Laurabelle's Blog

Liz Lawley links to a biting commentary by Washington Post staff writer Philip Kennicott on the American political response to the Abu Ghraib abuses. What strikes me most is that his article could just as well have been about Nazi Germany. Our nation has committed atrocities.

I picked this one up from Aquarion, whose interview class (as in CSS, not teaching) I greatly admire and which I have shamelessly copied. Copy-and-paste (and tweak) was easy, but then I spent about an hour mucking about with Photoshop to create my own icons. It would have helped if I had any experience with [...]

I knew the Bush Administration was evil, but I didn't think it would go this far. Headline from Reuters: U.S. Deletes, Alters Gender Issue Web Data -Report.

You gotta wonder sometimes about the people who write viruses. I love the fact that none of my email addresses have my first name as the username, so that I get called Lbmelton or, more often, Guestbook (which is the username I use for signing guestbooks on other people's websites and thus the username that [...]

You know, most of the time I like being right, but it's just not fun to be right about how much is going wrong in Iraq. I was also right that Lori was going to want to move back in. Jeff thought June, I thought May, but it's barely into April. Poor thing. It's time [...]

A lot of people are making noise these days about GMail, Google's new, free email service. 1,000 MB of free storage can't be bad, right? But it comes with a catch — Google will use the contents of the email stored in your account for the purposes of advertising:

Rev. Sims, I am writing to you concerning the recent acts of civil disobedience around the nation by elected officials. I am an undergraduate studying physics at the University of Washington. I'm originally from Olympia, and I am a heterosexual male. I'm also writing on behalf of my girlfriend who will be graduating this spring [...]

Jeff and I want Archie McPhee to make a Tickle-Me-George-W.-Bush—you know, you rub his belly, and he says things like We know Iraq has weapons of mass destruction or Average tax cuts of $1,000! Or better yet, how about a George W. Bush Magic 8-Ball? Just fill the die with short, snappy phrases that sum [...]

Scathing New York Times editorial today: Clark seemed so immediately electable to so many Democrats that the day after he announced his candidacy, he shot up toward the top of the national polls. These voters are nothing if not principled, and their primary principle is that they should win. This, after all, is a party [...]

This really steams me. Most Americans don't realize this, but Iraq was the most liberal country in the Middle East in terms of women's rights. Saddam was a brutal dictator, but he oppressed everyone equally! Now, under pressure from the Shi'ite majority, Iraq is moving towards Islamic fundamentalism in exchange for political stability. (See Christopher [...]