A friend on a mailing list pointed out something I didn’t know: “GULAG” is an acronym for “Glavnoe Upravlenie LAGerei,” meaning “Chief Administration of Camps.”
I haven’t read it, but Anne Applebaum’s new book GULAG: a History is supposed to be good.
<http://www.anneapplebaum.com/gulag/intro.html> <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0767900561/peterkaminski-20>
Russian is so much nicer to look at in Cyrillic, so I found RusFon [...]
At ZDNet AnchorDesk, David Coursey writes, “The only way to stop unsolicited commercial e-mail and the viruses, worms, Trojan horses, and other scourges of the Internet will be to get a new one. A new Internet, that is. Oh, and while we’re at it, we’ll need new computers and operating systems, too.”
Coursey’s argument is technically [...]
The RIAA is tussling with Jane Doe, aka nycfashiongirl@KaZaA.
They say she distributed stolen songs she downloaded from Napster.
She says she recorded her own CDs, listened to music with her computer, and instructed the Kazaa program not to share songs with others.
<http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/D/DOWNLOADING_MUSIC>
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/3187695.stm>
She and her lawyer are using some interesting arguments to try to stop the subpoena [...]
I’m all for cost-effectiveness, but I can’t make this seem right. Especially with the weak reasoning the Administration had to get into Iraq, and the weak reasoning it uses to keep other UN countries out of it.
Halliburton’s Deals Greater Than Thought
“Halliburton, the company formerly headed by Vice President Cheney, has won contracts worth more [...]
Traditional Republican and political communications strategist Michael Cudahy writes,
“Like the people who are worried by the policies of the current administration, I too am concerned as to what would happen were Bush/Cheney or more accurately Cheney/Bush and Karl Rove got their way for another four years. It is of grave concern to my wife and [...]
India’s Business Standard reported in January that the US Republican Party would be outsourcing fund-raising to call centers in India.
“HCL eServe has put in place a team of 75 people to work on the project out of its call centres in Noida and Gurgaon. According to industry sources, the number of seats could be ramped [...]
A good article on the energy policy and campaign contributions behind the scenes at the Blackout of 2003: Bush Turns Blind Eye to Blackout Culprit.
Yesterday’s
sunset and clouds over Foster City (~350kb).
Six-frame panorama stitched with PTGui and Panorama Tools.
I’ve come to think that it’s up to us to make the meaning of the universe.
Some people make nicer meanings than others.
The sartorial contrast and alliteration between “burka” (or burqa) and “bikini” attracts a number of writers:
<http://www.google.com/search?q=burka+bikini>
<http://www.google.com/search?q=burqa+bikini>
I like this blog post on the subject from Shi’a Pundit.