I'VE BEEN USING MOZILLA'S"FIREFOX" BROWSER EXCLUSIVELY FOR MONTHS. It's great--no popups, lotsa speed, tabbed browsing, etc. But yesterday I discovered something that makes it, oh, so much better. Get this: in every subfolder in your bookmarks menu, the bottom-most option in the folder is "open in tabs." I always ignored this option. But if you click it, it will open -- simultaneously -- every link in that subfolder, in a separate tab. Read five blogs every day? Put 'em in a subfolder, and read them in quick succession without worryong about load times. Read online comics? Same deal. Wanna check the headlines on Google News, CNN.com, the Free Republic, and al-Jazeera? Done.

It's been a long time since I was this excited about a minor feature. Firefox rules. Did I mention it's free?

UPDATE 06.30.04 2:58 PM PST: 3 hours after my post, Paul Boutin, writing in owned-by-Microsoft Slate, advised switching to Firebird, largely because it does not have IE's security vulnerabilities.
- posted by thegusdad @ 6/30/2004 07:01:00 AM

 
ELVIS MITCHELL HAS LEFT THE BUILDING. I knew I hadn't seen many Mitchell reviews in the Times lately, but I chalked it up to vacation, perhaps, or some dizzying run at a series of obscure film festivals that produced reviews that went beneath my radar. When I saw that A.O. Scott had reviewed Spider-Man 2, a plum I expected to go to Mitchell, I figured something was up. The Google search tok 0.17 seconds: He has left the Times for uncertain destinations. I know him only from his reviews, in the Times and on NPR, so the NY Metro piece linked above, which recounts as old news Mitchell's rep for big expense accounts and hobnobbing with Hollywood types, was an interesting surprise. I guess Manhattanites are more used to knowing details about the personalities of their journalists.

Anyway, I hope he shows up to write regular reviews elsewhere, maybe spelling Kenneth Turan at the LA Times.
- posted by thegusdad @ 6/29/2004 08:08:00 AM

 
NBA DRAFT YESTERDAY. The Blazers picked Sebastian Telfair. I won't be the first to say this, but I don't blog often about sports (except football): this is a major failure, another draft pick Portland will regret.
- posted by thegusdad @ 6/25/2004 01:37:00 PM

 
FOR THE THIRD YEAR IN A ROW, Dahlia Lithwick of Slate and constitutional law guru Walter Dellinger are doing a breakfast table post-mortem of the big Supreme Court decisions this year. Reminds me that no matter how dissatisfied I might be with my practice, I love being a law geek. Though uber-sweetie Trina would remind me that law geekiness is just a subset of overall geekiness, despite which she still loves me.

29 days until wedded bliss. Woo!
- posted by thegusdad @ 6/25/2004 10:06:00 AM

 
TED OLSON IS TOAST! Ding, dong, the witch is dead...
- posted by thegusdad @ 6/25/2004 09:58:00 AM

 
MARK AMES ON ANN COULTER: An excerpt, but please, read the whole thing:

Last week, Ann Coulter appeared on Hannity & Colmes looking haggard and clinically insane. The Night of the Living Dead circles underneath her eyes, the lifeless hair—it looks like she's been living on canned foods for the past two months. Ann looked like she should be pushing a shopping cart, not politicking for Bush. It wasn't just what she said—like repeatedly accusing Holocaust survivor George Soros of being an anti-Semite—it was how she said it. She laughed insanely after every sentence fragment she uttered, a clear symptom of late-stage paranoid-schizophrenia.

The saddest part was when Hannity flashed the cover of Coulter's upcoming How to Talk to a Liberal. There she is, posing full-length in a tight black mini, a childless MILF-wannabe trying to pass herself off as a 40-something far-right pin-up. Ann's star is sagging, and apparently her handlers don't have the heart to tell her.

- posted by thegusdad @ 6/25/2004 09:56:00 AM

 
LYNNE STEWART IS ON TRIAL. Stewart is a criminal defense lawyer who represented "the Blind Sheik," Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, in his criminal trial relating to the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1992. Stewart is now accused of violating administrative restrictions on the Sheik's communication with the outside world from prison, and by doing so facilitating terrorism. This long transcript contains the opening statements of Christopher Morvillo, on behalf of the Department of Justice, Mike Tigar, on behalf of Stewart, and David Ruhnke, on behalf of Mohammed Yousry, a translator who is a codefendant. This is an important case because, as Lynne Stewart's website proclaims, "This is an obvious attempt by the U.S. government to silence dissent and install fear in those who would fight against the U.S. government's racism, seek to help Arabs and Muslims being prosecuted for free speech and defend the rights of all oppressed people." The transcript is long, very long, but it isn't just us law geeks and news junkies who should read it. Everyone should.
- posted by thegusdad @ 6/23/2004 12:10:00 PM

 
ERIC DEMANDED THAT I BLOG. So, several random items:

How much would I give to havethis app for the PC? So much for having twelve different online comics bookmarked! I haven't found anything close yet. Note the difference between this "scraper" app and subscription-based services that do the same thing, such as ucomics.com (not dignified with a link). App good, subscription bad. Repeat.

Barack Obama, a Dem running for an open Senate seat from Illinois, got a boost this week when records from his opponent's divorce/custody case were unsealed. Jack Ryan's ex, hottie actress Jeri Ryan, said in an affidavit that Jack took her to sex clubs and tried to pressure her to have public sex, etc. etc., sordid details crossed out. I agree with MarKos: we shouldn't judge politicians on the basis of sex scandals except to they extent that they moralize and preach.

Jack is going to take a hiatus from blogging to deal with "real life." I don't see this a some sort of bellwether--Jack is compulsive enough that he'll be back. But it's bittersweet. Jack is my blogfather, which I guess makes him Eric's grandblogfather.

So Linda linked to some famous blogger I've never heard of describing her poignant experiences Googling old friends, to one great result. So I should share my Google story: in high school, I had a torrid and tormented relationship (it was high school. Is there any other type?) with one Trina. I broke up with her, being s terrible and loathsome 15-year-old, and she and I did not get along well for the balance of high school, occasional hook-ups in the auditorium balcony being the exception. College came, and we went our separate ways. I found a girlfriend in my freshman dorm, and married her for a short time after college. I went to law school, met a fellow las student, and was with her for a few years. Meanwhile, no contact with Trina.

I went through a (not a phase) change--I decided that I had known many people that had probably turned out to be pretty neat, but with whom I had lost touch just by passage of time. So I called up Jim, and he and I had a pleasant evening of it. He mentioned that that very same Trina was in fact living here in Portland, and working as an urban planner. That was enough for me--a little bit of Googling revealed that she had done a triathlon in Washington the previous year (one in which my ex-wife had competed. Eeeks!); that she had worked on a paper co-authored with folks from Livable Oregon, then one of my firm's suite tenants; and that she had graduated from U of P. She wasn't in the phone book, but a quick peoplefinder search gave her phone number. I called and left a message. She called back. We met for a drink.

So uber-sweetie Trina and I are getting married in 32 days exactly. Google rules.
- posted by thegusdad @ 6/22/2004 12:48:00 PM

 
RALPH WILEY DIED YESTERDAY. He was 52.

Wiley was a writer. He was a sports journalist by trade. Sports Illustrated, ESPN, espn2.com, several books. He had a strong and personal voice. I read his columns religiously. I will miss him. To know why, read these remembrances from his colleagues.
- posted by thegusdad @ 6/15/2004 12:44:00 PM

 
FIRENINJA IS ONE OF THE MOST INTERESTING LAWYERS I KNOW. [note to self--great sentence. evocative, intriguing.] This post from him last week is an example of why the internet is a good, good thing.
- posted by thegusdad @ 6/14/2004 01:47:00 PM

 
REAGAN'S FUNERAL IS ABOUT TO BEGIN. Remember Republican outrage over the politiczation of Paul Wellstone's memorial service? Any bets? Anyone?
- posted by thegusdad @ 6/11/2004 08:21:00 AM

 
The New York Times > International >FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES:

"[t]he Army said Tuesday that a G.I. was discharged partly because of a head injury he suffered while posing as an uncooperative detainee during a training exercise at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"The Army had previously said Specialist Sean Baker's medical discharge in April was unrelated to the injury he received last year at the detention center, where the United States holds suspected terrorists.

"Mr. Baker, 37, a former member of the 438th Military Police Company, said he played the role of an uncooperative prisoner and was beaten so badly by four American soldiers that he suffered a traumatic brain injury and seizures. He said the soldiers only stopped beating him when they realized he might be American."
- posted by thegusdad @ 6/10/2004 05:48:00 PM

 
"I THINK THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION KNOWS WHAT CONTEMPT OF CONGRESS IS ALL ABOUT." I've got a few cases where I'll be filing writs like the ones Jon Stewart is talking about...
- posted by thegusdad @ 6/10/2004 05:29:00 PM

 
HERE IS THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE "TORTURE MEMO." Surprised props to the Wall Street Journal for breaking this story. The other big papers are taking the WSJ's lead. If there is justice in this world, we will see Bush appointees tried for war crimes.
- posted by thegusdad @ 6/09/2004 08:46:00 AM

 
GEORGE TENET IS TOAST. Interestingly, this shows up in the Times under "International/Middle East" reporting.
- posted by thegusdad @ 6/03/2004 07:58:00 AM

 
THE TRANSPORTER WAS BAD ENOUGH TO GET A SEQUEL. I like Jason Statham, but hated this movie. Not as much as Skot did, though.
- posted by thegusdad @ 6/01/2004 02:18:00 PM

 
THE SMOKING GUN HAS THE DOJ SUMMARY OF JOSE PADILLA'S ACTIVITIES. It is required reading for those of us who have been critical of the administration's detention of Padilla and his fellow US citizen detainee, Yaser Hamdi. If you disagree with how the adminstration has handled this case, the summary will not necessarily make you change your mind. However, this press conference with James Comey, a deputy attorney general who has handled much of the Padilla procedings for the DOJ, is at least refreshing propaganda. Comey admits that because Padilla was denied counsel, criminal proceedings against him in the future are iffy. And he gives thoughtful, candid answers to questions, without vilifying people who have questioned the decisions made by the FBI and DOJ in this case:

"QUESTION: You said that if you had picked him up under criminal charges that he would have gotten a lawyer, would have clammed up and would have walked free. But couldn't you have done what the Justice Department does thousands of times every year and offered him a plea agreement to work with you?

"COMEY: All the time we offer plea agreements and people cooperate if we have a hammer over them. The challenge of the Padilla case, for me as the United States attorney, was the absence of a hammer. If I can't credibly threaten criminal charges, no lawyer in the world is going to tell their client to talk to me, because a good lawyer would know, what I'm sure Mr. Padilla's lawyers knew, that if you just clam up, they can't do anything with this.

"QUESTION: So does that suggest that possibly he was picked up too soon, because you didn't have enough on him to pick him up on charges where you could actually bring criminal charges?

"COMEY: I don't think he was picked up too soon. I think it would have been derelict to allow him to come into the country and to hope to follow him. We have a wonderful FBI and they follow people every day, and well. But only on TV do they do it 24 hours a day, seven days a week, without losing someone."
***
"QUESTION: Last week, the attorney general received some criticism for the announcement that he made regarding terror concerns. Is there a reason why it's you up there today and not him?

"COMEY: I asked for this assignment. With the support of the attorney general, this has been my mission, in part because I was the United States attorney who had Padilla two years ago and in part because of my frustrations of the questions -- good questions from good people about Padilla -- that I could not answer. And a speak a lot of public fora [sic in transcript] and speak privately to a lot of folks.

"I very much wanted to see if I couldn't push forward, with the attorney general's backing, an effort to get this information out to the public.

"People are right to question when the president of the United States orders the military detention of an American citizen in the United States. And I very much wanted to have some of the answers for folks. And now we do."

italics mine. This is a skillfully-done news conference. It gets the message out that the paramount objective is to save US lives, and that traditional law enforcement tools could not serve that goal adequately. Comey stresses both the good intentions of the administration and confesses the weakness of traditional approaches. If Bush could do a news conference like this, reelection would be a lock. Thankfully, he can't.


ADDENDUM 6/3/04: Many people, including Dahlia Lithwick, have pointed out that the Padilla information has been released in a cynical attempt to both draw attention from and downplay coverage of the abuses at Abu Ghraib and also to manipulate the Supreme Court's decision in Padilla's own case. True, true. I didn't mean by this post to endorse the DOJ's actions or signify belief in the content of the documents detailing the gov't's "case" against Padilla. However, I give props to extrememly effective spin, which this is, and I was also surprised at the relatively even-handed tone of Comey's remarks, in which he did not vilify those who disagree with or question the administration. This last part is a departure from the norm.
- posted by thegusdad @ 6/01/2004 12:34:00 PM