Techie Manager

Excellent Economist article on why the war in Iraq failed:
What went wrong? The most popular answer of the American neoconservatives who argued loudest for the war is that it was a good idea badly executed. Kenneth Adelman, he of the “cakewalk”, has since called the Bush national-security team “among the most incompetent” of the post-war [...]

WaPo book review for Stephen Prothero’s “RELIGIOUS LITERACY - What Every American Needs to Know — and Doesn’t”:
The United States is the most religious nation in the developed world, if religiosity is measured by belief in all things supernatural — from God and the Virgin Birth to the humbler workings of angels and demons. Americans [...]

The next logical step… from BBspot:

Boston, MA – There were more tense moments today after Boston Police were forced to blow up a suspicious looking man near a lamp post.
An alert city worker called in the man after noticing that he had been leaning against the lamp post for more than ten minutes.
Officer Charlie O’Hara [...]

Maybe it’s already too late…
Dear Mr. Gates, Mr. Ballmer, and the many good folks at Microsoft Corp.,
It’s time to sober up on Windows Vista. This just isn’t working out, and your users are getting frustrated to the point where they’re souring on Windows altogether. In case you haven’t seen some of the more noteworthy blog [...]

Now they’re blowing up non-bombs around the corner from my office building…
Suspicious package in Boston turns out to be benign

BOSTON — The bomb squad destroyed a suspicious package in downtown Boston.
Police found the small, green box on the ground in the Financial District Wednesday morning.
Investigators believe it was a pedestrian counter, but the bomb squad [...]

This is just fucking pathetic…and it explains a few things about the current state of our nation, too.
From MIT’s Technology Review:
Let’s start by focusing on the positive. In just 17 years, over 50 million people have been added to the rolls of Americans who can understand a newspaper story about science or technology, [...]

Disturbing editorial in the NY Times. And, no, I do not trust our current administration…and I’m not even a liberal…
A disturbing recent phenomenon in Washington is that laws that strike to the heart of American democracy have been passed in the dead of night. So it was with a provision quietly tucked into the [...]

Very apropos to the book I’m currently reading… c/o Reason Magazine’s Hit & Run blog:
If you want to celebrate Thomas Paine Day in Arkansas, this has got to be a time that tries your soul.
The proposal by state Rep. Lindsley Smith, Fayetteville Democrat, to commemorate Jan. 29 as “Thomas Paine [...]

Brilliant.

These need to be seen to be believed. The Star Wars collectible versions of the Star Wars Holiday Special.

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