November 2002

Some related links for my NYT story on contacting the Axis of Evil and friends:

— North Korea: The Great Leader KIM IL SUNG lives forever!!
— China.org.cn: Letters to Editor. Includes the recipe for Sweet and Sour Fish in Squirrel Shape and the letter from a remarkably articulate Australian boy. I tried writing to the editor but was told the address did not exist. Hmmm.
— Libya: Contact Col. Qaddafi using the SMS to Leader page.
— Iran: E-mail President Khatami. It looks like the Java thing on this page only lets you type in Farsi. But it makes up for this by letting you insert anyone’s address at the top. This could come in handy if you’ve forgotten your Hotmail password and want to fire off a note to a friend who can read Farsi.
— President Khatami’s guestbook is a bizarre free-for-all. “Hi-just want to wich you a happy easter from sweden.”
— Brian McWilliams’ story about hacking Saddam’s e-mail. He justified the snooping in a post on Slashdot that was not very well received. Brian has another story today on Saddam’s brother.

Not entirely related but worthy of note:

— “I made pizza for Kim Jong Il.” A long and bizarre account. See also parts two and three.
— Did you know that anyone can get a domain name with Libya’s .ly extension for just $50 a year? If you can get past that country’s minor image problems, the adverbial possibilities are total.ly endless.
— China’s main government site features a big pop-up ad from China Telecom. Whitehouse.gov could earn some serious cash doing this.

If there is some kind of watch list for people with suspicious surfing and e-mail habits, the research for this story definitely put me on it.

Randomentality is a good photolog despite its Canadian origins.

Forgot to note that I wrote this for yesterday’s NYT, at the request of an editor: Service Plans to Sell Answers on Hoover’s.

Reader mail, with links added:

From: “voxim” <...@ms15.hinet.net>
Subject: David F.Gallagher – Mr.Qaddafi You’ve Got Mail
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 11:18:51 +0800

??
Dear Mr.Gallagher,
As if the title was not puerile enough, you had to include absolutely time wasting comments from a “14-year-old boy in Melbourne.”
Why waste our time and your print space with such absolute and complete rubbish. Mr.Gallagher if you are struggling to become a completely irrelevant and time-wasting pseudo-writer, congratulations! You have succeeded ! Why on earth even entertain this kind of crap in you brain, let alone print it….
My God man! What are you trying to do, lobotomise us with your literary cattle prod…!
Somebody should send you to China and hopefully to one of the many gulags, or labour reform camps. Maybe you could talk to some of the Falun Gong people about torture and complete denial of human rights.

You sir are a grade A, number one, outstanding, ponce!

Congratulations! If the Guiness Book of Records had a section for completely puerile and offensively obnoxious writing, I reckon you would come in third. Mainly because you are completely mediocre, even when it comes to being offensive or irrelevant. You cannot even be number one at being an arsehole…Do not give up your day job unless you intend on being professionally irrelevant….

Good luck to you dear fellow. You will no doubt need every drop you can get !

John P. Taylor.

Where can I get one of those literary cattle prods?

Adams Lodge, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, Wellfleet, Massachusetts.
I’m not sure what the ceremonial function of the radioactive Masonic lightbulbs might be. More Masonry.

Steven Johnson, whose book I will get around to reading one of these days, has a new weblog. Via BuzzMachine.

I responded to John P. Taylor’s note, and he calmed down a bit.

The fact of the matter is I had a terrible weekend, like on a bad, disastrous sitcom, and I took it out on you by means of my letter. … Incidentally, on a sorely needed positive note, especially after a rant like that, I recommend an excellent movie. Luc Besson’s 2001 movie “Yamakasi. ” It is an action movie with altruism at its core. An admirable and much required quality. …