Yearly Archives: 2003

Someone Will Pay the Price

This entry was posted in bush Iraq US Foreign Policy War on Terrorism on by

Pessimist does not think bush has been doing too well and believes that the US will pay dearly:

George W. Bush has been suckered in the most complete way one can be suckered, and we the American People are going to pay for his stupidity – and pay dearly.

Read the whole article. There is a lot of very interesting stuff about what other countries are doing about oil while bush screws around in Iraq and Afghanistan all the while waving a finger at the rest of the world. You should be worried.
Oh, and be happy with the $2/gallon gas prices. They might look real good not far down the timeline.

From Usenet to Blog

This entry was posted in Blogging on by

I still read and post to some Usenet groups. For many specialized areas of interest Usenet and some of the other list serve environments still seems a better medium then blogging for staying on top of a specific subject matter.
The other day Phil Wolff wrote a piece that makes an interesting case for Usenet leading the way for blogging. He describes a number of similarities which Jen acknowledges and then adds two more from her experience:

Two other similarities that crossed my mind were the varying signal-to-noise ratio of each “channel”, as well as the increasing sense of information overload that I got from Usenet, and am getting from the blogosphere.

The signal-to-noise issue reminds me of yesterday’s post on civility. It is often clear that many Usenet users as well as bloggers seem to have extra time to troll, write thought free insulting posts, or engage in long ‘humor’ threads that lose their humor about 7 posts in.
As for information overload, the large and growing number of interesting blogs potentially fills all available time plus some more.
Oh, and Wolff also links to a nice short style post that while originally target at the Usenet crowd is relevant to the blogging community.

Punishment and Release

This entry was posted in Humor Libertarianism on by

I chuckled when I read Moira Breen discussing appropriate penance for telemarketers and Natalie Solent’s proposed ditching dialogue:

“Hi, my name is Shelley and I’m calling to ask if you’d be interested in a new service offered by British Orangecom.”
[Very enthusiastically] “Yes!”
“Wo-? Um. It’s about ‘Friends & Family 2003’, a new call tariff that–”
“Yes. Oh yes.”
“A NEW CALL TARIFF THAT OFFERS-”
“Yes! Yes! Yes! Oh, oh, oh yes!”
[Click.]
See, it is quite possible to dispose of these creatures while maintaining an entirely positive attitude.>

’nuff said.

Late Night Reading

This entry was posted in Late Night Reads on by

Kevin Drum wonders why, since the bushies are executing a Democratic foreign policy, we didn’t elect a Democrat in the first place.
Is democracy possible in Egypt? Tarek Heggy discusses this in a guest appearance at Winds of Change.
Alex, A List a Day, continues to provide links to odd and not so odd lists…always good for some diversion. Try out Fametracker’s (who are they??) list of the 10 least essential fall movies of 2003.
And, over at Open Source Politics, Mark Kleiman has a proposal for Controlling Teen Drinking in an Age of Terror.
Good Night!