Sure, spammers are scum of the earth, but the plight of the guy who made death threats kind of warms the cockles of my heart. Welcome to the real world, in which making death threats is not considered a normal element of discourse. I’ve been on the company’s of that sort of thing a little too often to feel sorry for Mr. Booker.
I almost passed on Intolerable Cruelty, but it’s been a long time since I missed a Coen Brothers flick and I figured I might as well watch George Clooney emanating suave for a couple of hours. The Coens didn’t write the movie, which means it’s not the pure hit of creative oddness I wanted, but it was still OK. As Coen screwball comedies go, it’s no Hudsucker Proxy, and as Coen romantic comedies go, it’s no Raising Arizona. I don’t think it was trying to be a screwball comedy, really; there wasn’t any snappy dialogue in the classic screwball sense. It felt more like a casual exercise than anything else. ...
Did you ever read Usenet? Miss those newsreader days? Population: One is now available via NNTP. It is perhaps a bit quixotic of Dan to scrape weblogs rather than slurping up RSS feeds, but it’s a kind of quix I have to admire. The old diesel engine of blog syndication, as it were.
The North Korean crisis has been pretty quiet lately, at least until KEDO decided to halt the North Korean reactor project. This is pressure on North Korea to come back to the negotiating table. We’re betting that North Korea won’t escalate as a result. The only levers we have are power, food, and military action. We’re not going to starve people, and even if we were so inclined, the UN is working on food aid. We’re not going to invade a nuclear power. That leaves cutting the nuclear power plant construction, which has the advantage of not making the North Korean situation any worse. It just blocks one method of making things better, so it’s about the most palatable pressure possible. ...
It’s a little known fact that the best gonzo journalists around are writing for a little ezine known as the Death Valley Driver Video Review (original). One time I was making fun of Bionic J because she was wearing this big skiing goggles and I said she looked like a doofus like Yoko Ono.
Jon Udell has a very good article about using Bayesian techniques to categorize blog postings. I think this is rather interesting, because I keep meaning to try Bayesian filtering on (alternately) Usenet and my mailing lists. The difference between me and Udell is that he went out and did it and got paid for writing about it. Now that he’s pointed me at the right tools, I may try this on Usenet. Bwah hah ha.
Mom’s getting out of the hospital on Saturday, much to her (and my) relief. She really appreciated the cards and best wishes — thanks to all. We now return to my usual veil of silence about my personal life.
Mom, who has informed me that she is not to be referred to as “a family member” anymore, is doing good. (“But Mom, it was for privacy… oh, OK, fine.”) The surgery went well and she’s recuperating as quick as she can, although it’ll still be a while. If anyone feels inspired to send a card, I’m sure she’d greatly appreciate it: Priscilla Durrell c/o Cape Cod Hospital 27 Park Street ...
Because I know I’m going to want to refer to this later. The Weekly Standard story (original) on the DoD memo about Al Qaeda/Iraq connections The DoD press release (original) explaining that the “memo” was a list of reports, some of which hadn’t been vetted, and that the memo is meaningless Glenn Reynolds being an idiot Let’s be clear on this. The reports discussed in the memo are simply the reports Doug Feith used to make the case for an imminent threat from Iraq. Doug Feith is guilty of politicizing intelligence (original) in the worst way. He has been, in the past, cozened by Ahmed Chalabi. He was in charge of post-war planning — the same planning that has been faulty to the degree that Bush is adopting the French plan. ...
The Massachusetts Supreme Court just ruled that bans on same-sex marriages are unconstitutional. That’s the Massachusetts Constitution, not the US Constitution. There’s some pro-same-sex marriage background about the case here (original), and some fairly frothing anti-same-sex marriage background here (original). Or just get the fairly unbiased coverage from Howard Bashman, who knows his stuff. The actual ruling has been mirrored here (original).