MetaFilter

Attorney General John Ashcroft sings (sort of) "U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft ended a speech at a Charlotte, North Carolina seminary with a rousing rendition of a song he wrote called 'Let The Eagles Soar'' (Not safe for work unless you really want to annoy your coworkers)
comment posted at 12:39 PM on Feb-28-02

Shoplifters Of The World, Unite And Take Over! An interesting NYT article(reg.req.)says stealing from restaurants is increasing. But it's still only 3% of tableware costs and allegedly doesn't contribute to higher prices. I confess I often lift the odd item from hotel rooms. Not just as "souvenirs" - that would be hypocritical. As booty. So, what ethical constraints and liberties do MetaFilterians think should be taken into consideration when stealing? Does it matter whom you're stealing from and how much money you've previously spent on them? And, for the more immoral fellow members, what are the best strategies for liberating certain objects?
comment posted at 9:08 PM on Feb-28-02

Heather Hamilton got fired because of her blog. (NB: foul language a-go-go)
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comment posted at 9:16 PM on Feb-27-02

Avant-no -- Avantgo puts limit on "free" channels. If you currently offer a "custom channel" through Avantgo (in other words, one you're not paying for), there is now a limit of eight subscribers to that channel before you have to pay. Starting price: $1,000. (More inside...)
comment posted at 10:19 PM on Feb-27-02

SF area woman wants to be aeorobics instructor but she weighs 240 pounds. Company says they won't hire her because of her weight. She is suing.
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Fascist fashion vs. Communist chic. Why is one okay, the other not?
comment posted at 11:24 AM on Feb-26-02
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The Wayback machine shows some biographical reconstructive surgery for the Secretary of the U.S. Army. Post-Enron collapse bio versus pre-Enron Collapse bio. 1984 style revisionism meet digital storage technology! [story from NTK].
comment posted at 9:19 PM on Feb-24-02

Will this spoil the party in Canada ? (NYT reg req) Great victories by the men and the women. Sure. But then one is reminded again in the NYT today about last week's controversy - "The judge, Marie Reine Le Gougne, said the pressure she felt was unlike any in her 14 years of judging, that it intensified as the Olympics drew near and that it came from one country, Canada" You cant help but wonder.
comment posted at 3:22 PM on Feb-24-02

Washington States insatiable appetite for money has led to the highest state tax on cigarettes, $1.425 per pack; this is in addition to the federal tax of $.39 per pack and the State sales tax of 6.5%. At least 17 states are considering following suit. Proponets claim it's a win-win situation: tax revenue + 'helping' people quit. Is that believable? Do they want the money or do they want people to quit, or both? And is it fair for 25% of the population to be the sole source of needed revenue?
comment posted at 12:17 AM on Feb-24-02
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comment posted at 12:26 AM on Feb-24-02

Reparations activists are going after corporations who may have had ties to or profited from the slave trade to seek financial compensation. "So far, the reparations legal team has publicly identified five companies it says have slave ties: insurers Aetna, New York Life and AIG and financial giants J.P. Morgan Chase Manhattan Bank and FleetBoston Financial Group." Of course, the article (or the sidebar) doesn't cite anyone who may be against the whole notion - which is possibly bias of some sort, and seeing Johnnie Cochran on the list of people involved doesn't exactly warm one's heart either. (here are several other related "background" articles)
comment posted at 1:05 PM on Feb-23-02

Enron had a fake trading room on the 6th floor. [via D] This whole Enron thing is really turning into something. First the WH, then Cheney is being sued, now smoke and mirrors; I'm telling you, Enron is at a theatre near you before 2006.
comment posted at 6:45 PM on Feb-22-02

Jimmy Carter Rips Bush on 'Axis' Label The former President called Bush's statement overly simplistic and counterproductive and also said I think it will take years before we can repair the damage done by that statement. Leave it to Jimmy to tell the truth.
comment posted at 6:21 PM on Feb-22-02

Um... not counting that whole WW2 thing. February 18, 2002 -- President Bush, in a speech in Japan. "My trip to Asia begins here in Japan for an important reason. It begins here because for a century and a half now, America and Japan have formed one of the great and enduring alliances of modern times. From that alliance has come an era of peace in the Pacific." Of course, the Official White House transcript corrects the blunder.
comment posted at 9:32 PM on Feb-21-02
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comment posted at 5:47 PM on Feb-22-02

Obese people may get an extra seat for free when they catch a flight in Canada, following an unprecedented legal ruling that is rattling the airline industry.
comment posted at 6:38 PM on Feb-22-02

Andrew Sullivan on why Bush should sign Campaign Finance Reform.
comment posted at 2:49 PM on Feb-21-02
comment posted at 11:50 AM on Feb-23-02

CNN reports Daniel Pearl is dead
Damn.
comment posted at 3:28 PM on Feb-21-02
comment posted at 10:53 PM on Feb-21-02

Bush and Giuliani nominated for Nobel Peace Prize Rudy? No way - I still don't know what this guy did beyond being a fatherly voice for NYC. As for GW, well I know some will strongly disagree, but waging war for peace is sorta like having sex for virginity.
comment posted at 3:57 PM on Feb-21-02

Apple's retail stores are drawing visitors but not generating sales, with a disappointing conversion rate so far. Apple doesn't blame its sales clerks: "Apple stressed Mac expertise — not salesmanship — when it trained them. . . . But now Apple plans to beef up its instruction to teach clerks how to close the deal." But John Manzione isn't so sure: when visiting a local Apple Store, he found that "[w]ho I was dealing with here were Mac enthusiasts who cared more about being around the product than selling it."
comment posted at 4:34 PM on Feb-21-02

Did anyone else forget that February is supposed to be Black History Month? Would you believe that Black Entertainment Television (BET) did.
comment posted at 12:05 AM on Feb-21-02

"...The Copyright Office followed almost to the letter the RIAA's wish list." The final nail may be about to be driven into the coffin of online music streaming in the US, as the Copyright Office issued its notice of proposed rulemaking on the issue. The proposed rules are extremely favorable to the RIAA, to the point where many streamers are saying they'll simply have to shut down. Even worse, any ruling will be retroactive to 1998, and streamers will have to pay the announced rate on everything they've streamed since that year.
comment posted at 4:12 PM on Feb-20-02

Did I say devaluation? Nothing important, just another presidential blunder that caused a bit of confussion among Japan traders. Here in Europe it's been all over the place in the news and I am surprised that that little detail has been absent of the main USA media. I'm sure I didn't do my (online) homework well, could you please help me?

Maybe is that the European media jumps at every oportunity to ridiculize Bush? Or is the american media protecting Bush image inside the USA?

Could things like this controversial Pentagon plan be the beguinning of a New Media War? We begin by hidding the little things and then we'll go for bigger and bigger blackouts, and then even lies?
comment posted at 2:55 PM on Feb-20-02

Ashcroft's Jihad. "Attorney General John D. Ashcroft yesterday cast the government's war on terrorism in religious terms, arguing that the campaign is rooted in faith in God and urging Christians, Jews and Muslims to unite in the effort." So as an agnostic, am I excused from the war?
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Roger Ebert savages "John Q." for general dumbness yet agrees with the message: we should have socialized health care. Steve MacLaughlin, however, details how the film greatly misrepresents medical and health care reality just to make its point -- and he fears that Joe Popcorn is going to absorb it as political education. Given that the film is set in the present day, rather than some fictional dystopian future, is this artistic license or irresponsible oversight? Perhaps libelous propaganda?
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comment posted at 12:45 AM on Feb-19-02

PBS's Televangelist: "Moyers's difficulty conversing with people on the right seems to have impaired his ability to report their opinions fairly, particularly on issues of race. "The right gets away with blaming liberals for their efforts to help the poor, but what the right is really objecting to is the fact that the poor are primarily black," he told Alterman. "The man who sits in the White House today [George H.W. Bush] opposed the Civil Rights Act. So did Ronald Reagan. This crowd is really fighting a retroactive civil rights war to prevent the people they dislike because of their color from achieving success in American life."" (via medianews)
comment posted at 1:10 PM on Feb-18-02

Somebody is going to link to this Wired article about blogging, so lets get it over and done with.
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Why Your Digital Data Could One Day Disappear HBS Working Knowledge has a Story (actually it's an Excerpt of Dark Ages II: When the Digital Data Die, by Bryan Bergeron) that says data stored on discs and other forms of computer storage are anything but permanent. Not only are the disks themselves the trouble (they last 5-20 years), the computers that read/write them are an added problem, tried opening a Commodore 64 file lately, or a 5 ¼ inch disc?
comment posted at 9:47 PM on Feb-17-02
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