Saturday, June 22, 2002

it’s amazing what people spend time doing

STAR WARS ASCIIMATION. Requires java to be enabled. From New Zealand -- where I guess there's not much to do.
posted by lee on 06/22/02 at 08:11 AM
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Monday, June 24, 2002

Are you ready?

A Time/CNN poll claims a third of all Americans are paying attention to the news as it relates to signs that the end is nigh. I think that's a ridculously high number -- did they ask it in evangelical churches on a Sunday or what? NOBODY I know has said ANYTHING about believing the end of the world (or the rapture or whatever other crap is supposed to happen.) I also find it hard to believe a third of America pays attention to anything at the same time, or for more than a day or two, unless the media keeps pounding it into our collective eyeballs. Rapture Ready has an end-time index, which now stands at "fasten your seat belts." Gee, that's helpful.

Well, since the end of the world is coming, guess I can start smoking again, eh?

I wonder how many True Believers spend actual time doing good works (I actually know a few who do -- but not many). I bet the percentage is extremely low. From what I've seen, most True Believers are more worried about saving the non-existent or minding others' business or raising money for expanding ministries than doing good works.

If all of those claiming to be Chrstians did what they're supposed to do to truly earn that label, this country would be a much, much better place than it is now. As it stands now, for the most part, American Christianity makes about as much sense as Scientology or Druidism. I think religion is a neurological construct, anyway, with no basis in reality.
posted by lee on 06/24/02 at 01:19 PM
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Tuesday, June 25, 2002

thwarted ... I thought

First we got an alert that said you could see the water from the hole in the middle of the bridge. The bridge is the Q Bridge on I-95 over New Haven Harbor. So, okay, I'll take some circuitous backroads route over to I-91 and then drop up to take Route 15, the Merritt Parkway, home. But a truck managed to slam into a bridge and effectively close the southbound lanes. Trucks are not allowed on the Merritt. So I decided to wait it out. And resigned myself to a witchy commute. But, in a burst of unusual competence, the highway crews patched the hole on I-95 and shored on the bridge on the Merritt just in time for the evening rush.

I don't know what's more shocking: the bridge I drive over six times a week falling apart or the highway dept. patching it in a matter of hours instead of weeks.
posted by lee on 06/25/02 at 02:30 PM
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run far, run fast, from Verisign

Check out VerisignOff.org :: Take back your name from Verisign. We've transferred nearly all of the domain names we own or manage from VeriSign to DNS Central. We still have a couple left to move, but those are registered via Verio -- which is nearly as bad as Verisign (formerly known as Network Solutions). While the procedure can be a pain in the butt, it's worth the peace of mind knowing you won't lose a carefully built brand or domain name because of an arrogant twit at Verisign screwing up. We were also extremely pissed when Verisign mistakenly changed our nameserver with NO authorization and also refused to admit they'd screwed up (we suspect they ran an Interland script where something was transposed. Interland apologized and gave us a decent credit. Verisign did everything they could possibly do to lose our business.) DNS Central lets us lock our domain names.

If you registered your domain name at Verisign or Network Solutions, just move it. Pay the few extra bucks.
posted by lee on 06/25/02 at 09:20 PM
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Wednesday, June 26, 2002

more verisign hate letters

Read E-Commerce News: Falling Prey to the VeriSign Beast. Our Verisign war stories are numerous, and maybe some day I'll contribute the worst ones to somebody collecting them (hopefully an attorney filing a class action suit against them). Verisign is bleeding, and yet they continue mauling customers. I will NEVER purchase a Verisign product again, be it a domain name or one of their overpriced and meaningless security certificates, and I tell all my clients to run away from Verisign just as fast as they can.
posted by lee on 06/26/02 at 11:51 AM
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I wondered when this would happen

Federal appeals court rules Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional because of words 'under God'.

It's about time. Only took 45 years to point out the obvious.
posted by lee on 06/26/02 at 12:45 PM
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Arafat to Bush: Who Elected You President?

Arafat Calls for Democratic Elections in the United States; World Reaction is Mixed

by Rahul Mahajan (a candidate for governor of Texas)

"Palestinian Authority President Yasir Arafat stunned the world yesterday by demanding that the United States hold democratic elections for a new Chief Executive before it attempts to continue in its role as broker between Israel and Palestine.

"Mr. Bush is tainted by his association with Jim-Crow-style selective disenfranchisement and executive strong-arm tactics in a southeastern province controlled by his brother," said Mr. Arafat, who was elected with 87% of the vote in 1996 elections in the West Bank and Gaza, declared to be free and fair by international observers, including former U.S. president Jimmy Carter. "Our count shows that he would have lost the election if his associates hadn't deprived so many thousands of African-Americans, an oppressed minority, of the right to vote. He is not the man to bring peace to the Middle East."

Hugo Chavez, elected president of Venezuela with 62% of the popular vote, concurred with Mr. Arafat. Chavez has long been a victim of Bush's anti-democratic attitude, as the Bush administration funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars through the "National Endowment for Democracy" to anti-Chavez forces and reportedly gave the go-ahead for an attempted military coup by those forces. "After it was over and I was back in power," said Chavez, "his administration actually told me 'legitimacy is not conferred by a majority vote.' Unless, of course, it's a majority of the Supreme Court. I respect the local traditions, however quaint, of the United States, but he hardly sets the best example for the Middle East, does he? Why don't we get back to that idea of an international conference to settle the question of Palestine?" ...

If Bush had won the election in Florida, the Miami Herald would have released their recount results instead of hiding them.
posted by lee on 06/26/02 at 07:43 PM
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Thursday, June 27, 2002

More Bushit

Bush & 911 Foreknowledge. Even the loonies know he knew.
posted by lee on 06/27/02 at 07:28 AM
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Saturday, June 29, 2002

The FBI’s latest secret alert - the one I read about in the New York Times

Some secret: New F.B.I. Alert Warns of Threat Tied to July 4th (free registration required).

By DON VAN NATTA Jr. and DAVID JOHNSTON

New York Times
WASHINGTON, June 29 Federal authorities have issued a secret alert to state and local law enforcement agencies warning them of the possibility of a terrorist attack in the United States around the Fourth of July holiday, senior government officials said.

The message from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, like others issued in recent weeks, was not made public because intelligence analysts concluded that the threat was too vague to justify a public warning, the officials said.

"The F.B.I. possesses no information indicating a specific and credible terrorist threat related to the July 4 Independence Day time frame," said the message, which was sent on Wednesday. "However, the political and cultural significance of this date warrants increased vigilance."

The intelligence reports related to the Fourth of July have been assembled from multiple sources, among them foreign security services, the electronic monitoring of suspected terrorists and interviews with Al Qaeda operatives arrested overseas in recent days and those in detention at Guantסnamo Bay, Cuba.

"We're very concerned about July 4th," a senior government official said. "The lack of specificity increases the concern and anxiety that is there."

The decision not to issue a public alert was made after a series of meetings among national security and counterterrorism officials over the last several weeks, the officials said.

But they cautioned that the situation was fluid and that new information could result in a public warning at any time ...


They were gonna keep it a secret because it's the stuff of Oscar Meyer.
posted by lee on 06/29/02 at 05:12 PM
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if you see a popup, it’d better be MY popup

Major Web Publishers Sue Gator. Including the New York Times. Now, I don't use Gator, but I know a lot of people who do and really like it. Gator has to pay the rent somehow, and I don't see how a Gator popup could be any less annoying than those stupid Orbitz ads running on NYT.
posted by lee on 06/29/02 at 05:20 PM
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