Back-up (against the wall?)

According to polls, the Bush presidency is now the most unpopular since political polling began. The impression I get about this administration, from Americans I know, is not just disagreement with the war in Iraq, but dismay at the sheer incompetence of the administration. Now it appears that this record-breaking incompetence extends to email archiving.

To quote an article on the Daily Kos; “It appears that any electronic communications by the president or his immediate staff during March through May 2003 are lost forever.” Which means that there are no backups of emails from or to the Executive Office of the President (EOP) that cover the period from the start of the Iraq War to the infamous “Mission Accomplished” photo op, plus a few weeks.

Other email backup failures include the failure to back-up emails from Vice President Dick Cheney’s office and the discovery in 2005 that several million other emails had gone missing. Naturally journalists and commentators are suspicious (or should I say convinced) that such system failures are no accident - especially as the EOP has a duty under law to preserve all such records. However, the conspiracy theory suggestion is nicely counterbalance by the very plausible alternative theory; that backing up email effectively is well beyond the powers of the current administration.

Political Ring Tones

If you want to hear Hillary Clinton’s jarring laugh every time someone calls your mobile, you can. You can also get a ring tone of Hillary saying “Shame on you, Barack Obama”, John McCain saying “Little jerk” or, if you prefer, “My friend” and Barack Obama saying “Yes we can”. Pretty much everyone in the US, except incurable news junkies, have probably heard enough already - and it wont stop before November.

Nevertheless, if you’d still like a ring tone - or you’d just like to listen to them, go here. These ring tones, by the way, are completely free. Which makes me think that the Clintons, deeply in debt and having lost all-bar-the-shouting-much-of-which-Hillary-is-still-doing, are missing a trick by not selling genuine Clinton ring tones. Apparently the bottom has dropped out of the market of Hillary T-shirts and buttons - but not so the market for ring tones.

If you’re in search of a web capability that is completely off-the-wall-and-jaywalking, why not try the Random Stump Speech Synopsis Haiku Generator - could be useful if you’re the US political correspondent for a Japanese poetry magazine that specializes in publishing appallingly bad Haiku.

Rotten Tomatoes

At last a movie site on the web that makes some kind of sense to me. IMDB.com is good, but believe me RottenTomatoes.com is better - I just switched allegiance accordingly. It brings together the opinions of movie critics with those of movie-goers and provides all the attendant web links that movie fans are likely to follow. It does the one thing that a movie web site really needs to do, it helps you work out which movies are worth avoiding.

Right now it’s advising in favor of Iron Man and Judd Apatow’s Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

P.S. Apriums
Apropos of nothing at all, Apriums have arrived in Texas and yesterday I bought a pound of them. Apriums are a cross between a Plumcot and an Apricot, and a Plumcot is a cross between a Plum and an Apricot. So, in theory an Aprium is 75% Apricot and 25% Plum. They taste like sharp plums, but they have furry skins.