Category Archives: Etc

Since I'm in the UK on a slow link, here's a linkdump:

• Brad DeLong links to a cautionary tale about how Bush policies are fostering American decline.
• The NYT gets around to writing an explainer about how the Yee prosecution could go so wrong. Bottom line: bigotry and stupidity in the military, seasoned with unsubstantiated rumors produced by the FBI. Add prosecutorial incompetence, remove due process, and voila! The dark side of military justice is balanced by the sterling efforts of the lawyers representing incarcarated at Guantanamo.
• Want perspective. Try this story about Tihun Nebiyu, a seven-year-old Ethiopian girl being forced to marry.
• The German language apparently suffers from an English invasion, producing “Denglish”.
• Techie fun. Coke machine hacks and peronalized M&Ms and online PDF conversion tools, all via boingboing.
• News about the Open Office 2.0 preview release.

Seems that the study claiming parents lose IQ is in fact an urban legend . Not true. No such thing.

Similarly, the Washington Post thinks that the CBS documents probably aren't real either. Looks bad for CBS — if this isn't real it will go down with the Hitler Diaries scandal. Which means it's all been one great big disctraction from reality—as US News & World Report has been showing independently of the CBS docs, GW Bush's own account of how he met his service obligations just don't add up no matter how you try.

I was thinking about Linda Ronstadt's problems that resulted from dedicating an encore of her signature song to an American film maker. My personal muse, UPN (the muse of bad taste), came to me. Here is what we wrought:

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Remember the big blackout last August? What has been done to prevent another? Sadly, not much.

At the time of the blackout, I was living in Minneapolis. The media all reported that a blackout could just as well have happened to us because of the congestion in the transmission lines over the St. Croix river between Wisconsin and Minnesota. So, I got interested, even though all I really know about energy is that I get most of mine from Cuban coffee. (Those not in Miami, to buy Cuban coffee, check out Javacabana.com . )

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Every so often I have to admit that I'm never going to get around to writing useful comments on the links that are gathering dust in my saved folder. So here are some interesting things that I had planned to post about:

• Deserter: The Story of George W. Bush after He Quit the Texas Air National Guard
• Update: blocked sites for .mil websurfers
• Balkinization: Arguments That Make You Ashamed to be a Lawyer
• Two from Flablog: Well, maybe a few children left behind and More voucher scams
• Collaborative, open textbook
• Florida Senate Candidate Betty Castor has a blog . There's an interesting controversy about Castor's actions (or inactions) while president of the University of South Florida, in which she didn't try to fire a tenured professor, but did suspend him, when he was charged with helping raise funds for a terrorist group
• Newsweek reports on domestic military spying making its comeback

The Commencement Address is a very odd literary form. Here is a transgressive one, by the Daily Show's Jon Stewart (William & Mary '84) at his alma mater.

Our speaker at the law school this year was considerably less interesting.