Archive for June, 2007
The Sacromento Bee is having problems finding letters that praise President Bush
How rare is it these days for a reader to write a letter to the paper supporting President George W. Bush?
Well, visualize quietly efficient editorial workers diligently digging through the hundreds of e-mails, letters, faxes and online offerings submitted by The Bee’s readers each week.
Days and days go by until, finally, one suddenly appears, like a glimmering gold nugget in a clear Sierra stream: a letter praising the president. Eureka!
It brings a smile to Bill Moore’s face, not to mention a sense of relief.
Moore is the paper’s letters editor. He has the task of selecting the eight to 10 readers’ letters published on the editorial pages most days.
Last August and September, he noticed what he calls a “sea change,” a significant drop in letters supporting the president.
And it has remained that way ever since.
Meanwhile, there has been a corresponding increase in letters critical of Bush, including a growing number from readers who identify themselves as Republicans.
“We’d love to put pro-Bush letters in,” he said. “If a letter like that comes in, it goes to the top of the list. I make a big deal about it.
But with the lack of pro-Bush missives, the paper is willing to cut some slack.
“A badly written letter in favor of Bush is more likely to get into the paper than a badly written letter on another topic,” said Holwerk.
“There’s no way,” he said, “to achieve an ideal on this.”
Another thing Holwerk is concerned about is the potential of an artificial and orchestrated letter-writing campaign being unleashed on The Bee as a result of this column, though he agrees the lack of letters is a valid subject for airing.
I’d be surprised if there wasn’t such a campaign, given the Internet’s reach, activist political blogs and the fierceness of partisan politics.
Computer Nerd Political Talk
Site Operating System and Server by Candidate
Joe Biden (Democrat) – Linux, Zope by Interlix
Hillary Clinton (Democrat) – Windows Server 2003, Microsoft-IIS/6.0 by Paul Holcomb
Christopher Dodd (Democrat) – FreeBSD, Apache by pair Networks
John Edwards (Democrat) – Linux, Apache by Plus Three
Mike Gravel (Democrat) – Linux, Apache by Voxel Dot Net, Inc.
Dennis Kucinich (Democrat) – Linux, Apache by New Age Consulting
Barack Obama (Democrat) – FreeBSD, Apache by pair Networks
Bill Richardson (Democrat) – Linux, Zope by Interlix
Wesley Clark (Democrat) – Linux, Apache by Voxel Dot Net, Inc.
Al Gore (Democrat) – Linux, Apache by Rackspace
Sam Brownback (Republican) – Windows Server 2003, Microsoft-IIS/6.0 by RackForce Hosting, Inc.
Jim Gilmore (Republican) – Linux, Apache by 1&1 Internet, Inc.
Rudy Giuliani (Republican) – Linux, Apache by RackSpace
Mike Huckabee (Republican) – Windows Server 2003, Microsoft-IIS/6.0 by LNH Inc.
Duncun Hunter (Republican) – Windows Server 2003, Microsoft-IIS/6.0 by Individual
John McCain (Republican) – Windows Server 2003, Microsoft-IIS/6.0 by Smartech Corporation
Ron Paul (Republican) – Linux, Apache by Rackspace
Mitt Romney (Republican) – Linux, Apache by Rackspace
Tom Tancredo (Republican) – Windows Server 2003, Microsoft-IIS/6.0 by Interland
Fred Thompson (Republican) – Windows Server 2003, Microsoft-IIS/6.0 by LNH Inc.
Tommy Thompson (Republican) – Windows Server 2003, Microsoft-IIS/6.0 by Time Warner Telecom, Inc.
Chuck Hagel (Republican) – Windows Server 2003, Microsoft-IIS/6.0 by Individual
Newt Gingrich (Republican) – Windows Server 2003, Microsoft-IIS/6.0 by Smartech Corporation
 Dead Sodas – A Tribute To Soft Drinks No Longer With Us
Collecting old cans and bottles of soda, preferably full, is one of the things about me that I try to hide from those closest. It’s a shameful hobby, I admit, but it’s not my fault God wired me in such a way that I cannot live without two sealed cans of Surge serving as bookends for six or seven really light books. Because sodas obviously grow rare when they’re discontinued, they aren’t exactly the cheapest thing to collect. So, let’s try to squeeze an article out of them to justify the fact that I can’t afford new soda because I bought too much ten-year-old soda.
Link (language warning)
Google Maps New Feature
Customize Your Driving Directions
Basically you just drag the blueish/purple line along with some other features.
I was not aware . . .
That in Massachusetts it is against state law to have a dog in an open bed of a pick-up truck. Source
That’s an everyday sight here in Texas, especially in the sticks. It’s amazing, but I’ve never seen one incident of a dog in the back of a pick-up truck ever be injured.Â
But for those that want to keep your dog in the bed of the truck and have a fear they will jump out, perhaps a Pet Buckle Truck Tether is up your alley.
This is freaky . . .
ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) — Investigators are looking into who altered pro wrestler Chris Benoit’s Wikipedia entry to mention his wife’s death hours before authorities discovered the bodies of the couple and their 7-year-old son.
For every 100 girls
There are a lot of interesting facts with U.S. Census data to back it up.
For instance:
- For every 100 girls that are conceived 115 boys are conceived.
- For every 100 girls enrolled in gifted and talented programs in public elementary and secondary schools there are 94 boys enrolled.
- For every 100 girls diagnosed with a learning disability 276 boys are diagnosed with a learning disability.
- For every 100 women enrolled in college there are 77 men enrolled.
- For every 100 women ages 18 to 21 in correctional facilities there are 1430 men behind bars.
The Baby-Name Business
Parents are feeling intense pressure to pick names that set their kids apart. Some are even hiring consultants. Alexandra Alter on the art of ‘branding’ your newborn.
Here’s an excerpt:
Some parents are checking Social Security data to make sure their choices aren’t too trendy, while others are fussing over every consonant like corporate branding experts. They’re also pulling ideas from books, Web sites and software programs, and in some cases, hiring professional baby-name consultants who use mathematical formulas.
Denise McCombie, 37, a California mother of two who’s expecting a daughter this fall, spent $475 to have a numerologist test her favorite name, Leah Marie, to see if it had positive associations. (It did.) This March, one nervous mom-to-be from Illinois listed her 16 favorite names on a tournament bracket and asked friends, family and people she met at baby showers to fill it out. The winner: Anna Irene
iPod Stats
- Apple outsources the entire manufacture of the iPod to a number of Asian enterprises, among them Asustek, Inventec Appliances and Foxconn.
- 451 parts go into the iPod.
- The most expensive part is the hard drived which is manufactured by Toshiba. It costs about $73. The next most costly components are the display module (about $20), the video/multimedia processor chip ($8) and the controller chip ($5).
- Apple gets $80 for each video iPods it sells
For my friends out in Lubbock
A blog called the Lubbock Daily Photo.
I am not a native of Lubbock, nor even of Texas. I was born and raised in Greenfield, Indiana, spent a couple of years living in Glasgow, Scotland, and then landed in Lubbock where I’ve been ever since. Have a look!
