Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Alas 25,000, here 20

Alas (a blog) reached 25,000 comments yesterday; I reached 20 today. The Last Minute asks that you please post comments rather than send an email; I just added an eMail Joe link to every post on the site.

Instapundit has none. Neither does The Carpetbagger Report. I decided from the start that I wanted them; even as I’m not real eager for the rough and tumble I sometimes see in other bloggers’ comments.

I’ve written a personal note to everyone who’s posted a comment here; I’m excited every time one shows up. I write new entries responding to commenters. Yeh, I want comments.

So please, go ahead and leave a comment if you’d like. Or feel free to send an email. Whatever’s your style is good by me.

More on the Google Toolbar

Earlier today I listened to the first edition of Sound Policy with Denise Howell - who’s got a great looking blog I just added to my blogroll. Denise hosted an excellent, fascinating, 50 minute conversation (available free through IT Conversations) on the controversy surrounding the auto-link feature of the new (3.0 beta version) Google Toolbar.

Joining Denise were Cory Doctrow (who’s got a great personal site besides co-editing BoingBoing, which pointed me to the conversation in the first place), Martin Schwimmer of The Trademark Blog, and Robert Scoble, “Microsoft’s best known blogger.”

There’s no small talk here, they take off like a rocket and keep at it. What a wonderful advocate Cory Doctrow is. I want him on my side and he is. He’s all for the auto-link feature. Martin Schwimmer was clear on the legal issues. And Robert Scoble defends the rights of the “content producers.”

Read the rest of "More on the Google Toolbar" in the extended entry.

Dr. Frist

Crooks and Liars has the video from last night’s Daily Show. Stewart’s take on the government’s response to the Schiavo case is right on. The Frist segment gave me an excuse for this:

For at least eight years, Frist has been making medical pronouncements on all manner of medical issues outside his speciality (he’s a heart surgeon), and his message is always the same: You can’t trust all those other doctors, but you can trust me because I am a doctor.

Last December, when asked by George Stephanopoulos whether HIV could be transmitted through saliva or tears, Frist refused to say that it could not, stalling three times before finally admitting, “It would be very hard.” That’s putting it mildly. In October 2001, after a letter containing anthrax was sent to Senator Daschle’s office, Frist assured his fellow senators that the anthrax wasn’t powerful enough to kill anyone, even though several people had already died in Florida and postal workers who handled the letter in D.C. subsequently died. And in 1997, when the Senate was debating the “Partial-Birth Abortion Ban,” Frist claimed on the Senate floor that D&X, the abortion procedure they sought to ban, was a “rogue procedure” that was not taught in medical schools, a claim that would come as a surprise to many teaching hospitals.

Frist is a doctor, yes. But he is not a neurologist, he is not an infectious disease specialist, he is not a biological agent expert, and he is not an obstetrician. He uses his “Dr.” title as a smokescreen to make politically-motivated pronouncements.

I sooo wanted to quote it from the moment Amy Sullivan wrote it.

Time for change

Here, at our local acknowledgement of the second anniversary of the war, Jen found the event lacking.

When I asked friends on the day before if they were planning to attend, the reaction ranged from tepid ("what’s their position on the war going to be?") to hostile ("It’s a vigil. Prayer. No, I’m not going.")

I argued that any gesture on the part of liberals here should be supported, that it would be good to get press coverage and let our Red neighbors know that we are here, out and proud, and that there is an important legacy of the religious left that should be revived and built on.

Those friends didn’t buy; they were someplace else on Sunday night. Evidently the local newspaper was too; no story ran Monday.

Chris Bowers asks:

When was the last time that an issue which was supported by a national majority had protests that were so utterly ineffective? We need to wake up and realize that the way we are protesting is part of the problem.

Read the rest of "Time for change" in the extended entry.