Tuesday, December 03, 2002

Cisco CEO expects industry comeback. During an analysts meeting, CEO John Chambers said he's optimistic about the tech industry's future, but he would not disclose second-quarter financial projections for the company. [CNET News.com] John Chambers also predicted 30% annual growth for Cisco for last financial year. I'd have my doubts about anything he says...
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Put This In Your Pipe And Smoke It - Marijuana Not A Gateway Drug After All. Plastic::SciTech::Drugs:Marijuana: Long discredited by casual pot smokers around the world, the gateway theory is now being challenged by a more mainstream organization. [Plastic: Most Recent] The RAND Corporation says marijuana isn't a gateway drug. Well, duh. Any and all gateway aspects to it are a direct result of it being illegal...if it weren't illegal, you wouldn't be running into dealers when you buy pot, so you wouldn't be exposed to other drugs. Tada.

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Welcome to today's Salon blog tour of quality. Or somesuch - I'm just covering for Mark, anyway. He's back tomorrow, so all will be right soon. I promise. I know this is a bit early, but hey - I'm an East Coaster and a morning person. Deal with it. =) Pardon me if I'm a bit distracted - I remembered today that I had the first five episodes of the new season of 24 sitting on my TiVo, unwatched...so I'm currently catching up. So far, it's pretty decent, but could do with a lot less of Jack's daughter. I mean, she's cute and all - but not particularly interesting. Anyway - on to the tour, in some particular order, with some personal bias...I'm going to be choosing things that interest me, and there may be no other reason than bad puns. I make no apologies. Tom Coombs has noticed something that I wish I'd seen: the Bushies are stealing their dialogue from Joseph Heller. Over at Pipeline, we're given two things to think about: a rigorous argument that the Who were a more important and generally better band than the Beatles, and whether the Who is singular or plural. Ok, maybe not, but he does jump back and forth a couple times. Anyway, he's got some good points. Urban Kayak gets pissed off at pretentious wannabe rockstars, and gives us the top five albums of the '90s. And his title makes me think of the Quebecois suit hunters from the Kids in the Hall. I'm not even sure I can explain what's going on over at Emphasis Added, but it involves Peter Lorre, so it has to be good. And I like his blog description. =) ...how does Mark avoid the tour getting absurdly long? I'm only maybe a third of the way through today's updates...there's just too damned much QUALITY, BABY! That's what we're all about here at Salon blogs, my friend, QUALITY! All in caps, of course. Yeah, I'm babbling, but I feel a need to inject this with my own personal style, y'know? Right - back to the show. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. STANDING ROOM ONLY provides us all with a review of a night of fun, Cyndi Lauper, fun, and Cher. And Anna Nicole Smith. The Raven talks a lot. About stuff. I'm sure you'll be shocked to know it's good reading. Hyperbole responds to the Who v. Beatles argument above. Maxine got praised by Reverse Cowgirl - and deservedly so. Reverse Cowgirl may have said something, but she gets enough hits already. And a TV show. Now Instapundit's picked her up, to go with Dave Winer. Yikes - two of the highest traffic blogs have linked her recently. Yeah, I'm jealous. I am so unloved. I'm going to go take my happy pills now. =) The Devil's Excrement documents the repression of anti-Chavez demonstrations in Venezuela - this blog has long been a consistently good source of information on the complicated and difficult situation in that country. Notes From Atlanta reports on the debunking of Republican spin on Al Gore - namely, the Internet-inventing myth. ...and that's it for me tonight. Mark will be back tomorrow - and good thing. This has taken a good chunk of time - I'm way too lazy to keep it up on a regular basis. Mark, you're a better man than I.

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Fox hunting escapes total ban. Politics: Fox hunting with hounds will remain legal under license in England and Wales if parliament approves a hunting bill presented by the government today. [Guardian Unlimited] Well, that's a relief, eh? I fall asleep every night listening to the BBC, and I subscribe to numerous BBC and Guardian RSS feeds, so I manage to get exposed to a decent amount of British news. The furor surrounding fox hunting has amazed me - there were thousands of people marching on London to protest the proposed ban. I'm sure this is a very emotional issue, tied to the passing of British power, etc...but it's also kind of funny for us Yanks. I mean, seriously - fox hunting?

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Great - the Army gets our kids' names, addresses and phone numbers. Seriously. One clause in the No Child Left Behind (ack, what a horribly meaningless name...) education bill requires high schools to give the military that information for each and every junior and senior. This includes private schools that get federal funding (though there is an out-clause for religious objections to the military, for Quaker schools and the like). There's also an opt-out for parents, but c'mon! Give me one good reason that the Army should be trying to recruit 15 year olds. I can't think of one. This definitely falls under the "God Bless America" heading.

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Iraq to declare arms. World: Iraq says it will tell UN about arms programmes on December 7. [Guardian Unlimited] Though they're also saying not to expect them to admit to having weapons of mass destruction. This deadline has always struck me as a little comical - tell us about the bad things we're accusing you of having or else! Does anyone actually think the Iraqi government would just say, "Oh, ok. Here's our biobombs. Have a nice day!" or something like that?

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I just discovered Basketball Pipeline, and I mean to keep checking back. [A blog doesn't need a clever name] Oooh! More basketball discussion here at Salon blogs. We've now got Bruce of A blog doesn't... - a Wizards fan, myself - a Celtics fan (12-5, BABY!), and now Doug of Pipeline, a T-Wolves fan. Let's all gang up and make fun of the Lakers - all of our teams have beaten 'em this year, I think.

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