Same election, different rules     Wednesday, December 20, 2000
If every US state awarded electoral votes proportionally, as Maryland does, then Bush would have won without the Florida chicanery. I still think it's a shame that Bush won, but this takes the sting out of it somewhat. (Remember, America, in a democracy, you get the government you deserve! Sorry!)

Year in pictures     Sunday, December 17, 2000
MSNBC's favourite 25 photos from the year. I hope to collect more of these as the year draws to an end.

Burden of execution     Sunday, December 17, 2000
A sad day-in-the-life of a prison warden and others who oversee Texas executions. "We're not barbarians," Mr. New said. "We're just regular people, like you and everybody else." There is no extra pay for executions, the article notes. One of the people in the article notes that there would be fewer executions if jurors had to be present. I wonder if that wouldn't be true of presidents too.

AP profile of Colin Powell     Saturday, December 16, 2000
A brief introduction to Powell's character and approach. I'll put up a better link if I see one, but this story caught my eye because of this line: "He says he opposes the demonization of U.S. adversaries -- the way Noriega in Panama, Saddam in the Gulf War and Slobodan Milosevic in the Balkans campaign were each cast as the "devil incarnate" to build U.S. support."

Restoration Hardware store locator     Friday, December 15, 2000
Grum tried to order my Christmas gift through California-based Restoration Hardware. After weeks of delay, the company sent him a postcard saying that the order was cancelled. He contacted them and was told that they can't deliver to British Columbia because they don't mail internationally.
        "You don't deliver to Canada?" Grum asked in surprise.
        "Oh we deliver to Canada," the clerk said. "But British Columbia isn't part of Canada."
        Grum tried to insist that my home province is indeed still part of Canada, but the clerk insisted, "No, my manager just told me, it's not part of Canada."
        Graham did manage to win a concession from the manager that BC was in Canada -- to an extent. The manager said "It's the northern part, right?" They still wouldn't sell him the gift. They were out of them, they said. Or his (valid) credit card was expired. Or there were wolves in the store. Needless to say, my gift is coming from somewhere else.
        The real kicker to this story can be found through the store locator above. Restoration Hardware has a store in Vancouver, British Columbia. (It's on Granville Street.)

We are here     Friday, December 15, 2000
A quick cheap shot from those masters of the art, the British news media.

Scalia saves his job     Wednesday, December 13, 2000
Antonin Scalia had made it known that he would retire from the US Supreme Court if the Democrats won the presidential election. What a stroke of luck for him that they didn't.

Streaming MP3 holiday mixes     Wednesday, December 6, 2000
Apparently, the American DMCA allows you to broadcast copyrighted music if it's in five hour mixes and conforms to various other rules. Myplay.com lets people post their mixes for others to hear. [The site will make you register. Stay mail-safe and use a throwaway address.]

Time Magazine: 2026     Wednesday, December 6, 2000
Bruce Sterling guest edits this look back at the past year, 2025. Like many Sterling visions of the future, this one is weird ass: Yet another in America's long dynasty of wrestler-politicians, Yates has become a one-man investigative tag team bent on uncovering the truth about Warm 'n' Cuddly's dubious business practices. And he's never one to miss a camera cue. "ARE YOU READY FOR ME, KIRKWARDEN?" he bellowed at a recent press conference on the steps of the Justice Department. "DO YOU WANT A TASTE OF WHAT I'VE GOT COOKIN'?"
       But you know what? Pick any year since 1900 and look 25 years into the future. The future is weird ass.

Russian squirrels have cute ears     Wednesday, December 6, 2000
My first pass phrase back when I was an international man of mystery. Nicked from Robot Wisdom.

New jobs for the Pets.com sock     Monday, December 4, 2000
Modern Humourist searches for people who link to their articles and mail them when they release something similar. I don't get enough unsolicited mail, so I hope they write me soon. We can talk about mortgages. (The article is great though.)

Hidden Swastika to be destroyed     Thursday, November 30, 2000
A swastika made out of trees north of Berlin will be cut down by the German government. The aerial photo is striking and unsettling.

Coin Toss Election     Thursday, November 30, 2000
The Washington Mint releases a two-headed coin to commerate the recent US election. Found in Rebecca's Pocket.

Dadaware's goodbye     Wednesday, November 29, 2000
The folks at Dadaware went out of business, but left their software and a good-natured parting comment for all to check out. Be sure to read the Questions and Comments line. Found for me by Grum.

Devious UNIX backdoor     Wednesday, November 29, 2000
A description of Ken Thompson's devious login hack which would give him access to any program made with his compiler. The compiler would even recognize when it was being ordered to compile a non-hacked version of itself and would quietly fail to comply. Mentioned on Slashdot.

Roger Cossack goes to court     Wednesday, November 29, 2000
CNN commentator Roger Coassack describes his first trip to the Supreme Court as a lawyer. He stole something!

Tim's Christmas Wish List     Tuesday, November 28, 2000
Once again, I've put my Christmas and birthday wish list into Pitas. If you don't know me and just stumbled across this web page by accident, it's okay to combine birthday and Christmas into a single gift.

Doris Day news     Wednesday, November 22, 2000
I am sure you know about the petition to change Stockwell Day's name to Doris Day. But according to Variety, the petition has 900,000 signatories now! They were aiming for 350,000. Day's response does him credit. According to the Globe, he said "I think it's a great show and ... all I can say is whether we're successful on any of these changes, que sera sera."

A Hot Court     Monday, November 20, 2000
Juicy NYT look at the Florida Supreme Court's treatment of election lawyers. "During the two and a half hours, eight lawyers stepped gingerly into the court's artillery barrage and one-by-one were cut down."

Crime Wave Ends     Thursday, November 16, 2000
A twelve-year-old girl in Washington state was cuffed and taken into custody for eating french fries in a subway station. She'll have to do community service. The magic words "zero tolerance" were said, so everything is okay, and this isn't insane or draconian or anything.

Previously on Mooselessness     Thursday, November 16, 2000
The last story on the old page was about instant runoff voting. You can also visit a list of the full archives, which itself is getting pretty long.