49 pointsby DamnInteresting8 hours ago16 comments
  • eschulz7 hours ago
    Here's the page you were looking for: https://www.dolekemp96.org/about/cookies/cookies.html
    • saysjonathan5 hours ago
      As weight and baker's percentage instead of volume:

      227g (94.58%) margarine

      30g (12.5%) sugar, powdered

      240g (100%) flour

      5g (2.1%) vanilla (assuming liquid extract)

      15g (6.25%) water

      200g (83.33%) pecans, pieces

    • actionfromafar7 hours ago
      Now that is a cookie policy I can get behind.
      • cmurf10 minutes ago
        Die Eier Von Satan (also 1996)
    • theli0nheart7 hours ago
      Someone please make these.
      • nticompass5 hours ago
        If I don't forget, maybe I'll make them this weekend! I should have all the ingredients already.
      • SunshineTheCat7 hours ago
        100% and please post pictures too.
        • deskamess6 hours ago
          This makes 50 cookies. I think they are too small (tsp scoop on baking sheet). That's the only mod I would make.
  • 0xdeadbeeb7 hours ago
    Faster than 99% of websites today. 2.18 html, 86Kb total.

    Perfect lighthouse performance: https://pagespeed.web.dev/analysis/https-www-dolekemp96-org-...

    • SunshineTheCat7 hours ago
      I'm bookmarking this to send to clients that have WordPress sites with 87 "performance" plugins installed.
  • rgreeko427 hours ago
    • scalemaxx7 hours ago
      A rotary phone and blinking modem lights, a nod to the past and then present? Or just blinken lights.
      • netsharc7 hours ago
        Clicking on the modem opens a page with an email or two from Clinton.. and audio files of him talking. RealAudio files, hah!

        I'm old enough to remember "Buffering...".

    • arthurcolle5 hours ago
      I can't seem to play the audio on iOS 26

      Is this a regression?

    • phendrenad27 hours ago
      > Increasing the number of Border Patrol agents along the southwestern border by 50% to stem the flow of illegal aliens into the United States

      If they only knew...

  • threeio5 hours ago
    I used to host at a facility in DC that hosted Pat Robertson's presidential campaign's server.. they had surrounded his server with all of their adult hosting clients as a... show of support.
  • don-code7 hours ago
    Has the site actually been running all this time? I notice that the generator tag says "FrontPage 12" (post-2003), and site has a TLS certificate, which in 1996 it most certainly would not have had.
    • plorg6 hours ago
      The current domain registration also dates to 2003 and as someone lower in the thread notes the current owner is connected to "4president.org".

      I'm having trouble accessing old snapshots, though. The Internet Archive has one as far back as April 1, 2000, but the snapshot viewer has been giving 503 errors all morning.

      • plorg4 hours ago
        I got the snapshot to load and it appears that at that point it was being sat on by scammy domain parkers, complete with promises of scandalous celebrity photos and dick pills.
  • unicorn_cowboy7 hours ago
    I wish they would simulate the extremely slow load times to make it feel time-period accurate. You were waiting multiple seconds for images to appear before you even had any idea what you were looking at.
    • geoffeg7 hours ago
      If you want to experience this, Firefox and Chrome support throttling network connections, check the "Network" tab of the Developer Tools.
  • SirFatty7 hours ago
    Which reminds me of Treehouse of Horror VII.

    "The politics of failure have failed. We need to make them work again! Tomorrow, when you are sealed in the voting cubicle, vote for me, Senator Ka... ... Bob Dole!"

    • EvanAnderson7 hours ago
      "It's a two party system. You have to vote for one of us."

      I think about this episode so much. It has lived rent-free in my head for decades. I pronounce Clinton and Dole's names in the Kodos and Kang voices. >sigh<

      • DamnInteresting7 hours ago
        > I think about this episode so much

        Same.

        "Well, I believe I'll vote for a third-party candidate."

        "Go ahead, throw your vote away! Hahahahahaha!"

        (Ross Perot punches his hat)

    • ChrisArchitect7 hours ago
      ..we must move forward, not backward, upward not forward, and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom.

      Classic.

  • scalemaxx7 hours ago
    Wonder how well their motto aged: "More opportunities. Smaller government. Stronger and safer families"
    • dfxm127 hours ago
      Well, they didn't win, but the economy boomed under Clinton (from the Bush recession through the dotcom bubble) and violent crime plummeted in the same time frame as well.
      • anonym297 hours ago
        Violent crime plummeted throughout the 90s because abortions was legalized in 1973, 17-27 years before 1990 and 2000, respectively, roughly coinciding with the early adulthood period where a vast majority of criminal offenses are committed, the offender having the freedom of an adult without the fully formed prefrontal cortex of one yet.

        The fetuses that were aborted were overwhelmingly from socioeconomic demographics (e.g. poverty, single mother households) where they would've been statistically far more likely to become criminals, so by allowing that generation to be aborted, we effectively aborted (for the first time) a large chunk of an entire generation of people that would've been statistically overrepresented among criminals, entering their peak criminal years right when Bill Clinton was president.

        • rsynnott6 hours ago
          This is likely a myth; crime dropped all across the developed world in a similar timeframe, but dates of legalisation of abortion likely don't line up. One popular speculation is the phasing out of leaded petrol, but really this one seems to remain a case of "shrug, dunno".
          • tsunamifury4 hours ago
            The world is complex and most phenomenons are high dimensional.

            It’s very likely: - criminal potential populations were reduced - economics lead to stable options for more individuals in the late 90s - lead was removed - a myriad of other improvements in society that generally led to Less crime

        • leviathant6 hours ago
          An assault weapons ban went into effect in 1994, the number of deaths from mass shootings fell, and the increase in the annual number of incidents slowed down. Any guesses as to what trends in firearm related deaths looked like when the ban was allowed to expire in 2004?
        • HWR_147 hours ago
          Freakanomics made that argument, but there is very little statistical evidence abortions were the cause. For one thing, abortions were legal in states like California and New York, which also saw crime drops.
        • actionfromafar7 hours ago
          That's very bad for the Prison Economy. :-/
          • anonym297 hours ago
            Don't worry, we tripled incarceration rates between 1980 and 2000, particularly of nonviolent drug offenders, to make up for the difference. This is America, after all, we can't just let the businesses fail!
        • dingnuts7 hours ago
          [dead]
      • tsunamifury7 hours ago
        This broadly attributed to the infrastructure spend of the internet and greenspans new “unlimited productivity in the digital age” realization — which Clinton did agree to, but at the price of the promises he made
      • bediger40007 hours ago
        Beg pardon, but I can't quite make out what your point is. Dole/Kemp lost, but they get credit for the Clinton-era economic boom, which is well known to have been stronger and lasted longer than the more famous Reagan-era boom?
        • hnal9437 hours ago
          I think the point was you can't evaluate their campaign promises because they never governed. Here's what happened instead....
        • dfxm127 hours ago
          My point was, in response to the OP, to explain to the commenter what had subsequently happened in the context of that motto, pointing out that democrats deliver even what republican strategists think voters want.

          I can't imagine a reading of my comment that suggests I am giving Dole/Kemp credit for any of this though.

  • m_herrlich7 hours ago
    Role Hemp! I miss those days.
  • SunshineTheCat7 hours ago
    Seeing the phrase "Smaller government" in a main tagline is so weird to see. Don't think that's an idea really any politician would even pay lip service to anymore.
    • cosmicgadget6 hours ago
      DOGE?
    • fogzen7 hours ago
      Are you from the US? It’s been a centerpiece of Republican propaganda for 50 years. It’s a total lie though.
      • Eric_WVGG6 hours ago
        It’s not as central to the GOP platform as it used to be, though. Really ever since the “War on Terror,” their messaging has mostly been around whatever the enemy du jour is. Small gov’t was a paleocon thing and McCain, maybe Rand Paul, are pretty much the last of them.

        Bob Dole was the first and last Republican I ever voted for. I still think he was kind of a fun guy, although it’s good that his candidacy failed.

      • SunshineTheCat6 hours ago
        Sounds like you would be served well reading a book or two: https://www.amazon.com/Coolidge-Amity-Shlaes/dp/0061967556
        • fogzen6 hours ago
          It goes further back than 50 years for sure. Was small-government rhetoric embraced by the whole party that far back though? Seems to me it wasn't embraced by the whole party until after Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. I think it really got going after the New Deal as Republicans started framing their opposition to helping the working class in terms of small government and states rights.
  • furyofantares7 hours ago
    Clicking Dole Interactive > Computer leads to some very small "wallpapers"
    • nemomarx7 hours ago
      Maybe intended for tiling?
      • m0007 hours ago
        Tiling was all the rage in '96. Mostly because you were running on 8MB of RAM.
  • rwmj7 hours ago
    Someone had to keep renewing that .org registration. Not a lot of money, but also not free.
    • bombcar7 hours ago
      It says it's maintained by "4president.org" at the bottom of the cookie page, at least. But their blog.4president.org goes to a broken Network Solutions page so ... probably unmaintained now?
    • 1970-01-017 hours ago
      It's also HTTPS, which was the opposite of easy in 1996, so someone added the feature.
  • Rooster617 hours ago
    Looks like it's hugged to death
    • 1970-01-017 hours ago
      Not on my end. Truthfully, this is the fastest, most responsive site I've visited in years.
      • Rooster617 hours ago
        Hmm, not sure why I can't access it then. Anyone else unable to reach it?
        • eschulz7 hours ago
          no problems right now
  • m0007 hours ago
    Imagine being paid consultant-level fees to build a website with Notepad and MS-Paint. Those were the times...
    • cosmicgadget6 hours ago
      And you could be a kid in high school.
  • johnwheeler7 hours ago
    Wasn't Bob Dole a technology investor? That would make sense.
    • adastra227 hours ago
      First and foremost a pineapple investor.
  • ChrisArchitect7 hours ago
    > Bill Clinton Wants to Put "Big Brother" in Your Computer

    ahh yes, the "Clipper Chip"