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[nibot]

With all the discussion of using ultrasophisticated technology to protect the united states from perceived threats -- missile defense systems, sophisticated airport scanners, etc, etc -- it should be particularly disheartening to realise that the same powers that propose such measures can't even get something as simple as a slide projector to work:

Comments from the remote sites were not carried at Pace because of technical problems. Even at the main site, microphones did not work as planned and a computerized slide show, designed to accompany a presentation of further details of the new plans by Alexander Garvin, the development corporation's lead planner, did not work. -- NY Times article about rebuilding the tradecenter

Segue now to my good friend Hunter S. Thompson, who, thriving on political absurdity, was heard to remark, "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." Have times caught up with HST? NYTimes reports on his new book:

Reality has finally caught up with Hunter S. Thompson's ravings. In "Kingdom of Fear" he writes, "We have Anthrax, we have smallpox, we have very real fears of being blasted into jelly in the privacy of our own homes by bombs from an unseen enemy, or by nerve gas sprayed into our drinking water, or even ripped apart with no warning by our neighbor's Rottweiler dogs." When the Gonzo Granddad was in his prime, these were the kinds of things he liked to make up.

But even this charter member of what he calls the "too much fun club" is ready to acknowledge changing times. "The last half of the 20th century will seem like a wild party for rich kids, compared to what's coming now," he writes in this new book-length test of his fans' loyalty. "The party's over, folks." This is what it's like to be the last guy to leave.