Monthly Archives: February 2005

Ironic and liable to be tragic

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But, in one of the greatest ironies of the U.S. intervention, Iraqis
instead went to the polls and elected a government with a strong
religious base — and very close ties to the Islamic republic next
door. It is the last thing the administration expected from its costly
Iraq policy — $300 billion and counting, U.S. and regional analysts
say.

washingtonpost.com: Iraq Winners Allied With Iran Are the Opposite of U.S. Vision: 2/14/05

Very Dynamic Web Interfaces

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XML.com: an intro to the XMLHttpRequest object.

Apple’s documentation on this is an eye opener as well.

Google’s recent efforts (Google Suggest, Goggle Maps, GMail) have been showcases for this technique.

I think its safe to say that JavaScript’s time has finally come. Web UI developers better grok this and fast.

Transparency and forgiveness

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It’s certainly true that remarks that formerly would have been private now are made not just public but super-public. But I don’t think we can survive the new transparency if we keep up the same old standards of criticism. I’ve said plenty of stupid things in my life. (Heck, I may be saying one right now.) Most have been in private. Some have been in public. And some things I said in public would look downright dastardly if viewed as isolated sentences. If we’re going to make more of the private public, we also have to give the benefit of the doubt, forgive, and laugh off the occasional offensive and stupid remarks. Otherwise, no one will survive the glare of the public.

Joho the Blog: Transparency and forgiveness: 2/14/05

Montana Debates Special Tax on Wal-Mart, Others

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…State Sen. Ken Toole, D-Helena, the bill’s sponsor, says Montana residents are tired of subsidizing big-box stores whose low prices — and high profits — depend on paying workers low wages.

“When you don’t pay workers, they get public assistance,” he said. “Guess who pays for that?”

A state Senate tax panel is scheduled to hear the bill, which has irked retailers and prompted Costco to postpone plans to build a larger store in Kalispell, population 13,000, in the northwest corner of the state.

“We’re waiting to see how the legislation shakes out,” said Doug Schutt, head of operations for Costco’s northern division. “The bill singles out retailers and we think that’s unfair.”

The measure would impose a 1 percent tax on stores with more than $20 million in sales. It would rise to 1.5 percent for more than $30 million and 2 percent for sales of more than $40 million.

The tax would apply to 160 stores, accounting for about half the state’s total retail activity, and funnel about $20 million a year to state coffers, Toole said.

The proposed levy — in a sparsely populated state with no sales tax — would apply to stores whose part-time employees make up more than a quarter of the work force and whose full-time workers earn annual compensation of less than $22,000.

Reuters.com: 2/14/05