Just back from a quick vacation squeezed (as usual) between the end of summer activities and the beginning of school-related activities. As a result, just starting to catch up on news, blogs, etc. A few items:
- I have two e-mail addresses with a particular ISP — one is private (known only to certain friends and family) and the other “public” (used for listservs, public groups, on-line shopping, etc., altho not for this blog). Upon my return, there were 400+ items to my “public” address; all but 12 were spam. In contrast, my private in-box had about a dozen items, all legit. CANSPAM and state law (look at subsection 13) are worthless but I’m not sure there are m/any workable solutions.
- Ben Hanten reports the ad Blogger placed here during at least part of Tuesday read: “Support the RNC Today. We need your help to advance the Bush/Republican agenda.” Maybe Blogger needs to take a closer look at the alogrithm it uses to generate the ads.
- Ben is the driving force behind a new SD blog, Daily Caucus: South Dakota Politics, Law & Culture, premiering this week. I have agreed to contribute occasionally.
- Our trip included both the Mall of America (required with three teenage girls) and the Metrodome (required when oldest daughter’s boyfriend is a baseball fanatic and the Yankees are in town). I found it interesting in light of the recent terror drum banging that there was little to no security at either. For example, no one asked to look in the large bag my wife brought to the baseball game. I am far from an advocate of having armed security and screening devices everywhere. Still, security is tighter at Stampede hockey games and I would think the MOA might be considered a prime target for terrorists.
- Nick Coleman had an excellent column in Sunday’s Strib on the stifling of dissent. One thing he didn’t mention about the effort to restrain dissent is that those of us who dissented before Iraq were right.
