EdDriscoll.com

Posted 10/10/2002 03:38:16 PM by Edward Driscoll
DID YOU KNOW that Terriam Gilliam (ex-Monty Python member, and director of Brazil) was planning to do a film version of Don Quixote? I didn't. But as Jennie Rose notes on Blogcritics, "all those who try to adapt the Cervantes story to film fail". However, as Rose also notes, they sometimes get a good documentary out of it...

Posted 10/10/2002 03:31:24 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE OMINOUS PARALLELS: James Pinkerton of Tech Central Station isn't the first to point out how George W. Bush seems to be following a similar governing style as Richard Nixon. We probably weren't the first either. But we have been concerned about it since the very early days of this blog.

Posted 10/10/2002 02:56:47 PM by Edward Driscoll
TREEHUGGER QUESTION: I just noticed this item in the San Jose "Murky News" story about the Earth First protester who died after falling from a tree:

Ward said the man was in his mid-20s and had recently come to Santa Cruz. He was homeless before deciding to join a tree-sit protest against Redwood Empire, Ward said, the San Jose-based firm now logging the approximately 50-acre site.

Does this mean that's he was no longer homeless since he found a tree to sit on? Since when did a tree, on land you don't own, count as a legal residence? UPDATE: H.D. Miller says that the Redwood Empire protester is nowhere near the record for a protester falling from a tree, and suggests that this could be a new category in the Darwin Awards. Someone should update the Monty Python "People Falling from Buildings" sketch to reflect this new competitive sport.

Posted 10/10/2002 11:24:39 AM by Edward Driscoll
"GOODBYE" UPDATE: Orrin Judd weighs in on Ron Rosenbaum's New York Observer essay on how he (sorta, kinda, almost, more or less) quit the vast left-wing conspiracy.

Posted 10/10/2002 10:49:08 AM by Edward Driscoll
THERE'S A NEW BLOG DEVOTED TO Northern Ireland politics and culture, called Letter to Slugger O'Toole. Click on over and check it out--Black Velvets are optional.

Posted 10/10/2002 10:45:06 AM by Edward Driscoll
HERE'S AN AP HEADLINE THAT'S GOOD TO SEE: "Bush Wins Key Support of Daschle".

Posted 10/10/2002 10:39:51 AM by Edward Driscoll
REPORTER INVESTIGATING possible Iraqi ties to the OKC bombing is meeting with Arlen Specter today, according to Stuart Buck. As Buck notes, considering we're planning to attack Iraq shortly, shouldn't this have happened sooner?

Posted 10/10/2002 02:42:06 AM by Edward Driscoll
BROADBAND could cause AOL's profits to plunge, according to a Merrill Lynch analyst.

Posted 10/9/2002 11:56:15 PM by Edward Driscoll
HUH? YOU WANT A SECOND SNIPER? I'm not sure if get this quote by Montgomery County Executive Douglas Duncan, as found in this AP report on the latest shooting in the Washington DC area:

The shooting occurred about 8:15 p.m. Over 100 law enforcement officials were scouring the area for clues, Deane said. Authorities blocked off several streets around the gas station and interviewed witnesses. "At this point, we cannot say if this case is related to those shootings," Deane said at a news conference early Thursday. Maryland investigators went to the scene of the killing because of similarities with the previous shootings, according to Montgomery County Executive Douglas Duncan. "Everything is very similar," he said, adding: "Let's hope this is not it."

What does "Let's hope this is not it" mean? Does this mean that Duncan wants there to be a second shooter? Wouldn't that just compound his problems? Or did the reporter mistype his quote--or am I misreading it?

Posted 10/9/2002 05:29:52 PM by Edward Driscoll
PETER SINGER UPDATE: Yes, everyone's favorite Princeton ethicist is back with more moral equivalence. Singer compares SUV drivers to the 9/11 hijackers:

Consider two aspects of globalization: first, planes exploding as they slam into the World Trade Center, and second, the emission of carbon dioxide from the exhaust of gas-guzzling sport-utility vehicles. One brought instant death and left unforgettable images that were watched on television screens all over the world; the other makes a contribution to climate change that can be detected only by scientific instruments. Yet both are indications of the way in which we are now one world, and the more subtle changes to which sport-utility-vehicle owners unintentionally contribute will almost certainly kill far more people than the more visible aspect of globalization.

Of course, it's tough to take seriously someone (unless you have to write your kid's tuition checks) who think it's OK to get frisky (yes--that kind of frisky) with Fido. (Link found the Wall Street Journal's "Best of the Web" column)

Posted 10/9/2002 04:54:03 PM by Edward Driscoll
SADDAM ACQUIRING "SUPER-GUN", according to the Independent News. This has long been an obsession of Saddam. I remember watching a PBS "Frontline" episode in the early 1990s on his earlier attempts, involving gunsmith Gerald Bull.

Posted 10/9/2002 03:54:39 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE PENGUIN WAS RIGHT! As he said in Batman Returns, "Forget global warming. Worry about global cooling! Man, I wish these guys would make up their minds. Global cooling was the hot environmental story in the 1970s. Then came global warming. Now we're back to global cooling. You'd think that worrying about the environment would too serious a business to leave to fashion. And you'd be wrong.

Posted 10/9/2002 03:35:27 PM by Edward Driscoll
THOSE DARN TVLEPS--THEY'RE EVERYWHERE! Joanne Jacobs says "President Bush may have lost support of a key group of Americans."

Posted 10/9/2002 03:26:45 PM by Edward Driscoll
DROPPING THE BALL: Joel Mowbray details how at least 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers should have been denied visas:

Even to the untrained eye, it is easy to see why many of the visas should have been denied. Consider, for example, the U.S. destinations most of them listed. Only one of the 15 provided an actual address � and that was only because his first application was refused � and the rest listed only general locations � including "California," "New York," "Hotel D.C.," and "Hotel." One terrorist amazingly listed his U.S. destination as simply "No." Even more amazingly, he got a visa.

Hard to believe that such incompetence is possible at a federal agency. Wait a second--no it's not.

Posted 10/9/2002 03:12:26 PM by Edward Driscoll
LARRY KUDLOW SUGGESTS that Bush should give a Cincinatti-style talk on the economy, and adds:

President Bush has been Reagan-like in his prosecution of the war on terror. But he has a long way to go on the economy if he is to meet the Gipper's domestic-leadership test. More than likely, it is the Bush economic team that is not developing the necessary pro-growth formula. There are some bright heads in the group, but they are offset by the meatheads. No good deed goes unpunished in this gang. But economic victory can still be rescued from the jaws of defeat. Rumors abound that the White House is now engaged in a job search to completely revamp its economic team. Market-savvy New Yorkers like Blackstone's Steve Schwartzman and the New York Stock Exchange's Richard Grasso might be on the list to replace the ineffective Paul O'Neill at Treasury. There are also some welcome plans for the post-Greenspan era at the Fed. With new leadership blood in place, a vigorous effort to bring significant growth back to this economy can begin.

Posted 10/9/2002 01:49:51 PM by Edward Driscoll
UP IN SMOKE: Good essay by Robert A. Levy on New York's Mayor Bloomberg and smoking and property rights in National Review Online:

To put it bluntly, the owner of the property should be able to determine � for good reasons, bad reasons, or no reason at all � whether to admit smokers, nonsmokers, neither, or both. Customers or employees who object may go elsewhere. They would not be relinquishing any right that they ever possessed. By contrast, when a businessman is forced to effect an unwanted smoking policy on his own property, the government violates his rights. That's the controlling principle. Private property does not belong to the public. Employing a large staff, or providing services to lots of people, is not sufficient to transform private property into public property. The litmus test for private property is ownership, not the size of the customer base or the workforce.

Posted 10/9/2002 01:44:43 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE BEST POSSIBLE COMEBACK: "Secretary of State Colin Powell merely smiled when told of singer Harry Belafonte's remarks calling him a slave who lived in the "house of the master," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Wednesday." UPDATE: Apparently, Bush is taking Belafonte's criticisms to heart. ANOTHER UPDATE: Powell spoke with Larry King tonight about the incident.

Posted 10/9/2002 01:30:55 PM by Edward Driscoll
SURPRISE ATTACK: Byron York says another Bush nominee got whacked by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Posted 10/9/2002 01:26:57 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE FIFTEEN MILLION DOLLAR MAN: Little Green Footballs reports that Saddam Hussein�s payments to families of suicide bombers and wounded Palestinians have reached $15 million�with the full knowledge of Yasser Arafat.

Posted 10/9/2002 12:11:28 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE WAY THINGS (DON'T) WORK: Glenn Reynolds (the InstaPundit) is travelling today, but his Tech Central Station column is online, and it's a good one, on poor design features of otherwise good products.

Posted 10/9/2002 12:06:34 PM by Edward Driscoll
VIRGINIA POSTREL HAS SOME THOUGHTS ON ANN COULTER, and finds that she's doing more harm to her cause than good.

Posted 10/9/2002 11:32:36 AM by Edward Driscoll
DEFINITIVE PROOF THAT IRAN REALLY WANTS TO RESUME TIES WITH AMERICA: They've barred CNN's Christiane Amanpour from entering the country.

Posted 10/9/2002 01:58:43 AM by Edward Driscoll
"WHATTYA REBELLIN' AGAINST?" "WHADDYA GOT?!" Andrew Sullivan files this cartoon under "Right-Wing Envy Watch", and adds, "Methinks Tom Tomorrow is jealous." Methinks Sullivan is right.

Posted 10/9/2002 01:45:45 AM by Edward Driscoll
THIS IS NOT YOUR MOTHER'S MOTHER OF ALL WARS: Melana Zyla Vickers looks at how US technology and strategy in the coming war against Iraq will differ from Desert Storm in this Tech Central Station article. (By the way, if you'd like a good introduction to how miltary technology and strategy have changed since Vietnam, this is a pretty good place to start, as well.) All of this is a good place to hang a micro-mini-screed I've wanted to get off my chest since early September, when I attended a wedding of two old friends of mine up in California's wine country. The bride's friends, whom we were seated with, were all 35 to 45 year olds with PhDs in science, biochemistry, and other lofty fields of study--and probably each have IQs off the chart. So I was astonished, in the midst of the stereotypical "Bush is such a dummy" talk, to hear something (I forget what) "is a contradiction in terms like"...wait for it--you know it's coming..."military intelligence". Groan! That line was a cliche when they were kids (I remember hearing Trapper John utter it in an early M*A*S*H episode from about 1972), and yet it's still being hauled out today, like an old, warn-out suit that needs its elbows patched and its lapels narrowed. How many more years of laser-guided weaponry, stealth technology, unmanned aerial vehicles, and other forms of advanced, computerized technology will we need before that old chestnut is retired? Or is that asking too much?

Posted 10/9/2002 12:17:53 AM by Edward Driscoll
GOODBYE TO ALL THAT: Ron Rosenbaum of the New York Observer explains "How Left Idiocies Drove Me to Flee". There are lots of good lines, but this one is particularly tasty:

Recently I saw the strangest documentary, a film with a title that sounds like a Woody Allen joke: Blind Spot: Hitler�s Secretary. It�s a New York Film Festival pick and well worth seeing, just for the example of willed, obtuse blindness on the part of the secretary when she claims that she was insulated from all the terrible things happening during the war. But even Hitler�s secretary�unlike Heidegger, unlike the knee-jerk anti-American Left�feels the need to make some gesture of dismay at her "blind spot" in retrospect. But not the know-it-alls of the Left, who have never been wrong about anything since they adopted Marxism as their cult in college. What would the harm be in admitting that one didn�t know as much at in college as history has taught us now? But noooo � (as John Belushi liked to say). Instead, we get evasions and tortuous rationalizations like the Slavoj Ziz^ek zigzag: This extremely fashionable postmodern Marxist academic will concede the tens of millions murdered by Stalin, etc., but it�s "different" from the millions murdered by Hitler, because the Soviet project was built on good intentions, on utopian aspirations; the tens of millions dead were an unfortunate side effect, a kind of unfortunate, accidental departure from the noble Leninist path that still must be pursued.

Posted 10/8/2002 10:16:34 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE THREE STOOGES: Such is the state of black leadership today that... 1. Louis Farrakhan thinks "our president is a threat to world peace" (which means, evidently, that he thinks Saddam Hussein isn't.) 2. Meanwhile, Harry Belafonte (whom Matt Drudge zings as being "best known for the international hit 'Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)'" thinks that Colin Powell, Bush's Secretary of State, is a plantation slave. 3. And of course, Al Sharpton thinks communist Cuba is Mayberry, RFD revisited:

"To my surprise, the best fried chicken I have ever ate in my life (outside of my mama's) was in Havana. Cuba is very clean, and the only crime you could openly see is prostitution. You don't see a lot of dirt and crime. People even leave their doors unlocked there. It reminded me of the deep, deep South in the 1950s, where everyone greeted each other as they walked by. Even the cars are from the 1950s. ...It was like stepping into Mayberry with Andy Griffith. I expected Aunt Bea and Opie to come running out any minute.

Gee, I guess I missed Barney Fife's torture chambers. Maybe they were cut out when the show went into syndication.

Posted 10/8/2002 09:55:35 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE USUAL LILEKS LINK:

The more these people whine about the need for UN blessing, the more I wonder whether they wouldn�t vote yes to a UN-levied tax on American paychecks - why, our �go-it-alone� tax policy must be enflaming the world, to say nothing of our �go-it-alone� highway system. And of our �go-it-alone� Apollo program in the 60s, well, the less said the better. Did we get a permission slip to leave earth and plant a unilateral boot on the Moon�s virgin soil? I don�t remember.

He ends on a classic as well:

If you believe that coalitions are always necessary, then the worst thing about the JFK assassination wasn�t the president�s death, but the possibility that Lee Harvey Oswald was acting alone. The Senators insisting on a coalition above all else are the left�s equivalent of the nutlog right-wing UN conspiracy crowd. The only difference is that Wellstone starts to worry if he doesn�t hear the black helicopters.

Posted 10/8/2002 08:28:24 PM by Edward Driscoll
WHAT WILL THE SAUDIS SAY? Ananova reports that DaimlerChrysler is planning to offer fuel cell cars next year. Of course, this concept is nothing new for our regular readers.

Posted 10/8/2002 05:29:31 PM by Edward Driscoll
AT BEST IT RHYMES: Let's say you're Steven Den Beste. Let's say you can't get to sleep. What do you do at 5:00 in the morning? You crank out a pretty good essay on why the EU is doomed to collapse over the weight of its own spending. And you'd be right on the money, too. Say, isn't this the sort of thing that eventually killed the Soviet Union? (Headline courtesy of that up and coming author, Samuel Clemens.)

Posted 10/8/2002 01:16:59 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE FINAL CUT: Don't expect a Pink Floyd reunion anytime soon, as Dave Gilmour prepares a solo album and DVD.

Posted 10/8/2002 11:33:46 AM by Edward Driscoll
JERRY BROWN, HOSS! I Love this bit, from James Lileks:

Later I was passing the TV and saw Jerry Brown debating O�Reilly. Brown�s default facial posture always seems to be android-calm, as if his internal systems are in Sleep mode, waiting for the cursor to move. O�Reilly was quoting a �60 Minutes� story about PLO - Iraq links; Brown responded that since the Saudis fund radical mosques, shouldn�t we invade them? Thank you! I thought; there�s my column. �The proper response to this is a big wide grin: capital idea, old chap; why not, indeed? Let�s go! Glad you�re on board. We can liberate those American-born women our craven State department refuses to help; we can take the oil fields, set the pumps on �gush� and flood the world with sweet, cheap crude. We can defund the radical mosques, disband the religious police, and build swingsets in the parks they use for public hand-choppings. As an added bonus, the West will occupy the most holy sites of Islam, so we can photograph, fingerprint, and possibly detain anyone who comes for a pilgrimage. Invade Saudi Arabia? Dude! You are so hard core!�

Of course, Brown would then respond by asking if you're with Lyndon LaRouche.

Posted 10/8/2002 11:26:57 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE QUICKER PICKERUPPER INTERNET: OK, so Nancy Walker would have sounded silly doing commercials for it, but Internet2 keeps on keeping on, and I have an article about them in today's Tech Central Station.

Posted 10/8/2002 11:20:45 AM by Edward Driscoll
TIME HAS COME TODAY (Sung to the tune of the Chambers Brothers' old chestnut): Dick Morris dissects the New York Times' bias, while Group Captain Mandrake Fisks the London Times over their disastrous article on the USS Kitty Hawk.

Posted 10/8/2002 02:18:30 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE ART OF TERROR: An essay by Charles Paul Freund of Reason magazine on the subject of, to paraphrase Hannah Arendt, the banality of artists who celebrate evil. For a flashback to our look at one them, click here.

Posted 10/8/2002 01:45:45 AM by Edward Driscoll
HOW TO REAM OUT AL DAVIS, the owner of the Oakland Raiders, and live. (Of course, it helps if you're Fred Biletnikoff.)

Posted 10/8/2002 12:27:48 AM by Edward Driscoll
SITE UPDATE UPDATE: I'm still fixing the odd broken link. If you come across one, please email me. Thanks!

Posted 10/7/2002 11:48:05 PM by Edward Driscoll
SHILOH BUCHER EXPLAINS WHY SHE IS NO LONGER A DEMOCRAT. (But the jury's still out on whether or not she's still Janeane Garafolo.)

Posted 10/7/2002 11:14:00 PM by Edward Driscoll
SITE UPDATE: You may have noticed a couple of minor changes to the site. Here's the scoop: When I first envisioned this site last February, the Weblog was only going to be one part of it. Unfortunately, because it was the home page of the site, it quickly became the site's most dominant feature. In order to place it a bit more in perspective, I had long wanted to add a cover page, ala Virginia Postrel's site (her site, along with Glenn Reynolds', were the two main prototypes for this one). I think it also looks kind of classy, and explains the site to a new visitor. Unfortunately, because HTML is not my greatest skill, creating such a cover page, along with a new banner for the cover, took a backseat while I cranked out a variety of articles this summer. So over the weekend, I finally put all the pieces together, created a cover, adjusted all the links on the site (I hope!) to account for it, and ftp'ed the whole shebang up tonight. And along the way, I changed the search page from Pico Search, which needed regular manual updating to Google, which gets bonus points because...its Google. If you're a regular reader of this 'Blog, you might want to update your Favorites folder, or the links on your own Weblog, to http://www.eddriscoll.com/weblog.html. Or leave 'em the same--the Weblog is just a click away from the home page.

Posted 10/7/2002 10:48:09 PM by Edward Driscoll
GREAT VINTAGE TOM WOLFE PIECE: From 1987, "The Intelligent Coed's Guide to Socialism". (Link via ParaPundit.)

Posted 10/7/2002 08:37:55 PM by Edward Driscoll
We'll be doing some changes to the Website tonight--don't be surprised if we hiccup a few times along the way.

Posted 10/7/2002 08:37:44 PM by Edward Driscoll
FUDGING THE FACTS: Ever hear of an "a high-powered assault hunting-type weapon"? Me neither. But that's just one distortion and mistake contained in information released to the media to encourage public assistance with finding the the gunman who killed six people last week in the Washington, D.C., area.

Posted 10/7/2002 03:11:23 PM by Edward Driscoll
INSTAPUNDIT DOES TIME TRAVEL, with video footage of Tom Daschle on Iraq in 1998 and now, and tracking down the Independent's coverage of Bush's Iraqi speech, six hours before he makes it! Where's George Pal these days? I gotta get one of those time machines, too!

Posted 10/7/2002 02:07:27 AM by Edward Driscoll
HAPPY FEET: "Limping pensioner had �600,000 of cocaine in his shoes" (Found via VodkaBird, who's busy preparing for "another nipple-hardeningly cold Scottish winter." Funny, winter doesn't sound all that bad when described like that!)

Posted 10/7/2002 01:47:00 AM by Edward Driscoll
12 ANGRY MEN is Roger Ebert's latest choice for his "Great Movies" series. Ebert's essay is very perceptive, with some interesting stuff about Sidney Lumet's lens and composition choices, and how they build tension in a film photographed entirely (except for the last shot) in one room--the jury room.

Posted 10/7/2002 01:18:15 AM by Edward Driscoll
HOW THE INTERNET BROKE: Wonder why your surfing was so choppy this past Thursday? Wired explains all. Fortunately, through it all, the Flash-driven Miniature Golf site held up like a champ.

Posted 10/7/2002 12:27:40 AM by Edward Driscoll
KEEPING SCORE: What happens when economist Friedrich Hayek goes head to head with movie goddess Salma Hayek? Let's get reeeeeeaadddddy to rummmmble!!!!

Posted 10/7/2002 12:11:51 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE GREAT SOUTHPARK MAJORITY: As found on Tech Central Station.

Posted 10/6/2002 07:59:49 PM by Edward Driscoll
BODY COUNT: German socialist journalist Thomas von der Osten-Sacken says that since 1979, Saddam Hussein has killed more than a million of his own people. So why do we keep seeing articles like this?

Posted 10/6/2002 07:50:06 PM by Edward Driscoll
I'VE LONG BEEN A FAN OF CHICAGO, a wonderful city and home, or adopted home of Mies van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright, "Da Bears", countless electric blues musicians, Mike Royko, etc., etc. So it was more than a little disquieting to read this:

CHICAGO REQUIRES DISCLOSURE ON SLAVERY Chicago's City Council voted to require all companies doing business with the city to reveal any past "investment or profits from the slave industry." This is really just the first step from a bunch of devout racists and professional victims from demanding slavery reparations, but if companies admit to past involvement in slavery and are penalized in someway, it would certainly count as extortion. I hope businesses decide to leave Chicago and layoff their Chicago-resident workers instead of participating in this racket.

Amen.

Posted 10/6/2002 06:51:34 PM by Edward Driscoll
QUOTE OF THE DAY: "If life hands you lemons, they make great missiles when studded with nails and frozen solid."

Posted 10/6/2002 05:27:22 PM by Edward Driscoll
GOOD DAY FOR BAY AREA FOOTBALL: The 'Niners crushed the hapless Rams, and the Raiders blew out the pretty good Bills. Speaking of hapless, the Steelers are still struggling, as well.

Posted 10/6/2002 04:14:30 PM by Edward Driscoll
BLOGCRITICS: I just added a list to my essays page of all of my Blogcritics reviews and essays. I'll try to keep it updated regularly, as I do seem to have posted a fair amount of stuff there in the past month.

Posted 10/6/2002 04:07:11 PM by Edward Driscoll
IF JONAH GOLDBERG EVER WANTS AN ELECTRIC GUITAR...he ought to bid on this little number available now on Ebay.

Posted 10/6/2002 03:22:28 PM by Edward Driscoll
WELL, NO NEED TO SEE THE NEXT JAMES BOND FILM: 007 has apparently been reduced to nothing more than a mineral water drinker. I feel so depressed, I feel like making a pitcher of Vespers.

Posted 10/6/2002 02:11:39 PM by Edward Driscoll
IRRELEVANT IRRITANTS: Robert Bov� looks at the antiwar Left in New York. I think this paragraph really nails it:

The antiwar crowd is making the mistake the generals are supposed to make: fighting this year�s war with the last war�s tactics. And the irony is that the current generation of college students apparently pays as much attention to their leftist professoriate as the latter did to their Western Civilization profs thirty years ago. Armed forces, intelligence services and law enforcement recruiting figures rose dramatically right after 9/11 and continue strong.

Bov� adds that "The roar of F-16�s over New York Harbor has, for the time being, if not entirely, muffled their voices rendered them squeaky, as if they�d taken one too many hits on nitrous oxide." I have no problem with careful thought and dissent given to government actions. Indeed, what is conservatism and libertarianism, and even classical liberalism, if not just that. But it's painful to see the same tired cliches dug up from 1968, especially when there's a 16-acre smoldering crater in downtown New York.

Posted 10/6/2002 01:52:25 PM by Edward Driscoll
U.S. PREPARING POSSIBLE TRIAL OF SADDAM, according to Ha'aretz. No word yet if Spencer Tracy will be presiding.

Posted 10/6/2002 01:24:19 PM by Edward Driscoll
NEW YORK VS. DC: There's a debate raging on The Corner on National Review Online about which is the better city, New York, or Washington, DC. Having spent time in both (and worked and gone to school for a while in Manhattan), my money's firmly on New York. But if DC cabs don't automatically have a tape-recording of Elmo or Michael "LET'S GET READY TO RUMMMMMMBBBBLE" Buffer telling you to buckle-up every time you get in the cab, I'm willing to give them a couple of bonus points. (I once asked a New York cabbie if the messages rotated, or if they hear the same celebrity safety announcement all day. Apparently, it's the latter--and I really do pity the poor cab driver who has to listen to Elmo all day.)

Posted 10/6/2002 01:17:09 PM by Edward Driscoll
FUN WITH FIDEL: Joanne Jacobs wants to know if a 12-year-old seventh grader who went to Cuba on a choir trip, write a letter praising Fidel to the San Francisco Chronicle, or is someone cooking the books?

Posted 10/6/2002 12:01:01 PM by Edward Driscoll
FLY THE FRIENDLY SKIES OF BIGGLES, courtesy of Group Captain Lionel Mandrake. I don't think dual-use aircraft is such a bad idea, myself. The New York Times five or six years ago, had an interesting article at how easy it was to convert UPS cargo planes to fairly comfortable weekend charter flights by merely rolling the seating in on pallets--which could then be rolled out when the plane goes back to cargo humping during the week. Oh, and finally, don't forget, coming next week---"Biggles Dictates a Letter"!