Riba Rambles:
Musings of a Mental Magpie

Posted by Lis Riba at 1:10 PM

Just to update Wednesday's post, the Senate has confirmed Allen Weinstein as National Archivist.
Via LISNews, which includes a statement by the Society of American Archivists.

Oh, also on LISNews, this New York Times story about the personal library of a New York Public Library cataloger:

Her 16 bookcases - about 214 running feet - reveal no deference to John Dewey and his decimal system and varying degrees of respect for the alphabetical-by-author rule. Indeed, it seems she has grouped her books less by subject than by country of origin. Dust-free and with carefully cracked spines (a sign that books have been read, or at least leafed through), the books in Ms. Coblentz's library are navigable to no one but her.

"Your system doesn't have to be logical, it just has to work for you," said Ms. Coblentz, the author of The New York Public Library Guide to Organizing a Home Library (Running Press, 2003).

Fascinating. So how do you shelve your books. And, ideally, how would you organize them? [I once described my (still incomplete) plans here.]

Posted by Lis Riba at 12:05 PM

Another news story about another new product to treat female sexual dysfunction.

Not only am I pleased that pharmeceutical companies are finally recognizing the problem after decades of neglect, but it's also an extremely well-written article. Notice how they take pains to forestall some of the stupid sensationalism that accompanied earlier stories:

Lead researcher Professor Susan Davis, of Monash University, Principal investigator, said previous research had focused on postmenopausal women known to have low testosterone levels.

"But many younger women also report having low sexual interest and enjoyment and traditionally," she said.

"This has been explained away as being caused by relationship issues, depression or other life circumstances.

"But now we know for many women the underlying problem is biological.

"If further studies reconfirm the benefits we have seen, the spray could make an enormous difference to the quality of many women's lives.

"This is not just about sex - it's about having a satisfying home and social life, and having happier relationships and communities all round."
<snip>
Professor Davis said there was a degree of concern about the concept of treating older women with hormone to achieve levels that were more normal for their younger counterparts.

But she said giving young women testosterone to restore to it to the same levels of as other women of a similar age was a different matter.

Dr Geoff Hackett, of the British Society for Sexual Medicine, said it was important that the spray was only given to women who had been thoroughly assessed, and shown to have low testosterone.

He told the BBC News website "This should not be seen as a panacea. Low female sex drive is a much more complex thing than men not getting an erection, which in 90% of cases is due to organic disease.

"If a woman takes this spray when her low libido is not due to low testosterone levels then it could cause even more problems for her relationship."

Hopefully, this kind of coverage will prevent any hysteria that such meds will be handed out like candy to (or even forced upon) unhappy but healthy women. What do you think?

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:45 AM

Nathan Newman excerpts this Washington Post article on WalMart:

[Wal-Mart CEO] Scott announced that Wal-Mart has begun "a campaign to tell community and elected leders about its operations and policies." And where are they looking for examples of how to run the P.R. campaign?

Scott, who has worked at Wal-Mart since 1979 and became chief executive of the 3,000-store chain in 2000, said he has studied how major companies in the tobacco, beer and petroleum industries have weathered intense criticism.

Great.

They're trying to improve their image, so they've chosen the lung cancer, alcoholism and Bhopal industries as their role models?

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:50 AM

Here's a thought-provoker for a Saturday morning: Is Microsoft doomed?

I also recently saw this piece on the EU's Microsoft Remedy (source), in which the author writes:

Just as King Solomon's proposal to divide the baby only caused pain to the true mother, the Commission's remedy will only cause pain to a monopolist who abused its position.

I've got friends who work for Microsoft, and I don't wish them any harm, but as an ex-Lotus employee, who saw our products become a dress rehearsal for what they did to other browsers and then other media players, I can't help hoping they finally get their just desserts.

Also, I'm finally in a job where I have to use MS Word daily. Me hates it. Makes me long for Word Pro. The SmartSuite products had a particularly elegant and consistent way of handling formatting thru the InfoBox that's really superior to the endless hoops in- and out- of dialog boxes I have to jump through for MS's programs.

Oh look, Slashdot found the article, so you can read their commentary, though I found it thru another source.

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:25 PM

[a.k.a. the feature formerly called Seeing the cites.]

While taking a random walk through the basement archives where I work, I came across The Journal for the History of Astronomy. Not my usual beat, but sounded intriguing. I paused and flipped through the most recent issues. And two articles from May 2004 (Vol. 35 Issue 2) definitely caught my eye:

"Computer Animations of Ancient Greek and Arabic Planetary Models" by Dennis Duke:

A new set of computer animations is available for those who teach the ancient models of planetary motion, those who want to learn those models, or even those who enjoy simply contemplating just how clever the ancient astronomers were. The animations include the models from Ptolemy's Almagest (ca. 150 AD) and those from the Maragha school of Arabic astronomy (ca. 1250-1350 AD), and thus cover over one thousand years of astronomical history. Since the models are (intentionally) geocentric, the animations might also be useful for thinking about how heliocentric planetary motion actually appears to us on Earth.

The article and animations are available from the author's website.

---

"Heavenly Bodies: Newtonianism, Natural Theology and the Plurality of Worlds Debate in the Eighteenth Century" by Patricia Fara:

This looks at 18th century debates regarding life on other planets, and what people of the age believed and wrote. One of the subsections within the article is Space Travel Literature

That's right, 18th Century SETI discourses!

If anybody's writing historical SF or fantasy, this could be a great resource for getting the attitudes correct. [Hm. Is there any historical SF built upon the assumptions and theories of that period, rather than from a modern understanding of science? Perhaps some steampunk, which make use of ether...]

Browsing through the contents I keep turning up other interesting titles. The usual suspects merit numerous mentions: Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, Ptolemy, Newton... They also print plenty of articles about tools and apparatuses (apparati?) of various periods. But the subject matter goes beyond Western Europe. Several articles focus on the Mayans, and I saw a few on the ancient Chinese. Digging a little further, I found they used to have a sibling publication titled Archaeoastronomy whose contents have since been incorporated into this one. So they've got articles on Easter Island and other early megaliths.

I know some of you are history buffs, so you might want to find a copy to flip through.

That was to have been my entire post, but this afternoon I found a special bonus I had to share!

Modern Fiction Studies decided to focus their Winter 2004 issue solely on Tolkein.

Valerie Rohy's "On Fairy Stories" first caught my eye, because the abstract began:

The article focuses on total absence of sexuality in children's books from Harry Potter to The Lord of the Rings.

Total absence of sexuality in children's books. Um, yeah. right. I read a fair bit of YA fiction, particularly YA fantasy fiction, and sexuality most definitely has a presence. As it turns out, the abstract was somewhat misleading, because the author actually sets out to disprove what she calls "[a]llegations of an absence of sexuality in The Lord of the Rings."

Then I saw the title of the subsequent article in the journal, and just cracked up:

"'Oh . . . oh . . . Frodo!': Readings of Male Intimacy in The Lord of the Rings" by Anna Smol:

I've only had time to skim the article, but it takes an in-depth look at the Frodo-Sam relationship as portrayed by Tolkien, how Peter Jackson (and the actors) modified it for the times and medium, and how slashers portray it in fanfic and fanart (including acknowledgement of RPS). I know at least one friend who needs a copy of this article, and I'm sure this post will only whet others' desire.

Which, I suppose, is part of the reason I started this series -- to share the love!

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:05 PM

Why had I never heard of this movie before?

We may not be the prettiest, or the smartest, or the most powerful. But we don't exist for the beautiful people of the world, Ted! We're there for the oddball, the rebel, the outcast, the geek!

A coworker loaned me the DVD, and we just finished watching it.

This 2000 movie falls in the same genre as Mystery Men and the live-action Tick -- enough so that I'd be tempted to run them as a triple feature, although that might be overkill.

Rob Lowe and Jamie Kennedy and Thomas Haden Church are the big names in this 2000 low-budget flick. (Melissa Joan Hart gets prominent placement in the credits and trailer for being a "name" but only really appears for one scene.) Though it took me a little, I finally placed Judy Greer from The Hebrew Hammer and many of the other actors also had a certain nagging familiarity, though I don't recognize their other roles in IMDB. On the backend, Mojo did the SFX, and Mark A. Altman (who I vaguely knew in college) produced and had a cameo.

At times, the humor is just this side of painful-to-watch, but (for us, at least) it always remained on the right side of that line.

Surprisingly jaw-droppingly fun. I know I'm going to watch it at least once more this weekend with the commentary track.

Has anybody else seen this film to know what I'm talking about?

Of course, now I'm feeling nostalgic for the old Steve Meretzky game, Superhero League of Hoboken.

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:30 PM

The moment I saw this, I knew I had to share it with you, dear readers. My own essay with advice on how to blog more safely while employed and my idea(l)s for good HR policy are still under development. But in the meantime, maybe this will help you weather the uncertainties:

How not to blog about your employer
Given recent publicity regarding employee blogging, I thought I would post examples what I see is "cool" (harmless information) or "uncool" (private company information) to post in your public blog regarding your employment at Foobar.

Cool - "My team played volleyball at lunch today, we beat some people from another group"
Uncool - "My team is way ahead of the weather-machine and germ-warfare divisions"

Cool - "Pets are welcome on the Foobar Campus"
Uncool - "People at Foobar like to sit in their chairs and pet their cats while plotting"

Cool - "Foobar has several offices in Europe"
Uncool - "We look forward to renaming Europe 'Euro-Foobar-Land'"

Cool - "We are constantly looking for the best engineers to work on exciting projects"
Uncool - "We're building a robot army at our secret desert office and need more engineers"

Cool - "There are some great recreation facilities on campus"
Uncool - "Employees who underperform are sent to the dungeon to toil"

Cool - "Foobar is always looking to make its services available outside of North America"
Uncool - "Within 4 turns, we will control all of Asia"

Cool - "Over 2,000 highly qualified employees work at Foobar"
Uncool - "Foobar hires only the best evil geniuses"

Cool - "We don't comment on how many computers Foobar operates"
Uncool - "Foobar only has a single super-computer, we call it SkyNet, it calls the shots here"

Cool - "The company motto is '[something]''"
Uncool - "The secret company motto is 'One Webservice to Rule Them All'"

I hope that clears some things up.

---

Copyright (C) 2005 Ian W. Mackinnon, distributed under a GPL license

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:20 PM

Via LISNews:

The University of Iowa put out a press release on the new collection of more than 250,000 science fiction fanzines. They say "almost overnight has increased its stature as a prominent science fiction research center."
"One portion of the collection -- issues of about 3,000 titles -- came very well organized in file cases," said Huttner. "We have prepared a list of those titles that is already available on the Web." The link is on the Libraries' Special Collections home page.

Maybe the OED SF Citations project should get in touch with them. Last I heard, they've often narrowed down their search to particular zines where something was reputed to appear, and they just need to confirm it.

Also, this should provide an answer to the perennial Usenet thread and convention panel on how to dispose of old fanzine collections if one doesn't have fannish relations to inherit. Save collectors from a fate worse than death [scroll to 2-7-05 (11:02AM EST)] (via BookSlut)

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:30 PM

If you haven't already read my previous post on FleetCenter renaming plans, please do so before continuing. The rest of this may not make much sense without it. [May not make much sense with it, but we're silly people.]

So, over dinner I asked Ian what he'd name the stadium if he had naming rights. Without hesitation, he replied:

WokkaWokkaWokkaWokkaWokkaPtang Stadium

Ian had apparently been thinking about this since I showed him the news story.

Then he asked me what I'd name it, and, I'll confess, I didn't have any ready answers. But after a moment, I came up with a few and then Ian and I ping-ponged back and forth approximately as follows:

Me: Fenway Park! (let's just mess up those tourists or anyone giving directions; besides, maybe their luck will rub off on the Celtics)

Ian: The Mother Church of Christian Science!

Symphony Hall!

Carnegie Hall! (answer the age-old question of how to get there)

Carnegie Deli! (that about exhausted that theme, so then I came up with)

The Jimmy Hoffa Memorial Construction Project

And we just got sillier from there...

I briefly wondered whether they'd accept some kind of political message as stadium name. Could we call it "Go Dems!" or "Boo Bush!"?

Yeah, the thought did occur to me to use it to boost my own popularity. The RibaRambles.org Arena doesn't sound too bad. The Librarian Illuminati Garden? Frankly, I'd find it more appealing to name it after one of my parents' businesses, to drive more customers their way. They would benefit from the publicity better than I.

But still, I wonder how long they'll have this offer open? If people are clever, they'd buy renaming rights on days with complimentary (or competing) events: See "Disney on Ice at the Cryogenics Rink" or "U2 in concert at DresdenDolls Field"

I could go on, but... well, it's already too late to stop while I'm ahead, but let's just move on and pretend I did.

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:10 PM

Now there's a way to make a name for yourself:

With Bank of America's purchase of Fleet, naming rights to the FleetCenter have been put up for bidding -- on a day-by-day basis!

Television station Fox25 likely will rename the arena the FoxCenter on Friday, and it plans to broadcast its morning show from the floor that day, an arena spokesman said. On Sunday, the publisher of a Chicago sports marketing publication, Dan Migala, will pay $500 to rename the building the MigalaReportCenter.

And they've opened eBay auctions to the general public, with all proceeds going to charity.

The highest bidders won't get to change the giant FleetCenter sign overlooking the highway. But they will get an assortment of perks, including their names on the FleetCenter's website, its Jumbotron, and a message for callers to the automated phone system, which will say ''Thank you for calling the 'YourCenter.' They also will get four tickets to the day's game or show, and a framed photo collage and a certificate, and a ''special surprise gift package."
<snip>
Bidders will not be required to leave ''Center" in the building name, executives said. The arena will approve all names as long as they're ''rated G," Krezwick said.

Ian's birthday is available, but $1,225 (the current bid) is a bit more than I can really spend. Besides, we've got other plans for that day, so couldn't use the tickets.

Still, it's a fun idea. What would you call it, if you had the opportunity? [Via Justin du Coeur]

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:39 PM

I just saw a headline on Salon's sidebar (from the wires):

Chicago Mayor wrestles with scandals

This is news? I thought that was just a constant fact of life.

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:35 PM

As I was catching up on the evening newsblogs, I did notice a couple stories worth mentioning:

That's probably enough for now. I've gotten into a debate over the McDonalds coffee case, of all things, over on Peter David's blog. Fortunately, I come armed with the facts, while the other guy seems to mostly be spouting opinion and speculation that's been easy to shoot down.

I think I'll say farewell with kittens!!! (via worldmage)

Good night, everybody!

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:30 PM

Earlier this evening I asked:

Have any historians out there researched the state of public libraries during the Great Depression? I've heard some anecdotal comparison about public school services that were supported throughout the Depression that have since been lost to Prop 2 ½, so now I'm curious.

I did a little more digging and I've found some cites, though I don't have access to the materials in question.

Addendum: Brooks Moses found another source: "The American public library during the Great Depression" by C. A. Seavey was published 2003 in Library Review (vol. 52, no. 8). That's recent enough that I might even be able to find a copy in the basement warehouse tomorrow over lunch... Woo-hoo!

And about five minutes later... Why wait? I think I've just found online access to the issue. And, ooh the previous article also looks intriguing: "Information-saturated yet ignorant: information mediation as social empowerment in the knowledge economy." That's right, hon. Knowledge is power, we librarians have just been waiting for the rest of the world to catch on...

But enough of this jabber -- I've got some reading to do!

And I'm back again, five minutes later. How clever! The article on the Great Depression is available for free; they're charging $20 for nonsubscribers to access the one on empowerment... Smart people.

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:40 PM

Well, that's a cute method of viral advertising:

Salutations Dottore!

The veracity of this quiz has been adjudicated with
the persipicuity with which it discerned your
gift of intellect.

Your love of knowledge will no doubt lead you to
see , March 9-12, 2005 at the Boston Center for
the Arts Black Box Theater.

What Commedia dell Arte Character Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:10 PM

Several interesting stories on LISnews this week:

Technology Review offers a brief mundane history of Keeping Tabs. Not the keyboard tab key, but the history of tabs as we see on file folders (or library catalog cards) and their virtual interface equivalents. [LISNews]

Wow, has it really been nearly a year since I expressed my concern over the White House's nominee for National Archivist? While everybody's been going on (and rightfully so) drawing attention to concerns over Alberto Gonzales and Michael Chertoff, this crucial role seems to have slipped under the radar. This Washington Post editorial explains why this is similarly important:

The archivist oversees and -- in the best of worlds, facilitates, promotes and prods -- the release of far less musty government documents, material essential to understanding modern American history. In an age when the amount and type of information are proliferating, the archivist decides what information must be preserved and ultimately made public and how best to make it accessible.

For example, at the dawn of the e-mail age, the archivist had to determine whether an administration's e-mail messages were government records that had to be maintained for posterity; luckily for historians and the public, it was eventually required that they be saved. The next archivist will inherit a similar question about videoconference tapes and transcripts.

In recognition of the sensitive role of the archivist, Congress created an independent agency, the National Archives and Records Administration; gave the archivist an unlimited term in office; and required that a president, to replace an archivist, must explain why. No such explanation has been offered by the Bush administration. It approached Mr. Weinstein about the job in September 2003, and a few months later pushed the current archivist, John W. Carlin, to resign, without providing any reason either to Congress or Mr. Carlin, a former Kansas governor named to the post by President Bill Clinton in 1995.

Mr. Weinstein, who spent a year during the early 1980s writing editorials for this page, is best known for his book "Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case," which concluded that Alger Hiss was a Soviet spy. Mr. Weinstein drew fire from fellow historians for refusing to share his files for the book, and some critics have taken the episode as boding ill for Mr. Weinstein's devotion to openness. While we think their concerns could have benefited from greater scrutiny by the Senate -- which should have let opponents testify at his confirmation hearing -- they should not prevent Mr. Weinstein from being confirmed.

Much more troubling, however, is the Bush administration's still unexplained move to oust Mr. Carlin and install its own candidate. That heavy-handed and questionable process will make it all the more important for Mr. Weinstein, if he is confirmed, to demonstrate his independence and commitment to robust disclosure.

[LISNews]

This administration's love of excessive secrecy is already legendary. But critics and concerned citizens have generally had faith that historians would be uncover the truth after the current crew is out of power. This move could make that task far more difficult.

The third LISNews piece links to Whacking Libraries by Jim Hightower.

Public officials today -- from George W. Bush to city council members -- are reaching for the budget axe to whack library funding, forcing branches to close, valuable services to be eliminated, and hours to be cut.

No real surprise, but my reason for blogging this is because some commenters are questioning the attribution of these cuts to President Bush. Given his budget policies to date, that doubt seems absurd to me.

There's a definite trickle-down effect. Money that's cut on the federal level has to be made up on the state level or the state has to make other cuts. And localities have to make up for money that's cut on the state and federal level.

Bush cuts funding for first responders while giving departments additional antiterrorism demands. Bush increases requirements for schools without sufficient funding to pay for them. National guard and reservists are deployed overseas, which means someone's got to cover the roles they otherwise filled. The money has to come from somewhere, and I can't entirely blame localities for choosing public safety over libraries. The problem is, they shouldn't have to be making those kinds of choices, and the reason they do comes straight from the top.

Have any historians out there researched the state of public libraries during the Great Depression? I've heard some anecdotal comparison about public school services that were supported throughout the Depression that have since been lost to Prop 2 ½, so now I'm curious.

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:00 PM

Yesterday, our department switched to Voice Over IP phones, a system generally referred to by the acronym VoIP.

Voip.

Doesn't that sound like a sound effect you'd find in comic books or MAD Magazine?

And wouldn't it be fun if more office protocols had goofy sound-effect names?

"Well, we're trying to decide between Voip and Ptui. I think Mary has more information on the Ptaaang. Look it up in the company Sproing unless you think she's filed it in the FwipfwipfwipClunk. Wait a minute, I've got a message coming in on the WhooopKapowPing!!!

I am clearly in much too silly a mood...

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:10 AM

I'm feeling better this morning. Though some of last night's malaise was certainly situational, I'm wondering if some of the depth might have been exaggerated by... shall we say monthly mood swings?

This week's Free Will Astrology horoscope was posted in the wee hours of the morning, and offers a much cheerier forecast (emphasis mine):

Happy Valentine Daze, Cancerian! As I meditated on what advice might purify and supercharge your love life, I got to thinking about a statement attributed to French poet Paul Valery. "Love is being stupid together," he said. There's an element of truth to this notion, but it's too corny and degenerate for my tastes. I prefer to focus on a more interesting and complete truth, which is this: Real love is being smart together. If you weave your destiny together with another's, he or she should catalyze your sleeping potentials, sharpen your perceptions, and boost your IQ. Your relationship should be a crucible in which you deepen your understanding of the way the world works. If you can't share your love with such a person this week, don't share your love with anyone.

Well, that describes Ian to a T. Okay, maybe actual sleeping ain't the greatest, but that can be blamed on cohabiting with a nocturnal beastie (Boopsie, not my husband!). But the rest of it's all true. Ain't that sweet...

Ian's horoscope ain't bad either:

Happy Valentine Daze, Pisces! The astrological omens say that right now you need love more than you need food and drink. Not just any old kind of love, though: It has to be high-minded and mysterious, and neither sentimental nor tormented. Hoping to steer you towards what you really need, I'm offering you the poetic words of Pablo Neruda. Say or write them to the person whose destiny needs to be woven more closely together with yours: "Our love is like a well in the wilderness where time watches over the wandering lightning. Our sleep is a secret tunnel that leads to the scent of apples carried on the wind. When I hold you, I hold everything that is--swans, volcanoes, river rocks, maple trees drinking the fragrance of the moon, bread that the fire adores. In your life I see everything that lives."

"High-minded and mysterious," hunh? Hmm... <thinks devious thoughts>. And even though it's Ian's advice to recite to me, a quote comes to mind... In a breathy, Crispin Glover voice: "I am your density."

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:01 PM

This time Bill Moyers shows why he's the professional paid writer, and I'm just blogging for free...

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:10 PM

And, as usual after that rambling performance I just gave, Clay Bennett nails it in one:

          Copyright The Christian Science Monitor, reproduced with permission

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:50 PM

Further bad news on a less personal scale:

Aw heck with it, I'm just going to quote Susie directly: she's one of my never-miss daily reads, and if she's not already part of your reading list for news, you should add her!

More news from that kindly pharmaceutical industry:

A memo from Merck & Co. shows that, nearly a decade before the first public disclosure, senior executives were concerned that infants were getting an elevated dose of mercury in vaccinations containing a widely used sterilizing agent.

The March 1991 memo, obtained by The Times, said that 6-month-old children who received their shots on schedule would get a mercury dose up to 87 times higher than guidelines for the maximum daily consumption of mercury from fish.

If you don't understand what's so horrible about that, let me just point you to this post I wrote in October. Just last week it was revealed that the EPA guidelines on mercury were pretedermined to favor industry, ignoring the scientific evidence.

Yet another horrid overreach of copyright laws (via PNH)

I don't even want to think about the approval that's been shown to Alberto "torture memo" Gonzales and what that says about America. (And shame on John McCain for voting in his favor.) I'm not going anywhere near the whole Social Security boondoggle the administration is proposing. And from what I hear, the latest budget is bloated, deceitfully hiding even greater expenses, and cuts thousands of desperately needed programs in order to continue to give tax cuts to the rich. [And it's very clear that the tax cuts are a much bigger drain than the wars.] But again, others are blogging these in depth, so I don't have to. The administration also seems to be going down the same road with Iran that it used to pick a fight with Iraq.

The administration's obsession with privacy is gutting the checks and balances that we need. They're stonewalling efforts to provide humane treatment and civil rights to detainees in Guantanamo, burying the investigations into torture and Valerie Plame (remember that crime?)

And no, I'm not really in a mood to go back and document all this. As I usually do. I'm disgusted enough.

Much of the humor I'm finding has been rather black. Digby made a good catch earlier today:

It's Hard Work:

President Bush's senior adviser, Karl Rove, will take on a wider role in developing and coordinating policy in the president's second term, the White House announced on Tuesday.

Rove, who was Bush's top political strategist during his 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns, will become a deputy White House chief of staff in charge of coordinating policy between the White House Domestic Policy Council, National Economic Council, National Security Council and Homeland Security Council.

Funny, I thought that's what the president did.

Oh, and if you voted for Bush back in November, would it've made any difference in your vote (not necessarily turning you to Kerry, but possibly to a third party candidate or not voting) had you known that Bush was wired with prompters -- against the rules! -- during the presidential debates? It looks like he was, but The New York Times pulled the story before the election

I could go on,