Unqualified Offerings

Looking Sideways at Your World Since October 2001

Archive for January, 2008

Thursday, January 31st, 2008

A Sinister Foreign Influence

It’s the old US-Israel story of a country whose own best interests are subverted by the unnatural control its supposed ally exerts on its decision-making. Tony Karon explains.
But Schiff also makes clear that, plainly, the Israelis had no idea what they’d signed up for, which is why, as Winograd concluded, they waded into battle without [...]

Thursday, January 31st, 2008

The funeral will feature midgets dancing around a miniature Stonehenge

By Thoreau
Abu Laith al-Libi, the number 3 guy in Al Qaeda, met a fate similar to that of numerous other Al Qaeda number 3 guys and spontaneously combusted.  (It actually happens all the time, it’s just not widely reported.)

Thursday, January 31st, 2008

Footballblogging

The corrupt and decadent Redskins organization may interview Steve Mariucci. Local radio blowhards were snarking about this a couple days ago: “Get used to losing!” one said. This is stupid. (Ref: Pro Football Reference.) Mariucci won 59% of his regular-season games during six seasons in San Francisco. He made the playoffs four times and advanced [...]

Wednesday, January 30th, 2008

Trial Lawyers Are Responsible for Fat (Mostly Unread) Booklets Containing this Kind of Crap

By Mona
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Was just given a gift of a fancy Motorola cell phone. On page four under the subject “Use and Care,” the User Guide says:
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Don’t try to dry your phone in a microwave oven; and
Don’t drop your phone.

If one needs to be advised of either of those points, one [...]

Wednesday, January 30th, 2008

Threadwinner!

By Thoreau
Will wins the thread:
How do we know that the Bush Administration didn’t commit this act, very be simply, it was actually pulled off. If Bush & Co were behind this the Twin Towers would still be up & the whole operation would seriously behind schedule & tens of billions of dollars over budget.
Bravo!

Wednesday, January 30th, 2008

Sometimes it’s Torture, and Sometimes it Ain’t, But (Royal) We Decline to Clarify Further

By Mona
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Waterboarding, that is.
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And so legal sometimes, and not others.
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So sez our Attorney General, Michael B. Mukasey, in a letter to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. But he isn’t inclined to share with the Committee under what circumstances waterboarding is licit, and declines to provide any further [...]

Wednesday, January 30th, 2008

DON’T GIVE THE TSA ANY IDEAS!

By Thoreau
As a libertarian, I generally do support the right of consenting adults to do whatever they want without hurting others.  However, I would argue that serving as inspiration for the TSA’s inevitable Next Big Idea is a negative externality.  I therefore oppose this new concept in aviation.

Wednesday, January 30th, 2008

Even your emotions have an echo, in so much space

By Thoreau
Friend of the blog Jennifer has ventured into the world of 9/11 Truthers and written a nice report on her travels. She observes (correctly) that it’s almost impossible for the educated layman to know what to believe. Hell, even I don’t know enough about the physics of melting steel to give an [...]

Wednesday, January 30th, 2008

Microsoft Evil After All

I’m pretty much in the tank for Office 2007, especially Excel and Outlook. The unfairly maligned Fluent interface is fantastic once you climb the learning curve. But, unless I’m missing it, the productivity programs still, all these years later, lack a “Save to Backup” feature. If I’m working on an article called “The Big Waste” [...]

Tuesday, January 29th, 2008

Pilon On

La Rana, in comments Chez IOZ:
FISA is too antiquated to deal with modern technology, but that shit Locke said about foreign affairs, well that is like totally applicable to communication packets.