willing -- for whatever reason -- to push for this, more power to him. He mentions the Good Samaritan, traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. I was thinking Saul on the road to Damascus. Photodude, however, is giving credit to Bono.

I'm still surprised about learning that Jesse reads The New Republic.

Europeans Opting Against Marriage

Does the Senate know about this?

Really, can you imagine a US cabinet member becoming pregnant out of wedlock, like happened in Norway? Jeez. I don't know how I feel about this.

For U.S. Troops, It's Personal (washingtonpost.com)

Those wacky soldiers, taking war personally!

Okay, okay... Since World War II, we've fought a number of wars, and had even more sub-war engagements. But it's been hard to really get worked up over them, at least in a positive way. This time, it really is personal. I don't think that some people, in the media and in the government, realize that. These soldiers are US citizens, and they reflect what Americans feel. And Americans are behind this war -- not just on a "hurrah for us!" way like the Gulf War, but in a "this job needs to be done" way.