[January 31, the year 2000 A.D.]

Florida Governor Jeb Bush, brother of Texas Governor George, has appointed an openly lesbian woman to be a Circuit Court judge in south Florida. Victoria Sigler is the first openly gay person [scroll down] to serve as Circuit Court Judge in the state.

Al Gore invented stretching the truth.

[A 1988 Gore campaign aide's] memo was more concerned with Gore's own accounts of his life story. At points, Gore apparently claimed he had been a hands-on homebuilder, which Schardt couldn't quite substantiate.

I knew the Reform Party was in for tough times when I learned that Pat Buchanan would duke out Donald Trump for the party's nomination. Now, it's worse. There are two different websites competing for title of "official" party website. It seems that, when new party Chairman and Jesse Ventura ally Jake Gargan fired the old webmaster, she refused to turn over the old domain name. Gargan has now set up a new site, but both still carry the word "official" in their banner. This may, more than anything else, help bring about the party's demise.

From Obscure Store: He didn't get the job.

[January 30, the year 2000 A.D.]

Some people think I played myself, but I'm just e-pimpin'.

Got this from evhead who got if from kottke: You can opt out of the Doubleclick mess.

This poor sad lonely bastard.

[January 29, the year 2000 A.D.]

Okay, MetaBaby is back... it runs a bit differently now, kinda like openlog, but (of course) slightly different. And the first thing I found there is a damn hoot: a MetaFilter running through a Quake engine: MetaQuake [pop-up window]

Metababy is an experiment in collaboration, a Web site created by its visitors. You're welcome to post anything you want on Metababy, and anybody else is free to change it.

Boy, that Bill Bradley sure is a dunce. His SAT scores weren't even as high as George W. Bush's. [may not be a permanent link]

[January 28, the year 2000 A.D.]

I got an e-mail today from Derek about my comments on the 23rd. He asked that I not post it, and I'll respect his request. I will say that his original opinion which inspired my rant was based on competent substantial evidence at the time it was rendered, and that Derek's thoughts on the matter have evolved as the weblog community has done the same. That's all I will reveal for now - you'll surely be hearing more about this later.

You can buy the whole seat but you'll only need the edge while waiting for Bloat's capricious, rambling, and semi-coherent weblog reviews.

I watched the State of the Union last night with Chip of Hillrats. We initally planned to drink each time the President spent a billion dollars on expanding the government, but were advised that the Club didn't have enough liquor.

Oh, yeah, and he lied to the American people again, as the Federalist Society revealed:

Women, Mr. Clinton asserts, earn an average of 75 cents for every $1 men are paid. What he didn't say was that there is virtually no difference between pay scales when men and women have equal education and equal time on the job -- a minor consideration.

[free registration required]

[January 27, the year 2000 A.D.]

Through twernt, the DeCSS source code (if you didn't already have it)

Off Megnut, through MetaJohn, nothing but Net: Erik is upset that Texas executed a woman who murdered two people with a pickaxe and that GWB lacked a seemly amount of sympathy for her. Considering the convicted killer "bragged to friends that she got sexual thrills out of the attack", maybe this sympathy would be better given to the victims and their families.

Besides, what does the fact that this killer was female have anything to do with this analysis? Should we be more inclined to spare this ruthless murderer because she's female? I'd like to hear the argument for that proposition...

In last night's GOP debates, Alan Keyes probably had the greatest line of all, when Gary Bauer criticized him for jumping into a mosh pit at a concert last week:

That exemplified the kind of trust I have in people.

Funny, I thought jumping into a mosh pit exemplifies that you've had a wee bit too much beer. But using it to criticize another candidate is, well, just plain stupid. [Keyes site]

Just in case you thought Jorn takes himself too seriously...

And hey, this guy knew just by my username that I write this slop, and buzzed me. I wish I had been half as cool when I was his age. Ok, he sometimes wears pink tights and a cape, but he came up with this very cool link.

[January 26, the year 2000 A.D.]

Quoth the Senator:

Our campaign, I think, has made a difference.

To whom? I guess it's true that every one percent counts.

Schyler at NeoFlux has further blurred the invisible line between sex and politics. Everybody knows it's all about who's gonna get screwed.

I need a ripple graphic to supplement my recycle pic. Hmmm.

[January 25, the year 2000 A.D.]

WWW stands for Wendell, worth the wait. Thanks to Running Tally for the heads-up.

Note to Medley readers: I don't claim to be "a journalist," or impartial, or even accurate. Scroll to the bottom and read the fine print. The point is, Quayle won almost every election he entered. Mrs. Clinton probably won't be able to make the same claim.

Trent Dilfer, QB for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers since being their first round draft pick in 1994, becomes a free agent as the Buccaneers decline to renew his contract. I guess they felt rookie QB Shaun King did a good enough job winning the division and taking them to the NFC championship. And yeah, that overturned call was completely outrageous, but Coach Dungy correctly notes that they should have put it away earlier.

Lovable yet unintelligible art group etoy claims total victory against corporate bully eToys, Inc. From the e-mail announcement:

Today, just in time, eToys formally dropped its case against etoy "without prejudice" -- a phrase that means either party is still free to attack the other. eToys has also formally agreed to pay etoy's court costs and other expenses incurred as a result of the lawsuit.

More on this as it breaks.

The bright orange of prison jumpsuits, the red blood of innocent victims, the inky blackness of death - these are the Colors of Benetton.

There is no brand - not a single one - that has the right to increase its sales on the backs, on the misery, on the fates of condemned men and women, much less their slaughtered victims.

I don't wear their stuff anyway.

Through snow and hail and dark of night, the e-mail still comes through: Prerequisites to being a Modern Liberal Democrat.

Surprise! Bush and Gore win big in Iowa. Senator McCain, who didn't even try, finished ahead of Senator Hatch, who did.

[January 24, the year 2000 A.D.]

Vin Suprynowicz pegs a major factor in the growing gap between the rich and the poor.

Cam bats .500 this week - he demonstrated a very low tolerance for parody but, of all the folks who passed on the story of the kitten flying out the window was the only one with the decency to post the other side of the story.

[January 23, the year 2000 A.D.]

First off, let me say that I saw the The Hurricane this weekend, and it just blew me away. Denzel Washington turned in one of the best performances of an already amazing career, weaving a rich and complex character performace without flaw or seam or snag. Then consider that this script is based upon one man's real-life stuggle to overcome disadvantage, persecution, injustice, and his own inner demons. Then add the fact that he won - in real life. This movie dropped my jaw time and time again. If you haven't seen it, see it. Grab a loved one, a friend, or a stranger, and make a firm date to see this one. Then buy the soundtrack and both books.

But harrumph. It just got robbed of a much-deserved Golden Globe for best picture.

Speweth Derek:

I hate weblogs... Okay, mostly I just hate the hype. But it also saddens me that all these creative people are linking to things instead of making things. Think about it.

Speweth Lance:

A Weblog is a links page masquerading as a home page. They rarely involve much creativity on the part of the Weblogger. A Weblog owner simply hunts around for cool stuff other people took the time to do and then they link to it.

Okay, I think I've had just about enough out of you two. We can't all be the web's self-appointed super elite. Some of us do this - gasp - for fun. While I've not generated anything as inventive as bitbet, my weblog is where I can write what I want without anyone else editing me. It's where I can design pages that I like, or change them when they bore me.

Maybe I'm not pushing the envelope, or breaking ground that's new to you. But you know what? I'm a lawyer, not a professional web prophet. My weblog is a chance to add a little bit to the web every day if I choose. By updating daily, I give myself both a chance and an excuse to tinker, and lay the new out against the old. To me, that's creativity, even if it's just making sure my style sheets work the way I expect.

I look at pages like Twernt, where a link or a caption is never what it seems. Or MetaJohn, where a seemingly small php experiment generated the karma concept. Or wetlog, birthplace of new social theories of the web. And dozens more that I haven't named. Dammit, these are creative people doing creative things, even if they're not hip enough to let High Five languish for months without an update. All of you self-styled web gods, who look down your collective noses at webloggers, take your carping and put it in its proper place. Your domain name is available.

[January 21, the year 2000 A.D.]

Sweet Jesus. You know, Neale, a golf cart is easy to drive too, but a Porsche is a helluva lot more fun.

I think I'll go outside and rally against global warming.

Today WTOP News Radio (1500 AM in the DC area) has been running a series on the Keys to the White House. The current verdict: if Gore and Bradley duke it out til the bitter end, hand a victory to the Republicans.

Quoth Mayor Williams: I've got a plan to piss off the Republican overlords who control my city's funding. Rep. Bob Barr is right when he says:

If gun control worked, Washington, D.C., would be the safest city in the world.

A lot of people say that DC's gun control doesn't work because hoodlums get guns from neighboring Virginia. But if Virginia was the problem, then why isn't Arlington the Murder Capital of the World? Maybe it's because the criminals like to go where their victims are not allowed to defend themselves.

[January 19, the year 2000 A.D.]

Who kills more: citizens wielding guns, or Kennedys driving? [yeah, I know it was a six-iron, not a driver.]

I once had the privilege of sharing a podium with Roger Pilon, of the Cato Institute. But it looks like he's on the wrong side of this one: Roger Pilon and the Fourteenth Amendment. By contrast, it looks like he got it right on flag burning and campaign finance reform.

Duh. The media is biased in favor of gun control. Some guy made a Ph.D. thesis out of proving the obvious.

On no other issue is there a wider gulf between mainstream America and the media. There are more than 225 million civilian firearms in the United States. Some 45 percent of US households own at least one gun. To tens of millions of Americans, guns mean safety and peace of mind; they know intuitively what statistics prove: gun ownership reduces crime.

Note to self: Link to GeneHack and The American Mind and stop hunting for those links in the Weblog Monitor. (who finally used the weblogs.com domain)

[January 18, the year 2000 A.D.]

About fifteen years ago, when I was just a wee lad, I participated in Duke University's Talent Identification Program, which scooped up high-scoring SAT-taking brats like myself and transported them from 7th grade onto Duke's East Campus for a few weeks during the summer. At the time, it was probably the best thing that could have happened to me, since I was pretty much bored of school and my classmates. I learned a lot, least of all academically, but mostly about growing up and being around other kids who also thought they were smarter than everybody else. I made a lot of good friends during that time, and have completely lost touch with most of them. In college I met a couple of kids who had also been at TIP (one of them was in my fraternity before we knew). I just recently discovered, at random, a completely obsolete alum directory run by a later TIP student, which has a couple of names on it I haven't seen in years. Faces have totally faded, and I have no idea what most of those folks went on to do with their lives. If you went, or know anyone who went, to TIP, let me know.

Archives: [previous] + [next]