Sullivan’s Travails: Eric Alterman flames Andrew Sullivan so I don’t have to.

Sun is adding support for Web services to J2EE 1.4. Despite the fact that Web services are the most overhyped thing since XML, or perhaps since Java, or maybe since .NET, some of the new Web services I’m seeing are actually pretty cool.

Speaking of doping in athletics, Salon’s big premium story today is on the coming wave of genetically-engineered performance enhancements in sport.

Today I learned the difference between the words “alternately” and “alternatively”.

Nobody is more vehemently against the use of performance-enhancing drugs in sport than I am, and even I think it’s ridiculous that a British Olympic medalist lost his medal for using a Vick’s inhaler.

So, an ice shelf 12,000 years old in Antartica has collapsed in one of the hottest summers on record. Make of it what you will, Bjorn Lomborg.

Dahlia Lithwick summarizes the arguments in the junior high drug testing Supreme Court case in her own inimitable way today. I’m always amazed at what a troglodyte Justice Scalia is.

How screwed up is Major League Baseball? This piece by Doug Pappas does a brilliant job of explaining just how bad things really are.

Looks like the Supreme Court is predisposed toward a bit more friendly fascism in the school system. The court seems likely to decide that it’s OK for schools to subject students involved in any extracurricular activity to drug testing, and from the sound of things, several of the Justices would be just fine with mandatory drug testing for all students. Drug testing is humiliating and degrading, regardless of whether you pass or fail.

This AP story on browser cookies exposes cluelessness on many levels. For starters, the writer doesn’t know what he’s writing about. Then there’s the fact that the government policy doesn’t seem clear on how cookies work, how they are used, and what the negative implications are. The guy who complained about the cookies doesn’t seem fully clued either, to be honest.