Bah + Humbug

It's just a fact of life and it is time to face up to it: I don't like Christmas. I dislike the season. I don't like the fake cheer. I loathe the shopping. I despise the entire commercial facade. And it's too friggin' cold and wet to go riding!

I. Don't. Like. It. Not, any of it. I am Scrooge, I am The Grinch. Look not upon my pre-Christmas countenance (spl?), thou shalt be turned to stone.

There are personal reasons behind much of this. The ex merrily decided she wanted Kat for both of the weekends leading up to The Day, and then also wanted her for The Day. "Mine mine mine, she's all mine!" was the tone. Maybe she's suddenly realizing that the USAF enlistment she so studiously worked for Kat to sign means 1) this is the final Christmas with her daughter and 2) there is the very real possibility that her one and only daughter will be going In Harm's Way. Well, duh; it's the military. They kill people and break things, that's their job. And sometimes it happens to them. No doubt as far as the ex is concerned if it happens to Kat it will be My fault (capital M, loud voice, screeching tone). How? Anyone divorcee can tell you.

But, enough of that, because despite it all come tomorrow my affinity for Scrooge and Grinch will continue. I'll giggle and roast up a fine feast for any and all who come by. My heart will swell multiple times it's regular size. I will embrace the day and the spirit and all it means, both religious and spirit. I can count the reasons.

1) Kat told her mom to sog off and is with me for the day, bwahaha!

2) I'm alive, and if you're reading this chances are you are too! This is always a good thing. Life is preferable to death, because with life there is always a chance. Once you're dead, pretty much that's the end of everything. Recycle, reincarnate, try again.

3) .... Oh, add your own.

It's a short list and it's more than enough, even with the assorted fucktards in the Middle East, the blithering idiots in the US, and the wallowing indecisives throughout the world. In the coming year we have the opportunity to spread the gospel according to democracy and capitalism, praise be!

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

To Keep and Bear Arms

The US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, San Francisco, ruled today that there is no individual right to keep and bear arms. Their ruling will affect cases in nine western states and is in near-direct opposition to a ruling out of the US circuit court in New Orleans that says yes there is such a right. No doubt the fight will rise to the US Supreme Court, forcing that group to confront the 2nd Amendment.

For myself, I think it's a silly decision. Backed by lots of argument in support of the ruling, but not a lot of substance from the opposition. Such is the nature of things. Eugene Volokh got quoted in a news piece about it. No doubt he'll have something more to say on his own Blog.

Guns, especially handguns, are a lousy way to actually kill someone, but they're wonderful for self-defense. Not so very long ago, the statistics were that only 11% of the bullets fired by "the bad guys" actually hit a target. Police were better; they hit 20% of the time. Those numbers are around six years old, I don't know what the updated stats would be.

Think about that. A cop fires five times at a bad guy. Statistics say that only one bullet will hit. No too good. Applying general statistics to a single case is a bad idea, though, and I can think of three shootings that illustrate the effectiveness of guns, handguns in particular.

Two San Joaquin county deputies confront a wacko in a parking lot. Literally. He's 5150, which is California-speak for mentally unhinged. He starts whacking on one deputy with a hammer. The other pulls out his 9mm pistol and opens fire. Shoots until he's empty. 16 rounds. Point blank. Every single bullet hits the guy and he keeps nailing. Second deputy reloads, fires three more times, 5150 finally gets tired, lays down, and dies. Victim deputy survives the assault and, as far as I know, is back on the job.

Same week, Sacramento county deputy goes out into a park to talk to a young man sitting on the lawn. It's after dark, early morning, park is closed, kid's not supposed to be there, kid jumps up and turns around, bringing a chopped down rifle to bear on the deputy. Kid's first shot misses, allowing the deputy to draw his .40-caliber and fire. Once. Dumps the kid to the ground but the kid neither a) dies or 2) drops the rifle. He's still trying to shoot. As I recall when the deputy keys his radio to scream for help you can hear him screaming at the kid to drop the rifle. Second shot from the deputy. No result. Third deliberate shot from the deputy. This one is low, in the leg, blows a knee, almost literally cutting the lower leg off. Kid still in the fight. Fourth and final shot and the fight is over, kid dead.

Politics and legitimacy of the shooting aside, there are reasons why those four NYPD cops fired so many times. In California the police can carry hollowpoint ammunition. In New York, at the time, they were firing 9mm full metal jacket, "ball" ammo, notorious for drilling straight through a target.

Third shooting was in Lodi and in this instance bad guy exits van with his "girlfriend." He's holding her in the classic hostage pose, back to him, holding a shotgun to her head. Squares off against a flock of cops. He's clearly trying to get away (and I say clearly because all of this was caught real-time by an overhead news helicopter). But his shotgun just drifts away from her head and a cop takes the shot. He goes straight down because that shot is from a .223-caliber rifle. It has cut his spine and he is Right Now a parapalegic for life. He's down but not out because he raises the shotgun and fires back at the officers. More shots. Bullets pinging into him, including at least one more .223 round and a host of .40-caliber pistol shots, including one to the face.

Result: He's alive and well and a long-term member of the California penal system. He is a cripple for life, is minus one testicle, poops into a sack, has one mostly useless arm, and has had reconstructive surgery on his face. But he's alive. (Oh, he was charged with assault on a peace officer [stole a cop's gun], kidnapping, auto theft, felony evasion [this was at the end of a pursuit], attempted murder of a peace officer [during the pursuit he shot a police officer once in the leg; officer has recovered and is back on duty], etc. Long list. Sorry, but I don't know what his plea-bargain was for, only that he's only for a looooong time.)

Why all this gruesome stuff? Because those are shootings I have some immediate knowledge of, and in each case shooting The Bad Guy was only marginally effective. There are legendary stories of people taking upwards of 40 hits and still fighting. The notorious FBI shootout in Miami resulted in dead Feds, both killed after their killer had already been hit in the chest, severing his aorta. He was dead, just didn't care, and killed some agents before he croaked off.

On the other hand, guns are terrific when you don't have to fire 'em. Every day people use a gun to defend themselves, and never pull the trigger. Anti-gun people constantly rage about the number of people killed by guns of all kinds (especially Evil and Dreadful Handguns, of course), but refuse to acknowledge that the staggering and overwhelming percentage of guns are never fired in self-defense. Merely brandishing the weapon is sufficient to deter the attacker. He runs, gets caught, goes to jail. Cops use their guns daily, yet seldom actually have to make them go "bang" at anyone. Guns are amazingly effective for self-defense because you don't have to actually fire them.

This fact keeps getting lost on those who say individuals don't have a right to keep and bear arms.

If the logic of the 9th Circuit prevails, I can't help but wonder the outcome will be. A universal banning of personal possession of firearms? And when they're collected, it's not just that only criminals will have guns, it will mean that all those hundreds of thousands of people who annually use a gun to protect themselves -- all without firing a shot -- won't have that means of defense.

I can't begin to imagine what this will mean to the crime rate.

Testing...

Nope, you don't have a drop of english blood in your body. In fact, you're probably American ;) Y'know that little island next to France? Y'know...Europe? No? Ohwell. We love you really - have a cucumber sandwich!

How British are you?

this quiz was made by alanna

And I thought I was doing so well, too....

Practitioners of a religion of peace

Open Season:

A bombing and a failed missile attack on a civilian plane point to a widening war without rules.

It was the day before Chanukah, the Jewish festival of lights, and the Paradise Hotel off the coast of Kenya was packed with Israeli vacationers. Justine Mundu, a watchman, had been on duty for two and a half hours when a green Mitsubishi Pajero made a screeching turn into the main gate. The crash shattered the car bomb’s windshield, but its occupants just “drove on,” Mundu said. “Three seconds later I heard the explosion.” Another witness, David Kilonzi, said, “I saw the hotel roof blown off.” Moments after the blast, some witnesses also reported seeing a light aircraft fly over the hotel, dropping clusters of small bombs that incinerated some remaining rooms on the seaward side. The Israeli-owned hotel was soon a smoking ruin--a bright orange inferno set against the deep blue Indian Ocean, the white sand and rustling green palms.

Don't forget, we're supposed to understand and relate to the issues that cause such desperate actions.

A religion of peace?

From CNN:

KADUNA, Nigeria -- Dozens have been killed in northern Nigeria in rioting that erupted after a newspaper suggested the Prophet Mohammad would have approved of the Miss World beauty contest.

The death toll in the town of Kaduna was an estimated 105 with a further 521 injured taken to hospital, aid workers said on Friday.

Angry mobs in the mainly-Muslim city 600 kilometres (375 miles) northwest of Lagos burnt Christian churches and rampaged through the streets stabbing, bludgeoning and burning bystanders to death.

Shops were looted, cars were overturned and scorched while makeshift barricades were set alight. Fires also burned in mosques and windows were smashed.

Shehu Sani of the Kaduna-based Civil Rights Congress told The Associated Press he watched a crowd stab a young man, force a petrol-filled tyre around his neck and burn him alive. Sani said he saw three other bodies elsewhere in the city.

I don't understand this.

I'll even grant you that all religions, at some time, have done similar atrocities. But this strikes me as beyond the pale. A newspaper remarks that the Prophet would have picked a beauty queen, and the religious fanatics go berserk in an orgy of rioting. "Orgy" is precisely the word for people who drag people from their cars and beat them to death. Who stab someone and, not content that he'll probably bleed to death, stick a gas-filled tired around his neck, light it off, and watch him burn to death. You watch people behave like this and they cease to be human. Not because of where they are. Not because of their race and ethnicity. Because of what they're doing.

And they do this was crying, "God is great!"

God is great, throw another infidel on the fire! Better than shrimp.

A religion of peace ... my ass. Religions go through phases, or so it seems, and their fundamentalist members can't adopt to the modern world. Here is an entire continent caught in the throes of the 20th century (not yet the 21st for them, really), and fundamentalist members of Islam can't hack it. Because of the inherent nature of the religion, binding itself to governing people in all aspects of their life, these members have inordinate influence. What do I mean? Islam is not just a religion, it is a method of government. Islam doesn't just rule the mosques of Saudi Arabia, it rules the country. This is the norm for Islam.

Contrast with, say, the US. It is arguable that we are a Christian nation, that many of the laws of the land (including the Constitution) are built on Christian principles. But while a priest may hold sway over his parish, he doesn't run the city (unless he's elected, of course). A bishop is not a state governor, the Pope is not President. Oh, oops, let's not forget that priest, bishop, and pope are designations of a particular flavor of Christianity. No doubt a Baptist will take offense, let alone a (gasp) Protestant. Bring on the Lutherans!

That Christian-based document, the Constitution, even has a clause that says that Christians can't run the whole show (First Amendment, separation of church and state, etc.). This would be antithecal for the Muslim world. They do not separate the two, church and state. They are one and the same.

And people riot, cry out "God is Great!" and kill hundreds.

3,000 Americans die and they cheer, clap, revel in the glory. A great victory, they say, worth of celebration. Even if I buy the argument, that they are celebrating a strike back against the Great Satan, the Oppressor of the Universe, that it's just peachy to slaughter people going about their every day lives, as opposed to military forces, I contract that with a gory battle in US history. Forgive me, but at the moment I can't remember the specific name of the battle involved, but it shouldn't be too hard to find.

World War 2, the Pacific War. The US has taken an island and the Japanese want it back. They send an invasion fleet. We hit it with all we've got and essentially blow 'em out of the water. Warships and transports, all sent to the bottom of the sea. Now the unanticipated occurs. The overwhelming majority of the Japanese landing troops survive. They're floating in the ocean. The water is warm; odds of survival are exceptionally high. Worse, for the Allies, the tide is carrying them right toward the beach they want to invade! In all likelihood, they will come ashore and the battle will be joined, precisely what sinking the Japanese fleet should have prevented.

A grim decision is reached, orders issued. For the next several hours, Navy and Army fighters and bombers strafe and bomb all those men floating helplessly in the water, killing thousands, leaving the chunks and survivors for the sharks.

I have read several accounts of this battle. Not a single one revels in it as a great victory. Not a single one cries in God's glory for the thousands slaughtered. In my mind, this was far worse than nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki, yet was equally necessary in the context of an all-out war! Accounts tell of men returning from a single strafing run and refusing to do another. No one was ordered to make any of these strikes, mind you; all had to volunteer, understanding what they were being asked to do: wholesale slaughter. Many volunteered, accepting the necessity, and perhaps heeding the classic questions regarding who will do the hard things. "If not now, when? If not me, who?" And no doubt many reveled in the blood. But there was no widespread cheering and clapping and leaping about advancing behavior, reveling not in the victory but in the slaughter!

So excuse me if I have my doubts about a "religion of peace." All religions may claim that mantle; these practioners, in Nigeria and elsewhere, make a mockery of it.

Tests, Part 2 & 3

CLAVDIVS You're not the fool everyone takes you for. You put on a show to stay under the radar. Underneath your bumbling exterior, you are a shrewd and calculating person. You don't enjoy being in the spotlight, but you can take charge if absolutely neccessary. But trust no one, not even your best friend, because you never know who might betray you. You were portrayed by Derek Jacobi.

Which I, Claudius Character are You? created by
Shiny Objects



Congratulations, you're San Francisco, the city of change.
What US city are you? Take the quiz by Girlwithagun.

Damn, I love the news!

This on MSNBC:

Iraq, facing a Friday deadline and the threat of war, accepted a tough new U.N. resolution that will return weapons inspectors to the country after nearly four years, the country’s U.N. ambassador said Wednesday. Baghdad’s approval of the resolution means inspectors should be on the ground in Iraq within a matter of days, although testing Saddam Hussein’s compliance could take months.

Damn, that makes things sound great, don't it? Only, while they report there are no conditions, Iraq tosses in their favorite kinds of conditions, qualifiers that only they can judge! And I quote from their letter:

We hereby ask you to inform the Security Council that we are prepared to receive the inspectors within the assigned timetable. The parties concerned should bear in mind that wer are in our holy month of Ramadan which means that the people are fasting, and this holy month will be followed by Muslim's Eid. [So we can stall a bit and a bit and a bit more because that's what we do, don'tcha know.] Nevertheless, we will cooperate with the concerned UN bodies and officials on the background of all this, and of the tripartite, French-Russian-China, statement. Dealing with the inspectors, the government of Iraq will, also, take into consideration, their way of conduct, the intentions of those who are ill-intentioned amongst them and their improper approach in showing respect to the people's national dignity, their independence and security, and their country's security, independence and sovereignty. [So don't send any American or British pig-boys; they are right out!] We are eager to see them perform their duties in accordance with the international law as soon as possible. If they do so, professionally and lawfully, without any premeditated intentions, the lairs' lies will be exposed to public opinion, and the declared objective of the Security Council will be achieved.

Emphasis and [snotty little bracket] comments are mine.

Just what is meant by "in accordance with international law"? Who defines if they're conduct is in compliance? Sounds like the same old qualifiers and stalls. And what would a letter from Iraq be without a little show at that bastard place, the Zionist Entity!

It will then become the lawful duty of the Security Council to lift the blockade and all other unjust sanctions on Iraq. If it does not, all the people's of good will in the world, in addition to Iraq, will tell it to do so. The SC will be compelled to before the public opinion and the law to activate paragraph 14 of its resolution No. 687, by applying it to the Zionist entity (Israel), and then, to all the Middle East region, to make it a region void of mass destruction weapons. The number of just people will, then, increase in the world, and Iraq's possibility of driving away the cawing of the crows of evil that daily raid its land, and kill Iraqis and destroy their property by their bombs. This will help the stability of the region and the world, if it is accompanied by a resolution that will not be based on double standards, to put an end to Zionist occupation of Palestine, and other occupied Arab territories, and if the warmongers stop their aggressions on the Muslims and the world.

So, get rid of Israel if you want peace from Iraq. And what "other occupied Arab territories" are they referring to?

Oh, the duplicity of diplomacy.

The Real Issue

James Q. Wilson writes about The Reform Islam Needs and asks, "The West reconciled religion and freedom. Can Muslims do the same?"

We are engaged in a struggle to defeat terrorism. I have no advice on how to win that struggle, but I have some thoughts as to why it exists. It is not, I think, because Islam is at war with the West or because Palestinians are trying to displace Israelis. The struggle exists, I think, because the West has mastered the problem of reconciling religion and freedom, while several Middle Eastern nations have not. The story of that mastery and that failure occupies several centuries of human history, in which one dominant culture, the world of Islam, was displaced by a new culture, that of the West.

This is a point I've tried to make several times, though not nearly as well as here. I tend to simply say, "They must don't like us." I don't believe there is anything the west could do to prevent Osama, Arafat, and other Islamists to "like" us, or even leave us alone in the long run. Listen to what they preach. It's not all just anti-American or anti-Israeli rhetoric, though that's all their apologists want to hear; makes things easier for them.

This "religion of peace" -- nearly implying that other religions aren't -- has its teachers saying that it's all right to rob, steal, kill, etc., from "non-believers." It rejects out of hand the entire notion of equal rights for women, as Maureen Dowd recently found out first hand.

I find it amazing that the very people who recoil in horror from Christian fundamentalists, who want them shut up and shut away, are perfectly happy listening to the rantings, mutterings, proclamations, and sheer hate speech of Islamic fundamentalists. And in my book, the Islamists make those Christian overachievers look positively liberal.

Quiz Time, Part 1

you have an ominosity quotient of seven. you are as ominous as the creators of this quiz. which terrifies us. find out your ominosity quotient.

Can it be said better?

I think not. Victor Davis Hanson chimes in on The End of an Era and almost makes one nostalgic for the 60's:

The mantras of the 1960s and 1970s were "coalition governments" and "free elections." The United States was supposed to predicate its support on representation of all spectra of views under democratic auspices, i.e., anything other that what had emerged for a time in Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam, Brazil, Greece, or Argentina. Such right-wing autocracies were corrupt, authoritarian, and murderous. In other words, like the present Palestinian Authority, they brooked no opposition, lynched or shot dissidents with or without show trials, and embezzled foreign aid. Yet today a democratic Israel — with a vociferous press, an antiwar movement, a plentitude of parties, regular elections, and a civilian-controlled military — is as demonized as Mr. Arafat is praised by Western intellectuals. Do we see protest signs that say "Support the democratic peoples of Israel in their struggle against sexist, homophobic, and fundamentalist reactionaries"?

The contradictions I read and hear every day from the left, Liberals, and Democrats (and I'm willing to separate the three out, rather than lump them into one amorphous pile of goo) get more and more hysterical. Find a web site or Blog that purports to be pro-Democratic and you read a stunning variety of whines, cries, sobs, and sheer bullshit the likes of which I've never witnessed. It's just possible that such things would have happened given the same resources during the Clinton Reign, but I doubt it.

As an example of the stimulating, intellectual debate and reaction from The Left, I give you Eschaton // Comments:

I, too, blame the American people. Sure, the Democrats are a putrid excuse for a political party, and yes, the media bias in favor of the right is hard to ignore. But in this case, it shouldn't have mattered. The last two years should have demonstrated to everyone with a pulse and a few functioning neurons how malevolent the Republican party is, how destructive their policies are, and just how much they cannot be trusted. This nation should have voted overwhelming Democratic for no other reason than to repudiate the Republican regime. Instead, millions upon millions of our fellow citizens -- and I call them that with shame -- enthusiastically decided to give these thugs total control. Fuck you, America. You deserve what you've got coming.

As pointed out by Andrea Harris.

The Day After

Such an election night. Felt more like a presidential race. I truly loved the notion that all the media outlets had to do their work the old-fashioned way. That is, analysis had to wait until they got actual vote counts, rather than exit polls. One hopes that last night will set an example for elections to come, but somehow I doubt it. Especially seeing those collapsed, sad, sorry faces on CNN, shocked (shocked, I say) at the notion that Republicans had succeeded so well.

No doubt that includes Jonathan Alter at msnbc.com, who wrote on October 30, 2002:

Even (or perhaps especially) with Republican mourners in attendance, the political message was clear: President Bush may be popular. He may have run out the clock with Iraq talk. The economy might not be cutting for Democrats as much as they hoped. But Democrats are going to bottle that Wellstone passion on Election Day. The strange thing is, it just might work for them -- and not just in Minnesota, where Walter Mondale will likely waltz into the Senate.

Well, oops for him.

And oops again, in this Tuesday blog entry:

Long story short: Just what everybody says. Republicans surge, but it doesn’t matter so much in the close races. Democrats retain the Senate by two, Republicans, the House. Dems clinch the governorships, and a bunch of conservative Southern Democrats go down, which may be a good thing, in terms of repealing that lunatic tax cut, since Daschle and company can stop worrying about those turncoats everytime someone in the party has a decent idea.

He also mentions with horror that Rush Limbaugh was going to be an analyst for NBC last night...

And congrats to the folks at CNBC for the balance, perspicacity and intellectual openness to invite the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal to be their regular political analysts. I guess the problem here is that Generalissimo Francisco Franco really is dead, and CNBC wanted the Next Best Thing.

Guess he missed ABC having Cokie Roberts and George Stephanopoulos as their only commentators, obviously their rendition of "fair and balanced."

And then there's this fair and balanced fellow:

It's like I said, I feel bad for my party, I feel bad for my friends, but if I'd been running one of these campaigns, if I'd invested a year of my life in running one of these campaigns, I'd be near suicidal right now. Instead, I'm just vaguely depressed.

"Vaguely depressed" my ass. He looked knocked out last night on TV. Poor fellow.

And more whining. Paul Begala, "Democratic analyst," says:

Take what happened in Georgia as an example. Max Cleland is an incumbent senator, I think he did do a good job in a tough state, and he ran a good campaign, and Saxby Chambliss, a Republican congressman, came in and beat him. Why? I think Max went along with Bush on the tax cut, he went along with Bush on the war with Iraq, and Bush came in here and beat his ass.

There should be a lesson there: If you vote with Bush and you're a Democrat, he's going to come into your state and beat your ass anyway.

They've been saying the same thing about Carnahan. Too bad for them. What, so Bush was supposed to come in and campaign for the Democrats? Are these people insane?

Well, yes, but that's another issue.

But the excuses just keep on coming, with Gebby whining:

"What you've got to look at is the incredible amount of special interest money that was on their side," said Mr. Gephardt, the House minority leader. "There were races where we were outspent 4 to 1, 5 to 1, the pharmaceutical companies probably spent $60 million across the country."

Lovely dodge word, "probably." Of course, Gray Davis spent more than that just fighting off the re-election challenge of an idiot. Isn't that called, "Buying the election"? Oh, sorry, that's only if it's a Republican....

It's all too funny. I would laugh except that I'm stuck with Grayout Davis as governor for another four years. I remain optimistic, however, that one day his "campaigning" will catch up with him and those happy young men and women with handcuffs will come a-knockin' at his office door. One can but hope....

Once more, pigs take flight

A report I never thought I'd see states:

"The people who carry out suicide bombings are not martyrs, they're war criminals, and so are the people who help plan such attacks," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "The scale and systematic nature of these attacks sets them apart from other abuses committed in times of conflict. They clearly fall under the category of crimes against humanity."

Aren't you stunned? This is the group which has continuously slammed Israeli actions in response to these attacks. Naturally, this report was necessary to restore to HRW some level of credibility. Equally naturally....

A Hamas political leader disagreed.

"This report is neglecting all the Arab Muslim scholars who are not recognizing these operations as a suicide. [It] is accepting the [terminology of] Israel, describing such operation as suicide operation," said Mahmoud El Zahar. "This operation is not suicide, these are martyrs."

Of course it "neglects" those "scholars," because they're idiots. Oh, I know, that's not in keeping with the spirit of debate, insulting someone, but so what? They are idiots when they make such distinctions. "He didn't kill himself, he martyred himself! Those little children were, er, ah, incidental. Yes, yes. Too bad there weren't any military targets around. Wait, wait! All Zionist pigs are military targets! All of them, even their kitty cats!"

It gets better, though:

Principles of international law require that those in authority be held accountable when people under their control commit war crimes or crimes against humanity. Leaders who order such crimes, fail to take action to prevent them or fail to punish the perpetrators are also responsible for the crimes, the group said.

[...]

The report criticized the Palestinians for arguing that Israeli actions -- like destroying P.A. [Palestinian Authority] security installations -- has undermined its ability to act.

"Even when that capacity was largely intact," the report said, "the P.A. took no effective action to bring to justice those who incited, planned, or assisted in carrying out bombings and other attacks on Israeli civilians."

The P.A. instead, the report said, often let the perpetrators back onto the streets soon afterward.

So, from this it would naturally flow that Yasser ("I am General!") Arafat will soon be facing investigation for war crimes? Yippee!

It's a beautiful day....

Say "bye bye"

It seems that someone got their walking papers:

An Emory University professor has resigned after an academic panel released a report strongly critical of his research for a widely debated book about the history of guns in America.

The professor, Michael A. Bellesiles, said in a statement that he "cannot continue to teach in what I feel is a hostile environment."

[...]

The 40-page report, released on Friday, concluded that Professor Bellesiles had been "guilty of unprofessional and misleading work."

The report, written by scholars from Harvard, Princeton and the University of Chicago, said that Mr. Bellesiles's failure to cite sources for critical data "does move into the realm of falsification." It also suggested that he had omitted other researchers' data that contradicted his arguments.

The good Professor says otherwise, of course. Ah well, good bye, Mr. Bellesiles; good riddance.

He believes he saw a pig fly

Why does Jimmy Carter continue to spout?

It is not clear if the North Koreans are bluffing, actually have a nuclear program or have yet produced any nuclear explosives. It is clear that the world community cannot permit North Korea to develop a nuclear weapons capability.

See, Carter doesn't believe he negotiated a bullshit agreement with a corrupt, lying, despotic regime. No, they are just bluffing because "the United States has assumed what the North Koreans consider a belligerent attitude toward them."

Favorite quote: "Some progress has been made between the North Koreans and both Japan and South Korea in recent months, but similar efforts by President Clinton terminated with his administration."

Again, it's Bush's fault. Everything is. All the world's ills. He's horrid, dreadful, Satan's unholy and disowned spawn. Yes, that's right, the Devil kicked out this foul creature that inhabits the White House. Just ask any Democrat, he'll tell ya!

Spare me.

Is it so hard to admit when someone lied to you, Mr. Carter (and all you others, out there in the dark; you know who I mean)? Sputtering like this must makes you look foolish, doltish...senile. If you want to oppose military action against North Korea, fine. Just stop pretending that all was just peachy right up until Clinton copped a walk. The world did not go straight to hell one half second after Bush took the oath of office.

Argh

I think there's a great deal to like about Blogger. I think there's a great deal to hate about Blogger. Like how my template ceased to function, my cute little quotes went away, and I got errors every time I tried to publish an entry. Hence, we're back to this generic template. Oh well. Real Soon Now I'll get the links entered back into place.

Come, sing along with me (to the tune of "All I Want for Christmas Are My Two Front Teeth"):

All I want for Christmas is a web domain, a web domain...

Le sigh.

I hear jokes, I do

Amazing. Start law school and out come the lawyer jokes. My two favorites to date are....

Two lawyers are stranded on a desert island. Once day, while wandering around their small domain, they come upon a beautiful blonde woman who has washed ashore. She's lying there, alive but unconscious, most of her clothes torn away. One lawyer turns to the other and says, "What do you think? Should we screw her?"

And the other asks in disdain, "Out of what?"

And then there's....

A lawyer picks up his brand new Lexus and he is as proud as proud can be. He pulls up in front of his office, and as he opens his door to get out, his Lexus is side-swiped by a speeding, passing car, completely ripped the driver's side door off! The lawyer jumps out in shock and anger. Using his cell phone, he calls 9-1-1 and frantically screams out the bare details of the accident. Within minutes, a police officer drives up. The lawyer throws down his phone and lights off on the officer, all emotion, very little thought, just thoroughly upset at what has happened to his car.

"Goddamnitalltohell, where have you been? Did you catch the guy? What are you going to do? I'm a lawyer, you know, and when I catch that bastard I'm going to -- "

The officer listens for a moment, looking the lawyer up and down, then holds up both hands. "Whoa, hold it right there." The lawyer sputters to a stop and the officer continues, "You know, you lawyers make me absolutely sick. You are so materialistic! You've been screaming about your Lexus, but did you even notice that your left arm is missing below the elbow, that your arm was probably torn off when that guy hit your car door?"

The lawyer looks down, sees the bloody stump, and his mouth goes slack in surprise just before he yells, "Ohmigod, where's my Rolex?!?"

Submitted for your amusement.

Things that make you go "hmmm"

In A Prize for Peace, Michael Kelly weighs in on Carter's freshly award Nobel Peace Prize. Just a snippet:

Name, in the past hundred years, a single important triumph for peace and for liberal democracy that was purchased by the jaw-jawing the Nobellians so admire. No rush, take your time.

Now, look at what American war-war (and the threat of American war-war) won: the defeat of the fascist attempt to rule the world; the defeat of the communist attempt to rule the world; the consequent rebuilding of a Europe protected by American arms into a democratic and peaceful continent for the first time in history; the rebuilding of an American-protected Japan into a democratic and peaceful nation for the first time in history; the emergence of a world in which, for the first time in history, the peaceful values of liberal democracy are the ascendant norm.

Kelly thinks President Bush, either version, is more worthy of the peace prize than Carter. Read the entire piece to find out why.

And the survey says...

We have now seen an example of an excellent election reform. Obviously lessons must be learned. Here they had a 100% turnout, and 100% of the vote went the expected way. A proud day for democracy, indeed.

Day OH!

Harry Belafonte says that when he compared Colin Powell to a house slave, it was nothing personal.

First of all, let me hasten to say, Larry, that this was never meant to be a personal attack on Colin Powell's character.

No doubt Harry also meant to say, "And, Larry, let me make clear that when I call you a media hack and a little squealing bitch-monkey, that's not meant to be a personal attack, but a commentary on the right-wing conspiracy that engulfs the media, and CNN in particular."

Calls a guy a house slave, a mindless drone preaching the talk of The Master, and it's not a personal attack...? Sure.

Kinda makes you wonder...

Does anyone else find this...strange?

NBC: U.S. aircraft joins sniper hunt

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has approved deployment of an Army intelligence plane to aid federal and local law enforcement in the hunt for the Washington-area sniper, who claimed his latest victim, an FBI analyst, as she loaded her car at a Virginia mall Monday night.

Sure, this is becoming a high-profile case and I understand why, unlike say Michael Moore (quoted in a report over at Ain't It Cool News as saying “forty people a day are killed by guns, why are their death any less important? Cover them every day. The sniper, as bad as it is, distracts us from the real issue.”).

But why the military hardware? Because this is the Washington Beltway? Because it is such a high-profile case? Or is there something more going on? Oh, conspiracy paranoia runs rampant....

Oh, choke

Sorry, been away for a bit. School work sucks. But let's return to the fray with Jimmy Carter wins Nobel Peace Prize! Oh, stomach jerks in reflex reaction. Ugh. The man who brought us "modern day" Iran, who helped introduce the US to double-digit inflation, who pretty invented the term malaise...oh, gag.

The best part, though, is:

Asked if the selection of the former president was a criticism of Bush, Gunnar Berge, head of the Nobel committee, said: "With the position Carter has taken on this, it can and must also be seen as criticism of the line the current U.S. administration has taken on Iraq."

The committee made reference in its citation to current world events that may see the United States take military action against Iraq.

"In a situation currently marked by threats of the use of power, Carter has stood by the principles that conflicts must as far as possible be resolved through mediation and international cooperation based on international law, respect for human rights and economic development," the Nobel Committee said.

So a prize named for a man whose primary invention has probably killed more people than any other in history is now making a political statement for appeasement, for allowing despots and dictators to run free. Jolly.

There are times...

...when I could just hug John Dvorak, especially when he writes One Buck Forty or Die:

The U.S. government should not be corrupted by the Recording Industry Association of America and should instead do more about price fixing. And let's stop lecturing people about legality and morality. Students in particular are not moral reprobates, nor are they fools. They are pragmatists, and they stretch the rules along with their budgets. This is a crowd that worships the fake ID and is taught to question authority. So you're going to lecture them about copyrights? Give up. Rethink your business model. The problem will be solved.

Oh, it is good.

If this is genocide....

Milosevic faces genocide charge

U.N. prosecutors opened their genocide case against Slobodan Milosevic Thursday, vowing to prove that he played a leading role in the worst crimes in Europe since World War II. The former Yugoslav president scoffed at the charge, saying his regime had helped "achieve peace, not war" in the Balkans.

[...]

Lead trial prosecutor Geoffrey Nice said the coordinated destruction of villages and systematic murder of civilians in Bosnia will be traced back to the Bosnian Serb leadership, and ultimately, Milosevic.

So if this guy committed genocide, what has Saddam done in Iraq? Where is his "arrest warrant" from this UN Tribunal? What is the difference?

“The accused intended to destroy the Bosnian Muslim population in part or in whole in order to achieve those aims,” Nice said.

Oh, I see. If a non-Muslim kills Muslims, it's genocide. If a Muslim kills Muslims, a la Saddam, it's called...what?

Signs of repression

Jan Herman, in his MSNBC blog The Juice, notes:

Here's a twist. The American Library Association has many fewer book bannings to report than ever. Last year only 20 to 25 books were dropped from school reading lists or libraries, according to The Associated Press.

And I thought Bush was running such a repressive regime....

(PS - I don't know how valid the link to Herman's column is, as there is no "permanent link." This is noted as his Sept. 25, 2002 / 10:30 a.m. ET entry.)

Goring, Goring, gone!

We begin today with Michael Kelly taking apart Al Gore for his speech before the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco:

This speech, an attack on the Bush policy on Iraq, was Gore's big effort to distinguish himself from the Democratic pack in advance of another possible presidential run. It served: It distinguished Gore, now and forever, as someone who cannot be considered a responsible aspirant to power. Politics are allowed in politics, but there are limits, and there is a pale, and Gore has now shown himself to be ignorant of those limits, and he has now placed himself beyond that pale.

Then there's yesterday's Best of the Web, wherein James Taranto wonders if an android has replaced AlGore, given the change in his stance about Saddam and Iraq:

So who's this impostor, claiming to be Gore, who delivered a speech yesterday at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, in which he delivered what the Associated Press calls "a sweeping indictment of President Bush's threatened attack on Iraq, calling it a distraction from the war on terrorism that has 'squandered' international support for the United States."

It appears Saddam Hussein has unleashed a new weapon of mass distraction on America, a Gore-like android so realistic it is every bit as lifeless as the real thing.

Taranto links to previous speeches by Gore that talks directly of the US taking action to topple Saddam, and contrasts that with the Commonwealth speech where in says that would be a Very Bad Thing.

All together now: Thank god Gore lost the election.

Oh, academic freedom, where art thou?

Dahlia Lithwick gives a lesson in Free Speech 101, which does not speak well of how colleges, those bastions of higher learning, deal with "free speech":

These firings and suspensions were not initiated by the government, and consequently they don’t implicate the First Amendment. They threaten a broader democratic ideal of free speech: the long-cherished belief that words don’t hurt but censorship does. Call it patriotism or call it “academic sensitivity,” but censorship is still censorship, even when it’s invoked to shore up some gauzy dream that universities are a Technicolor rainbow of love and tolerance.

And they complain about Bush....

Neolibertarian News Portal

Ah, labor

Study Boosts Case for Flex Time

Researchers at the University of Stirling in Scotland found that employees on an annual hours contract in the United Kingdom earn a 13 percent higher hourly wage than weekly workers. The most compelling employer perk is a 50 percent reduction in overtime.

But unfortunately for Americans who get paid by the hour, this fabulous-sounding arrangement is illegal in the United States. It flies in the face of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which says only salaried workers can work on an annual hours contract.

Meanwhile, Paul Harvey reports this morning (via the radio) that a US labor union is seeking to cut costs for the construction of their new headquarters...by hiring non-union laborers. Gads, I wish I could find that story!

It was a bad choice

This link is to Yahoo's "full coverage" page of the story, with assorted links showing the history of things.

These are few people more remorseful than a mother who gets caught beating the beejeezus out of her kids. The remorse always comes after they get caught, though. This lady remained at large for over a week after the -- and let's be delicate here -- incident. TV news this morning (NBC) reported that she claimed she wasn't "on the run" or evading the police; she was just waiting for the arrest warrant.

Of course, that ignores all the news stories of "police seek mother for questioning." To heck with that, I supposed.

And of course you'd have to ignore that she died her hair after the "incident." Probably just a coincidence.

And you'd have to ignore the criminal history, though in all fairness it's for theft and fraud, not child abuse.

Still, my favorite quote is from her own lips:

"I'm being punished, there is nothing worse that could happen to me right now."

What's the punishment she's referring to? Her daughter being in protective custody, one imagines, though the story doesn't make that clear.

Er, about that recession...

Joseph Stiglitz, chairman of Bill Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers, winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics, writes:

It would be nice for us veterans of the Clinton Administration if we could simply blame mismanagement by President George W. Bush's economic team for this seemingly sudden turnaround in the economy, which coincided so closely with its taking charge. But although there has been mismanagement, and it has made matters worse, the economy was slipping into recession even before Bush took office, and the corporate scandals that are rocking America began much earlier.

Do people still blame economic problems on Bush? Well, of course! Silly!

On Wi-Fi

Wired 10.10: Being Wireless

But 802.11 systems — now available in a variety of flavors, including 802.11b, widely known as Wi-Fi — do not stop at the walls of your home. Depending on the intervening materials, a vanilla Wi-Fi can radiate more than 1,000 feet. Since I live in a high-density area, my system reaches perhaps 100 neighbors. I do not know how many use it (totally free) — frankly, I do not care. I pay a fixed fee and am happy to share.

Because further down the street, beyond the reach of my system, another neighbor has put in Wi-Fi. And another, and another. Think of a pond with one water lily, then two, then four, then many overlapping, with their stems reaching into the Internet. (Credit for the water lily analogy goes to Alessandro Ovi, technology adviser to European Commission president Romano Prodi.)

Look at the numbers: 3G, in its most generous projections, will deliver data speeds of 1 megabit per second — in two years. Today, Wi-Fi commonly provides 11 megabits, offering up to 54 megabits. Which standard do you think will be adopted?

I added a Wi-Fi access point to my home P2P LAN and everything worked right out of the box. The possibilities are liberating. I take my laptop to bed, to the garage, to the backyard...pretty much anywhere I care to work. Build a new desktop PC, add a Wi-Fi NIC, and it goes anywhere there's power. Wireless printing, etc. Meanwhile, the wireless NIC I purchased for my laptop works at school....

Back at home, I let my neighbor in and, voila, broadband for the neighborhood. That's the model Nicholas Negroponte discusses in this article. Frankly, I find it exciting.

Stating the obvious

Sasha Castel pointed out this UPI article which contains this lovely quote:

"When the Europeans demand some sort of veto over American actions, or want us to subordinate our national interest to a UN mandate, they forget that we do not think their track record is too good," a senior U.S. diplomat said recently in private. "The Europeans told us they could win the Balkans wars all on their own. Wrong. They told us that the Russians would never accept National Missile Defense. Wrong. They said the Russians would never swallow NATO enlargement. Wrong. They told us 20 years ago that détente was the way to deal with what we foolishly called the Evil Empire. Wrong again. They complain about our Farm Bill when they are the world's biggest subsidizers of their agriculture. The Europeans are not just wrong; they are also hypocrites. They are wrong on Kyoto, wrong on Arafat, wrong on Iraq -- so why should we take seriously a single word they say?"

Which reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend last week, on what would happen if (when) we go into Iraq. His contention was that we couldn't win, that we'd be stuck there for years, that "those people have been fighting for a thousand years."

Fine, said I, but bear in mind that for over a decade, no one has accurately predicted how the US military would behave in a fight. The little actions aside, such as Somalia, look at the larger actions. Gulf War of '91, everyone said we'd get creamed. Saddam's Republican Guard were combat-hardened, experienced desert fighters. Thousands of casualties, years of struggle, the futility of war!

Result: Exceptionally low Allied casualties, Iraq booted solidly out of Kuwait, all done in record time.

Now, Afghanistan: the horrid winter, the trained, experienced, hardened, etc., mountain fighters of the Taliban. They'd slaughter us in those mountains. Bloodbath. Horror! Years of continuous fighting.

Result: Taliban go bye-bye, US casualties that you can count on your hands. We will be there for years, but that's because it'll probably take a decade or so to build up an infrastructure, economy, and a new national government. Skirmishes here and there, certainly, but nothing like what was predicted.

And so it goes. When I hear descriptions of a long, bloody struggle in Iraq if (when) we attack, I am reminded of those who complained long and hard that the US military was always preparing to fight yesterday's battles, rather than tomorrow's. Then I see how we perform in actual combat, and realize that Those In Charge have taken that warning -- and lesson -- to heart. The protestors have not. In short, they have no idea how we'll hit Iraq. Neither does Saddam. And that's the key.

McGeorge

I have completed my fourth week of law school. I now completely understand the tagline for "Who's Harry Crumb": Nerves of steel. Body of iron. Brain of stone.

I am convinced that I have a brain of stone.

Contracts is relatively easy, thus avoiding the entire "Paper Chase" scenario (tagline = "You have to choose between the girl you love and the diploma you've worked for all your life. You have 30 seconds."). Unfortunately, in my world Mr. Kingsfield teaches Torts. He's much more polite and humorous, but the assault is much the same. I believe they call it the Socratic method of instruction. It feels more like the Inquisition. I swear, first time that Gatling gun of questioning was turned on me I turned into Porky Pig: "Ah bu duh blb guh."

Wonderful impression.

Ah, but it is a challenge, is it not? And at the other end I'll be rich and famous and a total puddle of goo. The only thing that cheers me up are the looks of total panic on the other 110 faces in class. Ha, I am not alone!

Miller's Crossing

All right, a confession. I have enjoyed every single Coen Brothers film I have seen, but none more so than Miller's Crossing. I found a video tape of this for sale in a grocery store around six years ago. Someone borrowed the tape and it wasn't until this weekend that my order for a replacement came in (after a two week wait; no, it doesn't take half a decade to get a copy!).

Oh my, what a joy to watch it again. Is this the Coens best film? No, I'm sure that's yet to come. But I think it's better than, say, "Fargo." I can watch it repeatedly, back to back, and not get bored. Two other Coen films are close, "Raising Arizona" and "O Brother, Where Art Thou." But both take a backseat to "Miller's Crossing." Not by much, but enough.

There is not a wasted frame. Virtually every word is important. At just under two hours, this is a lean film. Again, nothing is wasted, from the moment three ice cubes hit the glass, to a hard look from an up-tilting head it's all glory. Yet at its core it seems like such a simple plot. Sure. Much like any other Coen film.

Please, check it out. Demand a DVD, because I'm sure I'll wear out this tape before I loan it. All the other Coen films I have are on DVD, and the few I don't have are also on DVD. "Miller's Crossing," for mysterious reasons, isn't. In fact, a check of the Internet Movie Database shows that "Miller's Crossing" is the only Coen film not on DVD, damnit (except for some strange thing called "Crimewave," which I've never even heard of; ah, they only wrote that one).

Ah well, there's always next year, with "Intolerable Cruelty"!

Egads!

Mark Helprin writes that Bush 43 has failed the test of September 11:

We fought for a year to save Saudi Arabia from Saddam Hussein. Why will Saudi Arabia, if it is not an enemy, not allow us the same bases from which we protected it, to protect ourselves? What relationship with them, exactly, do we wish to preserve? They are used to buying whatever they need, and over many years they have bought us in many ways. Immediately after Sept. 11, they dropped oil prices. This was more than anti-invasion insurance, it was blood money...

Strong language, much of which I'm included to agree with. Someone coined the phrase, but I forget who (Instapundit? Best of Web?):
The road to Baghdad is through Riyahd.

There is no going back

Victor Davis Hanson writes of The Wages of September 11. Best of the Web noted this article, and exerpted a great quote comparing Europeans to "blinkered Hobbits." The next paragraph maintains the beat:

America learned that "moderate" Arab countries are as dangerous as hostile Islamic nations. After September 11, being a Saudi, Egyptian, or Kuwaiti means nothing special to an American -- at least not proof of being any more friendly or hostile than having Libyan, Syrian, or Lebanese citizenship. Indeed, our entire postwar policy of propping up autocracies on the triad of their anticommunism, oil, and arms purchases -- like NATO -- belongs to a pre-9/11 age of Soviet aggrandizement and petroleum monopolies. Now we learn that broadcasting state-sponsored hatred of Israel and the United States is just as deadly to our interests as scud missiles -- and as likely to come from friends as enemies. Worst-case scenarios like Iran and Afghanistan offer more long-term hope than "stable regimes" like the Saudis; governments that hate us have populations that like us -- and vice versa; the Saudi royal family, whom 5,000 American troops protect, and the Mubarak autocracy, which has snagged billions of American dollars, are as afraid of democratic reformers as they are Islamic fundamentalists. And with good reason: Islamic governments in Iran and under the Taliban were as hated by the masses as Arab secular reformers in exile in the West are praised and championed.

Good stuff.

9/11

I was going to write up something fancy, take my time, edit, cut paste, link, etc., and decided in the end to just sit and type this all spontaneously. Across the nation, people are holding memorials, rememberances, etc. My office is roughly 90% empty as most of the staff is either 1) on patrol, activated because Governor Davis has decided that California must be on a higher state of alert than the rest of the nation (after all, he might say -- has said -- "All Those Planes Were Coming Here"), and 2) they're down by the Capitol, at Sacramento's big memorial. So, it's quiet, a stark contrast to one year ago today.

One year ago, I was just waking up and clicked on the television to check weather and traffic. Only they were reporting that one of the towers of the World Trade Center was on fire. I sat up in bed and thought, No way! High-rise fires are horrific things, and it's staggering to imagine trying to fight one in so tall a building. I changed channels over to Fox News. Sure enough, there's a burning tower, waaaaay up there, too. Annette was already up and drying her hair, so I told her what was going on. She came in, watched for a bit, and went back to her morning prep work.

They were already reporting that witnesses saw a "large aircraft" hit the tower. There was some clown on with the reporter, saying how this could all be an accident, that the sun was rising, glare off the buildings, lots of traffic, blah blah BOOM!

The Fox News camera was a little too zoomed in. What I saw via this live broadcast was an enormous fireball rising up into the screen. The cameraman zoomed out and now you could see the true magnitude of what had just happened, that something had happened to the second Tower. I jumped to CNN, which in a few moments replayed what they had just recorded. Their camera hadn't been as tight on the first tower, so you could clearly see the approaching 767, watch it disappear behind the towers, see the horrific explosion, and I said out loud, "Accident my ass!"

When I was buying my morning Starbuck's mocha, the first tower fell, and it hit me hard that the world had become a different place. By the time I got to work, the second tower was gone, and not a lot of regular work got done that day. Often, the words of someone else sums up best what you feel, think, or even say. This time, I followed a link to Leonard Pitts, Jr., of the Miami Herald, who wrote:

You monster. You beast. You unspeakable bastard.

The paper says it's around 700 words in length, and stands as a better speech than most of those delivered by Our Leaders. It would be magnificent to hear it read today, rather than someone trotting out the Gettysburg Address (as appropriate as it might be).

This morning, in front of the restored Pentagon, President Bush pointed out that within a week, men and women within the damaged Pentagon planned the United States' response to attacks of 9/11. That within one year we had hit back and liberated a country from oppression. What more fitting memorial can there be? What more need be said, other than we shall continue to pursue our enemies?

This morning, during my commute, NPR cut away from the Pentagon speeches to one being given in Pennsylvania by the widow of pilot Jason Dahl, who was flying United Flight 93. She attributed to Martin Luther King the famous Nietzche quote, "That which does not destroy us makes us stronger." Maybe King said it too, but it sounded strange. Her point was dead on, though; we're not destroyed, we're stronger.

What I find incomprehensible are those who oppose our actions. Osama bin Laden, Yasser Arafat, Saddam Hussein, the entire Family Al-Saud, et al, are the oppressors of the world. They are some of the worst despots of the world...yet we're not supposed to touch them. The Ted Ralls of the world tell us that when a terrorist speaks, we should pay attention and take them at their word, yet when we do and try to act to prevent terrorists from carrying out their threats, we are evil incarnate.

Insane.

We support the only Democratic country in the Middle East (i.e., Israel), and are told that is a Bad Thing. What we need to do is support the creation of another despotic, dictatorial welfare state (i.e., Arafat's Palestine). That will make things better, not throwing out the existing despots. Eek, mustn't do that. Might destabilize the region, you know.

Insane.

I'm getting a little peeved now, so I think I'll wind down. Music of the moment is the John Williams score for "Saving Private Ryan," especially track #1, "Hymn to the Fallen," music that would be perfectly appropriate at any of the numerous memorials being held across the country and around the world. I'll leave you today with the words of Tony Blair, Prime Minister of Great Britain, from October of last year:

So I believe this is a fight for freedom. And I want to make it a fight for justice, too. Justice not only to punish the guilty. But justice to bring those same values of democracy and freedom to people around the world.

And I mean: freedom, not only in the narrow sense of personal liberty but in the broader sense of each individual having the economic and social freedom to develop their potential to the full. That is what community means, founded on the equal worth of all.

The starving, the wretched, the dispossessed, the ignorant, those living in want and squalor from the deserts of Northern Africa to the slums of Gaza, to the mountain ranges of Afghanistan: they too are our cause.

This is a moment to seize. The Kaleidoscope has been shaken. The pieces are in flux. Soon they will settle again. Before they do, let us re-order this world around us.

Today, humankind has the science and technology to destroy itself or to provide prosperity to all. Yet science can't make that choice for us. Only the moral power of a world acting as a community, can.

"By the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more together than we can alone".

For those people who lost their lives on September 11 and those that mourn them; now is the time for the strength to build that community. Let that be their memorial.

Amen to that.

More on Iraq flip-flops

This keeps getting pounded on in Conservative media (notably Rush Limbaugh), and I'd love to have some pundit in the media simply ask one of these fellows: What's changed that makes Saddam less of a threat today than he was in 1998?

Democrats Supported War on Irag in 1998

Democrats are expressing reluctance and sometimes outright opposition to President Bush's plans for action against Iraq, even though they were on board with former President Clinton's plans to attack the rogue nation four years ago.

So, what changed...other than who's in the White House?

Lives spared

Water issue was Problem #1. Thus, the boy may live, thus I may live. Carpet is still wet. Ugh.

Osama speaks

With luck, he's coming to us from the grave. In any case, there's: Bin Laden tape praises hijackers - September 9, 2002

"There aren't enough words to describe how great these men were and how great their deeds were," bin Laden said in an audiotape message played Monday by the Qatar-based, Arabic-language television news network Al-Jazeera.

Just let's remember that this is what they did.

It's 1:30AM; why aren't I sleeping?

Well, because either 1) I have a serious problem with a toilet I just installed a month ago, or 2) I have a young male teen who can't close a shower curtain. One or the other. If #2, there may be mayhem when the sun rises. We've had this, er, issue before, and he tends to not tell when Things Go Wrong. Like an inch of standing water in the bathroom. Which, over the next hour or so, leeches into the hall carpet. Around ten feet of it, three feet wide, making around 30 square feet of carpet and pad. Soaked. Nice and wet. Squishy to walk on. Ick!

I'm waiting for the towels to dry. Sop up what I can, get a carpet cleaner tomorrow and s-u-c-k the water out. Hopefully before mold sets in. Should be doable, I've been in this sort of mess before.

But I want the cause to be #1, because I can turn off the water and try and figure out a cure.

If #2...damnit, I don't want to be a resident at San Quentin....

(Please, just kidding. I'd never see the inside of The Q, his mom would kill me.)

Meanwhile, the inconsistent

Color me confused (my, what a lovely shade), but I read this bit from Billy:

Former President Bill Clinton urged the Bush administration Thursday to finish the job with Osama bin Laden before taking on Iraq.

"Saddam Hussein didn't kill 3,100 people on Sept. 11," Clinton said. "Osama bin Laden did, and as far as we know he's still alive."

[...]

"I also believe we might do more good for American security in the short run at far less cost by beefing up our efforts in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere to [flush] out the entire network," Clinton said.

Clinton said he supported President Bush's efforts in Afghanistan, including military actions and support of the Afghan government.

--ex-President Bill Clinton, 2002

...so I felt the urge to surf (as I'm sure so many others already have) and find from the Google cache, there's the Text Of Clinton Statement On Iraq - February 17, 1998:

We have to defend our future from these predators of the 21st century. They feed on the free flow of information and technology. They actually take advantage of the freer movement of people, information and ideas.

And they will be all the more lethal if we allow them to build arsenals of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them. We simply cannot allow that to happen.

There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein's Iraq. His regime threatens the safety of his people, the stability of his region and the security of all the rest of us.

[...]

Now, let's imagine the future. What if he fails to comply, and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third route which gives him yet more opportunities to develop this program of weapons of mass destruction and continue to press for the release of the sanctions and continue to ignore the solemn commitments that he made?

Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction.

And some day, some way, I guarantee you, he'll use the arsenal. And I think every one of you who's really worked on this for any length of time believes that, too.

[...]

Now, let me say to all of you here as all of you know the weightiest decision any president ever has to make is to send our troops into harm's way. And force can never be the first answer. But sometimes, it's the only answer.

You are the best prepared, best equipped, best trained fighting force in the world. And should it prove necessary for me to exercise the option of force, your commanders will do everything they can to protect the safety of all the men and women under their command.

No military action, however, is risk-free. I know that the people we may call upon in uniform are ready. The American people have to be ready as well.

[...]

In the next century, the community of nations may see more and more the very kind of threat Iraq poses now a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction ready to use them or provide them to terrorists, drug traffickers or organized criminals who travel the world among us unnoticed.

If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow by the knowledge that they can act with impunity, even in the face of a clear message from the United Nations Security Council and clear evidence of a weapons of mass destruction program.

But if we act as one, we can safeguard our interests and send a clear message to every would-be tyrant and terrorist that the international community does have the wisdom and the will and the way to protect peace and security in a new era. That is the future I ask you all to imagine. That is the future I ask our allies to imagine.

If we look at the past and imagine that future, we will act as one together. And we still have, God willing, a chance to find a diplomatic resolution to this, and if not, God willing, the chance to do the right thing for our children and grandchildren.

Thank you very much.

--ex-President Bill Clinton, February 1998

The actual text/article should be at CNN All Politics but it wasn't responding when I clicked the link. Meanwhile, you might also read:

Iraq Special Report

"A failure to respond could embolden Saddam to act recklessly, signaling to him that he can, with impunity, develop these weapons of mass destruction or threaten his neighbors," the president said. ". . . And it would permanently damage the credibility of the United Nations Security Council to act as a force for promoting international peace and security.

--ex-President Bill Clinton, 11/12/1998

(All emphasis mine.)

So I'm compelled to ask, aside from Bill no longer being president, what's changed? Saddam, without complying to a single UN demand, is suddenly no longer a threat? To anyone?

And for what it's worth, there were also a lot of people rabidly opposed to Clinton doing anything about Iraq.

Open your eyes....

London to host Islamic 'celebration' of Sept 11

Extremist muslim clerics will meet in London on September 11 to celebrate the anniversary of al-Qaeda's attacks on America and to launch an organisation for Islamic militants.

The conference, which will be attended by the most radical mullahs in Britain, will argue that the atrocities were justified because Muslims must defend themselves against armed aggression.

It will launch the Islamic Council of Britain (ICB), which will aim to implement sharia law in Britain and will welcome al-Qa'eda sympathisers as members.

It is not necessary to fabricate inflammatory rhetoric for Islamists (or, if you prefer, Islamofascists); they provide the best stuff themselves.

Hey, they're consistent!

After the bombing of Iraq, danger grows of a US ground assault

Washington's assertion of its right to take unilateral military action to support its global interests has further inflamed international relations. The mounting resentment of many US "allies" was indicated by Paul Quiles, former French defense minister and current chairman of the French National Assembly's defense committee. Quiles denounced the US for playing "world policeman" by attacking Iraq without UN approval. He charged that Washington was deliberately weakening the authority of the UN as part of a strategy "to turn NATO into a military organization with wider aims."

Oh, sorry, forgot the date. That's from December 1998. Seems some people are truly stuck in a rut!

Enough already?

I popped to this column on a referal from Instapundit. Jill Stewart writes:

Let me be among the too-few columnists in this self-absorbed, egocentric, materialistic, pleasure-obsessed, jingoistic country of ours to cry out into the great mindless void that no, in fact, we have not changed in the year since September 11.

Moreover, since I feel so much better getting that off my chest, let me add that I am achingly weary of seeing Americans treat the tragedy as if it outstrips every other contemporary tragedy in our world, and I am irked beyond belief that the victims of September 11 and their survivors are treated with a holy sanctity not afforded to other victims and other survivors of man's horrific actions against mankind.

She's annoyed that people are still grieving. She finds this appalling. I agree with her on the demonstrated greed of some people, but I also know that some people actually show grief that way; they want something for their loss, damnit.

But if you read the second paragraph you'll see that she's in that same "trajedy" loops that Krauthammer was writing about. Suffice to say that I agree; 9/11 wasn't a trajedy, it was an attack. The earthquake in India was a trajedy. It does not equate to what happened September, 2001.

On how to "remember" 9/11

Charles Krauthammer on Remembrance and Resolve:

But we would pay such homage had the World Trade Center and the Pentagon collapsed in an earthquake. They did not. And because they did not, more is required than mere homage and respect. Not just sorrow, but renewed anger. Not just consolation, but renewed determination. And not, God help us, "closure," that clarion call to passivity and resignation, but open-ended action against those who perpetrated Sept. 11 and those who would perpetrate the next Sept. 11.

The temptation on any anniversary is to just look back. But on Dec. 7, 1942, the country did not just look back on the sunken Arizona. It looked forward to the destruction of Japan.

He writes that we, as a nation, have a pacifist nature. Proof? It took three years for US to enter World War 1; a surprise attack drove us into WW2, which had already been raging in Europe close to two years. Consider that if Saddam hadn't invaded Kuwait, and if we had resisted bombing Kosovo, today we would be celebrating close to thirty years of peace (absent 9/11/01, that is).

A good read.

Clarity from Berkeley

The true explanation of September 11 has been found:

Oliver Poole reports from Berkeley, California, the counter-culture centre of America, on some offbeat analyses of what really happened on September 11.

"After Flight 93 came down in Pennsylvania, they saw a craft buzzing around. Now what was that? All earth air traffic had been grounded. And in the World Trade Centre, where are all the bodies? They were transported out first to be experimented on. Listen to me now, September 11 was all caused by aliens."

But of course.

As an aside, Berkeley was where, for the first time, a, er, street resident came up to me, saw my camera, and said, "You can take my picture if you gimme five bucks."

Beware, idiots walk the Earth

As referenced by Best of the Web and mentioned on Rush Limbaugh's Open Line Friday show, Jimmy Carter speaks:

The Troubling New Face of America

Formerly admired almost universally as the preeminent champion of human rights, our country has become the foremost target of respected international organizations concerned about these basic principles of democratic life.

Hey, didn't Carter once run for President?

Oh, that's right. He was president. The USSR invaded Afghanistan, I'm sure he spoke harshly at them. Iranians rose up and overthrew a despot, and put in his place a despotic regime, which in turn abducted a group of Americans and held them hostage; Carter used strong language...oh, and tried to micro-manage a flop of a rescue mission (remember Desert One?). The country slipped into malaise and we had double-digit inflation. Jimmy, with brother Billy, just said we had to get used to the fact that we would have to make do with less. And he brokered MidEast peace plans which have, by and large, completely fallen apart; he lectures endlessly.

Oops. I guess he's just not very good at actually doing something.

So, obviously, he's the one to listen to. Uh-huh.

For those seeking immortality

French Mayor Bans Residents from Dying

LE LAVANDOU, France (Reuters) - The mayor of a French Mediterranean town, faced with a cemetery "full to bursting," has banned local residents from dying until he can find somewhere else to bury them.

Obviously, we all must move to that town. At last, government doing something useful!

The wonders of NPR

So I'm driving into work today, listening to the local National Public Radio (NPR) station. Yes, yes, I know, I should have known better, but while I detest their news coverage (for reasons that will become apparent), I like their little profile stories. Such as the one this morning about bull frogs taking over desert lands in the southwest. Fascinating stuff. Really.

In any event, at around 7:30AM I'm listening to the news. The bad part of NPR. Ugh. And they speak a reason why I detest their news. Seems someone tried to assassinate Afghanistan President Karzai (link to MS-NBC story, NPR doesn't post their stories). What's remarkable, in my mind, about the NPR report was the wording. Someone tries to shoot Karzai and "several people were injured when his American guards returned fire."

The entire tone, the entire way it was presented, was as though the only reason anyone was hurt was because those damn, vicious American lap-dog bastards defended themselves and the person they were responsible for. How freakin' dare they!

Then there was the story about that enormous car bomb found in Israel, coming out of the West Bank and headed for who knows where. The television news story I saw when I woke up said the car's driver and passenger ran away, but were caught. NPR says they got away. Which is it? Of course, this is the nature of reporting and trying to figure out who has a story that's closest to reality. CNN's story, for instance, doesn't say one way or the other.

Last (thankfully) was the NPR report on how the Arab world is opposed to the US taking any military action against Iraq, because the real problem in the region is the Palestinian issue and those evil Jews in Israel. Darn. Typical story, everything is our fault, because Israel is another one of our lap-dogs. Why do these people insist on condemning the one democratic government in the region, and giving all the despots a pass? If the Palestinians are so desperate -- and I don't doubt that they are -- why don't some of those despotic regimes kick some money? The Saudi prince who recently visited President Bush, what was his travel budget, something like $80+ million per day? (Damnit, can't find the link yet.) I bet the Palestinians could use a few days worth of the travel budget.

Ah well. Obviously, however, I need to listen to the news from somewhere other than NPR. Lovely little stories, though....

Ted Nugent to Lance Bass

Oh, the sage advice of elders:

"[Lance] Bass needs to quit worrying about going into outer space and embrace and celebrate life by learning how to kill his own food," [Ted] Nugent said Tuesday. "A slab of flesh on the back of a deer is the finest source of protein on the planet."

But Ted, can't we do both?

(And, damn, it's been too long since my last slab of venison.)

Maybe at least a pretense of impartiality

In today's Sacramento Bee, an editorial on the recently-passed state budget, at the end of which the (anonymous) author writes:

So last Saturday the Assembly ended up, as is so often the case with the two-thirds rule, passing a lowest common dominator budget, one that neither cuts spending nor raises taxes. It pretends to cut spending and pretends to raise revenue, but in fact it pushes off the crisis into next year, when the state is likely to face another shortfall of at least $15 billion.

That's a far worse result than Davis' budget proposal in May or than the budget approved by the state Senate in late June. Indeed, it's not much better than having no budget at all. But as long as California keeps the two-thirds rule, and as long as legislative Republicans regard ideological purity on taxes as more important than governing, the state can't expect much better.

So, all right, it's not a great budget. It's plain as day that the Bee is supporting their candidate for gov, namely Guv Grayout, master of the power crisis ("Honey, where'd the lights go?"); never mind that part of his "small" tax increases would have raised my automobile registration fees to nose-bleed levels...and that on my motorcycle.

But nice shot at the Republicans who stood at least attempted to stand on principle, versus The Other Side that stood by more and more spending, and "Let's buy that damn electorate!"

My state is in a handbasket, headed for a warm place.

PS - What in the hell is a "lowest common dominator budget"? I don't remember that term in public admin class.

Ugh

9/11: ‘American Idol’ seizes the day

So, apparently whoever wins the "American Idol" contest will now sing at the Lincoln Memorial during the 9/11 rememberance ceremonies next week.

This fabulous promotional stunt is the brainchild of Champions of Hope, a D.C.-based group “dedicated to improving the lives of young people” by getting them to participate in community service. Champions of Hope, looking to drum up publicity for the Sept. 11 launch of its United Day of Service campaign, secured permission to stage an event at the Lincoln Memorial and pursued the “American Idol” producers.

Aggressively.

Part of me says, "Hey, what the heck. What can it hurt?" After all, the "winner" is -- up to this point -- just another wannabe in the bunch.

On the other hand, it just reeks of a promotional during what should be a solemn rememberance (as if). And, in fact, that's what it is, given the statements by "Champions of Hope."

Still, makes me queasy.

Just Like a Pill

I may have to start listening to more Pink:

Run just as fast as I can
To the middle of nowhere
To the middle of my frustrated fears
And I swear you're just like a pill
Instead of makin' me better, you keep makin' me ill
You keep makin' me ill

From "Just Like a Pill."

Does this describe US/Europe relations?

And the survey says...

Get stuffed!

Survey: Europeans Say U.S. Partly to Blame for 9/11

Most Europeans believe America itself is partly to blame for the devastating attacks on New York and Washington last September 11.

According to a new poll, which questioned more than 9,000 Europeans and Americans about how they look at the world one year after the attacks, 55 percent of Europeans think U.S. foreign policy contributed to the tragic events.

The highest percentage of those who thought Washington should blame itself for the attacks was in France, at 63 percent, while the lowest was in Italy, at 51 percent.

This from the people who believe that the death of Diana is the most significant historical event in the last hundred years. Oh, all right, that's just a Brit survey, but see the point. These ninnies believe that the death of a gossip story queen was of greater historical significance than two world wars, or anything else.

Thus, their opinion of our "responsibility" re 9/11 is, ahem, excusable.

Warning, Horrible Joke: Microsoft will apparently name their next operating system Windows Diana, because it is superficially beautiful, actually does very little, and crashes spectacularly.

(Stop that groaning, you were warned.)

Let's talk

Because these people believe in the open and free exchange of ideas and information....

Powell Booed and Jeered at Global Environment Meeting

Jeers, boos and shouted protests interrupted Secretary of State Colin L. Powell today as he defended the United States' record on the environment and help for the poor at the World Summit on Sustainable Development.

Delegates from American and Australian environmental groups repeatedly interrupted him, shouting "Shame on Bush!" Some held up banners reading, "Betrayed by governments" and "Bush: People and Planet, Not Big Business."

It must be nice to be so smug and secure in your position that you don't and won't tolerate any dissent. Bear in mind that in this forum, Powell represented dissent, and this yahoos couldn't tolerate the notion. Lovely people, truly.

Good Morning Afghanistan

This story is just too cool:

On the Radio, Afghans Call Nation to a New Day

In a country where commuters are likely to travel by donkey cart and where many walk long distances for water, a breakfast radio show calls for something of a cultural leap.

Much like the helicopter-borne American troops who clatter across the skies in their hunt for the remnants of Qaeda and Taliban forces, "Good Morning Afghanistan" is a graft from the distant world that has intruded on life here since Sept. 11.

Yet few changes have been more popular, with city dwellers and villagers alike listening in numbers that have stunned the young crew running the program from a dusty studio in Kabul, the capital.

And one of the top radio personalities is a woman, doing a job that a short while ago probably would have gotten her brains blown out.

Remember, though, we've done nothing to improve life in Afghanistan. Uh-huh, sure.

Suddenly, a rant was seen

I could be wrong, but I think Andrea is having a rant. A jolly good one, too.

Compromises

Den Beste writes a marvelous blog entry about the necessary compromises that go into engineering projects:

Actually, there are a lot of other tradeoffs going on which are less evident, like tailoring the feature set of the project to the design team available, and making plans based on the kinds of components which are readily available. All engineering is a tradeoff.

Run any single one of those parameters to the rail and you make it impossible to complete. It's as simple as that. Define "affordable" as "free" and it can't be done. ("Paid for by someone else" isn't the same as "free".)

Define "acceptable delivery " as "five minutes from now" and you'll be disappointed. Define "safe" as "impossible for there to be any kind of failure" and the engineering process won't ever end.

He writes about the "failures" of the World Trade Center in terms of lives saved, and thus questions if they were failures at all. Consider that if the buildings had truly failed, there could have been more than 50,000 people killed. Fact is that they stood long enough for the overwhelming majority of people to evacuate.

You see symptoms of this every where. Any degree of failure is ranked as an overall failure. Unemployment is, what, around 5% right now, but it's unimportant that that means 95% of eligible people are working. 5% aren't, the system has failed!

Food for thought.

Mine eyes have seen the glory

What revolution are You?
Made by altern_active

On innovation and your cell phone

Technology Review - Push-Button Innovation

Hello? Hello? Can you hear me now? The telecom sector seems badly disconnected. Analysis reports state that over two trillion dollars’ worth of its market value has evaporated in less than 30 months. The high-flying, high-tech visionaries of the high-bandwidth future--Global Crossing, Covad, Williams, XO, Teligent, et al--have vanished into bankruptcy or liquidation. The AT&Ts, WorldComs, Qwests and Sprints, as well as their counterparts overseas, have seen their bold ambitions for growth in billion-dollar gambits such as the third-generation wireless standard turn into mad scrambles for survival. A few dishonest telco execs may even be going to jail.

There are many good reasons for this sorry state beyond corrupt accounting. Here’s one of the best: America’s telecom companies are lousy innovators. ...

Interesting reading, especially in light of that "Can you hear me now?" ad campaign tromping around. All they're doing is bragging about reception. Wee! Meanwhile, we don't even have a standard for text messaging (three standards in US, in contrast to single standards in Japan and Europe).