Found floating in Latte: Bill Gates Grants Self 18 Dexterity, 20 Charisma W
If you have any inkling that you might want to go see Hannibal, do it now, right now, before anyone spoils it for you, because someone surely will. If you do, and you should, bring a sense of humor and a strong stomach. The movie has been loudly criticized by those who claim it's too gross and gory - it is gross in spots - but it's so over-the-top that you just have to laugh. Camp? Yes, camp. But the characters are solid and well-acted, so it's a brainier film than you might expect.
There was one guy in the next row over wearing this "Steal Your Face" t-shirt I think he had already read the book. W
Get your Napster fix this weekend, because an appellate court ruling is due on Monday that might shut the whole thing down.
Power users tip: High-speed, always-on user often seek to avoid the annoyance of constant downloads by setting their configurations to show them as having a 14.4-modem connection speed. When you download a file from these users you can see the true connection speed as DSL, T1, or even T3.
In the Advanced Search menu, select "Connection: EQUAL TO: 14.4" and submit your search. You'll find a whole list of users with very large files, most of whom are probably NOT on 14.4 modems. This will not only give you a lot more options to find the desired file, but these users are much less likely to be clogged with other users downloading the same popular files. Enjoy! (Thanks to Dennis for the tip!) W
I've decided that Kiehl is a dead ringer for Mira Sorvino. W
Found floating in Latte: Bill Gates Grants Self 18 Dexterity, 20 Charisma W
Dave called my attention to this: Several DSL providers who contract through Covad are in bad financial shape, and Covad has already pulled the plug on some. This bothers me, since my DSL provider, Flashcom, contracts through Covad for my residential service. Flashcom's finances can't be in great shape, since they apparently "forgot" to bill us and many other subscribers for several months. (What a surprise it was when we got a letter from them explaining how much we owed due to their billing screw-up.)
UPDATE: Oh, crap. Flashcom is circling the drain already:
On December 8, 2000, Flashcom filed a voluntary petition in the United States Bankruptcy Court in Santa Ana, California for protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of the Federal bankruptcy laws.
I'm sure this is due in no small part to their lousy customer service. Fortunately, Covad has a Safety Net Program to transition users to new providers when their old ones fail. I'll let you know how it goes. W
So, every single person who went to the superbowl was scanned by a surveillance camera. Digitized images of faces were sent to law enforcement agencies and compared with mug shots of known criminals. Is this not a screaming violation of the fourth amendment? [bold original]
Fourth Amendment? Not by a long shot. Not even close to the realm of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence - no search was conducted, no seizure was made. This is as likely to violate the Third Amendment against the quartering of troops as the Fourth.
The only thing I can think of that might be implicated is the post-Roe notion of constitutionally-protected privacy, but I think you'd be hard pressed on that one. Really - we're talking about a group of people walking into a stadium with 70,000 fellow attendees to see a sporting event televised not just across the nation, but across the globe, such broadcast coverage routinely including shots of the crowd. Now, explain to me how their "privacy" in such a situation was violated? W
I guess those folks down under are a little more jaded about about their movie rating system:
Barber said "Hannibal,'' which is due for release next week, should have been rated R (Restricted to adults only), the highest censorship rating possible.
"Censorship rating" here in the States usually means something like
I think censorship:
But you gotta respect their candor. W
Tonight: She's toast. W
Now that it's time to talk turkey about tax cuts, some on the left are starting to realize that the payroll taxes to support Social Security and Medicare are among the most regressive on the books... perhaps even worse than Anil's proposed "criminal parent" tax. One can only hope that this realization will spur the move towards real reform of the ill-conceived pyramid schemes. [Links from Kevin]. W
Roger Clegg presents the conservative case against racial profiling, correctly recognizing that it's simply another form of racial quota like those often used in educational and employment decisions, and that the ends do not justify the means. No matter how worthy the goal - diversity, fighting crime, or anything else:
[T]he countervailing costs — the unfairness, sacrifice of principle, resentment, stigmatization, and so forth — are too great.
In the long term, notes Clegg, any possible short term benefits are greatly outweighed by the erosion of faith in the fairness of the system.
As it turns out, Clegg has been making this argument for a while. W
In anticipation of tonight's episode of Survivor II, here's a link to National Review's exclusive interview with Kel Gleason. Even months later, and having spent only days with the teammates who turned on him, Kel spoke fondly of them in the present tense:
If you think about it, we have some strong people on that team. Colby is probably just as physically strong as I am. Tina is another strong one, a triathlete. We have some physically strong people.
Honorable guy, sucker, or both? You decide. W
It looks like the armed man who was shot outside the White House today may have been looking to hurt only himself:
The suspect may have been attempting to commit suicide, the Secret Service told Fox News, but he was waving his gun at different places and people, including himself. Law enforcement sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said authorities were investigating the possibility the man was trying to provoke a shooting by police.
On the other hand, his reluctance to use his gun on himself suggests more that it was a cry for help than anything else. W
A North Carolina anesthesiologist accidentally induced a patient's orgasm using a spinal cord stimulator, while treating her for back pain. He observed:
"We able to reduce her narcotics usage by about a half.... Is it reproducible? I sure hope so."
Coming soon to a web site near you... W
Rick assures me that I'm not an Internet trend-setter. W
As I had hoped they would, The Smoking Gun has a copy of the complaint in the Stillman v. Survivor lawsuit. According to the complaint, contestant Dirk Been not only told Stacey about Burnett rigging the votes, but also wrote Burnett a letter expressing his disappointment about the matter. If true, this could be damning for the whole show.
I note two things:
Here's a little more on the Boston Globe article I cite below:
Another is the hushed voices with which many Democrats are expressing their anxiety over Clinton's presidential pardon of Marc Rich, a fugitive commodities trader, and the former first family's acceptance of $190,000 in gifts last year. Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, admitted he felt uneasy with the way the Clintons left the White House. ''There was a touch of excessiveness at the end,'' Baucus said with a wince.
Scott Harshbarger, quoted at the end, is a Republican, if I recall correctly. W
Refutation of the Day: Lyn [O, Triumph! O, Vindication!] manages to find a single Republican comment on the whole Clintons-backing-a-U-Haul-and-emptying-out-the-White-House scandal, in response to my comments that the press, not the Republicans, are driving this scandal bus. Quoth Lyn:
Just because Mike hasn't heard about it doesn't mean it didn't happen.
I wonder - did Lyn even read the transcript before she cited it? Is that the best she could do? No press conferences, no angry editorials... just Bob Barr answering a single question with a fairly mild criticism of the Clintons. Mind you, this is the same Bob Barr who, if Bill Clinton walked on water, would criticize him for leaving footprints. Yes, he is a Republican, but he hardly represents the party as a whole. If any Republican had made a bigger deal of it than Barr did, I most certainly would have heard of it, and that would be indicative of the party's efforts as a whole.
By coming up with such a weak showing, Lyn actually helps prove my point that the loudest and angriest critics about the Clinton haul are not the Republicans, but instead the liberal media in Washington and Boston, revealing stories of angry donors and disillusioned Democrats who are the most critical of Clinton. One thing is clear: as the Bush administration settles in, Republicans are looking toward the future and their agenda for the next four years, while liberals and Democrats prepare to fight yesterday's battles and eat their young.
Now that Lyn has distorted this issue not once, but twice, I hope she can set the matter straight for her readers, most of whom would probably never be caught dead reading this. W
Amazon.com introduces its own voluntary micropayment system. If I find myself flush with cash in the next month or so, I might send some in for MetaFilter. W
I'm horribly disappointed that I didn't win, because the evidence clearly shows that I'm a much bigger jerk than ScoPi. W
Blogger seems to be feeling much better now, and the archives are fixed. W
New domain for The Scene: http://www.vpostrel.com/ W
First in a series of three, the Refutation of the Day: Michael has confused my legal analysis (albeit succinct) with outright advocacy. Not so. To me, it's pretty clear that the faith-based initiative no more violates the First Amendment than do Pell grants to Notre Dame students. Others may try to draw distinctions, but I don't think they're able to change the principle.
Michael further states that "as a conservative" I should have three objections to the Faith-Based Initiative plan. First, they allegedly "grow the size and scope" of the federal government. If this turns out to be true, I would object. However, I think the intent of the plan is to shift responsibility from existing federal programs to private programs with subsidies. To me, this seems to move in the general direction of both libertarian and conservative schools of thought. The downside, of course, is that federal money usually comes with strings attached - just ask any collegiate track star whose program was axed under Title IX. Federal money is not for the faint of heart. But I still think that private programs opting in with some restrictions will do a whole lot more good than any federal bureaucracy with a similar goals.
Second, the matter of states' rights. No part of the program, as I understand it, interferes with any state's ability to implement similar programs. In fact, a small federal experiment may even serve as a clear signal to states that they ought to consider similar experiments of their own. In any event, the feds are simply doling out their own money, not imposing any restrictions on the states.
Third, I don't listen too closely to Senator Lieberman. Even a broken clock is right... you know the rest. (For example, Senator Lieberman showed remarkable foresight in refusing to give up his Senate seat.)
Finally, only the weak of mind are truly subject to brainwashing, regadless of the federal funds involved. I suggest you ask a certain someone about her Catholic school upbringing (and mine) and how many of her classmates proudly defied the orthodoxy.
And Michael, your tax cut is coming. W
Hmmm. The archive index seems to be, well, screwed. If you're looking for something in particular, you might have better luck with the search form on the right. W
FoxNews rating go through the roof. I need to fax this to Comcast. W
Stacy Stillman sues Survivor, alleging that producer Mark Burnett convinced Dirk and Sean to vote against her rather than Rudy. Curious about the merits of the case? All you need to know: a lawyer repesenting herself has fool for a client. W
Blogger is currently fried to a crisp and so I'm updating this by hand. I suspect that Blogger is updating its DNS as a result of the sad implosion of Pyra.
Coincidentally, I have just updated my own DNS settings to reflect a change of host as well. The Perpetual Beta domain is now hosted on Dreamhost. If you're reading this, the DNS updates have completed. Thanks for reading and for having patience with all this.
While I've been down, I haven't let my detractors go unnoticed. Rest assured, Dan, Lyn, and even Michael, that responses are queued up in the Blogger database to be published upon DNS resolution. W
Virginia Postrel catches up with the MeFi crowd and ruminates about micropayments. [Feb. 1 - no permalinks] W
Ever since I changed my scrollbars (apparently only visible to MSIE 5.5 users), suddenly all the cool kids are doing it. I'm sure it's all because I'm such a powerful net trend-setter. Once again, props to Shawn and Allison for the inspiration. W
Netflix has started charging sales tax, and customers have asked why. As explained by Netflix, state officials have unanimously concluded that the DVD's owned and sent out by Netflix constitute a "physical presence" in each state.
Simply put: If an Internet business has a physical presence in a state (in this case, rented DVDs), you must collect use tax for products used in that state. Because the rented DVDs in customers' homes are "owned" by Netflix, we in fact have a physical presence in the state and therefore must collect tax.
I feel confident that these "state officials" arrived at this conclusion without input from Blockbuster Video. W
First the press, then Democrats, now the donors complain about the Clintons' gift-grubbing:
Like Mittman, Joy Ficks, whose late husband headed the Ficks Reed Co., said she thought the custom-finished rattan chairs and breakfast table installed in the private quarters would remain there as government property. She was puzzled when she learned the Clintons had taken the set with them.
To date, no - I'm sorry, I mean few - Republicans have uttered a peep about this scandal. W