Saturday, November 22, 2003
 
Cleaning Out The Link Box

Here are some things to which I have meant to bring to your attention, but haven't:
  • Man tries to buy $7,000,000 in lottery tickets.
    This guy tries to buy seven million lottery tickets, which would give him a one in two chance of winning the $38,000,000 jackpot. Lottery officials decline. Not because it's against the rules, but because it's against the "spirit" of the lottery. That's right, they arbitrarily change the rules on the fly to suit their own agenda. Keep that in mind if you ever win; take the cash. Just because the lottery promises to pay out that money over twenty or thirty years, does not mean they will. The minute the state legislature needs it to give poor children LeBron sneakers, your winnings are seized. (Link seen on Fark.)

  • There's too much extraneous crap overlaid on television.
    Gail Pennington of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch agrees. Hey, Fox Sports Net, covering a quarter of the screen with an advertisement for Master and Commander while the Blues are breaking up ice does not endear me to you. I am not going to watch your "extreme" sports show or your fantasy football program. I want to watch the damn hockey game.

  • Regulation by punchline.
    Radley Balko joins the party late in recognizing that reductio ad absurdum helps those who sue or legistlate brainstorm for fresh outrages. Recognizing a slippery slope doesn't mean you're not sliding down it.

  • FBI can't use your OnStar against you....yet.
    A court has ruled that the FBI cannot just take your vehicular remote assistance product off the hook and listen to what you're saying in your car. Yet.

    Of course, you all know I would never buy a product where a radio signal can open your car doors or that the FBI could track your stolen vehicle. I don't even have a cell phone where a signal could take it off hook, either. You think I am mad? Listen to how carefully I planned it out! (Link seen on Tech Dirt.)

  • Rigorous debate in comments is good.
    I don't have comments because I don't like trolls. So check this link out. It's a story about how Australian Prime Minister shared an elevator with some footy fans. But the trolls are all on John Howard for his politics, and the owner of the blog responds appropriately.
There, now the bloggable notes are out of my inbox. I can now start answering some six month old e-mail.

 
To say Noggle, one first must be able to say the "Nah."