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Man, there's a lot going on! I actually pushed stuff off so you wouldn't be overloaded.
Want to see a classic example of press bias in action? Compare the headlines reporting the British Parliament's vote to join the U.S. war against Iraq. Two extremes: Blair Survives a Mutiny Over Joining U.S. in War (N.Y.Times, predictably critical of Blair), and Blair rallies the Commons for War (London Times, predictably supportive). As usual, the blogosphere has better detail and is more balanced. { You want to hear it firsthand? How about a blogging MP. } I'm just really glad the Brits have joined us, as have the Aussies. Don't worry, weasels, noses are being counted... 1 2 3 4 not to mention 5 and 6 and of course 7 and 8...
Navy Women Finding Ways to Adapt to a Man's World. We're thinking about you, Nicole!
The Times (London) is reporting the first shots of the war have been fired. And according to the Mirror 30,000 Iraqi soldiers have deserted. Meanwhile WP reports negotiations with Iraqi officers to surrender. Too bad it isn't all going to be that easy...
This is great stuff: The world according to Donald Rumsfeld. Sample:
For those who think world affairs can use a bracing shot of candor, Rumsfeld is the star of this war. At one Pentagon briefing on Afghanistan, some showboating reporter noted that human rights groups had objected to the dropping of cluster bombs and demanded to know why the U.S. was using them. "They're being used on frontline al-Qaeda and Taliban troops to try to kill them," replied Rumsfeld. It was a small indicator of a large cultural shift when NBC's Saturday Night Live introduced a weekly parody of his press conferences, mercilessly mocking not the politician but the dopey journalists.
A fascinating article in the N.Y.Times suggests that It Will Be a Smaller World After All - about a new U.N. population study which indicates world birth rates are dramatically lower than previously thought, particularly in third-world countries. [thanks Future Pundit.] This would be tremendously important if true - really good news, actually - I'm going to try to get the report. Without having read it, my guess is that the trends are accurate, but the figures themselves are not; they are simply too different from what many previous studies have found.
This is awesome - How to Write a Book in 10 Days. Some great material here for would-be authors. { I am really jealous, I've been working on Unnatural Selection for four months and have little more than an outline to show for it. Maybe some books take longer than 10 days :) }
It's been thirteen days since I last found the RIAA guilty of stupidity, so here we go again. These guys are just determined to piss everyone off, aren't they? And it is working. Let's see a show of hands, how many people out there aren't pissed off at the RIAA? I thought so. Hilary, you can put your hand down now.
Yahoo has launched Yahoo Platinum, a premium multimedia service which costs [ahem!] $10/month. It looks similar to RealOne, with a heavy emphasis of sports (for boys) and entertainment (for girls). The lack of downloaded client software will probably be the differentiator; it makes installation and maintenance more cumbersome (advantage Yahoo) and improves the user experience (advantage Real). The key sales driver for Yahoo appears to be "exclusive" coverage of the Men's NCAA basketball tournament, but at $17/month I seriously doubt this will get traction.
  Apple Pulls Plug on Original iMac. One of the all-time great consumer marketing adventures ends. We have two of the little guys, one strawberry, one biondi blue...
Mozilla 1.3 has been released - yet another browser to try in my never ending quest for surfing perfection... =O
I'm listening to the Rolling Stones tonight... haven't done that in a long time. Man are they good. They have that "four guys in a garage having a good time" sound which is timeless. I distinctly remember blasting "Some Girls" from my pickup truck when I was a teenager; Miss You still has me reaching for the volume knob...
Don't you hate it when a blogger doesn't post her email address? I do. Tonight I was reading Scoble's blog - which I really like, BTW - and he wrote "David Coursey is someone I respect". I think he is being sarcastic, nobody as insightful as Robert could really respect someone as lightweight as David Coursey (the ZDNet AnchorDesk editor), but how I am I supposed to ask without his email address? Would everyone please click through this link so Robert sees my link in his referer logs? Hey Robert, shoot me email, okay? My address is posted.
[ Later - Robert, thanks for getting in touch with me. I apologize, he does have his email address on his site, only it isn't an address, it is a link to a web page which sends him email. A little less convenient but given the spam situation these days, quite understandable. ]
If you've never visited Gut Rumbles, please check out this post, in which he, er, discusses a, er, situation involving two dissimilar neighbors. I read it twenty minutes ago, and I'm still laughing. Remember, this is the guy who said my site made his head hurt. In retrospect, I think he was being nice, don't you? I mean, I own a white couch.
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