The Instapundit (left leaning readers need not leave; you may actually like the ending of this post) has an interesting story about President Bush's feelings on the press, referencing this essay; basically it boils down to this exchange with a reporter: a reporter says to the president: is it really true you don't read us, don't even watch the news? Bush confirms it. And the reporter then said: Well, how do you then know, Mr.

Following up on this dangerousmeta! post, I looked up what "Haemochromatosis" was, and among other interesting details was this: About 500ml of blood is removed (a procedure called "venesection") initially once a week to reduce iron levels by stimulating the body to make more red blood cells (which contain iron). Depending on the amount of iron in the body, the initial treatment may take one or two years. Once the excess iron has been removed, venesections are done about four times a year to prevent iron building up.

(This posting contains the full text of the linked article.) California's Voting Systems Panel voted unanimously on April 22 to decertify use of the Diebold TSx paperless electronic voting system in California elections. Although the final decision is up to California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley, he is expected to follow the recommendation of the board before April 30, 2004, and remove paperless Diebold electronic voting machines from California polling places in time for the November 2004 election.

There seems to be some buggy Spam software out there. There's this one spammer (or one spamming program) that is using my Michigan State University account, and many other MSU accounts as well. It's trying to "personalize" the spam by including the email address in the spam. In this case my email address is "bowersj2", so it's not particularly compelling, but hey, it's a fair try, right? Thing is, I keep getting spam addressed to "

[The 9/11 commision's] mandate is "to provide a 'full and complete accounting' of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and recommendations as to how to prevent such attacks in the future."... It sounds uncontroversial, reasonable, even admirable, yet it contains at least three flaws that are common to most such inquiries into past events.... Consider: How would an understanding of the world on June 27, 1914, have helped anyone guess what was to happen next?

"Caller ID for E-Mail: The Next Step to Deterring Spam" is the Microsoft draft specification to address the widespread problem of domain spoofing. Domain spoofing refers specifically to the use of someone else's domain name when sending a message, and is part of the larger spoofing problem, the practice of forging the sender's address on e-mail messages. Caller ID for e-mail would verify that each e-mail message originates from the Internet domain it claims to come from.

Like many others in this country, I was pleasently surprised by the quality of The Apprentice, the show on NBC that if I have to explain, you will not want to read the rest of this post. Considered as a game, Apprentice is almost identical to Survivor, with one major difference: The selection criterion for elimination. In Survivor, it is the majority vote of the rest of your tribe. In Apprentice, it is the selection of Donald Trump.

This is a good text on the the impact that how we think of policing has on the real world.

Some of the Nigerian spammers are getting lazy. I just got one that has the tale of woe where somebody kicks the bucket and leaves behind Twenty-Four Point Seven Million Dollars, and the fact that our desperate correspondant needs to get the money out of the account, but neglects the part where he needs your help to do it. Instead, it just makes vague reference to "your portion of the fund is subject to negotiation"

People are altogether too cavalier about ascribing motivations to others. If sometakes takes an action A, and someone wishes to accuse them of motivation M, the person will ask themselves, "Does M explain why A was done?" If so, then the accusations fly! Yet that question is seriously fallacious and will only produce a true statement accidentally at best. The correct question is, "Given that a person has motivation M, would they consider A to be their best action?