Musings Archive August 2003
Sunday, August 31, 2003 IF THIS IS TRUE, GOD HELP SAUDI ARABIA: Gerald Posner's book Why America Slept is the standard "Why did September 11 happened" entry into a growing genre of books...all except for Chapter 19. According to Time Magazine, it contains explosive allegations about what Abu Zubaydah told his interrogators.
Posner elaborates in startling detail how U.S. interrogators used drugs—an unnamed "quick-on, quick-off" painkiller and Sodium Pentothal, the old movie truth serum—in a chemical version of reward and punishment to make Zubaydah talk. When questioning stalled, according to Posner, cia men flew Zubaydah to an Afghan complex fitted out as a fake Saudi jail chamber, where "two Arab-Americans, now with Special Forces," pretending to be Saudi inquisitors, used drugs and threats to scare him into more confessions.
Yet when Zubaydah was confronted by the false Saudis, writes Posner, "his reaction was not fear, but utter relief." Happy to see them, he reeled off telephone numbers for a senior member of the royal family who would, said Zubaydah, "tell you what to do." The man at the other end would be Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz, a Westernized nephew of King Fahd's and a publisher better known as a racehorse owner. His horse War Emblem won the Kentucky Derby in 2002. To the amazement of the U.S., the numbers proved valid. When the fake inquisitors accused Zubaydah of lying, he responded with a 10-minute monologue laying out the Saudi-Pakistani-bin Laden triangle.
If this is true...
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 11:24 PM EST [Link]
~ A TICKET OF DERANGED MODERATES: George Will has an interesting column on Howard Dean, Wesley Clark and what they mean for today's Democratic Party.
Posted by antle @ 08:02 PM EST [Link]
~ BOZEMAN'S BIG TEN. One Judge Wyckman, in this Montana city, has a stone tablet featuring the Ten Commandments on the wall of his courtroom. Interestingly, nobody has complained to the Anti-Christian Civil Liberties Union about the display.
Here is the story.
Posted by izzy @ 07:35 PM EST [Link]
~ BIG BROTHER AT THE MALL: Robin Wallace discusses all the information that retailers are asking for these days even if your making a simple purchase.
What many Americans don't realize is that their enthusiastic consumerism does a lot more for the interests of national security than keeping the economy strong. Long after credit card bills are paid and checking accounts replenished, the information retailers collect about customers in those increasingly intrusive mini-interrogations at the cash register--zip codes, phone numbers, purchases, even point of purchase requests for email addresses and Social Security numbers--remains bouncing around networks of computer databases, permanently traceable and trackable by the government.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:00 AM EST [Link]
~ FROM THE INVENTOR OF THE INTERNET: I predict that it is only a matter of time before Al Gore claims that he and Tipper were the inspiration for the famous MTV Video Music Awards kiss between Madonna and Britney Spears. No word on who will be credited with inspiring Christina Aguilera.
Posted by antle @ 12:47 AM EST [Link]
Saturday, August 30, 2003 SPEAKING OF FIGHTING BETWEEN LIBERTARIANS AND CONSERVATIVES: A few days ago, the paleolibertarian writer Karen De Coster took ESR to task for being a “flaming, Republican-neocon-worshipping website,” and accused us – or, more specifically, Izzy Lyman and me – of “LewRockwell.com-bashing.” This appears on her personal blog - scroll down to August 25.
Since Ms. De Coster, who has written for us, could not see who the authors of the posts were, she can be forgiven for not noticing that she was citing a Pat Buchanan-supporting home-schooling activist and a persistent critic of big government conservatism who also supports immigration reform as evidence of ESR’s alleged neocon credentials. But something needs to be said for the record on some other points.
Since Izzy, aka Person #1 is more than capable of defending herself, I’ll confine my remarks to my own post as Person #2.
As should be plain from my original entry, I did not criticize paleoconservatives because, as Ms. De Coster says, “the paleos criticize neocons,” nor did I single them out for criticism. Instead, I took a more balanced view of the debate and offered some criticism of both sides. I also linked to several paleo-oriented pieces in the post and fail to see where I “bashed” any of them.
In fact, I expressed my desire to see a more civil paleocon-neocon debate and contended that the reasons for its absence were as much personal as ideological. You don’t think that the disputes between, say, David Frum and Robert Novak, or Frum and Taki are every bit as much about personal issues as political ones? De Coster selectively quotes me on this point, repeating my assertion about being paleocons resenting the relative lack of influence that has attended their being shut out from many of the major mainstream outlets for the right but not mentioning my reference to neocon fears of paleocon competition to those outlets from such growing publications as LewRockwell.com and VDARE.com. She incorrectly infers that I was talking about Paul Gottfried’s situation with Catholic University. As I thought was clear from the context, I was referring to the debates and battles for various positions of influence within the conservative movement during the 1990s. As I noted, Peter Brimelow would probably not be running VDARE.com if he had been retained as a senior editor at National Review. Furthermore, The American Conservative might not exist if Pat Buchanan were still close to Bill Buckley and executive editor Scott McConnell had not been ousted as editorial page editor at the New York Post. (The third leading editor, Taki, is still on NR’s masthead as a contributor.)
This isn’t a criticism of these gentlemen, as some of them and their strongest supporters have also pointed out these facts, or a call for them to renounce their principles. It is simply an explanation of the dynamics of this debate and why it has taken on the tone that it has. I recognize that many of the players in this debate have very legitimate personal and professional grievances with each other, and as human beings that can’t help but influence the way these debates sound and play out. I just wish we could focus more on the ideas being debated and less on airy, ideologically charged dismissals – like “unpatriotic conservatives” on the one side and “flaming neocon-worshippers” on the other.
Posted by antle @ 09:26 PM EST [Link]
~ U.S. SPONSORS SAFER WEB SURFING FOR IRANIANS: The U.S. government has paid The Anonymizer an undisclosed amount to set up a web site for Iranians to surf the Internet without interference from their government.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 05:32 PM EST [Link]
~ LIBERTARIANS, THE RIGHT AND THE LEFT: I've written a lot lately about the growing rift between conservatives and libertarians. Many libertarians seek to secede from the right, by either forming a libertarian political "third way" or by entering into an alliance with the left. Some of the latter are even considering voting for a Democratic presidential candidate in 2004. At least one major liberal magazine has an article in the works on this very subject.
Jim Henley sums up the problem this way: "Two factors are at work here: the issues on which conservatives and libertarians have never agreed have become more salient, and on the issues where conservatives and libertarians traditionally have agreed - taxes, trade, federalism - conservatives increasingly suck. Having abandoned the substance of limited government since early in the Gingrich 'revolution,' conservatives increasingly eschew even the rhetoric of limited government." I for the most part agree with his analysis.
Yet Colby Cosh argues that the left is more viscerally totalitarian than the right. Although Nick Weininger over at The Agitator raises some good examples of statist impulses on the right, I think Cosh nails it. Yes, the value that conservatives - myself included - attach to law and order, a strong national defense and traditional morality at times lead the right to take coercive, big-government positions. But the modern left has adopted an inherently coercive view of practicing politics and often aims it at fairly normal activities (such as making and selling Big Macs, for example).
For better or for worse, most people on the right have more libertarian tendencies than do most people today on the left. The left is viscerally attracted to government solutions to all problems and to nanny statism to a degree that conservatives just aren’t. Most grassroots conservatives – to distinguish them from the Beltway establishment right – enter politics not to change the world but because the government is screwing with them in some respect – by taking away their guns, over-regulating their businesses, overtaxing their families or mocking their religious faith – or because the government is failing in its basic constitutional functions. Grover Norquist has described the right’s base of taxpayers, small businesspeople, gun owners and home-schoolers as the “Leave us Alone Coalition.” Not only would it be impossible to imagine a similar coalition among the left, but I even remember highbrow liberal pundits tut-tutting the very idea of being governed by a coalition so motivated. The right is far less presumptively pro-government than the left and, as Cosh notes, tends to go through all kinds of philosophical gymnastics to justify why their particular exception on issues like drugs and pornography are different.
By contrast, the left believes that the government should be utilized to stamp out such normal activities as smoking and the making and selling of Big Macs. They are presumptively in favor of bigger government and only support limiting government in the rare cases where it would undermine traditional social institutions outside of the state like the family. I’m not saying the right is perfect, or that libertarians are either. But I do think libertarians who hope the left will turn out to be better in the long term than the right are setting themselves up for some disappointment.
Posted by antle @ 05:17 PM EST [Link]
~ 19 ARRESTED IN IRAQ BOMBING: And many of them are foreigners with links to al-Qaida.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said two Iraqis and two Saudis grabbed shortly after the Friday attack gave information leading to the arrest of the others. They include two Kuwaitis and six Palestinians with Jordanian passports. The remainder were Iraqis and Saudis, the official said, without giving a breakdown.
May the last face they see be that of Iblis.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:22 PM EST [Link]
~ MARRIAGE MATTERS - LET'S MAKE IT MATTER MORE: Want to reverse the social pathologies that ruin lives and land so many people - particularly young black men - in jail? Jim Wooten of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution says rebuild the marriage culture.
Full story here.
Posted by antle @ 03:39 PM EST [Link]
Friday, August 29, 2003 MASCULINE vs. METROSEXUAL. The September issue of The American Enterprise - which Maureen Dowd mocked in a recent column - is about "real men." Several neocons, paleocons, con cons, and femme cons offer their opinions and expertise about the very hot topic of masculinity.
My Ironman husband makes an appearance in this issue (courtesy of a column I wrote).
Posted by izzy @ 10:51 PM EST [Link]
~ DO YOU HAVE A ACME 5X24 SERIES TIME TRANSDUCING CAPACITOR WITH BUILT-IN TEMPORAL DISPLACEMENT?: If this sounds familiar to you, then you've probably received an email asking for people to help a person named "Bob White" build a time travel machine.
Brian McWilliams reveals the story behind the spam here.
Posted by steve @ 06:47 PM EST [Link]
~ URBAN SPRAWL HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH: A couple of studies are bemoaning the hazards of living in the suburbs compared with living cheek-by-jowl in cities. Suburbanites are more likely to be overweight, and more likely to get hit by a vehicle when walking or cycling. This is serious enough that the Center for Disease Prevention and Control is worried that we may see an epidemic of surburban obesity among baby-boomers.
Of course, neither of these studies looked at the increased risk of rape, murder, assault or other violent crimes that comes from living in "neighborhoods that work for people."
I'd rather be fat and drive an SUV for my daily errands than be a victim of urban crime.
The story is here.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 12:15 PM EST [Link]
~ BUSTAMENTE STILL DIGS MECHA: California Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, hoping to be the next governor of California, has refused to denounce MEChA (we blogged a link to Tacitus asking about it here).
Instead, Bustamante, who is running to be governor of California, praised the Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan, or MEChA, and said he still supports it.
"The students who are in MEChA today are just like the students when I was there, pretty much they are trying to get an education," Bustamante said during a press conference in which the first three questions related to his ties to the group.
"I think the actuality of what takes place in those organizations is to provide student leadership. For me, and many, many others, we were running for student government. That's how I got here today."
As the article points out, many believe that MEChA are no less racist than the Ku Klux Klan...and yet the media doesn't talk about it. Oh well, why do that when you can keep talking about Arnold Schwarzenegger's father.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 01:25 AM EST [Link]
~ LOOKS LIKE YOU'VE BEEN MISSING A LOT OF WORK LATELY/I WOULDN'T SAY I'VE BEEN MISSING IT BOB!: Movie night at Fort Sinatra tonight was the 1999 comedy Office Space starring Ron Livingston, Jennifer Aniston, Ajay Naidu and David Herman.
Office Space, directed by King of the Hill's Mike Judge and based on a series of cartoon shorts that aired on Saturday Night Live during the mid-90s, wasn't what we would call a success when it first appeared but it quickly gained a cult following among people who work in cubicle farms and software firms. Three workers, tired of their boss and their programming jobs, decide to pull a scam on their company. It's easy to see why some people are fanatic about this movie; it captures the monotony of corporation not terribly interested in you to the point where you can be downsized at a whim and procedure is often more important than the result.
To a certain extent it's been supplanted by the BBC series The Office (which can be seen on the BBC's satelite service) but Office Space is still one of the best of the genre. It certainly reminded me of the job I was laid off from back in March.
If you ever meet someone with a red Swingline stapler on their desk and they say, "We're not in Kansas anymore!" you know you've met an Office Space fan.
Posted by steve @ 12:48 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, August 28, 2003 FOOTBALL IS THE SPORT OF MEN...WELL, BESIDES HOCKEY: I and Orrin Judd have fought a low intensity war over the last day or so over his contention that football is "anti-American/anti-human"
Orrin responded yesterday with a web link to a 1987 Washington Post article that had Thomas Boswell's list of 99 things that make baseball better than football. It was a silly list but when I felt needed responding. And so I did. Here is my response to every one of Boswell's items.
I would like to state for the record that I do not hate baseball. It is a fine sport despite the fact that my New York Mets are so abysmal these days. I merely argue that baseball is not as good as football.
When I think of football I think of the fall...of that smell in the air you get that time of year, of red and yellow leaves coating the ground, of blonds wearing varsity jackets and afternoon light pouring through the windows. I think of that feeling I got when I first ran onto a football field in high school. I think of traditions at places like Notre Dame. I think of the incredible grace shown in a game derided as being violent.
Well, I can't put into words my feelings about football...
Posted by steve @ 02:38 PM EST [Link]
~ LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON: Fox News reports that a couple has named their six-week old son "George Bush" to show their appreciation to Dubya for liberating Iraq.
"He saved us from Saddam and that's why we named our son after him," the baby's mother, Nadia Jergis Mohammed, told the Associated Press Television News. "It was George Bush who liberated us; without him it wouldn't have happened."
Before we all go celebrating this, let's remember that there are plenty of 12-year old kids named George Bush in Kuwait and that didn't stop Kuwaitis (including those parents who named their kids after Bush the Elder) from hating the U.S. in recent years. That said, we wish long life and prosperity for little George Bush Abdul Kader Faris Abed El-Hussein.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:22 PM EST [Link]
~ CONSERVATIVES CRITICIZE MOORE: Some heavyweight Christian conservatives had some criticism for Judge Roy Moore over his refusal to have the Ten Commandments monument removed from the rotunda at the Alabama Supreme Court.
Several leading voices on the religious right -- including Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson, Southern Baptist minister Richard Land, legal strategist Jay Sekulow and Free Congress Foundation chairman Paul M. Weyrich -- have criticized Moore for undermining "the rule of law."
Other figures with a nationwide Christian following -- including Focus on the Family founder James Dobson and Coral Ridge Ministries evangelist D. James Kennedy -- have praised him for placing "God's law" above the changing judgments of human beings.
No offense Mssrs. Dobson and Kennedy, but any man who presumes to know what God would want is a man to be ignored. The last thing in the world we need are judges who refuse to follow the law. We already have judges who make up the law. Do we really need to excerbate the problem of judicial activism?
Read it here.
Posted by steve @ 02:18 PM EST [Link]
~ MIGHT BE TIME FOR THE WEST TO 'TEST' ITS NUKES: North Korea announced today that it is about to declare itself a nuclear power and may test nuclear weapons.
The question from the U.S. administration standpoint, the official said, is "whether this is a serious and irreversible statement or part of their past pattern of starting every conversation by being threatening to see if it wins them something."
And judging by recent history, it will win them something and they'll declare and test. Then South Koreans will blame the U.S. for 'backing' North Korea into a corner again.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:10 PM EST [Link]
~ MAJORITY OF AMERICANS WITH JUDGE MOORE: Popularity is no proof of correctness but a CNN-USA Today-Gallup released Wednesday shows that 77 per cent of Americans disapproved of moving the Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of Alabama's state judicial building.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 12:20 AM EST [Link]
Wednesday, August 27, 2003 LISTEN TO RUSH ON STEVE'S ARTICLE: You can find it on Rush's web site here. (Windows Media Player needed)
Posted by steve @ 09:20 PM EST [Link]
~ I WILL FIGHT NO MORE FOREVER: (Via The Corner) Today is the anniversary of the signing of the Kellogg-Briand Pact, the international treaty that outlawed war. The world has been a boring place since 1928...all peaceful-like....
Read the treaty here.
Posted by steve @ 04:27 PM EST [Link]
~ HE DISSES MY BEARS BUT HE DOES HAVE A PICTURE OF LAETITIA CASTA: Gregg Easterbrook unveils his pre-season look at the NFC -- and rightfully hammers my Chicago Bears -- and has three pictures of attractive women, a far better ratio then last week's TMQB column.
Interesting Laetitia Casta fact: She was chosen to represent Marianne, the traditional symbol of French womanhood, and then promptly established a residence in Britain to avoid onerous French taxes. Not only is she a babe, but she's smart enough to get out of France as well.
Read TMQB here.
Posted by steve @ 04:21 PM EST [Link]
~ RUSH LIMBAUGH VALIDATES STEVE MARTINOVICH AS A HUMAN BEING: I just got the most amazing phone call a couple of minutes from Jeffery Anderson at FSB Associates, a publicity firm that handles books. It appears that Rush Limbaugh read my review of Stalking the Divine: Contemplating Faith with the Poor Clares on his show this afternoon. I don't know where he found the review (either here -- unlikely -- or on The American Prowler -- more likely) but I have to admit it was way cool to hear.
Posted by steve @ 03:45 PM EST [Link]
~ BETTER BORKED THEN....: Daniel Pipes wrote an essay for the New York Post on the attacks made against him since the Bush administration nominated him to the board of the United States Institute of Peace. Would you be surprised that many of the attacks against him were distortions of his words and work? Yeah, we weren't surprised either.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:46 PM EST [Link]
~ CANADIAN SMILE POLICE NEXT?
If you are Canadian and about to get a passport, don't smile when you get your pictures taken. According to this article, the new passport guidlines prohibit exhibiting a smiling face. Maybe the Passport Smile Police are tired of people not taking Canada seriously.
I have known some Canadians, and most of them were friendly, happy types. Why do they put up with such idiotic government pronouncements? Do the bureaucratic weenies that issue passports think it is inappropriate to smile and look like a normal person on your passport? What about driver's licenses? Must one be "neutral" for those pictures,too? Will there soon be a prohibition against smiling in public places? One never knows when smiling might offend someone.
As Jim Traficant used to say, "Beam me up".
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 02:18 PM EST [Link]
Tuesday, August 26, 2003 USING THE "H" WORD. It's been a bit, since I brought up the topic of homeschools. (Here's the part where you get to groan.) Back-to-School days seems like an appropriate time to revisit this theme.
My latest article is titled: "Keeping Homeschooling Private."
Posted by izzy @ 11:57 PM EST [Link]
~ SO WHICH IS IT?: Domenico Bettinelli brought up a good point this morning. When John Geoghan was charged with molesting his way through his congregation's children the usual suspects argued that his crimes had nothing to do with homosexuality. Now that Geoghan was killed by a prisoner that has a pathological hatred for gays these same people are arguing it was an anti-gay hate crime.
Now I'm not arguing that homosexuals are pederasts but I would like to see some bloody consistency from people. If Geoghan's death was an anti-gay crime then that means that his crimes were a gay crime. If his original crimes weren't related to his homosexuality then that means his murder wasn't an anti-gay crime. Period. You can only take one path.
Posted by steve @ 01:51 PM EST [Link]
~ HERE WE GO AGAIN: I think CNN should really be called CNN: The Passion considering how many stories they've run in the last month alone on a movie that won't be released for eight more months. According to the folks at CNN, Jews and Christians are fighting in the streets over the movie. What, you didn't notice?
The latest line? The movie is straining the tight friendship between Jews and evangelical Protestants. It's funny, but all the quotes come from the same people we keep hearing from in every story...
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 01:43 PM EST [Link]
~ SELF-PROMO ALERT: I have a piece running at Tech Central Station today on the rift between conservatives and libertarians with the advent of "big government conservatism." It's a theme I've written about in the pages of ESR as well.
Posted by antle @ 12:15 PM EST [Link]
~ SELF-PROMO ALERT: The American Prowler/Spectator Online is running my review of Stalking the Divine: Contemplating Faith With the Poor Clares. Find it here.
Posted by steve @ 01:05 AM EST [Link]
~ STEVE'S DIRTY LITTLE SECRET: I have a confession to make. I've always had a bit of a crush on singer/songwriter Suzanne Vega. I know, I know, what's a rock 'n roll conservative doing liking a lefty folk singer like Vega, especially after my semi-famous rant back in February blasting folk music. The heart wants what it wants.
At any rate, Vega has a cute piece in yesterday's New York Times about getting her driver's licence at the age of 43. Interesting fact: Over half of New Yorkers don't have a driver's licence because it's easier to go without a car in the Big Apple...or so I've been told.
Everybody says: "Don't learn to drive in the city. It's crazy." But as the song says, if you can make it here, and so forth.
And I really wanted a driver's license. I was 43, had my learner's permit and had failed the test once already - but that was in Riverhead, on Long Island. I'm an urban girl. This time, I would learn how to drive in the city. My city.
But my quest, like driving in New York (and like life), was full of stops and starts, unexpected dead ends and mysterious spirals (like the streets of Greenwich Village). In the end, my pursuit of the elusive New York State driver's license became about much more than a divorced woman's learning to drive for the first time.
Read on. (Free registration or use Acct: esrmusings3 Pass: cookie
Posted by steve @ 01:02 AM EST [Link]
Monday, August 25, 2003 IT'S FUNNY BECAUSE IT'S TRUE: (Sent to me by email from Orrin Judd)
Dan Rather, Jesse Jackson, Cokie Roberts from National Public Radio and a Marine were hiking through the jungle one day when they were captured by cannibals.
They were tied up, led to the village and brought before the chief. The chief said, "I am familiar with your western custom of granting the condemned a last wish. Before we kill and eat you, do you have any last requests?"
Dan Rather said, "Well, I'm a Texan; so I'd like one last bowlful of hot, spicy chili."
The chief nodded to an underling, who left and returned with the chili.
Rather ate it all and said, "Now I can die content."
Jesse Jackson said, "You know, the thing in this life I am proudest of is my work on behalf of the poor and oppressed. So before I go, I want to sing 'We Shall Overcome' one last time." The chief said, "Go right ahead, we're listening." Jackson sang the song, and then said, "Now I can die in peace."
Cokie Roberts said, "I'm a reporter to the end. I want to take out my tape recorder and describe the scene here and what's about to happen. Maybe someday someone will hear it and know that I was on the job til the end."
The chief directed an aide to hand over the tape recorder, and Roberts dictated some comments. She then said, "Now I can die happy."
The chief said, "And, Mr. Marine, what is your final wish?"
"Kick me in the ass." said the Marine.
"What?" said the chief. "Will you mock us in your last hour?"
"No, I'm not kidding. I want you to kick me in the ass." insisted the Marine.
So the chief untied the Marine, shoved him into the open, and kicked him in the ass.
The Marine went sprawling, but rolled to his knees, pulled a 9mm pistol from his waist band, and shot the chief dead.
In the resulting confusion, he leapt to his haversack, pulled out an M16, and sprayed the cannibals with gunfire. In a flash, the cannibals were all dead or fleeing for their lives.
As the Marine was untying the others, they each asked him, "Why didn't you just shoot them? Why did you ask them to kick you in the ass?"
"What!?" said the Marine, "And have you jerks call me the aggressor?"
Posted by steve @ 09:35 PM EST [Link]
~ THEY USED TO BE CALLED FOPS: Felix Salmon has some interesting thoughts about 'metrosexuality' and links to a lot of interesting articles which I've read recently but didn't feel like blogging myself. Now you can read all of them yourselves.
I think this whole concept of the metrosexual is all a bit silly unless you work in the advertising industry. There has always been a class of men that has strived to be fashionable (without being anything like Carson from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy). Heck, watch an old movie...did you ever see Cary Grant look anything less than perfect? The idea that a man is a metrosexual if he has a salmon colored shirt in his closet (I have one close to that, if that makes me one then I am guilty as well) is plain 'ole dumb.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:59 PM EST [Link]
~ WE HOPE HE WINS: The Associated Press is reporting that Johnny Cash is a favourite to win some awards at the MTV Video Music Awards this week thanks to a powerful video for the song 'Hurt', a remake of the Nine Inch Nails song.
As you may remember, I raved about Cash's last album American IV: The Man Comes Around -- on which 'Hurt' appears some months ago. If there is any justice in this world then Cash will take home some trophies.
Read the news story here.
Posted by steve @ 04:30 PM EST [Link]
~ THIS CERTAINLY PROVES THERE IS NO BIAS AT THE BBC: BBC1's controller apparently went a little nuts today and called mogul Rupert Murdoch a "capital imperialist" who hates everything that the BBC stands for.
Lorraine Heggessey said Mr Murdoch's continued attacks on the BBC stemmed from a dislike of the public sector. But he did not understand that the British people "have a National Health Service, a public education system" and trust organisations that are there for the benefit of society and not driven by profit.
It's so easy when your enemies are morons.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:52 PM EST [Link]
~ DYNAMITE!: (Via The American Mind) Jimmie J.J. Walker, AKA Kid Dynamite!, has his own blog. The man who once painted Black Jesus -- one of the funniest episodes of Good Times ever -- is rather conservative on some topics, notably affirmative action.
Find it all here.
Posted by steve @ 03:48 PM EST [Link]
~ HOW HILLARY CLINTON INCREASED UNEMPLOYMENT: NY Press argues that Hillary Clinton's Living History has directly cost 75 people their jobs. How did it happen? The ludicrious $8 million advance that Clinton received from Simon & Schuster.
The layoffs were announced in a memo emailed to all staff on July 21, exactly six weeks after the June 9 publication date of Living History, when Simon & Schuster likely cut Sen. Clinton a check for the remainder of the gigantic advance. Sixty of the people axed were employed stateside. New York staffers who’d been let go were clearing the last of their personal belongings out of offices when the memo hit and were saying their good-byes when the press was getting wind of the news.
If you read on, Margaret Menge explains how one -- the advance -- lead to the other -- the layoffs. I'm not blaming Clinton for those job losses. Heck, if Simon & Schuster offered me an $8 million advance I'd take it.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:37 PM EST [Link]
~ NOW WE'LL FIND OUT IF THE SAUDIS ARE AMERICA'S FRIENDS: Iran's national news agency Irna has reported that a number of Saudi al-Qaida members hiding out in Iran have been extradited to Saudi Arabia.
Irna quoted Tehran's ambassador to Riyadh as saying the Al Qaeda members had been arrested in Iran after the US-led war on Afghanistan, but did not name them, or say how many had been extradited or when they had been handed over to Saudi Arabia.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:02 AM EST [Link]
~ WELL SAID COLBY: Colby Cosh obviously thinks little of the campaign against fast food and I love the fact that he ties these and similar campaigns with public health care. The theory, which I thought I was the only one to have argued, is that when the government becomes involved in providing health care it in effect takes over your body. If you accept public health care then you must accept the argument that the government has to do what it can to maximize its investment in your health and that means barring you from doing things that will cost it more money.
Read his rant here.
Posted by steve @ 03:07 AM EST [Link]
~ A CAMPAIGN WE CAN AGREE WITH: David M. Brown over at the Crunch Report urges everyone to freep a poll which asks if Florida's minimum wage should be raised. Why is he interested in this project? He hates unscientific polls.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:47 AM EST [Link]
~ SPEAKING OF JUDGE MOORE: Here's some moore (aren't I clever?): Rachel Alexander takes on the issue over at Intellectual Conservative.
If the ACLU and other organizations that have been historically hostile to religion disagree with Justice Moore’s views, they need to organize voters to remove him from office democratically. Using the court system to remove a monument that is symbolic only, and probably not noticed by 90 percent of the people who come through the court building each day, is not a solution, it is harassment. However, the ACLU knows it can’t win democratically and fairly, because, as they assert on their website, it is well known that the reason Justice Moore was elected was precisely because of his convictions, which include putting the Ten Commandments on the wall inside his courtroom and allowing clergy to say a prayer before trials.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:44 AM EST [Link]
~ THE BEST STRIP BAR IN SUDBURY WOULD PROBABLY BE SOLID GOLD: Just went over the logs for the past week and I'm always amazed at some of the search terms people use to get to ESR. Among the more interesting ones:
* "strip bars in sudbury" (Via Ask Jeeves) - Like I said, Solid Gold
* "is walter cronkite a republican?" (Ditto) - Isn't it obvious he is?
* "worm_sobig.f" (Via Google) - It shows up as the third result when you search Google and links to a blog entry I made about the virus
* "skillet or inanimate or gandhian or resynchronization or transposing" (Via AltaVista) - Eh?
* "baseball wives and how they met their husbands" (Via iWon) - For the record, I don't know how they meet
* "brooke adams governor" (Via Yahoo!) - I support her
* "france and germany are has beens" (Via InfoSpace) - We agreePosted by steve @ 02:34 AM EST [Link]
~ LESS IS MOORE: Just in case you haven't heard enough about Judge Roy Moore and the Ten Commandments in Alabama, I have a piece on the subject in Toogood Reports likely to offend people on both sides of the issue.
Posted by antle @ 12:55 AM EST [Link]
Sunday, August 24, 2003 I PAID MORE IN TAXES LAST YEAR: Dennis Miller asks Arianna Huffington some big questions about her financial statements.
Hey, get this...I want to talk about Arianna Huffington, the smart Gabor.
Huffington is running for governor of California and she just released financial records which show she's paid about $700 in federal taxes and $0 in state taxes over the last two years on her earnings as an author and a lecturer. To put that in perspective, she paid less in taxes than the clerks at Borders who spend their days stacking the remainder shelf with her latest opus.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:37 AM EST [Link]
~ FREEDOM COMES EVERYWHERE: "The U.S. Army opened the first unrestricted Internet access in Saddam Hussein's home town of Tikrit on Saturday in a bid to convince skeptical Iraqis their occupation will bring tangible benefits."
People of Tirkit. Have no fear! Websites with pictures of Jenny McCarthy and Pamela Anderson can be found easily.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:03 AM EST [Link]
~ WHY WE LOVE CONDI: "Admirers have called her one of the country's best and brightest and the President's secret weapon. At a June 4 meeting with Jordanian, Palestinian Authority, and Israeli leaders, President Bush called her "my personal representative" and said she would work closely with the parties to help bring about peace. Her significance in shaping American foreign policy is hard to overstate."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:42 AM EST [Link]
Saturday, August 23, 2003 I HAVE A DREAM: Today marks the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech, one of the highlights of the civil rights movement. In those remarks, King stated unequivocally that Americans - human beings - should be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. Then and only then will America fully live out the meaning of the creed laid out in the Declaration of Independence.
In some ways we have come so far since then, yet in others we still have so much to do. We celebrate this anniversary months after the Supreme Court indefinitely upheld the concept that the state should be allowed to categorize people by the color of their skin and assign them penalties and benefits on that basis. Jesse Jackson and other speakers at this rally in honor of the "I Have A Dream" speech will argue that this is a good thing and that the problem is that racial preferences don't go far enough. Paleoconservative critics of Dr. King contend that such policies were always an inevitable result of the color-blind civil rights movement. As the United States becomes more racially diverse, some level of racism still exists among all racial groups.
Yet the color-blind message of Dr. King's speech remains the ideal that all Americans of good will must seek, and the one that offers the most promise for our country. For people all over the world, it is one of the most important messages of our times.
Posted by antle @ 06:04 PM EST [Link]
~ SUPPORT FOR BROOKE ADAMS CAN ONLY GROW: Bill Simon announced today that he's dropping out of the race for the California governorship.
"I come before you today to announce that I am withdrawing as a candidate for governor," Simon said in a videotaped statement recorded in Sacramento. "I strongly believe the desire of Californians must come before the aspirations of any single candidate. There are too many Republicans in this race and the people of our state simply cannot risk a continuation of the Gray Davis legacy. For these reasons, I think it is wise to step aside."
Good move. He couldn't beat Gray Davis two years ago and he was only drawing support away from Brooke Adams...and some guy named Arnold Schwarzenegger. Brooke's numbers can only grow now! Vote Adams!
Posted by steve @ 05:30 PM EST [Link]
~ CAN'T SAY I CARE: Proving that people who prey on children are really unpopular in prison, former Catholic priest John Geoghan was killed this afternoon after an "incident" in the big house.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 05:24 PM EST [Link]
~ GOD REST THEIR SOULS: "Three British servicemen have been killed and another seriously wounded in Iraq's second city of Basra, a British military spokesman said."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:35 AM EST [Link]
Friday, August 22, 2003 MOORE SUSPENDED OVER TEN COMMANDMENTS MONUMENT: Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore was suspended for ten days today after refusing to remove a monument to the Ten Commandments.
After Thompson's deadline had passed, Moore's eight associate justices on the state's high court on Thursday ordered the granite marker taken out of the rotunda. But court officials were still trying to determine where it might go in the building and if the area would allow proper security.
About 40 demonstrators remained outside to support Moore, who installed the monument in the rotunda where visitors can easily see it and refused to move it even after Thompson ruled that the public display violated a constitutional ban on government promotion of religious doctrine.
Moore contends it is a proper acknowledgment of God and the moral foundation of American law.
"What this federal judge has said is that we cannot acknowledge God," Moore told Fox News on Friday. "My battle is not with the justices of the court, my colleagues, my battle is with the federal government, who has come in and told us how to think, who we can believe in."
I have to admit that I'm fairly ambivalent about this. Even though I'm an athiest, I've never been offended by public displays of religious belief or expression, whether it was singing Christian Christmas songs in school or seeing a nativity scene on city property. I dig that Canada and the U.S. were founded by Christians and that Judeo-Christian ethics informs and influences our society in ways that no one can ignore. Moore is right, the Ten Commandments are part of the foundation of Western law.
That said, after Moore's peers ruled that the monument had to be moved, Moore should have had it moved. Moore's job as a judge means he must acknowledge and follow the law and right or wrong the ruling is what it is.
There are a lot of athiests out there who give athiests like me a bad name.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 06:29 PM EST [Link]
~ ENVIRONMENTALISTS ATTACK SUVS: Several dealerships were vandalized and dozens of SUVs at a warehouse were apparently destroyed by arsonists today, with ELF taking responsibility.
"With all the evidence ... it's highly likely it's an arson fire," said Rick Genovese, fire marshal for West Covina, a Los Angeles suburb.
Duh.
My family is an SUV family and they love their vehicles...the last person that messed with a vehicle in my driveway was hurt badly. If you're going to run, run faster than I can...
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 06:19 PM EST [Link]
~ EVEN I THOUGHT THAT FOX NEWS SHOULD LOSE: A federal judge ruled this afternoon that the title of Al Franken's book, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right, did not violate Fox's trademarked slogan "Fair and balanced."
U.S. District Judge Denny Chin, after listening to about half an hour of oral arguments, said the lawsuit was "wholly without merit, both factually and legally."
Well said. In order to salvage it's reputation, Fox News should now dump Bill O'Reilly...everyone would immediately forgive the silly lawsuit.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 06:13 PM EST [Link]
~ THE GLOVES ARE OFF: Israeli officials say that Hamas leaders are now targets of opportunity. Ismail Abu Shanab likely won't be the only guy to get wacked by the Israelis that that isn't stopping from other Hamas members from taking his spot.
Speaking at Abu Shanab's funeral in Gaza City, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, who survived an Israeli rocket attack on his car in June, said if the Israelis kill him and other top militants, a secret leadership is ready to take over.
"They think that targeting leaders will stop jihad (holy war). They are mistaken," he said. "All of us in Hamas, from top to bottom, are looking to become like Abu Shanab."
Something makes me think members of Hamas will end up exactly like Abu Shanab whether they want to or not...
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:36 PM EST [Link]
~ I WAS A MIDDLE-AGED BLOGGER. My column about bloggin' was recently published in my local newspaper. I have posted it at this blog which allowed me to mention ESR, among other things.
Posted by izzy @ 02:27 PM EST [Link]
Thursday, August 21, 2003 ARIANNA THE AWFUL: Aside from Gray Davis himself, it is hard to imagine a worse candidate in the recall debacle than the hideous conservative-turned-liberal columnist/opportunist Arianna Huffington. Fortunately, there have been some great articles skewering this political diva published over the years. One was penned by Ramesh Ponnuru for National Review. Our fearless leader Steve Martinovich contribute another.
This column by Democratic strategist Susan Estrich joins Steve and Ramesh's piece in the anti-Arianna hall of fame. Via Hit & Run.
Posted by antle @ 10:46 PM EST [Link]
~ THIS MAKES ME FEEL BETTER ABOUT AH-NULD: Ever since he got into the race for governor of California, I have been waiting for Arnold Schwarzenegger, the front-running Republican, to throw me a bone to show that, from the perspective of a crusty conservative like myself, he is better than Gray Davis.
He just might have done the job. Larry Kudlow reports.
Posted by antle @ 10:30 PM EST [Link]
~ WHERE ARE IRAQ'S WMDS?: Ion Mihai Pacepa says to ask the Russians. Pacepa happens to be the highest-ranking intelligence officer ever to have defected from the former Soviet bloc and he believes that the Russians either helped Saddam Hussein hide or destroy his weapons of mass destruction before the war.
The Soviet Union and all its bloc states always had a standard operating procedure for deep sixing weapons of mass destruction — in Romanian it was codenamed "Sarindar, meaning "emergency exit." I implemented it in Libya. It was for ridding Third World despots of all trace of their chemical weapons if the Western imperialists ever got near them. We wanted to make sure they would never be traced back to us, and we also wanted to frustrate the West by not giving them anything they could make propaganda with.
There's some blockbuster allegations in Pacepa's article including thoughts on that Russian "delegation" that was fired upon by U.S. forces early in the Iraq war. Pacepa says they were there to "sarindar" Hussein's WMDs.
In the immortal words of Boney M, "Oh, those Russians..."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:27 PM EST [Link]
~ I ALWAYS LIKED 'COMICAL ALI' BETTER: The U.S. military said today that Hassan al-Majid, aka 'Chemical Ali', had been captured several days ago and is in U.S. custody. Al-Majid was No. 5 in the U.S. deck of Iraqi cards.
Al-Majid is best known for mass murder in the town of Halabja where thousands of Kurds were killed by chemical weapons.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:18 PM EST [Link]
~ GILLIGAN'S REPORT WAS GARBAGE, SAID KELLY: David Kelly, the scientists who killed himself last month and who was accused of "sexing up" the British government's WMD report on Iraq, apparently told a Sunday Times reporter on July 9 that Andrew Gilligan's reports were "bull&#!@". Things ain't looking good for the BBC.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:14 PM EST [Link]
~ COOL TOOL OF THE DAY: Bookblog has a "Gender Genie" which analyzes text and determines whether the author was a male or a female. To test it out, I submitted my review of Stalking the Divine. The result? It guessed right.
Try your own here.
Posted by steve @ 01:48 AM EST [Link]
Wednesday, August 20, 2003 FORMER COMMUNIST TURNED WEALTHY REPORTER: (via Relapsed Catholic) Shark Blog has a good response to a Robert Scheer column which attacked 1978's Proposition 13, a ballot measure which strictly limits property tax increases. Stefan Sharkansky says that Scheer resorts to class warfare to make his point, interesting considering that Scheer owns at least three homes and is quite wealthy himself...oh, and has had some difficulty paying his own property taxes in the past.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:28 PM EST [Link]
~ WORDS MEAN THINGS: (Via Little Green Footballs) Interesting little story in today's FrontPage Magazine by Rachel Neuwirth.
In late July, I contacted Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman and director of communication at the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). When he returned my call, he presented his point of view about the Arab-Israeli conflict and militant Islam. When I reminded him about CAIR's record of openly supporting Hamas, Hizbullah, and other organizations deemed by the government to be terrorists, he replied by telling me that "CAIR does not support these groups publicly."
That about says it all.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:05 PM EST [Link]
~ OPPOSED TO JUDICIAL ACTIVISM AND GAY MARRIAGE?: Then Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien considers you nothing less than evil.
Chretien spoke to a crowd of Liberals in North Bay Tuesday evening, just an hour or so away from Fort Sinatra, and declared that those opposed to gay marriage were playing into the hands of the Canadian Alliance, Canada's only mainstream political party. Support gay marriage and you automatically oppose the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
"The Canadian Alliance has attacked the courts for years," he said. "They attacked so-called 'judicial activism.' It is code for their profound opposition to the Charter of Rights.
"So I urge you all to give this careful consideration at the appropriate time. To cool the rhetoric. Not to fall into traps set by the Opposition."
The CA, and many Canadians, are opposed to judicial activism because they know the danger. First, the federal government loves when the courts decide an issue because they're off the hook for any controversial decisions. Vast societal changes – whether beneficial or not – must not be made in the courts unless they are an absolute last resort.
The only way to avoid that is for politicians to stop relying on the judiciary to make new law and for the judiciary to end their practice of reading new meanings into the Charter. If the Charter's words can be twisted to mean anything, then the document which protects us all ends up containing no meaning at all. Chretien apparently does not realize that.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:28 AM EST [Link]
~ WHATEVER: After a suicide bombing in Jerusalem that killed 18 and injured more than 100 Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas said that the Palestinian Authority is cutting all ties to Islamic militant groups and will also crack down on them to prevent future attacks.
Dude, wasn't the PA supposed to do that years ago? And what happened to this "truce" announced in June?
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:52 AM EST [Link]
~ PROMOTING OTHERS, PROMOTING MYSELF: Immigration reformer and columnist Joe Guzzardi is running for governor of California. I have a column in Ether Zone on his candidacy.
Posted by antle @ 12:12 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, August 19, 2003 GOOD NEWS/BAD NEWS: Saddam Hussein's vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan was captured today...and a suicide bomber hit the U.N. headquarters and killed the top U.N. official, along with about 20 others and injuring another 100.
Posted by steve @ 08:25 PM EST [Link]
~ WHY I HAVE MULTIPLE SAFEGUARDS ON MY PC: Why do I have a firewall, two virus checkers and a utility to block foreign applications from installing themselves on my PC? Just checking my mail a couple of minutes ago I received 18 email messages with the WORM_SOBIG.F virus included, for a total of about 50 today. Fortunately my overlapping protective measures means that the attachments were blocked by the firewall before they even got to my mailbox to be flagged by the virus checker.
People, invest in a firewall and a virus checker.
Posted by steve @ 07:49 PM EST [Link]
~ LOOKS LIKE THAT FLY PAPER STRATEGY IS WORKING: (Via The Corner) The Financial Times is reporting that thousands of Saudi men are missing and maybe in Iraq planning a holy war against coalition troops.
Increasing numbers of Saudi Arabian Islamists are crossing the border into Iraq in preparation for a jihad, or holy war, against US and UK forces, security and Islamist sources have warned.
A senior western counter-terrorism official on Monday said the presence of foreign fighters in Iraq was "extremely worrying".
A statement purportedly from al-Qaeda was broadcast on Monday by the Arab satellite television channel al-Arabiya. It claimed the al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and the leader of the Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime Mullah Mohammed Omar were still alive. But it also asserted that recent attacks on US forces in Iraq were the work of jihadis.
Frankly I don't believe Saudis are involved. They are America's allies in the war against terrorism, aren't they? Well, if they really want to die for their god, let's give them that chance.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:15 PM EST [Link]
~ IT'S TRUE...ARNOLD NEVER HAS RENOUNCED HIS CONNECTION WITH THEM: Al-Bawaba reports today that Arnold Schwarzenegger has extensive ties with a community...which community? The Jews of course!
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:57 PM EST [Link]
~ TMQB IS BACK!: Gregg Easterbrook weighs in with a pre-season Tuesday Morning Quartback though it's a little light on football and has absolutely no pictures of cheerleaders. On the plus side, there's a truly horrific picture that makes Steve's Gen X sweetheart/shoplifter Winona Ryder look truly gruesome.
Posted by steve @ 03:47 AM EST [Link]
Monday, August 18, 2003 VOTE BABE FOR CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR: The Corner prints an email from a reader that urges Californians to vote for Brooke Adams for governor. She's 25, a total babe and more conservative than Arnold Schwarzenegger. I'm sold. It would be unfair for me to issue a recommendation on behalf of ESR so I'm just going to do it as a smitten foreign national: Vote Adams!
Visit Brooke's web site here.
Posted by steve @ 09:06 PM EST [Link]
~ I'M SURPRISED THEY DIDN'T BLAME THE ENOLA GAY FOR PEARL HARBOR: The Smithsonian unveiled the Enola Gay today as part of a public exhibition that begins in December. After creating an "interpretative" display a decade ago that painted the Japanese victims of U.S. aggression, the Smithsonian this time decided not to be politically correct and tilt history.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:04 PM EST [Link]
~ HOLIDAY ROAD: Well, I and the rest of the ESR staff are officially on vacation! Well, at least from our ESR related duties. We'll return on September 1 with a fat new collection of articles for your reading pleasure.
So what is Steve going to do over this next week? I'm glad you asked. A lot of reading, a lot of writing and a lot of socializing. Work and play. I'll still be blogging of course...I can't let the place get any cobwebs...
Posted by steve @ 12:13 AM EST [Link]
~ NEW LOVE INTEREST FOR STEVE: Not only is she attractive, but she has the coolest name out of Russia in a while: Elena Dementieva. (Pop-up, 18Kb picture)
Posted by steve @ 12:03 AM EST [Link]
Saturday, August 16, 2003 FAIR IS FAIR: Some people have been busting Arnold Schwarzenegger's chops for his 1980s support of Kurt Waldheim which is fair enough given what the ex-Austrian president did during the Second World War. Tacitus then wants to know why no one has been going after Cruz Bustamante for being a former member of MEChA.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 05:31 PM EST [Link]
~ MEL GIBSON'S MOVIE AROUSING "PASSION:" Steve Greenhut, who writes some fine editorials for the indispensable Orange County Register explains what makes him so passionate about the debate over Mel Gibson's new movie in a column for LewRockwell.com.
Posted by antle @ 05:10 PM EST [Link]
~ FIRST LIMITING DRINKING, NOW BANNING SMOKING?: Andrew Stuttaford has a post in The Corner on Ireland's creeping prohibitionism.
Posted by antle @ 04:30 PM EST [Link]
~ POLITICAL JUNKIES WITHOUT POWER: My friends over at Toogood Reports poke some fun at themselves.
North-east blackout cuts off ToogoodReports staff from site. Forces them to think about something other than politics. Withdrawal pains experienced!
Posted by antle @ 04:24 PM EST [Link]
~ PROMOTING OTHERS, PROMOTING MYSELF: In my zeal to fend off viruses and recover servers at work made unavailable by blackouts, I forgot to thank Mens News Daily for republishing my piece on marriage and me. A feisty, up-and-coming conservative website that supports the burgeoning father's rights/men's movement.
Posted by antle @ 04:15 PM EST [Link]
~ SCREW THE MELTING POT: In a perceptive Atlantic Monthly essay, David Brooks says we prefer the congealing pot. Black and white, liberal and conserative, rich and poor, religious and secular, we all tend to congregate among those most like us.
Maybe somewhere in this country there is a truly diverse neighborhood in which a black Pentecostal minister lives next to a white anti-globalization activist, who lives next to an Asian short-order cook, who lives next to a professional golfer, who lives next to a postmodern-literature professor and a cardiovascular surgeon. But I have never been to or heard of that neighborhood. Instead, what I have seen all around the country is people making strenuous efforts to group themselves with people who are basically like themselves.
Read on.
Posted by antle @ 04:06 PM EST [Link]
~ BAD NEWS FOR ARNOLD: A new poll in California shows that Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante leads Arnold Schwarzenegger in the recall election, 25 to 22 per cent.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:56 PM EST [Link]
~ ENJOY HELL!: "Former dictator Idi Amin, blamed for the murders of tens of thousands of Ugandans in the 1970s, has died in a Saudi hospital, medical sources say.
"Amin, who had lived for years in exile in the port city of Jeddah, had been on a life-support machine since July 18."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:46 AM EST [Link]
Friday, August 15, 2003 "WELL, THIS CALLS FOR MORE ALCOHOL:" Twenty-four hours into the Great Blackout of 2003, I'm alive, well, and with power. For us at the Ontario Ministry of Culture, the lights went out at 4:11 p.m., just as me and my supervisor were in the middle of proofreading and revising a Ministerial decision note that was due by the end of the day. This type of document takes something like 15 drafts and two-to-three weeks worth of work before being sent to the Minister's office and we were just about finished our final, final, final changes, when (poof!) there goes the power. Arrrgh...
So how did our provincial bureaucrats react? Well, a lot of them, in very clear and very loud voices, started blaming the energy policies of Premier Ernie Eves and predicting the imminent doom of our present Conservative government. Um, wrong. The second theme of woe from my colleagues was the fact that with no power, none of them now had air-conditioning. Nearly everyone in the office started lamenting this as well and for the last twenty-four hours, the radio waves have been filled with similar tales of the horrors of life without air-conditioning. As I hastened to note to my colleagues (and with just a touch of superiority), in the twenty-plus years of life that I've had, my family has never, ever, ever owned an air-conditioning unit. Heck, it wasn't until the spring of last year that we actually got around to buying an air-conditioned car, let alone something for the house. And being the evil person that I am, I went around lecturing people in an half-joking manner, "Those among you who use air-conditioning [which was just about everyone], you ought to hang your heads in shame, RIGHT NOW!" And would you know it, some of them did.
Being temporarily trapped downtown, with no way out except for rare, overcrowded buses and taxis crawling through jammed streets, I got a ride to Spadina and Bloor and then hiked to Yonge and Bloor to wait out the outage in my uncle's condo. My uncle lives on the thirty-fifth floor, so I prayed that A: he was there and B: the elevator was working. Thankfully, the condo's emergency generators were on. My uncle turned out not to be alone, for his friend the Film Critic had joined him. The Film Critic had the same problem that I had, he lived way out in the suburbs and had taken the subway to work out at his downtown gym, when the blackout had hit. Not knowing what to do, he then decided to crash at the home of his only friend he knew that lived downtown. When I entered the scene, it was pretty clear that they'd been downing the Gin and Tonics for sometime. I didn't get much rest. My uncle, being as news-ravenous as me, immediately asked me in a very needy, wheedling sort of way, would you please go back down, walk to the overpriced grocery store across the street, and buy a nine-volt battery for my radio, so I can find out just what the hell is going on? Oh, and here's twenty dollars. Alright, I said, swinging open the door and being met in the hallway with....pitch blackness. Great, I thought. The elevators, which I had just used all of ten minutes before were also in a non-functional state. My uncle, non-plussed, then asked me in an even more wheedling voice, could you please, please go down the thirty-five floors of stairs and buy me a nine-volt battery? Please. Oh, and here's a flashlight for your troubles. Quite naturally, I asked him if I could get back up, once I got out of the building. Of course, he replied and off I went. Well, I did eventually get outside to street level and closing the door to the emergency stairs behind me, I noticed too late that while there was a handle to the door on the inside, that feature was rather conspicious in its absence on the outside (which, when you think of it, is commonsense, given that you don't want intruders getting in through the stairs and bypassing the concierge). This meant that I was now trapped at street level, with no working elevators and no access to the stairs. And all too predictably, when I finally did get a chance to quiz the grocery clerk standing guard at the entrance, after waiting in a line-up for twenty minutes in the hot summer sun, I found out that they had long ago sold out of nine-volt batteries...
Making my way back to the lobby, I found quite a crowd milling around in the darkness. Two security guards came by, noted that there was no power in the lobby, and after making that grand observation, promptly withdrew. Well, after half of hour of this, I finally got the bright idea of checking to see, if maybe, the door to the stairs could somehow be opened. When I went to see, well, lo and behold, someone had thoughtfully propped the door open, allowing access. Now, came the hard part. We gathered ourselves together and since I was the only person armed with a flashlight, I became defacto leader, guiding my little group of condo-dwellers up thirty-five floors in one long, long game of Follow-The-Leader. If it weren't for that flashlight, it would have been impossible to get up the stairwell because it was pitch-black. So I found myself shouting out floor numbers ("22!" "34!"), slowing down to make sure that no one at the back of our group got lost, and all-in-all, getting a great chance to play Boy Scout in the dark. Well, after that nightmare was over and I'd helped everyone in our group get home (naturally, I was the last person), I went back to tell my uncle of my failure. He didn't seem to take the news very well and when he asked me how long I thought the blackout would last and I replied that I had heard on the radio that it might last up to three days, he said something which made the most sense out of everything I had heard that long afternoon. "Well, this calls for more alcohol," he announced and promptly downed two rums with orange juice. He didn't offer me any.
I did get a measure of revenge on the poor man as we sat there idling over the next few hours. It turns out our Film Critic friend is a bit of a film snob who loathes mainstream studio productions and so am I, whereas my uncle is an utter philistine (well, according to us, at least). After I told the Film Critic that my uncle's idea of a good summer movie was Pirates of the Caribbean, I then spent a very enjoyable few hours discussing the subject of my uncle's general tastelessness with the Film Critic (you mean he doesn't find The Royal Tenenbaums funny??? You mean he actually liked Bad Boys II??? You mean he's not going to see Dirty, Pretty Things???). Well, after two-and-half hours of subtle and not-so subtle putdowns, with the traffic finally beginning to clear and the alcohol in his bloodstream beginning to thin, my uncle finally decided to drive me and the Film Critic home. Long story short, I got home, had a look at the stars (first time ever I got to see them in the city), ended up sleeping on a bamboo mat on the floor of my basement, and at 3:45 a.m., nearly twelve hours after the blackout began, the lights finally came back on and they've stayed on ever since. As for my uncle, as of this writing, he still hasn't gotten his power back. In fact, he's actually at my house right now, dumping his not-so frozen chickens into our freezers in an effort to save them. I'd like to think there's a measure of cosmic justice in all this. I really would.
P.S. Just now, my uncle's told me that he bought some nine-volt batteries this morning. As it turns out, his radio doesn't take nine-volt batteries...
Posted by Barton @ 05:00 PM EST [Link]
~ SO TRUE: "A widespread electrical power outage affected some 20 million North Americans tonight, but none were so hard hit as writers of so-called weblogs, a kind of online journal."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 12:04 PM EST [Link]
~ THE GREAT POWER OUTAGE -- WHAT HAPPENED AT STEVE'S HOUSE IN SUDBURY, ONTARIO: Try and figure out which of these scenarios occurred last night:
Scenario A: Steve gazed out of his window, shocked that the fabric of society could collapse so quickly. The roving mobs had moved up and down the street, desperately looking for anything that could power their PDAs and high-end bread makers.
Whether naturally or by choice he saw them wheel towards his home. He calmly reached beside him and picked up his M-16 (pop-up, picture), inserted a magazine and then chambered a round. He took aim at the man who looked to be leading the mob. Steve estimated the distanced at 50 metres. He smiled. In the military he had qualified several times that distance easily.
"Don't do it," Steve whispered.
Suddenly a shout rang out and rounds begin to impact against Steve's home. They must have seen him. Steve quickly dropped the leader and began scything the mob with rounds. Amazingly, they didn't break and run even as their peers dropped in front of them. Collectively they must have watched too many action movies where the hero brazenly stood in the open and traded fire with the enemy. That was stupid.
Two or three of the mob separated and began to move to Steve's right, hoping to circle around to the back of his house. Steve's smile grew broader. They would soon find out why he had dubbed his home Fort Sinatra.
"They'll regret that..."
* Scenario B: Steve gazed out his window, amazed by the sight of a city forced to live by the rhythms of the planet. He placed a cigarette in his mouth and lit it, creating a reflection in the window of the scene behind him.
On the couch sat Czech supermodel Daniela Pestova (pop-up, picture). Steve's eyebrows raised. She was wearing the black Yamamoto party dress he had bought her. It had cost him dearly but as they say in the movies, all the money was on the screen. She looked stunning.
Steve returned to his reverie and heard Daniela pour what appeared to be generous portions of wine.
"Come to the couch and keep me company," she said, her voice pregnant with suggestion.
Steve took his place next to her and accepted the glass of wine.
"You know Steve," she said in slightly accented English, "during that power outage in New York years ago, they experienced a baby boom nine months later. We could do the same...or at least practice."
Steve smiled.
"Yes we could," he responded.
Daniela's dress all but slid off her lithe form and the two began kissing...
* Scenario C: Steve gazed at his computer screen at 4:14pm wondering if his house was the only one without power. After surfing the net on his cellphone he learned of the magnitude of the outage.
For the rest of the day, bereft of power, Steve spent a bored existence trying to fill the hours. Finally, he went to sleep.
* Which one do think happened at Fort Sinatra? Guess and you could win a legendary No Prize!
Well, the power finally came back on here in Sudbury, Ontario at about 9:45am (though my DSL Internet access took longer). You know, I have to admit that while it was an inconvenience, it wasn't all that bad anyway from a societal point of view.
I noticed something odd last night after dinner in my working class neighbourhood. People were walking down the street. Children were playing. Families sat in their backyards and talked. Freed of the grip of the unblinking eye of television, people actually spent time with each other. It must have been like this before television or electricity. It was nice to see.
Don't get me wrong...I don't think I need this as a regular occurrence and it's not like I was in New York City where people were forced to sleep in their office buildings because there was no way to leave the city.
Posted by steve @ 11:23 AM EST [Link]
~ TRYING TO CURE THE "IRISH DISEASE"
In a bold display of nanny state government, the Irish government has passed a law that tries to address the alcohol consumption of the Emerald Isle.
According to the Washington Times, "A sobering new law that takes effect next week targets the center of Ireland's social life: its 10,000 pubs. Politicians are hoping the Intoxicating Liquor Act of 2003 will reduce heavy drinking, public drunkenness and underage drinking by limiting the number of pints that patrons may drink."
Having my own fair share of Irish blood, I doubt that such an idiotic law will convince my cousins to lay off the sauce. Prohibition did not work in America, and it won't work in Eire.
The story is here.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 10:32 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, August 14, 2003 WHEN THE LIGHTS GO DOWN IN THE CITY: Alright, I got the idea to quote that Journey song in a blog entry from a guest blogger on Radley Balko's The Agitator. It is now being reported that power is returning to New York City and the metro area may be somewhat back to normal by morning.
Boston for the most part was unaffected, but NYC and a lot of areas were thrown into something approaching chaos. Even though I kept my power at home and at work, I still have to deal with a servers at work that are based in New York that went down because of this. Being stranded during your evening commute, without air conditioning in this heat and humidity, and otherwise deprived of the creature comforts of modern life is always a highly irritating and inconvienient thing. But as a reminder of how the world has changed at least somewhat since 9/11, people's initial reaction to this outage was a different kind of panic. Stories of an explosion at a power plant made people immediately think of terrorism. The scenes in the New York City streets, the grounded flights, the confusion over what exactly was going on reminded people of when America was under attack.
In the end, it was nothing of the sort. A friend of mine from the Big Apple said that many people spilled into bars, still lit by early evening summer sun, and turned the event into a party. Unlike 9/11, things will go completely back to normal. Yet even if it was just for a few seconds, today we got a reminder of how post-9/11, some things will really never be the same.
Posted by antle @ 11:45 PM EST [Link]
~ WHY ARREST HIM?: Riduan Isamabudian, aka Hambali, has been captured. Al-Qaida's top planner in Southeast Asia, Isamabudian is believed to have planned last week's bombing in Jakarta and last year's Bali bombing.
Maybe I'm bloodthirsty but I would have captured him, gotten any information, then left him for men in uniform -- take your pick of the elite branches -- who solve problems quickly. Them or relatives of the victims of the bombings...
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:07 PM EST [Link]
~ IT'S ALWAYS THE DAMNED FRENCH: I'd like to state for the record I had a stronger word then "damned" when I wrote that.
France is holding up the settlement for families of the victims of the 1988 Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, because it wants Libya to pay more for the bombing of a French UTA airliner in 1989, a U.S. official said Thursday.
Wednesday, lawyers for Libya and for families of the 270 Pan Am victims agreed on a framework for $2.7 billion in compensation.
As part of the deal, Libya was to send a letter to the United Nations officially accepting responsibility for the bombing and agreeing to pay compensation to each family in exchange for the lifting of sanctions against the country.
But France has "intimidated the Libyans" into delaying the delivery of that letter, a Bush administration official said.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:02 PM EST [Link]
~ AMERICA AND EUROPE...DIFFERENT PATHS: (Via The Corner) Ralph Peters has an interesting op-ed in the New York Post about the different paths the U.S. and Europe are taking into the future.
Life may not be predictable, but Europeans are. If we criticize them publicly, they splutter, outraged that we don't recognize their perfection. They can dish it out abundantly, but continental Europeans can no more take criticism than their welfare armies could have taken Baghdad.
The only thing you can get for free from Europeans is advice. And they're always ready to give us plenty of it, as they've been doing for more than two centuries.
Still, behind the easy pleasure of poking fun at European pretensions, there are serious - and hardening - differences between Americans, who embrace the future, and the French or Germans or Belgians who cling to the past.
None of those differences go so deep as our opposing concepts of freedom.
For Europeans - excluding the Brits, who are more like us than they sometimes find comfortable - "freedom" means freedom from things: from social and economic risk, from workplace insecurity and personal responsibility, from too much competition in the marketplace or too much scrutiny of governing elites.
Peters is right on but I'm not sure I'd say that Britons are really that much more like Americans than most people think. The Blair government is no less socialist then any on the continent and I don't believe the war in Iraq really garnered much support among the British population. Finally, British society is more classist and less dynamic than American society. That said, I'd have a Briton beside me if I needed some help sooner than any person from the continent. British Steel isn't just a Judas Priest album...
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:48 PM EST [Link]
~ "THERE IS NO POSSIBILITY THIS WILL HAPPEN.": Time speaks with Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi in their latest issue and discuss a settlement with the victims of the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing and whether the U.S. might decide to take him out like they did Saddam Hussein.
Like I said earlier this month, Gaddafi sounds remarkably sane when you talk to him until he goes off the rails.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:40 PM EST [Link]
~ SELF-PROMO ALERT: If your in the Kitchener-Waterloo area, pick up the KW Record today and read the brilliance that is Steven Martinovich on the collapse in support for the federal firearms registry. They make great gifts! That or click on "More" below and read the unedited version here. [more]
Posted by steve @ 02:15 PM EST [Link]
~ SELF-PROMO ALERT: The American Spectator Online (formerly known as The American Prowler) is running a piece of mine detailing the progress the Bush administration has made against terrorism thanks to the war in Iraq.