I wrote these random sentences for the next generation so they know we were not just emotional and under peer pressure. So they know that we did everything we could to create a better future for them. So they know that our ancestors surrendered to Arabs and Mongols but did not surrender to despotism. This note is dedicated to tomorrow’s children.
I’m proud of Twitter and those who use it for many reasons, not the least of which is the merciless mocking of Pete Hoekstra for comparing House Republicans to oppressed Iranians.
So, I’m trying to find out something about what’s going on in Iran, and on CNN I can watch a rerun of Larry King interviewing several gentlemen without shirtsleeves who apparently assemble choppers. On Fox Mike Huckabee is trying to explain why Jesus hates credit card relief. MSNBC is rerunning something about a prison in New Mexico. CNBC is evaluating whether college students should be able to afford Chanel tote bags.
One of the most important things in life is what judge Learned Hand described as “that ever‐gnawing inner doubt as to whether you’re right.” If you don’t have that, if you think you’ve got an inside track to absolute truth, you become doctrinaire, humorless and intellectually constipated.
Yesterday, Sunlight Labs announced Apps for America 2. The follow‐up contest marks the recent launch of data.gov
by soliciting apps that find interesting ways to crunch that site’s numbers. (Not sure if I’ll enter yet; I haven’t had much time to see what data.gov has to offer.)
Michael Tyznik’s entry in The Daily Blend’s Dollar RedDe$ign Project. This is currency triumph: eliminate the penny and the dollar bill, introduce $1 and $2 coins, and get people talking about the Bill of Rights. Oh, and it uses Stag, the goddamned excellent font that I use on this here weblog.
[T]he underlying assumption that the United States of America is incapable of building a secure prison physically located on the North American continent is really strange. If there’s anything we know how to do in the USA it’s lock people up. Everybody knows that.
InfoQ posted a “virtual panel” in which framework authors answer questions about HTML5. Thomas Fuchs and I, among others, answer questions about how (if?) HTML5 will make our lives easier, and what more we want out of JavaScript in the future.
I’ve had my new unibody MacBook Pro for a week and adore it to tears, but it wasn’t until just now that I was able to address my one outstanding nitpick: I kept accidentally triggering the “pinch zoom” gesture in Safari, making everything on the page awkwardlry huge. There’s no way to turn it off in the settings without disabling multitouch on the trackpad altogether. But Jeff Hawkins’s InputManager fix does the trick. Also available for Firefox and Mail.app.
Oh, by the way: I will continue to post the occasional bit of political opinion (and political silliness) on this site. But I’ve also started to write more sober analysis on the Filibusted blog. It’s going to be an eventful year in the U.S. Senate — hop on for the ride.