a crank’s progress

The letters page in MacWorld (oh, what a thin little book that is these days) had a contributed bookmarklet that improves on the all-but-useless Services -> Mail option.
To use it, create a new bookmark and populate the address field with this (yes, there is a hard return/newline before SUBJECT).
What this will do is [...]

At least, that’s what the president said during his last press conference . . . .
Salon.com News | Bush’s flight from the Guard:
Unlike lawyers, journalists pay little attention to concepts like chain of custody for evidence. In the case of the president’s Guard records, whoever possessed them and had the motive and opportunity to [...]

Communications From Elsewhere » FOIA coffin photos update:
Are NASA astronauts US military personnel? I don’t know. In any case, here’s an easy way to tell the difference between the Columbia crew and casualties of the war in Iraq: the Columbia crew photos are the ones shot during the day, with an honor guard in full [...]

Well, after 10 months of fun, my iPod has had too much of it. It’s manifesting some weird symptoms and I have ordered a service on it. As I write this, it’s doing a hard disk check that I never asked for, and it’s not the first time that’s happened.
The chief problems are
* the [...]

Some background: the vice president booked a speaking engagement at the same college where Winston Churchill gave his “Iron Curtain” speech, ostensibly to make what his campaign staff called “a major foreign policy statement.” Turns out to have been a stump speech, attacking the Democrats’ presumptive nominee such that the president of the college, a [...]

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall: April 25, 2004 - May 01, 2004 Archives:
George W. Bush has faced three opponents (McCain, Gore and Kerry) since he came onto the national political stage — each served in Vietnam, though each under very different circumstances. He’s had his lieutenants attack the service of each one.
So here [...]

Electrolite: Okay, so maybe the “moron cooties” remark was a little over the top.
In the comments to this post, there are two gems, for historians and pop culture lovers alike:
* The Avignon Presidency
* pay no attention to the men behind the cretin
For the origin of Avignon as a perjorative, I commend you to the [...]

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall: April 25, 2004 - May 01, 2004 Archives
Interesting discussion about why so many people — voters — still believe in the myths of a Saddam Hussein/Osama bin Laden connection, the stores of terror weapons in Iraq, etc.
Juan Cole takes the academic approach and looks at this as [...]

The New York Times > New York Region > About New York: Home From Iraq, and Without a Home:
Two months ago, she returned to Bronx circumstances that were no less difficult than when she had left them three years earlier; no yellow ribbons greeted her. Now, every day, she soldiers on to find a residence [...]

TeledyN: The Right Heroes
Gary points out that not all the images of American dead arriving at Dover AFB are of Iraqi war victims: some of the images date back to the Columbia accident. (I don’t differentiate between them too much: if I had to, those from Iraq who went off to do their nation’s bidding, [...]