http://www.e-tractions.com/truemajority/run/oreo?rd=436

Nifty Flash applet hosted/narrated by Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben and Jerry's. It will eventually lead you to the main site, http://www.truemajority.org/.

The weblog, Respectful of Otters writes an interesting bit about Wal-Mart's provision of health care to full-time workers.

"A social worker told me," she said to me indignantly, "that I'd be better off if I quit my job and went on welfare. I'm not doing that!"

I haven't shopped at a Wal-Mart in at least six years, not counting when I am out of town and don't have ready access to alternatives. But the lack of alternatives is usually the result of Wal-Mart's presence. I know and understand that they provide a service to lower-income families by making some staples available that might not otherwise be affordable. But they do it at the cost of their employees, as well as at the cost of diversity in the neighborhoods they set up shop in. And the buying power they wield is what bothers me the most– they can have more effect on the content of records just by refusing to sell them, than any number of "parental advisory" stickers could ever hope to.

A healthy society needs censorship to survive, 1950s musical icon Pat Boone said yesterday. He added that he would welcome strong content restrictions governing movies and other artistic works.

Just another in the growing field of the arduously religious, convinced that their particular interpretation of a given book should bind us all, whether we particularly believe in that book or not.

(Put under 'religion' since Boone is so open about his faith, and many of his comments are related to that.)

I'm back. I've caught up on most e-mail, and select weblog entries. I am very, very tired.

Going off the grid for a few days. I might find some source of internet connectivity while gone, but I haven't on any previous trips. A few days in Aberdeen, Maryland, with some time on Sunday to visit the new National Air and Space Museum extension at Dulles Airport.

Sadly, this is my first journal entry for the month of April. To call my current circumstances hectic would be a fair evaluation.

Google is preparing to launch a search-based e-mail service. They are planning to call the service "Gmail" (not actually up yet).

There's a somewhat more detailed story on this at the New York Times' website (note that they require registration, and most of the "universal" IDs such as freethepresses no longer work). It's what the stories don't mention that worries me.

There is no mention of what Google plans to have as a Terms of Service agreement, or privacy policy. You'll be able to store up to a gigabyte of email and search it as though it were a well-indexed website. But what will keep others from searching and indexing your mail? And more to the point, even if Google does promise privacy, what guarantees will there be that any such promise would be upheld should they get acquired? After all, once they go public, they are just as much a target for acquisition as predators themselves.