damnum absque injuria

February 28, 2003

Here’s a Virtual March I Can Support

Filed under:   by Xrlq @ 6:02 pm

Stefan Sharkansky is organizing a new virtual march for peace. It’s not unlike the “virtual peace march” conducted earlier this week by Win Without War By Redefining “Win,” except that this one targets the government responsible for the crisis.

Man Bites Sues Dog

Filed under:   by Xrlq @ 5:53 pm

Remember Andrew Burnett? He’s the jerk rotting in prison for fatally throwing Sara McBurnett’s dog into traffic following a minor accident. Now, FoxNews reports that he is suing her over the incident, and is also suing the San Jose Mercury News for reporting on it. I hate to use the F-word (“frivolous”), but sometimes it has to be said. The only good news is that the punk is arguing his case pro se, which could mean he’s too cheap to hire a lawyer but which probably means he was unable to find a lawyer willing to take his idiotic case.

February 27, 2003

National Organization of Moderates

Filed under:   by Xrlq @ 3:53 pm

Electronic Media reports that the usual suspects are trying to stop Michael Savage’s show before it starts. I’m not a big fan of Savage myself, as I find his style needlessly abrasive, but I do recognize that he is good for ratings. That’s more than I can say for the guy they just dropped. Someone really needs to clue in the liberal activists on one point, though. If you’re going to be a liberal, be man/woman enough to admit it; don’t masquerade as something else. And if you think it’s a great idea for stations to censor viewpoints with which you disagree, fine, but then make the case for that; don’t pretend it’s all about “inclusion.” This quote from the EM story just about sums it up:

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Give Blood – If They’ll Take It

Filed under:   by Xrlq @ 3:40 pm

Glenn Reynolds reminds us of the importance of giving blood, particularly in an age where the Red Cross seems to be going out of its way to perpetuate the shortage. I got a taste of that policy myself when I attempted to give blood last fall, only to be turned down because I had spent two years in Europe in the late 1980s.

Eroding “Reforming” the Three Strikes Law

Filed under:   by Xrlq @ 12:19 pm

The Orange County Register, like many other newspapers, advocates “reforming” (watering down) California’s “three strikes” law. Their beef with the law, at least according to this editorial, is that while all three “strikes” must be felonies, only the first two are required to be unusually egregious (“serious” or “violent”) felonies. The unsigned editorial endorses Jackie Goldberg’s proposal to require the third strike to be a “serious” or “violent” felony as well, citing unnamed polls that (supposedly) indicate that a majority of Californians support such a “reform.” It also suggests, without providing any evidence, that the existing law is harsher than the one most voters thought they were voting on in 1994.

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Counter-Protesters

Filed under:   by Xrlq @ 7:32 am

If you are one of the people who took Instapundit’s advice and ended up becoming part of the wrong statistic, it’s not too late to fix that. Write/fax your Senator now to tell them your real message. Also tell them that you are one of many of the 400,000 who registered or 1,000,000 who called or faxed their representatives to register a pro-war message, meaning that the real number of anti-war protesters is much lower than reported.

Advice for Google Victims

Filed under:   by Xrlq @ 12:21 am

If you stumbled across my blog because Google conned you into thinking it was similar to this one, you probably won’t be persuaded by my arguments for taking out Saddam Hussein. In that case, you might want to consider this argument instead.

February 26, 2003

Hate to Say “I Told You So,” But . . .

Filed under:   by Xrlq @ 3:58 pm

This A.P. report on today’s Virtual Peace Rally / denial of service attack reports that “about 400,000 people had registered through the group’s Web site for the call-in campaign.” Other versions of the story appear on FoxNews, CNN, the SF Chronicle, the L.A. Times, and countless other sources. None of them say a word about how many of those 400,000 registrants, if any, were actually pro-war activists who followed Glenn Reynolds’s advice and registered a pro-war message on MoveOn.org or Win Without War’s site. As I predicted, the bean counters simply tallied up the number of people who registered, reported that number, and flushed their actual messages down the proverbial toilet (no, they don’t really have proverbs about toilets, but thanks for asking). Keep that in mind the next time someone invites you to a “counter” protest on any issue.

UPDATE: This BBC story puts the number of registrants at only 250,000. Like the A.P. story, however, it makes no mention of counter-protesters. Neither does this story from Business Week, this NY Times / International Herald Tribune story, or even this story from Voice of America.

This Google Function Could Use a Little Tweaking

Filed under:   by Xrlq @ 10:25 am

Sitemeter advises me that someone just found my blog because it was “similar” or “related” to this one. OK. I guess there are some very superficial similarities there. Both sites are blogs, for example, and both of them also mention Iraq. Is there some deeper similarity that I am missing?

UPDATE: Maybe the new banner across the top will set Google straight. Link via Howard Owens.

SECOND UPDATE: Or maybe not. Right now Google News is displaying the headline “Blix sees ‘fundamental’ shift in Iraq” for a Financial Times story. However, the headline of the linked story reads “Blix sees no ‘fundamental’ shift in Iraq” (emphasis added). Apparently, Google is having trouble telling opposites apart.

F.I.R.E. and Ice (Sculptures)

Filed under:   by Xrlq @ 5:35 am

If you haven’t been reading Erin O’Connor’s excellent blog on political correctness run amok, now would be a great time to start. If you thought some of her past entries were a bit too dry or esoteric for your tastes, you certainly won’t have that problem now.

 

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