Do people really fall for this shit?

In 1997, John Kerry wrote a book about organized crime.

The Bush admin now has an ad bashing the seven-year-old book as "ignoring terrorism".

"How can John Kerry win a war if he doesn't even know the enemy?" the ad asks. No mention, of course, that the book was about international crime, of which terrorism is only one part. No mention that the Bush admin turned down numerous requests from those lower in the chain of command to please do something about terrorism, and stated emphatically as late as August 2001 that it was "not a priority".

Apparently, though, such transparent attack ads do indeed work. Many people have responded to the ad by posting negative reviews quoting it in the Amazon forum for the book. Hmmmm.

Little changes

Sometimes, it's little changes in technology that make a big difference.

I have been using Firefox as my browser for a few weeks now, and just recently discovered that I love tabbed browsing. As in, it's completely changed the experience of researching on the web. It doesn't seem like a big deal when described - - opening a page in a new tab as opposed to opening in a new window. What's the big difference? Dunno if I can even describe it, but after using it for a few weeks, there's no way I could go back to the old way of doing things.

Tivo, apparently is similar. I don't have one, but have been told by reliable sources that it completely changes TV. Why bother? I ask. After all, I've got a programmable VCR (well, I did last time I had this conversation), but just a little more convenience makes all the difference.

It reminds me a bit when I was selling the NeXT computer, back in 1989. One of the coolest features, I thought, was how easy it was to multitask. "But, really, how often would I want to run more than one program at a time?" The Windows users would ask me. "Trust me - one you've used a real multitasking machine, you'll never know how you lived without it."