Category: Personal

How is it that a major record label thinks that a crap band like Counting Crows is ready for a Greatest Hits package after only four records? The labels blame web downloads for the plunging sales but I say they ought to look in the mirror and blames the execs who make stupid decisions such as this.

Peeps go to the library: a very funny art project.

Didn’t work for Phillip MorrisAtria but Gator thinks it will work for them.

Sun thinks analysts can be hoodwinked

SCO, though, is just piling on to the auto-da-fe of their own creation.

Investment firm buys control of Atkins Nutritionals, the company that makes the Atkins Plan foods and supplements. Even though the current management team will stay in place, and have an equity position, one still wonders what changes will come.

Because past experience shows us the value: Pope Urges Prayer to Halt War, Terrorism.

This NY Times editorial laments the persistent refusal of cooperation from the Bush Administration as “a study in recalcitrance” though I would suggest the authors are not seeing deep enough into this bolt hole. I see it, rather, as another terrifying example of paternalism and creeping towards facism. I don’t own a tinfoil hat, even if that might make life easier, but to me the strongmen behind the Administration are much more interested in control than social issues and are simply riding the Religious Right as a useful hobby horse; if the goals were attuned then there would be little or no hesitancy in providing information to a man like Thomas Kean.

T. Coraghessan Boyle delivers an elegy for the Southern California fire disaster: “…the sun will shine, the wind will blow, your house will burn.”

All in favor of scientifically-enhanced bodies, raise your hands. Or open your ears.

The problem with abundance

People (including me) complain about spam, about the voluminous quantities of it, the frequency of the message being pornographic but lately I’ve decided that the real problem is that most spam is fraud. Out and out criminal fraud because there is no way to increase penis size or legally watch PPV movies without paying for them. So why do we need laws against spam when so many of the sleazes could be prosecuted on that basis?

Corporations are about making a profit, no doubt. But corporations are not, Supreme Court decisions aside people, but rather congregations of individuals. So then I wonder how these people so lose sight of reality as to push their corporate interests so ridiculously ahead of the good of their own country. The linked article discusses a current controversy over Boeing’s attempt to separate the federal government from an extra $6.5 BILLION by leasing some planes to the military rather than purchasing them up front. This is just symptomatic, though, of the ‘Every dollar must belong to me’ attitude so prevalent today.

For when you need an audio South Park fix.

Rob felt caca over the weekend, so you can tell he has small children.

I’m hot, tired, and my back hurts again/still no work/write when you have the music.

Because it’s never too soon: MS Longhorn Dev Center.

As usual with this irregular department, today’s Op-Art graphic, crafted by Steven J. Newman, is utterly incomprehensible. I applaud the Times’ Editorial Page editors for their attempts to move beyond the strictly linear and literal but wonder just what commentary we are intended to take away from such work.

This is very cool but an example of how much English has changed over the years; I can’t read it at all.

In present-day Russia, the politicians and oligarchs don’t seem to play nice together. The government would prefer, according to the Reuters article, to deal with foreign control than fellow Russians who pose a political threat. I’ve been paying a little bit more to this situation because one of the young Russian tycoons, Roman Abramovich, bought a team in the Premiership last Spring–he’s since spent well over US$150 million on new players for it–after seeing the writing on the Moscow wall and selling off his nearly $2 billion controlling stake in a big aluminum company. President Putin, if I might make a perhaps overly simplistic observation, seems to be having difficulty shaking off his KGB upbringing and helping his nation complete the transition to Western capitalism.

Can I get one shaped like, oh, a black five gallon hat?

Sadly, I don’t have the bunny inside. Don’t actually know anyone who does.