Just In Time For Christmas
For those of us old enough to remember browsing the old "Big Book" catalog, this story comes as quite a surprise: Yahoo! News - Kmart Buying Sears in $11 Billion Deal
This would have been completely unheard of 30 to 35 years ago, when Sears Roebuck was the undisputed KING of department stores. Sears practically invented "catalog shopping" with their famous "Big Book", whereas Kmart is known for inventing the deep discount store.
What's even more interesting is that Kmart was seeking bankruptcy protection in 2002. Quite a turnaround.
Now, let's see how Wal-Mart and Target respond.
More later...
Paul
Wednesday, November 17, 2004
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
The Story Got Bigger
It looks like yesterday's story about the human torch has legs:My Way News
According to the Washington Post, the poor guy was a federal informant on terrorism, and he was so upset by how the FBI mismanaged his case that he decided to burn himself to death in protest. Turns out he believed the FBI reneged on a deal to pay him over $100,000 and grant him permanent residency for his information.
I guess the normal course of legal action was closed to him.
Well, it looks like the story is getting out. Let's see how far it goes.
More later...
Paul
It looks like yesterday's story about the human torch has legs:My Way News
According to the Washington Post, the poor guy was a federal informant on terrorism, and he was so upset by how the FBI mismanaged his case that he decided to burn himself to death in protest. Turns out he believed the FBI reneged on a deal to pay him over $100,000 and grant him permanent residency for his information.
I guess the normal course of legal action was closed to him.
Well, it looks like the story is getting out. Let's see how far it goes.
More later...
Paul
Monday, November 15, 2004
This Story Will Disappear Quickly
Check this story out: Yahoo! News - Man Sets Himself on Fire Near White House
Certainly a rather extreme way of protesting, but note how the only videotape of the even was confiscated by the Secret Service. Why? Seems like they're depriving not only the tourists that did the taping from earning a fat monetary reward from the news services, but they also keep the protester from reaching his intended "audience".
Interesting how the Associated Press was able to obtain still photos...why did the SS fail to confiscate these?
So, the SS doused the flames with a fire extinguisher and sent the man to the hospital. Wonder what crime he'll be charged with...and will he do time in a regular jail or a mental institution? Your tax dollars are work...
More later...
Paul
Check this story out: Yahoo! News - Man Sets Himself on Fire Near White House
Certainly a rather extreme way of protesting, but note how the only videotape of the even was confiscated by the Secret Service. Why? Seems like they're depriving not only the tourists that did the taping from earning a fat monetary reward from the news services, but they also keep the protester from reaching his intended "audience".
Interesting how the Associated Press was able to obtain still photos...why did the SS fail to confiscate these?
So, the SS doused the flames with a fire extinguisher and sent the man to the hospital. Wonder what crime he'll be charged with...and will he do time in a regular jail or a mental institution? Your tax dollars are work...
More later...
Paul
Monday, November 08, 2004
Let the Battle Begin
CBS News, once known for its uncompromising journalism, is now reduced to taking potshots at bloggers: CBS News | Blogging As Typing, Not Journalism | November 8, 2004
This is not surprising...the old line will always denigrate the "new kids on the block" until the very last minute, at which point they will act like they were down with it all along. It was just a couple of years ago that the old media giants were dismissing Matt Drudge's "Drudge Report" as some type of worthless scandal ezine...now it's just as mainstream as Fox News (and just as sensational).
What the old guys don't get is that the "blogosphere" is much more than a few bloggers writing about the news. This is a very difficult concept for them to wrap their minds around. The attached article uses very derogatory language, comparing bloggers to "parasites" and blogs to high school newspapers. Well, the truth is that many bloggers ARE high school age...what of it? I've yet to come across a blog that claims to be a site of journalistic integrity (not that they don't exist), but that has never been the point of "blogging". These are, at base, personal journals, FULL of unapologetic subjectivity. If we didn't provide our point of view, there would be no point at all.
More later...
Paul
CBS News, once known for its uncompromising journalism, is now reduced to taking potshots at bloggers: CBS News | Blogging As Typing, Not Journalism | November 8, 2004
This is not surprising...the old line will always denigrate the "new kids on the block" until the very last minute, at which point they will act like they were down with it all along. It was just a couple of years ago that the old media giants were dismissing Matt Drudge's "Drudge Report" as some type of worthless scandal ezine...now it's just as mainstream as Fox News (and just as sensational).
What the old guys don't get is that the "blogosphere" is much more than a few bloggers writing about the news. This is a very difficult concept for them to wrap their minds around. The attached article uses very derogatory language, comparing bloggers to "parasites" and blogs to high school newspapers. Well, the truth is that many bloggers ARE high school age...what of it? I've yet to come across a blog that claims to be a site of journalistic integrity (not that they don't exist), but that has never been the point of "blogging". These are, at base, personal journals, FULL of unapologetic subjectivity. If we didn't provide our point of view, there would be no point at all.
More later...
Paul
Tuesday, November 02, 2004
The War in My Bathroom.
The semi-annual invasion of my bathroom by ants has begun, and I was absent-mindedly squashing them with my thumb while shaving this morning and musing over the fact that many people feel that the solution to violence is more violence…and here I was killing ants!
I started to think about my battle with the ants. They seem to show up in the middle of the summer, and then again sometime in the winter. In the summer, they seem to be thirsty, as they make a beeline for a leaky faucet. But my faucets were recently replaced, so I’m not quite sure what they’re after now.
I have learned that they always send out scouts, and they tend to travel in pairs. If I kill one, the other will appear out of nowhere, frantically looking for his partner. If I kill both of them, another pair of scouts will show up almost immediately. So far, they’ve only arrived in small numbers. If they find whatever it is they’re looking for, then they’ll bring in the inf-ant-ry to carry away the loot. And that’s usually when I escalate from “conventional” weaponry (squishing them) to chemical warfare (RAID!).
I also have an ally in the insect world…spiders…and me and the spiders have a spoken agreement that as long as they stay out of sight, I won’t kill them too. And they can have all the ants and other insects they can catch. This deal usually works out well, and my place at least appears to be insect-free. But occasionally the spiders get lazy and we’ll surprise each other…I’ll pull back the curtain for my morning spider and catch one napping in the tub, and it will surprise ME by how disgustingly big it is. They must get pretty fat on ants.
I killed a spider in my bathroom a couple of weeks ago, a damn big one. Before I delivered the death blow (conventional weapon), I reminded the scoundrel that it violated the terms of our deal. Now, I know that I’m making a big assumption in assuming that the spiders have agreed to our truce. For all I know, they may be ignoring me completely, just like the ants do (when I talk to the ants, they don’t even act like they hear me…obviously we have a language difficulty). But the spiders do a pretty good job of staying out of sight, so as far as I’m concerned, the treaty is working.
But what to do about the ants? If I see many more than I saw this morning, I will be moved to unleash the chemicals. But what really puzzles me is why they are there in the first place. Granted, my bathroom could be cleaner, but it’s not like I’m leaving food crumbs in my bathtub. What is attracting them? I feel like if I can understand their motivation, I can be more successful in keeping them out of my house…without resorting to killing them all.
By now, dear reader, I am quite sure you see the similarities between my bathroom battle and that of the current “War on Terror”. The Western world is justifiably annoyed and concerned by the ant-like extremists that periodically make grand nuisances of themselves by way of suicide bombings and the like. We (the West) can continue to use our arsenals to kill more and more of the extremists (even though they have shown great propensity to kill THEMSELVES), but at some point in the very near future, we will HAVE to identify the motivating force that is animating these vermin. Maybe it’s as simple as cleaning the tub with bleach….or something like that.
In my case, if the entire ant colony were to attack my bathroom, it would be a horrible sight…millions of ants pouring out of the wall, converging on…what? Whatever, I would be forced to bring in the heavy artillery: commercial pest control. Chemical warfare on a large scale. We might even have to tent the house and literally soak it in poison…which, of course, means death to the spiders and other non-combatants…”collateral damage” so to speak. This will be costly, but it won’t require that I “understand” the ants and work to remove their motivation.
Can’t we all just get along?
More later…
Paul
The semi-annual invasion of my bathroom by ants has begun, and I was absent-mindedly squashing them with my thumb while shaving this morning and musing over the fact that many people feel that the solution to violence is more violence…and here I was killing ants!
I started to think about my battle with the ants. They seem to show up in the middle of the summer, and then again sometime in the winter. In the summer, they seem to be thirsty, as they make a beeline for a leaky faucet. But my faucets were recently replaced, so I’m not quite sure what they’re after now.
I have learned that they always send out scouts, and they tend to travel in pairs. If I kill one, the other will appear out of nowhere, frantically looking for his partner. If I kill both of them, another pair of scouts will show up almost immediately. So far, they’ve only arrived in small numbers. If they find whatever it is they’re looking for, then they’ll bring in the inf-ant-ry to carry away the loot. And that’s usually when I escalate from “conventional” weaponry (squishing them) to chemical warfare (RAID!).
I also have an ally in the insect world…spiders…and me and the spiders have a spoken agreement that as long as they stay out of sight, I won’t kill them too. And they can have all the ants and other insects they can catch. This deal usually works out well, and my place at least appears to be insect-free. But occasionally the spiders get lazy and we’ll surprise each other…I’ll pull back the curtain for my morning spider and catch one napping in the tub, and it will surprise ME by how disgustingly big it is. They must get pretty fat on ants.
I killed a spider in my bathroom a couple of weeks ago, a damn big one. Before I delivered the death blow (conventional weapon), I reminded the scoundrel that it violated the terms of our deal. Now, I know that I’m making a big assumption in assuming that the spiders have agreed to our truce. For all I know, they may be ignoring me completely, just like the ants do (when I talk to the ants, they don’t even act like they hear me…obviously we have a language difficulty). But the spiders do a pretty good job of staying out of sight, so as far as I’m concerned, the treaty is working.
But what to do about the ants? If I see many more than I saw this morning, I will be moved to unleash the chemicals. But what really puzzles me is why they are there in the first place. Granted, my bathroom could be cleaner, but it’s not like I’m leaving food crumbs in my bathtub. What is attracting them? I feel like if I can understand their motivation, I can be more successful in keeping them out of my house…without resorting to killing them all.
By now, dear reader, I am quite sure you see the similarities between my bathroom battle and that of the current “War on Terror”. The Western world is justifiably annoyed and concerned by the ant-like extremists that periodically make grand nuisances of themselves by way of suicide bombings and the like. We (the West) can continue to use our arsenals to kill more and more of the extremists (even though they have shown great propensity to kill THEMSELVES), but at some point in the very near future, we will HAVE to identify the motivating force that is animating these vermin. Maybe it’s as simple as cleaning the tub with bleach….or something like that.
In my case, if the entire ant colony were to attack my bathroom, it would be a horrible sight…millions of ants pouring out of the wall, converging on…what? Whatever, I would be forced to bring in the heavy artillery: commercial pest control. Chemical warfare on a large scale. We might even have to tent the house and literally soak it in poison…which, of course, means death to the spiders and other non-combatants…”collateral damage” so to speak. This will be costly, but it won’t require that I “understand” the ants and work to remove their motivation.
Can’t we all just get along?
More later…
Paul
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