Politics

SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGY OF THE FUTURE….THE NEAR FUTURE….JB Holston had a good post last week inspired by this report from the ACLU warning about the growth of surveillance in America: I recently re-read Orwell’s 1984. Just in case. I’d forgotten how bleak it is. We have better technologies for surveillance today than Orwell dreamed. He’s right, […]

QUESTIONS AND A.N.S.W.E.R.S….Left and right on the blogosphere are duking it out over whether liberals are morally corrupt for attending anti-war rallies sponsored by A.N.S.W.E.R. Why? Because A.N.S.W.E.R. is a “virtual front organization” for the Workers World Party, a communist organization that says nice things about North Korea and Cuba. Everybody seems to agree that […]

DID JOHN LOTT FABRICATE A GUN USE SURVEY?….Here’s the latest on the John Lott gun-use survey controversy: Julian Sanchez reports that someone wrote to Lott to say that he had been one of the respondents in Lott’s 1997 survey: In my responses to the survey question concerning the defensive use of a firearm I related […]

NO MISSION TO MARS?….Last Friday I commented on an LA Times article that said NASA was accelerating plans to build nuclear powered spacecraft, with the intention of using the technology for a manned mission to Mars. Today in SpaceDaily Bruce Moomaw says the Times got the story wrong: Brian Berger reports in “Space News” that […]

VIRGINIA HEINLEIN….Robert Heinlein’s wife, Virginia, died quietly in her sleep Sunday morning, aged 86. She had been in the hospital since Thanksgiving, when she fell and broke her hip. Originally Virginia Gerstenfeld (and generally known as Ginny), she married Heinlein in 1948, a year after he divorced his first wife. She has often been credited […]

Lowest-scoring 1st halves Pts. Teams Date 57  New York vs. Miami  Jan. 20, 2003  57  Detroit vs. Denver  Nov. 16, 2003  58  Dallas vs. Indiana  Feb. 13. 1998  58  Ft. Wayne vs. Syracuse  Jan. 25, 1955  59  Dallas vs. New York  Dec. 22, 1997  59  Miami vs. Orlando  Apr. 22, 1999    Lowest-scoring 1st halves […]

A GEORGE BUSH TIMELINE….Here’s George Bush’s timeline on racial sensitivity for the past few weeks: December 5, 2002: Trent Lott suggests the country would have been better off if segregationist Strom Thurmond had won the 1948 presidential election. George Bush condemns his words but does not call for his resignation. January 7, 2003: Bush renominates […]

CROWD ESTIMATES….Instapundit prints a query from a reader today asking why we don’t know how big the crowds were at the various anti-war events. Well, in the case of the D.C. event, that’s easy: the Park Service no longer provides crowd estimates. They used to do this, but stopped after promoters of the 1995 “Million […]

APPARENTLY THIS IS CALLED “ASTROTURFING”….Atrios has a list of newspapers that all published a form letter praising President Bush’s economic plan, most likely orchestrated by the White House or the RNC. In case you’re curious, here’s the text of the letter: When it comes to the economy, President Bush is demonstrating genuine leadership. The economic […]

CELL PHONE ETIQUETTE….The Economist reports on an effort to build cell phones that encourage polite behavior: The first phone, called SoMo1, gives its user a mild electric shock, depending on how loudly the person at the other end is speaking. This encourages both parties to speak more quietly, otherwise the mild tingling becomes an unpleasant […]