Month: April 2005

Think tech talk about perpendicular memory storage is boring? Me too. That is, until I saw Hitachi’s flash movie touting the new technology. I’m just waiting for the techie take on “Conjunction Junction” or a binary “Mean Ol’ Number 9”.”Mean Ol’ Number 1001″ just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

A few significant historical tidbits…

• 144 years ago, the Civil War began when Fort Sumter was attacked.
• 60 years ago, President Franklin Roosevelt died.
• 50 years ago, Dr. Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine was determined to be “safe, effective, and potent”.

And this little gem…

• 6 years ago, Arkansas federal judge Susan Webber Wright found President Bill Clinton in contempt of court for lying about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky.

I was going to hunker down and blog tonight, but it was not to be. This came on the History Channel, and I was transfixed. Oh well, there’s always tomorrow.

My Sharona – one of hundreds of songs on an iPod owned by the president.

Her air-headedness, Anna Nicole Smith, announced her outrage (albeit medicated) over Canadian seal hunts through PETA, though she cancelled a trip to Newfoundland to protest over safety concerns.A Newfie crime wave? The most recent yearly Canadian crime stats showed 933 violent crimes in the Newfoundland/Labrador province for 2003. Compare that to the bustling province of Nunavut’s 7943 violent crimes in 2003 and one has to wonder, what province is safer than N/L? Chances are the seals threatened to club her if she showed up.In a textbook vegan pincer move South from the Great White North, PETA has declared April “a month of action” against KFC. A site dedicated to forcing KFC to adopt more ‘humane’ treatment of tomorrow’s lunch called KentuckyFriedCruelty.com speaks of a secretly brokered deal using rap mogul Russell Simmons (of Def Comedy Jam fame) as the Henry Kissenger of the three piece meal. The deep fried detente gave KFC 30 days to change their ways. That’s a speedier cycle than how often they change their canola oil in the fryers. PETA’s original recipe rage turns extra crispy when viewing video of how the chickens are treated before they’re battered and fried. Growing up, my older sister tried to convince me to stop eating hot dogs by telling me how they’re made and what’s in them. I understand how a seal ‘hunt’ pitting sledgehammers vs. virtually limbless mammals for a fashionable fabric is outrageous. But as for hot dogs, KFC, veal, et al, I’m sorry, my taste buds are difficult to outrage.

PunditGuy has a new guest blogger. ‘Uncle’ will be showing up mostly on weekends, but he’s got free rein to pop his head out during the weekdays too. Unless he’s drinkin, then he spends a night in the box.

…it must be Chrenkoff.

In a way, she’s kind of like an MTV ‘VJ’. She’s got the look, the attitude, etc. Today’s marquis bloggers are kind of like VJs were in the 1980s. They fulfilled a purpose on MTV, but eventually the viewers moved on. I think we’ll have a couple more years of ‘Star’ bloggers like Xeni, Ana Marie, Andrew and Glenn, then most everyone will get tired of the media running to get comments from them again and again.

Hopefully, it won’t take that long.

(h/t Kevin Drum)

UPDATE: Jeff is dead on.

Speculation on who will replace Peter Jennings. Meanwhile, Variety calls it this way…

With the diagnosis, ABC goes from having the most stable news operation in the business to one with a succession issue.

Hillary’s back and she’s mad as aech-ee-double-hockey-sticks…

Sen. Hillary Clinton was introduced by a Senate colleague to the state Democratic Party here as “the next great president of the United States” — and did nothing to deny it as she skewered the GOP.
“We are headed to a brave, new world of extremism, and we need to make clear we’re not going there,” she told a sellout crowd of 2,000 who paid $100 a head to see her. “We stand against their radical, reactionary right-wing agenda.”

Clinton sounded every bit the stumping presidential contender as she slammed the Republicans for driving up the national debt, wrecking overseas alliances and leading the nation on a domestic path “well outside the mainstream.”

She lambasted Republican members of Congress as “extras in the movie ‘I Robot’ ” who “mindlessly rubberstamp the agenda of this administration” and want to do “little more than fund the military and build some highways.”

And she scolded President Bush for flaunting a “prideful unilateralism” in the war on terrorism and warned the commander-in-chief that the United States “cannot direct the rest of the world to follow our orders merely because we said so.”

Meanwhile, Bush and Bill Clinton are becoming more chummy. Coincidence? I don’t know. Sure, a lot of it is just being part of the presidents club – current and past, hangin out, attending pope funerals and riding on air force one. The other part though – could it be a ‘Rove’ move? If so, it’s brilliant. Hang out, befriend and pal around with the (ex-president) spouse of the next democratic party nominee for president and create an ‘awkward situation’. I can hear the liberal press now…

“Senator Clinton, you’re out on the stump every day criticizing the republicans, calling them ‘spawn of Satan’, etc., yet your husband…well, right now he’s out bowling with Don Rumsfeld, and last night he was playing Hearts with the president, Condi Rice and Justice Scalia. In fact, White House sources say that the three of them would take breaks between hands and have a belching contest. The source, who apparently drifted off to sleep at approximately 2:15 AM, remembers that Secretary Rice was winning both games. What do you make of that?” 

OK, maybe it’s a pipe dream.