Slashdot Mirror

Powells seems to have this in stock http://www.powells.com/s?kw=Barbarians+Led+by+Bill +Gates%3A+Microsoft+from+the+Inside&x=0&y=0

"Microsoft, a rather new corporation, may not have matured to the position where it understands how it should act with respect to the public interest."-U.S. District Judge Stanley Sporkin
Teamed with the daughter of one of Bill Gates's closest associates, thirteen-year Microsoft veteran Marlin Eller shows us what it was like at every step along Gates's route to world domination, making all that's been written before seem like a rough guess. If the Justice Department had Eller and Edstrom investigating the current-headline-making antitrust case, they would have on the record many of Microsoft's most respected developers directly contradicting the "authorized" version of events being presented in court. They would know the real scoop on how Windows was developed in the first place, shedding new light on the 1988 Apple v. Microsoft lawsuit over the alleged copying of the Mac. They would even know the real story of how Microsoft killed off Go Corporation, told for the first time by the man who did the deed, Marlin Eller himself.
Revealing the smoke-and-mirror deals, the palms greased to help launch a product that didn't exist, and the boneyard of once-thriving competitors targeted by the Gates juggernaut, this book demonstrates with often hilariously damning detail the Microsoft muddle that passes for strategic direction, offset by Gates's uncanny ability to come from behind to crush whoever's on top.

Probably this is just a trick by a Merrill Lynch publicist, who found a way to get free publicity. Or, maybe it is a way to distract people from some fraud involving the Taiwanese firm and Merrill Lynch.

Otherwise the story just doesn't make sense. To believe the story, Fubon cuts loss to NT$50 mil. in NT$8 bil. mistake, as it was written, you have to believe that the Taiwan firm hires inexperienced people, gives them little training, and does not review their large trades.

Do you really believe that a low-level employee spent a quarter billion dollars because of a keystroke error? In any case, the people who should know don't believe the story. Shares of "Fubon Securities' parent firm Fubon Financial Holding rose by 0.47%".

According to the U.S. government's SEC department, corruption of the media is not the only corruption from Merrill Lynch: SEC Charges Merrill Lynch, Four Merrill Lynch Executives with Aiding and Abetting Enron Accounting Fraud.

The U.S. government's Justice Department says, Three Top Former Merrill Lynch Executives Charged With Conspiracy, Obstruction Of Justice, Perjury In Enron Investigation.

There is general agreement that there has been no serious change in the U.S. government and big corporations like Merrill Lynch and Citibank. Apparently the only change is that they will be more careful in the future when they engage in deceptive practices. For an example of what has been written about this, see Iraq Could Produce Another Enron, by Nomi Prins. Ms. Prins wrote an excellent book about corporate and government corruption in the U.S., Other People's Money. At Powell's: Other People's Money.

Apparently most of what is written about the financial markets is fradulent in some way. Generally it fits into the category of "What we want you to think so that we can make more money". Employees and investors in the U.S. have lost billions of dollars due to fraud in the last few years.

The corruption is extremely widespread. Here are short reviews of 35 books and 3 movies about conflict of interest in the U.S. government: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government. (To those who think there is little or no corruption: If you can't give any example of a book or article you have read that supports your view, please consider not commenting this time.)

Slashdot comments have made me aware of how little Americans know about the activities of their own government. Yet surprisingly those with little awareness often have extremely strong and angry opinions.

Michael Moore's information about the involvement of Saudis with the Bush family came from this book:

The Iron Triangle: Inside the secret world of The Carlyle Group by Dan Briody, Wiley, 2003, Hoboken, New Jersey, USA. Reviews: Powell's Barnes & Noble Amazon

With what don't you agree concerning this book? Do you doubt that both the rich Saudis and the Bush family have investments in oil and weapons companies? Michael Moore's movie showed network footage of George W. Bush and a Saudi holding hands. Do you doubt that Bush holds hands with Saudis? Then read these articles from The Christian Science Monitor and CBS News. The Bush family calls one of the Saudis "Bandar Bush", and believes that he is their friend; that's completely untrue of course. Fifteen of the 18 attackers of the 9/11 bombings were Saudis, and some rich Saudis have supported al Qaeda.

Unocal, and many other oil companies, want to build a pipeline across Afghanistan, because that is the shortest route from rich oil fields to Pakistan and the ocean, with the exception of through unsafe Iran. Do you doubt this?

Notice: The links to the book are tied to my accounts with the booksellers. If you buy the book and don't want me to have a commission, do a search for the book to get a link that is not connected with me. After a year, I have made exactly $0.00 from these arrangements. I spent months reading the books and writing short reviews of them for my article Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government.

Since it may not be obvious to those who are reading fast, the quote above, "The crippling loss of nearly one-third of their staff have left our courts unable to hear criminal cases such as car theft, shoplifting, prostitution, fraud and identity theft" contains an (obvious) lie. The courts represented that losing one-third of their staff caused them not to be able to handle the "less-important" cases. In reality, all court business was degraded, and court employees at all levels, including the Oregon Supreme Court, often complained of not being able to do a sufficient job.

Here is a better link to the book about corporate corruption, Other People's Money. At Powell's: Other People's Money.

"Muslims, on the other hand, are not technically recognised as a racial group, so you can argue that they're not protected. "

What do you mean "technically"? Islam is a religion, *not* a racial category.

And that's setting aside whatever you think of the merits of thinking of people as belonging to races in the first place :) (I have only started the book "The Race Myth" [http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=65-05 25948252-2%5D -- but I'm far enough into it to recommend it as a powerful, important book)

timothy

Try to find your book someplace like Powell's instead.

Seemed like 1/2 of Zeldman's book was indeed a long-winded web standards sales pitch. If you're already sold and want to get to work, a more down-and-dirty, roll-up-your-sleeves kind of book is Dan Cederholm's Web Standards Solutions . It's not as entertaining as Zeldman, but I found it much more useful. I've been very happy using Cederhom's book with O'Reilly's XHTML and CSS (by Eric Meyer) guides.

Seemed like 1/2 of Zeldman's book was indeed a long-winded web standards sales pitch. If you're already sold and want to get to work, a more down-and-dirty, roll-up-your-sleeves kind of book is Dan Cederholm's Web Standards Solutions . It's not as entertaining as Zeldman, but I found it much more useful. I've been very happy using Cederhom's book with O'Reilly's XHTML and CSS (by Eric Meyer) guides.

Seemed like 1/2 of Zeldman's book was indeed a long-winded web standards sales pitch. If you're already sold and want to get to work, a more down-and-dirty, roll-up-your-sleeves kind of book is Dan Cederholm's Web Standards Solutions . It's not as entertaining as Zeldman, but I found it much more useful. I've been very happy using Cederhom's book with O'Reilly's XHTML and CSS (by Eric Meyer) guides.

to Powell's.

[ Buy at Powell's City of Books]

• How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life by Alan Lakein
• Buy at Amazon
• Buy at Powells

The first thing Lakein says to do is to write down your goals. First your goals for your entire life, then your goals for the next five years, and then what your goals would be if you knew you only had six months to live.

Then he explains how to prioritize the activities and tasks you spend time on each day based on how they advance you towards these goals. Any activities that don't advance you to your own goals for your own life are to be considered low priority, and unless you have a lot of spare time, not performed at all.

Now for the reason your boss doesn't want you to read this time management book: Lakein seems pretty businesslike throughout most of the book, but in discussing how activities should advance one's goals, he comes right out and explicitly says that if your job isn't helping you to achieve your goals, then you should quit it and get a better one.

Works for me. I'm still working as a software consultant, but that's just a means to an end. A goal I'm working towards, presently by spending two hours a day practicing on my piano, is to quit working altogether and to go back to school to major in musical composition. I want to be a composer someday.

Well, I am already am, I guess. Here are some MP3s of my playing my own piano compositions:

• Geometric Visions

I also have more to say about Lakein's book in my k5 diary: Time Management.

Powell's World of Books (powells.com) has an EXCELLENT technical selection, takes up it's own building down the street from the main store. Sure it's a little bit more $ for the book (but not much), but they are much nicer people...

If you are interested in how this stuff all works and came about in the first place, a really interesting book is "Between Silk and Cyanide" by Leo Marks.

It was a really great read...

SUV buyers tend to be "insecure and vain. They are frequently nervous about their marriages and uncomfortable about parenthood. They often lack confidence in their driving skills. Above all, they are apt to be self-centered and self-absorbed, with little interest in their neighbors and communities."

Why should anyone care? Well, because if you own a car, you get shafted. Traditionally car owners pay more in insurance premiums.
"He also proposes that the insurance industry stop shifting the high costs of the SUV dangers onto car owners by raising premium prices for SUVs to reflect the amount of damage they cause."

The famous Lloyd's of London insurance group started out in Lloyd's coffee house in the late 1600s. This bodes well for Delicious Monster. :)

Excerpts from the book "Against the Gods" by Peter Bernstein:
"One afternoon in 1637 * a Cretan scholar named Canopius sat down in his chambers at Balliol College, Oxford, and made himself a cup of strong coffee. Canopius's brew is believed to mark the first time coffee was drunk in England; it proved so popular when it was offered to the public that hundreds of coffee houses were soon in operation all over London.

What does Canopius's coffee have to do with * the concept of risk? Simply that a coffee house was the birthplace of Lloyd's of London, which for more than two centuries was the most famous of all insurance company's. *

The second half of the seventeenth century was also an era of burgeoning trade. The Dutch were the predominant commercial power of the time, and England was their main rival. Ships arrived daily from colonies and suppliers around the globe to unload a profusion of products that had once been scarce or unknown luxuries-sugar and spice, coffee and tea, raw cotton and fine porcelain. * Information from remote areas of the world was now of crucial importance to the domestic economy. With the volume of shipping constantly expanding, there was a lively demand for current information with which to estimate sailing times between destinations, weather patterns, and the risks lurking in unfamiliar seas.

In the absence of mass media, the coffee houses emerged as the primary source of news and rumour. In 1675, Charles II,
suspicious as many rulers are of places where the public trades information, shut the coffee houses down, but the uproar was so great that he had to reverse himself sixteen days later. Samuel Pepys frequented a coffee house to get news of the arrival of ships he was interested in; he deemed the news he received there to be more reliable than what he learned at his job at the Admiralty.

The coffee house that Edward Lloyd opened in 1687 near the Thames on Tower Street was a favourite haunt of men from the ships that moored at London's docks. The house was "spacious, well built and inhabited by able tradesmen" according to a contemporary publication. It grew so popular that in 1691 Lloyd moved it to much larger and more luxurious quarters on Lombard Street. Nat Ward, a publican whom Alexander Pope accused of trading vile rhymes for tobacco, reported that the tables in the new house were "very neat and shined with rubbing." A staff of five served tea and sherbet as well as coffee.

Lloyd had grown up under Oliver Cromwell and he had lived through plague, fire, the Dutch invasion up the Thames in 1667, and the Glorious Revolution of 1688. He was a lot more than a skilled coffeehouse host. Recognizing the value of his customer base and responding to the insistent demand for information, he launched "Lloyd's List" in 1696 and filled it with information on the arrivals and departures of ships and intelligence on conditions abroad and at sea. That information was provided by a network of correspondents in major ports on the Continent and in England. Ship auctions took place regularly on the premises, and Lloyd obligingly furnished the paper and ink needed to record the transactions. One corner was reserved for ships' captains where they could compare notes on the hazards of all the new routes that were opening up - routes that led them farther east, farther south, and farther west than ever before. Lloyd's establishment was open almost around the clock and was always crowded.

Then as now, anyone who was seeking insurance would go to a broker, who would then hawk the risk to the individual risk-takers who gathered in the coffee houses or in the precincts of the Royal Exchange. When a deal was closed, the risk-taker would confirm his agreement to cover the loss in return for a specified premium by writing his name

I'd highly recommend Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything. I found it because it was one of Powell's "favorite new titles of the season".

It covers (briefly) the history of the earth, the universe, Physics and Chemistry. If you know your science, you probably won't learn a lot from it, but the fun part is the way he covers the personalities behind all the discoveries. I'd say at least 2/3 of the book is brief biographies of hundreds of people you probably haven't heard of.

The writing style is very casual, easy to understand even for non-science nerds, and (most surprisingly) pretty funny. It's not very expensive either. I'd reccomend this book to just about anyone with a casual interest in science (even if that interest is so casual that they haven't sought out science books before).

I've yet to meet or hear of anyone who has lived a completely "right" life.

Slow reader, eh? Don't worry, the story picks up in part 2.

But if we build a space elevator to get stuff off the Moon, instead of a mass-driver or similar electromagnetic catapult, then how will our eventual Moon colony throw rocks at us in order to gain its independence? Someone needs to be considering the future ramifications, dammit!

By the by, you can save some money by purchasing the book here.

...and you can save some of your soul by purchasing the book here.

How to understand the presidential election results.

If you haven't read any books about U.S. politics, then you probably don't know much about the activities of the U.S. government.

You cannot rely for information on TV or newspapers, or any advertising-supported media. Advertising-supported media exists to make money, not to inform. Advertisers are understandably careful not to alienate anyone. It is not possible to develop an accurate opinion of government activities only by listening to the carefully crafted phrases from media employees who would lose their jobs if they seemed to indicate a preference for one candidate over another.

It's a fact that Bush supporters often have a poor understanding of his actions rather than what he wants people to believe. One example of support for this is the following article: Bush Supporters Misread Many of His Foreign Policy Positions.

The U.S. government is corrupted by extreme conflict of interest. Please don't moderate this down just because you disagree. I can support my position with links to 3 movies and 35 books: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government.

For a quicker overview, see this article: 100 Facts and 1 Opinion -- The Non-Arguable Case Against the Bush Administration.

The county-by-county results showing not only who won, but the number, are extremely interesting. So is the USA Today result map. They show what might be expected. Those who live in rural counties vote for Bush. In the past century, the more intelligent, educated, and ambitious people have migrated away from the farms to places with more opportunities. The less educated have stayed behind. Those who live in rural counties are less likely to read, and therefore are not well-informed.

Those who don't read are fooled by Karl Rove's lies. Here are books about Karl Rove's methods:

Boy Genius: Karl Rove, The brains behind the remarkable political triumph of George W. Bush by Lou Dubose, Jan Reid, and Carl M. Cannon, 2003, PublicAffairs. Reviews: Powell's Barnes & Noble Amazon

Part of the secret of Karl Rove's success is that U.S. voters don't want to believe there is widespread corruption in their government. Lies that are extreme and unrelenting enough are accepted.

President George W. Bush has a habit of giving disrespectful nicknames to those with whom he works. "Boy Genius" is one of Mr. Bush's nicknames for Karl Rove. Mr. Bush also calls Karl Rove, "Turd Blossom". The term refers to a flower that grows in the feces of a cow.

Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove made George W. Bush presidential by James Moore and Wayne Slater, 2003, John Wiley & Sons, New York, New York, USA. Reviews: Powell's Barnes & Noble Amazon

One of the Amazon reviews quotes the book: "Karl Rove matters to all Americans, many who have never even heard his name. While the president chafes at the description of Rove as 'Bush's Brain,' he can hardly deny that every policy

How to understand the presidential election results.

If you haven't read any books about U.S. politics, then you probably don't know much about the activities of the U.S. government.

You cannot rely for information on TV or newspapers, or any advertising-supported media. Advertising-supported media exists to make money, not to inform. Advertisers are understandably careful not to alienate anyone. It is not possible to develop an accurate opinion of government activities only by listening to the carefully crafted phrases from media employees who would lose their jobs if they seemed to indicate a preference for one candidate over another.

It's a fact that Bush supporters often have a poor understanding of his actions rather than what he wants people to believe. One example of support for this is the following article: Bush Supporters Misread Many of His Foreign Policy Positions.

The U.S. government is corrupted by extreme conflict of interest. Please don't moderate this down just because you disagree. I can support my position with links to 3 movies and 35 books: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government.

For a quicker overview, see this article: 100 Facts and 1 Opinion -- The Non-Arguable Case Against the Bush Administration.

The county-by-county results showing not only who won, but the number, are extremely interesting. So is the USA Today result map. They show what might be expected. Those who live in rural counties vote for Bush. In the past century, the more intelligent, educated, and ambitious people have migrated away from the farms to places with more opportunities. The less educated have stayed behind. Those who live in rural counties are less likely to read, and therefore are not well-informed.

Those who don't read are fooled by Karl Rove's lies. Here are books about Karl Rove's methods:

Boy Genius: Karl Rove, The brains behind the remarkable political triumph of George W. Bush by Lou Dubose, Jan Reid, and Carl M. Cannon, 2003, PublicAffairs. Reviews: Powell's Barnes & Noble Amazon

Part of the secret of Karl Rove's success is that U.S. voters don't want to believe there is widespread corruption in their government. Lies that are extreme and unrelenting enough are accepted.

President George W. Bush has a habit of giving disrespectful nicknames to those with whom he works. "Boy Genius" is one of Mr. Bush's nicknames for Karl Rove. Mr. Bush also calls Karl Rove, "Turd Blossom". The term refers to a flower that grows in the feces of a cow.

Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove made George W. Bush presidential by James Moore and Wayne Slater, 2003, John Wiley & Sons, New York, New York, USA. Reviews: Powell's Barnes & Noble Amazon

One of the Amazon reviews quotes the book: "Karl Rove matters to all Americans, many who have never even heard his name. While the president chafes at the description of Rove as 'Bush's Brain,' he can hardly deny that every policy

They didn't "kill off" The Wind Done Gone, they actually turned it into a bestseller that you can buy just about anywhere. Also, "great" isn't all that accurate either. I haven't read it, but the reviews were pretty harsh. The final paragraph of the encyclopedia link I gave above sums up the critical reaction.

Next Step... counter the fear. Problem is there's no direct pro-nuclear groups/funding out there. So we have to do it ourselves.

Here's a good book on how to counter an agenda
(note: it's not clear that anti-nuclear is clearly a right-wing agenda).

In Portland, Oregon, a friend mentioned that, before the last election, there were no signs in the yards in the wealthy area where he lives. Now there are seven Kerry/Edwards signs in the yards around his. There are no Bush signs.

I began looking for Bush signs as I drive around my area. I've seen none. There is at least one Kerry sign on each block, usually more.

I've heard that there are plenty of Bush signs in the rural areas of the state.

Many people in the U.S. know very, very little about the activities in their government. There are many very angry people. The ignorant and the angry are easily manipulated. To them, for example, bombing for democracy makes sense.

During the Clinton years, I read the books that were published about him. They said he was having sex with slutty women. They tried to find something wrong with his small losing investment called Whitewater. They said he may have, at some time during his being governor of Arkansas, associated with people who later turned out to be involved in questionable activities. I found the books interesting, but a little lame.

Now I've read the books about Bush. It's amazing. The information about Bush is about severe corruption of government.

The negative information about George W. Bush seems endless. Just when I think I know 10% of the corruption, I find more detail that shows I know less than 1% of it. For example, George W. Bush's brother was shown in a lawsuit deposition on 20/20 casually talking about his prostitutes and his use of government influence to make money. This is Neil Bush talking about himself.

George H.W. Bush was involved in the weapons business with a brother of Osama bin Laden. See House of Bush, House of Saud: The secret relationship between the world's two most powerful dynasties by Craig Unger, 2004, Scribner, New York, New York, USA. Reviews: Powell's Barnes & Noble Amazon

Most media exists to make money. Advertisers are understandably careful not to alienate anyone. It is not possible to develop an accurate opinion of government activities only by listening to the carefully crafted phrases from media employees who would lose their jobs if they seemed to indicate a preference for one policy over another. It's necessary to read books.

George Soros says, "President Bush is endangering our safety, hurting our vital interests, and undermining American values." If Dole had been elected instead of Clinton, the U.S. would have had sensible leadership. This election is different. It is not a matter of which candidate you like. If you vote for Bush, you are poorly informed. This is not a claim that Kerry and Edwards are perfect. They represent, at minimum, a needed change.

--
Government data compares Democrat and Republican economics.

Books about those who designed
the Bush administration's deliberate dishonesty

There are many excellent people in the Republican political party in the United States. But there is are people who say they are Republicans who might be called "Re-money-cans". (There is no "public" in Remoneycan.) They are only interested in money and power and they achieve them by using dishonesty as a tool. For example, the Remoneycans have been running advertisements on U.S. television claiming that George W. Bush is a more experienced military leader than John Kerry, who opposes him for the 2004 presidential election. During times when people in the U.S. feel threatened, a large percentage of them feel that violence is the only answer, and the ads manipulate that feeling. The ads may be very convincing if the viewer does not know the truth, that John Kerry is much more experienced, as the Military Service Records for Bush and Kerry show. Also see the essay Bush's Military Records Show He Shirked.

1. Boy Genius: Karl Rove, The brains behind the remarkable political triumph of George W. Bush by Lou Dubose, Jan Reid, and Carl M. Cannon, 2003, PublicAffairs. Reviews: Powell's Barnes & Noble Amazon

   The secret of Karl Rove's success is that U.S. voters don't want to believe there is widespread corruption in their government. Therefore, if lies are extreme enough, they will be accepted.

   President George W. Bush has a habit of giving disrespectful nicknames to those with whom he works. "Boy Genius" is one of President Bush's nicknames for Karl Rove. President Bush also calls Karl Rove, "Turd Blossom". The term refers to a flower that grows in the feces of a cow.

2. Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove made George W. Bush presidential by James Moore and Wayne Slater, 2003, John Wiley & Sons, New York, New York, USA. Reviews: Powell's Barnes & Noble Amazon

   An Amazon review about the present U.S. president, George W. Bush, quotes the book: "Karl Rove matters to all Americans, many who have never even heard his name. While the president chafes at the description of Rove as 'Bush's Brain,' he can hardly deny that every policy and political decision either goes through, or comes from, the consultant," write the authors, leading them to pose the question, "Who really runs this country?"

3. Bad Boy: The life and politics of Lee Atwater by John Brady, 1997, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Reading, Massachusetts. Reviews: Barnes & Noble Amazon

   Lee Atwater and Karl Rove worked together, but Lee died of a brain tumor when he was 40. Mr. Atwater also had no interest in government policy, but only in how to get someone elected. For example, see the top of page 103 of the hardcover edition: "Indeed, Lee had no interest in the policy loop." Another quote, about his sexual involvement with women other than his wife, from page 151: "He [Lee Atw

Books about those who designed
the Bush administration's deliberate dishonesty

There are many excellent people in the Republican political party in the United States. But there is are people who say they are Republicans who might be called "Re-money-cans". (There is no "public" in Remoneycan.) They are only interested in money and power and they achieve them by using dishonesty as a tool. For example, the Remoneycans have been running advertisements on U.S. television claiming that George W. Bush is a more experienced military leader than John Kerry, who opposes him for the 2004 presidential election. During times when people in the U.S. feel threatened, a large percentage of them feel that violence is the only answer, and the ads manipulate that feeling. The ads may be very convincing if the viewer does not know the truth, that John Kerry is much more experienced, as the Military Service Records for Bush and Kerry show. Also see the essay Bush's Military Records Show He Shirked.

1. Boy Genius: Karl Rove, The brains behind the remarkable political triumph of George W. Bush by Lou Dubose, Jan Reid, and Carl M. Cannon, 2003, PublicAffairs. Reviews: Powell's Barnes & Noble Amazon

   The secret of Karl Rove's success is that U.S. voters don't want to believe there is widespread corruption in their government. Therefore, if lies are extreme enough, they will be accepted.

   President George W. Bush has a habit of giving disrespectful nicknames to those with whom he works. "Boy Genius" is one of President Bush's nicknames for Karl Rove. President Bush also calls Karl Rove, "Turd Blossom". The term refers to a flower that grows in the feces of a cow.

2. Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove made George W. Bush presidential by James Moore and Wayne Slater, 2003, John Wiley & Sons, New York, New York, USA. Reviews: Powell's Barnes & Noble Amazon

   An Amazon review about the present U.S. president, George W. Bush, quotes the book: "Karl Rove matters to all Americans, many who have never even heard his name. While the president chafes at the description of Rove as 'Bush's Brain,' he can hardly deny that every policy and political decision either goes through, or comes from, the consultant," write the authors, leading them to pose the question, "Who really runs this country?"

3. Bad Boy: The life and politics of Lee Atwater by John Brady, 1997, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Reading, Massachusetts. Reviews: Barnes & Noble Amazon

   Lee Atwater and Karl Rove worked together, but Lee died of a brain tumor when he was 40. Mr. Atwater also had no interest in government policy, but only in how to get someone elected. For example, see the top of page 103 of the hardcover edition: "Indeed, Lee had no interest in the policy loop." Another quote, about his sexual involvement with women other than his wife, from page 151: "He [Lee Atw

1. Uncovered: The Whole Truth about the Iraq War by Producer/ Director Robert Greenwald, 2003, 56 minutes. Independent film by the Producer. Web site: Uncovered. Reviews: Powell's (out of stock, no reviews) Barnes & Noble Amazon

   This documentary shows the actual video of Bush administration officials justifying the war in Iraq. The overall effect is powerful.

   Quotes:

   • "... it is a federal felony, it's a crime, to mislead and distort information and present it to the Congress." -- 23:14 minutes into the movie.

   • "... the administration has not been honest..."

   • "... very disturbing ... intervention by people particularly from Vice President Cheney's office and Vice President Cheney himself ... to produce precisely the language which would allow them ... to support the decision to go into Iraq." -- Dr. David C. MacMichael, former CIA analyst. Page 7 of the transcript, 7:32 minutes in the movie.

   • "It is somewhat puzzling, I think, that you can have a hundred percent certainty about the weapons of mass destruction's existence, and zero certainty about where they are." -- Hans Blix, chief weapons inspector, referring to the administration's statements, at 34:44 minutes into the movie.

   This work is available several in several forms, some of which are free:

   • A transcript of the movie is available online. NOTE: Both forms of the transcript contain errors. The errors I've seen are minor. The quotes here have been checked against the movie.

   • The transcript is also available as a downloadable Adobe Acrobat PDF file. The Acrobat PDF Reader software needed to view the transcript is a free download for all computers.

   • You can buy the DVD online for $9.95 from Amazon or Barnes & Noble or from CafeShops.com, at a Cafe Shops online store that is inappropriately titled Disinformation. The store originally sold items connected with a humorous TV show called Disinformation.

   • The DVD is available on loan through Netflix.

   • Make your own copies: Kate McArdle, one of the producers, told me that they encourage people to make copies of the DVD and give them to friends (but not sell them, of course). Also, they encourage people to play the movie for groups of people, without extra payment.

2. Unprecedented - 2000 Presidential Election by Richard Ray Perez, Joan Sekler, and Robert Greenwald, 2002, reissued 2004. Web site: Unprecedented. Reviews: Barnes & Noble Amazon, DVD Amazon, VHS IMDB

   From a

beware of the guy at the end of the universe, i hear he's real strict on who gets in...

She's not a guy. (See The Books of Magic to see her putting the chairs up on the tables at the end of time.)

And she treats everyone pretty much the same...

1. http://users.ev1.net/~holliser/Prescience/Text/Mim sy1.html
2. http://users.ev1.net/~holliser/Prescience/Text/Mim sy2.html
3. http://users.ev1.net/~holliser/Prescience/Text/Mim sy3.html
4. http://users.ev1.net/~holliser/Prescience/Text/Mim sy4.html
5. http://users.ev1.net/~holliser/Prescience/Text/Mim sy5.html
6. http://users.ev1.net/~holliser/Prescience/Text/Mim sy6.html
7. http://users.ev1.net/~holliser/Prescience/Text/Mim sy7.html
8. http://users.ev1.net/~holliser/Prescience/Text/Mim sy8.html
9. http://users.ev1.net/~holliser/Prescience/Text/Mim sy9.html

I keep reading posts on many forums where they say things like "I would vote against Bush, but I'm just not sure that Kerry would really protect America". To me, that sounds less like sensible, enlightened caution and more like visceral fear of being blown up.

You are very much on the right track. The Denial of Death posits that ALL human behavior is driven by the fear of death of ego, and I have seen nothing that has led me to believe this is not in fact true.

But anyways, as I just wrote in the Singularity vs SF thread, SF is almost never about prediction. Its about showing how people will react to major changes in science or society. Sure, there've been some lucky hits, and there are SF writers who enjoy extended infodumps, but that's not the point / not the goal.

With SF you're trying to capture the feel of ordinary life under new (to us) circumstances. The best SF ( short stories or novels, or award nominees) often read like ordinary books, just from very far away. As an example, the Handmaid's Tale wasn't predicting the future of the US. But look how well it captured the look and feel of a country taken over by religious fundies (i.e. the Taliban).

For a much better take on what life might be like in the 2010's, read Stross's award nominated first story in his Accelerando set. At peak density one of his paragraphs contain more predictions than all of Sawyer's article, yet Lobsters also includes sensawunda. (sensawunda: hard to define, but its analogous to Chesterton's quote (my paraphrase): we shouldn't treat 'we can go to the moon' as being just as ordinary and boring as a telephone call. We should realize that being able to call anyone, anywhere in the world is as amazing as being able to go to the moon.)

Hard to capture a single quote, but for example (and this crowd):

[protagonist arrives at a bar for his meeting] "Manfred's away, one hand resting on the smooth brass pipe that funnels the more popular draught items in from the cask storage in back; one of the hipper floaters has planted a capacitative transfer bug on it, and all the handshake vCard's that have visited the bar in the past three hours are queueing for attention. The air is full of bluetooth as he scrolls through a dizzying mess of public keys.

"...The hanger-on at the bar notices him for the first time, staring with suddenly wide eyes: nearly spills his Coke in a mad rush for the door.

"Oh shit, thinks Macx, better buy some more server PIPS. He can recognize the signs: he's about to be slashdotted..."

"...Just then a bandwidth load as heavy as a pregnant elephant sits down on Manfred's head and sends clumps of humongous pixellation flickering across his sensorium: around the world five million or so geeks are bouncing on his home site, a digital flash crowd alerted by a posting from the other side of the bar. Manfred winces. "I really came here to talk about the economic exploitation of space travel, but I've just been slashdotted. Mind if I just sit and drink until it wears off?"

And if you actually believe that Farenheit 9/11 was in anyway truthful, or based on any facts at all...

You don't even have to read much about the Iraq conflict to realize what an un-American clusterfsck that is. For extra credit, look up which congressmen actually voted against giving Bush a blank check to wage perpetual war for elite interests. This should reveal exactly how democratic the US political system actually is.

And if you actually believe that Farenheit 9/11 was in anyway truthful, or based on any facts at all...

You don't even have to read much about the Iraq conflict to realize what an un-American clusterfsck that is. For extra credit, look up which congressmen actually voted against giving Bush a blank check to wage perpetual war for elite interests. This should reveal exactly how democratic the US political system actually is.

I found the book: Coping with Difficult People by Robert M. Bramson very helpful in dealing with (as you say) an ''extremely unpleasant person''.

The grandparent and parent posts do not take into account that used bookstores around literally scattered everywhere across the US, and indeed, even on teh interwebaolnet. powells.com has a huge selection and gives you the choice between used and new, ditto places like amazon and barnes & nobles or borders books. A physical store is best, since you can of course see what you're buying before you put your money down, but often selection is limited; you might not find what you were looking for, but if you're looking for something general (or just something to read,) you're bound to find something cheap and in good condition.

I picked up a hardcover copy of Kurt Vonnegut's "Galapogos" for 2 dollars less than a week ago. It's not new, and I didn't have it on mind going in to the store, but I knew I wanted to read some Vonnegut and a few friends had recommended that particular book. That's half as much as the grandparent post suggested for new softcover books, and my book is relatively good, condition-wise (dust jacket a bit frayed at the top, no creases or tears, no pages torn or written on, not obviously urinated on, etc.)

Online stores have better selection -- and you can sometimes ask to be notified if a particular item comes in and is available as "used" -- but tend to be just slightly pricier (shipping and handling,) but not by much. Their only real downside is you don't get to inspect your book before you buy it, so your recourse is to either not care too much about the condition of the book, or only buy from "trusted" sellers (or sellers rated as "trusted" by other buyers,) that promise the book is in good condition.

...if you don't mind changing the way you have been doing everything effectively for the past decade or two. David Gelernter, in Machine Beauty , derides this situation, reminding us how bad it is to deal with "a complex or weak program that forces you to bend to its worldview instead of accomodating yours."

Yes, welcome, Linus!!!

If you need some help in getting oriented or someone to show you around, send me an email.

Living in Portland is far better than in NoCal. NoCal has too many cars and bad smog.

Here's useful info:

Portland has the largest bookstore in the world.

Portland borders on the confluence of the Willamette River and the Columbia River, one of the largest rivers in the world.

One of the 7 WindSurfing Wonders of the World is in the Columbia River Gorge, on the eastern edge of the Portland metropolitan area.

Portland has one of the largest and most successful dealers in contemporary art in the world. The gallery has a funny name, but shows the work of over 1,100 artists.

Portland has the largest park inside a city in the world. The park has over 74 miles of wilderness hiking trails and 5,124 acres.

Portland is the home of Pink Martini, a band that writes multi-cultural songs. One of Pink Martini's songs was once one of the most popular songs in France. You can listen to the music video.

It's a 55 minute drive from downtown Portland to the ski areas. "World Class Skiing in Your Own Backyard."

The K-12 Linux Project, in Portland, is one of the more successful projects for giving Linux to average users, who in this case are students.

On the other hand: Q. Why do hippies come to Portland? A. Because there are no jobs.

Many people don't like the months of rain every year. They say Portland is the perfect place for slugs and ducks. (However, the rain cleans the air.) Those with the correct philosophical orientation call it Liquid Sunshine.

Don't forget Powell's bookstore. Bigger than a city block and (from their site talking about "Powell's City of Books" (main store) it is the "the largest used and new bookstore in the world"(page.) You want to see a 1,000,000 books in stock, talk a walk through there. The technical bookstore (about 2 blocks away) has lots of interesting books as well.

Don't forget Powell's bookstore. Bigger than a city block and (from their site talking about "Powell's City of Books" (main store) it is the "the largest used and new bookstore in the world"(page.) You want to see a 1,000,000 books in stock, talk a walk through there. The technical bookstore (about 2 blocks away) has lots of interesting books as well.

By "children's parade", do you mean the "Starlight Parade" - which is the second largest night time parade on the west coast, which is the prelude to the Rose Festival which is the largest parade on the west coast?

Just to clarify, the "whole neighborhood" didn't turn out for the Starlight Parade. The Starlight Parade draws between 350,000 and 400,000 people. A bit more than a little neighborhood parade.

Linus should check out the best talk show in the northwest, too: RickEmerson.com.

We also have the dragon boat races, japanese rose gardens, chinese garden, are mad about bicycling and mass transit and are home to The Worlds Largest Book Store.

I know exactly what you mean. Chuck Palahniuk describes it as a town of fugitives and refugees. It's the kind of place where pedestrians and bicyclists have the right of way, regardless of what the street lights might read, and you don't turn into a street until after everyone has crossed (the opposite of Dallas, at least). It's also the kind of place where an office lunch is just as likely to be held in a bar as in the local sandwich shop. Speaking of bars, the area's known for its microbreweries as well. And there's Powell's Books, of course, the largest bookstore in the world, in case you get bored with walking around...

The city itself's only a couple hundred thousand people. You can see a couple mountains from downtown, depending on where you are and how hazy/misty the weather is. There's great scenery just minutes away in every direction. The west stretch of Highway 26 is also called Sunset Highway, for good reason - it runs out to the coast, which has some excellent beaches (look up Cannon Beach and Haystack Rock on Google images for pretty pictures). The weather is generally milder than Dallas; I didn't have air conditioning in my apartment, and only felt I needed it about 3 weeks out of the year, and I kept a kitchen window partly open almost all winter long. As for rain, when I moved up there the average rainfall was 31 inches, and Dallas' was 33 - it's just that Dallas has a few gully-washers yearly, whereas Portland enjoys mist or drizzle a couple times a week much of the year.

I do have to warn you though, it does (or did) have the highest suicide rate in the U.S, probably due in part to the fact that the sky is often overcast, there's less peak light (unless you mean on mountain peaks) at that lattitude, and so forth. However, I actually prefer those conditions to the ones down here, so I was happy during the winter months.

reply 2:

Nice travel-guide-related website: Lonely Planet

events calendar

Powell's history page [comment regarding my relationship with them through my excellent former employer deleted]
If that's not bookish enough, try Reed. "Reedy" is a fitting name for most of the students.

public gardens If you're at all interested in nice gardens to walk through, the International Rose Test Garden is a great place to walk around.
If you have more time, the Japanese Garden is pretty must the only garden outside Japan considered to be "real" (the Mt. Fuji-stand-in doesn't hurt, either)

At some point, if you drink alcohol, or even just eat, you might end up visiting one of these. They've converted a lot of old schools, etc. into pubs along with the usual locations.

You probably won't want to go out there if you don't have much time on your trip, but see if you can recognize this hotel from the picture. [It's this one, Slashdotters]

The Columbia River Highway runs east of Portland, and includes some nice scenery of Multnomah Falls and the Gorge area.

Out west is Cannon Beach and Haystack Rock.

Oh, tying almost everything in town is the MAX, the light rail service. Gues

It's on sale.

I also recommend it, it's a wonderful book.

If you want a slimmer and less all-encompassing read on the prominence of Greek seafaring, I heartily commend to you The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek by scholar Barry Cunliffe. If you're not from Marseille or a classics student, you might never of heard of Pytheas, an inhabitant of that same city (at that time a greek colony called Massalia) who not only ventured to the Ocean beyond the Pillars of Hercules, but charted the French Atlantic coast, the British isles, and explored as far north as Iceland and the Arctic Circle and as far east - maybe - as Denmark.

Unfortunately, his book, On the Ocean, burned at Alexandria and survives only in quoted fragments, so we have to guess from these fragments - which blessedly include his longitudinal readings - the specifics of his journey. Using a thorough knowledge of Greek seafaring and Mediterranean naval culture, as well as a good handle on archaeology, Cunliffe takes you along Pytheas's hypothetical route, introducing you to the ancient peoples of France, the British Isles, Norway, and Denmark (no one in Iceland yet, sorry).

It's a pretty compelling story, one that's not usually told, and Cunliffe makes it eminently readable and enjoyable. And if you're like me, it'll make you want to go read the "On the Ocean" fragments in the original Greek, in the hopes of gleaning another hidden secret of this amazing exploration.

1. House of Bush, House of Saud: The secret relationship between the world's two most powerful dynasties by Craig Unger, 2004, Scribner. Available as a book and as excerpts on CD.
   
   The Bush family connection with the Saudis is also documented in a new movie by Michael Moore, due for release on July 4, 2004, called Fahrenheit 9/11. Michael Moore won an academy award for his movie " Bowling for Columbine", in spite of the sometimes poor quality of his reporting.
2. Crude Politics: How Bush's oil cronies hijacked the war on terrorism by Paul Sperry, 2003, WND Books, Nashville, Tennessee, USA.
3. Worse than Watergate: The secret presidency of George W. Bush by John W. Dean, 2004, Little, Brown and Co., New York. Here are quotes from an NPR Interview of John Dean, which is available online (NPR is National Public Radio in the U.S.):
   
   "This is not a left-right issue. It's not a Republican, Democrat issue. I draw on as many Republicans who are critical of the secrecy of this presidency as I do Democrats." From the written introduction: "Reporters covering the White House of George W. Bush claim that the current administration is more pre-occupied with controlling information than any of his predecessors."
   
   More quotes from John Dean: "Bush is head of state and Cheney is head of government." George W. Bush is "frighteningly unsophisticated for a president of the United States". "I can't find anything that is comparable in history."
4. The Book on Bush: How George W. (mis)leads America by Eric Alterman and Mark Green, 2004. Available as a book and excerpts on CD.
5. Fraud: The strategy behind the Bush lies and why the media didn't tell you by Paul Waldman, 2004, Sourcebooks, Inc. Paul Waldman is the past associate director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center and holds a Ph.D. in communications.
6. American Dynasty: Aristocracy, fortune, and the politics of deceit in the house of Bush by Kevin Phillips, 2004.
7. The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the education of Paul O'Neill by Ron Suskind, 2004, Simon & Schuster. Available as a book and excerpts on CD.
8. Against All Enemies: Inside America's war on terror by Richard A. Clarke, 2004, Free Press. Available as a book and excerpts on cassette and CD. Mr. Clarke was the head of the U.S. government's anti-terrorism effort until he quit because of disagreement with the George W. Bush administration. Mr. Clarke had served under President Reagan, the former President Bush, and President Clinton.
9. Perfectly Legal: The covert campaign to rig our tax system to benefit the super rich -- and cheat everybody else by David Cay Johnston, 2003, Portfolio. Reviews: Powell's Barnes and Noble Amazon
   
   Mr. Johnston has twice won the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting.
10. Supreme Injustice: How the high court hijacked election 2000 by Alan M. Dershowitz, 2001, Oxf

I will ask this question to PDA phone mavens at Mobile Showcase Showcase, which I am attending. You can see the result once I've gotten to ask some of the notables present.

However, Linux bears the seed of its own lack of progress; who's going to water the tree from which it grows?

PDA phone development is not just hacking code to throw on a PC, whose architecture is planned years in advance at every WinHEC and painstaking documented in dozens of new titles every year (my fave being Robert Bruce Thompson's PC Hardware in a Nutshell).

Utterly different devices, PDA phones are. Since they are phones, their internal radio architecture is morphing on incredibly rapid cycles, as the cellular carriers are pushing the bleeding edge with new modulation systems as rapidly as their supply of 'the most important engineering material' (money) will permit.

PDA phones also must be approved before market by the FCC Stateside, and similar regulatory agencies Elsewhere, using standards far more involved and rigorous than are applied to PCs. More delays, more money.

There's no Linux sugardaddy like PalmSource or Microsoft to push that progress, is there? Maybe that explains why Linux phones don't exist.

Look at PDA phones. Right now, the US market distribution (as per IDC) is:

Smartphones:

PalmOS has 32%, Other OS have 24%, Symbian has 23% and Microsoft has 11%. Linux is 0%.

Handhelds:

PalmOS has 65%, WinCE/Pocket PC has 34% and Linux has 1%. One per cent.

But, you really don't _need_ a manufacturer, anymore. Samsung and other PalmPhone makers are turning loose their specs and firmware source to developers.

If you want a Linux PDA phone, go right ahead. Write the code to turn a SPH-i500 into a Linux Phone.

Me, from my Olympian perspective, I and I think it won't happen. By the time it could, the cellular mutant of the PSTN will be replaced by an ubiquitious IP cloud, through WiFi and WiMAX, and Linux devices will wirelessly use IP telephony, the heirs of Skype, to enulate telephony, and skip right over the idea of a LinuxPhone.

You read it here first.

The nature of the Bible is an interesting subject. There are many ways to approach it.

For a middle-of-the-road view from modern archaeology, see The Bible and Interpretation, as well as the IMO excellent book The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts, Israel Finkelstein, Neil Asher Silberman.

It is available at Powell's among Other Places.

The thing about some archaeologists is, are they looking to see what the evidence out there says? Or are they looking to find evidence for a Divine hand-me-down? The traps in the latter approach are many, including confusing absence of evidence for evidence of absence.

Maybe you have never asked your senators to stop selling the government to special interests. The Saudis leaders are irritated at George W. Bush right now (one of them called him "goofy"), so you are paying more for gasoline. But, of course, the Bush family will make more money, since they are in the oil profit business, through the Carlyle Group, I understand, and through other involvements.

George W. Bush likes to give people disrespecful nicknames. He sometimes calls Karl Rove "turd blossom". Read all about it in the book Boy Genius by Lou Dubose. If you look at the front cover, you see that the word "Boy" is under the photo of Bush, and the word "Genius" is under the photo of Karl Rove. Karl Rove designed the misleading ads about John Kerry that are running now. Before him, the Republican party had Lee Atwater, who also believed in winning through dishonesty. When Lee Atwater got a brain tumor at age 40, he decided that maybe he was dying because of his dishonesty. But it was too late to change his behavior; he died two months later.

If George W. Bush says that the chief architect of his political success is a "turd blossom", who are we to argue? If a Saudi who knows George W. Bush well calls him "goofy", who are we to say the word does not apply?