Is the commenting system broken, or is nothing I’m logging worth commenting upon? There haven’t been any comments here in days. Or is no one even visiting? Did everyone get out of the habit of reading FmH when I took several weeks off from making entries here this summer?

Let’s try something. Instead of you just answering the above questions in your comments to this post, why not make this an open discussion thread? Enter a comment about anything on your mind that you would like to discuss with other FmH readers, such as they might be…

FmH readers know I am a fan of fellow traveller and Wired contributing editor Steve Silberman’s writing. This new piece is, he wrote me, “the first look inside a new Pentagon-sponsored training program for soldiers headed to Iraq and elsewhere that immerses them in highly realistic virtual environments designed by Hollywood special effects artists.” Silberman’s article on this unholy alliance is all about the romance of the advanced technology being used and the cost savings to the Pentagon, which won’t have to waste so much ammunition in live fire exercises anymore. What I would have liked to see, and what is virtually absent from the piece, is something about the moral compunctions I imagine some of the Hollywood or computer-geek types might have about contributing to the war machine. Or are my expectations about a generation behind? Steve?

It is amazing, one would have thought that after the national outrage about the Florida ballot shenanigans of 2000, the state’s Division of Elections would have to tread lightly in 2004. But, no fans of subtlety, getting away with it in 2000 seems to have emboldened them to even more clumsy manipulations this time around. We have already heard about the mysterious visits uniformed officers have been paying to elderly African American voters suggesting some ill-defined investigation of their right to vote, in an obvious attempt to scare them away from the polls. Now, despite a court order against putting Nader on the Florida ballot, the Republican chief of the Division of Elections is using Hurricane Ivan as a pretext to do so anyway. If the hurricane interfered, the ballots could not be prepared in time if she waited for a Wednesday hearing on the court injunction, she ruled, so Nader’s name should appear just in case he wins the right to be there. If he doesn’t belong on the ballot, any Nader votes would just have to be discarded. (The American Prospect) See also this (BBC).

This weblogger known as Reinman, who has been writing a weblog for only 17 posts and one month, posted a review of FmH because, apparently finding my site at random, he was pleasantly surprised by the soft drink post below. This 20-year old Minnesota student and football fan whose tastes run to Fiddler on the Roof, Lawrence of Arabia, The Catcher in the Rye and The King James Bible, is kind enough to say that my anti-Bush sentiment (from his vast experience perusing the weblog universe, he puzzles about whether all bloggers are of that persuasion) doesn’t get in the way of his enjoyment of ‘some of the stuff on the site’.

He seems to be looking for ‘humorous references to pop. culture’ which (sound of headscratching) he seems to find best characterize the material at FmH. Funny, I didn’t think I was being all that funny all that often. However, he concludes in the last analysis that there isn’t much reason, other than the soft drink map, to come here, because “if… you’re craving… a classic blog with some humorous stuff”, he thinks he does it better. More power to him.

Tragically, he announces that his series on “blogging the bloggers” is to end with FmH, the fifth he reviews. He makes the curious comment that he is “not planning any prequels”, which allows him to come out with a witticism about how

I think I get it. Come to think of it, this post may qualify as a ‘humorous reference to pop. culture’. I wouldn’t know how else to categorize it, so maybe Reinman is onto something.

The US and its coalition attempted to use the violations of UN resolutions to legitimize the invasion. Now, as Annan finally breaks his ‘tactful silence’ and delegitimizes the war, coalition representatives continue to try to have it both ways, both insisting the war conforms to the UN charter and saying the UN is a useless agency obstructed by differences of opinion within its ranks. (Guardian.UK)

The art and the importance of doing the least possible in the workplace:

1 You are a modern day slave. There is no scope for personal fulfilment. You work for your pay-check at the end of the month, full stop.

2 It’s pointless to try to change the system. Opposing it simply makes it stronger.

3 What you do is pointless. You can be replaced from one day to the next by any cretin sitting next to you. So work as little as possible and spend time (not too much, if you can help it) cultivating your personal network so that you’re untouchable when the next restructuring comes around.

4 You’re not judged on merit, but on whether you look and sound the part. Speak lots of leaden jargon: people will suspect you have an inside track

5 Never accept a position of responsibility for any reason. You’ll only have to work harder for what amounts to peanuts.

6 Make a beeline for the most useless positions, (research, strategy and business development), where it is impossible to assess your ‘contribution to the wealth of the firm’. Avoid ‘on the ground’ operational roles like the plague.

7 Once you’ve found one of these plum jobs, never move. It is only the most exposed who get fired.

8 Learn to identify kindred spirits who, like you, believe the system is absurd through discreet signs (quirks in clothing, peculiar jokes, warm smiles).

9 Be nice to people on short-term contracts. They are the only people who do any real work.

10 Tell yourself that the absurd ideology underpinning this corporate bullshit cannot last for ever. It will go the same way as the dialectical materialism of the communist system. The problem is knowning when…