BillSaysThis

Following up on the news reports that President Bush’s popularity is finally waning according to current polling, NY Times columnist Frank Rich takes the open shot and scores. In Joe Millionaire for President Rich notes many of the ways in which Bush and his cohort have the bait-and-switch down to a routine. Reminds me greatly of this week’s episode of Law and Order, in which the defense attorney attempts to slip the question of guilt right past the jury by waving a blue and white flag in front of their eyes. Almost, but not quite, too late the prosecutors realize what’s happening and explain to the jury why they should not fall for this magician’s trick. Rich does the same with his essay and one can only hope it opens a few more eyes.

Most obvious: San Francisco 49ers head coach. Mariucci got the boot but Holmgren cannot get out of his Seatlle deal. I’m a lifelong football fan, and have subjected the Niners’ efforts to rigorous analysis for the last six seasons.

William J. McDonough, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, today announced his retirement. I have an MBA in finance, real world experience in lending, insurance, investments, and technology plus I used to work across Maiden Lane from their office building so I know how to get there in the morning. Word to the hiring team: I believe that a little inflation is a good thing as is a lot of operational transparency.

A job that would have been suitable, but is apparently already filled, is Chairman of AOL Time Warner. Seriously, I have a great blend of experience in online technology and the written word. I’ve been a customer of HBO since they first began mass marketing it in the early ’70s and am a huge Sopranos fan. I’ve even worked closely with AOL previously, during the whole iPlanet not-quite-a-joint-venture Sun/Netscape Alliance thing. Hard to understand that the board could move so quickly to give Richard Parsons a second job when I have none.

Reality check: Uggh! I’ve been looking for work for too long if I’m starting to have these fantasies. I am pursuing some leads at Oracle, Google, Ariba, and Sun (as a contractor), to name a few, so perhaps something good will come along soon. Keep your fingers crossed and drop a line if you can help.

No sooner do I put up a summary than Jacksonville, probably hoping to avoid any press headaches over Mariucci speculation, names Jack Del Rio as their new head coach. The team is also expected to finalize Baltimore Ravens scouting director Phil Savage as the new GM. Del Rio was an outstanding middle linebacker in college at USC and in the pros with the Saints and Vikings and, in his first year as a defensive coordinator anywhere, took the Carolina Panthers defense from last to second best in the league.

On the Mooch watch, latest rumor is that he will take his SF severance of $2.25M for the coming year and relax, spend time with his kids, and perhaps do some television commentary. All the NFL openings this year, less his last perch, are closed now unless the Saints or Lions make a move. Although the Mercury News sports section was filled with talk of Mike Holmgren wriggling out of his contract in Seattle to reunite with his old boss Bill Walsh and take the Niners job. Mooch could head north to Paul Allen’s team, kind of a swap. Some Green Bay fans are posting to message boards that the team should dump Mike Sherman and grab Mariucci given Sherman’s playoff record but you know that ain’t gonna happen.

Team	Old Coach	New Coach
Dallas	Dave Campo	Bill Parcells
Jacksonville (coach)	Tom Coughlin	Jack Del Rio
Cincinnati	Dick Lebeau	Marvin Lewis
Detroit	Marty Mornhinweg	Marty Mornhinweg (by the skin of his teeth)
San Francisco	Steve Mariucci	TBD
Jacksonville (GM)	Tom Coughlin	TBD
Seattle (GM)	Mike Holmgren	TBD
Arizona (GM)	Bob Ferguson	Rod Graves
New Orleans	Jim Hazlett	Jim Hazlett (so far…)

Detroit was a hotbed of speculation and you have to wonder if owner William Ford is just to cost conscious to pull the trigger while still owing so much money to Millen and Mornhinweg; next year should be a very different story if the can’t get the Lions up to seven or eight wins. New Orleans, I think, is still a possibility for a change depending on how the playoffs, Jacksonville, and SF shake out. Hazlett for sure has to make the playoffs next season to keep his job.

Updated 1/16: Jacksonville named Del Rio as coach. Speculation is Baltimore Ravens scouting director Phil Savage will be named the new GM this weekend.

I knew it, I fucking knew it! Mariucci was fighting a winless battle and he was shown the door today by the 49ers! Regardless of his record the past two seasons, the disloyalty Steve Mariucci showed the organization last year combined with the ridiculous job he did against Tampa Bay Sunday was too much for ruling triad John York, Terry Donohue, and Bill Walsh swallowed the $2.25 million owed for the last year of his contract.

At the conference announcing the news, Donohue claimed the break point was Mariucci’s demand to be named vice president of football operations–in other words, more control over the team–and this was not something the triad was willing to give. After hearing about this from reporters, the ex-coach said he was stunned and had never made such a request. In any case, he’s free to head on down to Jacksonville for the only other current vacancy, no compensation owed to the 49ers. He might face some stiff competition for the job from Panthers defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio (an outstanding linebacker in his day at USC!) and Pittsburgh offensive coordinator Mike Mularky, both of whom would command less pay and ask for less control from an owner who wants to bring in a strong general manager after eight years of allowing Tom Coughlin to run everything.

Who will the Niners turn to? They claim to have no short list and will launch a thorough search but speculation is already focusing on Denny Green, who’s probably had enough fishing by now, and current defensive coordinator Jim Mora Jr., who learned from one of the best, his dad. Wonder if he would bring Sr. in as DC if he gets the gig. Or maybe we’ll see the third coming of Bill Walsh? Nah.

In a semi-related note, the Bengals announced Marvin Lewis as their new head coach. Lewis is the third African-American HC and the first Bengals coach not promoted from within in 23 years. He’s long wanted, and deserved, a shot at running a team. But seriously, the Bengals? Are they actually an NFL team or just football’s version of the Washington Generals? Lewis will have to be a real wizard to reach even the six win plateau in Cincinnati. Given Lewis’ defensive pedigree, could his hiring be a godsend for previously rumored to be a lock number one pick USC QB Carson Palmer? Will Lewis push for a potential defensive superstar instead? We’ll find out April 26. The Washington Redskins, losing their DC for a fourth straight year, promoted linebacker coach George Edwards to replace Lewis.

And on this day 36 years ago, the Green Bay Packers beat the Kansas City Chiefs in the first Super Bowl.

Aaron Swartz has posted his tips for book authors. Aaron is an awesomely intelligent teenager but sometimes he gets out ahead of himself. I sent the following to him as an email after reading his tips. Remember, I’m a real published author, have worked for a publisher as well, and know the darkness that is this industry. Still, Aaron is pretty far off the mark. His original material here is emphasized.

Once you’ve recouped the cost of creating the book (and potentially the cost of writing your next one) please donate it to the public domain (i.e. give up your copyright).

I don’t quite get your point here. For starters, we live in a capitalist society and so just recouping cost is not the way things work here. What about profit? Is an author or composer entitled to that? I do hope you do at least include living expenses in your concept of cost so that authors don’t have to wander aimlessly from friendly blogger loft to loft each night seeking a place to sleep and jack in to upload their latest creation. Looking at creative work from a different angle, I doubt your friends Lessig and Doctorow live hand to mouth and turn down money from their publishers (though I’m sure they are both generous and give of their time as well, not knocking them).

The copyright system was created only to increase the size of the public domain; please don’t cheat the public by taking more of it than you need.

Really? I thought the system was created to ensure creators would make their works available to other people and structured so that there is compensation rather than just what the RIAA would call piracy. Not that I’m a fan of the RIAA but authors (and painters and musicians, etc.) do need a mechanism to reward and encourage their efforts. I don’t think Lessig and Doctorow believe they are cheating the public.

And don’t tips 3 and 4 sort of conflict with each other? Steven King tried the read and donate model recently but couldn’t make it work and stopped releasing chapters of that book; if one of the bestselling authors is unable to be successful what makes you think anyone can? Similarly, how many bloggers who’ve posted donate/Amazon Honor System on their websites have actually received a single dollar?

Okay, let’s just mark this down to the enthusiasm of youth. Overall, the tips do reflect idealism rather than an understanding of the way the (technical) publishing market really works.

Though not power so much as ability to cause gales (or at least a single gale) of laughter. Some anonymous doof posted to Google Question a request for sleazy information on Princeton economics professor/NY Times columnist Paul Krugman. So, in Your Questions Answered, Krugman decided to pick up the $100 offered himself.

More seriously, Google is facing a lawsuit from a sleazy company called SearchKing over changes to SearchKing’s PageRank. Which is what SearchKing sells, so bad for them. LawMeme analyzes as Google replies to SearchKing’s filings.

After a few years as a young wizard directing episodes of TV shows and one acclaimed TV movie (Duel), Steven Spielberg made his break for the big time in 1974 with this based on a true story movie, The Sugarland Express. Goldie Hawn has the featured role; her participation was key to getting the picture greenlighted by the studio (who wanted a big name) but she wanted in to show that her acting chops were not limited to romantic and other comedies. Because one thing’s for sure: this ain’t no comedy.

No, this is a serious film about two young people who get caught up in a chain of events from which there is no turning back. Hawn plays Lou-Jean and William Atherton her husband Clovis. Lou-Jean is just released from a few months in prison and Clovis, who she’s come to visit, has four months of his year left to serve. Their baby Langston, though, has been taken away by Child Welfare, permanently, and this Lou-Jean cannot accept. So she’s come not to visit Clovis, but to bust him out. Escape successful, they hitch a ride with another inmate’s parents, steal the car when their elderly driver is stopped by a highway patrolman (Michael Sacks), and then take the patrolman hostage and drive off in his patrol car to get their son.

Clovis and Lou-Jean’s journey is the stuff of tragic legend, doomed from the start. Only two small town 25 year olds who’d never been to the big city could even begin to believe that the authorities (as embodied by Texas Department of Public Safety Captain Harlin Tanner, played by the old cowboy Ben Johnson himself) would allow them to end up taking a little baby to Mexico. (Sugarland is a little town south of Houston not far from the Mexican border.) So they drive on and on to where they think the boy is, followed by an endless caravan of police cars and news reporters, holding Patrolman Maxwell Slide at gun point. The ending sort of foreshadows, say, Thelma and Louise, with its dirt and water and mass of chasers.

Like any good drama, there are light moments that cut through the tension, bringing temporary release. Momentarily disengaged from the chase, hiding for the night in an RV, the two lovers watch a Roadrunner cartoon at the drive-in next door through the window; a TV crew pulling up next to the truants for an on the move interview has its tires shot out by frustrated cops; denizens of the next to last town on the route hold a parade down Main Street with them as the central float, passing in toys and good wishes.

Spielberg shows the natural touch with relationships, image framing, and pacing here that everyone finds out about in his next movies: Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Raiders of the Lost Arc. He doesn’t need explosions (well, one small one when some wanna-be cops try to shoot up our protagonists) or drag racing-type challenges (okay, again, just one at the beginning of everything), just simple movement used as a framework for drilling deeper and deeper into the psyche of our two lost souls. The relationship of the three youngsters (the patrolman is only nine months on the job, more or less the same age) evolves as the time and intensity of emotions moves on; several times Slide says things that show he too is young and naive, willing to give his life if necessary to stop anything worse from happening, but wise enough to try time and again to talk his captors into surrendering.

Recommended

Rumors have been floating here in the Bay Area for weeks that 49ers coach Steve Mariucci needed to go deep in the playoffs to get the kind of contract extension he wants out of upper management. The coming season will be Mooch’s last on his current contract, leaving him in a nasty lame duck limbo, and pays him a below average $2.2 million to boot. The papers are reporting that he wants in the $3.5-4M neighborhood for four or five years that seems so fashionable this year.

But of course the Niners did not go deep in the playoffs and instead showed a lack of depth in losing yesterday. A lack of coaching creativity for sure, which confirms for me that Mariucci doesn’t have what it takes to bring another Vince Lombardi Trophy to Candlestick Park. In last week’s comeback against the Giants, the key to victory was loosening up on both sides of the ball, no huddle with lots of motion on offense and blitzes and last minute movement on D. Yet even after the team fell behind early yesterday, the coaching staff stayed in a shell and the result was predictable. The wasted drive at the end of the first half was emblematic of Mariucci’s coaching and why he should leave.

Team owner and his (current) coach are expected to meet tomorrow to talk about the negotiations for a new deal. Might it also be the meeting at which York informs Mariucci that the most he can hope for is an extension for $2.5M for two years? How would Steve react to that?

On the other hand, rumors also say that the possibility of Mooch coming available is why Jacksonville has not yet hired a coach and oppositely why Denny Green, who is salivating over the Niner job, withdrew from consideration there.

Arrrgggghhhhh!!!!!!

Evan and I decided to kill an afternoon downtown yesterday at the 2003 San Jose International Auto Show. You can see some of what I liked in a new photo gallery. Too bad Evan couldn’t fit into either of his first choices, the Nissan 350Z or the Ford Thunderbird, but that’s one of the drawbacks of being so tall.

Cool cars: Saleen S7, Nissan Murano, and the always hot Acura NSX.

Odd cars: Toyota Scion bbX and ccX.

Overall, not as exciting as one would hope. Lots of nearly identical SUVs. There are no more plain sedans anymore, there are only sport sedans except at the very high end. The timing of the San Jose show has to be questioned since the biggest show of the year, in Detroit, is also being held this week and that means all the good concept cars are unavailable. (The Times has a good write up) What, they couldn’t hold this off for two or three weeks?

The Detroit Lions have hired Bobby Williams (fired as head coach at Michigan State just before the end of their season) to replace Maurice Carthon as running backs coach. Carthon went to the Cowboys as offensive coordinator.

Speaking of the ‘Boys, Sean Payton has come on board as assistant head coach and running backs coach; he was the Giants’ OC but left after Jim Fassel took away his playcalling duties midway through this past season. Parcells may give Payton the playcalling job in Dallas, as the new guy was building quite a rep until the first games went awry.

Dave Campo, Parcell’s predecessor, has joined the Cleveland Browns as defensive coordinator. Which was clearly a need the way the team’s defense collapsed last weekend against the Steelers. Campo worked with Browns head coach Butch Davis at Dallas and the University at Miami. Foge Fazio, a solid oldtimer, took the fall for inexplicably calling a prevent defense on the last two Steeler drives.

Cincinnati and Jacksonville are still looking for new head coaches (and Jax a GM) but at least the Bengals might be getting close. The reportedly are down to a choice between ex-Jag Tom Coughlin and Redskins DC Marvin Lewis. I hope they go with Lewis, though I hate to wish that job on anyone.

eWeek gives the new version of my last product worked on a moderately positive review: Sun Application Server Reborn. I’m happy for my friends still there, still drawing those big Sun paychecks. Good luck, amigos.

I saw a couple of films the last few days and am just writing briefs for completeness. Never did that for Sweet Home Alabama, which I saw at dollar night, but that was just so bad it would be wrong to even bother.

From 1965, The Ipcress File was a quite good example of a small sort of Cold War spy story, though it seems quite dated to me now. Not just because the Cold War ended so long ago but because the film itself, while probably quite out in front of things when made, has been done to death in the 38 years since. Michael Caine stars in the first of five movies as Harry Palmer, based on novels written by Len Deighton. Palmer is an agent for a branch of British Military Intelligence, a trickster working there to avoid jail for swindling German soldiers, and his mission here is to ransom a top scientist whose been kidnapped.

Harry Saltzman produced the movie(s), he also co-produced the then new James Bonds, and I believe he saw this character as a potential franchise as well though the Palmer films never came close to the financial success of 007. In many ways Palmer is the anti-Bond: cheap old car, no special equipment, dingy office shared with a half dozen other agents, always rumpled. Very cool where the Bond films are filled with heat. Though one can’t fault Caine, he was quite good but handicapped by working with a so-so script (the novel was much better) by two guys who never wrote any other films and a mediocre director in Sidney Furie.

Moderately interesting

From 1999, All the Rage is a strange little artsy movie about people who’s lives are ultimately ruined by handguns. Some of the stories are a little more interesting than the others but writer Keith Reddin and director James Stern dilute the effect by having so many subplots and then needing artificial means to connect them together. The actors are all pretty good but they don’t have enough to work with. The IMDB page linked to the title has a good audience summary, so I’ll skip it here. Let’s just say I had a difficult time buying David Schwimmer and Andre Braugher as a gay couple but that may be due to the fact that I cannot unerstand how Schwimmer ever got work as an actor in the first place. Gary Sinise, on the other hand, is terrific playing a Bill Gates gone Howard Hughes weirdo.

Not recommended

I’ve been thinking about writing this Crankytorial for a few days now, first thinking I should, then thinking, no, it’s too obvious. But in the end I think I need to get it out.

What the fuck do President Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, or whoever think they’re doing with this so-called economic stimulus plan? The economy is still in the dumper and I am far from the only person who’s been looking for work for more than a year now. And what does the Ruling Trio propose as the centerpiece of a plan to start making things right? $300 billion in tax cuts for the ‘investment class’!

Zimran ‘Winterspeak’ Ahmed wrote in his weblog that he can’t understand why anyone would be opposed to this particular change, using as his launch point what I thought I was a very insightful column by economist Paul Krugman. Krugman focused on the politics while Ahmed, a student in the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago who regularly publishes such economic commentary, takes a more purist economics approach: double taxation of dividends is bad because it distorts corporate behavior by causing executives to choose stock buybacks as a way to return profits to investors. So I had a little exchange with him via email, with my main point being that eliminating taxes on dividends entirely does not remove this distortion, it only changes the bias from favoring buybacks to dividends; unfortunately our discussion got caught up in politics.

I wasn’t the only correspondent Ahmed had, so he followed that original post up with another today. In this post, he seems to agree with my point regarding equalization of taxes on capital gains and dividends but doesn’t go so far as to state that the Bush proposal should be defeated. However, he continues to ignore the political dimension (which is what I meant by ‘purist approach’) and that means he doesn’t go far enough to judge if this is a good way to deprive the federal government of so much money; Ahmed does agree it will not stimulate the economy.

Scott Herhold, writing in yesterday’s Mercury News, looked at Who gains from no tax on dividends?. He pointed out that if the change is implemented, executives like Oracle CEO Larry Ellison will be able to take home millions (in his case, perhaps hundreds of millions) of dollars per year tax free. And still retain the 1.4 billion shares of Oracle he owns. Let’s see, I own 400 shares of Microsoft and (from the option package I got from NetDynamics) about 4800 shares of Sun. If each company were to pay the 20 cents/share/year that Herhold mentions, I would start raking in a huge $1,040 a year tax free. Add to that the big $300/year I already get in dividends from 200 shares of Verizon. Ooh baby, that sure makes up for no job! That’s sure to stimulate some spending on my part in, oh, two years when the difference in my taxes shows up in my pocket. Herhold also includes a suggestion from some shmoe he interviewed that actually makes a lot more sense to me if we want to eliminate double taxation of dividends: “allow the corporation to deduct what it pays in dividends on its corporate tax return — thus treating all stock the same.” To be honest, I’m a little surprised Ahmed didn’t include this option in his considerations.

So where do we find some help for the economy in the near term, and not just a political payoff riding the back of this urgent need? Unemployment is harsh, states are running around trying to figure out how to control deficits that are simply unreal (California, for example, is facing a $35 billion shortfall, which is about one third of it’s budget), and the Administration seems to be gearing up to drop an additional $50-200 billion on war with Iraq. Bob Herbert chimes in with a very relevant column in today’s NY Times: Jobless, and Stunned. I love his opening line, shows why he writes for the Times and I write for this website: “Left behind by the great Republican raid on the national Treasury are folks like Karelia Escobar and Joe Bergmann, middle-aged New Yorkers who have worked most of their lives but now find themselves traveling the anxious paths of the long-term unemployed.”

The Bush team is starting to put out some spin on this proposal today, in any case. The elimination of dividends isn’t so simple or pervasive as critics are making it out to be. Dividends will only be tax free to the extent that the corporation paying it was profitable in the year; if Company X makes a $100 million profit and pays $35 million (the top rate) in taxes, then it can pay up to $65 million in dividends but anything over that will be taxable to shareholders. If a company files a tax return claiming it lost money for the year (not including taxes paid to foreign gvernments), any dividends it pays are taxable since this would not be a situation where double taxation comes into play.

Further, if the company decides to retain some of the earnings to invest in itself, the unpaid amount can be declared as ‘deemed dividends’ and shareholders can add the amount to their cost basis, reducing the capital gains when the stock is finally sold. So shareholders in companies that have a loss (in a given year) but still pay dividends will still be taxed on those payouts at ordinary income levels. Preferred stocks have become very complex in recent years and the treatment of their dividends is even more twisted.

The AP reported that Bush made a staged appearance today at a flag company to defend his plan (more spin. The President claimed that attacks on his plan were class warfare, which is a nice soundbite but not very meaty; he never actually denied that most of the direct benefits to individuals will go to the very well off. In fact, his comments seem to suggest that giving the money to these people will cause them to expand their business (adding jobs) and increase personal spending (adding jobs). I think we saw this kind of thing before, 23 years ago. Ronald Reagan rode his Supply Side Economics to the White House but our current president’s own father called this what it is, Voodoo Economics (before swallowing his pride to become VP).

Didn’t work then, doubt it will work now. I don’t see how this proposal helps the economy in a significant way. Thanks GWB.

As reported by the Washington Post in House GOP Softens Its Ethics Rules, the Republicans in Congress aren’t even waiting or bothering to disguise their avariciousness! Only eight years ago, when the party rode it’s laughable Contract with America into legislative power, the House passed rules minimizing certain types of open bribery. Now, seizing the moment, they’ve voted (on a pretty straight party line basis) to remove these rules. Just like so many of the same politicians who were so hot for term limits in the ’90s–when they were on the outside–are now saying that experience counts and so they should continue to run. How typical!

Arizona owner Bill Bidwell decided that Dave McGinnis was still his man as head coach even after a two and a half year mark of 13-28 but that general manager Bob Ferguson, offensive coordinator Rich Olson, and defensive backs coach Kevin Ramsey are no longer useful. Bidwell elevated Ferguson’s right hand man Rod Graves to vice president of football operations (i.e., GM with a fancier title) which figures into the key question down in the land of the Sun: Will the team will offer quarterback Jake the Snake Plummer, an unrestricted free agent, a new contract.

And over in Dallas, Bill Parcells made his first hire by hiring Maurice Carthon as offensive coordinator and retaining Mike Zimmer as defensive coordinator. Carthon, of course, was the star fullback on Parcell’s two Giants Super Bowl squads and was running backs coach for him at the Patriots and Jets. Zimmer was defensive coordinator this past year for dethroned coach Dave Campo and has been a Cowboys coach since 1994.

p.s. A little late reporting this change but last week Seattle owner Paul Allen gave Mike Holmgren a choice–give up the general manager job or resign altogether. Holmgren looked at that $4 million per year contract, looked around at the possible landing slots, and wisely chose to keep his coaching office. Reportedly, the Jaguars are going to replace Tom Coughlin by separating the two jobs. Which means that I was spot on when I said the era of one man being both GM and head coach is probably coming to an end. Smart move.

While there was some superlative news on the football front over the weekend (all four NFL games ended as I desired, plus the USC Orange Bowl demolition), other news has been less than overwhelming. This morning, therefore, has not been as cheery as one could hope. Then along comes this article in DP Review [via garret] to give a laugh. One of those small world things.

IBM has been pushing its (reasonably well earned) business expertise in an ad campaign over the past few weeks. Those UBA (Universal Business Adapter) ads and the like. In which their competitors are accused of using magic business beans to give customers the illusion of tech success, but only the illusion (for example, the last line of dialog in one of the current TV ads is along the lines of “You have to put in another quarter.”).

So IBM, looking to focus more closely on service-oriented lines of business, made a deal to sell of most of its disk drive business to Hitachi. That deal just closed and Hitachi announced a cool new product (discussed in that DP Review article), a 4GB version of the MicroDrive. The MicroDrive is about one inch on a side and fits inside Compact Flash Type II slots, useful for very mobile devices like PDAs, digital cameras, and the like. And these drives use Pixie Dust, known technically as antiferromagnetically coupled (AFC) media, which adds a thin layer of ruthenium to the platters inside a drive and allows more data to be packed onto each platter. IBM even got a patent for the pixie dust tech!

So I’m sitting here this morning thinking pixie dust, magic business beans, hey it’s all good. Who cares if you can’t tell the difference between maketing bullshit and marketing bullshit?

OH YEAH! NINERS! NINERS! NINERS! For once we were not on the losing end of a huge fourth quarter comeback. Garcia was the man, with Owens putting things over the top. Giants defensive back was also key to our victory with two consecutive incredibly stupid penalties at the end of the game. Finally, the the Giants could not keep things together for a simple field goal to win the game, second bad snap of the game for Trey Junkins. To make it all the sweeter, I got to call my Giants fan dad and taunt him afterwards.

I just had one of those excruciating episodes that every programmer comes up against every so often. Particularly those of us with less than perfect vision. When one character somewhere in a long file (or possibly worse, a set of files) is missing, incorrect, or just a smidge out of place and because of how perfectly computers adhere to what is in the source file, all the billsaysthis.com pages were not displaying correctly. Finally, just before tearing my hair out, I was going over the styles using a very helpful piece of software called IE Booster and I noticed that all my styles were not listed (IEB has a function called Show Stylesheets). A closer examination of my stylesheet showed me that one style had a closing parenthesis “)” instead of a closing curly brace “}”; that was enough to make Internet Explorer stop reading in the stylesheet and therefore it never got to the styles that were needed for proper display. Argggghhhhh!!!!

By the way, there’s a new version of IEB out that’s even more useful than the version that solved my problem. If you work with web pages, you owe it to yourself to check it out. Thanks Dirk.