I used to think, and tell people, that the United States' preoccupation with international meddling began in 1898, with the sinking of the Maine and the resulting Spanish-American war. But I was wrong. It started earlier. Five years earlier, with the illegal annexation by force of a small, peaceful and independent nation known as Hawaii...

Eric Margolis provides a damning indictment of Bush's latest criminal aggession overseas in the name of power^H^H^H^H^Hright^H^H^H^H^Hre-election.

Zing showed up on schedule to install our high-speed connection. Due to, err, a certain geographical inaccuracy on my part, plus the fact that Zing no longer publish maps showing the exact location of their towers, the TV-mast antenna tower that we put up was not usable, barring major landscaping. Rather than delay things further, I acquiesed in allowing them to erect a small tripod-based unit on our rooftop. Their installers John and Len had it aimed in very little time and it worked when first powered on. With a bit of tweaking by Owen at their central office it was soon performing at peak speed. A 150MB download, unimaginable over dial-up, took around two hours with other things going on. Congrats to the whole team at Zing for a great job and a great service!