DOM bait

Posted on Monday, 2002 April 29 by Anton

Craig Schamp grouses:

This state is run by boobs. I wish Condi Rice would return and run against Babs Boxer for Senate in 2004 . . . .

Better Condi’s boobs than Babs’ boobs, eh? The question calls for closer examination.

Posted in California, politics | 1 Comment

race relations

Posted on Monday, 2002 April 29 by Anton

Quoth the Instapundit:

William Raspberry writes that there is a shortage of educated black men and that as a result, successful black women aren’t getting married. This, he says, is a tragedy.

And I suppose it is. But, you know, buried in Raspberry’s piece — and no doubt in the minds of the women he describes — is the assumption that black women should only marry black men. Isn’t that kind of, you know, racist?

If the women in question are needlessly suffering on account of their own irrational moral judgements, isn’t that the very definition of tragedy?

I don’t see a should anywhere in Raspberry’s piece, though it is a bit disappointing that he never touches the question “so why aren’t they marrying non-Blacks?”. Nor does the women’s behavior (what about that of their White non-husbands?) necessarily imply a should; I never eat apricots, but I don’t believe that people should never eat apricots — though admittedly if a behavior approaches unanimity (does it?) it gets hard to say with a straight face that it’s merely personal preference.

I’ve known far more women of pallor who married Black men than the reverse; why is that?

Posted in humanities | Leave a comment

nonsense, only Americans shoot people

Posted on Monday, 2002 April 29 by Anton

Just when you thought I had stopped talking about guns, here are John and Antonio on the recent school shooting in Germany:

And guess whose fault it is, according to psychologist Andrés González Bellido in the Vanguardia? You guessed it. America’s. “These episodes that once seemed only to occur in the US can be explained (in Europe), says this psychologist, because European society is becoming more similar to American society. ‘Loneliness, individual frustration, and greater and greater social inequalities lead to extreme situations,’ he adds.” These people took Death of a Salesman much too seriously. Interestingly enough, the exact same sort of commentary was made after 16 were killed in Hungerford, England, in 1987, after 14 were killed in Luxiol, France, in 1989, after 17 were killed in Dunblane, Scotland, in 1996, after 14 were killed in Zug, Switzerland, in 2001, and after 8 were killed just recently in Nanterre, France.

We are often reminded that US murder rates are the Highest in the Developed World. This parade makes me yearn suddenly for a comparison of mass murder rates.

Posted in politics, weapons | Leave a comment

busk to the future

Posted on Monday, 2002 April 29 by Anton

The poet Tom Digby asks (on his own list):

Didn’t bards of old live largely on tips and free meals and such, rather than from some giant corporation pushing packaged “product”? Might the Internet move us back toward that model?

How do these PayPal tip jars work, anyway?

Posted in economics, futures, history | Leave a comment

voodoo security

Posted on Monday, 2002 April 29 by Anton

There’s nothing new in this story — which is why such stories need to be published again and again and again. Harassment in the name of security, a subject on which I have touched before, is useless and dangerous (like the WoSD, come to think of it), and it’s not going away unless we protest it loudly, lucidly, and often.
(Link from that other law professor by way of Craig Schamp.)

Posted in security theater | Leave a comment

annoying website of the day

Posted on Monday, 2002 April 29 by Anton

Your browser is out-of-date.
You’re seeing this message because your browser won’t display my pages properly.
Rather than frustrate you with a pile of junk, I’d rather tell you how to update your browser so you can come back and see what my site has to offer. . . .
You could try the new version of Netscape 6.2. – it’s pretty nice and has some neat features.

I do use 6.21 sometimes, but prefer 4.76 – despite its limitations – because 6.21’s bookmark editor is less functional and I have utterly failed to configure 6.21 for mail (it seems to lack the notion that my POP and SMTP servers may not be the same). The one feature of 6.21 that I really appreciate is the ability to change the base font size with one keystroke.

I’ve yet to see anything that was clearly worth breaking backward compatibility. (It’s not only laziness that keeps the formatting primitive on my pages.) I’m particularly unimpressed by the current fad for confining the body text to the middle third of the window.

Posted in neep-neep | Leave a comment

blogdom 510

Posted on Monday, 2002 April 29 by Anton

Oops, I have not publicly thanked Steve Neal for hosting Bayside Blogger Bash II this weekend.

It was smaller (and therefore more comfortable for this introvert) than the previous edition, ably hosted by Peter Přibík and Christina Tosti who very kindly listened to my blitherings about polyhedra.

I showed up too late to be in John Weidner’s photo gallery. Man of mystery, that’s me.

Posted in blogdom, California | Leave a comment