Russell Shaw's Brainstorm Central

Duct And Cover

In my opinion, a prime driver for these terrorist alerts is a pervasive "cover our tails" mentality on the part of intelligence analysts, and the people they report to. By raising the level, they can -- in the event of an incident -- say they saw it coming. If nothing occurs, they can point to the raising of the threat level as an action that deterred terrorists from carrying out their plans.

Pop-Ups Go The Weasel

AOL subscribers were led to believe that except for a few ads from AOL-Time Warner sister enterprises, the new AOL 8.0 edition would banish pop-ups.

I run AOL 8.0. I'm still waiting for the pop-ups to disappear. Even if they do, AOL ought to make some more improvements. Have you noticed that they tend to make the log-off experience that much more cumbersome? They show unwanted ads on logoff. You can do an express log-out, but that prompt sometimes appears unresponsive. When that happens, and you try to close AOL 8.0 by means of the "X" button, you get an error message.

They Say It's Your Birthday...

Funny how the circle of life goes. I'm sure like me, Ronald Reagan never remembered his very early birthdays. He just turned 92 on February 6. Sadly, given his Alzheimer's, he probably was not very aware of that birthday, either.

Chop Chop

From today's Los Angeles Times:

"The Bush administration is drafting a proposal that would greatly increase logging in national forests in the Sierra Nevada and effectively jettison an elaborate set of environmental protections adopted in 2000 after years of study and analysis."

No difference between Gore and Bush, right? Well, back when he was a useful citizen, Ralph Nader campaigned for the use of seat belts. Well, at least I am sure the drivers of the logging trucks will be wearing 'em.

To Boldly Go

Exploring space is a spiritual experience. At its best, it is a noble effort to try and understand that which is so much bigger than us.

I mourn the seven brave and inquisitive ones who were lost today.

T.S. Eliot said it best:

We shall never cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.