Sheer brilliance: Tom Bissell bitterly dissects the acknowledgement sections in Elizabeth Wurtzel’s books.

So I got something cool in the mail yesterday — several copies of my SQL book translated into Chinese. I’ve gotten foreign language versions of my books before (I think more exist, but the publisher doesn’t always send me copies), but this one is particularly cool. Mainly, I’m just amazed that anybody thinks it’s worth translating something I wrote into Chinese. I wonder how long it took the translator(s), and I wonder whether anyone is actually buying the book, and where it’s sold. I think it’s amazing that there are book stores in Asia selling a book with my name on the cover.

The court battle between Microsoft and the states continues unabated. I honestly don’t know whether I even still care about this case. I’m still trying to figure out what plausible outcome might actually improve my life, but I’m coming up blank.

The New York Times continues its “Jihad Files” series today with a review of the curriculum used at the Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan.

The Economist: America and the bomb

One of my pet peeves is the arbitrary use of domain names as examples in books, online documentation, and elsewhere. You see “somesite.com” or “abusiness.com” or “whatever.com” when there are specific domain names reserved for use as examples, as specified in RFC 2606. They are, obviously enough, example.com, example.net, and example.org. Seeing other domain names used as examples agitates me.

Democratic Senator Russ Feingold has won me over to his way of thinking. When John Ashcroft was nominated as Attorney General, Feingold argued that Ashcroft should be confirmed because the President has the right to get the cabinet he wants. If we give the President free rein to choose his cabinet, then we’re free to judge his administration on the actions undertaken by that cabinet. I feel the same way about the secret energy policy stuff that the GAO is suing the Vice President over. Ultimately, I don’t care what was said at those secret meetings, because we can judge the Administration on the energy policy that it enacts.

For example, the Clinton administration imposed tough new regulations on pollution-spewing coal-fired power plants. The Bush adminstration is looking at rolling back those regulations and replacing them with voluntary programs that provide incentives for polluters to clean up their act, but don’t penalize them if they don’t.

We have known from the day President Bush was elected by the Supreme Court that his administration was going to do the bidding of the energy industry. Everything that’s happened since then has borne that out. There’s no need to obsess about what’s going on behind closed doors, what’s happening right out in public is outrageous enough.

Natasha Berger blames blogs for wrecking Doris Kearns Goodwin’s career. I wish I could wreck somebody’s career from my lofty perch here at rc3.org. I’ll start with Tom DeLay, move on to Trent Lott, and finish up with Jim Allchin.

The New York Times is still piecing together the story of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan from documents left behind in their safe houses and training camps. The details of Al Qaeda’s structure, training programs, and the day to day lives of the people who travelled to Afghanistan to join the jihad are all becoming clearer as journalists put the pieces together.

Two news bits from the Islamic world, one sobering and one disgraceful.