The Valet You Don't Have To Tip - The mesmerizing extravagance of mechanized parking. By Josh Levin

slate.msn.com - By Josh Levin: "Even the product's name reeks of inessential futurism. The Multiparker MP 710 sounds more like a sidebar to an eighth-grader's 'City of the Future' project, or a big-ticket item in the Sharper Image for Municipalities catalog, than an inevitable feature of the coming urban landscape. Like a robotic vacuum cleaner or a remote-control lawn mower, the automated parking garage is an object that adds almost nothing to the original. Except that it's really cool.

Josh Levin is a Slate editorial assistant. "

jaynote: this is IMHO oneof the stupidest statements I've ever read. Give him a Roomba for a week or two and he'll change his mind

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New York Post Online Edition

news : "December 29, 2003 -- WASHINGTON - Startling new Army statistics show that strife-torn Baghdad - considered the most dangerous city in the world - now has a lower murder rate than New York. The newest numbers, released by the Army's 1st Infantry Division, reveal that over the past three months, murders and other crimes in Baghdad are decreasing dramatically and that in the month of October, there were fewer murders per capita there than the Big Apple, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. The Bush administration and outside experts are touting these new figures as a sign that, eight months after the fall of Saddam Hussein, major progress is starting to be made in the oft-criticized effort by the United States and coalition partners to restore order and rebuild Iraq. 'If these numbers are accurate, they show that the systems we put in place four months ago to develop a police force based on the principles of a free and democratic society are starting to ...

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