the art of writing is discovering what you believe
Harper’s Index for April 2004 (Harpers.org):
Number of the five tax-cut questions asked the president on Meet the Press last winter that concerned the cuts’ inequity : 0
Average amount a Bush Cabinet member will save this year due to cuts in capital-gains and dividend taxes : $42,000
Median U.S. household income in 2002 : $42,409
It doesn’t look like those folks have my interests — or those of anyone I know — at heart.
EU report details Microsoft’s thinking | CNET News.com:
“It is this switching cost that has given the customers the patience to stick with Windows through all our mistakes, our buggy drivers, our high TCO (total cost of ownership), our lack of a sexy vision at times, and many other difficulties,” the e-mail said. “Customers constantly evaluate other desktop platforms, (but) it would be so much work to move over that they hope we just improve Windows rather than force them to move.”
The Commission also quotes senior vice president Bob Muglia’s internal memo to the Developer Tools division, dated August 16, 1996, as saying: “In short, without this exclusive franchise called the Windows API, we would have been dead a long time ago.”
Exclusive franchise: what a well-turned phrase.
Hit & Run: Chickenhawk Henpeck Begins:
“Near as I can tell, he means that unless we fight in the military, we have no business commenting on it.” Actually, [the word chickenhawk] refers to people who actively sought to avoid military service (or who made sure they got cushy assignments), like when Cheney and Delay got repeated deferrals, or when Bush jumped the line to get into the “Champagne Regiment.” People who’ve had no dealings whatsoever with the military can’t fairly have it held against them, but people who do their damnedest to make sure other people, and only other people, get put in harm’s way are despicable.
The comments to this post got off topic pretty quickly, it seemed, as some folks took more offense at the use of word chickenhawk than at the obscenity of this war the chickenhawks wanted so badly. I would further refine the definition to mean those who actively sought to avoid service in a war they supported and have continued to support armed actions without putting themselves in harm’s way.
<update> Wikipedia has a similar definition, with more detail.
:: John Kerry for President – John Kerry’s Military Records ::
This [page links to] documents on the awarding of John Kerry’s military service awards: 3 Purple Hearts, 1 Bronze Star, and 1 Silver Star.
Wonder what the other guy has to offer?
The Buying of the President 2004 – The Center for Public Integrity
Skimming through this bio of Dick Cheney, I’m struck by how much
his life has been touched by public spending/government programs.
He did spend some time in private industry between the Bushes,
leveraging his government contacts, most notably enriching the
Halliburton resource-extraction concern. I wonder if he thinks much
about how he owes his career(s) to the vision of the big government
liberals his party, and the administration he currently serves,
attack at every turn.
The Troops Are Dissembling (Harpers.org):
From the Media Reference Guide, a laminated card listing approved responses to journalists’ questions, issued by the Pentagon to American soldiers in Afghanistan. Originally from Harper’s Magazine, December 2002.
Gary thinks harder and better before coffee than I do all day . . . .
A wide-ranging and comprehensive post on the state of whatever it is, how the interweb is becoming an aggregation of walled gardens of publishing systems and feed formats that don’t add as much value as they think they do, nor as much as they think.
I took a much shallower poke at this a couple of days ago.
I keep re-scanning Gary’s post: it flies in the face of so much I’ve read lately, and rightly so. I recall a couple of threads lately where some gurus claimed that XHTML and CSS were as readable as plain text prose. And here we have someone saying “HTML-knowledge as a popular skill must die.” Hallelujah.
A great read. And an even better requirements overview/road map.
Harvard Institute of Politics: IOP Political Personality Test:
You are a Traditional Liberal. Traditional liberals like you tend to be:
* Against pre-emptive strikes as a policy.
* Strongly supportive of gay rights.
* Of the belief that immigration has been good for this country.
* Supportive of affirmative-action.
* Oppose tax cuts as an economic policy.
* Of the belief that basic health insurance is a right.
Music Industry Should Stop Whining
…..and critically look at themselves and their aging business models, instead of criminalising their customers.
In the Netherlands international record companies broke up contracts with Dutch artists, claiming declining profits due to filesharing as primary reason. The artists believed the story. Harvard Business School sure doesn’t:
A long standing economic question is the appropiate level for protection of intellectual property. The internet has drastically lowered the costs of copying information goods and provides a natural crucible to assess the implication of reduced protection. We consider the specific case of file sharing and its effect on the legal sales of music. A dataset containing 0.01% of the world’s downloads is matched to U.S. sales data for a large number of albums. To establish causality, downloads are instrumented using technical features related to file sharing, such as network congestion or song length, as well as international school holidays. Downloads have an effect on sales which is statistically indistinguishable from zero, despite rather precise estimates. Moreover these estimates are of moderate economic significance and are inconsistent with claims that file sharing is the primary reason for the recent decline in music sales. (via Martin Dugage at Mopsos)
Now let’s see if this filters through to main stream press, who have been accepting the music industries explanation without critical examination.
This further backs up the story from Australia where the music industry just had their best year ever, and tried to cover it up, to not undermine their crusade against file sharing.
Oh and if you want to contribute to ending the scam, and getting artists their earned income: Gary’s out to slay the RIAA dragon. (see his list of related entries)
Bill Gates, Philanthropist : Gadgetopia:
I am stunned at comments like this. Why do people think that these comments go TO the people that the posting refers to? This has happened several times.
What in my postings makes it sound like it is FROM the subject rather than ABOUT the subject? I don’t get it.
Another example: I posted something about email to the White House once, and a lady wrote a comment as a message TO President Bush, as if he had made the posting himself.
cloudy, chance of sun breaks: the pain of reading someone else’s fan mail:
For some reason, people are posting comments to this entry as if I were J K Rowling.
I did leave a contact address for her, the same information these kids could get from their teacher or parent. I’m sure the Gates Foundation’s contact details are just as obscure.