Skimble is on break through Monday, November 11. Guess where I'll be.


Here's a variety of semi-random links for your amusement, in no order whatsoever:

Neil Bush : Florida software scam

Turux : Fascinating Shockwave art

Election coverage and info : Illinois, some Indiana and Michigan too

Dark Admissions : Gothic Subculture and the Ambivalence of Misogyny and Resistance

Rand McNally : an alternative to Mapquest

Jazz in Chicago : a quick guide and directory

American Crusade : Axis of Evil trading cards

Silophone : indescribable

First Vote : a new idea

US readers: Vote on November 5. I'll catch up with you soon.

{ 12:18 PM }

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What's on people's minds. A few of the search terms that got people to skimble:

iatrogenic illnesses
commentary on poems like lawrence ferlinghetti
deep condolences for the loss of the senate
noelle kuwait falwell
"roger ebert" thursday nihilistic
swept away rape Lina Wertmuller
Jennifer Lopez diet
and the #1 referral:
Barbara K. Bodine (former ambassador to Yemen)

{ 5:42 PM }

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The Skimble Do List. Things I want to look into: (1) Find out why that Enron executive (Dexter? Baxter? And what was his Portland connection?) committed suicide. (2) Refresh memories about Neil Bush and Silverado. (3) Locate former Enron CEOs Lay and Skilling and report on their retirement activities.

{ 5:34 PM }

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"Financial markets were rattled by a dramatic fall in The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index to 79.4, a low not seen since November 1993, from 93.7 in September and well below forecasts for a fall to 89.7. Excluding September 2001 this was the biggest monthly drop since 1990." — Yahoo / Reuters. The intervening eight years belonged to the fellated Clinton, whose administration saw the tumescent prosperity of this country rise through the 1990s.

Flashback to 1990: consumer confidence plummets. The lesson for 2002? Like father, like son.

War, terrorism, corporate malfeasance, destruction of the financial markets, loss of trust in public institutions, lack of intelligence and law enforcement credibility, rising crime rates, family alliances with despotic monarchs, ill-advised grudge matches, the usurpation of civil liberties, unparalleled media concentration, lobbyist dictators, oil-driven policy, an unprecedented quantum leap above the routine level of political hypocrisy, timid cowering behind the NRA while snipers circle the Beltway, anthrax assassination attempts on Democrats in Congress, and imperial designs on the rest of the world. How much damage will voters allow?

Vote Republicans out on November 5.

{ 3:05 PM }

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I want my $190 million back. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson recently kicked off a five year, $190 million media campaign to get kids exercising. Called VERB - It's what you do [sic], it consists entirely of "media outreach," i.e., advertising.

Are there any broadcasting industry lobbyists who are intimately concerned with children's health?

Why didn't they just give $190 million to the YMCA?

This is old news, but it was so well reported by NOW with Bill Moyers, that I couldn't resist bringing it up again.

{ 5:59 PM }

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Bjork vs. Alcoa. Via BBC News.

{ 10:50 AM }

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"Crime Up for First Time in a Decade," says the headline in The New York Times.

Murder, rape and every other violent criminal act except aggravated assault rose last year, the FBI said Monday in reporting the first year-to-year increase in overall crime in a decade.

The number of murders increased for the second straight year, following several years of decline, according to the FBI....

Who "led" this country for the last two years? Whose father "led" this country a decade ago?

Fight crime: vote the whole family and their whole party out of office.

{ 9:54 AM }

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