Imprudence

2002-10-16T14:03:00.000-04:00

Hi.

This really sums it up.

"Demme said one witness told police the shooter used an AK-74 rifle to kill 47-year-old FBI analyst Linda Franklin on Monday night outside a Falls Church, Va., Home Depot store. Police said the weapon can fire the .223-caliber round recovered from some of the shooting scenes.

``The witness firmly believes this is the weapon,'' Demme said. ``But we have to keep in mind that weapons are interchangable, like vehicles.''

To recap: you can tell what kind of gun it was, but you can give nothing descriptive to help find the shooter. I think that's because nobody on TV has told you what the shooter looks like.

2002-06-05T16:43:00.000-04:00

Miss me?

I broke my hand a couple of weeks ago, thus the interruption. Too hard to type, you know.

Plus, who can keep up with all this sexiest blogger poll stuff? Honestly, people, it's like watching public nervous breakdowns.

2002-04-18T15:27:00.000-04:00

What? Vol. IV:

The oil companies themselves would like to have the ban on exploration in the refuge lifted. But their support is not particularly enthusiastic, because of the high cost of producing oil and gas in the remote area. The issue has become a touchstone, on the other hand, for conservatives generally and the Bush administration particularly.

Stephen Moore, president of the Club for Growth, which raises money for conservative political candidates, explained why conservatives see the issue as a matter of principle.

"There is a belief on the environmentalist side that we're running out of oil, that we have to conserve energy," Mr. Moore said.

"I'm adamantly opposed to energy conservation," he continued. "We're not running out. All we have to do is go out and find it and produce it."

2002-04-16T14:52:00.000-04:00

Commenting on media coverage of the pro-Israel rally yesterday in DC, Glenn Reynolds relates, via Virginia Postrel's email, that the "Israel rally was all over the TV news... It's providing the major visuals of the day." Glenn goes on to note, "I should hope so. I guess if I ever watched TV I'd know."

Come on, Glenn. That sounds snobby. Blogging is all about breaking down barriers to accessing opinions and viewpoints, and it encourages people to read everything they can. We should treat TV the same way. I think it's crappy most of the time, too (I'd link here, but I can't get my stupid archives to work), but I don't stop watching. Once you're older than 7 and your brain is fully formed, you should watch everything you think you can learn something from: Hardball, This Week, Larry King (hilarious!), Crossfire, WCAX TV's "Across the Fence" (brought to you by the Chittenden County Extension Service), The Simpsons, Letterman, Conan, Jiminy Glick, Meet the Press, any SCTV you can find, "A Region in Conflict" with Ashleigh Banfield (that is the best title for a TV show ever), the local news, O'Reilly (shudder), Sportscenter, Face the Nation, McLaughlin, Asian Entertainment . . . . the list is endless. If it's not elucidating, it's generally entertaining, even if not intentionally so.

Except don't watch network sitcoms. They suck.

2002-04-11T16:20:00.000-04:00

Ken and Dan, or Tom, or Tomorrow, or whatever we should call him are having the kind of discussion that elevates this Diversion for everyone. And they're not sniping at one another. Go read it.

When you guys do get together for drinks in LA or NY or wherever, for God's sake will you please let me know? It'll be my treat.

2002-04-10T11:04:00.000-04:00

I don't agree with Rod Dreher at The Corner all that much. But I'm very happy to see that he too is down with Dr. Jack and the lovely Rexella.

2002-04-08T13:38:00.000-04:00

What? Vol. III. "Bathtime Constitution?"

Words fail.

2002-04-08T11:04:00.000-04:00

Many moons ago I thought that as political trials go, September 11 was perfect for 43. I just didn't see how this would be such a tribulation for George W. Bush, as many thought it would. After all, you'd be hard pressed to find a more cut-and-dried scenario of good vs. evil than the terrorist attacks. What the President had to do was act presidential, listen to his advisors and keep reassuring the American people. Even to someone like me, he did a really good job at it.

Now, however, things aren't that easy. You can see the President struggling to find his way through this mideast mess, where there are infinite shades of gray and nothing is ever as clear as it seems. This is the real test. It will be interesting to see how it will play out, and how the President's handling of an increasingly difficult situation will ultimately affect accomplishment of the clear goals he established at the end of 2001.

2002-04-04T10:28:00.000-05:00

Gloating? These people are pond scum. "The political leaders, as they call themselves, are obviously prosperous and live in large, comfortable homes here in Gaza City with big families." And they strap military grade explosives to other people's children and send them out to murder and to die.

2002-04-03T09:03:00.000-05:00

One of the problems with having a full time office job, and having people pay you actually expecting you to accomplish something tangible for them, is that you almost never have time to do the fun things that you really want to do.

Like pile on Alex Beam.

Now, I am certainly not a heavy hitter in this little fantasy world run by the silicon gremlins inside the bakelite boxes on our desks and in our briefcases. (In addition to my job, I have TWO toddler-types at home making very welcome demands on my time. As the particularly astute will note, this is the only thing that separates the quality/quantity of my output from that of the redoubtable James Lileks.) But I am just as tickled as all the heavies are by this jaw-dropping display of ignorance, lack of interest and laziness by the latest in a long line of Boston Globe luminaries. Bill Quick is right -- except that no one reads the weather in the papers in New England. I live in the Boston area (well, that might be a stretch), and it's pretty generally accepted that the Globe is a disgrace. This is upsetting, since of the other newpapers most available to me, the Union Leader and the Boston Herald are laughably troglodytic (is that a word?), and the Concord Monitor is simply unreadable. On-line info isn't enough -- I like the physical experience of reading a newspaper, and it pisses me off that most are so bad that they aren't worth reading.

Anyway. I don't really have anything to add on matters Beamish that hasn't already been said (which probably proves Beam's point), and much better than I could. Go read all the other posts about this. I'm too lazy . . . er, I mean, busy to link them all here, but I think people will particularly enjoy the well-honed comedy stylings of the noted slapstick duo of Welch and Layne.

Selah.

2002-03-30T18:50:00.000-05:00

People keep harping on about "where are the liberal bloggers." (That's only one example, but it's the most recent one I've seen.) This seems to me to be the wrong question, although it's understandable in one respect inasmuch as there's a lot of cyber-agreement out there on certain issues. (Look around. It's not too hard to figure out what they are.) It's not as though it's an either/or proposition, that there can be only "liberals" or "conservatives." Although it's certainly true that there are those who fall squarely in those camps, I think we generally agree that there are degrees of shadation. I consider myself a "liberal," if you subscribe to Matt Welch's formulation, which I have already discussed. And I think there are plenty of people (I mean, bloggers -- do "people" even count?) out there who find themselves agreeing with and embracing that position. There are even plenty of folks who find themselves in line with some of Matt's definition, but not all of it. Just like there are lots of people who simply can't subscribe wholeheartedly to the set of beliefs that has been classically defined as "Liberal." Or "Conservative." Or "Wiccan." Or whatever.

Where the hell was I going with this? Oh yeah. My point is that I accept it as a given that every single individual out there has a unique set of beliefs and views. Nobody ever agrees completely with somebody else. Anyone who says they do is either lying or seeking election.

It's a big party, everyone. And it's BYOB.

2002-03-29T22:08:00.000-05:00

Buried in the middle of Dr. Frank's excellent examination of Alterman's recent blather, entitled "No Fair! The Other Side has all the Good Pundits!", is the following nugget:

There is certainly a great deal to criticize about Israel, its policies, and its conduct of its war. Sharon is nearly as odious as Arafat, though there is a great deal of truth in the notion that Arafat's actions made Sharon's ascendence inevitable, and that the resulting escalation of the violence was his express intention. You don't have to be particularly "pro-Israel" to recognize this truth. Those concerned about the welfare of the Palestinians have as much reason as anyone to oppose Arafat and his policies: they have brought his people and his world nothing but misery. The futile attempt to repeal history through suicide bombings is doomed to failure, and it ought to be condemned for that alone, if for nothing else.

This is careful and worthy analysis. All of our credentialled journos should be this thoughtful. If Eric Alterman took the time to think like this -- and he doesn't have to think exactly this, he just has to think-- instead of wasting his time making mindless and pointless lists, we'd all be a lot better off.

Who rocks harder than Dr. Frank?

2002-03-29T21:50:00.000-05:00

Oh, this is just stupid. Waging a "media 'offensive'" and referring to himself in the third person, the chairman of the erstwhile PLO begins to show signs of dementia. And not the creeping kind, but the bursting-through-the-door-with-a-wet-pant-leg-and-bells-in-both-hands kind.

Hey, you wasted old fool, now is not the time for you to be blaming all your troubles on the fact that "they are using all the American weapons" against you, and bewailing the fact that the American Jew-Lovers could certainly give the order, any time, to stop the shelling. No, now is the time for you to be devoting your limited mental capital to finding a way out of the nest you've filled with your own shit.

Asked by correspondent Christiane Amanpour what he was doing to rein in Palestinian militants, Arafat's tone became strident, and he abruptly ended the interview.

``You have to be accurate when you are speaking with General Yasser Arafat,'' he snapped. ``You are covering with these questions the terrorist activities of the Israeli occupation and the Israeli crimes. Be fair...thank you, bye-bye.''

Yes. Bye-bye.

2002-03-29T21:33:00.000-05:00

You know what? I miss the madness when Layne is down.

2002-03-29T15:46:00.000-05:00

And sometimes you can count on corporations to do the right thing. Pennsylvania-based Aventis Pasteur has announced that it will donate about 85 million recently-located doses of smallpox vaccine to the government. Good for these guys:

"We hope that a dose will never be needed,'' said Richard J. Markham, chief executive of Aventis Pharma, the French parent company of Aventis Pasteur, which estimated the commercial value of the vaccine at more than $150 million. But "it's very important to us as citizens, not just in our role as a vaccine producer, to be able to make a contribution during this time of uncertainty.''

I'm nearly speechless. Somebody's not going to gouge somebody?

2002-03-27T22:53:00.000-05:00

Since it's "fair and balanced," will FOXNews.com soon feature a campus blog from somewhere other than NRO's back pocket as a guest commentator? Just checking.

2002-03-27T22:42:00.000-05:00

News flash to Ari Fleischer: "energy-related groups," the kind of folks one meets with when assembling a national energy policy, would also include groups of people who use energy and groups of people concerned about the way energy is used. Not just groups of people interested in making as much money as possible off energy use.

We're all in this together, Ari. When dealing with these important issues, maybe Mr. Abraham ought to make time in his "busy schedule" to talk with someone other than American Coal Company, UtiliCorp United, Aquila Inc., various utility companies and nuclear power corporations, ExxonMobil, BP/Amoco, Shell, ChevronTexaco, Anadarko Petroleum and Ashland Inc.

2002-03-27T22:25:00.000-05:00

A horrible day, relieved and enleavened only by the unrelenting hi-jinx emanating from the circus-like Meeting of the Minds in Beirut. The situation in Israel now really is sick and demented.

It's hard to understand, though, how things can happen like this:

The country's police commissioner, Shlomo Aharonishki, said it was impossible to prevent all attacks. ``Even with more policemen and a broader deployment, we cannot block the centers of the cities,'' he said. ``This attack is more evidence of that.''

The Israelis are among the most paranoid (is it paranoia if the fear is true?) and best-prepared people in the world. Over the last eighteen months they have been subjected to nearly every kind of atrocity possible. They have been ready for anything. Yet as a matter of practical accomplishment, how is it that a jackass with 100 pounds of explosive and shrapnel strapped to his chest can wobble into a hotel lobby crowded with people ready for the seder -- one of the holiest times of the jewish calendar, when people traditionally gather in such places to celebrate -- without being detected? There had to be significant security around, especially given Netanya's recent bloody history. Does this sort of thing happen that fast? I mean, this guy had to get from Point A -- a bus, a cab, a car, whatever -- to Point B, the entrance of the dining room. To do so, he apparently had to traverse the sidewalk, entrance way, and fairly spacious lobby area, all the while not looking altogether "normal," I would gather, and lugging all kinds of ordnance. If he was noticed, does the thing happen so fast that no one can stop him?

2002-03-26T11:05:00.000-05:00

I've never been very comfortable with the conclusion that the anthrax mailings last fall were the work of a domestic whack-job. It just doesn't make sense to me, especially given the timing of the mailings. Also, if it was a strictly domestic job, don't you think investigators would have had more to go on and more to show for the effort? Why were we so reluctant to suppose that this could be the product of international terrorism?

Finally, it looks like the pendulum has swung. Over the past couple of days a number of articles, like this one and this one, among many, have bubbled to the surface. They certainly give the international angle more plausibility, and suggest that someone better get on the stick looking for September 11 accomplices still hanging around out there.

2002-03-26T08:44:00.000-05:00

This article in Sunday's New York Times brought the following display of fury from Rod Dreher (it's the last entry for Saturday, March 23):

The Times leaves New York to take the pulse of American Catholics amid the scandal -- and there's nothing surprising in the way they report it. They quote two members of the radical left-wing organization Call to Action, the dissenting theologian Richard McBrien, and the liberal academician Scott Appleby. The only believing Catholic they bothered to talk to was Bill Donohue of the Catholic League. Typical. I'm not even going to link to this lousy piece of biased journalism.

Easy, Rod.

I have three problems with this blast:

First, how does Rod know who's a "believer" and who's not? His is the only definition that matters? That's hardly divisive rhetoric, is it?

Second, I know it's so easy to find Times' articles on-line that linking often seems unnecessary. However, Rod's parting shot only invites the observation that he'd better serve his readers if he would facilitate direct access to the repulsive article in question, rather than snippily hiding it away.

Third, I'm no four-square apologist for the New York Times, but the kind of slant Rod complains of here didn't appear to bother him last week, when he and Mr. Donahue were the only interviewees on the matter on CNN's The Point.

2002-03-25T22:11:00.000-05:00

This is generally what is known as fair warning:

If the talks fail as Palestinian violence continues, there is widespread and growing support both in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government and in the army for what one official called a "comprehensive military confrontation" with the Palestinians.

"Comprehensive military confrontation" is readily translated, for those who might be slow on the up-take, as an "unimpeded and serious ass-kicking." Also, it looks like the groundwork has been laid with some of the would-be cooler heads:

Israeli newspapers have also reported in recent days that Sharon has told the Bush administration to expect an escalation if no cease-fire is achieved. For instance, Shimon Schiffer, arguably Israel's best-connected political reporter, wrote in the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth today that when Vice President Cheney visited Israel last week, Sharon "reached an agreement" with him that if Zinni's mission fails, Washington would support Israeli strikes on the Palestinians. U.S. officials did not deny the report.

For all the relative quiet in the news these past few days on this front, I get the feeling that the fat is fast approaching the fire.

2002-03-22T23:41:00.000-05:00

What? Vol. II Attention firefighters: How do you go from an innocent game of skill -- you might play it at your local county fair -- to sticking latex-wrapped children's toys in uncomfortable Areas?

2002-03-22T23:27:00.000-05:00

2002-03-22T23:16:00.000-05:00

Via VodkaPundit: John Scalzi presents an excellent summary of the characteristics customarily exhibited by liberals, conservatives, and libertarians. Excerpts follow, but read it all: it's fun!

Liberals: The stupidest and weakest members of the political triumvirate, they allowed conservatives to turn their name into a slur against them, exposing them as the political equivalent of the kid who lets the school bully pummel him with his own fists (Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself). . . . Defensive and peevish even when they're right. . . . Liberals are politically able to have all sorts of freaky mammal sex but typically don't; good liberal foreplay is a permission slip and three layers of impermeable barriers. The only vaguely liberal person we know of who seemed to enjoy sex in the last 30 years is Clinton, and look what he got out of it. . . . The attention spans of poultry; easily distracted from large, useful goals by pointless minutiae. Not only can't see the forest for the trees, can't see the trees for the pine needles.

Conservatives: Self-hating moral relativists, unless you can convince me that an intellectual class that publicly praises family values but privately engages in sodomy, coke and trophy wives is more aptly described in some other way. Not every conservative is an old wealthy white man on his third wife, but nearly every conservative aspires to be so, which is a real waste of money, youth, race and women. . . . [D]on't actually bother to spend time with people who are not conservative, and thus become confused and irritable when people disagree with them; fundamentally can't see how that's even possible, which shows an almost charming intellectual naiveté. Less interested in explaining their point of view than nuking you and everything you stand for into blackened cinders before your evil worldview catches on like a virus. . . . Let their sons get caught with a dime bag and see how many are really for "zero-tolerance." Let a swarthy day laborer impregnate their daughters and find out how many of them are really pro-life.

Libertarians: Unusually smug for a political philosophy that's never gotten anyone elected for anything above the local water board. . . . Blissfully clueless that Libertarianism is just great as long as it doesn't actually involve real live humans. . . . [B]log with a frequency that makes one wonder if they're actually employed somewhere or if they have loved ones that miss them. . . . Socially slow -- will assume other people actually want to talk about legalizing hemp and the benefits of a polyamorous ethos when all these other folks really want is to drink beer and play Grand Theft Auto 3. . . .

2002-03-22T22:47:00.000-05:00

When he treats matters Substantive and Important, I hardly ever agree with Tim Blair. However, he writes with such off-hand grace and natural Wit that it's hard not to be pleased with his product. Ken Layne with a great accent. Fair play to him.

2002-03-22T14:54:00.000-05:00

The New Buckley v. Valeo. I don't have time today to yammer on and on about something as mind-bendingly thrilling as campaign finance reform. But let me just say this. Best of the Web has his shorts in a knot because Tom Daschle had the temerity to suggest that the legislation recently passed might be, uh, important:

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, meanwhile, sounds downright Clintonian in his quest for a legacy: "This will be a landmark piece of legislation that I think will be written about in the history books for years to come," the Washington Post quotes him as saying.

Emphasis added.

Now, James, before we get too excited about slapping the always interesting Senator Daschle for overreaching in the legacy department, we might want take a look at Mitch McConnell's pronouncements on the matter. In repeatedly indicating his willingness to serve as lead plaintiff in a legal action challenging the legislation -- and by referring to himself in the third person in that capacity -- Senator McConnell demonstrates an apparently overweening desire to be a case name in first year ConLaw texts. Legacy quest indeed.

2002-03-21T13:03:00.000-05:00

OK, I'll do my part. This is from Bob Lonsberry, via Bill Quick the DailyPundit and Stephen Green of VodkaPundit:

[O]ne of those Prowler unmanned surveillance planes saw Petty Officer
Roberts come out of the helicopter, and lie there injured but alive and
conscious. The bigwigs saw this, live, back at headquarters. And they also
saw the three Al Qaeda guys come out of the bush and grab him. He was
their prisoner. Captured in battle. And they grabbed him and dragged him
and took him away. And then, it seems, they beat him, cut his throat.

And executed him.

They shot him too. A wounded man. A detainee. No medical care, no food, no
holy book, no chaplain. Just a bullet.

Which has produced silence on the part of the world's activists.

Not one word.

Apparently it's OK to shoot a wounded prisoner, but if you take him to a
hospital and treat his injuries and feed him, you've gone too far.
Apparently killing an American detainee is acceptable, while coddling an
Al Qaeda detainee is not. The same people who have seen a war crime in the
treatment of terrorists are unperturbed by the slaughter of a prisoner of
war.

We treat them with caring and compassion, and we get cursed. They treat us
with barbarism and butchery, and they get blessed.

2002-03-21T09:51:00.000-05:00

ONCE UPON A TIME there was a large-ish fellow, a cuddly sort with sadness in his eyes, who made a little movie about the pain in Flint, Michigan when GM lumbered out of town. It was a funny film, and apparently well-intentioned. It was fun to see those filthy Captains of Industry dogged by a persistent punk with little compunction about being a big pain in the ass, but with a giant taste for vengeance. Anyone with a brain in his head knew, however, that Roger & Me was a manipulative piece of propaganda that was also, coincidentally, in large part about the "Me." (I seem to recall that Our Filmmaker didn't necessarily treat his working heroes with much respect, either.) That doesn't mean, by itself, that the movie wasn't worthwhile. And anyone who saw or read the big oaf's subsequent work could easily note that it was more of the same, with an ever-increasing helping of ego and a Tigers cap on top.

In the end, ego and hubris always triumph. Big Mike's oeurvre became increasingly crammed with tributes to the poor and oppressed that were really just tributes to Big Mike. And for his trouble, Big Mike was systematically and rightfully disassembled by people who pay attention to this sort of thing. (There are way too many possible links here. If you haven't read this stuff yet, go use Google. That's what it's for.)

Now, god help him, James Lileks has gotten ahold of Big Mike with a pair of longhandled blacksmith's tongs, and is holding him at arm's length while bashing him repeatedly above the shoulders. Very roughly.

Moore's output and behavior since September 11 has been reprehensible. He is getting what he deserves; not that he cares very much, apparently. It's too bad that he's so far gone.

2002-03-21T08:25:00.000-05:00

What?

"I know there are a lot of people out there who will read this and say 'This doesn't affect me, I'm not a cyborg,' " says Mr. Mann, "But the way I was treated by Air Canada, it could happen to anyone."

Most surprisingly, a lawsuit is to follow. The Cyborg's lawyer insists, with a straight face,

"Basically, we are going to argue Professor Mann was discriminated against because he is a cyborg . . . . You can laugh at that, but I don't see the difference between showing up at the airport in a wearable computer, and showing up in a wheelchair.

"My client is a cyborg, not a terrorist."

Your client is not a cyborg. Your client is not a terrorist. Your client is a wackjob.

2002-03-20T22:45:00.000-05:00

TNR's Jonathan Chait spends a few quality minutes dissecting Reagan speechwriter and noted civil defense Expert Peggy Noonan's double standard when it comes to determining what makes a good politician. Chait notes that it's the same old line: ideology = virtue, and if you're deficient on the former (as measured on the Noonan Scale), you're shit out of luck on the latter:

The problem with Noonan's brand of hero-worship isn't that character doesn't matter. Reasonable people can disagree about the proper weight to place on personal virtue versus ideology in evaluating a politician. But for Noonan and her ilk, conservative ideology and personal virtue are so deeply intertwined that it is virtually impossible for a good person to pursue liberal policies or for a conservative politician to be morally flawed. And this allows Noonan to view similar sets of facts in wildly inconsistent ways. Earlier this year Noonan wrote an entire column praising Bush for prohibiting his staff from leaking to the press. One year before, she denounced Clinton for the same thing. "The code of omerta," she thundered, "ran strong and was obviously enforced." Noonan defended Bush's vicious attacks on McCain in the South Carolina primary, which included racial innuendo and disparagement of his military record. "You make the best case possible for yourself and what you stand for, and you paint your opponent in less attractive light," she lectures. "That's what politics is." Unless, of course, a Democrat is practicing politics. "Al Gore is surrounded by tough mean operatives whose sole political instinct is to rip out the other guy's guts and dance in the blood," she later raged.

Ooooh. I wonder if Peg remembers Lee Atwater?

Noonan's unstated assumption is that Democratic politicians do not have the moral right to, well, do what politicians do. She attacks Clinton for "unleashing the fierce energy of your hatred into the national bloodstream, and getting all your people out there on television every day to hate for you," as if Clinton loyalists ruled the airwaves unopposed for eight years.

I guess she doesn't.

2002-03-20T08:37:00.000-05:00

Jesus, Ken. There must have been a big sale on delicious red wines down at the packy yesterday. There are some magical synapses firing in that brain. It's fun to note, too, that all that Madness occurs on PST, right about when I'm thinking about getting up.

2002-03-20T08:25:00.000-05:00

Ted Barlow had a really detailed discussion about health care systems yesterday. Because I am an ill-informed geek, I didn't get it all on the first pass through, so I'll have to read it more carefully again. One thing I wonder about, though, is the griping you hear from some Canadians about how difficult it is to obtain services under their system. Is there anything to this? I stuck a note in Ted's comment section so go there for more info.

2002-03-20T00:24:00.000-05:00

INS Commissioner James Ziglar testified before a House Immigration sub-committee today. Topic: "Could INS have dropped the ball with a louder clank last week?"

I'm not making this up, although it doesn't appear in the Post's article -- you'll have to take my word that the exchange was shown on MSNBC. One of the luminaries on the committee (John Conyers, I think) asked Mr. Ziglar what kind of experience he had in immigration prior to going to INS. Mr. Ziglar replied (I'm paraphrasing, but the italics are real), "Well, I've known a lot of naturalized citizens and folks who have immigrated. But other than that, not much experience."

Whoo-hoo! I bet he wishes today he hadn't said that.

Seriously, INS' screw-up with the student visas might have psychically destructive, but it was substantively a bureaucratic nonevent. And it was certainly no where near as damaging as last year's intelligence failures in other governmental sectors. But INS is an unmissable target right now, and Congress is going to take its shots.

2002-03-20T00:07:00.000-05:00

Rotten couple of days for posting. Too much work, all of it spirit-dampening and leaving me feeling like I'm staring up from the bottom of a dank and dirty well. It's a filthy business, but someone has to do it. Better times lie ahead.

2002-03-17T23:46:00.000-05:00

Janet M. Huckabee, the wife of Arkansas Governor and Noted radio personality Mike Huckabee, is running for secretary of state on the same ticket as her husband. I don't really have a point or a joke here.

Oh, except:

"There's no cause for concern about concentration of power," Mr. Huckabee said, although he conceded that should his wife have a Republican opponent, "I will take a position in the primary. I want to continue sleeping upstairs at the mansion."

Where Bill Clinton slept?

2002-03-17T23:39:00.000-05:00

Check out Ken Layne's gently worded critique of the Times' valentine to the editor of the Arab Times.

What a nice man: so patient with us Americans, so reasonable. Has anyone from the Times ever even read the nonsense shovelled by this jackass? Read Ken's links.

Moreover, if the Paper of Record is going to run this puffy stuff, I hope they're getting reasonable advertising rates.

2002-03-17T23:19:00.000-05:00

Except for one more thing: unless the Church (of which I am a member, although certainly not in the lockstep traditional way that Rod Dreher would mandate) gets this shit under control from the top -- and by that I mean UNDER CONTROL and PROBLEM FIXED, not just swept away, bought off and buried in some dusty Vatican white paper available only in latin -- it will soon have no moral authority. And if the Church thought things were tough on those grounds with American Catholics before all of this came to light, just wait and see how Gruesome things get when the laity, both liberal and conservative, decide that their kids aren't safe in the Church.

2002-03-17T23:10:00.000-05:00

The Washington Post's editorial today is completely right. There is no justifiable argument for claiming immunity for sexual misconduct involving minors. No person having knowledge of a case of pedophilia -- whether a neighbor, teacher, social worker or member of the clergy -- should be able to keep that information secret.

And to go a step further, it's ludicrous to argue that the First Amendment's freedom of religion protections somehow shield churches against lawsuits accusing clergy of sexual misconduct. According to the New York Times/AP (I can't find the link), the Florida Supreme Court on Thursday revived two cases thrown out by lower courts on First Amendment - free exercise grounds. Interestingly, given the current climate, neither case apparently involves molestation of minors, and one of the cases is against the Archdiocese of Miami while the other involves a Lake Worth Episcopal church. The basic gist of the state Supreme Court's decision is that if religious institutions enjoy immunity in such cases, they are in a "preferred position" over secular institutions targeted by simlar legal action. I think the court's reasoning is correct: balancing the First Amendment interests at issue here, the anti-establishment clause clearly trumps the free exercise clause (which is probably specious at best). The thinking is that most state and federal jurisdictions go along with this.

Enough conlaw for one night. And I'm not Rod Dreher, so I don't expect to say a whole lot more on this.

2002-03-14T23:18:00.000-05:00

Sgt. Stryker has a nice post about the draft and "boot camp" as a typical republican masturbatory fantasy. He quotes Rep. Nick Smith's (R-Mich.) exceedingly well reasoned opinion why a draft would be a good idea for the Nation:

"'We have not had any period of conscription since 1973,' said Smith, a Vietnam-era draftee. 'Those people are approaching their 50s or are older. In a few years, there will be few, if any members of Congress, who have served in the military. [ed. note: What, like Tom DeLay, Dick Armey, Trent Lott, et al.? Just checking.] We need more people with these views and experience, especially after Sept. 11.'"

Yes, I can certainly see the logic in that. But as Sarge points out:

"Well, there are few members of Congress who've ever held down a real job, yet I don't see any bills calling for mandatory service in the automotive maintenance and short-order cook fields. Hell, maybe we can just draft a bill calling for more housewives, then at least we'll have some people in Congress who know how to budget and manage money effectively."

On a more serious note, Sarge acknowledges that there is an area where national service would do some good:

"The Sept. 11th thing's a nice touch. I would think that one lesson of Sept 11th is that we need more emergency services and response personnel. So why don't we ship these kids off to fire or police academies? At least they could provide some sort of valuable community service afterwards."

Preach on, Brother Stryker. Check out the whole post.

2002-03-14T22:52:00.000-05:00

I'm in my mid-thirties (ok, mid-late-thirties); my mind is cluttered with all sorts of teevee arcana (I love Ken Layne's conventional reference to the tube); almost anything pop-retro interests me; I'm a guy; and I have a blog.

How come I don't get Star Trek? (See, e.g., the amygdala guy.)

Oh, and I used the word "conventional" in a snip discussing Star Trek. My bad.

2002-03-14T22:31:00.000-05:00

I threw up in my mouth, but now I feel much better. Geraldo cannot open his yap without something insipid coming out. 'Course, that's why we love him.

2002-03-13T23:17:00.000-05:00

After confirming late last night that his posting schedule had been off the past few days due to illness, our man at Amygdala allowed earlier today that he hoped to get back on track, although on a "lightish" schedule.

Twenty-three posts through 11:00 p.m. today. 23. All of them detailed.

Christ, whatever's in the little bottle he's nipping from, I want some. Today he made Instantman look like a shameless layabout. Ha. "Lightish."

2002-03-12T22:53:00.000-05:00

It's easy to see how people quickly get hooked on blogging. It's really fun to peck out a few words, play with an idea or two, or take a thought that someone else has had and turn it in a new direction. It's also weirdly gratifying and entertaining to see your very own writing -- tortured though it may often be -- appear in a High-Tech and unfamiliar form. (I often see too much of my writing, in all its MS Word-processed glory, while staring glumly at my monitor at work.)

I seem to have more good ideas for this when I'm at work, just when I can ill afford to waste any more time than I usually do. It's difficult to work on what seems like a good idea for this silly little secret journal when the Evil Banshee is screaming for more of my time and billable hours. And then, when I'm home and my ambition is ebbing, inertia is the defining force -- and with that rotten anvil bearing down, there's little chance of coming up with something different and interesting.

And I'm also ambivalent about the idea that someone might actually end up reading this crap. There's no denying the furtive thrill -- it's almost illicit -- that there's a chance I'm actually speaking to someone. I installed a hit counter here, out of curiosity: I do want to know if someone somehow stumbles through the door and drops a cursor here and there. And against my better judgment, I take humiliating and stupid offense when the counter doesn't tick with any regularity. Or even much at all. Come on, you bastards. What's wrong with you? There's some mildly entertaining stuff in here. What are you waiting for?

Well, dumbass, do something if you want people to come by. Engage in Debate and Discourse with the luminaries of the blogosphere. Fire off contentious emails and insert (more) smarmy and obsequious links to the works of the Rich and Powerful. Do that, and someone's bound to find this quiet corner of the information superhighway.

Nah. Forget it. Just keep playing with this perky little shiny toy. Roll with the flow and Let it Ride. Write what you want to write, and enjoy your own company. Keep reading and learning. What the hell.

Yikes. It's like they all said. Keep it up, and you'll go blind.

2002-03-11T22:40:00.000-05:00

Ann Coulter is rotten to the core and is not nice, either. I know this is old, but it's new to me:

"'We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed too,' pundit Ann Coulter told this month's meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference. 'Otherwise they will turn out to be outright traitors.'"

How risible. How does she keep coming up with le mot juste? She's pathetic and creepy -- a winning combination.

(Link via Tom Tomorrow.)

2002-03-11T22:16:00.000-05:00

A ray of hope in an otherwise dark and horrible story. I'm not sure I can do this delicately, given that the story is so bleak. I can't help myself, though, because the name is so good.

Nine year old Daniel McGinty of Abington, MA lost his dad on September 11. As the Boston Globe reported last Sunday (March 10, 2002 archives), Daniel, his mother and his little brother are having a hard time. Daniel is tough, though, and he's going to be OK. How can we tell? He sums up his feelings for the creep who took his dad from him thusly: "Osama Stupid Ugly Five Hundred Swears Including the Middle Finger bin Laden."

Daniel really needs his own blog.

2002-03-11T17:48:00.000-05:00

Whoo-hoo! Sic 'em, Matt. About time someone had the rind to say this. I'm a "liberal," too, as Matt defines the term, and I'm getting sick and tired of being beaten around the head and shoulders by woolly headed hand wringers, on the one hand, and by the patriotically correct on the other. Matt's definition of "liberal" is careful, thoughtful, and correct:

"I take liberalism to mean a belief in policy geared toward easing poverty, extending rights to every walking human who hasn’t utterly forfeited them, getting the government out of the morality business, regulating markets judiciously, ensuring the pervasive yet hopefully efficient delivery of non-market goods such as education, health care and national defense, and otherwise having the sense to let the private sector handle private concerns. What makes me not “liberal” in the way that people who call themselves “progressives” are seen as “liberal,” is that I don’t think the U.S. is the primary fount of global wickedness, I am heartily in favor of the war against Al-Qaeda, I believe free trade and exchange is an excellent method for reducing poverty and staving off war, and I don’t mind getting good advice from people who don’t vote Democrat or Green."

His take on how the label became the mark of the beast is even better:

"We have allowed ideologues to hijack the word “liberal,” and we have become lazy enough ourselves to confuse common-sense support for a just war with creeping Republicanism."

2002-03-11T10:15:00.000-05:00

All I want to say about "9/11" is that the image of Fr. Mychal Judge pacing the WTC lobby and praying is one that I will have a hard time forgetting. The look in his eyes is astonishing.

2002-03-10T14:19:00.000-05:00

Steven Den Beste makes an excellent point, which I hadn't considered before, about the nuke contingency plan being deliberately leaked. Even if it wasn't an intentional wakeup call, I think Steven's point still applies inasmuch as the message is being read clearly in Baghdad. Still, the references to Russia and China seem to me to be out of place in the context of current events and aims (well, Russia more so than China, anyway), and especially so if this report was deliberately leaked.

I have two particular points in mind after reading William Arkin's commentary in Sunday's L.A. Times. First, you wonder how prepared the U.S. would be to cross the River Styx to use even "task specific" nuclear weapons. Second, you have to look with some foreboding on the possibility that nuke plans are being dusted off for the specific purpose of dealing with the Arab-Israeli mess.

2002-03-09T18:37:00.000-05:00

This nuke contingency plan story in the L.A. Times has a whiff of Buck Turgidson about it. At least, I was going to say that until I hit this line in the article:

"'They're trying desperately to find new uses for nuclear weapons, when their uses should be limited to deterrence," said John Isaacs, president of the Council for a Livable World. "This is very, very dangerous talk . . . Dr. Strangelove is clearly still alive in the Pentagon."'

Well, I can't beat that. Plus I'd hate to sound as unhinged about it as Mr. Isaacs does.

(BTW, when did the construction "very, very" become the ultimate qualifier? There's a crazy military analyst on CNN -- Ken Allard, maybe? -- who uses it once, sometimes twice a sentence. And Anne Thompson does the same thing on MSNBC. It's very, very stupid.)

We all know this kind of planning stuff has never stopped. It's probably necessary, but it's still unnerving to read about it. And there are going to be a lot of people pissed about the fact that we are reading about it. I shall look forward with considerable interest to Mr. Arkin's full report tomorrow.

2002-03-08T16:46:00.000-05:00

Matt Welch is right. This is a great post.

For me, the fun of this enormous time-wasting enterprise lies in reading stuff by people I don't always agree with. I derive a lot of pleasure, though, from the style and grace of their language. God damn, but some of these people can flat out write. Check out what Perkins has to say about one of the Great Ones:

"Actually, this brings me to another point I’ve been wanting to discuss, which is, essentially: reasonable people can disagree. I know this is a revolutionary breakthrough in the study of human interaction, a concept so stunning that many of you will be tempted to reject it out of hand, but bear with me here. If someone disagrees with you politically on, say, 20% of issues, or even 30% or 40%--it does not make that person your Automatic Sworn Enemy. Because we are here in the blog mode, let’s talk about this in blog terms: there are a number of bloggers whose writing I genuinely enjoy, even as their politics differ from my own. Lileks, for instance--jesus christ, have you seen his site? His obsession with retro pop culture, science fiction, and roadside americana mirrors my own to an astonishing degree--he recently posted a jpeg of the cover of an old paperback novelization based on the Hugh O’Brien tv show "Search" (and probably no more than five people reading this have any idea what that means, but if you’re one of them, then you should understand everything I’m trying to say here), and he’s an utterly brilliant writer, whose meditations on family and life are thoughtful and wise. So maybe we don’t have the Exactly the Same Politics, or even anything approaching a similar worldview sometimes--am I therefore required to deny myself the pleasure of reading his work, of rooting through his extraordinary archive of pop culture detritus? I don’t think so.

"But as always, I could be wrong™."

Man, that's good. I wish I could do that.

2002-03-08T16:07:00.000-05:00

I've tried to understand why the color of the universe is a big deal, but I can't figure it out. The only image I have in my head is one of a bunch of geeks at that convention high-fiving and chest-bumping each other, and saying, "Whoo-hoo! Turquoise!"

2002-03-07T22:07:00.000-05:00

Watching Bill O'Reilly "interview" Ted Rall is like having a root canal with a router. It's hard to defend Rall under any circumstances -- or even confess to being in the same phylum of the animal kingdom -- but O'Reilly could make me do it. It would be difficult to find two more self-serving jackasses in the entire world. What were the chances they'd end up in the same studio?

Rall is smug and weirdly righteous. He sounds like the person you hated most in your introductory philosophy lecture and he looks like a warped muppet. He is a laughably easy target. O'Reilly is just a fool, and he has a brain like a rotting carp. He shows no indication that he is capable of simple thought; remarkably, the meaning of Rall's facile and crude cartoons completely elude him. (How is it possible for someone not to "get" Rall?) The only reaction Factorman ever has to anything, no matter who he's talking to, is OUTRAGE. He is an abomination.

Not very pleasant tonight, huh? Maybe it's time for a nice bourbon.

2002-03-07T10:04:00.000-05:00

Maybe I've overstated the acute or short-term danger of a dirty bomb (see post below). Professor Reynolds' comments suggest that I have. Those who should know say, however, that the right kind of device would probably kill few people but would spread panic and produce severe economic damage:

"The most dangerous materials . . . are bars of radioactive cobalt used to irradiate food, medical devices and other products to sterilize them. If turned into fine particles and dispersed under the right weather conditions, the cobalt could spread enough radiation to force the abandonment of an area the size of Manhattan . . . . But federal and industry officials said such an action with radioactive cobalt was unlikely because of the intense radiation to which the person trying to use the weapon would be exposed and because the material is transported in secret and kept behind tons of lead and other shielding while on the road or in use."

But what a fucking mess even a less efficient delivery system would leave:

"Other radioactive materials in tens of thousands of medical and industrial devices could be used to make weapons that would leave wide areas with radiation levels above Environmental Protection Agency limits, possibly leading to temporary evacuation and an extremely difficult cleanup."

"Abandonment" and even "temporary evacuation" would be nightmare scenarios. Think of it: abandonment of the island of Manhattan! I can't even conceive of such a thing.

2002-03-07T08:22:00.000-05:00

Ignore Mr. Lileks' advice to bail on the screedy stuff at the Bleat today. I doubt I'd be as rational, or as civil, as he was. I know I wouldn't have written it that well.

2002-03-06T22:18:00.000-05:00

BOO FRICKIN' HOO. Tedious Brian Williams had a horrible story on MSNBC tonight about the strange and terrible tragedy that has befallen the unfortunates who had booty locked up in the basement of 5 WTC. When I saw all the jewels and watches and baubles and knick-knacks that had been so callously destroyed, melted, twisted and bent, I could hardly choke back the tears. And when I heard about the negligence lawsuits pending against Chase Bank, alleging Grievous and Reckless Interference with the enjoyment of wealth, well, hell, the floodgates just opened.

You bastards.

It's real hard to work up much sympathy for the subjects of this story. Only 3000 souls gone, and we're worrying about a few strings of pearls? Way to go, MSNBC.

2002-03-06T17:37:00.000-05:00

SCUM, SCUM, SCUM, GO BACK TO WHERE YOU'RE FROM. So this is news? Now? Doesn't seem worth, er, spilling a lot of ink over.

2002-03-06T14:46:00.000-05:00

This doesn't make me feel much better.

A radiological "'weapon could contaminate dozens of city blocks with radioactivity, but not kill a soul, the officials told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday. Or it could cause a few more cancers later in life for its victims -- say, four additional cancers in 100,000 people.

'The health consequences are not very great,' said Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Richard Meserve. 'The concern is a psycho-social one.'

"A radiological device detonated by terrorists would require the evacuation and decontamination of a downtown area, disrupting the local economy and possibly creating a panic, according to top officials from U.S. nuclear laboratories, who joined Meserve before the committee. Hospitals would be overrun by fearful patients."

I don't know. The "health consequences" sound pretty formidable to me. And they could be much, much worse.

Somebody better be working overtime.

2002-03-06T11:53:00.000-05:00

STOP ME IF YOU’VE HEARD THIS ONE BEFORE. The April 2002 edition of the Atlantic Monthly has a good distillation of blogworld’s thoughts on the disconnect between the U.S. and Europe. So, let’s buckle on our caps and take a look. According to Walter Russell Mead, it’s the sophisticates against the rubes, or, more politely, against the “populist nationalists” or “Jacksonian Americans.” America’s role in the world comes down to this:

“. . . Jacksonians (and not only Jacksonians) think that for Europeans to believe they have a more sophisticated knowledge of the Third World than Americans do is as silly as Barney’s thinking he would make a better sheriff than Andy. Europe’s vaunted ‘experience’ in the Third World generally has roots in the old colonial empires. When the Europeans pulled out, they left huge messes and deep hatreds behind them: India and Pakistan, Israel and Palestine, Tutsi and Hutu. In business, academics, politics, and military matters U.S. links with the developing world today generally match anything Europe can offer.

“Americans just don’t trust Europe’s political judgment. Appeasement is its second nature. Europeans have never met a ruler – Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Qaddafi, Khomeini, Saddam Hussein – they didn’t think could be softened up by concessions. Europeans tell Americans that in response to September 11 they should deal with the ‘root causes’ of Muslim anger. Jacksonians see this as a call to pay Danegeld – to let the world know that if some people don’t like our foreign policy, all they have to do is kill a few thousand American civilians and we will try harder to please them. Europeans think this is statesmanship. Jacksonians think it’s pathetic.”

Nothing at all wrong with this. It’s just that we’ve already seen it on-screen before.

2002-03-05T22:33:00.000-05:00

The housecleaning continues at Yawkey Way. Kerrigan, gone; an endtable called "Mike Cubbage" installed as President pro tempore of the Olde Towne Team. Forgive me for not being more optimistic, but I've lived too long with the Truly Excellent Red Sox way of doing business. Not that Kerrigan should have stayed, mind you (on the other hand, I wouldn't object if he came back as pitching coach), but you're going to have to prove to me that new ownership and management can escape the all-pervading stupidity that has long dogged this organization.

But you know what? Pedro pitched two scoreless innings today against the Braves -- and without pain. Be still, my heart.

2002-03-05T22:06:00.000-05:00

It's a little pointless to hold up airport security screeners to endless ridicule. It's one thing if a screener turns out to be complicit in breaching security, or is criminally negligent in performing the relatively simple tasks assigned. But it doesn't make sense to call down a shitrain of derision upon screeners as a group just because they're not, uh, Mensa material. The real blame for the state of affairs decried by David Brenner on Fox News tonight, as described here and here, rests with the jackasses responsible for developing and implementing the screening "procedure" (term used loosely) now in place. Maybe it would be better to drop the hammer on them rather than on the well-meaning stuck working for a menial wage.

2002-03-05T13:14:00.000-05:00

CAN BONO SAVE THE WORLD? (I'm not keeping up very well with Time, but there's always this.) Who knows. But there's something about U2 that has seemed earnest and real. And yes, I know Bono's an egomaniac. Maybe I'm a sucker, but I think he means it. (And in re: my last post: it helps to laugh, too.)

2002-03-05T11:16:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking about television a lot over the last couple of days. Back on September 11, television came through for us hugely when other forms of media and technology couldn't. Immediately after the attacks, when we were all starved for information -- any kind of information -- the internet was useless and cellphones were just paperweights. Even standard telephone service was hard to access. And newspapers were too slow. But TV was there with the kind of raw unexpurgated information that we craved. (And there wasn't any time to spin anything, at least not in the first hours and days after the attacks.) In my office, when the NYT and CNN websites were locked solid, we turned on the TV in a conference room. Usually, the tube is only used for deposition and continuing education videos, and we don't have cable. Without a cable hook-up, all we get is one local network affiliate -- it happens to be ABC -- and for that to be even viewable we had to jam a wire coat hanger into the antenna jack. So we sat there and watched the fuzzy image of Peter Jennings trying to make sense of what we were all seeing, and we saw him snapping at ABC's off-camera people to get the right information on screen (which was his response to sensory overload, I think). And then when our senses became overloaded, we all got up one by one and went away to try to make sense of it all on our own. We've been doing that for almost 6 months now.

Now CBS's 9/11 program is coming on March 10. There will be a lot of talk about this both before and after it airs. I think I agree with Jeff Jarvis:

"One group of 9.11 victims' families asked CBS not to show its March 10 special with tape from inside the World Trade Center during the attacks. I disagree strongly. I certainly understand that many people will not want to watch; these families said in their letter that the show might distrupt their 'fragile psychological equilibrium they are so desperately attempting to regain and maintain.'
"But I need to watch; I have a continuing need to remember that day. Another group of families agrees with me; they said to the Times: 'One, some people want to see what happened inside the building. Or two, they don't want people to forget.'
When it comes to this show or memorials at the World Trade Center or payments from the government, the families need to be careful not to try to rule the debate and discussion. They have a right to lead it; they have suffered more than any others. But there are other views, other needs, other opinions from people who were there, from neighbors, from other New Yorkers, from other Americans."

That doesn't mean I want to watch this, or that it's going to be easy to see. In fact I'm dreading watching it. My point, though, is that this is the kind of thing that television can do well, when it wants to. Television at its best is a filterless medium with an unparalleled ability to reach people, and to encourage them to think and to recall and to debate. Of course, TV can do other things, too, like this stupid asinine Nonsense. This garbage is what happens when TV tries too hard, and the jackasses take over. I hope on March 10 CBS doesn't try too hard, but just tells the story.