Via Neat New Things:Library Journal – The Case of the Disappearing Article On March 2, 1998, TIME magazine ran an article on the public’s reaction to President Clinton ordering air strikes against Iraq. “Selling the War Badly” had a sidebar by George Bush Sr. and his National Security Advisor, Brent Scowcroft. Titled “Why We Didn’t Remove Saddam,” the sidebar, an excerpt from their book A World Transformed, laid out the reasons Bush decided not to send forces on to Baghdad in the 1991 Gulf War. This passage gives the gist: Trying to eliminate Saddam…would have incurred incalculable human and political…
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Via Joi Ito: A week after a scandal broke involving photos of American troops torturing Iraqi prisoners, Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown, & Root is pulling the plug on private electronic communications with the folks back home, apparently at the request of the Department of Defense. Uh, oh, I’ve been reading ginmar for a while and was wondering what the fallout might be for her after the photographs of prisoner abuse story broke. It’s nothing to do with her unit, but the issue of boots in the field having access to “non-military” channels of communication (in order to post personal reports…
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We’re staying in Moab one more night. There’s so much to do here and we decided it was worth it. Not only is the scenery devastatingly gorgeous, there’s pretty good food to be had – I think there must be a lot of foodies that relocated here for the recreation and stayed to start restaurantes. Last night we ate at the Center Cafe which turned out to be a little oasis of good food, wine, and ambiance off of the main touristic drag. Tonight we tried the ultimate test of a town’s cuisine; we went to the local Chinese restaurant.…
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You know, for a hotel/motel that seems to cater to the outdoorsy/mountainbike/cool dude demographic, there sure seem to be a lot of screaming kids and barking dogs. There’s a big deposit for pets in the room, which someone seems to have paid, and I’m not sure but I think the screaming kids and barking dog are all in the room next to us, which adjoins ours and thus has no soundproofing to speak of owing to the connecting door. All I’m saying is there’s a whole lot of squabbling, screaming, and barking going on. David says they’re in one of…
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CTG is unhappy with his seating arrangements, and doesn’t get to go out on hikes, either. He gets to stay back in the room when we go out for gourmet meals, too. Not too happy a camper is Crash Test Goofy, but then he’s only along for the ride. Sending pictures to the blog is interesting, but not easy to do without a few more things set up in advance. Also, damn Verizon and their stupid added advertising text. That’s the first thing that’s going to get macroed out of existence as soon as I get some decent access. Tonight…
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Road Trip! Crash Test Goofy says goodbye to his pal MooPunk before leaving for two weeks on the road. CTG will not be driving on this trip because his license was suspended long ago, because frankly his record was shockingly bad. Strangely, no one was ever hurt. Crash Test Goofy will try to send photos of himself from the road, possibly with latitude and longitude information and short, snappy updates. Okay, that was interesting. My first attempt at getting the moblog to work, and it sent to the main entry. I thought when I set it up that it would…
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And finally, because I was fooling around with Elements just now, here’s the diaper cake that my niece and sister took to a baby shower a few weeks ago when we were visiting in March. I’m sorry, I’m just really glad to be childfree when I consider that people actually spend time and creativity and thinking up gifts like this… and giving them. I mean, really. Ewww. On one level, it’s really cute and quite pretty, and and a clever way to give a practical gift. On another, let’s all dress up the poop and pretend it doesn’t stink. It’s…
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Hey, it’s Last Thursday, let’s go to the Gallery Opening! When I lived in Seattle, First Thursdays of the month were the night people went downtown and went to the art galleries, which were open late and full of crowds looking at the latest works of art, photographs, and blown glass. The artists would be standing there, ready to chat with anyone who wandered up, with a plastic glass of wine in hand. The gallery openings were almost always free and often very crowded, and they were great ways to get out and about for very little money. It was…
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Boing Boing: Patriot Act designed to protect Patriot Act by preventing challenges to it to be made public Patriot Act Suppresses News Of Challenge to Patriot Act By Dan Eggen Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, April 29, 2004; Page A17 The American Civil Liberties Union disclosed yesterday that it filed a lawsuit three weeks ago challenging the FBI’s methods of obtaining many business records, but the group was barred from revealing even the existence of the case until now. The lawsuit was filed April 6 in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, but the case was kept under seal to avoid…
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We’ve had a spell of very windy weather, and it looks like there finally might be a storm coming. For 3 days now, we’ve had high, warm winds blowing steadily from the West. Until yesterday the skies were clear, but today it’s steadily gotten greyer, and the clouds are starting to pile up on one another and look like something’s about to happen. We haven’t had much rain, so I haven’t put out the other two rain barrels; I need to get some blocks to raise them up abot a foot or so, and also they would just fly away,…