May 27, 2004

Off to a wedding

Here's my lovely cousin Loraine and I at Halloween 1999:

I set her up 6 years ago with my good buddy from b-school, Tom.

They're getting married on Sunday in Newport, Rhode Island (premuably, the bride will be trading in her devilish red for a more chaste white).

I'm off for the weeked, see you all on Tuesday!

A friend sends this:

A bit maudlin, but the moral of the story is worth a mention:

A story tells that two friends were walking
through the desert. During some point of the
journey they had an argument, and one friend
slapped the other one in the face.
The one who was slapped was hurt, but without
saying anything, wrote in the sand:
TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SLAPPED ME IN THE FACE.
They kept on walking until they found an oasis,
where they decided to take a bath.
The one who had been slapped got stuck in the
mire and started drowning, but the friend saved him.
After he recovered from the near drowning,
he wrote on a stone:
TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SAVED MY LIFE.
The friend who had slapped and saved his best friend
asked him, "After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand
and now, you write on a stone, why?"
The other friend replied "When someone hurts us
we should write it down in sand where winds of
forgiveness can erase it away.
But, when someone does something good for us,
we must engrave it in stone where no wind
can ever erase it."
LEARN TO WRITE YOUR HURTS IN THE SAND AND TO
CARVE YOUR BENEFITS IN STONE.
They say it takes a minute to find a special person,
an hour to appreciate them, a day to love them, but
then an entire life to forget them.
Send this phrase to the people you'll never
forget.
Do not value the THINGS you have in your life.
But value WHO you have in your life!

C'Ville Correspondent Contests Celebrity's Controversial Criminal Conviction Concerning Christmas Chucking

Our Charlottesville Correspondent writes:

This is entirely stoopid. Since I am a lawyer, I feel it necessary to
comment on this lunacy (and since you brought it up last week, I will
comment to you).

Martha Stewart was convicted of lying during the course of an investigation
that revealed that she had committed no crime. Mr. Turow, on the other
hand, says rather blithely that the inconvenient fact that she committed no
crime should matter not at all, because it's hard for prosecutors to prove
insider trading, and courts are a bitch. Well, the whole entire point of
the criminal justice system is that we are not going to take away a
person's liberty unless the government proves, beyond a reasonable doubt,
that the defendant has committed a crime. Here is an excerpt from Mr.
Turow's entire stoopid piece:

The jury convicted her not because of anything Larry Stewart said, but for
the reason juries are supposed to: there was solid proof that Martha
Stewart deliberately violated common standards of honesty and decency, and
lied about it when she was caught. And it is only the privilege the law
sometimes extends to the well-to-do that explains why she was not convicted
of more.
Let's break it down: first, it is not a crime to deliberately violate
common standards of honesty and decency, and Martha Stewart was not charged
with the only crime that could be considered to fit within that definition.
Second, juries are not supposed to convict a person because she violated
"common standards of honesty and decency." This is why we have things like
statutes that ban, for example, armed robbery. Armed robbery violates
common standards of honesty and decency. So is me telling my mother that I
watered her plants when she was out of town, when I didn't. Armed robbery
is a crime, but lying about not watering plants is not. If I were to lie
to a federal officer about watering the plants, I would be doing something
"wrong, really wrong."

Finally, Mr. Turow forgets that Martha got charged with more than that for
which she was found guilty. It's not like the government just said "oh,
well, she's a rich broad, so let's let a few of these slide." I cannot
understand his last sentence, given those facts.

I say all this, because perjury of the forensics expert probably should
result in overturning of her case. Perjury of a material witness, meaning
one whose testimony is instrumental in obtaining the conviction, is "new
found evidence" that can lead to retrial of the original case. There is
every reason to think that the jury, although passing on other evidence and
making special verdicts on the nature of the false statements, considered
the "ink" evidence material to the entire "criminal enterprise." She
should, in my view, get a new trial.

I think she should get a new trial for the conduct of her lawyers.
Remember, she was represented by counsel at the meetings with the federal
investigators. She had no obligation at all to speak with them. Her
lawyers should have done everything in their power to keep her from talking
to the feds. None of this would have come up had she kept the yapper shut.

WT

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/27/opinion/27TURO.html?pagewanted=2&hp

Conan

Is also funny!

Leechers and Sawbones denounce "Modern Medicine"

It is always thus: Hacks slate Google news

May 26, 2004

It Must Really Suck to Not Read History

Or political philsophy. Or anything other than left-wing shills.

Because then you believe stuff like US intelligence fears Iran duped hawks into Iraq war.

Now let's just contemplate how naive and soft and fragile in the world one must be to believe that Iran purposefully invited in the world's largest superpower to invade its weakened, crippled, militarily neutered next door neighbor, thereby fomenting dissent amongst its own repressed population while creating a superior military force along its border run by an "untutored evangelical cowboy" who views the two countries as part of an AXIS OF EVIL.

The Saddam Left hallucinates vigorous nonsense.

Thanks to KJL for the hair clip wiggle.

Is Google Making the Same Mistake as Hitler

Now much new in this article entitled "Is Google Making the Same Mistake as Hitler?" from Search Engine Positioning and Web Marketing News.

But it's a provocative title and reminded me of Cheers' Episode 256.

Commencement

From Jon Stewart:

But obviously that's the world. What about your lives? What piece of wisdom can I impart to you about my journey that will somehow ease your transition from college back to your parents' basement?

Read it all for more simple wit like this:

College is something you complete. Life is something you experience. So don’t worry about your grade, or the results or success. Success is defined in myriad ways, and you will find it, and people will no longer be grading you, but it will come from your own internal sense of decency which I imagine, after going through the program here, is quite strong…although I’m sure downloading illegal files…but, nah, that’s a different story.

Love what you do. Get good at it. Competence is a rare commodity in this day and age. And let the chips fall where they may.

And the last thing I want to address is the idea that somehow this new generation is not as prepared for the sacrifice and the tenacity that will be needed in the difficult times ahead. I have not found this generation to be cynical or apathetic or selfish. They are as strong and as decent as any people that I have met. And I will say this, on my way down here I stopped at Bethesda Naval, and when you talk to the young kids that are there that have just been back from Iraq and Afghanistan, you don’t have the worry about the future that you hear from so many that are not a part of this generation but judging it from above.

4 million kids per year

Forty million new little fingers. Wow! That's a lot of Jacobs and Emilys. (Emilies?)

More encouraging Newport Weather

Sunny and Mostly Sunny -- woo woo! Thanks weather.com, I'm only going to use you from now on if you keep up with the good weather!

What's wrong with Bulgarians?

Only 8 newborns per 1,000 people?

I hope that Bulgarians love their children too.

Was Friendster Valued Too Highly

Bambi (who despite the varsity cheer squad name is the best internet business reporter there is) thinks so:

Last fall, Friendster secured $13 million in funding with a valuation of some $53 million, according to sources. At the time, Friendster reportedly spurned a $30 million offer from Google, which is now preparing to go public.

It's unclear what Friendster's plans are to get big, but with traffic dwindling, it does raise the question of whether the valuation it received last year was too expensive. At the time, Friendster had no sales to speak of.

Consider Tickle, which had considered itself a rival to Friendster, and had $25 million in sales.

It was just snapped up by Monster Worldwide (MNST) for $29 million in cash and $24 million in stock, plus an earnings-based bonus of up to $40 million.

I think that's right. A $53 mm valuation for a no-revenue business, even with high utilization (Blue Mountain Arts anyone?) is too-too high. Nobody has yet explained to me the business model here, other than hope.

Will Friendster be the PointCast of our decade? (Ed. -- Pointcast, having received offers as high as $400 mm for its revolutionary "push" content business, spurned and burned, ultimatley selling for seven million at a bankruptcy auction. oops!)

If Google offered $30 mm at a time they were bandying about an $18 bn market valuation, that means Friendster's slice could have been worth as much as $100 mm if the Google frenzy continues.

Oops!

No There There?

A sad demise noted.

Incandescent with rage

"Incandescent with rage" is one of those British turns of phrase that, while serving as a colorful and concise way to describe someone's mood, is also greatly overused. Witness this list that I've compiled of people who've been described as incandescent with rage since March 31:

- Ninety-year-old Suleiman Khishta and his family, over the fact that Israelis could bulldoze homes in the middle of the night, giving residents no warning or time to gather their possessions. (Agence France Presse)
- Coronation Street's Gail Platt (played by Helen Worth) when her hysterical pregnant daughter Sarah (Tina O'Brien) reveals Todd cheated with gay nurse Karl. (The Sun)
- Glenda Gilson, Ireland's most beautiful brunette and girlfriend of Ireland rugby captain Brian O'Driscoll, over a sordid little story in an odious tabloid alleging Glenda had her toes sucked by an unidentified man on a sofa in theTime nightclub in Naas while Brian was in a Dublin bar with friends. (The Sunday Independent – Ireland)
- Taunton MP Adrian Flook (Taunton Times)
- Grown men who hear Sir Alex Ferguson's name mentioned in the same breath as that of Brian Clough (The Times)
- A small, vocal minority of Maori who watched the first Foreshore and Seabed Bill debate in Parliament and who cursed Maori Affairs Minister Parekura Horomia (New Zealand Press Association)
- De Beers, over allegations that it isn't complying with its own Diamond Best Practice Principles or with the guidelines of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development for operating in developing countries (Economist Intelligence Unit)
- Aunt Beattie, over the fact that these highlights of an otherwise implacably mundane life could be so glibly dismissed as merely the consequence of a family delicacy (General Practicioner)
- Geoff Hill, after a few minutes spent trawling through the files of this newspaper (Belfast News Letter)
- Beeb bosses (The Sun)
- Education Secretary Charles Clarke, who looks like a bad-tempered grizzly bear - and can behave like one when taunted and provoked (Daily Post – Liverpool)
- Labour Deputy Michael D. Higgins, who claimed he had spent most of his political life being warned of the imminent opening of the floodgates of doom, and said he had heard enough. ``Condoms, he shouted, somewhat unexpectedly, jolting a couple of resting deputies from their leather seats. ``We were told our water systems would clog up from all the activity. Such rubbish.'' (Irish Independent)
- Brussels (stirred up by furious ferry operators and airlines) (Lloyd's List)
- PSV Eindhoven supporters (The Times)
- Arsenal striker Thierry Henry (The Herald – Glasgow)
- The consul in Bucharest and author of the latest Tomahawk e-mail against the Immigration Minister (The Times, again)

Closing in on 1,000,000 visits

Well, since I put up Site Meter in November, anyway.

Newport, Rhode Island forecast

A bit chilly for my cousin's wedding.

May 25, 2004

BlogAds Founder Rocks

Had a nice visit from Henry Copeland of BlogAds. He's doing important, ground-breaking work in creating a revenue base for the voice outside of Big Media. His company may be tiny now, but mark my words, he will be a giant soon!

Wrong Years Before His Time

That's Jakob Nielsen for you: Advertising Doesn't Work on the Web.

May 24, 2004

Wackjob

Hunter S. Thompson is one. Who knew?

He blithely asserts:

These horrifying digital snapshots of the American dream in action on foreign soil are worse than anything even I could have expected. I have been in this business a long time and I have seen many staggering things, but this one is over the line. Now I am really ashamed to carry an American passport. Not even the foulest atrocities of Adolf Hitler ever shocked me so badly as these photographs did.

Michael Moore, Ted Rall, Hunter S. Thompson -- do facts matter as long as we chuckle?

Goota Love Super Shipping on Amazon

Free shipping at Amazon rocks:

The following items were included in this shipment: --------------------------------------------------------------------- Qty Item Price Shipped Subtotal --------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 Benjamin Franklin : An America $20.40 1 $20.40

1 John Adams $13.27 1 $13.27

1 The Adams-Jefferson Letters: T $13.88 1 $13.88

1 Thomas Jefferson : Writings : $23.80 1 $23.80

1 Benjamin Franklin: Writings $30.60 1 $30.60

1 Thomas Paine : Collected Writi $23.80 1 $23.80

1 George Washington : Writings ( $27.20 1 $27.20

1 James Madison: Writings (Libra $28.00 1 $28.00

1 The American Revolution: Writi $27.20 1 $27.20

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Looks like I have my summer reading taken care of.

Progress in Iraq

Press conference with two generals and a Mayor:

And I agree with General Latif now to say that this city is the calmest city and the most stable city in Iraq. I would hope that the steps of peace will be accompanied by the steps of building and construction. Now we are working with the Coalition Forces and the engineers to fix the homes work on construction of the city. Since last week, we started compensations to all the people who were hurt or to the one that they had properties destroyed in the fighting.

Regional boosterism? That's a good thing for democracy.

In Case you REALLY Miss New York City

Curbed, a blog devoted entirely to New York City Real Estate. That is awesome!

The bit about Cru (opening just a hop away from my digs) is so New York.

The Nashville Natterer is Right On

Instapundit.com on patriotism:

If Bush really were Hitler, it would be different. A Nazi America wouldn't be worth saving, and its polity would be worth separating oneself from. But we're so far from that situation, as Young herself notes, that such discussions are entirely academic, and those who are rooting against America in Iraq have hardly demonstrated the moral courage and personal sacrifice that such a serious step demands, if it is to be taken seriously. If Bush is really Hitler, is filing slanted copy a sufficient response?

History's a pendulum. At a certain point in time it was true that "patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."

Today, we are faced with the lack of patriotism being the first refuge of a scoundrel. From Michael Moore to Ted Rall to Noam Chomsky, these prevaricators are quick to achieve high dudgeon and ask querulously "are you questioning my patrioitism?"

The time has come for people of good will to answer "Yes."

Another M. Cenedella doing good things

Izzengenz writes this morning with this news from the South Bend Tribune:

Maura Cenedella of Tucson, Ariz., a counselor last year, graduated with a major in psychology and a minor in education. She's spent much of this year promoting the camp, but she won't attend.

"I've been helping to recruit campers in the community and create relationships with their families," she says. "It's important that younger Notre Dame students have the opportunity to be a counselor.

"It was a fantastic experience for me. The kids were inspirational and incredible kids. It was wonderful to spend time with them."

The experience of working with girls ages 6 to 8 confirmed her desire to teach, says Cenedella.

"I've always been interested in being a teacher," she says. "Getting to spend time with them really reinforced that's what I wanted to do."

What can I say? My cousin, she's a saint, I'm the CeneDevil.

Excellent Anti-spam software (that's free!)

SpamBayes is an open source anti-spam plug-in for Microsoft Outlook. It is absolutely excellent at learning what you consider spam and segegating it into a side folder. I wholly, heartily recommmend it.

May 23, 2004

In Case You've Forgotten

Kikkoman!

Does It Go Bad?

As a bachelor, I have a lot of foodstuffs in my fridge that have been there for eons. A very useful site would be: Does It Go Bad? and it would have a searchable database of things that go bad and things that don't.

My burning need right now regards kim-chee. Does kimchee go bad? I bought it 4 months ago at the M2M convenience store and it's been refrigerated ever since.

So if you know if it's bad or good, plese write in to blog @ cenedella .com and let me know....

Also, what other foodstuffs should be covered on DoesItGoBad.com ?

Saud Delenda Est

Just in case you'd forgotten, we must kill and defeat these evil bastards.

Ahmed Benedict Chalabi

TIME asks "Was Chalabi a spy?"

Stunning, simply stunning news.

15,337 e-mails

That's how many I have sent so far this year!!

That's an average of 1 every 13 minutes every single hour.

RIP: Army Spc. Phillip L. Witkowski

A common hero from my hometown high school has died while serving in Afghanistan.

God bless his family.

WhenU's Privacy Policy Dodge

WhenU Violates Own Privacy Policyaccording to Ben Edelman. The story of disorganization and lack of attention to detail dovetail pretty well with my experience with the company.

From the Upper West Side

Comes the latest addition to our growing family of global correspondents:

Hi, Marc I just discovered your blog. I'm glad I did. And I couldn't agree more re: Mr. Berg. He says 'respect every human's need to live free and autonomously' and in the SAME FREAKING SENTENCE says 'respect the sovreignty of every state'. But it seems no one in the press wants to challenge this ridiculous and inherently contradictory statement. The Taliban was sanctioning the beatings, amputation and death of women for showing their face in public. Mr. Berg is against that. We "violate the sovreignty of the state" to drive the Taliban out. Mr. Berg is against that too. It's easy to spout mushy platitudes, but in the real world leaders have to make decisions that affect actual human beings. So which is it? Because you can't have it both ways. (And on a tangential note... where is the support from the feminist community for Bush's de facto liberation of thousands of Afghani women?) No father should have to bury his child. But I'm so sick of poorly reasoned and ideologically driven viewpoints being granted a mouthpiece and the veil of legitimacy simply because the people voicing them have suffered. Cheers and kudos. FM

Thanks, FM, that's about how I feel too!

A proposal to help fight deceptive Internet software

Hooray for Google!

The Inquirer reports that Google embarks on a crusade against malware. At TheLadders.com, we will support this initiative.

They do need to have a "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval" type logo for sites that comply to post.

Sunday Night Reading

From TaxProf Blog:>/a> Top 5 Tax Paper Downloads.

May 22, 2004

Fairness Demands

that Martha Stewart get a retrial.

A main government witness lied.

Now I've never seen a Martha Stewart show and I'm not really a fan of double-crusted authentic pumpkin pies with coriander, nutmeg and coarse flour or whatever it is that Martha purveys on her show. But this case was all along a big bag of nonsense. She was indicted, essentially, for defending herself in public (which, prosecutors asserted, helped her stock price, so therefore she was manipulating the stock).

It's a trumped-up charge and it's now clear to what lengths the government pushed its own witnesses to get a conviction.

Retry her, or better yet, throw out the charges.

As Cos tells it, we ain't learnt nothin' yet

More from C'Ville: "The Cos speaks truth to power, and power can't respond."

As Cos tells it, we ain't learnt nothin' yet.

Bill Cosby, it should be remembered as people forget, is a Ph.D. in Education, so it's not surprising that he is concerned.

C'Ville Correspondent Concerned about the Can

C'Ville writes:

"Oh, those Cantabridgians! I had no idea that the designation of men's and
women's bathrooms had anything at all to do with sexuality. I thought it
was about what sex you are. Or something like that. Again, I am a dumb
ol' boy from the south, so I am certain I don't appreciate the subtleties
of this. At least at Yale we just had co-ed bathrooms, so anybody of any
gender (or variant thereof) had no choice in the matter, at least in the
college."

Gender Variance Student government leaders at Harvard University want the university to remove male-female designations from restrooms in order to make them more inclusive toward students whose sexuality may be ambiguous, reports the Harvard Crimson . The president of the Undergraduate Council, Matthew W. Mahan, sponsored the bill, which urges Harvard to remove male or female designations from all single-occupancy bathrooms. The bill passed by a 32-3 vote, but only after heated debate. Joseph R. Oliveri contested the language of the original bill, which called for a clause explicitly granting transgender and gender-variant people the right to use any restroom they deem appropriate. "The proponents of the bill have not been able to give a concrete definition of who is gender variant," Oliveri said, adding that the new bill would allow anyone - himself included - to enter a women's bathroom.

Now C'Ville must remember that we had gender-neutral multiple occupancy bathrooms in the Annex at our Yale dorm. Now that was embarassing.

May 21, 2004

Who Reads Blogs?

Henry at Blogads knows!

Lightning Strikes Twice

Jeff Bezos is one of five investors that stands to net $1.5 billion from the Google IPO.

Could you please disperse skill, shrewdness, timing and luck a little more evenly God?

I Cry for the Googol Clan

For my litigious country. People have no ethical qualms about grasping at straws for lucre.

The family Krasner has their filthy little mitts on all too greedy a public display. No shame amongst the wicked, I suppose.

It's not the size of the ship

It's the motion of (Powell's?) ocean.

Nick Berg's Father is a Jerk

I feel for a man who has lost a child quite a bit. And am willing to give him great, great leeway for saying any number of immoderate things in the midst of his grief.

But Nick Berg's father Michael is such a rabid, America-hating cretin that he apologizes for his son's murderers:

I am sure that the one who wielded the knife felt Nick's breath on his hand and knew that he had a real human being there. I am sure that the others looked into my son's eyes and got at least a glimmer of what the rest of the world sees. And I am sure that these murderers, for just a brief moment, did not like what they were doing.

Only to counsel appeasement:

So what were we to do when we in America were attacked on September 11, that infamous day? I say we should have done then what we never did before: stop speaking to the people we labelled our enemies and start listening to them. Stop giving preconditions to our peaceful coexistence on this small planet, and start honouring and respecting every human's need to live free and autonomously, to truly respect the sovereignty of every state. To stop making up rules by which others must live and then separate rules for ourselves.

I appreciate the fact that Michael Berg might not be a political philsopher, but just what the hell is he talking about?

To take just one:

Start honouring and respecting every human's need to live free and autonomously.

Let's contrast this with the inspiration for his son's killers. Here is Osama bin Laden's 1998 fatwa:

we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims:

The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it...

Michael Berg is morally obtuse and ethically devoid to blame America and our President for the murder of his son in the face of such direct contradictory evidence from the mouth of his own son's killer.

Along with his grief, he should be ashamed.

May 20, 2004

Omarosa Jock Straps

Coming soon to a store near you.

Emoticons

What's your favorite?

<^>('.')<^>

The Iraqi Wedding Party

An excellent post on the meta-analysis of the Iraqi wedding incident. That is fine, fine writing for an amateur.

Tough-to-prove assertions

NY Times: (Cicadas) pose no serious threat to humans or pets. True, people will notice that some tips of tree branches will die off in late summer, after the female cicadas have laid their eggs in narrow slits cut in the bark. A passer-by may experience the harmless mist of cicada urine if there are enough of them in a tree overhead, and while the emergence will be a bonanza for spring birds, dogs and cats have been known to get sick from over-snacking on them.

The Associated Press: As much as 7 percent of the general population has said in surveys they have trouble using the bathroom away from home, said Soifer, an associate professor of social work at the University of Maryland in Baltimore.

Design Within Reach catalogue: "Design has taken the place of what sailing used to be." – Dennis Conner, "Mr. America's Cup"

May 18, 2004

Six Figure Jobs

My other company, six figure job site TheLadders.com, continues to grow. We send over 1,600 $100K+ jobs to our subscribers each and every week.

Since starting in my living room last summer, we've grown to over 80,000 registered readers on our newsletters. I love the internet!

Eminem is in his rights

Apple tried to get Eminem to endorse their iTunes product. He wouldn't.

They went ahead and used it anyway.

Eminem is suing as well I think he should. He created the music -- it's a damn good song by the way -- and he owns it.

I'm rather surprised that Apple of all people (of all incoroporated entities?) would be so tone-deaf on copyright ownership issues. Steve Jobs must not be paying attention to this one, and it is a mistake.

There is a time in the lives of all men when they have to choose a side,that time has come.

Yep.

Letter from C'Ville

Our Charlottesville Correspondent is up in arms this morning:

Does anyone agree that it is now time to stop worrying so much about Moqtada al-Sadr's shrine, in which he is hiding weapons (perhaps like these), and start kicking ass and taking names? Or perhaps we should continue to pussy-foot around this issue as well, and continue to get our soldiers, Iraqis, and other killed by these "insurgents" while trying to figure out a nice, inoffensive way to blow up a mosque.

Now that Sarin is in the picture, can mustard and other hideous weapons be
far behind? And where do you think they will store those weapons?

Pardon my tone, but why haven't we realized that we have made the friends
we are going to make, and our job is to kill, not convince, but kill, the
enemies of those friends so the friends can live decently?

Or perhaps I am just a poor, dumb old southern boy with no real
appreciation for the subtleties of our situation in Iraq.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33082-2004May17.html

I like the straight-forward thinking.

Perhaps it's time we made clear to the Arab world that in a fight between the Arab world and the United States, the United States wins. It is only our virtues that prevent us from an outright romp.

In particular, when confronting the menace of Wahabiism, (or should I say, the fag-killing, babe-hating, liberty-crushing menace of Wahabbiism -- and I use those slurs purposefully), I am growing increasingly drawn to victory over all other considerations.

Or, in the words of Churchill:

"Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival. "

I strongly support our Western freedoms -- from the most advanced to those most taken for granted -- from gay marriage to women's right to vote -- and abhor those who oppose these freedoms.

Wahhabiism is our enemy.

Wahhabiism is our villain.

Wahhabiism is the denial of our freedoms, our values, our culture, our liberty.

We must defeat it. We must kill, maim, and incapicitate its supporters.

We must, for the good of our world and the good of our future genrations, defeat it in all its forms, flavors, and environments.

We must achieve victory.

Congratulations!

Beautiful people, in love. Okay, maybe not uniformly beautiful people, but their love certainly is. I don't know how somebody could look at Ralph's sign and be able to say that our laws should deny him the comfort of marriage with his beau of 49 years.

Another True American

I love my countrymen:

You're Chinese. What if we go to war with China? Whose side would you be on? This is a simple answer: obviously the United States.

I suppose that should say countrywomen.

May 17, 2004

Andy Kaufman Returns!

with blog in hand

Congratulations

To all newlyweds everywhere, of every stripe!

I would never want to get married on a Monday, but I suppose it's good to get getting while the getting's good!

Marriage advice for gays, lesbians (and straights) this week

A wonderful little piece of advice!

50 Fishy Circumstances, Contradictory Claims, and Videotape Anomalies

kuro5hin.org has this unintentionally amusing take on the Nick Berg killing. The comments section is actually the score here.

Hysteria won't win elections

I think John Fund is essentially right here. The mad, reckless, bug-eyed hatred of Bush by leftists is turning OFF the voters the Democrats will need to sway to win in November. It's an entire wing of the electorate that's become unhinged.

May 16, 2004

Deceptive and Dishonorable

I received an e-mail from Ben Edelman, a Harvard researcher on spyware programs, in relation to a post on WhenU below. Dig in to his site's voluminous analysis of these spyware programs and their unethical practices.

I do think that there is obviously some value to to be had from a different type of advertising program that sends messages based on behavior. I.e., I actually would like to know if Orbitz has my NYC-to-London ticket for cheaper than Expedia while I'm shopping.

As usual, Google does it best:

"I consider this disclosure particularly laudable because it features the following characteristics: It discusses privacy concerns on a screen dedicated to this topic, separate from unrelated information and separate from information that may be of lesser concern to users. It uses color and layout to signal the importance of the information presented. It uses plain language, simple sentences, and brief paragraphs. It offers the user an opportunity to opt out of the transmission of sensitive information, without losing any more functionality than necessary (given design constraints), and without suffering penalties of any kind (e.g. forfeiture of use of some unrelated software). As a result of these characteristics, users viewing this screen have the opportunity to make a meaningful, informed choice as to whether or not to enable the advanced features of the Google Toolbar."

Now with GMail and image-based ads, Google actually could move to an opt-in type of contextual advertising program that would allow me to receive targeted ads relevant to me. I actually kind of hope they do.

In the interim, I agree with Ben that these comapnies are "deceptive and dishonorable".

Get Your Cattle Here

It's kinda fun to click through on the cattle auctions and see the actual cattle you're buying.

Thanks to Mina who sent in this link to the Flash Forward 2004 winners.

Reader Mail

As my correspondents around the globe know, I love literate reader e-mail. Whether you agree with me or not, if you can put it in writing -- politely and persuasively -- I'll post it to Stone. I don't do comments here at Stone. They are inevitably spammed by the uncouth, the unethical, and the rude, and I don't like that.

So it's a pleasure to read this from Sharon Cook this morning:

Hi, Marc. I totally agree with your post today (actually, all of them I've read so far). It seems that since Viet Nam, we've had to also wage a PR campaign on the home front as well as attempt to fight a war on the battlefield. In this war, few of the harrowing images are shown of the animalistic behavior of our enemies. Our media shies away from exposing their brutality. Although I certainly don't condone the abuse of the Iraqi prisoners, I can understand how they crossed the line. I've heard the account of soldiers who witnessed the murderous acts against their fallen brothers and sisters ... by the same people who celebrated with them when Saddam was overthrown. It is time to make known the real enemy and for our people to understand the true threat they pose. Regards, Sharon Cook

I agree with Sharon in the main. While our soldiers' atrocious behavior is understandable given the extremely poor leadership of General Karpinski (and in a way that, say, Dachau and Auschwitz are not understandable) it does not excuse or ameliorate the gravity of their offenses.

The Apple Store (U.S.)

Iraqi Soccer

I will certainly be rooting for them. I wonder where you can buy Iraqi Olympic Soccer gear?

Armed Forces Day

Was actually yesterday. But it's still not too late to help our troops in the field by donating to Spirit of America, the fantastic grass roots PR organization.

Please do your part to "Help Americans Serving Abroad Assist People in Need."

May 15, 2004

Wahabbism is a Cancer

In Thailand now, too. We must defeat this vile perversion of Islam.

Lowell McAdam is a bad executive

Here's Lowell McAdam, let me tell you why, in my personal opinion, he's a bad executive. As a leader he's responsible for the organization and training of his employees. In my view, he has poorly trained his team and steeped them in customer-harvesting, not customer-loving, behavior.

I went to the Verizon Wireless store on Fifth Avenue here in New York. I had a fairly high opinion of Verizon Wireless going in. My cell service always worked, there were never dead spots, and my phone's battery life was outstanding. Unfortunately, on Tuesday night, the phone’s speaking and listening capabilities died. So I had to take it into the shop.

After standing in line for 25 minutes, I spoke with a reasonably nice young man. His point was that even though the phone was under warranty, the battery wasn’t so I would have to buy a new phone. You could see from the little script that he was reading that the point was to not give out a free phone, but to get the customer to upgrade to a new one.

Now I’m pretty happy with this little phone – it’s small, has no added features, and a very long battery life – so I want to stick with it. I’m paying Verizon over $1,000 per year, so it seems a reasonable request.

The nice young man was having none of it though, so I asked to see the manager.

I talked to the manager – “Mike”. His contention was that even though the phone was under warranty, the battery wasn’t, so I’d have to buy a new phone. When he finally agreed that the phone was under warranty and that he’d replace it, he informed me that that could take until June and offered me a “replacement” phone – a 1997 era Motorola Star-Tac that was 4 times larger than my current phone. He did this with a little smirk in his eye too. The point was to make the experience so harrowing that, of course, I’d just upgrade to a new phone.

That pretty much irked me real bad. So I told Mike he wasn’t treating the customer very well. He continued with the smirk, so I let him know that I was pretty insulted and disappointed in his behavior.

So then he agreed to cancel my service so that I wouldn’t owe anything additional. I asked him to put it in writing. He disappeared for 15 minutes, trying to delay and stall me out of the store. So I requested from every single employee that walked by if they could check with Mike to see how that letter was coming.

That worked. Mike popped out of his hole. He said it would be just 1 minute to print the letter.

Finally, he came back out and said “Aha! I found a replacement phone for you.” Thereby obviating the need for the letter. Again with the smirk.

He asked if I was happy. I said no. He asked why. I said he didn’t need to treat the customer that way. He said what? I was trying to help you. Again, the disingenuous smirk.

I looked him right in the eye and said “you wouldn’t treat your brother like that, your cousin like that, would you?”

Smirk gone.

So I now had a new phone, 80 minutes taken out of my day, and a low opinion of Verizon Wireless. Lowell McAdam, by training his team to always go for the additional revenue, successfully alienated a customer. And that’s why he’s a bad executive with a poor understanding of lifetime customer value, proper customer care, and the deletrious effect on long-term revenue streams that his leadership is causing.

So, what are the specific areas in which Lowell McAdam has failed as an executive?:

1. He trains his team to treat customers like easy marks, not valued guests. (The posters strung along the walls are all sales-related – “Sell 2 yrs. Service Only! Accept nothing less!” and none are customer-care related).
2. He purposefully misconstrues the plain language of the word “warranty” so that he can fleece his customers. This is legal, but unethical.
3. His poor leadership causes his company’s employees to not respect themselves, their customers, or their own company. When you focus on the short-term revenue opportunity rather than the long-term customer relationship, employees get the message. And as that message seeps into their daily routines – trick the customer into spending more money – it invades their hearts as well. And pretty soon, the low way they treat customers becomes the way they think of themselves.

Lowell had previously been “vice president-international operations for AirTouch Communications and was lead technical partner for cellular ventures in Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Italy, Korea and Japan”. So it’s not like he’s never seen proper customer service the way the Japanese do it. He can’t plead ignorance.

Alas, I’m certain that the culture permeates the place, so removing Lowell McAdam will do no good for customers or shareholders. Is it any wonder the stock’s been moving sideways for years?

Here's Why

For the folks who wonder about why it is important that the public see the Nick Berg execution video, here.s why:

Deniers.

From, of course, Al Jazeera, the satellite TV news souce for tens of millions in the Arab world.

May 14, 2004

WhenU Busted

WhenU Banished By Google, Yahoo!. Ouch, Avi, ouch.

We've tried to advertise with them, and I can't say they are the most organized group we've ever met

UPDATE: Ben Edelman, a Harvard researcher, writes in with this full description of the practices:

http://www.benedelman.org/spyware/whenu-spam

Not very nice.

Nick Berg Video

Ogrish.com has it. It's important that all Americans see it, understand the nature of our enemy, and also respect Nick Berg in his demise. Prurient motives may beat in the hearts of some, but all true lovers of liberty need to be cognizant of the creature we are facing.