Curveball

2003-10-28T21:31:00.000-05:00

Hiatus, Changes
Sorry for the unanounced absence. The World Series and a friend's wedding have kept me from posting. I'll be taking a few more days off while contemplating some big changes to the site. Back soon.

2003-10-16T20:21:00.000-04:00

The reason the Florida Marlins are NL champions:

Ivan Rodriguez is The Incredible Hulk.

2003-10-14T21:58:00.000-04:00

Goosing Manny
Former Yankees Goose Gossage and Craig Nettles comment on the Yanks/Sox series to ESPN.com, and they unload on Manny Ramirez and Pedro Martinez.

"Manny Ramirez is a (coward). I hope he reads that," Gossage said Monday. "If he pulled that stuff in the old days, he would've gotten back in the box and I guarantee you he would've had the next pitch in his earlobe. The guy is a one-dimensional player. He can hit -- a little. But he can't even hit when it counts."

You want to bring a bat to the mound? Let him try," Gossage said. "Ramirez might've gotten one of us (pitchers), but he wouldn't have gotten all 10. You wouldn't have seen him the rest of the series, I promise you, because we would've put him in the hospital.

"I saw what he did (in Game 5 of the ALDS against Oakland), pointing into the dugout after he hit a home run. Someone should've put him right on his butt for that. That made me sick. He hardly ever hits when it counts, and he has the (guts) to do that? Give me a break."

When people say the game isn't the same today as it used to be, they're right. It used to be more violent. Even the pitchers from yester year are badasses.

2003-10-13T22:13:00.000-04:00

Pedro, Out Of Control
Pedro Martinez is what happens when a team's coddling turns a star athlete into a prima donna, says Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy. Here's a bit:

Sox fans don't like to hear this, but Pedro was an embarrassment and a disgrace to baseball Saturday. He gets away with it because he's Pedro. And the Sox front office enables him, just as they do Manny Ramirez. Just as they did with Roger when he was here and Yaz when he was here and Ted when he was here.

The tail still wags the dog around here. The Sox have no control over their stars. That's the way it was for Clemens when he was here. Roger had to go elsewhere to grow up. And we all know it took a while.

Everyone in baseball knows what Pedro was doing in the fourth inning. He'd blown a 2-0 lead. The Yankees were kicking him around Fenway. The old magic was gone and no doubt he was frustrated. It can't be fun knowing your team is 9-15 when you start against the Yankees. So what did he do? With first base empty and a righty on deck, he threw a pitch behind Garcia, grazing him in the shoulder.

Then it got worse. After Garcia's slide into second baseman Todd Walker, and angry words with Pedro, the Yankees and Sox started coming out of their dugouts and Pedro made his outrageous threats. (Oh, I forgot, it wasn't a threat. He was actually telling Posada he needed a haircut.)

No. This was: You're next. I'll hit you in the head, too.

Pretty brave stuff when you never have to bat. Pretty good way to take the attention away from the fact your skills are declining and you have trouble beating this team.Notice how none of Pedro's teammates have rushed to his defense? When he puts that tape around his locker, it's as if he's putting himself on his own island in his own clubhouse.

2003-10-11T20:56:00.000-04:00

Rejoice. Steve Guttenburg is back.

2003-10-11T20:52:00.000-04:00

Red Sox ace Pedro Martinez should be fined, suspended, and made to pay the Social Security taxes for the entire membership of the AARP for grabbing 72-year-old Yankees coach Don Zimmer by the head and throwing him to the ground. I've never seen a less defensible act by a baseball player.

2003-10-11T20:04:00.000-04:00

SHOWCASE: I vote for Madfish Willie.

2003-10-09T19:01:00.000-04:00

Woman Drives Car Onto Runway Toward Air Force One
A woman drove her car onto the runway and headed toward Air Force One at Manchester Airport today as President Bush was at a speaking event here, his first in New Hampshire this year. Security officers -- it's not yet clear whether they were Secret Service or airport security -- rammed her car to stop her, then leapt out and arrested her on the spot. It's not yet known why she drove onto the runway, but I know that airport well, and I can tell you that it is a newcomer's nightmare. The combination of abundant construction and few directional signs makes it very easy to get lost. A friend of mine jogs there daily and is constantly stopped by lost drivers asking directions. It is very possible she just got lost and veered onto the runway by accident. However, some witnesses said she was driving very fast, so maybe she was trying to ram Air Force One, as the Secret Service apparently suspected. I'll update as more news becomes available.

UPDATE: She was going about 75 mph and claimed to be "radioactive",

She was stopped by two airport employees.

Police unlikely to press charges.

2003-10-05T21:48:00.000-04:00

SHOWCASE: The vote goes to Another Rice Grad.

2003-10-05T10:38:00.000-04:00

Red Sox v. Oakland in game 3 last night was one to remember for a long, long time. What a GAME!

2003-10-05T00:04:00.000-04:00

Resort University
The New York Times has a belated but great story on the amenities "arms race" among American colleges and universities.

In the abstract, Kathy Anzivino believes there must be some pinnacle of amenities that universities simply cannot surpass, some outer limit so far beyond the hot tubs, waterfalls and pool slides she offers at the University of Houston that even the most pampered students will never demand it and the most recruitment-crazed colleges will never consent to put it on their grounds.

She just has a hard time picturing what that might be.

"There's got to be one, but what it is, I don't know," said Ms. Anzivino, director of campus recreation at the university, which opened a $53 million wellness center this year.

Beyond its immense rotunda stands a five-story climbing wall that looks as if it was transported straight from Arches National Park, while boulders and palm trees frame the leisure pools outside.

"Everyone says it looks like a resort," she said.

Whether evident in student unions, recreational centers or residence halls (please, do not call them dorms) the competition for students is yielding amenities once unimaginable on college campuses, spurring a national debate over the difference between educational necessity and excess.

Critics call them multimillion-dollar luxuries that are driving up university debts and inflating the cost of education. Colleges defend them as compulsory attractions in the scramble for top students and faculty, ignored at their own institutional peril. And somewhere in the middle sit those who have only one analogy for the building boom taking place.

"An arms race," said Clare Cotton, president of the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities in Massachusetts. "It's exactly the psychology of an arms race. From the outside it seems totally crazy, but from the inside it feels necessary and compelling."

Washington State University has a jacuzzi that holds 53 people.

The University of Pennsylvania has room-sized golf simulators.

Ohio State University is building "a 657,000-square-foot complex featuring kayaks and canoes, indoor batting cages and ropes courses, massages and a climbing wall big enough for 50 students to scale simultaneously."

The University of Mississippi is building a full-sized water park.

And amidst all of this, university administrators have the audacity to call for increased federal student aid and increased state tuition subsidies because, they whine, college costs are rising too rapidly for students from moderate-and-low-income families to afford them.

2003-10-04T23:54:00.000-04:00

I dislike the Florida Marlins. But Pudge is Da Man.

2003-10-04T23:51:00.000-04:00

Kick The ACLU Out Of The Library
First the ACLU wanted to keep law enforcement officers who had a court order from finding out whether terrorist suspects were reading library books about bomb-making. Now the ACLU wants to keep parents from finding out whether their kids are reading library books about sex and drugs.

2003-10-02T20:11:00.000-04:00

Overlooked Again
John Maxwell Coetzee has won the 2003 Nobel Prize for literature, which means that the eminently deserving Milan Kundera was overlooked yet again.

Bill Buckley once wrote that if the Nobel Committee did not award the literature prize to Patrick O'Brian, he (Buckley) would personally boycott the Nobel Committee. I feel the same way about Kundera, whose writing, by the way, makes O'Brian look like a rank amateur in a sailor outfit.

2003-10-01T22:34:00.000-04:00

'Iraq Is Not A Lost Battle'
Isam al-Khafaji, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council and a socialist university professor who is critical of the Bush administration, tells The Daily Star of Lebanon that Iraq is not lost and there is no popular resistance against the United States.

The fact that people get killed both American soldiers and Iraqi civilians doesn’t mean that there is a popular Iraqi resistance. This is no Vietnam. There are very few Iraqis being killed because there are seen as collaborators, and the number of American casualties is also very low. If you asked Iraqis whether US troops should leave, the vast majority would say no. On the other hand, the rising number of attacks has already forced the Americans to swallow much, not all, of their arrogance. But is this “resistance?” No. Sometimes we confuse our emotions with the facts. A real popular resistance does not end up with one or two dead a day with my deep sorrow for each life lost. If this were popular resistance, there would be something like 50 dead a day.

Asked if Iraqis would rather have the United Nations instead of the Americans running the show, he says no -- because Iraqis view the U.N. as "the strangler of the people and as a corrupt organization" because it allowed Saddam to stay in power for so long.

I have asked myself whether I should take that position. But don’t forget that the UN has an extremely bad reputation among Iraqis. For 12 years, the UN has been seen as the strangler of the people and as a corrupt organization. If you asked Iraqis about a multinational force, the answer would depend on which countries would be part of it. The most terrifying thing is that Arabs would come not because of some isolationist Iraqi attitude. Iraqis remember that the Arab regimes have defended Saddam. Up until now they are defending him.

Contrast that with the anti-Bush ravings of columnist James Pinkerton, who I had thought was more sensible than this.

How can the anti-war crowd continue to claim that toppling Saddam was a failure when most Iraqis say they will be better off because of it and more say they want to model their new nation after the United States than after any other nation?

2003-09-28T19:30:00.000-04:00

SHOWCASE: I cast my vote for King of Fools.

2003-09-27T21:29:00.000-04:00

Separatism On Campus
Boy, does 15-year-old Lisa McClelland of Oakley, Calif. have people fired up. She wants to start a Caucasian Club at her high school. She tells the BBC:

I'm trying to break racial barriers. Without a Caucasian club things at school are kind of segregated and I think if we have a Caucasian club it will go along with the rest of the race clubs so the school might be a little bit more diverse.

This is exactly the same argument used to start black student groups or Hispanic student groups or Asian student groups, etc. In fact, Lisa's high school has a Hispanic Club, an Asian Club, and a Black Student Union. If these groups "promote diversity", then why not promote it even further by encouraging white kids to have their own student group? Says Lisa:

I came home from school one day, the day we were signing up for clubs, and I didn't see any that really interested me.

We were talking about how there are all these other racial clubs but there isn't a Caucasian club and me and my mom talked about it and how there would be nothing wrong with trying to get it started.

Naturally, the left is all in a tizzy about this. But McLelland has a great point when she says of her club, "It will be where kids can go and learn about their heritage and break down their culture more than the school does. Any race can join."

The amount of misinformation about caucasian heritage is illustrated by this quote from one of McLelland's black fellow students: "It's dumb, real dumb. The girl says 'we want to talk about our background,' well their background is about putting black people as slaves."

If that's what is being taught as caucasian heritage, then there certainly is a need to dig more deeply.

But more to the point, white people already make up less than 50 percent of the population in California -- 46.7%, to be exact. Eventually, whites probably will be a minority in that state. Will white high school students be allowed to create Caucasian Clubs, without protest, then? If so, why not now? If the fear is that such clubs will engender racism, why does that fear not translate to other race-based clubs? If black student unions, for example, foster diversity and unity, then surely their supporters can offer some evidence of this.

As it stands, the evidence is all on the other side. Rarely does a student of one race venture into a meeting of students of another race. And when that does happen, the interloper often is not welcomed. When I went to the black student union at my college to donate a photograph I'd taken of a famous black author, all activity halted and everyone stared at me, as if we all were frozen in time, until I left, at which points conversations resumed, as I saw through the glass walls.

These little race-based clubs are divisive, and everyone knows it. They foster about as much diversity as a D.W. Griffith film festival. In addition to fearing that a Caucasian Club will foster racism, its opponents know that it will expose their little sham for what it is: separatism.

2003-09-27T20:48:00.000-04:00

David Brooks explores the difficult world faced by conservative graduate students.

2003-09-26T20:12:00.000-04:00

Robert Palmer, R.I.P.
I was sad to see today that Robert Palmer had died. He was more than just a two-hit wonder who had one of the best rock and roll videos ever, which is how he will be remembered. He actually was an excellent vocalist and songwriter whose best work never charted very high and has been largely forgotten. A few months ago I heard "Sneakin' Sally Through The Alley" on the radio and was pleasantly surprised. It was such a rare treat. To see how drastically rock music has changed in the past two decades, pick any Palmer song at random and listen carefully to his singing. Then turn on the radio and listen carefully to the singer of the first rock song that comes on. Chances are, the alleged singer can barely carry the tune. Palmer could really sing. And he just looked so darn cool, too. He was also reputed to have had a great sense of humor, as related by this anecdote:

I remember going with him to this secret karaoke club in Soho once - and he actually got up on stage and did karaoke to his own songs, to Addicted to Love, just for a laugh.

That's pretty cool.

2003-09-25T21:43:00.000-04:00

Cowards
The United Nations, which wants America out of Iraq as quickly as possible, is "downsizing" its presence in Iraq over security concerns. If the U.N. is scared of the Baathists and other terrorist thugs now, when the world's most powerful military is running the show, just how do the Eurocrats think security will improve when the country is taken over by more defenseless bureaucrats and a sizeable portion, if not all, of the American military presence vacates the premises?

Nothing better showcases the difference -- in courage, resolve, and determination -- between the United States and the U.N. than this. The Americans, shot or bombed almost on a daily basis, react to this peril by escalating their efforts to root out and eradicate the enemy. The U.N., after two attacks, pulls out almost all of its staff, leaving the hard work to the Iraqis and the Americans.

In the absence of international staff, the UN will rely on more than 4,000 Iraqis to continue mainly humanitarian work, the BBC reported.

That says it all. When the road gets dangerous, the U.N. tosses the keys to the natives and flees.

2003-09-24T23:29:00.000-04:00

The Brotherhood Of Crap
Well, because I live in New Hampshire, I considered it my civic duty to watch the new CBS series called "The Brotherhood of Poland, New Hampshire". Having seen it, I have concluded that CBS should rename this series, "The Brotherhood of Crap". How bad is this show? Think "Ally McBeal" with ugly people, set in New Hampshire.

Some criticisms, in order of annoyance:

1. Leave it to Hollywood to film a show in New Hampshire in which NO ONE has a New Hampshire -- or even a Yankee -- accent. At least one character in Boston Public speaks with a Boston accent. In Brotherhood, they all talk like they live, oh, on a set in Hollywood. And producer David Kelly grew up in New England, too.

2. The one place in all of New Hampshire that doesn't look like anyplace else in New Hampshire is Portsmouth, home of most of the state's granolas, hippies, art-school dropouts, and other crunchy types. This, of course, was the one town in the state that the film crew chose to use as its backdrop.

3. If you're going to have a dead deer tied to the hood of a truck, at least have the deer actively bleeding instead of looking like part of an aged Christmas display that was blown off the roof in the last big storm. It's also probably a bad idea to make the drops of blood on the hood look like BIG PAINTED DROPS OF BLOOD. Oh, and if you have a pickup truck, you're most likely going to strap the dead deer IN THE BED OF YOUR TRUCK, not on the hood.

4. What are the chances that in a state in which nearly everything is financed by the property tax, and housing prices are higher than the national average, everyone in town, including the out-of-work loser, is going to have a nice, big house filled with new and fashionable furniture?

5. Enough with the sex jokes, OK?

6. This is New Hampshire. We don't have a lot of extortionists, mayors who have sexual affairs with large, unattractive women, teenagers with blue hair and multiple eyebrow rings, and people who shake their heads when they talk, like Aunt Esther on Sanford & Son. David Kelly said he came up with the idea for this show when he returned to New England for high school reunions. I'd hate to have gone to that high school.

7. Not everyone past middle age in New Hampshire is overweight. Many are, but plenty are not. And by the way, could Randy Quaid look any worse?

8. This show's only saving grace is Larry Miller. Unfortunately, he has a very small role. I give the show 1/2 a season. Full season, tops.

2003-09-24T22:50:00.000-04:00

OH NO! Gandalf has gone over to the Dark Side!

2003-09-24T07:26:00.000-04:00

Say What?
Check out these remarks by Spanish President Jose Maria Aznar at a joint press conference with President Bush.

2003-09-24T07:24:00.000-04:00

U.N. Reacts To Bush
Here's a decent summary of the various reactions to President Bush's speech at the United Nations. I like Jean Chrétien's remarks: "Reason will prevail." At the U.N.? Right!

2003-09-22T22:14:00.000-04:00

Clark, Kodos, & Kang
Slate's Chris Sullentrop lets Wesley Clark have it in a well written piece posted today. I love his lead, because it is exactly what I thought of when I heard clips from Clark's announcement speech.

CHARLESTON, S.C.—There's a Simpsons episode in which two aliens run for president and effortlessly ape the bromides used by American political candidates, to the delight of assembled crowds. Proclaims one: "We must move forward, not backward. Upward, not forward. And always twirling, twirling, twirling toward freedom!"

That's what retired Gen. Wesley Clark sounded like on the stump Monday at the first event in South Carolina for his incipient presidential campaign. Clark's campaign hasn't coalesced yet into a bona fide organization, structure, and message. It's more like a clever mimicry of what a generic Democratic presidential campaign would look like. At Manny's Restaurant in downtown Charleston, Clark mouths the standard litany of bedrock Democratic issues with a Schwarzeneggerian level of specificity.

As good as this piece begins, it ends even better:

No other Democratic candidate, not even John Kerry, could stand in front of two 75 mm howitzers on the quad of a nearly all-male military college and defend the antiwar left without looking faintly ridiculous. Wesley Clark is Howard Dean with flags.

2003-09-22T22:00:00.000-04:00

Khalid's Confession
The big news of the day is Khalid Sheik Mohammed's confession that the 9-11 attacks were plotted back in 1996 and originally called for attacks on both coasts. Most important was what the reporters tacked on to the end of the story, seemingly as filler:

He told interrogators about other terror plots that were in various stages of planning or had been temporarily disrupted when he was captured, including one planned for Singapore.

The sources who allowed AP to review the reports insisted that specific details not be divulged about those operations because U.S. intelligence continues to investigate some of the methods and search for some of the operatives.

The interrogation reports make clear that Mohammed and al Qaeda were still actively looking to strike U.S., Western and Israeli targets across the world as of this year.

I'd say that's pretty significant news, especially paired with the knowledge that no attack has been carried out and it's already nearly October. Either the war on terror is going quite well, or al-Qaida is still biding its time. I think it's the former.

Also very interesting was this bit:

In fact, Mohammed says he did not arrange for anyone on U.S. soil to assist hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi when they arrived in California. Mohammed said there "were no al-Qaida operatives or facilitators in the United States to help al-Mihdhar or al-Hazmi settle in the United States," one of the reports states.

Almihdhar and Alhazmi were on the plane that was flown into the Pentagon.

Mohammed portrays those two hijackers as central to the plot and even more important than Mohamed Atta, initially identified by Americans as the likely hijacking ringleader.

Mohammed said he communicated with Alhazmi and Almihdhar while they were in the United States by using Internet chat software, the reports states.

Mohammed said Alhazmi and Almihdhar were among the four original operatives bin Laden assigned to him for the plot, a significant revelation because they were the only two hijackers whom U.S. authorities were frantically seeking for terrorist ties in the final days before Sept. 11, 2001.

I guess it should come as no surprise that our intelligence agencies didn't pick up that Atta wasn't the ring leader. I wonder if anyone at the FBI or CIA is checking AOL Instant Messenger and ICQ registrations in an effort to catch terrorists. If not, now would be a good time to start.

2003-09-22T21:38:00.000-04:00

Taliban Is Back
So says a spokesman for Mohammad Omar.

2003-09-22T21:33:00.000-04:00

Showcase: I vote for Freedom In Iran.

2003-09-18T22:50:00.000-04:00

Poems By Andre
Today, we at Curveball introduce a new feature sure to be a fan favorite for years to come. We call it, Poems By Andre (tm). Everyone on staff here at Curveball has read poetry, and we have concluded that 99.9999999999% of all poetry stinks.

We have read the works of idiots, fools, drunkards, and poet laureates, and honestly, we can't tell the difference. What's worse, some of those authors (usually the drunks) have actually been paid money for their work! (No doubt they laughed all the way to the bank, saying "suckers!" to themselves over and over and over again.)

We figured, since nobody on God's Green Earth understands poetry anyway, least of all poets, we may as well try our hand at it too. Maybe someone will pay us and we can laugh and say "suckers!" all the way to the bank. So, here you are, the inaugural edition of Poems by Andre (tm).

Summer
In the white hot glow of summer,
yellow and orange kites flutter and dart against the sky.
I stare at the shimmering, rolling sea,
the sand coating my calves in patches
as she says goodbye.

Four days of wanting, two of flirting, one of caressing.
She smiles as she leaves,
as if we'll meet again tomorrow.
The brown of her shoulders fades to black in the distance
and I smile, too.
That kid just dropped his ice cream in the sand; what a dork.

A Man Called Steve
My name is Charles.

China
Red Commie bastards
I want to fight you all, but
Poor, I need Wal-Mart

A Man Called Steve II
I said my name is Charles!

2003-09-18T22:06:00.000-04:00

Our War With France
Thomas Friedman writes of our so-called ally:

It's time we Americans came to terms with something: France is not just our annoying ally. It is not just our jealous rival. France is becoming our enemy.

If you add up how France behaved in the run-up to the Iraq war (making it impossible for the Security Council to put a real ultimatum to Saddam Hussein that might have avoided a war), and if you look at how France behaved during the war (when its foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, refused to answer the question of whether he wanted Saddam or America to win in Iraq), and if you watch how France is behaving today (demanding some kind of loopy symbolic transfer of Iraqi sovereignty to some kind of hastily thrown together Iraqi provisional government, with the rest of Iraq's transition to democracy to be overseen more by a divided U.N. than by America), then there is only one conclusion one can draw: France wants America to fail in Iraq.

France wants America to sink in a quagmire there in the crazy hope that a weakened U.S. will pave the way for France to assume its "rightful" place as America's equal, if not superior, in shaping world affairs.

The thing I find interesting about Friedman is that he is clear-headed enough to see realities such as this, but misty-headed enough to adhere to an inflexible political leftism. I guess that's why he's rarely boring to read.

2003-09-17T23:03:00.000-04:00

Congress IS An ATM
“Congress is not an ATM.”

So said Sen. Robert Byrd (D-Paleolithic Era) in opposing the Bush administration's request for $87 billion to fight the war on terror and secure the liberty of the American people. The unspoken follow-up sentence was, "Unless you're a senior senator who knows how to lubricate the voting levers back home by showering the people with an endless stream of cashola pilfered from the public treasury."

2003-09-17T20:12:00.000-04:00

Gilligan's Lie Land
BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan admitted today that his report in which he asserted that Tony Blair's government had intentionally "sexed up" its Iraq dossier by falsely claiming that Saddam could launch a biological or chemical attack within 45 minutes was filled with falsehoods, that he knew it was filled with falsehoods, and that he made no effort to correct them. The Washington Post reports:

Gilligan said he was mistaken in reporting in his original, unscripted broadcast that Blair's aides had ordered a claim that Iraq could deploy chemical and biological weapons within 45 minutes to be inserted into a dossier; the insertion, Gilligan's report said, took place over the objections of intelligence chiefs even though the aides had known "it was probably wrong." The first broadcast went out at 6:07 a.m. on May 29 on BBC radio's popular "Today" program.

He said that on a scripted 7:32 a.m. report on the same program he had corrected the misstatement by stating that the intelligence involved was genuine, even if questionable. Gilligan said his error was "the kind of slip of the tongue that does happen often during live broadcasts, an occupational hazard."

But he conceded he made another misstatement when in a later broadcast that same morning he cited "my intelligence source" when in fact Kelly did not work for an intelligence agency.

The BBC compounded Gilligan's error several times in the ensuing weeks, repeating the claim that his confidential source was "a member of the intelligence services," in subsequent news reports, in a June 27 press statement that Gilligan said he read and signed off on, and in a statement issued by the corporation's Board of Governors on July 6.

Gilligan said he made no effort to correct these claims in part because he was trying to protect the identity of his source.

I think Gilligan intentionally exaggerated his own report because he just knew the Blair government was lying about the WMD issue in general, if not his claims in particular, and he thought time would bear him out. He obviously believed he would be the one left standing in the end. Why else would he repeatedly have defended claims that he knew he made up?

Now that we know who was lying and who wasn't, will Gilligan suffer any consequences for what he characterizes as "the kind of slip of the tongue that does happen often during live broadcasts, an occupational hazard"? If the error was merely a slip of the tongue, why was it uncorrected, and even vigorously defended, for months? Gilligan's original story wasn't credible, his months-long defense of it wasn't credible, and now his excuse for how it got aired isn't credible, either.

Gilligan ought to be out of a job, along with BBC News Director Richard Sambrook, who, according to the BBC itself, "said there were errors in the BBC's strongly-worded response to the government's complaints about the dossier story."

Sambrook and Gilligan both knowingly allowed the BBC to repeat erroneous claims from Gilligan's first report because, they said, making a correction would have risked revealing Dr. David Kelly as the source. So, the company's news director and one of its top reporters decided that keeping their source a secret was more important than being accurate. Why would any journalist do that? The easy answer is because if Dr. Kelly had been revealed, he would have talked to other reporters, which would have uncovered the falsehoods in the BBC's story.

Even if Gilligan and Sambrook keep their jobs -- no, especially if they keep their jobs -- the BBC's credibility will have been severely tarnished. Either way, it will be fun to watch the fallout of Gilligan's and Sambrook's admissions. I wonder if this will give Blair's poll numbers a boost?

2003-09-17T07:51:00.000-04:00

Disenfranchized By A Ballot Machine?
The Democrats in California successfully halted the recall election by charging that all voters who used the old voting machines would be disenfranchised by the machines. But Poliblogger links to an analysis by Cal Tech and M.I.T. (It's a pdf file) found the following error rates between various machines:

Percentage of uncounted votes:

Optical Scan: 1.5% for president; 3.5% for governor

Paper Ballot: 1.8%; 3.3%

Punch Card: 2.5%; 4.7%

Touch Screen: 2.3%; 5.9%

Lever: 1.5%; 7.5%

So much for the idea that punchcard ballots invalidate an election. As Poliblogger noted:

Again, one might assume that the choice is between the potential loss of 40,000 or so votes and perfection, but it isn't. The real choice is between the potential loss of 40,000-some vote and some smaller number. Again: there is vote-counting error in every election.

And, the difference between the error rate of a punchcard ballot and that with a touchscreen ballot is not great. In fact, the error rate of the new technology appears worse. Sure makes it look like the real reason for halting the election was to DISENFRANCHISE ALL CALIFORNIA VOTERS BY NOT HOLDING THE ELECTION AT ALL.

2003-09-17T07:22:00.000-04:00

How The Saudis Finance Hamas
The New York Times reports that at least half of Hamas' budget comes from Saudi Arabia.

Nearly a year ago, Khalid Mishaal, a senior leader of Hamas, the militant Palestinian organization, attended a charitable fund-raising conference here where he talked at length with Crown Prince Abdullah, the de facto Saudi ruler.

According to a summary of the meeting written by a Hamas official, Mr. Mishaal and other Hamas representatives thanked their Saudi hosts for continuing "to send aid to the people through the civilian and popular channels, despite all the American pressures exerted on them."

"This is indeed a brave posture deserving appreciation," the Hamas officials said, the document said.

Today Mr. Mishaal, who was recently added to the United States Treasury Department list of what it calls terrorist financiers, controls a wing of Hamas that advocates violent confrontation with Israel, including suicide bombings.

As relations between the Israelis and Palestinians continue to deteriorate, in no small part because of recent Hamas-sponsored suicide bombings, Saudis have come under fresh scrutiny by American and European investigators here and in Israel for their political and financial support of the group.

At least 50 percent of Hamas's current operating budget of about $10 million a year comes from people in Saudi Arabia, according to estimates by American law enforcement officials, American diplomats in the Middle East and Israeli officials. After the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the Saudi portion of Hamas financing grew larger as donations from the United States, Europe and other Persian Gulf countries dried up, American officials and analysts said.

The estimated donations coming from Saudi Arabia — about $5 million a year — are a significant sum for Hamas but a very small portion of the hundreds of millions of dollars that flow into Saudi charities each year, officials said. Nearly all the donations are given in cash, making it extremely difficult for Saudi and American authorities to track the money.

Of course, Crown Prince Abdullah denies everything, saying the accusations that some Saudi government money goes to Hamas "ridiculous." The rat.

2003-09-16T18:55:00.000-04:00

Republicans For Dean
In his latest column, David Brooks displays the humor, skilled research, and insightful analysis that got him hired as a New York Times columnist despite his being a conservative. (Were he a liberal, his political leanings would be credential enough.) He begins:

The results of the highly prestigious Poll of the Pollsters are in! I called eight of the best G.O.P. pollsters and strategists and asked them, on a not-for-attribution basis, if they thought Howard Dean would be easier to beat than the other major Democratic presidential candidates. Here, and I'm paraphrasing, are the results:

"Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!"

You would have thought I had asked them if Danny DeVito would be easier to beat in a one-on-one basketball game than Shaquille O'Neal. They all thought Dean would be easier to beat, notwithstanding his impressive rise. Some feared John Kerry, others John Edwards, because his personality wears well over time, and others even Bob Graham, because he can carry Florida, more than Dean. As their colleague Bill McInturff put it atop a memo on the Dean surge: "Happy Days Are Here Again (for Republicans)."

I think the pollsters are probably right, but I'd feel a lot more confident if I could find somebody who really understood the forces that are reshaping the American electorate.

It gets better from there.

2003-09-16T18:49:00.000-04:00

How The Media Bowed To Saddam
John Burns, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times, says in an interview for an upcoming book on the media's coverage of the war in Iraq that almost all of the reporters there censored their own coverage, downplaying the terror and repression of Saddam's regime, so they could have greater access and freedom of movement within the country. The interview, reprinted in Editor and Publisher (I ran across it on rogersimon.com) provides a really jaw-dropping account of the lengths to which reporters went to suck up to Saddam's bullies and cover up the regime's atrocities.

There were correspondents who thought it appropriate to seek the approbation of the people who governed their lives. This was the ministry of information, and particularly the director of the ministry. By taking him out for long candlelit dinners, plying him with sweet cakes, plying him with mobile phones at $600 each for members of his family, and giving bribes of thousands of dollars. Senior members of the information ministry took hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes from these television correspondents who then behaved as if they were in Belgium. They never mentioned the function of minders. Never mentioned terror.

In one case, a correspondent actually went to the Internet Center at the Al-Rashid Hotel and printed out copies of his and other people's stories -- mine included -- specifically in order to be able to show the difference between himself and the others. He wanted to show what a good boy he was compared to this enemy of the state. He was with a major American newspaper.

Yeah, it was an absolutely disgraceful performance. CNN's Eason Jordan's op-ed piece in The New York Times missed that point completely. The point is not whether we protect the people who work for us by not disclosing the terrible things they tell us. Of course we do. But the people who work for us are only one thousandth of one percent of the people of Iraq. So why not tell the story of the other people of Iraq? It doesn't preclude you from telling about terror. Of murder on a mass scale just because you won't talk about how your driver's brother was murdered.

Burns also says that The New York Times was given 24 hour advanced warning that the Iraq Ministry of Information building would be struck. He says the warning was given so people could be evacuated. If that is true, and it is doubtful Burns would make it up because it would take only a few phone calls to his editors to verify that they told him this, it underscores the efforts of the Bush administration to avoid unnecessary casualties.

2003-09-15T22:37:00.000-04:00

The WUSA, ESPN, And Sexism
Women's professional soccer has folded for lack of financial support. The league finished the year $16 million in the red. Virtually no one watched women's soccer (though it could be quite entertaining). But such realities don't stop professors from writing stupid papers about sexism in the media's coverage of women's sports. A University of North Carolina professor has chastized ESPN for not covering more women's sports, saying the network is biased against women.

This, of course, is idiotic. The network exists to make money. If women's sports were popular, ESPN would show them. But women's sports are far, far less popular than men's sports. Hence, ESPN shows mostly men's sports. The professor didn't bother measuring fan interest in women's sports before proclaiming ESPN hostile to women. He simply concluded that because the network shows few women's sports, it must be anti-woman.

One of the findings the professor considered disturbing: Thirteen of 16 stories about women were read by men.

Oh, the humiliation!

This passes for research worthy of a press release at a major American university.

2003-09-14T22:40:00.000-04:00

Hating Mr. Williams
I've run across a good young blog that, because of this post, I will continue to read regularly:

This Is Just To Say
That I hate William Carlos Williams with passion otherwise reserved for oppressive dictators who listen to Justin Timberlake while molesting children with one hand and posting on Indymedia with the other.

Having read some William Carolos Williams, I'd have to agree with those sentiments. If you don't hate William Carlos Williams, just read this, and you will, assuming you're sane.

The blogger is Sterile Thunder. I don't know what that means, exactly, but he or she (he, I think) is a Stanford biology major, so it's probably something over my head.

2003-09-14T20:36:00.000-04:00

SHOWCASE:
Western Ways Of Life Harm Non-Westerner Youth?
New blogger Argghhh! notes a Voice of America report that the World Health Organization has claimed that young people in the third world are harmed by exposure to Western life. The W.H.O. seems to believe that exposure to the West explains the increase in alcohol and drug use as well as HIV/AIDS cases among people under age 30 in central Europe and Asia. Implied, but not said, of course, is that all of these people would be better off had they had no contact with the West. Ahem, obviously the young people in question don't think so because they keep seeking out that contact! Interesting that the W.H.O., doesn't mention -- at least the VOA doesn't report any mention -- the substantial health benefits (modern medicine, electriciy, sanitation, etc.) that the West brings to the East.

For those of you who don't know what "showcase" means, it means I'm voting in the New Blog Showcase over at truthlaidbear. It's a pretty nifty contest in which new blogs get to showcase their talent on a very widely read blog, and readers vote for the one they like the best. As they say in the ghetto, check it out, yo.

2003-09-14T20:16:00.000-04:00

Ban Frivolous SUV uses?
Alan over at Elegance against Ignorance notes that the Liberal Democrats really would love to ban people from using their SUVs for frivolous purposes, but realize this is, in the words of the party leader "not a runner", meaning won't win them votes, so instead they are ramping up public and political pressure to get people out of their SUVs and onto public transportation.

2003-09-14T18:45:00.000-04:00

More anti-Americanism at the BBC

2003-09-14T18:36:00.000-04:00

Finally, A Real-Life James Bond Car
This car can reach speeds of 100 mph on land -- and 30 mph on water. And it's only a mere $150k! The question is, how many years until it is mass-produced at an affordable price, which is, happily, just what the inventor hopes to do?

2003-09-12T20:37:00.000-04:00

72 Virgins Dating Service
Another of the many, many reason to love the United States Army is this T-shirt.

2003-09-12T11:26:00.000-04:00

Howard Dean maintains his solid lead over John Kerry in New Hampshire, 38 percent to 26 percent, according to the latest Boston Globe poll.

2003-09-12T07:36:00.000-04:00

Johnny Cash, R.I.P.
The Man In Black is gone. And I never got to see him in concert. Damn.

Cash needs no euology, just as he needed no introduction. There simply never was a musician like him. That voice. Those great songs. He was THE giant of country music. No one even came close to touching his stature.

One thing I loved about Johnny Cash was his contrarianism. Asked why he wore black, he said it started at the Grand Ole Opry:

Everybody was wearing rhinestones, all those sparkle clothes and cowboy boots. I decided to wear a black shirt and pants and see if I could get by with it. I did and I've worn black clothes ever since.

Nowadays male country music stars wear black to fit in. And they all look like goobers compared to Johnny Cash.

2003-09-12T07:28:00.000-04:00

John Ritter, R.I.P.
John Ritter died yesterday at age 54. A lot of people will yawn at this, especially people who don't remember Three's Company. But Ritter was a great actor. To see how remarkable a talent he was, one has only to watch two films: Noises Off and Sling Blade.

How lame is the Los Angeles Times? Ritter died yesterday, and there is no mention of it this morning on the Times Web site.

2003-09-11T22:39:00.000-04:00

Two 9/11 Editorials Worth Reading In Full
I've spent a lot of the day reading newspaper editorials about Sept. 11. Some, like The New York Times and The Concord Monitor, are infuriating in their willful disregard for reality. Others are so rousingly good that they deserve longer consideration. Following are two editorials that are worthy of the few minutes it will take you to read them.

The Union Leader: Resolved to win

TODAY MARKS the second anniversary of al-Qaida’s second attack on the World Trade Center towers. And this year marks the tenth anniversary of the first attack. As we spend this day remembering those who lost their lives in New York City, Washington, D.C., and rural Pennsylvania on 9-11, we ought to pause as well to remember the earlier victims in the jihad against America and to consider all that has been accomplished in the still very young war on terror.

On Feb. 26, 1993, six people were killed when a small group of radical Islamists with al-Qaida connections bombed the World Trade Center. The explosion left a crater that extended five stories into the earth. The perpetrators proclaimed that they bombed the towers in the name of Allah.

In 1996, a group of 14 radical Islamists connected to al-Qaida killed 19 American service personnel at the Khobar Towers military housing complex outside Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. All 14 were identified as members of Hezbollah, and former Defense Secretary William Perry said there was evidence linking the group to the Iranian government.

On Aug. 7, 1998, members of al-Qaida bombed the American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, killing 231 people. One of the convicted bombers was a former personal secretary to Osama bin Laden and a naturalized American citizen.

On Oct. 12, 2000, radical Islamists with ties to al Qaida attacked the U.S.S. Cole while it was refueling in a port in Yemen, killing 17 American sailors. This year two suspects were indicted, while up to 15 others believed to have helped plot and carry out the attacks remain at large.

On Sept. 11, 2001, members of al-Qaida murdered 3,016 people (by the latest count) in New York City, Washington, D.C., and a Pennsylvania field.

The war on terror may have begun on Sept. 18, 2001, when President Bush signed the bill authorizing the use of American military force against terrorists. But the radical Islamist jihad against America began long before that, and it will continue until the war is won.

“Victory against terrorism will not take place in a single battle,” President Bush said in his radio address of Sept. 15, 2001, “but in a series of decisive actions against terrorist organizations and those who harbor and support them.”

He said that the war would be long, but “we are determined to see this conflict through.” As long as that last phrase remains true, America is sure to win the war on terror. But it has been only two years, and already some are wavering.

There are still people who claim, as Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich did yesterday, that the President took the nation to war because he thought it would help Republicans win elections. There are others, on the left and the right, who believe that peace and security can be found in retreating from the world scene and isolating America from the rest of the planet. And there are those who think that the best course is to hand over our national sovereignty to the United Nations and let it sort out the world’s problems through diplomatic means, as if terrorists were rational people longing for peace.

Winning this conflict will require that we maintain our resolve and our sense of purpose. We must not let the relative safety afforded by our recent victories lull us into a false sense of security. Osama bin Laden is still at large, and his goons and thugs continue to plot sinister ways to hurt us. We have won a few battles, but the war is far from over. Al-Qaida remains determined to fight. Do you?

The New York Post: The Resilience of a Nation

The bill for 9/11 has yet to fully be paid.

But the architects of the cowardly attack - emboldened by years of American denial and lassitude - discovered the folly of waking a sleeping giant.

Today those men are dead, on the run or in hiding; their patrons are in disarray - and the world, while still turbulent and threatening, is safer for their folly.

One small step for humankind, as it were.

Certainly there has been no further domestic terror.

And New York City, for all its woes, has picked itself up and gotten on with life.

Washington was also grievously wounded two years ago.

Today, it's hard to tell where the airplane hit the Pentagon.

More to the point, President Bush is directing the War on Terror from the White House - symbol of all that the terrorists fear and hate, and itself a likely target two years ago.

In Afghanistan, U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban and demolished al Qaeda's base - killing or capturing hundreds of terrorists and choking off critical funding channels.

The fighting continues, but it is peripheral and of scant strategic consequence.

What's important is that al Qaeda had hoped to spark Islamist revolution - throughout the Mideast, and globally. Instead, it lost its base and the critical sponsorship of a nation-state.

And now it and related terrorist organizations - in Pakistan and Indonesia and in the Philippines - are reeling.

Yes, they're still dangerous, but they're also very much on the defensive.

Iraq too is vexed by intermittent guerrilla attacks following a brilliant - and humane - war to oust Saddam Hussein.

And to reshape the region's political and strategic geography.

Saddam is gone, if not captured, and order is returning to Iraq. Significantly, the Arab League just recognized the legitimacy of Iraq's Governing Council, while negotiations are under way to internationalize the military presence there.

And despite the seeming turmoil in the Mideast, the prospects for peace there are the best they've been in decades.

Just last week, the European Union proscribed Hamas - a stunning development in its own right; as a consequence, the terrorists have never been so isolated.

And now, it seems, a clock is ticking on Yasser Arafat.

There are no guarantees; great spasms of violence may yet be ahead - but there is hope for real peace.

And it is the War on Terror that is making the difference.

Meanwhile, at Ground Zero, renewal is well under way.

This summer, ground will be broken on the 1,776-foot "Freedom Tower." Seven World Trade Center, which stood near the Twin Towers, is already being rebuilt. In about two months, PATH service to downtown will resume.

All of this is a testament to the resilience of a great city, and a great nation.

Not everything has gone perfectly; how could it? There was so much to be done.

At home, rebuilding efforts endured months of needless delay, largely because of the gubernatorial election - and New Yorkers' legendary deference to paralyzing parochial interests.

Similarly, as the presidential campaign proceeds, doubt seems to be creeping into the debate over the war against terrorism.

Democrats - particularly, but not exclusively - niggle over Bush's War on Terror.

Sometimes their rhetoric is shameful. But this is a debate worth having, because the stakes are so great and because the national consensus forged in tragedy two years ago this morning must be maintained.

As it proceeds, Americans need to keep in mind that their nation is fighting for its life - and their freedoms.

Much of Islam, with its billion-plus adherents, and even many in the West - in countries like France and Germany - despise America, its freedoms, and particularly its success.

They hope for nothing less than America's humiliation.

So the war must be not only worldwide in scope, but thorough as well. Americans must be prepared to sacrifice - sending troops and treasure wherever needed.

"The enemy is wounded, but still resourceful and actively recruiting and still dangerous," said President Bush yesterday. "We cannot afford . . . complacency."

Not two years ago; certainly not today.

Meanwhile, take a moment to take pride, America.

You've earned it.

2003-09-11T07:41:00.000-04:00

9/11 Editorial Roundup
What some American newspapers are saying about Sept. 11 two years later:

The New York Times has a typically infuriating navel-gazer that really misses the whole point of the war on terror. In writing about the successful removal of Saddam Hussein from power, the Times lectures: It is worth reminding ourselves, on this day particularly, that we come no closer to understanding the significance of 9/11, at home and abroad, if we use the memory of what happened that morning falsely and vainly. No, you come no closer to understanding the significance of 9/11 because you are a bunch of myopic fools.

The Washington Post has a very nice lead edit reflecting on the broader war between the United States and terrorists. The Post's editorial board, as silly as it sometimes is, this time gets it.

The Boston Globe, on the other hand, does not get it, and even admits it: Are we healing? Are we tired? Are we still good and scared? As usual, there are no definitive answers because just about everything connected with 9/11 remains a question mark.

The Chicago Sun-Times also gets it: We, too, are a nation besieged. Though we do not face the daily peril faced in Israel, we face peril just the same, from a patient enemy. Al-Qaida waited eight years between its first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 and the second, far-deadlier assault.

Make peace with the past, by all means, but do not become complacent about it. How can we wonder why the dim warning signs of 9/11 were missed when, as a nation, we have barely changed our behavior since?

USA Today oddly focuses its lead editorial only on airline safety, warning that we have a long way to go before the nation's airlines are protected: But the cost of ignoring gaping holes in air security is far greater than the multibillion-dollar bill to close them. The health of the airline industry, the safety of the flying public and the nation's sense of security depend on preventing another disastrous attack in the skies.

The Miami Herald says GET BIN LADEN! Today will bring still more fitting tributes to the many heroes of 9/11. But, in a greater sense, there can be no closure -- there can be no moving on -- until Osama bin Laden and all his henchmen are brought to justice. The failure to find him up to now is not so much a measure of the adequacy of U.S. intelligence as it is a measure of the insidious and menacing nature of the terrorist enemy.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution begins with the stupidest question any editorial board has ever asked: Every day, thousands of Americans die of preventable causes such as murder, traffic accidents, domestic violence and smoking-related diseases. So why did the deaths of 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001, have such an effect on our national psyche? It goes on to argue for more federal spending.

The Christian Science Monitor doesn't say much of anything except it's nice that Americans debate such things as civil liberties and security.

The Houston Chronicle has a pretty vapid post, not even worth quoting.

The Indianapolis Star says Americans have proved resilient in the aftermath of attacks meant to cripple the nation.

The Kansas City Star blames the Bush administration's imaginary reluctance to build international alliances for the fact that Saddam and Osama haven't been caught yet.

It's taking too long to stabilize and rebuild both Afghanistan and Iraq. As each day passes, it seems increasingly clear that the Bush administration failed to adequately prepare for the challenges the United States would face — and that the president should have worked more closely with our most reliable allies.

Some fault, of course, lies outside of Washington. Hostility to Western goals appears potent among militants, and the international will to stand up to evil regimes has been appallingly weak at times.

But success in the war on terrorism and in promoting democratic reform in the Middle East will depend on whether Bush and his diplomats can recruit more long-term allies.

The Los Angeles Times has a worthless, content-free series of empty sentences.

The Denver Post says something trite, then quotes President Bush for a patriotic finale.

The world is a much different place than it was when we awoke that morning, that new date that will live in infamy. So much has changed in America since Sept. 11, 2001, yet so much still needs to change. . .

The war on terror, as he said, will be long and will require patience. Today, we need to remind ourselves of that as we pause to remember the thousands of innocents who lost their lives two years ago.

Remembering them, and strengthening our resolve as a nation, is what today should be about.

"Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America," President Bush said as the sun was setting on Sept. 11, 2001. "These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve."

We must never forget.

The Los Angeles Daily News says in our increasing comfort, there's also a decreasing sensitivity to the horrors of that day when terrorists declared war on our country, a war that rages on. . .

And we must strengthen our own resolve to stand up to terror and stand for the ideals of America, every individual's right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

2003-09-11T07:09:00.000-04:00

Boston.com is rotating a really breathtaking series of photos of New York City on this anniversary of Sept. 11. Interestingly, The New York Times is not.

2003-09-10T23:34:00.000-04:00

God Switches Sides
Alabama Gov. Bob Riley claimed that God wanted him to raise taxes to solve Alabama's budget crisis. The voters said otherwise, by a 2-1 margin. Link from Regionsofmind.

2003-09-10T23:28:00.000-04:00

John Edwards got a significant boost today when members of the Service Employees International Union voted him among their three favorite Democratic presidential candidates. Now maybe he can pull above 5 percent in New Hampshire.

2003-09-10T21:28:00.000-04:00

AAA Settles
AAA settled the lawsuit alleging that it was responsible for the rape and murder of a woman who got a ride home with a stranger after the tow truck driver took her car. The lawyers win another one.

2003-09-10T21:02:00.000-04:00

In England, they have serious national conversations about the quality of instruction at the nation's universities. The very existence of Media Studies courses sparks a national debate. But in the United States, we have Media Studies and Queer Studies and even worse nonsense, and no one bats an eye.

2003-09-09T22:36:00.000-04:00

AAA's Responsibiities
The family of a Massachusetts woman who was murdered by a man who told her he would driver her home after her car broke down has sued AAA for failing to rescue her from a dangerous situation.

The story goes like this: Woman's car breaks down. A stranger comes to her aid and offers to let her use his cell phone. She calls AAA (either from his phone or before, the story doesn't say). The tow truck driver arrives but says it'll be a few hours before he can tow her car to Boston. He eventually tows it to another location. She NEVER ASKS THE TOW TRUCK DRIVER FOR A RIDE. After he leaves, she gets a ride with the stranger, who rapes and murders her.

The woman's family sues AAA, saying it was responsible for getting her out of a dangerous situation. But the tow truck driver testifies that the woman was in a populated area close to a restaurant, gas station, and highway, and several people, including her murderer, appeared to be helping her. And, again, she never asked the driver to take her somewhere else.

When you pay for AAA service, you pay for a lot of things. The ability of a tow truck driver to sense murderous intentions in someone who is assisting you and to act on that extrasensory ability by whisking you to safety is not a benefit of membership.

2003-09-03T10:37:00.000-04:00

Point, Shoot, Doh!
If you're thinking about getting a camera phone, you must read this. Forbes reports that you can exchange pics only with someone who uses the same carrier you do.

Despite the fact that 10 million camera phones are expected to ship by the end of this year, the communiqués featured on TV are actually only possible between people who use the same carrier.

And even then, the process doesn't quite work as advertised. Quite a few keypad clicks are required to see the photo sent. "The thing that people want, where you send a picture and it pops up on someone else's screen, doesn't exist yet," says IDC analyst Keith Waryas.

2003-09-03T09:50:00.000-04:00

Big Trouble In Little Indonesia
Radical Islamists are making headway in Indonesia. Reports The New York Times:

The end of the Suharto government gave an important impetus to the most extreme of Indonesia's Islamic groups, Jemaah Islamiyah.

Many of its members, young men in their 20's and 30's, had been forced into exile in Malaysia, and from there had gone for training at Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. After 1998 they returned home to the freer atmosphere of a more democratic Indonesia. They used familiar stamping grounds — mostly small religious boarding schools, like Al Mukmin in the village of Ngruki in central Java — to regroup, and plot their terror attacks.

2003-09-03T09:22:00.000-04:00

Following Instructions
African AIDS patients are better at taking their drugs on time than are American AIDS patients, reports The New York Times. That's encouraging for Africa; Discouraging for America. If you don't take your drugs on schedule, the virus can become resistant to them, and the last thing we need is an increase in drug-resistant HIV

2003-09-03T06:28:00.000-04:00

InstaPunked
So, on Aug. 22 I posted that the French health care system was largely to blame for the astronomical number of deaths-by-heat in that country this summer. On Aug. 25, Virginia Postrel made the same point. Shortly thereafter, InstaPundit plugged Postrel's post, as if it were a novel theory. I sent Mr. Reynolds a quick email noting that I got the story first and he may want to update. No response. Silly me. I should've known better than to try to hang with the cool kids.

2003-09-01T20:47:00.000-04:00

WAR!
Israel declares "all out war" on Hamas. It's about time.

2003-09-01T20:45:00.000-04:00

Hamas Hit List
Hamas has copied the U.S. Department of Defense and has created a deck of cards featuring its most wanted Israelis. Actually, it's a wanted poster with each wanted person displayed as a face on a playing card. One major difference between the American deck and the Hamas deck is that Hamas wants to kill everyone pictured on its deck. Ariel Sharon is featured as the most wanted, though apparently his card is a joker.

2003-08-31T21:29:00.000-04:00

Dispassionate Marxists
The Nation cracks me up. In an article on the autobigraphy of Marxist propagandist Eric Hobsbawm, who happens to be a historian, Nation writer Terry Eagleton pens this beauty:

"I have lived," Eric Hobsbawm remarks, "through almost all of the most extraordinary and terrible century in human history"; but he has lived through it as one of that century's most eminent Marxist historians, and the dispassionate gaze of the historian is reflected in his title.

Now, how can one be a "Marxist historian" and have "the dispassionate gaze of the historian" at the same time? Either you're passionate about your Marxism, or you're a dispassionate historian, but you can't be both. And Hobsbawm is decidedly a passionate Marxist.

Eagleton has this metaphorical gem a few lines later: "Hobsbawm has also clapped eyes on Stalin."

There are a lot of things one can do with the eyes, but clapping, even metaphorically, isn't one of them.

The writing actually gets worse, and after a few more graphs I stopped reading. I'm in the middle of Bernard Lewis' "The Middle East", and it soon became clear that there was no way I could justify wasting another second on Terry Eagleton when Lewis and 1,000 years of Islamic history were just lying there on the coffee table, unlearned.

2003-08-31T12:39:00.000-04:00

Canadian Gays Say 'Do I?'
Here's an interesting New York Times story on the ambivilance many Canadian homosexuals have about marriage, especially now that they are legally allowed into the institution. It's not really news that there is a split between gays who want to "mainstream" their relationships by getting married and embracing what is more or less a conventional middle class life and gays who want to live their whole lives rebelling against all conventional social norms. The Times story covers this social phenomenon as it unfolds in Canada, where gays in long-time relationships now have to decide whether to fold themselves and their relationships into the institution of marriage or remain on the outside in defiant opposition to the dominant heterosexual culture. The editor of a Canadian magazine for gays put it this way:

I'd be for marriage if I thought gay people would challenge and change the institution and not buy into the traditional meaning of `till death do us part' and monogamy forever. We should be Oscar Wildes and not like everyone else watching the play.

One sociologist made the point that some gays are fearful that the ability to marry will put social pressure on them to abandon hedonism. He wrote in the magazine whose editor is quoted above:

I can already hear folks saying things like: `Why are bathhouses needed? Straights don't have them. Will queers now have to live with the heterosexual forms of guilt associated with something called cheating?"

The presence of this fear gives credence to arguments of Andrew Sullivan and others who say that marriage will serve as the same kind of calming, civilizing force with gays as it does with heterosexuals. It will be fascinating to see how this struggle plays out in Canada. Will marriage be a taming influence, or will most gays either reject it or attempt to sabotage it? I would think that over time it would lead to more commitment and monogamy, or at least to the wider acceptance of those ideals. But who knows? This is a wide-open social experiment, the outcome of which is not wholly predictable.

A few other asides: It should be no surprise that, as the Times put it, "Gay men seem more apprehensive about marriage than lesbians." Heterosexual men are more apprehensive about marriage than are heterosexual women, too.

Also, there is this line from the story, referring to gay couples: "and generally, couples with children, or thinking of having children, express more interest in marrying." Thinking of having children how, exactly? The Times never explains.

2003-08-30T16:50:00.000-04:00

Two Cars In Every Garage
There are now more cars than licensed drivers in the average American household. Are we rich or what?

It surely won't be long before the left jumps on this report as evidence of America's excess; its horrible acquisitiveness; its greed; its self-indulgence; its. . . its . . . its . . . AMERICANISM! Oh, for shame! For shame!

2003-08-30T10:48:00.000-04:00

Justice Indicts Cuban Pilots, Herald Says It's A Politicial Move
Back in 1996 two Cuban MIGs shot down two Brothers to the Rescue aircraft. Last week the Justice Department indicted one Cuban general and the two MIG pilots for, as The Miami Herald put it, "murder, conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals, and destruction of aircraft."

The Herald today has a story alleging that the motives for the indictment are "purely political", to quote one unnamed source. The story says the decision came after Florida Republicans warned the White House that Bush was in danger of losing the Cuban exile vote and that Karl Rove decided the indictment would help Bush win support in South Florida.

This administration certainly has a history of letting public opinion guide its policy decisions, and I wouldn't doubt that the Herald story may be true. But is this really a story? Since when have presidents (aside from George Washington, perhaps) not made policy based on winning votes in key states? Surely Clinton's decision not to indict the Cuban pilots was also guided by political considerations. The difference is that indicting the pilots is the right decision.

2003-08-30T10:19:00.000-04:00

When Journalists Attack! (Or at least drive drunk and rear-end someone)
In Raleigh, NC, the editor of the local business journal rear-ended a night metro editor for The News & Observer, the main local newspaper. The business editor blew a .16 and was immediately arrested and taken to the county jail. He was released after being booked, and as fate would have it he went straight back to his car and attempted to drive it home, which led to his being pulled over and arrested a second time the same night.

Pretty odd. In a city of about 250,000, in a greater metro area of roughly 1 million, what are the chances that two newspaper editors would be involved in an auto accident and that one of them would be arrested twice in the same night for DWI?

A more interesting question, though, is how would The News & Observer have reported the story had the editors' roles been reversed? If the N&O editor had been the one driving drunk, would they have played the story this big, complete with mug shot? I doubt it.

2003-08-29T21:56:00.000-04:00

Dang, I have a pretty cool battle cry.

2003-08-29T21:11:00.000-04:00

A Two-Headed Goliath
The University of Georgia's "Hot Dog Man", who has been selling weenies to the Bulldogs for 20 years, has for some reason piqued the ire of both university officials and the county. They want him to stop selling hot dogs at a particular street corner, saying it's dangerous. But he says it isn't and is asking them to prove it. Natuarlly, the sheriff had him arrested. Says the Hot Dog Man's wife (presumably the Hot Dog Wife):

This is an absolute vicious attack. It is like there is a two-headed Goliath up against us -- one head is the university and the other head is Athens-Clarke County

The Hot Dog Man says he makes $100k a year selling hot dogs to college students.

Man. I gotta go to Hot Dog School so I can make me some money!

2003-08-29T17:52:00.000-04:00

Professor Whackjob
Cynthia McKinney -- you remember, the kook former member of Congress (D-Ga.) who lost her 2002 re-election bid primarily because she ran around not so subtly suggesting that President Bush had advance knowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks and let them happen anyway so his friends in the oil industry could get rich -- has just been named a visiting professor at Cornell University.

Here's what McKinney said about Bush and 9-11:

We know there were numerous warnings of the events to come on September 11th. . . . What did this administration know and when did it know it, about the events of September 11th? Who else knew, and why did they not warn the innocent people of New York who were needlessly murdered? . . . What do they have to hide?

and

persons close to this administration are poised to make huge profits off America's new war

Here's what Cornell's president said about McKinney's selection as a visiting professor:

The University assigns responsibility for the appointment of Rhodes Professors to a faculty committee. ... That committee made the academic judgment that [McKinney] would contribute meaningfully to our collective intellectual life on campus.

Um-hmm. If the faculty at Cornell believe Cynthia McKinney, above all others possible candidates, will add the most value to the academic atmosphere on that hallowed Ivy League campus, one has to question the quality of Cornell's professoriate.

McKinney was nominated by James Turner, founder of Africana Studies at Cornell, which is the campus division that will sponsor her and in which she will do whatever it is radical leftist visiting professors do, which is indoctrinate as many impressionable youngsters as possible.

2003-08-28T21:31:00.000-04:00

Taxpayers' Center For Distance Learning
Tomorrow the University of Kentucky College of Law, from which U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell graduated in 1967, will announce the creation of the Mitch McConnell Center for Distance Learning. The senator is receiving this honor only because he funnelled hordes of federal cash to UK, most especially $750k for the center. I would comment on this, but Law professor Roberta Harding said it perfectly when she told the Louisville Courier-Journal:

I'm certainly appreciative of Senator McConnell getting research money for the university and for the law school, but I believe that's his job. From my perspective, I could see if they called it the Taxpayers' Center for Distance Learning. It's the taxpayers' dollars, it's not Mitch McConnell's.

2003-08-28T20:46:00.000-04:00

It's Called 'Sage' For A Reason
Researchers confirm that the herb called Sage does in fact improve the memory.

2003-08-28T07:48:00.000-04:00

I'm Spain
Blue Pyramid has a funny little quiz in which you answer questions and your personality type is identified by which national persona it most resembles. I'm Spain. It could be worse. At least I'm not Cambodia.

2003-08-28T06:32:00.000-04:00

More Stupidity In Alabama
Gov. Bob Riley's political director says people who don't support the governor's proposed $1.2 billion tax increase are "too damn stupid to know better."

2003-08-26T21:51:00.000-04:00

More Campus Indoctrination
For the second year in a row, the University of North Carolina has come under fire for selecting a left-wing book for its freshman summer reading program. The program requires all incoming freshmen to read the same book, which they are to discuss upon arriving on campus. Last year the book was a work about the Koran which critics say conveniently left out portions that incited Muslims to violence against the infidels. This summer's selection was "Nickel and Dimed", a ridiculous little book in which the leftist writer Barbara Ehrenreich poses as a poor person working a low-wage job and writes about how hard it is to make it in America. It's standard anti-Capitalist claptrap, and the university is requiring all freshmen to read it.

In both instances, the university insisted that the books were chosen not to indoctrinate, but to get students to think about these complex issues. Nine times out of ten, when someone says that, he's lying. As for UNC officials, decide for yourself. Here is UNC Chancellor James Moeser, speaking to students about the book, as reported in The News & Observer of Raleigh:

"You can see people on this campus who fit the profile of people in this book," he told the students, adding that he hopes the book will instill in them a lasting compassion for the often-invisible service workers.

He didn't add that he hoped it would get the students to think critically about the economics of employment. He said he hoped it would instill in them a lasting compassion for service workers. That's indoctrination, pure and simple.

2003-08-26T06:48:00.000-04:00

Lynyrd Skynyrd is back on the Billboard charts. Who'd have thought?

2003-08-22T23:03:00.000-04:00

Death By Socialized Medicine
How can so many French citizens (10,000 by one preliminary estimate) have died from the heat? Looks like it's mostly the fault of the socialist health care system, combined with the long August vacations in which family members and health care professionals are gone for weeks and weeks at a stretch, leaving the elderly with no one to look after them. The Independent reports:

Half the victims are believed to have died in old people's homes, many operating with fewer staff during the August holidays. Many hospitals had closed complete wards for the month and were unable to offer sophisticated, or sometimes even basic, treatment to victims. About 2,000 people are thought to have died in their homes from the effects of dehydration and other heat- related problems while neighbours and relatives were away.

and

Dr Michel Dèsmaizieres, an emergency service doctor in Paris, told the newspaper Libération: "It is just not right to see [patients on] trolleys in the corridors, while whole wards were empty and locked up. In the retirement homes there were people with a body temperature of 42C [108F], for whom we could offer nothing but a little comfort."

and

Officials said 85 per cent of all public and private retirement homes in France were permanently understaffed. At holiday times, staffing levels fell even further.

2003-08-22T22:47:00.000-04:00

Bush Freezes Hamas Assets
This should've been done years ago. Not that Bush's effort alone will seriously damage Hamas financially, but it'll give us some leverage when asking other governments to undertake similar actions.

2003-08-21T22:33:00.000-04:00

Stupidity Squared
A recap of this week's events in the Israeli/Palestinian war (let's be honest here) is in order.

The cease fire to which Israel, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad agreed on June 29 was still in effect on Monday. On Tuesday, Hamas sent a suicide bomber to blow up a bus full of Israelis, killing 20. On Thursday Israel retaliated by killing a Hamas co-founder and two of his aides. Later that day Hamas declared that Israel's attack broke the cease fire. Hamas said its attack on Tuesday was in retaliation for an Israeli attack that took place before the cease fire began, so it didn't really break the cease fire.

Never in the history of international relations has such a brazenly illogical and dazzlingly stupid argument been posited. And yet, journalists, such as this reporter for The Irish Times, continue to report the Hamas line without contradiction.

2003-08-21T22:21:00.000-04:00

Fellow Travelers
The Guardian and Reuters promote the Hamas line that Israel's retaliation on Thursday for the Hamas suicide bombing on Tuesday is what broke the cease fire.

2003-08-20T18:40:00.000-04:00

Sticking To The Script
BBC Middle East analyst Roger Hardy, who looks every bit like a hilarious parody of a British journalist, writes this gem about the bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad:

Although the immediate target was the UN, the attack's stark message was directed principally at the United States.

That's right, stick with the script, Roger. Don't acknowledge that someone has just blown a giant, gaping hole in it.

2003-08-20T18:30:00.000-04:00

How Lazy Can You Get?
A Sacramento Bee reporter was fired for watching a San Francisco Giants game on TV then filing his story as if he had been at the ballpark. On top of that, he inserted into his story old quotes from other news sources to make it look as if he had interviewed players. Now that's going the extra mile to keep from having to go the extra mile. (That's not nearly as funny as it sounded in my head.)

2003-08-20T13:04:00.000-04:00

Let's Get This War Movin'!
Frank J. over at IMAO writes, and I concur:

To all military readers of this site: get off your damn asses and kill some terrorists. What are you doing surfing the net when there are still people out there in need of killing! Hey, my tax dollars pay your measly salary, so get to it!

2003-08-20T07:30:00.000-04:00

Disarming The Wrong People
Another baffling thing about the American left: It wants to disarm this guy, but not this guy. Go figure. Last link from LGF.

2003-08-19T21:38:00.000-04:00

Blowing Up Babies
Charles at Little Green Footballs, on top of the Palestinian situation as always, linked to this pic of one of the victims of the suicide bombing in Israel today. (Warning, it's disturbing. He's maybe one year old.) The Israelis are using uniformed soldiers to try to hunt down militants (enemy combatants, if you will), and the Palestinians are blowing up babies on (or in this case near) buses. The next time The New York Times or Reuters or some other smarmy apologist for terrorists tries to equate Israeli incursions into the West Bank with Palestinian suicide bombings, remember that picture.

2003-08-19T20:15:00.000-04:00

This Changes Everything
The killing of UN Special Envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello and 16 others in Baghdad today has completely rearranged the picture in Iraq, and perhaps in the entire hemisphere. It is no longer possible to be a rational person and to believe that the attacks on coalition troops, on Iraqis working with those troops, and on infrastructure on which average civilians depend for their survival, such as the water main leading to Baghdad, stem from hatred of the United States or of American foreign policy.

Blowing up the Iraqi headquarters of the United Nations -- the institution that labored longer, harder, and more seriously than any other to prevent the overthrow of Saddam Hussein -- was an act intended to send a wholly unambiguous message to the entire world: GET OUT!

This message was not for George Bush and Tony Blair alone. They've been warned almost every day for more than three months. This was for everyone trying to bring peace, stability, and democracy to Iraq. It was for Kofi Anan and Jacques Chirac and Vladimir Putin and anyone else who might ever consider committing the resources at their disposal to assist in bringing this sandy, desolate, wind-blown, sunburned, blood-drenched country, which happens to lay fallow over what was once the greatest civilization in human history, a single step forward toward modernity.

Less than two weeks ago the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad was attacked. Now the United Nations headquarters. Still, reporters covering these events don't seem to grasp their meaning or import. The New York Times story contained this odd paragraph:

The suicide bombing marked a brazen assault on the American occupation here, calculated to destroy any sense of security for the people charged with reviving Iraq in the aftermath of the war. The United Nations compound attacked today was filled with hundreds of people charged with duties like repairing the country's electrical system, finding homes for Iraq's refugees and providing food for its people.

How could driving a truck filled with explosives into the United Nations headquarters -- as opposed to American command headquarters -- possibly have "marked a brazen assault on the American occupation"?

If the reporters who were there and who witnessed the carnage first-hand did not have their preconceived notions about this conflict shaken (or, rather, blown) away, is there any hope that the bombing will knock the "America is the problem" fog out of the addled heads of the perpetually confused leaders of the once-great nations of Europe?

Today was a turning point. Either Europe (and to a lesser extent the United Nations) gets serious about helping the United States and Britain drive these beasts into the sea, whether in Iraq or Afghanistan or Morocco or Georgia or Paris or wherever, or the good nations of that proud old "can't we all just get along" continent will find themselves having to root the snakes out of their own gardens one day. And that day is coming more quickly than they imagine -- if they imagine at all.

2003-08-18T20:48:00.000-04:00

Al-Qaida Claims Responsibility For Paper Cut
DUBAI -- In an urgent communique mysteriously dropped off at Al-Jazeera headquarters in Dubai, Qatar, the terror group Al-Qaida has claimed responsibility for 42-year-old Milwaukee resident Fred Scanlon's really painful paper cut.

"Let this be a lesson to all infidels!" the message, typed in Arabic and delivered anonymously, read. "For their crimes against Allah, every American will die a thousand painful deaths! And by die, of course, we mean experience anything slightly irritating or annoying!"

Late yesterday afternoon Scanlon was opening a letter addressed to him from someone named Al K. Duh when he cut his right index finger on the envelope. As is typical of most Americans, he was not using a security device called a "letter opener," which could have prevented the disaster. The FBI is investigating the envelope and the letter, which read, "BET THAT DIDN"T FEEL GOOD, DID IT, YOU NASTY AMERICAN INFIDEL?!!!"

In the memo to Al Jazeera, an unidentified al-Qaida operative detailed the reasons why the group targeted Mr. Scanlon.

"To strike fear into the heart of America, we have made an example of your countryman Fred Scanlon of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Fred Scanlon is the son of monkeys and pigs! We have it on good authority that while on vacation in Toronto this summer he was overheard saying, 'Why don't we try that place across the street instead, honey, I don't really like Middle Eastern food.' This statement is a typical example of American arrogance and culinary imperialism!

"Has Fred Scanlon ever tried Fakhitha Bel Laban, which is roasted lamb with yogurt? It is delicious! Or how about Fattoush? How can he say he doesn't like Middle Eastern food when he has tried it only once -- 20 years ago when he went on a date with a comparative lit major in college? And even then it was only some second-rate falafel cooked up by a third-generation immigrant from Lebanon?

"For embodying all that is corrupt, evil and really annoying about America, Fred Scanlon had to die! And by die, of course, we mean suffer a great deal of pain and agony compressed into a very tiny and fleeting moment that he will remember for at least half an hour! If America does not convert to Islam and open an authentic kabob stand in every city, town, and village by sundown next Thursday, we will strike again!!"

Authorities say they have no leads yet in the investigation, but they are looking into every Middle-Eastern restaurant in the greater Toronto area.

2003-08-18T19:43:00.000-04:00

The Predator Effect
Eric Pfeiffer writes in The Weekly Standard that three of the stars of the 1987 film "Predator" have run for governor of their respective states. So far, one has won, and one has dropped out. Where will Arnold fall?

2003-08-17T20:23:00.000-04:00

Nightmare For Bennifer
Freddy vs. Jason took in $13.6 million on its opening night -- more than twice what Gigli has taken in since its release two weeks ago. If this were a Simpsons episode, this would be the point where Nelson Muntz steps in and says, "Ha-ha!"

2003-08-17T17:25:00.000-04:00

A Public-Sector Enron
The Miami Herald reports that the Miami-Dade County teachers' union was so poorly managed that its top executives borrowed millions to pay operating expenses, and when that ran out they spent the members' insurance premiums. All the while they continued lavish construction projects, including condominiums and an office tower. And the executive board, made up of full-time teachers and public school staff members, hadn't a clue -- because they never asked any detailed questions about the union's finances. Sounds a whole lot like Enron. Wonder when we'll see all those hand-wringing editorials about "union greed".

2003-08-17T13:03:00.000-04:00

Profiling And The Japanese American Internment
Christopher Hitchens and David Ross criticize Daniel Pipes for supporting racial profiling without understanding the history behind America's internment of people of Japanese descent during WWII. I'm firmly in the "if you don't know history you'll be doomed to repeat it" camp, but the people who bring up the Japanese American internment example to criticize Pipes and other supporters of profiling terrorists are the ones who don't know their history.

The forced internment of American citizens during a declared global war against enemy nations is vastly different from focusing our anti-terrorism resources on Muslims and Arabs during a war against shadowy terrorist groups.

Pipes supports the concentration of federal anti-terror investigations upon radical Muslims. This would include heavily monitoring radical mosques and paying special attention to people who travel to the United States from countries known to breed radical Islamic terrorists. To suggest that focusing anti-terror investigations upon the single group from which the Sept. 11 terrorists came is the same as, or even significantly similar to, rounding up and imprisoning everyone of a specific race, is just nonsense.

Pipes and most other profiling supporters do not advocate rounding up Muslims and Arabs and locking them away indefinitely or unitl the War on Terrorism is over. If they did, then the comparisons to the internment would be justified because the action advocated by profiling supporters would be the same as the action carried out by the government in WWII. But that is not the situation.

The case for the religious profiling in the War on Terror is best made here: The FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list. Twenty-two people are on that list, and there isn't one Swede, Canadian, Venezuelan, Japanese, or Australian Aborigine. They are all Egyptian, Saudi, Kenyan, or American. And, yes, they are all Muslim. For federal law enforcement and military authorities to diffuse their resources by not concentrating on these groups would be a gross dereliction of duty.

2003-08-17T10:20:00.000-04:00

Ted Kennedy Wanted For Murder!!
Well, OK, so he's not a U.S. senator. But still, he is wanted for murder.

2003-08-16T20:57:00.000-04:00

Black Widows Target Russia
Chechen rebel groups are recruiting women suicide bombers to hit targets inside Russia. They're called the Black Widows. Sounds just like Santosh Sivan's beautiful 1999 film "The Terrorist". But with a very different ending.

2003-08-16T20:49:00.000-04:00

Court Cancels Mealtime Prayers At VMI, Citadel
Jefferson and Madison complete another rotation in their graves.

2003-08-14T23:37:00.000-04:00

Da Pimps Is Back
Just in time for fall fashion season, the pimp look is back.

2003-08-14T23:26:00.000-04:00

America's Self-Selected Conformity
In the September Atlantic, David Brooks has the best article on diversity I've read in a long, long time. He writes:

Human beings are capable of drawing amazingly subtle social distinctions and then shaping their lives around them. In the Washington, D.C., area Democratic lawyers tend to live in suburban Maryland, and Republican lawyers tend to live in suburban Virginia. If you asked a Democratic lawyer to move from her $750,000 house in Bethesda, Maryland, to a $750,000 house in Great Falls, Virginia, she'd look at you as if you had just asked her to buy a pickup truck with a gun rack and to shove chewing tobacco in her kid's mouth. In Manhattan the owner of a $3 million SoHo loft would feel out of place moving into a $3 million Fifth Avenue apartment. A West Hollywood interior decorator would feel dislocated if you asked him to move to Orange County. In Georgia a barista from Athens would probably not fit in serving coffee in Americus.

and

Looking through the market research, one can sometimes be amazed by how efficiently people cluster—and by how predictable we all are. If you wanted to sell imported wine, obviously you would have to find places where rich people live. But did you know that the sixteen counties with the greatest proportion of imported-wine drinkers are all in the same three metropolitan areas (New York, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.)? If you tried to open a motor-home dealership in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, you'd probably go broke, because people in this ring of the Philadelphia suburbs think RVs are kind of uncool. But if you traveled just a short way north, to Monroe County, Pennsylvania, you would find yourself in the fifth motor-home-friendliest county in America.

and, my favorite line from the piece:

The dream of diversity is like the dream of equality. Both are based on ideals we celebrate even as we undermine them daily.

2003-08-14T23:11:00.000-04:00

Bizarre Accident
A sunbather on an English beach was killed when a car landed ontop of him. That's right. A car. From the sky.

2003-08-14T22:47:00.000-04:00

Jonesin
Stanley Crouch has a very cool column on jazz pianist Hank Jones and how refinement is the enemy of ignorance.

2003-08-14T20:07:00.000-04:00

New York City = The Entire Eastern Seaboard
Boy, the media hype on this power outage story has been insane. How many times this afternoon did the nitwits on television and the radio tell us that "the eastern seaboard" is without power? Hundreds? Thousands? I heard one Fox News broadcaster say, and I'm paraphrasing: I don't mean to start a panic, but . . . and he proceded to say something that would definitely start a panic. Thanks a lot!

The whole eastern seaboard lost power? Nonsense! Boston never lost power. Baltimore never lost power. Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Washington, D.C., Richmond, Norfolk, Wilmington, Charleston, Portland didn't lose power.

Who lost power? New York City. Oh, and some other insignificant places named Detroit, Toronto, Cleveland, northern New Jersey and southern Connecticut.

Hardly "the eastern seaboard". But it's too late, the word is out. America thinks the entire east coast is without power, and even though I live in idyllic northern New England, where the power could go out and people might not even notice, I have to field calls from my family across the country frantically asking, "do you have power?! do you have power?!" Well, I'm talking to you, aren't I?

Yes, we hardy souls in northern New England have power. Now stop calling us so we can turn up the window unit a few notches and eat our steaming hot clam chowder in peace!

2003-08-13T22:55:00.000-04:00

IMAO declares war on InstaPundit! This ought to be fun.

2003-08-13T22:47:00.000-04:00

Gravitas, baby! (Say it in Arnold's accent.)

2003-08-13T22:13:00.000-04:00

The Iceman Goeth
Looks like the "Iceman", the ancient body found in the Alps 12 years ago, was killed in battle. The BBC says the discovery "may close the longest criminal case in human history." Well, not exactly.

The "case" has been open for only 12 years, since that's when Ice (obviously his rap name) was discovered. The longest criminal case in human history would be, well, I was going to say Cain v. Abel, but we know how that turned out. It would have to be a mystery that has plagued mankind for centuries, like why Henry VIII was such a right fat bastard. It can't be a recently unearthed mystery, like why the 15th century German painter Albrecht Durer in 1493 looked exactly like Rosanna Arquette, but Albrecht Durer in 1500 looked exactly like the lead singer of Collective Soul circa 1994.