… Not “seen as beautiful”; but “beautiful, seen.”
You are currently browsing De Doc’s articles.
If you live in Northeast Florida, please consider joining me tonight at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts, the better to give Fred Phelps heartburn…
Here’s a newsflash, Fred. I probably wouldn’t have spent my money there. Not until you said you were coming to town. Have fun contemplating how you’ve actually helped support the arts in Jacksonville.
I am a sinner, and no kind of saint. But I am Catholic.
I am an emergency physician.
I reject your call to leave emergency medicine because of my beliefs.
Can I work in my ER?
Yes. I CAN.
And though I am not a citizen of Massachusetts, I hope dearly that the voters there give you what you deserve for your political positions, and your apparent religious bigotry…
Early retirement.
but we can all help.
Join me.
Happy New Year, all!
Those of us who are here… have not forgotten.
In Flanders Field
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep,
though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
– John McRae
Nor do we forget those who just joined you.
Lt. Col. Juanita L. Warman, 55, of Havre De Grace, Md: 1908th Medical Company, Independence, Mo.
Maj. Libardo Caraveo, 52, of Woodbridge, Va: 467th Medical Detachment, Madison, Wis.
Capt. John P. Gaffaney, 54, of San Diego: 1908th Medical Company, Independence, Mo.
Capt. Russell Seager, 41, of Racine, Wis: 467th Medical Company, Madison, Wis.
Staff Sgt. Justin Decrow, 32, of Plymouth, Ind: 16th Signal Company, Fort Hood.
Sgt. Amy Krueger, 29, of Kiel, Wis: 467th Medical Company, Madison, Wis.
Spc. Jason Hunt, 22, of Tillman, Okla: 1st Brigade, Fort Hood.
Spc. Frederick Greene, 29, of Mountain City, Tenn: 16th Signal Company, Fort Hood.
Pfc. Aaron Nemelka, 19, of West Jordan, Utah. He was assigned to the 510th Engineer Company, 20th Engineer Battalion, at Fort Hood.
Pfc. Michael Pearson, 22, of Bolinbrook, Ill: 510th Engineer Company, 20th Engineer Battalion, Fort Hood.
Spc. Kham Xiong, 23, of St. Paul, Minn: 510th Engineer Company, 20th Engineer Battalion, Fort Hood.
Pvt. Francheska Velez, 21, of Chicago: 15th Combat Support Battalion, Fort Hood.
Michael Cahill of Cameron, Texas: Fort Hood civilian employee.
Do not forget.
Do not forget.
Ed Morrissey offeres an interesting explanation for why the US health care system is much better thought of than you might have assumed, if you listened to the President.
The Rasmussen poll may test the axiom that people don’t appreciate what they have until they lose it. We haven’t lost the medical system that generates such high favorability ratings, but we’re being threatened with its loss — and that has people reevaluating the system.
Perhaps. But I would like to offer a different theory.
Right now, we are being asked to consider sweeping changes in our health care system by… legislators who can’t even be bothered to read the bills they vote on.
So, the American people cannot help but think of Congress, even as they consider changes to the health care they receive.
I’m not surprised that doctors, nurses, and the rest of our team look pretty good, compared to the current leadership of the House and Senate. I’ll take THAT comparison… All. Day. Long.
I frankly couldn’t believe I was reading this:
…There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag {at} whitehouse(.)gov. …
Sure. Pass your neighbors’ names on too, why don’t you?
I mean, Florida is close to Cuba… but f’revvinsakes. What’s next… The Committee To Defend The Party?
What do you call people who think like that? Stumped, I talked with a friend of mine, who had the perfect solution: ”Bill, we Loonies have just the word for those people.
FINKS.”
Count ME out.
In America, the government is supposed to serve US.
May we all wake up, and remember.
*****
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one
people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with
another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and
equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle
them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they
should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted
among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the
governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to
these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it,
and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such
principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall
seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence,
indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be
changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience
hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are
sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which
they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations,
pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them
under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to
throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future
security. –Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies;
and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their
former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great
Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having
in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these
states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary
for the public good.
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing
importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should
be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend
to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large
districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of
representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and
formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual,
uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public
records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with
his measures.
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with
manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause
others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of
annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise;
the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of
invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that
purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners;
refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and
raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his
assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of
their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of
officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the
consent of our legislature.
He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to
civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to
our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to
their acts of pretended legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders
which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing taxes on us without our consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:
For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:
For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring
province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging
its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit
instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and
altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:
For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested
with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his
protection and waging war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and
destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to
complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun
with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the
most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized
nation.
He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas
to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of
their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored
to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian
savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction
of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in
the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only
by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every
act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free
people.
Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have
warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to
extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of
the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have
appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured
them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations,
which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence.
They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity.
We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our
separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in
war, in peace friends.
We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in
General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the
world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the
authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and
declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free
and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to
the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and
the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and
that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war,
conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all
other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And
for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the
protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our
lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.
New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat
Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson,
John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John
Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson,
George Ross
Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of
Carrollton
Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin
Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch,
Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
Source: The Pennsylvania Packet, July 8, 1776
The Bill of Rights (comprising the first 10 amendments to the Constitution)
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to
assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Amendment II
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free
State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be
infringed.
Amendment III
No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without
the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be
prescribed by law.
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses,
papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall
not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause,
supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the
place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise
infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury,
except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the
Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor
shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in
jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case
to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or
property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be
taken for public use, without just compensation.
Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a
speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and
district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district
shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of
the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the
witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining
witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his
defence.
Amendment VII
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed
twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no
fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any Court of
the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
Amendment VIII
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed,
nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be
construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution,
nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States
respectively, or to the people.
I have only met Forry once or twice. But he was every bit as gracious and amusing as the stories and obituaries describe him to be.
If you ever, EVER went to a sci-fi con… or wrote fanfic… or collected a poster… or built a model… or read a fanzine, or a prozine… you owe him.
In fact, if you’e ever done anything like that in mystery fandom, or romance fandom, you STILL owe him. Your fandoms took inspiration from the activities of sci-fi fandom… and they are, in no small measure, inspired by Forry.
Rest well, oh “Ackermonster”.
What: ”The Phoenix Mission: NASA’s Martian Polar Expedition”
When: 2:15 PM Saturday, 4 October 2008
Where: Carson Public Library
151 E Carson St
Carson, CA
Come hear what scientists are learning about Mars. Their operation of
NASA’s Phoenix Lander have made them virtual explorers in the Martian
Arctic. With a robotic arm they’ve dug into the frozen surface, then
delivered the scrapings to a portable laboratory whose tests can tell
whether life might survive there. They’ve seen what this bit of Mars is
made from — down to soil particles scanned by an onboard microscope and
up to panoramic vistas from stereoscopic cameras. With those same
cameras and other sensors, scientists are keeping a Martian weather
watch — useful information for planning actual human expeditions.
Dr. Leslie Tamppari is the Phoenix Mission’s Project Scientist at NASA’s
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). She is a graduate of the University of
Arizona and received her PhD from UCLA. At JPL she previously worked as
the Deputy Project Scientist for the Mars Science Laboratory (launches
2009) and an Investigation Scientist for the Photoplarimeter /
Radiometer (PPR) experiment on the Galileo mission to Jupiter. She
decided to become a planetary scientist while working as a JPL intern
during Voyager 2’s flyby of Neptune.
For more information about OASIS, visit www.oasis-nss.org.
And slowly, slowly, the war is being won, in the terrorists’ own neighborhoods.
Not as satisfying as a shiny public trial, perhaps, but Bin Laden doesn’t deserve to be a martyr.
THESE are martyrs.
The Islamarchist terrorists? They give no glory to God by their deeds. Hostes humani generis, and nothing more worthy.
Soooo…
If I was to contemplate coming out to Denver to teach another seminar for Roger Siggs and the Rocky Mountain Swordplay Guild, what with their new digs and all…
sometime in the next six months or so, perhaps…
when would be a good time for my Gentle Readers who live out there?
Roger?
Bueller?
The Los angeles chapter of the National Space Society, OASIS, is hosting a reception this Saturday, July 19, 2008 at 3:00 PM to mark the 30th Anniversary of the chapter. The reception will be at the
Western Museum of Flight at Torrance Airport.
Tickets are $25. Tickets can be purchased at the door, but we’d like a good count for the catering.
Tickets may be ordered by mail by sending a check to:
OASIS
PO Box 1231
Redondo Beach, CA 90278
To make reservations and pay at the door, call the OASIS Hot Line at
310-364-2290.
What: OASIS 30th Anniversary Celebration
Where: Western Museum of Flight
Torrance Airport
3315 Airport Drive,
Hanger Red Baron #3
Torrance, CA 90505
When: Saturday July 19, 2008 at 3:00 PM
Tickets: $25/person
The timing of my recent trip didn’t allow me to make this event, but I hope that some of my Angeleno friends can make the trip; it would be another great way to celebrate Tranquility Day.
And steeple…
And podium…
Let these words be heard again, on this day of liberty.
When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
–That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refuted his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred. to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.
–And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
John Hancock.
GEORGIA, Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, Geo. Walton.
NORTH-CAROLINA, Wm. Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn.
SOUTH-CAROLINA, Edward Rutledge, Thos Heyward, junr.
Thomas Lynch, junr. Arthur Middleton.
MARYLAND, Samuel Chase, Wm. Paca, Thos. Stone, Charles Carroll, of Carrollton.
VIRGINIA, George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Ths. Jefferson, Benja. Harrison, Thos. Nelson, jr. Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton.
PENNSYLVANIA, Robt. Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benja. Franklin, John Morton, Geo. Clymer, Jas. Smith, Geo. Taylor, James Wilson, Geo. Ross.
DELAWARE, Caesar Rodney, Geo. Read.
NEW-YORK, Wm. Floyd, Phil. Livingston, Frank Lewis, Lewis Morris.
NEW-JERSEY, Richd. Stockton, Jno. Witherspoon, Fras. Hopkinson, John Hart, Abra. Clark.
NEW-HAMPSHIRE, Josiah Bartlett, Wm. Whipple, Matthew Thornton.
MASSACHUSETTS-BAY, Saml. Adams, John Adams, Robt. Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry.
RHODE-ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE, &c. Step. Hopkins, William Ellery.
CONNECTICUT, Roger Sherman, Saml. Huntington, Wm. Williams, Oliver Wolcott.
IN CONGRESS, JANUARY 18, 1777.
ORDERED,
THAT an authenticated Copy of the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCY, with the Names of the MEMBERS of CONGRESS, subscribing the same, be sent to each of the UNITED STATES, and that they be desired to have the same put on RECORD.
By Order of CONGRESS,
JOHN HANCOCK, President.
BALTIMORE, in MARYLAND: Printed by MARY KATHARINE GODDARD.
May their names be for a blessing, each and every one.
May each and every American reading this today make that pledge, as I do, today.
Congratulations to my son
graduate of the class of 2008,
Douglas Anderson School Of The Arts;
National Thespian Honor Society,
Bravo Award for technical theater.
BOOyah!
(busy? Why, yes, a little. Does it show? *grin*)
do you really want the same government that brought you the Transportation Security Administration…
in charge of your health care?
From Roger Siggs:
“… As of 2:15pm, May the 6th, the Rocky Mountain Swordplay Guild and Shugyo Martial Arts have a new practice location that is exclusively ours! Located at 10600 W 50th Ave, Unit 10 in Wheat Ridge, CO, this gives us over 2000 square feet of open floor to train on, coupled with 16ft ceilings leaving us plenty of space for whatever weapons one might wish to use- from Unarmed to Pole Weapons (even on someone else’s shoulders if we wanted to!).
A few pictures are available here:
http://www.rockymountainswordplayguild.com/home/site.html …”
I might just have to go train there soon.
Maybe so.
Not only is there now the possibility of extremely efficient solar cells — like “can even collect ambient light energy at night” efficient — but there’s a team which is exploring the direct conversion of radiation into electricity.
I’m a doctor, not a physicist; but the article suggests that process might be efficient enough to recover useful amounts of power even from nuclear waste.
Both technologies are far from commercial use. But none of the technical problems discussed in the articles appear to require a leap of genius-level insight. Engineering and refinement, not fundamental discovery…
The potential is breathtaking.
Guns?
Religion?
Antipathy to people who aren’t like them?
Well… two out of three ain’t bad.
(Given my love of my father, and my taste in cars, I won’t even bother with “…anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment…”. Besides, that’s simply bad rhetoric; Senator Obama should have stopped with a nice, balanced triad.
Come to think of it, he should have stopped before he opened his mouth, that time.)
UPDATE: It’s the “… Let them eat cake” of 2008” ? Ouch.
A graceful remembrance, of an extraordinary talent.
Rest in peace, sir.
Vere resurrexit!
Christos Anesti! Alithos Anesti!
Krisztus feltámadt! Valóban feltámadt!
… and a whole host of other languages’ exultation, here.
Happy Easter!
Without her gentle prodding, I wouldn’t be “here”. Neither would the e-zine I publish on behalf of the Orion’s Arm project. And the Whoniversal Appeal convention would be without a webmaster.
My portfolio would be a pale shadow of itself.
So here’s to you, oh venomous one! Hope to see you sometime soon, if some of our convention plans pan out…
… good reading to be had at Voices/Future Tense;
Issue Eight is now online!
I remain,
your humble publisher
Keller’s minions aren’t forging Air National Guard memoes.
Yet.
I learned, from WFB, that grace in discourse was a virtue. I learned that disagreeing with someone’s politics did not require me to hate them; was, in fact, my loss, did I do so. I learned that I might, sometimes, myself be mistaken, and to be mindful of that even when I am certain of my stance.
He taught me to value douceur before I even knew the concept existed.
I see, here and there in commentary, that this lesson hasn’t “taken” everywhere.
We are the poorer for that, and for his loss.
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine:
et lux perpetua luceat eis.
My friend Jerry Pournelle is currently in the midst of an Instalanche:
Grinding the faces of the poor seems to be the policy of the Greens.
Apt enough, alas. But I think the Professor picked the wrong quote to highlight, this week.
Would we be better off if one out of two bureaucrats were sent home, on salary, and told never to come back to work? Just do nothing and leave us alone?
From a fannish message board:
regarding hillarious’ health care plan – being part of the medical industry, i have an awful lot to say. but i won’t. i will say, though, that without reservation, you cannot fix something that you do not understand.
I have marvelous friends…
*grins*
Tip of the clipboard to Samizdata, and my thanks as well. I’ve been wanting to write something about the Archbishop’s genuine trahison des clercs, but without success. Incoherent rage is neither becoming nor convincing…
So. ”Here endeth the lesson.”
Due to unforeseen circumstances, I regret to announce that the Great Plains Fechtschule seminar I wrote of some time ago has been cancelled. The organizers hope to reschedule at some future date, but I have no more details at this time.
Now this is interesting. And, given the kind of outages we’re seeing, more plausible than a script-kiddie scenario.
Observations, gentle readers?
… but it needn’t be.
If you live in Chicagoland, and have some time this weekend, come check out the splendid Love Is Murder mystery writers conference…
with an appearance by yours, truly.
The Professor offers this timely observation:
If you are part of a society that votes, then do so. There may be no candidates and no measures you want to vote for . . but there are certain to be ones you want to vote against. In case of doubt, vote against. By this rule you will rarely go wrong.
If this is too blind for your taste, consult some well-meaning fool (there is always one around) and ask his advice. Then vote the other way. This enables you to be a good citizen (if such is your wish) without spending the enormous amount of time on it that truly intelligent exercise of franchise requires.
A worthwhile counsel against political despair.
testing testing…
Hmmm. My blog’s intact, but the voyaging theme… isn’t.
There will be a brief pause while I sort THAT out. *wry grin*
… I offer this gem, from Kim duToit.
As fine a statement of why each vote,
each decision,
each citizen matters
as any I’ve seen.
If you’re in Iowa, get to your caucus and make your voice heard.
If you’re in New Hampshire… your turn comes soon; make good use of it.
If you’re in other states… register, if you’ve not done so yet, and vote in your primaries.
Make your voice heard; then do it again, and again, and again. Don’t listen to the cynical, the jeering, those who lack hope. Franklin was right; we have something extraordinary, something enviable — a republic… if we can keep it:
… our Constitution is neither a self-actuating nor a self-correcting document. It requires the constant attention and devotion of all citizens. There is a story, often told, that upon exiting the Constitutional Convention Benjamin Franklin was approached by a group of citizens asking what sort of government the delegates had created. His answer was: “A republic, if you can keep it.” The brevity of that response should not cause us to under-value its essential meaning: democratic republics are not merely founded upon the consent of the people, they are also absolutely dependent upon the active and informed involvement of the people for their continued good health.
Choose, today. Choose:
It’s January 1st, 2008: it’s the start of a new year, and we face a chance to make our desire for change, our desire to revert to Constitutional values, be known at the ballot box.
Let me be perfectly clear about what I’m saying here. This is not a rallying-cry, a call to arms, or any such romantic nonsense. It is a reminder of our civic duty. …
We just have to keep at it, and keep spreading the truth. That way lies victory. I promise you. After all, the price of freedom, as the man said, is eternal vigilance.
Thousands upon thousands of my comrades in arms, over the years, have paid a much higher price for our freedom. The least we can do is pay attention, show up, and choose.
…on New Year’s night…
is what you’ll be doing the rest of the year…
I’ll be BUSY.
*g*
So let me seize a moment, and wish you all,
Gentle Readers,
the most joyful of New Years!
and to all, a good night –
And a splendid week, whilst I am at it.
My family and I will go on holiday in a few hours; I’ll be back a little before the turn of the year. So I would wish you well, here and now:
May all of you who read this
have the happiest of Yuletides,
and the richest of Christmas blessings,
as fitting preparation for a splendid 2008!
Still waiting to hear whether anyone I know has been injured, or…
But Sharpie’s OK, as is John. And so am I.
From the pen of John Hertz:
In the throes of bureaucracy people imagine their conduct protects themselves, their organization, their friends, while hurting all.
As succinct a reason to limit government as I’ve heard in a while.
(crossposted at LJ, facebook, myspace, and a host of other places)
For those of you who live in Venomous Kate’s neck of the woods (may you all be warm)… or whom are interested in seeing what David was writing about, a few months ago…
Date: March 1 & 2
Time: 9:00 am to 4:30 pm each day
Requirements: Longsword Waster, Rondel Dagger Waster, Loose-fitting clothing
Place: Cair Paravel Gymnasium, Topeka, KS
Minimum Age: 14
Cost: $80 before 2-1-08, $90 after 2-1-08 and at the door. Lunch and drinks included both days.
Contact: Jessica Finley at jessica.finley AT sbcglobal.net or 785-235-9630 for more information and registration.
I have been asked by Roger to attend as a teaching assistant, and I am delighted to accept.
Mark your calendars. I have…
Or one particular, possible future, at any rate.
For those of you who’ve been interested in the past, I am pleased to announce that Issue Seven of Voices/Future Tense is now available for your reading pleasure.
(Those Gentle Readers who haven’t been following the progress of my e-zine will at least see where I’ve been spending my editorial time of late. *grin*)
This doesn’t surprise me at all, really…
Buckaroo Banzai – (Peter Weller)
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984)
You are Buckaroo Banzai! Hard-rockin’ neurosurgeon, brilliant scientist, and all-around cool guy. Maybe you didn’t have the cinematic success of some of the other guys here, but it’s okay – you’re a cult classic!
“Hey, hey, hey. Don’t be mean. We don’t have to be mean because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.”
Other scientific possibilities:
Gary Wallace
Wyatt Donnelly
Peter Venkman
Jordan Cochran
Egon Spengler
Doc Brown
Newton Crosby
Paul Stephens
Ben Crandall
Wayne Szalinkski
Winston Zeddemore
Ben Jabituya
Lazlo Hollyfeld
Ray Stantz
Buckaroo Banzai
Chris Knight
| Link: The Which 80s Movie Scientist Test written by xxyl on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test |
Heh heh heh.
Now, where DID I put that overthruster???
Happy Thanksgiving!
Longtime readers of this site will not be surprised to hear that I think well of the works of Steven Brust.
Apparently, he’s had more than a little trouble with his health — and the subsequent bills.
If you enjoy Brust’s work, as I do, and you’re in a position to do so, please consider dropping by here and helping him out.
I’d consider that a courtesy done me.
Well… maybe.
From a .sig file (and you know who you are… twinkle …) :
There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy.
That used to be a huge number.
But it’s only a hundred billion.
It’s less than the national deficit!
We used to call them astronomical numbers.
Now we should call them economical numbers.— Richard Feynman
Heh.
Apologies, Magister Milton.
We don’t take ourselves seriously enough to take other people as
seriously as they take themselves.
Worthy advice:
Priceless.
While hunting down some quotes for a friend of mine, I ran across this page, and found myself in wholehearted agreement:
… Venice seemed incredibly lovely, elvishly lovely–to me like a dream of Old Gondor, or Pelargir of the Numenorean Ships, before the return of the Shadow…
If you love Middle-Earth, and have been to Venice? I’m betting this rings true.
This is … simply fascinating:
… Scientists have combined a normally inactive lidocaine derivative with capsaicin, the ‘heat’-generating ingredient in chili peppers, to produce pain-specific local anesthesia. When injected into rats, this combination completely blocked pain without interfering with either motor function or sensitivity to non-painful stimuli. The finding suggests an improved way to treat pain from childbirth and surgical procedures. It may also lead to new treatments to help the millions of Americans who suffer from chronic pain.
We’ve never had really good answers for treating pain. All our options, to date, have had substantial side effects: sedation, addiction, inability to move the affected area, drowsiness… and those are all accounted small prices to pay for relief of suffering.
But this breakthrough may change all that.
Surgical pain, burn pain, childbirth, chronic pain… all our approaches may change, if this breakthrough pans out.
I look forward to seeing how this plays out, with immense interest, and no little anticipation. Better ways to ease my patients’ pain? Bring it on.
Tip of the clipboard to BetNoir.
Something to remember, comes the next election…
Government can do two things: send armed men to intervene in your life, and set up bureaucracies. When we want government to do something, we should keep that in mind. If the problem can’t be solved by force or through a bureaucracy, then perhaps it ought not be entrusted to government.
OK, and the next election, and the next, after that…
Tip of the clipboard to Jerry Pournelle… whose Iron Law Of Bureaucracy is also relevant, as a cautionary note.
Since I’ve found my keyboard, at least briefly…
ahem…
I’ve updated my Appearances page to reflect what’s currently on my plate. Folks in Seattle and Los Angeles will wish to take note.
I am still wrapping my head around the marvelous weekend I spent in Racine, at WMAW. If you have the least bit of interest in the Western Martial Arts, and you were there, you know what I mean. If you share my interest, but weren’t there? You have my sympathies.
There’s lots to share, and I look to work on that soon. But in the mean time, a mot juste for you, Gentle Readers. Something I shared with a couple of people, who thought it was worthwhile, and gently nudged me to pass along.
The world is your dojo.
Your training? What you do, today.
Your ground is here.
I first had the news from David, over at Resurrectionsong. I find that oddly fitting, for I have never been a fan of Jordan’s work.
On first glance, I should have been. Vast, expansive backstories. Intricate cultures. Swordmasters. Herons as symbols of skilled swordsmen. (One of the pleasures of living in Florida is seeing egrets and herons on a regular basis…)
But for whatever reason, it never quite came together for me. I tried, more than once; but I could not seem to enter into the world Jordan portrayed, so lovingly and painstakingly. I consider that a difference in taste, rather than a defeect in skill. No one can be all things to all people, and Jordan’s craftsmanship was obvious, even though it was lavished on a story which just didn’t quite fit my tastes.
Millions of people were of a different mind, and Jordan’s success was immense.
His death leaves a large community of fans, who are unsure if the Wheel of Time cycle will ever be finished.
But every story ends, and not always as we wish.
David notes that the man behind the nom de plume was a remarkable individual. His family, and his fans, shall miss him.
Rest in peace, sir.
UPDATE: The wheel turns, indeed.
So it is, among people who read. We share the stuff which interests us, or strikes us as worthwhile, or that might just delight a dear friend…
The anniversary is upon us, again.
So is the need to remember.
There are people out there who would compel you to live by their beliefs.
They have killed to bring it about. They have killed their own neighbors, friends, coreligionists. They have killed OUR neighbors, friends, and coreligionists.
They will kill again, if they are not stopped.
So. They must be stopped.
They must be stopped.
She was known to most of us for writing A Wrinkle In Time, and the adventures of the Murry family which followed.
But she had many more books to her credit than that: a long, rich career, which any author might be pleased to have produced.
Those who knew her tell us that her life was, in its own quiet way, as much a miracle of grace and love-made-manifest as anything you’d find in her written works.
May all our lives grow to be so.
Rest in peace, ma’am,
and wake in Joy,
under that Ring of Endless Light.
… inherent in the system!
It was good enough for Cuba;
it’s good enough for the US.
Calling.
For.
A.
Military.
Coup.
Well, when your heroes are Castro and Chavez, why not a whiff of the tropical jackboots?
Bush may appear here and there in the article, but somebody else is the “fascist”.
Contemptible.
was had by all.
All two of us.
My beloved spice and I, actually, who were cheerfully incommunicado in the Ancient City for a day or so, celebrating our anniversary.
(The Ancient City. How cool is that?)
We stayed at the Carriage Way bed-and-breakfast, at Gail’s behest. She’s been singing the praises of B-and-Bs for quite some time, after staying in one some time ago whilst attending a conference; I had not stayed in anything like that since our post-medical-school trip to Italy and Innsbruck in 1985, where we often stayed in little pensions.
Boy, have I been missing out. *grin*
It doesn’t hurt, I suppose, that we were staying during the off-days of the off-season. We didn’t quite have the town, nor the inn, to ourselves — but it surely felt that way at times.
A more pleasant pause I can scarcely imagine. “As happy as God in Provence”, as the old saying has it.
I wholeheartedly commend bed-and-breakfast inns to you, Gentle Readers; and Gail wishes me to specifically recommend to you the Carriage Way, as being a cut above the norm. I don’t have the range-of-experiences with them that she does, but I know I was delighted.
I’m sure we’ll be back.
No, I did not go to Washington DC last week.
Instead, my family and I traveled down to Orlando for a end-of-summer trip to Sea World, in Orlando. John had been earlier in the summer, and told us the park was much improved from years’ past… and that there was a helmet dive in the shark exhibit, if one wished to pay for the experience.
We were game…
The shark exhibit tank is a good 135 feet long, and some 15 feet deep. Most people watch the sharks from the adjacent restaurant, which has excellent food… or from a plexiglass viewing tube which runs the length of the tank.
But what’s the fun in that?
We had to divide our party into groups of two; Sea World places their visiting divers in a shark cage, which trolls the length of the tank over approximately a half hour, so we couldn’t all go at once. Each team received a briefing on sharks, the use of the SeaTrek helmet system, and the cage we’d be riding in. Then it was off to the locker rooms to change into 3mm wetsuits. from there, a short golfcart ride to the Shark Encounter.
Behind the scenes.. well, if you’re a sci-fi fan, and remember SeaQuest, it’s still fun to look out over the tank:
You enter the water off to one side, in a shallow “medical pool” used to isolate those sharks which might need examination and treatment. The sharks prosper at about 73 degrees F… which, when you’ve been outside in 98 degree weather, is more than a bit… what was the word the staff kept using? “Exhilarating”?
Yeah, right.
But the wetsuits do their job, and in almost no time at all, you’re ready to put on your gloves…
and then your helmets…
and take the 3 foot or so drop into the shark cage, which sets forth on a leisurely trip through the sharks’ world.
Sea World doesn’t allow underwater cameras, alas. Some of that, I suspect, is for the sharks’ benefit, to keep from stressing them with popping flash strobes. There’s also their desire to make money on the pictures they sell… and the desire not to have a guest fill his helmet with water, bending over to take a picture of a shark swimming under him. I regret the absence of pictures; but I am not sure pictures would adequately portray the experience. The hiss of the air hoses, the feeling of water pressure as the sharks swim by, the sense of stillness as you look out and about…
Remarkable. Truly… remarkable.
The only thing that keeps you from wanting to stay out there longer, frankly, is that 73 degree water. Wetsuits can only do so much about outside temperature. We were delighted to be in the tank; we were happy to emerge into the warmth of our world, again.
All that, and a nifty T-shirt!
The experience is not inexpensive. But if this sounds the littlest bit like your idea of fun, save the money up, and go take a dive.
Almost makes me want to go to Miranda. And we all know how that turned out…
All fannish glee aside, these are delightful pieces of work. The artists responsible for these prints clearly love graphic design; they’ve borrowed a wide range of classic travel poster styles in their work, and the quirky nature of their choices is great fun for the aficionado. (I’m particularly taken by the Serenity Valley National Park print, evoking the current retro-WPA style used in many of our national park system’s posters.)
Might have to grab a set, once they enter general release.
Shiny.
I am not, as a rule, prone to jealousy.
But my goodness.
“… In response to my earlier post on interstellar travel, Frank Tipler emails…” Does he, now?
My inbox pouts.
But it’s nice of the Instapundit to share that with us. Since Tipler opines that
… Human will NEVER engage in interstellar travel. Only human downloads and artificial intelligences. Carrying full size human bodies, active or frozen, is too inefficient. …
I now feel quite certain — following Clarke’s First Law and Lazarus Long’s commentary on experts — that humans will, in fact, somehow make it to the stars.
Heh heh heh.
I see footage like this, and I remember the immediate aftermath of the 1989 quake, and I get chills. But for one or two little departures from my routine, I would have been on the lower deck of the 880 freeway… or on the Bay Bridge…
So I look at the I35 W bridge, and think about what it must have been like for the people trying to rescue whom they could, and my heart goes out to them all.
I have many friends in Minneapolis/St. Paul. They’re all safe, G_d be thanked.
But there are families who can’t say that.
My prayers, and my empathy, to them.
May the victims rest in peace.
From Jerry Pournelle comes sad news today:
… Space flight is a dangerous business, and the fact haunted the Mojave Airport Thursday in the wake of a deadly explosion.
Two people died and possibly six others were injured in the explosion at the rocket test facility at the Mojave Air and Space Port in eastern Kern County. …
I know something of how Rand feels, right now. My wife or I might well have met one or more of the victims, from when we lived in southern California, or attended OASIS events. It’s a small community…
The victims were aground, not practising for space, neither going there nor coming back… but they, too, died in furthering the exploration of space.
May they rest in peace.
And go, and go, and go, these past weeks.
When I’ve not been working — and I’ve had a full month’s schedule of shifts — I’ve been celebrating the life of a the Grandmaster…
spending a charmed evening with a dear friend and her husband…
celebrating the birthday of other dear, dear friends…
and teaching elements of the German longsword tradition to some of the finest students it’s been my pleasure to work with. Whom, apparently, think I don’t suck.
Paucity of blogging lately notwithstanding.
But it’s back to a “normal” schedule for me, as much as that means anything, for a spell.
So. Let me have a look at what’s going out there… and have at it.
And rarely have I used that phrase with as little snark, and as much honest pleasure, as I do today.
Ali is very careful to lay out the things that have to happen next. He’s not Pollyanna, and neither am I.
Nonetheless… this is grand good news.
… Here Going”…
To Kansas City, that is.
A Centennial only comes along once. As one of those who owe Heinlein a debt I can only hope to “pay forward”, I am glad we’re going to make it after all.
Hope to see some of you there!
in every commons;
in every place of worship;
from every radio, television, streaming audio feed;
at every celebration, where free people gather, on this of all days…
lest we forget.
In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. –That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. �Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
The signers of the Declaration represented the new states as follows:
New Hampshire
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts
John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
Go on, admit it. At least some of you, reading this, had the same thought.
I am certain that’s true of hundreds of thousands of people in the UK.
I wonder, though, if the Emergency Care Practitioners will wear blue jumpsuits…
…In an editorial on Tuesday, the Washington Post said: “Political speech is at the core of the First Amendment; restrictions on such speech must be carefully crafted.”
Restrictions on free speech should not be crafted at all. The Constitution says “Congress shall make no law.”
None. Zilch.
You want an “inconvenient truth”? Try that one.
… who aren’t going to the Rocky Mountain Bloggers’ Bash (which I regret I shall miss)?
Perhaps you might be interested in this:
“The Rocky Mountain Swordplay Guild has invited Dr. William Ernoehazy to lead a weekend’s training in the Fechtkunst, the German medieval combat art based on the teaching of Johannes Lichtenauer, on July 21-22, 2007.
The first day will be a German view of an Italian tradition. Many Italian masters of defense wrote about how to train a student to survive a duel with but a few days’ work. None of the available German fechtbuchen discuss such a problem; however, Lichtenauer’s precepts are well suited to meet that challenge. The class will train as if the students have but a weekend to prepare for a duel with the signature weapon of the Lichtenauer tradition, the langeschwert or longsword. Training will follow the fundamentals found in the teaching merkeversen, viewed through this unique perspective.
On the second day, there will be training in close quarter combat at the bind. German tactical thought emphasized swift and decisive action when combat “froze” in an impasse. The class will work with a series of techniques designed to break such stalemates and win the fight.
Because of the way this weekend is organized, students need not have extensive familiarity with Lichtenauer’s precepts. However, students should have familiarity with basic historic fencing, and be prepared at times during the weekend to give and receive blows. As close-quarter grappling and blows are an integral part of German fight, students should also be prepared to learn, give and receive such techniques, as the need arises.
Equipment: At a minimum, students should have a stout fencing mask; a protective gorget for the neck; a fencing jacket; good gloves; and groin protection. Wooden longsword and dagger wasters may be helpful. On the second day, sports goggles can be substituted for head protection for many of the drills, and may prove beneficial. Loaner equipment will be available at the event; please contact Mr. Siggs (below) for more information.
Reservations and questions may be directed to Mr. Roger Siggs: rsiggs AT gmail.com .”
But I have to stop, and admire –
this is funny.
Not so much with the schadenfreude, since it’s literally off and to my left as I look north…
Tropical storms are a mixed blessing here and now.
We don’t need flooding and wind damage; but we can surely use the rain.
Here’s hoping for the blessing, without the “mixed”…
do some site revamping, that is…
than so can I.
(Kouros is easier to read than Marathon, whilst staying evocative of our voyages.)
It’s been a dreary couple of weeks in the news.
But despite the relentlessly petty carping, the pessimism, the willful embrace of irrational thinking, we’re not doomed to be doomed.
We’re Not Doomed To Be Doomed.
Sure, doom might fall… but it won’t be the inevitable hand of fate; it’ll be our fault, for losing our nerve, for losing track of beauty and wit and intellect and reason.
Want a primer on what we can do? Right here, right now, with the tools and technologies we have today?
Go over to Jerry Pournelle’s site, Chaos Manor Reviews, and subscribe. Once you have, go to the subscribers’ content page, and download Another Step Farther Out.
I quote:
From an anonymous Amazon review of A Step Farther Out: “Among non-fiction books, one of the best is Jerry Pournelle’s A Step Farther Out. … One of the main goals of the book is to show that we can escape the Four Dooms–starvation, pollution, overpopulation, and depletion of natural resources. How? By developing the resources of the entire solar system; not just Earth. It isn’t just a fluffy, “let’s go to space” dream, either. Dr. Pournelle goes through the numbers, demonstrating that by developing the natural resources of the entire solar system we can survive, happily and with our high-energy society, for thousands of years. We can’t survive if we stay on Earth–we’ll run out of natural resources and starve–but we will survive if we use our solar system.”
In this lightly revised 2007 edition of the follow-on work, Another Step Farther Out, Jerry adds a new Preface and a bit of current commentary in the footnotes to this collection of essays and speeches written in the twentieth century, some of them three decades or more back. They all hold up quite well. I enjoyed reading this again &mdash you will, too. [ed.]
Read ‘em.
Take a deep breath.
Be refreshed.
And then?
Go out and help confound the naysayers.
It is, in fact, raining soup; if we will but pick up the buckets, amazing things can follow.
Deeply, deeply flawed.
Angry, scared, bitterly hated man.
May God have mercy on his sins and mistakes.
And may every blogger who’s posted about Falwell’s death receive more mercy, when they die, then they’ve showed him in their writings.
Yes, more mercy.
Because some of them are going to need it.
Ten, ten thousand, just a matter of degree, right?
I would be happy, actually, if this was simply fatigue on Senator Obama’s part. He’s not the only one out there contemplating the presidential campaign of 2008 with fatigue. (Although I daresay most of us out here are using “tired” in a very different sense.)
Problem is that his fellow Democrats’ behavior suggests an entirely different motivation.
A most imperfect storm.
UPDATE: As of 430pm Eastern time, the 11th, all the parties involved in the Dean allegation are denying Dean ever told GOV Sebelius to do anything.
That’s some relief, given what’s public knowledge of both Sebelius’ statements and Obama’s.
So… should the DNC be concerned that, given the public behavior of prominent Democrats, a report that Dean might be doing more of the same was plausible?
Just askin’.
We Win. They Lose.
An American tradition some folks have forgotten.
Go and help them remember.
Tip of the clipboard to Teresa.
I have been…
*smile*
Issue Five of Voices/Future Tense is now online. If your taste in SF runs to that sort of thing, please go have a read, and enjoy!
“Heh”? I’d have said “mweh”, myself.
I hardly know what to say about Yeltsin’s legacy.
Historians are often loathe to analyze major events too soon. Not enough time to sort out all the details; not enough distance from which to look at things clearly and dispassionately.
It is, perhaps, a measure of the complexity and richness of Yeltsin’s life, for better and for worse, that I need to claim “historian’s privilege”, and let time pass, and rush not to easy statements.
But if he did ill, he surely did good things as well.
May those good things come to be his lasting gift to his people.
Rest in peace, sir.
Although I’m inclined to agree with VK, there still seems to be concern in some blogging corners about “having a code”.
I live to serve.
For those who have such concerns: de Doc’s code for bloggers, v.1b.
if u=blogger
then (f)behave
if u=commenter
then (f)behave
if u=reader
then (f)behave
else ignore
Debugging help cheerfully accepted.
Once again, it’s Yuri’s Night, and surely there’s a party near you.
Not sure where? You can find out here.
And if no one’s throwing a party nearby? You can surely lift a glass on your own, in honor of our first steps Out Of The World.
In honor of the occasion? Something beautiful, from the folks at the Lightwave Group CGI forums.
One day; one day…
But till then? Happy Yuri’s Night!
From the Financial Times:
Kurt Vonnegut, the great American satirical novelist, died on Wednesday at the age of 84 as a result of head injuries sustained in a fall at his home in New York last week.
I suspect he would be much happier with that description. He was miscategorized as a science fiction writer; he used the tropes and tools of SF, but his interest lay in commentary, not speculation.
It will come as no surprise to my Gentle Readers that I disagreed with many of Mr. Vonnegut’s politics. But he deserved much better than “So it goes”, which appears to be the catchphrase obiturary writers have chosen from his work.
Instead… From Slaughterhouse Five, on which his fame will rest:
Hello, goodbye; hello, goodbye.
Rest in peace, Mr. Vonnegut.
VK can still bring the snark:
I’ve decided that I want the weatherman’s job: it’s the only one I know of — besides, perhaps, being a federal judge — where one can remain gainfully employed despite getting things wrong day after day after day.
That’s going to need stitches. If not skin grafts.
Was that a rhetorical question, Professor?
The (BBC) has cancelled the commission for a 90-minute drama about Britain’s youngest surviving Victoria Cross hero because it feared it would alienate members of the audience opposed to the war in Iraq.
Contemptible wretches.
Thucydides had the right of it:
The nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.
“Who will tell the Admiralty”? Good question, Noel.
Easter Vigil mass, beautiful as always.
Time with my friends and family.
Here at work, despite telling my firm I was not available. (And a loooong, fast drive to make it.)
Heh.
Still … Easter.
Still glorious.
Happy Easter to you, and yours!
.. since I was, not so long ago…
Platonic love? Sure.
Kid Various doesn’t like Plato either, and good on him:
For those who believe that Plato was some sort of great genius, instead of an antique Pol Pot who merely lacked the killing machine necessary to bring about his perfect order, read The Republic. His perfect society is a totalitarian nightmare where the great mass of human cattle serve the needs of the “wise” rulers of the state. Note Plato considered himself to be one of the “wise.”
This little gem:
I’ve heard attributed to Pat Robertson, but never verified, “God disciplines American Christians for their willful ignorance of Scripture by having me embarass them every sixty days or so with another ridiculous remark.”
Nice.
A question occurs to me, though. Have we Christians become more ignorant than we were a year or two ago? After all, our embarassments hath multiplied…
Just askin’.
Tip o’ the lectern to John Hertz.
Absentminded? Who, me?
Guess so; for I had no idea…
until my dear friend wished me well.
Is there a good doc in your life? Drop them a line; bring them a smile. I’m sure they’ll be the happier for it.
I am.
Thanks, VK!
From your mouth to G_d’s ears:
…so much commentary on BSG these days is driven by the burning desire of its fans to discount the possibility that the show hasn’t jumped the shark. The logic goes something like this: X can’t be happening because if X happened it would mean the show sucks, therefore the explanation must be Y.
But the shark was a Cylon, you see…
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: If you’re going to have a drama about the beleaguered remnants of humanity, facing impossible odds and an inimical enemy, it would surely be nice if the audience wasn’t rooting for the toasters.
Tip of the non-computerized clipboard to Steven Den Beste, over at Chizumatic; post 20070327.1320, which is as close to a permalink as his blogging software allows… alas.
I am of two minds about this story.
Not about the character of the miserable, petty, cowardly fellow who stooped to such a thing.
But… what do his actions merit?
I can’t make up my mind whether he deserves the “special hell” of having his name turned into an adjective for his special blend of swinish pettiness.. or to go into the dust, forgotten, nameless.
I take some consolation in knowing that if he be remembered, this troll’s name will only survive…
as a footnote to the life of the woman he lied about.
That still may be more memorial than he deserves.
No link to him.
No traffic for him.
Into the dust with him.
Nameless, forgotten, naught.
Hard, manly, good warrior, poet-warrior, discerning, loyal and true men are treasure too often buried.
But not before their time.
“Aase’s death”, in comments at The Belmont Club
π .
heh heh heh.
Tip o’ the papyrus to Jerry Pournelle and VK…
and apologies to Eric, for borrowing a lovely name.
Not as if the outraged critics had any idea of what to do with a shield, mind you:
… 300 now ranks third among all opening weekends for R-rated films. Reviewers who hoped to quash interest in the suspiciously hawkish film go home defeated, and not in a noble Spartan way.
That’s from the pen keyboard of Colleen Doran, the gifted creator of A Distant Soil, who is a genuinely pleasant woman to chat with… and who gets it:
… Despite reviews that attacked the film for its militarism and political subtext (apparently, everything about Western civilization is bad, even when Western civilization is under attack, and this story is about Thermopolae and not…well, you know), 300 is #1 at the box office, smashing March opening weekend records, selling out screenings, and attracting groups of young men dressed in ancient Greek garb…my kinda movie.
All this and Victor Davis Hanson, too:
… If critics think that 300 reduces and simplifies the meaning of Thermopylae into freedom versus tyranny, they should reread carefully ancient accounts and then blame Herodotus, Plutarch, and Diodorus — who long ago boasted that Greek freedom was on trial against Persian autocracy, free men in superior fashion dying for their liberty, their enslaved enemies being whipped to enslave others.
“Intense Platonic love”, indeed. Here’s some of that for you, Colleen!
of the occasion…
By way of the splendid Oleg Volk.
UPDATE: Oh, Dana? Sell-out crowds. Read ‘em and weep.
Some of my Gentle Readers may be interested…
http://www.wmaillustrated.com/index.htm
This is long overdue, and I am delighted to have a small part in this project.
Pay no attention to that man behind the carbon offsets!
Heh heh heh…
Or, for that matter, his accountant, who’s helping Al to pay Al. Which raises an interesting question, Gentle Readers: If you pay yourself your own indulgence, is it auto-simony?
Steampunk Star Wars? I Could Not Make This… etc.
I am… bemused? delighted? by how well the characters work in the Gaslamp Fantasy milieu. Tremble, Sparks of Alderaan!
And it will be my turn.
Sigh…
… the Edison beckons!
I have got to find a reason to get someone to pay my way out to LA (what with saving for Nippon 2007).
In more ways than one? Shiny.
Tip of the insulated clipboard to Tinkergirl, and Vernian Process, for news of this marvelous lounge.
Gentle Readers will know that I am a scholar of the Western Martial Arts. Some of you are also scholars, like myself. Those people will grieve, as I do, to hear that Mr. Patri Pugliese has died of cancer.
Those of you who don’t study WMA? Let me try and explain why his loss touches us.
Mr. Pugliese was an ardent student of medieval and Renaissance dance, who maintained cordial contacts with many of Europe’s libraries. As a result, he was able to obtain xeroxed copies of dance manuals which had not been reprinted and published. He, in turn, made fascimiles of such works available to dance historians, at little more than cost.
Then, he became aware that there were manuals of combat and defense also languishing in those libraries. Pugliese became curious, and started looking into those manuals as well. On finding there was interest among medievalists and martial artists, he started providing the same service to them. People learned that those manuals existed, and were not lost. They started studying the fascimiles in earnest, and started translating, and made trips themselves to Europe…
It is not, I think, unfair to say that the birth of the Western Martial Arts community was midwifed by Patri Pugliese. Without his pioneering efforts? There might not have been a WMA community today. It certainly would be a stunted shadow of its current health.
From my friend and colleague, Roger Siggs:
I got my first copy of Silver from him…
…and Di Grassi…
…and Castle…
…and…I’m looking at my shelf and seeing numerous photocopied texts that either came direct from him, or came to me via people who got them from him.We’ve all lost a lot.
I certainly have.
Mr. Pugliese is survived by his wife, Barbara, and two daughters, Antonia and Julia. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to a 529 College Fund set up at Fidelity for Antonia and Julia’s college education by sending a check payable to “Patri’s Girls” to:
Janet Baker
173 Highland St.
West Newton, MA 02465
If you’re so moved, please make a small contribution? I deem that as a courtesy done to me.
And, if you’re a swordsman, a martial artist, a warrior of any scope? Please make Grand Salute for him at your next practice.
I hope that he is met by a suitable honor guard as St Peter welcomes him Home… Martin of Tours; Longinus; George; Joan of Arc… and, of course, great Michael as marshal of that guard.
This weekend, I shall add my salute to theirs.
Rest in peace, Mr. Pugliese.
I can think of a good home for any and all of them.
I’ve been following VK’s problems for some time, and I dearly wish her better.
May G_d grant that happen, and soon, please? Amen.
“Don’t do me any favors.”
Or so he should.
There’s been no shortage of ink and byte expended over Rudy’s weaknesses with social conservatives. But “Know-Nothings” like John Edwards’ former campaign staffers to the contrary, the Republican coalition is made up of more than just those social conservatives. There’s a lot of “South Park” Republicans, small-l-libertarians, and Gadsenites. They don’t always agree on things, as you might imagine. But there are concerns they both share… and the First and Second Amendment are high on those lists.
This is why John McCain’s candidacy is dead on arrival. His co-sponsorship of the McCain-Feingold Incumbent Protection Act is an absolute blackmark, and Rudy has nothing in his political record as damning. But his stand on the Second Amendment is not especially reassuring, and recent interviews haven’t helped him any.
Rudy’s supporters really needed pro-Second Amendment folk like me to be lulled and assuaged. Instead, this kind of thing makes it clear, yet again, that only a few bad decisions at the polling place separate us from having our Bill of Rights ignored and trampled, yet again.
I understand the Second Amendment. I understand the right to bear arms.
That’d be more convincing if you didn’t go on to talk about hunting, Mr. Giuliani.
Here’s what the Second Amendment is about, sir:
How a politician stands on the Second Amendment tells you how he or she views you as an individual… as a trustworthy and productive citizen, or as part of an unruly crowd that needs to be lorded over, controlled, supervised, and taken care of.
If you don’t get that right, you may not have to practice your states’ rights arguments about abortion…
Meanwhile? HR 1022.
Write your Representatives, and your Senators. Bid them vote NO. If they don’t listen? 2008 isn’t so very far away, and they can be fired from office then.
It’s been a busy couple of weeks, and work is not getting any easier… but I’m all right; just busy.
More to follow soon!
About that global warming thing?
Could you kindly send some of that to my friends, here in Chicago, and in parts nigh?
We’d appreciate it.
Yours, de Doc
I’m sorry to say (cancer) can kill you, but it doesn’t make you a better person…
Exasperating.
Passionate.
Earnest.
Often mistaken… but honest.
We strike fact on fact, opinion on opinion, and sparks fly. And in that light, we look for truth. We need people like Ivins, whether we agree with them or not.
She will be missed.
Molly Ivins was a Texas original…I respected her convictions, her passionate belief in the power of words, and her ability to turn a phrase. She fought her illness with that same passion.
And now, G_d willing, she can rest, in a place where no one deserves to be given hell.
Rest well, ma’am.
well, editing, actually…
and I’m happy to announce that Issue Four of Voices/Future Tense is now online.
Hope you like the issue!
Heh heh heh…
Which Science Fiction Writer Are You?
Perhaps inevitably…
 |
I am:Robert A. Heinlein Beginning with technological action stories and progressing to epics with religious overtones, this take-no-prisoners writer racked up some huge sales numbers. |
Thank you, Fred!
I beg to differ, Rand. Those Taliban mooks are mere pikers.
You want bad losers? I’ll give you bad losers.
Money quote? “…Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I hear Homeland Security knocking on my door”.
This from a fellow who, when he’s not in the throes of BDS, is a genuinely pleasant and humane guy. I’ve met him. I like him. But he is, unfortunately, one of many people who are going to wake up January 21, 2009, facing a bleak fact: George W. Bush will be a private citizen again…
And that won’t have changed the opinions of the jihadists a whit. They will still be dedicated, fanatic Islamarchists, bound and determined to kill or enslave everyone who won’t submit to their version of religion.
But the legions of the Bush-haters? They find it easier to hate someone who’s not threatening their death.
They strain at gnats; they swallow camels.
And you, ma’am, are no Margaret Thatcher:
HILLARY CLINTON is to be presented as America’s Margaret Thatcher as she tries to become the first woman to win the White House. As she entered the 2008 presidential race yesterday, a senior adviser said that her campaign would emphasise security, defence and personal strengths reminiscent of the Iron Lady.
And so begins the rebranding of Hillary Clinton… in fine “high concept” style.
Too bad that Mme. Clinton will suffer from the comparison… even if Lady Thatcher doesn’t take exception to the comparison.
There will be other comparisons made…
The Clinton campaign intends to paint the Republican nominee as President George W Bush’s political heir, particularly over the war in Iraq. “George Bush is going to be on the ticket whether they like it or not,” McAuliffe added.
And Bill Clinton won’t be? Chinese satellite busting alone should suffice.
This morning’s “comedy” comes to us by way of George Moneo. Tip of the clipboard to you!
Not yet, anyway.
China’s latest foray into space warfare operations has caused lots of public dismay:
… The United States logged a formal diplomatic protest.
“We are aware of it and we are concerned, and we made it known,” said White House spokesman Tony Snow.
Several U.S. allies, including Canada and Australia, have also registered protests, and the Japanese government said it was worrisome.
“Naturally, we are concerned about it from the viewpoint of security as well as peaceful use of space,” said Yashuhisa Shiozaki, chief cabinet secretary. He said Japan has asked the Chinese government for an explanation.
Not that I expect this to result in concrete political action, like… oh… heavy sanctions on any technology sales to the PRC…
The usual suspects are now certain of China’s dominance:
… “If we, for instance, got into a conflict over Taiwan, one of the first things they’d probably do would be to shoot down all of our lower Earth-orbit spy satellites, putting out our eyes,” said John Pike of globalsecurity.org, a Web site that compiles information on worldwide security issues.
I note in passing that John Pike has never heard of a US weapons system that could be made to work properly enough to merit deployment. But one successful test (after four failures) and he thinks the PRC could successfully kill every spysat in orbit.
I have this bridge I’d like to sell him, nice and cheap… but I digress.
So. The PRC has, at least potentially, the ability to take out some portion of our satellite capacity. That could lead to a loss of GPS capacity in the Asian theatre, and/or a loss of imaging and surveillance capacity.
What can we do?
I can see several possibilities:
These measures are not mutually exclusive. Undertaken in concert, they can provide answers to this new Chinese capacity… and I am willing to bet that with a concerted effort, we can put more satellites into space than they can kill on the first round. (I am assuming that we will kill their launch capacity immediately thereafter, and that there won’t be second rounds.)
from Guy Herbert…
I couldn’t have put THAT better, myself.
but if you’re still looking for a New Year’s goal, or resolution, let me offer this thought:
… Whether you believe that God put us here as we are or that we evolved with the sea turtles and cheetahs, we weren’t made to have pizza delivered and watch TV all evening… Go ahead and have your food delivered, but do it after your workout.
Tip of the clipboard to D.F. Baehren, MD.
Whilst I was researching a work-related question, I came across this little jewel (scroll to the bottom):
And our favorite rejection letter:
“Unfortunately we are unable to use your program. I feel it is
and more than ample for us — I had no trouble installing it and managed to run the December schedule from it.
great
The one flaw that prevents me from keeping this is the total ignorance and stupidity of my husband. He refuses to learn to turn on a computer much less learn to configure new schedules. I say fine — let him sit at the desk every month pulling out his hair and cursing. I’m going to the movies.”Thanks anyway.
(full name withheld)
I’m still chortling.
Venomous Kate? This one’s for you, darlin’.
Recently, there have been suggestions that the Middle East is, in fact, descending into chaos… and that this is a good thing.
It sounds like a Discordian practical joke, in exceptionally poor taste, doesn’t it?
Not so much.
First, Gerard Van der Leun, on American goals after 9/11:
Another need was a very real and urgent need to upset and to shake-up and otherwise sow confusion, chaos, and change in the Middle East. It had, for all the vaunted “instability” of the region, been far too stable for far too long in all the wrong ways. It was not fixable and hence needed to be broken. In this, the American expedition/experiment in Iraq and Afghanistan have been far more successful than we could have imagined. In a way, as it often happens in the world, something that seems to be a failure can also breed success. The recent moves by the administration to play rope-a-dope with Iran and draw it ever further out of its “Who Me?” hole is cause for some hope in this regard.
“Spengler”, for The Asia Times, is even more… pragmatic:
… During the Cold War, Moscow stood to gain from instability, and Washington sought to stabilize allied regimes (Iran being the exception that proved the rule). Now, with no strategic competitor, America can pick up the pieces at its leisure. As in finance, volatility favors the player with the most options. …
… the facts on the ground speak for themselves. A full-dress civil war in Iraq and an incipient civil war between Fatah and Hamas in Palestine promise a period of bloodshed of indefinite duration – and America’s strategic position will be stronger as a result, provided that it can neutralize Iran. On the assumption that Iran had a reasonable shot at obtaining deliverable nuclear weapons by late 2007 or 2008, I forecast last year – wrongly – that Western powers would attack Iran. There is a consensus among the major powers’ intelligence services that Iran will not have nuclear weapons until 2010, and more likely 2012. Neutralizing Iran may be easier than I anticipated. …
The rest of Spengler’s article lays out why. (To summarize: “Iran “imports nearly 40 percent of its gasoline from foreign sources”. Most all of its its refinery capacity lies on or near coastlines… in range of the deadliest naval power in human history. Iran has no credible way to threaten that naval force. And Iran’s oil appears likely to run out within ten years. Tick… tick… tick…)
Now, consider this. America, as a whole, is still barely in a “police action” mode. We are not in a full, total war posture.
That should make for uneasy sleep in Damascus, the Bekaa Valley, Teheran, Waziristan.
so I waited to share this.
…both the Right and the Left are wrong, have been wrong for quite some time, and will continue in their error since the object of their policies is neither victory abroad or security at home, but the mere destruction of the other in political terms. It is a small and ignoble goal, but it seems to be all our pundits and politicians are capable of at this time. The times demand heros and giants but we are only seeing pygmies and cardboard figures. This is likely to continue until some deeper shock wakes us from out sleep.
In a way, 2008 is already too close.
Mr. van der Leun makes some other interesting points, which I want to highlight separately. More in a bit…
Still… that’s a beautiful piece of tech, and the integration of browser, email, random-access availability of voice messages… mmmmm. Tasty.
My family is on Verizon right now. Not ready to move yet; but it could happen.
In related news: Figures. On first look, seems like a combination publicity stunt and negotiating ploy; Cisco and Apple have been in negotiations for some time on this issue, and both sides are saying the other side balked at the 11th hour…
Advantage? Lawyers, and not many other people.
… postgraduate residency in Emergency Medicine, 1990-1993, UF Health Sciences Campus in Jacksonville…
The inimitable Bill Whittle not only has good taste, he reminds us of… well, other important truths:
Just because people say you are already beaten doesn’t mean it is so.
As the saying has it: Make of that what you will.
The most interesting thing about recent events in Somalia is, predictably, being missed by CNN. I can’t really blame them, though. It’s perhaps the biggest unlearned lesson from the Cold War, the lesson we should have learned from Vietnam, the lesson which seems impossible to grasp by those who purvey “conventional wisdom”.
Austin Bay, in setting the scene for the rest of the story about the AC130 strike, comes a lot closer — though he does not lay the lesson out in so many words:
From what I can tell, Somali national and allied forces have the Islamic Courts and its Al Qaeda compatriots trapped in Somalia’s southern corner. Somali national forces (what StrategyPage calls Transitional National Government, TNG, or federal forces) and Ethiopian Army forces pushed the Islamic Courts militia south. The TNG and Ethiopians have the Islamic Courts boxed on land. The US Navy and coalition naval forces are covering the sea. I haven’t read anything about Kenya’s special police and border security units, but it’s reasonable to assume these forces are positioned along the Kenya-Somali border, acting as a blocking unit to stop Islamic Courts exfiltrators.
Here’s the important thing to learn; the thing which we must learn, and use to our benefit, in the military phase of the Islamarchist War.
In the current “age of asymmetrical warfare”, insurgencies survive because of external patronage, funding, and supply. They are not “grassroots movements” rising from the populace; they may exploit sentiments found among the people they operate amidst, but they are not populist. They are just as surely an invading force as are any column of tanks. Cut the insurgents off from their supplies, their reinforcements, their paymasters, and they will wither under the combat operations mounted to finish them off.
In Somalia we can see, dimly from afar, the shape of such a campaign. Ethiopian forces were instrumental in delivering hammerblows against the Islamic Courts Union — who turned out to have foreign troops aplenty helping them take over Somalia. But the ICU was also isolated from resupply, reinforcement, and escape routes, by joint effort of the US Navy, her coalition partners, and Kenyan armed forces. The result? The forces of the Union fled, and are currently being destroyed in detail.
There are, to be sure, the inevitable calls from the scattered survivors to mount a resistance jihad. But if Ethiopia and the Somali government continue to aggressively isolate the Islamarchists from radical Islamic funding and support, those calls will amount to little.
There’s a lesson here for us, as we contemplate what to do in Iraq, and how. Might be a good idea to examine how to cut Iran and Syria off from Iraq, to cut Wahhabi and Salafi extremists off from Iraq, and choke out the insurgents even as we hunt them down.
One wonders if anyone in Washington is thinking in those terms. Daffyd ab Hugh examines recent deployments in the Persian Gulf, and wonders similar things…
To sleep, perchance to dream…
This is potentially a fascinating story. I hope this fellow likes neurologists and physiologists; he’s going to be pestered by them for the rest of his natural life. So many unanswered questions — how did he enter the protective hibernation-like state? Will he be neurologically normal, or will there be subtle injuries to his cognitive capacities? Is he genetically unusual, or can this be done to most humans with the proper technique? All these things, and more, will be of interest; and this fellow’s the only known case.
Yeah… “pestered” probably isn’t strong enough a term.
Tip of the clipboard to Neil Gaiman. (Hmmm. Gaiman… Sandman… hibernation? ::frisson::)
Lots of things happened while I was out visiting family, this Christmas season. If I had to pick the most important one? This probably qualifies:
The Blue Origins team has been the most secretive of the varied groups involved in the race to build commerically viable suborbital spaceships. It appears they’ve been doing more than Powerpoint presentations.
As Jerry Pournelle has noted, the Goddard appears to have been developed from lessons learned in the DC-X project, which should have been selected for the X-33 program over Lockheed’s Venturestar. (Choose a vaporware presentation over a project which already had flying prototypes? The mind reels.) The benefits? Unlike Bert Rutan’s SpaceShip One vehicle, Goddard’s successors may be scaleable:
… If they start flying DC/X type vehicles, then depending on the size they can inch their way to orbit. Max Hunter always thought that kind of ship would become a Single Stage to Orbit ship with a Gross Liftoff Weight of 600 to 700 thousand pounds. It would take at least 8 engines and the plumbing and control system would have to be developed, but DC/X pretty well proved the concept, at least for sub-orbital, which is what Bezos intends here.
The announcement doesn’t give the GLOW (gross lift off weight — ed.) but if total thrust is 230,000 pounds then clearly the GLOW has to be in that range; and that’s not enough to make orbit with any construction technology I know of. But this is a good start, and is apparently something like a 35% scale model of the 600,000 pound SSX we originally proposed to SDIO in 1988. We believed SSX wouldn’t make orbit on early flights but as Max Hunter put it, we could nickel and dime it to full orbital capability.
I’ve often wondered when a development team would pick up where the DC-X teams left off. Now someone has; and I can’t help my curiousity. How does Bezos plan to sell the Moon? If he needs some advisors, I can name a proven team…
More on this, as Gentle Readers might expect, over at Transterrestrial Musings.
to find this at least as funny as I did.
Following links on the web is sort of like dreaming: there’s an odd logic to the progression, but trying to reproduce how you got to where you are can be quite difficult, with your memory fading as you think about it.
— Steven Den Beste (20070103.2300hrs)
Between family, travel, and a short-notice bit of traveling work, it’s a wonder I can see straight to post. But I’m back in one piece, and looking forward to 2007. There’s a lot of Really Cool Stuff ahead, if all goes well… and maybe I’ll meet some more of you as the year unfolds.
I hope all my Gentle Readers have as much to look forward to as I do.
I’m off to see family tomorrow, and I shan’t be online for a week.
So, while I’m gone, here’s a Christmas present to you all: A Miracle Of Science.
A humane, transhumanist, Mad Science romantic comedy.
The artists are almost done with this story; which means that by the time you get to today’s panel, they’ll already have likely finished posting.
This is simply wonderful stuff. If they had a tipjar, I’d cheerfully hit it. Had I gigabucks, I’d buy the movie options.
Tip of the clipboard to the Foglios, who are purveyors of some pretty nifty stuff as well.
Merry Christmas To All… and to all my Gentle Readers, goodnight!
Ho ho ho:
Tip of the clipboard to Roger, who’s settling in comfortably in Colorado. (David, take note!)
… Electric Venom’s Carnival Of Snark, that is. Right here, tart and tangy, loaded with excellent blog entries…
Ahem. (So much for modesty.)
If your taste in hobbies runs to the historical, may I recommend Reconstructing History to you? Kass McGann has been providing excellent historical patterns for some years; now, she’s entered the period clothing market. Her quality is superb, and the price-point is quite reasonable for this kind of work.
Give her newly reworked site a look. And if something strikes your fancy? Tell her “hi” from me, by all means…
literally…
Alas, the Antiqua is.. somewhat dearly priced. (As in college tuition dear. Sigh.) Still… a thing of beauty, and worth celebrating in its own right.
Tip of the clipboard to the proprietor of Brass Goggles, a lovely blog which celebrates gaslamp fantasy — more commonly known as steampunk. I much prefer the Foglio’s felicitous usage, myself…
Brass Goggles is long overdue for a spot on the blogroll. I’m off to see to that.
According to VK, Xrlq doesn’t like new Christmas carols.
To any budding, aspiring or actual artists who may read this blog: It’s OK not to write any more songs about Christmas. It’s OK not to do a Christmas album if you haven’t done one already. Of all the Christmas albums that have come out in my lifetime, only two (OK, maybe three) are worth listening to anyway. Maybe yours will be too, but the odds are against it. if you must sing about the season at all, write a song bitching and moaning about how much it sucks to have to clear snow off your driveway or start your car in sub-zero temperature. We need more songs about that. We don’t need any more songs to remind us what happy holiday Best Buy is trying unsuccessfully to hide from us.
I have some sympathy with the last sentence. (I would cheerfully spend tons of money at a chain which didin’t put out their Christmas decorations until Thanksgiving week.) But … no new songs, no new carols?
Let’s not throw the Christ Child out with the reindeer.
Christmas is not just an old social tradition for many of us. It is an annual renewal; a reminder of the beginning of the best myth ever told… a eucatastrophe which really happened.
Like the rest of the Good News, it isn’t just a tale for them, back then, over there. It is good news here. Now. For US.
Somewhere, there’s someone noodling over a piece of paper. Or fiddling with a keyboard. Someone who is entranced with the Good News and the wonder that is the Nativity. That person is writing the next Silent Night… the next Jeannette, Isabella… the next Holly and the Ivy.
And I long to hear it.
So bring on the new albums. Let the new songs ring forth. This is no “closed class”… for Christmas isn’t a “closed class” either, mummified and “traditional” in the dry, musty sense.
Good Christian folk, rejoice in very truth!
A wikipedia entry, about a “backup convention” organized by sci-fi fans literally on the fly, funded in large measure by Paypal donations from wellwishers who weren’t even there.
Simply marvelous.
Crossposted at Electric Venom. (I’ve been asked back!)
It takes a certain kind of wretchedness to make political party officals look dignified in comparison. Unfortunately, Big Media Newsies are up to that challenge…
to his own opinions.
Just as David Duke is.
But neither of them are entitled to their own personal set of facts. Although facts are inconvenient, I suppose, when you’re lying. Lying. Lying. And lying yet again.
When you hear about “bringing Iran into the peace process”? Consider this. Maybe Ahmadinejad isn’t lying. Maybe he suffers from envy; a mysterious, horrific envy of those who came before him?
Envy, I say.
Because Ahmadinejad obviously wants to be the architect of his own Holocaust.
… it’s interesting how Intel employees react.
Tip of the clipboard to Jerry Pournelle.
Here’s how it was.
This weekend, there was supposed to be a large convention of Firefly fans (“Browncoats“, if you like) at the Burbank (CA) Airport Hilton. Word had it that the entire cast would be there, and that there’d be plenty of shiny fun to be had. The convention was going to be pricey — $250.00 a pop — but given the lineup, seemed reasonable.
I was otherwise occupied, but it seemed like a good time.
Until people started showing up Thursday night… to find that the convention had been canceled.
By an announcement made by the organizers, posted to a website discussion board, and a website which had been stricken except for this bland little note:
Booster Entertainment apologizes for the great inconvenience, but due to unforeseen circumstances, Flanvention is cancelled. An official notice will be posted within 10 days.
You can imagine, I suspect, how hurt and angry the fans were feeling, there in the lobby, as the word went ’round from fan to fan, with no one from the not-convention to answer anything.
Until Mr. Baldwin shows up. On his own time, unpaid, having heard of this mess.
Apparently, Adam Baldwin has been trying to work on salvaging some sort of event planned for Saturday and has called Nathan Fillion and probably a few others. This just blows me away. For these people who were expected to come and do some chats and sign some autographs to try and salvage a convention event truly earns them their Big Damn Hero moniker. I don’t care if they actually come through with it, but to even TRY… I am astonded and very proud to call myself their fan.
As of this writing, it looks like some of the cast will be heading out to the Hilton over the weekend… not because they’re being paid, but because they heard their fans got a raw deal.
Gentle readers, there aren’t nearly enough people in Hollywood who are like that. Browncoat fandom is immensely blessed; the cast and crew of Firefly and Serenity are full of this kind of mensch.
Anyone wondering how a single-season TV show got a shot at a second chance by way of a feature film?
You could do worse than to look at what’s happening in Burbank right now.
Extraordinary show. Extraordinary cast. Extraordinary fans.
I’m happy to count myself one.
UPDATE: And now the weekend’s over, and lots of people turned to to help out.
LOTS.
There will be people, reading this, who simply won’t believe it.
That’s their loss.
Me? I know browncoats. I own a browncoat. And I’m not the least bit surprised.
I’m thinking we rose, again…
Naval veterans remember this day. So does Rand… who points out some sobering differences between then and now.
It’s of course much easier, and more convenient to pretend that we’re at not at war. Harder to get people to the mall when we’re at war, don’t you know? But this fantasy will only make greater the final reckoning. Right now, they certainly understand that they’re at war with us. What’s more, they think they’re winning. The only effective “negotiations” with the enemy will happen when the bombs are falling on them. Or at least, when they’re hurting in some way, and feel truly threatened. Short of that, it’s a repeat of the appeasement of the thirties–in Europe, in Manchuria, in China–that ultimately resulted in the sudden sinking of battleships in a tropical paradise on a quiet Sunday morning.
Sometimes “realism”… isn’t.
How intriguing.
I have this mad daydream of our rovers and mapping satellites finding canals…
Won’t be, alas. Mars isn’t Bradbury’s. Nor is it John Carter’s.
Nonetheless, we look to Mars, and are rewarded with marvels.
We can’t go soon enough for me.
and Dad is still missed; still loved.
This may help you understand why.
Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV) is under investigation by the FBI. And he’s set to assume a top post which would put him in control of the FBI’s budget. Neat trick, eh?
One Nation Under Pelosi.
This is one of those moments when Irony can only stand politely by and applaud; she can’t possibly improve on reality.
If it is a matter of traditional jurisprudence that 100 guilty men go free rather than 1 innocent person be convicted, how much more so is it important that 100 druggies dispose of their stash rather than an innocent citizen be killed?
Time we started answering that question… locally, in our state houses, and Federally.
Oddly enough… neither do I.
…the problem with blogging is that when things get interesting, you don’t get time to write about it.
So very, very true.
See you on Monday!
I’ll give you rocket science.
Amazing.
If you’ve never built a model rocket, take it from me. Or read the comments of the artist-engineer a second time. I would not have thought this could be built.
If the Annulus doesn’t win, TANJ.
Tip of the clipboard to Ted for this one.
will be at Loscon 33, Thanksgiving weekend; I’ll be helping with a duellists’ demonstration Saturday afternoon.
Other things might happen too. Depends on who else shows up to help.
Perhaps I’ll see some of you there!
For those Gentle Readers who wonder what I do at those WMA events..
or who just have a burning desire to see me suffer…
Presented with my compliments.
Heh heh heh…
Bill Grandy’s excellent review of the event can be had here.
How shall we remember our veterans…
my shipmates…
this November 11th?
Go. Read.
And… when the moment arises?
You’ll know what to do.
This is a birthday we should all be thankful for.
I am terribly sorry we’ve made their jobs harder.
Or is that their “situation”?
Nonetheless.
Happy Birthday to the United States Marine Corps. Semper Fi!
(crossposted on LJ)
No Way…
but if it were possible? I’d love to watch the nomination hearings.
No, not the Democrats…
Well yes; them too, but I take far more pleasure in…
I confidently predict that the Friends Of Pelosi will inspire lots of entries hereafter.
UPDATE: Very soon now, in fact.
in a hard time…
and the way forward.
as the elections are over — give or take the occasional recount.
Now, about all those stolen elections, Mme. Pelosi… oh, not so much, now?
Thought not.
We, the people, wait to see just how “bipartisan” you’ll really be.
And we will remember.
Don’t I wish.
As I write this, some people are already bemoaning losses… based on exit polls.
The ONLY poll that counts is the one taken “behind the curtain”, when you cast your vote.
So… if you’ve voted, thank you.
No matter HOW you voted, thank you.
If you didn’t vote yet, stop reading! I’ll be here when you get back. GO VOTE.
If you aren’t voting… don’t bother me with your political opinion for the next two years.
I’m content to wait for the results of the only poll that matters. That, we’ll have soon enough.
the only poll that matters:
the SEVENTH Of November.
Take it from a Florida voter. No matter what the spin-masters want you to believe, your vote matters. Make sure you cast it on Tuesday.
Howard Dean ought to be praying that this is a putup job:
“Of course Americans should vote Democrat,” Jihad Jaara, a senior member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group and the infamous leader of the 2002 siege of Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity, told WND.
Like that? Try this:
In a recent interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, stated, “The jihadists (are) in Iraq. But that doesn’t mean we stay there. They’ll stay there as long as we’re there.”
Pelosi would become House speaker if the Democrats win the majority of seats in next week’s elections.
WND read Pelosi’s remarks to the terror leaders, who unanimously rejected her contention an American withdrawal would end the insurgency.
Islamic Jihad’s Saadi, laughing, stated, “There is no chance that the resistance will stop.”
He said an American withdrawal from Iraq would “prove the resistance is the most important tool and that this tool works. The victory of the Iraqi revolution will mark an important step in the history of the region and in the attitude regarding the United States.”
It’s not what Madame Pelosi would like to hear, perhaps. But hey – the story might take attention off Kerry.
I await the play this gets in the media and the blogosphere with…
considerable interest.
To re-meme: Read the whole thing.
… there is an imaginative delight in the naturalism of the atheists that has been lost to Christians, Jews and Muslims at least since the renaissance, and which maybe ought to be brought back. …
… Religious people must undergo the shock of Job, who after those sophistical little squabbles about sin and blame and justification must suddenly see the universe in all its terrifying glory, the grandeur of Leviathan and Behemoth, the mysteries of the womb, the joy of the horse and the ostrich, the glitter of the Pleiades. We know now that there are millions of planets circling alien suns out there. Some, perhaps many, harbor forests, oceans where their own leviathan swims, perhaps even alien civilizations with histories and stories and religions of their own. Beyond the old question–What is man that thou art mindful of him?—there is the further implication that God has let everything go its own way, that the universe is free to create and generate itself, and that God values this wild autonomy. Evolution is not a disproof of God, but it may be an indication of the lengths to which he will go to let his creation live out its own genius and destiny. What generosity, to so delegate his creative power, to relish diversity and strangeness and above all freedom so very highly!
I am very glad I took Rand’s advice, and read the whole thing — the smackdowns he cites were amusing, but Turner’s concluding trope is… beautiful.
(Homage a Dr. Banzai…)
Some time ago, Joe, over at Cold Fury, wrote about this marvelous project:
… just as Pierre de Coubertin revived the Olympic Games in 1896 with his modern version of the competition, New7Wonders founder Bernard Weber is reviving the concept of the 7 Wonders with this huge global campaign: the New 7 Wonders of the World. The key difference is that, this time around, they will not be chosen by one man, but rather by millions of people all over the world. …
The voting is now down to 21 finalists. In July 2007, the winners will be announced at a celebration in Lisbon, Portugal.
This is, in very truth, Really Cool.
Go have a look, sign in, and vote.
Marvellous.
La Shawn Barber cannot be said to be “in the tank” for John Kerry.
Nonetheless, she’s arguing that John Kerry made a faux pas; botched a joke; didn’t mean to insult the troops.
Now I read that Senator Kerry has issued an apology.
It was really all about Bush, he says.
It is certainly possible that someone wrote a speech for Mr. Kerry which contained witticisms directed at the President’s intellectual achievements… though both Mr. Kerry’s college record and his repeated rhetorical missteps suggest that, perhaps, he shouldn’t throw stones.
So… why am I not convinced?
Patterns of behavior.
Senator Kerry, after all, lied about his fellow troops in 1971 during the Senate hearings. He lied about his service in Cambodia. He accused American troops of Iraq of terrorizing children.
He’s done it before.
He also refused to apologize “out of the gate”; his first press conference was anything but apologetic.
Given that Senator Kerry is, to quote Ms. Barber,
… an arrogant, dishonest, unprincipled, pandering, condescending expensive suit. … a liar…
why should I believe that he didn’t mean to be arrogant, pandering, condescending?
I can believe his speechwriter didn’t mean to insult the troops. But I also believe Kerry read what his speechwriter believed… and said what HE believed.
Patterns of behavior.
UPDATE: Eric isn’t convinced either, Ms. Barber.
Eric Scheie laments a hole in our civility…
… and his first correspondent responds with a backhoe.
Have you been cut off by people who deemed you their friends, specifically because of your politics? Eric has. Judith Weiss has. I have.
Are there any other of my Gentle Readers who’ve been treated so?
I am not voting for those who hold my shipmates in contempt.
This was your candidate in 2004. This is a spokesman of your party in 2006.
These people are often timid, have succumbed to the blandishments of power, may well have forgotten why they’re there…
But you are contemptible.
Go here. Read on. Really Cool.
… but Really Cool news.
Marvelous stuff, about a syndrome I had never heard of before.
While you’re there, if you have a mind to, share a happy moment with Scott and his readers.
Tip of the chartboard to Roger. And if this be a shameless plug? Well, what goes around…
Heh.
So. What about “that warrior way thing”?
It’s come up in several conversations I’ve had lately.
There’s lots out there about what warriors are, learning about warriors, becoming a warrior… and much of it is unclear, self-contradictory, self-indulgent.
So. I will share with you things I hold about the warrior way.
Waypoints.
People talk about “gaining power”, or fighting skills, or magical abilities. Those are distractions. That’s not what a warrior is.
Warriors are people who have decided to be ready. They choose to train in the “warrior virtues” — courage; clarity; commitment; integrity; love – in order to act as the situation merits. Any situation.
A fighter may not be a warrior; they may be a bully, or strong and lucky, or a brawler who blunders into scrap after scrap. Conversely, many contemplative monks and nuns are warriors. They train themselves in a manner which befits the lives they have chosen; they are ready to act as their clarity aims them.
A warrior chooses to be ready.
More Really Cool Stuff ™ is available to read, at Voices/Future Tense… Issue Three, to be exact.
Please drop by and have a read.
… in the annals of snark.
Schadenfreude, with an order of Boston beans to power the raspberry,
and a takedown that Hillary certainly must love. (Sorry, Daffyd; chalk it up to the Law Of Unintended Consequences.)
If VK was still doing weekly Snarkhunts, these would have pride of place in a special edition: Pros Go Snarky…
(A dip of the colors to Mike, for the Howie Carr article.)
Not at these prices.
My son isn’t even interested.
Neither is David, it appears…
Has anyone at Sony ever heard of Worlds Of Wonder? Doesn’t matter how cool the toy is; if you overprice it, they will not come.
The XBox360 team must be delighted, right about now. I suspect Nintendo is, as well, as this may let them back into a game they were all but frozen out of.
But… ahem… what about Sony?
What? Were they thinking?
*grins*
When’d that get smart?
The international community must create a new United Nations body with the mandate to track, evaluate and accept or reject new technologies and their products through an International Convention on the Evaluation of New Technologies (ICENT).
Even had I developed a sudden fondness for hamhanded, “progressive”, transnational authoritarians and their powerlust… we are talking about the UN, right? The gang that can’t keep North Korea from playing with nukes, and won’t even try in Iran?
(That’s not a bug; it’s a feature.)
(Shush. That line’s been done to death.)
(It’s true.)
(Yes, well…)
The upcoming elections remind me of nothing so much as a demented game of Magic: The Gathering, played by political consultants drunk on malice and cheap gin. “Think it’s too late in the game? I’ll tap my pages with my hidden Foley card!” ”Oh yeah? Well, ummm, here’s a tax-evading Reid, a misappropriating Reid, AND I’ll remove the Chappaquidick card from the boneyard.”
Yes; I am a pathetic geek for knowing enough about M:TG to write the above. Not as pathetic as the state of our electoral choices…
Too late to fix this cycle. Not too late to be thinking about 2008.
Here’s a proposal: If you want a smaller government and a personal-responsibility based political culture, stop giving money and time to the Republican Party’s National committee.
Business as usual can’t go on being rewarded.
Either start sending ALL your contributions to the Republican Liberty Caucus, or start a new one which espouses those principles — the Reagan caucus, anyone?
Grousing about the politicos you’ve got a month before the primaries is too late.
The time to start is now.
Is it just me… or is there a lot of Greco-Roman classicalism in the air just now?
There’s Roger L. Simon’s invocation of Aristophanes….
my recent post, mentioning Juvenal…
and consider the folks at The Corner, talking about Eris. (Which is almost Discordian, all by itself.)
Eric, was this what you had in mind?
Here, there are heroines.
THEY surely reside, now, in Paradise.
My prayers, and thoughts, are with the families this Sunday. I hope yours are too.
UPDATE: Read. Marvel. Remember.
Talk about reinforcing success.
In the not so distant past, the Opportunity Rover would have been stuck at crater’s edge, with no good way for the exploration team to find a useable route down. Now, they do not have to risk a “suicide plunge”.
… “We have a suite of instruments on the end of the rover’s arm and I hope to take that arm and put it right up to some of those layered rocks.”
I hope they can, too.
contra McCornthyism.
(Me? I’m The Anchoress. Kinda. Sorta.
I’ll never think of “speaking in tongues” the same way again…
Confused now? Just go read for yourself, and enjoy. I did. Do. Am… well not at work, mind you, but…)
Richard Branson’s at it again.
This week, he unveiled CGI renderings of Spaceship Two’s current interior cabin design; Gizmodo has the goods here. The author of the post, Brian Lam, laments:
Flights will take 2.5 hours, reaching over 110km above Earth’s surface, and each astronaut gets 3 days of flight prep included with their $200,000 payment. That price’ll drop over time. Not soon enough for broke bloggers like Joel and I.
Funny you should note that, Brian. Others have too:
For many, if not most, people, though, even a $20,000 deposit, let alone the full $200,000 ticket price, is still out of reach. Virgin Galactic officials say they are aware of the need to offer additional avenues for potential customers without huge bank accounts to fly into space. “We’re doing a number of things on the democratization of spaceflight,” Whitehorn said. “It’s one of the things that Richard said right at the beginning, that he didn’t want to build an elitist product.”
Virgin Galactic is already offering redemption of frequent flyer miles earned in the Virgin Airways Flyers’ Club…
I was going to write more, but I’m going to stop there and savor the moment.
Frequent flyer miles to go to space.
WOW.
If that doesn’t waken your sense of wonder, You’re Probably Reading The Wrong Blog ™.
I also note that Virgin Galactic is looking at other ways to make their spaceflights available to people “without huge bank accounts to fly into space” … considering commercial applications for Spaceship Two as a rapid cargo carrier (Virgin Express?)… and is planning ahead for Spaceship Three, which will be designed to reach LEO.
If Branson attends the Heinlein Centennial, I suspect he won’t have to buy a single drink, nor lunch, nor dinner. After all, he bids fair to be our D.D. Harriman.
… it’s still true; the best way to be set up for a swindle
is to believe you can get something for nothing.
it must be time for Sun-Tzu:
… to subjugate the enemy’s army without doing battle is the highest of excellence.
Yes, it’s that time of year again.
History may not repeat itself… but it sure stutters.
I’m not sure I understand the logic. These disgruntled writers are going to express their revulsion with “Republicans in name only” by…
voting for Democrats?
When’d that get smart?
Like supporting Beria because you detest Dzerzhinsky.
I have more sympathy for people who are casting about for a third party. Yet, if Duverger was right — and the evidence strongly suggests he was — that option’s almost as good as actually voting for people who espouse the very things you are objecting to.
There’s a sad irony here. Mr. Foley shamed his constituents, damaged his party, acted reprehensibly… and yet, in his resignation, acted more honorably than has Mr. Hastert, or the political operatives who appear to have sat on this scandal (and damn the harm done to other pages exposed to Foley) until it was ripe for exploitation.
Meanwhile, the party of Kennedy, Studds, and Frank bids fair to capitalize on Republican moral revulsion.
Juvenal couldn’t do justice to this. How can I write further?
and, as Yom Kippur passes, may your hearts be not hardened, but renewed:
Free will is bestowed on every human being. If one desires to turn toward the good way and be righteous, he has the power to do so. If one wishes to turn toward the evil way and be wicked, he is at liberty to do so. And thus it is written in the Torah, “Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil” (Genesis. 3:22)–which means that the human species had become unique in the world.
(Thanks to Professor Seeskin for the quote from my colleague, Maimonides.)
And PHP… and CSS…
As you can see, Gentle Readers, I’ve taken a frustration and turned it into an opportunity. Since I’ve had to rebuild this site anyway, I’ve decided to redecorate. (Again.) (Yes, I know, but I’m having fun.)
I’m using Tarski as a starting point; I like its art design, and the customizations readily available from the Wordpress Dashboard. Granted, that comes with a price; Tarski is very complex once you look under the hood, which can paradoxically hinder your ability to work with the theme. There are a LOT of Tarski-specific bits of code there… which I ran into, headon, as I tried to adapt one of my favorite WP tweaks, ColdForged’s ImageHeadlines plugin.
It’s been a challenging week. But I’m happy with how things have turned out, so far.
Next? I need to spend some quality time with Photoshop, put together a new header image. And then, there’s a structural change I want to make, converting from an archives-based retrieval to a tag-based system…
and there’s the little matter of “humane civilization”: a trope I keep coming back to, which merits discussion at length.
to authors of popular fantasy trilogies, living or dead…
will shun this subdivision at any cost.
“Twee” is, I suppose, accurate. It’s just not enough.
… this would be a fine one:
…A dazzling new play has just opened in Manhattan: Richard Vetere’s Machiavelli, a fictional treatment of the great author of The Prince. Hilarious dialogue alternates with brutal action and scenes of love and tenderness as a resourceful Niccolò Machiavelli and his elegant wife, Marietta, fight to protect their family amid Medici intrigues—and they never have to fight harder than when their eldest daughter falls in love with their worst enemy, Lorenzo de’ Medici…
(By way of The Corner.)
This is news I had not missed. I only wish I had.
Mr. Ford was one of those authors I wanted to meet. Several of my friends knew him, and had plans to introduce us — they were looking forward to doing so, in fact, for the pleasure they believed I’d have from the meeting.
And now I never shall.
He was a bare year older than me, I see…
If you want to learn more about this remarkable man, go listen to his friends.
Or… just listen to him:
The worm drives helically through the wood
And does not know the dust left in the bore
Once made the table integral and good;
And suddenly the crystal hits the floor.
Electrons find their paths in subtle ways,
A massless eddy in a trail of smoke;
The names of lovers, light of other days –
Perhaps you will not miss them. That’s the joke.
The universe winds down. That’s how it’s made.
But memory is everything to lose;
Although some of the colors have to fade,
Do not believe you’ll get the chance to choose.
Regret, by definition, comes too late;
Say what you mean. Bear witness. Iterate.
My donor card is signed. Is yours?
When it’s someone else’s time to write of me, I should be half so loved.
Rest in peace.
This is news I regret receiving.
Literate; learned; opinionated; passionately devoted to the defense of his family, his nation, and his civilization:
… The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles.
Wolfhound that I am, I shall miss COL Cooper.
Rest in peace, sir. Semper Fi.
now, to fix up the themes…
Kelley’s, to be precise.
Huzzah!
Only way this could have been better? If Baby Boy Blight had been born tomorrow.
Happy birthday to us both!
Aziz points out the need.
If you can, please join me in pitching in.
Black Boxes, actually.
Public sentiment seems to be coming around to the idea of accepting passenger profiling rather than put up with the current security regime found at airports, following the professionals’ dictum that it’s better to concentrate on catching bad people than trying to find bad things.
Pessimists cite the example of Richard Reid to question the effectiveness of profile based screening, and raise objections that such screening could become institutionalized racial or religious persecution.
That is a possibility.
A scalpel can inflict dreadful pain and injury in the hands of a sadist. That, too, is a possibilty.
Doesn’t mean scalpels are evil; it means they need to be used properly.
The same seems likely to be true of profile analysis. Just because we haven’t done it well in the past doesn’t mean it can’t be done well.
One of the problems with profiling, to date, is the reliance on interviewers — who can always be accused of personal bias:
“At ICTS,” established by former Israeli security experts, “there was a general sense that all terrorists are Palestinians and all Palestinians are terrorists,” says Mr. Beam, who hired the company to work with TWA in the 1980s. “Their standards were good, but they had tunnel vision.”
That “tunnel vision” is the kind of thing which leads to objections…
The fear that security profiling can easily become racial profiling is behind US Transport Secretary Norman Mineta’s refusal so far to institute profiling for all US domestic flights. Mr. Mineta spent time in an internment camp for Americans of Japanese origin during World War II.
So. Personal subjectivity and the potential for bias are problems. Can this kind of subjective bias be addressed? Automating the process would help — and efforts to do this are well underway.
Particularly interesting is the fact that this automated biometric system is already, even in this early version, quite adaptable:
Unlike a standard lie detector, the technology analyzes a person’s answers not only in relation to his other responses but also those of a broader peer group determined by a range of security considerations. “We can recognize patterns for people with hostile agendas based on research with Palestinians, Israelis, Americans and other nationalities in Israel,” Mr. Shoval says. “We haven’t tried it with Chinese or Iraqis yet.” In theory, the Cogito machine could be customized for specific cultures, and questions could be tailored to intelligence about a specific threat.
So, “in theory”, such systems could adapt to the challenge of a Richard Reid. Being based on AI, these devices would be less subject to criticism from civil libertarians about racism-based decision making. The question then becomes accuracy — the current test model is reported to catch 85% of the test subjects with “hostile intent”, but falsely identifies 8% of regular travelers as potential threats. Tracking threat trends becomes an issue as well.
That is a place where neural network systems might be a useful part of a new system for airline security. Such AI systems are very good at prediction and pattern recognition, and get better with each event they are tasked to analyze. The possibility exists that a automated biometric system, mated to a neural network which is allowed to adapt after each encounter, could become extremely sensitive and specific in detecting potentially dangerous travelers.
And potentially dangerous airport staff, as well… a gap which sorely needs to be addressed. (I have yet to hear a good answer for how those boxcutters got on the airplanes used in the 9/11 attack).
Will such biometric systems be enough?
Not by themselves. But that’s another post…
Tip of the med-scanner to Rachel, guestblogging for The Commissar.
There’s been a fair amount of… well, near-despair… of late about Americans’ willingness to withstand the memes spread by Cindy Sheehan, Howard Dean, Michael Moore, and that ilk.
Perhaps the pessimistic should get out more.
Tip of the clipboard to the Professor.
I think the thing which irritates me the most is that this charming little example of bias is so… transparent. Read the headline; read the article. Doesn’t even need an advanced study of rhetoric or propaganda.
The AP has that much contempt for their readers?
Yet the media whines about their falling market share…
Some people have taken President Bush to task for using the phrase “Islamic fascists”, because it “unfairly links Islam with terrorists”.
Newsflash: It isn’t Bush associating terrorism with Islam. The “Party of God” does a fine job of that.
Aziz Poonawalla and I often disagree.
But he’s coined a superb name for the terror organizations who claim to be doing the will of Allah.
It sets them apart from Muslims as a whole. It captures the nihilistic flavor of their movement. It also evokes their stated goal of bringing Islamic governments forcibly into power, and damn the people who won’t sign on. (Literally.)
Monarchist… Minarchist… Islamarchist.
(For the euphony impaired, that’s not a statement of logical progression; that’s a comparison of usages. Falls right into place, doesn’t it?)
I’m off to change a Category title. “The Islamarchist War” is better by far than what I’ve been using to date.
… have written something this ludicrous.
The UN Security Council proclaims “peace in our time”.
The Israelis seem prepared to accept the plan.
And Hezbollah?
My family watches Hotel Rwanda, tonight.
“UN Peacekeepers”.
The very model of a modern major oxymoron.
I predict we’ll see targeted profiling,
fast-track security for frequent flyers,
and a surfeit of air marshals
before we see
five hour security lines at airports.
If for no other reason than that the airline industry can’t handle the bodyblow that five hour security lines will deal them.
Think not?
The markets are already speaking. This isn’t about consumer confidence; this is about demand for aviation fuel, which will drop like a rock if international travel is throttled by draconian security measures.
TWO industries affected. Three, if tourism takes the inevitable hit.
Security consultants formerly employed by El Al are going to be in demand.
Not to me, just this moment. I’m frustrated and angry about today’s events… not because of what happened, but because of the insane responses which will come of the plot.
Listen to Eteraz, instead.
Right now, we want for sanity, not venting.
Reuters’ reputation, that is.
Yep. Fake but accurate?
Wish I’d said that.
It’s the worst possible thing that can happen to a public institution; it’s not feared, it’s not hated, it’s become impossible to take seriously.
An object of ridicule.
Reuters is trying to staunch the bleeding; and credit where credit is due — they’re being a lot more forthcoming about their errors than CBS News was.
Still. It might be too little, too late.
Misery loves company; and Reuters is not the only one on the pyre:
“It’s hard to imagine how someone sitting in an air-conditioned office or broadcast studio many thousands of miles from the scene can decide what occurred on the ground with any degree of accuracy,” said Kathleen Carroll, AP’s senior vice president and executive editor.
If that’s a dig at bloggers… asked; answered.
Ms. Carroll ought to be asking herself how she knows “what’s happening on the ground”. If she finds the answer, maybe she should tell Mr. Szlukovenyi, at Reuters.
may be better assessed
by those who must live
with those very threats.
Think we could get a deal like this in Miami, Val? It’d be worth a roadtrip.
for this kind of madness to cease.
The signatories are either utterly ignorant of the true evil of the Nazi regime, or appalingly dishonest… since they aren’t hiding from the Sturmabteilung, or the Schutzstaffel.
They don’t even have to worry about their windows… though there are others that do, yet again.
To those who think that an exaggeration, who see no “existential threat” …
Well, not exactly…
The Ennis House is currently in the midst of a major restoration. Without restoration work, this architectural treasure is doomed. Not just figuratively — literally.
Gentle Readers, August is my birthday month. If any of you make a practice of philanthropy, planned giving, charity, whatsoever you are pleased to call it… please consider going here and making a donation, in honor of my recurring 29th. (Heh heh heh.)
Drop me a line, afterwards, if you do so? I’d like to know.
and so was Mr. Bridle.
On a number of levels… all ably addressed by Ali Eteraz.
Tu quoque is never an appropriate response to doing wrong.
(Eteraz is a class act, BTW. His restraint in this post is admirable, and worthy of emulation.)
as you can read here.
Looks like Hitchens was right:
One does not abruptly decide, between the first and second vodka, or the ticks of the indicator of velocity, that the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion are valid after all.
How do we know?
Gotta love that scientific method.
Tips of the clipboard, in no particular order, to Jonah Goldberg,
Steven den Beste,
Meryl Yourish, and
the
intrepid
revelers of the Carnival of Mel.
(“Carnival of Mel”? Priceless.)
why is the Hezbollah chief hiding, either in Syria, or in the Iranian embassy?
And what’s the doomed, defeated, routed IDF doing striking at will in the Bekaa Valley, that impregnable bastion of Hezbollah?
48 hours. It’s not just a humanitarian pause, it’s a necessity if one’s going to hope to understand what’s really happening in the hot-war zone.
… but war is interested in you.”
May G_d see the victims safely home… or bring them safely Home, in mercy.
As to the “lone individual”?
Could the murderer find no better counsel? There is far better company to be found in that house.
Tip of the clipboard to Roger Simon, for the Trotsky quote.
… any favors, ever again, please?”
I am certain that Hilary Clinton’s thinking that right now.
Anyone want to bet against the notion that this story, the images, and the attendant press releases are in a file by now at RNC headquarters?
I should hope not; you’re too reasonable a readership for that.
So much for Senator Clinton’s hopes of gaining the Presidency.
Pure electoral poison, I tell you.
Thanks… more or less… to Kim. (Horrid image, excellent news.)
“Feisty Irish Spirit”…
I do not think it means what you think it means.
Neither, apparently, does “Nobel Peace Prize“.
Ah, well. Another case of those “patterns of behavior“.
and you didn’t make it to NewSpace 2006…
and you read only one blogpost about the conferences there…
…It’s not enough to talk to the general public in the way we talk among ourselves. …
We spacers haven’t yet learned to do this. Until we do? We’ll be in the embarassing position of doing the same thing, over and over again, and waiting for a different result. It shouldn’t take an Einstein to figure out what that leads to.
As the saying has it… read the whole thing.
A couple of nifty things have come across the Institute scanners recently:
Frank Miller.
The Spirit.
Frank Miller… directing The Spirit.
Single. Digit. Kelvin. Cool.
Space is a little warmer… and Las Vegas is even warmer still…
but really cool meetings are going on there as I write.
Meanwhile, Genesis One orbits overhead, more successful than its designers anticipated…
(and isn’t that realtime tracking display marvelous?)
Puts a smile on my face, I tell you.
Despite the grim drumbeat of the newsfeeds, we live amidst wonders.
37 years ago, “one small step”, and counting.
We haven’t gone back, but we will. Maybe not under NASA colors, but we will.
In the meantime, take Rand’s excellent advice. Have a commemorative dinner; talk to your children, your friends, and remember what the human race achieved this day.
And, if you’re looking for some light SF reading thereafter, may I recommend issue two of Voices/Future Tense? There’s some Really Cool Stuff ™ in there.
Speaking of blegging…
Were I not already committed to an awful lot of stuff in August and September, this weekend would be a hoot.
I cannot think of a better city for a shindig than San Francisco. And the venues chosen by the San Francisco Browncoats are absolutely perfect.
Wish I was going…
Maybe I should add a wish list page, with Amazon lists, and a PayPal link…
for Tesla Motors just released pictures of its Roadster, and… oh my.
And then there’s the specs…
Doesn’t come cheap — estimates run from $85000 to a cool $100,000. But the first cell phones and personal computers weren’t cheap, either. And 20 years later…
Here’s hoping the “consumer curve” for the Tesla product line is closer to ten years.
Or, failing that, that I win a lottery soon..because I’d love to get my hands on one of these. That speed and range envelope would be more than sufficient for me to get to and from work on a regular basis. If Tesla can drop the prices over the course of the next two generations, I’d say they have a winner.
What a shame that such good news is buried under the latest from the Middle East…
God grant it so.
Casus belli. Very little assembly required.
New prediction: Sometime very soon now, Israel is going to demonstrate it’s new superstealth hyper-ranged attack capacity, by flying from Israel… to Iran… destroying a host of strategic conventional and nuclear targets… and returning home, all without appearing on anyone’s radar, or being seen to refuel.
That’s going to be the official story, any rate. Nobody saw anything in their airspace, no sir, not at all, no indeed. Amazing, those pesky Israelis, doing it all on their own.
(But the Israelis don’t fly Raptors.) (Salaam, Tariq. Salaam, and hush now.)
Implausible?
Saudi and Egyptian condemnations of Hezbollah would have seemed implausible to me a month ago. Yet… here we have them.
Remember: in the world of realpolitik, plausible deniability often suffices. None of Israel’s neighbors wants to admit to it publically; but there seems to be a widespread desire among Arab League countries to see Iran, and Iranian bumboys allies, take a hard fall.
Arabs enjoying schaudenfreude at the expense of Persians. Who knew? (Students of history.)(Well, yes, there is that…)
The best opportunities come but rarely. If this is, indeed, one of those rare moments…
May it be so.
Once is appaling.
Twice… looks like a trend.
When you get to three or more?
I believe the term of art is, indeed, “pattern of behavior”.
The Commissar starts with an ear, and ends… unsure of an ending.
… some might feel that avoidance of all-out war is a good thing. Maybe it is. But the soft conflicts go on endlessly, without any mechanism for resolution.
Read it and… weep? No, not yet. But think on this.
The question’s important. Too important not to be asked…
Too important not to be answered.
It’s hard not to worry about the ominous news from the Middle East.
But even in these times, there’s wonderful things afoot… afloat? In orbit, certainly.
By all accounts the Bigelow prototype is functioning extremely well. If subsequent test flights are as successful, the biggest problem Bigelow Aerospace is going to have is finding a ship to service their private space station.
“Private space station”.
I love the sound of that.
Hezbollah might have thought it was helping Hamas when it also kidnapped Israeli soldiers and started rocket attacks on northern Israel.
Hezbollah’s paymasters may have cause to rue that mistake.
In the context of an on-going war with Iranian proxies in Lebanon, if Tehrans mullahs threaten mass anihilation one too many times the Israelis could strike several Iranian nuclear facilities. This would not be a pre-emptive strike but a deep strike on Hezbollahs deep pockets ally and supplier.
The diplomatic component of this scenario: the Israelis make the case that in the post-Saddam, post-Beirut Spring Middle East, proxy wars are no longer tolerated. The Iranians will not be able to respond to Israeli strikes in kind. They will be exposed as weak hotheads and they will have lost at least part of their nuclear investment.
Much nonsense has been written about “lessons from Vietnam”. That does not mean there are no valid lessons to be had. This one, for example:
No group can successfully wage unconventional warfare without conventional sponsorship, logistics support, and safe haven.
Hezbollah might have given Israel the casus belli needed to act against Iranian military assets. Not just the nuclear ones, but the intelligence organizations as well. That potentially puts Ali Larijani’s visit to Syria in a different light; are the Iranians having “buyers’ remorse”?
If not yet… I predict they will, soon.
from the pen of Walter Bagehot:
…The notion of a far-seeing and despotic statesman, who can lay down plans for ages yet unborn, is a fancy generated by the pride of the human intellect to which facts give no support.
Thank you, Lex.
Possibly. The news is still fragmented. “48 Hours”.
Not just a good idea; it’s about the law.
If there is any threat to the separation of powers here, it is not from the execution of a search warrant by one co-equal branch of government upon another, after the independent approval of the third separate, and co-equal branch. Rather, the principle of the separation of powers is threatened by the position that the Legislative Branch enjoys the unilateral and unreviewable power to invoke an absolute privilege, thus making it immune from the ordinary criminal process of a validly issued search warrant. This theory would allow Members of Congress to frustrate investigations into non-legislative criminal activities for which the Speech or Debate Clause clearly provides no protection from prosecution.
Admirable clarity.
… and other disasters. Some very sound advice here, which doesn’t just apply to the hours after The Next Big One. (If you’ve lived in San Francisco, you know why that phrase always has capital letters.)
Here’s the money quote — and having been in the City for the last one, it’s spot on:
“… Right after an earthquake, nobody’s in charge. You self-start, or nothing happens.”
Holds true for any disaster.
Thanks for the post, Caterina; and thanks to the Professor for making it widely known.
for all of us with blogs.
For me, as much as for any with a heart to heed.
Love. You can know all the math in the ‘Verse, but take a boat in the air you don’t love, she’ll shake you off just as sure as the turning of worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down, tells ya she’s hurtin’ ‘fore she keens. Makes her home.
You can learn much about someone… from the stories they love.
Harry Truman is currently the darling of people like Peter Beinart and Joe Klein, who are looking for a … culture hero? of their own; the collectivist counterpoint to Reagan, the strong and manly “liberal” who was tough on national defense.
But would they really want Truman as president today? Truman, who ordered nuclear release on Japan… twice… and never lost a day’s sleep at the notion? Truman, who was prepared to take the US into Korea alone if the UN had not backed him?
Was Truman really a “liberal”, by today’s standards? (Hint: How’s Senator Lieberman being treated by his party today?)
Consider:
What Truman showed here is the relentlessness he shared with Lincoln and Roosevelt; the will to do what one must to save one’s people, in the knowledge that sometimes men who do not like to kill are forced and obliged to kill in great numbers, to make sure that cruel and evil regimes do not flourish and that those who like killing do not rule the earth. It is the Democrats’ problem–and therefore the country’s–that their last president to understand this on a visceral level left the White House in 1963 in a coffin, and that none of their leaders have quite known this since. Their evocations of these people feel and sound hollow–they may like the idea of FDR, JFK, and Harry, but one feels the real men would unnerve them. They are right to look to Truman for a way out of their malaise and their quandary, but the Truman they create is part of the problem: soft-power Harry, Humility Harry, with none of the iron that he had in real life. They don’t like the real Harry–the one of Japan and Korea–and they don’t like his real traits, when they see them in others, like George W. Bush. This is their flaw, and their evasions won’t help them. When they own and admit the genuine Harry, people will trust them with power again.
Noemie Emery. Well worth your reading.
… is a Japanese government willing to say things like this in public:
“If we accept that there is no other option to prevent an attack … there is the view that attacking the launch base of the guided missiles is within the constitutional right of self-defense. We need to deepen discussion,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said.
There has been speculation on just how much influence the Chinese government has on North Korea. Given how much Beijing has to lose if Japan decides it must “gun up” for its own protection, I think we’ll find out soon enough.
“Lend Lease”, anyone?
(And yes… I am aware of the irony.)
UPDATE: Austin Bay quotes the Times of London:
… Such talk causes severe concern to Washington, which has sheltered Japan under the umbrella of its nuclear arsenal since forging a security alliance after the second world war.
If there’s “severe concern” in Washington, I’d love to have stock in the Chinese pharma company that handles Beijing’s Prilosec supply…
is not only fair play; in this case, reciprocal linkage offers a worthwhile distinction to Gentle Readers:
… Rick Moran outlines a responsibility for lefty bloggers to condemn the attack on Goldstein or effectively endorse it via silence. While I often agree with Moran, and certainly agree with many of his larger points in the post, I’m not buying the argument – even someone as hypercritical of Goldstein as Atrios has no duty to comment on the actions of an online nut who shares no direct affiliation to him or his site. But much more indicative of a rotten core to mainstream swaths of the online leftosphere is the extent to which things like BitchPhD’s subsequent rationalizations and minimizations of Frisch’s behavior both exist – and will be tolerated or validated by ideological fellow travelers.
Alas, there are far too many members of the “nutroots” speaking in this matter to need to worry about whether “silence implies consent”.
Not every collectivist is silent though. All honor to Jeralyn Merritt, who understands:
“… And it’s Goldstein’s child she attacked.”
Res ipsa loquitur.
… in but a couple of days.
Wonderful.
I’d link to Jeff’s site directly, but as of this posting, it’s unavailable again — whether due to new host propagation or recurrent DDOS attack, I can’t say.
Ms. Frisch’s actions deserve condemnation. But I have run into a problem.
If Frisch deserves condemnation, what verb is adequate for the moral relativists who excuse, condone, minimize her actions?
And don’t talk to me about Ann Coulter.
Coulter is nasty, ugly-spirited, and seems to relish taking shots at adults.
ADULTS.
Making sexual innuendo, veiled comments about physical harm and death to one’s children, is not nasty. It is monstrous.
Defending monstrous behavior with the lamest of tu quoque whining is…
is…
*helpless waving of hands*
I have no words.
any good ideas?
Venomous Kate’s home from her road trip from hell. Only NOW it’s gone truly hellish:
”… this bear has gone missing, and her son is desolate.
Those of you who have children are nodding. Those who never had… take it from me; at that age, “desolation” is not too strong a word for the loss of such a beloved item.
So:
–if you live anywhere between Willmar, Minnesota and Leavenworth, Kansas, keep a weather eye out. Bear Bear’s only been missing for the last day and a half or so.
–if you don’t live there, please put on your thinking caps. Have you seen a bear like this? If so, where? Can it be purchased? How? VK’s willing to do the switch, but the new bear has to look like Bear Bear.
If any of you can help a blog-pal out, I will consider it a favor done me personally.
Please, help me help a friend.
(Crossposted at my LiveJournal.)
Will Collier is almost right. This is not cool… this is WAY cool:
Blue Origin’s spaceship is patterned after Department of Defense/NASA work on the single-stage vertical-takeoff, vertical-landing Delta Clipper Experimental (DC-X) and Delta Clipper Experimental Advanced (DC-XA). It was repeatedly flown in 1993-1996 at the U.S. Army’s White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.
There has been nothing in recent years quite like the DC-X/XA project. The project was like a throwback to the old days of aerospace research, where emphasis was on “building ‘em, flying ‘em, and learning from ‘em”, over and again. IMHO, NASA’s decision to develop the Lockheed-Martin VaporwareStar VentureBoondoggle VentureStar rather than build on the DC-X/XA’s success was one of the greatest blunders in that agency’s history.
Consider. Let’s say you’re NASA’s boss. You want a technology demonstration project, which you hope will produce a successor to the Shuttle STS. Do you select:
I’m guessing my Gentle Readers were smarter than NASA’s leadership…
The X-33 debacle was a stellar example… ahem… of De Doc’s Law Of Project Outcomes: You get what you started with. If you pick a vaporware “test-of-concept”, you end with vaporware.
But Will’s right; the DC-X “… was a design too good to die.” Here’s wishing Blue Origin success in their endeavors.
BYTE magazine has apparently decided not to renew its contract with Jerry Pournelle.
Could be a lot worse. Dr. Pournelle writes:
“… You can certainly spread the word that Computing at Chaos Manor is alive and well at www.chaosmanorreviews.com.”
If you found Pournelle’s insights worthwhile, you can continue to enjoy them. And… if you subscribe, it all goes to Dr. Pournelle. So much for the middleman!
TANSTAAFL. I’m delighted to be a subscriber to Chaos Manor, and ask you to consider doing the same, Gentle Readers. Tell him Dr. Bill sent you…
Not trahison, perhaps. But certainly idiotie.
…the Church of England is considering rejecting England’s patron saint St George on the grounds that his image is too warlike and may offend Muslims.
Good. Lord. Have. Mercy.
“Established Church” notwithstanding, how does a decision of the Church of England’s General Synod change the English national flag?
If this sort of thing keeps up, “Rue, Britannia” may need to become a category all its own.
Thanks… after I take some aspirin, I think… to Steven den Beste and to Charles.
See Allen, Henry.
…for those who are baffled by the strange and vicious outrage that greeted news of Lay’s passing…
Hmmm. “Strange and vicious”. Sounds like a ringing condemnation of such sentiments as…
But now that he’s died of a heart attack in the luxury of his Colorado getaway while awaiting sentencing for his crimes, none of his victims will be able to contemplate that he’s locked away in a place that makes the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel look like Hawaii; that he might be spending long nights locked in a cell with a panting tattooed monster named Sumo, a man of strange and constant demands; and long days in the prison laundry or jute mill or license plate factory, gibbering with anguish as fire-eyed psychopaths stare at him for unblinking hours while they sharpen spoons into jailhouse stilettos.
He will not be ground into gray jailhouse paste by listening to the eardrum-scarring symphony of 131-decibel despair that is the Muzak of penitentiaries, by gagging on the dead prison air, by choking on the deader food, by watching the blue sky taunt him with freedom over the exercise yard, and by feeling his nervous system rent by the cruel grenades of memories — explosions of nostalgia for the days when he knew he’d be swanning forever through the comfy laps and cool lawns of luxury and infinite possibility. Sweet Gulfstreams through sweet skies, the pools, the jewels, the Maybach limousines, a life in which he didn’t just pimp his ride, he pimped the entire world as he knew it.
Mr. Allen? Paragraph 10 would like to talk to you about paragraphs 4 and 5.
Theft is wicked. But hatred is far, far worse.
As for Mr. Lay?
Some predictions for you, Gentle Readers.
The YAL-1 will get increased funding. Lots of it. Some of that funding may be in yen, given the increasing importance of the US-Japan alliance, and the airborne laser’s current limitations:
… While designed mainly for use against theatre ballistic missiles (TBMs), which are shorter ranged and move slower than ICBMs, the ABL has more recently been considered for possible use against ICBMs during their boost phase. This would be more challenging since the longer range of ICBMs would limit the ability of the ABL to reach them. By contrast theater ballistic missiles are fired from closer range, hence the ABL could more easily intercept them without overflying hostile territory. However some liquid fueled ICBMs have thinner skins than TBMs, so would be easier to damage. Also the boost phases of ICBMs are much longer, allowing more time to track and fire on them. But in general the ABL would likely be less effective against ICBMs.
A 2003 report by the American Physical Society on National Missile Defense found if the ABL achieves its design goals it could be successful against liquid fueled ICBMs at up to 600 km range. However its effective range against tougher solid fueled ICBMs would only be 300 km, likely too short to be useful in many scenarios.
If the airborne laser system can be brought online, it offers an attractive option for defense of the Japanese home islands from North Korean missiles. If North Korea decides to fire theater-grade missiles at Japan, the ABL is designed for such a threat. If North Korea opts for solid-fuel ICBMs (given their greater durability), the 300 km limit still allows a notional JASDF laser carrier to kill ICBMs launched from most of North Korea — while remaining in Japanese territorial airspace, defended by JASDF and US fighters. Target identification and acquisition would not pose a significant challenge to the Japanese regional air defense network, which already benefits from the presence of Aegis cruisers in the region which can handoff targeting information at need.
I anticipate that the Japanese will move swiftly to make that network more capable, accepting realtime satellite telemetry as well as AWACS and surface radar feeds in order to give the best possible data to the PAC-3 batteries being deployed in Okinawa… and future anti-missile systems as they become available.
I note further that given political realities in Japan and Asia, the essentially defensive nature of current ABL technology is a godsend for any Japanese government seeking a robust antimissile capacity.
A wise government would think twice about trying to scare a first world power like Japan. One might not like the results.
Of course, a wise government wouldn’t steal from it’s only viable ally and neighbor, either.
Let me join these fine folk in renewing an American tradition…
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
–That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refuted his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred. to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.
–And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
John Hancock.
GEORGIA, Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, Geo. Walton.
NORTH-CAROLINA, Wm. Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn.
SOUTH-CAROLINA, Edward Rutledge, Thos Heyward, junr.
Thomas Lynch, junr. Arthur Middleton.
MARYLAND, Samuel Chase, Wm. Paca, Thos. Stone, Charles Carroll, of Carrollton.
VIRGINIA, George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Ths. Jefferson, Benja. Harrison, Thos. Nelson, jr. Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton.
PENNSYLVANIA, Robt. Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benja. Franklin, John Morton, Geo. Clymer, Jas. Smith, Geo. Taylor, James Wilson, Geo. Ross.
DELAWARE, Caesar Rodney, Geo. Read.
NEW-YORK, Wm. Floyd, Phil. Livingston, Frank Lewis, Lewis Morris.
NEW-JERSEY, Richd. Stockton, Jno. Witherspoon, Fras. Hopkinson, John Hart, Abra. Clark.
NEW-HAMPSHIRE, Josiah Bartlett, Wm. Whipple, Matthew Thornton.
MASSACHUSETTS-BAY, Saml. Adams, John Adams, Robt. Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry.
RHODE-ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE, &c. Step. Hopkins, William Ellery.
CONNECTICUT, Roger Sherman, Saml. Huntington, Wm. Williams, Oliver Wolcott.
IN CONGRESS, JANUARY 18, 1777.
ORDERED,
THAT an authenticated Copy of the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCY, with the Names of the MEMBERS of CONGRESS, subscribing the same, be sent to each of the UNITED STATES, and that they be desired to have the same put on RECORD.
By Order of CONGRESS,
JOHN HANCOCK, President.
BALTIMORE, in MARYLAND: Printed by MARY KATHARINE GODDARD.
May each and every American reading this today make that pledge, as I do, today.
Heh heh heh.
… it looks like “Blood For Newspaper Sales”, from where I sit.
Mr. Sulzberger’s reaction should be instructive.
Sauce for the goose…
“Tim Hildebrandt has passed away. And, with him, so has an era.”
If you were of a age to relish science fiction, or fantasy, at the end of the 1970s, you knew the work of the brothers Hildebrandt. From Tolkien to Vader, their artistic vision reigned in the popular art of the fantastic.
Their works continued to delight fans in later years, notably in contributions to Magic: The Addiction… ummm, Magic: The Gathering.
That team is no more. Tim Hildebrandt died on the 11th of June of natural causes.
My prayers and thoughts go out to him, and his family.
Rest in peace, Tim.
Have a weather eye on this story as it unfolds.
I share Jerry’s skepticism; this seems an utterly rash mistake for a company to make. And yet… the people writing of this are not Mac fanatics. They are longtime Windows users, whose concern seems genuine.
I’d recommend watchful waiting.
More as this develops.
over at the UN.
A remarkable thing happened at the United Nations yesterday. We, the United States, told the world no. The messenger was Robert Joseph, the Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. …
The U.S. Constitution guarantees the rights of our citizens to keep and bear arms, and there will be no infringement of those rights, he proclaimed to the dignitaries and functionaries. The United States will not agree to any provisions restricting civilian possession, use or legal trade of firearms inconsistent with our laws and practices.
Now, if we could only get the Congress and the BATF to listen.
Still. Well begun is half done.
Note to Kofi Annan: That “?O??? ????” thing?
If you’ve enjoyed my turn of phrase
“New York Crimes Times”…
and it’s sibling,
“LAme Crimes LA Times”…
please consider this an invitation to spread it around.
As anger continues to build over the latest perfidy of the New York Crimes Times, we ought not to act like Bill Clinton.
Prosecuting Bill Keller and his ilk for leaking would be gratifying in the short term. It would feel good.
So did bombing an African aspirin factory… instead of taking the hard road, and hunting down bin Laden and his cadre.
So did sending some FBI agents to “investigate” the Khobar Towers bombing… with no intention of taking action against the Iranian intelligence services who set the bombing in motion.
What do those three examples have in common?
They felt good… and did nothing to stop the problems they purported to address.
For better or worse, there’s still enough of the… romance of Watergate? in our culture to make a successful prosecution of Mr. Keller unlikely. Despite the clear facts, admitted by Keller with a magisterial arrogance which is breathtaking in it’s contempt for the intelligence of the American people, too many potential jurors are unlikely to be comfortable with convicting a newsman for publishing a story.
Love it; hate it; matters not. That’s a fact, and best we understand that, accept it, and work around it to stop the problem… which is not the New York Crimes Times. Those moral midgets are enablers, no better. The problem is the leaks… and those doing the leaking. The important thing is to stop those leaks; stop the disclosure of classified information by government bureaucrats who abrogate to themselves the right to ignore their oaths, their promises, their responsibilities… and in doing so, make it increasingly more difficult to effectively dismantle terrorist networks.
How might we do that, given the way in which Keller and his lot seem immune?
Make them even more immune. LEGALLY immune.
Andrew McCarthy makes a persuasive argument for this approach. McCarthy’s approach has much to commend it… including the fact that it’s already been successful in l’affaire Plame, as Judith Miller and Matthew Cooper can attest to.
Give the likes of Mr. Keller formal immunity from prosecution… and haul them into a federal grand jury, with no legitimate reason to stand silent on the witness stand, because they cannot incriminate themselves by their testimony. Give them a choice… up to eighteen months in prison for contempt of court, or identify the leakers, who then can be prosecuted for their contemptible actions.
What do you think Mr. Keller would do, faced with “Miller’s choice”?
Or Patterico’s current “favorite” editor, Dean Baquet of the LAme Crimes LA Times?
Contemplate that for a moment.
See? Sometimes, you can have your cake, and eat it too.
UPDATE: Well, it’s not quite a consensus yet. But it should be.
From Dean Esmay: One of the ’sphere’s most distinctive bloggers was apparently found dead today.
To my blogging friends, commenters, and colleagues who will grieve, and to Rob’s family, our condolences.
If your life and duties allow, stand him a drink or two this weekend; let him have a wake. That’s the kind of sendoff he’d have wished, I suspect.
Rest in peace, Rob.
but welcome, all the same.
And Will? Churlish or no, it really is about time.
(Why isn’t it breaking news, given the dateline on the Northwest Florida Daily News article? Because most of the players have been aware of this since 2005, when the proposal first went out. And Elon Musk’s concerns notwithstanding, most of the other likely players are moving ahead… such as my personal favorite, Transformational Space.)
Perhaps you ought to listen to my friend, too.
Might have kept you from self-serving excuses for your perfidy… and the subsequent well-deserved fisking.
Everybody can learn from cautionary tales… including me.
My dear friend “swingdancefan” reminds me of this in this comment.
She reminds me that good journalists do their homework (as I know she does), get facts out (as she does), and don’t trim their facts to fit preconceived notions (as she most certainly does not). (All in a few words. Now THAT’s “concise elegance of expression” for you!)
It’s tempting to airily assert that my friend is the laudable exception. Or that it’s just the largest newspapers and television stations that “do the Rather”.
I don’t think I can, though. Those pesky facts again… After all, the author of the recent Times-Union story isn’t writing for the New York Crimes Times. And G_d Knows how many times bloggers and other members of the “new media” have been trapped in the temptation to “tell stories”, after all. (Can you say “Jason Leopold“? “Jerome Armstrong“? I knew you could.)
What should you make of all this, gentle readers?
Well… I know what I make of it.
All of us in the evolving infosphere can:
The abiding temptation for journalists, of any stripe — including bloggers, when we exercise our First Amendment freedoms — is apparently to tell stories. A temptation reinforced by the behavior of the most prominent professional journalists, of late.
Better for us all if we avoid the temptation. Report, and let your readers decide. (With apologies to Fox News.)
A timely reminder, for me.
Wish it weren’t literally true — it makes the laughter ring slightly hollow.
Once upon a time, a newspaper journalist wanted to write a story about blogs.
Perhaps his newspaper wanted some linkage with their nascent community of blogs written by their readership, or with their Community Columnists Program. It’s hard to say; the newspaper journalist rarely has a “comments” section, or a “feedback” column, where they can respond to questions like that. They generally delegate such tasks to an ombudsman, or a spokesman.
So… you might think the columnist would study the subject. Do research on what blogs do, and who’s been blogging in and around the paper’s home city. You might think that the journalist would seek out the people who’ve been blogging for years, people whose blogs are known far beyond the city limits.
What the columnist appears to have done is ask around, and find an engaging young blogger who’s been focusing on local Jacksonville events. So far, so good; a good story can be built around a local example of a national phenomenon.
In the course of interviewing this blogger, the newspaper journalist asks if the blogger knows of any other blogs. Our blogger gives a list of other recent blogs, know to him.
And the journalist takes that list, and apparently stops there, because that’s good enough, and publishes the partially researched article… and in doing so, inflates the role of the poor blogger, making it seem like blogging only really got started locally with the rise of his interviewee’s blog.
Perhaps the newspaper journalist was mistaken about the relative stature of his interviewee. Perhaps the newspaper journalist felt it was in his best interest to make his interviewee seem important… to justify using his interviewee as an unpaid research assistant. Who knows? The newspaper journalist doesn’t have a comments section…
Now our blogger has the dubious pleasure of listening to other people remonstrate with him for the journalists’ failing. For, unlike the newspaper journalist, our poor blogger has a comments section.
The moral of this story?
1. Newspaper journalists tell stories.
If you think that statement sounds ambiguous, you’re getting the point.
Ubisoft’s latest chapter in the Sam Fisher saga is coming soon.
Truth, however, seems determined to stay stranger than fiction.
Neighbors told CNN the men, who wore turbans, caused no problems but acted oddly.
“All you could do was just see their eyes. They had their whole head wrapped up. Just the eyes showing. And they were standing guard — one here, one there — like soldiers. Very quiet,” one woman said.
A man said the men never spoke to neighbors and would just nod their heads if spoken to.
“They was acting like they was in military training,” he said.
Residents living near the warehouse told The Associated Press that the men taken into custody called themselves Muslims and had tried to recruit young people.
The men slept in the warehouse, Tashawn Rose, 29, told the AP.
“They would come out late at night and exercise,” she said. “It seemed like a military boot camp that they were working on there. They would come out and stand guard.”
During the second Gulf War, a reporter looked at American soldiers and marines, and asked “where do we get these men from”? I suspect the same question is being asked about these people… but the tone will, no doubt, be different.
It’s worth remembering at moments like this that Timothy McVeigh was not especially impressive, either. And neither was Zarqawi, near his unlamented end — remember the great machinegun gaffe, caught on unforgiving video?
The current suspects may have been amateurish mooks. They may also have been every bit as dangerous as McVeigh, and Zarqawi. Their trials will tell.
AG Gonzales’ press conference tomorrow will no doubt prove … interesting.
and gals.
Thinking of starting your own blog? Tired of your current “look”? If WordPress is your blogging program of choice, I encourage you to head over to the new Theme Viewer, hosted at WordPress.org. The improved sorting system makes it much, much easier to sort through the available themes for the styles that please your eye.
Even if you’re happy with your look, and your tweaks, and your widgets, the Theme Viewer still offers a pleasant way to look at what others have done with the WordPress engine and CSS markup. I enjoyed seeing what people are doing out there, and I suspect you will too.
Now there’s as fine a description of Forbidden Planet as ever there was. Even if it’s a passage from Shakespeare’s The Tempest… which, as trufen know, is apt.
I am delighted to hear (from Institute fellow Fred Kiesche) that there’s a new DVD edition coming out. I understand that Alan Dean Foster is among the SF writers who’ll be providing commentary tracks. One of my favorite movies, one of my favorite authors… it’s All Good ™.
That’s one for the birthday list… or the Christmas list.
I hope we won’t have to wait much longer than that.
(I have searched diligently, and have yet to find more information on this new edition. Anyone out there with news, please share in comments.)
We cancelled our AT&T long distance home service, yesterday.
We don’t use it much; we tend to make our long distance calls via cell phone, as most people we call are “in network”. And our local landline provider was willing to provide us fallback long distance for much less.
Win, win… win:
AT&T has issued an updated privacy policy that takes effect Friday. The changes are significant because they appear to give the telecom giant more latitude when it comes to sharing customers’ personal data with government officials.
The new policy says that AT&T — not customers — owns customers’ confidential info and can use it “to protect its legitimate business interests, safeguard others, or respond to legal process”.
Owns my data?
If this is “privacy”, bring on chastity.
It just gets better…
The policy also indicates that AT&T will track the viewing habits of customers of its new video service — something that cable and satellite providers are prohibited from doing.
Moreover, AT&T (formerly known as SBC) is requiring customers to agree to its updated privacy policy as a condition for service — a new move that legal experts say will reduce customers’ recourse for any future data sharing with government authorities or others.
Like the title says… just in time.
I regret, however, that I didn’t know this was coming. I’d have held off cancelling my AT&T service for 24 hours.
It would have been pleasant to have read the AT&T representative the riot act.
That doesn’t mean you can’t.
IF these assertions are true… a big “if”, as of this writing…
Will we hear apologies from Kennedy, the DK crowd, Kerry…?
I won’t hold my breath, and I advise you, Gentle Readers, not to do the same.
The fumes from the tractors, which will be moving the goalposts yet again, will be pretty stinky.
Still… too early to worry about that just yet.
48 hours, 48 hours. Let Santorum produce the evidence. Then let’s see what surfaced.
I am the eye in the sky
Looking at you…
Heh.
Some articles already raise the spectre of privacy intrusions… which, depending on the sensor technology used by the drones, or case law having to do with helicopter pursuit and surveillance, might have some validity.
Wish I owned stock in these books. If you haven’t thought about issues of privacy and surveillance, you might wish to add them to your summer reading list… and start thinking.
Heh.
Myself, I prefer slightly different kinds of ironmongery…
I look forward, with anticipation, to the fulfillment of those promises. My thoughts have also been on civilization, of late…
though I think I can promise not to write quite so copiously.
Heh…
A lovely little vignette from Rick Brookhiser.
Sign language lessons from SERE School…
I wonder how long it will be before Senator Clinton’s crack publicity unit gets wind of this.
Heh heh heh.
Tip of the clipboard to “Lance“.
for prayer and well-wishing:
I just heard that Jim Baen, one of the most influential editors inthe science fiction field, had a stroke, and has been in a coma for the last twelve hours. No more information at this time, but those of us who consider ourselves friends, or have admired the vast contribution he has made to the field, well…if you believe in prayer, this would be a good time.
By way of Steven Barnes and Jerry Pournelle (scroll down).
I prefer Jerry’s take on this: “…it would be a good time for prayers. Believing isn’t required.”
I have more information on upcoming appearances here.
(Need to work on an RSS feed link, for the one or two of you out there who might care.)
What is the sound of charcoal dropping into stockings?
Questions of credibility and reputation are surfacing… but not the ones TruthOut would like to hear. (“… there was no land war in Asia they could start?” Bwahahahahah… Go read the rest.) I cannot find it in my heart to grieve for them.
I do confess to curiousity. I want to know what excuse they’re going to come up with. What with “Fake but accurate” being already taken …
“… to get an education.”
The true reason is better.
In fact, it’s… well, breathtaking:
… Education is the light, the shining thing that assigns meanings. If you have it, all the restthe core skills and the lingua franca and the basic materials, all those shadows on the wallsuddenly becomes obvious. That is why so many happy alumni who found the spark of education mistake in retrospect the exercises for the reality. Once the spark is found it makes the pathway to it seem unproblematic, self-evident. For education is an invisible creativity that radiates from within. It is not something you have. It is something you are.
To invoke a meme: Go read the whole address.
A tip of the mortarboard to Pejman Yousefzasdeh, who can justly claim something of that shining light.
Rural Norway, thank G_d.
Consider:
… I cannot imagine that we have had such a powerful meteorite impact in Norway in modern times. If the meteorite was as large as it seems to have been, we can compare it to the Hiroshima bomb. Of course the meteorite is not radioactive, but in explosive force we may be able to compare it to the (atomic) bomb,” Red degaard said.
Not a bad argument for increasing resources allocated to the Spaceguard project. We aren’t in the throes of the Cold War, where a faux nuclear strike could have triggered the direst of circumstances… but had this meteor stuck, oh, Mecca? With a coincidental trajectory which came over Israel?
I leave the subsequent reactions of panicked governments as an exercise for the reader.
(I say nothing of extremists. Unfortunately, all the impartial scientific evidence in the world wouldn’t keep them from reacting hysterically, or in a callous attempt to propagandize.)
But the rest of us, in humane civilization? We could make good use of advance warning. Diversion of smaller bodies is only possible if we know they’re coming. Likewise for evacuation in the case of larger bodies… and avoidance of strategic spasm responses in the case of horrific coincidences.
Joe Gandelman thinks James Webb stooped to anti-Semitism.
I think… maybe.
But I found the link in question… which Mr. Gandleman, inexplicably, didn’t do before posting the article. (He posted classical anti-Semitic illustrations instead… which might have been valid for comparisons, but not without the original image.)
Don’t take anyone’s word for the content of the flyer. Go look for yourself, form your own opinions, and comment as you desire.
(And thanks to Holly in Cincinnati, who updated Mr Gandleman’s post. Although it would have been nice to give me credit, or link to me but… well, there you are. I guess “a reader” is easier to spell than “Ernoehazy”.)
Another example of De Doc’s 48 hour rule?
(Yes, I know. I didn’t invent it. It’s a meme arising from the second Gulf War, and the blog coverage of that war. But so many bloggers ignore the rule now, in haste to “break the story”. I am willing to reclaim the meme, as one picks up a pearl abandoned on the road…)
Note to Mr. Gandleman: Trackbacks to this post, in acknowledgment, would be… polite.
Note to Dean, who at least acknowledged me by name… now I’ve supplied you something to link to my name. (And congratulations for spelling it correctly!)
If anyone is interested in why, as an amateur student of graphics and propaganda, I am tentatively willing to support the accusation of playing the anti-Semitism card, I’m willing to discuss the matter in comments.
Politely.
There’s so much more to Florida than the empire of the Mouse.
Clyde Butcher has spent over 35 years patiently photographing the wetlands and wildlands of Florida. You will have just missed a fine display of his art in Disney’s EPCOT; it closes tomorrow. But not to lament; there’s a small sample of his work here, e-postcards here, exhibits ongoing…
Butcher modestly characterizes himself as a “black and white landscape photographer”. Others have called him the “Ansel Adams of Florida”; a comparison which does both artists honor.
Take a little time. Look at Butcher’s works.
Refresh your heart.
Wretchard… what a gloriously mismonickered fellow… gives us the transcript of UN Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown’s recent insults… ummm, remarks.
The transcript is instructive.
Brown is at least capable of understanding that the UN is not well loved by large sections of the American electorate. He seems to think that this a mere matter of perception, fueled by the excesses of a few radio hosts.
Speaking of perceptions, here’s one of Mr. Brown’s:
“…Today, we are coming to the end of the ten-year term of arguably the UNs best-ever Secretary-General, Kofi Annan.”
The mind… reels.
Others have a clearer picture:
It may be true that FOX and Rush Limbaugh have alerted the American people to (the UN’s) problems, but let’s get serious: Neither FOX nor Rush Limbaugh made these things up.
Wretchard’s … well, translations of diplo-speak… also have a refreshing clarity.
Go have a look, and a chuckle, at the oh-so-righteous Deputy Sycophant Secretary General’s expense.
I am not, by inclination, superstitious.
But if the old saw is true… and what a good day for it to be true…
Who’d join Al Zarqawi and Rahman in the “30″ file?
I haven’t seen a pithier, saner commentary on the Haditha scandal yet.
And make no mistake, something about Haditha will turn out to be scandalous. War crimes or media ghoulishness?
No rush to judgment here. “Who knows”, indeed?
Been There.
So, if you have a moment? Spare David a good thought, well wishes, and your prayers…
I’d take it as a kindness done me.
Thanks.
For quite some time, rumours have been making the rounds about Hi-Point Firearms’ plans to release their fine little carbine in 45 ACP. In February, Hi-Point announced that they’d be bringing out the 45 carbine sometime in the spring.
Make that late summer, maybe fall, now.
I just got off the phone with the customer service desk at Hi-Point. Apparently, they cannot keep up with demand for their carbines in 9mm and 40 caliber. Since the factory which is designated to make the 45 caliber carbine is still cranking out the other carbines, to fill backorders, guess what got moved to the back burner?
Sigh.
Official word now is maybe late August.
The only good news, for people who want a decent quality carbine in 45 ACP, is that they apparently get a couple of hundred phone calls a week asking about the 45 carbine. That should keep the firm interested. The dies are apparently built, the production line can be readily turned on; they just need some breathing room in their backlog of orders.
I like my Hi-Point in 9mm. I expect to relish my Hi-Point in 45. They’re inexpensive, and they’re homely. But inexpensive doesn’t equal cheap; the Hi-Point carbines are reliable, rugged, and… well, OK, homely.
Two out of three ain’t bad. And who knows? Maybe ATI will make one of these for the 45 carbine as well.
Funniest riff on this silly day I’ve read yet.
And yes, I wish I had been the one to make that up.
For all manner of reasons, many people did not have the opportunity to grow up in a sane gun users’ culture. Such unlucky folks often become interested, over time, in the responsible exercise of their Second Amendment rights… but don’t know where to turn for basic information.
The current cultural meme that equates lack of information with culpable ignorance, weakness, and ineptitude doesn’t help these folks go to good gun stores and ask questions, or take NRA-sponsored firearm classes, or seek out help from shooters’ clubs at local gun ranges.
I am delighted to say that the Institute’s blogroll contains one of the best resources out there for folks who want to start learning about firearms and their responsible use. Kim duToit, over at The Other Side, has two sections which are invaluable: the Gratuitous Gun Pics, which contain lots of useful information on the manifold guns featured over the years, and the Anonymous Gun Questions page, where people can ask pretty much anything they want about guns and gun ownership.
If you can’t get good answers from Kim, you’re probably not asking beginners’ questions, but posing the kind of arcane questions that “gun nuts” can debate endlessly…
I cannot recommend these resources strongly enough.
which is what I predict today shall turn out to be, fevered imaginings from the DaVinci-Illuminati-SecretMasters-Rosicrucian-BohemianClub types notwithstanding.
I had occasion recently to reassure some of my colleagues at work. They had received a particularly nasty bit of email, purporting to detail an awful fate which had befallen someone because of… well, suffice it to say it was crock, reinforced by someone with too much time on their hands, access to Photoshop, and a low opinion of women. (You’d have to think ill of women to want to set out to photoshop something as ugly as the “true picture” attached to this email.)
I had spent several minutes pointing out the things which the photoshop “artist” had gotten wrong… but some of my co-workers were still unsure that this was a cruel hoax. To buttress my argument, I went to that most helpful of sites, the Urban Legends Reference Pages of Snopes.com. Another minute or so of reading, and everyone finally relaxed. (I suspect a few people had words with the friends who’d forwarded the wretched email… I confess those discussions are not “near my conscience”.)
Rumor spreads quickly, aided by all our old character flaws, abetted by malice and easy photo manipulation. Improved means to worsened ends, indeed… In such circumstances, sites like Snopes.com are an invaluable tool to easing minds and stopping the spread of ugly email lies.
I probably end up using this site at least once a month. If you’re a Netizen, odds are you need this in your “favorites” file.
from the admirable William Morris:
Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.
I have loved that statement for the longest time.
So, I am adding two categories tonight: “Known To Be Useful” and “Believed To Be Beautiful”, to remind me to share such things with you from time to time.
One could do a lot worse than taking Morris’ counsel to heart.
The Institute mourns the passing of one of the finest artists you’ve all seen… but probably didn’t know.
Readers need look no further than to the artwork above to see an example of Toth’s distinctive style. Enjoy the original Jonny Quest? Did you thrill, as a child, to Space Ghost? Those were Toth’s best known work, perhaps. But his influence on comics and graphic novels reached far beyond 1960s television.
If you don’t know of him, read more here, by all means.
Rest well, Mr. Toth. You will be missed.
Tip of the clipboard goes to Roger.
This is not my holiday.
For I am here
with family, among friends
working
laughing
pondering
playing
thinking
safe
free
Here.
This is not my day.
It is yours… and yours… and yours
You, who drank of the cup that passed me by
You, who made the final sacrifice
You, who fell in our defense
My shipmates
My brothers,
my sisters in arms
in Arlington
in Honolulu
in the Meuse-Argonne
in Lorraine
in the uttermost deeps
There.
This is your day.
I promise…
I shall not forget.
Thesis:
When a Republic so conducts its election of representatives that it produces
that Republic is in dire peril.
At what point then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer that if it ever reach us, it must spring from amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we ourselves must be the authors and finishers.
We can do better than we have done.
We must do better than we have done.
if it weren’t too close to the truth.
What happens after the Singularity?
There’s at least one group of hard science fiction fans who are imagining an answer. Not the answer, of course; by it’s very nature, Singularities are points in history when change is so thorough that people literally cannot imagine what comes next.
And yes, I wrote “singularities” in the plural. The artists, authors, and nanogearheads of the Orion’s Arm Worldbuilding Project have been slowly, cheerfully working on a future history, told from the viewpoint of the myriad races of posthuman creatures (and the “baseline” humans who still thrive in uncounted habitats) living around the year 10,000 AT (After Tranquility).
Ten thousand years is a long time, even to us. If the “best and the brightest” of your civilization are a bewildering variety of augmented intelligences (both AI and posthuman), ten thousand years provides much more subjective time to think, research, understand. Consider Sir Isaac Newton’s famed statement, that “If I have seen further [than certain other men] it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants”.
Now think of giants, standing on the shoulders of other giants, standing in turn on other giants — how far might THEY see?
The Orion’s Arm website is the center point for all the fun., From there, you can sign up for the OA mailing list; you can read the Encyclopedia Galactica;you can read all manner of essays exploring the shared universe that is Orion’s Arm…
and you may find a link to a new e-zine, designed to offer a place for fiction set in the OA universe. Voices: Future Tense now has its first issue online. Modesty forbids me to say overmuch of the editor, or the site designer.
Ahem.
I hope you enjoy Orion’s Arm, and my own small contribution to the project.
Al, over at Cold Fury, has been one of the most outspoken free-wing critics of the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress. I find it gratifying that he’s working on a much better answer than “sit out ‘06 to punish the Republicans” — a stance I find unnerving, considering the likely beneficiaries.
If you don’t like the use of the ACU’s scores, perhaps these folks might be convinced to provide an alternative. Oh, wait… they already do.
Al, perhaps a double-entry spreadsheet, with both ACU and RLC scores? I’ll bet that the folks in Congress who deserve the Cromwell invitation fall on the wrong side of the “Mendoza line” no matter which of the two scores one uses…
As harsh as the punditry has been in some quarters, of late, it’s important to remember it’s not all strife and impending doom.
Courtesy of Leo Robin and Harold Arlen, here’s one of the nicest reminders I know…
It’s the wonder of the world, It’s a rocket to the moon
It gets you high, it gets you low, but once you get that glow…Here’s to my best romance, Here’s to my worst romance
Here’s to my first romance – ages ago
Here’s to the boys I’ve kissed, and to complete the list
Here’s to the boys who said “No!”Love, love, hooray for love
Who was ever too blase for love
Make this the night for love
If we have to fight, let’s fight for loveSome sigh and cry for love
Ah, but in Pa-ree they die for love
Some waste away for love
Just the same – hooray for love!It’s the rocket to the moon, with a touch of “Clare de Lune”
It gets you high, it gets you low, but once you get that glow…Some trust to fate for love,
Others have to take off weight for love
Some go berzerk for love
Loafers even go to work for loveSad songs are sobbed for love
People have their noses bobbed for love
Some say we pay for love
Just the same – hooray for love!
… whether you fancy the Ella Fitzgerald version or the Rosemary Clooney, do yourself a favor. Go put it on, and listen to it, and
well…
say “hooray”, too.
To frustrated conservatives, Libertarians, liberty people…
About 2006:
… Nor am I opposed to ‘turning the rascals out’ — it’s usually the soundest rule of politics. But it’s well to take a look at what new rascals you are going to get before you jump at any chance to turn your present rascals out.
Sage advice from a fellow polymath, as reported by another pretty sharp fellow.
This is too funny not to share.
One of my friends, from a recent IM conversation:
your mind is filled with an incredible assortment of stuff —
little pieces here and there that continually pop up–
whether you choose it or not.
Proving that the “strangely” in my blogtitle applies, whether I’ve been silent or not of late.
Or, perhaps, anxious?
If so, read Kim, and then Chris. Neither are exactly what you’d call Bushite worshippers; both of them know the technology involved, as professionals; and between them, they provide by far the most lucid and thorough discussion of what the NSA is actually doing that I have seen.
(As opposed to the panic mongering which was prevalent immediately after the legacy media put the leaks out there… hmmm. Another triumph for the 48 Hour Rule?)
UPDATE: Preliminary indications suggest the electorate isn’t ready to be panicked.
UPDATE: The Spectator archived this article; the link above should now work.
You all know the old saw about not grocery shopping when you’re hungry?
Turns out it works that way for bookstores, too, when you just have to read something.
Heh.
It could happen.
Peter Diamandes has big dreams. He shared an incredible one a few days ago, at the ISDC.
Ulysses would grok my delight at this:
… my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
This would, after all, be a one-way trip. The road to the frontier often is.
Syrtis Major or bust?
A perfect article for those “white nights” — real scientific mysteries. If you relish the occasional frisson… or are looking to feed that sense of wonder… well, here you are! Enjoy.
Heh. Vanity, thy name is Doc…
All kidding aside, I’ve had great fun meeting some of my blogfellows… and can’t wait to meet others. If any of you feel the same way, please check in every so often here for updates.
Note to my Floridian readers: the Move Over law’s waiting period is now finished.
If you don’t know what that means, read on… and next time you see emergency vehicles on the road, give the police and EMS some room, m’kay?
It’s not just the law; it’s a good idea.
… isn’t, exactly.
No, I mean this. Bear with me a moment.
It’s not that the people of the United States don’t welcome immigrants. As the son of a Hungarian refugee, I am utterly certain of that.
We The People welcome folks who want to come here, share in our fortune, help make us a better people, who want to join us.
BUT.
We object to freeloaders. We have no use for the ungrateful. Come to our home, spend our taxes, bankrupt our emergency services and our social safety net… and you treat us thus?
We don’t have an immigrant problem. We have an ungrateful visitor problem; we have an uninvited guest problem.
Looking at it from that perspective, I offer a couple of notions:
1. It’s time to close the door. Bring US armed forces home from Europe. They aren’t appreciated there much (a recurring theme; but another time for that); we have a mission for them here. Close the borders, with combinations of physical barriers, electronic sensors, and/or patrol drones, as appropriate to the terrain. Back those barriers with airmobile rapid reaction forces, drawn from the troops we brought home. Detain and return immediately. You want to be in the US? Fine. As invited guests; not just as you please.
We can do this. We have the resources. (Oh, and 1.a… whilst we’re redeploying our troops, stop playing cozy with elements of the Mexican government who’re trying to send us more uninvited guests?)
2. It’s time to pay the bills. Illegal immigrants are useful to employers who desire a cheap source of labor. But … TANSTAAFL, always and forever. Illegal guests don’t pay any income taxes. They do use emergency services; but they don’t often pay their bills, and being undocumented, they can’t easily be found. They do use social services, aided and abetted by laxity on our parts… which they don’t pay for.
I would personally be delighted to see the United States move to the Fair Tax system. The relative financial health of Texan and Californian health and social service systems shows why. I acknowledge, though, that this is a big step, and many want persuading of the merits of the Fair Tax approach.
Here’s an interim proposal: Let’s tax remittances. In 2003 alone, the United States Agency for International Development figures Mexico received $13 billion in remittances. To quote the late Senator Dirksen, “that’s real money”. So… a forty percent tax on all Mexican remittances, levied on the wire agencies and banks. That would drive the price of labor up, as the workers would need more money to offset the pass-through charges the banks and the wire services would levy. The revenues should go to assistance grants, for states awash in red ink due to the extra strain illegal guests have placed on their services; the farms and labor camps and contractors would have to pony up. Pressure where pressure is due.
Government doesn’t always enforce laws well, but they’re hell on wheels when it comes to collecting taxes. Let’s not argue about “draconian enforcement” by ICE. Squeeze the people who pay the illegals.
3. It’s time for unwanted guests to be given a choice. We’ve been lax, these past years. We’ve made it easy for ungrateful guests to freeload on us. We’ve allowed illegals to assume that there’s going to be an ever-increasing flow of benefits and privileges from our hands.
Enough. It’s time to change things, and make it clear that we welcome honest immigrants. We welcome guests. But it’s our home, run by our rules.
Let’s start with English … which needs to become the sole language of government. No foreign language ballots; no foreign language governmental services, except for translators and public defenders for criminal cases. Voting is for citizens, who should know our language. Guests can be accomodated in matters of commerce. Trespassers need no longer be given the impression that either the federal or the governments are there to serve the needs of the trespasser. As striking as the jest is, we are not FreeLunchistan.
It’s time that became clear.
you might ask Roger.
Heh.
Air-filled…
Absurd (or was that Apocryphal)…
Anime tropes…
Anti-Apophylyptic… (ask Amon!)
Amazing dreams…
Delighted.
OK, so that isn’t an “A” word. But it describes how I feel about this feature’s return.
There seems to be no end to the stampede of the intellectual lemmings.
Was this meshuggeneh putz in the same room as Cardinal Arinze when someone released the IQ-killing virus?
… I propose the creation of an International Religious Court, composed of Christian, Muslim and Jewish clergymen with one clergyman representing each of the three religions. Anyone feeling that his or her religion was insulted could appeal to the International Religious Court for a ruling on the matter, and the court would then determine whether a penalty should be invoked. It would be the responsibility of the government on whose territory the action took place to impose the penalty.
Come to think of it, was the editor of the Jewish Times in the same room?
What… were they thinking?
I note that Dr. Freedman is willing to cheerfully ignore the feelings of Hindus, Buddhists, Shinto folk, not to mention all manner of other beliefs and creeds. If you aren’t Christian, Jew, or Muslim, you have no representation in his little theocratic fantasy.
You’d think that a Jewish intellectual would understand the dangers inherent in letting some religious groups have power, and not others; those groups stripped of power … don’t prosper.
And if you can cut others out of the power structure, what’s to keep your faith from being booted out of power when the rest of the troika decides you’re next?
I suppose it’s futile to appeal to reason, though. After all, the author of this modest proposal has such little faith in his faith, that he can’t repose in his own serenity, nor “argue as a philosopher” for the truth of his beliefs.
He’d rather use governmental force to compel others to bend the neck to his belief.
To borrow a phrase, Dr. Freedman…
Never Again.
Thanks, Charles, for the pointer… I think.
This… mook… was apparently considered papabile.
More evidence that the Holy Spirit does, indeed, watch out for the Church…
God gave us free will, free minds, free hearts. Might be nice if Cardinal Arinze went back and swotted up on his Aquinas. Or renewed his acquaintance with the Gospels, for that matter. Jesus was content, even on the Cross, to pray for his enemies — who were doing a sight more than telling lies about him, at that point — rather than summon the angelic hosts to destroy all who had crucified him.
GAHHHH.
Old, old Naval joke:
NAVY: Never Again Volunteer Yourself.
Well… almost never.
As a veteran, I have little patience with the “chickenhawk” meme. But why expend angst on those who insist on this particular type of Bulverism? Better to laugh, by far — and if I laugh a little at myself as well, so much the better. It’s healthier so; “Satan fell by force of gravity”.
Tip of the Institute clipboard to Teresa for this opportunity to have a little fun, whilst making a point.
Gah.
The Spamcop service is apparently again blacklisting all email coming from a mac.com domain.
If you use Spamcop, and you haven’t heard from me in a spell… ask Spamcop why.
I am not yet at the point of asking people to reconsider their Spamcop memberships… but I am getting there.
Mike, The Professor, and Stephen Green have all noted an odd post over at The Drudge Report:
A book hyped by major media as documenting a progressive revolution of “blogs” and political power, DAILY KOS ‘CRASHING THE GATE,’ has sold only 3,630 copies since its release last month, according to NIELSEN’s BOOKSCAN.
[NIELSEN claims only 2,062 copies of DAILY KOS have been purchased at the retail level; the rest coming through 'discount' outlets. The NIELSEN figures do include online sales from AMAZON.COM, and others.]
Meanwhile, the just released radio Winter Book [Jan-Mar 2006] from ARBITRON shows AIR AMERICA in New York City losing more than a third of its audience — in the past year!
Among all listeners 12+, it was a race to the bottom for AIR AMERICA and WLIB as mid-days went from a 1.6 share during winter 2005 to a 1.0 share winter 2006.
All efforts to the contrary, there’s little Air America can do to spin those numbers.
However, there’s controversy about just how bad sales really are for Crashing The Gate. From The Daily Kos, claims that the book is doing very well:
The book has been out three weeks. It has sold 5,100 copies of the special edition and 3,630 according to Drudge (if he can be trusted) in a sampling of the big box bookstores.
Thats 8,730 right there. Now throw in the indy bookstores (weve probably sold close to 1,000 just in the book signing events Ive attended), and were getting close to 10,000.Then theres the online retailers. Currently, CTG is ranked #25 on Amazon.com, and is ranked #5 in the politics category. Through the links at the top of the this page alone Ive sold 700 copies of CTG.
So to recap top ranking on Amazon, over 10,000 copies sold in three weeks the book has been out. Distributors have ordered 50,000 copies of the book, which has gone through three printings already (our small publisher cant afford to do large first printings). And were just halfway through our book tour.
And this is somehow supposed to be a failure?
The comments at Vodkapundit are interesting, with different folks getting multiple different ratings from Amazon for Kos’ book. (As I write, Amazon shows the book at number 15 in the nonfiction books category.)
What are we to make of all this?
Let’s start with a little bit of folk wisdom: You can’t compare apples and oranges.
Many of the measurements being tossed around in the discussion aren’t likely to correlate at all. The most obvious example comes when we compare the Bookscan figures to the Amazon rating. Nielsen asserts that Bookscan is “a continuous retail sales monitoring service“, but nothing available at the site allows us to look at how often results are compiled and reported. (I can’t even find a link to the report Drudge cites at the Bookscan site — is that information for subscribers only?) Amazon.com, by contrast, notes that ratings are recompiled hourly, and speak only to the online sales — I have yet to find any link at Amazon that allows me to actually see how many books are being sold.
There’s no comparing those metrics.
The Kos article also plays a little fast and loose with rhetoric. “… Three printings already”?
So what? I don’t care if a book is in it’s tenth printing, if each run is only three hundred copies. That comment, at best, presumes ignorance on the part of the reader about how the publishing industry.
However, the article does give us figures which begin to actually be helpful: “… Distributors have ordered 50,000 copies of the book”. So, perhaps ten thousand books sold so far in three plus weeks, and the expectation of another fifty thousand that might sell at retail so far. Remember that ordered books may not become sold books; some of those will inevitably be remaindered to the dollar stores.
How does the number of ordered, printed copies of Crashing the Gate compare to The Professor’s numbers? Or to Neal Boortz’s figures for The Fair Tax… both editions?
That would be a fruitful comparison… Time to start digging.
Is there any chance of convincing Judge Smith to move to the US? I’d love to see him on the Supreme Court.
How utterly delightful…
Tip o’ the clipboard to Patterico — and if any Institute fellows are cryptographers, please drop by and help him out with his project.
Update One: Don’t let him down.
I know that Majel Roddenberry is deeply concerned with her husband’s legacy.
Venomous Kate pointed out, in this comment, that the director for the new Star Trek movie is only one degree of separation from Tom Cruise. And Tom Cruise, apparently, really likes Mr. Abrams.
If it weren’t for Alias and Lost, that would worry me.
Can you say Battlefield Earth? I knew you could. (If you’re a science fiction trufan, you might not have wanted to, but you could.)
Maybe these folks ought to be worried. I’d hate to see Psychlos at Starfleet Headquarters, even in cameos…
For some things, at any rate, it probably is too early.
Mweh.
If professors of history can be so smug, so cavalier as to try and pass judgment on a presidency without even waiting for the incumbent’s term to complete … violating, thereby, a basic historians’ tenet that no good historical judgment can take place while the events are ongoing…
then it’s not the least bit early to be reminded of the most heinous attack on American citizens since Pearl Harbor.
Professor Wilentz seems willing to gloss over; to minimize; to cavil; to ignore basic tenets of his profession; to forget.
But there can be no forgetting. Americans have died, in Iraq and Afghanistan; in New York and Washington DC and Pennsylvania.
There can be no forgetting.
It is not too early.
I humbly note the following…
>From: baronaoc {at} aol(.)com
>Sent: Apr 20, 2006 7:34 PM
>To: western-arts {at} yahoogroups(.)com
>Subject: [western-arts] Class Info for 2006 Scholar’s Weekend at Gallowglass Academy
>
>I am pleased to let anyone who is interested in Historic European
>Martial Arts know that the class list for the 2006 Scholar’s Weekend at
>Gallowglass Academy (outside Rockford, IL) on June 10 – 11 is now
>confirmed. …
>
> –snip–
>
>Don’t forget our other upcoming classes including Cinquedea with Scott
>Wilson from Darkwood Armory on July 1-2 and German Medieval Martial
>Arts with Dr. William Ernoehazy on October 28 – 29. (emphasis added — ed.)
>
> See www.GallowglassAcademy.org for details on any of these classes.
Interested parties should feel free to contact Mr. Reed, of the Gallowglass Academy, and let him know of their interest. The more people sign up early, the sooner the class will be viable — Mr. Reed’s school has to make sure they have enough interet to afford bringing guest teachers out. Not unlike universities, which have to make sure enough students register for course to “make” the course.
Perhaps I’ll see some of you in October?
Bwahahahahhhhhhh.
If you wish to contact me by email, and you are using the SpamCop service, you might wish to whitelist me first. Apparently SpamCop has blacklisted the mac.com domain — presumably because a spambot infected a system which sent email off via mac.com, and some of them got caught in Spam.Cop traps.
No hard feelings; I am all about spam suppression. But if I try to respond to SpamCop users right now, my emails will bounce like so much rubber.
Thus, my heads-up to you all…
Between link-surfing and newsfeeds, I’ve come across some fascinating stuff today… all the more so because of the connections between them.
I’m not James Burke, but I’ll have a go at this, for the sheer fun of making the connections.
The folks at Creating Passionate Users provided the first “trigger” this morning… which is nothing if not appropriate for a group blog about metacognition. Kathy Sierra writes about a blogger’s decision to moderate his comments, with an eye towards avoiding overly negative people. Seems pollyannish, perhaps… except there’s sound neuroscientific arguments in favor of doing just that. Sierra notes recent research on mirror neurons (which appear to play key roles in empathy and learning-by-visualization), emotional contagion, and the effects of the fight/flight/fear reaction on the brain. Her conclusion: Human see, human do. Spend too much time around the habitually angry, and you will start being habitually angry, as your brain’s hardwired learning system draws you into mirroring behaviors… and your ability to think sanely will inevitably suffer, given the neuroendocrine effects of sustained anger. (So will your stomach and heart; but I digress.)
Next? Cory Doctorow, over at Boing Boing, asks “What Would Heinlein Do”? The Tensor begs to differ, and makes a well-argued case, based on a commendable familiarity with Heinlein’s letters and notes.
I enjoyed the Tensor’s take so much that I decided to surf some of his other posts… which led me to this post on Heinlein’s “Gulf”, the short story prequel (of sorts) to Friday. That led me here, to an article on Dr. Renshaw, his theories, and the controversies surrounding their applicability.
Hmmm, tachistoscopes… which led me in turn to think of Blink, an intersting book that was recommended me during a chat at Jacksonville University. The author, Malcolm Gladwell, has been interested for some time in the “snap judgment” phenomenon — the ability some people have to make accurate decisions about complex situations within moments of becoming aware of them. In this book, he’s written about varied case studies of successful snap judgments, and suggests that it might be possible to improve that ability with deliberate practice.
Practicing diligently to be able to recognize the right thing, and then to do the right thing, right away. You can see where that might catch the eye of a martial artist, and an emergency physician.
But behold; we’ve come back round to fear, anger, and their effects on thinking and judgment. Not only can we minimize those effects by avoiding the “contact buzz” from chronically angry people; we can minimize their effects in high-stress situations by practicing the art of rapid assessment and decision. Preserving sanity in the midst of chaos and the urge to panic, lash out, rage and rave… It isn’t just a nice platitude, a futile moral precept. It’s a skill which can be practiced, based on sound neuroscience.
I love those moments when things come together, just so.
and we aren’t either; we’re out, celebrating the empty tomb, and the Good News that flows from that most mysterious of days.
A blessed Easter to you all!
(And thanks to Perry for the link to Adriana’s lovely description of Easter Vigil. May it return to you a hundred fold, Perry.)
If you like Eternity Road… not the fine weblog, mind you, but the novel…
you’ll want to come out to Jacksonville University next Tuesday:
—–Original Message—–
From: ju-talk-owner {at} mail.ju(.)edu [mailto:%6A%75%2D%74%61%6C%6B%2D%6F%77%6E%65%72%40%6D%61%69%6C%2E%6A%75%2E%65%64%75]On Behalf Of Lee Cobb
Sent: Monday, April 10, 2006 10:54 AM
To: ju-talk {at} ju(.)edu; students {at} ju(.)edu
Subject: [JU Talk] Science Fiction Writer Jack McDevitt to Visit the Bookstore April 18Noted science fiction writer Jack McDevitt will be visiting the Jacksonville University Bookstore April 18 from 2:30pm – 4:00pm for a meet-and-greet.
Mr. McDevitt published his first novel, The Hercules Text, in 1986 to immediate success, earning a first polace nod in a Locus Magazine Poll and a Phillip K. Dick Award nomination.
Since then, Mr. McDevitt has accumulated a score of nominations – 11 Nebulas and 6 Hugos – for his body of work. Earlier this year he was nominated for his novel Polaris. The award winner will be announced on May 6.
The bookstore has stocked multiple copies of Mr. McDevitt’s books. Please don’t miss this opportunity to meet a popular science fiction writer who is very active in his field.
Thank you,
The Bookstore Staff
I note further that, according to my impeccable sources, Mr. McDevitt will be reading at JU’s annual literary fest, Off The Shelf — 11 am to noon, last I heard.
Who knows? Gentle Readers and Institute members might well see me there…
Those of you who’ve left comments might have wondered why they weren’t showing up.
So did I.
Ahem…
The problem appears to have been the version of Spam Karma 2 I’ve been using to filter comment spam. It appears to be a well known problem, fortunately.
(For all values of “fortunately” where “fortunately” = “helpful comments from other users of Wordpress”.)
I’ve now upgraded to the latest version of SK2, and comment counts appear to be updating properly. (Comment spam is dying in droves, which is All Good.)
We’ll find out soon enough, I should think.
From Bill Gawne: a pointer to this nifty event…
If you have to ask which Yuri, or why this tickles me… you must be new around here.
Houston too far away for you? No worries…
There’s something doing on every continent.
Happy Yuri’s Day, all!
I… want:
The price is a leetle bit dear, alas… pity I don’t have a LOT of Paypal-enabled groupies.
Heh.
If adventure has a tailor… he’s making me a jacket like that for those travelin’ days.
I wish.
Unfortunately, I suspect Mike’s right. We will see goalposts move; we will see little or nothing of this in the Old Media; we will see every manner of effort to cobble up misleading headlines, which misrepresent the very stories found under them.
They strain at gnats; they swallow camels.
What can be done in the face of such a heap of distortions and outright lies?
What we’re doing now, you and I. We can get the facts; and we can get the facts out.
Don’t despair; DISCUSS.
are too bizarre not to be true.
I suspect Dick would appreciate the surreal nature of the whole affair.
Me? Makes my head spin… as it were.
Tip of the clipboard to Fred Kiesche. Now, to find some aspirin…
… choose any two?
Why choose, when you can have it all?
quote of the day
from Slashdot:It’s a tragedy, because assuming for the sake of argument that there is a God, then they’re [Fundamentalists] missing some of his best tricks.
Evolution is a brilliant hack – a system that you can set up and just let run, and all the work is done for you. It must give God some of the same kind of kick we hackers get when we replace a thousand lines of brutal code with a single concise iterative function… And as for nucleosynthesis, the means by which the heavy elements that constitute much of the Earth were made, if God came up with that then he has a sense of style that I really like. Seeding the universe with metals from supernovae – amazing.
I cannot help but note that the hackers’ analogy suggests a lovely connection between free will, quantum mechanics, evolution … Color me delighted.
I regret that Drew didn’t give us the hyperlink to the Slashdot author, that they might have proper praise for this. But this was too good not to share with you, Gentle Readers…
In which I contribute to discussions over at Dr. Pournelle’s “day book”.
More about this in a bit.
… for the current Democratic political campaign:
“The Democratic Party.Facing Security Challenges…
One Police Officer At A Time.”
If the US Attorney fails to file charges, can we cite McKinney’s example when we ignore TSA lines?
Just askin’.
Apple Launches Software To Run Windows XP…
on the new Intel-chipped Macs.
All you need is a Windows XP installation disc.
Very, very interesting. Not the least of the reasons being that it provides Apple with some protection against the actions of software fanatics who’ve been working on loading XP onto Intel Macs.
“Hey; we’re providing a way to boot legally, and requiring people to buy their WP discs. Not OUR fault if hackers and crackers are doing illegal things; they could be doing it all legally.”
Of course, people who dual-boot will get a chance to compare OS X to Windows… and wonder why Vista keeps receding into the distance.
Heh.
Separated at birth?
This piece of awful news could almost be a publicity stunt on behalf of V for Vendetta… or a viral marketing campaign for a movie version of That Hideous Strength.
Don’t I wish.
Rue, Britannia. Rue the day.
As a alumni, I am delighted. As an emergency physician… those 90 miles delight me nearly as much.
*grin*
The SEC may not be so delighted. This is a fairly young team… and having learned how to get there once, they might just head there again.
And again.
Heaven knows Florida football teams have had that knack, from time to time…
But that’s tomorrow. Tonight… Congratulations, Gators!
Hold onto your hats, New York…
Get ready to roll, Connecticut…
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy is headed your way, and having just seen ‘em in Orlando, be warned. They’re SMOKIN’.
If you live in central Florida and weren’t there Saturday night, you missed out. The band was absolutely at the top of their form, tearing the lid off the joint with their selections. The crowd was packed, and I suspect many of the folks who came to dance couldn’t find room, which was the only bad thing about the show. On the other hand, so many of us were fans that Scotty was able to use the audience for lots of chorus, chant-response, and other singlaong stuff. Great fun if you know the songs… (GO, Daddy-O!)
If the boys are headed your way, do yourself a favor and go. You’ll thank me when you do.
Upgraded to WP 2.0.2…
Database backed up…
Basic Jakarta theme enabled…
So far, so good!
More updating and web-geekery to follow…
As I cast about for a new webhost, a few notes:
The permalink structure on the current server rack is khest, as Kahless would say. So are comments pages. As VenomPages is going permanently dark within a month, I will be concentrating on moving to a new server, with a clean install of WordPress, and go from there. I apologize for the inconveniences this causes.
Since comments are down, if there’s something I need to know, please email me: dedoc -at- mac(dot)com.
As I wrestle with this, I want to take a moment to acknowledge all of you who’ve read me over the years, sent me comments, linked to me, and generally made me welcome here in the ’sphere. Your continued interest and good wishes are what prompt me to take the effort to move my blog, rather than just throw my hands up and depart into the darkness.
Many, many thanks to you all.
Go on vacation and see what happens?
OI.
I’ve reset to a vanilla “default” for the moment, as all my themes got cooked off in the Great Rack debacle.
I’ve been very happy, over the years, with VenomPages. But all good things must come to an end, it seems.
I’m copying databases in background mode now; hopefully all is not lost. I’ll know soon enough.
I’m looking for a good host, and how. I’d have given thought to mu.nu, but I don’t think they support WordPress… and I love me my WordPress.
Suggestions?
I’m falling silent again, for a couple of days; I’ve gone on holiday.
Maybe THIS time I’ll have some pictures.
Probably not; but stranger things have happened.
See you all… certainly by Monday!
Flash Gordon, that is.
Makes me want to spend some time tinkering, in the Lab…
Tip of the clipboard to Roger.
Had I been asked in college to rate the various devices seen on Star Trek in terms of plausibility, I’d have put the tricorder right down there with the transporter.
May I always be so happy to be proven mistaken.
Heh.
No… HEE!
We call those studies liberal, then, which are worthy of a free [liber] man: they are those through which virtue and wisdom are either practiced or sought, and by which the body or mind is disposed towards all the best things.
The article notes that Vergerio’s dictum has come under all manner of post-modernist attack. If that isn’t a demonstration of the sterility… the moral and intellectual vapidity… of the po-mo crowd, then (to quote Spider Robinson) I am Marie of Roumania.
People who try to console themselves for a lack of wisdom by asserting there is no such thing.
Gah.
Gentle readers, there are better minds to spend one’s time with.
If you’ve been fortunate enough to have enjoyed a classical liberal arts education, you’re nodding. If you’ve not… treat yourself.
Tip o’ the fedora to the erudite Mr. Yousefzadeh.
Mweh.
The more I think about it, the more I like the notion of using “Strangely Silent” as a weblog title.
The conceit is certainly an apt one. Roger is not the only one to have noticed my family resemblance to the Addams… though no one else has commented on the similarities as amusingly.
When I’m not writing about the eclectic mix of Really Good Stuff that interests me, I am busy… really busy… and hence, silent.
In fact, I’m going to be really busy next week, doing one of those eccentric things. Again.
So, in honor of adventures, strange days, and intermittent silences… here’s the new edition of DeDoc.net. I’ll be tweaking it over the next few days, as a break between packing, ED work, and pipers. (It has been a fine excuse to learn more about PHP calls, as I’ve been adapting the Image Headlines plugin to the Jakarta 1.5 theme; already more esoteric fun, ook!)
Nobody knows yet, but lots of people are worrying.
Companies like Boeing are likely to work their contacts in the region, and try to patch things up. And former Bush administration economist and American Enterprise Institute Fellow Phillip Swagel says the Gulf states should send emissaries to meet with outspoken port deal opponents like New York Senators Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton and explain to them the economic power of the Gulf region.
Of course, what sounds good in theory…
… whether Schumer, Clinton and other politicians understand the economic consequences of their public statements, rather than the political benefits, is another matter.
A better question, perhaps, is whether the “loyal opposition” cares.
Interesting that evil crusader Bush seems to believe that we might have allies as well as enemies in Islam… while “enlightened progressives” are prefectly willing to play the xenophobia card.
“By their fruits shall you know them.”
They’re right, by the way. The DARPA video is… in more ways than one… a little bit creepy.
From the absolutely delightful site Technovelgy, which features news articles about science-fiction tropes which are on their way to becoming reality. “Where Science Meets Fiction”, in very truth.
So. Dubai Ports World has withdrawn, gracefully.
At least someone has been graceful in this whole debacle. The Administration botched the job of presenting the deal; many in the blogosphere panicked early on, which emboldened the nativists and the protectionists; and the “loyal opposition” lost no time in piling on, seeing another chance to score points.
Gah.
There is a potential bright note. If the Professor’s crystal ball is working, it will serve the usual suspects right.
Halliburton. Heh heh heh…
Be careful what you wish for.
UPDATE: Daffyd asks the next logical question: But what about China?
Be VERY careful what you wish for. I would not be terribly unhappy if Daffyd’s strategy was adopted; but lots of other people would.
I’ve been getting a LOT of these in my inbox lately:
Update Now
To:
Date: Thu Mar 09, 2006 02:53:07 PM EST
Subject: NotificationYou have added xxxxxxxx {at} xxxxx(.)xxx as a new email address for your PayPal account.
If you don’t agree with this email and if you need assistance with your account,
click here and process your login.Thank you for using PayPal!
The PayPal TeamPlease do not reply to this email. This mailbox is not monitored and you will not receive a response.
For assistance,log in to your PayPal account and click thec Help link located in the top right corner
of any PayPal page.PayPal Email ID PP007
Spurious as all get out, of course. What I find interesting, in a geekly sort of way, is that I’m seeing twenty or more of these a day, these last few days. They are identical in text; only the addresses change. Leads me to believe someone’s written a zombie program to automate linking to the trapped website.
“Zombie Paypal Phishing”. Heh heh heh. How often do you get to write that?
It’s expensive, it’s got boron in it, and it probably doesn’t work.
The Blackstar story has gotten a fair bit of attention in the last few days, some of it skeptical.
I still think there is something to this story; it has the same flavor of the rumours surrounding the Blackbird and the Stealth fighter… both of which turned out to be anything but vaporware. Even if it wasn’t a boron-fueled system.
In commenting on boron fuels, Jerry Pournelle offered an interesting observation:
We learned from NASP that you do not want to spend much time in hypersonic atmospheric flight. That is the problem with an air-breathing “mothership” approach, which at one time was seen as the best two stage to orbit system concept. It was used in an Arthur C. Clarke novel and in several of my early works, because it seems so logical: fly off a runway, get to as fast and as high as you can using air for oxidant, then launch the orbiter.
The problem is that to get to hypersonic speeds you have to fly at hypersonic speeds, and scooping in oxidants requires that the leading edges of the wings and the air scoops have to be made of Unobtanium. For the concept to work as originally conceived you need exotic fuels, and they are also a chimera.
This doesn’t mean you can’t use an airplane as a lower stage, but if you do, the goal is not to get speed, but altitude. Velocity can even be a negative factor since separation gets more complicated. Max Hunter convinced me that vertical takeoff and landing is better for SSTO ships, and you don’t want wings on them; but there is a respectable alternate opinion involving a mothership, high altitude separations, and such like.
One wonders about the flight profile of the Blackstar system. If it was conventionally fueled, able to reach LEO, but only with small payloads… well. That still suggests a couple of useful breakthroughs. Naysayers have suggested that the Spaceship One system wouldn’t be more than a tourists’ sideshow, because getting to orbit and returning is so much more difficult.
Maybe difficult… isn’t, quite.
May just be wishful thinking on my part. But…
I would love to know the truth behind the AWST story.
Now there’s a blog title to conjure with!
Curse You, Dean! Now you’ve got me thinking… *grins*
So does Neo.
Now, it’s been extremely busy at work, and it’s been hard to make time for blogging.
I would love my own TARDIS, or Gay Deceiver, in order to get more hours in a day… but 24, 7, 365 is what I get, just like everyone else.
Dean and Neo have given me a welcome reminder. I’ve already settled this in my own mind.
I will write about human medicine and biology because its fascinating. Ill write of ethics and history, philosophy and civics, all the cool things we knowor can try to knowabout how people interact with each other. Ill talk about swordsmanship, and space exploration. Ill write about all manner of books, and CDs, and movies. Ill write of mojitos, and whisky, and the tang of orange juice. Ill speak of science fiction, and mysteries, and high fantasy, and a dozen other genres because I think theyre COOL. They engage my attention, my mind, and my heart.
“… I write about what I want to write about…”
“… if interested, I write. If not, I don’t. It’s really quite simple.”
” …Really Cool Stuff…”.
It’s all of a piece.
I poli-blog, but I am not a politician.
I war-blog, but I am (happily!) retired from the service.
I geek-blog, but I’m not (just) a geek.
I blog when I can… but I can’t always blog.
I’m here for the love of it. Not because it’s a chore.
That feels…
GRAND.
Jerry Pournelle links to a breaking story in Aviation Week And Space Technology which I find fascinating:
For 16 years, Aviation Week & Space Technology has investigated myriad sightings of a two-stage-to-orbit system that could place a small military spaceplane in orbit. Considerable evidence supports the existence of such a highly classified system, and top Pentagon officials have hinted that it’s “out there,” but iron-clad confirmation that meets AW&ST standards has remained elusive. Now facing the possibility that this innovative “Blackstar” system may have been shelved, we elected to share what we’ve learned about it with our readers, rather than let an intriguing technological breakthrough vanish into “black world” history, known to only a few insiders. U.S. intelligence agencies may have quietly mothballed a highly classified two-stage-to-orbit spaceplane system designed in the 1980s for reconnaissance, satellite-insertion and, possibly, weapons delivery. It could be a victim of shrinking federal budgets strained by war costs, or it may not have met performance or operational goals.
The AWST article makes a compelling case for the existence of Blackstar. Not only do they report multiple sightings of a vehicle which might credibly have been the returning spaceplane, they note that several US policy decisions in the last twenty years make much better sense if the United States already possessed a rapidly launchable orbital spaceplane.
Why stop funding the SR-71?
Why abruptly drop the US Army’s anti-satellite missile program?
Why choose Lockheed’s VentureStar project for the X-33 program, which appeared to exist only on paper, over McDonnell-Douglas’ DC-X project, which was already flying test-of-concept prototypes?
Where did all the National AeroSpace Plane money go?
The discussion’s already starting over on Dr. Pournelle’s Chaos Manor Mail. If Blackstar… or “SR-3/XOV”… exists, why is it being mothballed?
Is it being mothballed?
UPDATE: This story could get some legs; James Oberg dropped The Professor a line… and he’s interested.
Representative David Sater…
About that House Concurrent Resolution you’re sponsoring in the Missouri Legislature?
You know, this one?
The resolution would recognize “a Christian god,” and it would not protect minority religions, but “protect the majority’s right to express their religious beliefs.
The resolution also recognizes that, “a greater power exists,” and only Christianity receives what the resolution calls, “justified recognition.”
Maybe you’d like to brush up a bit on civics.
The part on “no establishment of religion” should be of particular interest to you.
It certainly will be to the Supreme Court.
I meet new blogs all the time, through word of mouth and serendipity, and we have some nice moments together. But I don’t usually crave a second date. Life is too short.
Heh heh heh.
The Times Online has done it again.
Film star blondes such as Marilyn Monroe, Brigitte Bardot, Sharon Stone and Scarlett Johansson are held up as ideals of feminine allure. However, the future of the blonde is uncertain.
A study by the World Health Organisation found that natural blonds are likely to be extinct within 200 years because there are too few people carrying the blond gene. According to the WHO study, the last natural blond is likely to be born in Finland during 2202.
Tasty little newsblip, eh? Makes a nice windup for an article, gets the readers’ attention…
Pity that nowadays, the readers have search engines.
And Snopes.
Adding insult to injury, note that the Snopes entry dates back to 2002. (And cites Reuters. That’s got to hurt.)
One shouldn’t be too harsh on Dobson and Taher, I suppose. There’s been a rash of the dreaded rush-to-pontificate lately. No less a figure than William F. Buckley declared defeat in Iraq, awaiting the civil war… that didn’t erupt. Glenn Reynolds contracted a case of Dubai World Ports flu; although, to do him justice, he seems to have recovered more swiftly than Mr. Buckley did.
At least the commentariat seems to have done better on the ricin that wasn’t.
Still. If any group in the information ecosystem ought to be aware of the perils of rushing the story to get the juicy scoop, it ought to be the blogosphere. After all, the 48 hours meme comes from bloggers’ experiences, as we tried to make sense in realtime of the news from the second Gulf War.
Perhaps we could use a patron saint, out here in the infosphere.
If so, I nominate Ronald Reagan, on the strength of:
“Trust… but verify.”
48 hours, people. Take those 48 hours.
Or… if you’ve got your towel as well as your wits about you…
Don’t Panic.
All three people were celebrants of the imagination.
Knotts took us from Mayberry to the Pacific Theater, with gentle good humor. McGavin was a character actor of great scope, yet is most likely to be remembered for his lead role as Carl Kolchak, in The Night Stalker — and how better would the legacy media be served if they employed more Kolchaks? Octavia Butler was every bit the “giant of science fiction” she is lauded as; skilled in employing science fiction to speak to social concerns, she almost never “sold her verbiage for a pot of message”.
David Brin writes of a Commonwealth of Wonder. The banners and pennants of the Commonwealth are not dimmed, today; they remain bright, shining as the gifts given us by McGavin, Knotts, and Butler in their varied works.
The banners of the Commonwealth are not dimmed, today… but they hang at half-mast.
Tip of the clipboard to Mme. BetNoir, for her news of Ms. Butler.
Interested parties can look behind the scenes here. (There’s something reassuring about the fact that it took three dancers to do Gene Kelly justice in this tribute… and that Kelly’s widow was consulted.)
Somewhere, I suspect Gene Kelly is delighted. I know I am.
The remix was provided by the dance/electronica group Mint Royale; it can be found on iTunes, along with other tasty riffs.
Just sayin’, David J. Just sayin’.
(Tip of the clipboard to my son, who ran across this in one of his ‘Net forays; and to The Last Minute, for links cited above.)
… but a mistake.
The bombing of the Shiite mosque in Samarra has produced some harrowing moments in and around Baghdad. The wickedness of this act should not be minimized. Nor is the death toll from the initial spasm of violent protests to be ignored.
But it’s premature to write the script for Apocalypse: Iraq.
Dr. Pournelle — by no means a fervent fan of the current strategy in Iraq — posts this note from one of his many correspondents:
Like the old saying goes.the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated! The media has the whole thing blown out of proportion. Yes, there are certain parts of Baghdad that are bad, and the mosque going up in smoke was terrible; we are addressing those incidents. But hey the locals burn down parts of L.A. too, no civil war in southern cal yet! The Iraqi government is aggressively working the issue; with the CF taking a supporting role. The ISF are stepping up to the plate and it will get resolved. It will not be an overnight short term deal, but in due course everything will fall into place. So tell all your friends and the democrats too, that Im sorry but despite our wonderful liberal media; Rome is not burning.
(Pournelle’s opinion of the correspondent? “I have some experience with the reliability of the source, and more with the integrity: the respondent doesn’t make things up.”)
There’s other good news filtering in:
Most of our news reports on the bombed shrine and all the damage sustained physically and emotionally. The news further reports on sectarian attacks and demonstrations. While this is true and accurate what is not being reported is the calling for calm and cooperation by all Sunni & Shiite religious leaders (except the young Alsadar who remains a thorn). The demonstrations of national unity. The mullahs in Sunni & Shiite mosques calling for support for injured brothers and sisters, national calm. They do not report on the Shiites standing guard outside of Sunni mosques in the south. Etc…There are two sides to this incident. The side of revenge, anger and the much larger side of unity and support. This bombing in Samarah has brought more unity amongst Iraqis than any other incident since the stampede on the Kahdumiah bridge (when Felujans [mostly Sunni] donated blood for the wounded in Kahdumiah [mostly Shiite] in Baghdad). Iraqi political parties, community leaders, religious leaders, political leaders all are strongly condemning this bombing and asking for national support and help for the people of Samarah. This outpouring of compassion, support and help is what is not being reported.
Not, perhaps, in Monolithic Media. But the word is getting out, nonetheless.
Daffyd ab Hugh looks to be spot on:
I believe the terrorists took their last, desperate gamble: bombing the Golden Dome mosque was what they had dreaded doing all along, worrying that instead of fomenting uncivil war, they would bring about the very civil peace they fear. And it appears (so far at least) that the jihadis have lost that bet. After the initial spasm of hysterical violence, peace is now busting out all over Iraq.
Surely these folks must be correct. This has got to be an elaborate hoax.
::stops to consider the public pronouncements from Reid, Pelosi, the SF Board of Supervisors…::
OK. Maybe… not.
On the grasping hand, Gillespie’s comment section gives me hope for rational political discourse, even if some akiramackenzie {at} gmail(.)com">writers would class me as a “f*****g Christard”. Consider this gem:
I AM (mostly) a Democrat, and I’m a mother, and I wouldn’t buy this book if it were the only way to preserve the English language after the apocalypse.
Priceless.
FXKLM: BTW, how do we get through 60 comments in this thread with no one mentioning Captain Planet?
Karen: FXKLM, Because we had repressed the memory in order to continue normal life after having lived through such a soul-destroying experience.
HEH.
So, austinkitty {at} earthlink(.)net">Karen, when are you running for office? Failing that, would you consider a job as chief of strategy for the Democratic Party? The combination of civil discourse, calm thinking, and genuinely funny jokes would do the Republic a world of good.
You can make a case that port operations ought to be run by an American owned company; you can’t make a very good case that it was all right for the Brits to do this, but it’s not OK for the UAE to do it.
FOUND “MEET THE PRESS” PATHETIC
STOP
I REVOKE MY PROXY EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY
STOP
IN FACT…
STOP STOP STOP
–30–
Andreas Katsulas, the character actor known to SF fans as G’Kar on Babylon 5 and a familiar face from Star Trek and other SF&F TV shows, died Feb. 13 of lung cancer in Los Angeles, his agent, Donna Massetti, confirmed to SCI FI Wire. He was 59.
It’s only fair to note that Mr. Katsulas loved to smoke; “…loved smoking with a passion that cannot be described”. I can’t bang on about the tobacco companies; this was a consequence of freely chosen desire.
I don’t have to like it.
Katsulas was witty, intelligent, wise, and humane. Having had the tremendous good fortune to have met Mr. Katsulas in the Green Rooms at the late, lamented Agamemcons, I can personally attest that the memories shared of him here and here ring true.
Gone, like drifting smoke…
and yet, family and friends
hold him in their hearts.
No, I’m not giving up on Denmark. Not in the least.
But I’m debugging some server-vs-plugin issues just now, and trying to make the code absolutely valid — validation errors often cause rendering difficulties. My apologies if the page loads oddly for the time being…
Apparently, everyone at Christus Spohn Hospital-Memorial, in Corpus Christi, is baffled:
Hospital administrator Peter Banco says the victim is perplexed by the fuss.
PETER BANCO: At all times he conducts himself as a true gentleman I guess still kind of wonders what all the hoopla is about.
REPORTER: Any comment on the hoopla?
PETER BANCO: Yes, just kind of much ado about nothing.
Other reports strike the same note;
Banko said the hospital was familiar with such hunting accidents.
“This is not a big deal,” Banko said. “Everybody’s wondering what the fuss is all about.”
It seems odd that a hospital spokesman would not understand that you hold a press conference and tell people someone’s been shot in the chest, badly enough to have a heart attack… even a “minor” one… it causes a fuss.
It seems past belief that a hospital spokesman would not understand that a mishap involving the Vice President would not attract all manner of attention.
You can almost hear it, even now, can’t you?
The Vice President of the United States hurt his hunting partner so badly that he developed a heart attack. How AWFUL.
But something’s been puzzling me about Mr. Whittington’s “heart attack” ever since the first press reports.
How did we get from minor hunting accident, with fine-pellet birdshot, to a heart attack?
All of you who have taken CPR (as Institute readers certainly have… right?) know the spiel: a “heart attack” happens when bloodflow to heart muscle is blocked, causing some of that muscle to die. “Time is muscle”, “the chain of survival”, rapid 911 activation, right?
But light birdshot doesn’t migrate through skin… into blood vessels… flow through the circulatory system… and block off arteries. If the shot doesn’t get to the heart in the first place, it’s not going to float there.
So why are hospital representatives speaking of a heart attack? Even as they announce that there was no blockage to any of the heart’s vessels on catheterization?
I could see a bird pellet irritating the lining of the heart, and causing the beat to become irregular. But that’s not blocking arteries, killing heart muscle; that’s not a myocardial infarction. That’s not a “heart attack”.
I would never tell a patient, or a family member, that a patient had a “heart attack” because of a rhythm disturbance. Many things can cause arrhythmias, including stress in elderly patients. The weighty phrase “heart attack” should not be used without hard evidence. It scares people, and it should.
Why was the term “minor heart attack” bandied about, when it doesn’t describe what actually happened?
I’m not the only doctor to wonder about this:
CLEVELAND, Feb. 16 – The “minor heart attack” reportedly suffered by the hunting companion shot by Vice President Dick Cheney may simply be a reaction to the trauma caused by absorbing a chest full of bird shot at 30 yards.
Deepak L. Bhatt, M.D., director of the interventional cardiology fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic, said that blunt trauma such as that caused by a steering wheel or a baseball thudding into the chest can set up a shock wave that will cause an increase in cardiac enzymes. This, he said, “is one way that a minor heart attack would be diagnosed.”
In an interview, Dr. Bhatt said that without the opportunity to review the patient’s record, it is difficult to explain exactly what happened to Harry M. Whittington, 78, the lawyer who was shot by Cheney during a quail hunt over the weekend.
But Dr. Bhatt said that according to news reports, Whittington had a cardiac catheterization that revealed coronaries that were clear and free of atherosclerotic disease, which is the common cause of ischemic attacks. If those reports are correct, Dr. Bhatt said, a logical explanation for the event is a release of cardiac enzymes in response to trauma.
There’s more:
Dr. AbiSamra also was skeptical about reports that the birdshot pellet had traveled, or migrated, to its current position near the atria. “I think it is very unlikely that the pellet migrated to this position,” he said. “We just don’t see that. I think this was a penetrating wound.” He said that the pellet most likely has been in the heart since Whittington was shot on Saturday.
There’s lots more:
O. Wayne Isom, the chairman of heart and chest surgery at Weill Cornell Medical College, said it was unlikely that a pellet would migrate to the heart through the bloodstream, as some have assumed from the account of the Texas doctors.
The reason, Isom said, is that the pellet would have to enter a vein, travel to and through the lung vessels that go to the heart, and then lodge in heart tissue, not in one of its chambers. The pellets were approximately 5 millimeters, about the size of a BB, and larger than most blood vessels, said David Blanchard, director of emergency services at the hospital.
A more likely explanation, Isom said, is that the pellet lodged in or touched the heart when Whittington was shot. …
… The Texas doctors did not say how they determined that Whittington had a heart attack. Two standard tests are from electrocardiograms and measuring enzymes. But injuries to the heart can cause a rise in enzymes that may not necessarily represent a heart attack.
“May not necessarily…” There’s an understatement.
Let me reiterate.
Based on the information currently available, there is no reason to believe that Mr. Whittington suffered anything that resembles a blockage of the heart’s blood supply. Period.
Mr. Whittington apparently suffered a disturbance of his heartbeat’s pattern. That’s not a myocardial infarction; that’s not a “heart attack”. Calling it a “heart attack” is, at best, misleading.
And it’s not as if the media are exactly striving to correct the misleading stories they’ve been running.
The Texas doctors and the White House doctors with whom they discussed Whittington’s case did not respond to a request for interviews.
Pity the hospital’s representatives weren’t as circumspect.
Look… I’ve been there. I have given interviews to reporters before. When the lights go on, and the video cameras spool up, and the questions are offered in ever-so-earnest tones, it’s easy to be swept up in the moment. It’s easy to feel like You Are Part Of Something Important. It is almost impossibly seductive.
Still.
Drama must not trump accuracy.
The statements offered by hospital representatives were inaccurate. At best, they invite the impression that you don’t care about getting the facts right; hardly a virtue if one’s job involves educating the public in health matters.
How minor was Mr. Whittington’s heart attack?
Very likely nonexistent.
But that doesn’t make nearly as compelling a story… does it? It’s more exciting if it’s not a minor hunting accident exaggerated by the victim’s age; it’s a much better story if it involves a severe injury and a heart attack.
A “much better story”.
Or is that a tall tale?
So much for journalistic integrity, and impartial reporting.
Professor Jones just called, and boy, is he delighted.
So am I.
As the pushback against the Cartoon Intifada continues, there’s been a lot written about the “irresponsibility” of the Jyllands Posten in running the cartoons in the first place, and whether or not this was the wrong choice of ground from which to fight.
It’s worth remembering that the controversy started out as a well-meaning attempt to write a children’s book about the life of the prophet Muhammad. The book was designed to promote religious tolerance. But the author encountered the consequences of religious hatred when he looked for an illustrator. He could not find one. Denmark’s artists seemed to fear for their lives. In turning down the job they mentioned the fate of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, murdered by an Islamic fundamentalist for harshly criticizing fundamentalism.
When this episode percolated to the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten, the paper’s cultural editor commissioned the caricatures. He wanted to see whether cartoonists would self-censor their work for fear of violence from Muslim radicals. Still, the European media ignored this story in a small Scandinavian country. It took months, a boycott of Danish products in the Arab world and the intervention of such champions of religious freedom as the governments of Syria, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Libya (all of which withdrew their ambassadors from Copenhagen) for some European papers to reconsider their stance on the cartoons. By last week it was not an obscure topic anymore but front-page news. And it wasn’t about religious sensibilities as much as about free speech. That’s when the cartoons started to show up in papers all over Europe.
I note, in passing, that it took more than those things; it appears to have taken a deliberate effort to defraud Muslims in the Middle East, conducted by fundamentalist Muslim sectarians.
But I digress.
Danish artists were fearful of any involvement with a children’s book about Islam, designed to promote tolerance, because they feared for their lives.
If that’s not ground on which free people must make a stand, what is?
Seems to me that somebody at the Jyllands-Posten… maybe Flemming Rose… might want to ask Imam Ahmad Abu Laban.
In court.
Asked? Answered.
Tip of the clipboard to Perry for the article which started me thinking, this morning.
UPDATE: Link fixed, as per Perry’s comment. Thanks!
“… to bookmark http://www.gethuman.com/us/. Believe me you will.”
I could not have said it better myself. Thank you, Dr. Pournelle!
… can YOU answer Roger’s riddle?
*grin*
at Love Is Murder…
Something to ponder:
My present theory is that art is three-pointed; the maker, the addressee, and the bystander: great art touches all three, none at the expense of the other.
— John Hertz
Discuss, and enjoy!
be the new “F-bomb”…
then call me General LeMay.
… that toddlin’ mysterious town…
*grins*
If any of you are in the O’Hare area, drop in. This should be a fun event, and I am looking forward to my talks.
on a fishing expedition? Or blackmailing scum?
Hmmm.
Either way, he’s beneath contempt.
In a way, it’s almost refreshing. Threats, coercion, blackmail at best, libel at worst –
This is what people like Michael Rogers think acceptable political discourse.
“By their works shall ye know them”…
and, I hope, recoil in disgust.
to be a Wahhabi right now.
All these outrages, and not a caliph to appeal to.
Cry me a river.
From the second BBC story linked above:
Ministers from 17 Arab countries on Tuesday urged Denmark’s government to punish Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that first published the caricatures, for what they described as an “offence to Islam”.
…The offices of Jyllands-Posten, had to be evacuated on Tuesday because of a bomb threat.
Personally, I think the Jyllands-Posten cartoons pretty innocuous; you want offensive, you need someone like Andres Serrano. Still… “another man’s poison”, as the saying has it. It is not my place to dictate aesthetics to other people.
But that cuts both ways. Those who are offended in their hearts at the “Satanic Cartoons” have no business demanding punishment for the exercise of free speech. Much less indulging in bomb threats.
You have no right to MAKE us think like you do.
Think differently? Think all you like. Teach, persuade, convince, live exemplary lives… Maybe you’ll convince others.
But reach for the bullet, or the bomb, or the Bomb, to MAKE us think as you wish? Over your dead bodies.
Your dead bodies.
I phrased that most carefully.
Free people will do no less. And there’s still a Gideon’s lot of us.
Oh, and about that persuasion thing?
What they said.
Especially the Piglet thing, folks.
I mean, really.
Congratulations, zomby… ahem. David.
Looking forward to it!
You can almost feel the frustration rising from the screen:
Since they lost the 2004 elections, Democrats have been giving each other a tremendous amount of free advice. There will be a slew more as the 2006 midterm elections approach – plenty of expensive advice, too.
Nobody has asked for mine. That is about all the motivation I need to offer some, on the house. I think the Democrats should shelve all the fancy thinking about how they need to develop a new “values vocabulary,” reframe old issues in news terms, learn how to use God-talk, be more daddy and less mommy, capitalize on the Abramoff scandals or become the post-Katrina party of “competent government.”
This can be read… charitably… as a call for substance. A call to rediscover roots; to find, and stand, for principles. A promising start, which falls apart almost immediately:
… learn how to use God-talk,
Any “miserable creep” can criticize unjustly; many do. But when your friends call you on your behavior, you probably ought to listen. The fact that Mr. Meyer can say such a thing indicates the depth of the Democratic problem here. I feel obliged to offer a friendly hint of my own, here: It would probably work better if the Democratic leadership had beliefs they were unashamed to share.
I’m not calling for “theocracy light” here; nor do I mean insult to citizens who are registered Democrats. They are Catholic, Jewish, Buddhist, Wiccan, agnostic, atheist, and they are perfectly comfortable sharing their beliefs around the watercooler. Why aren’t their leaders? The most visible Democratic leaders are remarkable for their utter vacuity in matters of personal faith. Consider: “…the two Roman Catholic senators from the State of Massachusetts … are leading the charge for a filibuster, in order to preserve the right to partial-birth abortion discovered in the Stenberg case.” If that doesn’t seem… odd… to you, I suggest you’re a demonstration of the problem at hand. (Some will object to the “partisan source” of the comment. I answer: What part of the sentence is factually in error? I await the reply with considerable interest.)
be more daddy and less mommy,
It’s hard to know what Mr. Meyer means, here; it’s cute… kawaii, even. But it’s not clearly written at all. Perhaps he meant to speak to the Democrats’ lack of credibility on matters of national security? If so, why can’t he bring himself to say so? (Yes, Virginia; that was a rhetorical question).
capitalize on the Abramoff scandals …
Now that’s clearly written. Pity it’s impractical, though.
When the leader of the Democratic party in the Senate can’t bring himself to part with Abramoff’s gifts, and the legacy newsies virtually write the GOP press releases on Democratic involvement with Abramoff, that dog won’t hunt.
or become the post-Katrina party of “competent government.”
Oh, really?
Perhaps… not.
I don’t agree with several segments of the current Republican party’s coalition. Nor do others. That isn’t going to matter, though, given Duverger’s Law, as long as the Democratic Party remains the sick man of American politics.
Tip of the clipboard to The Anchoress.
Appropriate, perhaps, that I have this from my dear friend Kate… because I need a drink, just thinking about it.
It’s five o’clock SOMEWHERE, after all.
If this DHS advisory is accurate, we need to have a little talk with Presidente Fox. Something about the indemnities we aren’t going to be paying to the families of these thugs, after we… stop… them.
Instead of hearings about steroids in baseball, maybe our Congress could extend itself to enquiring about this problem?
Feh.
And they wonder why Congress is racing the New York Times for the distinction of being the least trusted of American institutions.
I can’t wait. And given the reception you’ve enjoyed in other realms, I suspect I’m not the only one.
Hey, Bill: if none of the major studios pick your project up, maybe you should contact an independent moviemaking group — there are some superb teams out there right now– get your vision filmed, and then release it VERY independently.
After all, it appears you’ve already done some of the CGI.
Perhaps Steve Jobs’ mind was elsewhere?
Heh.
If you’re any kind of fan of Disney, this is good news indeed. I was intrigued to see that Steve Jobs is not the only fellow to get a new job with Team Disney; John Lassiter’s becoming the head of Imagineering.
Look to see Lassiter re-energize Imagineering, which has had difficulties of late. New attractions at the Disney parks haven’t had quite the same jaw-dropping quality they once had.
I cannot help but wonder if Mr. Iger saw a chance here to invigorate many different areas of the Disney domain, all in one swoop. Especially with the persistent rumours that Disney World’s Animal Kingdom is slated for a “land” for it’s fantasy creatures, at long last… Narnia?
With Lassiter in charge, that no longer seems so far fetched.
The Professor gets all crunk on Kanye West.
Daaaaaaamm… .
Heh.
I could have written much of that post — if I hadn’t been writing “Pugilism And Northern European Fighting Systems Of The Fourteenth, Fifteenth, And Sixteenth Centuries”, instead.
Definitely Western Martial Arts; not much skewering, but definitely WMA studies.
Really Cool Stuff – at least, I think it’s really cool.
I hope to see the current version (suitably edited) picked up by one of the WMA journals. Time will tell.
CONGRATULATIONS, Margi!
All Star Trek geekitude aside, this is exciting stuff. If this type of ion thruster can be scaled up successfully, it could very easily become the engine of choice for most interplanetary applications.
Tip of the clipboard to one of Dr. Pournelle’s “smart people”, Rick Stilson. (Follow the link and scroll down past “Saturday, Jan 14th”; see Dr. Pournelle’s comments as well.)
… (at least) to living authors …
have a splendid reason to avoid this craptacular turkey.
For the record: I have never really liked The Earthsea Cycle. A matter of taste, and I claim nothing more dignified for my part. Yes, I think Le Guin has a lamentable tendency to “sell her verbiage for a pot of message”; so nu? Authors whose works I avidly read have been accused of the same.
Nonetheless, Le Guin deserved better. Earthsea fans deserved better.
Le Guin wanted to tell a certain type of story. She carefully selected background, cultures, metaphysics, and protagonists, in order to tell that story. Tons of readers throughout the world have embraced that story as written.
Buying the film rights to the Earthsea story, only to ignore the story itself… no, to pervert the story, leach all the tropes from it… well, there is a Special Place reserved for that kind of theft. Robert Halmi has a seat there, right next to Paul Verhoeven.
Come to think of it… not only did Verhoeven’s Troopers literally invert every trope Heinlein wanted to talk about in his novel, Verhoeven also “did the Halmi” to Mr. Rico. Another point to Ms. Noles.
C’mon, Hollydrones. It’s not like geekdom is going to have fits about casting characters as they were written by the authors. Despite the pessimism of Noles’ parents, we geeks get it:
… At the big comic book convention in San Diego, white, black, Latino and Asian kids are heaped around the Tokyopop booth speaking in their own special manga language. My dental hygienist, a Red Sonja-type with curiously delicate hands and frightfully blue eyes, can link Tupac to Zora Neale Hurston to Ozo Motley, with a seamless detour to Parliament Funkadelic. While in line for a sneak peek of “Bubba Ho-Tep,” I listened to a clutch of teen white and Mexican boys passionately debate the heroic nature of Blade. (Blade is the black, half-human vampire hunter portrayed with cartoon efficiency by actor Wesley Snipes.)
It continues. In one of the most acclaimed fantasy books of last year, a white woman put a black man on the fairy throne, and nobody screamed murder. When I went to a chain bookstore to buy another copy of My Soul to Keep as a gift, the white male hipster clerk corrected my pronunciation and spelling of “Tananarive.” I should have been humiliated, but as he walked me to the stacks explaining I didn’t have to special order one because he made sure her work is always kept in stock, I was too busy resisting the urge to hug him. A couple of years ago a white man writing about the gods of America made the fate of the universe hinge on the courage and smarts of the child of a Nordic god and a black woman.
Have a little guts, people.
When you make the sequel to Serenity, cast some CHINESE, fer Chrissakes. The Firefly ‘verse’s backstory insists that China and the US were the principal players in the human disapora. It’s be nice to see some Chinese in positions of authority, or wealth. Chow Yun Fat, Jet Li, Ziyi Zhang, Michelle Yeoh …
The pathetic thing is that it won’t even take that much courage. Your audience has already made the leap; we’re waiting for you.
Tip of the clipboard to Phil Brucato.
UPDATE: David J. reminds us just how wretched Verhoeven’s Troopers is.
that “ugly is as ugly does”…
then the petty wretches who fled from chambers as judge after judge rebuked them would shatter every reflective surface on Capitol Hill.
Mark Steyn feels the sorry spectacle of the Alito bushwhacking “hearings” has passed “beyond parody”.
Hearings. Heh. How can it be a “hearing” when the self-important Lords Bloviate won’t shut UP?
I don’t even have the consolation of timing; there are months until the next Senatorial elections. People probably won’t remember how fatuous these moral midgets sounded as they cast their ballots…
and that’s a pity.
… not convinced it WAS the losing side, not yet.
The USMC is looking at… dropships.
Honest. Dropships.
As laid out in the article, the Marines seem to be taking a sober, careful approach to the R and D necessary to make this happen. They have identified a gap in their mission capabilities, and the Marines have never liked leaving such gaps…
I wonder if the USMC has looked at T/Space’s proposed CXV system. Even LOOKS like a dropship. Hmmm…
I’m with Fred Kiesche on this. We need cheap, reliable access to LEO. Send the Marines!
As someone remarked to me by email, at least it’s an off-label use.
Heh.
shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.
Robertson suggests God smote Sharon.
I… suggest… the “Reverend” Mr. Robinson might regret his speech.
Consider:
23Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
Or, perhaps…
Despair is a sin. And God He Knows how many Christian believers are tempted so, just now.
As I have had cause to note before, Cromwell’s advice is still apt.
Mr. Robinson… in the name of God, GO.
! ????
Hasidic reggae playing on MTV2.
Honest! And coming to a venue near you…
Matisyahu appears to be part of an emerging trend. Who knew?
Marvels. The Universe is full of marvels.
What a blessing.
There’s a Mr. Scott for you on line one, sir.”
Heh.
This doesn’t appear to be a replay of the Dean drive affair. The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the New Scientist are fairly sober about such things.
This technology may not pan out; experiments will tell the tale. Even if a Heim drive isn’t a “hyperspace” drive, and is “only” a high-efficiency field drive, this could still be a breakthrough of… incalculable impact.
“Forty-eight hours” and then some.
Still… if this pans out… whoa.
Tip o’ the clipboard to Professor Bainbridge.
May the least of your blessings in 2006 be as joyous as this.
Color me delighted!
I have accepted an invitation to speak at the Love Is Murder conference, in Chicago.
Interested parties may wish to look at the schedule of events, and swing by.
It is the first week of February — which means I am likely to cleave close to the hotel the whole event. So I won’t be THAT hard to find…
This article gives new meaning to the phrase “a good catch”.
(An Institute No-Prize to the first reader to figure out the jest found in the title of this post.)
More warnings from Robert Thompson and Rick Hellewell, sent by way of Jerry Pournelle, involving a Windows MetaFile format vulnerability.
Windows XP is vulnerable; no patch currently extant addresses the problem. The exploits appear to be capable of hitting Firefox users as well as Internet Explorer users, as the problems appear rooted in the WMF structure, not the browsers.
I can’t do better than to quote Jerry on this subject:
… Don’t open strange files from unknowns.
If you use Microsoft OUTLOOK set your preview window to PLAIN TEXT, and be
careful what you convert to html.THAT is TOOLS, OPTIONS, Mail Format tab, to plain text.
Good advice, regardless of platform, operating system, or browser.
1. There are colors I can wear. Purple isn’t one of them.
2. Catch me at the right moment, and the right piece of music will make me bawl.
3. My family is convinced I will end my days as a dotty old sailor, bopping about in the waters around the Virgin Islands.
4. I love me some Frank Lloyd Wright, I surely do.
5. I’m still told I have a nice singing voice… but you should have heard it in college, when it was in good shape. (I’m not sure *when* I would have fit in voice lessons in my life, but I sometimes wish… ah, well.)
Hmmm… who to tag, who to tag?
Oh,
Margi?
Jay?
Eric?
Chris?
David?
Care to join me?
but I confess I am looking forward to this film almost as much as I am looking forward to “Voyage Of The Dawn Treader”.
(“I am vast; I contain multitudes.” Heh heh heh…)
Tip of the clipboard to Fred Kiesche, at the Eternal Golden Braid.
De Doc feels some sympathy for the Moose.
It seems Kevin Drum has decided, ex cathedra, that Mr. Wittmann is a conservative whether he would agree or not. The Moose disagrees, and takes pains to explain why.
The Moose is not the only one to be perturbed. Ann Althouse is polite to Mr. Drum but… well, resigned to Drum’s error of categorization.
All of these fine bloggers seem to be suffering from De Doc’s Corollary to Duverger’s Law:
In a country whose political structures naturally lead to a stable two-party system, political analysis will be offered in dualistic terms that seem perfectly adequate to the pundits …
and aren’t adequate at all.
Mr. Wittmann, for example, isn’t a “Democratic (Party) blogger” any more than he is a “conservative blogger”. As far as I can tell, he’s a radical Madisonian, who distrusts all unchecked accumulations of power in the civic sphere; hence, like Theodore Roosevelt, he favors the use of government to “check and balance” large corporations’ actions. Mr. Wittmann is, of course, invited to correct me at his leisure… although I suspect he may be busy fighting a Dean Esmay–like battle to reclaim the term “progressive” from the current users.
In the battle to “control the terms of discourse”, all kinds of people have been placed “beyond the pale”, apparently.
I suppose I can count myself in there.
There’s no easy answer for this, I suspect. I take some comfort, however, in the fact that the blogosphere offers an alternative to people whose views get the Procrustean treatment — they can tell people THEIR views, clarifying what they really stand for without waiting for an ombudsman to issue a correction.
Somewhere, Franklin smiles.
On the third day of Christmas, to one and all.
I had a relatively unharried Christmas weekend, about which more in due course. Hope you all had a wonderful weekend, yourselves!
The first film I’ve been to see after my father’s death was The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe.
Appropriate, perhaps, for someone who comes of storytelling stock…
I cannot think of a better film to have entered into Advent with.
I leave it to your imaginations what manner of … resonances… there were for me. Suffice it to say that this film’s merits are such that I can see how wonderful a film it is, even for those who won’t be bearing such emotions into the theaters.
I pity people like Phillip Pullman… and his bosom enemies, who would reject nearly everything about Pullman’s beliefs, and still find themselves on his side of the critics’ stone table. Those people need a stiff dose of On Fairy-Stories; though, in very truth, they would likely spit it out.
That is their loss.
There have been people who took exception to the portrayal of Jadis, the White Witch. I can readily understand that; the White Witch is not the craven bully of the book, who hikes her skirts and runs as fast as she can from Aslan’s roar. She is a cold, horrific power in the land, who no mere mortal can long withstand. That is a significant change. And yet… I do not think Lewis would mind, overmuch. He was, after all, keenly appreciative of Paradise Lost. Tilda Swinton’s portrayal of Jadis is downright Miltonian. (In the climactic battle scene, look at the Witch’s clothing and makeup. They’re a calculated, brutal act of outright blasphemy, in Narnian terms, meant to horrify and stun Aslan’s followers. The kind of thing that would make sense to Lucifer, in Milton’s work… or to Jadis as portrayed by Swinton.)
While I’m admiring makeup and costume, let us all now praise WETA Workshop. It would have been terribly easy to have taken the “easy road”, and make Narnia look like a province of Gondor. But they did no such thing; the art direction for this film hearkened more to Pauline Baynes than LOTR.
If , this holiday season, you see only one movie about a noble animal sacrificing himself for those he loves… make it the film where the sacrifice matters.
I’ll be going to Narnia again, this holiday… and many times thereafter.
Some of you will be surprised to know that I did not give a eulogy at my father’s mass.
My brother, John, wanted to do that. I think you’ll see why.
This is, by the way, a true story. I am certain of that. It may not have happened quite as you will read it; but it is, nonetheless, true. Not all truths are found in transcripts.
Now. Let my brother tell his story…
This was how the community knew my Dad.
More from us… later.
… died peacefully yesterday, after a brief illness.
I will have more to say, over the coming days, either here, or at my personal livejournal. Haven’t decided which, yet.
In the meantime, gentle readers, some consolations.
It was a peaceful, gentle death.
He knew we were there; though his illness made it difficult for him to acknowledge that, he found ways.
He died in the full consolation of his faith and sacraments.
His family loved him, and was there for him.
As stories’ ends go… a good one, I think.
My father was just admitted to hospital, on the other side of the continent;
your prayers would be much appreciated.
More as I can. I’ve travel arrangements to make.
where before, I couldn’t.
OSM is now (the once and future?) Pajamas Media.
The Command Post, after a solid run, appears to be on permanent hiatus. That’s a pity.
Time to tidy up the blogrolls, it appears …
In one location, for easy reference: The American Enterprise: Urban Legends About the Iraq War.
I think you’ll find this invaluable.
Tip of the clipboard to Rand Simberg.
It’s always good to stop and take stock, each Thanksgiving.
Most of what I’m thankful for this year is…
well…
boring, if you’re not me. *g*
Family and hobby stuff.
That being said, as I cruised about the ‘Net between patients, I went to look at the Blogosphere ratings over at N.Z. Bear’s place. I hadn’t done that in some time.
There was a time when I was amazed to find I’d evolved into a flippery fish.
And now, I look up, and…
If I’m not mistaken, I could have entered the Deck Of Bloggers contest!
Heh.
I owe it to each and every one of you who read me; comment on my work; link me; refer me to others.
This Thanksgiving, I thank you from the bottom of my large, mammalian heart.
Now, go have some turkey; cherish your family and friends; and I’ll catch up with you in a day or two. I mind to take my own advice, as soon as my watch ends.
“… And Domestic.”
If the facts of the case are as reported here, sounds like some Federal employees and officers have forgotten a few things. Like, oh, their allegiance to the Constitution?
(See: the Bill Of Rights, you wretches.)
zombyboy may be right; for all I know, Ms. Davis may well not be “a person I would like”. It hardly matters in such a case; there is no reason that bus riders, merely passing through a piece of federal property, should be subject to random ID checks — much less charged with crimes, much less told she will be arrested if she ever goes to such-and-such a place again.
What good will it do us to win victory over Islamicists and other foreign threats to our liberty, if petty government functionaries take it away from us at home?
I hope the bullies who acted in this matter find new careers.
Food services, I’m thinking — “…fries with that?”
I will watch this case with some interest.
(Cross-posted at The Liberty Papers.)
Nor should we let it be another Mogadishu.
Two elections successfully held. A Constitution adopted. Election of a permanent government in hand.
And an enemy who stoops to bombing mosques and weddings.
This is not the time to throw away the sacrifices of our troops — nor of their familes, nor of the Iraqis who have shown, over and over again, that they are willing to pay for their liberty in the most basic way, by risking their lives to secure it.
Bid your Senators, and your Representatives, listen.
Do not waste the lives offered up thus far.
Do not cut and run..
My advice to all parties:
Shut up and blog.
Put content on CRTs, and let readers decide what’s worth reading.
I confess that, just at the moment, I don’t see what OSM offers that a news aggregator doesn’t… or, for that matter, overmuch difference between OSM and The Command Post, save perhaps broader span of interests.
But if I’m right — and the market will settle that, not my punditry — it will prove true in good time. To borrow from Jefferson, they neither pick my pocket nor break my leg.
Criticism of OSM’s business model and practices is certainly appropriate if warranted. But when criticism descends to the purulent (no, not prurient — honest), it leads people to wonder if maybe there’s just a LEETLE envy there.
You think?
Amusing. Most amusing.
Grand news from Adam Bolin:
This morning, the Federal Election Commission unanimously approved Advisory Opinion 2005-16, agreeing that the Fired Up! sites were entitled to the same press exception from campaign finance laws as are the New York Times, National Review and Sean Hannity.
This is outstanding news. A thumb in the eye of people such as Senators McCain and Feingold (have they resigned in shame at violating their oaths to defend the Constitution yet? No? Pity.)
Under the Commission’s rules, “any person involved in a specific activity ‘indistinguishable in all its material aspects’ ” from Fired Up! can rely upon this ruling unless Congress acts otherwise, and you can imagine what sites might feel better-protected today. Any such site engaged in news, commentary and editorial can continue in such activities without fear of falling into FEC filing requirements turning groups into political committees or incorporated sites into outlaws. [N.B. RedState.org has chosen to organize and file as a political committee, and is not directly affected by today's outcome.]
This is a tremendous victory for online free speech and will impact on the current debate in Congress. Kudos to Marc Elias and Brian Svoboda of the Perkins Coie law firm who are responsible, as well as the five FEC Commissioners who understood that neither the First Amendment, the statutes nor common sense could tolerate a different result.
If we HAD to endure the taste of the McCain-Feingold act, this ruling makes a fine mouthwash. Rinse, and spit… in the eye of the opponents of the First Amendment.
I’ll be toasting this result tonight, after work. (It’ll be good whisky, though; no spitting.)
Especially since Sony’s cure may be worse than the original disease. (tip of the clipboard to Rick Hellewell, as relayed by Jerry Pournelle).
I may just have to set up a CafePress shop.
Hmmm….
“Not About Sony”.
“Sony: The Rootkit Of All Evil”.
Kinda catchy, eh?
During the recent Senatorial debate on the Coburn Amendment, Senator Stevens (R-Alaska), was a mite defensive about his role in supporting pork funds for the famed Bridge To Nowhere.
A mite defensive indeed.
Sen. Ted Stevens, the veteran Alaska Republican, was dramatic in his response. “I don’t kid people,” Stevens roared. “If the Senate decides to discriminate against our state . . . I will resign from this body.”
WELL. If Daffyd ab Hugh hasn’t been misled, maybe the senior Senator from bacon Alaska will start packing.
We can but live in hope.
… so I take a few days off over Veterans Day, to rest and refresh myself, and all KINDS of entertaining things happen.
Time to catch up. Let’s see what the news has for us…
to bring even more good news.
It’s not the USS Clueless… but it’ll do, begad.
(Good news by way of Will Collier.)
The United States Marine Corps celebrates 230 years of valor, honor, and service.
Still faithful.
Always will be.
Happy birthday, Marines!
Or would you prefer, perhaps, ????? ????? ??? ????? ??? ?
The violence in France is spreading. Over 300 towns and cities have now reported some degree of rioting. Belgium and Germany are now seeing copycat car-b-q’s.
Now, for the record: I do not believe there is an organized Islamicist cabal calling the shots in France.
That doesn’t reassure me, though. I don’t think anybody should be reassured.
Not all riots lead to revolutions. But revolutions generally grow out of the initial, chaotic conditions that riots breed.
Both riots and revolutions are things of chaos; they exhibit sensitive dependence on initial conditions. It’s those initial conditions which give me pause:
– Even the most … tolerant… of French public figures speak of the rioters as being alienated, set apart.
– The rioters, for their part, seem willing to confirm such an impression — they identify themselves as Muslim, not as French.
– The rioters come from North African stock, who came to France after the Algerian civil war… in which a Muslim insurgency wore France down and sent them packing.
Hmmm.
I find myself thinking of The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress. The novel’s heroes wish to overthrow the rule of the UN, and form a cabal to that end. They plan and work, carefully, diligently, towards being able to mount such a revolution. But the revolution happens spontaneously, as the result of a gangrape carried out by a squad of the UN’s troopers. The cabal finds itself swept up in the spontaneous riot…
and turns it INTO an uprising, and then a revolution.
Given the initial conditions under which the original anger “on the streets” turned to torchings, and spread, and is taking on a life of it’s own… well. It doesn’t take a genius to see that an organized group, which has aspirations to political power, might see this as a golden opportunity.
Nor does it take a genius to figure out which KINDS of groups might succeed in harnessing these angry non-French, Muslim rioters. (Hint: It won’t be Mennonites.)
I’m not worried about the rioters’ current cooperation, or lack thereof.
I’m worried about what might be growing in that malign, chaotic soil.
Not what Baudelaire had in mind, I think. But les fleurs de mal , in very truth.
The flying was top notch…
The planes were beautiful…
The location was perfect (Bukkets, outdoors seating, right on the ‘walk)…
The company was great good fun…
but the BEST thing about this weekend’s Sea and Sky event?
Velociman’s description of me.
Just. Damn. Perfect.
*grins*
DO NOT BUY ANY SONY MUSIC CDs.
Jerry Pournelle has just sent out a warning to his Chaos Manor list, and has posted at Chaos Manor for general reading as well. A column for Byte is forthcoming.
The warning concerns Sony’s use of their music CDs to install software on your computer without your knowing it. From Dr. Pournelle:
Let me begin with the warning: do not buy or install any Sony Music CD on your PC. The records play just fine on other systems. There’s no problem with Mac or Linux or with self contained music players.
But if you try to play that record on your CD, it will tell you that you must install the Sony CD player codec (you can’t play the record through Microsoft Media Player or any other stuff you have installed on your system).
DO NOT INSTALL THAT SOFTWARE. If you do you may never be able to get it off there short of scrubbing your system down to bare iron, reformatting, and reinstalling everything. I wish I were spoofing you, but I am not. This is a serious warning.
Moreover, if you have given a Sony Music CD to anyone as a gift, and they have tried to play that music on their PC (not Mac, not a standalone player, not Linux, but Windows PC) then their systems are infected, and it is exceedingly difficult — exceedingly difficult — to remove that infection in a way that doesn’t blue screen of death the PC.
Why is this software so difficult to eradicate?
As Mark Russinovich describes here (editor’s note: high code-head content), Sony is lying to you when they say they’re installing a codec. They’re actually installing a rootkit — software which functions “at the root level”, invisible even to your operating system’s diagnostics. The Sony rootkit can only be discovered using careful work with some sophisticated tools.
So, Sony inserts software on your system under false pretenses.
Angry yet? It gets better.
As documented by Russinovich, Sony’s toolkit inserts itself into Windows operating system instructions in such a way that the toolkit cannot be readily removed without crippling the OS entirely. Thus Dr. Pournelle’s warning about the “Blue Screen of Death”.
On the off chance that you aren’t concerned yet, Gentle Reader, permit me to warn you that Sony’s rootkit also attempts to contact Sony via Internet every time you play a CD on a toolkit-infected PC. Sony doesn’t bother to warn you about that, either.
I will not buy any Sony music CDs, even though my Macintosh system is not vulnerable to Sony’s schemes. If Sony doesn’t change their business practices, I will not be buying any Sony equipment, either, and I strongly urge Institute members and friends to consider taking the same actions… and to warn others, in every appropriate venue.
Artists have a right to benefit from their creative work.
Not, however, by deceit, malware, and spyware.
Right now, I am…
NOT about Sony.
well… that will apparently come as a surprise to the Magisterium.
This sounds like a wonderful talk, which I regret I missed. I hope UCLA makes the transcript available sometime soon.
much of anything, as Daffyd notes.
At this juncture, I think I have to just throw up my hands in surrender. I have no idea if the rioters are Moslems, whether that’s one reason they’re rioting, whether it has anything to do with the headscarf law, and what is the significance of the fact, solemnly chronicled by Gateway Pundit, that the neighborhood just opened up their first halal (Moslem-kosher) Burger King.
The sad and simple fact is that when the basic news conveyers — the mainstream media — conspire to withhold key facts from the readers, there is often no way of reliably getting that information. As much as we may hate it, the fact is that we are still, several years into the blogger revolution, utterly dependent upon exactly the people we hope to supplant. This is not a good sign.
The spectacularly mis-named Wretchard is trying his best to bring some comprehensibility out of the available information, but it’s tough sledding. There is a paucity of information coming from the streets themselves, and what information is available is being… euphemized.
But it’s not just a Parisienne news brownout. The Brussels Journal (which is not exactly Little Green Footballs, in case you’re curious) notes that it’s getting easier and easier to find… well… no-go zones… throughout Europe.
Unlike CNN and Reuters, the Brussels Journal is at least willing to name names:
If the politicians bring in the army they are acknowledging what the policemen, the fire fighters and the ambulance drivers know but what the political and media establishment wants to hide from the people: that there is civil war brewing and that Europe is in for a long period of armed conflict. …
… the Muslim population in Western Europe has become so large that politicians fear what it might be capable of. Commenting on the situation in Britain, Theodore Dalrymple wrote in City Journal: Surveys suggest that between 6 and 13 percent of British Muslims that is, between 98,000 and 208,000 people are sympathetic toward Islamic terrorists and their efforts. Theoretical sympathy expressed in a survey is not the same thing as active support or a wish to emulate the martyrs in person, of course. But it is nevertheless a sufficient proportion and absolute number of sympathizers to make suspicion and hostility toward Muslims by the rest of society not entirely irrational, though such suspicion and hostility could easily increase support for extremism. This is the tightrope that the British state and population will now have to walk for the foreseeable future. It applies to all West European nations. Where, however, is the boundary between carefully walking the tightrope and falling victim to the Stockholm syndrome? The latter would mean that Western politicians act as hostages of the Muslim extremists.
I don’t know about the politicians of Europe, but the legacy media certainly seem to be “held hostage” just now.
As Daffyd rightly points out, that’s not blogger triumphalism. MSM organizations have assets that allow them to do things the blogosphere can’t, in terms of on-spot reporting and data delivery.
It would sure be nice if they did that for us, here; after all, we’re only talking about a solid week of riots in and about…
the capital city of a permanent member of the UN Security Council;
the capital city of a principal member if the European Union;
the seat of government of a nuclear power.
You’d think that would merit at least a little more attention than it seems to be getting.
Wouldn’t you?
So. Harry Reid knows something so dire, so explosive, so dangerous to the Rethuglican hegemony…
that he won’t talk about it in public.
That is implausible even by the standards of the tabloids.
Is Reid trying to undercut the Bush Administration? After the fratricidal idiocies of the Miers debate, things have been looking up. Judge Alito seems unlikely to provide the Democrats sufficent ammunition to stop his confirmation vote; the president of Iran seems literally hell-bent on convincing everyone that maybe Iran is, in fact, governed by genocidal monsters who must not be allowed nuclear weapons; the recently announced flu initiative is almost impossible to badmouth, given public concerns; and all the DNC got for Fitzmas was a scooter.
Perhaps this is Reid being innovative, and finding a way to use Senate rules to stage a little political theatre, and fire up HIS base.
Unless…
there is something in the Senate rules which allows secret debates to function as filibusters, and close out all further business in the Senate.
A “stealth filibuster”, if you like, keeping Alito’s nomination from even getting to committee.
Time to start researching this, I think.
It seems appropriate to note, as Halloween festivities commence in earnest, that Michele Catalano has decided to GAFIAte.
She’ll still contribute to the ’sphere, here and there… but A Small Victory has been laid to rest.
Enjoy yourself, Michele. Use the time well; cherish your family; rock on…
Halloween is… spooky.
We deck our homes in plastic skulls, and carve faces in pumpkins, and speak of ghosts and ghouls.
You could take every witch and broom and faux cauldron away, and it wouldn’t change Halloween much… as long as there were cobwebs, headstones, and skulls.
The propaganda of fundamentalist Christians notwithstanding, Halloween is not about witchery, or magick, or Satanism; except insofar as those things remind us of death, of dying, and what it’s like to know that.
Halloween is about death… and notions of what might come after death… and, if you’re pagan, or truly traditionalist Christian, remembrances of those who have died. (Catholics remember this, liturgically; it’s All Hallows’ Eve, which presages All Saints’ Day, and the following All Souls’ Day. Three whole days!)
I don’t think that’s a bad thing. It’s important to remember.
To remember our loved ones.
To remember that we will die, too.
To remember that no one ever died wishing they’d spent more time at the office.
To remember what’s important…
Because death means you cannot do everything.
Phil Brucato has been musing about the same things. It’s worth the reading.
… as posed by Brian Dunn:
Really, the Left used to be upset when the CIA tried to destabilize governments. I guess we have a Bush exception to the rule.
Pedants will object that there is no question mark in the quote. Nonetheless, Mr. Dunn is posing a question, and a good one.
One thing which has become crystal-clear is that the CIA is… to be charitable… in need of a major housecleaning. If one looks as the “tradecraft” surrounding the Wilson trip — from selection through lack of debriefing or confidentiality agreement to truly pathetic attempts to hide Plame’s employment by the Agency — one begins to wonder how some of the folks there find the bathroom without being taken in hand and walked to the right door.
Unless, of course, it was part of a deliberate effort to “set up” the Administration, in order to undermine it at a later date.
Personally, I suspect it’s lack of competence, not conspiracy and malice. But either case is unacceptable, especially as we’re still at war.
Perhaps it’s time for a major change.
MAJOR.
Like… disbanding the CIA?
Reform the Office of Strategic Services, and focus them on spycraft and assorted human intelligence activities. Let the NSA handle electronic intelligence; that’s their brief, and they seem to handle it quite well. Move analysis into a separate department, which could ask for missions… but who would be unable to indulge in nepotism select their own spouses for the field work.
Establish a “Joint Chiefs Of Staff” to coordinate the intelligence efforts, hand down taskings, and the like.
There is precedent, in military history, for disbanding an organization when it seems to be too badly flawed to be fixed. And whether by inability to abide by the principle of civil authority, or by incompetence or negligence, the CIA’s performance of late suggests that it might be time to take such stern measures.
I am pleased to see that lots of people have maintained their sense of balance about “Plamegate”…
as evidenced by the jokes I am already seeing about Fitzmas.
My current favorites…
“No Fitzmas Today… Just Fitzween. Boo!”
“It’s Beginning To Look A NOT Like Fitzmas…”
“D#@#$%^, Santa Fitz… I wanted Darth Vader, and all I got was a SCOOTER???”
You got a good one? Feel free to share it below…
Glenn Reynolds draws attention to a lovely collection of found photos.
The artist is a collector of old cameras as well as a photographer. The website says “… I’m not a professional photographer…”, but you could have fooled me. Normally, I’d feature at least a thumbnail preview here, but Holland Glen is just too beautiful. Click through and treat yourself…
I’ll wait.
So. About those found photos…
The webmaster is, as I’ve said, a collector of old cameras. And of course, those cameras often have film in them… which hasn’t been developed.
So… our artist did just that, and shares the results with us.
They are the most fascinating mix of images, ranging from the fairly awful (“sucky vacations”…. heh) to the whimsical (Abraham Lincoln? Whyever not?) to the fascinating (a GI’s time in… occupation-era Italy, it appears… as well as pictures from home.)
Take a little time, and look through these collections. I suspect you’ll find something in there that catches the eye… or the heart.
I’ll let the artist have the last word. Several of them…
We froze time on that day
But then we moved on
Where we did go, no one can say.
Remember how swiftly, time moves on
Enjoy things that matter
Because one day they’ll be gone.
Harriet Miers appears to have proved she is a friend to George Bush; CNN is reporting she’s withdrawn from consideration for a Supreme Court seat.
Good on her.
Too many people had too many concerns about her abilities; her intellect; her qualifications; her relationship to the Bushes.
It was time for something like this to happen.
It’s a pity that she had to demonstrate intellect and integrity in this fashion.
Every American alive owes this woman an incalculable debt.
Many have noted that Parks was the unquestionable “mother of the civil rights movement”.
I think it’s important to take note of what she helped accomplish. I think it’s equally important to note HOW it was accomplished…
No bombs.
No burnings.
No hatred.
Parks left those to her opponents… and that decision shaped the movement which crystallized around her. It inspired a young Baptist minister to participate, and to choose as she chose.
Martin Luther King, in turn, inspired countless others.
There were riots, and bombings; I know that. But even as “Mr. and Mrs. America” looked at those things in horror and disgust, and dismissed the perpetrators as hoodlums and thugs, they looked at King, they looked at Parks, and those who followed their example, and they could not dismiss those people.
Parks and King were people … like us.
They were us.
People didn’t feel much empathy with rioters being arrested. But they could see that firehoses and baton-beatings and police dog attacks ought not to be used on ordinary American citizens… and that made all the difference.
The civil rights movement was not a second civil war. I do not think it is overstating the case to give Parks credit for that, right along with King.
So let the colors fly at half-mast. One of our heroes has left us.
Rest in peace, ma’am.
I don’t think that it is overstating the case to say that the President made at least one grave mistake in the nomination of Ms. Miers.
Was that mistake choosing her in the first place? Insufficiently vetting her? Failing to understand how his base would react to her? People of good will shall certainly reach different conclusions.
That being said, the result has been ugly to watch.
As a Madisonian, a small-l-libertarian, and a Constitution-lover, I note that some good is already come of this.
In the Corner, over at National Review, the discourse has been a very microcosm of the greater debate; that is to say shrill, near panicky, and often bitter. In the midst of this, Peter Robinson has been listening to his correspondents. They have been reminding him that the Founders considered Constitutional interpretation to be a matter of…
wait for it…
common sense.
NOT esoteric pseudo-priestcraft.
And Mr. Robinson has shared those reminders with us. (He’s also inproved the tone of the Corner thereby, but that is not especially to my point.)
Consider “Mr. Hamilton”, in Federalist 83:
…The rules of legal interpretation are rules of COMMONSENSE, adopted by the courts in the construction of the laws.
Or Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story… nominated to the court by the “father of the Constitution”, James Madison:
Constitutions are not designed for metaphysical or logical subtleties. . . . They are instruments of a practical nature, founded on the common business of human life, adapted to common wants, designed for common use, and fitted for common understandings. The people make them; the people adopt them; the people must be supposed to read them, with the help of common sense.
Perhaps some of you find Thomas Jefferson a more compelling figure? I am content:
The Constitution on which our Union rests, shall be administered by me [as President] according to the safe and honest meaning contemplated by the plain understanding of the people of the United States at the time of its adoption–a meaning to be found in the explanations of those who advocated, not those who opposed it, and who opposed it merely lest the construction should be applied which they denounced as possible.”
Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure.
Nothing worthwhile comes all in a moment. That being said, I am delighted to see at least one person becoming mindful of the truth about the Constitution, and the laws which must be in accord with it in our land: Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure.
Let that be the lesson that goes forth from this debacle. If your Senator isn’t listening, find another next election. If your Representative doesn’t hear it, find someone who does.
The Constitution is not a gnostic gospel. Interpreting it in that fashion is, at best, to pave the way for despots, who will make the Constitution mean “everything or nothing” at despots’ pleasure. At worst, such arcane interpretations will come from the despots themselves.
The Constitution. It’s for ALL of us… to be understood by all of us.
Pass it on.
…as reported over at LiveScience.com.
Makes sense to me; after all, as Dean notes, they’re already exploring other 23rd century applications…
Although I note that Mr. Bitar’s StunStrike system seems less like a phaser to me… than it does an electric rifle, straight out of Space: 1889.
Not that I object, mind you.
Of course, this comes from a man who would take a zeppelin instead of a yacht, any day of the week…
Some keep using it.
I do not think it means what they think it means.
Consider:
Final Results From Iraq Referendum Delayed …
And why, you might ask?
The audit, announced by the Electoral Commission on Monday, will examine results that have raised eyebrows because they show an oddly high number of “yes” votes apparently including in two crucial provinces that could determine the outcome of the vote, Ninevah and Diyala.
The election commission and United Nations officials supervising the counting have made no mention of fraud and have cautioned that the unexpected votes are not necessarily incorrect.
We have an election with a turnout rate that, frankly, should shame Americans. We had a mere smattering of terrorist attacks in Iraq, compared to the last round of elections.
And now we have an Iraqi electorate who can abide an audit which is being asked for because some people wonder if there were too many “yes” votes.
Consider what would have happened to such people, asking such questions, under Saddam Hussein. (Hint: Tree chippers.)
The very fact of such a cautious investigation is good news in Iraq.
And when the constitution is, in fact, ratified, after careful and diligent investigation, that will be good news as well.
Consider:
Anthropologists Uncover Ancient Jawbone — Yahoo News.
Bone of Hobbit-like species uncovered — CNN.
Which story would YOU rather be true?
As it turns out, both stories are essentially the same, taken off the AP wire. But one sounds a lot more interesting, don’t you think?
Especially if you know what the Red Book of Westmarch is…
Heh.
Either way, the article makes for interesting reading. Do enjoy.
This is too funny not to read.
I particularly relish the third frame.
A tip of the clipboard to Dean, who took time from not-worrying about avian flu to pass this along.
The behavior of many Republicans, right now, reminds me of any one of a number of dustups between my wife and my teenaged son — both of whom are strong-willed, intelligent, and skillful in discourse.
Why?
Because I find myself wanting to ask the varied naysayers the same question I ask my family at such times…
“Do you want to have a gaudy fight about this;
or do you want to fix the problem in question?”
Mark Levin, for all his continued grumbling, is at least contemplating the question:
… The fact is that this Gang of 14 moderates, led by Senator John McCain, did make it much more difficult for the president to win an ideological battle over a Supreme Court nominee. The Democrats did, in fact, send warnings that they were prepared to filibuster the second nominee. And under such circumstances, the president would have needed 60 votes to confirm his candidate, not 51. …
… the ideological confrontation with the likes of Senator Charles Schumer and the Democrat left that many of us believe is essential, including Will and Kristol (emphasis added–ed.), was made much more difficult thanks to the likes of McCain and the unwillingness to change the rule before any Supreme Court vacancy arose. This president has been poorly served by his Republican “allies” in this regard. …
Today the president would have to persuade seven of the most unreliable Republican senators to trigger the so-called nuclear option in order to clear the way for an up-or-down vote for, say, a Luttig. It is not at all certain or even likely that Lincoln Chafee, Olympia Snowe, and/or Susan Collins the most liberal of the seven would have voted for the Senate rule change for the purpose of confirming a solid originalist. …
Mr. Levin is unwilling to turn loose the flaming sword:
…I have no doubt that this was part of the White House’s political calculation. And it’s possible the president didn’t want to limp into this fight. That’s no excuse.
Excuse for what? Entering into a fight that would be lost? Leaving Bush with a energized opposition in the Senate, who’d managed to defeat Bush with the help of members… nominally… of his own party?
This was supposed to fix what, precisely?
Mr. Levin: Do you want to have a gaudy fight, or do you want to continue to move the Supreme Court towards a originalist, constructionist, sane composition?
Those who are bemoaning lost opportunities to educate the American people on the merits of originalism… should ask themselves what that has to do with confirming a Supreme Court Justice.
If you want to send a message, use Western Union.
I think an awful lot of people … oh, over at the Corner… ought to read up on their Sun Tzu:
Therefore, the important thing in doing battle is victory, not protracted warfare.
Or…
… to gain a hundred victories in a hundred battles is not the highest excellence;
to subjugate the enemy’s army without doing battle is the highest of excellence.
Or…
Therefore, a victorious army first obtains conditions for victory, then seeks to do battle.
A defeated army first seeks to do battle, then obtains conditions for victory.
Bush appears to have surveyed the ground… found that he was in unfavorable ground… and made a decision which gave him the best possible chance of actually putting a Justice in place whom he felt was philosophically acceptable AND could survive the comfirmation process.
After all, there is the little matter of the next vacancy on the Supreme Court. That will be the “one that counts”, in all likelihood, given the Justices who are most likely to die or retire … and it is not unreasonable to think Bush will be the one to pick that seat’s successor, too.
When that seat comes vacant, no matter who Bush nominates, there will be the filibuster to contend with. Time enough to topple it then… and if Bush picks an originalist with a strong ABA recommendation and a stellar record, that filibuster fight will be much easier to win.
Dealing with Supreme Court vacancies is, perforce, a long game. It’d be nice if people would start thinking past the next move, and look to the whole game.
The wailing, lamenting, and gnashing of teeth yesterday, after the announcement of President Bush’s nomination of Harriett Miers to the Supreme Court, was nothing if not …illuminating.
For one thing, it pretty much demolishes the myth of the monolithic right-wing thoughtcontrolblogmachine, run by orbital mind-control laser, programmed by Darth Rove as he rides above it all in Looking Glass One. (Fnord.) Anybody trying to trace a coherent path of talking points from source-to-blogs on this issue would have to buy a wig afterwards; their hair will have been pulled out in frustration. Next time some paranoid Naderite tells me about the lockstep docility of the vast right-wing conspiracy, I shall content myself with saying “Miers”, and go serenely on my way.
I also cheerfully claim to have discovered a corollary to Godwin’s Law: The Lopez Corollary.
Heh.
Still… if I were RNC chairman Mehlman, I’d be concerned. “Appearance is reality” in politics, rather more often than not, and an awful lot of his party’s current base is aghast at what they perceive as Bush abandoning them. That can’t be good for 2006; elections are won by getting your supporters to the polls, and an apathetic/angry base could very easily decide to send a signal in the ‘06 electoral cycle. Hilary Clinton will not be running in every Senate and Congressional race; the RNC will not have her to run against. (Besides, the DNC tried the “run against the Devil” strategy in ‘04, and look how well it didn’t turn out for them…)
President Bush, for his part, may want to ask himself this question: why do his supporters not trust him enough to “do the Hewitt”, and line up behind Miers? That is, I think, the real story here. There’s been a sea-change somewhere, and students of memetic warfare might do well to follow the various factors which have contributed to it. It’s not enough to say that folks at the Corner have lost their nerve. WHY that happened is important… just as important as asking why Miers, instead of (fill in the blank HERE).
Interesting times ahead.
It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
The Islamicists are in trouble. Consider Mark Steyn:
Alas, the United Kingdom’s descent into dhimmitude is beyond parody. Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council (Tory-controlled) has now announced that, following a complaint by a Muslim employee, all work pictures and knick-knacks of novelty pigs and “pig-related items” will be banned. Among the verboten items is one employee’s box of tissues, because it features a representation of Winnie the Pooh and Piglet. And, as we know, Muslims regard pigs as “unclean”, even an anthropomorphised cartoon pig wearing a scarf and a bright, colourful singlet.
Oh, the horror. Oh the depravity.
Oh… bosh.
Avert your eyes, oh ye lovers of bin Laden and al Zarqawi, lest they be seared out by the abomination of a… Disney cartoon character.
Note to Islamicist fanatics: If Piglet gives you a case of the vapours, you are silly. Posture, chant, wave weapons about, blow up innocents. Commit any depravity you want in the name of God.
The civilized peoples of the world will find you and stop you — Muslim, Christian, Jew, Hindu, Jain, Shinto, Buddhist, all of us. We won’t let children play with matches at gas stations; we won’t let you continue to endanger innocents either.
We will stop you. But we will never, ever respect you.
Respect you? When you are so timid and fearful that Piglet gives you the willies?
In times of old, the hashshāshīn were crushed by the Mongols. YOU lot can apparently be routed by the hordes of… Walt Disney.
Pathetic.
I guess we’d better lay in a stock of Winnie the Pooh pajamas for prison wear, against the day we capture you…
I may be the only science-fiction geek with a blog who didn’t see Serenity at one of the advance showings for bloggers and Browncoats; we’re still short on ER docs in RealWorld ™, and I was working.
That being said, I confess myself delighted.
I missed Firefly, during it’s abortive run on Fox. My son swears I am the worse for it, and as I try desperately to catch up — all praise to the SciFi channel — I begin to think he was right.
As a longterm trufan, I am delighted to see Whedon get a second crack at telling his tale. I aim to see this movie, in a few days. And who knows? If it’s half the story I keep hearing it is, maybe there’s a browncoat in my future.
So. Tom DeLay is no longer the House Majority Leader. A combination of an indictment by a political enemy, and loss of support from small-government and fiscal-restraint Republicans, led to his downfall.
After DeLay’s comments of late, where he feigned to see no pork to be cut from the Federal budget to offset hurricane recovery efforts, I cannot say I am sorry to see him go.
Mr. DeLay is innocent until proven guilty, despite the best efforts of the Democratic National Committee, who has already proclaimed DeLay guilty, without the tedious formality of a trial. DeLay deserves that fair trial, as his Constitutional right.
I doubt we will ever see a trial, though.
DeLay’s accuser, Travis County DA Ronnie Earle, is well known in Texas for politically motivated indictments; his efforts against Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson were thrown out of court. Earle also was a guest of honor at a Democratic PAC fundraiser just a few months ago, in May, where he openly boasted that he was out to get DeLay.
If I were Mr. DeLay’s lawyers, I’d already be happy; this kind of bias and misconduct just begs for motions to put Mr. Earle on the stand, under oath, to explain his behavior. Can you spell “dismissed with prejudice”?
But it gets better. Byron York has found out that Ronnie Earle let documentary filmmakers follow him about during the course of the DeLay investigation.
They’re preparing the film even now, and reshooting the current ending.
I Could Not Make This Up If I Tried.
Mr. DeLay has left his office as House Majority Leader. With any luck, Mr. Earle will be also gone at the end of this debacle, after the Texas State Bar sanctions him for gross malfeasance, and strips him of his right to practice law.
That will be good riddance to venal rubbish.
thank Dogette, of Two Nervous Dogs, for making me aware of the marvelous Image Headlines plugin. (Please thank Ted as well, for making me awary of TND.) I first saw this effect put to good use in TND’s latest Goth Undies Of Despair update, and thought the Institute would benefit from the perking up.
(Don’t ask ME. Just strap your ribs so’s they don’t break, and go browse the category, m’kay?)
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Or to seek the truth about an older world.
I confess, I find this story… exhilarating. If this proves true, it could truly be this generation’s Troy… not the blockbuster-that-fizzled, but the archeological marvel which caused classicists and historians of the Bronze Age to think twice about labeling Homer a mere fantasist, and vindicated Heinrich Schliemann’s work.
I also take delight in knowing that I am but four degrees separate from the archaeologists who uncovered all this. Honest! My friend Bill Gawne first brought this to my attention. His LJ friend lysana vouched for the article; she has in turn an LJ friend, thette, whose father was involved with the project, and can only now talk about it. Thus:
thette’s father to
thette to
lysana to
Bill Gawne to
De Doc.
Four degrees to the project, and therefore five degrees to Odysseus.
Five degrees to Odysseus.
WOW.
Warrior, sage, trickster… Odysseus would be welcome here at the Institute. I concur with Pejman Yousefzadeh; I wish I might have met Odysseus.
Alas, I cannot.
But one day, perhaps, I will be able to go to Poros, on Kefalonia, across the wine-dark seas, and sit by the tomb, and pour the libation in memory of this quintessentially Greek hero.
It is now possible to dream of such a thing;
to “push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows”,
and if that doesn’t raise the hairs at the back of your neck, just a touch, in wonder and amazement…
I am truly sorry for you.
As I write this, Rita is swinging about on the northern Texas/Louisiana borders, giving meteorologists fits; no one can quite make up their mind where Rita’s going next.
For the moment, we seem to have been lucky… or blessed. We know how bad Rita could have been.
We have a little time to breathe.
I’ve been thinking, these last weeks, about Katrina and Rita, and what lessons can be learned from this “month of storms”. I’ve been hesitant to say overmuch; too many people have been climbing on bodies to trumpet their ideologies, and I despise that lot too much to want to be thought one of them.
Now, though, we have that time to breathe. We can think, together, about what can be done better next time… and there will be a next time, and a next; we are apparently entering a time of increased hurricane activity, these next ten years.
Here’s a start: any of you, reading this, remember the 48 hours rule?
As it applied to reports of WMDs in Iraq, in the immediate aftermath of the second Gulf War?
Surely you must.
Someone would post a blog-note about a preliminary report, that someone, somewhere, had found indisputable evidence of WMDs. The excitement would build, for a little time; and then someone else would invoke the 48 hour rule — give the preliminary report time to be corroborated; gather other reports, or contact your own sources (if you were so connected), but don’t rush to celebration. Wait for the truth. Wait for it… Wait for it…
That advice made lots of people irritable. But time and again it proved sound counsel. To date, all those reports failed to pan out.
Now, maybe those WMDs are in Syria. Maybe they’re buried in the Iraqi desert. Maybe they were all a titanic bluff, and Hussein picked the wrong poker game to bluff in. But no one can credibly argue that, as of this writing, those WMDs have been found.
They weren’t.
People remembered the 48 hour rule, here in the blogosphere, and made good use of it. Supporters of Mr. Bush took heart from the 48 rule in the first frantic hours of mediablitz after the TANG memos were offered us by CBS. Those who wanted Bush gone-at-any-price ignored that rule. The result: when the memos proved to be the clumsiest of forgeries, the fallout dealt a bodyblow to the “stop Bush” effort… and destroyed Dan Rather’s career.
The mainstream media pursues this issue and that, restless, fickle, always looking for the next novelty, the next scoop. Their need to be “first, fast, and accurate” drives their thinking; it compels them to become creatures of the “news cycle”, seeking to be first and fast.
Two out of three ain’t bad, I guess.
Except when accuracy suffers, and you get fact-checked and found wanting, over and over and over again…
The 48 hour rule is a useful corrective for bloggers; a warning that a desire for speed shouldn’t compromise a desire for accuracy.
So… why didn’t we apply the 48 hour rule to what we were told about Katrina?
“10, 000 casualties”. “No helicopters”. “FEMA was asleep at the wheel”. “Gas will be over $3.00 a gallon for months”.
Why were these notions accepted so readily?
Why did people who don’t give the MSM credence when they covered Iraq, or the 2004 presidential campaign, originally swallow the panicky bilge offered us when it came to conditions after Katrina?
We are now beginning to ask these questions; we are now starting to cast a critical, skeptical eye on what we were told about the immediate post-Katrina aftermath.
But we did it rather later than we should have, in many cases.
It is becoming clear that the narrative preferred by many MSM sources was that of an unalloyed failure of the Bush administration and no one else. People who had a vested interest in shining the spotlight elsewhere had ready-made venues, eminently predisposed to help grab that spotlight and swing it around.
We knew better.
But as we faced the storm, we assumed that we would be given facts; that spin would be in abeyance.
No such luck.
There’s our first lesson, post-Katrina and post-Rita: Trust, but verify.
“48 hours”.
I don’t care if the MSMsies’ latest offerings delight me or horrify me.
48 hours. Verify, crosscheck, recheck.
No matter how “apolitical” you’d think the event is…
48 hours.
UPDATE: The New Orleans Times-Picayune builds my case for me:
From the article:
That the nation’s front-line emergency management believed the body count would resemble that of a bloody battle in a war is but one of scores of examples of myths about the Dome and the Convention Center treated as fact by evacuees, the media and even some of New Orleans’ top officials, including the mayor and police superintendent. As the fog of warlike conditions in Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath has cleared, the vast majority of reported atrocities committed by evacuees have turned out to be false, or at least unsupported by any evidence, according to key military, law enforcement, medical and civilian officials in positions to know.
I can understand the MSMsies wanting our unalloyed belief. It makes money for them.
But example after example piles up of the MSM acting like tabloids, rather than the “responsible journalists” of the culture-myth.
When are we going to stop falling for this?
Rita Unleashes Category 5 Fury Over Gulf.
And draws a bead on Galveston and Houston.
Hold them in your thoughts and prayers, gentle readers. They’ll need it.
The Political Teen brings us General Honore, caught in some informal memetic engineering.
I don’t think it requires a crystal ball to see that “stuck on stupid” is going to become a popular catchphrase in the near future.
The General has become something of a ‘Net darling, if not a deadtree media favorite. It’ll be interesting to see what other things might fall from his mouth in subsequent press conferences.
And all the time, the professional politicians try to measure nuances to the tenth of a notion, ignoring the blindingly obvious: there is a passionate, deep, abiding hunger for straightforward speech from public figures.
Rrrrrrr, indeed.
Somebody did.
North Korea Agrees to End Nuclear Programs… or so the headline has it.
BEIJING – North Korea on Monday agreed to stop building nuclear weapons and allow international inspections in exchange for energy aid, economic cooperation and security assurances, in a first step toward disarmament after two years of six-nation talks.
Yet again, we see how the ineffectual strategies of the BushitlerMcshrimpy administration… produce results, despite the conventional “wisdom” that Bush’s policies are failures.
The devils lurk in the details, of course. Negotiations continue on implementation of the agreement, and the followon issues — regional security, power production and supply, normalization of relations.
But the North Koreans… blinked.
It will be interesting, in the months ahead, to see what happened behind the scenes; something had to shift to produce this change of behavior. But for now, let us give thanks for this change.
Iran is another story… but then again, so was North Korea, six months ago.
From the Institute bulletin boards:
Kim du Toit has taken his site down, apparently. Chris Byrne has been told that there are business-related reasons this has happened, and hopes to have more news in a few days. Until more is known, we’re leaving Kim on the Institute rolls, in recognition of his support of the Second Amendment, and his clear-eyed appreciation of what it means to be a US citizen.
We are also pleased to announce the addition of Big Lizards to our roster. No, NOT Godzilla and Carnosaur. Big Lizards promises to be a hoot — it’s a joint effort of Daffyd ab Hugh, Brad Linaweaver, and Sachiko ab Hugh (who really should have been there when the biographies were written. Ahem.) Their field reports should prove delightful.
KABUL, Afghanistan – Afghans chose a legislature for the first time in decades on Sunday, embracing their newly recovered democratic rights and braving threats of militant attacks to cast votes in schools, tents and mosques.
Just as in Iraq, Islamists hoped to scare off voters with threats of violence. Just as in Iraq, the citizens weren’t having any of it.
“Today is a magnificent day for Afghanistan,” said Ali Safar, 62, standing in line to vote in Kabul. “We want dignity, we want stability and peace. Thirty years of war and poverty is enough.”
A freed people, voting to elect their representatives.
Nope; not “another Vietnam”, not at all.
Thank G_d.
I am still coming down from the heights of a most wonderful weekend. That, and the demands of work, are making it a bit difficult to focus on current events… especially when some of them are so painful.
No, not Katrina… nor the anniversary of 9/11…
I am speaking of the self-exulting bloviation-fest that the Senate confirmation hearing for Judge Roberts seems doomed to be.
It’s like driving by the car wreck at the side of the road — one hates to look, one’s nauseated at the thought of looking, and yet the horror has it’s own dark pull on your eyes.
Roger L. Simon says it best: “Roberts’ own speech lasted only seven minutes by the way (for this alone he should be confirmed).”
Amen; selah; amen.
…Silence doesn’t always equal consent.
I have written very little about Katrina, its’ aftermath, and “what has to be done next”.
Frankly, I am sickened by the rush to profit politically, even as we are still rescuing people from the disaster zone. I cannot bring myself to hunt among those thickets… but I find I cannot remain silent about those who do so.
I have no objection to people calling immediate attention to problems as they come up, such as the appaling misuse of volunteer firefighters noted here. (“Sexual harassment classes”? Jesus WEPT.) That is useful; it identifies roadblocks and puts pressure on those responsible to get rid of those roadblocks as fast as possible.
But I cannot stomach those who are climbing on the very backs of the dead to plant their poisonous ideologies in fresh gravesoil, hoping to see them grow malignant fruit. Vultures… no, in very truth, skekses, who wrap themselves in glittering robes of virtue to hide their gaunt, compassion-starved selves.
If you drove off and wouldn’t help someone because they had a “W” sticker, you’re a carrion-eater.
If you proclaimed that Katrina was God’s judgment on gays, you’re a carrion-eater.
If you think God is punishing the United States for the Gaza pullout, you’re a carrion-eater.
Left, right, donkey, elephant, Jew, Christian, Muslim… don’ matter.
If it is more important for you to proclaim your ideology vindicated than to focus on what can be done to help the suffering here and now… you’re a carrion-eater, and fit only to be ignored for the loathsome offal you are.
The rest of us will busy ourselves with the task at hand, comfort our friends in their time of loss, and try to find ways to improve the response next time.
For there will always be a next time… maybe sooner than you’d think.
Color me wolfhound. Or sheepdog, if you like.
I promised some people; I’m keeping that promise.
I am settled in, after a… spirited discussion… with the hotel.
Those of you who enjoy SF fandom can look for me at DragonCon… especially Sunday night.
Later, all!
Think globally… act locally.
Gas Buddy links to (at last count) 170 local sites, with real-time reporting of gasoline prices. Use that information to spend your fuel dollars wisely. And if a local gas station repeatedly, consistently runs up the pump prices… well, maybe a little negative publicity wouldn’t hurt. Blogswarms can bite other targets than the New York Times.
Information is out there, in ways we couldn’t imagine a few years ago. High time to use that information to our benefit.
will go to Catholic Charities.
It won’t be my last.
My Sharpie’s involvement in Animal Rescue charities means we’ll probably funnel funds into the Humane Society efforts.
And more after that, as the situation sorts itself out.
Don’t like those choices? I’ve got a TON of other worthy charities for your consideration.
Our people need us.
Let’s get to it.
To paraphrase the immortal Robert Evans, “The kid stays in the Institute.”
Heh.
… within the month, someone in Congress will propose “emergency” price-fixing of oil and gasoline, as part of a National Economic Emergency regime.
Merits of the proposal? Won’t matter; won’t even get significant discussion from the floor of the Congress. The proposal will likely pass, handily.
Discuss at your leisure.
I can think of no better time.
I’m home safe, but hundreds of thousands are not.
My prayers are with them tonight.
Heh.
Maybe we’ll make use of Mr. Kissel’s good counsel.
Or go to Mars, perhaps.
Or collapse in exhaustion, if I remember some of MY college moving-in experiences correctly.
Wish us luck, and look for me sometime on Monday!
Researchers produce strong, transparent carbon nanotube sheets…
and the announcements come out on my birthday!
These nanotube sheets have a whole host of fascinating properties. Light, strong, electrically conductive, and now they’re becoming available in job lots.
For an overview of just how many cool things might come from this breakthruough, I commend you to the latest Carnival of Tomorrow, which pulls together a host of articles on this stuff.
(But they didn’t mention airships. I want airships, f’revvinsakes. As light and strong as this material is, carbon nanotube sheets may be a superb skin for 21st century etherstats — to borrow from Neal Stephenson.)
I look forward to seeing how the Scoop system works out for Pej, and his fellow contributors.
Off to update my bookmarks!
Which Incarnation of the Doctor Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
Heh. I still want a sonic screwdriver.
Mr. Robertson. Take Oliver Cromwell’s counsel:
You have sat too long for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!
Ahem.
…sometimes he bites the fellow jumping over him.
It’s a pity, really. Professor Hanson is onto something with his description of the “biteback effect”. It’s something that Liberty People can take comfort in; people who rant and rail tend to puncture their own arguments. The only cure for wretched speech is free speech; let there be debate, let there be discussion, and let the people who spew hatred and lies make the case against themselves.
But.
In the midst of making the case, Professor Hanson himself… well, tempts the shark:
Our European friends used to equate the Patriot Act with over-the-top cowboyism; now in their brave new judicial landscape it is becoming pass. After the London bombings and the recent American apprehensions of terrorist suspects from New Jersey to Lodi, those who still demonize the Patriot Act prompt the opposite effect of what they intend; rather than safeguarding our liberties, they endanger them.
This statement, unsupported by any factual examples of the presumed “endangerment”, uttered in magisterial tones, is … well… an example of biteback.
Let me review the bidding.
The Patriot Act allows government officials to obtain permission to tap your phones, read your e-mail, enter your home without permission and without notification after the fact, obtain records of your library reading… all by recourse to a secret court, which is not required to release any information about it’s activities to anyone save Intelligence Commitees in the House and Senate. No oversight; no appeal; no recourse. (More unhappy details here.)
Now, perhaps I am only “objecting”, not “demonizing”, and am consequently not “endangering your liberties”; but the tone of Professor Hanson’s commentary suggests he might not acknowledge a distinction in my case.
I’ll cope.
I object, strenuously, to granting government secret powers, signed off on by a secret court, who cannot be made accountable because not even the full Congress in session is allowed to know what the court is doing.
If Professor Hanson can explain how my objections endanger American liberty, with examples and actual facts, I await with interest. If Professor Hanson can explain why the Patriot Act is not an intolerable affront to a nation founded on “the consent of the governed”, I await with fascination.
I will not, however, hold my breath, waiting for either… because the notion is poppycock.
NO safeguard written into the Patriot Act is worth a damn without the ability to review whether or not the government was compelled to live up to those safeguards. As of this writing, there is NO way for you, as a citizen of the United States, to even find out whether you have become a “person of interest”; whether your house has been invaded; whether or not your phones have been tapped. None. The Freedom of Information Act doesn’t apply.
If that doesn’t worry you, I prescribe a refresher course in domestic management methods of 20th century totalitarian states.
I am not asserting that we have such a state today; nor am I asserting that anyone in the current Administration desires such a totalitarian state.
I decline to be shark-fodder.
However: I assert that such secret law enforcement powers as I have described are too dangerous to grant a government, ANY government, without effective oversight, and that the decision to do so is as corrosive of our freedoms as any theocrat’s plans. More so; for while theocrats may plan for a future day of power, these secret powers are being painted in red, white, and blue here and now.
That’s a problem.
Why fight a foreign tyranny if we are going to accept a home-grown yoke so meekly?
School starts in August for my family.
And 23 years ago, my Sharpie gave me a slightly delayed present…
but one that keeps on giving, year after happy year.
Happy Anniversary to us… and I’ll see you all tomorrow, m’kay?
… far too many mentions, for all of me.
These people, and their families, are all going through hard times. Even Senator Reid, who appears to have had a TIA, not a full stroke — a warning event; think of angina compared to a full heart attack — has to be thinking of the near miss he’s had.
My prayers and thoughts go out to all of them.
On the other hand, they missed. As a Naval veteran, I guess that makes it a pretty good present.
I hope to G_d they are just as successful in all their future attacks… especially the ones they keep launching against women and children.
These hostis humani generis have killed too many people already.
well, I wish I could afford some fireworks.
Happy Birthday… to me!
*grins*
Mr. Podhoretz notwithstanding, the Iraqi National Assembly has had a setback, not a “grievous blow”.
If they can settle their problems with a week’s extension, that will put them well up on the United States, whose first attempt at a constitution was a debacle.
It took us from 1776 to 1789 to sort that mess out… and for all our faults, we didn’t turn out so very badly.
Let’s not bury the hopes of the Iraqi people prematurely, shall we?
Kate’s heart is eased because of your generosity… and as she is a friend of mine, I rest easier as well.
G_d love you all.
…to Dr. Banzai, and HIS Institute, who’ve been celebrating the 21st anniversary of the release of their docudrama.
Perhaps we’ll have some watermelon tonight, in commemoration…
Lord have mercy. Now I have to live up to these high expectations…
*blush*
I give you Socrates, and say no more.
You are an unhappy lot, over yonder. Some of you are Higher Beings, and some Mortal Humans, and some have the “Best Of The Web”, and a few are privileged to walk about the Mall arm in arm with the Instapundit; but I have seen Kelley a recent evening past, have kissed her cheek, and had a drinkno, two drinkswith her, and talked with her for almost two hours! Understand clearly that I do not despise you; indeed, I dont. I am only very sorry for you, from the Instapundit downward.
…except, of course, for you who’ve actually met her before.
Kelley and her family were on holiday in Amelia Island. This was an opportunity not to be missed, and so I took a break from my revisions, fired up Wolfgang, and spun up to Fernandina Beach, meeting Kelley and her husband at the Palace Saloon.
Pete is a splendid fellow, well spoken and erudite. Kelley…
is ALL THAT.
Nuff said.
This meeting was long overdue, and I hope Kelley had half the delight in it that I did.
Now, to try and be in the same area code as Kate, one happy day.
Discovery Lands Safely in California.
Now to see if NASA can get it’s act together…
and to see if t/Space can do something remarkable…
and to find an impossibly lucrative hobby, so I can afford a trip aboard Spaceship Two.
G_d grant them a smooth ride and an uneventful landing.
He never made it back on the air.
That’s a shame. Jennings overcame considerable adversity, including failure to complete high school and a disastrous stint as ABC anchor from 1965-1968. (Consider. You’re 26 years old. You’ve been hired away from Canada to New York City, to be ABC’s night-time news anchorman. Your pronunciation is more Canadian than American. It’s the 60’s… and ABC has set you against Walter Cronkite. How else was that going to go?) It would have been good had Jennings been able to overcome his cancer, and return to the job he re-earned with hard work and an unrelenting attention to detail.
In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, he was unfairly criticized by some for the tenor of his coverage. Yes, unfairly:
Jennings gently suggested that Bush should be visibly leading the country, but also stressed that America was the world’s leading example of freedom and democracy, which is quite a statement from a network news division that bans flag pins on the air. On that day, Jennings proved we were all Americans in a grave crisis.
There is a long-standing assertion in humane civilization that one’s actions tell us more about a person’s true self than their speeches do.
If that be true — and I believe it to be so — than Peter Jennings was, at the core, a class act. Again, Mr. Graham:
… (Jennings’) way of defining the news was to begin most newscasts with “We begin tonight with,” with the royal “We” marking what would be seen as important. This is the political power no one really wants to relinquish, making Brokaw’s unnatural ability to retire such a salutary human event.
Rest well, Mr. Jennings. My thoughts and prayers to your family.
… the more they remain the same.
Consider this skewering of critics:
As I got to know literary circles and their critical output, I was struck by the slenderness of some of the writers equipment. I could not see how they got along with so casual a knowledge of French work and, apparently, of much English grounding that I had supposed indispensable. Their stuff seemed to be a day-to-day traffic in generalities, hedged by trade considerations. Here I expect I was wrong, but, making my own tests (the man who had asked me out to dinner to discover what I had read gave me the notion), I would ask simple questions, misquote or misattribute my quotations; or (once or twice) invent an author. The result did not increase my reverence.
Suspicious of the newspapers?
I have told this at length because Institutions of idealistic tendencies sometimes wait till a man is dead, and then furnish their own evidence. Should this happen, try to believe that in the deepest trough of the War I did not step aside to play with The Times…
Sometimes they don’t wait nearly so long. But I digress.
Can’t wait to “break a story” before the rest of the media… or the blogosphere? Think on this:
Take nothing for granted if you can check it. Even though that seem waste-work, and has nothing to do with the essentials of things, it encourages the Daemon. There are always men who by trade or calling know the fact or the inference that you put forth. If you are wrong by a hair in this, they argue False in one thing, false in all.
And while you’re fact-checking yourself , think about the quality of your writing:
… Never play down to your publicnot because some of them do not deserve it, but because it is bad for your hand. All your material is drawn from the lives of men. Remember, then, what David did with the water brought to him in the heat of battle.
Timely advice, isn’t it?
Well… not exactly. Timely, but not contemporary.
I’ve been Kippling with you. These quotes all come from Chapter VIII of Kipling’s autobiography, Something Of Myself, which I have been re-reading of late. I found it online, you see… along with the rest of Kipling’s work, and much else besides.
The website is a lovely find, fit to be mentioned in the same paragraph as Project Gutenberg. (And so I shall.)
Not everything Kipling wrote seems equally timeless. It is hard to imagine today’s journalists writing thus:
…I have told what my early surroundings were, and how richly they furnished me with material. Also, how rigorously newspaper spaces limited my canvases and, for the readers sake, prescribed that within these limits must be some sort of beginning, middle, and end. My ordinary reporting, leader- and note-writing carried the same lesson, which took me an impatient while to learn. Added to this, I was almost nightly responsible for my output to visible and often brutally voluble critics at the Club. They were not concerned with my dreams. They wanted accuracy and interest, but first of all accuracy.
“First of all accuracy.”
It would be nice if the “new breed” took a lesson or two to heart from an old Master of the craft.
Not like the price of Kipling’s autobiography is any impediment, after all…
Nick Danger contemplates the rescue of the Russian submariners:
I’m not sure what the lesson is here… but I am certain it is something we need to keep in mind as we go about the War on Terror. The day will come when we will all rush off to aid Iranians trapped in a mine, and we will cheer when they are rescued.
G_d willing, that day will come.
And good thoughts, and hopes, and every manner of well-wishing.
We wait, hopefully, on Discovery’s safe return.
… Them safe from peril in the deep.”
You don’t need to have been a submariner to have the willies, thinking of these poor souls.
Hold them in your thoughts and prayers, do.
One of Dr. Pournelle’s correspondents sent along this disturbing warning. In short, one of the phishing e-mails analyzed has a valid link to EBay… a link which the phisher has somehow managed to turn into a redirector to a phishing site. So “testing the URL” in the link won’t work.
OI.
I strongly urge my readers NOT to try out the link that the author discusses. Mr. Glaskowsky is rather adept at this sort of thing, and he didn’t want to follow the link thruough to the exploit trap.
What’s to do? Until this exploit is better understood, I recommend what we do here at the Institute: we trash all messages from firms we don’t remember doing business with, and if a message comes to us purporting to be from a firm we DO business with…
We go directly to the website from our bookmarks, or type the address in directly. We never follow a link in an email to a target page; we sign in to our account instead, and peruse any messages from there… or we call Customer Service at the toll-free number we have from bills, invoices, files.
Most phishing tricks are easily detected by bad writing and grammar… for now. But sooner or later, someone’s going to put as much effort into the social engineering as the scriptkiddying, and lots of people are going to be burned.
Be careful out there; you’re far more likely to have your identity hijacked by these stunts than by someone stealing credit records from some of the big firms… and if you’ve allowed someone to run an exploit on you, you have rather less recourse.
“… The evil that men do lives after them…”
— William Shakespeare
— George Moneo
I’m with George; with my neighbors in Jacksonville, in Miami; with my neighbors across the waters in Cuba, whom have surely endured enough.
Help spread the meme!
Unfortunately, it isn’t so good.
As you can read for yourself, the timing couldn’t be worse.
Fortunately, VK’s dentists are going the extra mile.
We can do the same.
If you can, hit VK’s tip jar. (Scroll to the bottom of the post.) Please use the main page’s sidebar’s button; the button that was at the end of the blog entry was malfunctioning.
If you can’t do that, but you have a blog, an online journal, anything like that? Join me, and
The Professor;
Gay Orbit;
the Oracle;
Rudy Carrasco, at Urban Onramps;
Captain Ed;
the Anchoress;
Randy Thomas;
Xlrq, at Damnum Absque Injuria;
Zombyboy, of ResurrectionSong;
Kevin at Wizbang!;
David A, who’s In Search Of Utopia;
Laurence Simon;
Frank J, Destroyer Of Moons;
the Pundit Guy;
***************
One Stack Mind;
Aaron’s cc;
John Hawkins;
Explicitly Ambiguous;
Molten Thought;
Beth Donovan;
Slobokan’s Site Of Schtuff;
Entropy Manor;
the impossibly well-named Full Osseous Flap;
Timmer, at The Daily Brief;
The Listless Lawyer — and the Jedi Master Pejman, who pointed him there;
Chris Muir;
and THIRDWAVEDAVE.
(Whew.)
Help get the word out.
Help bring a smile back… in more ways than one.
UPDATE NOTE: I’ll add blogs which have chipped in with publicity as best I can, below the asterisk line. I am already falling behind, though, looking at VK’s thank you list.
That means people are spreading the word faster than I can possibly keep up with.
For once, I’m DELIGHTED to be falling behind a power curve…
It’s the stuff of high drama — bravery, adventure, “The Right Stuff”, the awareness that failure brings disaster.
We are left to wonder whether NASA’s continuing foamfalls will mean the final grounding of the Shuttle, despite spending over a billion dollars. What’s really infuriating is that we are also left to wonder whether NASA might have contributed to both Columbia’s loss, and Discovery’s peril, by using a less adherent, less durable foam covering for the external tank.
The reason for the change? Freon was used in the original insulation foam… and thus, wasn’t in compliance with EPA regulations.
You’d think NASA could get a waiver for this sort of stuff, right? “In the national interest”, and all that, right?
Don’t blame the Columbia tragedy on the Greens. The EPA gave NASA that waiver. For reasons I have yet to uncover, NASA never used that waiver, and continued to use the inferior foam.
NASA never used that waiver.
Think about that… and the consequences that may well have proceeded.
The words “criminally negligent” come to mind.
Ever hear of the term, “a corporal’s battle”? That’s when the best laid plans of the generals and colonels fail, and the battle-plan bears no resemblance to the way the battle is actually unfolding, and it’s left to the squad and platoon leaders to salvage the whole sorry mess.
Well, here’s to Discovery’s crew, who are in the middle of a “spacers’ mission”, trying to make the mission a success in spite of the failure of their highers-up. Godspeed to them, and a safe return.
As to NASA, and all those panjanundrums? I am about ready to fire the lot of them, and hire Dr. Pournelle.
UPDATE: Job Well Done. (Thanks to Institute Fellow Pejman for the advisory.)
I was reading an interview with Joss Whedon… and found myself nodding vigorously in agreement. Attend to the words of the oracle through this unworthy medium transmitted. His words are mighty and to be remembered:
… The only time I ever read a comic and said, Jesus, that should be on the screen, I found out that somebody else was already developing it, and it was Global Frequency. It should be a TV show. I adore it.
That’s just about right.
It should be. It COULD be.
Are YOU on the Global Frequency?
(An Institute No-Prize to the reader who can guess what writer’s voice I borrowed for the introduction…
Hint #1: One legend, writing admiringly of another.
Hint # 2: Elmira, NY.)
My friend Venomous Kate took a header last night.
I can’t link to VK’s post, because the header which would give me the permalink is munged up. (Whether that has to do with Treo-blogging, or hurting like hell, remains to be determined.) So… Institute Fellow Kelley brings us the news, and we proceed from there.
Prayers and well-wishes are certainly in order; with at least two teeth broken out, odds are good that Kate will be hurtin’ for a spell, even if there’s nothing requiring surgery.
We await news, with some concern.
The right tool, for the right job.
Some pundits were restive, a few months ago, about continued delays in the confirmation of federal judges. There were calls for recess appointments, calls to challenge the Democrats on their use of the filibuster, calls to remove the filibuster entirely from the confirmation process. Bolton almost looked like a distraction from that fight, and the appropriate tactics to be used. Democrats were celebrating their ability to thwart the President, and took delight in the apparent derailing of the Republicans by the Great Filibuster Deal of 2005.
What a difference a couple of weeks makes.
The “Great Sellout” by the “Gang of 14″ allowed most of the judges that the President wanted on the bench to get voted in without filibuster. Then Justice O’Connor retires, allowing Bush his first Supreme Court nominee — and it is extraordinarily unlikely that the Democratic opposition will get any traction in any of their attempts to thwart that nominee. His appointment will make a subsequent filibuster that much less likely, as the Democrats will be hard put to make “constructionist judge” equal “extraordinary circumstances”. (Note to the more excitable readers — there is precisely no chance that President Bush is going to nominate anyone to the Supreme Court who is a sleeper for the Subterranean Christian Theocracy.)
And the recess appointment got used in the right place: to set Ambassador Bolton in place now, with an appointment guaranteed until January 2007, unless he commits gross malfeasance and is appropriately removed. And guess what? He’s almost certainly going to do a decent job, build a year and a half of “track record”, which is going to make it a lot harder to paint him as a disaster. It’s a lot easier to build a track record in Bolton’s position than it is as a judge, where the pace is more measured.
Bush and his team may be wrong-headed in many respects (see: that damned Patriot Act), but stupid?
I think… not.
Anyone got a cool three hundred million rubles or so?
Best make it a hundred million in dollars; RKK Energia prefers hard currency.
The Professor is slightly off-base, for once; this project isn’t a done deal just yet. Even if someone ante’d up the cash, the Russian Space Agency and RKK Energia would still have to put the package together. Riding the Soyuz system into orbit is one thing; heading out to the moon and back would require boosters and vehicles that no one’s currently building.
Interesting that the RKK proposal implies use of the same kind of architecture for space development that t/Space is pursuing — get to LEO with one launch system, make the jump to Luna with a second. A practical approach to the problem; had we followed that development path during the race to space, we might well have STAYED in space …
Ah, well. The path not taken.
This is still marvelous, if you ask me. In the 60s and 70s, who would have thought that Russians — not Soviets, but Russians — would be serious players in the nascent space tourism and settlement industry?
I might still make it to LEO! (With the help of a lottery or something like that… heh.)
Ever since Kitten’s Spaminator stopped being compatible with WordPress (after the 1.5 release), I’ve been looking for a new weapon in the trackback-spam wars.
My current fave-rave was pointed out to me by my Venomous Hostess: Spam Karma 2.0. Installation is a breeze, and spam just goes… away.
And it’s also a lot easier on my karma than the newest Russian solution.
Heh.
(Thanks to Jerry Pournelle and Kelley for that invitation to schadenfreude.)
UPDATE: Since we’re web-geeking, permit me to check pings… so.
Except, perhaps, that it took Fonda so long.
Maybe the folks at New Line Cinema had some kind of clause in her contract for Monster-In-Law; not a “no compete” clause, but a “no shooting our movie in the head” clause.
It would be worth being on the Hollywood A-list, just for the pleasure of publically leaving a dinner, or a reception, rather than stay in a room with such a wretch.
Not a realistic aspiration, given my career and my life; but a guy can hope, right?
Teresa and Blackfive have different wishes for Ms. Fonda, but they’re no warmer than mine.
A special retro-Trotsky salute to the Commissar, whose photoshopping of Hussein Jane is, indeed, the only humorous thing about this creature’s vain posturings.
Actually, it appears to have been the unkindest thrust.
I normally have little use for “decorative swords”, and Kim duToit is more likely to own an airsoft Mauser than I am to own such a piece of potmetal. That being said, that wallhanger and those people seem… an apt match.
De Doc says:
– If it is shaped like a weapon, ALWAYS assume it is one… or can double as one.
– If you own a weapon, you are exercising one of your most fundamental rights. That means you have taken up the fundamental responsibilities that come with that right. Be responsible.
Childish, irresponsible twits; the both of them.
GAH.
…then why are these nanny-bodies trying to drive my blood pressure through the roof?
Hopefully, the citizens of New York City will contact their mayor, and the NEXT thing I read about Health Commisioner Frieden will involve his letter of resignation… or dismissal; I find I don’t care which.
If ever there was a ill-conceived project which called for “data-wrenching” — cybernetic monkeywrenching, if you like — this would be the one.
I’m glad I don’t practice in NYC. My disobedience would be nonviolent, but it wouldn’t be “civil”, I suspect.
To be honest, I was lukewarm about Discovery’s launch. I wanted to see the shuttle surmount this latest set of difficulties… and yet, I am well aware that the shuttles are looking at retirement in about five years.
If NASA can’t get a grip on the foam issue, it may be a lot sooner than that. The House recently voted funding for the Administration’s space exploration initiatives; there’s broadbased support, just now, for spending the money to go “do the hard things”. That being said, if fixing the Shuttle costs too much, someone’s going to propose saving that money. If it were spent on accelerating development of new Crew Exploration Vehicles, well and good… but we are, after all, talking about Congress.
Fortunately, NASA isn’t the only game in town any more. Yes, I know that these folks are “only” looking at suborbital flight…
for now.
And the Branson/Rutan alliance isn’t the only game in town, either.
To hijack a meme…
Faster, PLEASE.
Reports are coming on via Sky News, Fox, and CNN, that there were incidents in three Underground stations and one double-decker bus in London, with at least two explosions. Video footage suggests that the devices were smaller than those of two weeks ago. Authorities are reporting one injury and no deaths.
My son and his friend are safe and sound; in fact, if they can get to their show, they’re continuing on to take in a matinee at the theatre.
Updates to follow.
… and counting.
We’ll be back; I know this. But I’d prefer not to do a DD Harriman when I get my chance to go…
Was it a full moon all those years ago? I remember it being bright, as we ran into our friends’ house to watch the TV, then out into the garden to look up and realize it was going on RIGHT UP THERE… but I don’t remember the phase of the moon, oddly enough.
Where were you in the summer of Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins?
It is appropriate to speak of playing “Last Post”. Mr. Doohan was not only a fine character actor, and part of the reason for the success of Star Trek; he was a veteran of the Second World War, and of Juno Beach, no less. He lost his middle right finger during the landing and subsequent battle; this was hidden throughout his career by careful camerawork and blocking.
Doohan’s input, as early as his auditions, helped shape the character of Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott. Doohan might well be the most famous Scotsman to have come from Canada; it was not native upbringing, but a talent for dialect and vocal acting, that allowed Scott to be a Scot.
When Doohan learned he had Alzheimers’ disease, he made public farewell to his fans, and withdrew gracefully into private retirement.
The American Medical Association has seen a continued loss of membership, over the years, because they did a lot of things which had nothing to do with the needs of the membership… like turning the AMA into a shill for Sunbeam.
It appears that the American College Of Emergency Physicians hasn’t learned from the AMA’s mistakes.
This sort of rannygazoo has not a thing to do with the practice of emergency medicine, nor the preservation of patients’ safety; it is a “feel-good” measure supported only by the political whims of physicians who prefer to “lord it over others”. As a fellow of the College, I categorically reject the actions of those delegates who voted to drag ACEP into such folly without discussing things with the physicians they feign to represent.
Now, if you’ll pardon me, I’m at work. I can’t just leave and go to the range.
But I can certainly decide what I’m taking to the range next time out.
Something in 7.62 by 39, perhaps.
In The Labs:
–Venomous Kate is posting again, having applied ancient blog-themes to new software.
–Kelley, that Blighter, has moved to Hosting Matters — and has a job lined up, huzzah!
–J. Scott Barnard has moved his posting to a new site.
–Darlin’ Margi is sharing her cravings.
What’s going on in your corner of the Institute?
Rove-o-phobia gets skewered… or is that zatted?
Too funny for words.
Michele is tearing ‘em up over at A Small Victory.
There are, apparently, people who are so mature and grown-up in their literary tastes that they take pleasure in posting spoilers in comments sections.
Spoilers about works of fiction that they state they don’t like. (So howin’ell do they know the spoiler info? But I digress.)
Oh, and these people are possessed of such utter taste, style, and aplomb that they simply must dish on others’ taste in fiction and relaxation. Exulting themselves while leaving cleat-marks in others’ backs…
Note to “Randy”: I’m sorry life grabbed you after high school. Myself, I went dancing with life… through college, and postgraduate school, and residency, which is how I have the skills and the ability to to the work I do in emergency medicine, all the time enjoying Star Wars, Star Trek, Babylon 5, and a whole host of other delights.
I even have time to teach lightsaber combat, for fun, every so often… in costume.
It doesn’t seem to have kept me from taking care of my wife, my family, and my patients.
There is maturity, and there is “being grown-up”, and the two aren’t the same thing. I pity people who can’t understand that, and are stuck in the sterility of their self-imposed “adulthood”.
Andrea Harris quotes C.S. Lewis, and does well to do so:
Critics who treat adult as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves.
For my part, I find Tolkien is at least as apt:
… Fantasy can, of course, be carried to excess. It can be ill done. It can be put to evil uses. It may even delude the minds out of which it came. But of what human thing in this fallen world is that not true? Men have conceived not only of elves, but they have imagined gods, and worshipped them, even worshipped those most deformed by their authors’ own evil. But they have made false gods out of other materials: their notions, their banners, their monies; even their sciences and their social and economic theories have demanded human sacrifice. Abusus non tollit usum. Fantasy remains a human right: we make in our measure and in our derivative mode, because we are made: and not only made, but made in the image and likeness of a Maker.
Such shaping is a work fit for free people, not a mark of immaturity; a true “liberal art”. Enjoying the fruits of such work is also “sweet, and fitting”, and I take no shame in doing so.
I revel in it.
There can be no quarter with such as these.
No quarter.
No submission.
No dhimmitude.
NONE.
And if the moderate Islamic world can’t give up on fatwahs, on dhimmitude, on taqiyyah… they may be swept away as well.
but I bow in awe at the profound geekitude of the Lego-Turing machine.
WOW.
(Thanks to the obviously-geeky Jonah Goldberg.)
We had a little packing to do here at the Institute.
My son was getting ready, you see, to visit his aunt.
Who works in London.
Recent events hadn’t fazed her, and they didn’t faze my son, who is, as of this writing, starting a couple of weeks’ visit.
Good on the both of them, and good on everyone else who refuses to be cowed.
If Austin Bay is right, and these attacks are as much memetic as destructive, such refusals become part and parcel of the victory of humane civilization.
No cowering. No submission. None.
Due to attempted identity theft, there is a small chance that the Institute’s domain registration renewal will not go through on time. Should that happen, it will result in a brief interruption of access — no worries, though. The Institute isn’t closing up shop, any time soon.
I was on the road yesterday, seeing to business concerns, when I heard the news. My first concern was to check on my friends and family in the greater London area.
They are all safe, thank G_d.
Myriad others can’t say that; and for them, I have no platitudes, no “Hallmark moment” phrases. I have only prayers, and condolences…
and this resolve:
I will remember 7/7, even as I remember 9/11… Bali… Madrid… and Beslan.
And as I remember, I will not let those deaths be in vain.
I will not bow my head in submission. Not now, not ever.
I will not allow my family to have their necks bent in submission. Not now, not ever.
I will not allow my nation to be collared, shackled, not yoked. Not from without; not from within.
I will not allow my civilization — humane civilization — to be wrecked by radical Islam.
Period.
As for hostes humani generis?
Katzman and I agree.
Delendi Sunt.
And the next, and the next after that, for all of me.
Here’s what I want: Justices who holds to this standard:
When faced with a clash of constitutional principle and a line of unreasoned cases wholly divorced from the text, history, and structure of our founding document, we should not hesitate to resolve the tension in favor of the Constitutions original meaning.
–Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, in his dissent in re Kelo.
Not just “faster, please”, but “more, please”.
… to gather on every Fourth of July and hear the Declaration read out loud.”
So we are reminded by Randy Barnett.
We are at war abroad, with enemies whose beliefs are antithetical to Liberty. We struggle at home, amongst ourselves, about how we ought to live, and what governments should, and should not do, to “secure the blessings of Liberty”.
In celebration, then, of the Fourth Of July, let us refresh our memories, and renew our resolve.
In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. –That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
The signers of the Declaration represented the new states as follows:
New Hampshire
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts
John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
BOOM!
Mission Accomplished: Deep Impact Probe Hits Comet
An outstanding effort from the NASA scientific team — and if choosing July 4th was a bit of grandstanding, so much the better. (I wonder if anyone on the Deep Impact crew is a Team America fan… Hmmmm.)
Interested readers can learn lots more over at Space.com’s Deep Impact site.
Shameless Plug Alert: There are certainly better places to go if you want analysis and commentary on the state of space exploration and development… like Rand Simberg’s Transterrestrial Musings, or Jay Manifold’s Voyage to Arcturus. But for my readers who aren’t ardent spacers… yet… Space.com is a good place to go for basic spacing news and information. The Institute highly recommends all three sites.
In one of my recent posts about the reaction to Kelo vs New London, I wrote:
A small-government, Madisonian party, which was careful to stay on message, could take this issue up, and gain a million angry, *motivated* citizens, in a month. If they moved into local and state politics, in order to head off landgrabbers at the source, such a party could be ready to become a serious threat to the status quo by 2006.
That notion received several favorable comments. There’s a lot of people out there who are looking for a place to “put their shoulders”, politically. The major parties offer little for those of a Life, Liberty, And Property bent; Republicans seem willing to take small-government proponents’ support for granted, because the Democratic party has no use for us at all. As both parties are uninterested in Madisonian federalism, it becomes something of a Hobson’s choice.
The Libertarian party beckons, but the LP leadership seems more interested in arcane acronyms and selling Ayn Rand paperbacks than in a renewal of Constitution-constrained, clearly described, limited government, fit for a free people. They have become what they despise — both the “liberal” and the “Libertarian” would rather fit reality to their slogans than understand why their slogans don’t fit reality.
So… do we need to form a party?
I’m not sure, actually.
There’s a hefty part of me that thinks that it’s too early to form a party, or “turn” one of the two major parties.
Yes, too early.
Given the behavior of the Republican and Democratic parties, it is not unreasonable to assume that a majority of the American people currently think that big government is the best answer for the problems of the nation. Whether they desire large, intrusive federal government to protect them from threats foreign and domestic, or desire the power of such a State to bring about desired social change, or desire to save Gaia from the environmental excesses of unthinking people, the varied players on the political scene want there to be more power concentrated in the hands of enlarged governments.
That’s a fundamental difference between Liberty People and the other political factions in America just now. It goes a long way towards explaining why we are perpetually getting the short end of the stick… politicians know we can be ignored, safely.
For now, that is.
In that kind of an environment, what can we do?
I think that several things have to happen to effect a true sea change.
We must start educating our friends, our children, our neighbors about liberty, and how it is best procured and protected. No single group or organization can do that; it’s going to take many different organizations, many different approaches, and it’s going to be slow going. But it is the necessary foundation for future success.
In the meantime, we must tackle big issues one place at a time, attacking the most egregious issues as they arise, using each such issue as an opportunity to educate people as well as blunt further encroachments upon our liberties.
We must start building politcal structures, surely… but they have to be built at the grassroots. We will NOT have the best candidates to choose from, at first. We will have to be careful, patient, prudent, and work with what we have today.
And…we individualists will have to learn to work together.
Many of us Liberty People have grown leery of groups and associations. We have the excesses of the last century as our teachers, in all their mass-madness horror. But that is no excuse for making the mirror-error of assuming that people working together inevitably leads to collectivism.
We need to relearn many things from our Founders. Benjamin Franklin, among others:
We must all hang together, or we shall assuredly all hang separately.
From the largest galaxies…
to the smallest ions…
there are beauties to be savored, throughout the Universe.
Beauties shared with us by scientists.
Yes; scientists.
Go look at Princeton’s Art of Science gallery, and see what beauties have been gathered there.
Thanks to Virginia Postrel, for bringing this to my delighted eyes.
Hey. It could happen.
(Thank you, Mark Levin.)
One of the most interesting things to emerge from the Kelo vs New London debacle is the incomprehension some people seem to suffer.
Now, Ms. Althouse is a intelligent, insightful writer. So I find it remarkable that she seems mystified by the outrage many of us feel.
Eric weighs in with a piece of the answer:
The Left lost a huge chance here by not joining in, only the libertarians, GOP and center/moderates appear, at this point, to care about property. Perhaps the Left will join in later, but I doubt it will be for the right reasons and that’s going to show.
This is such an important point that I think it bears expanding.
Most people living in the United States have a set of… call them “comfortable assumptions”, about the fundamental principles by which our American society works. One of these assumptions concerns personal property, and the right to do with it as one pleases. A second one concerns the rights of people in their own homes, and how those homes are havens, not to be intruded upon without the most grave of reasons.
Regardless of whether or not there has been an OBJECTIVE erosion of our legal protections in these matters, the collective… myth? belief? of the American citizenry was that these things were safe.
Kelo vs New London comes as a thunderbolt to people because it proves that those legal protections are in tatters. Further, it demonstrates that the legal system in our country has no use for simple, straightforward precepts; that given enough time, a lawyer who can find the right prevarication will be rewarded with a victory, rather than being slapped down by the plain language of our most basic laws.
For many of us, McCain-Feingold was sufficient to illustrate this; but not everyone is politically active, or interested.
Everyone in these United States has, or desires, a place of their own to live.
That desire… that basic human NEED, to be secure in their homes and belongings… is now at risk. And the outrage that generates will not be easily diverted, or calmed.
As the days go on, Gentle Readers, you will find some people who seem baffled by all the fuss. I will bet you five hundred Institute no-prize points that those people will fall into one of two categories:
– Lawyers who are aware of how technicalities and interpretations had already eroded our legal protections; or
– Collectivists, who do not care about personal property in their exaltation of the state, or “society”, or some other etherial golden calf.
Neither of these groups are likely to understand why Kelo is already becoming a curseword; why people as urbane as Francis Porretto are writing, in blunt language:
(the author)… will regard the lives of all persons complicit in an attempt to expropriate him as forfeit, and will take them without consideration or restraint.
They will not understand the storm which is coming… nor why they are being swept aside in the gale.
A small-government, Madisonian party, which was careful to stay on message, could take this issue up, and gain a million angry, *motivated* citizens, in a month. If they moved into local and state politics, in order to head off landgrabbers at the source, such a party could be ready to become a serious threat to the status quo by 2006.
Hmmmm.
HMMMMM.
What an… attractive… notion.
For it is very dark… in space:
Sauron? The Mote in God’s Eye? Well, not exactly…
The ring is composed of dust particles in orbit around Fomalhaut, a bright star located just 25 light years away in the constellation Pisces Austalis or the Southern Fish. A recent image captured with the Hubble Space Telescope – which makes the system look uncannily like the Great Eye of Sauron from the blockbusting Lord of the Rings trilogy – confirms that Fomalhauts ring is curiously offset with respect to the star.
Hmmm. Beautiful sights and a scientific enigma. Perfect for an Institute Friday.
Justice Thomas, in his dissent in re Kelo:
Something has gone seriously awry with this Courts interpretation of the Constitution. Though citizens are safe from the government in their homes, the homes themselves are not.
Priceless.
On a happy note:
One of my dearest friends offered an off-hand impression of me, which I found strikingly apt:
By choice, even more than by necessity.
For a variety of reasons, it seems … to fit.
So, here’s a question, Gentle Readers: if you had to offer a motto that fit you well, what would it be?
(As for me, I may try to work this motto into Latin, and an impresa, just… because.)
Once again, the Supreme Court demonstrates that they seem incapable of reading the Constitution they’re supposedly upholding:
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that local governments may seize people’s homes and businesses — even against their will — for private economic development.
That sound you hear is the spinning of the Founding Fathers in their graves.
Recent decisions of the Supreme Court have been one distasteful horror after another. We’ve seen them uphold McCain-Feingold, raping the First Amendment. We’ve watched them decide that the Interstate Commerce clause of the Constitution means “any law which might apply to something somebody MIGHT want to sell somewhere is OK by us”. And now they give us Kelo vs New London, which is the beginning of the end of private property rights in this country…
If something isn’t done.
I predict that something will be done. Lots of things, and frankly, some of them are likely to be ugly. This may finally be the straw that breaks the eagle’s back — many people care little for medical marijuana, and political ads are someone else’s speech, but everyone wants a home, and LOTS of people are blessed with one.
Now, if your home is in the way of a developer, it can be seized with near impunity.
This summer just got a lot longer… and hotter.
More to follow, when I can see straight — I’m furious.
Somebody once said
I had a gift for haiku
But I’m not so sure.
Heh.
Anyone care to guess who, here at the Institute, sent this along?
Not if there’s no China. And if the powers that be keep doing things like this, there may not be:
HONG KONG — Chinese farmers, acting with the approval and encouragement of government officials, have tried to suppress major bird flu outbreaks among chickens with an antiviral drug meant for humans, animal health experts said. International researchers now conclude that this is why the drug will no longer protect people in case of a worldwide bird flu epidemic.
Let me emphasize: “…acting with the approval and encouragement of government officials…”
Bless their hearts.
This gift from the Chinese Communist Party has been covered up going on for quite some time:
China’s use of the drug amantadine, which violated international livestock guidelines, was widespread years before China acknowledged any infection of its poultry, according to pharmaceutical company executives and veterinarians. …
Although China did not report an avian influenza outbreak until February 2004, executives at Chinese pharmaceutical companies and veterinarians said farmers were widely using the drug to control the virus in the late 1990s.
Lovely. Just lovely.
There are alternatives to amantadine, but they’re substantially more expensive. This is no good news to the govenrments of Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam, whose people are currently bearing the brunt of the H5N1 outbreak, both economically (in devastation of their poultry stocks) and in human lives. Given conditions on the ground, the 54 cases that are known to the WHO are certainly not the only fatalities.
THESE are the people who are going to be the guiding lights of a “Pacific century”?
Spare me.
Today’s confuser-of-teenagers:
“Hey, why don’t you try and pretend you at least know how to spell ‘filial piety’, m’kay?”
Heh.
I understand the playful Mr. Conyers is angry that his mock impeachment event, held on the grounds of the Capitol, might be misinterpreted.
From Mr. Milbanks’ report:
The session took an awkward turn when witness Ray McGovern, a former intelligence analyst, declared that the United States went to war in Iraq for oil, Israel and military bases craved by administration “neocons” so “the United States and Israel could dominate that part of the world.” He said that Israel should not be considered an ally and that Bush was doing the bidding of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
“Israel is not allowed to be brought up in polite conversation,” McGovern said. “The last time I did this, the previous director of Central Intelligence called me anti-Semitic.”
Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), who prompted the question by wondering whether the true war motive was Iraq’s threat to Israel, thanked McGovern for his “candid answer.”
At Democratic headquarters, where an overflow crowd watched the hearing on television, activists handed out documents repeating two accusations — that an Israeli company had warning of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and that there was an “insider trading scam” on 9/11 — that previously has been used to suggest Israel was behind the attacks.
“At Democratic headquarters…”
Contemplate that.
Conyers’s firm hand on the gavel could not prevent something of a free-for-all; at one point, a former State Department worker rose from the audience to propose criminal charges against Bush officials. Early in the hearing, somebody accidentally turned off the lights; later, a witness knocked down a flag. Matters were even worse at Democratic headquarters, where the C-SPAN feed ended after just an hour, causing the activists to groan and one to shout “Conspiracy!”
Apparently Mr. Conyers feels maligned and misrepresented by the report.
Mr. Conyers, here’s a hint: if you put up a circus tent in your front yard, and start playing calliope music at full volume on your stereo, you shouldn’t feel upset if people want to know where the clowns are.
You convened a circus, you… clown. Not OUR fault if we can detect pretension, arrogance, condescencion, and malignant anti-Semitism — flavored with a lovely dose of barking moonbat conspiracy theory, designed to let Islamicists off the hook so you can blame Chimpy McFlightsuit for al Qaeda’s murderous actions.
You CLOWN.
Why don’t you join your fellow Ringling Brothers graduate, Senator Durbin, and resign? The Greatest Show On Earth is full, but I hear Circus Vargas is still hiring.
The Right to Bear Arms. It’s not just for Americans any more.
Go and read Joe Katzman’s reasons why.
The Schiavo autopsy report was released yesterday. Not surprisingly, the parents weren’t convinced.
Nor am I surprised that the name calling has started, again.
Easier to make demons of the people who don’t agree with you than to listen to them, I suppose. Easier to exalt oneself at the expense of the other’s alleged immorality, or irrationality, I suppose.
And we all take the easy way, and nothing is solved, and we all become Pharisees by small removes.
Nobody wants to see patients lose the right to govern their own care. (Almost nobody. The wit who called living wills “the condom of the Right To Die vultures” might want to tell patients they must be kept on life support despite their wishes, but I suspect that position will receive few takers.) And yet, we don’t let prisoners refuse to eat or drink in “hunger strikes”.
I propose that living will and advanced directives laws be modified, to explicitly state that nutrition and water, even if provided by artificial means such as feeding tubes, is not considered “extraordinary measures”, and that it is not to be withdrawn. This change is a simple amendment; follows existing practice with respect to ALL patients (again, the “hunger strike” issue); is likely to be acceptable to the broad majority of citizens, regardless of their feelings on resuscitation, intubation, life support machinery, and the like; and makes use of already existing medical ethics standards, which in general distinguish between “extraordinary” and “ordinary” methods — placing all manners of nutrition and hydration beyond debate.
Patients would still be free to make their wishes known in advance about things such as permanent life support and the like; but they would not be allowed to starve to death by advanced directive, any more than we allow patients to starve themselves to death in any other medical venue.
A simple change.
I encourage people to start writing their state and federal representatives.
Light a candle; don’t curse the darkness.
I first saw this meme on one of my friends’ Livejournals, and it amused me. So…
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
— “Lazarus Long”, as reported by Robert A. Heinlein
OK. So… how do I compare to Lazarus, who could do all of those things?
Change a diaper: Done that. Frequently.
Plan an invasion: Closest I’ve come to that was contributing information on medical logistics, in support of some Pacific Fleet exercises. A tiny conmtribution, on the whole…
Butcher a hog: Haven’t done that, but courtesy of medical school, I don’t doubt for a minute I could make a go at it.
Conn a ship: Never had enough time underway to add that to my PCS card, but I’ve at least studied for it. (N.B.: It’s a LOT easier to conn the ship in the middle of the ocean than to dock her. Just sayin’.)
Design a building: Only from an art-design standpoint, not an architect’s.
Write a sonnet: Several.
Balance accounts: Sure have, sure do.
Build a wall: Yep. Stacked stone and wooden…
Set a bone: That, and a few other things medical…
Comfort the dying: …including this.
Take orders: Well enough to get good fitreps from three admirals.
Give orders: Have done, still do.
Cooperate: Can and do.
Act alone: Often.
Solve equations: I’d have to bone up on differentials, but up to that, no worries.
Analyze a new problem: Can and do, often.
Pitch manure: Not recently, thank G_d.
Program a computer: BASIC or LISP? I can also hand-code in HTML, and in simple CSS.
Cook a tasty meal: If it gets cooked as opposed to opened, it’s me more often than anyone else here at Chez Chaos. People I’ve camped with at SCA to-dos seem to think I do OK.
Fight efficiently: Yes.
Die gallantly: Haven’t had to prove that yet. I hope to, if it ever comes to that.
So… in the spirit of the Six Degrees exercise, what else might I know how to do? Ask away.
Mmmmmmmm.
Nothing quite like a 944.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some senses to indulge.
*g*
In going through my snail-mail today, I found an official-looking letter from Ilscorp.net, sent from a business address in Chicago IL. This letter listed my domain name, a reference number for the letter, and a “notice date”. It proceeded to tell me how I might make payment, and where to send the money to.
Sounds like it’s time to pay my domain registration fee, doesn’t it?
Except I didn’t remember dealing with Ilscorp.net when I registered dedoc.net.
So I looked again at the letter, and flipped it over. Careful reading of the whole thing, including the back, confirmed that this was not a domain registration bill. In fact, the *back* of the letter affirmed that this wasn’t a bill at all, but a solicitation — for a “website address listing” service, which if one looks closely, is an offer to notify “20 major search engines” of your existence.
I suspect that these trimmers are safe from Illinois law, and from the Postal Inspectors. If one reads carefully, and doesn’t just dash off a check in a hurry, one can gather enough information to understand what the “solicitation” is.
Still, reasonable people might well conclude that this letter was well crafted with an eye to the… hasty, shall we say?
To the owners and managers of this “service”: For shame. You may not be phishing, precisely, but this still stinks.
Caveat lector, gentle readers.
Zombyboy has a nice link to further advice on how to avoid getting “served” like this. You may wish to go have a look.
The World Trade Center Memorial Cultural Complex will be an imposing edifice wedged in the place where the Twin Towers once stood. It will serve as the primary “gateway” to the underground area where the names of the lost are chiseled into concrete. The organizers of its principal tenant, the International Freedom Center (IFC), have stated that they intend to take us on “a journey through the history of freedom” — but do not be fooled into thinking that their idea of freedom is the same as that of those Marines. To the IFC’s organizers, it is not only history’s triumphs that illuminate, but also its failures. The public will have come to see 9/11 but will be given a high-tech, multimedia tutorial about man’s inhumanity to man, from Native American genocide to the lynchings and cross-burnings of the Jim Crow South, from the Third Reich’s Final Solution to the Soviet gulags and beyond. This is a history all should know and learn, but dispensing it over the ashes of Ground Zero is like creating a Museum of Tolerance over the sunken graves of the USS Arizona.
Who are the leaders of this “International Freedom Center”?
… the IFC’s list of those who are shaping or influencing the content and programming for their Ground Zero exhibit includes a Who’s Who of the human rights, Guantanamo-obsessed world:
Michael Posner, executive director at Human Rights First who is leading the world-wide “Stop Torture Now” campaign focused entirely on the U.S. military. He has stated that Mr. Rumsfeld’s refusal to resign in the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal is “irresponsible and dishonorable.”
Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU, who is pushing IFC organizers for exhibits that showcase how civil liberties in this country have been curtailed since September 11.
Eric Foner, radical-left history professor at Columbia University who, even as the bodies were being pulled out of a smoldering Ground Zero, wrote, “I’m not sure which is more frightening: the horror that engulfed New York City or the apocalyptic rhetoric emanating daily from the White House.” This is the same man who participated in a “teach-in” at Columbia to protest the Iraq war, during which a colleague exhorted students with, “The only true heroes are those who find ways to defeat the U.S. military,” and called for “a million Mogadishus.” The IFC website has posted Mr. Foner’s statement warning that future discussions should not be “overwhelmed” by the IFC’s location at the World Trade Center site itself.
George Soros, billionaire founder of Open Society Institute, the nonprofit foundation that helps fund Human Rights First and is an early contributor to the IFC. Mr. Soros has stated that the pictures of Abu Ghraib “hit us the same way as the terrorist attack itself.”
These… apologists for mass murderers… want to spread their bilge from atop Ground Zero?
I think it’s time for a few phone calls:
The board of directors of the International Freedom Center are:
Tom A. Bernstein (Chairman) – President of Chelsea Piers, President of the Board of Human Rights First
Paula Grant Berry (Vice-Chair) – Member of the Board, World Trade Center Memorial Foundation
Stephen B. Heintz – President of the Rockefeller Bros. Fund
Daniel T. Tishman – President of Tishman Construction Corporation
Tom Bernstein is an avowed liberal; I suggest calls to Daniel Tishman (212-399-3600). The International Freedom Center was selected by the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. to be at the 9/11 memorial, and the chairman of the LMDC is John Whitehead (212-962-2300). The LMDC board was appointed by New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg (311 in NYC or 212-NEW-YORK outside NYC) and New York Governor George Pataki (518-474-8390). These people probably aren’t aware of what travesty is about to take place on hallowed ground, so let them know.
When you do so, be calm (as possible), polite, and specific. Mention Ms. Burlingame’s Wall Street Journal article, which details this … travesty. Make your displeasure known, but don’t descend to threats. Honest anger should suffice.
The dead of September 11th deserve better than this. It’s up to us now to stop this.
If I wanted a temptation to despair, it would be hard to better this:
Respondents Diane Monson and Angel Raich use marijuana that has never been bought or sold, that has never crossed state lines, and that has had no demonstrable effect on the national market for marijuana. If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anythingand the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers.
Thus spake Supreme Court Justice Thomas… lamentably, in the minority, as the Court decided that the Constitution’s interstate commerce clause can be stretched to fit anything that Congress wants to apply it to, common sense and the English language be damned.
Not a big surprise; this is, after all, the same Court which thought McCain-Feingold was somehow Constitutional.
To quote Jerry Pournelle… “But we were born free.”
Gah.
I wish I’d written this. Jerry Pournelle, answering his email:
Fixes for airline security….
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/05/national/05secure.html?th&emc=th
Charles Brumbelow, CFO
A classic case of suboptimization and solving the wrong problem. We’d be more secure if they issued a short sword to every passenger.
(Honest. The link is here; scroll down about three screenlengths to see the entry in question.)
Interesting.
After days of rumours — followed by industry analysts’ dismissals — it now appears that Steve Jobs is set to announce that Apple computers will start using Intel chips. x86 series chips, at that.
So much for the analysts.
Given Jobs’ recent success with iTunes, the iPod, and OS X, many people will wonder why he’s taking this step. The last time that Apple changed chipsets (to the PowerPC architecture), they lost a lot of users. Why risk that again?
Leander Kahney might have the beginnings of an answer, over at Wired News. Following a time-honored tradition, Kahney applied Sutton’s Law, and is following the money — in this case, Jobs’ interest in doing with movies what he’s done with music at iTunes.
It appears the latest x86 chips, the Pentium D series, have a digital rights management system built in which will “prevent” unauthorized copying (at the motherboard level)of content like… oh, movies.
It’s not hard to see why that would be attractive if you want to have a movie download system. (Kahney called it “iFlicks”, and why not for now?)
DRM doesn’t trouble me much; I doubt Intel can produce a hack-proof system, despite their fond beliefs. What’s interesting to me as a long-time Apple user is that this positions OS X to be able to go head to head with Microsoft. A Tiger version for Intel chips? That’s not going to sit well in Redmond.
Especially since the fine people at Transitive Corporation appear to have a solution to the problem of making the jump to the new chips — a solution that makes the move almost painless for all concerned. Since Intel will be on board with Apple, there’s no one who will be in a good position to block implementation of QuickTransit… and if this allows backwards compatibility with earlier systems, a la the Classic environment in OS X…
This will be interesting to watch. VERY interesting.
Vivamus!
Since there are a few people out there who might have an interest in Lady Vivamus, I went to Google. Here she is:
Lovely, just lovely.
Here’s a closeup of the hilt:
I am utterly prepared to believe Roger’s comments on how well this weapon handles; it is a sweet looking piece of art.
Something else to wish for, come the Lottery.
Some of us didn’t.
We veterans remember.
Please… the rest of you?
Remember as well?
This is the price of our liberty. Hundreds of thousands of us have paid this price, from the 1770s to today.
Remember them, today, in your prayers, in your thoughts.
And don’t let their lives have been in vain.
Read. Think. Learn. Participate.
It’s not “their” country, “their” government. It’s OURS.
Even as you enjoy your rights, exercise your responsibilities as one of this country’s sovreigns.
We have our Republic. Let us keep it.
One of my emails suggested that I might wish to look at Albion Swords’ third site, FilmSwords.com.
Oh… MY.
The very thing; fit for a Fighting Man Of Mars. All we lack is a radium pistol.
And they’re now taking orders.
Hmmmm.
In honor of the UK’s latest descent into hoplophobia, I’ve been browsing swordsmiths.
There’s something about practice with fine steel which evades easy description. If I tell you that there’s a deep truth to the old cliched description of “live steel”, I can’t tell you how that works. I can only invite you to take up a sword, here… and feel it in your hands, as you step so, cut thus…
and maybe, just maybe, you’ll feel the truth for yourself.
Tonight, my eyes settled upon Albion Swords… and, in particular, Jody Samson.
Mr. Samson is, perhaps, most well known for the swords he designed for Conan The Barbarian. You may recognize Conan’s Atlantean Sword:
He doesn’t just do movie commissions, however. Here’s a lovely cutlass, the Penumbra:
Or perhaps you prefer long, straight swords? Consider the Bounder longsword:
Or maybe you prefer closer encounters?
Mmmm.
Samson’s work isn’t cheap, but it’s gorgeous. Maybe… one of these days…
Heh. Maybe I should start a tip jar.
That being said, I rather suspect this is an example of statistical association, not correlation. After all, many people who use Viagra have at least one of the conditions which are known to predispose to this rare kind of blindness.
Show me a lot of thirty-something people suffering from NAION without diabetes and/or hypertension, who’ve been using Viagra as a party drug. That would be a lot more compelling. But the current spate of cases that the FDA is examining? I doubt there will be a convincing causal correlation.
(In the 21st century, the Liberal Arts — the disciplines which are fitting for free people to know, in order to enjoy and preserve that freedom — may not be seven, but eight. Add statistics to the trivium and quadrivium, because it’s impossible to sort out fact from folderol in technical and scientific matters without that art. Arithmetic isn’t enough any more.)
Where will you be Saturday, July 7, 2007?
G_d willing, I’ll be in Kansas City:
Heinlein Centennial, Inc.
A California Nonprofit Corporation 501(c)(3) status pending
PO Box 4313
Citrus Heights CA 95611
916.723.5876 (Message only at this time please use email for routine contact)
Info {at} HeinleinCentennial(.)com">Info {at} HeinleinCentennial(.)com
(Inquiries will be forwarded to the most suitable respondent)
www.HeinleinCentennial.comFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Robert A. Heinlein Centennial Convention Set for July 2007 in Kansas City, Missouri
May 24, 2005 Plans were announced today for a major convention to be held in Kansas City, Missouri to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of American author Robert A. Heinlein. Heinleins birth on 7/7/1907 will be celebrated on the weekend of 7/6 7/8/2007, with a series of major events on the centennial day, Saturday, 7/7/2007.
The Heinlein Centennial Convention will be a multi-faceted event celebrating Heinleins life, works and far-reaching influence. More than 3,000 professional and amateur attendees from throughout the US and around the world are expected to participate in distinct tracks focusing on Heinleins contributions to science fiction, American literature, the American aerospace industry and commercial development of space, and film and television. Evaluation of Heinleins overall impact on American culture and politics will be an integral part of all the tracks.
The Hyatt Regency Crown Center & Westin Crown Center hotels, adjacent to the Crown Center complex in downtown Kansas City, have been selected as the site of the Heinlein Centennial Convention. All three venues will host various Convention events. The convention is sponsored and organized by Heinlein Centennial, Inc., a California nonprofit corporation.
It’s going to be a busy year. We are already saving up for Nippon 2007, in Yokohama; and now this.
WONDERFUL.
“I’m going to
Kansas City,
Kansas City, here I come…”
Who else is coming?
I am puzzled at many trufans’ animus towards The Phantom Menace.
These folks speak as if it’s unrealistic to have a character who is a war hero… gets elevated to political office… and then supports absolutely bone-headed legislation, destructive to the health of the Republic. All in self-important dignity, with a voice which grates on the ears.
And yet…
…that is to say, one which nobody seems to love.
Consider Captain Ed:
This, in short, has been a clear victory for the Democrats and a massive failure for the GOP and the White House. The GOP just endorsed the filibuster, and will have no intellectual capacity to argue against its use later on. They sold the Constitution just to get less than half of its blockaded nominees through, and the result will be much less flexibility on future Supreme Court nominations.
Sounds dire, doesn’t it? And yet the very same agreement seen through Jeralyn Merritt’s eyes has, to put it mildly, a different tint:
The worst, the compromise is in. Priscilla Owen, Janice Rogers Brown and William Pryor are in. Total capitulation by Democrats. Total victory for Frist. Let them spin it how they want, it’s a loss for the Democrats. …
We don’t have a “Republic” tonight. We have a total Republican regime. Welcome to the Theocracy.
This is apparently such a compromise that only political science majors like it.
There are a few things that nearly everyone seems to agree on:
– Senator McCain can kiss the Presidential nomination goodbye, as he has alienated the social-conservative wing with his participation in the deal. Since the neo-libertarian win already hates his guts for McCain-Feingold, he hasn’t a viable core constituency to recruit from now, and cannot hope to survive the primaries. (Hmmm. I’m liking this deal more already.)
– Senator Frist’s delaying and gradualist approach make it appear that he’s been handily outmanouevered; this probably dooms his Presidential hopes as well. (If McCain was trying for that sort of victory, someone should hand him a dictionary with the word “pyrrhic” highlighted.)
– This “deal” solves nothing. By putting off the question of how the Senate deals with the approval of judicial nominees, the compromise casts a deep shadow over everyone associated with this bit of pettifogging. That shadow won’t last, however. The next vacancy on the Supreme Court will shine a dire light on the process; it will be interesting to see the varied players in this mess… scuttle… for any cover they can find, to hide from that light.
Sit back and relax. This game is going to go some extra innings.
If you haven’t been there yet this weekend, swing by Val Prieto’s…
and, to steal a trope, see how liberty LIVES… in patience and hope and resolve AND great good humor.
And, yes, some internet-based applause.
How do you spell “bastard” , indeed.
I wish I lived nearer to Miami tonight. But since I don’t… I can at least join Val, and his friends, and all the people who await the day when Castro’s rule lands on the same ashheap as the Soviet Union.
Kelley? I’d have missed out on this without you. Un mil gracias.
You’ll see anything once.
For example:
… what ”Muslims in America and throughout the world” most need to hear is not pandering sweet-talk. What they need is a blunt reminder that the real desecration of Islam is not what some interrogator in Guantanamo might have done to the Koran. It is what totalitarian Muslim zealots have been doing to innocent human beings in the name of Islam. It is 9/11 and Beslan and Bali and Daniel Pearl and the USS Cole. It is trains in Madrid and schoolbuses in Israel and an ”insurgency” in Iraq that slaughters Muslims as they pray and vote and line up for work. It is Hamas and Al Qaeda and sermons filled with infidel-hatred and exhortations to ”martyrdom.”
But what disgraces Islam above all is the vast majority of the planet’s Muslims saying nothing and doing nothing about the jihadist cancer eating away at their religion. It is Free Muslims Against Terrorism, a pro-democracy organization, calling on Muslims and Middle Easterners to ”converge on our nation’s capital for a rally against terrorism” — and having only 50 people show up.
Yes, Islam is disrespected. That will only change when throngs of passionate Muslims show up for rallies against terrorism, and when rabble-rousers trying to gin up a riot over a defiled Koran can’t get the time of day.
Bracing, astringent, but true.
So what’s the surprise here?
The… amazing thing, really… is that this article comes from the Boston Globe.
William F. Buckley explains what the Democratic leadership means, when they speak of “shutting down the Senate”:
…The announced determination of the Republican majority to vitiate cloture has mobilized the Democrats to say, in effect, that if such a step is taken, they will retaliate by closing down the Senate. Well, not quite closing it down the experience of Newt Gingrich in closing down government reduced forever the temptation to do so. The threatening senators would not close down that much of their activity as is required to meet financial obligations, but would cease all other work, effectively closing down the legislative branch of government.
One cannot help but be reminded of Mark Twain, thus:
No man’s life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.
I find myself thinking ” … shutting down the Senate”?
PLEASE.
I’ve quoted John Hertz before. Tonight, I thought I’d share some more of his lucid writing, for this Friday’s Feast.
On the arts:
It’s uncivilized to look no further than one’s own memory. Books! paintings! sculpture! music! It’s boring, too, which is much the same thing.
On living history:
The problems of restoring old films plague re-creation generally: the Renaissance Pleasure Faire, my teaching Regency ballroom dance, writing historical fiction. We want to be true, but not so authentic as to be incomprehensible.
Advice to disputants:
The great thing about the moral high ground is that there’s plenty of room for everyone.
(De Doc’s corollary: No one can make you cede the moral high ground; you have to give that up yourself.)
How do you know if someone’s Liberty People?
I’ve proposed If to a man with a hammer everything is a nail”, to whom is everything a shackle?
A slave.
Advice to the budding correspondent, OR blogger:
“You have to give comments to get comments”…
I note that Hertz credits this as Fuzzy Pink Niven’s Law.
It is a crying shame, to my mind, that Hertz eschews weblogs. He prefers letters, print, and personal conversation. I repeat myself: if you meet him at a science fiction convention, enjoy the opportunity, and give him Dr. Bill’s regards.
It’s just science fiction, right?
This may be a technical marvel. But it is a moral mistake.
Human beings already do entirely too good a job of treating certain types of people as less than human… as commodities.
As things.
Even slavery is making a comeback.
Humane civilization does not need another excuse, another rationalization, to treat human beings as stock-in-trade. And I fear that is where this research will lead. The rich and the powerful will find it all too attractive a proposition to keep “backups” on “hot standby” for “emergent harvest”… because nobody’s going to find a way to make an adult body grow in a week, to replace a burned lung, or a ruptured colon.
Some of you now reading this will live to see me proved right.
I take no pleasure in that.
Imagine, for the moment, that you hear news of someone insulting your deeply held religious beliefs. Furthermore, imagine that the person whom is said to have given the insult is someone whom, on first impression, might plausibly have harsh opinions about your religion… such that the tale being borne to you is plausible.
What do you do?
Riots? Rage?
Or…
Do you go find out if it’s true, rather than fly off the deep end?
Memo to Rabbi Lerner: Consider…
It has been said that lashon ha-ra (disparaging speech) kills three: the person who speaks it, the person who hears it, and the person about whom it is told.
G_d knows that the rabbi is not the only one to need that lesson.
As to Joseph Marshall: His patience, clarity of thought, and compassion are a blessing, a lesson, and a gift. May all who go and read his post benefit; and may Joseph receive blessing and benefit in return.
May The Anchoress be blessed for having found this post, and sharing it.
May we all learn from them, and “draft thrice, post once”… rather than post, or act, in seething rage.
and already, storm’s on!
Not likely to bother us on the First Coast, but friends in Miami and Tampa-St. Petersburg will no doubt be keeping a close eye on this storm.
Mweh. Early times for this.
…is ingenuity.
Consider, for example, the price of gasoline.
Not everyone reading this blog can afford a hybrid. Not everyone lives in a location where public transportation is practical.
But anyone reading this blog can use this.
Splendid, just splendid!
Credit to Dougal Gunters for finding this.
When Nat Hentoff fisks you in the Village Voice, your message has problems.
Just sayin’.
… so I will not succumb, despite the fact that my work schedule will keep me from Coruscant and Kashhyk until Saturday.
Sigh.
Oh, well. I will see Sith soon. When I do, I shall follow zombyboy’s advice… which is by far the sanest I have heard on the subject.
“Seven year old’s eyes.” Let go cynicism. Let go jaded worldliness. Remember that sometimes, choices are clear, and the consequences of wrong choices can be horrid, and that the worlds are full of both terrible and wonderful things.
Not bad things to remember, when you come to think on it.
See you at the movies…
Scott Kirwin is absolutely right:
… what Newsweek has done is the rough equivalent of what Iago did to Othello: whispering lies into the ears of walking nutjobs in order to set them off.
He’s also right when he declines to absolve the “walking nutjobs” of their responsibility for the recent riots. I’ll have more to say on that in good time.
Newsweek isn’t even fit to use in birdcages.
More on this when the RCOB clears. (It may take a bit; I’ve been staring at draft versions of this post for a day and a half, trying not to descend into incoherent swearing.)
Friends, readers, curious onlookers:
I’m feeling whimsical. (Be afraid. be very afraid.)
I’ve been playing about with the “100 things” meme. It’s fun, but I can’t quite seem to work up the steam to get 100 interesting items on the screen all at once. (Maybe it’s my non-linear mind; maybe I’m just more boring than I think I am. Heh.)
So I got to thinking: surely there’s another way to tell the curious reader more about myself. (All two or three of them.) After much mulling, this occured to me:
Anyone Internet-savvy enough to be reading blogs will have run across the Six Degrees Of Kevin Bacon.
Let’s play around with this meme.
De Doc. Six Degrees or less to… anyone?
Send me emails. Drop me a comment. Name yourself, name another… and I, in turn, will try and connect the person you name, in six connections or less. In doing so, I’m sure there’ll be some interesting facts I let slip… umm, ahem, share with you all.
Yo.
Ore no na wa Inigo Montoya.
Kisama wa chichi o koroshita.
Shinu kakugo shiro.
Heh.
courtesy of my good friend Roger…
As I took a leisurely read through my newsfeeds, I kept seeing comments and articles about Darth Vader’s blog.
So I had to go take a look…
and was I ever surprised.
Gentle readers, this isn’t just a satire-blog… though with entries like “Ewok Cook-Out”, there’s certainly lots of (dark) humor to be had. But there’s more here than clone jokes and jabs at corporate culture. Entries like “The Tao Of Sith” and “Bedtime Story” have an unexpectedly… reasonable, attractive dimension.
At it’s best, Lord Vader’s blog is oddly reminiscent of C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters… with an infinitely more sympathetic author.
Sympathetic, not “emo”, not metro-tyrannical. (“Ewok cookout”. Heh.)
If you’re even remotely S-F trufan, go read Lord Vader’s musings.
Just try not to think about Ewoks at YOUR next barbecue…
Some of you may have run across this awful story, about the long hunt for a child who has been sexually abused since the age of about nine.
Repeatedly.
Over three years.
Pedophiles have apparently been savoring this… continuing story… for three years.
Well… they’ll have to do without, now.
It appears they have caught the bastard who orchestrated this… monstrosity.
The only unhappy part of the story I can see is that the monster is in prison… not the county morgue, after having been shot resisting arrest.
But the child is now safe.
That… is something.
I yield to no one in my respect for Pejman Yousefzadeh. He is lucid, witty, well-read, posts far more frequently than I can manage, appreciates fine food, and is fascinated by swordsmanship.
That being said, I am not sure why CBS “News” appears to have shocked him so.
CBS twisted Dean Starr’s words.
CBS made him out to support the agenda they wished to pimp.
CBS lied, outright, to do so.
And Stalin is dead. This is news?
Star Trek: Enterprise aired it’s final show tonight. Geek and SMOF that I am, I still missed it… and would have not even noticed, were it not for the Institute researchers at SCIFIPUNDIT who posted on the event.
This marks the first time in decades that the Star Trek franchise is fallow. No new episodes. No new show. No movie on the horizon.
There was a time, once, when that would have hard on the science fiction fan community.
No longer.
We have Serenity coming, and a version of Battlestar Galactica which is transcending it’s origins, and Hellboy 2 is in the works, and, and, and…
And.
We live in grand, grand times, when the health of media science fiction is not dependent on a single show, a single franchise… and when authors such as Moon, Stross, Banks, Bear, and Zettel recompense the literary fen’s loss of Heinlein and White and Asimov.
That’s good news if you’re ANY kind of fannish at all.
So let the Federation rest. Perhaps, in time, fresh stories will come from that marvelous shared universe. Perhaps not.
But there WILL be stories of what Might Be. There will be stories, and we citizens of the Commonwealth of Wonder will relish them.
I’ll gladly sail unto the sunset in one of these:
Isn’t that something?
The artist is Andy Lackow, whose marvelous site first came to my attention when I was Googling about for websites about another icon of the “Gernsback future”, the flying wing. Andy’s work is mentioned here, in this fine essay on the Bel Geddes Airliner Number Four.
I would love to have the giga-bucks necessary to commission one of these for the Institute.
When you go have a look at Andy’s beautiful work, check out the animation of the Bel Geddes wing flying over this retro-marvelous city.
Enjoy!
Speculist Gordon brings us another edition of the Carnival of Tomorrow. The intrepid reader who surfs over there will note the Institute’s blogroll amply represented: Eric, Rand Simberg, and Virginia Postrel all have stories featured in this week’s Carnival.
It’s Friday night. What better place to spend some time than a Carnival?
was (is?) slang for getting high by inhaling various noxious substances.
How delightfully apt.
Kelley gets game, describing the antics there… but pride of place goes to these folks, who have the Huffinggang down cold.
Many thinks to The Compassionate and to “Tom Paine” for a morning’s worth of fun.
Warning: this (on Revenge of the Sith –ed.) contains something of a spolier, though if you don’t know what happens at the end of this movie, you were probably also surprised at the ending of Passion of the Christ.
Heh heh heh…
When it’s “non-combative”?
TBILISI, Georgia (CNN) — A grenade found near the site where U.S. President George W. Bush made a speech in Tblisi was an inactive Soviet-era device, Georgian officials said Wednesday.
Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman Guram Donadze described the device as a “non-combative” grenade used in military training and said it did not contain explosives.
The device was placed in the crowd about 100 feet from where Bush was speaking. It was not thrown, as was previously believed, Donadze said.
It never posed a danger to Bush and was apparently placed by someone who wanted to scare people in the crowd and attract media attention, Donadze said.
Just now, some security types are looking at new careers in food management, I suspect. I wonder how you say “Would you like fries with that?” in Russian, or Georgian.
BRRRRRRRRR. That was too damn close.
What will you do, now that the Government refuses to heed Parliament, do the honorable thing, and resign?
Our neighbors are in for … interesting times. G_d keep them in this time of troubles.
If you’re a Star Wars fan, you’ve been …cautiously hopeful… about the reception Revenge of the Sith is getting in previews.
Here’s reason to think it might not just be hype: Tom Stoppard worked with Lucas on the script.
Tom Stoppard.
*grin* Wow.
Credit to low culture for this fascinating tidbit.
What the Deutsch?
I’m in pleasant post-swordsmanship mode, having been teaching this stuff over the weekend. Once the mellow eases off, we’ll return you to our irregularly scheduled fulminations.
Heh.
Oh… if the links pique your interest, and you buy some of the texts, tell Brian that Dr. Bill sent you.
UNREPENTANT, adj.:
“Having or exhibiting no remorse.”
She certainly doesn’t:
“I was framed and turned into a lightning rod for people’s anger.”
Framed? Snopes.com begs to differ.
Unrepentant?
Unforgiven.
I am occasionally asked why I don’t blog more often about medical matters.
I’ve been thinking about this…
About those suborbital jumps: look carefully at the last few sentences of this post.
is going to Transterrestrial Musings and following Rand’s posts, as he gives summaries of each presentation at the Space Access Conference.
If you’re any kind of space enthusiast, you will want to take a look. Start with April 28th, and read forward from here — for some reason, category archives aren’t functioning, so look for articles with the category “Space” in the header.
All kinds of interesting stuff.
I assure you, I’m not the only one out there living in Heinlein’s worlds:
… there I was, at home, in the family room in the lower level
of my split foyer home, my younger daughter Amanda chatting with
me as I was building a command load for the satellite while logged
in remotely to the control center.Suddenly, it occured to me. Here was a scientist, in his
basement, working from a computer cobbled together from spare
parts, programming a space satellite while his beautiful daughter
looked on. …
All true — I know the gentleman in question.
MARVELOUS times we live in!
and I’ve got mine picked out:
Deco Rides’ Z-series coupe; inspired by the classic ‘39 Lincoln Zephyr, and the groundbreaking SCRAPE Zephyr commissioned by Terry Cook. (Some of you might have even bought the Hot Wheels version of the SCRAPE.)
These coupes have a bit of a price tag; but they’re absolutely beautiful, aren’t they?
Maybe I should start a tip jar… heh.
… and new themes!
Long time readers will know of the fondness I have for “the future we never had”. YOU know what I’m talking about, here… “streamline moderne”; swooping, gleaming curves of aluminum and burnished steel; electro-deco; the look of The Rocketeer, or of Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow. Zeppelins and flying wings. The world as Bradley Schenck lovingly illustrates it.
And this is, after all, “The Institute”… a playful homage to Dr. Buckaroo Banzai, who comes, in turn, from the literary lineage of Doc Savage and The Shadow. (And a celebration of my many interests; Dr. Banzai isn’t the only one with more interests than time in the day. Heh.)
All this jelled when I ran across this nifty theme from Priss. Not only did the curves evoke the Deco look, but the title splash uses a nifty hack, using a font of my choice to generate a graphic on the fly — so you don’t have to worry about malware or trojans.
Really Cool Style; Really Cool Code.
I was hooked.
So, some two weeks later… here we are. I’ll tweak this a little, polish it here, nudge it there. How else, for a polymath?
I hope you enjoy this new look half as much as I’ve enjoyed working with it.
Zombyboy brings word of the wonderfully named Carnival Of Tomorrow, whose first edition is being rolled out at The Speculist.
Not only is this Carnival a wonderful concept, but the Speculist delights in many of the same things we relish here at the Institute.
I think the Speculist will be joining us In The Labs.
We had an interesting weekend visit, from a family friend who came here on holiday.
Our friend works with a large company with offices in Shanghai. He’s lived there, on and off, for quite some time; his business takes him to Guangdong and Hong Kong as well. Needless to say, we wanted to know what recent events looked like to people actually living there. His comments were quite intriguing.
There have been no dearth of commentators who think that Beijing’s recent barbs for Taiwan and Japan are for internal consumption, at least as much as for foreign affairs. Our friend not only agrees with those folks; he wonders if the central government isn’t primarily playing to the provinces… because according to our friend, it’s an open question whether the central government really controls more than a score of miles around Beijing.
We were told stories of army divisions shrinking to company size and below, upon arriving at provincial duty stations, within hours. Naval depots and army bases that are effectively empty, because desertion is so widespread as to be endemic. Regional governors who are, for all intents and purposes, heads of independent city-states.
If our friend isn’t just pulling our legs, the Chinese Communist Party is now more the party of Potemkin than of Mao.
Our friend also offered the opinion that the Chinese people have virtually no identification with “the Chinese nation”… at least, the nation that the Party keeps trying to appeal to. “None dare call it capitalism”, but in Shanghai and in Hong Kong, people identify with their local area, and with their trading partners. Not with “China”.
If my friend is correct, it has, to put it mildly, implications for US foreign policy in Asia. But the story my friend is telling is so very remarkable, I’m having trouble buying it.
Still… how ironic if the Chinese Communists finally got Marxism right… and withered away.
Has anyone else friends, acquaintances, colleagues, working in the PRC? Or visiting on holiday? If so, I’d love to hear their take on our friend’s opinions.
get up feeling ill?
Heh.
Zombyboy found a provocative article on the drawbacks of a “preventative medicine” culture.
Yes, drawbacks.
Go have a look. Campos makes an interesting argument.
infect them?
A harmless bacterium that binds to the HIV virus has been discovered by medical researchers. The find may lead to a cheap way to control infection.
Lin Tao, a researcher at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s dentistry college, has found a strain of lactobacillus — a common bacteria in our bodies — that binds to the sugar envelope on the surface of HIV. The bacterium targets HIV because it uses the sugar as a food source.
Tao and colleagues at Chicago’s Rush University isolated the lactobacilli from the oral and vaginal cavities of healthy human volunteers. The team then tested the bacteria against HIV and found two strains that specifically trap the virus by eating mannose and — in the lab at least — block infection.
“If we can find its natural enemy, we can control the spread of HIV naturally and cost-effectively, just as we use cats to control mice,” Tao said.
Needless to say, this is bench-test research only. Still, it is an extremely promising strategy. Tao is the first researcher to propose use of, for lack of a better meme, “ecological medicine” — altering patients’ normal flora in order to prevent damage from harmful microorganisms. As anyone knows who’s ever contracted a yeast infection after a course of antibiotics, we’ve been doing the opposite for quite some time…
(Parenthetically, it is possible that Tao’s research might offer at least a partial answer to the variable course of HIV progression in sero-positive patients. People who naturally carry the particular lactobacillus strain might be more likely to be immune — or at least develop a suppressed “carrier state” where they harbor the virus, but don’t develop illness from it. VERY early days for such speculation, but interesting questions readily suggest themselves…)
Such a treatment is likely to be affordable in developing countries. Testing and development, since the strain occurs naturally, will be at least one order of magnitude less expensive than for vaccines, two or more orders of magnitude less expensive than the invention and testing of artificial immuno-enhancement drugs and antivirals.
If Tao’s work pans out, instead of sugar cubes for polio — anyone still remember those? — we might have small biscuits for HIV.
I wish Dr. Tao and his team every success, and hope for more good news from that quarter.
Michael Totten is almost certainly celebrating today.
I’ll bet the mullahs, and the Syrain Baathists, aren’t… which grieves me not a whit.
Credit: The Professor.
Dale Amon, Samizdata’s resident spacer, has an interesting discussion of Richard Branson’s plans for Virgin Galactic.
I think Dale may be on to something. The article he cites doesn’t sound as if Branson is abandoning Mohave; it sounds like he’s looking at expanded coverage.
Remember, also, that the Virgin group has experience with air travel already.
Hmmmm…. Virgin Express? When YOU absolutely, positively, need to be there before nightfall?
Commercial high-speed suborbital flight.
Yeah, I suspect there’s a market niche there. And with Concorde going off-line…
Interesting. Interesting.
I count myself fortunate to have been Faire Folk.
Renaissance Faire, that is; specifically, the Renaissance Pleasure Faire that was in Main County, in the 80s and 90s. The second oldest Faire in the country, whose Black Point forest site near Novato was an unparalled venue. During its run, Faire was a source of delight to hundred of thousands of people. For the few thousands of us, over the years, who worked Faire? It was hot, hard work, some days. It was also, especially after hours, our Arden.
One of the things that made Pleasure Faire so extraordinary was the quality of the musicians who played there. Heather Alexander and Patrick Ball could be found there, busking for tips… and Moira Stern, who has an extraordinary range, and a sweet hand on the harpstrings.
You don’t have to take my word for it; you can now go buy Avalon’s Daughter, her new CD. (And since you’re buying it from CD Baby, you’ll be putting the bulk of the money directly into Moira’s hands… rather than the pockets of studio executives. That delights me all in itself.)
If you relish either classical harp or Celtic harp, give Moira’s work a listen. If you don’t know if you like harp music, Moira’s work is a wonderful place to start.
By way of Perry de Havilland, The Dissident Frogman, and the interesting crew at Bureaucrash:
Romanticize that, “lefties”.
“God’s rottweiler”, indeed.
Reading this kind of silliness is kind of like reading one of those quizzes that make the rounds of livejournals and blogs: Which Monastic Order Should You Belong To?
Benedictine… or Dominican?
*whistles innocently*
(Given their public behavior, no one is likely to think his Holiness a Jesuit any time soon. Feh.)
UPDATE: Other Rottweilers are ready to offer punctuation lessons to the media.
… this solemn conclave of writers.
GAH.
That being said, it’s nice to see Kelley’s back at the keyboards, even if she’s having MT troubles…
I hope she can make the move to WP soon!
Well, yes I am, truth to tell… but I’m also working on a theme re-make for the Institute. (Hints: Sky Captain. Things To Come. Warlord Of The Air.)
Cue the theremins…
Here’s a link to the Google cache on an article on Ratzinger. Please note that this is a review of a second article, written by someone who’s MUCH more liberal than Ratzinger doctrinally. But the conclusions are… instructive.
(I’d give you the original link to the site — the Ratzinger fan club! Honest! But for some odd reason, bandwidth is being gobbled up right now. I wonder why… heh.)
The Holy Spirit has a sense of humor, it seems.
Josef Cardinal Ratzinger; now Benedict XVI.
This is going to annoy people who were … well, lobbying… for a liberal turn and a repudiation of John Paul II’s course. Joke’s on them.
This is going to horrify a lot of Jesuits in higher education, who have managed to spike a lot of renewals which Ratzinger knew of, and was sympathetic to. Joke’s on them.
This marks the first time I can think of that a papabile has come OUT of the Sistine Chapel a Pope. Joke’s on those of us who thought it unlikely.
Joke’s on the Manolo, too. Heh.
This all happened whilst I was out shopping. Joke on me, too, eh?
I wonder who else will find the joke’s on them, over the next several years. The press, who will look at Benedict XVI’s age and think him a “stopgap”, a “placeholder”? The literati, who will find His Holiness a more literate figure than they would wish to easily dismiss? (Cardinal Ratzinger was perhaps the most published of the current College, with immense breadth and depth.)
This is going to be… fun!
The Anchoress, of course, is all over this. Check her further reflections out.
My friend and hostess makes a laudable, sane decision.
Enjoy your walkabout, and hope to see you back “sometime again”!
Cool, crisp dawn — like fall;
Fog stirs between the pines… yet
Dawn’s light says summer.
and you’re still reading?
Consider The Professor, and his readers:
… reader Michael Grant sends this quote from Martin Luther King:
If your opponent has a conscience, then follow Gandhi. But if you enemy has no conscience, like Hitler, then follow Bonhoeffer.
Grant asks: “Now consider: MLK chose nonviolence to advance his cause. What does that say, then, about his beliefs about his opponent?”
To borrow a trope: Indeed.
Friend Pejman, that is.
If this doesn’t excite you, You May Be Reading The Wrong Blog ™:
For more than a century, it has caused excitement and frustration in equal measure – a collection of Greek and Roman writings so vast it could redraw the map of classical civilisation. If only it was legible.
Now, in a breakthrough described as the classical equivalent of finding the holy grail, Oxford University scientists have employed infra-red technology to open up the hoard, known as the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, and with it the prospect that hundreds of lost Greek comedies, tragedies and epic poems will soon be revealed.
It’s…
almost like finding a timeline where Alexandria was never sacked.
WOW.
… appears to be people whose writings are both distinctive and pleasant to read.
I first noticed The Anchoress in the days immediately prior to John Paul II’s death. I was taken by her style as well as her observations — and how she feels about Julian of Norwich, an engaging figure who deserves to be better understood than often is the case.
Her beliefs are clear, and she has no compunctions about sharing them. SHARING; not nagging, not nannying, but sharing.
Her blogroll is a fine example of the same virtues that John Hertz wrote of, and which I quoted a post or two ago. It’s not “Catholic” ™ so much as it is catholic. (Pun intentional!)
I am delighted to have found her writings.
Put your morning coffee to the side.
Trust me.
NOW go have a look.
The Manolo, he certainly has the eye…
Consider:
The friendship of G.K. Chesterton and G.B. Shaw, despite their differences in politics, religion, and diameter, was to the credit of those men, Britain, literature, and humanity. Nor was it Laodicean. Neither man could be called lukewarm. Frank Sheed said “Bigotry does not mean believing that people who differ from you are wrong, it means assuming that they are either knaves of fools,” The Church and I p. 57 (1974); GKC and GBS knew the only true way to keep strong opinions was to watch against bigotry, and if each sometimes slept and bigotry came in, the wretched thief didn’t get much.
Sound advice from one of the sanest trufen I know, John Hertz (Vanamonde, June 22, 2004). Should you wish to meet him at a science fiction convention, look to see if he’s doing Art Show docent tours… or teaching Regency Dancing, which he does adroitly. Please feel free to share my compliments, should you have the pleasure to meet.
Those of you who are US citizens are almost certainly not laughing at the title.
This is Tax Day… our annual festival of frustration, when we all sweat the details of our tax returns, hope like hell we’ve done it right (or hired a good enough accountant), and wait to find out if we’ve won the lottery… the audit lottery.
Millions of dollars are wasted each year by businesses trying to keep up with the intricacies of the ever-changing tax code.
The richer you are, the more likely you are to be able to afford superb accountants and “loophole” your way out of paying all but a pittance of tax.
And by some estimates, nearly a trillion dollars a year escapes any taxation — cash payments, whether for garage sales or illegal trade, aren’t easily traced.
Alan Greenspan recently testified that our current income tax system was, to put it charitably… defective.
In fact, he spoke in praise of a consumption-type tax, worrying only about the political dififculties that might arise, and the costs of a transition.
There is, however, such a plan now before Congress — HR25 / S25, the Fair Tax Act. It’s been carefully written to address the concerns that people like Mr. Greenspan have had with such proposals.
I encourage you all to go read about it here.
And once you’ve done so, if this makes half as much sense to you as it does to me… write your Congress-critters. Maybe we can make April 15th just another day.
If I ever win the BIG Lottery, I’m not buying a yacht.
I’m commissioning a zeppelin. A sky-yacht. A floating barque of delights.
Should I ever be so blessed, I’m hiring Pink Martini for the “first voyage” party.
This Portland-based group describes itself as occupying a musical place “somewhere between a 1930s Cuban dance orchestra, a classical chamber music ensemble, a Brasilian marching street band and Japanese film noir”. It’s an apt description of the band’s breadth; these folks would be right at home playing the Avalon Ballroom, back in Catalina’s glory days… or providing the soundtrack for a film about the evolution of the tango. By turns ebullient, cool, serene, spicy, wistful, and gently melancholy, their first album, Sympathique, is a delight.
And I see, now, that they’ve a new album — and I shall be picking that up any time now.
The band’s website has a javascripted “radio” for sound clips. Being as how it’s javascripted, I can’t readily provide you that link. But a quick jaunt over to PinkMartini.com will allow you to listen for yourself.
I suspect you’ll be delighted.
Because my laptop died.
You see, with my laptop, I could draft entries, pull up articles I wanted to cite, mix it all together, edit it, and post it when ready. If I had to get up — to see patients, or to take care of stuff at home — I could leave it all there, ready for me to come back.
Without my laptop… well, that was all but impossible.
Such computer access as I have at work is limited if I don’t bring my own laptop and jack into the ethernet feed in the doctor’s watch office; the ER terminal is used to check on radiology results, and the rest of the nursing staff all wants to check things as well, and there’s eight people trying to use one monitor and keyboard.
At home, the hub of our home network is a venerable tangerine iMac, running OS 9.2. My spice prefers OS 9.2, G_d alone knows why… and even though my old Lombard ran at the same CPU speed as the iMac does, it used OS 10.3, and the difference in task processing was remarkable. The home iMac crawls in comparison.
SO… I couldn’t write as I was accustomed to. But I didn’t want to stop blogging.
Haiku entries offered a lovely answer to this dilemma. I could pick a subject, ponder it, distill it, get it just so in my head, and then post it quickly. I couldn’t expound and expand at length… but given the things happening in the last couple of weeks, I suspect that was a blessing in disguise. I was compelled to give credence to advice I’ve often offered: “Draft thrice, post once”.
Now, I have a laptop again; a nice iBook, thankyouverymuchforasking. I don’t have to bide my time, pounce on a keyboard, type, publish, and hustle to logoff for the next person… and that is great.
Still…
I might post more haiku entries, from time to time. They were… satisfying.
I hope you all enjoyed the change of pace they provided.
Farewell, brevity;
longer posts will soon follow
from my new laptop.
“Your laptop is dead”.
Thus my tech. Now I must look
To a new answer.
Why now should we weep?
His faithful stewardship done,
He goes Home, to Joy.
Read between the lines –
“Septic Shock”; “…circulatory collapse” …
Lent returns too soon.
All you “paladins”…
“Death-Worshippers!!!” “Theocrats!!!”
Dare YOU let her rest?
As I get older
Perhaps I approach wisdom…
Draft thrice; post but once.
Hard Drive? Motherboard?
“PRAM”, perhaps? The tech shrugs.
Perhaps on Friday…
The tomb lies open;
An empty chest, made precious
By the gift it held.
Happy Easter, one and all!
Motherboard? Disc drive?
Who can say? The technician…
But not till Monday.
Write of vacation?
As laptop’s system fails me…
perhaps tomorrow.
I’m headed off for my annual dose of duelling, drinking, and siege gunnery…
I look to be back in a week. I wish you all as pleasant a week as I expect to have!
I invite you to join in calling for the Federal Election Commission to uphold the Constitution and preserve citizen freedom of speech on the Internet.
The Online Coalition’s petition can be found here.
Should the FEC ignore this call, I also encourage you to refuse to acknowledge the BCRA’s right to govern our freedom of speech, here at the McCain-Feingold Insurrection.
The BCRA must be thwarted, blocked, disobeyed, overturned, revoked, removed from the laws of our United States.
I’m member 1583 of the Online Coalition. Join me.
Here’s a lovely sight:
This is only one of the many beautiful photographs that Marian Jordan Lewandowski has been pleased to share with us, in this new photoblog.
By all means pop over and browse his gallery. Oh, and if you drop a note in the guestbook? Tell Jordan that de Doc sent you.
for Senator McCain, Senator Feingold, and the FEC:
… Guess they think so.
Molon Labe.
EITHER of them.
I shall be writing my Senators and Congressmen this weekend, as did Ed Morrissey… by snail-mail; they’ll have trouble bouncing physical letters. I shall also be making some phone calls.
I invite you all to do the same. Write, and call, and continue writing, and continue calling.
We can’t fire Senators McCain and Feingold. That falls to the citizens of Arizona and Wisconsin. But we can all start making it clear to our Senators: This is an outrageous affront to the First Amendment, evasive and misleading statements to the contrary. The BCRA must be repealed.
Graphic credits: Oleg Volk, once again.
to keep and bear arms
should not only NOT be infringed…
it should sometimes be celebrated.
As the son of a Hungarian emigre, this poster makes me want to open the Tokaji:
The poster can be found here, at Oleg Volk’s gallery. I haven’t been here in a while, or at the companion site, A Human Right. I’m glad Chris reminded me about these sites, and that I had a few minutes to go browse.
Molon Labe.
Will Baude, at Crescat Sententia, offers a fascinating entry on what the Founders might have actually meant by “cruel and unusual”.
Not that this is likely to matter to Justice Kennedy, who seems pleased with the notion of being able to make up the Constitution as he goes along… but judges and lawyers who CARE about such trifles as “original intent” might wish to peruse this piece.
Ask James Lileks:
… you could be worried about the SCOTUS decision on the death penalty. It upended laws concerning the execution of juvies because five judges didnt much like the law, and were alarmed to find it was out of step with the direction of the drift of the emanations of the penumbra of several judicial decisions in Europe. Im not all that keen on the death penalty; I think it lets them off the hook. I want killers to die in jail, alone, forgotten, with their last meal consisting of steak-flavored mush and Sanka. But the reasonings dont seem based in that pesky Constitution itself, and the very idea of using foreign law as some sort of guide for American law unnerves me as much as it angers me. I know: lets use Iranian law to settle the constitutionality of divorce, right now. Someone bring a case.
I do not know how to stop this. I do know it MUST stop.
..is here.
This sad, sad case continues to play itself out, with Terri Schiavo’s supporters playing every single card they can in order to keep tube feedings from being withdrawn… up to and including calls to grant a divorce to Ms. Schiavo in order to remove her from her husband’s guardianship, and resurfacing 15 year old allegations of abuse and neglect which have never had enough evidence to take to a grand jury.
I wrote this entry in 2003 (!), discussing my take on the case. None of my assessments have changed.
Bottom line:
Everyone reading this needs to go fill out a living will, and make sure their loved ones have copies readily available.
Everyone.
Even as Firefox plugs an exploitable gap in its’ code (less than 12 hours after the exploit is announced), I received this warning, forwarded by Jerry Pournelle:
… Our mail filter has been catching what I think is a new phishing technique. The message puports to be from eBay, and takes you to a login page that looks like eBay’s. And eBay is an unwitting accomplice in this technique.
A simple script allows you to use eBay to verify a valid eBay user name and password. The verification script lives on eBay, and eBay sellers use it on their ’stores’ to verify you are a valid eBay user. If you enter an invalid user name / password, you don’t get access to the rest of the phisher’s pages. That might lure you into thinking you were actually on eBay’s site: if a bad user name / password doesn’t work, then your valid one should work, and that makes you think that you are on eBay’s site.
And even if you recognize a phisher site after your valid login, the phisherman has your eBay user name and password. That’s a good start for some financial fraud.
So it’s important not to click on links in emails. And users may want to filter out the HTML code of “onmouseover”, which is most often used by phishers to hide the real link in an email message. That’s how I catch phishing email.
More info on this technique on my pages at http://www.digitalchoke.com/daynotes/2005/2005-02-27.php#monday
Regards, Rick Hellewell
Thank you, one and all, for these timely warnings and advisories. I strongly recommend that my Gentle Readers take the steps recommended in these links and protect themselves.
As for the phishers? I only hope that some of you phishers, out there, manage to “exploit” a Mafia don, or a Yakuza boss. I feel certain they’ll return the favor… with interest.
… given the nominees for this year’s Academy Awards, that’s MY grokking of tonight’s media event.
I noticed this blog-amusement over at a friend of mine’s LJ, and started working through the list. The results amused me… so I thought I’d share.
These are purportedly the 110 “most banned books” — though I’ve had no luck finding out who compiled this list. (Given the books ON the list, I suspect it’s accurate, alas.)
Here’s De Doc’s Banned Reading List:
X=Read it
P=Read parts of it
W=Want to read it
O=Own it.
#1 The Bible : X, O
#2 Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain : X
#3 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes : X, O
#4 The Koran : P, O
#5 Arabian Nights : X, O
#6 Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain : X
#7 Gullivers Travels by Jonathan Swift : P, O
#8 Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer: X, O
#9 Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: X
#10 Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman: P
#11 The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli: X, O
#12 Uncle Toms Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe: P
#13 Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank X, O
#14 Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
#15 Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens : P
#16 Les Miserables by Victor Hugo : P
#17 Dracula by Bram Stoker : X, O
#18 Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin : X, O
#19 Tom Jones by Henry Fielding: X
#20 Essays by Michel de Montaigne: P (want to finish them at some point)
#21 Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
#22 History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon: P
#23 Tess of the DUrbervilles by Thomas Hardy
#24 Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: X
#25 Ulysses by James Joyce: P
#26 Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio: X, O
#27 Animal Farm by George Orwell: X
#28 Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell: X, O
#29 Candide by Voltaire: X
#30 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee: P
#31 Analects by Confucius: X
#32 Dubliners by James Joyce
#33 Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
#34 Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway: X
#35 Red and the Black by Stendhal
#36 Das Capital by Karl Marx: P
#37 Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire: X
#38 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: X, O
#39 Lady Chatterleys Lover by D. H. Lawrence: P
#40 Brave New World by Aldous Huxley: X, O (and Brave New World Revisited–ed.)
#41 Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
#42 Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell: P
#43 The Jungle by Upton Sinclair: P
#44 All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
#45 Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx: X
#46 Lord of the Flies by William Golding: X
#47 Diary by Samuel Pepys
#48 The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway: P
#49 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
#50 Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury: X
#51 Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak: X
#52 Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant: X, O
#53 One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest: X
#54 Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus: X
#55 Catch-22 by Joseph Heller: X
#56 Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X: X (ahem.)
#57 The Color Purple by Alice Walker
#59 Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke: X
#60 Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
#61 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
#62 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: X
#63 East of Eden by John Steinbeck
#64 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison: W
#65 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
#66 Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#67 Gargantua and Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais: W
#68 Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes: X
#69 The Talmud: W
#70 Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau: W
#71 Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson: W
#72 Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
#73 American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
#74 Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler: P
#75 Separate Peace by John Knowles
#76 Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
#77 Red Pony by John Steinbeck
#78 Popol Vuh
#79 The Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith: W
#80 Satyricon by Petronius: P
#81 James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl: X
#82 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
#83 Black Boy by Richard Wright
#84 Spirit of the Laws by Charles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu
#85 Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut: X
#86 Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
#87 Metaphysics by Aristotle: X, O
#88 Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder: X
#89 Institutes of the Christian Religion by Jean Calvin: P
#90 Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse: X, O
#91 Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
#92 Sanctuary by William Faulkner
#93 As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
#94 Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
#95 Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
#96 Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
#97 General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud: P
#98 Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood: X
#99 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Alexander Brown: P
#100 Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (movie) :X
#101 Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines
#102 Emile Jean by Jacques Rousseau
#103 Nana by Emile Zola
#104 Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
#105 Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
#106 Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: P
#107 Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein: X, O
#108 Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
#109 Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
#110 Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes: X, O
In many people’s eyes, I guess I am a horrid man. Personally, it amazes me that I am a reader–geek…
Glorious, simply glorious:
This came to my attention not too long ago, in a press release from the Hubble Space Telescope teams. Someone forwarded it me, thinking I might enjoy the sight… and how right they were.
What you’re seeing is a “light echo”:
The Hubble Space Telescope’s latest image of the star V838 Monocerotis (V838 Mon) reveals dramatic changes in the illumination of surrounding dusty cloud structures. The effect, called a light echo, has been unveiling never-before-seen dust patterns ever since the star suddenly brightened for several weeks in early 2002.
The illumination of interstellar dust comes from the red supergiant star at the middle of the image, which gave off a pulse of light three years ago, somewhat similar to setting off a flashbulb in a darkened room. The dust surrounding V838 Mon may have been ejected from the star during a previous explosion, similar to the 2002 event.
The echoing of light through space is similar to the echoing of sound through air. As light from the stellar explosion continues to propagate outwards, different parts of the surrounding dust are illuminated, just as a sound echo bounces off of objects near the source, and later, objects further from the source. Eventually, when light from the back side of the nebula begins to arrive, the light echo will give the illusion of contracting, and finally it will disappear.
Here’s a set of images, showing V838 as the veils of gas and dust unfold:
And that’s just one star.
There’s inexhaustible beauty and mystery Out There. To borrow a meme…
I Want To GO.
I can hardly wait!
This one is dedicated to Margi, who is in an excellent position to appreciate it…
From my e-mail this morning:
… this is an actual quote. A ward secretary at B_______ General was calling in a consult for one of our GI specialists:
Her: “…and home positive stool.”
Me: “…excuse me?”
Her: “home positive stool.”
Me: “you mean heme-positive?”
Her: “yeah, that sounds better.”
Honest. Fresh from my email.
*snickering, still*
Plenty, as George Orwell warned.
I was doing some blogroll maintenance recently, adding Eric Cowperthwaite and Chris Byrne. I’d been moved to do so by Chris’ “…Two Takes On Why I’m Not A Conservative”, and Eric’s “Why I’m A Liberal”. They, in turn, led me to Hayek’s classic “Why I’m Not A Conservative”, which I hadn’t read for some time. I need to pop that URL into The Library section sometime soon… but I digress.
Statists and collectivists who think they’re going to enjoy any of those articles are in for a substantial disappointment. Their grief is not near my conscience.
But these posts and articles set me thinking.
The biggest challenge that people like Eric, Chris, and myself face today in matters of politics is memetic. We all share a broad agreement in principle. We may differ on details, or on a given single issue; we’re not all marching in lockstep. And yet…
We despise collectivism and statism. We believe in people, not en masse, but as individuals. We believe in “certain inalienable rights”, and that they are the birthright of people, not the gift of a State. We put no faith in despots, whether they mask their tyrannies in scripture, sharia, the impersonal bureaucracy of a welfare state, or the guardianship of the proletariat. We think government a useful tool but a dangerous god. We despise “The State”.
But what does that make us? How do we describe out stance to others?
Eric holds forth for reclaiming “Liberal”. I confess that appeals to my imp of the perverse… but politics is the art of the possible, and I am afraid I believe Hayek is right, and that “liberalism” is too far fouled in socialist meme-muck to recover. “Libertarian” might have done, had the debating club that is the current Libertarian party not done their level best to make “libertarian” co-equal with “doctrinnaire Randite”. “Federalist” would have hearkened back to Madison, but that term is now generally understood to mean “one who wants concentration of power in the Federal government”. “Friends of Ronnie”? Cheeky good fun, I confess, but the defense and further spread of Liberty is no more Reagan’s singular legacy than it was Washington’s.
Perhaps a return to old traditions? As David Brin is fond of saying, we are children of Jefferson and Madison… hmmm… sons of Liberty. People of Liberty. Liberty People.
As to a party? Well… we need one, I think. I do not believe either the Republican nor the Democratic parties are likely to be congenial homes for us Liberty People. We need…
Heh.
Not a third party… a Fourth party.
A Fourth Of July Party, to borrow a happy notion from Eric Flint’s novel, 1632.
I’m not irrationally attached to any of these name-memes. If someone comes along with a better one, I’m delighted. But so far, I don’t think anyone has…
And it is time, and past time, that we Liberty People “took names” in this memetic fight.
It’s another.
My laptop — an old, venerable G3 Lombard — is having screen problems. As in “the screen is giving up the ghost” – type problems.
I can do this from my work console, but for tedious technical reasons, it’s a bit more difficult. SO… blogging might be light for a day or so.
Wish me luck on the repairs!
If you’ve tried to leave me a comment, and was blocked, please try again.
If you haven’t tried, but would like to, please comment here; I’m trying to fix my comment and spamblock settings, and I may have bounced a couple of you off my shields.
Gah. Spammers.
Anywhoo, give me a shout; if you’re blocked, send me an email. Thanks!
I’m betting it’s running on Wordpress 1.2, and that the entry immediately below this is from Feb. 1st.
What *appears* to have happened is that there was a “burp” in the domain registration… and that for a brief period of time, the domain was null-and-void, despite it’s being paid for.
I anticipate several more days of confusion, as the updates and changes burble their way through the servers. But hey, it’s not so very bad. I hope I didn’t lose any posts permantly; and WordPress 1.5 is now available as a stable download. No nightlies. WooHOO!
UPDATE: And now you should be seeing the Institute through WP 1.5, in a theme based on Sadish Balasubramanian’s Shaded Grey. Tweaking will continue for some time….
…” who’s the accepting doctor?”
“Horton.”
“Who?”
“Horton.”
“Who?”
… at which point those of us who have children lost all semblance of straight faces.
Neither the nurse, nor the transferring paramedic, had any idea why that sounded so funny. But then again, they did not like green eggs, nor ham…
A Free Iraq!
Sic semper tyrannis.
In the course of enjoying Really Cool Stuff, I tend to accumulate a host of sites in my Favorites list. That accumulation means, in term, frequent winnowing and reorganizing…
which is a lot more pleasant than, oh, vacumning the living room. But I digress.
I’m going to start sharing some of those links — musical, visual, incenses and scents, clothing and jewelry, whatever’s caught my fancy — once a week; hence, the category name, “Friday’s Feast For The Senses”.
Let’s start with someone I’ve mentioned before, Mark Zug. He first came to my attention as the illustrator of Harlan Ellison’s screenplay for I, Robot, which is still “the finest science fiction movie never made” as far as I am concerned.
What’s truly remarkable about this work is… well, let Mark tell you:
‘I, Robot’ was the beginning for me. Packager Byron Preiss, a longtime finder-exploiter-nurturer of new talent, caught one of my cold mailings when I was still a lathe operator. In 1992 they signed me to do — a dream project for a classic illustration freak — sixteen interior full-page paintings to accompany the narrative of Harlan Ellison’s epic screenplay version of Isaac Asimov’s loosely-connected anthology.
This came from a tyro, fer Chrissake:
Amazing.
Zug moved on to illustrations for Magic The Addiction The Gathering and Dune: CCG, magazine covers, books…
If you’re a SF geek trufan like myself, you might already have a favorite Zug piece, and not realize it.
If you’re not a trufan… well, click through to his site and look around.
EXIT STRATEGY
– plans for running away from the battlefield.
Antithesis to “victory conditions”.
See also: “bailing out”, “running away”, “cowardice”.
…and I’m a Friend Of Ronnie.
Go have a laugh as Rice deftly skewers Hollywood received wisdom… AND cant.
Although I don’t agree with the implied definition of “crazed”, I particularly love this little gem:
Don’t be alarmed: I’m not one of those crazed Republicans who goes to church or believes in monogamy or anything like that. I’m just convinced that there’s no such thing as a bad tax cut, that voters should have more power over their lives than judges, and that terrorists are more afraid of howitzers than they are of summits. Hence, Republican.
Can we deep-six the “South Park republican” meme, and replace it with this one?
Just askin’.
UPDATE: Zombyboy is on board… and in the comments, Remy Logan has an inspired suggestion for yet another meme.
“Team Ronnie”?
Bwahahahahahahahhhhh…
Condoleezza Rice, on the moral stature of Barbara Boxer:
Meanwhile, as I write this, the “honorable” senator from California continues to waffle, trying to portray Ms. Rice as a liar, and then feeling victimized when Ms. Rice called her on it.
Boxer hasn’t even the courage to admit she’s calling Rice a liar.
Makes her fit to caucus with such senators as Teddy “What bridge?” Kennedy and Robert “Who, Me? Bigot?” Byrd.
Moral midgets, the lot of them.
His last show was years ago. He spent his last years relaxing in seclusion, deliberately avoiding interviews and guest star engagements, playing cards with friends, letting things go on. By all accounts, he slipped away peacefully, surrounded by family.
But that’s not how I will remember Johnny Carson. Nor, I suspect, will anyone else.
Others will write of Johnny Carson’s influence on a generation of stand-up comics; of how he dominated the late-night talk show genre; of his comedic timing, or of his uncanny skill with his guests, managing over and over again to make them… more themselves, as they sat on The Couch and chatted with Carson.
Carson was all of that, and more.
For me, though, he was something else:
Millions of kids grew up over the years hearing the voices of Carson, Ed McMahon, Doc Severinsen and myriad celebrity guests emanating from the tube in their parents bedroom. Cackles of laughter ensued. Often, it sounded like mom and dad were having a party in there. They were.
And in time, those of us lucky enough to be of a certain age got to come to the party ourselves.
Carson has been called “… to television what Sinatra was to music, what Brando was to acting, what JFK was to the presidency.” And I think the comparison’s perfect. When Doc Severenson and his band were smoking, when Johnny and Ed McMahon were on their game, the Tonight Show had something of the same… ineffable, mature, classy, grown-up cool of the Copa Room, at the Sands Hotel, when The Chairman and the Pack were in town.
There’s nothing like that on television now.
I wish there was.
Oh, the title? It comes from one of Johnny’s most quoted jokes: “If life was fair, Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead”. I don’t wish Leno, or O’Brien, or Letterman ill.
But… yeah. If life were fair…
Goodnight, Johnny. Rest well.
For DRACO is come amongst us!
Congratulations, Rosemary and Dean!
(Yes, I know; that’s not precisely standard usage. But when congratulating successful births, I always give primacy of place to the mother. That goes double for C-sections, even if they went smoothly.
Eccentric, you say? Fine. Write me back when you’ve had abdominal surgery, and we’ll chat.
Heh.)
Perhaps not. But I defy you, gentle readers, to read this appreciation of Alton Tobey and not be moved.
If you are of a certain age, you’ll remember The Golden Book History of The United States, and those numinous paintings. It’s amazing to think of them being painted in but eighteen months… and the next time someone drones on about the artistic bankruptcy or commercial art, tell them to go get stuffed.
Tobey was not, I think, a da Vinci, or a Rembrandt. Nonetheless, he was an gifted master of his art, and consistently produced works of beauty. No small accomplishment, that.
Thanks to Virginia Postrel for the pointer.
Time to sharpen wits and pens…
I propose “Eurosclerotic”:
… The report says: “Either European countries adapt their workforces, reform their social welfare, education and tax systems, and accommodate growing immigrant populations [chiefly from Muslim countries] or they face a period of protracted economic stasis.”
The report which this article cites apparently predicts “… that the European Union will break-up within 15 years unless it radically reforms its ailing welfare systems.”
The UKIP might wish to take note.
Oh, and it gets better.
Who wrote this report?
The CIA.
Unless you’ve read The Professor this morning, or Free Will, it’s unlikely you’ve seen or heard tell of this report. I wonder why the MSM thought the CIA was newsworthy on Iraq, but not on Europe…
Heh. No, I don’t really wonder at all.
I share the skepticism expressed by commenters at Free Will about the timing. The CIA has less than admirable track record for economic analysts. And yet… Consider this sobering rejoinder, found on said comment thread:
Additional cause for my concern is my deminishing faith in the Central Intelligence Agency.
I agree wholeheartedly, but it’s worth noting that there’s nothing in that report that hasn’t been reported in the mainstream media for years, and, in fact, concluded by the EU’s own research projects years ago. They’ve been hurtling towards disaster for years, and they don’t know how to stop. I question that idea that it’ll happen within 15 years, though.
Unless you’re French, and subscribe to the Apres moi, le deluge school of civics, I can’t see that it matters over much whether the collapse takes place in 15 years, or at some indeterminate time… considering the trends are so clearly limned that even the CIA can see them.
If you’re a fan of The Chronicles Of Narnia, go and take a look here, as the artisans of WETA open another door into Faerie.
I am old enough to remember when movies like LOTR, or this current project, would be essentially impossible.
And now…
The back of my neck is all a-tingle.
WOW.
Go view the featurette.
Had you shown me this publicity piece two years ago, I would have thought it some kind of odd prank:
… (Battlestar) Galactica delivered 2.2 million viewers aged 25-54 and 1.9 million among those aged 18-49. The show won a decisive victory over UPN’s Star Trek: Enterprise, outperforming its new episode in total viewers, among adults 25-54 (2.2 million vs. 1.7 million) and 18-49 (1.9 million vs. 1.5 million). …
Galactica is trouncing the Star Trek franchise? You must be JOKING.
But the joke’s on UPN, and Viacom; the SciFi Network is laughing all the way to the bank. And, very possibly, to the Hugos.
Some of you will remember that I had a harsh opinion of this version of BSG. I still think that calling this show “Battlestar Galactica” is right up there with Verhoeven’s naming his bughunt movie “Starship Troopers”.
That being said, the post-9/11 sensibility that Moore’s bringing to the project is apparently paying off. Reviewers from the UK are enthusastic about the stories they’ve already seen, and enjoying the fact that for once, US fen are envying UK fen — not vice versa. This new series is garnering a LOT of attention and interest, and I can’t find it in my heart to be too grumpy. Decent media-SF is hard to find, and if the new BSG team can continue to do good work, putting out a quality series…
well, I’ll consider it atonement for Earthsea, and call it even.
So much for mellowing with age. Heh.
(By way of Pejman… whose comments page for this entry suggest a distressing lack of good humor among some folks. My sympathies… or would you prefer a second, sir?)
Kelley, don’t think you’re getting off that easily.
Take a break, take a LONG break, relax, take your ease… but don’t think, not for a moment, that you’re coming off my blogroll.
Not a chance.
Long as you’re keeping the domain, I’m keeping you on my list.
So *there*.
Being a bit busy of late, I initially missed the eulogy Howard Fineman gave for the “American Mainstream Media Party”.
For what it’s worth, I think Fineman may be more accurate in his assessment than some of the more triumphalist in the blogosphere. I doubt news networks are as moribund as some pundits would like to proclaim. That being said it is clear that the MSM’s days as THE arbiter of public opinion is over. The emergent order of the Internet’s “infosphere”, woven from multiple strands of reporting and commentary, makes it all but impossible for a single set of players to effectively monopolize the conversation of civilization.
CBS News apparently hasn’t figured that out yet, given their “nothing to see here, move along now” approach to cleaning out the stables. That doesn’t mean the MSM is going to cease to exist… although CBS News may soon suffer that fate, if the owners of CBS don’t catch the clue bus. IF MSM organizations can leverage their formidable ground-level information collection resources, they’ll become important, useful parts of the infosphere. If not… other news-media groups will pick over their bones.
Nonetheless, I write of a requiem because a myth is disintegrating: “… the notion of a neutral, non-partisan mainstream press”, which considers itself to be all but an arm of government. I would like to see a LOT more discussion, over the next weeks and months, of just how this myth came to exist.
Fineman holds that it emerged in the aftermath of the Second World War, out of a “temporary moderate consensus (that) came to govern the country”. He may be right, but the notion of a “Fourth Estate” can be found as far back as Carlyle in the 1840’s:
… does not… the parliamentary debate go on… in a far more comprehensive way, out of Parliament altogether? Edmund Burke said that there were three Estates in Parliament, but in the Reporters Gallery yonder, there sat a fourth Estate more important far than they all.
That notion, that the Press somehow represents the People, seems… impossibly naive to me. Or, if you like, insufficiently Madisonian. Why should the Press be any more immune to factionalism, prejudice, and blind adherence to a fervent belief than any other group of humans?
To the extent that the MSM could claim to be a “fourth estate”, all but a branch of government, they should have expected to be subject to the same checks, the same balances, as any other center of political influence in a Madisonian political culture. Perhaps what we’re witnessing is a long overdue … balance of power.
It will not come as a surprise to some of you that I have hypertension. (Ahem.) It runs in my family, both sides, and I’ve been on low dose Diovan HCTZ for some months.
Regrettably, I’m not always the most compliant patient. I forget, and sometimes skip my meds if I am hustling to get out the door for work, or busy on an engaging prospect, or… or… or.
I am not precisely a sterling example.
But my intermittent compliance has led me to an interesting observation. After two or three days on my meds, I notice a distinct… buffering? blunting? of my moods. It’s not depression, or the like; but I notice that I am a lot less likely to fume and steam over things like… oh, having BOTH cars break down in the same day, less than a week after being serviced by our local mechanic.
I am annoyed. Before I was on my BP medications, I’d have been livid.
This effect is not unpleasant, exactly. But it’s odd to have my emotional state affected so noticeably, so identifiably, by a medicine which has no reported psychotropic effects.
Many patients who are on antidepressants report that they feel like different human beings entirely. Sometimes that leads to noncompliance, as people don’t like being a “spokesman for my pills”. And others… feel “better than well”, taking certain antidepressants to enhance their moods rather than treat depression.
I haven’t run into anyone who’s been psychologically affected by BP meds, unless you count fatigue or the varied sexual issues which can happen. But those are physio-mechanical effects which the patient responds emotionally, not an actual alteration of the emotions themselves.
Maybe there’s something to the humoral theory, at least observationally. Choleric humours? Affect the choler, and change the mood.
I wonder if there are other case reports of such reactions…
Hmmm. Guess I have *another* reading-and-research project to occupy my “spare time”.
Heh.
“That ‘Digital Life’ thing we kept talking about?
I am in Mac-cult lust. This little gem could sit next to my Xbox, in the entertainment center, and display quite nicely to my TV screen. Hmmm. Wonder if Apple was thinking in those terms…
The MiniMac’s more than powerful enough for my home uses, at a fraction of the cost of other Macs. It’s quite possible that Apple is aiming at Windows uses who’ve decided their iPods are cool…
But my old Rev C iMac may be looking for a new home soon.
some people could accept what happened, and get on with their lives.
You’d think, wouldn’t you?
Sheesh.
By way of The Professor.
Fans of comics and fantasy-SF graphic arts are having a hard time of it. First we lose Kelly Freas, and now Guy S. tells us of this:
Newsarama has learned that comic legend Will Eisner died Monday evening, due to complications from heart surgery performed on December 22nd. Eisner had undergone quadruple bypass surgery, and was last reported to be recovering well.
Mr. Eisner was not as well known to the general public as Kelly was; Eisner didn’t have the crossover successes that Freas did (in venues as disparate as MAD magazine and NASA mission logo design). Nonetheless, Eisner’s impact on the art of the comic strip was immense. His masterpiece, The Spirit, was sui generis:
… The Spirit possessed no superpowers. He couldn’t see through his girlfriend’s clothing the way a curious alien like the Man of Steel might scientifically investigate Lois Lane. And he wasn’t a brilliant technologist like Batman, imagineering hokey gadgets and psychedelic compounds for all-night parties with the Joker.
The Spirit broke so many molds:
- Eisner was the strip’s artist and writer, a feat that is still rare today.
- The Spirit was published and distributed as an insert in Sunday newspapers, ala Parade magazine. It was seen weekly by as many as 5-million people from 1941 to 1952.
- No two Spirit sections looked alike. Although most commercial operations – from Superman to Pepsi-Cola – spend millions of dollars testing, proving and marketing their logos, Eisner thought it was more challenging to change The Spirit’s masthead every week – for 12 years.
- The Spirit was a fun, mature read, aimed at adults but accessible to kids.
For all of these reasons, The Spirit was published and reissued in various forms almost uninterrupted for 60 years. Its look, feel and smartass humor is timeless, which accounts for the countless revivals.
Throughout Eisner’s career, he worked with young artists… many of whom went on to some degree of success:
Bob Kane (Batman’s creator)
Lou Fine (the brilliant covers artist)
Jack Kirby (” ’nuff said” if you remember the Mighty Marvel years)
Jules Feiffer (politics, anyone?)
Eisner is generally credited with the genesis of the graphic novel, when A Contract With God was released in 1978. Like Kelly, hundreds of graphics artists owe large portions of their current livelihood to Eisner.
Go out and find some of Eisner’s work. You’ll be amply rewarded.
Goodbye, Mr. Eisner, and thank you.
Kelly Freas died in his sleep this morning.
If that news leaves you unmoved, you’re neither a science fiction reader, a trufan, a Mad magazine fan, a Queen fan, nor a space advocate. (Neither are you at all likely to be reading this blog; but I digress.)
An entire generation of fantasy and SF artists owe their very livelihood to a few key folk; and Kelly was primum inter pares among those select few. He was truly the dean of SF illustrators; as utterly important to the growth of the science fiction phenomenon (in his way) as Heinlein was. It is a remarkable testimony to Kelly’s virtues that despite his standing, he was as close to universally beloved as can be imagined, for his kindliness and gentle demeanor. As an occasional “B-lister” at major SF conventions, I will tell you that very few SF professionals of ANY stripe (print, movie, TV, arts) were as consistently genteel, humane, kind, and delighted with life as Kelly was.
Even if you think you don’t know Kelly’s art, it’s possible you’ve seen it; this bibliography has a nice selection from his work.
Details on commemorations and services can be had here.
Fen in the greater Los Angeles area will wish to take note.
I wish I lived nearby, that I might attend at least one of the services. But that’s not happening on my work schedule, alas.
Jerry Pournelle knew Kelly better, and longer, than I did. Read his eulogy if I haven’t convinced you yet.
Kelly is survived by his wife, Laura, who is a delightful and humane person in her own right. My prayers and thoughts are with her now, as are my family’s.
…May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t to forget make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.
From Neil Gaiman’s pen to your eyes, gentle readers. May it be so for all of us!
Give.
The recent tsunami may yet prove the single deadliest natural disaster in recorded history.
Take a minute and look here. There are organizations of every type involved, and many of them already have workers in the affected areas.
Let bureaucrats and diplomats argue over who is stingy if they like. The sick, the homeless, the injured don’t have time for such nonsense.
And neither do we.
Find an organization who’s already engaged in aid and relief… and give.
And to All…
A Good Night.
*grins*
off to his call room at the hospital, De Doc
That’s how my son characterized Ocean’s Twelve, and all things considered, I’m inclined to agree.
There are many worse ways to spend a pre-night-shift afternoon.
The family consensus is that this flick is, in some respects, truer to the spirit of the original Ocean’s Eleven than the first film in this series. It has a loose, happy, “let’s swing through Europe and make a movie!” feel about it, very much in keeping with the stories told about the original movie’s shooting. (My son says that, according to industry gossip, many of the “planning” scenes in the movie were extended improvs… which I believe; there’s a crackle to the byplay which *feels* immediate and unrehearsed. As does the scene where Mrs. Ocean meets… ahhh, but that would be telling.)
This film is intricate, convoluted, tricky, but never reaches in and stops your breathing. And why not? This movie’s for fun, not for chills or thrills.
De Doc says: If you’re not going to Lake Como this holiday season, take a vicarious trip with a crew of scoundrels, Arsenal, and several stars. Go see Ocean’s Twelve.
They don’t make film stars like this any more.
I suppose it’s possible that Mr. Lee was simply pulling his director’s leg…
and s’welp me, I don’t know which of the two possibilities tickles me more.
Thanks, Dr. Suarez!
… well…
(Not for the liturgically humour-challenged.)
The radio here at the ER is tuned, generally, to one of three stations… until December. Then it stays solidly fixed to one station, which admixes it’s normal playlists with a solid dose of holiday music.
Like, oh, 60 percent Christmas tunes.
I’m delighted that the station reaches across genres, taking all manner of music, all manner of artists. Tonight, I’ve been noticing the newer music in the Christmas popular canon. Old orchestral renditions of carols are being displaced by Mannheim Steamroller… instead of Burl Ives, I hear much more of Mc Cartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime”…
What “new music” are you hearing, this Christmas season?
No, I’m not having an anime moment… you might wish to chat with Professor Miyake, or den Beste-san, for wholesome otaku goodness.
I’ve been “learning by doing”, adding Gravatar functions to my blog. So comment away!
PS — Margi… rowf!
how shall it regain its saltiness?
The American Civil Liberties Union is using sophisticated technology to collect a wide variety of information about its members and donors in a fund-raising effort that has ignited a bitter debate over its leaders’ commitment to privacy rights.
Why is the membership incensed?
… The group’s new data collection practices were implemented without the board’s approval or knowledge, and were in violation of the A.C.L.U.’s privacy policy at the time, said Michael Meyers, vice president of the organization and a frequent and strident internal critic. Mr. Meyers said he learned about the new research by accident Nov. 7 in a meeting of the committee that is organizing the group’s Biennial Conference in July.
He objected to the practices, and the next day, the privacy policy on the group’s Web site was changed. “They took out all the language that would show that they were violating their own policy,” he said. “In doing so, they sanctified their procedure while still keeping it secret.”
Another example of “liberal” football… where the goalposts keep moving.
A purist might argue that after all, the ACLU isn’t really tainted, because it’s purpose is to look out for governmental abuses, not private breaches of policy. The rest of us will wonder just how much the ACLU really cares about people’s privacy, if it treats it’s own members so.
In the free market of ideas, the ACLU’s stock may be in for a beating… and other civil rights groups may well benefit from the “market correction”.
We see you for what you are:
Want to know how to bring an entire civilization to crumbles all by the sheer power of entropy? Make it content. Make its citizens fat and lazy, and make them afraid of pain, and sacrifice. Make them believe that there is nothing that is worth the discomfort of having to exert effort to gain it. Make them believe that there are some things that they should not even dare dream of, because they will never outgrow that which they came from, or came with.
From the most excellent OF Jay.
Well…
America is hated because it embodies the hope of people that yearn for a better life, to have meat everyday, but also to believe in the God they choose, or not. To say what you want without being persecuted. To be a woman without a veil, with the right to vote, free expression and adultery, without being stoned.
Rest in peace, Theo van Gogh.
(Courtesy of Andrew Stuttaford, at The Corner.)
…because I can still remember many of the cool toys that Wes Clark celebrates here. Mattel’s Cecil The Seasick Sea Serpent… the Wham-O air blaster… Major Matt Mason… the Agent Zero M Sonic Blaster… and the Lost In Space Roto-Jet Gun.
I can smell the odd scent of the Matt Mason figures even as I write this, as if they were waiting for me when I left work.
Thank you, Ted.
BTW, there’s lots of other fun stuff at Wes’ site — I particularly like the film noir section. His index page is here — happy browsing!
SOMEbody in the Ukraine is sweating. And, perhaps, in Moscow as well. If Yushchenko was poisoned, as his Austrian physicians assert, whoever carried out the poisoning attempt was guilty of sloppy tradecraft. There are many other agents which could have been used — ricin comes readily to mind –and the assassin used dioxin?
APPALINGLY sloppy tradecraft.
We don’t report the news… we plant it.
And the MSM wonders why their credibility is taking a nosedive.
Get son off to school, check;
take care of pets (morning rounds), check;
take care of Sharpie’s foster animals (morning rounds), check;
take Sharpie to postop followup, check;
drop off prescriptions, check;
pick up dry cleaning, check;
car battery fails, exCUUUUUUSE ME?
car has dead battery AND alternator, gahhhhhhh
son falls and injures shoulder…. oh crap
son guts it out to run sound for school’s symphonic concert… check, with reservations
son proves to have shoulder separation on X-rays thereafter… gahhhhh.
I don’t have time for the headache I’ve got….
(crossposted to my LJ)
America endured this:
We cannot forget. We must not forget.
Lately, there’s been a substantial Netwide surge in comment spam. Wordpress 1.2 has robust comment moderation, which keeps these clowns from scoring Google linkage on my dime. Unfortunately, I still have to wade through notifications flooding my inbox.
I had hopes for LycosEurope’s spam-slammer; however, it’s not currently available — and it might have been turned upon itself. (Whatever else you think of the spammers, you can’t accuse them of lacking cunning and technical skills.)
So, I went looking for other options. I think I might have found a very nice answer. (Regrettably, it’s a WordPress plugin; no ports to other blogware exist.) It’s now installed and implemented, and if it functions half as well as it’s reputed to, it should consign the waves of comment-spam to virtual Tartarus.
If. Interesting word, that.
I believe in Murphy and his law. Hence, this post. Should any of my gentle readers have their comments blocked and dumped, please e-mail me. Real live readers will know how.
Spammers, on ‘tother hand, are invited to join their spam in Gehenna.
UPDATE: As of 1300 EST, 12/6, the Spaminator is working like a charm. What a lovely St. Nicholas’ Day present!
Lest anyone think that the “new news” providers — Fox News, weblogs, Drudge, talk radio — are creatures of a single election cycle…
On the night in 1980 when Ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter in a landslide, and brought with him a Republican Senate, CBS News, a busy hive full of people charged with telling America the news at a dramatic moment, was like a morgue. I was happy, and the blue-collar workers–the cameramen who were bringing up families on Long Island, the secretaries from Queens–were delirious. Finally someone would lower their taxes–payroll taxes on overtime were killing them–and stop the humiliation in Iran. But the white-collar workers, the producers and writers and on-air talent–oh what a sad and depressed lot they were. The forces of evil had won.
Two things to be said here. One is that CBS News hasn’t changed that much, and the other is that the media world in which it operates has changed completely. The whole context has changed. No one has to accept the enforced corporate liberalism of the networks anymore, as they did from 1950 through 1990. They have options, from cable to Fox to the Internet to hundreds and thousands of radio shows, newspapers, magazines. The old network hegemony is over. That’s why network news viewership is down, that’s why the evening news isn’t appointment TV anymore. America didn’t turn crazily right, Americans just finally got political options in how they’d get the news, and took advantage of them.
Jim, at Snooze Button Dreams, is taking the bull by the horns — he’s talking about a new political party. So far, his basic principles are attractive, and his proposals sound:
1: Government exists to protect the rights of its citizens.
2: Legislatures should be
moreas concerned aboutwithremoving bad lawsthanas creating new ones. There are huge numbers of laws on the books that are improper, outdated, contradictory or simply dealing with things that the government has no business dealing in.3: Morality must not be a political topic and should not be regulated.
4:
Just about anyMany services provided by the government can be done better and more efficiently by private industry.The Intelligence community and the Armed Forces being the sole obvious exceptions here and even they could use some privatization.Movement must be made towards turning these services over to public markets and to eliminating the government from competition with the public.5: The law (especially the Constitution) is not to be
fuckedmodified for partisan agendas. See #3 above.6: Pork projects and riders on bills are the most insidious evil ever created by the bipartisan government.
The strike-text in there is important; at this thread, Jim is already listening to feedback, making changes, working with this idea.
But the party name needs a change. “Nationalist Party Of America” has unfortunate resonances; “Federalist” sounds like a Big-Government title to Jim (and how much ground have we lost, that Madison’s brilliant insights have been tarred with such a brush).
If you are at all taken by the ideas Jim is espousing, hop on over to this thread, and give him a hand with the name. I plan to.
Depends on your perspective…
The opinion page of the Wall Street Journal has a one-two punch this morning, both going after Kofi Annan, the man who has decided a $21 billion dollar scandal conducted entirely under his watch is a perception problem.
Perhaps Mr. Annan needs glasses.
More to follow!
None.
Netherlands Hospital Euthanizes Babies
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) – A hospital in the Netherlands – the first nation to permit euthanasia – recently proposed guidelines for mercy killings of terminally ill newborns, and then made a startling revelation: It has already begun carrying out such procedures, which include administering a lethal dose of sedatives. …
Classically, the “slippery slope” argument is considered a fallacy. Stories like this make you wonder…
And people wonder why I vehemently oppose Kevorkian’s ilk.
UPDATE: Others are beginning to notice, and are also appaled. Paul, at Wizbang, is so incensed that he slanders Neanderthals. The Diplomad notes yet another double standard. Captain Ed notes that in the Netherlands, the value of human life is now on par with a Saturday night negotiation.
I’ve been having some trouble with getting WordPress updated. But now, thanks to my hostess’ gracious help, I’ve been able to get past my cPanel, and install WP 1.2…
which means considerably less time spent with comment spam, once I finish some touchups to my plugins file.
*evil grin*
Cheap hosting? Hell, it’s superb hosting.
And there was grousing about OUR election.
Wretchard does his usual superb job of analysis — and this time, he’s not alone, as these links show.
Interesting times for the Ukrainian people (in the Chinese sense). The Russians should think very, very carefully about the waters they’re fishing in; terrorist attacks in Beslan and Moscow have bought Putin’s government some sympathy, but that goodwill can disappear VERY quickly.
Like many others, I watch with hope and apprehension.
As the military justice system considers the incident in Fallujah, and Kevin Sites tries to provide a context for his actions, perhaps other examples of context are in order:
In an environment where feigned surrenders are used to lure US troops into ambush, “playing possum” is a lot more ominous than it would be in Boise, or Oakland.
Fortunately for the accused, his tribunal will be comprised of marines who understand that…
who possess context.
As many of you know, Senator Arlen Specter’s confirmation as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee was bitterly opposed by many members of the Republican coalition.
As of tonight, it appears that that opposition was not totally successful. The Senator had to publically state his support for the President’s agenda and goals at considerable, carefully crafted length — but after that statement, his fellow Republicans on the committee voted unanimously to commend him to the full caucus. The senatorial caucus could vote against his elevation, but it seems unlikely at this point.
There’s plenty of rage and seething going on over this decision. Interestingly, though, much of it is coming from opponents of the opponents — who are indulging in fits of gloating. The comments on this thread at NotSpecter.com offer some prime examples:
#
c’mon, what’s your spin? this campaign was still a success because …
Comment by xian — 11/18/2004 @ 4:46 pm
#JUST GOES TO SHOW WHAT A COMPLETE BUNCH OF FREAKS YOU PEOPLE ARE.
MY MIDDLE FINGER IS RAISED TO ALL OF YOU!
Comment by Albert Thomas — 11/18/2004 @ 4:49 pm
Fine exemplars of rational debate, wouldn’t you say?
It gets… well, “better” isn’t precisely the right word:
#
Proving that your bullying, in defiance of the Constitution, is repugnant even to anti-abortion Republicans!
Comment by D L Steinhardt — 11/18/2004 @ 5:01 pm
I have not been able to find where it’s against the Constitution to make your opinions known to the Senate. Perhaps my knuckles are too brutish:
#
This is delicious! Now I can say to you knuckledraggers what you’re always saying to us liberals (well, ever since The Great Election Theft of 2000, and…2004?) – GET OVER IT. Oh, there IS justice in this life, praise Jesus Christ our Lord and Eternally Pissed-Off Creator (pissed-off at conservatives, I’ve heard; can’t confirm that one though).
And so – the grand experiment is a total, absymal, flaming, spectacular failure. Hurrah! Can’t wait til the next site: Maybenotspecterohgoshheseemlikesuchameany.com.
Comment by Peter J. — 11/18/2004 @ 6:40 pm
#Sean – so, so right…brother, the GOP is the cro-magnon party extremis, that’s for sure.
I pity you progressives/liberals in the red states who’ll have to bear the brunt of these hateful bastards’ pogroms, ‘cause you won’t have any relief at the state level. You’re welcome to come to California, which I encourage you to do about now…pretty soon the Grand Ol’ Party o’ Hate ‘n Petty Perversions will make it hard to pass between states, you can believe it.
Comment by Peter J. — 11/18/2004 @ 6:45 pm …
#
All that you’ve done via this site is cement the notion that you are, indeed, religious-right nutbags with zero frigging clues in the world. Soon the Bushies will dismantle the most hallowed pillars of the New Deal, heralding whole new realms of blight and misery for millions upon millions of Americans, and what will you say about it? Nothing, of course. And yet, I bet all the money I have that you consider yourselves compassionate, don’t you? Sick, repellent and perverse.
We on the Left are fighting you with everything we have because if we don’t, you will lead us right down the path of full-on Orwellian up-is-down, evil-is-good nightmares, and I for one will not go quietly…no. You’ll never have me and mine (or, the good ‘n holy state of California, and Los Angeles in particular), and that’s a promise. Keep your agenda of lies ‘n hate ‘n marginalization over THERE, okay? Live yer theocratic bliss, don’t ask us to.
Comment by Peter J. — 11/18/2004 @ 7:42 pm
Mr. J apparently relishes his Kool-aid. But I digress.
These people are… well, capering. They can scarcely contain themselves with glee at how this must hurt their enemies. There’s been little enough opportunity for collectivists to enjoy schadenfreude of late, so I can’t really blame them.
But it’s interesting.
Specter’s opponents aren’t looking to move to Canada. They aren’t caterwauling. They aren’t muttering cryptically about Specter buying off opponents.
Specter’s opponents are settling in for the long haul. They opposed Specter because they felt he was disloyal, and an impediment to the business at hand — appointing Federal judges who will read the Constitution and apply it, rather than looking for shadows, emanations, penumbras, and other things more befitting a denizen of Hogwarts’ than a member of the United States judiciary. Having lost one battle, they aren’t whining about their loss — they’re looking to win the rest of the battles.
Taunting, gloating enjoyment of others’ pain, while reveling in presumed moral and intellectual superiority? Or disciplined resolve in the face of disappointment and political setback?
One is far more likely to succeed than the other. I know where my money rides.
You’d think some folks would learn. Apparently… not.
In Pyongyang?
North Korea’s official radio and news agency has dropped the honorific “Dear Leader” from its reports on the country’s leader, Kim Jong-il.
The report by Radiopress, a Japanese news agency that monitors North Korea’s radio, follows news this week that portraits of the North Korean leader have been removed from homes and offices.
That kind of thing doesn’t happen in Workers’ Paradises, unless something’s afoot. Neither do things like this:
It’s Thursday in Japan and I have received email from Kyoto from Mongai Kome, frequent commenter on this blog. His morning paper (Sankei Shinbun) is reporting anti-regime flyers being posted in over fifty places in North Korea. This public display of disobedience in that benighted country is unprecedented and has been going on for the last month. Here is Mongai:
“The most prevalent flyer is called the “sixteen lies” of tyrant Kim and his tyrant father and it takes apart the fundamental myths and propaganda regarding the cult of the Kims and outlines the failings of the regime. Another flyer is based on the thesis that Kim Jong-il killed his father (perhaps some propaganda in and of itself but a brilliant move given the traditions of the Korean culture.)
Here is hoping things happen in twos and in Iran and North Korea justice will be done, and done soon, and done of, by, and for the people there with a little help from friends.” …
Now, this does not necessarily mean that spring is coming early to the Korean peninsula. The North Korean generals may have decided that given the current political… “correlation of forces”… in Washington DC, it’s time to enact a little regime change on terms favorable to the PRNK Army. Or the Chinese may have decided that they have one loose cannon too many on their border. These signs do not mean an imminent North Korean collapse, with a bloodless reunification with the South.
Still.
There is at least a glimmer of hope for the North Korean people…. and for their anxious neighbors.
They deserve better than the last half-century has given them. May they see better days soon.
Perhaps Libya was not an isolated success… but a good start.
Links by way of The Professor and Roger Simon.
My Gracious Hostess and dear friend, Venomous Kate, has arrived in Kansas City, after the LOOOONG flight from Hawai’i.
It’s good to know she made it back to the mainland… and all of us who’ve endured military-funded moves are hoping her household goods made it in one piece, too!
Luck to you, Kate, and good BBQ… *g*
I’ve been in the middle of a long stack of shifts, and they’ve been fairly brutal. The flu season is being gentle with us, but every other kind of dire illness seems to have surfaced with the turn of the weather.
My apologies for being so scarce… but hopefully things will settle down soon. There can’t be that many more people in NE Florida to GET sick, I should think…
To my friends, my shipmates, my fellow veterans, who aren’t here to read this:
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep,
though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
– John McRae
I have not forgotten you.
WE have not forgotten.
Rest well…
would someone please tell me?
I won’t have access for awhile.
My son is defending New Mombasa with the Master Chief.
So, you see, I won’t be able to watch the tube for QUITE some time.
heh…
People who are (currently) frantic about the presumed Religious Rightwing Revolution would do well to stop reading The Handmaid’s Tale, and consider:
The passage of the gay marriage ban in eleven states occurred in the same election that rejected the candidacy of Alan Keyes. It is not that most people wanted to thump a Bible, it was that they didn’t want to be thumped at all — least of all by a synthetic political correctness.
Or perhaps:
Nationally, gay marriage is a loser, but civil unions are a big winner, with 35 percent support (and 32 percent in the South). Assume that the 25 percent who back marriage rights (17 percent in the South), and you’ve got a clear majority (and a slim lead even in the South, where Bush won 32 percent of gay voters). The public is squeamish about “gay marriage,” but not about giving gay couples public recognition and legal rights.
Or maybe:
In affirming the traditional definition of marriage in 11 state referenda, from darkest Mississippi to progressive enlightened Kerry-supporting Oregon, the American people were not expressing their “gay-loathin’ “, so much as declining to go the Kelly route and have their betters tell them what they can think. They’re not going to have marriage redefined by four Massachusetts judges and a couple of activist mayors. That doesn’t make them Bush theo-zombies marching in lockstep to the gay lynching, just freeborn citizens asserting their right to dissent from today’s established church – the stifling coercive theology of political correctness enforced by a secular episcopate.
Or perhaps:
Healing? Coming together? Uniting? Forget it. Raw hatred and fear of those who have different moral issues than you is where it’s at. Let me reiterate again, before the trolls kick in: I’m no pro-lifer, I’m an atheist and pro gay marriage. Yet, oddly, I’m not afraid that a group of holy rollers is going to knock down my door, put a lock on my uterus, force me to pray and make me read Jack Chick tracts about the gay agenda.
Maybe that ignorance finger is being pointed in the wrong direction.
None of these authors are any kind of kin to Jerry Falwell. But all of them supported Bush.
To my gay and poly friends: The vast majority of the people who voted for Mr. Bush are “leave people alone” types. They are no more enthusiastic about Christian theocracy than they are Islamic theocracy. They don’t want to have another person’s orthodoxy rammed down their throat… and that’s how the Massachusetts court decision felt to those people, who remembered how they felt about that, and took the opportunity to make their opinions known. They did so, not because they were in lockstep with Pat Robertson, but because it is a quintessential American character trait: feeling pushed around, the voters pushed back.
The gay/lesbian and polyamory communities would be much better off working for civil union laws… then arguing that all “marriages” ought to be matters for civil registry, not government “recognition”, achieving civil equity in that fashion. Marriage LICENSE? Why do you need the State to give you *permission* to enter into a life-partnership? More to the point, why do you want the State to have the power to intrude on your lives? The State should be the keeper of records, not the granter of permissions.
This happens over and over again. One section of the political spectrum sees an opportunity to butt into another group’s lives, using the power of the State to make others conform. it is the ugly truth at the heart of the facile comment that “the far left and the far right are really all alike.”
Leftists and old-school reactionaries aren’t alike in their goals. They aren’t alike in their philosophy. But they’ve ALL drank the KoolAid, and are willing to use over-expanded government power to enforce their will on others.
Those of us who are in the “3L” section of the political spectrum… “live and let live”, small-l-libertarianism, constitutionalists, federalists … need to be looking at this big picture, even as we attend to this election, that issue.
We need to break the stranglehold of this old, wretched, deadly Platonic ideal. The State is NOT the maker of morality, the authority from which virtue springs. A shortsighted dependence on the powers of the State to enforce your code today… cannot but lead to those same powers being used against you tomorrow.
The Democrats keep talking about introspection, about finding themselves, about sending a clear and coherent message. It’s past time that the liberty-loving “radical center” have it’s own Goldwater moment, and start doing what conservatives did after Goldwater… slowly, steadily thinking, talking, publicizing, building the grassroots base of support that allowed them to be an effective “center of gravity” for people disgusted by the excesses of the collectivist, socialist “left”.
The Libertarian Party hasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of providing that center-point for coalescing liberty-loving groundswell. They’d rather be right than win elections… and their insistence on such doctrinal purity, so very un-constitutionalist in it’s central assumptions, has reduced them to irrelevance.
But that’s another post.
UPDATE: Dean Esmay also pushes back… hard.
No, really.
I cannot imagine a more untenable position from which to pursue the Presidency in 2008… or beyond.
Consider:
** The Republican National Committee must already have a Hillary Watch team set up, collating everything known about her to date… and gathering political intelligence on her, day in, day out. (Look for a “Hillary Spot” at National Review Online in the not too distant future.)
** Senator Clinton cannot “run silent, run deep” for the next three years. She has to stay visible, both in the MSM and on the floor of the Senate … which will, in turn, make it harder to hide her record from scrutiny. Neither Clinton’s political beliefs, nor her base, will allow her to move overmuch towards the center.
** Despite the assertions of the commentariat, I don’t think that the Democratic Party is the Clintons’ to command. Carville, Lockhart, Begala, and their ilk were also casualties of the Kerry Collapse; no matter how it will be spun in public, party strategists will do the numbers, examine the results, offer conclusions. None of those conclusions are likely to be congenial reading for the Clintonistas.
** There are many things to accuse Mssrs. Dean, Edwards, Gore, and Kerry of. Lack of ambition isn’t one of them. Bet on this: given the intranecine sniping, and the dirty laundry being aired already about the conflict between Kerry’s first team and the Clinton cleanup squads, at least one of those men will have a Hillary Watch team set up, in order to defeat Hillary and attain the Democratic nomination.
** One of Hillary’s biggest weapons would be the magnetic charm of her husband, the former President. But charm has a half-life, and Bill Clinton’s had a hard year. By January 2008, the former President may well be more iconic than active, more symbolic than effective. Hillary Clinton simply does not have the charisma that Bill Clinton does, and nostalgia for “the man from Hope” will only go so far.
No… I shouldn’t like to be in Senator Clinton’s postion at all, not at all. To desire something so, and to be thwarted…
There are other reasons why I think Senator Clinton isn’t likely to succeed President Bush. But that’s grist for another article.
Not so very long ago, I saw Robert Heinlein’s spitting image at EPCOT.
Now I’m reading Retief’s thoughts… except I’m not reading a novel; I’m reading a real diplomatic blog.
Curiouser and curiouser.
Go have a look — it’s a hoot.
Bosh.
Eminem has produced a fine little ditty; and the video that goes along with it is a splendid piece of polemic. And unlike Michael Moore, he hasn’t lied about anything…
Been mistaken, OK. But no lies.
Still, I can’t help but think Eminem would benefit from a little of the same skewering he recently handed out to MC Hammer, Peewee Herman, Michael Jackson… sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander, eh?
How about this:
On Inaguration Day, let’s all wear “hoodies” in honor of the President’s victory.
RED hoodies.
Any takers?
I have passed another developmental milestone as a blogger, it seems.
Someone has decided to disown me for my political views.
Unhappy details here.
Not my choice… unless you count speaking up as a “choice”.
It appears there are a number of people who are so appalled by the election results that they wish to leave the United States, thinking they’ll find a more tolerant culture, a more humane and accepting world…
Surely one of the most pathetic, the most inexplicable things about the collectivist-statist “left wing” is their utter inability to see who are merely their political opponents…
and who are their mortal enemies.
(Suggested by this note of Will Collier’s.)
Nothing so became your campaign
as the ending of it.
Your decision does you credit, and I honor you for doing the right thing.
Share it with the rest of the electorate TODAY.
If you haven’t yet…
stop reading, and go vote!
And yes… lest anyone wonder…
Think long and hard about what his Cabinet will look like.
Just scroll down, past the paen to Paglia.
Thank you, Jeff… I think. *shudder*
Poor Mr. Bin Laden. He wanted to send a clear message to the American people, and relied on the MSM.
Oops.
The tape of Osama bin Laden that was aired on Al-Jazeera(1) on Friday, October 29th included a specific threat to “each U.S. state,” designed to influence the outcome of the upcoming election against George W. Bush. The U.S. media in general mistranslated the words “ay wilaya” (which means “each U.S. state”)(2) to mean a “country” or “nation” other than the U.S., while in fact the threat was directed specifically at each individual U.S. state. This suggests some knowledge by bin Laden of the U.S. electoral college system. In a section of his speech in which he harshly criticized George W. Bush, bin Laden stated: “Any U.S. state that does not toy with our security automatically guarantees its own security.” (emphasis added — ed.)
Interesting mistranslation, eh?
Maybe THAT’s why ABC waited so long to come out with the tape. They couldn’t figure out a Reuters-approved, values-neutral translation.
Feh.
If you know people who are sitting on the fence, CALL them yourself. Talk to them while you’re on coffeebreak. Send them to MEMRI’s website to look at the article. Tell everybody, and keep telling them.
Mr. Bin Laden wanted to send a message.
Let’s send him a message in return… Team America style.
NOW bin Laden’s in trouble:
WASHINGTON (APUPI) In response to complaints from the Bush campaign today, the Federal Election Commission has decided to look into the sources of financing for Al Qaeda, to determine if any election laws were broken by the recent video released featuring its leader, Osama bin Laden.
A campaign spokesman claimed that, with all of his harsh criticism of the president, the terrorist leader was clearly supporting the Kerry campaign.
“He may not have explicitly endorsed Senator Kerry, but he clearly skirted the edges of the McCain-Feingold law. Anyone can look at that tape and tell that Osama wants our opponent to win this election,” claimed a campaign spokesman.
To shamelessly steal coin a phrase, read the rest.
Venomous Kate does as nice a job as I’ve seen, lately, of succinctly reviewing the Qa Qaa story, and the real culprits.
THESE are the people we trust to keep an eye on Iran.
GAH.
My son came home, chortling.
His high school is a performing arts magnet school. Think of the school portrayed in Fame, only for real — with more talented teachers who are honestly working professionals.
They had a mock election yesterday.
Care to bet on what the results were at such a liberal bastion?
over at Straight White Guy, real soon now.
Oh… dear.
*g*
Still, every hurricane has an eye. This allows me to re-add Kim to my blogroll, as I see he fell off it — Ghod only knows how.
I blame Kerry’s hair stylist, who must have cracked under the strain…
Heh.
You, too, are a geek:
“I use the backspace key for this, naturally. Anyone who uses a mouse at all is a false geek!”
Pff. Anybody who’s keyboard has more than just a 1 and 0 key is a false geek.
Heh!
From a slashdot comment, discussing a Neal Stephenson article… which is worth the read in it’s own right.
the NY Times and CBS were colluding to put this on at the last minute, and had 60 Minutes had their way, this bullshit would have been released on Sunday night, and there would have been no chance for what we now know to come out. In other words, the press championed McCain-Feingold to shut us up and to preserve their hegemony, and then in the first trial run of the legislation, made a blatant attemt to fix an election. Un-fucking-believable.
By way of Balloon Juice.
Right in the 10 ring.
This is why we don’t think assasination jokes are very funny:
Police in Sarasota, Florida, arrested a man accused of trying to run down Rep. Katherine Harris and her supporters with a car Tuesday, a police spokesman said. …
It happened as Harris and her supporters were campaigning in Sarasota, her spokeswoman said Wednesday.
You’ll pardon me if I don’t find this a knee-slapper.
… Police matched the tag to a car registered to Barry Seltzer, 46, of Sarasota.
After police tried to contact Seltzer, he came to to the Sarasota Police station where, according to a police report, he admitted trying to “intimidate” a group of Harris supporters.
“I was exercising my political expression,” Seltzer told police, according to the report.
Just another joker, eh?
This… humorist… is being arraigned on charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
Pity that doesn’t carry a sentence of sufficient gravity.
Like hanging.
Official Title: Public Protection from Repeated Medical Malpractice
Ballot Language: Current law allows medical doctors who have committed repeated malpractice to be licensed to practice medicine in Florida. This amendment prohibits medical doctors who have been found to have committed three or more incidents of medical malpractice from being licensed to practice medicine in Florida.
Proponents assert they are protecting Florida from bad doctors. Opponents note that a rule like this will guarantee that high risk specialists like neurosurgeons and OB-GYN doctors will refuse to practice in Florida.
Why would opponents make that assertion?
Let me show you how a doctor could be forced out of Florida under this law, without ANY guilt of malpractice whatsoever.
Let’s assume Dr. Welby had been sued three times, by a set of people who didn’t like him, for, oh, 25,000 each. Dr. Welby’s insurance company settles these three claims; it’s simpler, MUCH less expensive, and it’s no skin off the insurance company’s nose, right?
Here’s the rub: The National Practitioner Data Bank, which keeps track of all medical malpractice events, logs a settled claim as a malpractice event — EVEN if there’s been no trial, no proof of malpractice, nothing.
Under this proposed Florida law, wouldn’t matter. Three strikes and gone.
This bill, sponsored by Florida’s trial lawyers, is nothing but an attempt to punish docors for their success in lobbying for malpractice caps in Florida. It makes a mockery of things lawyers might be expected to believe in under the American and state Constitutions, like due process and the presumption of innocence.
De Doc says: NO on amendment eight.
Official Title: Patients’ Right to Know About Adverse Medical Incidents
Ballot Language: Current Florida law restricts information available to patients related to investigations of adverse medical incidents, such as medical malpractice. This amendment would give patients the right to review, upon request, records of health care facilities’ or providers’ adverse medical incidents, including those which could cause injury or death. Provides that patients’ identities should not be disclosed.
Proponents insist this is simply designed to help patients know more about their health care.
Opponents argue that this is designed to allow lawyers to go fishing for more possible lawsuits.
I note that this bill is in direct violation of Federal privacy statutes, which allow for internal quality assurance investigations to be privileged information. Without such protections, the Congress understood that no one will ever willingly participate in peer review or in morbidity/mortality conferences, where adverse outcomes are discussed in an effort to examine when and where errors can be corrected.
A bad outcome does not prove that actionable malpractice and negligence occured. This bill stands the notion on it’s head, and allows lawyers to troll for bad outcomes, the better to make more money.
It’s bad law, and it’s a violation of Federal law, and the trial lawyers who sponsored it should know better.
De Doc says: NO on amendment seven.
Official Title: Repeal of High Speed Rail Amendment
Ballot Language: This amendment repeals an amendment in the Florida Constitution that requires the Legislature, the Cabinet and the Governor to proceed with the development and operation of a high speed ground transportation system by the state and/or by a private entity.
Financial Impact Statement: The probable financial impact of passage of this amendment is a state cost savings ranging from $20 billion to $25 billion over the next 30 years. This estimate assumes the repeal of associated laws, the use of state bonds to finance construction, and could be reduced by federal or private sector funding.
Proponents want high speed rail, assuming that it will decompress roads and airports, and make travel in Florida easier.
Opponents ask why the state of Florida should be in the transit business, directly operating, or subsidizing, railroads.
I think that the high speed rail initiative was nice, from a geek standpoint, but I fail to see why the tax coffers should be tapped for things just because they’re geek-neat.
De Doc thinks the prior initiative, compelling the state to start playing with trains, was a statist boondoggle.
De Doc says: NO YES on amendment six.
UPDATE: Oops! I misspoke in my initial article. Coworkers caught this for me — kudoes to them!
Minimum wages…
A perennial favorite.
Official Title: Florida Minimum Wage Amendment
Ballot Language: This amendment creates a Florida minimum wage covering all employees in the state covered by the federal minimum wage. The state minimum wage will start at $6.15 per hour six months after enactment, and thereafter be indexed to inflation each year. It provides for enforcement, including double damages for unpaid wages, attorney’s fees, and fines by the state. It forbids retaliation against employees for exercising this right.
Proponents want more money for wages — straightforward. Opponents point out that there are some problems with *this* bill:
–It sets the initial minimum Florida wage 20% higher than the national minimum wage. (This in a state with no income tax.)
–It *automatically* indexes the state minimum wage to inflation, removing any further voter input.
–It makes Florida less competitive than surrounding states, with the likely result a net loss of jobs, and attendant revenue.
–The lost jobs will in turn lead to a loss of health insurance for children of affected workers.
I find the health insurance argument less than compelling, especially as many minimum-wage jobs don’t confer benefits. (Should they? Another question entirely, and a MUCH knottier one.) I do, however, note that the combination of a higher-than-federal starting point, AND annual indexing, is likely to have a major impact on businesses in Florida… and the decision of businesses which might MOVE to Florida.
De Doc says: NO on amendment five.
Official Title: Authorizes Miami-Dade and Broward County Voters to Approve Slot Machines In Parimutuel Facilities
Ballot Language: Authorizes Miami-Dade and Broward Counties to hold referenda on whether to authorize slot machines in existing, licensed parimutuel facilities (thoroughbred and harness racing, greyhound racing, and jai alai) that have conducted live racing or games in that county during each of the last two calendar years before effective date of this amendment. The Legislature may tax slot machine revenues, and any such taxes must supplement public education funding statewide. Requires implementing legislation.
This is an interesting proposition. Proponents are billing this as a local autonomy issue, or an education issue: let’s tax those new gambling revenues, just like we do the lottery. Opponents are decrying the increase in opportunities to gamble, and how it might make Florida less “family friendly”.
There are apparently hidden issues in play, as well — greyhound racing advocates want to see this pass, in order to shore up sagging profits. Animal rights’ activists want to see those facilities collapse, and are opposing this proposition because it might just do what the track owners hope for.
On the merits … well, neither side presents a compelling reason, with the possible exception of the “local autonomy” issue. But this amendment only *allows* this to happen; before any such slot machine opportunites come to be, the legislature still has to do it’s duty and pass laws.
That being said,
De Doc says: YES on amendment four — with careful attention to what the legislature does afterwards.
Here’s a proposition that I’ve actually received e-mail on, as well as blog comments. My opinion may come as a surprise…
Official Title: The Medical Liability Claimant’s Compensation Amendment
Ballot Language: Proposes to amend the State Constitution to provide that an injured claimant who enters into a contingency fee agreement with an attorney in a claim for medical liability is entitled to no less than 70% of the first $250,000.00 in all damages received by the claimant, and 90% of damages in excess of $250,000.00, exclusive of reasonable and customary costs and regardless of the number of defendants. This amendment is intended to be self-executing.
Proponents argue that it’s only fair to see that the bulk of any settlement for damages goes to the in jured party, rather than the lawyers. Opponents argue that this restriction will make it harder for those who have suffered malpractice to obtain restitution, as it imposes ceilings on the lawyers’ earnings.
I don’t think it’s as simple as that.
For one thing, I don’t think that the Constitution should be used as an uber-statute. IF such statutes are appropriate, I think they ought to be enacted in the legislature. We hire those folks for a reason; if they don’t do what we want them to, we ought to fire the legislators.
I also don’t like seeing the Constitution used as a “gotcha” tool. This amendment is aimed right at the wallet of trial lawyers, and arguments to the contrary are… disingenuous at best.
Yes, many trial lawyers’ fees are predatory. I think that “sunshine legislation” is a more appropriate course that flat ceilings, however; let lawyers be compelled to post their fee structures and contingency contracts PUBLICALLY, so that consumer groups can comment on them. (And while we’re at it, let’s enact similar legislation on expert witness fees, which are often “proprietary” and sealed. Never mind that these expret witnesses are often pivotal in liability trials, which can have major effects on an entire economy — think of the contribution that liability exposure has had to the whole sorry flu vaccine mess.)
I don’t like the behavior of many trial lawyers. But this amendment’s the wrong tool for the job.
De Doc says: NO on amendment three.
Here’s the second porposed amendment on this year’s Florida ballot:
Official Title: Constitutional Amendments Proposed by Initiative
Ballot Language: Proposing amendments to the State Constitution to require the sponsor of a constitutional amendment proposed by citizen initiative to file the initiative petition with the Secretary of State by February 1 of the year of a general election in order to have the measure submitted to the electors for approval or rejection at the following November’s general election, and to require the Florida Supreme Court to render an advisory opinion addressing the validity of an initiative petition by April 1 of the year in which the amendment is to be submitted to the electors.
Proponents argue that this will give more time for constitutional amendments to be evaluated by the electorate, as well as ensuring time for judicial review of any petitions which might be questioned. Opponents argue that this amendment would make it harder to enact amendments to the Florida constitution.
I don’t see any benefit to rushing *laws* into print, much less amendments to the state constitution. We speak of “deliberations” for a reason…
De Doc says: YES on amendment two.
Now that my schedule’s down to a mere sprint, let me keep an earlier promise, and start commenting on the Florida election’s various constitutional amendment propositions.
My apologies to anyone out there who voted early.
Right.
Amendment One:
Official Title : Parental Notification of a Minor’s Termination of Pregnancy
Official Ballot Language: Proposing an amendment to the State Constitution to authorize the Legislature to require by general law for notification to a parent or guardian of a minor before the termination of the minor’s pregnancy. The amendment provides that the Legislature shall not limit or deny the privacy rights guaranteed to minors under the United States Supreme Court. The Legislature shall provide exceptions to such requirement for notification and shall create a process for judicial waiver of the requirement for notification.
You can’t have it both ways. IF parents are responsible for their childrens’ health and well-being, as the Florida statues clearly hold, then it seems to me they MUST be allowed to be aware of surgical procedures performed on their children.
I understand that there are concerns about minors being unable to “obtain health care for their reproductive needs’… and I have sympathy for that if we are talking about parents blocking access to prenatal care. But we already have child protection laws for that, under the sections on medical neglect. This proposed amendment is meant to make it easy for minors to procure abortions, regardless of their parents’ wishes. Never mind who’s going to foot the bill for the procedure… or the potential complications of the procedure, which most abortionists refuse to do followup care on.
You cannot insist on parental responsibility while simultaneously refusing them the ability to be responsible.
De Doc says: NO on amendment one.
I have an odd request…
Could someone who lives in a television market where
is running, please videotape *the opening credits* in their entirety and send me a copy? Any hi-res format will do, tape or disc — my wife will handle the conversions as needs be.
It’s for a research paper on epidictics.
Much thanks in advance!
I generally reply to comments at the thread where they’ve been posted. But I received a comment yesterday on this post which seemed to call for…
more.
So…
Except for those who have already made up there mind to vote for “W” because he says he only makes decisions in the name of God,
Lovely use of straw, there, making your little mannekin. But I’m curious: when did Bush make such a statement?
it is pretty obvious that both candidates have moral clarity. They both love God, they both are against terrorism, and they both want to protect the American people.
Really.
I’m sorry; I took Senator Kerry at his word, when he valued terrorists as no more than “nuisances”.
If that’s protection, buy me a court gown, and call me Marie of Roumania.
It is now up to the American people to figure out which candidate is the best man to protect the country.
With “W,” we know we have a man who will CONSISTENTLY lie to the American people, and has made undeniably DISASTROUS decisions on behalf of our country.
It would be useful if you could actually cite examples of these purported “lies”. Since you don’t seem to be able to, I take your pronouncements with a grain of salt. The grain King Kong uses for HIS margarita.
With JFK, we have a man who might NOT lie to the American people. And, he seems to have a good plan about what to do. Of course, we can’t be sure, because he has not been the President yet.
“JFK”? Feeling nostalgic, are we? I sympathize. After all, President Kennedy was a genuine war hero. Senator Kerry’s war record is apparently so dodgy that he is STILL, as of this writing, unwilling to sign his Form 180 and release his military records. President Kennedy kept faith with his country; Senator Kerry went to North Vietnam *while still holding a commission as a reserve naval officer, when his country was still at war with North Vietnam*. President Kennedy kept faith with his shipmates; Senator Kerry made comments which were used by the North Vietnames as part of their psychological abuse of American POWs.
So much for “might not lie”.
As to his plan, he keeps TELLING us about his plan. But he hasn’t actually TOLD us his plan.
I understand that verb tenses are diffuclt, but they really do matter.
I agree, tough choice.
Umm… no, I think not. But please continue.
… Bush is a good guy, I admit. He cares about people. And, though he may not be the most intelligent president we’ve ever had, I don’t think this is a huge issue. But, I think he has trouble distinguishing between what is right for our citizens, and what is right for the moral concerns of George W. Bush. For instance, I don’t think that homosexuals should get married, but if I were president I would certainly allow for it to happen. I don’t think that abortion is the right decision for most women, but I would certainly not take away the rights women deserve. GWB is trying to run the country by the seat of his bible, which is not right. I commend him for being a man of his faith, but this is supposed to be a fucking democracy! The great thing about the USA is that people can be different (racially, culturally, politically, etc) and they don’t have to worry about being persecuted by their own government. Do we want a president who is going to underhandedly SHIT all over the c!
onstitution, even if he does have “moral clarity?”
Ummm… I’m a little unclear on this “underhandedly” thing.
If you could explain how you think Bush is working to subvert the Constitution on any of these issues, it might help. Yes, I know, I’m asking for facts again. Tedious of me, perhaps, but there it is; I prefer to deal with things-that-exist, not rhetorical strawmen.
Now, John Kerry. He, like Bush, is a good guy. He cares about people. He seems to have the right idea about wanting to protect the country from terrorism.
This is the guy who wants to take us back “to where we were”… except, that is, for when we have to take that “global test”.
I think not.
I know, this is easier said than done – as we have seen, the President has honestly fucked shit up.
Times, dates, names, places. If you can.
*crickets in the evening*
Regardless, Kerry says he is all about the people. Now, in an election year, candidates are just trying to please everyone – this is true. But, what John Kerry has, no one can fake.
What John Kerry has, no one can FIND.
he has yet to declare a consistent, clear-cut position on ANYTHING under the Sun… except Lynne Cheney’s sexuality.
He honeslty thinks that we are all born equal, all with our God-given rights as human beings. Even though he is not an atheist, he accepts atheists as people, because he thinks we should be allowed to believe or not believe in anything we want.
So does President Bush. Your point being… ?
This, among other things, ensures that he cares about all of us, regardless of our monetary situation or what race we are or whatever. Isn’t that what America needs? Someone who will fight for everybody? Isnt’ THAT what moral clarity is?
well, to quote Aristotle…
No.
Moral clarity means understanding WHAT you believe and espousing it without obfuscation, rhetorical handwaving, or flipflopping.
Surely moral clarity does not refer to imposing one’s beliefs on everyone around you, simply because your own religion says so.
Nope. See above.
All presidents (yes, even democrats) have been men of faith …
You keep conflating religious belief and moral clarity. I am not sure why you do so. Isn’t that the thing you’re accusing the president of?
Why can’t Bush do this? Because he thinks that the majority of this country is on his side because they are Christian. And, he is right. So, maybe it is fair if he is elected. But that does not make it right, given that he will instantiate laws that taylor towards people of his religion, and towards the American citizen him/herself.
A class on civics, and the separation of powers, might do you some good, sir.
That being said, can you be specific about which laws you had in mind? And why the laws you had in mind infringe upon the Constitutionally guaranteed liberties of the citizenry, regardless of creed?
So, what do we want to do? Vote for a good guy, who wants to turn our precious freedom-driven country into a Tyranny?
Or vote for a good guy, who wants to do what’s right for the country, not because of his religious beliefs, but simply in conjunction with his religious beliefs?
Fortunately, that isn’t at issue. The choice we face is between a President who is committed to the defense of the American people in the face of an ongoing fundamentalist religious threat, and a Senator whose take on the subject is that terrorist murders and bombings are a “nuisance”.
Honestly, this should be an easy choice, right?
It certainly is.
Once you have some… clarity… about what the choice actually IS, and about the integrity of the two men in question.
President Bush is clearly the better of the two major candidates. He’ll have my vote November 2nd.
…because moral clarity in the fact of the new jihadis is a virtue, not a weakness.
With the focus on the Presidential elections, Florida’s slate of proposed constitutional amendments have all but fallen off the radar locally.
For my friends and neighbors who live in the Plywood State… ahem… a concise summary of the amendments we’re voting on can be found here.
I want to review what’s actually going on the ballot… as opposed to what the occasional radio ad SAYS is going on the ballot…
Once I’ve done that, I will weigh in with my opinions.
I’ve not been on much of late… as a glance at the calendar will show. It’s been a busy week; not only have there been fences to mend… literally… there’s been errands to run, and lectures to prepare.
In the last week I’ve given eight lectures to freshman about health topics and rational choice-making; a two hour survey class on 15th century German and Italian close quarter combat; and co-taught a clinic on adapting one’s movement styles to the individual’s body type. All of that while being expected to work for a living as well — the *nerve* of some folks!
At least it’s been interesting…
Bet you didn’t know “frenetic” was spelled i-n-t-e-r-e-s-t-i-n-g.
Heh.
Your friends need you.
Your family needs you.
Please. Don’t succumb to temptation. Don’t play the Halliburton drinking game during tonight’s debate…
ahem.
In a few short hours, if all goes well, the X prize will be won by Bert Rutan’s Scaled Composites team.
Meanwhile, Canada’s Da Vinci project vows to launch in October as well, keeping faith with the hundreds of volunteers who have given of their time. And good on them, says I.
But once this marvelous Rocket Summer finishes, what happens?
There’s already talk of a new prize… 50 million dollars to the first group to build a private ship capable of making the jump to orbit and back, with a competition similar to the Ansari X prize. Meanwhile, the X prize foundation is poised to start a series of competitions and exhibitions, for an “X Prize Cup”.
And Sir Richard Branson smiles, at the helm of Virgin Galactic, waiting to take delivery on his fleet.
Keep an eye on the Virgin Group. I am willing to bet that Sir Richard is looking at more than just ballistic tourism.
Consider: It may take some time to build a robust, reusable surface-to-orbit ship. But between the bare edge of space and low earth orbit is an opportunity waiting to be identified and exploited.
What opportunity? High speed suborbital transport, of extremely time sensitive devices and rich travelers, who are willing to pay a premium to get across the Pacific Ocean, or the expanse of Europe, in an hour.
That mission occupies a technological midway-point between quick jaunts “into the black” and the daunting challenges of orbital insertion and reentry from LEO. And the firm which can solve the problem of the “suborbital express” will have a leg up on the NEXT big thing… which is, of course, LEO.
If you can stage men and materials cheaply in LEO, “above the well”, all the other hoped-for destinations in space become attainable.
I suspect that within a decade, we will be looking at the first suborbital shuttles.
What a marvelous time to be alive.
… the Institute may look a little odd for a while.
Pardon the mess.
… as in the speed of light.
A Professor Hailey, whose specialty is literature, attempted to show that the Ra
His posts’ URL is here.
The Boston Globe apparently hoped this would rehabilitate the memos.
Oops.
Paul, at Wizbang!, nailed this cold.
Interesting things to note:
–As I wrote earlier, the speed of the evolving factcheck cycle is remarkable. LGF originally posted on Professor Hailey’s attempts at or about noon today, PDT. By 3 pm Paul had looked through the results, examined Professor Hailey’s page, looked at the documents he’d left in the directory, found evidence of the sloppy Photoshop cut-and-paste job, and posted.
–It is hard for me to believe Professor Hailey was so… inept? arrogant? ignorant? as to leave the incriminating Photoshop document readily available on a web-accessable directory. But he did.
–It has apparently escaped some people’s attention that once something goes ON the Web, if it’s of interest, it will be archived. Taking the site down later won’t avail you. (As Markos Zuniga learned at the Daily Kos…)
–The comments on Paul’s post show that even among blog readers, tech knowledge is widely variable. I noted at once that Paul had caught out a sloppy Photoshop job. Others did not see it, until it was explained in more detail by fellow comment posters.
Once again, distributed intelligence is proved to be both a powerful tool, and a swift one.
I wonder if the Globe will spike their nascent story…
Nah. They won’t see this coming till they’re caught red-handed.
Again.
And people wonder why Fox News is cleaning up on the professional-media newsbeat…
It’s not just that rights are useless if they are not exercised, not even that rights must be used or be lost. It’s that exercising your rights, constantly, is what instructs you in how to be worthy of them.
Lots more good stuff where that came from. Go have a look.
Has anyone else noticed that Moveable Type’s trackback URLs are often different from the “permalink” or archival URLs?
For instance, Pejmanesque’s recent post “Events In Iran” has a permalink of:
http://www.pejmanesque.com/archives/007991.html
but a trackback link of
http://www.pejmanesque.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/7989
(Note that the latter link seems to fail for lack of style information, though…)
This may explain why my trackback attempts are not working right now — which annoys me, because I appreciate knowing when I’ve been quoted, and I know other bloggers do as well.
WordPress’s PingBack functionality doesn’t seem to work for most blogs, either. Perhaps for the same reason.
Have any of you suggestions for fixing this?
One to go.
Flight X1 has landed at the Mojave Spaceport. The flight was marked by a severe roll some seconds after ignition; however, after engine cutoff, the spacecraft stabilized, and the rest of the flight appears to have been nominal.
IF the roll problem is easily correctable, flight X2 is scheduled next week… and the Rutan team will have won the X-prize.
More to follow…
For those who can’t get the streaming audio, try
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/ss1/status.html
and refresh often…
and you’re here, reading this…
go HERE instead, and watch as Bert Rutan’s team starts their run at the X-prize.
Former President Jimmy Carter is carping about the state of preparations for the election in Florida. “Doesn’t meet international standards”, he says.
Well….”international standards” hold that partisan participants in an election don’t get to act as observers.
Given Mr. Carter’s current behaviors, and his partisan support of one of the candidates in this year’s election, perhaps we could be spared further bloviation on his part?
By way of LGF.
Pop over to VirginGalactic, and look at what he’s naming the first of his five private spaceships…
You’re going to love the latest partner of the Virgin group:
And no, this isn’t an idle Photoshop exercise: Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson has signed a ?14m agreement which will see his company take passengers into space.
The British entrepreneur is having five “spaceliners” built in the US by the team behind the SpaceShipOne vehicle. …
Sir Richard says it will cost around ?100,000 to go on a “Virgin Galactic” spaceliner, and the first flights should begin in about three years’ time.
Sir Richard revealed his new venture at a briefing held on Monday at the Royal Aeronautical Society in London.
“We’ve done quite a lot of research; we think there are about 3,000 people out there who would want to do this,” Sir Richard told the BBC.
“If it is a success, we want to move into orbital flights and then, possibly, even get a hotel up there.”
Those of you who aren’t Major Spacer Geeks ™ won’t appreciate the delicious irony here. For quite some time, there’s been a vocal faction in the private space-travel movement who have argued that tourism was, in and of itself, a viable commodity which could push the nascent industry. Conventional wisdom held that this was, at best, unlikely; privately funded space travel would require some exotic unobtainable — pharmaceuticals, large industrial crystals, perfect ball bearings, some such thing.
That sound you hear is the space-experience folks taking deep breaths. They’re getting ready to have the last laugh.
By way of Rand Simberg and RLV News.
The privately-built rocket plane SpaceShipOne is primped, primed and ready to attempt its first of two suborbital space shots this week which would secure the $10 million Ansari X Prize.
The purse is an incentive that could jumpstart the space tourism industry through competition among rocket builders and entrepreneurs around the globe.
If technology and the climes of the Mojave, California desert are in harmony on Wednesday, Sept. 29, SpaceShipOne — attached to its carrier airplane, the White Knight — will depart the Mojave Airport and Civilian Aerospace Test Center and head skyward to the applause of an expected throng of onlookers.
The only way this could be any better is if Bert Rutan’s name was Harriman…
Heh.
Via CrushKerry, by way of Allahpundit:
Top Bin Laden deputy Ayman al-Zawahri has been caught in Pakistan, according to a report from the region quoted on Israel Radio Monday.
This from the Jerusalem Post — so I have hopes it’s true.
Great news if so, but confirmation is hard to find right now. The 48 hour rule applies.
More to follow…
UPDATE: Allahpundit now notes there’s conflicting reports, with some sources denying al-Zawahri is in custody, but reporting other al-Qaeda figures are in custody. Guess that’s part of the fog of war…
Faster, please.
In gratitude for having power and AC so soon after the storm, a little humor.
This is a reply I sent to a post on one of my email lists (for historical and Sci-Fi costumers; I told you I was a geek…):
You might be a Floridian IF:
Hmmmmm….
You exhibit a slight twitch when introduced to anyone with the first
names of Charley, Frances or Ivan
Nope
Your freezer never has more than $20 worth of food in it any given
time
Ummm… yeah. *g*
You’re looking at paint swatches for the plywood on your windows, to
accent the house color
Yep. (Shutters appeal, actually…)
You think of your hall closet/saferoom as “cozy”
Very
Your porch is more accurately described as “framed in” than “screened
in”
Not.. yet. 
Your freezer in the garage now only has homemade ice in it
No freezer in the garage; I store old props there. Heh.
You no longer worry about relatives visiting during the summer months
OR Fall. OR winter.
You, too, haven’t heard back from the insurance adjuster
Haven’t needed him yet , thank Ghod.
You now understand what that little “2% hurricane deductible” phrase
really means
By virtue of some unhappy friends in Cocoa Beach… yes, alas.
You’re putting a collage together on your driveway of roof shingles
from your neighborhood
*lol* Not yet. But I could… if I got rid of some old props.
You have a 5 gallon bucket of roofing tar in the garage
Nope.
You were once proud of your 16″ electric chain saw
Don’t own one; I’ve treated too many kickback injuries lately.
Your Street has more than 3 “NO WAKE” signs posted
That just means to let us sleep in; it’s been NOISY of nights with the
winds and the treelimbs.
You now own 5 large ice chests
Yep.
You can cook “anything” on a propane grill
I’m an Eagle Scout alumni; does this have to count?
You own more than two portable propane tanks
See immediately above.
Your parrot can now say” hammered, pounded and hunker down”
No parrot, just parrotheaded.
You recognize people in line at the free ice, gas and plywood
locations
Heh. Yep.
You stop what you’re doing and clap and wave when you see a convoy of
power company trucks come down your street
And have cold drinks for ‘em, when I can; they’re getting *pounded*
here.
You’re depressed when they don’t stop
That was true a couple of weeks ago. Not a problem just now… *whew*
You have the personal cell phone numbers of the managers for: plywood,
roofing supplies and generators at Home Depot on your speed dialer
Nah. I’m not that industrious.
You’ve spent more than $20 on “Tall white kitchen bags” to make your
own sand bags
I have that many. They just aren’t loaded yet.
You’re considering upgrading your 16″ to a 20″ chainsaw
A *plasma torch* if I could get one.
You know what “Bar chain oil” is
Heh. Yeah, sure do.
You’re thinking of getting your wife the hardhat with the ear
protector and face shield for Christmas
Doesn’t count; she does fireworks pyrotechnics. So I *am*, but not for
storms.
You now think the $6000 whole house generator seems reasonable
Ummm…. if that means solar, yes I do. (Carbon monoxide poisonings in
the state make ER docs twitchy.)
You own more than one 5 gallon gas can
Heh. Yep.
You know how to “backfeed” 220 through the dryer plug
I avoid the temptation. Juice is unforgiving.
You look forward to discussions about the merits of “cubed, block and
dry ice”
two out of three ain’t bad…
Your therapist refers to your condition as “generator envy”
*snort* I’ve USED that at work lately.
You fight the urge to put on your winter coat and wool cap and parade
around in front of your picture window, when you finally get power and
your neighbor across the street, with the noisy generator, doesn’t get
electric
Ummmm… may I plead the Fifth?
And finally, you might be a Floridian if:
You ask your sister up north to start saving the Sunday Real Estate
classifieds!
oh HELL no. Why would I leave now, just when the weather’s getting
INTERESTING?
laughing in Jacksonville, Dr. Bill
And so I was. I am thankful that I can laugh, today.
MoveOn has, indeed, moved on.
George Bush is not just Hitler for the new millenium, it seems.
He is supernaturally powerful… father of Fimbulwinter:
MoveOn: Bush to Blame For ‘Extreme’ Hurricane Season
… HONESTLY.
SPARTANBURG, SC (Talon News) — Attempting to take political advantage of the devastating hurricanes that have hit Florida and the southeastern section of the United States in the past few weeks, liberal political action group MoveOn.org is saying that President George W. Bush is to blame for “making extreme weather stronger.”
In an e-mail to supporters, MoveOn.org rhetorically asks “why such extreme weather” has taken place with Hurricanes Charley, Frances, and Ivan causing billions of dollars in property damage and loss of life.
“Scientists agree that global warming makes sea levels rise and makes storms stronger, because temperature shifts disrupt the normal balance,” MoveOn.org explained. “Warmer water makes more violent hurricanes.”
The group added that insurance companies such as Swiss Re and Munich Re say “global warming is causing more losses.”
Ridiculing President George W. Bush for “handing out emergency aid” in Florida while doing “nothing to reduce global warming,” MoveOn.org contends that the president has “done a lot to make the problem worse” and has caused the massive hurricanes to form.
Oh, the horror, the humanity; we are all in the grip of monstrous power…
Maybe it was a gift from Karl Rove?
*sigh* More fearmongering from the collectivists.
But it’s OK. The TRUE Dark Powers are soon to fall…
By way of Transterrestrial Musings, SondraK, and Jane Galt.
1. Awad Allawi – a man who was once left for dead (1978) in his Surrey home after having been bludgeoned with an ax by one of Saddam’s henchman who thought he had killed him. Allawi then spent a year in a hospital. He is still said to walk with a limp and is now the object of, one would imagine, daily assassination attempts.
2. John Kerry – a man who left the Vietnam War after 4 1/2 months after having been “seriously wounded” – a description that now even his biographer finds dubious.
Apologies to John F Kennedy… no, actually, sympathies, that the party he once headed has sunk to such depths.
By way of Roger Simon.
Good grief.
Ivan Weakens, But May Return Next Week
Michelle, I know you LIKE the undead, but can we get a break?
“The resistance movement [against the U.S. in Iraq] may not be able to remove the U.S. from Iraq within a year, but it will be able to remove Bush, [Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld and [National Security Adviser] Condoleezza Rice, together with their Zionist friends, from the White House,” Nasrallah assured his listeners …
And just who is this fellow?
The current secretary-general of Hezbollah.
Hezbollah: proud supporter of John Kerry.
Pardon me while I retch.
(By way of LGF.)
Some of you have no doubt started receiving e-mail from concerned friends, who’ve heard that the Bush Administration is planning to reinstate the draft.
Dan Rather will break this story wide open, as soon as Ms. Mapes can find word-processing software less well-known than Microsoft Word.
Heh.
That being said, this is another piece of disinformation… no, that’s too genteel; it’s another lie.
Juliette has the goods on this sordid “old stuff” here, in case you’re not up to speed on the provenance of the Universal Service Act of 2003.
Guess which political party provided ALL the sponsors for this bit of agitprop?
Hint: Jackasses.
I didn’t realize this until a few minutes ago, but Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow was Kerry Conran’s directorial debut.
Holy… smokes.
Evn better news… apparently, Conran’s now got the nod to film in Barsoom. That’s right; Kerry Conran is now slated to direct A Princess Of Mars.
What a GRAND time to be a pulp afictionado.
If you don’t know why I’m so excited, don’t take MY word for it, or Zombyboy’s… go to a matinee, get some popcorn, settle in, and see Sky Captain for yourself.
I’m certainly going again…
Here’s a new definition of chutzpah: lie about being the first to have caught someone … in a lie:
WASHINGTON: Two DC PR agencies eagerly fanned the flames of election-year scandal last week – one for the left and one for the right.
Creative Response Concepts (CRC), the VA-based agency promoting the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, used right-wing blogs and news sites to turn a CBS report casting doubt on President George W. Bush’s National Guard service into a potential black eye for both the network and the Democrats.
A CRC client, the Cybercast News Service (CNS), was among the first to voice suspicion that documents suggesting Bush had received preferential treatment in the Guard were forgeries.
“After the CBS story aired, [CNS] called typographical experts, got them on the record that these papers were fishy, and posted a story by 3pm Thursday,” said CRC SVP Keith Appell. “We were immediately in contact with [Matt] Drudge, who loved the story.”
Guess these hacks don’t understand, any more than Dan Rather does.
Repeat after me:
FACT CHECK.
UPDATE: The PR firm cited above clarifies, and apologizes, handsomely.
UPDATE 2: Note the speed of this “news cycle”. This kind of rapid response is part and parcel of the way the Newssphere will start reacting; it’s a hallmark of highly networked distributed intelligence. The future has arrived…
Sky Captain And the World Of Tomorrow is on screen!
Preliminary buzz is very very good. This movie might, in fact, be as good as I hoped it would be, last December…
and tomorrow, after the family recovers from a VERY busy week, I hope to go find out, myself!
Yet ANOTHER reason I have no use for Plato:
…he Noble Lie — the idea that the enlightened are entitled to heap fables upon the hoi polloi for the sake of preserving proper order.
GAH.
I’ve read Plato, Mr. Rather. And you’re no Plato.
It is said that over the entrance to Plato’s Academy, there was an inscription: “Let no one unversed in geometry enter here.” I sincerly doubt that Plato was thinking in terms of the topology of twisting the truth… or contorting one’s speech to evade the facts.
(By way of John Hudock, again over at Common Sense And Wonder.)
Go read the article, if you don’t believe me.
Spider Robinson was correct. God is an iron.
(By way of John Hudock, over at Common Sense And Wonder.)
And Dan Rather’s credibility is still dead.
I often wear hospital scrubs while I blog.
They’re ALMOST like pajamas…
heh.
UPDATE: Thanks to Kevin Aylward, I now know my place in the Great Scheme Of Data.
Cue ululations: I, too, am a Pajamahadeen — may it give peace to The Compassionate One, as he waits for 60 Mendacities Minutes…
UPDATE 2: Jeff chronicles the attire of other notable pajamahadeen… even if some bloggers don’t wear ‘em. (By way of Venomous Kate, our lovely hostess.)
It ought to be good enough for Dan Rather and CBS News.
This is the FCC’s publically stated position on broadcast journalism’s responsibility to the public:
As public trustees, broadcasters may not intentionally distort the news. Broadcasters are responsible for deciding what their stations present to the public. The FCC has stated publicly that “rigging or slanting the news is a most heinous act against the public interest.” The FCC does act to protect the public interest where it has received documented evidence of such rigging or slanting. This kind of evidence could include testimony, in writing or otherwise, from “insiders” or persons who have direct personal knowledge of an intentional falsification of the news. Of particular concern would be evidence about orders from station management to falsify the news. In the absence of such documented evidence, the FCC has stressed that it cannot intervene.
I think it may be time to pull together the various strands of evidence … and make formal complaint to the FCC:
Complaints regarding news distortion, rigging or slanting can be filed with the Federal Communications Commission, Enforcement Bureau, Investigations and Hearing Division, 445 12th Street, SW, Washington, DC 20554. Complaints must be in writing and contain documented evidence in support of the allegations. For example, it is not sufficient for a complaint to allege only that a broadcast station made a mistake in reporting a news event. The complaint must include documented evidence showing deliberate misrepresentation.
After all, we’re not talking nipple shields here; we’re talking about a deliberate attempt to influence a presidential election by misrepresenting forgeries as official Federal correspondence.
If CBS isn’t interested in conducting an investigation, perhaps they can benefit from some outside scrutiny.
Heh.
None.
Not as long as fanatics think that G_d approves of the slaughter of innocents.
Never Again!
I have not forgotten, nor should you.
If memory fades, or if you’re just old enough now to wonder why we’re at war:
Go and read.
BeldarBlog does a little research, and traces the genesis of the “Rathergate” tagline.
A thing of beauty… *g*
It even tells you how to write a post USING the tagline.
Heh. Look to see Mr. Rather’s name benefit from the marvels of HTML typesetting… if not kerning.
What Did Terry McAuliffe Know, And When Did He Know It?
Paul, over at Wizbang!, is right to ask this question. Beldar is right to castigate CBS News, warning that they approach co-conspiracy in an act of fraud.
Considering some of these documents purported to be official Federal documents, I should like to add: The author of these forgeries appears, to my untutored eye, to have commited FEDERAL felonies.
Wouldn’t it be nice to see just where THAT investigation leads?
I rather think we should have the chance.
It’s amazing what can happen in a day and a half.
SOMEONE lies… Dan Rather buys…
and Rather’s credibility dies.
So does CBS News’.
So does the DNC’s, and the Kerry campaign’s. It’s hard to make an argument that your opponent is lying when your “new evidence” is a forgery.
The only reason I am not quite willing to pronounce the demise of the MSM just yet is that other MSM powers smell blood in the water, and are cruising over for the feeding frenzy.
All honor to The Compassionate, the INDC Journal, PowerLine, and The Professor, all of whom have been fact-checking the living hell out of this.
Wretchard laments missing out; he was asleep during the pivotal 12 hours in which this unraveled. I feel much the same way…
but considering CBS still insists the emperor HAS his clothes on, I’m still ahead of them for this news cycle.
Heh.
…after 3 1/2 days, we *have* power back, and warm showers.
BLISS.
As I write this, some 20000 JEA customers still don’t.
I know just how frustrated they must be. Our neighborhood’s oddly wired on the grid; it’s possible to lose power on one side of the street and keep it on the other.
Few things are more maddening than the sound of someone ELSE’s air conditioning when you’re sweltering.
Still, we have our power back, and things are returning to normal.
As normal as they can be, with everyone looking nervously to the south… to Ivan.
The Olympics passed without a terrorist incident.
And as the delegates return to their homes, so did the Republican National Convention.
Further, the streets were not set ablaze, and there weren’t hundreds of thousands of protestors rampaging in the streets, despite all the rhetoric of the collectivists who were gearing up for The Big Blow To Bush’s Hopes.
Blow? More like blowhards.
But that’s not, perhaps, fair. I think the collectivists really hoped they might paralyze NYC like they did Seattle in 1999. It’s not THEIR fault that the NYPD declined to be pushed around.
Might have had something to do with a September morning in 2001.
Any road… The Commissar has an excellent analysis of just HOW the NYPD balanced the right to free speech with the responsibility to prevent acts of domestic terrorism … without resorting to a Gulag.
Irony is delicious, even if it is reactionary.
Go have a look.
Comrade Commissar’s joining the blogroll. Not only for the quality of his blogging, but for the graphics design. Puts me in a Red State frame of mind… as it were.
Bolshoyeh spasebo, tovarisch!
As a veteran, and a Reserve veteran, this is unsettling:
Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption and abuse, announced today that the Inspector General (“IG”) of the Department of Defense has informed the Secretary of the Navy of Judicial Watch’s “formal complaint and request for investigation, determination and final disposition of the awards granted to Lieutenant (junior grade) John Forbes Kerry, U.S. Naval Reserve.”
The Defense Department IG cited Section 8(d) of the Inspector General Act of 1978, which states: “. . . the IG of the Department of Defense shall expeditiously report suspected or alleged violations of chapter 47 of title 10, United States Code (Uniform Code of Military Justice), to the Secretary of the military department concerned or the Secretary of Defense.”
This press release is three days old. Heard about it from the MSM yet?
(dead silence for most of you)
(stormwinds outside Floridian and Caribbean windows)
Didn’t think so.
As I’ve said in other posts, I don’t think Senator Kerry dares sign his Form 180, releasing his military records to public scrutiny. I think there’s too many … ahem… irregularities… in it for any serving Senator to endure, much less a Presidential candidate.
Or maybe, just maybe, the Senator remembers what he said about ADM Boorda…
“If you wind up being less than what you’re pretending to be, there is a major confrontation with value and self-esteem and your sense of how others view you.”
Of Boorda and his apparent violation, Kerry said: “When you are the chief of them all, it has to weigh even more heavily.”
and is ashamed, now.
Stranger things have happened.
The Democratic Party wanted to tout Senator Kerry’s record in Vietnam. Guess your grandmother was right: be careful what you wish for.
Our Muse for this post: Guy S., at Snugg Harbor.
Local news stations keep telling people NOT to look out the window if they hear the distinctive roaring noise that heralds a tornado. (You get those at the leading edges of large tropical storms, as hot air and cold air ram violently into each other.)
These same talking heads then proceed to put people on the air who have done JUST THAT, and interview them in breathless tones.
IF someone’s head comes off when a tornado shatters their window, the newsies will report that in solemn , tragic tones… and never never EVER admit that when you encourage people to behave stupidly, they might just do that.
I’m not shocked at this kind of misbehavior on the part of the press. As Dean has pointed out, the press is apparently hellbent on abandoning any pretense of responsible journalism.
Disgusted, yes. Shocked… no.
From Russia…
Bloody end to school siege
… though it will be some time before we know the actual death toll, or why the decision was made to go to guns (if, in fact, it was a decision, and not a series of mistakes and miscalculations).
One reporter thinks there might be a hundred or more dead children and parents.
Awful. Just… awful.
Wretchard’s grappling with this, as I am. How many more times must this happen? How many more children will have to be killed?
The horrid answer is that we don’t get to choose this. It will be the fanatics, the howling killers, the bomb-throwers, who will choose when and where they wish to kill.
It is not our choice… nor is it our fault.
It is the terrorists who are at fault. They choose to kill children, strike at soft targets, make their point at the expense of the weak and the helpless.
Using force to end such attempts is sometimes referred to euphemistically as the “hard” option by politicians. It’s not clear, looking at the history of this usage, whether it refers to Orwell’s “rough men” or to the political will needed to risk innocent casualties if a less-than-perfect takedown happens.
But what are our choices?
Humane civilization can succumb to the demands of monsters…
or can choose to stop them.
To withstand their demands, dismantle their hiding places and their political refuges, stop them when they commit atrocities.
This will be arduous; hard work; long and painful…
but the choice, itself, isn’t really hard.
Slavery to fanatics… or the life of a free people.
No; not that hard, at all.
I’d have picked up on this earlier, if I hadn’t been following the Weather Channel so…
It appears duels are back in style!
I wish we lived in the day that I could challenge you to a duel.
That was Senator Zell Miller, refusing to be thugged by Chris Matthews during his post-speech interview. (Note to Mr. Matthews: what goes around, comes around.)
And if we’re to believe this comment, Ted Koppel called out Jon Stewart.
As a swordsman and marksman, I confess that latter makes me queasy to contemplate. Those two would be almost unbearable to watch, flailing about. Bleah.
Hey, Roger. Time to set up a palaestra somewhere? After all, it seems to be the Coming Thing…
Ye have been weighed in the balance and found wanting:
You’re no longer the reader, absorbing what the editors have sought fit to give you. You are the editor.
Lileks on the old media… and the new.
Perfect.
Storm tracking is MUCH better than it used to be… but there’s much to be done.
THIS is a pretty … vague storm track, isn’t it?
It gets worse. That track is the current “summation” of two, three different computer models.. which are still WIDELY disparate. The weather service is offering us, just now, a SWAG. The best they can do.
It is good to remember, at times like this, that we still have a better warning of impending trouble than 99 percent of the people that have ever walked the earth.
Nice if we could get to 99.8 percent…
Oh, well. We wait…
Update: Val’s frustrated too.
Update: Chris Muir’s being prudent.
Hurricane To The South,
Here I Am
Stuck In The Middle With You…
heh.
Interesting week, shaping up, between Hurricane Frances headed our way, and the protestors in NYC. And it’s only MONDAY.
Shaping up to be an interesting week.
The Olympics are now finished. And despite the fears of countless pundits, there were no terrorist strikes.
In the third year of the Islamicist War, that’s a major victory.
No bloodbaths; no beheadings; no bombings; no horrific sequel to Munich.
Praise and honor to all those who made it possible; from the security teams on the streets of Athens, to the analysts in windowless rooms who sift the mountains of raw data that must be reviewed, to the Marines and soldiers in Iraq who pressured the fanatics inplaces like Najaf, to the specwar units prowling the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and keeping refuges from becoming bases of operation.
There aren’t enough laurel leaves in Greece to give them all wreaths. Nonetheless, they too are victors of the Games; heroes of the Olympics.
Two people are arrested for planning to bomb a centrally located subway station in New York City.
For public consumption:
“It is important to stress that to the best of our knowledge, they had no ties to international terrorist organizations,” (Police Commissioner) Kelly told reporters. He also said there is “no indication” their activities were related in any way to the Republication National Convention, which begins Monday in Manhattan.
Of course, this IS NYC. Maybe Kelly has a bridge he’d like to sell us next.
Regular readers will have figured out by now that I am, as much as anything else, something of an aesthete.
The right piece of sculpture or music, the right painting or photograph, will literally stop me in my tracks. I hold with AE Houseman about poetry: if it doesn’t make the hair on the back of your neck stand up, it may be verse, but it’s not
It’s true in the blogosphere as well. I’ll often bookmark a post just to come back and admire the — elegance? grace? shibumi? of a perfectly written statement. The French description, le mot juste, paradoxically doesn’t describe such perfect phrasings well enough; I think Kipling came closer, when he spoke of trying to write: “Just so, and not otherwise…”.
I’ve been noticing a fair amount of these “just SO” entries lately. I think I’ll start sharing them with you *specifically* for their grace.
Here’s one, to start with, from The Belmont Club. On the subject of the Democratic Party’s attempt to spin themselves into a pro-war party — never mind their fervent supporters over at Democratic Underground, and their allies in the street, calling for fraggings like it’s 1969 — well, read Wretchard:
… Instead of running under their own colors, or barring that, changing them, they have decided to sail beneath a false flag, as if under a cloud of shame. That in itself is tacit admission that they can no longer walk in their own guise; and what is worse that they cannot look themselves in the face, nor go into battle daring to win nor willing to lose in their own name, as is the mark of men.
Just… SO. And not otherwise.
GQ (from the current month’s front page):
Where Was Bush During Vietnam?
De Doc:
Well, he wasn’t in Cambodia.
Come to think of it, neither was Kerry.
I’ve been advised that our host, Venom Pages, is upgrading their servers. I shall therefore be offline at or about midnight, CST, for a period of 24 to 36 hours.
See you on the other side!
Stephen Green draws attention to this excellent piece on the European whining responses to the Administration’s recent announcements on military deployments:
Expect more partisan hysteria here at home in response to President Bush’s courageous announcement, which in fact had been under consideration for years, precisely because there is no legitimate criticism to be offered.
Hmmmm… “More partisan hysteria… ”
Do mine ears detect a trend?
No wonder Kerry’s the darling of Old Europe. They understand each other.
and for John Kerry’s campaign, August has been monsoon season.
Seeing it all laid out in chronological form is fascinating. Like a twenty-car wreck is fascinating.
A drunken centipede couldn’t make this many missteps.
(By way of Instapundit.)
There’s one possible real solution here. Rather than puffing and acting outraged, just release your military records, Senator, and admit to the charges (like Christmas in Cambodia) that the Swifties made that turned out to be the truth.
“I was a 20-something punk who told some stupid stories, and spoutd some horrible Communist propaganda I never should have repeated, and I’m sorry for all that. But I did serve my country, and I have a better vision. Let me tell you about it.”
He can’t come clean because he doesn’t have a better vision.
The alternate universe of Glenn Reynolds’ recent post is the only place you’ll find such a John Kerry; a universe as far removed from our world as the one in which Helium is the capital of Barsoom.
Senator Kerry hasn’t much familiarity with Sun Tzu:
There are routes not to be taken;
there are armies not to be attacked;
there are walled cities not to be besieged;
there are grounds not to be penetrated;
there are commands not to be obeyed.
Someone conversant with Sun Tzu’s counsels wouldn’t have done something as foolish as file an FEC complaint about the Swifties. ESPECIALLY someone who benefits as much from 527 organizations as Kerry does… or somebody who ought to wish that such memes as Christmas In Cambodia would just die down quietly.
One does not douse a kitchen fire in a torrent of gasoline.
Does Kerry REALLY want to bring more attention to this story, which is bleeding his campaign’s momentum dry even as it destroys the NY Times’ pretense of objectivity?
Kerry’s team seems to have forgotten James St. James on the subject of what constitutes bad publicity. Better he had tried to ignore this with dignity, and run on his record. Of course, given his attendance at the Senate Intelligence committee, perhaps… not.
…courtesy of Dean Esmay:
The Internet has detected the mainstream media as a form of censorship and simply routed around them.
OUCH.
That’s -30- for the NY Times.
Spiked on the guns of Paul’s slight regard, contempt, and withering insight, over at Wizbang!.
This story is, in many respects, the BIG story of the campaign so far; the meltdown of the Fourth Estate:
It may be that the old media are now self-destructing, and that like the medieval Vatican, the Ching Dynasty, the Holy Roman Empire, the French Academy, the Victorian Church of England, and the Communist Party, they are losing their hard-won authority because of wanton abuse.
They have sold their reportage for a pot of verbiage; and transparently biased verbiage, at that.
The New York Times has become the National Enquirer of the nattering classes. One wonders when Batboy will be hired to pimp cover the Kerry campaign…
Nothing lasts forever. It’s as true of weblogs as it is of anything else we do.
Time for the pruning shears, alas. The Peoria Pundit’s excellent Heinleinblog has gone dark — though we are promised that there will be Heinlein posts here from time to time. That’s a pity…
On the other hand, this prompted me to take a look at my spacers’ list, “Tsiolkovsky’s Own”. Hmmmm. I’m missing Transterrestrial Musings (which isn’t JUST a spacer blog), the delightfully named Spaceship Summer, The New Space Age…
Time to go fix that. Back in a few…
… Michele’s musing on golden oldies, the cyclic nature of fashion, and ponchos, on the occasion of HER birthday. Do drop in and wish her well!
The Backcountry Conservative’s trying to get a grip on how many bloggers have served in the military… or are currently active.
I’m one of them. US Navy Medical Corps, 1981-1997; USNR (MC) 1997-2004.
And a proud Milblogger… even if I’ve been a slacker about adding a “flag” to v.3 of this blog.
(Yes, we DO have dinner conversations like this.)
I’d like to do a little experiment, but don’t have all the tools handy.
I would like to copy the Starship Troopers movie, and perform one tiny bit of editing on it…
specifically, the title.
The general consensus here at Chez Chaos is that the movie might not be as frustrating to watch if it had a title which accurately reflected it’s content. In fact, given the RIGHT title, it might be a decent “popcorn flick”.
So… “Fascist Bughunters From Planet Nine”, anyone?
Wish I had the editing tools to try this out.
Heh.
… belatedly, anyway. I was relaxing yesterday, enjoying a day off on my mumblemumbledyth birthday. That, and enjoying the return of my laptop, which had been in the shop with power supply problems.
So. Let me review the news, and see how many explanations Kerry has given in the last 24 hours for his “Christmas in Cambodia” blatant lie tall tale…
Venomous Kate’s back.
YES!
Slowly, slowly, NE Florida’s breathing a little easier.
There’ll still be some stiff winds, some locally heavy rain.
But once again, we seem to have dodged the bullet.
Jacksonville and environs has had a long, inexplicable streak of luck with hurricanes. Sooner or later, we’re going to roll snakeyes, of course…
but not tonight.
We think of our neighbors to the south, and we know it could have been us. We’ll send them all the help we have, and thank G_d we have it to send.
Dawn in a few hours. I think I’ll go rest, if the ebb and flow of the ER allows it.
Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers… and think of the folks in Ft. Myers and Orlando, and send some their way.
Off Daytona Beach, now, and appears to be disorganizing.
Local ambulance companies are shutting down for the night, however, citing high winds which are already mounting in the field. Only emergent transfers will get anywhere in NE Florida tonight — emergent meaning that they MUST get to the accepting hospital without delay.
SO far… so good.
Now it gets interesting.
Charley’s eye is blinking… ummmm, dissipating somewhat.
It’s going out to sea… but the question is now being asked by the local weather-guessers:
What happens when it hits warmer water again?
Answer: Ummmm, we dunno.
Goody.
Light sprinkles outside, quiet thoughtful night staff inside. I’d MUCH rather be at a hurricane party — anyone out there throwing one?
NWS radar shows Orlando right under the Eye.
Projected track: off the coast near Daytona Beach, following I4.
But it wouldn’t require but a wee twitch north… I wonder how warm the water is off Daytona?
Watch, wait, see.
Eerie quiet outside. Par for the course… before a hurricane.
… I’m on duty tonight, in Baker County, Florida. So as I can, I’ll blog about the storm.
Earlier today, Hurricane Charlie was on track to pass between Baker and Duval Counties, after coming ashore Tampa-wards and passing diagonally up the peninsula. By mid-day, there was some good news, and some bad news.
The good news: Charlie shifted, and the track was replotted to pass south of us, between St. Augustine and Flagler counties.
The bad news: Charlie shifted because it picked up power from an unexpectedly warm current off the southern Gulf Coast, and ramped up from Category 2 to Category 4 in but a couple of hours. (Nautical geeks will be made uneasy by this: atmospheric pressure in the eye dropped some thirty mmHg. THIRTY.)
SO… I am at hospital with my son, awaiting what befalls. My Sharpie’s holing up in South Carolina; she couldn’t make it back in time from her postgraduate summer, so she waved off. 2030… and waiting.
They sky’s tornado-green out.
Interesting times.
De Doc, bunkering up…
Broken laptop,
lost cell phone,
grumpy neighbors,
rear-ended car…
and now we’ve dodged Bonnie.
Only to be standing right in the middle of Charley’s projected storm track.
Tomorrow night is a duty night for me. Should be… INteresting.
But so far, so good. And after the week I’ve had, it’s nice to be able to say that.
Consider:
we really do not wish to go to war with people. But, by God, we will have the strongest military around. And that’s not a bad thing to have. It encourages and champions our friends that are weak and it chills the ambitions of the evil.
All this and P.J. O’Rourke, too.
GOOD stuff. Go have a look.
Glenn Reynolds is REALLY wrong.
On Candidate Kerry:
All that Kerry needs to do to stay in the race is to offer straight, credible talk on the war.
Little fear of that. If John Kerry’s public career proves anything, it is that he is constitutionally incapable of straight talk.
F’revvinsakes, Kerry is such a waffler that IHOP could be his campaign headquarters.
I shan’t hold my breath.
I’ve been trying, for years, to try to wrap my mind around the peculiar politics surrounding American military power, as desired and deployed by nanny-statists and collectivists. Why was Bosnian deployment somehow moral and desirable, while Afghanistan and Iraq deployments weren’t? (Despite the fact that the politicians criticizing these activities… voted to approve them, by and large.)
Wretchard sits down to HIS keyboard and nails it, cold:
For liberals retaliation is soley used to “send a message”; it always an invitation to negotiation, like the ones Johnson sent Ho Chi Minh without reply; it is never part of the solution itself. In this curious mental universe, force is immoral unless it is also pointless.
Just… PERFECT.
Go read the rest of the article.
Hasn’t it been a week yet?
Sigh. Get well soon, VK.
By someone you like?
Then you’ll have a sense of how I feel about Dean Esmay right now.
Dean is a generally sane, well-read, decent fellow. He, too, understands that he is A Member Of A Civilization, and takes his understanding seriously. He has a fine and admirable blog, and he has been very kindly to a balding upstart doctor on more than one occasion. He fell off my blogroll when I moved this blog, and I mean to fix that… well, as soon as I finish this post.
You can hear it coming, can’t you? Go ahead… say it along with me…
BUT.
I swear that I have had to sit on this post for nearly a week, because Dean’s Pledge keeps annoying the hell out of me.
How many of you will have the patriotism to say, “I disagree with many of (Kerry’s) policy directions, I do not think he is conducting our foreign policy in the right way, but I will do my best to get behind him and support him until elections come around next time?”
I keep reading this, and fuming.
I think that the very act of asking the question borders on insulting. It implies that the people Dean is talking to are suspect; that they’ve behaved in such a fashion as to deserve such an admonition.
And that’s unjust.
When Nixon was advised to challenge the 1960 electoral results, he didn’t. And millions of us didn’t chant “Kennedy Is Not Our President”, nor “Kennedy Lied, People Died”, nor… well, you get the idea.
It wasn’t the conservatives, nor the libertarians (nor even the Libertarians), who gave us the ugly political verb “Borking”.
Even at the height of Clinton’s troubles, people like myself weren’t saying “Clinton isn’t MY President”. We were saying “My President is a liar and a perjurer under oath, and that’s despicable”.
It ain’t conservatives, nor libertarians, who keep chanting about the “living” Constitution — meaning, of course, a Constitution which can be reinterpreted at will when inconvenient. If John Kerry wins a majority of the electoral votes in play, in accordance with our laws and Constitution, he will be the President.
To indirectly assert that libertarians, conservatives, constitutionalists, Federalists, would hold otherwise…
GAHHHHH.
It comes across as a political variation of the old double-bind, Dean. “When did you stop beating your wife, sir?”
And you wonder why you’re taking fire on this one?
Let me put it to you this way, Dean. I took an oath, as a naval officer. I am not in the service any more. But I don’t remember there being any clause letting me out of my oath. Nor did I ever want one.
No one’s perfect, Dean.
Keep your pledge. I prefer my oath.
Once again, the Collectivist elite in Florida shows its contempt for the proletariat citizenry:
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. Aug. 2, 2004 — The ACLU and Planned Parenthood sued Monday to block a Florida ballot measure that would pave the way for a law requiring parents to be told when their minor daughters seek abortions.
The lawsuit argues that the ballot summary for the proposed constitutional amendment is misleading leading voters to think they’re preserving rights when, in fact, the measure takes them away.
(from The Headmistress, by way of the Master At (Fire)Arms.)
Funny thing, this. Everyone *I* know in Florida is well aware of what this constitutional amendment is for. The dead-tree media have gotten their facts right, the subject is on lots of peoples’ minds, and no one seems confused.
But G_d Forbid we actually let the VOTERS choose. They might… oh, I dunno… decide something for themselves, rather than being told how to act?
They might actually choose responsibly.
They might actually show they are, in fact, capable of doing their duty as citizens.
The apparatchiki just can’t have that. We proles might just decide that if we’re going to be responsible for PAYING for Jenny’s abortion, and responsible for PAYING for the complications which might occur after an abortion, we might think we ought to have a say in the matter…
Look. I know that teens are often mature enough to form their own ethical stances. And those stances might not agree with their parents’ mores. AND, G_d knows, I have SEEN that some parents don’t have their teens’ best interests at heart.
I know all this.
But whereas those things might argue convincingly for allowing teens to seek birth control and STD treatments without parental notification, abortion is a substantially different matter. It’s invasive, Gentle Readers. It’s SURGICAL… and has a significant incidence of post surgical complications, some of which can be lethal.
Parents are responsible under state law in Florida for their teens’ health. They *cannot* decline to pay for surgical procedures procured by their teens. They are RESPONSIBLE for these issues under law.
They ought to be told BEFORE the teen can be taken to the abortuary.
What part of this is hard to comprehend?
We really shouldn’t have been surprised that it was John Kerry who was chosen.
The Democrats’ platform is, after all, pretty simple: ANYONE but Bush.
And in John Kerry, they have the perfect candidate for such a platform. His remarkable lack of consistency in political policies permits him to be “all things to all men”.
Umm, “persons”.
“Anyone But Bush”. Not exactly a principled, rational political platform.
well, not really.
But wouldn’t it be a hoot if the Bush campaign was REALLY using ads like this?
Heh heh heh.
Thanks for the heads-up, Ith!
Entertainment Tonight would be running footage of Isaac Asimov and Harlan Ellison, smiling in utter glee, outside Grauman’s.
They’d be grinning as the audience came out, flushed, delighted, utterly enthralled at THE blockbuster hit of the summer… I, Robot.
Not THAT one; not Will Smith’s summer vehicle.
No; I’m talking about Harlan Ellison’s version. The one Asimov loved… the one that jealous executives sandbagged.
The screenplay which just might well be the finest science fiction movie never made.
I don’t have a Libby-Burroughs translater; I don’t have the keys to Gay Deceiver; I don’t have Trumps, nor a Magic Mirror. I can’t get us to THAT premiere, to that delightful world, where Asimov and Ellison’s dreams came true.
What I CAN do is tell you to go to Powell’s… or to Barnes and Noble, or Amazon … and indulge yourself. Ellison’s screenplay has, at last, been re-released by iBooks, complete with the wonderful illustrations of Mark Zug. If you missed this book on it’s first printing, as I did, this is great news. If you didn’t know this book existed, well… now you do.
What are you WAITING for?
Go, get a copy, dig in, and revel.
Over at Wizbang!, they’ve picked up on a story that could be huge: the possibility that the Republicans might formally commit to the abolition of the IRS.
It seems the Speaker Of The House, Dennis Hastert, is going to bat for the idea:
A domestic centerpiece of the Bush/GOP agenda for a second Bush term is getting rid of the Internal Revenue Service, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.
The Speaker of the House will push for replacing the nation’s current tax system with a national sales tax or a value added tax, Hill sources tell DRUDGE.
“People ask me if I’m really calling for the elimination of the IRS, and I say I think that’s a great thing to do for future generations of Americans,” Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert explains in his new book, to be released on Wednesday.
“Pushing reform legislation will be difficult. Change of any sort seldom comes easy. But these changes are critical to our economic vitality and our economic security abroad,” Hastert declares in SPEAKER: LESSONS FROM FORTY YEARS IN COACHING AND POLITICS.
Robert Prather, where are you when we need you?
I’m of two minds, reading this. On the one hand, this is almost the quintessential Republican anti-tax campaign platform — mated to a surefire populist plan to eliminate what is probably the most detested federal bureaucracy in existence. On the other hand… things which are too good to be true generally are.
48 hour rule, 48 hour rule. I’m going to wait… and see.
ZombyBoy is seeing steadily increasing traffic… and having MET him whilst on business in Denver, ‘tother day, I am delighted for him.
Besides, he’s nigh onto as fond of Heinlein as I am.
I have seen him in the flesh, and have drank his soda. Time to make him One Of The Inner Circle…
is “catch-up”.
There are lots of folks I enjoy reading regularly, and my bloglists aren’t up to date — so let’s get busy.
I’m going to start with the abode of my favorite drow-lover, Denita TwoDragons, and her dear Eric… AND the lair of the inimitable Ironbear: Who Tends The Fires.
Scimitars, Role-playing fu, the GWB Corollary to Godwin’s Law, honorable barbarians, and bloggers who understand how close we are to St. Louis’ Choice.
This is one for my Hong Kong Buccaneers team, as we’ve corresponded on divers and sundry friendly topics, including the relative merits of swearing in drow and tlhIngan hol…
Heh.
Denita, Eric, IronBear, welcome to the Institute!
Forget Boston. THIS is news… and the story just keeps getting better:
SpaceShipOne, as the vehicle is called, will make its first attempt to win the Ansari X Prize, a $10 million award to the first private rocket to carry the equivalent of three passengers to an altitude of 100 kilometers (62 miles) twice within two weeks…
Famed aviator Burt Rutan, head of Scaled Composites of Mojave, Calif., said at a news briefing the first attempt has been scheduled for the end of September, meaning the craft will have to launch again and reach the target altitude successfully by Oct. 13.
Why so cool? Because Rutan has competition:
A second group, the da Vinci Project of Toronto, Ontario, also is preparing for a run at the X Prize. Its leader, Brian Feeney, said at the briefing that his craft, called Wild Fire Mark VI, will be rolled out for public view on Aug. 5.
“About $500,000 separates us from our own 60-day Ansari X Prize launch notice announcement,” Feeney said.
The da Vinci project is, in some respects, even more of a thumb in the eye for conventional wisdom. Rutan’s team at Scaled Composites has made immense progress at a fraction of the cost that anyone thought possible. But the da Vinci team takes that one step further:
The all-volunteer da Vinci project is the largest volunteer technology project in Canadian history with upwards of 100,000 man-hours having been spent on the project thus far. The Project’s head office and operations are based in Toronto with regional teams located in Montreal, Regina and Vancouver and St Petersburg, Russia.
Volunteer AND international. How cool IS that? And you can donate to their effort if you feel so inclined — their site has details.
The presence of TWO viable Ansari competitors puts paid to the notion that Rutan was, somehow, lucky. It might not be easy to get to space… but it CAN be done by cooperating, with hard work and determination. It doesn’t require mega-governmental effort.
Michael Faraday had it right: “Nothing is too wonderful to be true.”
Next step: Low earth orbit… by private citizens.
Wind Rider sums up the Democratic Convention … (Warning: Readers Prone To Visualization may Wish To Avoid This Link.)
OWWWWWWW.
My EYES……
Of Blogging?
I mean, really. I go on a few days’ holiday to check on my family,
and Kelley comes back!
I am delighted, and I trust you all are too.
If not, go get Blighted, and see why you SHOULD be delighted!
Channeling K:
Just think of what he won’t know tomorrow.
I was with my family, visiting people in the Los Angeles area. We were in and out of the back yard, looking up at the sky, and running back into the family room to see Armstrong on television.
It was Right Up There. And yet, we could watch it on the TV…
Where were YOU, 35 years ago,
when a decade’s efforts paid off,
and we proved, once again, what we could do
when we WANTED to…
(Note to Roger: Fear not. Raleigh’s colony failed; but Jamestown succeded, and Plymouth Rock, and other efforts.
We’re going back to Luna. And this time … I suspect we’ll stay.)
As the son of an immigrant, and the son-in-law of immigrants, I have a dim opinion of what passes for “multiculturalism” in the Academy. So imagine my pleasure when Hong Kong Buccaneer OF Jay launched this alpha strike:
(Multiculturalism) … is a racist policy, one rooted in the Noble Savage Myth (and, for that alone Rosseau should burn in whatever hell is imaginable for him, which, in my idea would be an America full of Chinese-food eating people, Asians driving huge SUVs and Sudanese Moslem children who actually weigh heavier than a kitten, free to live without fear of an Arab “brother Moslem” raiding his home to kill them).
DAMN.
Jay goes on to make a critical distinction:
While the melting-pot society respects culturally-driven schemas of thought, multiculturalism insists that culturally-driven schemas of thought are more important, and that one has to think a certain way because he is of a certain culture.
The classical American approach adds new things to the smorgasboard that is American culture, and allows me to take pleasure in my neighbors’ history and traditions. Politically correct multiculturalism forbids it, lest those traditions be “contaminated”.
And we all end up in gulags of the mind.
To hell itself with that noise. I’ll hang with S-Train instead:
Why is it wrong to be proud of your racial identity? If it doesn’t disrespect and infringe on the rights of others, why is it wrong? One of my best friends (we call him Big Swain) was born and raised in German. He’s one proud white fella. Loves his native country and culture. When there’s a German festival, he’s there (usually dragging me with him). And you know what? I enjoy myself immensly. And what does Big Swain do? He goes to African and African-American festivals with me. And you know what? He enjoys himself also. How can we do this?
CAUSE WE RESPECT EACH OTHER!
I’m bringing the csirke paprikas and the Tokaji. What are you bringin’ to the party?
This person’s behavior is contemptible.
She wasn’t at risk of her life. She wasn’t bearing a child because of rape, or forcible incest. She wasn’t facing dire poverty, and the grinding fear of being unable to raise a child at all. She wasn’t even a contraceptive failure; she was “… tired of being on the pill, because it made me moody.”
So she played “breeding roulette”, and then was horrified at this dire fate:
… I’m going to have to move to Staten Island. I’ll never leave my house because I’ll have to care for these children. I’ll have to start shopping only at Costco and buying big jars of mayonnaise.
I wouldn’t have the nerve to put that in a fictional character’s mouth.
The only consolation I have just now is that, although the Grey Lady doesn’t seem to care what manner of monster graces their “magazine”, there is no shortage of outrage, horror, disgust and dismay at what she has nonchalantly confessed to doing.
A note to those whose support of abortion is rooted in the notion that somehow, the unborn aren’t really people. Amy Richards’ behavior is nothing less than the inevitable consequence of your belief: the reduction of some human beings to less than human; less than chattel; to inconveniences.
Monstrous.
Zombyboy, I swear to G_d this is true…
What with one thing and another, my son and I ended up at EPCOT yesterday. (Horrid thing, to live in Florida, eh?) After allowing sufficient post-lunch digestion time to avoid “protein spills”, we decided to go take a spin… heh… on Mission: Space.
Given the nature of this ride, Disney makes sure there’s at least one “greeter” at the entrance to the plaza, to answer guests’ questions about the ride. Having ridden this attraction before, we ambled by the greeter. But as we did, something in the greeter’s bearing caught my eye, and I took a second look.
Crisp, erect posture. Balding, with a salt-and pepper tonsure. A keen, intelligent gaze. A close-cropped mustache.
And on the nametag… “Bob”.
(…cue theremins… )
The press of the crowd kept me from doubling back and seeing if the greeter was from Kansas City.
Both my son and I have come to the conclusion that SOMEONE in Casting has a highly developed sense of irony.
Ironbear, over at Who Tends The Fires, made an arresting comment the other day:
Hrmmm…. me, Allah, the Commissar, Kim, Rivrdog, Jim, Michele, Misha, AnalogKid and Nukevet, and now Connie du Toit is declaring War to the Knife with the Left. Gee, are we detecting a trend yet? ;] One might almost think we’re forming a movement….
Ironbear… isn’t exaggerating by much at all. Many pundits from both the “conservative” and the libertarian spectrums are growing angry with the pronouncements of “liberal” standard bearers; note the normally urbane Steven Den Beste, who recently called the director of “Unfahrenheit 9-11″ Michael Muqtada al-Moore.
Or consider the Vice President, a man not known to be a sailor, dropping the deuce on Senator Leahy.
Why is this happening now? Is this the “coarsening of discourse”, the “loss of civility”, that Conventional Wisdom has been nattering on about?
I don’t think so. This isn’t about civility. This is about honest revulsion.
G.K. Chesterton, writing of St. Thomas Aquinas, noted:
It is no good to tell an atheist that he is an atheist; or to charge a denier of immortality with the infamy of denying it; or to imagine that one can force an opponent to admit he is wrong, by proving that he is wrong on somebody else’s principles, but not on his own. After the great example of St. Thomas, the principle stands, or ought always to have stood established; that we must either not argue with a man at all, or we must argue on his grounds and not ours. We may do other things instead of arguing, according to our views of what actions are morally permissible; but if we argue we must argue “On the reasons and statements of the philosophers themselves.” This is the common sense in a saying attributed to a friend of St. Thomas, the great St. Louis, King of France, which shallow people quote as a sample of fanaticism; the sense of which is, that I must either argue with an infidel as a real philosopher can argue, or else “thrust a sword through his body as far as it will go.”
Now, it seems obvious that St. Louis’ Choice rests on the possibility that there can BE discourse, discussion, debate. But what happens when one side renders debate impossible?
All that’s left are the long knives.
There can be no debate when one side has no grounds. And when one side is willing to change stories, deny they said things which were in fact said, evade and equivocate and lie… they have no ground at all.
This brazen attitude has become the hallmark of the collectivist “left”. Bloggers at Indymedia sites have removed pictures of demonstrators calling for the fragging of American officers by their troops. Micah Wright invented a nonexistent military career in order to bolster his anti-war arguments. Markos Zuniga callously dismissed the death of Americans in Fallujah, only to try and remove all traces of it from his website. Joseph Wilson swore he was “restoring honesty”, even as he lied about his behavior, and his wife’s behavior, and what actually happened in Niger.
There hasn’t been this much wanton political lying since the glory days of the Politburo.
The darlings of the collectivist left LIE. They lie damnably. They lie like Stalinist “historians”.
There is no debating with such people. They will lie, and change their stories, and duck, and weave, and attempt to evade even a hypocritical half-tribute to integrity by pretending they have any responsibility.
There is no debating with such people.
They will lie about insulting citizens who have volunteered to serve our country. They will lie about having done it in the past; they will lie about doing it today. They say they “support our troops”… “when they frag their officers.”
And then they will lie about having said that, too.
Unfortunately for the liars, there is no central, single, monolithic Ministry of Truth. There are dozens of news sources, and now there are myriads of smart, intelligent bloggers, with memories, and the tools to preserve those memories against the eyewash of the collectivists.
We remember. And with every lie, with every smear, we grow angrier.
Conservatives value order, and are loathe to let violent anarchy loose. Libertarians insist upon not forcing other people to do things, on the “zero aggression” principle, even as they insist on having the tools to defend themselves from those who won’t leave them in peace.
BUT… we know, as did St. Louis, what to pick up, when the pen no longer avails.
The more things change, the more they remain the same:
While Soviet troops joined the Hungarians in their revolt, the West considered what it could possibly do. Sympathy was quickly extended by some, and other courses of action were discussed. then to everyone’s great relief, the UN got busy. There was even talk of sending notes, but no one seemed to know where.
Heh.
More trenchant wit from Vashi’s Red Primer.
The ever-delightful James Lileks brought this little gem from the Cold War to my attention.
The website’s anonymous author is right — this book needs to be rescued from obscurity, and to “be shared with the world”. Even though the Soviet Union is no more, this “primer for children and diplomats” is still full of trenchant wisdom:
Old Man History underwent some alterations. Parts which did not fit were rearranged, useless ones thrown away and more suitable parts introduced. The rearranging of History remains an important and demanding task in People’s Democracies to this day.
Hold onto that thought.
You will not understand much of what passes for political discourse, just now, without the insight.
More on that, and the implications, to follow…
Between work being BUSY, and it taking BellSouth some time to get my DSL back on line, I’ve had a hard time getting online to make posts.
HOPEFULLY this is all but settled. As you might suspect, the enforced silence is frustrating…
I am not likely to change the minds of anyone who still believes that war profiteer Michael Moore is anything but a liar, and a long lost cousin of Leni Riefenstahl.
However, if there are any people out there who are undecided about the proposition, let me recommend Pejman Yousefzadeh on the subject.
Actually, let me recommend Pejman to you on all manner of subjects. It’s high time I update my blogrolls, and this is an auspicious moment. He, too, will be remembering 18 Tir. So, onto the rolls with Pejmanesque!
…this will be seen throughout Iraq.
G_d speed the day.
But G_d helps those who help themselves. Fortunately for Iran, there are many Iranians who understand that. And they are asking for our help, here. Take a look, and if you are willing to join in, sign the petition. You’ll be in excellent company.
If there’s a demonstration nearby, drop by there as well — the petition site notes locations worldwide.
These people aren’t asking for guns, invasions, boots on the ground; they’re asking for public support —
… We need your soft power, and all of it. We need it in a barrage of heavy-media artillery, think-tank platforms, and the solidarity of Western NGOs. We need U.S. and EU campus events with young Iranians “yearning for freedom” standing hand in hand with Western students. We need Western artists lending their music and their voices to the Joyless Generation.
Is that so very much to ask from people who love liberty?
This July 8th, commemorate 18 Tir. Step up to the plate, and help the Joyless. Make the cartoon above a happy prophecy.
I wonder how al-Zarqawi feels about this announcement: Militant group threatens death for al-Zarqawi.
Turnabout is fair play, right?
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — A previously unknown militant group in Iraq is threatening to kill the most-wanted terror suspect in that country: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
The Arabic-language TV network Al-Arabiya said it received a taped statement from an organization that calls itself the Rescue Group warning al-Zarqawi and his followers to leave Iraq or face the consequences.
One masked militant read a statement denouncing the actions by al-Zarqawi and his followers as hurtful to Iraq, particularly the kidnapping of foreigners.
The group has called for the killing of the Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi if he doesn’t leave Iraq.
Here’s hoping.
as Venomous Kate returns with a vengeance, striking sparks from the heads of some not-exactly-friends.
Ouch.
That being said, welcome back, VK!
4 July 2004 1225 UTC/GMT
Sparks flying. That’s my weekend, in more ways than one.
I have the watch for my emergency department today, waiting for the inevitable picnic indigestion, sun burns, and sparkler injuries. It’s been relatively q***t today, so far, thank G_d. (No, ER folks are not superstitious; why DO you ask? ) I count that as a special blessing, because I was up late last night, replacing electrical sockets.
Why, you ask?
Well, I came home yesterday ’round dusk, having collected my son from an afternoon movie… only to find two sockets blown from the wall, a fused telephone, a television that’s dead, and a desktop computer whose OS is capable of booting up only with extensions turned off. Oh, and half the house circuit breakers tripped.
An inspection of the outside of the house showed a lightning strike in the backyard, which appears to have
(a) coursed down one of the trees, striking off several branches
(b) flashed over the house, due to the torrential rains
(c) blackened the metal top of the chimney, which was an entirely different color yesterday
(d) blown the external cover off the circuit breaker to the AC’s external heat exchanger
(e) nuked the phone lines, and sent a surge thru the house.
Why there weren’t electrical fires? G_d knows. I’m just very, VERY thankful there weren’t. (See also: shudder.)
So, I had to take the house “cold”, tagging out the entire electrical system, and repair the blown sockets — lest the dogs develop a fatal case of curiousity.
It is entirely opssible I will try and miss (further!) fireworks tonight, America’s Birthday notwithstanding. *wince*
So, as you see… Sparks. PLENTY of sparks.
Nice sentiment, brother Greyhawk. Was it REALLY necessary for it to be taken literally, though???
Heh.
That being said, I wish you all a happy Fourth — and that this be the most dramatic news any of you receive this holiday!
You decide…
Really, gentle readers. They even sound alike.
There’s no way to tell who actually said this:
..this is all theater; the real criminal is Bush…
…without a program, for crying out loud.
(Hint: Click here for the program.)
One murdered his people; one murders the truth.
Warmonger and mass murderer Saddam Hussein; War profiteer and mass media liar Michael Moore.
Two of a kind. Truth really IS stranger than fiction…
deserves our contempt for Unfahrenheit 911 — and Claire’s readying a big serving, by way of googlebomb.
Let’s all chip in, shall we, and give this generation’s false Falstaff his Shakespearean desserts…
Scorn and defiance; slight regard, contempt,
And any thing that may not misbecome
The doughty bloggers, doth we prize him at.
(Whilst I am at it, high time I got off my duff and blogrolled SondraK, who brought War Profiteer Michael Moore’s latest scummy behavior to Claire’s attention. Welcome Aboard, Headmistress!)
UPDATE: Welcome to the Institute, any of you who might have sauntered over by way of Resurrectionsong. As you can see, we’re keeping We Hate Michael Moore Week here at the Institute, with all good cheer. Enjoy your reading!
The Cassini probe will carry out orbital insertion burn within a few hours, if all goes well. More good news for us spacers!
Now, for the day that we might go there ourselves…
Memo to Bert Rutan and all the other X-prize teams: Faster, please.
It won’t be a US trial.
It won’t be a UN trial — as if they had ANY moral standing, after years of leaving the monster in place and accepting hush money.
Hussein will face his own countrymen in an Iraqi court.
As he sewed, so let him reap.
Iraq… SOVREIGN.
MEMBERS of Iraq’s new government took their oath of office today in a ceremony only hours after the US-run coalition transferred sovereignty, formally ending the US military occupation.
The folks posting about this at Metafilter seem a bit testy.
Pardon me for a moment:
Accomplished Ahead Of Schedule
Accomplished Ahead Of Schedule
Accomplished Ahead Of Schedule
Accomplished Ahead Of Schedule
Accomplished Ahead Of Schedule
Accomplished Ahead Of Schedule
Accomplished Ahead Of Schedule
For the enemies of liberty reading this — the dishonest parasites who would prefer“…Bush defeated and bin Laden still in the wind” — Choke on that.
If that’s not enough to harsh you dhimmis’ mellow, Michele has some Iraqi thoughts on the subject. Go read them, and let the scales fall from your complacent eyes.
The rest of us will do the natural thing for the children of liberty.
We’re going to rejoice.
Samizdata fell off my blogrolls when I made the move to Venom Pages. It’s high time I fixed that, espceially since they were the first place that I read of Christopher Hitchens’ savaging Michael Moore’s Unfahrenheit 9/11 (and thus may it ever be named).
If you haven’t read Hitchens’ dissection, go do so. There will almost certainly be more exhaustive fact-checkings, given Moore’s proven record of lying… but I doubt there’ll be a more elegant dissection of this fifth columnist’s magnum mendacium.
And yes, I do mean “fifth columnist”.
What part of “aid and comfort” is unclear here?
I’m not surprised that my dear friend Kelley is taking a break. Or, perhaps, the break took her?
Blog-fatigue, summer doldrums, a broken arm — or some combination of the above; matters not. We miss you, Kelley, and hope to hear from you again. Sooner rather than later, by choice; but take the time you need, and come back when you are good and ready.
We’ll be here.
And now begins the Second Spacefaring Age…
Test pilot Mike Melvill landed at Mojave Airport, about 80 miles north of Los Angeles, California, after taking the rocket plane SpaceShipOne to an altitude of more than 100 kilometers (62.5 miles) — the internationally recognized boundary of space.
The first privately funded, non-governmental flight into space… successful after less than a decade of work, at a fraction of the cost that a government would have spent, and with innovative technologies.
If you don’t understand why this is SO important, listen to Dale Amon:
Some of you understand intuitively. Few outside a small circle of friends fully comprehend the magnitude of the breakthrough. Getting into space is not about technology. It is about money. It is about risk, markets, business plans, insurance, and raising capital. It is about the metacontext. The metacontext which died in the desert sun this morning carried built in assumptions that space is for governments; space is expensive; space is too risky for business.
Now we know differently. Paul Allen funded Rutan’s two craft from concept to suborbital space flight for around $20 million. In the aerospace world this is pocket change. Design studies cost that much, let alone TWO working vehicles.
The media came. The coverage has been beyond my wildest expectations. This is the second element required. Not only has the metacontext been smashed; everyone knows it.
Dale speaks of risk. And there were risks; the flight was not without inforeseen perils:
The spacecraft returned safely, but control problems revealed after the flight forced Melville to cut it short and use a backup system to keep SpaceShipOne under control.
He said trim surfaces on SpaceShipOne — movable surfaces on the craft’s wings — jammed during supersonic flight. The craft rolled 90 degrees twice during its vertical ascent and veered more than 20 miles off course in a few seconds.
The Scaled Composites team approach paid off handsomely here: build it, fly it, work out the bugs, fly it again, work out new bugs… and in the process the pilots get experience with the craft they’re going to fly. Steady incremental progress; which, in this case, may have saved the pilot’s life.
SpaceShip One is now being worked over, intensively, by Rutan’s team. Until they know WHY the primary control surface systems failed, they’re not going to rush foolishly into a run on the X prize.
Make no mistake, though. They will be back in space soon…
and sooner than I might have thought, so might we be.
Rutan is already talking about the next step: designing a successor to SpaceShip One, capable of low Earth orbit.
Michael Moore has plenty of foreign fans. Not all of them are French:
… in the United Arab Emirates, the film is being offered the kind of support it doesn’t need. According to Screen International, the UAE-based distributor Front Row Entertainment has been contacted by organisations related to the Hezbollah in Lebanon with offers of help.
Moore’s distributors are eating with Shaitan; but they aren’t using a very long spoon, as John Hawkins noted:
… In terms of marketing the film, Front Row is getting a boost from organisations related to Hezbollah which have rung up from Lebanon to ask if there is anything they can do to support the film. And although (managing director Gianluca) Chacra says he and his company feel strongly that Fahrenheit is not anti-American, but anti-Bush, “we can’t go against these organisations as they could strongly boycott the film in Lebanon and Syria.”
Very nice, very tidy. We mustn’t alienate these delicate, sensitive torturers and murderers. After all, if we refuse to accept the jihadi-geld, they might get ANGRY with us. We might lose MONEY. (Which is a reasonable concern, I suppose; it’s not like these spineless snivellers could lose honor or integrity, having none to speak of.)
The article goes on to note something which I suspect Moore would love to keep hidden:
Front Row, which also worked with Moore’s Bowling For Columbine, is setting a precedent with Fahrenheit as it is the first documentary ever to be released theatrically in the territory. Bowling went straight to video and had a healthy run. Indeed, Moore is, explains Chacra, “considered an Arab supporter,” locally. (emphasis added — ed.)
“An Arab supporter”.
Res ipsa loquitur.
If you’re thinking of going to see Moore’s latest film, just remember:
The people who killed Paul Johnson approve.
Lie down with dogs, get up with flies.
…I’m going to put a little effort into my blogrolls tonight; I’ve been lax in updating them. (It’s likely to inspire comments and further posts as well, which is all to the good.)
First off: HeinleinBlog, Bill Dennis’s ongoing celebration of Heinlein’s influence — as opposed to Drew Barrymore’s influence. Heh.
The Peoria Pundit’s Heinleinblog is worth perusing if you’re a RAH fan. Not only does it keep track of things like the recent release of we The Living, it brings us articles like this one — which I’d missed, spacer though I am:
An amateur unmanned rocket has been launched into space from the Nevada desert – the first time this has been achieved by a privately-built vehicle.
The Civilian Space eXploration Team’s 6.5m (21ft) GoFast rocket is understood to have exceeded an altitude of 100km.
“It just roared off the pad and flew into space,” said rocketeer and CSXT avionics manager Eric Knight.
The GoFast vehicle and its payload sent back signals from space before falling down to Earth for recovery.
—
The achievement comes at a time when it is widely expected that the first private astronaut will go into space in the next few weeks.
That’s PAST cool ..well into exhilarating.
See what you’re missing? Go thou and read some more…
I am a child of the space race. I watched the Gemini launches, fascinated, on television. I can still remember the scent of the jasmine in the garden, as we sat on the covered porch in Los Angeles, and watched the FIRST “small step for man”. Apollo 13 isn’t a movie for me; it’s part of my memories, from first sick horror to exultant relief at spashdown.
I have lived in amazing times.
And I have lived, thank GOD, to see this:
Historic Space Launch Attempt Scheduled for June 21
Paul G. Allen and Burt Rutan Announce Plans for First
Non-Government, Privately Funded Manned Space FlightMojave, CA: A privately-developed rocket plane will launch into history on June 21 on a mission to become the world’s first commercial manned space vehicle. Investor and philanthropist Paul G. Allen and aviation legend Burt Rutan have teamed to create the program, which will attempt the first non-governmental flight to leave the earth’s atmosphere.
SpaceShipOne will rocket to 100 kilometers (62 miles) into sub-orbital space above the Mojave Civilian Aerospace Test Center, a commercial airport in the California desert. If successful, it will demonstrate that the space frontier is finally open to private enterprise. This event could be the breakthrough that will enable space access for future generations.
If that doesn’t thrill you to your very marrow, you might be reading the wrong blog.
I am working the night of the 20th. If I were not, I’d be buying plane tickets right NOW.
As would a million and more frustrated spacers, who want to go. To Mojave… up… and out.
(Also posted at my livejournal).
testing new firmware
testing
(update)…and I succeeded, finally. Note to wireless networking virgins: sometimes you have to change your MTU, regardless of what the default value is. *wry grin* Today’s lesson for me!
They said Hussein couldn’t be brought to account without massive American casualties.
We did.
They said that the uprisings in Najaf couldn’t be stopped, and that the whole country would be ablaze. But the uprisings … have been stopped.
They say we can’t possibly be serious about giving Iraq back to it’s people.
WATCH US.
Thanks to Stephen Green for the link to this excellent script.
Note to the ayatollahs: It’s a REAL easy script to customize.
I’d been there. Although, given the tight schedule, I don’t know how much I could have helped with — save pain meds…
Come to think of it, that would have been benison enough. This hurts just to look at!
Kelley, take good care of yourself, and may you get well soon!
I was thinking, idly, about countries, and their “archetypal” militaries.
Say, “United Kingdom”, and the military organization that comes to mind is the Royal Navy.
Say, “United States”, and most folks will think first of the US Marine Corps.
Say “Soviet Union”. and those of us who were in the military during the Cold War will think “Red Army armor divisions”.
France? The FOREIGN Legion.
There’s a moral, there, somewhere.
… is also, perforce, a history lesson.
This is dedicated to Michael Feingold, who opened a recent piece in the Village Voice… thus:
No U.S. president, I expect, will ever appoint a Secretary of the Imagination. But if such a cabinet post ever were created, and Richard Foreman weren’t immediately appointed to it, you’d know that the Republicans were in power. Republicans don’t believe in the imagination, partly because so few of them have one, but mostly because it gets in the way of their chosen work, which is to destroy the human race and the planet. Human beings, who have imaginations, can see a recipe for disaster in the making; Republicans, whose goal in life is to profit from disaster and who don’t give a hoot about human beings, either can’t or won’t. Which is why I personally think they should be exterminated before they cause any more harm.
Mr. Feingold:
Quite literally:
… Many college textbooks to this day even argue that Reagan’s economic policies were flawed because they created record budget deficits. But the textbooks don’t mention that as the national debt rose by $2 trillion, national wealth rose by $8 trillion. They also don’t mention that the Laffer curve worked: Lower tax rates did generate more tax revenues at the federal, state, and local levels. Federal tax collections rose from $500 billion in 1980 to $1 trillion in 1990.
Priceless.
From Stephen Moore’s appreciation of President Reagan, in National Review Online. Do have a look…
I think it would please him to be remembered thus.
From the wildly uneven
… As Reagan’s memory faded, the years seemed to fall away: the presidency, the governorship, Hollywood, sportscasting. Among his sharpest recollections was his youth in Illinois. In chats with guests in his Los Angeles office and in bits of conversation with his family at home in Bel Air, he would talk about learning to read newspapers on the front porch with his mother, about playing with his older brother, Neil, about setting off for the picture-perfect little campus of Eureka College. And there were his early days on the Rock River, where he swam in the summers and ice-skated in the winter. A picture of the river hung in his retirement office in Century City, and visitors would ask him about it. Again and again he would tell the story. “You know, that’s where I used to be a lifeguard—I saved 77 lives.” There had been a log, he went on, where he carved a notch for every swimmer he rescued. “It was obviously an important part of his life, something he cherished,” an aide recalled. “Being a lifeguard was ever-present in his memory.” The image lingered when everything else was disappearing.
Those of us who have saved lives know why Reagan cherished the memory.
We cherished Reagan for other reasons, certainly. We had good cause.
Those who were children in the 70s will not easily understand how… bleak… America’s prospects seemed to “conventional wisdom”. Pessimism, lowered expectations, retreat, malaise: our editorials and front pages sounded positively French in their worldview.
Ronald Reagan woke us up.
… We defend freedom here or it is gone. There is no place for us to run, only to make a stand. And if we fail, I think we face telling our children, and our children’s children, what it was we found more precious than freedom. Because I am sure someday—if we fail in this—there will be a generation that will ask.
He reminded us, again and again, what we were sprung from. What our mothers and fathers had hoped we would be. What we could become.
And we woke up.
I believe, in my very marrow, that without Ronald Reagan’s voice, the dismal self-flagellation of the 70s would have led to the suicide of America. We would have become a grey, faceless province of the World Soviet. We would have appeased and accomodated and accepted… and fallen.
Mark Steyn understands the difference Reagan made:
At the Berlin Wall that day, it would have been easy to be clever, as all those ’70s detente sophisticates would have been. And who would have remembered a word they said? Like Irving Berlin with “God Bless America”, only Reagan could have stood there and declared without embarrassment:
Tear down this wall!
- and two years later the wall was, indeed, torn down. Ronald Reagan was straightforward and true and said it for everybody – which is why his “rhetorical opportunity missed” is remembered by millions of grateful Eastern Europeans.
And millions of Reagan’s grateful countrymen, who watched the Soviet Union collapse shortly thereafter.
Without Reagan? The Wall probably would have come down. In a world enslaved, what need for a Wall between provinces? Internal identity cards and passports would have served.
Reagan’s clarity of vision and purpose helped save millions of lives. Russian, Polish, Czech, Hungarian… American.
Perhaps, at the end, that’s how.. that’s WHY… Reagan remembered it.
One man who understood was Yakob Ravin, a Ukrainian ?migr? who in the summer of 1997 happened to be strolling with his grandson in Armand Hammer Park near Reagan’s California home. They happened to see the former President, out taking a walk. Mr Ravin went over and asked if he could take a picture of the boy and the President. When they got back home to Ohio, it appeared in the local newspaper, The Toledo Blade.
Ronald Reagan was three years into the decade-long twilight of his illness, and unable to recognize most of his colleagues from the Washington days. But Mr Ravin wanted to express his appreciation. “Mr President,” he said, “thank you for everything you did for the Jewish people, for Soviet people, to destroy the Communist empire.”
And somewhere deep within there was a flicker of recognition. “Yes,” said the old man, “that is my job.”
Lifesaver.
We will remember.
It isn’t, really.
Just as it isn’t really a holiday, either.
I’m not trying to be contrary, here. See… I survived my service.
Today is for my shipmates, my friends, my brothers and sisters at arms… who didn’t.
Eric saved me the trouble of having to do the research. Here’s a citation from the original document, which first called for this commemoration:
HEADQUARTERS
GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLICGeneral Orders No.11,
WASHINGTON, D.C.,
May 5, 1868i. The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.
…
ii. It is the purpose of the Commander-in-Chief to inaugurate this observance with the hope that it will be kept up from year to year, while a survivor of the war remains to honor the memory of his departed comrades. He earnestly desires the public press to lend its friendly aid in bringing to the notice of comrades in all parts of the country in time for simultaneous compliance therewith.
If you can’t go to a Veterans’ Cemetary, at least do what Kate suggested.. and take some time, today. Stop and reflect, at 3 pm, your time. Stop, and remember our fallen, who died that we might live in liberty.
Remember them…
Remember.
I have been remiss in updating my colophon, and now’s as good a time as any to give due credit.
The CSS style for version 3.x of De Doc’s Doings is based on “metaldreams”, designed by AKA for the WordPress CSS Style Competition hosted recently by Alex King. The original brushed silver was altered to a Titanium-jewel-alloy look with some help from my friend and unindicted co-conspirator Roger Siggs. (Roger, when you read this, drop me a URL for your current website, neh?)
If you’ve recently changed to WordPress, I strongly recommend looking at the Style Competition for your blog. There are styles for nearly every esthetic; and if you just can’t make up your mind, Alex has thoughtfully provided a CSS Style Switcher hack which will allow you to offer multiple skins. (The hack is available for WP 1.2, 1.02, 0.72, and earlier builds.)
De Doc says: Check it out.
Overwrought, adj. :
Velociman nails it cold:
… Gore did not used to be like this. He was a sane, sober, well-bought politician. Now he is a spittle-flecked lunatic, a raving psychotic, who 3.5 years ago was 600-odd votes away from the nukular football.
Good God Almighty.
AMEN.
For today’s koan, let me cite Darth Misha, who notes an interesting story…
Newly uncovered files examined by U.S. military investigators in Baghdad show what is being described as “a direct link” between Saddam Hussein’s elite Fedayeen military unit and the terrorist attacks on America on Sept. 11, 2001.
Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, who attended a January 2000 al-Qaida summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where the 9/11 attacks were planned, is listed among the officers on three Fedayeen rosters reviewed by U.S. probers, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
I note in passing that the actual WSJ article is in their “subscribers only” section, but other news sources are now taking the story off the WSJ wire.
I was minded to call this story “developing”, or “breaking”, but those terms misstate the case. Shakir’s name has surfaced before… in earlier press revelations which link Hussein to Al-Qaeda. Consider this article by Williscroft:
… A recent story in The Weekly Standard (Nov. 24, 2003), has given administration opponents serious cause for reflection. Standard reporter Stephen Hayes wrote under the title, “Case Closed,” about a secret memo prepared for Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith. In response to questions put to him in October by Senate Intelligence Panel members Sen. Pat Roberts, R-KS, and Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-WV, Feith forwarded them the memo. From there it found its way into Hayes’s hands.
Spinsanity.org attempted to downplay the significance of this memo, raising questions about Shakir’s actual role:
…The memo also details the actions of Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, an Iraqi living in Malaysia. Yet the only documented contact between Shakir and the Iraqi government is Shakir’s own claim that he obtained a job at an airport “through an Iraqi embassy employee.” …
That may have been disingenious. From the Standard article:
… 24. According to sensitive reporting, a Malaysia-based Iraqi national (Shakir) facilitated the arrival of one of the Sept 11 hijackers for an operational meeting in Kuala Lumpur (Jan 2000). Sensitive reporting indicates Shakir’s travel and contacts link him to a worldwide network of terrorists, including al Qaeda. Shakir worked at the Kuala Lumpur airport–a job he claimed to have obtained through an Iraqi embassy employee.
Or, if you like, Shakir was placed in a position to subvert airport security, customs, and immigration, by the actions of an Iraqi embassy “employee”… and did so.
If there was no “link” between Hussein’s regime and international terrorist groups, why did the Iraqi intelligence service go to such efforts?
Oh, by the way, let’s look at who was at the meeting in question … that meeting which Iraqi intelligence helped bring off:
… Among the al-Qaida operatives in attendance were the two who flew American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon – Khalid al Midhar and Nawaz al Hamzi – and Ramzi bin al Shibh, the operational planner of the 9-11 attacks.
Also in attendance was Tawfiz al Atash, a high-ranking Osama bin Laden lieutenant and mastermind of the USS Cole bombing.
Shakir wasted no time being elsewhere:
sia four days after the summit finished, Jan. 13, 2000, then turned up in Qatar, where he was arrested Sept. 17, 2001, four days after the attacks.
A search uncovered phone numbers of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers’ safe houses and contacts and information related to a 1995 al-Qaida plot to blow up a dozen commercial airliners over the Pacific.
But Shakir, inexplicably, was released after a brief detention and flew to Amman, Jordan, where he was arrested again. The Jordanians released him, however, with the OK of the CIA, after pressure from the Iraqis and Amensty International.
He was last seen returning to Baghdad.
That certainly bespeaks a certain failure of intelligence… on Amnesty international’s part, as well as George Tenet’s CIA. But it hardly casts doubts on Shakir’s role as a operative for Iraqi intelligence, whose mission in Malaysia was in direct support of Al Qaeda operations.
Operations which led to the attack of September the 11th.
And now we have further verification of Shakir’s standing in the Baathist regime.
And that soft, slapping sound, in various college classrooms, newsrooms, salons, across our country?
That would be people proceeding to wilfully ignore the mounting evidence that Iraqi intelligence was an active assistant in the attacks of 9/11… evidence which would render moot all further discussion of why Hussein’s regime was a legitimate target for US military action *as a response to an act of war*.
Can’t have that, of course. It might interfere with the anti-US intifadeh here at home.
To Sharpie, my spice.
Even if it’s a bit delayed… which it is, because we were celebrating it at Disney World.
But we’re back, and none the worse for wear. So let me stop coasting and see what’s going on in the world.
Major Terror Attack Possible This Summer
(CNN) — Several U.S. officials said Tuesday that intelligence indicates there is increasing concern about the possibility of a major terrorist attack on U.S. soil, perhaps as early as this summer.
Such an attack might take place before the November presidential election in an attempt to affect the outcome, the officials said.
Not like it hasn’t happened before, right?
Tests Confirm Sarin Gas in Baghdad Bomb.
WASHINGTON – Comprehensive testing has confirmed the presence of the chemical weapon sarin in the remains of a roadside bomb discovered this month in Baghdad, a defense official said Tuesday.
The determination, made by a laboratory in the United States that the official would not identify, verifies what earlier, less-thorough field tests had found: the bomb was made from an artillery shell designed to disperse the deadly nerve agent on the battlefield.
Note to the “Bush Lied” crowd: You can apologize now…
(deafening silence)
Please note that this sarin came from an artillery shell… and you don’t hand build them.
Hussein’s regime had obviously gone to the trouble to build or buy a job lot of these weapons. They’re designed to carry binary-storage nerve gas, not explosives. The conclusion should be obvious to anyone but a petulant jury at Cannes: there was plenty of sarin to load in those shells.
And they were easy enough to find that the current bandit gangs in Iraq could locate one.
Someone lied, and people died… but it sure wasn’t Bush.
I’ve been remiss in updating my bloglinks after the move. It’s HIGH time I tackle that… so I am “hand coding for your protection”, as Nathan is fond of saying.
If you thought you fell off because I delinked you, please be assured it was sloth, and not malice.
So, back to the salt WP mines!
“I believe that Western civilization, after some disgusting glitches, has become almost civilized.
I believe it is our first duty to protect that civilization.
I believe it is our second duty to improve it.
I believe it is our third duty to extend it if we can.”
– P. J. O’Rourke
By way of Collin Levey of the Seattle Times:
It hadn’t been but a few hours since the news broke when former U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix grabbed a microphone somewhere to huff that the discovery meant nothing. …
… But even forgetting the potency of one drop of liquid sarin, when did the prospect of the accidental use of loose WMDs become reassuring?
Let’s look at this for a moment.
Some pundits have already apparently dismissed the sarin artillery round as a lucky find. Is anyone else concerned that the Islamicists in Iraq had no difficulty finding one?
Given the relentless yammering from the 9/11 commission of late, isn’t it the height of irresponsibility to treat this as anything less than a sentinel event?
How many bodies need to be stacked like cordwood, awating decontamination, before people stop chanting political slogans and look at the facts?
Ask the Kurds if Hussein had sarin. Then think about the implications of the insurgents “just getting lucky”…
…has caught up with us here at the Institute;
the one about living in “interesting times”, that is.
I’ll be back later tomorrow, I think; right now I need to check on the recuperatees. Everyone’s going to be fine, but we’ve been beset by Real Life ™ the last 36 hrs.
not normally.
Every once in a while, though, I am minded to make an exception.
Wish I could drop in… but since I can’t, I’ll have some mojitos in honor of the occasion.
Happy Birthday, Kate; and may many happier ones follow!
..to get bitten, that is:
Welcome to the new home of dedoc.net.
I’ve made the move to Venom Pages, and WordPress, and I feel *grand*.
Now, for a little tidying, and importing diverse and sundry images which go with my old posts, imported from MT… and we’re off!
To quote Senator Lieberman again:
… those responsible for killing 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11, 2001, never apologized. Those who have killed hundreds of Americans in uniform in Iraq, working to liberate Iraq and protect our security, have never apologized. And those who murdered and burned and humiliated four Americans in Fallujah a while ago never (apologized)….
Michelle neatly sums up everything I feel about the latest Islamicist snuff-film:
I am pissed at the soldiers who committed abuses because we don’t do that. At least, we aren’t supposed to. …
But this. This is different. This is in-your-face terrorism. And you can bet your ass we won’t get an apology for it.
No bet there, sorry.
so strap in and hold on — as I start learning WordPress and shift my flag!
Hopefully, it won’t take too long to get moved in… but if Real Life ™ intervenes, the process might slow down a bit. If that happens, I beg your indulgence.
And now, into the lab…
Illiterate, adj.
…after all, how else could these “Justices” rule as they did on McCain-Feingold, given the First Amendment of the Bill Of Rights?
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
SHALL MAKE NO LAW.
I guess, in Washington, “no” is as difficult to understand as “is”.
HATCHET JOB, n:
Go hunt some snarks with me!
Having been a speaker at several science fiction conventions, I have had the pleasure of meeting a variety of celebrities in my time… and a distinct lack of pleasure, after meeting others.
Celebrities are just as prone to idiocy as the rest of us. (If that comes as a surprise to anyone reading this, I would like to suggest here and now that this might not be the blog you’re looking for…) I have learned this over the years from personal experience, and as a rule, most “news stories” about the earnest political beliefs of Major Industry Figures bore me.
Every little once in a while, though, one of these stories catches my eye… and this one is a prime example of the vocalizations of the species Celebritus Cranio-Rectalis:
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It occured to me the other day, as I browsed, that most people in the United States have a fundamental difficulty … a blind spot, if you will… when it comes to understanding the conflict we are engaged in.
Some of you, I trust, are familiar with the Gadsden flag of the Revolutionary War period:
The rattlesnake flag was apparently very popular, giving rise to several variations.
One of those variations was the first US naval flag, the Navy Jack:
The slogan, in turn, has been used in broadsides and posters, and now can be seen on bumperstickers and T-shirts. Almost any literate American will recognize the sentiment as part of our heritage, in some wise or another.
That sentiment is quintessentially American. Leave us alone. Let us make our decisions, believe as we wish to, live as we choose to. Let us BE.
Now, not all Americans think that we have been left alone. There are all manner of people, across the political spectrum, who think that they’re not being allowed the freedom to be make their own choices. Some are, perhaps, more accurate in their perceptions than others. But for the moment, let’s just note that all these pundits appeal to the same notion: that people are being subjected to some kind of interference with their freedom. That they are being denied their rights by some interfering busybody.
As philosophies go, this is not exactly the stuff of empire. It is hard, in fact, to imagine a LESS “imperialist” philosophy. The “Don’t Tread on Me” meme does not thunder for the inevitable expansion of the US. It doesn’t call for hegemony, dominion, or conquest. It does not call on its adherents to subscribe to the One True Way. The “Don’t Tread On Me” meme is a call to be free of interference, a call to make choices freely, in accordance with people’s personal beliefs.
That notion is, to put it gently, highly unusual. Throughout most of history, societies taught their people that some group had a right to intrude on others’ lives, to order them about, for their own good. Whether this authority derived from naked force, or governmental needs, or religious mandate, this belief system ultimately held that Someone Knew Best… and if you weren’t Someone, you had to bend to the will of those who Knew Best.
That’s not our way. Even as we accede to a government presence in our lives, there is the deep-seated, quiet belief that we have a right to be left to our own beliefs, to choose for ourselves. Few things make us more restive than the notion that we will be compelled by force of law to follow someone else’s religious or philosophical beliefs.
But now, that assertion is being challenged by our enemies. And make no mistake; these are not opponents at debate, but enemies. We are challenged by people who believe that we have no right to behave as we choose. These people believe that we must all submit to the will of their God… whether we like it or not.
These enemies are convinced They Know Best. They are convinced that they are righteous in their actions… blessed as they killed innocent women and children.
They Know Best, and we have no right to do anything else but submit. Let us alone, while they live by their beliefs? Not a chance. They Know Best.
In such straits, discussions of “root causes” miss the point. Calls to “walk a mile in THEIR shoes” are misinformed.
We are not in a debate with people who wish to live, and let live.
We are faced with people who are bent on making us submit to THEIR beliefs.
We want to be let be. Our enemies want our subjugation, our obedience.
I note, with some satisfaction, that the US Navy is now flying the Revolutionary era Navy Jack, which bears the rattlesnake, and the American wish…
Don’t Tread On Me.
Venomous Kate was here.
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