EdDriscoll.com

Posted 7/27/2002 01:13:31 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE HIGH WIRE: Stanley Crouch of the NY Daily News says Sharpton just can't get off it:

Those are the elements of a Sharpton performance. He takes the high ground too infrequently - and too frequently proves himself addicted to standing before TV cameras and microphones. Even the idea of backing away and letting things settle down appears beyond him. His inflated rhetoric and willingness to appeal to the true believers who see everything in terms of black victims and white conspirators keep the prize of serious recognition beyond him.

Posted 7/26/2002 11:24:31 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE GREATEST SHOW ON TURF RETURNS: Super Bowl loss isn't haunting Rams, who have 20 of 22 starters returning. The Rams are one of the reasons I'm happy we purchased the DirecTV Sunday Ticket package. If any other games are blow-outs, the Rams are always fun to watch--kind of the like the high-powered offenses of the Cowboys in the 1970s and the Chargers of the early '80s.

Posted 7/26/2002 04:55:09 PM by Edward Driscoll
PUNK MEETS THE GODFATHER, BUT WHO'S WHO? Elliott Marc Davis, who tipped Little Green Footballs off about Noam Chomsky’s expensive capitalist tastes, has been carrying on an email exchange with Chomsky himself, with often (unintentionally) hilarious results!

Posted 7/26/2002 04:39:47 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE LOVE SONG OF J. ALFRED TRAFICANT: Found this in an email sent to me a few minutes ago:

"Am I different? Yeah. Have I changed my pants? No. Deep down, you really want to wear wider bottoms, you're just afraid."--Rep. James Traficant during the debate over his expulsion on the House floor.

T.S. Elliot, call your office...

Posted 7/26/2002 03:40:41 PM by Edward Driscoll
MICHAEL JACKSON, CALL A FINANCIAL PLANNER! (Actually, the reverse is true. If I were still doing financial planning, I'd probably use this article as exhibit one about how a celebrity's assets can go to hell--and beyond.) Check these paragraphs out:

for the first time we can see how Jackson came to be in such tremendous debt. For example, there is the widely discussed loan against the Beatles catalog. According to Lee, it was he who arranged for Bank of America/Nations Bank to loan Jackson $140 million in 1998. The bank required Jackson to put up his portion of Sony/ATV Music Publishing, which was then valued at $272 million. In the middle of 1999, Lee says Jackson told him he'd gone through the $140 million and needed more money for his divorce settlement.

How does one man (person? eunuch? space alien?) go through $140 mil in a single year?? Coming soon: The MC Hammer/Michael Jackson bankrupted former multi-millionaire superstars tour!

Posted 7/26/2002 02:21:32 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE AUSTIN POWERS/ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI CONNECTION REVEALED, on Tres Producers. OK, it's really, really, really, really, really tenuous, but I did get a kick out of this paragraph:

The vague details of a plot are now coming into focus: the buffoonery; the mangled language and logic; the social ineptitude; the insistence on defending himself although he is neither a lawyer, an American, nor (apparently) possessed of half a brain. Is it all a very clever defense strategy by real al Qaeda mastermind Sheikh Z. Moussaoui? The brains behind the operation, smooth operator, and international man of mystery?

Posted 7/26/2002 01:22:26 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE NEW YORK SUN IS NOW ONLINE! (Thanks go to InstaPundit for pointing it out.) I'm glad to see them online. My wife and I had a real challenge actually tracking down a hard copy of it during our last trip to New York. Hopefully when we go back next time, their circulation will have grown that much more. God knows the Times needs the competition!

Posted 7/26/2002 12:55:02 PM by Edward Driscoll
NEAR DEATH WEIGHT-LOSS EXPERIENCE: Seeking a new image, New England Patriots offensive coordinator Charlie Weis nearly lost his life.

Posted 7/26/2002 12:50:53 PM by Edward Driscoll
TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN: Ryan Leaf calls it quits.

Posted 7/26/2002 11:41:23 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE VIBRATOR POLICE: Matt Drudge links to an article about a Tampa Bay woman who is suing Delta for $15,000 because they allegedly "took her to the bag on the tarmac and forced her to open it 'and remove the adult toy and hold it up for visible view.'". The article goes on to say:

One side of the plane's passengers witnessed the scene, the lawsuit says, as three male Delta employees nearby "began laughing hysterically" and offered "obnoxious and sexually harassing comments." After being forced to hold the item up for a minute, the suit says, Koutsouradis was allowed to re-pack and return to her seat for the flight to Tampa.

Now, leaving the batteries in the thing was dumb. But Delta's treatment was dumber. As is this quote by Michael Boyd, an airline planning and security consultant from Colorado, said embarrassing incidents have become more common with increased security by all airlines since Sept. 11. Uh, I thought we wanted to encourage folks to travel, not humiliate them. Hey, isn't that one of the reasons Norman Mineta gives for why we can't profile folks?

Posted 7/26/2002 01:55:03 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE FENDER FORUM: A new forum for fans of Fender guitars and amps, from the folks who brought you the Les Paul Forum. Stop on by there, today!

Posted 7/25/2002 08:14:32 PM by Edward Driscoll
IF YOU WANT TO GET DOWN, DOWN ON THE GROUND: Cocaine led to death of Who bassist John Entwistle. (Link via The Brothers Judd Blog.)

Posted 7/25/2002 07:55:18 PM by Edward Driscoll
DISCOVERY WINGS: I don't know if many cable companies have added this channel, a spin-off of the Discovery Channel, but the Discovery Wings channel, which basically consists of 24 hours of their assorted excellent Wings series is lots and lots of fun. Via DirecTV, I'm currently watching their episode on the role of the Marine Corp's Harrier jets in Desert Storm (which hopefully is also a nice preview for their role in The Mother of the Mother of all Wars, coming soon to a Baghdad near you). I'm not a real airplane buff, but the shows are usually so well structured and edited, that this network is highly recommended if you have DirecTV, or its on your local cable channel.

Posted 7/25/2002 07:45:57 PM by Edward Driscoll
BIG WHEELS ROLLIN', MOVIN' ON: Cold Fury has some News, Views, and Random Cursing on what it's like to drive an 18-wheeler, and deal with crazed automobile drivers everyday. The whole post is excellent, but I particularly love this one:

7) This one is so obvious, I still can't believe the number of people who simply refuse to do it. So I'll put it in caps and throw in some profanity for emphasis, to make sure you remember: USE YOUR F**KING TURN SIGNALS, YOU G****MNED DOPE. It's truly difficult for me to comprehend why, but nobody does this anymore. What in the name of all that's holy is so difficult about this? Are you arthritic and find it hard to move your hand the 3 or 4 inches required to activate the little lever? Is the signal lever in your car hooked up to a half-ton of bricks in the trunk, therefore requiring the strength of an unshorn Samson to move the few millimeters required to activate those pretty blinking lights? Perhaps you belong to a heretofore-unknown sect of militant Islam that advocates bringing on the Jihad by fomenting Terror On The Highways? Whatever, just use the damn things. Make it a habit - it's not a hard thing, I promise. I can't react to whatever boneheaded move you're planning and maintain a safe distance between 80,000-pound me and 4,000-pound thee if you don't at least give me some hint of where you're going.

I don't know if it's a Silicon Valley thing, or if American driving schools in general have gone to pot, but since moving to California five years ago, I can't believe many drivers never use their turn signals. It's just astonishing.

Posted 7/25/2002 04:34:22 PM by Edward Driscoll
JFK ENVY: Excellent post by H.D. Miller on his Travelling Shoes Weblog about the dangers of presidential candidates emulating JFK. I think that compared with the liberals who followed him, Johnson, Nixon(!), Carter and Clinton, Kennedy was an OK guy, and a reasonably conservative Democrat (despite what Bill Clinton and Oliver Stone would like you to believe) whose rep has gotten knocked into the stratosphere because of his assignation. (I once bought a 1960 Mort Sahl comedy album in a used bookstore, and it was interesting to compare how similar he thought Nixon and Kennedy were, and how exceedingly average he thought both were, long before one was shot and the other embroiled in Watergate). It is interesting how desirable a pre-fab image is to a presidential-wannabe in the era of television. And of course, Kennedy, his handlers, his follicular genetics, and barber essentially created the concept of "the television-friendly politician". (Marshall McLuhan spent thousands of words on this topic--amazing how out of everything he wrote in the 1960s, his ideas on television-friendly politicians are one of only a handful of his concepts that live on--often unknowingly by those who embrace them--to this day.) And yet, Americans will embrace a maverick, quirky personality, if they feel that that man embraces their interest. As Miller notes, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, and the Bushes all have unique styles, and all were successful at presidential politics. One comment though. Miller writes:

While there have been scores of politicians who've done a good job of JFK mimicry, there are no politicians who've managed to successfully evoke the memory of Reagan. It's apparently not possible to do.

It's not. And this is not something we want to encourage. Al Gore looked absolutely ridiculous made up in Reagan-style ruddy colors during the first presidential debate. And while I'm glad if it contributed to his defeat, the amount of therapy required by voters on both sides of the isle was considerable, and is still being calculated. (Link found via the Brothers Judd Blog.)

Posted 7/25/2002 04:06:56 PM by Edward Driscoll
LILEKS UNDERSTANDS: One of the many gulty pleasures of my mispent youth were taco-flavored Doritos. James Lileks understands what it's like to be addicted:

Doritos came along in early childhood. One flavor: Taco. That was it. How they reproduced the flavor of lettuce I'll never know. They were brownish and delicious and capable of producing acne in truly amazing quantities, even if you ground them up and inhaled them. But Taco was just the warm-up; in the late '70s, I think, Doritos rolled out Nacho Cheese, and Taco didn't stand a chance. Now and then I see a bag; I buy them, eat them, wash them down with Mr. Pibb and curse progress in all its forms. Taco flavor failed because it gave too much. It cared too much. Every bite was bursting with chemicals. Nacho Cheese, on the other hand, was indifferently dusted; the amount of Nacho particles varied from batch to batch. Why? Why not douse every Dorito with Nacho flavor? Was there a strike in the Nacho mines, and production had halted? Had the Nacho Cartel cut back on supply to boost the price? Then you'd buy a bag that just plain got it right -- your hand would wear a furry orange Nacho mitt after a few dips in the package. You could only imagine that some employee had fought his way into the control room, duct-taped the engineers to their chairs, commandeered the machinery and set the Nacho dials to 11 while his captives gaped in horror: Good Lord, man! American palates cannot handle that amount of savory Nacho flavor! "I say they can! I strike this blow for under-Nachoed mouths across this land!" Then the next bag would be back to normal. (Recently Doritos relabeled their bags "Nacho Cheesier!" as if to say "sorry about the insufficiently flavored machine-formed corn triangles." Apology accepted.)

He's right. If ever a snack food cared too much, it was taco-flavored Doritos. (Later on, I discovered they go very...interestingly with Martinis. Especially when watching The Harder The Come in your appartment at 1:00 in the morning.)

Posted 7/25/2002 03:43:20 PM by Edward Driscoll
LEAVE IRAQ: The Aussies have been warned.

Posted 7/25/2002 03:16:30 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE NO-FUN LEAGUE: Kids selling drinks and cookies booted out of Redskins camp.

Posted 7/25/2002 03:12:47 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE RUBIN FALLACY: Excellent analysis of Robert Rubin's tenure as Treasury Secretary during the infamous Clinton versus Republicans budget standoff by Patrick Ruffini.

Posted 7/25/2002 03:01:29 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE JONAH "AXE" GOLDBERG/ISAAC HAYES CONNECTION REVEALED: Start here, watch the video clip (warning kids: definitely PG-13 rated), scroll up for theme song.

Posted 7/25/2002 02:49:35 PM by Edward Driscoll
IT HAS BEGUN: FOXNews.com is reporting that "Ailing Man Sues Fast-Food Firms". Hopefully "big hamburger" won't cave as fast as big tobacco did when faced with these suits, and the rest of the insanity that goes with them.

Posted 7/25/2002 02:25:13 AM by Edward Driscoll
FIVE POTENTIAL BLOCKBUSTERS THIS COMING NFL SEASON, according to DallasNews.com's Rick Gosselin. (Registration may be required.)

Posted 7/25/2002 02:21:12 AM by Edward Driscoll
ARE THE 49ERS PRIME TIME PLAYERS? John Clayton of ESPN.com says first they must solve the Rams' puzzle. TERRELL OWENS UPDATE: Skip Bayless of the San Jose "Murky News" has some thoughts.

Posted 7/25/2002 02:10:53 AM by Edward Driscoll
NASTY BREAKING SCANDAL IN PERU, according to Rod Dreher on The Corner Weblog on National Review Online. Dreher writes "former President Alberto Fujimori forcibly sterilized 200,000 (!) poor women as part of a population control plan. This human-rights horror was partially paid for by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which the Bush Administration is refusing to fund."

Posted 7/25/2002 02:06:51 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE ZIMBABWE VIRUS! Very, very scary details found on Mad Musings of Me. Link found via Group Captain Mandrake. I wonder if Apples can be infected... UPGRADE UPDATE: Speaking of Apples, Joanne Jacobs is tapping out her typically excellent Weblog on a snazzy new iMac. Silicon Valley thanks you for stimulating the economy!

Posted 7/25/2002 01:42:29 AM by Edward Driscoll
GREIL MARCUS, POSEUR, according to Andrew Sullivan. Having seen the commercial in question about five times in two hours of watching DirecTV tonight, I'm with Sullivan--trying to implicate Dubya's role in American culture via a Subway ad is one helluva stretch.

Posted 7/24/2002 10:21:27 PM by Edward Driscoll
NEGROPONTE GROKS 802.11: The director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab says that the wireless technology is behind a sea change that is developing worldwide in the telecom industry.

Posted 7/24/2002 09:56:22 PM by Edward Driscoll
PREMIERE KISSOFF IS ON THE PHONE WITH THE REPOSSESSORS, AND HE'S HOPPING MAD! Pejman Yousefzadeh says that the Russians are withholding some of their top fighter jets from air shows for fears that they will be seized by creditors.

Posted 7/24/2002 08:24:11 PM by Edward Driscoll
ROBERT RUBIN RECONSIDERED: Excellent letter from a reader to Andrew Sullivan.

Posted 7/24/2002 08:21:03 PM by Edward Driscoll
TELL ME SOMETHING I DIDN'T KNOW: InformationWeek has an article whose headline is Book Business Keeps Amazon Afloat.

Posted 7/24/2002 07:38:54 PM by Edward Driscoll
WAY TO GO AP: It's rare when you see stuff like this in newspaper articles, so I'd like to give Associated Press some congratulations for getting something right. Buried at the end of an article titled "Woman Arrested in California Wildfire", were these two paragraphs:

Thomas Bonnicksen, a forest science professor at Texas A&M University and a national sequoia expert, said mammoth fires that have burned nearly four million acres this year in Western states should sound a warning to environmentalists whose opposition to forest management have allowed the undergrowth to proliferate. "My only hope is that this threat to a national treasure will make people understand that the forests have to be managed," Bonnicksen said. "The sequoia is one of the most durable trees in the world, but it cannot resist this kind of fire -- it's too hot."

Posted 7/24/2002 07:25:16 PM by Edward Driscoll
HOUSE EXPELS JIM TRAFICANT. AP says:

Representatives voted 420-1 to remove the nine-term Democrat for taking kickbacks from employees, encouraging the destruction of evidence, soliciting bribes and other gifts from businessmen and filing false income tax returns. A federal jury in Cleveland convicted Traficant of all of those offenses in April. The expulsion takes effect immediately.

UPDATE--this is perfect:

The only member who voted against expulsion was Rep. Gary Condit, a California Democrat who was defeated in a reelection bid this year after being romantically linked to a missing federal intern.

Posted 7/24/2002 02:04:27 PM by Edward Driscoll
NOAM CHOMSKY, CLOSET CAPITALIST: Little Green Footballs looks at some of Chomsky's larger acquisitions. To paraphrase another famous radical, imagine no possessions, indeed!

Posted 7/24/2002 01:59:13 PM by Edward Driscoll
TOXIC GREEN: Jeff Stier, an attorney for the American Council on Science and Health plans to use a little political jujitsu against a California organic foods company for violating state law.

Posted 7/24/2002 01:23:21 PM by Edward Driscoll
ANOTHER REDESIGN: James Bowman's Website gets a redesign. It's very clean and handsome, but I'll definitely miss the Bowman-as-Sterling Hayden-as-Gen. Jack Ripper photo that used to be on every page!

Posted 7/24/2002 01:10:57 PM by Edward Driscoll
CATS AND DOGS, PART II: Eric Alterman agrees with Podhoretz.

Posted 7/24/2002 01:08:57 PM by Edward Driscoll
HAMAS KILLS ITS OWN: John Podhoretz is right on the money. UPDATE: Here's Steven Den Beste's take on things.

Posted 7/24/2002 01:04:46 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE MOUTH THAT BORED: The 49ers' Terrell Owens is at it again.

Posted 7/24/2002 01:02:17 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE DOW IS UP AND DONAHUE'S DOWN: Sanity returns to America, if only briefly.

Posted 7/24/2002 12:56:09 PM by Edward Driscoll
WHO'S OUR QB? The Cincinnati Bengals face their annual riddle.

Posted 7/24/2002 12:51:21 PM by Edward Driscoll
MERE ALCOHOL DOESN'T THRILL ME AT ALL: Protein Wisdom links to a New York Daily News article about Al Sharpton's alleged use of high-powered white powder--and I don't mean his barber's talcum powder. UPDATE: Sharpton files $1 billion libel suit against HBO.

Posted 7/24/2002 12:34:07 PM by Edward Driscoll

THE ANTI-CHE! Bitchin' pro-capitalism products now available from Patrick Ruffini!

Posted 7/24/2002 12:27:50 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE DASCHLE EXEMPTION: Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle quietly slipped into a spending bill language exempting his home state of South Dakota from environmental regulations and lawsuits, in order to allow logging in an effort to prevent forest fires, according to this Washington Times story. Hopefully he'll get it, so that every state will as well.

Posted 7/24/2002 11:30:35 AM by Edward Driscoll
EVER SPARK UP A DUBER? Forget about joining the FBI, no matter how talented you are, according to this post on Instapundit.com

Posted 7/24/2002 11:28:02 AM by Edward Driscoll
POST AND RUN: VodkaPundit makes a surprise guest appearance in the Blogosphere, in-between house guests, wedding plans and de-balling and de-clawing his cat.

Posted 7/24/2002 11:12:00 AM by Edward Driscoll
THERE ARE WORSE WAYS TO GO: Pa. Man Dies in Vat of Chocolate.

Posted 7/24/2002 10:51:19 AM by Edward Driscoll
CATS AND DOGS LIVING TOGETHER: The Brothers Judd defend David Corn, editor of that far left house organ, The Nation.

Posted 7/23/2002 11:00:07 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE FAT TAX IS COMING, says Jonah Goldberg in his syndicated column.

Posted 7/23/2002 04:18:37 PM by Edward Driscoll
MEDIA BIAS EXHIBIT A: Brent Bozell looks at the changing image of Larry Klayman as he goes from suing Clinton to Cheney.

Posted 7/23/2002 04:07:54 PM by Edward Driscoll
"BUT OFFICER, I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING!" The Tampa Tribune has an article about cops pulling motorists over for a light-rail survey. They claim it's perfectly legal, but I'll bet they got some choice responses from their interviewees.

Posted 7/23/2002 03:55:16 PM by Edward Driscoll
SPURRIER'S SECRET: Unlike Marty Schottenheimer, the new Redskins' coach is breaking in footballs, rather than breaking players' balls in his first NFL training camp as a head coach. Will Spurrier's approach work? See you in September...

Posted 7/23/2002 03:48:28 PM by Edward Driscoll
SIMON VERSUS DAVIS UPDATE via The Brothers Judd Blog.

Posted 7/23/2002 03:39:30 PM by Edward Driscoll
SONGS THAT MAKE THE WHOLE WORLD SICK: Tim Blair has some examples of the worst in songwriting on his eponoymously-titled Weblog. Links via The Blogger Formally Known as Sgt. Stryker. Incidentally, the article that used quotes from my interview with the Sarge can be found here.

Posted 7/23/2002 03:33:02 PM by Edward Driscoll
HOW TO BLOG IF THE WEB GOES DARK: Survival instructions from The Truth Laid Bear. Link found on Group Captain Lionel Mandrake's Weblog.

Posted 7/23/2002 03:29:36 PM by Edward Driscoll
FCC SAYS HIGH-SPEED INTERNET SUBSCRIBERS SOAR, according to this Reuters piece. And here's James Glassman's recent piece on broadband.

Posted 7/23/2002 03:15:22 PM by Edward Driscoll
WIFI METRO POSSIBLY "WINDING DOWN". I've written before about WiFi Metro, the company who created wireless Internet "hot zones" in several blocks of Palo Alto and San Jose. Its parent company, hereUare is on the block. If no buyer is found, the article says that WiFi metro could "wind down" and close up shop. Link sent to me by Glenn Fleishman, the proprietor of the 802.11b Networking News Weblog.

Posted 7/23/2002 03:11:19 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE OTHER WIRELESS FORMAT: I just discovered (via the 802.11 Networking News Weblog), that there's a Bluetooth Weblog! While 802.11 has gotten the lionshare of recent publicity, due to its flexibility and ability to work over fairly large distances, Bluetooth is a short range wireless format that may have a variety of office and home automation uses (for example, sending data wirelessly to printers, and that sort of thing). If you need a technology fix, stop by The Bluetooth Weblog!

Posted 7/22/2002 11:53:55 PM by Edward Driscoll
FATHER KNOWS BEST? Reason looks at John Walker Lindh's parents--nonjudgmental open-mindedness taken to its very extreme.

Posted 7/22/2002 08:44:26 PM by Edward Driscoll
SHORT THE NEW YORK TIMES, says this post by Jane Galt.

Posted 7/22/2002 08:29:00 PM by Edward Driscoll
EX-MARINE, EX-U.N. WEAPONS INSPECTOR HAS GONE OFF THE DEEP END, says Travelling Shoes, in an excellent post found via the Brothers Judd. "For whatever reason, [Scott] Ritter, who I briefly thought was one of the good ones", H.D. Miller writes, "has become a serious crank, one who can be safely ignored." Read the whole post to see a stunning transformation in action.

Posted 7/22/2002 04:11:39 PM by Edward Driscoll
SAN FRANCISCO MAN'S FLAGS ANGER PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT: Foxnews.com says Ed Yee was fined $5000 for putting American flags in flagpoles in Little Italy. The public works department cited him for "defacing" more than 70 light poles and fined him $5,000. the Fox News article had this wonderful quote:

"You just can't go around and start sticking things you know anywhere you want," said Mohammad Nuru, deputy director for the San Francisco Public Works Department. "This city will not tolerate that."

Umm....errr.....it won't? San Francisco?? Where people come all the time to stick things anywhere they want? Hey, irony can be pretty ironic sometimes. (Link found on Flyover Country.)

Posted 7/22/2002 02:40:05 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE IRAN-AGENTINA CONNECTION? The New York Times reported today that Iran bribed Argentina's then-President Carlos Menem $10 million to cover up an anti-Jewish bombing in 1994. (Not suprisingly, the report was rejected by both Iran and Menem's family.) Here's what Reuters says:

Argentine and Israeli security services have long blamed Iran for the car-bomb attack on a Jewish center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people. Victims' families also blame the Menem government for failing to find culprits beyond a car thief and policemen who provided the vehicle and are only now on trial. Two years before a bomb razed the Argentine Jewish Mutual Aid Association, a strikingly similar attack hit the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29 people.

UPDATE: Matt Drudge says "Former Argentine President to Sue NY TIMES over Iran/Bribe Story; Says 'Defamatory' and Politically Motivated..."

Posted 7/22/2002 02:29:12 PM by Edward Driscoll
THAT CAGEY OLD CAGE: If we remain silent, the terrorists may or may not have won, but we'll definitely owe John Cage thousands of dollars in royalties.

Posted 7/22/2002 01:11:30 PM by Edward Driscoll
TOBACCO ROAD: Bruce Bartlett looks at the reasons why high cigarette taxes are worse than the effects of smoking, in National Review Online.

Posted 7/22/2002 12:42:08 PM by Edward Driscoll
BEWARE THE ECONOMICS TEACHER WHO DOESN'T UNDERSTAND HIS SUBJECT, says Joanne Jacobs in Tech Central Station. Back in the early to mid '90s, when I was doing financial planning, I can't tell you how many new clients would say something like "man, I never learned that in school", when I explained the basics (and I do mean basics) of the stock market, investing, the long term record of the DJIA, mutual funds, etc. Jacobs' article explains why.

Posted 7/22/2002 11:44:22 AM by Edward Driscoll
STARSKY AND HUTCH, CROCKETT AND TUBBS, AND OTHER COPS WITH COOL WHEELS have nothing on these guys.

Posted 7/22/2002 10:52:52 AM by Edward Driscoll
INSTAPUNDIT GOES HIGH-TECH!

Yep. I'm typing this on an Altair 8080 in Electric Pencil. I'll upload it to my BBS (new 1200 baud modem! it's blazing fast!) where dozens of people will see it. Then I'm putting on my white suit and going dancing to the sounds of Evelyn Champagne King.

My TRS-80's modem is only 300 baud. No wonder that Insta-guy can crank out posts so quickly! But disco, like totally sucks, dude. At least he didn't mention anything about roller-skating.

Posted 7/22/2002 10:48:01 AM by Edward Driscoll
NOW THIS IS JUST SILLY: The Washington Times says that the Forest Service ordered removal of poles flying the American flag. (By the way, sorry for the lack of posting this weekend. Much time was spent cleaning out the garage (which was starting to resemble the Xanadu storage rooms at the end of Citizen Kane) and getting the home ready for some much-needed improvements and renovations.)