CLONES! Okay, all anyone can talk about today is not North Korea's nuclear weapons (eeks!) but ClonAid's announcement that they have successfully cloned somebody, with the predictable brouhaha about ClonAid's being a subsidiary of the Raelian cult. Great. Only two observations need be made:


(1) Isn't Brigitte Boisselier really hot for a CEO, in a French strumpety way?


(2) That Rael dude needs to watch more of the current Star Trek episodes--that getup is so 1965!
- posted by thegusdad @ 12/30/2002 04:19:00 PM

 
GOVERNMENT "BRANDING" SINKS to a new low.
- posted by thegusdad @ 12/23/2002 03:50:00 PM

 
BLAME CANADA. Some of us really enjoy making fun of Canada. Here, John points out a way in which the US falls short of its purported "neighbor to the North": stinky money (requires Quicktime).
- posted by thegusdad @ 12/23/2002 03:32:00 PM

 
ANOTHER SIGN OF THE APOCALYPSE: Neon Deion is talking about (another) comeback.

UPDATE 12/25/02: Praise Allah, it won't happen.
- posted by thegusdad @ 12/23/2002 02:57:00 PM

 
LYING MEDIA BASTARDS is the blog of Jake Sexton, a DJ at a counterculture radio collective in LA. I've been reading through his archives, which are great. I've added a link at left. And to give you a flavor of the bitter cynical hopeful glory LMB features, here's his piece on some culture-jamming of Dow Chemical. And here's Dow's "ethics page".
- posted by thegusdad @ 12/23/2002 11:09:00 AM

 
JACK'S ADDENDUM TO THE BILE-O-METER: My blogging Godfather Jack thinks I missed one:

"Hillary Clinton. A crook of the highest order whose crass Bobby Kennedy ripoff in "I'm Really a New York City Puertorrrrrriqueña" has been followed by her new initiative to become the Oprah of the Senate. "Coffee, Trent?" When you see her up there on the stage at the DNC two summers from now, you'll get a tremendous nauseating rush and admit that W. has a better shot at re-election than you thought previously. 9.7."

Now, I don't disagree with what Jack says about Hil, but the CW is that she's angling for 2008 rather than 2004. I caught Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on The Daily Show the other night, and he swore up and down that she was not running in 2004. And if you can't trust Chuck Schumer talking to Jon Stewart, who can you trust?

One that I didn't hit on my short list of non-candidates: Sen. Jon Corzine (D-N.J.). Cuddly, great politics, gave up great wealth to purchase his Senate seat--a stirring story. Unproven on financial issues and fiscal policy, great on the environment; we suspect he will be persona non grata on Wall Street reforms. Likes Amtrak. An even 2.0 on the BoM.
- posted by thegusdad @ 12/18/2002 02:58:00 PM

 
BAD MATH=BAD RHETORIC. One of the joys of Gregg Easterbrook's Tuesday Morning Quarterback column on espn.com [see link at left] is that it is only nominally a football column. While it reliably has some football content, Easterbrook also riffs on things like potential slogans for government agencies, Star Trek, and Catherine Bell. He nicely blends the wonky with the footbally. And he's a smart guy, so when he gets something factually wrong, it incenses loyal readers to a degree that some may think disproportionate. This week, he rants about how Segways are going to be dangerous, and backs it up with bad math and a bad analogy:

"Everyone who walks will intensely hate Segways. The manufacturer has already persuaded 32 states to certify these monstrosities for use on sidewalks; without that permission, no one would buy one. But the Segway is 200 pounds of metal with a 200-pound rider atop moving 12 mph, velocity of someone who runs track in the 100-meter event. This means a pedestrian struck by a Segway will be hit by 400 pounds moving at sprinter speed. Being struck by a Segway roaring down the sidewalk will be significantly worse than being popped by an NFL linebacker at maximum warp."

Um, wrong. Simple math: the record for the 100m sprint is less than 10 seconds. 1000m = 1km, so 1 km in 100 seconds. 1 mile = 1.609 km, so round up and say an Olympic sprinter runs a mile in 161 seconds, or 2.68 minutes. 60 minutes in an hour divided by 2.68 minutes to the mile = 22.38 mph, way faster than a Segway. 12 mph is about what Khalid Khannouchi averages for the marathon. And Segways don't weigh 200 pounds, they weigh more like 83 pounds.

I still haven't tried a Segway, so have no opinion on their safety (but they're fascinating both as a gadget and as a cultural meme), but the manufacturer says they can stop on a dime, which of course sprinters and linebackers can't. And they've got speed settings, including a "sidewalk" maximum speed setting of 8 mph, but of course users cannot be trusted to abide by those guidelines.
- posted by thegusdad @ 12/18/2002 01:36:00 PM

 
LEARN SOME CHEMISTRY.
- posted by thegusdad @ 12/17/2002 04:44:00 PM

 
THE 50 MOST LOATHSOME PEOPLE. I like this list (I have no problem with #1) but think they don't go high enough with Ari Fleischer (only #16), Karl Rove (only #9) and especially Joe "Joey Allstate" Lieberman (way down at #39).
- posted by thegusdad @ 12/17/2002 04:34:00 PM

 
THE DEATH OF BLOGGING? In college, and in talking with a professor I contemptuously referred to her and other lit-crit types as "using meaningless words like 'intertextuality.'" I will be sending her hand-written apology via US Mail as soon as I remember her name.

What I'm thinking about here is how "real" journalism has become more like, and therefore co-opted, blogging. Specifically, here's Tim Noah writing his new "Meme Watch" columan about the Wall Street Journal's idea that the poor do not pay enough taxes to make them hate government sufficiently. (Maybe a corollary meme is that Democrats have an unfair electoral advantage, because poor people's favor can be curried by relatively small governmental breaks, while it takes Bush-sized giveaways to curry favor with people who have more $$.)

So how can I, a full-time lawyer and part-time blogger, ever compete for the same niche as somebody like Tim Noah, who is not only paid to do it but was a better writer than I to start with. And to get off the pity track, the process becomes so self-referential that reading a blog that emphasizes politics, like this one, and reading the journalists' quasi-blogs becomes like standing in an echo chamber. If I link to talkingpointsmemo linking to kausfiles linking to Tapped linking to Andrew Sullivan linking to Joe Conason, does anyone hear anything other than the tapping of my keys? No wonder Jack emphasizes local politics.
- posted by thegusdad @ 12/16/2002 06:44:00 PM

 
NOT ANOTHER LOTT POST. Chris Hitchens waxes vitriolic here about Cardinal Law and Kissinger as well. He's evidence of just how well you can write when you are actually paid to be bitter.
- posted by thegusdad @ 12/16/2002 06:27:00 PM

 
VOTE.
- posted by thegusdad @ 12/16/2002 08:46:00 AM

 
GORE DOWN, "60 MINUTES" UP? How did Lesley Stahl, of all people, get this scoop? With Gore out, everybody wants a shot at handicapping "a wide open race." I'm not a betting man, so I'm not going to post odds or poll numbers, but I will do this quick 23-months-till-the-election freezeframe of the current reprehensibility of the likely Dem candidates. Here they are on the Bile-o-Meter. The scale ranges from 1 (altogether pleasant, like Grape Crush, or the smell of a puppy) to 10 (exposure to this candidate leaves me feeling contaminated in a way that not even a scalding bath and course of emetics could remedy):

John Kerry (Senator from Massachusetts): Strong foreign policy background, but hawkish. Strong on the environment (92% from the League of Conservation Voters, some leadership in upping CAFE requirements). 3.7 on the Bile-o-Meter.

John Edwards (Senator from North Carolina): We like Edwards, mainly because he can speak; he can orate. The shock of going from Clinton to Bush has been a miserable one. He's a trial lawyer, which we also like. Mixed record on the environment. Mixed record on financial issues (including a "yes" vote on "bankruptcy reform," which we hate). In other words, a typical compromised Southern Dem, but nice to listen to. 3.7 on the Bile-o-Meter, but gives indications of being dependent on polls in a way that could easily push him upward in the future.

Joe Lieberman (Senator from Connecticut): We really really hate Joe Lieberman. He's sanctimonious (remember Clinton impeachment, as well as his position on various "morals" issues), is pro-war, and is owned by the insurance lobby and other financial institutions. 9.1 on the Bile-o-Meter.

Howard Dean (Governor of Vermont): Issues2002 doesn't have a good summary of Dean's votes, because he's a state politician. Duh. So here's his candidacy site. Interesting dude. He's a physician in real life, which we like here in Oregon. He's in favor of universal health care, which is our official position here at angry little thoughts, sorry Eric. He's a big recycling guy. He acknowledges that free trade has to be reinforced with environmental and other social policy--we like that too. He explicitly links our overdependence on Middle East oil with the war of cultures which Bush and the reactionary Arab street aim for. We don't really know much about him, but what we've heard makes us eager to learn more. Only 2.0 on the Bile-o-Meter, but it's a very faint reading due to his being a relative unknown.

Dick Gephardt (Representative from Missouri): He is the poster boy for mainstream Dems, which we immediately dislike. He's recently turned to the right on Bush's various wars for oil, which we also dislike. Good on the environment (91% from the LCV). There's the eyebrow thing, which we don't dislike necessarily but which gives us the creeps. His 6.5 Bile-o-Meter rating is due mainly to his being totally uninspiring. Shows of backbone will push his BoM rating down.

Tom Daschle (Senator from South Dakota): Same criticisms as for Gephardt, above, but with the added criticism that Daschle, at least technically, has recently been Majority Leader. The past two years represent a colossal failure of nerve and absence of vision on the part of centrist Democrats. Those in charge bear the blame. Another 6.5 on the Bile-o-Meter.

Oher notables: John McCain only registers 2.1 on the Bile-o-Meter, because he refuses to shut up and we like it. John Kitzhaber registers 2.9, because we like his disdain for politicians, though we wonder at how little he has done to solve Oregon's problems during his forty years in office. Gary Johnson registers only 1.9, because we love what he says about the War on Drugs.

Al Gore was at 8.1 before yesterday, but now registers only 3.8. Amazing what a day will do.
- posted by thegusdad @ 12/16/2002 07:53:00 AM

 
I DON'T LINK TO ANDREW SULLIVAN. But I'll make an exception just this once. If AS is this worked up over my dear friend Trent Lott, then put a fork in the former Majority Leader. Time for me to find another dead horse....there are plenty.

What may be my last note: with Don Nickles calling for a vote of confidence on Lott, we have open war in the GOP. Which frankly gives me a sick gleeful thrill.
- posted by thegusdad @ 12/16/2002 07:50:00 AM

 
I am apparently the honored first of guests invited to join Matt in his lime green foray into online existence. I've got my own blog, conveniently listed to your left, but I'll tell you that I have no clue how I would invite my only other fan (Matt) to participate in mine. Maybe it's because he has some sort of sponsored account via a sugar daddy. I should be so lucky.

I rely on Matt for almost all my current event knowledge, but even then the buffer empties out almost immediately. I have no mind for facts unrelated to medicine or high end audio. So, thanks, Matt, for the props. All you multitudes of Matt fans, take 1.5 minutes and come on over to docnorris. Lots of dirt on Matt there. Tons. You wouldn't believe the stuff they let me write over there. -E
- posted by Eric @ 12/13/2002 09:07:00 PM

 
MORE TRENT! I can't do better than Josh Marshall on this, so here's the link to his take on Trent Lott's 1984 interview with Southern Partisan magazine.
- posted by thegusdad @ 12/13/2002 03:54:00 PM

 
KISSINGER SOLD OUT. Um, yeah, but when? Henry announced today that he wouldn't chair the 9/11 inquiry commission. The reason? He was going to have to disclose his lobbying clients and income. And as y'all have heard, Kissinger Associates has lobbied for lots of unsavory folks who might have stakes in the investigation--folks with lots of money that comes from selling Middle East oil, that is. Everybody from people who think Kissinger is the devil to the One World Order paranoids was up in arms over this one. I'm trying to remember who predicted Henry the K would step down rather than disclose...more later.
- posted by thegusdad @ 12/13/2002 03:52:00 PM

 
I RECONSIDER. Last post was about a piece Kinsley did in Slate, now hyped as the main story: "Why Innocent People Confess." I've reread both my post and Kinsley's piece a couple of times, and now think Kinsley's dissonance (a word I never used before about 16 months ago, and which I may use twice a day now--maybe I used to say "incongruity") between the news story (DNA proves confessed rapists innocent) and the policy angle (confessors may be theoretically innocent, and in fact sometimes are, see news story) is intentional, and makes his point. That is, that we flatter ourselves that our penal system is a sytem of "justice," when in fact it is just another rational system guided by power imbalances and risk-benefit analysis.

According to this reading of Kinsley's piece, the real dissonance (ok, that's twice today, and it's not even 2 am yet), is between our idealization of, and the reality of, criminal sanction. We want the courts to be an equal playing field which results in objective truth found and extracted, and falsehood and denial rooted out.

Of course, they ain't. Prosecutors and public defenders argue over who is given shorter shrift by those allocating the public fisc, but everybody agrees no one has the time or money to develop their case as well as possible, to match up my best case against your best case (in our adversarial model of public justice, this exalted combat of the fittest is the nearest that we get to a quest for truth). Instead---and this is what Kinsley is pointing out--we get a system where the deck is stacked one way or the other. You get cops and prosecutors who efficiently develop cases in ways that make it more likely than not that anybody, even an innocent person, might well be convicted of a given charge. Or you get high-profile clients walking on technicalities, thanks to skilled and well-compensated defense lawyers matched up against overworked prosecutors.

If you buy this reading, there are two ways to reform the system. One is to adequately fund both prosecutors and defense attorneys so that each side's "best case" is matched up against the other's. The other way is to go to a "truth oriented" rather than neutral justice system, where the judge is an active advocate, poking holes in each side's presentation. (The reading I now get from Kinsley, at least this late at night, is the system we have is profoundly flawed, and it's the one that we're stuck with.) We as a society are both too parsimonious for the first option and too puritanical for the second.

(I like parenthetical phrases, late at night.)
- posted by thegusdad @ 12/13/2002 01:51:00 AM

 
PLEA BARGAINS=TORTURE. That's the analogy in this Michael Kinsley piece in Slate, but the only thing that's tortured is his logic. He starts with an observation about a recent controversy: the convictions of the four kids for the "Central Park jogger" rape and assault being tossed out because DNA evidence now shows they didn't do it. He moves on to a specific fact about that controversy, which is that the convictions against the kids were not based on eyewitness identification (topic of a whole 'nother rant) or physical evidence, or any other piece of good police work, but on the kids' confessions. That is, the confessions of those same people who it is now acknowledged couldn't have been the people who committed the crime. Which is a disturbing, but widely-reported, observation.

The problem with the piece is that he uses this as a jumping-off point for a totally inapposite argument, which is that plea bargains are good. And the way he explains it is nutty:

"...when, as part of a plea bargain, innocent people confess to a crime they did not commit, that isn't a breakdown of the system. It is the system working exactly as it is supposed to. If you're the suspect, sometimes this means agreeing with the prosecutor that you will confess to jaywalking when you're really guilty of armed robbery. Sometimes, though, it means confessing to armed robbery when you're not guilty of anything at all."

Ignore what appears to be total ignorance of the concept of "lesser included offenses." Kinsley is talking about the risk-benefit analysis that is the basis of the plea bargain concept. If someone accused of a crime concludes (with the help of his lawyer) that a prosecuting attorney has a better than 50% chance of obtaining a conviction for which his minimum term of incarceration is eight years, and the prosecutor offers a plea deal by which he will accept conviction for which the term of incarceration is only two years, then simple economic theory suggests that he will accept the plea bargain offered. Assume that Kinsley isn't really suggesting that the "collateral damage" of innocent people pleading to any charges at all is acceptable, because it's not. (Also disregard his basic premise, that the plea bargain serves the same purpose in our legal system that torture did in medieval Europe--getting a socially acceptable level of convictions where the legal system gives "too many" procedural or substantive protections to people accused.)

The problem is that Kinsley starts talking about one thing and ends somewhere totally different. Convictions in plea bargains are not always based on "confessions." In any event, an admission of guilt to a particular crime, in the context of a plea bargain, is made in the context of a court hearing. In Oregon state court, the defendant appears before a judge, has a lawyer by his side, is explained his right to trial and the various rights he waives by agreeing to the plea, formally agrees to the plea agreement, and the plea is formally accepted by the judge.

Kinsley may approve of this system for his own reasons. But he starts with the example of the kids who were recently exonerated through DNA evidence. Those kids didn't confess pursuant to plea bargains. Each of these teenage kids confessed after hours and hours of grilling by some detective, without a lawyer, and as soon as each lawyered up (presumably with a horrified public defender) they recanted. That is, each one said "I told the police what they said I had to tell them if I ever wanted to see my family again. I was hungry, and they had me up way past my bedtime, and I was scared." Then a prosecutor took the case and got convictions on the basis of those recanted, under-duress confessions, and against a social backdrop of outraged New Yorkers screaming that gangs of black and Latino kids were out "wilding," beating and raping nice white investment bankers out jogging.

On the other hand, maybe Kinsley is using this dissonance in a deliciously ironic way to critique the whole plea bargain system. He writes:

"...Plea bargaining is a way of trading the risk of 20-years-to-life for the certainty of five-seven. But by creating this choice, and ratcheting up the odds to make it nearly irresistible, American justice virtually guarantees that innocent people are being punished.

"The five mistaken Central Park jogger convictions weren't officially plea bargains, but unofficial offers of lighter sentences are among the more pleasant theories about how American justice got these teenagers to fabricate confessions."

The premise being that prosecutors have it within their power to "ratchet up the odds" of a conviction so high that even innocent people are forced into a choice of risks and losses that is an immoral one to impose.
- posted by thegusdad @ 12/12/2002 03:36:00 PM

 
TRENT'S DOWN! KICK HIM! Ah, more piling on the "Majority" Leader. In 1981, then-Congressman Lott filed an amicus brief on behalf of Bob Jones U. when that particular bastion of John Birch-y zaniness was fighting for its nonprofit exemption--the IRS wanted to nix Bob Jones' nonprofit status because it banned interracial dating (the IRS won). In that brief, he wrote:

"If racial discrimination in the interest of diversity does not violate public policy, then surely discrimination in the practices of religion is no violation."

I just love this stuff. Then, yesterday Lott made the talk-show rounds, doing damage control on his pro-segregation comments of a week ago. He told Larry King, "Those words were insensitive. I shouldn't have said them." Not to parse this too finely, but here's what he didn't say, but should have: "Those words were hateful and insensitive, and they don't reflect my real feelings. I know in my heart of hearts that discrimination and segregation are repugnant to everything that is good about America. I have fought for equality and advancement of all people, of whatever race or ethnicity, throughout my political career. I will continue to do so so long as the people of Mississippi, black and white, see fit to allow me to do so."
- posted by thegusdad @ 12/12/2002 08:23:00 AM

 
PILING ON IS SO MUCH FUN. So Trent Lott "apologized" for wishing out loud that Strom Thurmond had been elected President in 1948 on the "States have the right to not enforce anti-lynching laws" Dixiecrat ticket. Lott said that he used "a poor choice of words."

Trouble is, he used pretty much the same words in 1980.

So it wasn't a "poor choice of words" because it didn't accurately reflect his views, but because it did.

Note: Trent Lott was seven years old on Election Day 1948.
- posted by thegusdad @ 12/11/2002 07:16:00 AM

 
IT'S AWFUL QUIET AROUND HERE. I'm not talking about my own five-day hiatus from blogging, during which I'm sure the community missed me, but the deafening silence that greeted Trent Lott's battle cry that segregation wasn't such a bad thing. In case you missed it, the event was Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party. You'll recall that Strom, bless his heart (remember that way-too-long, way-too-tight hug he gave Hillary when she first showed up on the Senate floor? mmmmmm....), ran for president in 1948 on the Dixiecrat ticket. Major platform plank: segration good, Negroes bad. Back in 1948, Strom told the crowd this:

"I want to tell you, ladies and gentleman, that there's not enough troops in the army to force the southern people to break down segregation and admit the Nigra race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, and into our churches."

Don't believe me? Here's an audio clip.

At Thurmond's birthday lunch on Thursday the 5th of December, Lott told the crowd this:

"I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead we wouldn't of had all these problems over all these years, either."

Just FYI, here's the 1948 Dixiecrat ticket in Mississippi, thanks to Atrios.

This should have been greeted with boos. The big shepherd's hook should have pulled him off the stage pronto. Instead, nobody said anything. Democrats were pretty much silent. Daschle, who was always too nice to be Majority Leader in this era of the "politics of personal destruction," gave Lott a pass; collegiality and all that. Maybe shockingly, Al Gore led the charge among politicos, in a CNN interview I can't link to because it costs too much money. When the liberal backlash finally happened, it happened late.

Who has been strongest in his criticism? The Congressional Black Caucus, sure. But also Ken Connor, president of the Family Research Council. But wait, they're conservatives! Connor bashed Lott for this and "chronic foot-in-mouth disease." Excerpt: "Senator Lott's ill-considered remarks will serve only to reinforce the false stereotype that white conservatives are racists at heart. Republicans ought to ask themselves if they really want their party to continue to be represented by Trent Lott." Holy moly! What has Trent Lott done to get on this guy's bad side?
- posted by thegusdad @ 12/10/2002 05:08:00 PM

 
GREAT, EVEN IF YOU SCORE ZERO OUT OF TEN. Take the Internet Hoax Photo Test.
- posted by thegusdad @ 12/05/2002 01:26:00 PM

 
UPDATE! There's a new Get Your War On up. Speaking truth to power in a bitter, sarcastic little voice that sounds like it's coming in over one of those old crystal radio sets, like the kind we listened to when things were black and white, when people knew good from evil...
- posted by thegusdad @ 12/04/2002 04:36:00 PM

 
TOO GOOD. So good, I have to just quote the first paragraph and give you the link for yourself:

"The United Nations launched perhaps its most important weapons inspections ever yesterday with a team that includes a 53-year-old Virginia man with no specialized scientific degree and a leadership role in sadomasochistic sex clubs."

Here's the link. I have it secondhand (it turns out very very little of our experience is actually firsthand, hence blogging) that said weapons inspector tried to resign after this story hit the Post, and the monitoring commission sensibly declined.
- posted by thegusdad @ 12/03/2002 08:02:00 PM

 
THE POOR AREN'T TAXED ENOUGH. That's the latest meme to be hit by every pundit in the wake of a set of Wall Street Journal articles suggesting that because the very poor--think Plaid Pantry clerks, high violence mortality rate and all--pay so little in income taxes, they don't acquire an abiding-enough hatred of taxes. That is, when you ignore the payroll taxes that take the biggest chunk out of any minimum-wage worker's paycheck. Not that the rich folks want the poor folks to pay more $$$ as an end in itself--after all, with the gap between the richest and poorest being as vast as it is in the 21st-century USA, that wouldn't make much difference, right? So get this: the poor need to pay more so they sympathize more with the poor persecuted rich folks! The wealthy just want to be loved and understood!
- posted by thegusdad @ 12/03/2002 07:36:00 PM

 
PEOPLE LIKE HYDROGEN FOR DIFFERENT REASONS. Minimalists like the low atomic number. Pyromaniacs like the flammability. And greenies like hydrogen fuel cells as an alternative to fossil fuels. Duh. We shouldn't be surprised that it's Honda and Toyota that have produced the first market-ready fuel-cell powered cars, but check this out: the Toyota is a frickin' SUV!
- posted by thegusdad @ 12/03/2002 08:58:00 AM

 
JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE PARANOID....y'know, with all the wacky stuff going on--the expansion of peacetime spying on civilians, the incommunicado detention without counsel, the Homeland Security Agency--all those "I love my country, but fear my government" types are starting to make more and more sense. Check the creepy music. And turn down your speakers if you're at work.
- posted by thegusdad @ 12/02/2002 08:24:00 PM

 
AH, GLORY IN WRATH AND FLAME! Tim Noah, a fairly sage observer of Washington horse races, is older than me and therefore has more memories, going back further. He points out that Don Rumsfeld and Kissinger have feuded before, back in the good ol' Ford administration. Noah theorizes this will inspire a little very quiet but devastating payback. If so, great--things look so dire for us progressives that it's about time we get to celebrate in the politics of personal destruction that the Rs have dominated for the past few years.
- posted by thegusdad @ 12/02/2002 08:11:00 PM

 
SO MUCH INFO, SO LITTLE TIME. I let the blog go for a week due to turkey-induced tryptophan shock, but the world didn't stop cranking out information that needs sponging and filtering. Let's see: the NYTimes did a non-story about why there are no female bloggers (conclusion: um, there are lots of female bloggers).

The Bush administration is testing our tolerance for cognitive dissonance by appointing Henry Kissinger to head a truthfinding commission regarding intel failures leading up to 9/11/01. Is this designed to head off his indictment for war crimes?

The Segway is now available for preorder on Amazon, but at a price about 50% higher than originally estimated ($5k vs. $3k). My theory is that price is a dealkiller: a significant part of Segway's target market is people who would, in a weak moment, spend $3,000 on a top-of-the-line gaming PC. In other words, me, and maybe Brooks or Eric. But as soon as you make the non-scooter significantly more expensive than that gaming PC, you break the price point, and even people who want to be early adopters start thinking to themselves, "Why don't I just buy high-zoot gaming beanies for all my friends?" Time will tell.

- posted by thegusdad @ 12/02/2002 09:10:00 AM

 
IF YOU ARE ONE OF MY LEGION of faithful readers, you have noticed that I no longer have that annoying Blogger.com ad at the top of this page. Jack B. got so tired of waiting for it to load on his 28.8 kbps dialup connection that he bought me a membership upgrade. Thanks, Jack! Warren Gorham Lamont is obviously paying you too much to update [shameless plug begins] Federal Tax Valuation [shameless plug ends]. And Jack, have RIA update your online bio--you've won the Leo Levenson award four times, right?
- posted by thegusdad @ 12/02/2002 07:53:00 AM